Chapter 83 - First Wave

Notes : Chapters 87 and 88 have been written and added to the queue !

I might take a break after chapter 89. I'm afraid of burning out if I keep pushing, given how much I've been writing.

I'd say the problem of being my own boss is that I have to balance my own workload, but I distinctly remember you guys bullying me into taking breaks. Repeatedly.

Chapter 83

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Starfire Pass

Click click click click, stop.

The Hand watched as the Nineteenth legion advanced, in broad daylight. Or as broad as it ever got in the pass at any rate.

Clearly, they'd taken the view that losing two maniples in thirty seconds wasn't a good sign. Which, to be fair, it wasn't. They hadn't been chaff either. Proper, heavy infantry, with shields and armor. Low level magic, weaved through their equipment and imbuing their weapons. Eschewing the use of crystals, instead using the reservoir of power that kept them walking. Risky, in some ways, but in others...

Mana crystals would never be one what could call stable. Even the art of magisters had its limits. The Hand understood the impulse not to embed them into one's shield or blade unless they absolutely had to.

However, for one to cast magic, there were few alternatives, and almost all of them were worse. The Hand embraced the risk of the arcane, the raging fire of their calling, but not the madness of those injecting their veins with liquid mana, the fuel dealing as much damage to their physical form as their spells did to the enemy.

So, after their failure of a first assault, they were taking things more methodically. Mantlets were being rolled across the pass. Slowly, carefully, each keeping pace with the others.

Behind them, zombie crossbowmen. Though, lesser ones from the assault, if that was possible. Those that had come out of the night had been soldiers before they were brought back.

Here they were...not civilians, in their life before. But militias. Low quality fodder the rebels had used to slow the Imperial armies down, and instead ended up fueling them.

Clearly, the Nineteenth did not expect much of this effort. And the Hand intended to not disappoint them.

Not just because it might push the other side into thinking they had their adversary figured out again, and misstep spectacularly. But also because the more cautious they were, the more time it bought.

The mantlets finally rolled into position right in front of the barricade of the second defensive line, having rolled over the demolished first one, and the crossbow totting zombies filled the firing slits, before opening fire.

To say that their attacks were ineffective would be a considerable understatement. Unlike their melee counterparts, their weapons were actually fairly well maintained, as they'd be utterly useless otherwise and might as well be wielding clubs.

But they were poorly trained militias who had then been cheaply risen from the dead. Returning from the nether realm had not improved their marksmanship, nor had their rotting bodies.

Quarrels flew, and either shattered on the curtain wall, or simply vanished into the distance, whistling overhead. The Hand gestured, and the slingers atop the wall returned fire.

The wall wasn't yet complete, and the towers and turrets they had planned to build alongside it would probably never be erected, but there was still plenty of space on the parapet for ranged troops. And though many in the Nineteenth would probably laugh out loud at the idea of slingers, they had a far greater list of advantages than many would assume.

One of them was that their sling bullets were large, heavy...and were far easier as well as cheaper to enchant.

The mantlets were pelted by a rain of metal. Metal that embedded itself into the wood, so great was the strength behind their throws.

They began to glow. Flames sprouted from the impact points. The bullets literally began to eat their way through the mantlets as they caught alight.

At this point, soulless would have started moving. But zombies were zombies. They stayed there like brainless sacks of flesh, returning fire, until the bullets fell on them through their own cover.

The Hand watched as the hail of bolts died down, the second volley of hissing bullets whipping past them to shatter the weakened mantlets altogether, their enchantments expanding themselves into shockwaves, throwing splinters and burning debris everywhere.

After that, there was no need for enchanted ammunition. Or even proper bullets. Rocks sufficed, the last few remaining zombies either being consumed by the flames or half functioning wooden porcupines.

Finally, quiet descended upon the pass again, broken only by the crackling of flames and the howling of the wind. Snow flakes were starting to flurry in, driven higher as they blanketed the valley below.

Your move, thought the Hand, as they glared at the end of the pass, where observers were gathered, behind a cavalry screen.

Not that the Hand had any hope of taking the initiative anyway.

Not yet, at any rate.

*****

The snowpiercer rumbled off the dry riverbed and back onto normal ground like a startled rodent. A very, very big rodent with guns on it, but still.

Maybe it was one of those green stone hoarding rat people things from that miniature wargame her aunt still collected. She had actual armies of it. Not metaphorically, several centuries of collecting had led her to having literal full sized military formations of them.

"Sapphiria! STOP!" Yelled out Ramina.

The AI slammed a button, and the snowpiercer came to a halt. Thank the stars for magnetic brakes.

"Aberration?" She asked.

"I think so? It's...weird."

Sapphiria looked ahead. There was...actually, there was something out there. Now that her sensors had some time to look at it in depth.

"It looks like some kind of dust cloud." A weird, immobile one. She looked at Ramina, who shrugged, and sighed. "Alright. Paul, roll out the red carpet, we're gonna go and check it out.

It only took a couple of minutes, the slapguns deploying behind them as a gendarme accompanied them, Paul and the other soldier staying behind to protect the vehicle and the squishies inside.

Ramina came to a halt, and so did the AI. They both looked up into what looked like suspended flecks of dirt and...hail?

An alarm bell went off in Sapphiria's head. The hail of the final wave of the manastorm had long since been replaced by all blanketing snow. Something was wrong here.

"I think it may be one of those who reverse gravity." Said the artificer. "It's not super big, we can go around, but...I think there may be others."

Right. Aberrations could spawn in groups. Well, fields. Kind of like crystals.

"Alright." Sapphiria looked up at it. "Can we...trigger it?"

"Sure? It should be harml-AH!" The artificer cried out as she reached out with her arm and the AI forcefully grabbed her and dragged her back. "Ow! Damn it Sapphiria you're hurting me!"

"You are not touching the magical anomaly you idiot." Hissed the AI, before looking at the suspended flecks of dirty. "Besides...something's wrong."

She wasn't getting the exotic radiation readings she had when the panther had tried to kill her with blasts of force and gravity. Actually, outside of a background drone of exotic energy, she wasn't getting anything from this place. She could see into it, but...

A lot of parameters were wrong. She gestured for the artificer to back away, before following suit.

Then, once she judged the distance acceptable, she used the most ancient and elaborate method of all:

She threw a rock at it.

The chunk of stone flew through the air, hit the aberration, and-

Exotic radiation and light both flashed.

The rock stopped dead. It's speed and thermal readings from the friction with the air -minute as it was- dropped back to zero and air temperature respectively.

The AI hissed.

"Stasis field." She said.

One of the many things the Federation and her mom in particular had been hunting for so long.

Ramina looked pale. Deadly pale. Had she touched it, she would be entrapted within...their only mage. Forcing them to either wait here for it to fail and free her, or going ahead despite the risk, de facto condemning her to a certain, agonizing death at the hands of monsters and the elements.

"Lessons learned." Simply said the AI. "Let's go back inside, and get out of here."

The artificer slowly nodded, and they retreated back to the snowpiercer.

*****

Kalia lowered the paper. Usually whatever message was relayed up to the outpost was oral only. It was...unprecedented for Sapphiria to send an actual piece of paper. Why was it labelled 'mage-magistrate's eyes only' anyway?

"They'll be back day after tomorrow." She looked down. "Early in the morning. Apparently Sapphiria plans to drive throughout the night. And then immediately go to the pass." She winced. That was...a lot of time up, even for an ancestor. She was going to collapse afterwards.

"Well, she's dedicated." Said Gregor. "Gotta admire that."

"I'll just be glad to have them all back." Said Malry, not hiding her relief. She'd been trying to suppress it, but everyone who knew her well enough saw how worried she was about Ramina.

Poor artificer was going to find herself cuddled and forcibly dragged to rest and recuperate for at least a day. Ancestors help her if she refused. The problem of having a medic girlfriend was that she could and would drag you off to rest whether you...liked it...or not...

She stopped, and looked at the message.

It wasn't any different from the ones they routinely got. Same tone. They tended to be very formal, unlike Sapphiria, but she would hardly be the first one to have verbal constipation when it came to writing letters or communiqués.

But the way it was put...

Was Sapphiria insinuating she should get some rest but wouldn't on her own?

Her breath stilled.

No. Sapphiria wouldn't.

Someone else was.

Those messages. They'd always seemed odd. But she'd never questioned it, because who else could they come from?

They didn't feel like personal communications. They felt like status reports given by an aide.

Sapphiria's not alone down here, realized the mage-magistrate. She never was.

That explained why production remained unabated. And why she had a way of communicating with her lair.

Also why she was so damned protective of her tunnels. She was protecting someone. Maybe several people.

Kalia felt a flicker of anger at the misdirection...before taking a deep breath. No, Sapphiria had plenty of reasons to keep secrets. Besides, could she blame the artificer? She herself had Ramina betray her trust. Several times.

Comparatively, this was nothing.

"Ma'am?" Said Gregor, and Kalia shook herself. Better to keep her suspicions to herself for now.

"Sorry. Just...not a lot of sleep."

Gregor knew her better than that, but he simply shrugged.

"Lot of that going around lately. You should take some extra rest."

"I will, once Sapphiria's back here." And drag their savior to rest with her. If their...aide? Message person? Was concerned enough to risk outing themselves, things must be dire indeed. There were also no other ulterior motives whatsoever, like wanting to feel the woman's warm lips again...Nope! She shook herself again. No time for that. "You should too Malry, you look like hell."

"I don't have anyone to pick up the slack." Said the alchemist, smiling. "Will have to wait for the expedition to come back too."

"Right. Truvan's with them." The elf wasn't their only medic, but she was the only one with enough training to actually replace Malry at the infirmary. "Well, I suppose we're all waiting for the expedition's glorious return to get some rest then." Kalia smiled, before looking at Gregor. "News from the pass?"

"No great activity after the battle this afternoon. The Hand beat them back pretty easily."

"Will it last?"

Gregor shrugged.

"I wasn't part of the nineteenth, but I heard of them plenty. They're very aggressive, but also...cautious? They tend to overextend badly, and when they do they husband their resources carefully. I think they'll send a few more probing attacks. Get a feel for what the Hand is actually capable of. Then they'll mount another assault."

Kalia let out a sigh of relief.

"So we have some time then."

"Hopefully. But there's no telling what kind of pressures they are under. I'd rush ahead if I knew someone was about to outflank me."

The mage-magistrate grimaced.

"I know, I know. But I'm trying to be positive."

The skeleton nodded.

"Right, sorry. But I think we'll have time for Sapphiria to get back." He hesitated. "I just hope she's not too worn out when she does."

"I'll take care of that." Gregor and Malry exchanged a look, and Kalia colored. "Not a word. Not one."

"Of course." Said Malry, smoothly. "I'm sure you'll be able to have her get plenty of rest so she can tackle the Bane fresh and ready."

Kalia colored even more.

"Yes. Now, let's get some dinner and turn in. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow."

Neither applied to Gregor, but he wisely decided to leave alongside Malry without further comments. Kalia sighed, and rubbed her eyes.

Just that one single message, and she was already thinking...

Of what? Emulating Malry and tucking Sapphiria into bed, refusing to let her out until she'd properly rested?

Not a lot of sleeping is going to happen if I do that, she thought, before burying her face in her hands, her cheeks beet red.

She was a fully fledged mage-magistrate damn it! Not some schoolgirl on her first date!

...This was going to be a mess.

She snuck a glance at the paper she had set down, and her mind refocused.

An aide...

What else hadn't Sapphiria told them?

Plenty, probably. Kalia knew she would keep secrets in the Ancestor's situation. Was keeping secrets, in fact.

She'll tell us when she trusts us. She concluded.

She had faith in Sapphiria. The realization shocked her. Despite everything with her council, her doubts...

She had faith in her. More than she did in herself, in fact.

She knew Sapphiria was doing the right thing.

Kalia took a deep breath, and sat up, grabbing the paper.

Better store it somewhere safe. Then she needed to make preparations.

A lot of preparations.