EA Chapter 39 - The Cadets Unite

Bit by bit, Luna led the charge through the streets of Vyrham. There seemed no real end to the number of ashen beasts to block their path, but the young Arcanist was undaunted. If anything, the whole experience awoke within her a deep sense of nostalgia.

It reminded her of her mercenary days, those dark and hectic years where she had found herself fighting in blood-drenched gutters all around the world. Sometimes it was as a defender, repelling barbarians and desert tribes. Other times she was among the pillagers.

The familiarity of urban warfare gave her some comfort, and whenever a monster menaced a fleeing citizen she was always the first to move to strike it down. She had no doubt that, by now, her name and face were circulating among the fleeing city dwellers. Once this was all over, she’d be a folk hero in their eyes.

And when the time came to properly undercut the monarchy of Elthreme, that folk hero legend could easily push her as a suitable replacement in the eyes of the people. She simply had to nudge people in the right direction.

But that would need to wait a while longer. After she had gotten a firmer grasp of the reality of the situation, and learned the identity of whatever power walled Elthreme off from the rest of the world.

There was always so much to do.

Eventually the group managed to reach a barracks on the eastern edge of the city, where it seemed many of the falling monsters had congregated. The buildings across the stet had been smashed and shattered, the ruins now covered by a film of ash and broken monster corpses. The barracks itself had weathered the storm, the outer walls only partially damaged.

The ballistas installed on the guard towers gave the place ample security, but it seemed the whole barracks had been further reinforced by metal structures forged from pure qi.

“The Way of Metal,” Luna murmured when she first laid eyes on them.

“Look,” Kiharu said, motioning to a small group atop one of the barracks’ looming walls. Even from afar it was easy to see Citadel cadets working among the soldiers, delivering quartz crystals and crossbow bolts from point to point, and striking at any Ashborn that drew too close to the fortifications.

“Black Drakes,” Rema said.

“And those orange cloaks... the Orange Griffins,” Romula chimed.

Luna sighed. “Well, you did say the Citadel was directing cadets to lend a hand. Suppose these squads must have congregated here in the chaos,” she remarked.

“They’ve seen their fair share of action, by the look of things. Guess we arrived at the eye of the storm,” Kiharu said, motioning down one street strewn with a myriad of monster and human corpses. “Shoot. I’m actually jealous.”

“Come on. Let’s see what the situation is.”

A pair of guards standing on the wall gave a shout at their approach, and a rope ladder was unfurled from the ramparts to give them access. Slower than simply jumping up with qi, but less strenuous on the body. And, to Luna’s surprise, Old Scratch was among the gathered soldiers waiting for them.

“Well,” he said, grinning broadly at Luna. “My star pupil. Had a feeling you’d be running about making mischief. And as if lowly bastards like this could put you down.” His surcoat was thoroughly caked in ash, and flecked with glassy black shards.

“Naturally, sir,” Luna replied with a small nod, giving him the standard salute.

“Sir, what’s goimg on? All these monsters appearing in our city, that weird voice we all heard before this started, this massive storm...” Syri glanced briefly at the great ashen clouds in the sky. “I’ve never heard of anything like this happening before.”

“Nor I,” Old Scratch replied, shrugging dismissively. “It’s queer, I’ll admit. An’ there’ll be time for the scholars to get to the bottom of it later. Here and now, though...” he turned his gaze to one side, as if sensing something approaching them. “Well. We have monsters to kill.”

A horrid, alien shriek echoed from afar, followed by the sound of mighty wings beating in chorus on the breeze. Sprites were rushing their way on leathery batlike wings, their long legs trailing into hooked talons that could rend flesh and steel with equal ease. And, on the ground level, came a rushing stampede of hellcats.

“Arcanists, Rogues, Marksmen! Shoot those bastards out of the sky! Everyone else, hold the wall. Those damned cats are mine.” Old Scratch snickered as he strode to the edge of the wall, an aura of radiant ruby light suddenly exploding around his body. He jumped from the rampart and landed on he pavement with a great boom.

Luna watched, briefly intrigued, as the older man swept a hand toward the oncoming, snarling horde of beasts. The motion alone summoned a great booming shock wave of pure force, smashing several of the massive felines into dust and even uprooting the rubble of the nearby collapsed buildings.

She could see the man grinning as he tore through each incoming beast with his bare hands, swatting them aside with ease. And all the while, focusing on his qi, Luna could feel he was greatly holding back.

Turning, she rushed to a raised wooden platform on the ramparts manned by the other Arcanists in the area. Flashes of magical light tore through the air, striking the winged figures as they swooped and swarmed above the barracks. For her part, to conserve power, she stuck to using her eye beams, sending bolts of blazing fire to strike down any sprite that caught her attention.

Soon she was joined by spikes of metal flying past her sides, the great shafts of metal flying with enough speed and precision to puncture the slim torsos of their airborne targets. Aryn stood only a few paces away. A sly smirk was on his face, but the exertion had his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.

“Not bad, Hick. I daresay you have decent aim.”

Luna grunted, focusing much of her attention on the swirling figures. “You have an odd idea of paying compliments to people, o Prince.”

“Well, you don’t deserve too much praise. Wouldn’t want you getting a swelled head, hm?”

A sprite broke away from the group and swooped downward, and both cadets hurled themselves to the side to avoid the great beast. More and more sprites dove down in swift bombing runs, each one inhumanly swift in their approach.

A few of the soldiers weren’t fortunate enough to avoid the stony-skinned beasts, either dragged high into the air and flung to their deaths, or decapitated outright by a swiping talon. The defenders bunched up tighter, and there came a shout from one commander as a cadre of sprites came rushing to the rooftop in unison.

Aryn swept his hands to one side, summoning forth a great sheet of steel that formed into a hemisphere that spanned the breadth of the barracks. The sprites struck the metal with such force that their bodied shattered, exploding into clouds of ash, but not without greatly denting and warping the metal. By the time the chorus of banging ended, much of the done had been dented inward as if stricken by volleys of cannon fire.

“Damn,” Aryn said, slowly dissolving the makeshift barrier. Only a few sprites remained, blasted from the sky one by one, until all fell silent.

Luna caught her breath slowly, peering over the battlements to get a better look at the street. Old Scratch stood atop a great mound of ash, the leonine skull of a hellcat clutched comfortably in his left hand. His surcoat had a few fresh scratches in the material, but he was ultimately unharmed by the myriad of beasts he had just thrown hands with.

To her surprise the old man was laughing. He raised the stony skull aloft and crushed it to dust. “Gods. It’s been so long since I got to stretch my damn legs,” he said.

A sense of calm gradually fell over the barracks. Indeed, a hush seemed to be falling over much of the city. Luna scanned the skyline and saw no other beasts flying or falling through the air.

“Gods,” one young man from the Scarlet Griffins murmured. “Is it... over?”

Luna looked to the eye of the storm, the great swirling clouds slowly dissolving and receding toward that central figure. Their qi still blazed like a star, and Luna had the distinct feeling that the strange figure was... preparing for something.

“No,” she murmured, wiping sweat from her brow. “I don’t think it is.”