Aris lay in a dark room on a hard slab of marble, his eyes covered with a cold cloth. The coppery tang of blood and the sick sweetness of corruption hung thick in the air, only slightly cut by the smell of burnt medicinal herbs.
Pain suffused most of his being, and he felt as if a massive hole gaped in his abdomen. His limbs were hot, and he felt like he was burning up. He could not move his body an inch, and the only sound he was able to produce was a low, hoarse moan.
He had screamed his throat bare just hours before, when they had removed the footlong black stinger from where it had been lodged deep in his intestines. His cheeks were wet with tears that felt ice-cold on his skin.
He had been so proud. His Legion, the
XCI Falcata, had been dispatched almost in its entirety to reinforce the besieged West and assist in one of the crucial steps in the war against the bee
barbaroi.
Shuhu De, the only remaining one of the eight minor cities in West Hua aside from Little Jian. The city had been the weak link in the defenses of the Hua Empire. To the barbarians, a tasty morsel of eighty thousand mortals.
And so the Ninety-first had marched.
--
Eight thousand shining bronze helmets in the watery light of dawn. Their
aquila and legion banner fluttered in the wind, a bronze sickle stark against a bright red background. The only concession towards legion pride they were willing to make. They moved quietly, but where the Ninety-first went, the
aquila went too.
The
Legio XCI Falcata was a Vanguard legion, of lesser strength compared to other combat-dedicated legions, but the Ninety-first were not made to hold large swathes of land or fortify, they were the hammer-blow, the tip of the spear. They of course had support staff, array and mundane engineers, doctors and scouts, but the core of the legion consisted of the boldest, most courageous legionnaires of the clan, made in the image of their
Legatus, Kallias Theopolous – the
Bloodhound. Or this is what they liked to tell themselves.
Other legions called them the
audaces to their face, thinking themselves clever for disguising their contempt with a half-compliment. When those legionnaires thought they couldn't be heard, they called the Ninety-first the
arietes – the battering rams. Useful once, then discarded when broken. They were closer than they thought. According to legion tradition, the sickle and name referred to the siege hooks used to tear down fortifications. The previous iteration of the legion had even practiced a siege hook Formation before, before such things became largely obsolete. The Clan hadn't needed so many dedicated siegebreakers in a while. Legatus Theopolous had re-founded the legion, and adapted it to his own purposes, turning it into a more all-purpose vanguard, capable of extended independent operation in enemy territory. His father had of course called in some favors to get him and his right hand Leo assigned to a legion which truly suited to them, with ample opportunities to earn accolades. The alternative – his father paying for them to join his Glorious Thirty-First – would have been the obviously nepotistic and easy choice. Aris would earn his command outside of his father's shadow.
And opportunities for glory in combat there would be aplenty, for Aris' Ninety-first was part of the legions sent westwards. They had gathered at Great Hua Lake City as a staging area, sixty thousand Clansmen in total. Part of the legions would reinforce the city against bee raids, but the majority would move on to reinforce the Wind Towers and relieve the Night Devil Fortress. The
legiones XCI and LXIV would however be responsible for the most sensitive operations, evacuating the weak chinks in their armor – Shuhu De and Little Jian.
They had marched under the cover of night from the lake city, encountering small raiding bands of devil bees. These were independent groups, operating under ambitious Foundation Establishments, hoping to catch mortals or straggler cultivators out in the open. Blood Qi was what they were after.
They crested the hill as their target came into sight, Aris with his
contubernion at the forefront of the loose arrow formation, optimized for rapid travel over long distances.
Shuhu De was a beauty, an inner city of tall white buildings on the bank of the Mifeng river, with five concentric circles of ever-smaller walls radiating outwards from the tall inner city walls, each part of the city squeezed between sets of walls, with only a few buildings built outside of the outermost wall. Spots of greenery were visible among the squat white buildings of the outer city layers, and the city was nestled among green-yellow hill-land that looked, if not vibrant, then at least capable of supporting life.
That it still stood was however nothing short of a miracle.
And the Miracle of Shuhu De they did call it. A mysterious personage had assumed leadership of the city's embattled forces after the opening moves of the war, and had held the city where all others had fallen. Information was scarce, but the figure, calling himself 'The Coward of the Fortress' had managed the unthinkable, throwing the Bees back time after time over the course of long, long weeks, finally breaking the morale of the
barbaroi on their eighth charge, causing them to retreat.
But Shuhu De was doomed.
With little serious fortifications or arrays to speak of it wouldn't be long before an ambitious Devil Bee Core Formation warlord would try again, and then eighty thousand mortals would be butchered like so much meat. Miracles had a habit of being non-reproductible.
Word was sent ahead of course, to prepare the mortal population for evacuation. Their strategy was as fiendishly tricky as it sounded simple – move eighty thousand mortals across a good hundred kilometers of terrain to Lake City and make sure they don't get eaten by giant, screaming, human-faced bees from hell and the cannibals riding them. A flexible, moving defense in depth, where they would split the mortals up in three groups according to how fast they could move – to have the largest chance at saving at least part of their quarries. The slower groups would take a few days at least to make the trek, even with the aids they brought along to move the immobile and incapacitated.
Speed was therefore of the essence. Once the barbarians noticed what was happing, swarms of bees would start converging on them like wasps on rotten meat. Caught in the open with eighty thousand mortals, with barely one cultivator to eight mortals, the odds would turn against them, and quickly. This is why their Legion had been assigned the task – some even whispered the
Archegetes himself had ordered it. This was no static defense, or a standard retreat. This was an extended operation in functionally hostile territory, faced with an absurdly mobile enemy, capable of omnidirectional assault against a functionally unprotectable asset. They called it an evacuation and defense, but what it would boil down to if things turned to hell was a series of blistering, aggressive rapid-response strikes to scatter enemy probes and strike teams, with immediate Formation deployment when the enemy committed to an engagement. There was nothing defensive to it, the only chance they had was to strike fast, strike hard, and hope the enemy would leave their bluff uncalled and decide the prize wasn't worth the hassle.
Even for the most well-oiled machines of legions, the level of cooperation, aggression and speed such a tactic implied would be beyond their strategic repertoire. And even for a Vanguard legion, drilled precisely for such situations, these were still among the absolute worst conditions possible.
Aris couldn't be more overjoyed. He would flawlessly and risklessly take the next Step and build his first Dao Pillar in a couple of decades, and advance to
centurio within the Legion. This operation was the best opportunity to showcase his talent he could have dreamt of before that happened. This was
the most sensitive operation of the entire war so far. Their valor would be known by millions upon millions if they succeeded, elevated to a level of fame that the revered defenders of Night Devil fortress currently held. Maybe the
Archegetes himself would hear of their exploits.
Aris gripped his saber – he had swapped out his brutal
yanchidao in favor of a long, two-handed
liuyedao with a serrated edge for more reach – excitement quivering in his veins. He had of course volunteered his squad to escort the last of the three groups; the infirm, crippled, very young and very old. The chance of an engagement was much larger and the Bees would likely be bent on vengeance at their realization that they had missed a large portion of the evacuated civilians – at least if things went somewhat according to plan. The escorts of the first group would of course double back as soon as their quarries had been dropped off safely, but the six cohorts escorting the last group would be on their own for the first few days.
They started downwards at a light – for a cultivator – jog, the main gate of the outer wall already open, mortals streaming outside, the occasional flash of bronze visible among the mass.
--
Half a day had passed. The evacuation went smoothly enough, the first group of fit, young men and women, capable of more than twenty-four hours of rapid, forced march had departed almost immediately. The second group, filled with middle-aged men and women and pubescent children of relative fitness had departed right on their heels. They would be expected to take three days or more. Leo and his squad would be attached this group.
The final group had taken longer to get going, loading the truly infirm onto wagons, beasts of burden and the backs of the few strong mortals or very junior Hua cultivators who stayed behind. The sun was high in the sky before the caravan departed for the safety of Grand Hua Lake City's walls. A handful of inquisitive probes of bees were swiftly rebuffed as soon as they entered sight, but the attention didn't bode well. The
barbaroi were hungry and desperate for prey.
The road running parallel with the Mifeng snaked through the hills, only occasionally interrupted by the occasional small fen or rock formation. Aris moved alongside the caravan at a sedate pace, his cohort covering the upper left part of the cavern. Each squad stuck close together, but the squads of each cohort were spaced out at longer distances. Three thousand
Falcata surrounded the snake of wagons and mortals on all sides. Two hundred were at the tail end, clan and Hua bow or javelin cultivators, a line of fire covering their quarries. It wouldn't dissuade any serious assault, but it was enough to pick scouting parties out of the air.
The
barbaroi bees were incredible strategic and tactical assets, allowing a level of mobility that defied comprehension, but – thanks be to the Imperator – they were weak and vulnerable. Taking out the bee at a distance meant that the barbarian riding it would be caught out in the open, in the desert, with no way to fly back.
Aris had his bow out too, as did most others. He was a lousy shot and like most of his comrades-in-arms he lacked the techniques or training to be dangerous at range, but one bee taken out of the air with weight of fire was one less barbarian that would eat your face in a few seconds. Instead, it would come and eat it in minutes.
The caravan snaked through the gentle hill-land, and if not for the briskness at which everything proceeded and the tension as tangible as a taut wire, one might even call the scene peaceful. By the fall of dusk, no more scouting parties had been sighted. Some Hua cultivators had let their guard down just a hair, thinking themselves somewhat secure in the knowledge that a large strike would be heralded by increasingly large probes of bees. No Golden Devil indulged in such folly. Underestimating your enemy bred contempt, contempt bred laxity, laxity meant you died.
They stopped for an hour or two at nightfall to switch positions on wagons and beasts, to allow the mortals a moment of rest. Every second of the unbearable standing still felt drawn-out, like waiting for drops of pitch to fall. Aris almost allowed himself a relieved sigh when they started moving again.
Under the cover of night, the bee raids started picking up again. Ten-man groups buzzing close, met by thundering salvoes of projectiles. The sight was one to behold, rippling volleys of thousands of muffled booms, arrows tracing tongues of fire lighting up the night sky, supersonic projectiles shot from Spirit Bronze bows with cultivator strength. Between the volleys, the cacophony of wails from the children of Shuhu De echoed across the landscape. He supposed the sound must be quite unbearable to mortal ears.
He cast a quick at over the mortals closest by – more than a dozen older men and women, huddled together in the inside of a wagon, hands over their ears. Some sobbed openly. He felt a small pang of pity at the miserable state of their existence. But better miserable and deaf than dead.
The commander of the cohorts gave the order to resume their travel, once it seemed the last small raiding party of bees was either dead, earthbound, or gone. Dawn broke over their group of desperate mortals and stoic immortals, and they continued on their way. One night survived, at least six more to go.
During the night, attacks were likelier. Not because they had trouble seeing in the dark, no, because mortals panic quicker at night, when they can't see their impending doom. Antsy mortals panic, and panicking mortals start getting in the way, and become easy prey. The barbarians knew this, and would act accordingly.
At some point during the long morning, a legion runner arrived from the first group. The first group with their
legatus was only a few hours away from reaching Lake City, and the second group had made good time without much delay or notable casualties. A ripple of relief passed through the legionnaires and the mortals both. Their commander would be joining them soon to provide much-needed Core Formation-support, and if nothing else, fifteen thousand mortals would be saved. Some of the inhabitants of Shuhu De broke out in tears of happiness at the news that their son or daughter had likely survived. The hours after saw little enough excitement, a small airborne squad or two, but nothing of note.
In the evening, Kallias Theopolous arrived at their position with a handful of
centuriones, welcomed by great cheers, their approach not heralded by the rapidly-moving plume of dust which was usually the telltale sign of senior cultivators moving at top speed. He confirmed the prior good news – the fastest group had safely made it to the Hua capital.
That one third of the mission objective had been accomplished wasn't only good for morale, it also gave them some crucial info on enemy preparedness and potential strength. Had a Core Formation Bee warlord (or more) caught wind of their plans and force composition immediately and found the target appealing, they would have closed on the fastest-moving morsel. The other groups would still be out in the open after they had finished devouring the first group, to be cracked open and eaten at their leisure. That the group of fifteen-thousand something mortals had made the trek meant that there either was no such warlord close, they hadn't been informed yet, or they were still gathering their strength.
Now, neither remaining group could move at speeds which meant anything to the terrifying mobility of the Devil Bees, so any potential warband would have the leisure of picking their target; the second, faster, larger group, or the slower, tail-end group. Their calculus would lead them to prefer the last group every time, because they reasoned like
barbaroi. They saw mortals as sacks of Qi and blood, and would implicitly assume that the Devils had a similar outlook, or at least attributed no inherent value to them. They would think the legion would greatly prioritize the second, larger group of fitter mortals over the smaller tail-end group, some of which might even die during the trek. Thus, they would assume almost unfailingly that the second one would be better guarded, and if their Core Formation elder was still in the field, would be attached to the second group. The slowest group would therefore be the easiest target by far. Taking it out would mean learning the enemy's general combat readiness, bloodying their juniors, filling up on Qi, and being able to harvest trophies to break the second group's morale. If the third group already proved tough to crack, they knew they would need to split the kill and summon reinforcements.
But they were Devils, and thus in this game of cups, their legate was hidden under the third one.
Still, as always in war, their enemy could anticipate the gambit and do the exact opposite, or just act following imperfect information and assume the third group would be the more valuable one because of corrupt intel. War, Aris knew, was never about certainty. It was about making sure you brought the right instruments for your opponent's dance, and if turns out to be a jig and not a jive, trusting in your orchestra to adapt.
The
Bloodhound took command of the third group, and a general sense of confident relief settled over the twenty thousand mortals and three thousand-some cultivators. They would be safer still when part of the cohorts attached to the first group would come and reinforce them, which would hopefully arrive during the night, but their total success seemed less unlikely by the minute.
Night fell, they took a short rest again, and dawn broke, but no sign of reinforcements was to be seen. At least a thousand
legionnaires should be on their way. If the enemy had engaged them en route and they had been forced to retreat, that boded extremely ill. If they had decided to stick with a heavily embattled second group, that was even worse, if possible.
Elation gave way to wary nervosity over the course of the day. The pace was increased – by pushing the mortals to their limit, they could cover twenty kilometers per day. A few would die, but if most made it out alive, that would be worth it. Aris could notice the slightest pinch of uncertainty around the eyes of his subordinates, where they usually were stoic, impassive faces of bronze. They sent out runners, to Lake City, and to the second group, which should at that point have been halfway to the city. None of them came back. No more probes or raiding parties tried their luck, and the only bees they saw kept themselves at extreme distance. Wary nervosity gave way to creeping dread.
Then night fell, and everything turned to hell.
--
It started out as a low rumble. Like a thunderhead leagues away, echoing across the landscape, or the faraway close quarters combat of Elder cultivators, supersonic blows following one another with such speed that it became one rumbling wave of sound.
The mortals openly voiced the question with some concern and a few were elated, thinking a mundane thunderstorm would shield them from the wrath of the airborne demons. Every Devil knew in their bones what it was. The sound came from all directions – so their ears clearly picked up. Hushed orders given by their commanding centurions confirmed their near-certain suspicions. They were being hemmed in on all sides.
The mortals were largely blind in this darkness, but not stupid. The situation was dire – that much they could deduce. Their commander spoke with booming voice, addressing the entire column.
"They seek to make us nervous. If they had the teeth to bite, they would have. This is weakness, not strength. Stay true, that is how we beat them."
Only partially a lie, Aris thought. Yes, this could be psychological warfare, softening them up over days before striking. But there was no use giving an enemy information on your approximate force composition just on the off-chance that it would cause chaos. Chaos would infallibly be caused by their assault anyway, their screaming bees made that a certainty. So strike they would, if not now, then later.
A perception-specialized support
centurio gave them the numbers. At least fifteen thousand bees. Probably closer to twenty. Best case, they were outnumbered five-to-one. Even for Golden Devils, that number did not bode well.
The low rumble evolved in two distinct sounds, a low, sonorous burbling and a higher-pitched tearing wail, like a sheet of metal being violently ruptured.
They didn't stop moving, even though their farseeing
centurio and bow cultivators could now see them at the edge of extreme range. Ten kilometers.
Any distance won would be won. Squads started preparing themselves for war, activating techniques, taking medicine, performing dao-specific rituals. Aris spoke a few words to each of his subordinates. The mortals looked pale. They understood.
They were eight kilometers away now. A negligible distance for the damned insects. Their ranged cultivators could start doing meaningful damage at this range. A low horn sounded, the sign to stop. Their legate's voice rang out.
"It looks they will press the attack. Assume defensive positions. Sell your hide dearly, brave inhabitants of Shuhu De. Every second won is one your children –"
The sound of thousands of screaming demons made hearing impossible. The sound was awful, screams of pure, abject terror and grief drawn out and amplified to rupture eardrums and make thinking impossible, even for Immortals.
The insects of terror were upon them. But the Bloodhound would not be silenced. Aris felt something click in his head as Kallias Theopolous' Qi reached out to each of the
decani. Each commander shouted the same words simultaneously, their voices joining together to create a warbled sound like the crash of a gong the size a mountain being struck, briefly drowning out the ear-splitting screeches.
"ARCHERS, FIRE ON BEES CLOSING, MAKE THEM FACE US ON THE GROUND. LEGION, SLAUGHTER THEM WHOLE, MAKE THIS A CARNAGE FOR THE AGES. IMPERATOOO-R!
A cacophony of booms sounded out, which sounded like muted thuds next to the chorus of wails. Hundreds of flashes of Qi and fire-tracing arrows painted the hilly landscape in stark blacks and whites. The arrays on the wagons flashed to life, and converted the mundane-looking carts into iron and bronze shelters reminiscent of small, squat fortresses. Some enclosed the mortals within their grasp, and sank beneath the soil as if it were water. Most of the beasts of burden surrounded the shelters dutifully, intent on protecting the contents with their lives. They could as well be rice paper walls, for all they good they would do to dedicated raiders. They would maybe buy a few seconds at best, and most importantly – prevent mortals from running amok.
He made eye contact with an elderly couple cradling three small children between them, just before the wagon closed around them like a cocoon and they sank beneath the soil. Their eyes were hard as iron even as the children wailed – going by their open mouths and red, tear-stained faces. Small trails of red ran across all of their cheeks, coming from their ears. But the look the couple fixed him with had no trace of discomfort within it. Helpless as newborn lamb, they had nothing to offer, nothing to give. But that look made Aris feel so very little like a powerful immortal. It spoke clearly –
we trust you with our existence, our everything is your responsibility and yours alone.
Then they were swallowed up, and the world became one of blood and fire.
Groups of about a hundred bees made flying passes, dropping their cultivators off like lethal air-dropped packages. Some smaller groups remained mounted like jousters, intent on using the superior speed of their mounts to strike and fade away.
One such a mounted squad blurred towards them.
Their commander had expressed it ever-so eloquently. There were no better words, really. He roared.
"Slaughteeeerr!!!"
He dropped his bow and drew his saber. A twinge of Qi in his legs, and he had closed the remaining distance with the approaching fliers. They made to scatter their formation, but all the speed of their mounts would not help slow thinking. A shallow breath, and he was five meters in the air, face-to-face with the first of the fliers. Eighth Heavenstage by his guess. Blood-matted hair, wild eyes, and a face painted with mud, blood and more dubious substances still.
He disliked two-handed stances, much harder to fight in formation with. Mid-air, he adjusted the grip on his serrated saber, landed his foot on the bee's frighteningly human-like head, and tore his adversary's head asunder in a wave of gore.
A small skip upwards, and he bounded off of the now-headless shoulders of the first flyer, as an arrow towards the second one. His next target had flown a meter or two higher in a fraction of a second, and was out of reach of his saber. A luminescent bolt of white-hot bronze shot up from below, and the ugly creature's head was lanced like a disgusting boil. Gravity reasserted itself on the heavy creature's corpse, and by the time Aris reached him, he was cleanly at eye-height. Sixth Heavenstage. Barely forty.
Gore spat upwards like a fountain, as Aris cleaved through the bee, and tore the barbarian open pelvis to crown. Aris angled himself and pushed himself off of the thorax of the bee – now separated from its abdomen. He was ten meters up now by his reckoning, and right in the path of one of the higher flyers who could no longer adjust his course of flight on time. Seventh Heavenstage. An old veteran, half his face a mess of scar tissue. It pleased Aris greatly to tear the bee and rider asunder in three aggressive strokes.
His momentum exhausted, he let himself fall back to the ground, back-first. One of highest flyers swooped down, thinking him an easy target in the Bees' natural domain. He flicked his saber upwards, and beheaded the bee like a reverse guillotine. The rider with the now-headless mount raced towards him, intent on preserving his downwards momentum for a single strike, his lance festooned with grizzly trophies trained on Aris' head. Aris batted the lance away, grasped the cultivator by the neck of his rough hide armor, and was pleased to notice the barbarian clenching his knees around the bee, not letting himself be pulled off by Aris' upwards momentum. Aris twisted in midair, and flexed his arm meridians, pulling himself in the saddle behind the barbarian. The bee rider was quick – Eighth Heavenstage, and a good fighter too – having his spare dagger out, aimed at Aris' throat in a flash.
The dagger glanced off of the skin of his neck with a spark. He had no time to look surprised as Aris' arms closed around his neck, and broke it, tearing the skin open entirely. Aris hopped off of the bee just before it impacted the ground with what would be an audible wet thud, if the air wasn't still filled with the abominable screeching. His sabre fell in his hand.
That was enough showing off for his subordinates.
He took stock of his surroundings, and his good mood sank. The enemy's hadn't yet committed fully, groups of hundred swarming down on squads, trying to overwhelm them through sheer numbers and speed. Nibbling at them. Scraps of destroyed wagons were already spread around here and there, and deep throughs were shorn into the ground. A bloody limb rolled at his feet.
Aggression. Aggression and bloodthirst. Stack the bodies against them, and they would run. The legion would suffer some losses, but an enemy bitten wouldn't be so eager for a rematch. Some losses for an overall victory.
A series of bright flashes flared from the head of the column. The booms accompanying them were only felt as tremors, as hearing anything but the hellish screeching was impossible. Theopolous was duking it out with the enemy warlord. All the more reason to feed bees through the grinder post-haste.
"SQUAD, MURDER!"
They moved as one, punishing opportunistic raids with gratuitous violence, moving like lightning. Under Aris' direction, they feigned weakness to draw in hundred-man airdrops looking for soft targets, only to lock up their formation, resisting like demons during an exorcism, presenting a ripe target of barbarians for other squads to lam into.
His squad was hard as bronze – he had made sure of it.
Qi was spent and flowed away like a river during rain season – they could not sustain this blistering pace. They did not stop for even a moment, moving from carnage to carnage, responding to probes with unthinking, dauntless charges. They overextended massively, and after long minutes it was beginning to take its toll.
The landscape around them now resembled a cratered hell, pools of blood congealing like water after rainfall. Fiery projectiles still boomed and flew in all directions, like swarms of lethal fireflies honing on their targets – but there were a lot less now.
Confronting a second airborne group in the sky – hopping from bee to bee as he had done before – he took the opportunity to survey the battlefield instead of aggressively pursuing more bloodshed.
They had sustained some losses. Vanguards were used to asymmetrical, hostile and desperate situations, and while it wasn't yet the latter, their mettle
was being tested.
Floating through the air, keeping one eye on his immediate airborne enemies – he was hovering right in the flight path of one – he realized that the enemy had maybe committed ten thousand bees, based on a one-eyed flash-count. Ten thousand were still hovering at a few kilometers distance. That made no sense. Ten-to-three was almost equal. Their enemy was inflicting casualties and consuming some mortals here-and-there, but they were being shredded for it. But they neither showed any inclination to flee, nor to commit fully to tilt the battle convincingly in their favor.
He mechanically cut the incoming flier's throat, neither savoring the kill, nor spending a mote Qi more than was necessary. He used the bee as a springboard, and soared higher.
Were they planning another iteration of the formation that had cost the life of their
Protostrator? The three Formation-breakers with them would make short work of that, now that they knew precisely what they were up against.
Suddenly, the pitch of the whining changed.
Or no, the direction changed. He looked away from the trial snaking through the hills, along which most of their mortals were sheltered, towards the distant ring of bees encircling their position. The density of bees seemed to increase, and then suddenly a spike of thousands of bees shot towards them, the ring of bees behind them following in their wake. Towards Aris and his cohort in particular. Reinforcements.
A green comet trailing poisonous smog crashed into their commander's position. A second warlord.
That's what they were waiting for. The bees they had been fighting were no probes, they were daredevils from the first warlord's swarm, risking themselves for first pickings before the two swarms merged and stripped the battlefield clean.
Aris didn't even move towards another target, distractedly closing off his meridians with his Immortal Body Art to have a crude obsidian arrow ping off of him. He counted feverishly as he dropped down to earth. The rapidly closing second swarm contained no more than ten thousand as far as he could see. Nine-to-one odds. But the swarm soared towards their side of the formation in particular. Their cohort against ten thousand, plus the bees of the first swarm in reserve that would follow in their wake. The other cohorts would be too occupied with the rest of the first swarm now charging en masse to come to their aid. Five hundred devils against maybe fifteen thousand barbarians. Thirty-to-one.
They were doomed.
For the first time in his seventy years of life, Aris felt true fear. This was no Grey Devourer, a dangerous and risky situation he was well-equipped to survive, with powerful and skilled backup. This moment, he truly understood the cold juggernaut that was war, he
felt it in his veins. It was no test of mettle, no valorous conflict, just the cold calculus of numbers, and the powerlessness of those crushed in the game of the truly mighty. Nothing he could do would salvage this situation, it was as cruel as it was cold. They would die here, because of some interplay of artifice and circumstance they had had no hand in.
Qi streamed in his lungs, and he roared like he had never roared before. And for a moment, the screaming that he had already accepted as a fact of life faded into the background. A small part of him marveled at himself, looked at him from a distance like an awed spectator looking at a famed war hero.
"COHORT, FORMATION!!!!"
They moved like true Vanguards, but the bees were ever faster. Aris didn't even see what hit him and knocked him out of the sky.
--
He jolted into consciousness shortly after, at the bottom of a deep gouge in the ground. He looked to his side, and saw the stoic old couple he had laid eyes on just minutes ago (or was it hours?).
Or rather, he saw their heads, torn away from their bodies. The woman still had part of her neck with torso attached. Their steely eyes were contorted with fear, a rictus of terror on their unliving visages. They had died leagues from their home, slaughtered helplessly by a terrifying and faceless foe.
Aris coughed up a glob of blood, crawled to his feet and climbed out of his trench. His cohort lit up golden in the night sky, some two hundred cultivators remaining, gathered in a rough cluster, a titanic shadowy figure wielding a brightly shining bronze spear and shield keeping the dark swarms at bay. He distractedly noticed his saber was gone. Wouldn't do him much good – only their Clan's indomitable Formations would mean anything now. The mortals' lives were forfeit – he doubted many of them still lived at this point. Now they could only bunker up, weather the storm, and try to conserve as much of that much more valuable commodity as they could – cultivator lives.
He rushed towards the formation, once or twice almost intercepted by an enterprising barbarian thinking to have found the ideal prey. He might be bruised, winded and disarmed, but he was no pushover. The cowardly barbarians quickly learned that.
He reached the formation, miraculously without attracting the attention of roving Foundation Establishment barbarians, and pumped his acupoints full of Qi and expelled them in the patterns of the Hoplite formation. He looked around for the members of his squad, but he could find no one among the bloodied and dirty legionnaires. By the vibrations, the
feeling of the formation and that of their avatar doing battle for them, the Formation was tenuous thing. He couldn't blame his fellow legionnaires – uncountable numbers of black bees circled their formation like a desert wolf circling a sickly and wounded hare. Each stroke of the avatar's shield struck dozens of bees out of the sky, but the swarm was unceasing.
He breathed in, and it felt like he was inhaling lead, his torso felt
wrong and pinched, and a small trail of blood dripped from the corner of his mouth.
"MY KIN. AS LONG AS WE REMAIN STEADFAST, WE CANNOT FALL. YOU KNOW THIS! OUR LEGION HAS LIVED THROUGH MUCH WORSE. DO NOT SHAME IT, OUR ARCHEGETES IS WATCHING US!"
Then like a current of electricity running through every cell of his being, he noticed the attention of a giant upon him. He started trembling unconsciously, losing his grip on the Formation. Black spots danced across his vision, and the air died in his throat.
His vision was drawn magnetically towards the source. The curtain of bees parted to reveal a figure on a hulking monstrosity of a bee, colored green-black, trailing a cloud of noxious fumes.
Panic gripped around Aris' thoughts – that was a Core Formation, that meant that their legate had been incapacitated or murdered, or the other Core Formation had handily fought him to a standstill.
He would die here, and the Ninety-first would die with him.
Something that caught the light emerged from the bottom of the bee's abdomen. The figure on it was heavily disfigured, and its face parted in a rictus of what could only be perverse enjoyment.
The shockwave of a large object breaking the sound barrier only struck him seconds after.
A green-black insectoid monstrosity was attached to Aris' abdomen with its stinger.
Aris spoke numbly.
"Golden Deva's Im—ARGH!!"
He coughed up glob of sickly brownish blood, splashing it across a small part of the bee's immense abdomen.
Only now did the rest of his cohort notice. They turned to face the intruder in the midst of their formation, the Hoplite wavering, its form becoming blurry.
The wicked figure's grin became wider, splitting one side of his face – the other was too swollen with corruption. The bee shot the stinger out, embedding itself deeper into Aris' guts, and disengaged from him. Aris fell to his knees and passed out, veins of brown venom snaking across his bronze body, blackening his limbs.
Then, the barbarians murdered all within sight.
-
--
-
He came to days later, awaking to blessed silence. His entire world was fuzzy and white, and he could not see anything further than a meter away. His entire body up to his neck was strapped in tightly with bandages painted with Array script, and his neck and face were dotted with hundreds of acupuncture needles. He carefully turned his neck a hair, and noticed a blurry figure next to him.
Judging by the movement, he must be in a wagon of some sorts. Quite spacious, as far as he could tell.
The voice was unfamiliar.
"You have suffered a grievous wound, brother. You needn't worry about dying for now, but the foul creature's stinger is still inside. The seal around your body will soon have to be broken and it removed, and then you might die. But for now, you live."
Aris croaked.
"Grrlgg—tle?"
"Yes the battle. Your cohort killed almost to a man. More than a thousand Clan dead in total, most on the left flank. Hundreds more crippled or wounded. In your group, all mortals perished."
The blurry Clansman continued, his voice neutral, but with a small note of pity that was impossible to ignore.
"The Bloodhound feinted by appearing to suffer a grievous wound, then used a Heavenly Treasure to injure and scare away the first Core Formation, when the barbarian thought that all that was left was to confirm the kill and consume the corpse. With their warlord gone, the swarm that initially attacked us was scattered to the winds."
"The Bloodhound further rallied the right flank and what little remained of the left, and we bunkered down against the poison master Core Formation – the one that injured you – and his swarm. We were relieved by the first battlegroup come dawn. The second group suffered some casualties, but most mortals made it to Lake City in one piece. Three fourths of Shuhu De survive."
Aris managed a sigh, halfway between sorrow and relief.
"The Ninety-first and its legate yet live brother, though diminished. Word has been sent to your father, and you are on your way to Clan lands. Now rest, for the time spent awake will cost you dearly."
Aris thought while he drifted off. A costly victory for the war, a tragedy for his legion.
Unconsciousness took him.
____
@occipitallobe
(Part of) my offering for this turn, being my take on the costly evacuation during the war. As a bonus, I'd like to request a Heavenly Treasure to cure Aris of his crippling poisoning.
I really like your breakdowns.