A Journey of Black and Red

Chapter 138: Apex

Moise woke up early and tired, just like everyone else. Today was the day.

The regiments stood and gathered in morning prayer, then they had breakfast. It was the best breakfast he ever had with juicy bacon, boiled eggs, and bread that was not yet too stale. They even had some decent coffee. It was a shame that he had so much trouble keeping it down.

Today was the day.

And it started slow.

All the men made ready at their own pace. He had a pouch, pockets bursting at the seams with cartridges, and a canteen. It was sunny and a little bit cloudy with a nice breeze coming from the Atlantic that brought with it a fresh smell. Flocks of gulls quarreled somewhere behind him.

His regiment went to the front and center, descending in single file through ditches and passages defended with raised earth and sharpened wood branches. The going was slow. They had several lines, with quick, easily covered access to allow entire lines of combatants to retreat deeper into the fortifications. An army could not take them. Hell, with those ships behind them, rebels would break their teeth on their fortifications by the hundreds. But they were not facing rebels.

Moise finally went through the last passage and arrived in front of the moat. It was a nice moat, filled with sharpened stakes. He had cut the ones in front of him with his own fingers until they bled with splinters. It was his spot. Iwan took the one to his left. Moise was the rightmost defender of his squad. White folks took the spot to his right. They were a grumpy bunch with antiquated pistols and brand new rifles someone had thrown them out of pity. A tall man with a long, wispy white beard threw him a disparaging look and shook his head.

Well, the devil take you too, old codger.

They settled to wait.

That was, he thought, the worst part. Men sat where they were, their uniforms a bit dusty despite efforts to clean them. Smoke rose from the bastards who had filched tobacco somewhere along the way. Sergeant Freeman took a large pipe from one of his inner pockets and puffed on it contemplatively. Some soldiers prayed while others talked in hushed voices.

Moise decided to pray. It could not hurt. But after half an hour he had gone through every hymn he knew three times and still hadn’t found salvation.

He looked up the trench. There was not a damn thing to see, just mangled grass and stumps for half a mile.

They waited.

Moise eventually surrendered to boredom and joined a game of dice. They bet cartridges since there was nothing else around. Moise won three, then lost seven in a row. Above him, the lazy orb of the sun finally reached its zenith.

Cooks walked down the line with water barrels and stew. They were also handed a piece of bread. Moise could barely taste it.

Behind them, something happened.

He could feel it along his spine.

It started as a hum, then gradually grew in intensity until he felt it like a vast noise at the edge of his hearing, a ghost of some ear-splitting shriek he could not quite ignore. There was some devilry at work here. He had heard of it from some of the folks before they were scolded.

Evil worshippers.

But the monsters were real, or so the newspapers said, or at least that was what Jupe, who could read, had claimed.

Moise scowled and looked forward. The demons he would face were very real. Better to think about that first.

They sure were taking their time though.

Early afternoon came. The sun was high and the temperature had gone to pleasant. It was so calm here, with the wind in his face and the sun warming his khepi, that he started to doze off. The tension of the past few days was getting to him.

It was then that the entire line shifted.

Moise felt it in the posture of the men around him. Suddenly, all rifles were pointing forward.

There were creatures galloping far in the distance. White ones.

They were just tiny dots at the edge of the field right now.

Moise’s stomach suddenly filled with ice and dropped into his shoes. Cold sweat erupted over his brow and his lungs suddenly cried for air. Monsters were coming, and they were taking their goddamn sweet time.

“Remember your orders,” Freeman bellowed, “shoot when you have a shot. Not before, not after. Don’t miss or I’ll throw you sorry halfwits over the parapet!”

“Sarge, what’s a parapet?”

“That’s where your ass is going if you don’t aim!”

Time passed with agonizing slowness. The distant shapes resolved themselves into eight creatures, seven small ones like he had seen and another that moved with a hunch. It was so large that it kept with the others through sheer size.

“Damn…”

Several imprecations echoed throughout the lines before the NCOs screamed at the idiots. Moise relaxed his shoulder and placed the barrel of his repeater on top of the earthworks. He breathed slowly.

They were still a bit far.

Someone shot to his left. Freeman yelled and smacked him. Moise could only hear the sound of flesh hitting flesh, babbling excuses, and a few snickers from the assholes to his right. The things were coming. He picked one at random and lined up the sights. He could see nothing but the smooth expanse of steel of the barrel and the blurred form of the abomination barreling down on him. Time slowed down, until he could feel every powerful thump of his heart resonating through his body.

Someone else pulled the trigger, then the entire line erupted in an acrid blue mist. Moise may have hit his target, or he may have narrowly missed it. It did not matter. It would not have mattered. The almost solid cloud of lead shredded the attacking force like buckshot through a mouse. There was a red, pinkish cloud and flying bits, then it was over.

“Hurrah!” someone yelled. The cry picked up across the entire camp. Hurrah, hurrah! The defiant roar surged down the hill and spread through the surrounding meadows. It spoke of the courage of man. It was a torch in the darkness of a cave. It was fire, unity, strength of arms to reveal the nightmare for what it was, the shadow of a much smaller, much more lonesome beast.

They could do this.

“Alright, alright folks, settle down. Settle down I said! Save that nice enthusiasm y’all got for the rest of’em.”

Moise moved his arms a bit to work the kinks in them. He pushed an extra cartridge in the chamber to replace the one he had lost and caressed the ‘IGL’ image with his finger. Three letters with an eagle on top.

They could really do this. Just had to stay calm.

Twenty minutes later, another group popped from the bushes and ended up much like the first. Moise did not even shoot. There was no need.

Then fifteen minutes later, another came.

Then another.

At two, there were continuous shots all across the line.

It was three when the first man died, a freak friendly fire apparently. Moise saw the covered form being carried up on a stretcher on a passage to the left of him. Blood dripped from the back of the head.

“Moise if you got time to gawk you got time to clean your gun,” Freeman told him in a low voice. He looked at the field in front of him. Most of the pits had been revealed by now, having successfully slowed down the horde. The drones were forced to jump above or around them which slowed them down ever so slightly. He remembered that they had explosives around somewhere, which was why their artillery was supposedly still silent. Prayers rang in the air coming from his right again.

A wave rushed from the edge of the forest.

It was the biggest one yet, easily a hundred individuals spread in a sort of herd.

“Hold fire until you get a shot!” Freeman yelled.

There were small and large drones, some with strange bone plates on their chests and faces. They were tougher, but they did not stop bullets.

Damn it all, but Moise was getting used to it.

He lined his shot at a smaller drone almost to the front of him, and almost dropped his rifle when the creature started jumping to the sides.

“Bloody hell!”

The smaller drones were running haphazardly in strange patterns. Moise focused and pulled the trigger as his target landed. It hit the chest. Someone else’s bullet caught it in the leg and made the creature stumble, then a few more shots took it out entirely. The larger one fell as well with a burst head.

One drone with a missing arm reached the line to his left.

It jumped and landed in the ditch, twitching from a ruined chest.

Freeman stepped up and drew his brand new revolver. He shot the head once and the creature’s erratic moves stopped.

“Remember that those bastards like to play dead. What are y’all looking at? Eyes front, damn you!”

Moise obeyed and saw something he had never seen before.

The drones were retreating.

“Bloody hell that ain’t good,” the white man to his right said. Moise turned to him with some curiosity. Wasn’t it a good thing when your enemy flees?

“Wachu looking at, nigger?”

Moise returned his attention to the field and wondered if he could get away with shooting the bastard and passing it as an accident. Probably not.

Silence descended upon the field, and, for the first time in hours, calm returned. The cloud of spent powder lifted ever so slightly. The smell of the sea returned timidly beneath that of fire. He could almost see the sky.

Then there was a sound like nails on a piece of wood. It erupted all across the yet untouched meadows. Moise’s mind froze for the second time today when a thin white line appeared between the green of the trees and the brown of upturned earth. He leaned forward despite his best efforts. The line expanded and thickened. It turned into a squirming tide of pale flesh. The ground vibrated under their feet.

“Hold fire!”

Fear returned.

Moise placed his rifle against the earthworks and tried to forget that the creatures could shake off grievous wounds for a few seconds. He had never felt so alone in his entire goddamn life.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, forcing a jump.

“Steady now, and watch those ears of yours because we are going loud!” Freeman yelled. There were a few whoops in the line but that was it.

The things were closer now.

Closer.

There were so many of the damn buggers, and they had bigger ones that moved sinuously on four limbs. It was bad. Real bad.

They came in range, and the world turned upside down.

Moise stumbled back, hands on his whistling ears. There were little dark dots in the air, far above him, which he realized were pieces of soil. The air kept shaking with loud explosions left and right. One of them got really close and sent him stumbling again.

A piece of drone arm landed next to him. The dead limb gathered into a fist slowly enough for him to see every muscle fiber contracting. The claws pierced skin and let out pinkish fluid.

Moise stood back up. There was a lot of smoke. It took some time for the wind to disperse enough of the thick white stuff to see what was left.

From the edge of the earthworks to the forest, the ground was craters and debris. There was nothing left of the horde but a scattering of corpses, few of them in one piece. Some people said things, but Moise did not hear them clearly. His focus was on one of the smaller drones back, far away from him. The creature had been the furthest of all mines and it climbed to its feet slowly, painfully.

Despite the distance, despite the impossibility of it, Moise and the creature’s orbs met for a second. The distant buzz of the beacon at the back of his head became loud enough to drown every other sound in existence. it was an imperious order to come forward, and Moise took an involuntary step back. The call was so strong...

Then the moment was broken, and he was back to being just a Massachusetts boy away from home and in far above his head. The survivors of the assault on the monster side crawled back to the trees. There was a lull.

“Reload, reload and drink a bit of water if you can,” Freeman bellowed, “steady y’all, this ain’t over yet.”

Moise blinked sweat away from his eyes. Some of the trees in the distance were moving as if a storm raged among them.

Moise had built confidence over the past week. The stone promontory had turned into a nigh impregnable fortress. Hundreds of drones had died without slaying a single one of them. This faith evaporated in an instant.

The land came alive with frenzied flesh. Thick, bone-plated monsters came first in a line three-creatures thick that covered the entire plain. The ground shook again.

Behind him, cannons roared.

The guns vomited steel at a range that made missing impossible. Canister shots dug bloody furrows in an ever-moving mass. The fallen disappeared under the galloping claws of those that came behind.

As soon as they got near, fast-moving drones overtook the larger ones. They made use of the now-ruined terrain, jumping and turning as they went. Despite the acrobatics, none of them ever got in the way of another. Moise waited, then shot the ones in front of him.

Good thing is, he could not miss. There was just no free space for the bullet to escape to.

His first target crashed with a pierced shoulder. Another fell as well though he was not sure if it was his bullet or someone else’s. The din of detonations deafened him, just as smoke made his eyes burn. You could not hear a thing under the incredible racket of so many barrels roaring their fury, the wrath of mankind wielded in censure of whatever thing had spawned the foe. Moise spent one second considering how done-for he would have been without the repeater.

The wave crashed into their fortifications.

A first creature rammed itself into the sharpened stake and grabbed at him. Moise shot it in the head and slammed his back against the earthen wall behind him, frantically pushing more cartridges into his burning-hot gun. Another creature jumped over the first one but fell with its torso mangled. The soldiers on the tier above were covering him.

The creature twitched.

Freeman appeared from the side and shot it with his revolver, then moved further along the line. They were not stopping. There was a spurt of blood as someone got unlucky. Another soldier was thrown over the barricade and down into the gibbering horde below. His scream was cut short.

Another drone climbed on top of the first.

Moise chambered his first of four rounds knowing that he would be too late.

There was a fire projectile, and the creature’s head exploded. Pieces of bone and humor ran down his uniform’s trousers. He turned around and saw a woman dressed in white standing behind and above. Fire flared from her fingers and found heads, each projectile aimed with deadly accuracy. He did not stop to wonder what she was using, or why there were men with shields covering her.

Using the lull, he started to shoot to the side to lessen the burden on his allies. A drone smashed through the now-demolished stakes to his right and almost skewered the bearded man, but Moise shot it down. He never hesitated. It was man versus monster now.

And the pressure lessened.

They were killing drones faster than the monsters could come. Folks in white and red uniforms wielded strange weapons. Boneplate cracked, flesh bubbled under the onslaught. The larger specimens had all fallen.

The tide of flesh turned to a trickle, then stopped as the creatures withdrew. He watched, mesmerized, as distant drones started to drag their dead back into the forest.

“What the fuck are they doing?” he grumbled to no one in particular.

“Reusing the flesh of the dead,” the bearded white man said as he, too, reloaded and checked his gun. His companions muttered prayers.

“Those devilish abominations use flesh to strengthen some of their numbers. And they got a lot of it alright. There was no need to have single strong creatures before, but now there is, and so they will come. It learns, that devil. It learns and it adapts.”

Moise moved aside as men ran with stretchers to the back line. The nurses knew how to stop the poison that turned folks into monsters, so long as they were not dead, or so he was told. It would not help some of the poor bastards he saw being carried, that was for sure, what with all the blood.

There was another short lull. Moise reloaded and drank from his canteen to try and wash the smoke and horrid stench of drone blood from his throat, in vain. There were a few sparse shots here and there that made him wince. Supposedly, the drones could not turn a headless body. Folks were making sure.

The man to his left, Iwan, silently gave him a repeater.

“What’s that for?”

“It was Jupe’s, but he’s wounded so it’s yours now. You don’t have to reload so often.”

“Alright then.”

They waited, and waited some more until late afternoon. The drones tried the same thing, but the assault was repelled with so many losses that the ground before him could only be seen when an artillery shell revealed it before corpses covered it again. Moise missed his first round. It went wide, a bit too high, probably hit something anyway.

As the creatures pulled back once more, he could not help but think that the cannons were slowing done, and so were the men and, amazingly, women in black or red. He thought he knew why as he gingerly touched the barrel of his gun. It was burning to the touch. The heat was starting to get to him and he emptied his cantine, then took a discreet piss against the earthworks.

Then it was time again.

“How many of the fuckers can there be?” he complained.

They waited once more. More wounded were brought up. In some places, drone corpses were piled so high that they obstructed the view, but no one moved out to push them away. He did not blame them.

There was a rumble.

Things started to emerge from the treeline, things that did not belong on this world. They were so large that he could see them clearly, as far as they were. He had seen engravings of elephants. They did not hold a candle to the behemoths now charging towards them.

The cannons roared, the strange weapons lashed, but still the creatures kept going until, somewhere behind him, a signal was given.

The ship guns opened.

In front of Moise, a crimson flower of death bloomed on top of the beasts. The screaming inferno devoured ranks upon ranks of drones and left behind only charred husks. The devastation they wreaked defied description. Moise’s repeater felt like a toy. The behemoths fell one by one until more than thirty of their carcasses dotted the field, then the rest smashed through the first two layers of fortifications without stopping.

Moise fell to his right under a shower of splinters. Pinkish fluid pooled by his feet until his very ankles soaked. Drones were everywhere, climbing over the wall. That was when Iwan fell against him with a strange black spike through the neck.

“What the…”

Above, the woman screamed and fell back between the two shield-bearers. She removed a spike from her arm and resumed firing down. Moise grabbed his second rifle and shot a drone as it fell on sergeant Freeman. They were cut off from the rest of the regiment.

“First two barricades, fall back, fall back now!” someone yelled from behind.

Moise helped Freeman up. The older man was bleeding heavily, even had one of those spikes in his flank. They stumbled to the path up. Freeman still blew the brains out of the drones coming to them.

They passed under the barricade and to the next level. The white-bearded man had been waiting and shot a pursuer. The last defenders were making their way up. The battle was already raging there, and a flow of soldiers were climbing up and up under the cover of thrown blasting charges. There were bodies everywhere.

“Keep going!” a man in a fancy coat said as he blasted the foes with two engraved revolvers, each shot putting something down.

Moise kept going.

Up and up they went. Freeman was getting heavier, or he was growing more tired. They passed ranks of firing infantrymen and a few cannons with barrels so hot they had started to glow. An officer was arguing with a nurse in white as he passed by.

“You need to save some water for the wounded!”

“If we don’t cool those guns down, there won’t be any wounded to save!”

At the back, there were rows of hurt men covered in bandages around three large white tents. The air was thick with the cloying scent of blood. He noticed lines of covered bodies to the side.

A woman with white hair and red eyes grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Over here, help him down on that stretcher,” she ordered.

Moise did as instructed. Freeman winced as he lay.

“Got to remove the black stinger. Probably poisoned,” Moise said because he felt so goddamn useless.

The woman did not reply. She was busy applying a paste to Freeman’s shoulder where three puncture wounds leaked blood.

“No need. I know the score, boy,” the old sergeant said pointing at his flank, “ain’t no coming back from that one.”

Moise felt his eyes water even more now, probably all that powder in the air. Dammit.

Were they all going to die on that mount?

“None of that. You don’t give up, you hear? You don’t have the right to give up. I forbid it.”

“Yes, sarge, sorry sarge.”

“Mam, can you make sure that I don’t…”

The strange woman gave him something to hold, a cross of sorts.

“You won’t turn. You have my word. Hold tight to this.”

“Thank you. Now, boy, you go. Take this.”

Freeman pulled his buckle open and roared, removing the whole belt. Moise was left with the piece.

Freeman shoved his revolver in Moise’s palm.

“Now you go. Give them hell for me.”

“Yes sarge. Farewell.”

“Go with God, boy.”

Moise about-faced without a word. He realized that he had dropped his repeater somewhere along the way and picked up a piece some other idiot had discarded on the ground. He had one pouch of ammo left.

He climbed back down the hill into a hellscape of smoke and fury, dyed red under the setting sun.

Chaos had spread over the lower tiers, and that was where he stopped. Regiments had mixed. He found the white-bearded man near the port-side cliff and joined his side because why the hell not. There was a man with a shield and pistol by his side, and soldiers from other companies. He picked his targets and shot again, and again, and again, without stopping. Sometimes, the man with the shield would point at strange drones with an overly large right arm and black spikes on their back. Those were the assholes that had killed his friends. He picked them off one by one.

The drones retreated again. The din of battle gave way to a soft layer of moans and prayers. The sun was setting and its last scarlet rays kissed a scene of carnage the likes of which the world had never seen. Blood and corpses and mangled limbs for half a mile expanding in a cone towards a meadow on which a white blob was growing.

Men and women progressively stopped doing whatever it was they were busying themselves with. Artillery servants froze with water buckets in their hands. Cartridges stopped at the edge of chambers. Canteens remained in the air, their precious contents forgotten. Silence covered the camp like a thick layer until even the wounded kept their peace.

Night fell.

An enormous weight crashed upon Moise’s shoulder as the background scream that had lasted for so long that he had forgotten about it sputtered and died. The white blob on the horizon walked to them, a titan of unholy flesh, an aggregate of defiled bodies. It was massive as a temple. Each of its three-pronged limbs shook the earth as they descended to carry it forward. A myriad of black eyes covered most of its face, growing between and around bone plates like so many cancerous growths, but that was nothing compared to its sheer presence. The dominating, heavy aura pushed on Moise until all he could do was to whimper. The thing came, and no one shot. Not one cannon spat. Not one gun discharged. The camp remained unmoving.

Moise prayed for the strength to meet death on his feet. Behind the creature, drones of all sizes swarmed until they covered the plain.

The leviathan of flesh arrived. Moise had never felt so alone, so isolated in his whole life. It took all of his strength not to fall.

“Took your sweet damn time, you big ugly lug,” a voice said.

It belonged to an old man in a fancy white robe walking down the slope holding what looked like a miniature moon. It was a normal, human voice like you could hear at the market gently chiding a wayward child. It wavered slightly with old age. It was not even loud at all. And yet, it carried across the camp as its owner persisted, and wherever he went, fighters stood and grabbed their weapons.

The thing extended its clawed limb, but the old man would not have it.

“Polaris.”

A refreshing cold spread over Moise’s skin and he shivered, cool for the first time in hours.

The giant’s arm froze solid and fell, spintering on the ground like a mighty tree. It was the size of a locomotive. The old man raised his fist and another, smaller moon materialized.

“And here I thought I would die in my bed.”

The creature stopped, and for the first time, looked.

So far, Moise realized, they had not existed in the drone’s perception except as targets and resources. But now, it saw him, and them. It saw Moise too.

Moise lifted his revolver and cocked it. All around him, others were doing the same. The bearded asshole by his side chuckled.

“Never thought I’d fall fighting side by side with a nigger.”

“Go and fuck yourself.”

The old man chuckled harder. The ranks of mankind fell in. Cannons were realigned and a forest of steel barrels rose, defiant, against the tide.

They did not get to fire.

Something was coming. The skies lost their dark red hue and gained an eerie, otherworldly dye of purple. Far away to the north, a guttural man’s voice said something that he did not understand. The following roar fought against the Hive’s presence and pushed it back. It was not a nice or reassuring sound, no, it was… eager. Somewhere else, wolves howled while below them, near the port, the waters churned.

With agonizing slowness, the behemoth waved its horrid head towards the source. It shifted away.

“What was that?” Moise whispered.

“That,” the man with the shield said, “was our monsters.”

And he shot the closest drone in the head.

***

Earlier that afternoon.

I come to and focus on the tiny connection in my mind.

Sheridan is still alive.

It always surprises me how little control we have over our Vassals. Perhaps their very independence is the source of what makes them so valuable to us. It does not help with my serenity. I want to go out and find him, but I cannot. The sun is still there.

The sarcophagus lid slides to reveal grey stalactites. We have decided to hide ourselves in a natural network of caves a few miles north of Black Harbor proper, all while leaving armored carriage in a decoy camp. Other secured resting places lie around me, some open, some not, as some Masters still slumber. I gear up in silence as my senses sharpen and I can finally hear it, in the distance, muffled through thick layers of rocks. The retort of cannons. The battle is raging.

Despite my best efforts, I feel the overwhelming need to go out and help them, help him, but I cannot. The mere sight of sunlight would deaden that urge, assuming that I would be foolish enough to go through the artificial wall Martha of the Lancaster has raised. Avoiding the sun is such an integral part of me that I had forgotten how frustrating the weakness could be. With nothing better to do, I walk to the deeper cavern in search of my kin. At least, we can suffer together.

I soon realize that something is wrong. The auras below are tense. Guarded. Much more so than they should be. Fearing that something may have created a rift in our fighting force before the battle could even begin, I hurry down the slippery slope.

The heart of the complex soon comes into view, a circular room centered around a pool of salt water shining softly with fluorescent algae. At first, I can only see armored backs, each piece of equipment showing masterful work and the journey of its wearer. They are all turned towards the center of the room.

Unity against a single threat then.

I do not hide my aura out of courtesy, and approach the group at a brisk pace. The group parts to let me through without a look. I feel eyes on the back of my neck. The reason is soon clear.

A half-circle of the continent’s most powerful entities glare ahead at the single figure sitting, facing Constantine on an onyx chair seemingly risen from the depths. The cavern has turned into an amphitheater with a play that could kill us all.

“So kind of you to join us, little princess,” he says.

Fuck.

Malakim stands by his side with his arms crossed. Our eyes meet and he smirks, tapping the pommel of one of his knives. I remember the night I spent under his orders and the statement he made. He would always hate me, and he would enjoy killing me. Nothing would ever change that.

“Now that your spawn has arrived, perhaps you would elaborate on your offer?” Constantine tells him in a glacial tone. He, too, sits on a throne of obsidian rising from the basalt floor in a geological impossiblitly. Where our Speaker shows no fear, Nirari shows no concern at all. He lounges like a well-fed cat.

“I will join your charge if you let me head it. That is all.”

No one whispers, no one moves. Powerful auras only let out the barest of flickers, but even such minor variations are a sure sign of the avalanche of resentment now coursing through the small crowd. Nirari settles his back against the throne and waits, a hint of sardonic smile on his lips.

“That is all?”

“That is all.”

“Will you leave afterward?”

The smile fades.

“Yes. I have matters of import to attend elsewhere.”

It returns.

“But I will be sure to return at some point. We progenitors should maintain cordial relationships, do you not agree?”

“Why would you lead, and why would we follow?”

“I lead because I do not tolerate pests on my planet. You can feel it as well, all of you, the shadow cast by the Outsider. What you may not know is that it is a dead thing operating on directives that no longer matter. It cannot accomplish its goal. It is too far gone to succeed.”

“And what goal would that be?”

“To live again. As for the second part of your question, I will allow the little princess to explain.”

What?

The weight of the collective attention crushes me like a boulder. It is all I can do to look forward and hide my discomfort.

“Tell them, little princess. Tell them why they should follow me.”

I hate Nirari, and one day I will try to kill him. For now, this ideal remains a distant prospect. What matters is the task before us tonight, and for me, accepting his offer is an obvious thing. So obvious, in fact, that I struggle to make a point.

“We will ride with the First.”

I am back almost a century ago when I was under the scrutiny of my tutor, trying to express what I remembered of the story I had just read. I know what I know, I merely struggle to convey it. I start explaining then, and the words flow more easily.

“We are the essence of conquest. You would ride under the banner of the deadliest warlord on earth. We would fall upon them like the chariots of Babylon on the barbarians. You… you will feel the sun on your skin, the wind in your hair. You will hear the arrows whistle. You will touch the very essence of the hunt, of the charge. It will be unforgettable, but it will also carry a price.”

Now, I have their attention.

“And what would that price be?”

“Tell them, little one, tell them of my struggle. You are friends with the paper hoarders. They must have told you.”

“He… he wants to take over.”

“Over what?”

“Everything. He fights his mother, the greatest witch who ever lived and the first immortal. When the last battle arrives, you will remember the rush and ride with him. Perhaps. That is the price.”

My outrageous statement is received in silence. The others show no signs of acknowledgement, of course.

“Disappointing, little princess. You are holding back so much. Very well then, I will tell you myself. You plot and scheme and hide in the shadows. You mask yourself with proxies, companies, and agents. I do not begrudge you your courts, nor do I fail to understand their value. I merely wish to remind you of what you truly are deep inside.”

Nirari’s aura lashes out. Like a tidal wave, it washes over us in violation of politeness and respect. In an instant, the forty apex predators hiss and bare fangs and weapons. Spells whistle as they charge up, but the tide ebbs as quickly as it came.

“This. This is what you truly are.”

Nirari stands up and opens his hands before us.

“Hunters. Killers. Apex predators designed by a nascent god to harvest whatever it is he seeks. We love to win more than we love to reveal ourselves, but fortunately, tonight, we can do both. So join me. Join me to ride down those intruders who would seek to take what is ours. Join me without bell and without leash, free of shackles and oaths. Join me as you are. Remember what we stand for. Then, you can go on your merry way for a few more decades. But tonight, tonight we will turn the fields red under the hooves of our Nightmares, a vision of the world’s past and future alike. Join me and know. I await your decision.”

The first of all of us sits down comfortably on his throne like an emperor in his palace.

No one speaks for a while. Finally, Constantine breaks the silence.

“You seek to consume the foe.”

“I have done it already, and I will do it again. With, or without you.”

Constantine contemplates the offer for a while.

“We need to discuss. Will you please grant us some privacy?”

My sire sneers and chuckles, but to his credit, he leaves. I think his ability to negotiate and compromise scares me almost as much as his ability to destroy. The deliberations begin immediately.

“Jarek, you were to lead the charge tonight?” the Speaker starts.

“I would object if he and I were evenly matched, or if his word could be doubted. We know that Nirari always keeps his oath. I want to slay the Hive to the last drone tonight before the mortals turn on us. I have no objection.”

“It would be unwise to refuse him,” Sephare adds from the side.

“He was canny to come to us at this late hour,” one of the Roland twins adds, “We do not have the luxury of time. I say we let him. His presence gives us cachet.”

“I want to see if he is as good as they claim,” Jarek’s second adds.

In the end, the decision is taken extremely quickly. The only people who grumble are those whose kin were murdered by Nirari at some point, and even they rally to the main opinion quickly. We all have too much stake in the success of this endeavor. We invite Nirari back to let him know that we agree. Everyone pretends that it was a well-considered decision. He departs through the actual walls using the spell I learned from his book.

The mood turns to worry after that.

It takes a lot for us to show emotion, but right now even a dense mortal could feel the tension in the air. Many of us have Vassals on that hill, though they are mostly in the back line. I know that Sheridan still lives. It could change at any time.

There are few conversations to be had. We have such excellent hearing that anything spoken here might as well be spoken before the assembly. With so many heavily enchanted arms and armors around, we look like metal-clad generals pulled from so many paintings ranging from the Middle-Ages to the late Renaissance lounging across the cavern like a pack of wolves between hunts. The seconds pass with agonizing slowness. The roars of cannons do not abate. Every ten minutes or so, a new armor-clad Master climbs down the stairs to take their place at our side. Our numbers swell until every nook and cranny hides a warrior eager to go. Melusine joins me at some point and sits by my side without a word.

We feel it.

Soon.

Soon.

Now.

The sun dips below the horizon and the cavern sighs in relief. The world cools and expands around us.

“It is time!” Jarek says.

We rush up the stairs with such speed that we leave the place empty within the span of a breath. We jump in a rush over the seaside cliff and onto rock. All faces turn south.

Smoke, thick and dark, forms a heavy black curtain from the fortress we left behind up to the skies. The first layers are empty and ravaged, burning with low embers. The guns have fallen silent. They have stopped fighting.

Something is walking to them. It is large, larger than anything here has a right to be, a moving building of apocalyptic proportions. I do not know if I could take it down if it stopped moving and let me try. And behind it, a sea, an ocean of flesh. Drones so thick and numerous as to blot the land like maggots on a corpse. A seething, squirming tide without an end.

Nirari watches the show in silence. He wears an obsidian-colored plate armor that looks thick enough to stop a cannonball. On his head, he places a crowned helmet with bone protrusions and I believe that I am looking at a dragon’s smaller teeth.

He raises a fist and a large Nightmare emerges from behind.

The signal is given. The woods around us darken until the light of the stars themselves dim as silence descends upon us. A wave like a pebble thrown in a placid pool expands towards the nearest drones. Nightmares emerge from behind, more of them than I have ever seen in the same place. Dozens of them gallop out and stop before their riders. I climb on Metis and see John running to his stupidly big charger while Melusine is already waiting for us. Those without a mount will form a roaming group on foot. There are almost a hundred riders.

The Nightmares snort and form a wedge, with the most powerful of us at the tip. Nirari, then Constantine and Jarek, then the strongest lords and ladies.

The First Vampire spares an amused glance to our right, inland, where the howls of wolves let us know that our allies are in play. Under and around the fortress, the waters boil with the arrival of the rulers of the depths. We are ready.

Nirari deploys his full aura. He is soon joined by all the others, including me. At this precise moment, we are no longer competitors. At this moment, we are one. The edges of reality bleed in as creation itself turns more liquid, more malleable. Our concentrated power sends ripples into the hordes before us and, one by one, the despicable things turn their abyssal eyes on us. The heavens turn a deeper shade of purple. The Watcher’s Eye is wide open.

Nirari’s voice echoes throughout the valley, both calm and incredibly loud.

“No dead god will I allow to tread what is mine! No prey will I let defy me!”

Purple light shines on the drones’ pale flesh. We are doing it. We are bringing the Watcher into the world. Its light shines on everything.

“And no challenge will I leave unanswered. Come, my kin, and scour the land with me. Crush them, leave none alive, and may the world run red.”

Nirari calls upon his soul glaive and the pressure increases yet again. Heartseeker, which he only wields when fighting seriously, rises above our heads. I call upon Rose as blades and spikes as black as onyx join the call. Malakim blows into a mighty horn and the entire Hive, from the smallest drone to that abomination in the distance, focuses on us.

“Charge!”

We start at a normal horse’s gallop and keep accelerating. At the same time, we move away from each other to leave each fighter room to spare. We are going faster still. Martha casts a massive spell and our speed increases once more, the air practically dragging us forward. The tide has seen us. They are coming our way, all of them, including the faraway Behemoth. Nirari roars in challenge and we add our fury to his. We are so close now. There are so many of them, some as large as elephants.

“Magna Arqa.”

“Magna Arqa!”

“Promethean.”

“Shred!”

A hundred spells and powers erupt around me. Melusine’s signature fire bolts roar along my blood magic ones.

There is no impact.

We advance and the first hundred yards of drones simply ceases to exist. We do not even slow down. I see arms, faces, and a lot of eyes but it does not matter. Rose shreds through them like paper, and I have my allies by my side doing the same. John sends shattered parts flying in the air. A great HUNT.

I roar in pleasure as we carve a path through the ever-coming horde. We advance and slaughter them by the hundred, but then, someone’s Nightmare screams on the side and I see it, spines flying through the air.

“Close rank!”

“Shield!”

We contract our formation. I use Rose to knock projectiles off the air for John and Melusine. There. RANGED PREY, PROTECT METIS AND KIN.

The return fire is immediate and devastating.

“Flay.”

“Inferno.”

“Heartseeker bolts.”

Spells explode all around us, targeting those strange spine-throwing drones. Packs of them turn to ash. Constantine screams and massive chains as long as ships whip through the drones, sending great numbers of them to the ground, broken. On our right, the werewolves are fully engaged in a massed formation. They advance more slowly, but they do not stop. YES, JOIN OUR REVELS. The purple light of the Watcher still shines across the battlefield to push our foe to a frenzy. We are surrounded on all sides. It does not matter. They cannot stop us.

The charge continues. The wedge’s flanks have contracted to form a circle with the younger members protecting our back. I find myself on the left side of the formation, towards the edge. My task is to fend off the spikes and slay the closest foes. I know this in my essence. It is the proper way.

We move south in a slaughter without end. They come. I kill them. I knock spines off the air. More come and I kill them too. Rose’s thorns and edge devastate those that dare approach. John smashes the larger specimen with methodical rage. Powerful spells from our casters clean entire columns. They do not stop coming, and we do not stop slaying. Sometimes, there is a scream of pain from one of us and our numbers diminish.

Finally, there is a small lull on my flank as we approach the fortified promontory. An army of fish folks has diverted part of their number, slaughtering the drones that had attempted to climb and flank the humans. Their hisses and tridents keep the drones at bay, though they stay close to the sea.

I hear a loud thump.

Our three most powerful fighters jump forward from their mounts. Martha, now the senior fighter, leads us to the right as the trio faces the Behemoth. It has grown once more as smaller drones climb on it and fuse with it.

The cavalry group maneuvers around the titanic struggle. The behemoth opens with an aura whistle that flattens the ground before it. Nirari pushes it off with its own aura, the clash between the two turning straight lines curved and tortured. Constantine bombards it with spells that leave bleeding, fuming craters behind. It answers by opening strange rifts and growing very thick plates. The rifts swallow the spells as if they had never existed while the thick plates resist the sharp attacks. Constantine retaliates by manifesting translucent chains that disperse the rifts like a fan blowing smoke away. The bone plates thicken more. I finally spot Jarek as he returns, having run back and forth to gain momentum.

He jumps.

“Magna… ARQA!”

The cyclopean gauntlets crash into the thing’s chest. Seismic waves send nearby drones sprawling on the ground while the creature’s entire torso shatters, great slabs of flesh falling on the ground. They close as more of the drones fuse their flesh with the construct. I feel it, somehow, a hollow will to live backed by nothing but cold automatism, like a decapitated beast walking a few steps more.

Then there is no more time and I return my attention to the fight ahead. Our charge sweeps everything in front of us until the detonation of cannons stop. We are at the edge of the fortifications.

The ground is covered in drone bodies so thick that I cannot spot the earth beneath. A veritable mount of bodies blocks access to the humans beyond, though a few drones still climb them. They are shot down as soon as they reach the top.

“On foot now, form a line and cover the humans.”

We obey and our Nightmares form a herd behind us, before riding south and leaving us to our task. They crash through the few drones there and disappear in a thicket. The nearby forests grow darker and stay darker. The fabric is thin here, thinner than usual. I call upon a bolt, and it forms effortlessly.

“Cut them down!”

We follow Martha’s voice and stand our ground. The drones are endless and we kill them endlessly, stepping on the corpses of their brethren as the mountain of the dead grows ever higher. I lose myself in the rhythm. Slash, cast, deflect. Cover Melusine when she casts a more complex spell, and John when he advances to crush a larger beast. They, in turn, help and cover their neighbors. It is a dance as old as time, one where a single mistake can cost dearly. Sometimes, someone fails but the rest picks up the slack. I will not fall here. ONCE MORE. Cut. ONCE MORE. Cast. Every new enemy slain by Rose adds to my essence until I feel it BUBBLING WITH… Oh no.

Thorny roots explode out from under piles of corpses to grab and lacerate drones. I feel my essence deplete like a pierced balloon.

And then a pair of claws grabs my neck and the essence simmers down.

“You are not quite there yet, child,” Martha says with a little condescension. Then she bellows another order.

“Hold the line! Mages, with me! You too Ariane.”

The command falls to Adam, one of the Rolan twins who contracts the line again as a dozen masters and a lord detach from the group. We rush over the fortifications, ending nose to nose with a thick line of surprised defenders. By the Watcher, they are grimy.

“We are friendlies,” Martha assures.

The men and women’s eyes land on our blood-soaked gear and intimidating weapons.

“We really are. Let us through.”

She pushes with a bit of Charm and their tired psyches accept her gentle touch. They part and we climb through ditches, trenches, and passages. It looks like more of the defenders made it through than I had feared. I even spot a few Gabrielites mingling with soldiers from other groups. Our path leads us up, where many wounded are attended by tireless White Cabal healers under the direction of Sola, the albino mage. We find most of the archmages in a half-circle around a lone tree. I notice that they are all wounded. Carmela, the blonde fencer who is no longer scared of werewolves, even holds the stump of her right hand. I move away from my group to see what this is about.

Frost sits against the trunk with a slightly annoyed expression. His eyes are closed and his hands grasp a bottle of expensive brandy. He is also quite dead.

I address William, the shadowy heir apparent to Hopkins.

“Does it count?” I ask.

“Who knows with the old bastard?” he replies with a chuckle.

Martha calls me and I leave. We follow a small path along the cliff on the side of the abandoned village. I look down to see a dense formation of fish folk fighting with oversized tridents, spearing drones before they can reach them. As I watch, a large wave covers the front ranks of the creatures and drags them towards the sea where unaffected mermen butcher them. The second group of vampires and the werewolves are still cutting their path towards us in the distance. their progress has slowed to a crawl.

“Come on, Ariane, do not dally. We must reactivate the beacon.”

I follow Martha and the other mages to a cliffside grotto, this one man-made. We find Constantine’s device inside. The mages in charge of its activation lie around with congealed blood marring their eyes and ears. One of them is dead.

“You can rest, we shall take over,” Martha says. One of the mortals nods and helps the weakest member of their team up.

I know what to do, Martha and I link hands, as do the others. We take our spots around the construct to chant. The beacon clunks back to life. Our essence pushes in and we open our mouths. A low drone rings at the edge of my hearing.

We stay like this for hours, sharing the burden between each other. The beacon pulses against the Scourge Hive’s nefarious influence, disrupting it, preventing it from adapting efficiently. We hold against it until the waves of power lose strength, until it turns from a torrent to a trickle.

Finally, as dawn approaches, they fall silent. We deactivate the construct and return to the surface. The land around us is devoid of combat. Only the moans of the wounded remain.

The war is over.

We have won.