Fortress Al-Mir

Getting men to close the last few paces and engage in combat wasn’t an easy task. The young, no matter their talk while gearing up, would find themselves nervous while those experienced in war and combat would know the risks well. Only the foolhardy would charge ahead, bleating their cries of war. They were usually the first to fall. No matter how foolish they were, their deaths would harm the morale of everyone around them.

Which was why Hawkwood did not accept the foolhardy into White Company. Anyone who joined had their foolishness beaten out of them during the training camps.

The army of Evestani did not seem to ascribe to the same principles.

Blades clashed with shields. Pikes jabbed forward. Blood spilled. Spells flew overhead, crackling with power. The occasional soldier turned to stone.

Hawkwood yelled a cry of pure noise with no meaning. His blade arm hung heavy, worn and sore from uncountable swings. His shield arm rattled with an impact, sending a fresh ache up through his shoulder and down his back. Grinding his teeth, he grunted and shoved aside his shield and the weapon that had hit it. His opponent, yet another faceless soldier of the Evestani army, staggered back.

Hawkwood thrust forward. The chipped tip of his sword scraped against the cloth gambeson of Evestani’s pikeman before it slipped up a small plate of metal and jammed into the gap between the man’s helmet and collar. Three long spurts of blood shot out from the man’s neck before the spurts lost their strength and began dribbling all down his front.

His opponent dropped his pike, hands clamping to his neck. The man only managed to keep the pressure up for a few seconds before his grip faltered, his eyes unfocused, and he collapsed into the mud.

Hawkwood didn’t get a moment of reprieve before one of his fellows shouted out a cry of anger. In an instant, another soldier stood in front of Hawkwood, just as faceless as the last. Hawkwood barely got his shield between him and the soldier in time.

A second strike against the shield never came. Peering over the top, Hawkwood let out a small, relieved sigh. The new pikemen was a statue of marble, frozen solid in a thrusting pose.

Hawkwood wasn’t sure which of the five gorgon spread through his army had managed that but he sure wasn’t about to complain. Even a few seconds of rest were like a long nap on a summer afternoon in a situation like this. Teeth clenched, Hawkwood nonetheless forced his back straight. The armor he wore, fancy and well polished—some of which managed to gleam through the muck and blood—wasn’t just for show. Or rather, it was exactly for show.

He was Hawkwood. Champion and leader of White Company. His armor was a symbol more than it was a protective garment. The reason he was here at the forefront rather than back at the tower was solely for morale. They were up against an army that outnumbered them by far, headed by an avatar. While most of the rank and file likely didn’t know about the avatar, they knew without a doubt about the strange and powerful golden magics.

They needed a symbol of their own that they could follow. It painted a target on him, but that was a risk he had to take.

“I’m getting too old for this,” Hawkwood grumbled under his breath. He gripped his sword, finding his brief moment of rest at an end as another soldier moved up to face him. This one armored in proper plate.

They didn’t get a chance to come to blows before an explosion rumbled throughout the burg. A column of flame and fire stretched high into the sky—not from where Agnete had been assailing the burg, but from the center of the city, toward the keep. The inferno wasn’t magical in nature, but alchemical.

A few seconds after the flame went up, the golden dome over the burg wavered and shattered. Motes of falling gold magic dissipated into the air.

Without more than a second of delay, a bombardment began. Falling rocks slammed down into the city in the distance, causing rumbling in the ground. Multi-colored comets of flame fell. A fresh explosion of roaring flames erupted near the southwestern edge of the city, visible even over the tops of the nearby buildings. At the same time, a wave of cold rushed from the northwestern side of the burg, near where Priscilla was supposed to be.

Closer to him, Hawkwood watched as the sky above his army split.

It wasn’t like the fissure in the sky that appeared mid-winter, just before the Duke decided to ally with Evestani. But it was close. A starry void stretched out overhead like a web woven by a particularly chaotic spider. More forbidden magic. Orbs of tiny stars shot forth, black and weaving and distorting the air—no, the world—as they traveled. They skimmed over the heads of his army, striking down into the ground in the midst of Evestani’s bulk.

Hawkwood wasn’t quite sure what the orbs were doing. This spell was one developed in just the last day or two by Arkk’s now-blind witch. Untested and likely unstable, he was somewhat glad that the front row of soldiers blocked his view of where the orbs had struck.

The sudden screams were more than enough for his imagination.

The sound of clashing swords and metal striking metal faded as everyone, Evestani and Al-Mir-aligned stopped and stared. Both sides looked on in horror, though Evestani had the worst of it by far. Even on only those faces he could see opposing him, uncertainty had gripped the hearts of the soldiers.

Hawkwood couldn’t let his side falter. Not now. No matter what was happening over their heads, as long as it was focused on their enemy, it was good for them. But only if they took advantage of it. He forced his sword into the air. “Huzzah!” he cried, throat burning from the guttural noise.

Alone, the cry would have passed entirely unnoticed in the chaos. But those of White Company closest to him saw and heard his cry. Those who weren’t in imminent danger copied him, raising their own blades as they let out loud cheers. The effect spread like a stone thrown into a pond, rippling outward as more and more cries of “Huzzah!” echoed around him.

Between the shouting and the magic overhead, Evestani’s forces began falling back. Those that held strong didn’t manage for long. As their neighbors fled, their resolve faltered, making them flee in turn. The chain reaction continued, spreading through the enemy force just as the cheer had spread through White Company.

In moments, their hesitant retreat turned into a full rout.

It wasn’t over by a long shot. The city wasn’t yet retaken. But this small segment of the battle?

He could call this a victory.

“Huzzah!” Hawkwood cried again, feeling less weary and worn with the bolster to morale. “Huzz—”

A ray of golden light blasted through the land, coming from the church near the keep. It sheared apart buildings and people, striking both Evestani’s retreating forces and Hawkwood’s men without discrimination. It tilted upward, cutting into the dark slice of stars in the sky.

The gold coursed through the fractured reality above, encompassing the stars one by one until there was nothing left but a bright golden light burning itself into Hawkwood’s vision.

It vanished all at once, leaving behind an afterimage of gold.

Lexa dashed forward, grasping another child by the back of his neck. She twisted her fingers around the crown of the girl’s head, using the Flesh Weaving spell to twist and ruin the skin. The intricate rectangular tattoos broke apart, turning to streaks of dark ink spread out across the girl’s scalp.

The girl screamed and cried and thrashed, beating against Lexa’s arms in stark protest. It didn’t hurt. Not physically. These children were half-starved and far weaker than they should have been. Yavin would have trounced them in a fight and the elven boy could barely bring himself to strike at an irritating fly.

Mentally, Lexa grit her teeth. She had to do this. She had to do this as fast as possible. There was no alternative.

She was saving them. She had to remember that much. As much as they cried and struggled, they were alive. Maybe someone talented with the spell could even put their scalps back together.

Dropping the girl, leaving her in a crying heap on the floor like so many others, Lexa turned around the church. There was one left. An older boy whom Lexa had deliberately saved for last specifically because she feared he might be able to put up more of a fight where the others had managed nothing but impotent struggles.

Sure enough, although backed in a corner, he had picked up a broken plank of wood from somewhere. He tried to bring it down on Lexa’s head. Her short height and lithe steps let her dance around the incoming attack. Whipping out a blade, she slammed it straight through his overextended arm, piercing the flesh between the bones of his forearm.

He screamed, dropping the plank as he grasped at his wrist. That gave her more than enough time to jump onto his shoulders. Uttering the Flesh Weaving spell as he fell forward, she grasped at his head. Before he even hit the ground, she had scraped back her fingers along his scalp, twisting the flesh of his head into an ugly knot of skin and tiny stubs of hair.

“Sorry,” Lexa whispered, releasing the older boy’s head.

As she did so, a low rumble coursed through the room. That had to be the alchemical bomb going off.

Sure enough, looking out the broken window, she watched as the golden dome around the burg wavered and fell.

Lexa closed her eyes. A sudden surge of emotion struck her somewhere in her chest. She felt like crying. In relief, not in sadness. She had made it just in the nick of time.

She didn’t get a chance to enjoy the release of all that stress. The boy she had just saved by mutilating his tattoos grabbed her by the ankle and yanked. Unprepared, she barely managed to get her hands in front of her before she hit the ground. Luckily, as a gremlin, she didn’t have far to fall.

“Get off,” she hissed, kicking her foot. “Let—”

Lexa froze.

All that relief she had felt turned to ice colder than that dragonoid’s breath.

There, in front of her, one more young boy hid beneath one of the pews. A young boy with rectangular tattoos fully intact on top of his head. His eyes, wide and frightened, locked with her own. For a long moment, both stared at each other.

The boy with his hand on Lexa’s ankle tried to drag her back, breaking the staring contest. The younger boy immediately started scrambling away, crawling under the rows of pews.

Lexa flicked a knife out from under her cloak. Without even looking, she threw it back behind her. The hand around her leg dropped with a cry of pain from the boy. She didn’t glance back to see what she hit. All that mattered was her freedom.

Her freedom and the younger boy underneath the pews.

“Get back here!” she hissed, diving underneath the pew. He was trying to scramble away. Lexa, fresh dagger in hand, slammed it through his foot, pinning him to the ground.

He screamed, violent and anguished. Lexa grasped his flailing hands and yanked him toward her.

She put his hands to his head and uttered, “Tenun bebarengan otot lan daging lan balung—”

Bright, golden light flooded her vision before she could finish the Flesh Weaving incantation.

Lexa couldn’t see. She felt the ground leave her. The pew she had been underneath slammed into her back but she didn’t stop. She flipped, end over end, through the air until the back of her head broke against the stone of the church. Lexa slumped to the ground.

With her vision split into a series of spiraling afterimages, Lexa could only watch as the boy stood, eyes aglow with golden light. He casually tossed the knife aside, ignoring the bleeding from his foot, and looked around with an expression of utter disdain on his face.

“Useless.”

Snapping his fingers, a thin beam of golden light spiraled around him. It burned into one wall of the church and swept around, leaving a dark black mark on the white walls.

The sound in the church died off in an instant. All the crying, whimpering, and sobbing simply… stopped.

His golden eyes looked over the room once more, pausing for a long moment on Lexa. He stared, eyes widened in surprise before narrowing into thin slits. He held up a hand, pointing it at Lexa, only for something outside the church’s window to catch his attention. He shifted his hand upward and outward and a bright, golden beam flooded Lexa’s vision once more.

What little strength Lexa managed to hold onto faltered. That golden beam faded into darkness.

The infirmary was filling up. Hale dripped with sweat as she ran from person to person. Every time she turned around, three more people were groaning and clutching at wounds. If they were lucky. The less lucky weren’t able to groan.

She had assistants in Vezz’ok and Hyan. They couldn’t use Flesh Weaving properly, however. The most they could manage was to seal wounds. Which, to be perfectly fair, wasn’t much less than what Hale was doing. There just wasn’t time to use Flesh Weaving to its full potential. They had to prioritize saving lives right now.

Improvements could come later.

“Another one!” Vezz’ok barked out, entirely unnecessarily.

There was always another one.

“Looks bad,” he added, making Hale turn away from some poor dryad.

Hale hadn’t even known that any dryads were working for Arkk. Unfortunately for the plant-like woman, the Flesh Weaving spell was having a hard time working on the rough bark that made up her skin. On the plus side, she didn’t seem to be bleeding much. Or… sapping? Her blood was a sticky, amber-colored liquid that was far thicker than blood. Hopefully, what little Hale had managed would be enough to see the dryad through another day.

Vezz’ok stood hunched over…

Hale wasn’t actually sure what it was. Or what it might have been. That it was here at all meant that it had a connection to Arkk, allowing him to teleport it. But…

It was humanoid. Likely a demihuman. Yet, at the same time, it had an amorphous look to it. Like the humanoid shape was something it had been molded into, rather than formed normally. Its skin was a translucent ruby color that let Hale see through it to the spot of the floor it occupied—almost like a colored one of those lesser servants.

A… A slime? Hale kept her hands back, well away. She had heard that slimes would dissolve people into nothing but bones and then use those bones to give themselves structure—mimicking people’s shape. Just where had Arkk been recruiting from?

It stirred. A small ripple undulated in its oil-like skin, making it look like something was crawling around just beneath the surface.

Hale hopped back at the movement. “I… I don’t think Flesh Weaving can help a slime,” she said. “Try to scrape it into a… bucket? A bucket of water. Maybe? Do slimes like water? Maybe that will help.”

Vezz’ok didn’t look like he knew what to do either but, as Hale had somehow managed to garner some status as the head of the infirmary, he nodded and proceeded to follow her orders. Which was good. He could handle it. Orc flesh was much hardier than Hale’s flimsy human skin.

She wanted to fix that. She knew she could fix that. The weakness of her flesh wasn’t pleasant to think about. It never used to bug her but, since learning the Flesh Weaving spell, she had been exposed to more injuries than Langleey Village had likely suffered in the last hundred years, let alone during her lifetime. She now knew just how frail people were.

And how much better they could be.

But there was still that fear there that she might regret it in the end. Flesh Weaving wasn’t an easy spell to undo or revert.

Besides. She had too much to focus on.

Like Lexa. The poor gremlin popped into the infirmary on one recently vacated table. Her shadowy cloak hung askew, giving her an odd look of being there but not at the same time.

The gremlin was in bad shape. Just looking at her, Hale could spot a dozen broken bones all along her back, ribs, and arms. The back of her skull looked like someone had taken a mallet to it. Her face was scraped up like someone had ground her against rough stone.

Hale got started immediately, working on the back of Lexa’s head first. It seemed the most pressing issue.

The entire tower rocked before she could finish. It shifted and shook beneath their feet, tilting to one side. Hale had to grab onto the table, bolted to the ground as it was, just to keep from falling.

Several patients weren’t able to hold on. More than a few fell the short distance to the ground and then promptly started sliding along the angled floor. Hale closed her eyes, hoping this was planned like the last one.

Today made her really hate this walking tower. She missed Fortress Al-Mir.

But the tilting didn’t stop. If anything, it felt worse. Her arms started to strain, especially once Lexa bumped into her. Hale tried to keep her on the table while using her own body to block the fall, but—

A twisting pinch in her stomach signaled a teleport. Off-balance and unable to right herself in the tilted tower, Hale collapsed as soon as the table vanished from under her fingertips.

She wasn’t the only one to hit the ground. Hyan and Vezz’ok didn’t maintain their footing. The many injured from the infirmary weren’t in a position to catch themselves either.

They were in a long and narrow corridor that stretched off further than Hale could see. The tiles lit by violet glowstones were of the shadowy variety, meaning they were somewhere in the walking tower. But the ground felt level and sable, much to Hale’s relief.

“—hit through the mountain? How could—”

“If it had been aimed higher, we all would have perished.”

“Agnete couldn’t manage something like that. Calling her an avatar seems almost an insult to that gold—”

“Quiet.” Arkk looked around, eyes blazing red. He crossed gazes with Hale for a moment but didn’t stay on her for long, looking over all the wounded, several guards who hadn’t been around before, those of the scrying team, and several others. “The tower was hit,” he said, addressing everyone. “It hasn’t fallen yet but until the lesser servants can repair it, we’ll be relocating here.”

Several of the lesser servants appeared in their midst. They immediately set to widen the tunnel, turning it into a proper room rather than the corridor it was.

“Scrying team. Your job hasn’t changed. Get on it,” he said, pointing to two pedestals, each topped with a crystal ball. “Hale, Vezz’ok, Hyan. We’ll be making room for you to continue your work as well.

“So long as our assumptions about the avatar hold true,” Arkk said as he turned to his advisors, all of whom were present as well, “he won’t be able to do that again soon. But the golden beam sliced through the earth, disrupting my claim on the territory away from the tower.”

Arkk paused, looking over the assembled group. He had a look of concentration on his face.

A heavy rumbling ran through the room. More than a few people whimpered as the glowstones in the tiles winked out, plunging the chamber into darkness lit only by the glowing red of Arkk’s eyes. Another quake hit the room. And another.

“I’m marching the tower to Elmshadow proper,” Arkk said as a pair of glowstones appeared in his hands, bringing welcome light back to the chamber. The walls were bare stone now, lacking in the reinforced bricks and tiles. “Now is the time to finish this.”