The Undying Emperor [Grand Conquest Fantasy]

The Aillish attack was a raid, marking it as the largest raid in centuries. People found it inconceivable, failing to reconcile their notion that cities, with walls, could only be taken by siege. The fact that Rackvidd had suffered a similar attack just a few years prior did nothing to help the matter. This proved to be a most troublesome headache for me, as fully half of the city believed it didn't happen. There were those that saw the golem stomp through a poor burrough, and a few who saw an unknown monster emerge from the sea, while others knew only of the looting and the rebellion.

But, even in the firelit night, enough people saw Lucius marching down the street, sword in hand. He was little more than a voice in the crowd until the golem's lance struck, then men began to turn to him. "Rally!" he shouted. "To me! To the docks!" he roared as men, uniformed and not, fell into a rankless rabble behind him. They eyed one another suspiciously, but the old bonds of blood held them together.

Of the tactics of the raid, little needs truly be said. Were I to leap about in the narrative, detailing how the wastelanders rushed in through the battered gate by the golem and seized the guards, or if I were to return to Austin Feugard as he attempted to control the channels of command to the city guard, I fear things would become incomprehensible in a purely textual format. What's more, it's known historic fact that the raid was pushed out.

Everything thus turns upon Lucius' fight to protect the cannons, and the two betrayals he suffered.

As the vestiges of life dripped from the angelhost, all manner of stigmata surged to new heights. If the stories are to be believed, one man single-handedly sank one of the pirate ships by leaping off the wall an plummeting through the decks. I have no notion whether it was some form of kinetic enhancement, gravitational in nature, or a different trick. Once he was below the water, he was never seen again. Others showed more mundane powers, such as one sharpshooter with a bow who proved capable of intercepting the ballistae shots from the Aillish with nothing more than a regular hunting bow. This is to say nothing of the myriad combat skills common to war, the berserkers and the fleet of foot, the aggravating roars and the elusive shadows.

The Aillish had their share too. Mere moments after he cut into a small party of marauders, thwarting them from setting fire to a grain depot, word flurried through the Aillish ships. Chaos continued to unfold as the Aillish deployed their countermeasure to the undying commander of the Vassish. As elsewhere on the docks erupted into flames, a party of oni warriors leapt from one of the foreign vessels. Trained from birth, they were mortal men with the size and strength of trollkin. Sturdy boards cracked beneath their armored weight as they charged the shield wall Lucius had organized. A volley of arrows did nothing to stop them, either breaking off against their segmented armor, or simply not piercing through enough of their flesh.

Their first blows were like the charge of trollkin, with pole-swords cleaving into shields with enough force to drive men to their knees. However, if the Aillish thought mere size would break the morale of Vassish men, they should have realized every soldier trained for the day he might have to fight a trollkin from the north. They fell back, only to cycle their composition and bring spears to the fore as arrows continued to slam into them from mere paces away.

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Lucius, however, was caught up in their attack before he could mount the steps to the battery of cannons. With no shield, they forced him away and soon cornered him against a warehouse wall. For all their strength, they were slow compared to a swordmaster, even compared to a blade dancing vagabond of Giordana. He ducked their swings and turned aside their thrusts. One of the eastern giants caught him in the side with the haft, and when Lucius grabbed hold of the iron-girded shaft, the oni hoisted him up to slam him down. The boy lanced the tip of his sword through the man's half-mask visor and rode him down to the ground.

Before he could leap free, a second pole-sword broke his left arm, snapping the bone in half and dashing him to the floor. Lucius roared in pain, rolling onto all fours to spring back up as his wastelander troupe loosed a swarm of arrows directly into their midst. Several caught him as well, but the shafts were trifling injuries to him, while they felled two of the great warriors. Leomund joined the fray as well. The oni were cumbersome warriors at the best of times. It took little to push one to his knees and pierce a blade through his back.

Despite this, they had committed half a dozen of their great warriors to Lucius alone, while more raiders pursued their goals. Ballistae from the ships were striking down shield formations and spreading fires demanded ever more attention. Relief was kept from the oni, but they fought to the last man. Lucius ended up losing the arm, and while the limb regenerated, one of their pole-swords caught him in the chest and ram him through. Lucius returned the favor by hacking off the man's hand at the wrist. As the Aillish man howled, Lupa slipped in and put a dagger through his armpit and into his heart.

Lucius's body was already healing around the weapon and he had to rip his chest open anew. Blood vomited from his mouth as Lupa helped pull him up. And so it was that he was separated from Leomund again. While Lucius struggled up to the cannons, Leomund drove an assault against the vessel which had brought the shield-breakers. Had that been all he did, it would have been a grand story of heroics and valor.

But it was upon the helm of that vessel when he looked across the bloody port and set eyes upon the flagship. They were hauling up one of the ley cannons with a winching crane, the ship swaying like in a storm as they dredged their booty from the sea. Despite the wan moonlight, he set eyes upon the cyclops and he knew her.

She knew him as well.

As the angelhost decayed, its arcane body at last losing coherence and shredding off of the golem's lance, Lucius could only watch with dismay as Leomund leapt into the water and swam to the enemy.

When the sun rose on Vassermark, the Aillish had been beaten back, but the minimum of their objectives had been met. They had one single cannon of the latest model, as well as captive artillerymen. They had paid a great blood price for it, but if given time, they would win the war between Aillesterra and Vassermark.

And Leomund Tolzi abandoned Lucius.