Epilogue 11: House Palladian’s Totally Legit Multiworld AssistanceTM |
Ten years after the UN accord.
There were three Great Cities left to the Uru. Tonight, there would be two. If Anza did her duty well, its people would at least survive to defend the others if the tide spared them. She tightened her grip on the spear in her hand, her badge of office. Never had it felt heavier.
It would be lost today alongside her life.
The knowledge that she would be the last of her line to hold it brought her great shame and misery, emotions she could not let others feel or they would be doomed themselves. Already a low current of dread filled her people’s mind sea. She did her best to emit confidence, but she knew it came off more as resignation. Her mother would have done better. If she had lived.
Her husband and second-in command Til walked by her side. She had ordered him to leave five times already. He had ignored her.
“We have sealed all tunnels but two. All our soil manipulators are making sure the path is safe, but it will take half a day to get everyone out. At least.”
“Then we will give them half a day. To the outer walls.”
She had a purpose. That purpose gave her meaning, a determination she shared with those around her. Tension left, replaced by the grim will to see their people safe. Wordlessly, Uru’s best hunters made for the city’s edge. There were stragglers to take down before the heart of the tide was upon them.
***
Beyond the walls, the endless fields of cereals around Uru burnt, the acrid smoke promising starvation to the survivors. Dark shapes moved through peasant paths. The ripening plants shuddered while intruders rushed through them, trampling months of effort in their maddened rage. Hunters and casters found those shapes more often than not. First awakening younglings jumped from the walls to recover arrows or cores even during the assault in a desperate effort to be useful, to prove themselves and to buy the city a few more seconds of peace. This part of the wall was holding well, at least. Good. She hastened her pace.
Til hailed her from ahead. The power of his thoughts surfed over the minds of her willing soldiers. He showed her what she had been fearing: a third awakening beast breaking and maiming their defenses. It was a quadrupedal creature of feathers and scales, all glittery defenses and water jets slicing through shields and people alike. She charged ahead, the suffering of her folk a beacon in her mind. Her spear thrust found a clawed paw. The blow to a harried mage was averted.
She and the monster danced atop the wall. It was fast and cruel, she was slower and patient. She could afford to be wounded even less than she could afford exhaustion. After a tense exchange, Til felt her mind show an opening. An arrow pierced the beast’s eye. It shrieked. Anza clicked her desperate rage as she planted the spear in the creature’s throat. Its death throes left the battlements scarred and ruined.
Anza breathed deep. She was still unharmed, yet the constant pressure was starting to take its toll. She surveyed her surroundings: the shattered wall, the slick blue coat of blood and the corpses of her soldiers. She had a decision to make. The hulking form of a stone giant approaching in the distance made it for her. This section was doomed.
“Retreat to the second wall,” she ordered, heart resigned.
She had hoped the outer wall would last until noon.
And then, suddenly, a portal appeared on the grass. That was not too strange. She had seen it happen once before. What was strange was that an entity stepped out of it. That should have been impossible. The portal was not yet even close to breaching.
A shiver expanded from the entity’s appearance. The briefest hint of mana teased Anza’s brain like a brief shadow. The monsters went mad.
The entity walked forward with slow steps. Like her, this one was bipedal, likely a mammal from the curved curving towards the back of her head and if so female. She, then, wore black scale mail. An equally dark sword hung from her back, sheathed for now. What Anza had felt confirmed that she was at the apex of the third awakening and the display that followed confirmed it. With barely a hint of movement, the monsters surrounding her fell, sliced clean through. There were no wide gestures or shiny displays of mana. Just a precise separation of heads and limbs. Without drawing the blade.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Others followed strangely of a different species which comforted Anza. Other mammals including one who was…
“Riding a fish?” Til asked by her side.
She could not quite believe it either. Reptilian spearmen came as well as another mammal with long, thin ears that could not belong to the exact same species, backed by tame monsters easily recognizable by their collars. The unlikely rescuers moved out in a flexible line with a degree of teamwork that made her wonder if they had a mind sea, as well. Her intense surprise reverberated through the sea until she remembered she ought not to distract her people.
“At least they’re not attacking us,” she remarked.
And indeed, the eclectic tribe carved a path around the outer wall with expert efficacy. Many more third ascensions came including one who made plants strangle beasts. Another brought winter and thunder, another flew like a rock that tore through the largest of beasts. Anza returned her attention to the first horned one. The warrior approached the stone titan Anza had resolved herself to face. The mammal still didn’t draw her blade. There was a sense of anticipation there.
The stone titan advanced, shells and shields forming and exploding outwards in devastating blows that carved the very ground, and would have slaughtered lesser warriors and yet she was never exactly where the worst of the explosion occurred. Whatever debris reached her failed to penetrate the armor. The alien woman extended an arm, two appendages extended, three retracted.
Space… folded. Beautiful patterns carved themselves through the fields before the city, drawings and writings more than the slice of a blade, reflecting and contracting to infinity in evanescent patterns that Anza could just about spot just before they faded, replaced by others. The cut had been done in a single instant.
The titan collapsed. To be precise, the front half of the titan collapsed revealing purple meat underneath. The wound resembled more the precise dissection of an anatomist than the savage blow of a wrathful battle. Anza was struck with awe. And since the strangers were fighting to protect them, she allowed a dangerous surge of hope to blow outward, through the mind sea, to reinvigorate her people. They needed it. Even if it might be a lie.
The newcomers were strong. Just not strong enough to face what was coming. Far into the planes at the feet of the Spine of the World, a black dot moved ever closer. It was an abyssal, and it was coming for the city. They always found the cities, somehow. The shores had been the first to fall and now, it was their turn.
“Fourth ascension,” Til whispered.
“What?”
He pointed his bow towards a new figure slowly emerging from the portal. That one was ensconced in metal, a lot of it, enough to equip twenty warriors. There had not been a fourth ascension in the city since Anza’s mother had died stopping the previous abyssal. The newcomer walked to the side. With every step,the ground shook, and they grew in size. Their helmet reached the top of the outer wall by the time they started running.
Hope truly was a dangerous feeling.
“Greetings!”
Til and Anza yelped, jumping back when the horned mammal appeared in front of them. It didn’t help that she was almost three times her size and obviously muscular. The giant sat on the battlement like Anza sat in her youngest child’s toy chair. It was a little annoying.
“Greetings,” Til said, recovering first. “We appreciate your help.”
The mammal was not doing so well. She was out of breath, with sweat parking on her face. That ‘finger’ cut must have taken a toll though Anza was now left to wonder why the alien wouldn’t draw that ridiculous sword on her back.
“We come here in peace, to help!” the alien said with a strong accent.
“... how do you know our language?”
“That’s a secret! Just know that we are here to help!”
In the back, a black clad warrior riding one of the smaller fishes bumped the nose of another who was trying to feed on the corpse of one of Anza’s young hunters.
“Nigiri no! Bad shark!”
What a strange language.
The alien’s strange expression grew a little strained.
“So please tell your people not to attack us.”
“It is done. I have shared your image in the sea of our minds. I must still ask, you must be wanting something in return?”
“Mostly your friendship and a fair share of the kills! We also bring you a few options to help with kaiju attacks in the future. I mean, abyssals. Abyssal attacks.”
Anza clicked her mounting confusion. Til, ever reliable, talked first.
“We will hear you after the battle.”
The walls shook from a distant quake. The armored mammal in the distance was now taller than the tallest spire of the Uru. They had just jumped. A few very long seconds later, the juggernaut landed atop the abyssal, pinning it to the ground with a hill-sized spear of shining metal.
“But of course! Kill now and eat later. And talk!”
***
Anza watched her child munch on the seedless white flesh of a long yellow fruit, yet another gift from ‘Neshta’ or that was what her mouth could manage anyhow. The city was saved, the tide dispersed. In return, the rambunctious guests had taken the abyssal’s core, most of its meat, and around half of the total cores harvested so far. They had felt very casual about the whole affair — just a normal hunt for them. Her people were still celebrating back outside while a frantic effort was made to harvest and cure the meat to compensate for the loss of so much of the harvest. Perhaps half of the city was still sober.
They were saved, for now. They had also purchased an assortment of weapons of exquisite make, a strange magical tool that allowed them to spot abyssals from a distance, and a list of tools powered by just the light of the stars. Truly a marvel. The rescuers had also left a ‘transplanar communicator’ to call for help again should another abyssal find them. They had even agreed to come to help the other two cities. There were talks among the young hunters about joining the ‘Crossworld Alliance’. She had begun the day waiting to die and ended it on a triumph. And yet. And yet… When Til clicked his head shell against hers, she could not help but share her thoughts.
“I am under the impression that we got scammed. Somehow.”
Just then, a youngling ran by holding a soft plushie, his mind radiating happiness. The plushie was shaped like one of those humans and dangerously soft.
“I know. Me too.”
How very mysterious.
***
