NOVEL NEXT Book 3, Chapter 20 - I had my weapon
Prior planning prevents piss poor performance. It was a lesson I'd long ago taken to heart. In my old line of work, you didn't last long if you didn't do things carefully. I was willing to pretend that it was the rise to becoming a god thing that was making me lose my touch, not that I was just slipping.
Assimilation of the Source of The Cycle: 56% complete
Starting a war between the Sun and Earth in order to bring on an apocalyptic winter was morally grey, at best. My people would be ok, we had a variety of magic that could assist us in keeping warm and producing food. The rest of the world did not.
It had taken two weeks for us to manoeuvre the army down out of the mountain passes, two long weeks in which the cold had begun to bite. My best guess was that we were somewhere towards the end of November, we still had four more moons to go before the next spring festival, and altitude brings on the seasons sooner.
The last week in the high pass had been rough. It hadn't quite reached the point of blizzards, but an early and heavy snowfall had led to delays. Our supply relay had been changed to accommodate the weather: only enhanced Huskar could reliably make the crossing laden with storage beads full of meat and grains.
Wilson and I were inspecting the rear elements as they finally reached the grasslands on the eastern side of the Worldspine range and fell into formation. Behind them, a pair of Huskars wrapped in heavy furs tramped through the packed snow, following along with our next set of consumables. Alongside them walked a single human, probably one of the craftsmen sent forward to help fix the battered wagons.
Glimpse was circling ahead of the temporary defensive positions we had assumed once we reached relatively flat ground and paused for the men and women to catch their breath. Scavenging parties sent out to gather fuel had encountered ambushes and hit-and-run attacks by the locals, and Glimpse played the eye in the sky for them.
"Let's go check on the frontlines, boy," I muttered against the freezing wind, leaning close to Wilson's ear. He wheeled and began to lose altitude, bringing us down at the fort that was catching the most attention from the locals.
I slipped off his shoulders as he touched down, and he immediately took off to circle over us. Constant vigilance was the name of the game now.
Bon was in discussion with a couple of Huskar commanders and Jandak. As I approached, they all turned and nodded to me.
"They won't face us head-on, Mond. Bloody cowards!" Jandak cursed, spitting to one side.
"Would you face us head-on? Can't blame them for not being complete morons," Bon laughed, his booming voice bouncing back from the wooden walls of the legion fort.
"Glimpse is watching the main force. They're falling back to the river. I reckon they'll try and hold there, but I've got plans for their leadership before we fight. What about the raids?" I asked.
Pertabon shrugged his massive shoulders while his officers fidgeted uncomfortably. Seeing beings eight metres tall look embarrassed and uncertain was a jarring experience.
"They're ghosts, Mond. Whatever magic they're using… They're bloody good at it," grumbled Jandak as he fingered the hilt of his sword and glanced around nervously. "Even with the ritual, which is starting to cause some problems of its own, some of the shifty bastards are slipping through."
"What was the damage last night?" I asked unhappily. While I appreciated the Shapeshift spells, whatever levelling path Jeremy's followers were forced to take made them dangerous. Permanently disguised and incredibly adept at passing unnoticed. Beauty, it seemed, was in the eye of the beholder, and matching ideals was part and parcel of their skills.
"Three minor fires, half a dozen dead," said one of the Huskar.
"Well, they won't be able to keep at it for much longer. Once we're on the march again, it will get easier," I offered.
"No, it won't. They won't have any problems keeping up; they're all A-ranked in the body stat. It's also far more chaotic, breaking camp, marching, and building new forts. A new man slipping in among ten thousand when they're all moving dozens of miles a day, it's not hard. Legio, these rituals the mortals have to do… they have taken on a zealous tinge that we find… disturbing," he replied.
"I've noticed." The daily marking of their bodies with my emblem, a different location every day, to catch the skindancers that had slipped into our camps the previous night, had taken on a religious bent. Most of them had scarred their arms or shoulders, but a few had taken to facial markings; my dagger emblem cut deep enough to scar despite their health regeneration, and I found it hard to meet their eyes. They looked at me like… well, like a starving man looks at a roast dinner. "There isn't much I can do about it, though."
There wasn't much that I wanted to do about it, either. As uncomfortable as I felt when they looked at me with their scarred cheeks, I needed to build a cadre of believers. Tezca and Morana had both been explicit on that point. I needed mortals to associate me with my domain, to connect me to more of my power.
"Perhaps a sermon of some sort?" Jandak suggested with a snigger. I scowled at him.
"Yeah, ask me to do something else I fucking suck at," I chuckled. "I'm going to check on our surprise. It's time we returned the favour to these sneaky bastards. We move on tomorrow, we'll aim to catch them at the river in a few days' time."
I nodded farewell to the Huskar, who immediately fell into discussing the logistics of the army, Bon issuing instructions and answering questions like a machine.
"You think they're ready?" Jandak asked as we made our way along the edge of the fort towards the nearest nomad camp.
"Ready or not, it's time. They're eager at any rate."
The frost was lasting well towards noon now, even at this lower elevation. We left footprints behind us, highlighted by the icy grass to either side, as we made our way to the new kill team's base of operations.
"Herpatik!" I called as I neared the copse of trees where they had been hiding while the initiates were trained.
"Lord Mond." His voice came from a patch of grass six feet to my right. He rose to his feet, his drab clothes having blended in almost perfectly with the scrub around him. I glared around at every clump of grass or dip in the ground.
"The rest of you can get up as well," I ordered. "I can see you." I couldn't, but it didn't hurt to keep them a little in awe of me.
Six more men rose to their feet, and two women joined them. They all wore earthy colours, browns and greens, with long felt hats to conceal their hair. They'd gotten close, a lot closer than they ought to have been able to. I was slipping, losing my touch.
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"Are you ready?" I asked, and Herpatik gave me a shit-eating grin.
"They'll do fine. Kril has loaded us up with poison and spell-stones. Just say the word, Lord." The group of hardbitten men and women nodded emphatically at their teacher's words.
"Same as when we were fighting Mortimer's troops, remember?" I told Herpatik.
"Yes, Lord. Slip in unnoticed, poison, burn, destroy, slip right back out again. Me and Janko learned our lessons well; this lot will do even better than us."
"You don't have to lead them. You're due the reward you were promised. Your friend took his already, and he's part of the leadership of Urkash now."
"Thank you, Killer. But I will work in your service one more time." His right fist slammed onto the left side of his chest, a sign that the other assassins mirrored. "Where's the bird? Be good to see Glimpse again."
"He'll be with you soon; he's just coming back from the front. Thank you, all of you." I met their eyes, all bright with zeal. A cadre of killers, off to do my work. "Good luck, and be careful. Information is often as valuable as a well poisoned or stores tainted. Your goal is to kill, not die." I smiled sadly at them, and they all grinned back. Kids. Young, idealistic kids, the lot of them.
We left them to rest and prepare for the next few nights of mayhem, making our way back to my own camp. The wagons were all arrayed with the shafts and collars all pointing outward, ready to be hitched as soon as the order was given.
The absence of children struck me. Usually, the camps were a riot of kids running about, fighting and playing. The high-pitched cries added a pleasant descant to the gruffer sounds of carpentry and metal work, and the basso rumbles of the aurox as they cropped grass nearby.
We passed a group of people being instructed in the use of Rapid Growth trinkets, led by a member of Faye's coven. The soil here was much richer than the barren hills that led up to the western side of the Worldspine, so despite the chill, crops of grains and vegetables were being conjured en masse to rebuild our supplies. We wouldn't be able to resupply over the mountains once we moved further east, but fortunately, the nomads and the legions were both adept at living off the land.
"Mond!" Kos approached us and offered a warrior's wrist clasp to Jandak and a short bow to me. "We march tomorrow? At last! The aurox don't like this grass, Mond. Thousands of aurox with upset stomachs is not a smell we want to linger in."
"He's not wrong," Jandak added. I hadn't noticed any difference in the smell. Nomad camps always smelled distinctly rural to my senses. Was it a little more pungent than usual at the moment? Perhaps, but not so much that I'd noticed.
"Are they sick?" That would be an issue. We could go without the wagons, but they were also an ambulatory food source, and as winter came on… "Is it time for a cull?"
"Nah. We don't need to worry about the quantity of the feed, just the quality. They'll get used to it in a couple of weeks, but in the meantime, there's going to be some grumbling about the camps being ripe!" Kos chuckled.
"Still, we should have a symbolic cull and a feast before we march tomorrow. Traditions are important. I'll kill the animals myself." This would be a useful opportunity to live up to my title of Killer. I had to build the faith, and adopting an old tradition to make it my own seemed like a good move.
"You've got a visitor to deal with first. Say's he's Prender, the captain you sailed with against the Kentanii," Kos said with a shrug.
"Where?" I snapped.
Kos led me to a tent set off to one side of the main area and went in first. I followed, sweeping the felt doorflap out of my way as it fell down behind my Fang. Huddled in the corner, looking distinctly worse for wear, was Prender.
"What's wrong with you?" I asked as I strode over, stepping around the low fire in the centre of the tent. He rose shakily to his feet and bowed deeply.
"I pledge my life to the Killer," he blurted out, his hands shaking where they rested on his knees.
"Stand up, bloke. That's sweet of you, but why?" I wondered.
"The lady of the waves…" He straightened and looked me in the eyes. "She is changeable. Every wind was against us, every reef had moved, our charts were fucking useless," he snarled bitterly.
I waved him over to the fire and sat down. "Kos, get us some yalk, will you?"
"Sure, Mond. Looks like the kid is scared of me. It's fine, boy, I'm one of Mond's Fangs, but I'm still just a man." Kos smiled warmly as the shaking young man sat down opposite me, then he left. The felt flap let in a brief blast of chilly air that set Prender to shivering again.
"She's in my dreams. Tentacles and pressure. And there's the bronze one as well. And an obsidian dagger. All fighting against each other, so I can't sleep! I can't close my eyes anymore!" With the flames below his chin, the depth of his sunken eyes became clear to me.
"I've seen her domain. Pressure. That's how it felt to me. Like everything around me was pressing in, trying to crush me."
"Yeah, Lord Killer. That's how it is when I sleep. Constantly crushed. The only release I get is when the Wargod intervenes, or your dagger slices the water away for a time. I don't remember the last time I slept properly."
Kos ducked back into the tent and placed a clay jar of fermented milk next to me, then made his way outside. I heard him settle into what passed for a guard position among the nomads, hopping up to perch on the waterbarrel outside the tent and whistling quietly to himself.
"I'm sorry, Prender. Fish-Tits, as Aresk calls her, is fickle and spiteful. I think it's due to her domain. The waters shift and change, so their anthropomorphisation does as well." I poured him a cup of yalk and passed it across.
He took a long sip, then coughed.
"It can catch your throat," I chuckled as I poured myself a cup.
"What was that word? The big one," he asked as some colour returned to his sallow cheeks.
"Oh. It means the thing made human, or something like that. It's probably not quite right for the gods. They aren't human versions of their sphere of influence. We're more like… I don't know, parasites. We become the thing we take control over. I never really studied theology," I said ruefully.
"Can you protect me from her?" he whispered, looking down at his cup.
Could I? I wasn't sure. I reached out with my aura, allowing it to carefully wrap around him, careful to keep the invisible blades intangible. There was something there, hiding under his skin. It felt like a taint to me, like… like Apollo's power contained around the Source in my chest. Alien, and out of place.
"I can try. She still has some connection to you; her domain is there in your body. A domain is like, it's hard to explain, it's like a power and a place at the same time. It feels like a stain on your soul to me. I can try to help you, but first, I think you need to live up to your oath to me."
Prender flinched and took a long drink, choking the harsh liquid down. "What do you want me to do? Kill someone? Like a sacrifice? I've heard the stories of the Sykareskyn. Savage rituals where heads are cut off and turned into toys for children, mass slaughter of your enemy's animals so they starve."
"What? No! Well, the head thing is true, but they steal each other's animals; they don't kill them. Maybe that cannibal tribe did that kind of shit, but they're dead now."
"Cannibals?" he asked nervously.
"I killed them. It was my first battle on this world. We had a few hundred warriors; they had a few thousand, but we had magic. We destroyed them and scattered their women and children across the steppe. Do you remember how I refused to give you magic because of your allegiance to Poseidon? I was trying to protect you, but all it did was leave you powerless in the face of her spite. She can't hurt me directly, but she can punish those who help me. I'm sorry, Prender. Sorry, you got caught up in this."
"I just want to be able to sleep again, Lord. What do you need me to do?" The bloke was desperate. Sure, I felt like a shit about what had happened, and even worse about what I planned to use the young man for, but in the end, I hoped it would be for the best for the poor kid.
"Here." I held out an arm across the fire, the thin smoke parting around my forearm. "Take my hand, and I'll give you magic. You'll be tied to me, and it should drive out Poseidon's influence. You'll be stronger and faster, but you'll be tied to me for as long as I live, and I expect to live for a very long time."
He hesitated, seemingly torn between his nightly torments and the prospect of wearing a collar. I knew I wasn't a harsh master, and I'd like to think the independence of my Soulbound showed as much, but it was hard to convince a man who didn't understand how it worked that I wouldn't abuse my control.
After a moment, he extended his hand and grasped my own.
I sent him five thousand souls. Enough to make him reasonably powerful. I'd have to go hunting and get some more soon; I'd need to boost up my troopers as well.
"Don't use any of them yet," I said, watching as his eyes flicked back and forth over glowing letters only he could see. "We need to have a chat with some of the Mage-Huskar. They'll be able to guide you to getting the water affinity."
I checked the bond in my mind, the thread from my soul to his was strong and clear. My aura swept over him, checking for the taint of the Ocean, and found he was clear now, all that remained was something that resonated softly to my aura.
"I think you'll be able to sleep easier now, Prender."
I had my weapon, my usurper.