As he led his caravan of exhausted people dragging wounded people through the narrow split in the cliffs, Drake expected an attack at any moment. None came. However, as they trudged upward and once more approached the city, the general din of noise he hadn’t been able to identify became clearer.
It wasn’t shouting. It was screaming. People screaming. There was no doubt he could also hear the clashing of blades in the distance.
Drake increased his pace, comforted by the proximity of Lydia and Emily at his sides. They rounded a corner in the cliffs on a narrow path that, on the way out, had offered a breathtaking view of the city below. They could still see the capital, and it was still breathtaking, but for different reasons. In this case, the breath that left his chest was from shock.
He finally knew what had happened to any capital guards the kromians hadn’t killed.
There was clearly a pitched battle still going on the docks, one evident from all the tiny figures in gold or blue desperately trying to stab each other. More bodies floated in the bay, tiny grains of rice at this distance. None of that was what made Drake gasp.
It was the huge, bulbous, multi-tentacled monstrosities even now tearing apart ships and battering docks. Six giant octopi... or something freakishly similar. The octopi were even visibly armored, and judging from the arrows that kept plinking off them, very hard to kill. After what he’d experienced on the beach, Drake felt a strong urge to run down and try anyway.
He glanced at Marissa, his mother, who stood beside him with a shocked look.
“Still think we’ll be safe inside the walls?” Drake asked.
“Safer,” she said softly. “They have not breached the inner city.”
Marissa pointed to a set of walls that ran along the C-shape of the capital that stretched around the bay, but further up. Drake now recognized what he hadn’t before. The city had progressive lines of walls throughout, each of which could likely be closed independently of one another. If one wall was lost, the defenders could fall back to the next.
The Temple of the Eidolons was behind all those lines of walls, in the very center of the city, filled with capital guards and with defenses that could hold even a huge army for months. That was where they needed to go to be safe. The kromians were still on the outer ring.
But how could they get back to the temple with all of these wounded?
“Lord, we have another problem,” Lydia said quietly.
He glanced at her in annoyance. “Oh no, really?”
“It’s the kromian poison. We’ve slowed it with our gloves... but cannot cleanse it.”
Drake glanced back at the litters and the wounded people there, all pale with shallow breathing. They were all struggling to breathe because the poison inside them was steadily paralyzing their lungs and hearts. He looked back to Lydia. “Will they die?”
“Without medicines to cleanse the paralytics, yes. The zarovians are struggling with the poison as well as well. The temple is an hour at a walk, and it will be twice that with wounded. And if our long train of people is attacked, we may all perish.”
He scowled at her. “So you’re suggesting we just abandon them to die?”
Lydia’s lips pressed together. “I’m only offering information, lord.”
He shuddered as he realized how much like an asshole he’d just sounded. He gripped her shoulder. “I know. Thank you. Thank you for keeping your cool through all this.”
I’m sorry, went without saying. He knew Lydia understood that.
Drake looked to the capital, then back at the wounded. “Mom, any chance you have a rarity that can cure poison?”
“No,” Marissa said. “I can create wards.”
Despite the horrific situation, he needed to know more. “Wards?”
“I can create magical locks that prevent rooms from being opened,” Marissa said. “It is called ward weave. It is not a rarity that will help with poison.”
All his people were going to die without the medicine found in the temple. So if he couldn’t get them to the temple... he would just have to get the antidotes to them.
“Find Anna,” Drake said. “I’ve got a terrible idea.”
Lydia darted off to slip through the weary line of people as Marissa stared at the city, seemingly deep in thought. Oddly enough, his mother didn’t look angry or terrified, merely perplexed. As he waited for Lydia to return with Anna, Drake couldn’t help but ask.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Other than the obvious.
“This size of this attack,” Marissa said calmly. “If it is not the entire kromian army, it is certainly a large contingent. Small parties raid seaside villages and sink ships that stray too far from the waters through which they allow travel, but an attack of this size is... unprecedented.”
“It’s like they’ve gone to war,” Drake finished.
“Yes, but why? This attack will unite all nine manors and the noble court against them. That is almost impossible to do. And what have they to gain by it? The seas are vast and filled with resources we can scarcely comprehend. Kromians need little on the surface world.”
As he remembered the bodies of the humans and zarovians he’d left back on the beach, Drake glared at the battle below. “Maybe they’re just assholes.”
“It can’t be that simple,” Marissa said. “The kromians are territorial about their own waters, not suicidal. There is no reason to invite a war. This attack makes no sense because they have nothing to gain from it. So why launch it?”
“Let’s figure that out after we’re done kicking their asses back into the sea.” Drake frowned as an octopus demolished a small ship. “Then maybe we’ll drop a nuke on them.”
“Lord!” Anna was obviously barely keeping it together as she reached him. “I’m here!”
Drake dropped into a crouch and beckoned her with open arms. Anna dashed forward with a soft cry. Drake hugged her close, so relieved she was safe. More relieved than he expected. He also hated what he was about to ask of her.
“I need your help,” he said softly. “It’s going to be dangerous, but it’s necessary.”
She pushed back and stared bravely. “What is it?”
“The people who got hit by those poisoned arrows are alive, but they need more help than our gloves can provide. They need medicine. They may not live without it.”
Anna gasped. “Hector can’t die!” Tears welled in her eyes. “No more people can die!”
“No one else will die if we work together,” Drake assured her. “If we had time, I’d absorb your rarity and do this myself, but we don’t have hours and even I can’t teleport that many wounded people to the Temple of the Eidolons. So we’re going to—”
“Get the medicine and bring it back,” Anna finished. “With my rarity. Let’s go, lord.”
“Thank you.” He stood and looked at Lydia. “We’re going to need a small party who can move fast with Anna. We’ll say you, me, Emily. Nicole’s not leaving Val, and Val’s in no shape to travel. So they’ll stay here to guard the wounded.”
“I’m going too,” a woman said.
Drake glanced over his shoulder in surprise to find Robin standing close.
“I can scout for you,” Robin said. “From the rooftops of the city. If you want to move fast through crowded streets, you’ll have to avoid people and conflict as much as you can.”
“And what if you get shot up there?”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Gaby was hit by a blow dart and needs medicine, but moreover, I swore an oath to serve you, lord. You destroyed the woman who destroyed my village, and I will pay my debt in full. You need me for this.”
Drake understood exactly why Robin wanted to do this, and he also knew airstep would be very useful in the tight city. “You’re in. Get prepped.” He looked to Anna. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to form a recall point. Do it now. Pick somewhere close and hidden.”
“I will, lord!” The little girl darted back toward the clustered people, likely to find a spot that was out of sight of the city. There, she would cut her wrist and drain her blood to form a recall point. Once they got the antidotes, she could teleport back here with them.
“Will they be safe here?” Lydia asked softly.
Drake saw no other choice but to hope. “The kromians are focused on the city, and we wiped out the only group that came for us. I don’t think they even expected us to be on that beach, or they’d have sent more fish. I hate saying this, but we felt more like... a target of opportunity.” He pondered. “This place is elevated with only a few approaches. We’ll have to hope the main kromian force remains focused on the capital.”
Lydia nodded. “I’ll have Nicole lead the defense and order River to organize the others.”
Drake ruefully shook his head. “She saved our asses today, didn’t she?”
It was River who’d known what the odd shapes in the distance were, as well as how they would attack. Without her orders, almost no one would have made it beneath the tarps before the first line of arrows fell. Even after, many would have been dropped by blowgun darts.
There was no doubt in Drake’s mind River had encountered kromian raiders before. Without her quick thinking and leadership, many more would be dead. She’d gone far beyond what they’d asked of her when he put her in charge of a picnic on the beach.
“Once this is over,” Lydia said, “I believe she will be an asset to your manor.”
“You and me both. Get River prepped to organize the non-combatants and then get back to me. We’re going as soon as Anna finishes making her recall point.”
Emily joined him not long after. For once, she wasn’t grinning. Instead, she looked like she was ready to murder the first person who looked at her sideways. She also had a tear in the side of her suit, and she was also bleeding from several shallow cuts across her body.
“You all right?” Drake asked immediately.
She trembled in rage as she stared at the kromians below. “No.”
Drake hated that Emily and everyone else was still wearing drawers, not silverweave or armor, but they simply hadn’t expected an entire army of kromians to attack the capital today. They weren’t going to the beach in feathersteel. He supposed they were lucky that none of the kromians had possessed rarities, or at least combat rarities.
The kromians had also likely expected to slaughter a bunch of unarmed beachgoers, not run face first into a manor lord with a four-cylinder crossbow and his best warriors. So in the city, they’d just try to avoid as much fighting as they could and kill everything they couldn’t avoid. Lydia and Emily could wreck anyone who attacked, Robin was a killer shot with a bow, and he had the ability to heal through most any fatal wound.
The real trick would be making sure nothing got to Anna. She was the key to saving his people. Not to mention he’d die before he’d let anyone hurt her.
Anna returned not long after, pale but walking. She had a handkerchief wrapped around her arm. Drake looked forward to the day when he’d never have to ask her to bleed herself again. He also knew there was no way she was going to be able to keep up through the city.
Lydia immediately reached for Anna’s arm. “Allow me.”
As soon as Lydia had sealed the wound, Drake crouched down. “Hop up.”
She stared in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You’re riding piggyback,” Drake said. “Lydia, Emily, and Robin will keep us safe.”
Anna hurried forward and leapt onto his back. She wrapped his arms around her neck. He pushed up with his thighs and rose, then took a firm grip on the back of Anna’s knees. She was no heavier than a backpack. He could make this work, but he couldn’t carry Magnum.
He’d just trust his other weapons to protect him.
Drake looked to Lydia. “You know the city best. Lead the way.”
“Be careful, lord!” River called from behind them. “We’ll hold here!”
Lydia jogged off toward the capital with Emily right beside her. Drake ran right behind them both and ignored Anna clutching his neck a little too tight. The sound of boots on rock told him Robin was following right them, easily keeping up.
They had one advantage. The docks were on the other side of the city from where they’d approach. He remembered the path this morning coming out on the back of the city, away from the bay, and that’s where they would be coming in. It should be a straight run to the temple from there, and with luck, they wouldn’t even encounter kromians.
Despite the rapid pace Lydia and Emily set, Drake had no problem keeping up even carrying Anna on his back. It wasn’t just his conditioning, which had improved over the past month and change. It was the rarity he’d copied from Samuel.
His burnished physical regeneration rarity was good for more than simply regenerating wounds. It allowed him to run without getting winded and without his muscles burning as they would after a long sprint, even carrying Anna on his back. He doubted even Emily could go this far for this long with this weight, and he knew she couldn’t fight with a child riding on her back.
Drake couldn’t fight with Anna on his back, but he didn’t have to. He just had to run. He trusted these three loyal and deadly women to keep him and Anna safe. They would get to the capital, get to the temple, get that medicine, and get it to his wounded people.
And then, if any were still around, maybe they’d kill a giant octopus or two.
As he led his caravan of exhausted people dragging wounded people through the narrow split in the cliffs, Drake expected an attack at any moment. None came. However, as they trudged upward and once more approached the city, the general din of noise he hadn’t been able to identify became clearer.
It wasn’t shouting. It was screaming. People screaming. There was no doubt he could also hear the clashing of blades in the distance.
Drake increased his pace, comforted by the proximity of Lydia and Emily at his sides. They rounded a corner in the cliffs on a narrow path that, on the way out, had offered a breathtaking view of the city below. They could still see the capital, and it was still breathtaking, but for different reasons. In this case, the breath that left his chest was from shock.
He finally knew what had happened to any capital guards the kromians hadn’t killed.
There was clearly a pitched battle still going on the docks, one evident from all the tiny figures in gold or blue desperately trying to stab each other. More bodies floated in the bay, tiny grains of rice at this distance. None of that was what made Drake gasp.
It was the huge, bulbous, multi-tentacled monstrosities even now tearing apart ships and battering docks. Six giant octopi... or something freakishly similar. The octopi were even visibly armored, and judging from the arrows that kept plinking off them, very hard to kill. After what he’d experienced on the beach, Drake felt a strong urge to run down and try anyway.
He glanced at Marissa, his mother, who stood beside him with a shocked look.
“Still think we’ll be safe inside the walls?” Drake asked.
“Safer,” she said softly. “They have not breached the inner city.”
Marissa pointed to a set of walls that ran along the C-shape of the capital that stretched around the bay, but further up. Drake now recognized what he hadn’t before. The city had progressive lines of walls throughout, each of which could likely be closed independently of one another. If one wall was lost, the defenders could fall back to the next.
The Temple of the Eidolons was behind all those lines of walls, in the very center of the city, filled with capital guards and with defenses that could hold even a huge army for months. That was where they needed to go to be safe. The kromians were still on the outer ring.
But how could they get back to the temple with all of these wounded?
“Lord, we have another problem,” Lydia said quietly.
He glanced at her in annoyance. “Oh no, really?”
“It’s the kromian poison. We’ve slowed it with our gloves... but cannot cleanse it.”
Drake glanced back at the litters and the wounded people there, all pale with shallow breathing. They were all struggling to breathe because the poison inside them was steadily paralyzing their lungs and hearts. He looked back to Lydia. “Will they die?”
“Without medicines to cleanse the paralytics, yes. The zarovians are struggling with the poison as well as well. The temple is an hour at a walk, and it will be twice that with wounded. And if our long train of people is attacked, we may all perish.”
He scowled at her. “So you’re suggesting we just abandon them to die?”
Lydia’s lips pressed together. “I’m only offering information, lord.”
He shuddered as he realized how much like an asshole he’d just sounded. He gripped her shoulder. “I know. Thank you. Thank you for keeping your cool through all this.”
I’m sorry, went without saying. He knew Lydia understood that.
Drake looked to the capital, then back at the wounded. “Mom, any chance you have a rarity that can cure poison?”
“No,” Marissa said. “I can create wards.”
Despite the horrific situation, he needed to know more. “Wards?”
“I can create magical locks that prevent rooms from being opened,” Marissa said. “It is called ward weave. It is not a rarity that will help with poison.”
All his people were going to die without the medicine found in the temple. So if he couldn’t get them to the temple... he would just have to get the antidotes to them.
“Find Anna,” Drake said. “I’ve got a terrible idea.”
Lydia darted off to slip through the weary line of people as Marissa stared at the city, seemingly deep in thought. Oddly enough, his mother didn’t look angry or terrified, merely perplexed. As he waited for Lydia to return with Anna, Drake couldn’t help but ask.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Other than the obvious.
“This size of this attack,” Marissa said calmly. “If it is not the entire kromian army, it is certainly a large contingent. Small parties raid seaside villages and sink ships that stray too far from the waters through which they allow travel, but an attack of this size is... unprecedented.”
“It’s like they’ve gone to war,” Drake finished.
“Yes, but why? This attack will unite all nine manors and the noble court against them. That is almost impossible to do. And what have they to gain by it? The seas are vast and filled with resources we can scarcely comprehend. Kromians need little on the surface world.”
As he remembered the bodies of the humans and zarovians he’d left back on the beach, Drake glared at the battle below. “Maybe they’re just assholes.”
“It can’t be that simple,” Marissa said. “The kromians are territorial about their own waters, not suicidal. There is no reason to invite a war. This attack makes no sense because they have nothing to gain from it. So why launch it?”
“Let’s figure that out after we’re done kicking their asses back into the sea.” Drake frowned as an octopus demolished a small ship. “Then maybe we’ll drop a nuke on them.”
“Lord!” Anna was obviously barely keeping it together as she reached him. “I’m here!”
Drake dropped into a crouch and beckoned her with open arms. Anna dashed forward with a soft cry. Drake hugged her close, so relieved she was safe. More relieved than he expected. He also hated what he was about to ask of her.
“I need your help,” he said softly. “It’s going to be dangerous, but it’s necessary.”
She pushed back and stared bravely. “What is it?”
“The people who got hit by those poisoned arrows are alive, but they need more help than our gloves can provide. They need medicine. They may not live without it.”
Anna gasped. “Hector can’t die!” Tears welled in her eyes. “No more people can die!”
“No one else will die if we work together,” Drake assured her. “If we had time, I’d absorb your rarity and do this myself, but we don’t have hours and even I can’t teleport that many wounded people to the Temple of the Eidolons. So we’re going to—”
“Get the medicine and bring it back,” Anna finished. “With my rarity. Let’s go, lord.”
“Thank you.” He stood and looked at Lydia. “We’re going to need a small party who can move fast with Anna. We’ll say you, me, Emily. Nicole’s not leaving Val, and Val’s in no shape to travel. So they’ll stay here to guard the wounded.”
“I’m going too,” a woman said.
Drake glanced over his shoulder in surprise to find Robin standing close.
“I can scout for you,” Robin said. “From the rooftops of the city. If you want to move fast through crowded streets, you’ll have to avoid people and conflict as much as you can.”
“And what if you get shot up there?”
“That’s a risk I’m willing to take. Gaby was hit by a blow dart and needs medicine, but moreover, I swore an oath to serve you, lord. You destroyed the woman who destroyed my village, and I will pay my debt in full. You need me for this.”
Drake understood exactly why Robin wanted to do this, and he also knew airstep would be very useful in the tight city. “You’re in. Get prepped.” He looked to Anna. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to form a recall point. Do it now. Pick somewhere close and hidden.”
“I will, lord!” The little girl darted back toward the clustered people, likely to find a spot that was out of sight of the city. There, she would cut her wrist and drain her blood to form a recall point. Once they got the antidotes, she could teleport back here with them.
“Will they be safe here?” Lydia asked softly.
Drake saw no other choice but to hope. “The kromians are focused on the city, and we wiped out the only group that came for us. I don’t think they even expected us to be on that beach, or they’d have sent more fish. I hate saying this, but we felt more like... a target of opportunity.” He pondered. “This place is elevated with only a few approaches. We’ll have to hope the main kromian force remains focused on the capital.”
Lydia nodded. “I’ll have Nicole lead the defense and order River to organize the others.”
Drake ruefully shook his head. “She saved our asses today, didn’t she?”
It was River who’d known what the odd shapes in the distance were, as well as how they would attack. Without her orders, almost no one would have made it beneath the tarps before the first line of arrows fell. Even after, many would have been dropped by blowgun darts.
There was no doubt in Drake’s mind River had encountered kromian raiders before. Without her quick thinking and leadership, many more would be dead. She’d gone far beyond what they’d asked of her when he put her in charge of a picnic on the beach.
“Once this is over,” Lydia said, “I believe she will be an asset to your manor.”
“You and me both. Get River prepped to organize the non-combatants and then get back to me. We’re going as soon as Anna finishes making her recall point.”
Emily joined him not long after. For once, she wasn’t grinning. Instead, she looked like she was ready to murder the first person who looked at her sideways. She also had a tear in the side of her suit, and she was also bleeding from several shallow cuts across her body.
“You all right?” Drake asked immediately.
She trembled in rage as she stared at the kromians below. “No.”
Drake hated that Emily and everyone else was still wearing drawers, not silverweave or armor, but they simply hadn’t expected an entire army of kromians to attack the capital today. They weren’t going to the beach in feathersteel. He supposed they were lucky that none of the kromians had possessed rarities, or at least combat rarities.
The kromians had also likely expected to slaughter a bunch of unarmed beachgoers, not run face first into a manor lord with a four-cylinder crossbow and his best warriors. So in the city, they’d just try to avoid as much fighting as they could and kill everything they couldn’t avoid. Lydia and Emily could wreck anyone who attacked, Robin was a killer shot with a bow, and he had the ability to heal through most any fatal wound.
The real trick would be making sure nothing got to Anna. She was the key to saving his people. Not to mention he’d die before he’d let anyone hurt her.
Anna returned not long after, pale but walking. She had a handkerchief wrapped around her arm. Drake looked forward to the day when he’d never have to ask her to bleed herself again. He also knew there was no way she was going to be able to keep up through the city.
Lydia immediately reached for Anna’s arm. “Allow me.”
As soon as Lydia had sealed the wound, Drake crouched down. “Hop up.”
She stared in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“You’re riding piggyback,” Drake said. “Lydia, Emily, and Robin will keep us safe.”
Anna hurried forward and leapt onto his back. She wrapped his arms around her neck. He pushed up with his thighs and rose, then took a firm grip on the back of Anna’s knees. She was no heavier than a backpack. He could make this work, but he couldn’t carry Magnum.
He’d just trust his other weapons to protect him.
Drake looked to Lydia. “You know the city best. Lead the way.”
“Be careful, lord!” River called from behind them. “We’ll hold here!”
Lydia jogged off toward the capital with Emily right beside her. Drake ran right behind them both and ignored Anna clutching his neck a little too tight. The sound of boots on rock told him Robin was following right them, easily keeping up.
They had one advantage. The docks were on the other side of the city from where they’d approach. He remembered the path this morning coming out on the back of the city, away from the bay, and that’s where they would be coming in. It should be a straight run to the temple from there, and with luck, they wouldn’t even encounter kromians.
Despite the rapid pace Lydia and Emily set, Drake had no problem keeping up even carrying Anna on his back. It wasn’t just his conditioning, which had improved over the past month and change. It was the rarity he’d copied from Samuel.
His burnished physical regeneration rarity was good for more than simply regenerating wounds. It allowed him to run without getting winded and without his muscles burning as they would after a long sprint, even carrying Anna on his back. He doubted even Emily could go this far for this long with this weight, and he knew she couldn’t fight with a child riding on her back.
Drake couldn’t fight with Anna on his back, but he didn’t have to. He just had to run. He trusted these three loyal and deadly women to keep him and Anna safe. They would get to the capital, get to the temple, get that medicine, and get it to his wounded people.
And then, if any were still around, maybe they’d kill a giant octopus or two.
