RE: Monarch

“Rock,” Zin called out cautiously from our left, close to the front line of his soldiers. They were a more varied group compared to Mari’s, maintaining a more difficult formation to crack. Spear-wielding shield wall in the front, general infantry in the middle, and mages in the rear.

“Stone,” Mari called back, completing the pass phrase. She turned her head and spit on the ground, holding back to speak with him as the rest of her formation marched on beside her. As they were approaching from our left side, Mari’s ribbons were hidden from view.

“Saw more than a few of ours coming out,” Zin said, approaching slowly. He was around twenty span away when he stopped. Maybe he sensed something, or maybe he was just cautious. “Trouble?”

Mari nodded, leaning to peer down the road in the direction her troops were marching. “Chickenshit ambush. Slammed us with magic from a distance and burned away the ribbons. Only time we saw ’em, they ran that way.”

Zin nodded. “Time to brew a bit of their own medicine.” Still, he didn’t move.

Mari wasn’t a natural liar, and it showed in her fidgeting and discomfort. A bead of sweat dripped down her forehead. “Didn’t see ’em cross over to the east side. Take the road to your left and we can probably pincer them.”

If he agreed, it would take them further from Salven and give us more time to deal with them.

Zin’s dark eyes narrowed. “Mari. Why are you standing that way—”

From my hiding place, hidden behind the crumbling building to Mari’s right, I reached out to my nascent sparks and ignited the bundles of black powder on either side, setting off a chain of loud and disorienting explosions, one after another, and sent a huge amount of small rocks and bits of shrapnel flying around.

The result was an attack that—while harmless—seemed like it was coming from everywhere. Zin’s soldiers spun to either side of the street, trying to catch sight of the unseen source.

Simultaneously, Mari’s infantry switched direction toward Zin, feeding into the main road from either side. Mari led the charge, axe held over her head as I kept pace directly behind her, hand on the back of her armor.

Through the gap between Mari’s helmet and her shoulder armor, I saw the realization hit Zin before anyone else. He turned—presumably to scream for his troops to retreat. I blew the last charge of black powder closest to the street, buying us a few more seconds as the sound of the explosion scrambled Zin’s voice. A chunk of rock pinged off Mari’s shoulder, close to my hand, and she flinched but continued to charge, raising her axe above her head as she approached range.

I slapped her shoulder, giving her the signal, and she dropped to one knee, holding her axe directly above her head and bracing the head with one hand.

I leapt over her, kicking off the flat of the axe and flying through the air, diving directly for Zin. His eyes widened, and he drew the longsword, sending dual crescents of air in my path.

Prefers close range. I thought, correcting Mari’s estimation. More than capable of long if the situation calls for it.

Without a better option, I cast a static aegis beneath my feet and awkwardly launched off it, landing better on the second and redirecting my plunge toward Zin. The dark elf flicked his blade back, then forward again, launching another crescent of air directly at the single ribbon on my hip.

I channeled mana into my sword, setting it ablaze, raising the temperature hot enough that the blade glowed white, then cleaved through the crescent, splitting it in two and passing through it harmlessly, finally landing and pirouetting to hide the weapon switch, my sword sizzling in its scabbard as I drew my lowhil sword breaker.

Zin reacted on instinct to parry a sword that wasn’t there, and found his blade pinned to the stone instead, wedged tightly between the tongs of the breaker.

“You grab the tiger by the tail, boy—” He cut off mid-hiss as I coldcocked him, driving my demonic arm into the side of his helmet, ringing like a gong, offering a silent apology as he slipped to the ground, eyes unfocused and dazed.

I tore his blue ribbon from his hip right before a blunt arrow smashed into my collarbone with enough force to spin me around. It had come from straight on, the bowman that fired it hidden in the Everwood brush behind the wall. I threw back my head, directing my voice so it carried but didn’t give Annette’s location away. “COVER!”

The back section of wall slid upward, slowly, like a flat slate vine growing into the sky, until the entire section of greenery the arrow came from was obscured. Annette couldn’t get it any wider than that for now, and the archers would move shortly, but it created enough of a disruption to make a difference. Zin’s troops, however, had finally caught on. They were less dependent on their lieutenant than the soldiers from our initial encounter, and as Mari and her soldiers blew past me in a mad charge, the back-line mages held up glowing hands, wands and staves.

Lightning struck them, electricity spreading through mages and soldiers close enough to touch. Sera leapt down from the building to their left and charged from the side as Mari’s group closed in from the front, weapons at the ready.

The impact was mighty and terrible. Armor smashed against armor as fighters struggled, and Sera waded into the fray, forcing some of Zin’s middle line to rotate toward her to protect the mages. Her eyes were wide and maddened, battle-drunk, as she fought with greater ferocity than I’d seen in our spars.

She had it. Same as me, same as Gil. Battle—real battle, and this was as close as she had yet reached—fueled her. Made her better than she was in practice.

Zin hauled himself up. We locked eyes, and for a moment I thought there would be a repeat of the situation with Mari.

Instead, he turned and watched mournfully as we added more and more of his troops to our number by the second. “You got us,” he breathed.

“It was a good showing,” I said.

“No, it wasn’t. Orders?” The denial and request came almost simultaneously.

Professional.

“Archer infestation on the outskirts. Any ideas?”

Zin nodded. “Aetherya and I have done this dance many times before. Typically, it ends in my favor. How many can I take?”

I looked out at our growing number and felt a swell of accomplishment. “As many as you need.”

Without so much as a confirmation, Zin dashed away, hauling a fallen man to his feet and shouting something, then another. Before long he’d gathered a squad of ten and was running back towards the east entrance.

“Salven’s troops are almost here. Approaching up the main road,” Vogrin warned me.

I felt the arrow before I saw it. A dark bolt moving faster than I could track. I threw my head back just in time, watching it as it passed, skittering to the ground.

The archers had already moved.

Shit. Shit. We couldn’t reposition the troops to intercept Salven’s banner until the archers were at least distracted, and it’d be some time until Zin arrived to pressure them. Another flight of dark bolts took to the sky in an upward arc. They were focusing on me—which was good—but if I moved closer to the larger group, they might give up on trying to hit me and start firing indiscriminately, counting out Zin’s troops as lost. Which they more or less were. Zin seemed confident he could deal with Aetherya’s troops, but with the small number he’d taken, there was too high a chance they’d retreat, draw him away for too long.

I thought about Aetherya’s position. She reminded me of Persephone. The demon-infernal hybrid was intelligent but too used to being in control, and her judgment grew questionable when that control was compromised. And even if she wasn’t there, a leader’s disposition was often passed off to their troops.

It was a lot to risk on a relatively quick read, but I needed to gamble.

If I pissed the archers off, tightened the focus that was already on me, their tunnel-vision might make escaping from Zin more difficult, if not outright impossible.

I held out my left arm and allowed the demonic transformation to recede, running mana through a new inscription, standing firm as the arrows plummeted towards me. Wispy tendrils—almost invisible—snaked the arrows out of the air, stopping them mid-flight a span from me. I didn’t have to imagine how it looked from their perspective. In one of my early loops, I’d seen one of Thoth’s associates do much the same. I knew firsthand how oppressive it was.

I slowly rotated the arrows, then flung them back toward the hill. A couple spun, catching the air wrong and falling short. But most of them flew true, slamming through the greenery and out of sight.

There was a quiet moment, where nothing happened. Then, almost palpably furious, the return volley began—one wave after another, staggered this time, so I couldn’t grab them all at once.

I didn’t bother trying the same trick, instead dealing with the arrows the old-fashioned way, tracking them and moving out of the way, dancing from cover to cover as they pinged off the surroundings harmlessly.

The shots finally stopped.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Annette take form, slipping out from the wall, panting, the patterning that camouflaged her fading away. With the archers dealt with, I jogged over to her. “Finally ran out?”

Annette nodded, breathing hard. “Was… using more than I thought.”

“You did great.” I gently reached down and plucked the orange ribbon from her waist. “Head back to the base camp. Keep your hands up so no one gets any ideas.”

My sister froze, her eyes locked onto a man lying supine on the ground. When I looked closer, with growing alarm I realized why. One of Zin’s soldiers was grasping at his throat, face slowly turning blue. I pulled the dwarven flare from my satchel and tilted it, firing it towards the south to communicate my intended path.

“Vogrin?” I shouted.

He appeared beside me, shifting slower now. The construct use was adding up. He was running out of mana. Which meant I was too.

“Yes?” Vogrin asked.

I reached down and slung the man over my shoulder by his arm. “Unless Maya comes around the corner right now, he’s not gonna make it if we wait for the support banner. Tell Alten to protect Sera…”—I hesitated—“and tell Sera she has command.”

Vogrin raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain?”

If I was going to trust her with her own banner, that trust had to start somewhere. I nodded.

“Your will be done.” Vogrin propelled himself across the battlefield toward Sera.

I fully charged the inscriptions on my legs, back straining as I sprinted down the street and around the corner. My path took me past Salven’s men. I nearly went around, but my instinct told me considering my cargo, he wouldn’t interfere. Several started toward me, as if to intercept, when Salven held up a fist. I felt him watching me as I sprinted through the ruined street, praying my mana didn’t run out before I made it back.

***

Maya met me halfway and took the wounded soldier off my hands. The man’s windpipe was damaged, but it was nothing she couldn’t heal. When I returned, vision graying at the fringes, Salven was still there, standing in the same spot. He’d sent his troops away, presumably toward the still-raging battle, and waited for me, alone, spear and buckler held loosely in his hands.

“So,” he said, giving his spear an idle spin. “We finally have a moment alone.”

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