A stiff sea breeze caught Mokoto’s hair as she leaned against the Ilith Saran’s starboard railing. Her jaw clenched as she watched the crew gather around the crate Gyaro had found.
“Hegemony weapons, eh?” Vinsant said, peering inside the cache while wrapping a scarf around the small wound Loranna had given him. “Might as well toss us to the sea n’ let those tiny eels wriggle up all our holes, ya?”
Mokoto took a step back at the mention of Torian weaponry. Loranna wouldn’t stoop that low.
“Ohhh,” Aveenda said, her eyes narrowed in profound revelation. “I get it, now!”
The group, in unison, looked up. It wasn't often that the naive girl said she “got” anything.
“The eels. Going in... everywhere. That’s what kiffered means!”
Gyaro grunted a sigh.
Mokoto shook her head then shot a glare at Loranna. Did she know they were smuggling Torian weapons on the barge?
Loranna, maddeningly, was ignoring her. Instead, she’d picked up one of the weapons—one the Torian’s called a Railer—and was examining it.
It looked like a black metal crossbow with thick golden limbs and a filigreed barrel protruding from its firing end. There were no strings or gears, and a thin crystal-like cylinder ran its length; embedded where the arrow would typically go. It fired lightning-charged shards that shredded armor like it was silk. Mokoto shuddered, remembering both the weapon’s high pitched whine when it shot, and the inevitable cry from whomever it hit.
Vinsant said, “This change anything... Cap’n?” His voice was humbled now that his challenge had been defeated. Gyaro and Aveenda looked expectantly at Loranna as well.
Mokoto turned away in disgust.
She stalked over to the mast, and with a practiced hand-over-hand climb, scaled the rigging to the crow's nest. A place she could think.
Standing on the small wooden platform, she raised a hand to block the sun, and surveyed the leagues of whitecaps to the west. At the mouth of the Bastards Bay, the storm that had been brewing the whole day sat in wait, collecting clouds and growing thicker.
Looking out over the waves, Mokoto allowed herself to drift back to her time as a general in the Weeper’s War. To remember the most pivotal day in that fight against Torian—when she stood atop a ridge overlooking the third army of the united Aardehn forces.
Loranna stood to her right, wearing a tabard of blue with yellow trim over light chain armor. The princess of the Ilithian elves was her best friend and had the keenest planning mind Mokoto had ever seen.
To Mokoto’s left was another friend, the Lady Skar. Tall and sensual, with hooded eyes frozen in a cold stare that no expression on her lips could change. She wore a scant white wrap and her only armor was a ruby inlaid silver gorget that stretched across her shoulders and secured a red cloak that flowed behind her. She was the blood-drinking Vandyr’s queen.
“Do they have the discipline for this?” Loranna asked, snapping open an engraved silver spyglass and holding it to her eye.
Mokoto looked out at the hundred thousand troops they three commanded. The Ilithian Elves, a quarter of their combined number, in their blue and yellows, followed Loranna. The Vandyr, with their sharp, feeding fingers, bowed their will to Lady Skar. Everyone else, half the army, looked to Mokoto as their leader.
“They’ve desperation and belief. Can’t ask for more,” Mokoto said, confirming her troops' positioning.
The Centaurs of the Bryanin wilds, held at the rear, anxious to let loose as weak point cavalry. A great mass of Humans, Mokoto’s core force of steel and sorcery, set the middle ranks. Teelings, Orcs, and Minotaurs made up the front.
And at the vanguard, holding shields created by a ritual that killed ten Ilithian archmages, were the Giants of the Parth. The enchanted shield’s they shouldered projected a web of energy. A crackling shell of swirling greens, yellows, and blues that shimmered protectively over the whole army.
“The shield’s being hit,” Loranna said, her spyglass pointed at the front lines. “They’re coming.”
It was impossible to see through the crackling energy of the shield without enhancement, but Mokoto could feel the enemies advance. The ground shook from their precise mechanical progression.
“This time will be different. I believe in us,” Mokoto said.
Torian’s weapons were destructive, but their artillery couldn’t penetrate the Ilithian shield. Their armor was strong, but nothing a Teeling couldn't tear off. And their reinforcements, while steady in supply, would never replace Vandyr troops that were only exhausted if the blood stopped flowing.
“A night of sadness, I think,” Skar murmured. “A night for survival.”
Mokoto agreed the cost would be great, but raised her hand to signal the advance. With a reluctant sigh, Skar followed suit. Loranna echoed them and headed off to join the advance.
In the whole of Mokoto’s life, she'd never been more ready to fight. Never so proud to lead.
And so, that first scream, a strange sound to hear from inside the shield, sent a tingle of dread burrowing into her soul.
It came from the bottom of the ridge. Mokoto stepped forward and looked down. She frowned at the sight. Blinked to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
A young human soldier, no more than seventeen, stared up at her. His blue eyes were wide. His mouth agape. Stabbed into the side of his throat were the razor-sharp fingers of a Vandyr.
Just for a second, Mokoto thought it was a rogue. But then, across the fields, more terrified shrieks echoed out.
“What have you done?” She pulled her weapon and spun to face Skar.
But the Vandyr queen was gone.
Mokoto blinked herself free of the memory as an osprey flew past her. It gave a cry and then landed atop the mast—talons digging deep into the timber. It tilted it’s feathered head, regarding her with a strange intelligence. Then it opened its beak as if to talk...
---
Comments (0)
See all