Chapter 1352: Halorian Campaign VII |
‘By the Great Lord’s crown; what was that?!’ Eirenaios thought as he made as swiftly as he could move back to his ark. That red-orange light that spilled from Leon Raime’s eyes lodged itself in his brain, refusing to dissipate, consuming his thoughts as it had consumed Antipatra’s head.
So terrible was the sight that Eirenaios didn’t even spare Antipatra herself a thought until he was already safely sequestered back in the heart of his ark—or at least, as ‘safely’ as could be managed against such a foe. He half-listened to the fleet’s movements as his heart raced and his stomach plummeted at the thought of fighting his enemy now. Antipatra was surely dead, and though he was no coward, fighting against this monstrous threat to humanity was beyond him.
All around him, the fleet continued to work to surround the debris field of the former plane. Battle was joined at various places, where Leon Raime’s mages and arks poked their heads out to skirmish with Antipatra’s fleet, but altogether, the fighting wasn’t that intense, especially compared to the duels that had taken place around Aristarchos’ fleet.
Either way, Eirenaios knew that the fleet wouldn’t stand against Leon Raime now, not when they’d lost their leader. The moment that the news about Antipatra spread, the fleet would fracture. They needed a leader, someone who could unite them in purpose. Antipatra had been that leader—a true believer in Khosrow’s Law, and a powerful and accomplished mage in her own right. Now, that leadership would fall either to him or to Aristarchos. They were the only two mages strong enough and sure enough in purpose to lead the fleet going forward.
‘Would I take orders from him?’ Eirenaios thought, thinking of the soft Aristarchos, concerned more often with his personal projects than with furthering the objectives of the Great Lord.
After some time—Eirenaios wasn’t sure how long, given how lost he was in his own thoughts—he was informed that Aristarchos was trying to reach him via comm crystal. His heart rate spiked, but he controlled his reaction and agreed to speak with his fellow Despot. As he walked to his comm room, his breathing steadied, thoughts of the current problem solidifying in his mind.
‘No,’ he thought. ‘I wouldn’t listen to that old rat. He who places more faith in metal than he does in the Great Lord is no true leader.’
In contrast to the terror he felt when he boarded his ark, he felt nothing but certainty as he sat in front of the small crystal. When it projected Aristarchos’ image before him, Eirenaios was ready.
“We must retreat,” he more commanded than stated, not waiting for Aristarchos to so much as offer perfunctory greetings. “With the loss of our Basilissa, we have no one who can lead us against our foe. He will eventually tear through us if we continue this battle without her. I will send you coordinates in a moment; begin pulling back. Our enemy will not be able to leave the debris field in time to stop our departure.”
“Basilissa Antipatra is alive.”
Eirenaios blinked in surprise. Losing one’s head was, for a pre-Apotheosis mage, quite mortal—usually instantly so. Eleventh-tier mages could survive greater trauma there, but twelfth-tier mages and stronger could have their entire heads removed, and so long as their soul realms and magic bodies remained intact, they would live on, their bodies regenerating the lost head. Of course, the power required to take such a powerful mage’s head usually so ravaged the body that surviving such injuries was still tremendously rare, not to mention most mages strong enough to so horrifically maul so powerful a mage rarely made the mistake of letting them regenerate when rendered so vulnerable. Losing one’s head, even for a mage of Antipatra’s caliber, still crippled the body, leaving them vulnerable to follow-up attacks.
“I saw the power that killed her,” Eirenaios said. “I’ll need proof that she’s still alive.”
“She’s with my healers,” Aristarchos said. Eirenaios thought he detected some amount of smugness in the man’s projection, as if he were lording it over him that he had saved Antipatra, and now had leverage over his fellow Despot.
But Eirenaios was not going to tolerate that.
“If our Basilissa is indisposed,” Eirenaios said, making it clear with his tone alone that he was going to confirm her status as quickly as possible, “then I am in command. And the fleet will now retreat. Do you understand me, or are you going to challenge my authority?”
Eirenaios enjoyed the slight twitches in Aristarchos’ scholarly features; the man didn’t want to, but just as Eirenaios would never tell him how to inscribe an enchantment, he knew that Aristarchos would never challenge him when it came to war.
His smile was wide and ugly when Aristarchos finally said, “Leon Raime has returned to his ark and will try to flee. But if you wish to make this mistake, then I will let you own it.”
A shudder ran down Eirenaios’ spine at the thought of contending with that beast-in-human-form after what he’d seen him do to Antipatra, after what he’d sensed within that red-orange light. More importantly, however, was the tone that Aristarchos was using.
“Do as I command,” Eirenaios growled. “I will have discipline within this fleet if I have to offer heads to the Great Lord until I have it.”
Aristarchos snorted contemptuously, but he offered no arguments until his projection vanished and the comm crystal’s runes stopped glowing.
‘Rude, but he’ll pay me the proper respect soon…’
When Eirenaios returned to his bridge, his confidence built with the position he’d seized, he began giving the rest of the fleet orders. When Aristarchos did as Eirenaios commanded, every Burning Lord ark fell in line and began turning away from the debris field. Eirenaios already had plans for what to do if Leon Raime’s fleet pursued, but to his gratification, they remained ensconced within the asteroids, not contesting his fleet’s retreat.
As arks began to jump away, he noticed that Makarios’ small fleet of about one hundred and fifty arks was lagging a bit, but a quick barked order kept them in line.
‘I’ll have to do something about this bumbling provincial fool,’ he thought darkly as his ark, the last to leave, activated its jump drive and left this shattered plane—and, as Eirenaios hoped, Leon Raime and whatever new anathematic power he had summoned from the darkness beyond Khosrow’s light—behind.
---
He couldn’t see; his eyes physically blind. They burned horrifically, and he thought he was crying uncontrollably, judging by the hot liquid pouring down his face. But Leon didn’t care; his people, his wife, had been injured terribly, and their auras were ragged and fading. Zhang and Daryun were conscious and trying to move, but with their powers weak and armor damaged from defending against Eirenaios, it wouldn’t be long before they were exposed to the Void. He reached out with his power and grabbed them, protecting them and dragging them along with him.
Then, in a flash of lightning, he arrived at Maia’s side. The dagger that Eirenaios had forced through the tiniest gap in her armor was still there, sticking out of her. He could see drops of blood spilling out of the armor and floating away in the gravity-less Void. Without a thought, he grasped the dagger and pulled it out. He felt a hot flare of pain, and though it was far from comfortable, he found it encouraging—it meant that Maia was not only still alive, but her body was still intact enough to feel pain.
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In a flash, the White Dragon scale appeared in his hand, and he stuffed it into the hole that Eirenaios had made with the dagger. Soft, white light began pouring from every tiny crack in her armor, and especially from the dagger-made hole, while Leon took Maia in his arms and began to fly, Zhang and Daryun close behind him. As he flew, he conjured additional healing spells and covered his wife and Paladins in them, refusing to let them succumb to death if he had any say in the matter.
Storm Herald was ready to spring into action near one of the largest gaps in the debris field, close to where Leon had chosen to fight. He reached the ark in minutes, and even then, was met in the hangar by a full team of healers. Zhang nearly collapsed onto a hovering litter, and while Daryun attempted to remain standing, he was gently but insistently laid down on a litter of his own by a nurse.
Maia, on the other hand, remained in Leon’s arms as he ignored everyone else and made for the healer’s bay. The universe around him may as well have not existed, for by the time he reached the healer’s bay, he hardly even remembered how he’d gotten there. He vaguely recalled some of the healers trying to tend to him, but with nothing but his aura, he turned them away. Despite this, as he laid Maia down, he didn’t stop the veritable storm of healers swarming around her. Again, some of them tried to tend to him, but he ignored them even as they wiped his face clean—their washcloths coming away bloody—and started using healing magic on him.
Numbly, he sat in the closest chair and watched with sightless eyes as his healers tended to his wife. Light magic, healing spells, salves, potions, all were employed, and were added to the power of the White Dragon scale. Leon didn’t know how long he sat watching, the knot of worry in his heart slowly loosening as he felt Maia’s aura stabilize and her pain lessen considerably, but he was eventually pulled out of his stupor by Anna, whose arrival he hadn’t even noticed.
She was doing much better, so much so that the only sign of her injury was a flickering aura. But she was looking at him with worry, when he was certain it should’ve been the other way around.
“Leon,” she whispered, the single word drawing his attention to the rest of the bay. “Your eyes…”
Zhang and Daryun were nearby, both still conscious as the healers worked. Only two healers remained with Maia, their work apparently done. The bay was largely empty otherwise, though at Anna’s silent urging, Leon realized that a young officer was also standing next to him.
“Your Majesty,” the runner said, the boy practically looking like he was shaking in his boots, “F-Fleet Admiral Anshu is r-requesting your presence on the bridge.”
Leon blinked in momentary confusion before realizing that the comm slate in his soul realm had been going off and he hadn’t even noticed. The Thunderbird and the Great Black Dragon were also present, though they were speaking silently to each other such that he couldn’t hear—and their conversation seemed quite passionate if the Thunderbird’s wild gesturing and the Great Black Dragon’s disdainful look were anything to go by.
He sighed and rose to his feet. The last thing he wanted to do was leave his lady, but she’d been stabilized, and there wasn’t much more he could do. He left her with the White Dragon scale and silently gestured for the runner to head to the bridge. Anna joined him, ambulatory again, even though she was far from combat-ready. At some point, a couple squads of Tempest Knights had also arrived, and as Leon left the healer’s bay, one squad fell in behind him while the other remained to guard over their injured Queen.
As they moved, he finally got around to evaluating his own status. His eyes were still blind, but he was starting to see a bit of light in them again. He guessed it might take hours if not days for his vision to return fully—assuming it even would at all. He also realized that the tears he’d shed on the way back to Storm Herald had been blood, which in turn helped him to realize what he’d done.
‘Did I… use the Eye of Calamity?’ He remembered his vision going dark and a deep impression of red-orange in his magic senses. ‘It has to be…’
Under any normal circumstances, he would’ve been thrilled beyond words. Now, however, he was exhausted. He’d used so much magic power that his limbs were heavy as mountains, and every step he took was a more laborious chore than the one before. With half his mind, he worried for Maia. It took nearly the other half to stave off sleep. That left precious little remaining attention and brainpower for the current situation.
His exhaustion must have been obvious as Anna stopped them on the way to the bridge.
“Your Majesty should retire to your quarters,” she said more than asked. The runner looked terrified to say anything against her, and Leon couldn’t muster the energy to even verbally acknowledge that she was probably correct. Still, more by mental inertia than anything else, he took a few more steps in the direction of the bridge before stumbling.
He blinked, needing a moment to realize that his legs had given out below him. Two of his Tempest Knights had caught him and were in the process of shuttling him to his quarters.
He blinked again and, as if teleported, found himself in bed, an indeterminate amount of time later. His eyes had recovered enough to see light and basic shapes, and with his magic senses, he could tell that Anshu, Anna, Red, Lana, and Graniton were close by. He wanted to speak to them, to ask them how the battle was going, but his body defied him, and he couldn’t even sputter.
He just felt so tired, and though he didn’t want to, he found himself plummeting into the land of dreams.
He thought of Zhang and Daryun. They were going to have to be rewarded when he awoke. If he awoke.
He thought of Maia. He could still feel her through their connection, so he knew she was doing better, but he still wanted details.
He thought of the rest of his family. Anzu and Valeria, racing to meet him along with Marcus and Alix. Elise, Cassandra, and Serana back in Artorion, their statuses unknown, along with everyone else in his capital city…
But rather than any of his friends or family, his last coherent thought was of Makarios. Those bombs, as far as he knew, had never gone off. They’d agreed to use them in that battle.
‘Did he…?’ he began to wonder again, but then everything went dark, and he slipped back into unconsciousness.
---
The sight before him would turn the stomach of even the most jaded or sadistic warriors. A headless body, twitching as it struggled to breathe, chest rising and falling dramatically as its lungs tried desperately to fill with air. Antipatra’s body was operating purely on instinct, as far as Eirenaios knew, but it was still alive. Her soul realm was intact, as was her magic body. No one had been able to speak with her, however. She wasn’t dead, but she might as well have been.
After the fleet retreated to one of Makarios’ planes, Antipatra had been transferred back to Flame of the Mountain, where her own healers could tend to her. There, Eirenaios had come, not only to pay respect to her, given that she was still alive, but also to speak with the rest of the fleet’s leadership. He was in charge now, and he had to make sure that everyone knew it.
Most of all, the man beside him. Aristarchos watched the healers work dispassionately, but Eirenaios could see his wandering eyes always return to the glossy texture of the flesh and bone of Antipatra’s lightly convulsing neck stump. There was no burn, no cut marks, no torn flesh… That power that Leon Raime had used had destroyed Antipatra’s head so cleanly and completely that no weapon forged by the hand of man could have matched it.
“You saw it, didn’t you?” Eirenaios asked his fellow Despot. “What Leon Raime did?”
Aristarchos was quiet for a few seconds, as if wondering how to respond. “Not with my own eyes,” he said noncommittally.
“But you did see it?” Eirenaios pressed, his voice rising enough for the lead healer to scowl at him. Though Eirenaios was ‘in charge’, he wasn’t going to offend this man, so he lowered his head for a moment before lowering his voice. “That power… What was it?”
Aristarchos, pale and trembling slightly, responded, “I… I don’t know…”
Eirenaios wondered if the man was telling the truth or not. He could’ve pressed, but as he opened his mouth to do so, his voice caught in his throat. He wanted nothing to do with such profane powers. He just had to know enough to kill the wielder.
In this case, however, even his Basilissa had been struck down.
He moved on from that topic and said to Aristarchos, “I expect my orders to be followed. We have a war to win.”
“You think the Captains will follow you?” Aristarchos’ tone was light and questioning, as if he were only asking about the weather, but Eirenaios heard the criticism in it.
“Yes. Basilissa Antipatra is alive. Somewhat. And her ideals live on in her Captains. I have a strategy that we will employ, and it will force Leon Raime out into the open.”
“You mean to kill him? After what he did to Antipatra?”
Eirenaios hesitated a moment, then scoffed loudly, ensuring that Aristarchos saw it before giving his answer. “If he’s fool enough to face us openly. But no, without our Basilissa, we’re going to have to switch strategies. It would be better not to fight him openly, but rather to make him chase us instead of the other way around. We will attack his holdings further in the Great Strand of Rhea. We will buy time by destroying his planes, and once his foul city in the Nexus has been cleansed, we will be reinforced by Basileus Triton. If Basilissa Antipatra hasn’t recovered by then, then we’ll gain the ability to deal with our foe.”
Eirenaios paused before regarding Aristarchos coldly, but expectantly.
“Will you support me in this?”
Aristarchos stared at Antipatra’s body for a long moment, then nodded.
Despite everything, Eirenaios practically preened within. His own gaze dropped to Antipatra, and he found himself wondering how long it might take her to wake up… and how long it might take himself to ascend to the thirteenth-tier…