Ferenike 21 - At the Gates of Doom
Behind their group Acrocorinth was a ruin through which the desert wind howled. She had arrived in time to evacuate some of the defenders with Rina and the others, but to do no more. All around them was the desolation of the dunes on the eastern edge of Nascent's Fall, wind twisted into foul and sickly sounds as it passed over the craters and crags of that place. Ahead lay Pleuron where the enemy likely waited, armed with any number of horrors conjured by the imagination.
Around her hundreds of Qi Condensation cultivators soared at incredible speeds in a flock of Twin-Headed Eagle Formations. They were not silent, a constant murmur of the army on the march, voices thrown into the wind to catch briefly in her ears as she ran at the head of the flock.
It wasn't silent, but it reminded her of the feeling she had when visiting Fuxi's grave. Like the world had lost its depth and hopefulness. Those closest to members of the group Ferenike was working with were better off, seeming to draw strength from them. But most Legionnaires were subdued, and sad. It weighed heavy on them all.
When it came time to settle in for one of their brief rests during the noon, they hid in the shade of the dunes from the sun. As she had every time they settled down to rest and recover, she went out amongst her soldiers and spoke to them.
The first man she encountered was named Damien, one of the Ninth Legion like her, and he had holed boots and his Qi had guttered low. She pulled him aside, offering a stone of her own to replenish his stamina and pointed him to another member of their impromptu understrength cohort who had spares. She walked away as the two struck up a hearty and laugh filled conversation grousing about the quality of Legion boots.
Her course took her into the place they had set up for the medics to work in the center of the camp. The first patient she visited was a girl named Miria whose injuries required she be carried in the formations and helped the medics change the bandages on her leg and torso, and she looked up at Ferenike as she worked. "Will I live?" The wounded girl asked her, hair matted with dust and sweat and her face pale as her wide eyes stared into the middle distance, and Ferenike realized she spoke of what was coming.
Ferenike nodded as she helped tighten a knot on a bandage. "Yes. Even if Pleuron falls, we have our fellows and the Desert." She said, leaving unspoken her hope which still burned brightly.
After that Legionnaire she moved onto another, and another and another. From dozens of legions, and all walks of life. Where she passed they were just a little brighter, a little bit of that empty feeling receding.
In this way the cohort marched and camped and marched again. It came as little surprise when they were attacked by a band of Fifth Sea raiders. They came out of the sands as Ferenike and others, the most rested and powerful, stood watch.
"Raiders on the right!" She shouted, her voice carried by qi roaring over the camp and jolting it awake, people hollering as they shot to their feet and grabbed their weapons. A horrific shrieking filled the air as dozens came out of the night and leapt over the sand dunes and saw arms and armor quintessential of the Fifth Sea glinting in the sun and heard their speech as they called orders to attack under the shriek. Fear scraped through her mind from the awful wail before her inner fire and qi shattered the spell. Shee leapt to meet the first of the fighters.
Her spear and shield were already in hand and she parried the man's sword with her spear in a flash of orange sparks. Glass exploded around her body, becoming her iconic armor as her red star of light surrounded her and turned the sand crimson. He retreated in the light, flinging up an arm and she took the chance to breathe in, her chest swelling and glass creaking. And then she howled like a storm, a thunderous crack of expanding air heralding her fiery breath, bright red and shining with iridescent colors. It consumed the man as he screamed horrifically, and expanded in a cone of terrifying energies from her fanged maw to swallow the men behind him. With a
pop-pop-pop-crack half a dozen tokens were broken and they disappeared before the fires could turn them to ash
. They'd suffer from some painful burns though, she mused to herself.
She stepped through the smoke and lingering fires, glassed sand crunching under her boots as her jaw ratcheted closed. Already she could hear sounds of battle all around her, the heavy thumps of Muqin Guo and the roars of Wajo punctuating the clash of steel and bronze. To her right she heard screams as a group of Legionnaires were pushed back by a raider group, back towards the camp, and blood flowed freely into the sands.
She raced over the dunes, feet blurring as they kicked up sand and she reached the formation of juniors in a blaze of red light, sailing over them to land atop an enemy's sword arm, forcing their blade into the sand before kicking off their face into a flip and landing amongst the front ranks of the legionnaires. "FORM UP! HOPLITE LEGIONNAIRES!" She shouted at them. The shadow of the man and the massive bronze shield and spear shone into existence as they reacted on instinct, the coiling qi of the formation bolstering them all.
Half a dozen more appeared all over the camp and battle field as other groups followed suit. She turned, feeling the massive amount of Qi empowering her and she raised her spear to point at the batch of a thirty raiders bearing down, most in the sixth or eighth heavenstages. "LOWER SPEARS! CHARGE!" She roared out into the hot daylight air.
They erupted forward, the Hoplite slamming into the raider group like a hammer. Sweeping their spear this way and that, tokens broke in ones and twos as the slowest failed to dodge their spear entirely. The rest dispersed and began to harry them. Ferenike laughed, no thought in her mind but the next correct action. Striking at stragglers, breaking free of the encirclement, and then wheeling so that she could blast them with a terrifying mass of flames chased by the Hoplite's half a
li long spear sweeping across the raiders. Many disappeared, but a few of most unlucky were cut into pieces by the spear or burnt to a crisp. The strongest held and began to retreat, wheeling away. "READY SPEAR!" She shouted. And then they threw it, to impact with a massive crash and an explosion of superheated sand at its impact point. The strongest survived, but she saw wounds on a few, bleeding wounds, burns and broken bones as they fled out into the dunes.
Sweeping forward with the speed of the Hoplite they retrieved their spear and saw that the rest of the battle was beginning to close. Other raider groups were also fleeing, or dying under the blows of her colleagues. In a blink they were over the dunes and gone in a flash.
"Wounded?" She asked as she turned and surveyed her men in the light of the Hoplite.
A man with long black hair in a braid snapped a salute, his arms thick with muscle. "Aye Centurion!" He said, and then he turned and started organizing people with shouts and prods. Ferenike looked on, throwing the occasional wary glance to the dunes surrounding the camp. A minute or so later and she had her wounded tallied; a few with broken bones and bad stab wounds, one whose leg had been lamed but might recover, and one man unconscious from blood loss though they'd stopped the bleeder quick enough he might live through the night. All told about a third of the group was hurt in some way.
But no one was dead, yet, miraculously. "Alright! Get the wounded to the medics and secure the camp." She ordered, and then started moving amongst the other defenders, coordinating their movements and adjusting the watches. She didn't trust the raiders not to come back. Fortunately her suspicions were not immediately validated and the column was able to begin marching again when the sun began to descend close to the horizon.
For several more days after that it was quiet.
But it didn't last, the raiders returned and harried them even more as they made their way towards Pleuron. Again and again and again, day after day they were pricked and prodded like a bull by dozens of spears. Bled. An attempt to weaken them that did not succeed and did not deter them. Casualties were being kept to a minimum, and there had been only a few deaths, amazingly. Luck bouyed by skill seemed to be with them.
They'd also received a message of one of her friends, Xiao Yi. He'd hold Pleuron for seven days, enough time to reach him and the city. She hoped he was still alive when she arrived there and her sleep was fitful as she held the copies of their letters she had close.
Stay alive.
He had to stay alive and hold the city because they couldn't evacuate and could not retreat into a prepared group like the plan entailed. Pleuron was the last stop with the fall of the Elders. Fear rattled her ribs at night as her heart beat like thunder, but hope burned against it and she managed to force herself up and to command her juniors with a steady voice. It would have been impossible for her seventy years ago, but now after so many years and Guo Wu it was easy.
As the days progressed and they grew closer, news of Xiao Yi's wounds and efforts weighed heavier on her and even her hopeful heart began to wane. She spoke less and helped more, getting less and less sleep, trying to be everywhere at once. As she worked amongst the legionnaires she heard a name for her group begin to spread. The Indomitable Thirteen. She wasn't sure what to make of it, though she could see how they might be seen as immovable monoliths. It was not a heady feeling. Instead it anchored her and reminded her of what they were doing out here in the sands.
Their purposes wasn't to die and be remembered as a pithy name. Their purpose was to bring victory. Whatever victories they could.
The raiders' attacks tapered off on the second to last day. Just two more days and they would reach Pleuron. The thirteen of them argued that night, and she pushed for continuing on, she would not let her last friend go easily, and others pushed for retreat. Eventually one of the boys spoke up and challenged them by pointing out that retreat would require them to abandon the juniors and the city, which was unconscionable. It would be against the purpose of their gathering. The argument died then and they decided to continue.
The next day they came in sight of the walls of Pleuron and before it a great host lay encamped, the sun glinting off silvery arms and armor, weapons and jewels of every kind. Swords, spears, sharpened disks, whips, staves, and many others held in the hands of thirty thousand Hunters. Ferenike was at the front of the column and so she saw clearly the two cultivators stood before the city walls. One was her friend, tall and resting his weight on his ji. Against him stood a slip of a girl with a massive sword at least three times her height in length.
She heard his words distantly over the sands as she watched from over the top of a dune. Her cohort had arrayed itself behind and around her, some of them peeking up over the dune as well, while the rest arranged themselves below in the lee of the dune holding their weapons tightly.
"Words from you lot. Always words. Here's some. Protect the weak against the evil strong. Giving up..." He said, his voice empty and hollow. He coughed and spat out a mouthful of blood. "Giving up is for lesser men." Ferenike's hand tightened on her spear as she signaled the column to wait for an opportunity. Looking back she saw worried faces and panting breaths as people waited, crouched and tensed. They'd have to wait for Xiao Yi to provide a distraction.
She turned back and watched. The duel began.
The little sword girl rushed at him, sword slicing for Ferenike's friend. The sword screamed towards him, and then was halted by some unseen magic that he had used.
The girl set her feet and with a rasp of Sword Qi down her blade's edge she cut through the magic and then before he could react sliced him in twain at the hips. Ferenike watched, her heart thumping as Xiao Yi fell to his back.
Stay alive. That was the only thought in her mind, a rapid boom-boom-boom of her heart making it swell and her legs shake and her teeth ache as she snarled.
Stay alive.
The sword girl chuckled over his body. "Honestly, did you think you could have faced me even if you were who-"
She spat up blood. The
ji had grown, running around her, stabbing her in the back. Ferenike saw vines were growing through her, absorbing her Qi, Xiao Yi absorbing her life to fuel his own. The bleeding stopped, and her body shriveled, becoming a corpse in moment, and then dust, flying away in the wind. Ferenike's snarl turned into a sharp fanged grin.
A booming voice came out of the Fifth Sea army. "That concludes your seven duels. Now someone will come kill you."
Xiao Yi laughed. "Send them all."
"What?" Returned the voice.
"All of them... come at me at once. I don't have to take the pill now. But if you send them all... I will. It'll make me stronger. Make it worth using."
A gesture, and fifty Foundation Establishment experts sped out of the army, a panoply of spears, swords and shields all shining as they rushed towards their prey. Xiao Yi looked at them all, and with immense fatigue weighting his shoulders, raised his
ji.
Ferenike saw her chance. "Go go! Sprint for the city!" She shouted and slapped one man, Tisamenos she thought was his name, on the back and pushing him towards the gate and out of the lee of the dune. They rushed into the city as the hunters collapsed onto her friend. They crossed the dunes in a blur, and as she pushed and guided people through the gate she turned and looked back with a handful of others. Her knuckles were white on her spear as she watched Xiao Yi spin his ji around and struck at himself, piercing deep into his own flesh.
She froze and her breath choked as she saw terrible green-black vines burst from his body, and their thorns expanded into a field of thousands and thousands of barbed wicked spears as his blood wet their leaves. The enemy could not avoid them all, screaming and wailing as they were impaled on a malicious jungle that crawled from her friend's body like maggots and hissing serpents. His aura screamed and twisted as it fused with that of his weapon, chilling her too the bone as she listened to her friend's spiritual agony.
A man screamed, spear splitting his skull.
A woman tugged at a vine digging into her thighs, rending bones and drinking marrow.
Two vines pierced one unlucky man's eye-sockets, growing more and more, until they grew and cracked his skull open like a ripe melon.
Another women found ten spears wrap around her arms, restraining her, and piercing into her heart.
With the first taste of blood and the first death she felt Xiao Yi's aura thicken and become almost putrid with the scent of it. Each enemy made the vines grow faster and faster, the snapping and cracking of bones and wood blending together into a horrible orchestra. And the vines
drank, red veins pumping blood to the ruined body in the center of the terrifying grove. It thrashed and bit and chewed, each spear a fang, until all fifty experts were spitted corpses drained of their fluids, dissolving into dust in the wind.
It was silent. Her brown eyes were locked on Xiao Yi and his aura, thudding like a massive heart, her own beating to match it. She saw his body twitch, as he smiled and the enemy flinched back from the reach of his vines, their calls and orders going up and echoing off the walls of Pleuron.
"-all at once!" one particularly coherent gasp of horror reached her in the Fifth Sea tongue.
"Retreat! Do not approach that cursed thing!" Another, commanding voice ordered. The army reacted and began to pull back behind the walls of their camp in good order. Ferenike could feel the hateful and malicious looks from all the way here in the shadows of the gate as their enemies cursed her friend's magic and skill.
"Ferenike! We need to prepare the juniors!" One of her subordinates shouted and she snapped her gaze away from Xiao Yi.
"Close the gate!" She roared, and it began to rumble close behind her as she set off into the city to meet up with Minerva Barda and the others. In her heart her fire roared, hope and rage and a screaming feeling mixing together to buoy her up, clenching her hands tight and making her heart thud like a drum.
She hoped furiously that what they were doing here would be worth it. What they were doing, the plans they would need to come up with to save this city, and the fate of it had to be of worth. Her eyes scanned the soldiers dispersing towards the barracks down the lanes of the city and alit on one in particular. Tisamenos had turned, seeming a bit lost as he tried to work out where the nearest barracks was. Her hand landed on his shoulder and he jumped, looking up at her from his slightly shorter height. His brown hair sat close cut to his bronze scalp.
"One more cultivator at your level won't make a huge difference. But the Clan will need to understand what we're doing here, and why. If our approach yields benefits, it will benefit the Clan in years to come." She said in a blunt declaration. She tilted her head down the street. "Get some rest and then report to me in an hour."
As he headed towards a spot to rest, she set off to find Barda and the others of the Thirteen.
In the first meeting Barda outlined the situation that faced Pleuron. The woman looked like an aging crone, hair stringy and losing all color as a dreadful green iridescence shone from within her skin. She spoke in a wheeze, "We face an enemy which can recover within hours and return to fight and assaulting the walls in perfect health. A Core Formation level healer is currently present and sustaining them. We can't hold for long if they're still alive. That is why I am brewing a poison to slay them."
Looking around the table as Tisamenos stood behind her with his record book and quill, Ferenike noted her compatriots. They were all present for a moment, using the time bought as the enemy adjusted the direction of their attacks around Xiao Yi's grove to coordinate. "Our options then?" She asked in a quiet rasp.
As absurd as it sounded, she had the feeling that amongst them it wouldn't be hard for them to come up with something that
might work. Arrogance maybe, but they were all on the cusp of Foundation Building or advancing along the Keystones. And they so they talked, diving into the discussion of who would be best suited to handle which duties dependent upon their skills.
Minerva was one amongst them with the highest cultivation but as she had to brew the poison and admitted to poor skills in that field anyway in her estimation, and because others had their own specialties, that meant command of the makeshift legion that defended Pleuron fell to Ferenike as one with the command experience and cultivation to do it. They were split up into teams, her, Myia, Eirene, Achille and Morgraine set to hold the walls.
It didn't take long after that for the enemy to wheel around and begin to attack again. The roof of the room she was in shook and rumbled, dust rattling and falling into her hair as the Fifth Sea cultivators began their bombardment of the array walls. Achille was already down there keeping them intact as she sat in a makeshift office and observed the reports of supplies and medical space. They were cutting it
tight. She rubbed her forehead with one hand, her quill dancing at incredible speed across order papers. Even if they survived the Core Formation cultivator, they were looking at maybe a month of medical supplies in the city's stores. A spike of relief had her thanking the name of whichever clans-people fortified this city in ancient days, because it had a ready source of water from underground oases and rivers reachable from specific points in the city core.
She hoped the enemy didn't get the bright idea to try and poison those rivers or else they were well and truly doomed. Signing off on the last order she looked up and bellowed. "SCRIBE!"
Tisamenos appeared in a flash, huffing and looking mildly terrified. "Yes ma'am!?" He shouted as he saluted.
She waved her bundle of orders. "Deliver these to the runners for the city force commanders. And here's a list of the runner names and ranks and where to find them." She said as she wrote up a list from memory in a split second and slapped it into his chest, moving past him at speed as she walked out. Those plans should set up a counter rotation of officers and soldiers, such that none of her officers gave into fear and casualties were mitigated via clever placement of forces in the most necessary positions while others were left in reserve.
The deployment of her soldiers would be like a wheel, always presenting a fresh face to the enemy. Even if the enemy had much shorter recovery times, they could stretch how long the Clan could hold with some cleverness. She also ordered for several explosive array scorpions to be moved into new positions, presenting fields of suppressive fire to take pressure off the north wall. Her steps took her through one of the barracks in the same building as her office. She needed to check on this unit and deploy them.
When she opened the door she was hit with a wall of grumbles and muted shouts as an argument boiled out. "We've come here to be made into fucking farm animals for them!" One of the men screamed at another as they got into each other's faces.
"Yeah well that's better than being
vulture food." The other shouted back, and then there was a deadly pause as tension spiked.
She frowned.
Boom! Everyone jumped. "Hey! Legionnaires form up, ranks!" Her clap shook the roof as she bellowed. All attention fell on her as they bolted upright on instinct and saluted. She walked up to the two arguing men and grabbing them by the shoulders, physically moved them apart. They stumbled back from each other, and were grabbed by their fellows and pulled into the mass standing before Ferenike, sweating.
Her gaze cut through them all as it swept across the legionnaires, the red light in the pits of her pupils flaring. She pulled out a pipe and with a flame on the end of her thumb lit it. She took a puff. She breathed out and took her pipe in a hand.
"Who here remembers the story of Anaeus and Silas?" She asked rhetorically, gesturing with her pipe at the unit. Everyone flinched, trading shamed looks. She quirked an eyebrow. "You all do? Alright then, you Elias, tell me the story." She pointed at the man who had shouted about them being farm animals.
Elias rolled his shoulders and then looking over her shoulder began to speak. "Anaeus and Silas were brothers, trained to wield shield and spear together from the time they were babies. Anaeus favored the spear and Silas the shield and together they were unstoppable, Devil Bees falling before them like wheat in that time. They were so great in skill that they were never wounded once in battle, standing against first Essence Gathering, the Pillar Construction and more foes untold." He swallowed. All legionnaires she had met knew this story, and what it meant.
"Beasts and dragons and demons fell before their spears and shields, as they gathered a following of spear brothers and sisters and others besides. Marching in an shieldwall bolstered by Silas's skill they were unbreakable, and with spears blessed by Anaeus they could shatter the armor and morale of any enemy." The man said, his voice losing its anger as he returned to old memories.
Elias continued. "Until one battle in which a Devil Bee of the Nascent Soul realm appeared and struck Anaeus about the brow. He bled freely and fell screaming and wailing into a hollow in the earth, crying out until terror choked him silent and he felt as if he had died from it. The soldiers which followed him and his brother fell into a panic as the Devil Bee led his mount to devour them, for they to thought he was dead." The man's breaths were becoming harsher as his emotions came to the surface, paling his bronze skin and causing his hands to shake.
One of his fellows laid a hand on his shoulder as he began to bend. And so he straightened even more, and after taking a deep breath, finished. "Silas though, Silas stayed strong and struck back at the enemy even as the Nascent Soul tore great wounds into his body, playing with his food and enjoying his prey's suffering. Silas was undaunted, because he hoped, he hoped his brother still lived, and in his heart knew it to be true. In his hollow Anaeus heard his brother's battle cries and realizing that he had not been struck dead emerged to find his brother standing tall, shield broken and teeth stained with his own blood as he led some of their men to fight against the monster. Seeing this, Anaeus bellowed loud enough to shake the mountains, 'Fear no more!' and his men took heart! And together they threw down the enemy and returned victors!" The man spoke, his voice rising until he shook and trembled and was almost shouting Anaeus's words. He gasped then, and the final line of the story was a whisper that filled the room.
Into that silence Ferenike's voice growled, snapping like fire. "Fear, is an
infection. It leaves the world empty, and our works ash beneath the boots of our enemies." She clapped the man on the shoulder, red light beginning to fill the room as the fire in her heart shone out through her flesh. She raised a clenched fist. "We are a clan of hopeful fools. We hope to turn the world into a better place against the
very will of Heaven itself. We
hope to see another day and take another breath and our fear tries to prey upon that hope. It tricks us into thinking that hope is impossible. But
it is not."
She stepped back and looked at them all. "I see before me men and women who hope, who wish to
live to see that hope come to pass, with fear stealing in and convincing you that you are hopeless. But you wouldn't fear, if you didn't have hope. We are not cowards and food for vultures. We are not prey."
The man before her wiped at his eyes, "Yes, ma'am." He choked out, and from there the crowd of soldiers swarmed around him, and Ferenike as well, laughing and shaking as they smiled for what felt like the first time in days. As Ferenike attempted to extricate herself from the mass and directed them to their posts, she found their eyes no longer sallow and empty, but instead filled with a fire. It may have snapped and crackled with desperation, but it was hope all the same.
Not today, not here, not to these enemies. She could almost
hear those thoughts swirling around amongst her soldiers. She shared them.
Eventually she broke free and left. It'd been a few hours of paperwork and orders and wracking her brain for ways to stretch limited medical supplies while listening to the bombardment, and she needed to check on Minerva.
When she came to the low building where they were brewing the poison that would slay a Core Foundation member, she found it nearly impossible to enter as foul smelling purple and yellow smoke wafted from the smoke stacks. Coughing and swirling Qi through the meridians in her lungs to fend of some of it, she forced herself to enter and with watering eyes sought out Minerva and Magnus.
She found them as expected in the center of the room, surrounded by the thickest smoke as they manipulated needles in Minerva's right arm, through which strange fluids were being fed into her veins. Minerva seemed even worse now, waxy and almost jelly soft and wasted skin clinging to a skeleton which was almost visible.
She blinked her eyes open, and Ferenike could see they were nearly red with bloodshot veins. Magnus spoke up from where he kneeled next to the seated Minerva, not looking away from his task. "We need another day, the poison isn't stabilizing like projected and the final ingredients need more time to ferment."
Coughing into her hand Ferenike nodded. "Keep her alive and get it brewed as fast as you can then. We'll get you your day." She said in a rasp and then looked at Minerva. Giving a deep nod of respect to the woman she then wheeled around and jogged out of the round dome shaped building and then down the street. She blinked fume irritated eyes and started looking for a runner. It took two turns before she found a shorter boy running by. She snatched him up by the shoulders. "Get Achille, Aretaphilia, Morgraine and Eirene and send them to my office! Also find me my scribe Tisamenos! We have a problem!"
Chivying the boy off with a slap on the back she sprinted for her office. When she came into sight she slowed to a walk and settled her breathing. Stepping into the long rectangular building that contained her temporary office she slammed the door open and looked at her staff. Half a dozen clerks in the third stage, they jolted as the door slammed. Snapping out orders left and right in rapid fire she set into motion a new purpose for her army. Like a well sharpened spear in her hands she wielded them like a weapon and extension of herself. In her minds eye the mosaic that represented the battle shifted and she began plotting how to pull it all off. Bursting into her office she left the door open behind her and a clatter behind her was revealed to be Tisamenos when she looked over her shoulder.
"Good, stand behind me." She said as she sat at the table in the middle of her office, where it sat on a rug between her desk and her door. It didn't take long for her four companions to appear.
Ferenike looked around the table.
She inclined her head at these four who would help her hold the wall against absurd odds.
"Achille, Aretaphilia, Mograine. Eirene. Bad news."
The array-master spoke up, concerned. "Worse than it already is?"
"Just received word from Lady Minervina. It'll take another day to complete." She said bluntl y
Achille shook his head. "Another day? The array is about to fall as it is. I don't see it happening."
She grunted. "Nevertheless. We need the day. Can it be bought? We are the least critical members of the plan, those who can be spared. I can shore up our troops for twenty-four hours. You?"
An explosion interrupted his response. It brought them all out of their chairs and then sent the array master out running, cursing. "Walk with me and talk. No time!"
They hurried into the city, Tisamenos trailing far behind the five of the Thirteen.
It took him five minutes, and a great array-stone with thousands of runes carved upon it stood, a line of glaring red light shining out from a crack on the stone.
Achille looked over, one hand carving as the other searched for something on the ground. "Boy! Hand me the small tool on the left, there."
Tisamenos did as he was bid, hurrying over. While the two boys were occupied with that Ferenike turned and began to sprint. "Come on you three, we need to get to the wall!" She said as she gestured for the three others to follow her. A rapid fire discussion happened as they sent ideas back and forth and then settled onto a rotation to buy the hours necessary for the poison to finish brewing. Then they reached the walls and the three of them leaped up with Myia in the lead.
As the others went up the wall, Ferenike took her place by a rock that laid at its base after getting knocked out of the wall. "Good luck." She whispered after them.
For now she would catch some shut eye, leaning back against this tilted rock and holding her spear in one hand against her body. And so she took soldier's rest, fitfully sleeping to the backdrop of battle and explosions. Her thoughts spun out towards planning, her half dreaming mind watching as the mosaic in her mind shifted, the dark shadows of the hunters spreading around the northern wall and sparks of light leaping up into the air at sights of the greatest conflict.
It can't have been more than a few minutes when Myia's song began to ring out from the walls, buoying her mind. It gave her little, but to those below her, she could feel the weight it carried for them. With its notes in her ears she rested.
A few minutes later Tisamenos clattered up to her and gasped for breath. "Centurion!"
"Yes, scribe?" She asked as one of her eyes cracked open. She could see a disbelieving, distressed look on his face. Must have weirded him out to catch her napping, he looked barely in his twenties and his aura was weak enough to match. Inexperienced, compared to her She smiled, "When you've been in the Legions as long as I have, you'll take whatever sleep comes your way and be thankful for it. Five minutes here, five minutes there... it all adds up. Now, what happened? I had to leave Achille, the north wall was at risk." She said to him.
He paused, seeming about to respond before he seemed to get caught up in the song. "Tisamenos?" She asked him.
He jolted in place and saluted reflexively. "Apologies, Centurion.
Mechanikos Adephos has stabilized the collapsing array, and states it should hold for one more day, but no longer."
She crossed her arms and nodded. "Good. I'm getting some shut-eye. Go see the others up on the wall, I'll be up shortly." She said and leaned back into her comfy spot on the rock. Having metal skin made a lot of things more comfortable, which she took great advantage of to nap when and where she could.
As she rested, occasionally being awoken to coordinate supplies and direct orders as commanders approached her, she heard Aretaphilia sing for three hours. She could hear the cries of the Clan scream loud and boisterous, bolstered by her magic. Then her voice guttered out and Ferenike knew that Eirene would act next. It fell silent on the walls, the sounds of battle dissipating and causing her to rest in an oasis of silence for seven hours as peace infused the air.
Then Aretaphilia's song started up again, rougher and ragged, and those empowered cries came again for two hours. Then there was silence for a time as Morgraine stepped forward, followed by sounds of battle as the Fifth Sea hunters gave weak cries which were overwhelmed by the roars of the Clan. Scared by his abilities, the Fifth Sea quailed and fell. He bought them two hours.
As his presence faded with fatigue and the enemy's cries gained renewed strength once again, Ferenike heard Aretaphilia begin again. This time her voice was a horrid, rasping thing, but it brought no less strength. For an hour she sung and when it faded, Ferenike opened her eyes, a grin splitting her face.
She leapt up the stairs two at a time, almost seeming to fly up them as she held her hat to her head with one hand and her spear in the other. She leapt onto the battlements, took a breath and then
shouted. "LEGIONNAIRES! FIGHT FOR YOUR LIVES! WE'RE NOT DYING TODAY!" It echoed from tower to tower and ear to ear until it had reached every single one of the wall's defenders and they answered her with a scream of battle and hope.
@occipitallobe my first omake for turn 6! Not asking for anything but a fate boost yet. I hope you don't mind me working in some of what you have written into this. To all you other folks who have created great characters, it was a lot of fun to use them a little bit in this and I hope you all don't mind.
