12 Miles Below

“That’s them all right.” I zoomed out the viewpoint, looking around the scene to see what our local Deathless were up to. The answer: No gods damned idea.

They hadn’t bothered relocating their airspeeder out of the zone, just hauled it until they had no power left given how long we had to track them down. Fido did the heavy lifting, both for scouting and getting us fresh power cells to swap during the sprint. We actually fully ran out of power and had to plot out getting a fresh cell change midway through. Either the Deathless were spooked out of their minds about us, or they were plotting and scheming.

With that same distance it could have been halfway through the red forest or onto the grand highway.

But no, they decided the same fields of silver flower, same rock plateaus dotting the landscape, same onyx glass pillars jutting up from the ground, and just like last time, none of those pillars were nearby this particular field.

They were scheming something and I had no idea what was going on in their heads.

I turned and walked back down the hill, sending Wrath a quick text message telling her we’d be starting the fight pretty soon. Far down the hillside, past all the giant boulders and silver flowers weaving in between, were the rest of the knights milling about. At the center was our table of operations: one glorified rock that was slightly more flat to the ground than all the other rocks and boulders around the area, and the war council there were debating tactics. Father, Captain Sagrius, Lejis the Chosen priest, and a tablet with Marsella on video comms sharing the screenspace with a map.

We had to travel fast to catch up to Lejis and Fido. That meant leaving behind quite a few rations and personnel. Mostly the Chosen knights, machines and Marsella. Plus we had to source power cells from somewhere, so some of the machines gave their spares and went back home.

“I doubt it’s got anything to do with terrain.” Marsella’s voice crackled. She had a tone that made me strongly suspect she’d found a chair with a footrest slightly higher than her seat and was making use of it, though all that was off camera. “They wanted to get as much ground as possible to give their B team the time to rack the town over the coals. Assuming that’s what they’re doing, which I’m pretty confident the kid’s right about. Hence the distance and keeping it easy enough for us to find them.”

“Wrath’s got it handled.” I said, leaning back against the boulder behind me. “She’s the chef in the kitchen, and they’re crickets jumping into her pans. I’m not worried at all.”

“I concur with the Winterscar.” Lejis added to the side, sitting cross legged and fixing up some kind of incense stick while we debated. “Lady To’Wrathh is a Feather we can rely on, of that I am certain.”

Marsella raised her eyebrows at both of us from her screen, which Lejis didn’t notice since he was too busy wrapping up the sticks he had. She leaned forward slightly, trying to get a better view through her camera screen. “Well well well, you haven’t known her at all until a few days ago, you deadbeat priest. And we literally left her to handle it all alone without a single clan knight to back her up.”

“To be faithful is to allow hope.” Lejis said sagely, not looking up for a second. “And, our leader is at her strongest when commanding an army behind her. She will succeed.”

Counterpoint, your honor: She’s got an army.

I gave the priest a thumbs up, unworded support.

“...Fair point, come to think of it.” Marsella said, leaning back. “All right, say we can trust her to handle the homefield. How are you doing up there?”

Captain Sagrius took his cue, tapping a few buttons on the tablet, bringing out a map of our current positioning but otherwise remaining quiet. Father just loomed over our little huddle, arms folded as he leaned on his own rock.

Lejis looked around, then gave a shrug and stood up from his sticks. He walked around and he talked, giving Marsella a better understanding of logistics, how long we could stay up here, and other details. “Additionally, there’s two mite fountains within the hour from here.” He said, making his way to me, and passing me one of the sticks. When I raised them up to him with an unworded question, he pushed them back my way. “You light them before battle. To bring luck and purpose.”

“A Chosen rite?”

He shrugged. “Not so much. I simply happen to enjoy the smell of incense and find it relaxing, this is my way of sharing that with others. Don’t carry it for any god, or gods, carry it to remind you of the world you live in and the people you know.”

Marsella snorted. “You really have to preach even the second before battle? I’ve seen the town budget sheet, there’s no column for overtime under your name you know.”

“Oh, deary, can I pitch in?” Cathida asked in the middle of the squabble between the mercenary and the priest.

Lejis didn’t know about her. Nor did any of the Chosen. I’m sure Wrath would trust them, and honestly I kind of trusted Lejis already even though he’d been on the other side of a jail cell last I’d seen him before we met down here. And no, not because he gave me a dried bundle of sticks and flowers to burn, please. I’m clearly a man of integrity that isn’t easily bribed.

Lejis’s reaction of Cathida would probably be curiosity and then maybe wanting to see if he could convert her to his cause next. Which might mess up the filter Cathida had going.

But hey, he’d managed to convince a Drake to be friends. A dead crusader’s ghost might be in his realm of possibility.

“Keep it to us, and I’ll translate out.” I said. I’d handle introductions at another juncture, once there wasn’t a threat breathing down our necks.

“Taking the credit for my plans and deductions I see. Peh.”

“I am making a calculated decision. I solemnly swear.”

If she were alive she’d probably be giving me a flat stare here, but she wasn’t. So she gave a sigh and went on with it. “We should be checking the airspeeder itself as a possible change to the fight. It’s big, it’s got cannons, and it can move like a silverfish if we can’t take it out of commission. Can’t tell exactly what kind of weapon ammunition it has unless we open up the belly and take a peek. It smells like rust to me.”

“Likely just a cargo airspeeder.” Marsella said after I brought up the crusader’s points. “They only have one, so it had to be big enough to carry their food, rations, gear and personnel. Got to pick between loading it up with cannons and loading it up with Deathless. Might have a few turrets, but those are far more dangerous to the machines hanging around us right here than you lot out there. Don’t think the airspeeder is their play, more like their king piece they want to keep away from us.”

“It can’t continue running.” Father said, “By now the power would run low. They need power cells, and the only sources of that are our armor’s power cells. And the Drake.”

Fido lounged on the top of a boulder, making it look more like a pillow. He turned one eye to glance at us, tongue flashing out for a moment before closing his eyes again. “Sssss… the vermin may try. I will deliver to them the death they sought.”

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“They might have set traps?” I suggested. “They had us running for a full day so they had time to really mine up the field. Did Journey spot anything amiss with the soil down there or any of the other knights?”

“Not a single peep on the display last time you looked over the hill.” Cathida said. “Makes Journey nervous because it’s far more worried about things it can’t see than things it can. Paranoid little thing, even if we did spot a few traps, it would worry that it's all some kind of low-level planted ruse.”

Father grunted. “They have seen our techniques in the prior battle. The change will be centered around their spell use, and an attempt to counter ours.”

“You sure no traps?” I asked, “I’d have started putting down traps. Lots of great ways to ruin anyone’s day with traps. Even just knowing there’s a trap nearby puts people on edge. Traps are the best friends anyone could ask for.”

“Bloodthirsty little creature aren’t ya?” Marsella said, to which I shot the tablet a thumbs up.

I tapped my helmet next a few times. “Cathida, you’ve worked with Deathless before. Got a read on this from the Imperial days of running around with them?”

She hummed over the comms. “Not that much experience deary. Deathless don’t travel on long expeditions with Imperials. We could die, they couldn’t. So they found their own kind to work with, while we mostly worked as support. Didn’t even know about the recall cubes they got, or at least Journey had no memories of it being explained to the old bat. Maybe she’d learned it while out of Journey. There was a significant time of her lifespan spent outside this old armor you know. Grandkids don’t pop out of nowhere.”

“Yuck.” was my answer, and that only made her cackle harder. I relayed what Journey found, and confirmed with all the other armors here they hadn’t picked up anything odd.

The group all considered it, except for Marsella. “If the armors can’t detect any traps out there, then there’s nothing more we can do to spot things. Thing I learned from my time out under the lake’s shadow - Quick solutions is a human condition: They didn’t have time to make multiple plans, they dropped a B team near enough to the town and then went full speed the opposite direction to lure us away. They’re not planning to win out here, just keep us tied down long enough. They might have been thinking on how to deal with all the occult spells you lot throw around, so their tactics will change, just not the grand strategy.”

I patted the gear on my belt. “Fortunately for us, they haven’t seen everything we’ve got in store. Not by a long shot. They can’t prepare for what they don’t know existed.”

There wasn’t any more discussion after that, none of us gathered could figure out any other plan the Deathless had. Same biome, same terrain, added distance from the town, an additional airspeeder and less Deathless.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to figure something else out. Fido who’d been lounging around without a care in the world instantly bolted on his four paws, snatched Lejis with his jaws and yanked the priest up by his cloak. Then the machine bounded away like a cat carrying a kitten away.

The next moment, the rest of us were rolling on the ground, a small crater where our tablet had been. Father landed without issue, as did the rest of us. Journey hadn’t needed to run the shields for an explosion like that, letting the armor itself take the blow with little issue.

“They’ve started early.” Father said over the comms. He didn’t sound rattled in the slightest, the dirty cheater.

For a disoriented second, I thought that the airspeeder had artillery stocked up in it, given we were a good distance away from where they’d camped out and the hill blocked a wide stretch of sight. But hearing the humming rush of wind and power nearby, I could tell exactly what they’d done.

Airspeeders were fast. Faster than armor sprinting. So they had theirs running circles around us while taking potshots.

Airspeeders were even faster than Drakes, which meant Fido was in trouble. Or he should have been in trouble.

Right now, the turrets were trying to track him down, but the drake was giving the bulky thing a run for its money. Rocky jagged ground gave the machine plenty of handholds to yank and leap from, while the fat airspeeder had to glide over it all, skidding around in the tell-tale way an inexperienced airspeeder pilot would drive.

Those things did have massive inertia to work with, meaning they were difficult to perfectly pilot. Teed making them look as if they were running on massive wheels instead of a slip and slide was a credit to how good of a pilot he actually was.

This one, not so much.

Still didn’t stop him from trying to shoot us like crickets in a box. The explosions were more for throwing us out of formations - of which surface dwellers generally didn’t train much for so it hardly affected us.

Deathless were approaching fast, with Lionheart at the very center of the edge. The veteran Deathless had his helmet fixed on Father, sword drawn and pointed right at him.

A sound clashed through and deafened us all for a moment. One I’d heard before a few times over. The sound of a Drake charging their laser and opening fire with it.

Only one drake here, and only one target of value. I gave a look over at the airspeeder, who’s shields were still vibrating from the impact. And still trying to shoot at the Drake, last of which I saw his tail slip out of sight behind a rock, a bit of purple cloak flapping on it’s back.

Lejis spoke over the comms then, “The drake will need another three minutes to drain the airspeeder’s shields fully. Possibly less if they are low on energy as we suspect.”

Three more hits and the airspeeder would be toast. On the other hand, that’s three whole minutes the airspeeder could turn and start gatling down my knights. It would take a while to whittle down a relic knight’s shields, and the airspeeder didn’t have enough bullets to get all of us.

But I realized they didn’t need to. The Deathless had abilities that could shred shields away. And if those high caliber bullets started spraying down on unshielded knights, it could crack the armors after enough focus firing.

Up ahead, said Deathless were charging up the hill, soon to reach ability range. I gave a look at the assembled knights. Ten of the best led by captain Sagrius - and all I’d ever have with me for the entire journey we were going though.

The Winterscar knights were powerful. But they were mortal. Any that died, would be gone for good until we could find some means to return them to a body like Arcbound had.

My head flashed through possibilities and means of repelling the dangers. Defeating the Deathless was well in our ability. But that wasn’t my main objective - doing so without losing a single of my friends was what mattered.

My eyes narrowed down at two targets. We did have two people who could use their body as a shield against any torrent of bullet fire, even without shields. But only one of these two could repair himself from any damage incurred.

“Change of plans,” I gave Father a wave, “Go handle Lionheart, keep the Winterscars safe in case of emergency.”

He was the better pick for that. He’ll keep the Winterscars alive even up against a small army Deathless.

Fido would handle the airspeeder in time, but I needed it downed faster than that. And I had to approach it in a way that would keep me and anyone else safe.

I turned to Captain Sagrius and two other Winterscar knights, pointing at each in rapid succession. “Us four, we’ll handle the airspeeder.”

With Sagrius, he could tank bullet fire even without shields. Not permanently and not without risk like Father could, but we’d be far out of the main targets and had more options to dive for cover than anyone caught in the main battle. With only a far clumsy airspeeder slipping around trying to murder us, hiding was possible. Not so much when agile battle tested demi-gods were equally looking for any attack of opportunity.

The Winterscars and captain gave a quick salute, turning their attention to the airspeeder circling around.

“We’ll advance opposite to Fido, use the rocks to keep out of line of sight. Let’s go knock on their airlock.”

All four of us sprinted straight out of cover, advancing to deal with the slippery fish struggling to keep Fido in its crosshairs.

Father and the rest of the knights sprinted the other way, directly into the incoming wave of Deathless and Lionheart.

The airspeeder took one last salvo attempt at Fido before it lumbered past, turning with a steady measured pace around the edge of the battlefield. I recognized the movement changes immediately from my time with Teed.

“It just shifted from manual control to autopilot.” I called out over comms. “Means they don’t have enough people inside there to man everything. Keep eyes sharp for anything off the sides.”

Autopilot also meant easy to predict where it would go. I calculated the trajectory in my head, then sent a quick movement ping to the group, having us all turn our sprint to where I expected we’d cross paths. The HUD lit up with a green pathline to follow, right down to the vaults needed over rock terrain to get there.

The rest of the group gave quick confirmations, leaping over the rock terrain and stomping past silver patches of flowers. The airspeeder did exactly as I thought it would, sliding past the rocks, going right where I had placed our ping marker at.

The turrets turned to the left, away from our group and began to open fire again where Fido was last spotted, forcing the drake to duck under the rocks. On our side, the hangar doors opened up wide. We were not even ten seconds away from leaping range. Basically looked like a free invitation.

Almost considered it too convenient, except one lone Deathless stepped out of the shadows, one hand reaching out to grasp the side handholds, letting him lean out of the airspeed and get a better angle with any weapon.

And in his other gauntlet, he held what looked like a shoulder mounted rocket launcher.

Given I’d seen his sigils and armor before, I knew this was Drakonis even before Journey labeled his name over the HUD.

The Deathless didn’t have any speech for us.

Instead, he aimed and fired.

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