Jackal Among Snakes

Argrave stared at the steel docks on the southern shore of the Great Chu at the front of the Sea Dragon. He could see great silos full of the liquid fire that filled their turtle ships. He could see mounted ballistae manned by spellcasters that imbued the bolts with energy. He could see a huge garrison manning this coastal fort. Commandeered trading vessels stood like a wall of wood to block their advance with only a skeleton crew of slaves manning them.

The southernmost portion of the Great Chu was, like the north of Vasquer, cold and rugged, with sparse population. But even beyond this remote fortress, Argrave could see the first of the cities of the Great Chu. Jade and amber decorated the tops of their buildings, slender spikes ascending from the roofs of orderly homes and shops.

During the whole of their approach, Argrave felt as though he was in a trance. He was having trouble avoiding a recent memory.

Argrave couldn’t remember the words Elenore said to call Argrave back to Blackgard, but it had been enough to make him return home even on the eve of the battle. He did remember entering Sophia’s room to check on her… but within, he only found her dolls.

They had all died.

Their small size had enabled them to last a long while, yet the creatures Sophia had created lacked key parts of what made something self-sustaining. They were living—they consumed energy to live, like anything else. But the dolls she’d made lacked the ability to digest, to drink. The small child didn’t understand those systems, nor how they kept a body moving, so the dolls were born without them. Like this they withered away, performing their tasks until their death. Only Castro seemed to be spared that fate, for he was made in imitation of a real human.

Elenore told him that Sophia didn’t yet know they were dead. It fell upon Argrave to bring that news to her.

“Life, Sophia, is a very precious and complicated thing,” Argrave had said to the young girl as she sat on their bed, Anneliese on the opposite side. “You’re very special. You have the potential to create that life easier than anyone. But that creation… you can do great evil if you don’t understand what it means.”

Sophia looked at him, not quite understanding his point. And, inevitably, he told her what had happened to the dolls. And when she didn’t believe… he showed her. The dolls, once alive, now… broken. Withered. Lifeless. Decaying. Sophia had been fearful and guilty of what she’d done before, but with their deaths, true sorrow came.

They comforted her as best they could.

“Before you use your power again, Sophia, the two of us should understand what it means. Life is an important thing—a precious thing, that you should value dearly. It shouldn’t be started or stopped without considerable thought.”

“We were wrong to push you so hard,” Anneliese added. “You have no reason to fear us sending you away, ever.”

“But life, and death…” Argrave took Sophia’s small hand. “We’ll help you understand them together, as a family. Would you like that?”

Sophia, in tears, had agreed. She had created lives, yet her negligence also led her to take them.

Back on the battlefield, lives passed away much differently.

Argrave wasn’t quite sure who let loose the first attack, but once spellfire bridged the gap between navy and coast, the Blackgard Union’s counterattack against the Qircassian Coalition began. Dario’s ballistae fired from the sides of the turtle ship aimed at the men standing in the coastal fortress. Just as they fired, so too did the opponent’s spells bridge the gap, aimed at the whole of them. Anneliese soared forth, carried by her enchanted boots, and cast an S-rank ward to receive the first volley of magic. He saw her magic drain, then soar again as her foe’s power revitalized her being. She floated alone, enduring the onslaught of magic to give time for the navy to advance further yet.

Rowe’s staff, forged from Veid’s own heart, invigorated Anneliese’s ward to resist all comers, and her foe’s unrelenting assault gave magic sufficient to make them evermore. She was like a goddess of protection, flying through the sky and creating golden shields that blocked flames, electricity, and all such atrocities of magic. Yet even with her defense, causalities on their side were not small. Countless spells broke past, striking ships and the troops in them if the spellcasters aboard were not prepared.

Gods of the Qircassian Coalition descended upon them as a single wave of force from ahead and above, revealing their unseen forms. And rising to oppose them were the deities of the Blackgard Union. Law’s Justiciar’s split through into this world, clashing blades with titans that had appeared from nowhere. Rook threw daggers that had his divine servants imbued into them, and these blades became possessed weapons that hunted foes like vengeful specters.

As was agreed upon, Raccomen’s power distorted space itself, isolating the battle between mortals and gods. In time, spirits born from the wounds of gods danced into the air, and what was once only a battle became a hunt for food and survival.

The Sea Dragon advanced as all above it became chaos consummate. Argrave sent his blood echoes ahead where he saw power strongest. Once there, he cast spells to gut their foes’ operations before they could even get started. He saw people fall from the ramparts, torn apart so much as to be unrecognizable. He saw the coastal fort deform from the sheer power of his attacks.

Argrave’s blood echoes were well-suited for assaulting defenses like this, yet he wouldn’t be able to do it without his queen. Anneliese took half a thousand attacks without faltering. She was a machine of perpetual energy, conjuring wards that replenished her magic more than she spent. By the time any of her defenses broke, she had magic enough for two more—layers upon layers of impenetrable defense screening their advance as the gods did battle above.

The defenders tipped their silos of the liquid fire, hoping to set the sea aflame. In response, their casters, free to act in light of Anneliese’s unimaginable display of magical prowess, sent forth turbulent blasts of wind. Great gusts caught these towers as they fell, lifting them up and casting them backward. Great Chu mages on the walls of the coastal fort acted in tandem, and the silos split from pressure on both sides. The sludgy white liquid poured on the land, inert without contact with water, and slowly streamed into the ocean. Meanwhile, their foes prepared to pour vast amounts of the stuff from the coastal fortification. They’d set the whole sea aflame, to make it as chaotic in the ocean as it was in the skies.

As the Sea Dragon neared the wooden wall of trader vessels, he heard a horn echo above the din of the battle—their horn. That had come at Galamon’s order, as he was the commander in this battle. And it signaled a rather neutralizing tactic. It had been used at Mateth, if in small scale, yet now it would be unprecedented.

As Argrave looked back at the fleet behind the Sea Dragon, he saw countless mana ripples fill the air. With a deafening crackle, a wave of ice split through the ocean of greater magnitude than anything Argrave had seen before. It battered against the ward of the Sea Dragon, then broke past it. It continued on, on, and onward, freezing the entire coastline and suspending all ships. Their plan was simple—to freeze the bay itself, that they might make land and sea one in the same.

Veidimen warriors jumped off their longships and ran across the ice boldly, approaching the fortification from two sides. Meanwhile, the suspended turtle ships continued to fire Dario’s ballistae at the defenders, and spellcasters continued to harass. The wall of trading vessels exploded violently, casting the Great Chu’s liquid fire all over the ice. They’d been packed with black powder and a slave bearing a torch—more than an obstacle, they were mines, meant to prevent or destroy any ships that came near. Now, however, they’d been utterly neutralized. All they’d done was consign their slaves to a pointless death.

While men did battle on the earth, the gods did battle in the heavens. Their war was a chaotic mess that perhaps only deities could divine. Rook’s storm of daggers flew around him as he jumped from blade to blade like they were platforms. He was hounded by countless of Qircassia’s divine servants—winged monstrosities, all. Law’s Justiciars crusaded against countless, their titanic blades working in orderly tandem to suppress gods on their lonesome.

Argrave felt a terrible presence shake the air, and when he looked, a god that Argrave recognized fell from the sky tower above. Tyrg—minotaurian god of strength and prominent member of the Qircassian Coalition—descended with a gigantic hammer clenched tightly in his hand. Argrave saw the gold mass permeating the skies above shift. It would seem their ancient ally needed to move, to block this foe.

Law’s power crystallized in the form of a giant sword. Argrave felt his heart thump as his patron deity revealed his power. Sword rose to meet hammer, and the world itself seemed to shake as their clash spread throughout the coastline. Raccomen’s spatial distortion faltered briefly, allowing some of the god’s power through to the mortal battlefield. The frozen ocean cracked, and wayward energy struck ships and troops alike, killing hundreds in the moment the world of the mortal intersected with that of the gods. Then both divine weapons parted, ready to meet again.

As divine sword and hammer clashed above, the people of Veiden set foot upon the shores of the Great Chu for the first time in their lives. Argrave refocused and harassed those that fired upon them with his blood echoes, tearing holes into the enemy’s defenses piece by piece. Already, Argrave saw the gate on the right side slowly open. Lira’s connections proved useful—they had a man on the inside to prevent this from being a genuine siege.

Spells rained down upon their boldly assaulting army. Ebonice displayed its use against lesser spells, while Veidimen spellcasters and enchanters displayed their prowess freely for all it could not block. Even from the isolated Sea Dragon, Argrave could hear the cries of war echo across the battlefield. He felt the effects of shamanic magic fade as the casters inside the walls of the fortress died, enabling teleportation inside the fortress. Argrave seized upon this moment to swap with one of his blood echoes, appearing in the heart of the structure instantly.

Argrave walked the ramparts, casting fire, ice, and electricity recklessly with his blood echoes. He was like a guiding spirit for the Veidimen penetrating this place, freeing space for them to pass. When he neared the center, a voice split into his mind—Elenore’s.

“Anneliese says the fortress is trapped. It’s triggering—and soon. I’ve informed Galamon. Evacuate,” she said evenly yet urgently.

Hearing her words, Argrave didn’t need long to get away. He looked to the coast, and then used [Echo Step] to move as quickly as possible. Anneliese descended nearby and created a ward around them to protect from this waning battle, allowing Argrave to turn his gaze from the fortress to the battle between divinity that raged above. As he watched, Law disarmed Tyrg more literally than usual, cutting through his weapon and arm both. The hunk of metal that was his weapon fell downwards, caught by Raccomen’s spatial distortion. Law, meanwhile, finished Tyrg with another swipe of his blade. The god of strength burst into spirits, whereupon he was consumed in a flash of gold that ate through the former divine’s essence like locusts.

As the ground shook, Argrave looked back to the fortress. As Anneliese said, its trap came to life. The walls rose upwards, twisting around each other like a flower closing on itself. The majority of the Veidimen managed to evacuate, yet some were caught up in it. When it formed a small bud, Argrave thought it was done. Yet fiery heat seared out from its core, and then in a burst of wind and fire, the steel fortress exploded.

The light of the explosion was like a third sun on the earth. Fragments of steel scattered everywhere, propelled by explosive force. Anneliese’s countless wards protected them from much of the damage, yet even many of them broke from the force. When it all died away, Argrave looked at what had once been a formidable fortress.

The large shipyard and its fortification had disappeared entirely. All that remained was a ruin of steel, fire, and flesh. Beyond the flames and the smoke, Argrave saw troops marching through the rugged hills, and a realization came to him. They hadn’t seized a fortification. They had merely pushed back the line, and only slightly.

Even now their casters melded the earth. They ruined the road that had been supplying this area, ensuring no troops could easily chase. They built yet more forts of a similar make to the one they’d just been assaulting. Doubtless it would be trapped in the same manner.

They had managed a foothold on the Great Chu. But in the distance, hundreds of horns echoed through snowy valleys. Tens of thousands of troops lurked in the mountains beyond. Argrave could see fortresses simply rise from the earth in key locations, taking shape. He saw magic weapons mounted atop walls, aimed at their forces.

Indeed—they had managed to get a foothold. And it seemed like that was all the Great Chu was liable to give them. They had not defeated the army of the Great Chu—they’d merely pushed them back slightly. To proceed further, they’d need to win hundreds of battles just like this one.

And not just here—in the skies, too, the foes that Argrave’s divine allies fought seemed to come without an end. Tyrg was formidable. But he was one of many, and all were sworn to fight the Coalition’s enemy in a pact not dissimilar to Argrave’s own Blackgard Union.

Looking around, disfigured and charred bodies lined this place. The dead and dying, sacrificing life for the first victory. So long as they were unwelcome here, they would be fought. And so long as they fought… there would be death.