He surveyed the airfield, badly wishing that he were heading off with his people.
The warmth of the sun kissed their skin even as the cold of night licked it away. Pilots and crews rushed out to their takeoff points. Their mounts were prepared for them as they boarded.
Support companies were split into their squads and sent to waiting birds.
“Launch!”
Formations shot out warm air underneath waiting sparrows. Their wings spread wide, catching the wind, and ascending into the air. A path of formations lit up, carrying them higher and increasing their speed before they left the airfield.
Other acceleration formations lit up, sending kestrel wings of three and sparrow wings of eight into the skies.
The military might of Vuzgal was roused. Formations across the city flashed with power. The slumbering beast was waking up.
“Prepare to rearm and resupply as needed! Get the reserve birds ready!” Kanoa yelled. “Those fuckers want to take your city. Are you going to let them?”
The wind cut across the mountains north of Vuzgal, right through the spotter hidden in the snow and rocks of the mountain. Corporal Nicholas Landrith couldn’t see Vuzgal city tens of kilometers away.
He turned back to his target in the opposite direction. Sect fighters were packed into the dry riverbed that snaked between the mountains into Vuzgal Valley.
Morning had arrived, reflecting off the picturesque, snow-topped mountains.
He lowered the enhanced binoculars, letting them hang from the strap around his neck, and consulted the map strapped to his forearm. The wind chilled his exposed skin and ruffled his winter gear. He pulled out his compass; setting it, he used his binoculars again, checking features against map lines and the compass bearings.
“How are we looking?” Sergeant Cao.
“Coordinates look good,” Landrith said as he pulled his jacket tighter to his body to block the wind, holding out the checked numbers to Sergeant Cao.
“All right, punch them up, Earthy!”
“You just don’t want to freeze your fingers off holding this damn board,” Landrith muttered. The Earther jokes didn’t phase him anymore.
“I’m living it up with my rank privileges.” Cao grinned under his cold-weather hood.
“On this fine, wind-swept, cold-as-shit-asscrack-of-the-world mountain.”
Landrith chuckled as the other members of the sharpshooter team grinned into their scarves. He keyed his sound transmission device. “Firebases Group Three, this is Spotting Squad Four-One. Targets at coordinate uniform-whiskey-three-four-seven-niner by eight-one-five-zero. Requesting shot. Over.”
“Understood, shot.”
Landrith raised his binoculars, as did the rest of the sharpshooter team, watching the dark river of people. A flash hit to the west and north of the winding stream of enemy fighters.
“Correction. Twelve hundred mils. Add three hundred. Over.” Landrith didn’t lower his binoculars.
“Correction. Twelve hundred mils. Add three hundred. Out.”
A few seconds rolled past as Landrith watched on.
“Shot out!”
Landrith watched with his heart in his teeth. There was a flash on the east side, bracketing the riverbed. “Drop one hundred. Fire for effect. Over.”
“Drop one hundred. Fire for effect!”
It wasn’t a perfect call for fire, but if it worked, it worked.
The route was filled with members of different sects. The winding path was wide enough to let three men abreast push forward. The mountains and stone gave them nowhere to go as they wove through the dry stream.
The walls and terrain made it nearly impossible to use mana barriers. The sects didn’t have theirs active, thinking themselves safe and secure.
The first shells had been unenhanced marker shells. The ones that followed were enhanced by formations and mages. Instead of just one gun, there were two artillery companies, part of Firebase Group Three firing.
Destruction flashed upon the riverbed as tens of mortars landed. It took several seconds for the rumbling noise to reach the sharpshooters.
Stone that had lasted untold years turned into flying shrapnel, cutting through the unprotected fighters, and creating craters in the riverbed.
“Shift fire! Six-zero-zero-zero mils. Add two hundred. Repeat!”
The wave of fire followed the river’s route. The rumblings rolled back at them as they forever altered the landscape ahead of them.
Landrith called in correction after correction until he had nothing else.
He turned to Sergeant Cao. “You see anything?”
“Nope, I don’t see shit down there, man. You got ‘em.” Sergeant Cao patted him on the back.
“Firebases, this is Spotting Squad Four One. Fire mission complete. Over.”
“Understood. Coordinates for trap placement. Firebase Group Three out.”
Landrith called in corrections. New mortars exploded above the ground, tossing out trap formation plates, sowing them down the river on the dead fighters.
“Anyone trying to come through there is going to have a shitty day,” Sergeant Cao said as the wind rushed over them, dusting their white and grey coverings that blended into the mountain perfectly.
Landrith let out a breath. The hit of adrenaline dropped off as thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Looks like rain is coming.” Landrith gestured to the ominous clouds to the west.
“That’s not thunder. The flashes are on the ground, not in the sky,” Cao said. “Those are the other mortar positions. Get some food in you. I’ve got first watch. Make sure that anyone coming through our sector gets a welcome surprise.”
“Okay.” Landrith pulled out snacks, numbly putting them into his mouth. How many did I kill with those mortars? How many more will die from the traps?
He rubbed his face, covering his eyes as he took a breath in and out.
“Looks like we have some new customers,” Cao said. “Firebases Group Three, this is Spotting Squad Four-one. Targets at pre-set position. Charlie moving to position Delta. Fire for effect.”
Marco frowned at the noises echoing from the south, shifting in his saddle.
“We made good time over the last day. Tomorrow afternoon we will reach Vuzgal,” said Leonia. She was one of the Tolentino’s younger generation, waiting on his every need, acting as his second, learning from and supporting him.
Marco responded with the same indifference he had always treated these hangers-on. Leonia was of the rare breed that didn’t care if she was ignored. More of a glorified messenger and squire, looking to get introduced to powerful people in the sect and among others.
“I don’t get why we had to use the smaller tents. The greeting hall only fits ten or so people.” She sighed.
And your bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, dining room and reading room. Marco stretched. It felt like someone was watching him but was probably just excitement for the upcoming battle.
He settled down. Just part of another long line of soldiers and supplies.
Their force was broken into dozens of smaller groups following their guides, moving through the northern and southern mountain ranges, before taking smaller paths that were a person to two carts wide in places.
What are those sects doing?
As he’d expected, once the Willful Institute prepared to charge ahead, the other sects had rushed out. His commanders had played their part well in slowing them down.
The other sects were well in the lead. Some were about to enter the valley. Now Marco Tolentino was passing sects that had rested through the night and were waking up slowly, rekindling their fires from the night before, servants brewing tea and preparing the morning’s meals.
Another noise rose from the south.
Marco frowned. “What is that?”
“I will check with the sect ahead,” a nearby aide said, pulling out a communication device.
Marco released his reins and pulled out his map. Once they got into V
uzgal Valley, he would use the planning cart.
He turned the map so Vuzgal sat in the center. The southern mountains were impossible to cross with anything but aerial beasts, which were rare and expensive. They also have defensive ringed walls around the Alchemist’s valley.
He traced the sweeping lines in the south and north that splintered into smaller lines, like roots digging through the mountains themselves. The Valley was filled with wild forests other than the area around Vuzgal and the roads that cut to the east and west.
His eyes fell on the two force markers moving down the main roads toward Vuzgal.
“Still nothing.” Marco put the map away.
“You keep frowning like that, cousin, and you’ll scare all the girls away!”
Leonia faced his glare. Her smile disappeared, and she lowered her head.
“We have reports of whistling devices being used!” an aide said.
Marco had been going through every piece of information on Vuzgal and in the first defense of the city, the whistling, exploding weapons had been used to devastating effect.
“Raise mana barriers!” Marco ordered.
The aide hesitated.
“Do it,” Marco snarled.
Marco’s personal guards turned to their formation cart and activated their mana barrier. It materialized in the air and covered the ground.
“Skittish, must be their first fight to put up a barrier when we haven’t even seen the enemy yet,” a nearby sect elder muttered, loud enough to be heard.
“Waste of mana stones,” another fighter agreed.
Others repeated similar statements, but Marco paid no attention, pulling out his map again. There were more dull noises in the distance, falling like a constant rain. If we are here, then those sounds are coming from the west. Here.
Marco looked around, his finger pointing at the mountain paths.
“Paths are being hit with that whistling rain spell,” another aide reported as they updated their linked maps.
“They knew where we were coming from and how we would attack,” Marco said calmly, as if it was all within his expectations. Just a simple trading city in the Fourth Realm.
“I want all of our mana barriers up, now!”
Toufpht, Toufpht, Toufpht.
Marco looked up to see sparrows descending from the heavens like the Devil’s own messengers. Repeaters along their sides fired twin angry red lines projected out of their chest.
The explosions came before the screaming.
The birds flew in formation, three in the lead with four trailing behind, dropping glowing boulders.
Formation covered metal shells?
They struck the ground like the gods own hammers. A fifty-meter area was vaporized instantly. Winds tossed around people, carts, trees and beasts like playthings. The aerial formation swept down the convoy.
Marco watched the red lines rake his mana barrier. The formation covered metal shells ignited on the barrier’s surface. The explosive force rebounded, clearing trees, and killing those outside the barrier, but it held.
As fast as they arrived, the aerial formation climbed into the heavens. In its wake, a path of devastation.
A few of the fighters had pulled up mana barriers in time, but the several thousand strong convoy had been reduced to less than two thousand.
Even Marco’s elite guards were shaken by the sheer destruction.
“Order our armies to charge toward Vuzgal as fast as possible!”
It seemed that the Vuzgalians were well-prepared for this kind of a fight. If the convoy continued to move slowly, they would destroy them as they had the Blood Demon Sect. Marco turned to the aides who were hunched over their maps, trying to get as close to the ground as possible.
“Give my orders now!”
The aides pulled out their sound transmission devices.
“Come on! Hyah!” He snapped his reins and increased his pace, forcing the rest of them into movement. They had to throw the Vuzgalians off-balance, close in on them as soon as possible.
He didn’t look down as his mount’s sharpened claws drew cries and screams from those that didn’t move fast enough or weren’t able to move.
“Faster, faster!”
His riders moved with him as they charged forward, feeling the pounding of their beasts’ charges.
Gong Jin sported a limp as he walked through the gates of Aberdeen. He was covered in bloodied bandages, leaning on Asaka. The diminutive woman looked like a weathered camp follower, complete with wrinkles and tired eyes. His other hand gripped onto a rough wooden limb fashioned into a cane.
They passed into darkness under the portcullis. Carts rattled forward on the stone. Traders still came, selling their wares to whoever would purchase them. Wars were good business. Several had picked up paying wounded to cart through.
The wounded capable of movement shuffled forward.
The smell came first, a mix of offal and death, with well-churned mud and medicinal herbs. Exiting the wall’s tunnel, the groans and cries of the wounded filled their ears.
Gong Jin stumbled, Asaka holding him aloft, a work of acting to make herself look feeble.
“The Blue Light’s Healing house has limited room,” a healer called out. “Ten Earth mana stones to secure a bed in the finest healing house of Aberdeen!”
“Have a case of the slow death? Drink this golden fire potion! Removes your fever! Match it with this mild healing powder to heal your wounds!”
Alchemists and healers cried out their prices. Wounded cursed as they suffered without the funds to pay for even the simplest of services.
Gong Jin saw several questionable low-quality healing potions exchanging hands.
A group of horsemen rode in through the tunnel, the noise warning Gong Jin and Asaka as they pushed to the side.
“Move you damn beasts!” a man yelled as four horsemen, bloodied from battle protected a wagon with several wounded and an emblazoned sect crest.
“Over here, my lords!” A man lowered his herb-filled rag and waved the group forward. “The Golden Light healing troupe has been hired out to your sect!”
The group wheeled around, and the man ran forward, guiding them down the street.
“The bigger the sect the better the treatment,” Asaka muttered as they headed deeper into the city.
“Look at their crests. There are others from the same sect among the wounded. Just they don’t have such a grand position. Bodies to fill the charge, little more.”
The city was in motion. Crafters worked continuously, repairing and supplying the front lines of the United Sect’s Army. Traders came and went via gates. The totems were controlled by the sects, bringing in a sea of supplies and reinforcements, sending out wounded and empty wagons.
The sects controlled the city; everything was put toward the war effort.
The farther they moved into the city, the less wounded there were. Either they had found aid or hadn’t made it this far.
Asaka and Gong Jin headed into an alleyway. Asaka pulled off the colored wax from her face, her wrinkles disappearing as she tore away the bloodied clothing, revealing plain work clothes of a laborer.
She cracked her back audibly as Gong Jin wiped the last of the blood from his head wound. The skin healed without the poison covered wrapping on it.
He shed his other bandages and the stick he had used. He pulled on a shirt, another nameless citizen, tired from the long hours and new residents.
He glanced at the sky, the fresh breeze of morning tainted with iron, oil and medicines.
“Ready to go, boss?” Asaka asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.”
They had been here a few months back on a reconnaissance operation. Each of the special teams and Close Protection Details took turns keeping an eye on their neighbors. It kept the city fresh in their minds.
They moved through the alleyways, passing others using them as a shortcut home, and walked out into the crafter district. Carts rattled down the street at a con
stant pace. Some entered crafting warehouses, others left.
The heat of the smithies and the alchemy workshops had burned away any of the surrounding moisture. Soot-covered smiths and assistants moved behind doors, feeding the smithies’ flames.
They walked the length of the crafting quarter, weaving between places, gathering dirt and dust as they traced the carts back to large compounds, staging areas filled with supplies.
Gong Jin’s sound transmission device buzzed twice before going silent. “Let’s head somewhere we can think,” he said to Asaka.
They weaved through the traffic to a quiet area where they could lean against a wall, using a covert sound transmission device.
“Han Wu?”
“Boss, we’re inside the city, I’ve got everyone with me.”
“Good. Meet us at the first rally point. We’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Got it.”
He stepped away from the wall and indicated to Asaka with his eyes, walking to the street and checking for a gap between carriages before they ran across the road.
“Good news, I hope?” Asaka asked.
“Yeah, the others are ready to work.”
“Nice.”
Gong Jin knocked on the door of a house that looked no different from the others around it: small, stone and soot-stained in this part of the crafter’s quarter.
A woman opened the door. “I was expecting you later. Come in, come in!” The woman waved them in with a smile as she cleaned one hand under her apron, then closed the door. Her cheer faded as the formations on the door activated and she moved her hand out from under her apron, holding a mana pistol.
“The rest are downstairs. All the way down that corridor, and the door behind you to the right.”
“Thank you.” Gong Jin and Asaka walked through the house. The front had a plain table in one room, and a bed in another. They entered the kitchen and found the door leading down.
Asaka closed it behind her. Formations glowed, illuminating the stairwell. They passed a picture on the wall and entered the basement. The large open room had been broken into an area with bunk beds, a bathroom, and a table with chairs. Several doors led to tunnels and a map of the city with different markings hung from a wall.
Seventh Realm Part 1: A LitRPG Fantasy series (The Ten Realms Book 8) Page 35
