Ferenike 17 - Scorpions Lie In Wait
Ferenike kneeled at the peak of a two hundred meter tall dune in a circle of fulgurites, where lightning had struck and liquified the sand into little knee high protrusions. It still smelled faintly of ozone and it was faintly warm to her touch, probably a day since the Hunter's arrival, maybe two if they were so faded even to her enhanced senses. The actinic Qi which wafted from this place on the howling winds was how she had found it in the first place, though it was fading quickly.
To complicate matters the sand was blowing fiercely in a sandstorm, not one of her own making, that spread for nearly a thousand
li and rose more than three hundred
li straight up. It had kicked up all at once a few hours ago, just before she had set out from her base camp, and she'd followed the scent it carried since.
No trace of footsteps or other tracks remained in the fiercely blowing sand, they'd have been wiped away in minutes even if there wasn't a sandstorm blowing this hard.
The one advantage this brought was that no one below the fourth Heavenstage would be out and about during this without some kind of covering or protection. They'd have the flesh scoured from their bones in half an hour otherwise from this monster. Her robe flapped around her and she adjusted the straps for her hat and the cloth covering her mouth. The red light of her pupils shone in the lenses of her goggles. She'd be fine out here. Her quarry would probably be at a disadvantage in terms of experience at navigating something like this.
They were smart enough to come prepared to hide their presence upon arrival, as their body wasn't staked out for the storm anywhere nearby by a giant glass spear from the great Array. And they weren't lying dead on the dunes, bleeding from flensed skin and flesh, so they were strong enough and prepared to survive. Depending on how confident they were feeling they either hunkered down or kept moving.
If she was a person smart enough to do research on what would be on the other side and to prepare for the defenses of the Clan, coupled to the assumption of being strong enough to survive this storm if caught by surprise and the greater strength held by the Fifth Sea's cultivators, she'd probably keep moving. Trying to find the nearest edge of the sandstorm, or a town.
As it happened the nearest edge wouldn't be too far, if Ferenike's read on the prevailing winds and their speed wasn't wrong. Things tended to slow down near the edge of a sandstorm in the Organ Meat Desert as the Qi vortices driving them diffused away from the eye.
She set off in towards where she thought the edge would be, her path cutting through the winds like a knife as she moved at an easy pace she could keep up for days, head down against the wind. It didn't take that long, only two or three hours for the winds and flying sand to slow and fade to the point she could see the horizon through a thin haze of disturbed sand, instead of an endless roiling field of brown.
The dunes were slowly sloping downwards, becoming smooth and flattening out as they approached one of the many badlands in the Desert. Good. She might be able to track them in terrain like that. Keeping a tight reign on her Qi, suppressing it to as close to first Heavenstage level as she could she followed the slope further and further down as the horizon opened up on an expansive salt flat. The wind howled high above her in distant fluting tones.
She started searching, cross hatched, seeking any hints of the actinic Qi released by the teleportation. None appeared but eventually she found tracks. Human ones, in thick soled boots, lightly disturbing the salt. She followed the path as the sun tracked across the sky, leaving only a tiny disturbance herself behind. Another element intruded as animal tracks approached and then turned to follow the Fifth Sea cultivator. Spirit Jackals. The beasts had come out of the flats and began to follow the cultivator's foot steps, so they probably weren't bound companions.
That idea was confirmed about an hour later when she found the rotting carcasses of six Wind Jackals, their pale coats splashed with their blood and their ribcages cracked open for their Beast Cores. Killed and used for supplies, the wounds looked like the long rending blows of a knife or small blade.
She continued onward, a gold and white blur and a tiny sliver of Qi. The sun set and the moon rose and she kept going. She needed to catch up. There was a town about a hundred
li away, Winding Pillar City, if she remembered correctly. She took her pace patiently, conserving Qi. The Hunter would head for the town and start hunting there, and prepare to meet up with other Hunters.
The horizon shifted as Ferenike approached the town, pillars and tall walls rising out of the shadows of the flats. Their white rooves and silver walls glinted in the starlight and the lights from thousands of lamps hanging in their windows. Even at night they'd be able to see her coming. She'd have to announce her presence to anyone watching the gate. Nothing for it, she'd have to make use of it. As she sprinted towards the gate, a hand dug under her travel robes and armor to retrieve her emergency pass.
"Halt! Identify yourself!" A voice boomed from the gate house above the gate, silhouettes backlit by a light within. She aimed her pass and then flung it with two fingers into the hands of one of the two silhouettes she could see, still sprinting for the gate. There was a flash of light as her pass transmitted her credentials.
"Open the gate!" The voice shouted and the gate cracked open, the two doors sliding apart enough for her to dash through. There she skidded to a stop and saluted before one of the half dozen gate guards, hovering in the fourth level of Qi Condensation. "Legionnaire, I am Second Tessarian Ferenike. Ninth Century, Fifth Cohort of the Ninth Legion. Pursuing Hunters."
"Acknowledged." The man said as he held out a palm sized tile, hurrying her along as best as he could. "Please place your hand on this tile to verify your identity."
She laid her hand on it as the gate was pushed closed behind her. It flashed once briefly, red, then white. "You're clear. How can we help you?" The man asked, shoulders tense as an iron bar as he looked around. She had been looking around as well and the guards were all keeping an eye on the tunnel leading away from the gate into the city. They had a look about them like hunted animals staring out from their dens.
"Alright. Lead me to your headquarters and find someone to fill me in Legionnaire when we get there." She said, making a decision. She'd stick with them to help protect them for now, but once she learned what she needed to she'd be going out there as bait.
"Right this way ma'am." He said gruffly and lead her down the short tunnel and out onto the main street.
The main thoroughfare of Winding Pillar City opened up before her, a sinuous street that wound around the seventy two pillars the city got its name for. All along it there were a variety of buildings and small monuments, many of them smaller replications of the pillars turned into shrines for various deities. Close to the gate like she was there were tea houses and inns and several larger buildings that were probably warehouses of some kind or another. She was lead right, down an alley, and into the city's maze of side streets. The mortals they passed in silence looked fearful and weary, tired. Reviving old memories of the siege in the Golden Bee War. She spent the journey thinking and assessing.
If the Hunter had managed to avoid the Shattering Glass Spear Array and the gate guards and their arrays, they were likely using some technique or array of their own that concealed them from sight and qi sense. Those would be the easiest senses to hide from for the most efficient cost and greatest effect. The mosaic model of her enemy shifted, incorporating this new conclusion. Powerful, uses blades, probably uses them from stealth, possibly an ambusher.
She assessed her stock of treasures. Her Amulet and Eight Silver Wind Binding were worn close, as they had been since she gained them, and flowing through her veins were sixty four invested shards. Each a little star in her blood. Her armor and her spear and shield, nothing that exceptional. She would simply have to do her best.
She was guided to a building at the base of one of the eastern pillars. It was a stout building of three levels, progressively smaller cubes stacked up on top of each other. Her guide exchanged a brief word with the two weary guards on station outside the door and then lead her inside. However to her surprise, instead of handing her off to someone else, he gestured for her to follow and lead her up a flight of stairs to the second level and an office which was marked with the name 'Pentekontarches Antilles'.
They entered and she watched the man walk uncomfortably through the office before falling into the chair behind the desk with a tired sigh. He gestured at the seat on the other side of the desk. "Please sit Tessarian Ferenike. You wanted to talk to someone in charge, and I'm it. My name is Legionnaire Crispinus Cincinnatus of the Fourth Cohort of the Twelfth Legion, and everyone in this city who holds the Clan's blood and is above the fourth stage of Essence Gathering is dead."
Ferenike's thoughts shifted, the mosaic running together as the full impact hit her. "What else can you tell me Legionnaire?" She asked, concern tinging her voice as her brows furrowed.
Cincinnatus snorted. "The bastard seems to be waiting for something, probably more Hunters. There were only thirty of us for this city of ten thousand. Now there's twenty five. Myself and three others are the only ones at the fourth step. Our command structure and strongest cultivators have been decapitated."
He sighed again, a big gust of air as his bloodshot eyes under brown hair widened and he ran a hand over his face. "We're pretty well fucked at this point. None of us can find the Hunter and they took out the Pentekontarches last night along with four others in one fell swoop as they were patrolling the city."
"Any indications of how the Hunter killed them." She asked the exhausted man.
He blinked, processing and then nodding, his will starting to flag now. "Blades. Several of my mates were chopped up like they'd been attacked by beasts or large and serrated swords. The commander had his guts torn open by some kind of strange spiked weapon, I think. Our medic isn't entirely sure but I have the report on his injuries here... somewhere." He said, as he started pulling out drawers and looking for the report in question.
Ferenike gave him the time to find it before passing it on to her, a slim scroll that she unfurled and began to read. Details were sparse within but the patrol unit had been doing a routine check of the city under Trial protocols and post-battle examination of the site seemed to indicate they had been ambushed in a quieter cul de sac of the city not far from here. Mortal witnesses described a sudden deafening shout in a strange language and a silver blur diving in amongst the five cultivators that ripped them limb from limb as their Hoplite struggled to form and was then torn apart. The report went into some depth detailing their wounds, one of the pages providing a sketch, some of which matched those on the Jackals she had encountered. New however was a large circular rent with ragged edges, some what like a borehole or a wound from a rhino's horn.
A sixth Heavenstage and four supporting fifth stages killed like so many children. Concern settled like a stone in her throat.
She set down the report. "How ready are your forces for deployment Legionnaire?" She asked gently.
He hesitated, taking a deep breath. She gave him a moment to collect himself and straighten up in his chair. "We can help you kill the bastard. If that's what you're asking?"
"It is." She said. She could banish him back if it became truly desperate, potentially, but she found it far more fitting to set a trap to catch this Hunter and make use of his treasures to benefit the Clan.
Cincinnatus smiled darkly, energy slowly reinvigorating him as they sat down with a map of the city and began to plan.
The next morning Ferenike was seated on the third floor walled balcony of a tea house on the western side of the town. It was quiet down there in the streets and the building behind her. The mortals had been quietly told via networks of their friends and family to vacate the area as best they could. All across the city the mortals were moving into the siege shelters, slowly.
Tipping her hand a little, but that was the point. She carefully stirred her tea and then set down her spoon with a clank, and then took a sip. The tea was kind of bad here. Though that might have just been the tension she felt, straining all of her senses to the utmost, feeling like every single one of her little soldiers was looking out at the world with wariness.
Brought back old memories. Hopefully Cincinnatus and his men would be in position soon, ready to launch the Kataphractoi at the enemy when they appeared as she kept them busy. They had had the mortal minister of this town make a pronouncement from the balcony of his office this morning, amplified via the use of arrays to cover the whole town, declaring that an expert had come to slay the Hunter if they were courageous enough to face her.
Her breath was steady, deep and long to fuel the furnace in her chest which shone dimly through her robes and armor. Her aura was clear, a powerful expert a step away from Foundation Building. A powerful monster and devil for them to Hunt. Waiting to strike.
sssh.
She was
moving before her mind processed the noise as grit shifting under a metal boot, diving away from her table and kicking it behind her as her spear and shield manifested.
BOOM!
"HO THERE RAKSHA! YOU FACE THE SILVER TIGER
BAHUBALI RANDHAWA!" An absurdly fast silver blur exploded through the wall, her table and the cloud of splinters and dust. She wasn't done turning! Ripping pain tore across the middle of her back as something sliced through her armor and robes and metallic skin, and then her shield smashed into the blur and deflected it on instinct. Blood splashed against the wall of the balcony in a light spatter.
She leapt backwards, barely dodging the slash he sent next, tucked behind her shield as the wind pressure of his blow accelerated her lightened body. She flew down like an arrow to land in the street, skidding across the cobble, and looked up at the silver armored figure above her.
He leapt down, shouting in his tongue all the while. "With my last breath I will send you to
Naraka!"
He landed with a weighty thud and a puff of dust.
Her soldiers aimed, fired, a lance of red and gunmetal glass racing off of her spear to smash into her opponent's breastplate armored chest. There was a sound like a windchime as the spear struck and shattered uselessly, a ring of silver light emanating from the impact point.
He laughed and entered a wide and aggressive stance.
In the brief moment she had Ferenike looked at him. His head was covered by a silver helm forged in the shape of a tiger's head, the lower half of his face and his grinning teeth visible in its roaring mouth. The rest of it was a silvery breastplate, pauldrons and arm guards which were all sculpted to resemble a heavily muscled man. On his right arm was a large gauntlet assembly with five forearm length and subtly curved spikes. They had her blood on them. And as he stepped forward two serrated and curving blades as long as swords extended from a bracer on his left arm. He was in the tenth stage, and that brief blow and sheer speed convinced her he was fighting with at least the strength of the twelfth. Fuck.
He snorted. "My Tiger's Mirror Armor won't be pierced by such weak blows."
She settled into a comfortable stance, feeling the bleeding from the rent on her back slow, and then stop as her veins and body reacted to her will. "I am the Golden Scorpion, Ferenike of the Ninth Legion."
He nodded. And then he
struck, dashing across the street in the space between heartbeats to lash out with the twin blades. She parried, barely, with her spear and brought her shield up to block his blow with the claw like assembly. Screeches of metal and sparks filled her senses as she lashed out and
kicked. Her glass reinforced leg, her hyper-awareness and bodily control radically enhancing her strength, bounced off with a
clang and another flashing ring of light. The force launched them both back, flying away into two different fruit stalls across the street from each other.
She had papaya gunk in her face. "Ugh." She levered herself upright and found her enemy doing the same, wiping himself off as he rolled his neck. That armor really had to go.
She leapt forward, her own glassy armor growing around her and released a furious fusillade of blows, each one supplemented by blows from her soldiers. Dozens of spear blows rained down on the man as she attacked, fire building in her chest, her eyes pits of red flame. He hunkered down, parrying her blows equally as furiously, stepping back under the pressure as the clangor of their battle filled the streets.
Her stars gathered in her lungs and then she roared. Red flames shrieked from the hellish pit of her mouth and lashed out in a cone of destruction that tore the cobbles from the street, shattered windows and vaporized stone. The building behind him evaporated under the impact of her fury.
The man himself however, emerged from the flames, a shimmering silver aura surrounding him. He was not unharmed however, beating off flames on his neck and upper arms where his armor was beginning to warp and she could see faint blisters on his cheeks and the gaps of exposed skin between his pauldrons and forearm guards.
There were no more words after that, a terrifying exchange of attacks and parries and counters which lasts for at least a minute, many blows skittering and scraping off of their respective armor, before with a sudden burst of speed as great as his opening movements Ferenike was struck with a titanic hammerblow of a palm strike.
"Tiger Mountain Palm!" The Hunter shouted as she reeled, guard thrown open after a vicious exchange, and it crashed into her sternum. Her ribs cracked, shattering like her glass breast plate did and one of her lungs ruptured as she was lifted off her feet and propelled into a building like an arrow shot. She impacted and went through its wall with a crash of shattering stone and glass.
Her scream of agony choked in her throat as she landed, collapsing beams falling onto her, weakly deflected by her shield and spear.
She groaned, dazed as the cracked ceiling spun. Her breath was frozen, choking on coppery blood, the entire right side of her torso collapsed as her veins and muscles frantically tried to pull her bones back into shape.
"Ghhuk..." She coughed, reddish mist fountaining up as she pushed the fallen beams on top of her aside and wobbled to her feet. She spat, blood staining the floor in front of her and leaned on her spear. Then with a lurch and another splatter, her ribs temporarily realigned. "Ughhh!" Mother
fucker.
She tightened her grip on her shield and stomped forward, her armor re-forging itself in the heat that surrounded her and providing support to her broken ribs and sternum. Fatigue weighed down her limbs, and her supernatural body control was the only reason her spear wasn't falling out of her hands.
BANG!
She felt her left arm shatter behind her shield as his foot slammed into her, a shockwave of wind blowing her back, out through the wall of the building. The sound of his laugh filled her ears as she soared through the air. She tumbled, spinning once before righting herself and skidding across the street to come to a stop with her back to one of the buildings across the way.
Out of the dust he emerged, the building beginning to lean precariously, shining bright and silver. She could feel her Qi beginning to dip. She was having difficulty gaining enough of an advantage to use her techniques. In a split second he was moving again and her shield was out of place.
She breathed. Blood became red sparks between her clenched teeth. And then she
ignited.
With a horrific shriek of red flame and molten glass, all sound was drowned out and the light of day was overwhelmed by a hellish red pillar of flame. The Silver Tiger leaped away from the wave of pyroclastic doom, flipping backwards across the street away from her. His arm flew up to shield his eyes from her radiance.
She advanced, a trail of terrible destruction following her as stone melted in her presence, shield forgone for her spear of glass and bronze whose blade glimmered with shining white stars.
Out of that flame stepped a devilish knight, glass body festooned with thorns and sharply plated joints, its fanged mouth and flaming eyes lit with infernal light under the wide brim of a circular hat of glass. It shined with a red flame, dancing right beneath it's skin.
Ferenike's dantian was a screaming hell-scape of energy as her glass roiled and churned. In an eyeblink she was in the air over Bahubali Randhawa and her spear stabbed down, one blade becoming ten as glass arms and glass spears sprouted from her shoulders. She struck with the hammer blow of a legion.
The Silver Tiger screamed in effort as he struck with his blades, parrying her rain of blows desperately. She smiled wider and wider as explosions consumed the street in a river of fire as she pushed him back. What a relentless enemy they both made a part of her mused. She wanted so desperately to live, her mind consumed with it and now all that was in his head was the same.
No thought, no mind, she was bent only to the ideal of killing him. Further and further back he was pushed, his armor flaring with silver rings of light under her blows, causing the air to ripple with an unbroken silvery sheen around him. Buildings collapsed in their wake as fires started and the road melted into a river of molten glass behind Ferenike. Wholly focused on their fight the two experts did not comprehend the pack of Legionnaires upon the roof of a building overlooking the square plaza they had ended up in nor the mass of bronze Qi building up into a massive horse and rider.
Lack of comprehension of what he sensed did not prevent Randhawa from attempting to dodge on instinct, leaping away as a silver blur limned in silver fire. But Ferenike reacted faster and her empty hand caught his arm and flung him towards her Legionnaires for a crucial moment. The Kataphractoi leaped across the air as the Legionnaires descended and struck. Its lance was as large as a tower and the titantic weapon found its mark upon his chest and with a deafening
bang stabbed him into the ground. There was a blinding flash of light and a roar of energy that shook her bones like mad as a plume of dust and debris was thrown twenty
li into the sky. She blinked her eyes clear, spear held tightly.
The Kataphractoi beside her stood tall, its lance and great blow expended while the Legionnaires looked on warily at the massive pit dug into the plaza. Qi flickered inside of it, and a faint silver light.
No. Thought returned as Ferenike willfully threw herself in front of the blow that emerged from that pit. Her spear broke, her armor cracked and then shattered, and agony ripped through her body as foreign Qi and spirit silver ripped into her flesh. A roar of effort from the man preceded an explosive flex of muscle which flung her off of his claws to bounce across the plaza stones in a spray of blood.
Ranghawa was no longer clad in silver armor, it now having turned a dull and cracked black-grey as a gaping wound was carved into it and the flesh of his chest beneath it. Silver fire in the shape of a tiger skin cloak hung from his shoulders, his helmet having evaporated, revealing a handsome and exhausted face surrounded by thick black hair. His brown eyes were locked on Ferenike as she slammed an arm into the ground to prop herself up as the other tried to stem the gush of blood from her gut. His breathing was labored and he seemed unsteady on his feet. But even so he was standing after a blow that would have slain a Foundation Building expert outright, and his fancy armor had paid the price for it.
Ferenike looked at him but her thoughts were on the Legionnaires before her as she levered herself up on arms and knees, blood loss slowing as her veins sealed themselves under her mental touch. "Retreat Legionnaires." She rasped. What was coming would slay most of them, and no one else but this Tiger was dying today.
She heard Cincinnatus take a breath, hesitating for a moment, then quietly he responded. "Aye ma'am. Go! Retreat!" He shouted and she heard the clanging of quickly retreating Legionnaires behind her.
This wasn't as bad as the Bees. Worse than Zu Jing though. She hadn't been pushed this far in years. Bahubali Randhawa tensed and her patience became
action.
She breathed in a great torrent of air, ripping sand and flame free in a cacophonous howl, forming a cyclone of sand and molten glass and flames which extended more than two
li into the air and swallowed the plaza entirely. She was reaching out with all her might for the Qi of the Sun and the Desert, the two massive diffuse coils, as she had decades ago. Now though, that well of energy pulled in by her great
breath was supported by sixty four Qi invested shards which flowed into her right hand. She stood on shaking legs, left arm hanging limp. Her opponent was already a blur moving towards her.
She flew across the plaza to meet the roaring, fiery form of the Silver Tiger, static lighting lashing out from the molten trail she left. Her hand seemed to hold a red sun beneath its flesh, washing out all detail with its radiance and leaving her as a shadow carrying its light.
Opposing her was a silver light, cutting through her radiance like a knife, whiting out everything in front of her. The Silver Tiger lashed out with claws as large as a tower and she rose to meet it, aiming for the shadow on his chest. All sound was gone in the roar of their power.
Invasion of Heaven!
She slipped between his claws, and her glowing hand of glass and gunmetal pierced his flesh like water. Her legions marched, each one led by one of her sixty four shards and they lit his meridians and chakras aflame. His aura guttered out, his cultivation base shattering under the tramping footsteps of her soldiers and their mighty centuria.
Her red light filled the plaza and illuminated the sandstorm from within in terrifying hues. As her vision cleared she saw him holding her arm, buried up to the wrist in his chest. He was smiling. He choked out a laugh, as blood poured from the hole in his chest.
"...most honorable demon I've ever met..." He murmured, his breath slowing as his voice faded. "...fight well."
And then he died, slumping on her arm as his hands fell into her lap.
She sighed, collapsing to her knees and struggling to breathe as he slipped off her arm to fall upon his side. She cradled her shattered arm and hunched her shoulders under the twin pains of her half collapsed chest and torn open abdomen. Fatigue grasped her and she drifted into sleep.
Her dreams were hopeful.
@occipitallobe and another for your mighty throne. Another Fate Bonus please.
I guess if my thesis of the previous omake was "Xianxia settings
fucking suck to live in" then this is a very different and more hopeful statement.
Had a thought for a second that Bahubali (who is a reference to three different characters and kudos to who can get all three), would offer to return to the Fifth Sea if she let him go having proven her honor and then having her refuse but I realized it wasn't that in character or suitable with what I wanted to do with either of them.
