Primvila stretched her leathery wings wide, angling to catch an updraft. Normally, she enjoyed flying. As a syren, most people who lived on the ground didn’t take too kindly to her presence. Syren voices carried a certain type of magic that made their words more appealing to those who heard them sing. It was nowhere close to the mind magics that Savren got up to, yet people—humans especially—generally looked at her with ire and suspicion.
Humans didn’t fly. That meant she could stay in the air to her heart’s content without worrying over people. Even if they tried to attack her, they couldn’t reach. She could fly high above their heads, higher than their arrows could shoot, higher than their magic could reach, higher than they could even see considering her lithe form—not that humans ever looked up. She couldn’t quite reach as high as those ships that had been attacking, but humans didn’t normally have those kinds of things.
Normally, Primvila enjoyed flying. It was an escape. Freedom. Even the few times Arkk had asked her to scout some location, it became a nice chance to stretch her wings after long days in the tower or fortress. Humans in Company Al-Mir were more accepting of her, perhaps having grown used to working alongside gorgon and strange beings like the Protector, so she wasn’t so much looking for an escape. She just enjoyed flying.
Normally.
Normally, Primvila didn’t have a metal sphere the size of her head strapped to her chest. It wiggled and jostled on its own, occasionally throwing off her flight, as the things inside it squirmed and wiggled. If those worms were stronger than expected, if the metal was weaker than expected, if she accidentally bumped the small release lever while performing a maneuver, she could easily end up covered in worms. She didn’t know exactly what they were, but they were being used as a weapon. That alone was enough to make her wary.
She glanced off to one side. Her fellow syren, Igvile, flew in the distance, getting to stretch his wings after spending most of his time in the ritual rooms working the bombardment magics. He wasn’t particularly enthused with this plan either.
Three harpies were in the air as well. Primvila didn’t know what they thought. Despite both being winged species with humanoid bodies, harpies and syrens didn’t get along. Harpies liked to play up their friendliness, mingling with everyone, taking up jobs delivering letters and packages over long distances, and all manner of activities that syrens, simply through distrust, couldn’t participate in. Primvila was sure some individuals never felt that envy or jealousy and managed to get along. She was not one of them. There hadn’t been any conflicts among them within Company Al-Mir, but they didn’t seek each other out for company either.
Still, she doubted they were excited. Even if these metal spheres were perfectly safe, the worms were creepy enough on their own that nobody wanted to get too close. There was a whole subset of Arkk’s men who shuddered at the mere mention of wurms, former criminals, mostly.
The sooner they were done with this, the better.
And it looked like they would be done soon.
One of the lead harpies, Nora, if Primvila recalled correctly, let out a sharp screech that sounded like that of a hawk. Loathe as she was to admit it, harpies had sharper eyes.
In this case, it was likely that Nora had simply been paying more attention to their mission. As soon as Primvila turned her attention to the ground below, she easily spotted their targets.
Four warships traveled up the river, barely able to fit despite the swollen river being at its largest with all the snowmelt. Each proudly waved the black and white flag bearing nine swords of the Eternal Empire. As far as she understood the situation, the Eternal Empire’s remaining army, those who hadn’t been at Woodly Rhyme, were aboard the ships. With the river passing directly adjacent to the Cursed Forest, running right past Smilesville Burg and Langleey Village, they practically had a straight shot at the fortress.
Thus, they needed to be dealt with.
Thus, the worms.
Nora pulled her wings back, angling into a dive. Primvila, Igvile, and the others swiftly followed. Not knowing what kind of magical defenses the warships had, but certain they had something, Arkk had been very clear in his warnings against moving too close and staying too close. At the same time, to drop their worms on target, they had to get a little closer.
Her heart pounded in rhythm with each powerful stroke of her wings. The closer they got, the more intense the sense of urgency felt. The warships loomed larger, their flags rippling in the wind. The air roared past her ears as her world narrowed to the task at hand. Her mind raced through the instructions Arkk had drilled into them.
Approach fast. Release. Depart immediately. Do not linger.
She glanced to her side, catching a glimpse of Igvile. His face was set in determination.
As they neared the ships, Primvila’s eyes flicked over the deck, searching for any signs of activity or weapons trained skyward. It seemed quiet, almost eerily so, but she knew better than to trust appearances. Figures were moving about, but not in alarm. Like they were oblivious to the danger descending upon them.
Humans never looked up.
Nora’s screech cut through the air again, the signal to release. Her sphere fell away from her first, aimed perfectly toward the rearmost ship. The metal slats over the sphere retracted mid-way down. Hundreds of squirming, slimy worms filled the air, raining down upon the ship.
With a swift, practiced motion, Primvila followed suit. She bent her wing mid-flight and pulled the lever on her sphere. A loud ticking noise, audible even above the rushing wind, started immediately. The clasps on the harness holding it to her chest popped off, leaving the sphere dropping, spinning toward the deck below.
Primvila didn’t watch it hit. She angled up and to the side immediately, banking sharply to veer away from the ships.
Something hot streaked past her, singed her tail, and continued off into the distance. She immediately began taking evasive lines through the air, but after the third hot streak, all counterattacks cut off.
She chanced a glance over her shoulder. Igvile got away. All the harpies were away as well. And the boats…
With the growing distance, it was hard to see the individual worms. However, the men atop the ships, clearly in a panicked fight, were fully focused on the load they had just dropped. None of the ships were even trying to shoot down the fliers.
Primvila focused on her flying once more, merging with Igvile and the harpies into a loose formation as they all turned southward. Although she didn’t know exactly what those worms were, they had stopped the ships from continuing to attack them. She could only hope that they would stop the ships entirely.
It had been a long few days. Ever since the tower set out from Elmshadow. She hadn’t even been in the thick of the fighting and she was worn out. She couldn’t begin to imagine what the poor orcs felt. They were always the first ones in, the last ones out.
“Some of them better survive,” Dakka said, slamming her gauntlets into each other in front of her chest. “Enough with this magic bullshit. Give me a real fight.”
Arkk pursed his lips. Dakka’s anger radiated in a near tangible manner. Not that he could blame her. She was blaming herself enough as it was, for not being quick enough in taking off the avatar’s head, resulting in six other orcs falling victim to that void magic. She needed an outlet and was looking at the approaching ships with that in mind.
As much as Arkk didn’t want more to fight, he hoped a few survived as well if only to let Dakka take out her anger on them. He tried to clap a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but with the armor in the way, he wasn’t even sure she noticed.
At the same time, he wasn’t sure how willing the enemy army would be to continue the fight. Watching through the scrying team’s crystal ball, it didn’t look like they had any real answer for the worms. An individual worm wasn’t much of a threat. They could be crushed and stomped upon, slashed with blades, or taken care of through practically any spell. They weren’t strong creatures. But there were so many of them and they were such awkward opponents with their small size that it made fighting them difficult at best.
Agnete, Priscilla, and the machines were his best counters to them. The former two were able to sweep magic through an entire room, eliminating everything within in one fell swoop while the Anvil’s soldiers were simply so precise and so modular that they would either cut through them individually in rapid, coordinated strikes or attach alchemical flame spewers to their wrists and copy Agnete’s tactics, albeit less effectively.
Most of the Eternal Empire’s army was made up of swordsmen wearing magical armor. Not a lot of spellcasters among their bunch. Although their armor granted them strength and near invulnerability to conventional weaponry—and even plenty of spells—they didn’t grant them the coordination that machines had. The enchantments on the armor made them mere food for any worm that managed to latch on.
“Keep watching,” Arkk told the scrying team. “Once things have settled down, alert me. And keep an eye on the worms. We don’t know what, if anything, they might evolve into once they eat enough magic.”
Hopefully, it would be something that troubled his enemies further.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t be something that came back to bite him in the ass later.
They had floated the idea of dropping alchemical bombs on the ships, but based on his experiences with the Eternal Empire thus far, he doubted they would have done enough. Magic-eating worms, on the other hand, would rip away the enchantments that protected against such things as bombs and bombardment. Theoretically, sending the fliers back out with bombs now would be their best bet.
Arkk was a bit wary of that. The Empire would be on guard against similar attacks.
They were nearing the Cursed Forest. The river skirted alongside its northern edge, heading eastward for a time until it ran right past Langleey Village. Lelith was currently setting up a secondary ritual room in the north quadrant of the fortress, one that would be in range of the river. If those boats did deal with the worms, hopefully, they would have done enough damage that some bombardment could finish them off without too much issue.
Aside from the avatar—who was currently on a detour around a small lake of molten metal and was about to enter a chamber filled with caustic gas from an alchemical experiment Arkk had messed up a few months back—the next most pressing problem was the remaining whale ship. It was still in the air despite the best efforts of Hannah and Sylvara.
Teleporting to the surface, standing between their aim-assist chairs, Arkk frowned as he stared upward. “What’s the issue?”
“It won’t stop moving,” Hannah hissed through grit teeth. “The other one just sat still. I think taking it down and blasting apart the main ship must have spooked the people on this one.”
“We’ve hit it once or twice,” Sylvara added, looking equally frustrated. “Not the fins and obviously nothing vital.”
“What do you need?”
“How about a spell that tracks its target instead of firing off in a perfectly straight line?” Sylvara grumbled.
Arkk had nothing like that. Not with the range they needed, in any case. Electro Deus would work, but…
Arkk clenched his clawed fist, lips tightening. The first time, he had blown his arm clean off. The second time, it remained intact, but he still almost passed out from the backlash. He could try again, but if he ended up passing out, the avatar would have free reign to advance as fast as she could manage until he regained consciousness. For all he knew, he would wake up to find his Heart destroyed. Something Vezta said would likely kill him.
Priscilla hadn’t died, but she was also a dragonoid. Their hardiness far, far outstripped that of humans.
No one else could use the Electro Deus spell at the same level that he could. The Heart, the territory both local and in Elmshadow, and his employees all fueled the spell. Even Agnete, avatar that she was, would have difficulties.
If Agnete used her own magic, would she be able to hit the aircraft? He had seen her form a tight-knit rope of flames, attacking the airships back at the tower. But they had been much lower at the time.
Arkk fell silent, watching Hannah and Sylvara for a few moments. Both were reconfiguring their own seats, twisting the knobs, and adjusting the position of the chairs. Now and again, one of them would try that rainbow-like spell. Most of the time, they didn’t hit anything but air. Then it was back to configuring the chairs again. With Lelith working on reconstructing bombardment rituals for use against the warships, they had no one to assist.
Arkk wasn’t sure that anyone else in his employ could assist. Perhaps the Anvil’s soldiers. Who had built the things, she should know how they worked.
More eggs fell from the maw of the monster. It wasn’t so much attacking with them as it was drooling on them as it moved. The result was the same. The eggs would land, burrow into the fortress, and have to be dealt with before they hatched.
Who wasn’t immediately busy. With the conventional battle having fallen by the wayside, at least for now, the foundry was mostly idle. A portion of it was active, crafting armor and weapons to replace the shadow armor ruined by eggs and worms, but with the Iron Mongers from the Anvil doing most of the actual fabrication, even that was more or less a non-issue.
So he teleported her up to the surface. A tuft of steam escaped from somewhere under her chin as her smooth head snapped left and right, quickly analyzing her surroundings. In short order, her attention focused on the seats she had crafted and their two occupants.
“ᛏhere is no problem in my creations,” Who said with utter certainty, “but perfection is always a moving goal.”
“They’re having issues. Aiming while seated and aiming while casting are too difficult against a moving target.”
Who motioned for Hannah to stop her efforts, leading the abbess to slump back in the seat, closing her eyes. Beads of sweat dripped down her temples. Sylvara, despite casting the spell twice as often, looked much more composed. Arkk wasn’t too surprised, having already known that Sylvara was on the high end of spellcasters.
“I can creaᛏe a more ergonomic control system. The original design failed to factor in human limb rotational range limitations. There are several gear-shift modifications I can add in to make it smoother—”
“This sounds like an extended project. We don’t need a long-term solution, Who,” Arkk said with mild exasperation. “There’s only one ship. Once it is down, we don’t need these anymore. Help Sylvara target it.”
The amount of sheer offense a faceless being could project through nothing more than a slight turn of her head was a wonder to behold. And slightly terrifying. The link between them wasn’t strained, however, so Arkk tried to brush it off.
“You can redesign the chairs to your heart… engine’s content later, just in case we ever have to deal with things like this again. A patchwork solution is all we need now.”
“Fine.”
Who moved away from the still-resting Hannah to take over the controls of Sylvara’s seat. Her arms split apart, unfolding into several small gripping devices. Like that, she was capable of manipulating every one of the knobs at once. She crouched and tilted her head, aligning whatever she used for sight with the lenses that assisted with targeting.
Arkk didn’t stick around to watch. If they were still having trouble in a few minutes, he would return and see what else could be done.
The avatar, as Arkk had mostly expected, wasn’t stopped for long by the room with toxic gas. She could manipulate wind. Of course, she could blow all the gas off to one side of the room, leaving her with a clear shot through it.
It did buy just enough time to finish setting up her next expected obstacle. Except where impossible, such as the molten metal lake, the avatar moved in a perfectly straight line directly toward the Heart, taking out walls and doors that were in her way with her copy of Tybalt’s spell. That made her extremely predictable.
She entered a relatively small chamber, obliterating the wall. As she walked across, her foot came down on a small plate designed to mesh seamlessly with the natural maze-like tiles of Fortress Al-Mir.
A rod connected to the underside of the plate pressed downward, through a small hole in the floor, where it connected with the top of a clay pot. The small point on the end cracked the pot, mixing the contents. The explosion spread outwards, striking pot after pot until all forty-seven hidden beneath the room’s floor broke.
The room vanished from Arkk’s awareness, as did neighboring hallways and a small slice of the dormitory Richter’s men had used while they were stationed in the fortress. The rumble shook the floor beneath his feet despite it being clear on the other end of the Cursed Forest.
Taking hold of the crystal ball that the bombardment team had been using, Arkk focused in on the section of the fortress that was no longer his.
He couldn’t see a thing. There was so much smoke, so much debris drifting through the air, and even some lingering flames that the dust hadn’t extinguished. The entire roof was gone as was the layer of ground above, but even the sunlight couldn’t penetrate the plume of smoke that was billowing from the gap in his fortress.
He waited, searching, eyes flicking through the image in the crystal ball for any sign of movement that wasn’t from the smoke.
If he were being honest, he fully expected the avatar to survive. The bomb, devious as it was, felt too simple for a being like that avatar to fall to. Perhaps the Heart of Gold’s avatar would have died to it—or at least lost a possessed body—and maybe even Lyra despite Arkk’s lack of knowledge regarding her abilities and prowess, but the Eternal Empress?
Surely, if a bomb could eliminate her, someone would have done so at some point in the last thousand years. An angry subject, a rival politician, or even the other avatars.
Yet there was no gust of wind clearing out the smoke. No walls and doors detained by the void. No continued march through his fortress.
Success?
Arkk’s paranoia insisted that no, it was not success. Yet the evidence pointed to it being true.
Something was burning in the room, constantly creating new smoke. It would diminish eventually, surely, but Arkk didn’t want to wait forever.
The lesser servants couldn’t enter. He could feel the lingering heat at the edges where his fortress was intact. They were too weak to survive in an environment like that.
Arkk teleported to Agnete—no longer having to watch over the egg Who had harvested—as the former purifier incinerated one of the eggs. “I require your assistance.”
To her credit, Agnete didn’t look surprised. “The avatar?”
“Indeed. You up for something a little dangerous?”
Agnete rolled her neck back and forth, cracking her neck. When she finished, she looked to Arkk, eyes bright like the molten metal of the lake.