Chapter 92. The Concerto: Development (Part 1 and 2)

AN: I wanted to finish this part as one chapter but it grew big enough to be two instead. So please enjoy two chapters at once.

Part 1

"That was quite a ‘challenge’, young spear.” Manipular shook her head as I approached her. “I’ve sent you to humble a single wermage in battle, not charge the enemy all by yourself. What was that anyway?”

“Ulah!” My fist smacked my chest in a customary salute. “A dervish dance, Manipular. I’ve heard the drums so I knew the maniple charge was coming. I could either do nothing and let that wermage get in the way of your soldiers… Or I could assist the charge as much as I could in my situation. You saw the rest.”

The battle raged on but it was a highly concentrated affair. Both fist units of our maniple were united into one square but only four fingers were engaged with the enemy at the same time. The other six were maintaining the perimeter in case we got flanked and waited for their turn to engage in melee. The ratio was smaller for the palms since wermages were less numerous in the first place and had more stamina than spears, but there was still a constant ebb and flow of them going in and out of the engagement. A few were so eager that they had to puke again, even after puking in the morning — I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were doing it intentionally to showcase their ‘eagerness’. Archers had issues of their own since werbows demanded significant expertise to be fired quickly without snapping their bowstrings in the process. If magic was cycled too slowly, the shooting time suffered as a result, too fast and the bowstring would lose its strengthening Flow mojo before the bow stopped moving. An issue that was likely exacerbated by the influx of ‘green’ wermages right before the campaign.

Judging by Manipular, her cadre of lieutenants, and maniple standard bearers calmly observing the storm around them, even if those hiccups were unwelcome, they weren’t unexpected or unaccounted for. Her messengers were twitchy but it was their job to start running even before Manipular finished issuing orders. I was delivering a message myself. Hajar was busy keeping the shield wall in check while I was sent to the ‘local high command’ to deliver my ‘report’.

Her gaze scanned the battle once again and then returned back to me. “A ‘dance’ you say… Tell me — how long you would’ve kept dancing if there were no orders from our General to commit the entire right wing as soon as the first enemy wermage was slain?”

I gave myself a second to think as I observed my Manipular. As usual, the Kamshad commander looked quite fierce with the scar across her face but she also reminded me of Lita’af with her silvery, wolfish mane of hair and reserved facial expressions. A distant older aunt or a cousin, without a doubt. But then again — Muramat also had a similar placid expression on his face up until I started to undermine his power, influence, and plans with my mere existence.

“I am certain that Sophia Chasya has uses for me one way or another. Without drums, I would’ve tried to finish off the second wermage as quickly as possible so I could return back into formation.”

“She is aware of your capabilities.” Manipular was nodding before I even finished. “Or the capabilities of your gear.”

I gave her a faint smile, “We are blessed by a very capable General. She wouldn’t miss an opportunity even if it comes from a murk.”

Her eye twitched. “I am not interested in the games of words. I don’t care if you are wearing the treasures of the Kiymetl because your Domina fears for your life or if you obtained them… elsewhere. What I want to know is whether the enemy can use them. Your toughness and resilience are welcome but what would happen if you were to fall on an enemy sword mid-battle and one of their wermages or even one of their sheydayan picks up one of your… trinkets? The enemy standard and the three braids that you have recovered will be properly marked as your personal achievements — which are laudable — and your share of loot will reflect that as well. However, if your continuous presence at the front brings the possibility of a fire-immune sheyda barging into my maniple and reaping my spears with your whips — I will fold you into an empty chest, lock it, and send it to a baggage arusak until the morning comes.”

Her staff poked me in my naked thigh where my kaftan once was before the fire and earth magic turned it into a pile of rags and soot, and I had to stifle a groan emerging from my throat. Albin sensed the unpowered runes on me by simply standing nearby — granted, he was in a league of his own, but I shouldn’t have dismissed the possibility that an experienced wermage wouldn’t sense the literal dozens of artefacts strapped across my body simply because I tucked them underneath my brigandine. Especially someone in a line of work where a wrong ‘read’ on your opponent could spell your death.

And things were somewhat trickier since Manipular couldn’t sense the function of these artefacts — she would be questioning my sanity for carrying fart pillows, otherwise — while I was forbidden from revealing more on Sophia’s orders. The choice I had wasn’t clear-cut either. Returning to the rear might keep me close to Irje and being a gopher boy to the General’s chicken-legged hut meant having the ability to ask personal favours from Sophia directly. But that could also backfire spectacularly since Sophia was perfectly aware my toughness and strength didn’t come from the musical tokens on my chest. Showing up at her headquarters with a proverbial tail between my legs might…

Chirp swished over my head and I twisted my head with a scowl. “How stupid can you really get?”

“What did you just say!?”

I shook my head, ignoring the threatening growl, and gestured east. “The enemy lured Things out of the Forest and toward our left wing. The barbarians are suffering from heavy losses themselves but they are mounted while our maniples are not.”

As the old saying went — one didn’t have to be faster than the incoming Creature, they just needed to be faster than others running away from it.

The werwolf claws wrapped around my neck. “Silence.”

Manipular easily lifted me off the ground by the collar of my brigandine as if I was a puppy that soiled her precious farshat. She wasn’t paying attention to me, however, as her gaze and ears were pointed east. Was she trying to see what was happening beyond the horizon or hear the soft creak of Creature carapaces through the cacophony of battle? But then again — she was a Pillar wermage with an extensive magical education and the Kamshad had that particular bias toward body enhancement through beastly transformation.

I didn’t bother to hang and wait. Heeding my command, Chirp pivoted in the air and dashed toward Sophia’s arusak. Information was a precious commodity on any battlefield and I wouldn’t allow Sophia to make decisions without knowing what was happening on her left flank. Nor would I let Anaise ride into the dangerous unknown without a warning either. And then I needed to meet up with Irje and assess the chrysalis of my grub. I might have to sacrifice some of its functions-

The Kausar twins had spotted the brewing situation — there was a sharp bark of their horn and one of the twins jumped off the balloon and onto the arusak balcony below. 

“So you weren’t bloated with farts,” Manipular mused without letting me go. She did bring me closer, however. “I was starting to contemplate whether I should simply ignore what you said or lightly tan your hide so that you could continue to keep your tongue in your mouth and your head — on your shoulders.”

“You said it yourself — General is well aware of my capabilities.” While Chirp could sense Sophia’s anger bubbling behind the mask of an aloof and competent strategist, she wasn’t particularly surprised by its appearance nor by Huare reporting about the incoming Creatures. Well, ‘not surprised’ was quite an understatement — there were missives for Chirp to deliver as soon as it landed on her windowsill. Ink fresh and wax hot. Subtle perks and benefits of being a time mage.

She could be quite perceptive when she wanted to. “Yes, you can offer them your protection — fewer boulders on my shoulders — but if you step into shit don’t ask me for water!” 

Very scary, but I was washing the shit off my feet all this time anyway so this threat was nothing but her tacit permission to act without involving her directly. And so I would, in my own way. “She knew of me and personally met me as far back as Samat. Once we’ve reached the barbarian horde, I’ve been sneaking out at night on her order-”

For the first time ever, a glimpse of emotion appeared on Manipular’s face “Oh!?”

“…to kill enemy scouts.”

“Oh.”

I continued as if nothing happened. “Because not only am I capable of ambushing enemy wermages in the dark of the night and finishing them off before they realised I wasn’t ‘just a mere murk’, but I can easily find them skulking in the steppe with the help of my companion. Enemy shamans might boast about the sight of their hawks and falcons, but those birds have only two separate eyes. My Chirp has a total of sixty thousand…”

Even without Sophia’s permission, Manipular’s casual quip about me getting flogged or worse would’ve spurned me to speak. It reminded me that my current strategy of obscurity had drawbacks of its own. Just as much as it left me being underestimated by some of my potential enemies and ignored by others, it made me extremely reliant on borrowed gravitas in order to have any leverage of my own. I relied on Albin when I had to deal with Sophia, I relied on Kiymetl and my status within it to ‘earn’ the initial respect from Hajar Kishava — the First Spear and my direct commander. It was working, but it took time before the rewards showed themselves. The Kausar ‘confirmation’ of my Creature claims was quite timely, but it was also the result of an extensive groundwork done well in advance — the balloon and looking glasses helped them to observe the battlefield and made them visible to us in turn. If that wasn’t the case, I could’ve been dealing with an irate commander, who saw my warning as nothing but empty words at best.

Right now, I needed something more flexible than the timely returns on my previous investments and my available time seemed to be in a rather short supply. Meanwhile, my usual social ‘levers’ were nowhere close. Albin was moving his maniple somewhere on the left flank, Sophia had made her stance known, and Anaise’s chariot wing was currently harassing the centre of the enemy infantry, softening them up for a maniple charge just as I’d done here. 

A shout nearby. “Arrows!”

With a grunt, Manipular pulled me away from the incoming barrage, summoned a shield, and let it hover in the air. “I am not concerned about the loyalty of your pet but your trinkets.”

An arrow volley peppered our positions, causing sporadic cries and widespread cursing — a passing gift from the enemy cavalry.

“My trinkets are just as loyal,” I answered her question. “Loyal to me and no one else. I wear them not because I am so spoiled by my Domina but because I am the only one who can wear them at all.”

The whistling trill of arrows continued, accompanied by the distinctive voice of First Oar barking orders. Her voice carried far as she was perched on a free-standing spear and barking them from above like an angry parrot.

Manipular smashed me feet first into the ground and hammered me deeper by smacking her hand on my shoulder. “Good! You aren’t fit to stay as a mere spear anyway! Not with that show of strength and valour. I have better tasks for you to do and an opportunity to receive a larger portion of glory from our victory.”

I met her gaze, ignoring her heavy hand. “I care not for the glory or renown. All I seek is the continuous safety of my sadaq.”

A slight twitch of her eye. “Their safety lies in our swift victory.”

“Indeed. But if I hear their cry for help, I fear that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from acting, no matter how brief such actions might be. I seek your leniency and understanding in this matter.”

“Succeed, and you will be lauded by your accomplishments. Fail, and you will be judged by your blunders.”

I gave her a curt nod. “What are your orders, Manipular.”

A quick back and forth and an offer that cost her barely anything, but I got what I wanted. Asking for a complete freedom to act during the battle was outright unthinkable, but the mere benefit of the doubt was just as crucial. 

She jerked her head sideways and accented the movement with the flick of her tail. “Your task is to entertain the pack of hyenas trying to harass my maniple.”

I blinked. Was she deliberately trying to get me killed? Did I fail at reading her character, or was she that close to Muramat? “You want me to single-handedly destroy the enemy cavalry?”

Manipular barked a laugh. “If you do that, I will name my next son after you and tell him to call you uncle! Cease your fretting — I didn’t become the Manipular of the first maniple by sending everyone with a glimpse of potential straight to their deaths.”

The grinning smile disappeared and the piercing eyes were on me once again. “Your dance isn’t as deadly as you think… Erf, was it? I was watching carefully — not a single wermage was killed or seriously wounded. I am giving you this task because of what you have here,” she poked me in the chest, eliciting a faint response from my keyboard, “isn’t the heart of a warrior. Neither is it the heart of a coward. It is the heart of a tactician. Because you chose to dance. Because your heart sensed the flow of the battle and acted upon it. Spears like you quickly reach the rank of the First once they nurture that feeling with experience. And experience is what you will get.”

Manipular poked me a few more times and I gently pushed her finger away before she could honk the keyboard another time. “You want suppression. You will have it.”

The cavalry wasn’t just sapping our morale and momentum. The arrows drew attention to themselves and away from the enemy infantry, forcing our troops into cover. Rather than hitting the pinned down and crumbling enemy, oars and archers were forced to attack a cohesive and mobile target instead. For a good reason too — without a proper and timely response from our side, the enemy wermages wouldn’t even need to resort to the hit-and-run tactics and could continuously shoot at us with impunity.

As Clausewitz once said — friction.

“Call it as you wish. Wermages are tough and prepared wermages are even tougher. Their horses are not. Lita’af Hikmat spoke much about your true abilities — I know that you can move faster than you did during the dance, faster than their horses can gallop in the field. Get close, wreak havoc on their mounts, and keep moving.” She pulled out a red bandage and deftly tied it around my sash. “I lost your wife to our General, so you will be my Procurer chariot instead. Even if you have no chariot under your feet.”

“Please, allow me a moment to observe my battlefield.” I made myself look mysterious as I tried to organise the influx of information coming from Chirp. 

The battle was progressing both slowly and lightning-fast at the same time. It almost felt like I was in space, with split-second decisions that would yield results minutes, hours, or even days later. Our maniple was a perfect example of it — the charge had to be timed perfectly but the resulting melee was slow and methodical enough for Manipular to spend her time on a rather in-depth field promotion.

In the meantime, Creatures swarmed our left flank, routing one maniple outright and forcing another dozen into hunkered-down positions. That slowed down their casualty rates but it still meant at least a thousand warriors of our already numerically inferior army were now occupied by a third party. That number could grow further but so far Sophia had left them to fend for themselves. For a good reason too — while suffering devastating casualties, the horse archers managed to retreat in good order and were already posed to reinforce the centre or counterattack the left, once the Creatures took their macabre toll. Their infantry was left behind but that wouldn’t affect their offensive power. Just like the fingers of our maniples, the nomadic auxiliaries were more of a living mobile wall, brought forth to restrict, corral, and control their foes, rather than the main striking force of their army. And just like our fingers, they had few wermages within their ranks. It made them susceptible to my previous attack but it also made them less attractive to Creatures. Especially when our Sparkies were nearby.

How fucking convenient.

The surviving auxiliaries also tried to stay away as much as possible but Creatures themselves acted as a much tougher obstacle to our maniples than any of those murks and wer could ever be. If Sophia had plans for a breach on that side, it wouldn’t be coming anytime soon.

That left the centre and the right. Anaise and I with Irje. I wasn’t sure what was worse — not knowing what was happening at all or knowing that Anaise was alive and well but also that the enemy was repositioning thousands toward our centre. What would Sophia do if her left wing started to buckle? Would she send reinforcements there? Would “Azhar Mesud” control that wing by himself? Would they stop fucking around and start openly using their time magic? And was I willing to wait for that to happen?

Especially when the enemy was responding this swiftly. Whether they were simply adept at rapid manoeuvres and disengagements due to the style of their warfare or if this gambit was planned well in advance mattered little.

“We have three horse wings circling our maniple alone, and two for every other maniple engaged with the enemy on this flank. They are spread out but that might work in my favour,” I rattled off as I turned toward our archers. “I need to meet my wife be-”

“You will do it once the battle ends!”

I met her gaze with mine, my lashes uncoiling with a hiss. “Barbarians noticed your success — more horse detachments are coming our way. To have a chance of tangible success, I will need every tool at my disposal, including those that Irje carries with her.”

XXX

Irje stood out among the rest. Partially because she was my wife, partially because she was quite sweaty, and partially because she was looking at me with a hint of worry in her eyes. 

I caught a lot more glances but First Bow ignored my sudden presence outright and others didn’t look too offended by my intrusion into their ranks, despite being occupied with the ongoing battle. I even got a few quick pats on my shoulder and a couple of muffled cheers as I passed by.

“By the three horns, Erf, you look like a corpse! If I didn’t know this blood isn’t yours, I would be swearing an oath of revenge on someone’s head.” Irje cast a quick glance at Manipular watching us from afar and turned back to me. “What’s wrong? Why are you here and why do you have a Procurer’s ribbon on your sash?”

“Battlefield ‘promotion’.” I sighed and gave her a crooked smile. “Thank you, Irje. For watching over me as I fought.”

She hid her blush by ruffling my hair. “Nonsense! That is what being first means.”

I waved her off. “Just as it is my duty to appreciate you. But my appreciation would have to wait until the night. Right now, we have other, equally pressing matters on our hands. I need to see the cocoon and borrow two of your good arrows.”

Her palm stilled on my cheek. “She is sending you back into the enemy forces, isn’t she? That is why you have the ribbon.”

I rubbed her twitching ear. “I made her do it with my tales, actually. We have a Creature infestation on our left flank and the enemy is using this opportunity to focus its attacks elsewhere. Including here. If I don’t act now, it wouldn’t be just a few hundred archers peppering us with arrows but a few thousand.”

She sighed. “You are not an arm, Erf, stop trying to act like one. That is the duty of Sophia Chasya.”

“I know — you and the rest of the maniple are that arm. I am but a distraction. Sophia might be a ‘wind’ mage and ‘hear’ enemy orders before they leave the lips of their commanders, but maniples can’t redeploy as fast as horse archers can. Nor can they be in two places at once. Until I witness the magic that can do that here, I will care for my sadaq in my own way.” I opened the proffered bag and touched the pulsing pupa. “I swear, that Creature either planned for this or knows more than it should. Fuck.”

As I was expecting, the grub wasn’t close enough to complete the nominal pupation. A small part of me hoped I was wrong, but another part of me knew that it would be better to have something when needs must rather than fail waiting for the best. 

My finger slid across the central seam and slowly pushed inward. It gave in with a faint crack.

“Here.” I passed the rapidly warming pupa back. “I’ve initiated the ecdysis but it will take time for it to emerge and harden. Keep it with you, for now — I will come back for it once it’s ready.”

Two arrows creaked in Irje’s grip. “You are expecting to be hurt?”

I shook my head. “It won’t heal others. Not anymore. Yet it will be a very capable, living ‘sword’ of sorts. Worry not, my love, I am as sturdy as I am cautious. I am not a warrior-hero of Emanai songs — I carry my own music. If your heart still aches — let it fear for our enemy instead.”

Irje gave me an exasperated smile. “Then don’t talk to me like I am your commander. Have you forgotten who I am? Why I am your first wife and not just another servant of Aikerim Adal, watching you from afar? I was the one who saw your talent first!”

“Uh-huh. You thought I was a girl. I had to spend an entire night proving you wro-”

“Shaddap! Go, Erf. Go, before I change my mind and ask Manipular to go with you.”

Part 2

XXX

My feet gouged the earth as I landed slightly to the side of the melee. It felt like I was in the eye of the storm. On one side, there were loud noises of battle as our maniples systematically crushed through the enemy ranks. On the other side, there was an unending rumble of hooves as the cavalry repositioned itself for the next assault. If not for the plentiful flags and standards, one wouldn’t even see the individual riders through the clouds of dust. I, alone, stood in the zone of silence. For now.

An arrow plunged into the ground nearby.

“Have patience,” I murmured.

I ripped two arrowheads from Irje’s arrows, crushing the protective layer of clay around the steel. Making sure I don’t lop off my fingers or an entire arm for that matter. Using their extremely sharp edge, I cut out two holes in my brigandine slightly below my armpits.

Not too large — just big enough for my lashes to crawl inside and attach themselves directly to the core of my body.

“Considering I am called a Forest Walker no matter what I do, there is no need to bother with a ‘those are just whips’ appearance. And it is better to keep my hands free for other purposes.”

As my skinsuit expanded across the rest of my body, I carefully embedded the arrowheads into the tips of my lashes. Since they were expendable, small, and specialised, Isra had forged them hard. They were brittle but they could hold the edge much longer.

The sword was next. Now that my hands were free, I could attempt to do some opportunistic slashes here and there without getting disarmed in the process. First figuratively and then — literally. If my plan would work as I’d intended — I would have plenty of time to resharpen my blades as I flew from one wing to another. The sword first, then — the kattar.

Finally, I pulled out my keyboard and strapped it over my armour, covering it with but a thin layer of aramid silk. Can’t go into battle without music. It worked quite well the first time so I wouldn’t dismiss it now either. Moreover… My fingers found the chords again and I could almost feel the wave of unease spreading through the enemy infantry. Like the chime of a coin falling on a busy street, the piano notes were too unique for them to miss. Like a faint buzz of mosquito in a large empty bedroom, music stirred their memories of my previous onslaught, promising anything but safety and respite.

If I had to distract hundreds or even thousands of wermages with my presence, I couldn’t rely on my swords and lashes alone; it would take me days if not weeks to kill them all. I couldn’t rely on the visual threat of my ‘dance’ in the clouds of dust either. I had to ‘sing’.

Another arrow scraped across my back and fell onto the ground, joining a small but growing outgrowth of its brethren.

I sighed, “So impatient…” got up, and started to jog toward the approaching cavalcade. My pace grew with every step, my jog turned into a sprint and soon after — my lashes took over my legs entirely. A familiar howl of wind inside my ears — a reminder of my nightly raids across the steppe.

The riders shifted to spellcraft and steered to the side, spraying me with all sorts of nastiness. Fortunately for me, they were unable to saturate the air with their spells, giving me plenty of space to manoeuvre. Unfortunately for them, my trajectory still brought me close enough.

Inhaling as much air as I could, I screamed at them. Not with the normal, human yell, but the ultrasonic skinsuit-augmented hum that no barbarian horse ever heard before. And horses did what prey animals tend to do when they hear a loud, mysterious sound they hadn’t grown accustomed to. They bolted.

I kept moving forward, leaving the cursing and yelling nomads behind. They would regain control eventually but I had another target to delay and horses were herd animals. That fear would bounce around from horse to horse… Or not. I gritted my teeth as the riders recovered in a matter of seconds. Shamans, of course. So that was a bust.

Well, not entirely — I could still rely on it to sow temporary confusion and chaos but that alone wasn’t enough.

The steel of my brigandine groaned under the movement of my lashes as I twisted toward the next target. My hand reached out for my sword as the other one continued to play — if I couldn’t spook the horses, I would use more permanent solutions. 

A wall of earth jumped out of the ground in front of me, but I was well familiar with this trick by now. A slight twist, a mighty yank, and my trajectory was well awa- 

With a thundering roar, a sheyda pounced at me right behind the wall, raking his claws over my skinsuit. Swinging my sword across, I screamed back at him, hard enough for his grip to let go before he could slow me to a halt. I still ploughed the ground with my face from our collision, half-skipping half-tumbling thrice before my lashes got a proper grip and pulled me back into the air. Accelerating back to safe speeds, I glanced around to witness two halves of sheyda slumped on the ground.

Ah, yes, I was meant to do that. That was my plan all along. 

My lash plunged deep into the earth and I slung myself around, going for another pass. This time I wasn’t aiming for a fly-by but for the stunned wermages themselves. My fingers pinched the sizzling blade and sharpened it once more — now that the sword was in the air and passed through the sheyda’s flesh, the physics began to take its toll. Depending on how much I would have to use it, I might end up with nothing more than a fruit knife before the sun was at its peak. A more than acceptable cost, considering the petrified looks of enemy wermages as they witnessed the peak of nomadic might reduced into two chunks of bleeding flesh in a blink of an eye, but it was a cost nevertheless.

The second pass was moderately successful as well. Realising that their horses couldn’t match my speed, they stood strong and tried to swarm me with spells once again but none tried to get close and personal either. That was when my lashes came into play. Unravelling them at the most opportune moment, I made a couple of broad swipes close to the ground, crippling almost two dozen horses in the process. Two or three passes like that and this wing would be down a quarter of their mounts. At that point, I could move on to the next target.

The nomads shifted their strategy immediately after, scattering afield like a bag of glass marbles spilt on the wooden floor. While I wanted them to do so in a panicked rout, an organised retreat would suffice for now. Snatching a nearby bahatur, I pivoted once again and headed for the next wing of mounted archers. I didn’t kill the wer immediately — not until I plundered his brain for the knowledge I needed most at the moment. Common knowledge. I had no time to spare on secrets of magic and even the late chieftain of his tribe wasn’t privy to the Daimon Lord’s stratagems. Something I now knew because of this wer. Just like I also now knew the location of the supply camp they’d left behind where the steppe was still green. Not a very useful knowledge for our arm but a strategically important one if my speed was part of the equation.

And neither did I need to wrangle a wermage, let alone a sheyda, for it. 

Flying faster than the information about me could spread, I scattered two more wings in a similar manner before I had to ‘re-visit’ my earlier targets. This time, it was starting to get trickier — the shamans resorted to following me with their birds and could forewarn their riders that I was approaching. Chirp was helping as much as it could but there were too many to remove them fast enough. Manipular was loving it without a doubt, considering our maniple had succeeded in routing a few enemy units already and was now busy massacring another flank, but my smooth sailing was rapidly running out of wind. The enemy was assuming broader formations, accepting the inevitability of me snatching one of their riders here and there like a peregrine falcon and severely limiting my ability to cause widespread damage.

Nor was I able to stop every attack on every maniple despite my previous boasts. Sensing that the previous ‘approach as close as possible to maximise ranged damage and pull back’ strategy was becoming untenable, many nomads put aside their bows and readied their sabres and spears. They would start their movement in a similar spread-out, loose formation to diminish my intervention attempts and only clumped into a charging fist once they were close to a maniple and in a full gallop. I really hoped that this tactic was known to them before because I had no desire to be responsible for the accidental creation of nomadic husaria.

The maniples weren’t entirely helpless either: the constantly lit runes of Kosenya armours shrugged off arrows and spells, the unfeeling throngs of Kishava arusak-at braved charges without flinching, and the fierce werwolves of Kamshad frequently bounded over shield walls and snatched up the reckless riders who got just a little bit too close. There were also chariot wings roaming about and acting as a general deterrent. My task, however, wasn’t to ogle the might of the Houses of War.

“Your tribe impressed me, Nergui the first!” I boomed from the sky at the next target of my psychological warfare. “While other riders of Barsashahr lacked honour and courage, your tribe has shown both!”

The newly-appointed chieftain tried to look away but my pointed lash made hiding impossible. “Why does an evil spirit know my name!?”

My skinsuit shifted into a fierce mask as I observed his unease at my ‘praise’. The name drop was intentional, but it wasn’t his name that unnerved him so much, rather the ‘first’ that I’d attached at the end. The sheyda chief was dead and there was no ‘second’, ‘third’, or more of his line here to replace him. Only a strong spellsinger, the first of his line.

“An evil spirit? Is that how the steppe riders call anyone stronger than them?” I landed in a most theatrical fashion; close enough to talk but far enough to respond to their attacks. A handful of bows creaked in tension and I glanced at the archer closest to me. “Haven’t you learned your lesson yet? Go on, shoot at me.”

The arrow slammed into my neck, skilfully avoiding my brigandine, and my skinsuit hissed in response, dissipating the kinetic energy into heat. “Are you ready to speak now, or shall I assume you are nothing but a pack of wild beasts and have to be hunted down accordingly!?” 

I twirled my sword, shook the fresh blood off the blade, and hefted it on my shoulder. “I lack the patience to wait forever.”

More like, I needed to keep them off-balance, uncertain, and vulnerable.

The chieftain urged his horse to step forward. “What do you want?”

“You have impressed me so I decided to offer terms rather than continue slaughtering your kin. Return to your pastures in peace and I will spare everyone who goes with you.” The nomads started clamouring at my words, rocking in their saddles, and I pointed in a south-east direction. “Including that camp of yours. The flocks of sheep and goats, your servants and followers that travelled with you across the steppe. Your lifeline and sustenance for the path ahead. The camp is far — three days of travel on your horses, fifteen for Emanai arms… A tenth of a day for me. Will you be a wise chieftain of your tribe, Nergui Erdeni the first?”

“Our Lord will make you choke on those words as he wraps your intestines around your neck!”

I tilted my head. “Your lord? The one who swore loyalty to him is dead and you haven’t renewed the vows. Yet. And before you do, let me ask you — even if your lord takes pity on your losses and grants you bigger pastures, slaves, loot… How long will you keep them to yourself once this campaign is over? Once your neighbouring tribes realise you have no adult sheydayan but two cubs? I am not asking whether you will return victorious or not, I am asking whether you can even afford to return victorious at all.”

“Those words are nothing more than lies of a coward! What say you?”

I ignored the peanut gallery as I kept my attention on the chieftain. The nomads sat with pride in their saddles but I could see my words piercing deep into their hearts. For I was using their knowledge against them and they knew it even if they refused to acknowledge it to my face. I just had to cherry-pick a few most favourable facts and present them as a whole. My gambit was a reckless one, but Barsashahr tribes used different methods of achieving cohesion and loyalty in their forces in comparison to Emanai. Rather than forging an arm-like solidarity through months of training and discipline, nomads relied on tribal cohesion by keeping each tribe as an independent fighting unit. It was significantly faster and cheaper, and likely the only decent option in their environment, but it wasn’t without limitations. A nomadic warrior was unlikely to betray and abandon their family in battle but a tribe was loyal to itself first and foremost. Their loyalty to the ‘Great Lord’ was measured only in how much they trusted him to bring them fortunes. I just had to shake that trust apart hard enough.

The chieftain clicked his tongue, demanding silence. “What are you?”

It was a good thing I could hide my grimace under the suit. My ploy was working but it was dragging out. The other wings weren’t patiently waiting until I finished my negotiations and if I wasted too much time here all my gains would be negated by two or three more tribes replacing this one in a short order. “Many call me a daimon-”

“You!? A daimon!?”

I detached one of my lashes, threw it on my wrist, and slapped the naysayer across the face. I ignored the rattle of sabres afterwards. “-of the House Kiymetl. But I prefer the title of The Alchemist. For my alchemistry is unrivalled across those lands. I am also the hunter preying on your scouts every night. The silent blindness of your shamans. I am a Procurer of Kiannika and I’ve come here to procure. Not your lives or hearts but victory. And I will take it, whether by walking over your corpses or by allowing you to stand aside in peace.”

Nergui worked his jaw, casting glances on my sword in one hand and my leash in the other. His feline tail whipped the sides of his horse in frustration just as his vertical pupils glared down at me. “You speak tall words-”

I scoffed and started to move. “I do tall deeds. And I have short patience.”

“A battle then! Between you and I. The winner claims what he seeks.”

I paused and glanced back. “You wish to join your late chieftain and walk the sky pastures with him?”

“An honest battle!” He slammed his bow into the leather holster. “No bows, no swords.”

“How amusing,” I murmured and sheathed my sword. “You know, there was another of your kin who thought me weak without my weapons. He welcomed me as a guest, broke bread with me, and — once I was alone in his yurt — he tried to strike me down. I silenced his song and spilt his guts.”

His gaze twitched toward my sword handle and back at me. “That whip is a weapon.”

I shrugged. “So is your song. This whip was crafted with my flesh and blood, it is as much a part of me as your song is yours. Or does your ‘honourable fight’ mean I have to fight you naked, with arms tied behind my back, and blindfold over my eyes? Should I drink a vial of poison beforehand?”

“No song, no whip.”

I took my whip, coiled it, and hung it on my sash. “No song — no whip.”

He nodded tersely and jumped off his horse. “Clear the area.”

I stood still, keeping track of every nomad that was encircling us. The situation was tense and I was at the centre of many gazes but everything seemed normal according to my newly-acquired memories. His demands were pushy but as I was this close already I just wanted to finish this charade once and for all.

A shaman approached us with an ornate arrow on her bow, rattling the bones on her headdress with every shake of her head. “Once the arrow lands.”

Nergui crouched down in a fighting pose and I mirrored him. “Once the arrow lands.”

The bowstring twanged and the arrow flew into the sky, dragging a white ribbon with it. She was skilled enough that there was almost no arc to the arrow. It flew up, froze for a moment, and fell straight down to where the shaman once stood.

Our punches flew out at once, then again and again. The magical flesh against the millennia of human knowledge and ingenuity. The flesh was strong — each punch felt like a sledgehammer hit and my scales began to crack and shatter. But not strong enough — his punches were quickly accompanied by a splatter of his blood. And that was his downfall. Despite being a living-tech, skinsuit was designed to act as a machine first and foremost, with me acting as its living part. Just matching our strength and toughness was never enough. No matter how bright his Spark, how melodic his song was, it couldn’t match the longevity of the nuclear hum and glow. At least not with that difference in power output. I knew this since I’d plucked that bahatur and now it was Nergui’s turn to find out.

“For Erdeni!” He yelled at me but all I heard was the near-silent hiss of my blade being drawn.

I threw my hand outward at the descending edge, guiding it between my middle and ring fingers and deep into my palm. My wrist. My arm. Only then did the constricting pressure of my skinsuit was strong enough to stop the blade in place. Nergui tried to yank it out but it wouldn’t bulge. Meanwhile, my other hand gripped his neck.

“Did you think my weapons could hurt me?” I hissed at him without bothering to remove the blade. I would heal the damage in time but now I had to look as invincible as possible. “Or did you think that I was blind enough to miss the desire in your eyes? Your side glances? Your silence when I left my sword on my belt? I was expecting you to grab it ever since that arrow fell.”

“I did it for my tribe.” he croaked. “Do it. Kill me.”

I laughed at him. “Kill you? Do you think I am stupid? Your tribe saw me split a sheyda in a blink of an eye. Your death won’t stand close to that, let alone topple it. Why don’t you look down, instead? Listen to your song.”

He looked downward at my other lash buried deep inside his stomach and tried to scream. My grip muffled his sounds and all he could muster was a gasping wheeze. “My song! What… did… you do!” His fists slammed into my chest but there were no sledgehammers I had to root myself against anymore. Those were strong punches of a human. 

The punches of a murk.

It was working.

“Why don’t you ask your shaman?” I offered, hiding the curiosity in my voice as best as I could, and glanced at the archer who started our fight. “Sarnai shaman, your chieftain wants to know what I’ve done to his song.”

She observed me in silence for a second, then turned her eyes towards Nergui’s increasingly terrified face and shook her head. “He did nothing. Your song sings strong just as it were. Do not fall for his tricks.”

“Did you hear?” I made sure that my voice was loud enough that all of them did. “Your song sings strong. But you are deaf to it! I am the Alchemist of Kiymetl — if I can grow snakes into my loyal whips, something simple as an alchemical poison to make you deaf to magic is well within my reach.”

My hand gripped the coiled whip and I unfurled it with a hiss, observing the crowd. I made sure to pause on the shaman. “And my reach is long.” My tongue was even longer, but my theatrics were working splendidly for a while now so there was no point in stopping. Even the quiet shaman took a step back.  

Back to the matter at hand. “Do you admit defeat, Nergui Erdeni the first?”

“Kill me.”

I tsked. “That’s it? A handful of heartbeats being deaf and you are begging for death? There are people who live their entire lives without magic. And many of them are beaten, tortured, and enslaved. Yet they survive and scrape by.”

“I did what I had to do,” his eyes jumped back to my sword, then onto my armour, lashes, and the silken band across my chest that hid my keyboard. His hand gripped my arm in another futile attempt, ripping off his claws on my scales. “And I failed. I am Erdeni no more. And you took ‘the first’ from my name by sealing my song inside of me. Finish off Nergui or let me do it myself.”

Break them down and build them up.

“Did I say, you will be deaf forever!?” I thundered while my lash deftly and surreptitiously withdrew from his stomach. At least this part of the experiment I was quite certain about for I wasn’t pumping him with unknown substances. After the arrowhead pierced his runed bronze and wermage skin, my lash coiled around his Spark gland, established a regional nerve blockade, and started pumping the nearby tissues with a cocktail of inhibitors for every potential ‘Spark-enzyme’ Yeva had discovered so far. Results were unquestionable yet peculiar since others still saw his Spark, but that would wait for another time. It was working and that was all that mattered right now. 

I let my skinsuit mask unravel like a blooming flower, giving him the ability to see my real face for the first time. The nerve blockers didn’t last long without a constant supply, so his magical perception should be returning already. “Hoping to claim my weapons and use them against our arms, you put your honour on the line for the sake of your tribe. A sign of a shrewd chieftain. A wise chieftain. And this is why Trymr Rurkha the Fifth is dead while you remain alive.”

I put him on the ground, pulled my sword out of my arm and slammed it into its sheath. “Use this temporary numbness and grow wiser through it. Or not — I am still waiting for an answer.” The skinsuit would hold my arm together. As long as my wives wouldn’t notice it before it healed back, everything should be fine. 

I would get an earful from Yeva anyway.

Nergui was too shocked to respond in a coherent manner. While my words were dismissive of his plight, this wasn’t just a temporary deafness or even blindness. Whether they called themselves wermages, shamans, or spellsingers, magic was the foundation of what they were. It was akin to me dragging a family of murks to an execution cliff, only to say that their life was spared just as they stood in front of the abyss and smelled the stench of death from it.

I paused and glanced back at the flags and standards of my maniple. Two fingers had their spears completely broken by now and shifted to a sword and shield formation, but the unit never stopped moving forward. Routs happened more frequently but the sheer size of the enemy force allowed them to plug the holes with fresh detachments. The same was true for us — some of the maniples that opened the charge had stayed behind the advancing front, replaced by their fresh counterparts. But what was he-

The lash plugged itself into my torso and my skinsuit dumped the accumulated heat with an angry hiss, shedding the cracked scales and immediately beginning the regrowth of new ones. The nomads were getting an eyeful but that wasn’t a long-term issue. This wasn’t Samat, where everyone knew each other and my actions were scrutinised by multiple Pillars just as a precaution tactic. The nomads would be either dead by the end of the day or on their way to the far far eastern regions of Barsashahr. My current focus was elsewhere.

Muramat’s lackey had been glaring at me ever since the battle began. And now he started to slither.

“Your strength is without a doubt, Daimon Alchemist,” the chieftain finally gave in. “We will not interfere in your battle-”

“Good.” I quickly replied without bothering with further theatrics. “Gather your riders and leave the battlefield. Take others if they wish to follow you.”

I was about to launch myself back into the air when I heard him calling out to me. “What?”

The Erdeni chieftain was sitting proudly in his saddle but the shadows under his face betrayed his appearance. The wound was nothing more than a thin line — his magic was back already. He gripped the reins of his horse and cast a quick glance at his companions. “And if the… forces of Emanai would follow?”

I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes. My hand slapped my sash and pouches but there was nothing I could use. Kattar or Artefacts? Fat chance. Procurer’s ribbon? Too common and without gravitas. My slave medallion? I wasn’t that stupid…

“Here.” I ripped the golden Gestr of Kiymetl off my neck. One of the few things I could part with that was impressive enough for the chieftain to believe me and give a pause for any Emanai would-be pursuers. Virnan Shah would be devastated. And then promptly get me another one, no doubt. “If they do, show them this. Tell them to seek Erf or his wife — Anaise Kiymetl Hilal. The young Lady of the Pillar House and the granddaughter of Kiymetl Matriarch. Abuse it, and I will find you faster than you think.”

“Then let this medallion be the symbol of your protection, Daimon Erf.”

I didn’t dally anymore. My lashes lifted me into the air and, with a slight flick, sent me flying back to my maniple. Hundreds of combatants were now removed from the battle and plenty of others were confused and in disarray from my previous fly-bys, so Manipular would better be ecstatic. If some Kishava logistician would start moaning about ‘letting slaves-to-be go’, I would remind Sophia about the ‘twelve thousand against twenty-five’ speech to shut them up.

And if Siavash would try to do anything to Irje, Muramat would have to find himself another Companion.