Lament of the Slave

Knowing about the suckers coming made it easy to deal with - or avoid - them. The bats might be fast, but they were also big. You could see them coming from a long way off. Not so much the arrows. Against the dark sky lit by clashing magic, it was almost impossible to see them with the naked eye, even with mana.

Even my domain was no help. By the time I registered the arrow, it was almost too late to react. So how did I manage to keep my ass from getting shot? Instincts. Well, sort of. Where the arrows were coming from was obvious, from behind enemy lines, so I pricked up my ears and listened.

There was a certain whistle to them as they tore through the air.

Admittedly, my first try was a miserable failure. I whimpered in pain as the noise of the battlefield cut into my ears. The second and third attempts didn’t go much better, and in the midst of fighting octopuses, an arrow landed in my back. I don’t know exactly where it hit, not my spine, I was sure of that, but it hurt like hell.

Stella promptly ripped it off.

“How are you doing that?”

“What?” she shot back, dancing on the battlefield. It was probably just my feeling, some stupid self-perception, self-criticism, but it seemed to me that I was still as clumsy as ever, while Stella was becoming more and more of a seasoned veteran with each cycle. 

Damn frustrating.

“How come you haven’t been shot yet?”

“You want me to get shot?”

I snarled back. That wasn’t what I meant, and she knew it. The fact that she could afford to make a joke in the middle of a battle, however, spoke volumes. The threat of death no longer held her. She fought with the ease I knew from our squad dives in Fallen’s Cry - well, from the upper levels of the labyrinth, of course. Technically, we never left the ancient structure.

“I’m sticking close behind you,” Stella revealed her trick, no shame or guilt in her voice.

Another annoyed growl almost escaped my throat, and I swallowed all the snide remarks that came to the tip of my tongue. I was a tank, after all. This was my job.

Frustration and pride struck my heart at the same time.

Nevertheless, my mixed feelings about my career aside, one question nagged at my mind - how moving behind my ass could save Stella from being shot. My shadow wasn’t that big. Sure, I was generally bigger in my beast form, but my back reached at most below Stella’s tits.

A brief observation of my friend and her sword dance behind my beast butt, and I had my answer.

In short, some of my protective instincts must have kicked in. I couldn’t explain Sage’s movement otherwise. Of his own accord, he moved with Stella, covering her back where my shadow could not. Just as my tail’s hair was able to swallow the spikes of the Crystal Rat, so was the arrows. And what Sage didn’t cover, my wings did.

I found the whole thing fascinating - and betraying.

Instead of covering for me, Sage devoted his efforts to Stella. 

But jokes aside, the way I moved my limbs unconsciously, somewhere at the edge of my awareness, was something Geran and Vienlin were trying to teach me. According to them, in order to become a great shifter, I had to learn to lean on my beast to the point where I gave it almost complete control over me - not quite, but almost, while never losing myself. Up until now, I’d had a hard time fully grasping what they were trying to tell me, or rather, imagine. It was a very fine line to walk.

Sure, there was fear involved, fear of the unknown that also held me back. It would be a lie to say otherwise. Regardless of the reasons, though, it turns out I had my answer all along - right behind my ass, so to speak.

Not that knowing that changed much. While having an idea of what the destination looked like was nice, it didn’t make the journey to it any faster. Besides, we were in the middle of a battle. Experimenting with my skills would surely lead to our demise.

“Heat ray!” A warning roar came from the knights. 

My wing moved. Just a faint flutter, of its own accord, as I decided to move to the right, an indication for Stella. She picked it up and dodged the heat ray with me. No words needed.

And so we fought, dancing that deadly jig together on the battlefield.

Another five-star octopus fell, and then another. The more of them that went down, the faster the senior knights could kill others, the faster they could rush to help Ronnu with the six-star beast. Once she had her knight commanders and the rest of the Seventh at her back. The hulking beast, giving Ronnu more trouble than I thought, ceased to be a match for her.

It cost me a few mistakes, but I couldn’t help but keep an eye on them, Ronnu and senior knights. They didn’t talk much, just eye contact, a hand movement here and there, a little nod, and each knew what to do - almost as if they had some sort of telepathic communication between them. I knew better, though. Here, with Eleaden’s constant pressure on one’s mind, such communication was extremely dangerous. Not in the sense of Eleaden getting into your mind. The uninon rings simply did not work that way. According to Traiana, they did not leave the mind open. But even the best local versions of the union rings could not prevent Eleaden from intercepting their communication without the person in question having to raise a silencing field.

No, non-verbal communication was the best solution.

After all, beasts, especially ones as powerful as these, weren’t stupid, no matter how dumb they looked or how clouded their gaze was by Eleaden’s madness. They were able to understand human speech, too, and they did listen.

The cooperation of the senior knights of the Seventh was beyond my imagination. Where one left an opening, the other covered it. Where one created one, the other two took advantage of it. Before long, they had the six-star beast suppressed to the point where it was unable to do anything. 

Ronnu distanced herself from the beast for the first time since the battle began.

While the little octopuses and their one-star cousins would not leave us alone, neither Stella nor I could suppress our suspense. 

Ronnu was up to something, no doubt.

A breath later, the hairs on my body stood on end.

I wasn’t the only one to freeze. All the beasts around us turned their attention to the High Commander. Too late. Time seemed to stand still for a heartbeat, the air around her thickened and space distorted. Ronnu crouched into an attack stance, her sword drawn at her waist. The blade glowed with a revolting amount of mana - or aura, if you will.

Then, in one graceful motion, like a goddess, she slashed upward.

An aura blade that no heat ray could match sliced through the battlefield toward the six-star beast. The octopus didn’t stand a chance. Unable to pull back its tentacles, engaged by the knights, in time to protect itself, it took the attack head on.

The result left me speechless. A six-hundred-level beast split in two.

Slowly but surely, the two halves of the huge body separated and collapsed to the ground with a sickening smack. 

The beast was dead. 

Its tentacles, however, didn’t seem to get the memo and continued to wriggle around for a while.

“Korra!” shouted Stella, no less edgy than I was. If the dying attack of the five-star beasts was a pain in the ass to deal with, then the one to come might mark the end of the cycle for us and a significant hurdle to overcome in the future. Time passed, the massive tentacles ceased their death throes, and nothing came.

There was no last-ditch attack.

Instead, my ears were met by the triumphant roar of the knights. A triumphant roar that Stella and I joined in, despite still having to fight off the weaker cousins of the now dead beast.

Sure, we didn’t get anywhere near the six-star octopus and couldn’t even dream of wounding it. However, it didn’t change the fact that what Ronnu and the senior knights had accomplished made me feel like it was my victory as well, that me and Stella were a part of what they had done.

And what WE did, I realize now, what Ronnu did, was to get rid of a six-star beast without giving it a chance to make a devastating attack on the battlefield. Ronnu held back, not killing it, likely because she wasn’t confident of killing the beast in one blow, not without the help of the others.

Her presence struck the battlefield, quelling the excitement. “Keep your guard up, Sevens! More fuckers are coming.”

She was right - of course.

The weaker octopuses were still tentacled across this part of the battlefield, and more beasts were already surging over the dead bodies of their stronger cousins. So far, held back by the six-star behemoth, they’d stormed the battlefield with crazed bloodlust in their eyes. Not one species, but many, their strength varying.

“Keep track of those around you!” Ronnu shouted as a shower of arrows rained down on the charging beasts, turning some into pincushions and tearing others to shreds. “Do not leave the line! Fight as I know you can, and we will prevail!”

Her presence may have been a far cry from Rayden’s calming aura, but it was there, reassuring. What she lacked in skills, she made up for in her voice. The confidence, strength, and determination were contagious.

To my surprise, the archers managed to hold back the charging beasts more than I had expected.

It was logical, though.

This part of the front line lacked the stronger beasts to cover the weaker ones, and the archers seemed to concentrate much of their fire here. And so, before we could feel the shift on the battlefield, the change, the whiff of a new stench, it took a while. When some of the beasts did manage to reach our lines, Ronnu and the senior knights made quick work of them.

“Why aren’t we pushing forward?”

“Rookie . . .” the nearest knight shook his head at my question without further explanation. A valid question in my mind. This was an opportunity to break through the enemy lines.

“We’re on the defensive here,” Traiana explained. At first I found her presence on the battlefield a bit distracting. She was there for my eyes, not my senses. She was another person I had to keep track of, to remember that she wasn’t a fighter, that she wasn’t covering my ass - nor did she need to be protected. “We need to hold our lines, not stretch them.”

‘Wouldn’t that relieve the pressure on our flanks? Hell, shouldn’t we be helping our flanks?’

“What you should do is take this opportunity to regain some of your strength. This won’t last long, little guardian,” Traiana explained, picking up where my thoughts had led me, as she did so many times before. “Eventually, and it won’t be long, powerful enough beasts will appear in the breach. In fact, I trust it will do you no harm to know now that it will be two of the same strength as the octopus.”

That wasn’t like her. She hardly ever revealed anything about the future/the past/the events we were yet to experience. It was very confusing to talk about time here in the echo of the past.

Still, Traiana made me shut up - silence my thoughts. She had lived through this; Ronnu and the commanders above her knew what to do, not me, who had come closest to the war through television screens. At best, I could call myself a sofa war strategist, and that was a stretch. Movies involving historical battles weren’t exactly among my favorites, unless they had a little romance thrown in.

I have to say, though, that if I ever returned to Earth as I am now, a hybrid of man and beast, my preferences would be different for sure - more brazen, more action-oriented, be it on the battlefield or in bed.

Anyway, unless you count the overly affectionate octopus hugs, I haven’t seen much romance on the battlefield.

Stupid thoughts, I know.

I blamed the lack of enemies on the battlefield for where my brain took me. Actually, I hated it. Together with the other knights, we quickly got rid of the straggling octopuses, only to be left with nothing to do.

“Korra?” I could taste Stella’s tension and impatience on my tongue; she reeked of it. Some of the knights were no different, looking around, searching for something to sink their weapons into - without leaving their positions, holding the line. Admittedly, I was worse off.

“I am good.” A blatant lie. Having nothing to do was killing me to the point where I wished the archers would stop shooting.

Stella moved; I froze.

Before I knew it, she was at my side, my senses instantly searching for the enemy.

The bitch began to stroke my head.

“You know what Traiana said? Try to rest while you can.”

My answer was a gruff growl, even though I knew they were both right. I just couldn’t loosen up, no matter how damn nice her stroking was. “Relax? Right now? Are you kidding me? Maybe I should lie on my back for a fucking belly rub, huh?”

Her hand stopped mid-stroke. “If you want.”

“Fine!” 

Refusing to back down from the foolishness I had uttered in my temper, I threw myself to the ground after checking my surroundings and rolled onto my back, just to taunt her and prove - I didn’t even know what. Stella’s hands on my soft, furry belly took me completely off guard. Not for a moment did I think she’d go through with it.

The bitch quickly found the right spot, and as my left leg gave way to an uncontrollable twitch, I squealed with delight, defenseless, unable to resist.

“Good girl.” Stella enjoyed it as much as I did.

“The fuck . . . ?” Of course, our bizarre, battlefield-unworthy behavior did not go unnoticed by the other knights. It raised a few eyebrows at first, but when the first one laughed, the others followed in a heartbeat.

The tension was gone.

“Not there. It tickles, I’ll piss myself!” I protested while Stella’s fingers relentlessly traced my weak spots. “Ronnu would . . .”

In fact, I was expecting Ronnu to put us in the right place by now, to slap us with her presence. Or at least that Pom Nilzibarge, our Knight Commander, would do so.

But he didn’t.

When I managed to catch a glimpse of the man, all he did was shake his head in disapproval. Ronnu even cracked a smile. As much as I didn’t want to be shouted down by either of them, the betrayal pierced my heart. When I needed their help the most, they left me at the mercy of a merciless and mighty foe - belly rubs.

***

In the end, I didn’t die to Stella’s fingers, nor did I piss myself - though I came damn close.

As the sun rose, hidden behind heavy dark clouds, the Seventh defeated the two beasts Traiana mentioned. They were rather ugly six-hundred level fuckers. On the other hand, among the beasts that came with them, various species, there were some quite cute ones, like a furball the size of a basketball.

Their cuteness nearly killed me.

The fuzzy fur of the furball was poisonous to the touch, coated with a poison stronger than mine, embarrassingly so, and underneath lay a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. These land-rolling beasts could chew through the armor I wore, completely ignoring the chill of my mane. But what soothed my wounded pride every time was when I squashed one of them. If you were willing to get poisoned, which I was, given my regeneration, the beasts were easy to kill.

Quite a contrast to the fuckers that came after them.

Beastmen.

For a new species, only decades old, they were damn strong. I mean, sure, it took four of them to keep Ronnu at bay, but they managed. It was actually quite unnerving to see the woman forced onto the defensive. In fact, all the knights had their hands full with them, myself and Stella being no exception.

We may not have faced one with his wits intact, but the cross between a leopard and a man beset by madness gave us both more than a hard time.

“I know you warned us about them, but . . . damn,” Stella said, her eyes fixed on the landscape below the cliff, massaging the spot on her neck where the beastman had bitten and torn out a large chunk of her flesh. “Sorry, Korra. My mistake. I should have expected it.”

Normally, I’d tell her not to worry. After all, we’d come as far as we’d ever come in our 9th dive into battle. We had fought through the night and were only hours away from our goal. Only this time, I found no such words of comfort within myself.

“Korra, talk to me. You haven’t spoken since the new cycle began.”

I simply couldn’t.

“Traiana?” She turned her attention to the ancient woman, seeking the answers I was terrified to give her.

Our guide didn’t speak right away, considering her words. “After you died, little one, the beastman you fought grabbed the little guardian here - through him, Eleaden overwhelmed her.”