grievinglands
patreon
Book 5: Chapter 32 - Clash (RAW)
🕑 Added 2025-03-02 09:22:26 +0000 UTCChapter 32 - Clash
“Anger is not an enemy to be driven away; it is a wounded spirit within you, a child crying out for your gentle embrace. Do not battle this anger, for when you fight yourself, you divide your own strength. Instead, cradle your anger with the soft hand of mindfulness and let the clarity of understanding soothe its cries. In this way, your anger shall be reborn—refined into a razor’s edge of clarity and focus, sharper than any blade forged by mortal hands.”
- The Fivefold Path by Master Huanjien Lan of the Land of Streams 143 A.C.
The armies of Mer and elf held fast across the plains for two uneasy days, neither host daring an all-out advance. The elves no doubt were still reeling from the blows I had dealt to their command. Their great eagles with their filthy riders hung at the very edge of range of Al-Lazar’s siege engines and the half-mad Anemancers in the employ of the city who commanded the winds. At last, the enemy alliance sent out two separate columns to encircle the city, determined to seal off any overland succor and bring Al-Lazar under a true siege.
Farzan and I agreed that we could not permit our foes to cast their noose about the city’s neck. Though Al-Lazar’s had food stores enough to feed its citizens for weeks or months, resentment already simmered behind its walls at the new government that had taken power. Hungry bellies breed treachery as surely as any sword; in such times, the starving citizenry were as dangerous as the would-be conquerors that were starving behind them.
In council, the Minister of War declared we must protect the city’s northern flank at all costs, harry or halt the encircling prong, and keep open the path upon which fresh sustenance flowed into the city. The Green Road that flowed now perpetually with freshwater had turned the desert to the north of the city into a fertile strip of land that cut through the Whispering Wastes like a straight spear.
Thus, we made ready a swift contingent of cavalry and foot, meant to strike and withdraw, gnawing at the enemy’s strength with quick raids. Alongside us would come a handful of Wind Mages whose spells could harass the eagles above or tear the feathers from a rider’s wings if the wind blew in our favor. Two Gryphon scouts would serve as our swift eyes and messengers, skimming the sky for sign of ambush. We meant to make a brave show of it, if only to remind these invaders that Al-Lazar did not cower behind its walls.
Yet I could not help but shudder at the sight of the monstrous Gryphons and the slender figures perched upon them—children, chosen because they were lighter and taxed the endurance of the beasts less.
I turned to Elwin, a wiry man with empty, haunted eyes, and asked, “Tell me, do you find it barbaric that they use such innocents in the place of grown men?”
He only parted his lips and stared, bereft of words. Perhaps he had seen worse in his time—most of us had.
“I am coming with you, Gil,” came a bright voice that cut through my thoughts. Larynda stood beside me, her jaw set with determination. Concern flickered in her eyes. “Are you well? A moment ago, you seemed to be muttering to yourself. One of your spells again? Or is it something that old people do?”
I hesitated, struggling to orient myself in the here and now. “I was only remembering…an old friend,” I said softly. “You were to stay behind.”
“I see,” she replied. “Well, I’m coming all the same.”
I managed a nod, my voice hollow. “Very well,” I said at last. “You’ll ride with me.” I gestured toward the waiting Xaruar, a six-legged lizard nearly the size of a small house, with a wooden howdah strapped across its armored back. The beast let out a deep-throated bellow, as if to greet her. “And with them.”
Seated atop the fighting platform were two Wind Mages, a man and a woman, both robed in the pale blue of the open sky. Their dark brown hair stuck out in wild tangles, and their eyes roved across the horizon as if they glimpsed something beyond mortal sight. Their lips moved ceaselessly, whispering secrets only the Wind knew. Yet they paused long enough to offer us wry smiles—friendly but laced with the glimmer of madness.
These two walked the same path Zariyah once did, drawn to the high, howling power of Wind and storm, but far, far from its end. They had yet to be consumed by it.
“I’ll be all right,” Larynda said, her bright tone firm despite the unease writ across her face. Perhaps we all lied to ourselves in that moment. But I knew that conflict does not wait on caution or comfort, and the day’s blood would be spilled regardless. We marched out under that cruel sky, with me as the only eager person looking forward to the fighting.
***
“Remember your roles,” I told the wild-eyed Anemancers I had just finished persuading to sit still, their mannerisms annoying in the extreme.
“We hear you,” the man answered. “My name is Nadim…”
“And I am Saba,” added the other, in a voice laden with riddles. “We share the same mother, though born at different times.”
“You’re brother and sister, then?” I snorted.
“And you…” Nadim’s eyes flickered with fevered intensity. “You are the black wind, death itself, yet beloved of the Storm.”
“I’ve been called worse,” I replied, dismissing his words with a shrug. “Your task is to keep us safe from aerial attacks. Keep anything from the sky off our backs.”
“We sense…” Saba began, but I cut her off.
“Do your job,” I snapped. “Focus. If you fail, I’ll skewer the two of you and bury you in the blackest pit I can find—where not even a whisper of wind will ever reach you.”
They hissed in fear at the threat, and Larynda quickly spoke up, hoping to defuse the tension. “Don’t mind Gil,” she said with a bright smile. “He just has a…particular way of talking. I believe he means that we each have an important role to play.”
“It isn’t that…” Saba’s voice trembled. “There’s someone among the enemy who also hears the Wind. We may not be enough…”
“Disclaimers? Already making excuses?” I half-shouted, annoyance rising hot in my throat. “The city’s fate hangs in the balance, and all I hear is whining.” Why must I always suffer incompetent fools?
“Just do your best,” Larynda said kindly, translating my angry words into something more palatable.
It would only serve to get my blood up to engage with the pair further, so I held my peace.
***
Armies on the move seldom move at great speed. Even when the order is given—“Ride now, ride fast!”—lines of men, beasts, as a whole, crawl along at their own stubborn pace. And so, two full turns of the sandglass passed before we finally intercepted our foe. For a time, we circled and sniffed each other out, like wary lovers just before the bedding. A dance of scouts and vanguards—skirmishers nipping at flanks, arrows flitting across open ground—until the greater melee would begin. The chaos of war blooming in ardent passion.
But that pitched battle never fully blossomed. Instead, it remained a savage sequence of skirmishes that surged and ebbed across the bone-white sands, a mad game of tag where losing meant to be trampled under hoof or claws. The Mer who fought on land, with armor made and weapons that looked more living than crafted, were quick and cunning.
I could only imagine the terror they might be in their native waters. Even their Coralith weapons had a curious, organic sheen, like creatures half-grown from the deep. Yet most unsettling of all was not the eerie Mer, but the way some of the Al-Lazarians looked upon them like starved hounds leering at a side of beef. The flesh of the Mer was a delicacy, succulent and prized among these people. At that reminder, my stomach roiled with revulsion. I understood then how twisted Al-Lazar could be beneath its gilded prosperity. I could not dwell long among people who made feasts from the unclean.
It seemed to me to be haram, as my father would often say, looking at a screen, his eyes transfixed with both curiosity and indignation.
Still, for now, my place was here—dark longbow in hand. The crush of clashing forces was too thick for me to choose my targets carefully, but from my vantage, I loosed bolt after solid bolt into the formations. I felt no shame, no horror, only indifference and the occasional exultation at every kill. It was exercise, training, and a vent for so many pent up emotions all rolled into one. Lines of holy script drifted at the in my mind’s eye, coolly announcing each life taken as if it were a trifle:
You have killed unknown. 30 experience gained.
You have killed unknown. 20 experience gained.
You have killed unknown. 25 experience gained.
You have killed unknown. 43 experience gained.
You have killed unknown. 51 experience gained.
You have learned Bows (lvl.3)
You have learned Bows (lvl.4)
You have gained 1 Strength.
A soulless litany, but I felt my bow sing with a darker kind of joy, the adamantine string thrumming in my hands with each passionate release. The Mer died in the distance, their final alien screams mingling with the Wind, and a familiar verdant warmth seeped into my Asura gauge. So long as I held off using my healing spells, that reservoir would continue to swell. The cup would fill. I could not help wondering: what horrific power might the Path of Asura unleash when paired with a ranged weapon?
Our morale soared. Though the Mer fought with strange blowguns—breathing sacks of living tissue attached to hollow bone-like tubes that launched serrated darts with lethal force—our side was drunk on early success. Even as we suffered wounds and losses, many among my company clamored for blood and spoils. Still, there was hardly time to loot. The fight shifted like quicksand, skirmishes growing into rolling waves of violence, then scattering like the tide. It was our duty to harass and sting, never to be caught in a full engagement.
If we were on the path to victory, it would be a grim one: one man in five either dead or broken. At least my healing magic aided our wounded. With every life I saved, I felt the balance tip slowly in our favor, a battle of attrition that might end in our triumph if we bled the enemy just enough. Larynda knelt beside me, twin staves across her lap, her eyes shut in meditation to better absorb the ambient Mana around us stirred up by the conflict. I bade her conserve her Mana and offered her Alchemics as I tapped her reserves of life force at times. She was willing to sacrifice a sliver of her well-being so I could mend many more. The irony was not lost on me; her need to save the many would mean that just that many more would suffer. In war, even mercy can wear the face of cruelty; every good deed can be twisted if one peers closely enough.
Yet not all battles go according to plan, and good fortune can only last so long. A Mer cavalry unit, astride swaying serpents the length of three horses, sprang after our reptilian Huzayfaar riders. But rather than continue their pursuit, they wheeled ‘round and aimed their charge at us. I had made myself too dangerous, raining steel upon them from afar. They came in open, loose formation, making it difficult for me to target them with precision. Still, with fortune on my side, I dropped one serpent-and-rider pair with a well-placed arrow that pinned them to the sands:
You have slain unknown. 73 experience gained.
You have slain unknown. 30 experience gained.
I felt a savage twinge of pleasure in that grim success. The serpents must have been worth more experience points than their riders, I mused.
“Larynda!” I roared, yanking my bow behind me and rousing her from her meditative state. She clasped her staves, still half in a meditative state, even as I vaulted off the Xaruar’s howdah into the whirling dust.
The Mimic Shield came at my call: thick, twisting tendrils of living wood that coiled out from my arm, sprouting a cruel metal spike in the center of a great tower shield. An unblinking eye opened upon its surface, lending me another window to the world. Usually, infantry faced with a cavalry charge braced with spear and shield, but I had no need of such tactics. I hurled myself forward with an Improved Dash, tower shield raised for a punishing collision.
The impact did not shake me as I thought it would have. Clad in heavy adamantine plate, I had more than enough mass and, with my supreme Strength and Improved Dash, more than enough speed. I felt the serpent’s body with my impact, and it was stopped as if it had hit a wall. The serpent’s rider, a blue-skinned Mer with a frill of hair that resembled gills, was knocked to sounds, the death thrashings of the serpent breaking his leg. He shrieked at me in a tongue I did not care to learn. Bellringer crushed his head in a single sweep, singing in exultation as it fed on his soul. The weapon was close to something, something exciting and new, I could feel it.
You have slain unknown. 34 experience gained.
I did not pause to see the Mer die as around me, the rest of the serpent cavalry churned on, smashing into Al-Lazarian’s scattered lines.
For all their cunning in maneuvering to this position—for all their skill in baiting our hapless commander, Captain Tikirit, into this punishing moment—they had made a fatal error. Though they gouged deep into the Al-Lazarians’ flank, it was that now stood at their rear.
The bone sands would drink deeply of their strange green-blue blood this day. My “System’s” sang silent praise as my weapon smashed into the back of another serpent, the cold words indifferent as any god as more experience was offered to me.
