Unconquered Pt. 14

"What the hell?" I asked.

"Non-magical weaponry!" June said. "It must be fireflash powder in shells, fired by catapults-"

"Shields!" I shouted to Jaqueline, who gaped at me in shock. But then an explosion rocked off the nose of the ship. The Starhshrike shuddered -- and then kept flying. The paint didn't even look scored.

"Again, non-magical weaponry," June said, relaxing. "The armor's solid starsteel."

"...right..." I whispered.

The Starshrike screamed down to land in the fields and forests that spread before the walls. The trees bowed in the wind, and I saw that civilians who had been gaping overhead were fleeing towards the hills. Arrows whistled through the air and clattered onto the ground around us as the Legionaries charged from the cargo gang-plank. Their shields were lifted, but the arrows were all mundane. They rattled off metal and jounced off armor plating. The Legionaries let out a series of chants as they started to set up their wicked protections: Large curved shields that they unfolded and staked into position. Within a few moment, the enemy archers had turned those into pincushions.

By then, I and my Lunars had emerged out into the opening.

The air was bright and the smell of the green grass was shocking after my stay in the deserts. I brushed my hands through my hair -- wearing nothing but my kilt and my bare skin. An arrow slammed into my shoulder and shattered. "All right," I said. "Here's where you all hate me."

"What?" Ceaith asked.

"Yeah, what?" Chirp looked nervous.

I pointed at a squad of legionaries. "Shield!" I shouted -- and filled that word with all the command that I could. Magic flowed through it -- and in the same way that a pair of men who knew one another very well could communicate entire paragraphs with a glance, a nod, and a single reference to a past adventure, that single word told the squad precisely what to do. Their leader tossed me his sheild -- the rectangular metal slab slapping against my arm. I strapped it on, picked up one of the spooled hawsers that the engineers had laid out on my command. The Legion archers that we had brought were beginning to fire back from behind their shields, but even with the best arrows and the best bows, we were firing up at the best walls in all of the Land of Ten Billion Gods.

But that was okay.

The anti-magic fields that suppressed the might of the Chosen and thamaturges alike were active and blaring. I could see the faint discolorations in the air, snarling and crackling like witchfire. They wreathed the arrows as they arced from the walls -- but vanished by the time those arrows hit the ground, like fires being blown out.

So...

All the magic had to happen here.

I tossed the hawser up like a lasso, wrapping it about the tall, flexible tree that had been planted to provide shade for the trade road. With a single titanic heave, I pulled upon it and the tree flexed, creaked, bent down, until it had been curved entirely in half. Following my orders, the squad sprang upon the tree, their feet balancing on the bark with supernatural precision. Under the order of the Unconquered, even a mortal man could kill a god. I grinned, then reached back. "Hold this, Xora."

"You have to be-" Ceaith whispered, then ducked an arrow as Xora grabbed the hawser.

I sprang onto the tree. My arm gripped the arm of one of the men.

"Now!" I shouted.

The sergeant, standing as bravely as a god of war without his shield, swung his scimitar down and split the hawser in half with a crack of parting threads. In that instant, I imparted all the magic I could to the moment. The entire tree, the squad, and my body exploded with golden light, like a blazing fireball. In that instant, each man had the poise and the coordination to leap with the tree -- so that as it snapped itself back to a standing position and cracked in half with the effort, the entire squad was launched into the air -- sailing in a curving arc.

Moving with graceful precision, we dragged our arms together -- our shields interlocking, forming a barrel-like drum.

We struck the anti-magic field. Arrows skittered and rebounded off the shields.

But the aiming, the movement, all of it had been before the field. And we had aimed ourselves well. The shield struck a glancing blow on the broad, flat white surface of the wall's ramparts and we each released. Men went scattering in every direction, skidding along their shields, rolling with the impact. I came to my feet, feeling woozy and disoriented by the sudden absence of magic. Without magic to dampen the landing, my left arm felt as if had broken -- and the pain was so intense I nearly passed out.

Then I saw the anti-magic generator I had aimed for. A half dozen men stood about it, gaping at us.

I let the shield drop from my arm and kicked the shield with my other leg, driving every bit of strength into it, using the very form that Goat had taught me. [1]

The generator exploded.

With the return of magic, my anima flared and I sped my healing to lightning quick speeds and shouted. "Men! Your injuries are nothing but scratches! Come on!" And the men who had taken the landing even worse than I sprang to their feet, looking fresh and ready. The loyalists who were still gaping at the broken anti-magic generator had enough time to look up before I had sprinted across the wall and leaped up. My leg slammed into the chest of their leader. He flipped over the wall and screamed all the way down.

"Smash the rest of the generators! Now!" I shouted.

A blue flash came from the corner of my eye.

Another arcing barrel of shields, crashing into the wall three or four miles down the way. Another chunk of the shield collapsed a moment later and a yowling warcry that sounded exactly like Ceaith filled the air. Then there was a flash of orange, of red, of purple, even of pearly white. More squads began to fill the air. But as the anti-magic fields collapsed, the other skyships of my war party arced down.

Mana bolts scythed through the air as I led my men on a charge towards one of the large stairs that led from the wall to the walkways of the city. Legionaries and Infused Knights were charging up. "Ia! Ia! Ia!" My men shouted -- and though there were only twenty of us to nearly a hundred, we met them with a crash of weapons and a cry for battle. Shields were splintered and men and women were sent screaming over the edge of the stairs.

"Death to the betrayer!" An Infused Knight -- crackling with buzzing lightning -- shouted as she sprang at me. Her fists punched out in a jagged pattern as she arced through the air. I knocked the lightning bolts out of the way with the flat of a sword I had snatched from the field, then grabbed a discarded helmet and pitched it at her. It caught her in the temple and she collapsed to the ground beside me.

One of our skyships whirred down -- flying daringly close to the wall. It hovered next to the stairs and Legionaries mounted on the automatic crossbows that spread across the curved back of the oblong ship began to lay waste to the reinforcements charging up to the wall. Bolts thudded into loyalists and they fell in great masses, their death wails sending a chill down my spine.

A mana bolt shot from the streets and slammed into the side of the skyship. Blue flames and hoarfrost swept across the left engine, which sputtered and died, belching black smoke into the air. The skyship began to wheel in slow circles, skidding through the air as I saw, beyond it, that the reinforcements were dragging magical artillery down the main streets of Samsara. They hadn't been on the walls, but they had been ready.

"Take the walls and open the gate!" I shouted to one of the Infused Knights that had joined our side -- then leaped.

Magic caught me. Lightened me. I glowed with golden flames and landed directly in the cockpit of the skyship, my rump settling into the empty co-pilot seat. I grabbed onto the controls as the woman who was flying it swore under her breath and prayed to...well, to me. "Unconquered!" She yelped.

"Lets land this bird," I said, flicking switches instinctively as I dragged on the whirring golden shaft that was the control system. The pilot nodded and gritted her teeth as we both managed to slow the spin, then correct it. Another mana bolt shot through the air, narrowly missing our undamaged wing. The men on the ground began to slam a new shell into their projectile, chanting the war-rhymes of the reloading process. "What's this vortexy looking button do?" I shouted over the roar of the alarms.

"Fires the vortex arrows, sir!" the pilot shouted back at me.

"Thought so," I said.

Three vortex arrows fsst out of the nose of the skyship and impacted in the middle of the street, consuming the artillery and its crews in a screaming wail like the end of the world. Their ghosts ripped through the air and a roiling cloud of sunderstuff filled the air, beginning to spread across the street. I had an idea. I tilted the controls forward and our skyship began to scream downwards.

"What are you doing!?" The pilot shouted.

I reached out with my will, dragged back on the controls, and the skyship slowed its descent as, at the same moment, the sunderstuff that had filled the street transformed into a mass of wobbly green jelly. Our skyship's belly struck it, squelched into it, and we skidded nearly fifty yards before coming to a stop. The pilot and I were slammed forward -- me without restraints. My body flared with magic -- and then faded as I groaned and pushed myself back into my seat as the pilot blew out a slow sigh.

"Right..." She said. "Chaosmatter shapes itself to your imagination."

"So, I imagined us a landing...jelly," I said, grinning. I slid from the cockpit, my feet squelching on the green glop, and saw the three squads of Legionaries that we had been carrying were hopping off, swords and spears in their hands. "All right men!" I shouted. "We push on to the Palace! Form up behind me!"

Behind us, flags of the Unconquered were being raised across the walls.

We had taken them.

We were going to take Samsara as well.

I grinned, then advanced forward, my Legionaries at my back, my sword in my hand. And as I walked forward, glowing like the sun, men and women and children and saris and slaves, all the civilian people of the city, all of them hiding in their homes and gaping at the war that had broken out in their streets, began to chant. The chant started scattered, then grew into a roar. A roar that filled the city.

Ia! Ia! Ia! Ia! Ia! Ia! Ia!

***

The whole city of Samsara was in chaos. Men with Unconquered armbands -- simple white cloth they had daubed with a golden sunburst -- rushed from alleyways to attack loyalist legionaries, who fought back with every weapon they had. Children threw rocks down at the loyalists as they threw up barricades. With the front gate opened, the entire army was marching in. Over head, the Starshrike flew with a secondary crew, exchanging mana-blasts and vortex arrows with the launched battleships of the First Legion. The sky was filled with hissing steam and the fires of out of control skyships as they dueled. Debris rained down onto buildings.

Through it, my Lunars marched like walking war-gods. In the distance, I saw the massive form of Xora in her most terrible manifestation. A shark-human hybrid, easily twelve feet tall, rippling with muscles, sending loyalist members of the First flying. But I also saw a huge, prowling, orange furred cat the size of a small building slinking past, sometimes with blood on her chops, and knew that it was Ceaith.

I walked through this all, leading my men, battling Infused Knights and knots of resistance, with a growing sense of...disquiet.

It was terrible, to see what an army with my power behind it could too. More horrible still to see my Lunars marching through the destruction. I thought of Chirp, of my promise to them. I had seen their red flash -- had they gone to the walls? Had I, without thinking, put them into a situation where they would have to kill? My stomach knotted -- but I pressed on, gathering men and supporters as we came to the palace. There, we found that the First had been decimated by the most pernicious enemy of all. Fear.

They were quivering as we broke into the massive clearing that spanned the city and the palace. Gardens and even a small forest split the air between us and them -- and yet still, I could see the tips of their spears trembling.

I lifted my sword and bellowed. "Charge! Find me the Regent! Find me his head!"

With my voice, even shopkeepers and tavern wenches had the strength, training and grit of hardened warriors. They began to charge forward with me -- and the First Legionaries dropped their weapons. They turned. They ran. And as they ran, my followers began to cut them down, slashing at them, tackling them, stabbing them. I tried to ignore it all, instead focusing on the front door -- an immense edifice of mahogany and whisperwood. I leaped up and kicked out at it with a grunt, the door splintering inwards in a haze of wood fragments. I landed, hearing the hissing whispers of the destroyed whisperwood, and the sounds of battle faded behind me.

Standing in the foyer of the palace, surrounded by his reign. The walls were bedecked in trophies and symbols of conquest. Shattered swords. Blackened shields. A helmet that had been partially melted. The mummified body of an ancient king, his name written beneath him on a flap of his own skin, inked with blood that formed elegant caligraphy -- here lies Ozymandias, last of his line. There were chests heaped with gems and jewels, fine goblets in niches, piles of haphazard treasures, spilling along the ground, cluttering up the floor. This left only a narrow corridor of clear ground between me and the Regent, who stood there, his arms spread wide.

He was as I had seen him last. Brown skinned. Shirtless. His face concealed by his heavy stone mask, with only his black pits for eyes visible. His arms spread fruther and his thick, meaty fingers uncurled.

"Welcome to my humble abode, Sleepy Ember," he said, his voice a deep, rich purr. I gulped, slowly, my anima crackling around me.

"It's not humble. It's not an abode. And after today?" I lifted my sword up, pointing the tip right at him. "You don't get to call me that. I'm your Unconquered. And I declare that your empire, that your slavery, that your cruelty, that your vanity, is over!"

"Cruelty? Vanity?" The Regent chuckled. "The spark in your eyes...the timber of your voice...you've been taught Vengeful Crystalline Hawk style." He shook his head slightly. "A deadly style."

"It will end you," I said, lifting my sword up.

"A deadly style..." he said, again. "But there is a weakness to it, you know?"

My brow furrowed. I started to advance, readying myself. Maybe cutless-cut would be a good way to start the battle. I kept my stance. I kept my focus -- not wanting my terror and my disquiet to drive me out of the void-awareness that made this style so effective.

"Maybe you can trade tips with my sif-"

I stopped. It had felt as if someone had tapped me in the shoulder. My brow furrowed -- and then numbness began to spread along my shoulder. Flames blazed along my body -- golden flames, tinged with a eldrich green edge. I felt my mana draining through my fingers, using every droplet of it to keep my body alive as that killing numbness spread further and further. The sword dropped from my nerveless fingers and I fell to my knees, gasping. The Regent chuckled.

"Your awareness becomes very focused. Focused upon yourself."

I looked back over my shoulder -- my head not wanting to move.

June Devilblooded stood behind me, her hands still closed around the green knife buried into my shoulder.

"June..." I hissed.

"Don't blame her," another voice spoke.

One I recognized.

Goat Who Wrestles stepped into my field of view -- and as he did so, June's eyes blazed. They glowed with the same hue of green flames that burned at the edge of my anima. I fell forward, catching myself on my palm as my anima began to fade, inch by inch. "Si...fu..." I hissed, my mind reeling. The knife remained in my back as June slowly drew her hands back -- then smirked, her green eyes glowing brighter.

"He forgot," she said. "The dumb fucker forgot!" She kicked me in the gut. I groaned and rolled onto my side. The three of them stood above me, grinning down at me -- save for the Regent's expressionless mask.

"I taught you Vengeful Crystalline Hawk Style because it renders you unable to be aware of the periphery," Goat said, kneeling down, his head shaking as he held his pipe in one hand. "You didn't realize that I turned June into an akuma three weeks ago."

"No!" I hissed the word out past the pain.

"Mmhmm!" June said. "I'm the devil that your siiiifuuuu..." She turned the word into a grotesque sing-song. "...fed your precious devilblooded bitch too. Her soul was delicious. And she screamed. She screamed so long and so hard and you weren't there to help her because you were, well. All I this. Me that." She laughed -- her voice obsidian sharp, jagged and cutting.

My fires dimmed lower.

I forced out one last word.

"Why?"

Goat shook his head. "You don't get it..." He stood. "I serve the Unconquered."

The Regent reached up.

Took hold of the mask.

And withdrew it.

"No..." I whispered.

The Good King Bahul, the Tenth Unconquered, looked down at me, his lips twisted into a disapproving frown. The same frown I had seen what felt a lifetime ago, in a dream when all I had worried about had been failing my apprenticeships.

"You're lazy," Bahul growled. He grabbed onto my hair, jerking my up. "You're stupid. You're good for nothing!" He lifted me onto my feet, pain roaring through my scalp. He slammed his forehead into mine and sent me flying backwards. I smashed into the wall and the knife was jammed deeper. The tip bust from the far side of my chest and I stumbled, trying to stand, trying to get into a battle stance. Bahul strode forward, then smashed my face with a backhanded smack. "You'll never, never, never be the Unconquered!"

I collapsed to my side.

My vision filled with blackness.

And the last thing I saw before I died was the Good King Bahul's sneer.

TO BE CONTINUED

[1]The shield flew through the air with unerring, impossible perfection. Here, in the space beyond space, it was not constrained by the rules of the anti-magic field. It arced out and struck the glowing crystal of the generator with the force of a hammer.