Dark Crow Rising

"Why is everything being set up outside like this...?" Grandguard Inerish asks as I relax into my specially prepared throne. All the energy I need to keep my body at the ready can be saved. Now, I just need the reply to come back from my in-danger reserves. They will need to handle themselves without me if need be.

Looking the way of the Errakurd, "A foe this grand must be observed directly when it falls. As I was doing to the capital of the Valkinvar, I shall endeavour to do here too."

This is, of course, a lie. My reasons for being out here in the open, it's all so I can take that leap I will need to. She thinks nothing of my armour and weapon, but she will if this plan fails. Besides, we have enough portable equipment to create the needed atmosphere of the Gnomon or the main staff building of our current hosts.

A small machine within reach beeps, and I reach for it. Pushing a button and then another, I send the order out to those who need it. Should this giant threaten Thrurstradtur-Suhurlodst any further? Then I shall fight it personally. My greatest secret will be prepared to handle their isolation for but a moment.

"Blessings of the Mighty upon you, brave witches." I almost whisper, my senses attuning to the mechanical bangs of the Gnomon. The runway and necessities for its long-range transport craft are being prepared. I've already ordered the skies cleared and for my fleet to move out. They will remain in reserve for the time being while my brother's mustering ground troops move in.

To hold the giant's attention, that is our only goal right now. Keep it occupied, keep its focus. Ensure it does not move one more step forward. Skeleton crews are waiting and standing by. By Jhrarda the Mighty's lunar light shall they smash it back.

"This is Royal-Guardsman Galanmarck, all landships, begin the advance." my younger brother's custodian orders on my behalf through the open comms. Nodding in understanding, I motion one of my workers to bring me a control tablet. My brother's normal crew has been bolstered with my usual command method. They shall know no fear, only service.

Screens flash into existence across the horizon, blurring the dark visage of the giant. Those that show airships are sent aside and the ones with the modified landships take the dominating view. Grandguard Inerish walks through a screen and joins in with those at work on the terminals. A worker passes me the technical details of my brother's altered New Story design.

The main engines and propulsion system have been entirely replaced, grounding the machines. Pocket dimension technology hides great lengths of manipulatable chains attached to drill-like wheels. The floatation supports have been converted into stabilisers against terrestrial recoil. If anything, they're all the more capable in the dunes of the giant's influence.

Future, past and present.

I need only give the order and power can be diverted into the rear exhaust lines, thrusting them to seemingly impossible speeds. My brother is quite proud of their travel speed, let alone top. He was quite insistent that their visage of haste was not just because of scale. They're fast machines, especially on flat, breakable ground.

Though, for the moment, they're carefully traversing the last of the mountains before dropping down into the designated hill land. Those chains allow them to covert into walking marvels so very easily. As for armaments, little is different for the exception of one thing. My brother, he took a liking to the looks of pellet shooters and hand cranked rotaries.

While not as destructive as my traditional guns, which these still have in limited broadside capacity. He offers the highest assurances of magic-rich spheres capable of smart movement. A weapon designed to seek structural weak points may prove valuable if they can harm the giant. I have my doubts, but, as many of this land have shown me over the past few days. Hope is all we have.

"You will fire when ready. All landships, engage in battle." I say, sending out the order across the fifty plus war machines. The last of them leap from the mountain peaks, scraping away their old sides and faces in their speeding descent. They leap a final time, shredding apart the mounds of dirt and rock. The giant's next step puts the aura over the mountains ahead.

As the Grand-Kingdom of Ibenorocco likes to taunt, a tsunami marks the start of war. All that magic rich land, gone and reduced to dust. Brown dirt turns to khaki sand and shields flare brightly. Each landship turns their pair of rotary cannons up and my senses tune into the leagues' away distance. Thunderous click, banging turns, speeding up. Speed, speed, speed.

'Fire!' I mouth, the noise becoming an unending buzz that zips through the cascading dust. The giant's dark form erupts with explosions all over and keeps charging. Higher than the mountains, threatening the sky with its height. Hull-shredding munitions are no daunting obstacle.

Towering decks wave and sway, their motions affected only by the thrust of engines. Waves of sand lurch into the sky as they drift back around into direct paths or circling motions. A lone figure appears on one screen, a cone of clouds in front of him. The giant's head twitches at the sight and roars.

With magic abusing the scientific reality, vapor cones erupt with automatic repetition. The breeze as far away here carries this force with a hair-flipping push. My brow settles firmly at the snaking sight of wind magic drained of its life. I see only raw magic, erupting the shades of white and blue and all their children.

The giant swings for it, severing the back end of the arcane trail. Galanmarck twists around, diving straight for a supposed eye socket. The giant's head twists and its body follows suit. The immense being slows in its spin and returns to its current course. Us.

With the posture of a trained swordsman on the move, I am reminded of many things. A knight of grand damnation-bringing valour. While not the finest edge out there, that sword clearly shifts to a blunted core spawned from an immense tang. Truly, it is a weapon that lives to the logical extreme of what it is, a longsword.

Galanmarck dives back in with the aid of the landships. Their weapons can't seem to find any weak point. It's incomprehensible to my brother's technology. So, Galanmarck seems to have taken command. The wrist, he wants the wrists to be attacked!

Moving my fingers across the command tablet, I get more landships to aid in his attack. Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and more! All of them are letting loose with all they can muster. A tornadic spiral forms from many fire-breathing mothers. Even without the screens I can see it, the shimmer of ten million scales.

The giant slides to a halt, bringing its pommel to bear in a friction-making thrust. Galanmarck meets it for not a split second longer than he has to and the erupting magic trails up the giant. A black hand that can hold a city in a simple simian crease. Between its bone-like palm, it comes for him.

The greatest fly anyone shall ever know annoyingly evades the swat. The giant tries again, breaking the cloud cover with its clenching shockwave. It back walks, putting the light of Galanmarck back into view. My brother's protector dives to the ground while the landships crank broadsides up to face the giant.

Tens of thousands of Ancient-inspired cannon open up.

The handle enters both of the giant's hands, and its back leans the way of its namesake. That toweringly endless blade moves for the earth with a horizon blocking face shifting, with no signs of stopping. The ground starts to part, rising up so far it looks like it will rain as far away as here. Sand as far as the eye can see.

The cloud of dust breaks apart and, with a scream-backed swing, the former Valkinvar shatters his sword. The giant reels back a couple of steps, the shine of the broken steel glinting even in the day-less dark. Its body realigns itself, its unharmed body shakes off the distraction. It finds a moment of lethality and swings.

My eyes widen and body shakes at the sensation. A live man somehow makes his way out of the aura and safely lands through a cored-out mountain. Signalling for some landships to pull out to recover the fallen warrior. I inform the rest to take caution, whatever remains anyway.

The terminals ahead are hectic and panicked without any breaks. Shields are draining and that previous thrust into the earth has stranded some to their doom. Minding the positions of my fleet, I begin prepping their orders. Keep the giant back.

Keep. It. Back!

The first of many puts all it can into their forward engines, tearing the sky and air asunder to allow the passage of immense steel. Rocketing after each other, one after another. A stream of sacrificial warships plots their course. The giant brings an arm back, slapping away the start of the line. Metal splinters carry on like powder.

The giant rolls around more and begins to run in a wide arc. A course that puts it into the route of still occupied lands and cities. Making this urgent information clear, my flagship fires ahead into what we cannot save. Motioning a prayer to those I have killed with good intent, the tectonic crust curls around to knock the giant back.

An exploitable flaw of its aura... The underside. My thoughts clear. The fleet is my concern.

The New Stories fill the gap left by the Endearing Fury and the giant returns to its normal route. Turning back with a sneer, a thought crosses my mind. Why hasn't that airship lifted off yet!? I've read the specs, it's not this slow and ponderous and neither are the machines to fire it off!

"Grandguard Inerish, get that airship into the skies now!" I snap, catching her attention and redirecting her current call.

"Gnomon Air Control, what is the holdup?" she asks, and I put my focus on her. Now, of all times, I must know. Why is it still here?

"Magic reserves are not present for proper take off. I repeat, magic reserves are not present for proper take off," the pilot answers, and I sneer at the unexpected consequence of a previous choice. To think something like this isn't an essential function of that building!

"No matter, take on what you need in the air!" I go and the Grandguard nods at my command.

"Launch now. Get yourselves in the air." She passes on.

"Copy that, beginning ignition," the pilot answers, the feed cutting off as the Gnomon flickers with some life. The technological marvel adjusts its aim, and the airship flies off into the sky. Oddly enough, I catch sight of someone clinging onto the outside with such ugly, wind-lacking magic. My thoughts shake the view away and I frown at the giant as its focus snaps onto that one airship.

What the...?

Whoever that giant wants, it is on that aircraft. This entire time, it has sought the demise of perhaps even a lone individual. The one who awoke it from its slumber? Offended it somehow?

No matter, the giant will fall either way.

"All New Stories, cover the incoming Gnomon-launched airship. Stop the giant from intercepting it at all costs!" I boom through my speaker, forcing all the other voices out as the lone airship picks up speed. Its rockets grow increasingly ferocious but looks lead me to despair. It won't reach high enough, it's not quick enough. The ignition angle was too low and sharp... The parabolic curve...!?

The giant's strides are growing, its free hand is reaching out with utter finality. One leap to the heavens is all it will need. It won't even need to touch it, only the aura needs to reach. That airship is entirely unshielded. It will rain, as do the droplets of water.

"INTERCEPT IT NOW!" I roar, blowing a crater into the dirt next to me with the force of my words. My hissing breath disturbs the magical electronics. A few spark with exaggerated flashiness.

"This is His Lunar Majesty's Airship, Thunderous Brawler. Moving in." a named craft of all things answers and my teeth scrape. No, I cannot be risking named warships like this. To earn your name is to be a veteran! I can spend fresh hulls with no history... But, they're also the only one that can reach in time.

"Jharda the Mighty witness you." I speak quietly, collapsing my tense body on the cushions. It's our only option, this veteran of the war against the Valkinvar. The Captain-Engineer... His name? Ah, of course.

Everything it can drop is off-loaded and, with my senses, I can hear them. Crew, noble beasts of burden and war. That which lives is gone. All but the one man whose blood is bound to the ship.

"By your name, My Royal Highness, Prince-to-Ascend Jhrartur." Captain-Engineer Redsaal answers as his airship's engines glow with all available magic. From their slow kyanite dominance and all the way up to its Moonrim emerald limits, the engines' roar. Defiance, even as the world falls apart. The New Sto- Thunderous Brawler is falling apart. But, it will make it, it will!

Impact!

Caught mid-leap, the giant flips and rolls uncontrollably through the air. It crashes into the newfound depths of the land and I blink at the sight of all that sand. The blood of the brave and noble founding its cloudy form. But, what we want is achieved. The Thrurstradtur craft has made it past the giant.

Segaansallis, that is what Grandguard Inerish named it. Our hopes all now lie in that last chance. One made by the gods who abandoned us all that time ago. This changes nothing. Nevertheless, I offer a universal prayer to the one most likely responsible.

"Thurnmourer, may your craft prove true." I utter as quietly as I can, my aching body shuffling onwards to the edge of the mountain. Now, now we see if this plan will work. If the giant can be defeated with something of its own make. And, as I let them fight, I must wonder what to do with you...?

Whoever you are? Whoever brought this awful power out into the world. What shall we do... With you?