Chapter 100. Opening Fire (Patreon)

[update: met with my cover artist yesterday and got a first draft of the cover for book 1. looks incredible and i'm super excited to see the final version when it's ready in about a month. thanks to everyone's support -- without this patreon i don't think i would've ever thought about commissioning a professional cover!]

Por’sha lightened their steps, allowing them to catch up to the wyrm. Ian stuck the captives inside construct’s ribcage, then climbed atop its spine. The Deathseed remained sunken into the back of the wyrm’s head, Ian’s torso pressing up against its shell-like exterior. Por’sha joined him, her hands gripping onto the ridges of the wyrm’s articulated skull.

“I’ll let you know if we get close to anyone,” she said, her eyes narrowing in concentration; a potent tailwind propelled them forward, doubling as both a speed-enhancer and scouting probe. So long as she didn’t sense anyone with her wind elementalism, they would be in the clear. Though the tunnel didn’t keep a perfectly straight trajectory, the wyrm ripped through the stagnant air at top speed, its sinuous form whipping around sloping corners and at times shaving off inches of earth. At the speed they were going, Ian figured it was only a matter of time before they traced the tunnel back to its Kyeilan origin.

Ian could sense that the anxiety of the people in the wyrm’s ribcage hadn’t abated: Their hearts continued to race, their eyes staring with horror at their bony prison. On one hand, he felt bad for them: They’d been unlucky to run into two of the SPU’s most powerful practitioners. Moreover, they were ideal captives, abandoning any heroic urges and remaining stock-still, Ian’s touch unnecessary to keep them immobile.

But on the other hand...Ian knew that had they not been stopped, the Kyeilan tunnel team would have delivered their wasp payload. Their hands weren’t clean.

Por’sha nudged him. “Up ahead there’s going to be some people coming through the tunnel. I say we barrel on through.”

Ian gave her a brisk nod. Seconds later, he could make out the form of three elementalists shaping the earth, seemingly unaware of the wyrm’s approach. In all fairness, they’re probably relying on feeling ground vibrations, Ian thought.  They only realized they were in the path of the wyrm when it was already upon them, its form clipped and slamming all three into the tunnel walls.

Por’sha followed up by slicing at their throats with blades of wind, gouts of red suddenly streaming down their combat vestments.

Ian’s eyes widened. That wasn’t necessary...was it?

The wyrm carved through a re-formed section of wall and barreled through another practitioner group before Por’sha motioned for Ian to slow down. He noted that the captives seemed more agitated than before, one of them repeatedly clenching her fist and trying futilely to move her arm.

“Stop here,” Por’sha said. “I’m going to go ahead and scout.” She leapt from the wyrm’s neck, landing on a near-soundless puff of air. She turned invisible and took off in a wind-assisted sprint, soon falling out of view.

While waiting, Ian pulled one of the wasps from the wyrm’s ribcage up to his face, inspecting it closely. He didn’t have a glossY to provide a source of illumination, but the soft glow of the wyrm’s eyes provided enough light to vaguely make out the patterns on the wasp’s body.

Why wasps? he wondered, staring intently at the silent insect. Poisonous, yes, but also weak. He could crush the wasp with his bare hands; a fire elementalist would be able to torch them with impunity. And yet...the Kyeilans bothered to transport the wasps through a network of tunnels. Ian felt that there was something he was missing.

He cocked his head as he noticed Por’sha’s vitality coming back into view, a white silhouette against the darkness of the tunnel.

“I can sense a hive up ahead. I’ve told the general and she says to engage and destroy. Let’s go.”

Ian turned back toward the captives, caught in a moment of indecision before deciding to hinge the wyrm’s ribcage open, depositing the Kyeilans on the floor. He knocked them out, then stepped into the reinforced ribcage, Por’sha following behind.

“I didn’t realize you were so merciful,” she observed.

The wyrm darted forward, snaking through the lightless tunnel. “Your point?” Ian murmured in distaste.

“I thought you only spared the Godorans we faced because you were following orders,” she replied. “It’d be easier to just kill any Kyeilans we encounter.”

He sighed. “What kind of honor is there in killing people so far below us?”

Por’sha smiled, tension easing from her features. “There’s no honor in war, Dunai. All the same, I understand your point of view. Dealing in death is...complicated.”

—

Ian stood before a gray, papery hive that stretched from floor to ceiling. They’d followed the tunnel until it finally opened up into a chasm that seemed to have no exits–this was the end of the line.

The chasm was cool and silent, the humming of wings absent.

“There’s nothing here,” Ian muttered, crossing his arms. “We took too long.” In all fairness, they’d needed to cross at least half of Godora following the tunnels; the journey hadn’t been instantaneous.

“The general still says to destroy the hive, though if it’s empty I should be able to accomplish that easily enough.” Por’sha flexed her fingers, then pointed her hands at the wall. She slashed them downward, the hive tearing in half, parts of the honeycomb structure peeling outward.

“Why not just destroy it with Dark?” Ian asked.

Por’sha laughed. “Not that I don’t trust you, but I’d rather first destroy the hive at a distance. Besides, if the enemy left this empty hive here...they’re probably expecting us to–”

A massive explosion burst from the hive. Ian’s bone shield surrounded him, while Bluebird poked a wing out from where it hid under Ian’s vestments, sending out a gout of energy in front of him to disperse the attack. Por’sha evaded by turning incorporeal, her arms braced defensively in front of her.

The two backtracked out of the chasm. Seeing that they’d hit a literal dead end, they needed Var’dun’a to give them their next orders.

“I’m reaching out to her...” Por’sha murmured. Suddenly, her face turned ashen, her head shaking ever-so-slightly.

“What?”

Por’sha’s seemed to snap out of a stupor, her expression turning frantic. “We need to go now: The Kyeilans have started their frontal assault.”

—

The general only had one instruction for them: get to Corvid as soon as possible. They’d broken out of the tunnel, surfacing in an unfamiliar place, but Por’sha had a general sense of the direction they needed to go. The two poured all their efforts into speeding up the bone wyrm, recognizing that every second they delayed was an eternity in battle.

I want to help! Bluebird exclaimed, flapping its wings irritably from atop Ian’s shoulder.

You’ll be able to help soon, Ian replied. We’re going to need you to start attacking stuff when we reach Corvid.

The general had explained the situation briefly, noting how the Kyeilans had launched an attack on the camps set up for the SPU platoons. Now a solid thousand of their soldiers were embroiled in the conflict. She’d also mentioned something about there being bears, but she’d been unable to spend time describing the situation for long. In the end, she told them that they’d understand as soon as they reached Corvid.

They heard the sounds of conflict before they saw the city, heavy artillery drowning out everything else. Night hung like a dark smog over everything, heavy clouds blotting out even the moon, though out of the murk came faint, colored blasts of energy.

As they came closer, they realized that the battlefield didn’t seem to have any wasps at all, but was full of towering, long-legged bears, just as Var’dun’a told them.

Of course the Kyeilans wouldn’t have stopped at wasps if they’re doing decades-long breeding projects, Ian thought bitterly. And I can’t exactly place the Deathseed while our own soldiers are on the battlefield.

“Por’sha, we need to evacuate as many people as we can. I’m going to deploy the Deathseed to take their place.”

The guardian nodded, “I’ll direct them out and give them cover.”

Ian swooped the wyrm toward the ground, Por’sha jumping out of the wyrm and riding the wind in the direction of Corvid. The soldiers she passed seemed to hear her message, abandoning whatever fight they were engaging in to retreat. Ian watched as at least one of them was savaged by a bear, his back tearing like wet paper. A nearby ally came to his rescue, shooting a bolt of fire at the bear...only for it to disperse on the bear’s hide, irritating it rather than doing damage.

I can see why this would be bad.

The wyrm finally reached the ground, combatants falling backwards to avoid being crushed by its rapid descent. Ian manipulated the Death seed, placing it directly onto the corpse of a bear and then activating it. Meanwhile, he froze the bodies of everything around him, bear and human alike, trying to make sense of what was happening.

He couldn’t see much more than vitality in the dark, so it was difficult to distinguish what uniforms the soldiers were wearing. He still didn’t know if the Kyeilans had only sent bears or if they’d also sent their own men to engage.

Snorting in frustration, Ian lifted the soldiers into the air, deciding to just do things the simple way. As he sent the wyrm barreling forward, sweeping through the battlefield...the humming of wings returned. Ian flinched, trying to find the source of the noise.

Suddenly, the ground erupted into tiny holes; wasps streamed out of the apertures and immediately began to attack anything they saw, stinging bears and humans alike: There were no Kyeilan handlers that Ian could see.

The bears didn’t pay their stings much mind. The humans, on the other hand...

Ian gritted his teeth and surged forward, smashing wasps, crushing bears’ brains, and lifting soldiers above the fray. He began purging the soldiers of poison, but for those with multiple stings it was already too late. After a minute, he had over a hundred people above him, Bluebird circling around them defensively and shooting down any wasps that came close with concentrated Death-tinged blasts.

Soon enough the battle was over: Hundreds of bears lay sprawled in the dirt, accompanied by a smaller number of the SPU’s fallen. Wasps lay strewn over the blood-stained mud, their wings and carapaces glinting dimly.

The only motion came from the Deathseed as it continued to churn out constructs. Its first minions had loped like bone hyenas over the battlefield, dragging and stacking corpses into convenient piles. The Deathseed was positioned atop one such charnel tower now, its newborn constructs tumbling haphazardly down the pile of corpses before coming to their feet and joining the hunt.

Suddenly, another burst of artillery fire resounded through the night. With a start Ian realized that he and Por’sha had only gone to one front: There was another section of the city under fire.

“I’m heading over separately; the general says they have things under control, but the guardians are stacked against some of Kyeila’s most powerful.”

Ian nodded to himself, his eyes falling over the nascent bone constructs. We need to bring them over, he thought, eyeing one of the Deathseed’s newest abominations: a creature that looked to be like a six-legged version of one the Kyeilan bears, flesh still hanging off some of its bones like pink jewelry.

Ian closed his eyes and sighed. I’m still carrying the soldiers; I guess I can carry a few more. His brow furrowed as he lifted his hands ever so slightly, bringing them in closer together.  Like a cat picked up by the scruff of its neck, the constructs and Deathseed grew docile. Ian directed the bone wyrm back into the sky, its form trailed on all sides by people and constructs.

The wyrm moved slowly at first out of consideration for the soldiers frozen in his grip. Ian dropped down on a small neighborhood just within Corvid’s bounds, laying the soldiers down on the cement walkway spanning the street. As he stepped out of the wyrm and released his hold, the soldiers began to cough and fall over, hacking black-tinged gobs of spit onto the ground. A few of them were dead and remained still; Ian had considered leaving them behind, but ultimately decided to bring them along out of respect.

Ian nodded once, then turned to leave, the bone wyrm flashing with violet-pink light.

“Thank you!” a soldier called out.

Ian froze, then turned around. The soldiers had assembled into three lines with even spacing, their arms raised in salute. In the light given off by a small lantern, Ian could see that many of them were missing boots and jackets, with one soldier wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and a long linen shirt. They’d been aroused from rest to deal with hoards of elementally-resistant bears and killer wasps, watched several of their own fall, got uncomfortably yanked across the battlefield...and still managed to get into an orderly formation and salute their superior.

Ian had no idea what to say to them.

“Hope the ride wasn’t too unpleasant,” he chuckled.

“Felt like flying, sir!”

It feels nothing like flying, Ian thought, stifling a snort.

“Good work dealing with the bears,” he added. “Wish me luck dealing with the humans.”

He turned around again and stepped back into the wyrm’s interior. It accelerated and began to ascend, cutting into the foggy night sky.

Just before he was out of earshot, he heard hoots and hollers behind him...and a boisterous chant consisting of one, familiar word: “Skai’aren!”

Ian’s mouth twitched.

Look at you blush! Bluebird gushed.

Bluebird...hush.