Ferenike 11 - Settling your Grave
Thousands of feet were marching.
Boom boom thundered the marching drums, in lockstep with sandaled feet.
Golden and glinting spear tips loomed like a forest above the heads of the Legionnaires, marching from the Dawn Fortress into the green around it and then the desert beyond.
Ten thousand men and women at arms. One spear among many.
She wondered at these marching men as she drank her sweet citrus tea. Ninth Legion was preparing to mobilize, following after the Third and Fifth Legions. Her eyes followed their red banners with golden symbols, horses and lions, and their ancient clan numerals III and V. Soon the snake banner with its numeral of IX would be down there too, spears and swords raised towards the south and seeking the blood of their enemies.
Soon she would head south, with tens of thousands of others. Which was why Dragoumis had called her to his office.
"You and your friends have a month." He had said to her.
"You're a generous man Centurion." Ferenike said quietly. He sighed.
"I'm sending you off to quite possibly die alongside me. Its the right thing to do. I've already had this talk with Optio Kafatos, and Tessarians Augustan and Rongnu. Tell your trainees to settle their accounts, say goodbye to their families, then go. Do what you need to, you're strong enough." He said quietly, hands clasped in his lap as he sat in a chair across from her, leaning forward as his tea sat half drunk on the table between them.
Ferenike nodded and set down her half finished tea. They'd need to finish this drink when the war was over. She stood. He rose to match her and saluted. "Don't die until you can stand next to me again." He ordered.
She saluted in return. "I'll be back sir." She promised.
The Trainees stood before her in front of their building, twenty men and women in neat ranks, with bright and well-kept uniforms. Their spears in hand and their shields glinting in the sun, armor and helm polished to a golden shine. Some of them had even risen into the Third Heavenstage by now.
She stood before them, clad in her preferred golden robes over which she wore her lamellar armor. Her hat sat atop her own small helmet, secured firmly. Her hands were held behind her, clasped tightly together as a tightness in her chest tried to spread.
"I've trained you for years. You are some of the best I have ever seen. Against the Abyssal Devil Bees, you
will die, ignominiously, if you fight alone. Remember the words of the Legion!" She said, the wind carrying her voice to them as she watched them. Their faces were hard, confident. They knew what they were supposed to do. They were each alone a grain of sand, weak. Together they were still weak, but the bronze she had made of them together would hold, and those who did die would die with glory and purpose.
"Unity!" They cried.
"Unity!" She shouted with them.
"Duty!" They bellowed.
"Duty!" She bellowed with them.
"FOR THE CLAN!" They roared, Qi flaring and sending the wind into a frenzy.
"FOR THE CLAN!" She roared with them, the furnace heat of her voice blasting their faces.
She smiled. "Centurion Dragoumis has given you leave to settle your accounts, and say goodbye to your families. Use it, and return to us with no lingering regrets. You have a month."
"Understood ma'am!" They shouted.
She waved a hand. "Dismissed!"
They began to disperse at her words. She watched them go, noting Pleminon and Agha and Deimos and Agrippa...
Some came to talk to her, asking for last bits of advice on this or that technique or philosophical musing. She stayed for more than two hours to talk to them and in their own way, soothed their nerves. Their first battles would be soon. Eventually, the courtyard was empty.
She stared up at the empty building for a long moment and then turned to leave. One more student to say goodbye to.
She found Katerina Salviati training amongst towering stones twice the height of a man. Ferenike could taste the concentrated Qi in the air as the Green Legion Training Field summoned up semi-translucent enemies for her student to fight, as she took in the gathered Qi it provided. The simulacra broke with a sound like wind chimes as her fists and feet shattered them easily. Hmmm, she'd have to make a note to study these arrays later, they might be useful. Strange that it had never occurred to her... She shook her head.
Minor distraction dispelled she returned to examining her student.
The girl had risen to the Fourth Heavenstage in a flurry of progress. Now she was a bit stuck again, needing time to settle and her foundations to cure properly.
Ferenike entered the array and as Katerina turned with a back hand to strike at one of the illusions, Ferenike's fist shot through it and caught her hand with a
whumpf of air. Sand kicked up around them, some dispersed away from them by her Qi.
"Student." She said simply and let go.
Katerina's hand zipped back to her hip and she bowed. "Teacher." Then she straightened.
Hmm, she'd gotten a lot taller and her face had a more weathered sheen to her bronzey skin. Her eyes were more focused, no longer darting around wildly looking for a fight in everything, now looking at the fight right in front of her.
She grimaced. "You're deploying with the Ninth aren't you?" She asked.
Ferenike put her hands in her sleeves. "I am, your parents have been very thankful for my service so far and to you." She smiled. "Told me they were pretty proud of you."
Katerina snorted and then laughed. "That's... good. Yeah. That's good."
Then she glared at Ferenike. "Want to fight?" She asked hotly.
Ferenike smiled, and answered with a fist screaming towards her sternum.
And then they were off, exchanging blows in a lightning fast flurry, the sound of ringing gongs flying out from the array circle as fist met palm and forearm and guts.
She could tell her student was frustrated, frustrated to be kept back from the Legions to defend the Salviati holdings. Frustrated that her parents were proud of her, but didn't let her go. Not something... Ferenike could really understand if she was honest. She'd give a lot to live with her parents again...
Perhaps in her next life?
She didn't know.
"You're distracted. Are you afraid teacher?" Katerina asked bluntly.
Ferenike caught her kick on a forearm and countered with a punch to her extended hip, speaking as the girl dodged away. "... yes." She said.
Katerina backpedaled, making space as she looked at Ferenike in subtle shock and curiosity. "Really? Are you afraid of dying?" She asked, seeming incredulous.
Ferenike nodded. "Yes. Some for myself, but mostly, for my students. The Heavens will kill them if they are weak and they give them no time to become strong."
She looked meaningfully at Katerina.
"Even me, huh." She said thoughtfully as they circled each other.
Ferenike nodded.
"You got friends who can help?" She asked.
"Hah! Yes, I do. We'll do our best." She said with a smile.
"Don't fucking die out there teacher, you need to live so I can beat you eventually." Katerina said with a grumble.
"Oh? Like I'd just sit still for you to wallop me over the head! Silly girl!" She shouted as she leapt through the air and kicked Katerina in the gut, propelling her out of the array with a whoosh of displaced air.
"You still need to learn how to dodge!" She shouted as she chased after her student.
She took Fuxi and Gallius with her the following day.
They rode on Iron-Backed Horses, crossing a thousand li every day as they rode them down the glimmering blue South Road. Bred as courier horses the Iron-Backs needed barely any rest, only an hour every night and then they were back to their gallop. They reached the border in a blink of the eye, and after several more days of searching found the many small communities of mortals who moved with the seasons and between the oases, much like the ancestors of her people. These were the people they had tracked down once before, years ago.
Now the three of them were gathered in a quiet home, served tea and simple rice, their travelling robes and armor out of place in this small adobe and petrified cactus building. Apparently the peoples here built these homes to live in for months at a time, and then left them empty for months more, slowly built up by the generations passing through until they became small compounds in their own right drawing from what little water they could find.
Sitting before them at the other side of his kitchen table was the local village hetman, an elderly man whose appearance hearkened from the clan, with bright red eyes indicating some other people in his line. His hair was as white as the illustrations of snow she had seen in books, and distantly on the peaks of the Hardshell Mountains, and it was thinning under his desert clothing.
"We hadn't called you because the Scarred Scorpion never truly hunts more than one or another of us in a given year. A cautious beast, half blind and vicious. We around here spread the burden of staying out of the way of the damned thing, and well... its peaceful around here..." He trails off, seeming uncomfortable.
Ferenike exchanged glances with Fuxi and Gallius. They all had the same dubious expression on their faces. Peaceful, this close to a beast and so far out into the desert? That sounded like they sometimes fed bandits to the thing.
Fuxi laid her hands on the table and fixed the man with her red eyes, a deeper and sharper shade than his. "And would you be... harmed... if we were to slay it?" She asked cautiously.
The man laughed and waved his hand. "Don't worry girl, its not like that, not anymore at least." He leaned closer and began to gesture as he spoke.
"See, back in my grandfather's time this area was right there on the edge of Cannibal Lands. We've never been worth much but it was worse back then. Your Centurion Regas's outpost was all that kept us from being torn to shreds by them. When that beast showed up the canny thing extorted a deal from my grandfather and in return for feeding it Battle Blood Cannibals and hiding its location it left us alone. It was never enough of a problem for Regas to hunt the bloody thing down then and was actually helpful. Never did figure out why the thing hated them so much it was willing to give up on eating us..." He mused, and then shrugged as he clasped his hands on the table and finished his story.
"With the Cannibals gone, the deal with the Scorpion died, along with the first member of our community. However it had been wounded at some point in the time between the Grand Elder's Polishing of the Cliffs and the first colonization wave, probably by folks from your Clan if I don't miss my guess. It's stayed out of sight since, only hunting from ambush and Regas has had his plate busy securing the caravans heading south east. From what a passing cultivator of the Hong Xuan clan said after escaping the beast, its spear scarred shell has grown so thick that it can't molt anymore and is soon to die." He shifted uncomfortably, and then his gaze hardened.
"Kill that damned thing and you'll make me a happy man for avenging my son and daughter. Even without its "protection" we're worth nothing to bandits, and in another few generations my children's children will have wandered away from these dunes to better lands. Possibly those new Burnished Crags." He said, tone vicious and vengeful.
Ferenike bowed her head. "As you wish grandfather. We'll do as you ask. Please go to Regas if trouble strikes." She said sincerely.
He laughed, smiling. "Aye girl, aye we will. Don't worry about us here, we'll do fine." He said with a bow in return. "Now, eat, drink. Then fight."
They dug into the simple meal and finished quickly, chatting with the elder about the weather and his family of several dozen grandchildren.
Soon though they left, directions towards its approximate lair in hand. An old and ruined temple complex spanning many
li in the desert, most of it sunk beneath the sands. When they reached it they found a forest of pillars, each large enough you couldn't circle your arms around them, inscribed with faded Third Sea glyphs and paintings of river and valleys. The faded green and blue paint indicated a fertile land once.
Perhaps it was a place from before the creation of the Desert? The once fertile seat of some lost kingdom?
They didn't know and there was no one to tell them.
Between the pillars slumped many sandstone buildings, crumbled and decayed, some slumped entirely onto their sides in the shifting sands. Towering dunes were built up on their windward sides, the desert slowly fighting to swallow this place entirely and sink it beneath its endless grasp.
They proceeded into it cautiously, holding themselves close in formation as they maneuvered their mounts deeper between the pillars and ruined buildings. To her left Fuxi was sitting snugly in the Fifth Heavenstage, and to her right Gallius had climbed back to the third, the acupoints in his restored leg giving him trouble.
The wind howled fitfully through the stones, sometimes whistling, sometimes groaning like a dying man. The sun beat down upon them like a thousand hammers, dry and sucking the sweat from their skin.
Eventually, following a mostly obscured road they reached a central plaza of sorts. A circular space with three roads intersecting here and around it in a ring were more of the pillars. To the west was a smaller building with a small door they could just squeeze their mounts through, where the Scorpion couldn't get at them. Here would do.
"Fuxi, Gallius, I think in there will work," She said as she gestured at the small pile of rubble. "Hide in there while we use your plan Gallius to draw it out."
Gallius looked at her, concerned. "You sure? We don't
have to you know." He said quietly.
She shook her head. "I need to fight it for a moment on my own, so keep an eye out for a chance to back me up. I'll use one of those pillars to stun it, then we can enter the Hoplite together and slay it."
They both nodded. "Alright Ferenike." Fuxi told her quietly with a pat on her shoulder.
They took the time to dismount and tie off Fuxi and Gallius's horses in the building and then they took Ferenike's into the middle of the plaza and as Ferenike held it still and Fuxi kept watch, Gallius took a belt knife and carved open a long but shallow cut in its side. As the beast whinnied and kicked wildly the scent of its blood suffused the air. They made sure to smear it around the south side of the plaza.
Tying it off near one of the pillars to the north, where the horse pulled and struggled for a time before settling and turning to nurse at its wound, she sat before it facing into the center of the plaza. With an effort of will she forced veins to emerge from the palm of her hand and holding it out over the ground sprayed a fine mist of her blood to join the mélange of blood scent already present.
Then with shield in hand she waited.
The sun crawled across the sky, the forest of shadows from the pillars rotating across the ground like the hands of a clock. Her breath was steady and her mind abuzz with the marching of her legions in her body. Glass rising to just below the surface of her skin and her muscles readying themselves as her hyper aware eyes scanned every minute shift of sand, her Qi senses prickling in the wind.
It came with a boom of thunder.
With a terrible shriek the pillar behind her was ripped into a sandy whirlpool, a lashing stinger piercing her horse clean through. And then the eight footed thudding that haunted her dreams came, as the horse was flung into the gnashing circular furnace maw of the creature. Ferenike
leaped away from the distracted beast at a dead sprint. Not a moment too soon as she heard the thunk of a gigantic spear sized stinger slam into stone and the
hiss as that stone evaporated into red hot dust.
In her heart she laughed as she beheld the killer of her master.
It was twenty meters long, each leg the size of a small pillar, each pincer thrice her size, its flesh a scintillating crystal glass, and at its front over its rotating maw of glass blades it had eight eyes and pedipalps like a long mustache flexing around it. Scoring across five of its eyes was a massive scar, pulping them and leaving deep cracked craters in half of its face. The other three were green faceted crystals that stared at her with hatred. Its shell was thick and crusted with scars, and she could see the dark shadows of its firelit organs through it. And up on its top was the craters of spear blows she remembered well.
"You! Human whelp! I remember you! I, Old Jingzhi, shall savor your eye flesh for what your master did to me!" An old, hissing voice echoed through the plaza as it paused and stared at her.
Her breath stopped and she noted its cultivation. Ninth Heavenstage, a hair's breadth from the Foundation Building realm.
Ah.
She smiled. Not unexpected.
With a roar Old Jingzhi barreled forward, the sound of his steps rumbling like an earthquake. Light burst from him, the refraction of the sun intensified a hundred fold into a wash of white light.
There was an answering blast furnace roar, as a glorious red light unfolded from her. They swallowed the plaza in their radiance, two massive shadows looming in the burning glow.
Ferenike's heart beat wildly, a glowing beacon on her chest as Qi burned through her. In the enthusiastic screaming of her mind she could almost swear she felt the soft touch of her old master.
As Jingzhi charged she whirled and struck at the pillar behind her with the edge of her shield. The stone came apart like sand and the pillar toppled.
Leaping into the air she grasped it with both hands, fingers cracking the stone as they dug into it. Wielding it like a giant club she
twisted in mid air and swung it at the charging Scorpion, every muscle, every bone, every vein, every flake of glass soldier in her blood screaming in effort!
BANG!
The pillar met the Scorpion's charge and smashed into his side with a mountain shaking sound, his dodge to the side failing with a spurt of clear ichor glinting in the sun. He was lifted up off his feet and flung across the plaza as the pillar disintegrated from the blow and he shrieked like an exploding steam geyser.
"Foul damnable demon child!" He howled as he wriggled on his back and flipped back over, hissing as his barbed stinger, a black and evil looking thing loomed above his enormous body.
"Now!" Ferenike shouted as her spear manifested in her hand and she brought up her shield, her glass armor bubbling into being.
Two golden blurs joined her on either side and then there was a thrumming boom as the Hoplite surged into existence, casting its shadow in her light.
Their shield caught the spear-stinger of the Scorpion with a clang. Lashing again and again and again, faster than the eye could follow the clever old beast sought out their weaknesses. But Ferenike
was the Hoplite and so were her friends, and together their eyes saw the truth.
With a howl of frustration Jingzhi reared, one of his great pincers coming to grip the shield as he almost crawled onto it, wrestling with Ferenike! The other swooped low, a dark blade heading for her guts!
Clang!
Her spear jabbed into the soft meat of the pincer and it jerked back, clamping shut on the spear. Leaving them open to the stinger.
With a roar Gallius's own spear emerged from the Hoplite to meet it for a moment. Then a bolt of lightning raced down the shaft and head and exploded where it met the stinger, sending it careening to the side.
Arcs of stone dissolving poison melted the stone behind them into a lake of sizzling dust as they ducked.
Ferenike fixed her feet. Pulling from the depths of her Dantian, that great glass sea where unholy fire burned deep below, she ripped free a massive pillar of Qi and wrapped it around the spear of the Hoplite. Fuxi released another bright blast, dazzling the Scorpion's remaining eyes. She felt Gallius's Qi wrap around hers, draining him terribly, and the mighty surge of glass wrapping around the spear of their formation surged even further, its inner light brightening with blues to match her reds.
The royal purple spear crashed into Old Jingzhi's belly and he was cast away with a burst of near blinding light and breath stealing heat, a splatter of molten ichor ripping its way free to burst against their shield and hiss against it evilly. He crashed through a building to the south, tumbling in a tangle of legs and a flailing stinger. His shrieks of raged echoed over the temple ruins and was met by the crashing clang of the Hoplite advancing at a sprint.
"Hah! Foolish!" He barked and then dozens of house sized stones erupted from the dust cloud left in his wake. Ferenike saw him picking them up and throwing them with his great pincers, each nearly half as large as he was.
Gallius's hand helped guide hers as Fuxi watched for further trickery, and the Hoplite's glass infused spear stabbed forward three dozen times. Gigantic stones were split cleanly, the cuts glinting in the sun as the rock melted under the heat of her blows, instantly rendered into a clear glass.
All around them Ferenike could see the battlefield becoming molten from the heat of the combatants. Mortals would be dead now, boiled alive by the heat.
Then they were upon the old Scorpion and he clacked his pedipalps in glee.
Then his mouth seemed to swell, and glow, and then there was a
rush of superheated glass and flame from his maw. There was no thought as Ferenike reacted, drawing on the Qi invested into the Hoplite and forcing it into her own throat. She screamed in return, the sound drowning out the roar of the Scorpion's own blast as her stream of molten glass and heat slammed into his. For a moment the two blasts mixed, Qi struggling against Qi until with a huge thunderclap her own flaming breath overwhelmed the Scorpion's and slammed into his face.
"AHHHHHHHHHH!" Old Jingzhi wailed, as his green eyes shattered and ran like tears down his face. "BLIND! BLIND! BLINDED BY MERE CHILDREN! CURSE YOU HEAVEN!" He screamed as he thrashed wildly, his Qi flaring in a wild storm as sand and molten glass kicked up around his flailing limbs.
Ferenike and her friends caught a dozen blows from his stinger, hundreds from his feet and massive blows from his pincers as they advanced upon the ailing Scorpion.
"No no! NO! JINGZHI THE MIGHTY WILL NOT FALL TODAY!" He babbled, then a bright light erupted from him as a searing heat hot enough to crisp the edges of Ferenike's hair blew into her face.
"BRACE!" Gallius shouted, and she felt him and Fuxi's Qi surging into her as she ducked behind the great shield of the Hoplite.
There was a deafening
boom and blinding light, stabbing bright even through screwed shut eyelids.
A flickering shadow shot across her gaze, but Fuxi and Gallius were already moving as she recovered, guiding her Qi.
Clang!
"Curse you..." The old voice muttered.
Ferenike blinked her eyes clear and beheld her enemy.
His carapace was cracked, yellow flames burning up from within his body, his legs riddled with cracks and his stinger drooping near his face as he hunched on the ground.
With a kiai that shook the air Ferenike struck with scorpion swiftness with her friends, Qi draining precipitously as she felt Gallius and Fuxi both just barely hanging on, and in a flash there was a horrible grating screech of glass and a hot explosion of splattering molten glass. With a ground shaking thud Jingzhi's tail fell to the sand and stones and wriggled there like a snake.
His cry of agony as his back spurted superheated ichor rocked their ears and through squinted eyes she saw him wheel away and skitter into the city.
She pursued, the shadowy feet of the Hoplite carrying them as they raced after the fleeing predator.
He wove between buildings, knocking down pillars and entire edifices into their path. They just leapt over or forced their way through until eventually they came to the mouth of a sandstone cave.
Maddened with pain the Scorpion dived in heedless of danger and Ferenike heard the crack of its legs. She tossed them in after it, ghostly hands on her shoulders pushing her forward.
All she could here in her mind was single word.
Now.
She led with her spear, glowing bright red as it split the dark and below she saw the glint of her enemy's flesh. With a great
crunch the spear punctured his carapace and slammed him into the ground with a shockwave of dust and a mighty tremor.
They landed beside him with another, smaller, tremor and ripping her spear free Ferenike drove it again into his head. It came free and rolled into the darkness of the cave as his body slumped, unmoving.
She waited for a long moment, breathing heavily, chest aching. But her enemy did not move, all life having left his corpse.
She coughed and slumped to a knee, hissing as seared flesh on her hands and knees touched the sandy floor of the cave, the Hoplite dispersing. Her body was screaming at her, the damage suppressed by adrenaline. She could feel bones in her arms and legs fractured, and her lungs felt scoured from the hot air she had breathed in.
Looking around her friends were little better, though they had been better protected by not being the focus of the Hoplite.
She grimaced. "Can you two stand?" She rasped.
Fuxi coughed as she levered herself upright. "Yeah." She stared up at the towering corpse glimmering in the shaft of sunlight shining down from the cave mouth far above. Her silver hair was singed black in places and she looked terrible, burns covering a good percentage of her body.
Gallius groaned, and slowly, agonizingly levered himself upright. "I'll live, ow..." He said, leaning on his knees. His back was a searing red mass.
Ferenike was glad they had medicines purchased with their Contribution Points on hand, other wise they were going to be laid up for a while.
She nodded. "I'm going into the cave to find this bastard's head." She said tiredly, slowly standing and walking past her friends, who found rocks to sit on and start treating themselves.
Already her remaining Qi was surging into her skin, prickling and painful. They'd heal relatively quickly from these wounds she thought, as many of them were rather superficial. Fortunate. But she was still glad she had time before the Ninth marched, and reached the front.
Her Qi enhanced eyes pierced the darkness, and within it she followed the glint of her enemy's head. Slowly a pile of things was revealed, the head leaning against its base.
Bones, glimmering gold, swords, and books of all things bound in metal. She looked down at the giant skull, staring vacantly up at her from the shattered pits she had made of its remaining eyes.
She sighed.
The wind brushed lightly against her cheek, and then was gone.
She said goodbye, a final time.
Peace descended and she walked past the head and scaled the pile, carefully examining the things within, her body aching and her hands grumbling at her.
She didn't care, she was tough enough that a bit of poking around wouldn't make her wounds worse. She felt something odd in the pile.
Eventually, buried deep within the pile she found it, the source of the strange Qi signature. There were three golden scrolls, each the length of her forearm, the rod was made of shiny black jade capped in dark grey iron marked by strange triangular symbols. The material of the scrolls itself looked like gold foil, but was much stronger and thicker and far more flexible, like cloth or paper. When she began to unroll one, glimmering gold symbols burned their way into her eyes, waves like eroded mountains and those same repeating triangular glyphs. She flinched away and shook her head, blinking as her eyes teared up. She didn't know what these were but they looked interesting, and she had uses for strange lore. Tucking them away into her storage ring she grabbed up the head of Jingzhi and returned to her friends.
Over a long several hours they took the body apart and carried away the most valuable pieces of the monster and his hoard, and returned home.
When they returned, the Ninth was gathering in its final preparations and Dragoumis welcomed them with a smile. With their loot traded for Contribution Points, they joined the Legion, and with it set off into the Desert with the sun at their backs, rising bright red over the Dawn Fortress.
Here you go
@occipitallobe the last omake of the Training arc! I'd like to put this towards a Fate supplemental for Ferenike. Now, we head to war, with all of our loose ends from her origin wrapped up once and for all, as a marker from her transition from girlhood to womanhood.
Fun trivia - Jingzhi can mean 'Exquisite', 'Refinement', 'Delicacy', 'Daintiness', 'Delicateness', 'Preciosity', and 'Fastidiousness' depending on the spelling. I decided he would be called Old Exquisite.
I have Plans.
