3-57. War Song

Dropping off Otter and Juala onto Soorong’s ship didn’t take too long. As far as Soorong was concerned, Otter was representing Rua’s interests, and Juala was Reyna. She seemed willing to hear them out, but that wasn’t part of Team Two’s concern. 

Kir sucked in a breath as the Waverider pulled away from Soorong’s vessel, heading to Pruana Isle at full speed. She wasn’t fit to command. She wasn’t fit for anything. But she was partly responsible for this whole mess. At the very least, responsible for the parts where Rua had become entangled in it. It was time to make amends. Even if that meant she had to fight her father, and her own kingdom. Her own people.

This was her life now. It had been for a while. She just kept betraying and fighting against the people she loved. It was a pattern. First, she’d hurt Juala. And then to try to fix that mess, she’d hurt Rua. And kept doing it, over and over, with every decision she made. And now, in trying to fix that mess, she was going to hurt her father, and her people. 

Every single time, she’d been certain she was doing the right thing in the moment. What was worse, even with self-reflection, she was still certain she was doing the right thing now. Had she finally found a cause to righteously attach herself to? Or was she making yet another mistake?

Kir steadied her hands, and focused on her Pact abilities in a meditative state. She hadn’t been expecting these. It was certainly going to change how she fought in the future. 

She’d been trained with a shield. Was even good with one. But now she’d need to learn to depend on one, and not to take it for granted. She wasn’t nigh-invincible anymore. Mistakes could get her killed, especially since she’d invested so little soul power into her Tenacity. She’d always fought perfectly before. But now she needed to be something better than perfect.

In front of her, Sami held up a secondary sword, something taken from Rua’s home, and sang a soft, mournful note over it. In her hands, the blade reshaped itself, the metal remoulding as if it were liquid, the shape changing from a straight, thick sword to something a little longer, with a curved blade. Much like the blade she called a ‘katana’ that she had as her primary, but this one was shorter.

“What’s that one called?” Kir asked.

“A wakizashi. Ideal for dual-wielding. Not perfect, but no blade is.”

“Mikovians don’t typically use a two-blade style. We prefer one large weapon, usually a sword or an axe, or use a shield.”

Sami nodded. “A sensible approach. Dual blade styles are… well, without soul power, the word ‘moronic’ leaps to mind. They trade defense for aggression. In order to properly use two blades, you have to accept a few disadvantages. You can easily tangle your blades together, especially if they’re both long. If you’re not ambidextrous, you gain very little, and can be easily disarmed. And then there’s the fact that you need to expose more of your torso when wielding two weapons. In order to attack with both, you need to make yourself a bigger target.”

“So why do you do it?”

“Ah, the age-old question. Because two swords are more difficult to defend against than one.”

Kir couldn’t help but smile a little at that.

“Are we making a mistake doing this?” Kir asked.

Sami added, “I have no claim on either side of this conflict. I don’t know enough about Silayans or Mikovians to pick one or the other. But I like Rua. And I have to get her out of the situation she’s in. And if that means inserting myself into a war, then I guess that’s what I’m doing.”

Kir found herself nodding along, her confidence returning. “For Rua.”

“For Mama,” Vex agreed.

“How did that happen?” Kir asked. “Rua has been… sparse on the details, and I refused to push.”

“Dad - Otter - found me in a suit of Criobani armor. She used a Pact ability to tie my fate to hers, but it also tied me to Mama. We’re… connected. Like a family, but deeper. I can feel them, in the back of my mind. But our connection’s different than Rua’s and Otter’s is.”

“So, Otter’s Pact allowed her to free someone from a Vexurian. Some Crib out there just shat themselves, and they don’t know why.”

Vex made a face at that, and Kir quickly apologized.

“What’s the history behind that one? ‘Crib.’ I assume it’s a slur,” Sami said. “From an academic standpoint. I’m curious. Is it because ‘Crib’ is close to ‘Criobani’, or is there another meaning?”

“It’s short,” Vex said. “For ‘Crib-killers.’ Because my people have a reputation for killing babies in their cribs. The fact that it’s close to ‘Criobani’ is a coincidence. And also only applies when you hear the English equivalent. Everyone here is speaking Silayan, which you don’t hear, because of whatever system Holt has in place for you. The word sounds very different in the language we’re speaking in.”

“Fascinating,” Sami said. 

She held up her new sword, testing the weight, and then nodded to herself and sheathed it.

“That’s not bad work for a new Steelsinger,” Kir said. “My father could do better, but he’s had his Pact for nearly thirty years.”

“Your father’s a Steelsinger?”

“Yes.” And then Kir felt foolish. She’d been so used to her father’s reputation, she hadn’t thought to brief Sami on what they’d be facing. Everyone on the Islands knew what he was capable of. She’d just assumed Sami already knew, too. “I’m sorry. I probably should’ve told you sooner.”

“Then he’ll likely be able to counter anything I can do in combat. He has years of experience and growth on his side.”

“But you might be able to mitigate some of what he can do.”

“What can he do?”

“Pact-wise? His primary use is to form a defensive shell around himself. He can add a second skin to himself. One made entirely of steel. It’s… difficult to injure him.”

“I wish I’d known that when Otter was dividing the teams. Juala, with her spear that shoots lightning, would’ve been ideal to bring for that confrontation.”

“Assuming it still works in her new body. And we’re trying to avoid a confrontation, if possible. We need to shut down the Wayfaring station. Accomplishing that without fighting my father would be for the best.”

“It would. But do you honestly think that’s going to happen?”

Kir sighed. “No. With an attack imminent, he’ll be wherever he assumes the main confrontation will be. And the Wayfaring station is a critically important tactical advantage. It’s the only way Mikovia can get boots on the ground in the Islands. Any attempt to send a fleet in would be suicide, unless they can do it from a well-defended, easily supplied forward station like Pruana Isle.”

The door to the cabin slammed open, and the black-scaled lizard head of Everett poked out. “Coming up on land. Are there supposed to be big blue columns of light shooting into the sky?”

Kir swore. “That’d be the Stormcallers getting primed. They’re getting ready to rain lightning down on any enemy.”

“How do we avoid them?” Sami asked.

The reality was, they couldn’t. But no point in kicking morale when it was already down. 

“Everett, take evasive action, get to the shore, no matter what!” Kir barked. “Sami, remove that window. I need to get onto the roof.”

The windows to the Waverider were designed to pop off if enough pressure was placed on them in a certain way. The pane went tumbling off into the ocean, falling behind them in their wake as Sami struck it just right. Kir scrambled out, nearly lost her balance, corrected, and then climbed onto the roof of the moving vessel.

She didn’t have sea legs like a Silayan, but Mikovians were no strangers to ship combat. Especially those stationed on the Islands. She could handle this. 

When you obtained a Pact, you received instinctive knowledge of how to use its abilities. You knew what each one did, you knew how it worked, and you had some degree of skill automatically with it. That didn’t make you a master with it. People who had active skills needed to practice with them, hone them. Kir had never had such problems before. Both of her previous skills with her Gracewarden Pact had been passive skills, always on, whether she liked it or not. 

She’d need to practice with her skills. She had a lot of catching up to do. And from the knowledge sitting in her mind, she knew that this new Pact was very much an apology from the Herald of the Dawn.

Most people, when they first received their Pact, received one skill. And over time, that skill would evolve, or be joined by others. No one was sure why, or when it would happen. The predominant theory was that it depended entirely on when the Dreamer decided you were ready, or when you were about to do something they wanted you to, and needed the power necessary. 

In rare instances, someone would receive two skills at the beginning of their Pact. In exceptionally odd circumstances, a person might get three.

Four was unheard of.

Kir had received seven.

Dawn Aura. Sheltering Light. Foebeacon. Daybreak. Eyes of Glory. Longest Night. Promised Dawn.

Kir knew what they all did instinctually. All except Promised Dawn. That one remained a mystery to her. But she knew it had a condition to use it. A condition she was loath to commit to.

Luckily, she didn’t need it now. She just needed Sheltering Light and Eyes of Glory.Eyes of Glory was her only passive skill, and it allowed her to see in darkness and shadow as if she were in the light. It didn’t enhance her Awareness in any way, it just treated the darkness as a non-obstacle to her vision. 

But it was Sheltering Light that would save them now. She just had to time it correctly. 

In the distance, she could see the Stormcallers, Pruana’s first and most powerful line of defense charging. This side of the island had the smallest concentration of them. There were only two within range of their Waverider. But two was more than enough to destroy a vessel of this size. 

Kir had trained with Stormcallers. Had supervised the artillery teams in charge of them, had trained in their usage and manned them herself for target practice. Her father had refused to let her lead any unit of soldiers without knowing each and every weapon at their disposal. She knew how to operate a Stormcaller as well as she knew how to wield a sword.

Stormcallers had a minimum safe range zone, an area where their operators wouldn’t fire them, lest the lightning be attracted to their own men, or possibly the Stormcallers themselves. They just needed to stay alive long enough for the Waverider to get within that safe zone.

So she knew when one would be ready to fire. Even from this distance, more than a mile out, there was a feeling in the air. A low hum. 

She concentrated on it. She could feel it singing. 

Sami crawled up the side of the ship and joined her.

“What are you doing?” Kir asked. “Get back in the ship.”

“You need help.”

“I have this handled.”

“Then consider me a redundant backup plan.” Sami stood, her balance wobbly as the ship crested forward. 

“What are you going to do? Cut the lightning with…” Kir’s eyes narrowed. Sami hadn’t brought her swords with her. But she carried the bag filled with spare weaponry she’d insisted on bringing when they’d packed for the trip.

“I have a plan. But by all means. Do what you were going to do.”

Kir waited for some kind of innuendo, some kind of flirtation. A leer. Anything really. She was used to it by now. Had come to expect it. But Sami gave her a bored, disinterested look, clearly more focused on the battle ahead.

Honestly, it was kind of refreshing.

Kir closed her eyes, focusing on the hum of the Stormcallers. It was getting louder, but not quite there yet. Not quite. Almost…

She activated Sheltering Light.

A hand, palm outstretched, made from darkness and filled with swirling stars, coalesced in front of their ship. Lightning flashed, thunder immediately sounding with its passing. And instead of their Waverider being blasted to pieces, the jagged lances of light redirected, impacting on the upright fingers of the hand she’d summoned. 

She felt something jolt in her bones, as if her whole body had been impacted. No pain. No damage. But the skill was letting her know it’d absorbed a tremendous force in defending them. It held strong. It’d be able to take many more hits like that without a problem.

The Waverider surged forward, and the hand stayed in front of them at the same distance, a protective guardian standing ahead of them. 

The hum built up again. Lightning flashed down once more. Once again, it redirected to the fingers of the hand, her skill protecting them from the sky’s wrath.

“How long can that last?”

“Thirty seconds.”

They were already most of the way through the duration. And the skill had a one hour cooldown.

The Waverider wasn’t going fast enough. They weren’t going to reach the safe zone. 

The lightning came down. It arced towards the hand, a furious blaze all at once. Whoever was manning the Stormcallers had evidently decided to throw more power into the strike in an attempt to overwhelm her defensive skill. Foolish. They’d burn the things out doing that. 

Her Sheltering Light tanked the hit, but then began to fade away, the hand breaking up into motes of light and darkness. To the casual viewer, it’d look like the strike had succeeded, that the Stormcallers had destroyed their enemy. But in reality, the cooldown was now up. And Kir was out of defensive options. 

They weren’t close enough to the safe zone. They needed just a little bit more time.

“Sami!” Kir cried. “You’re up!”

Sami nodded, and then reached into the bag and pulled out a long, metal spear. She held it out before her, arms outstretched. 

And then she sang.

The spear flew from her hands, not thrown, but propelled by Sami’s Steelsinging. It flew through the sky, the Waverider behind it, and once more lightning came down. 

And redirected to the spear floating ahead of them, just like a lightning rod. 

But there was nothing grounding the spear, nothing for it to channel the lightning to. It lit up white for a brief moment, and then shattered, pieces of it flying in every direction.

Sami drew a longsword from the bag, sang once more, and the new weapon flew out ahead of them. The note was pure and honest and filled with a defiant cry. 

The lightning smote the sword from the sky, just as it did the spear.

“I can only do this one more time,” Sami said grimly. 

Kir looked at the distance between them and the shore.

They weren’t nearly close enough. They weren’t going to make it. Sami seemed to know it, too. She reached her hand into the bag once more, and as she did, a hand fell on her wrist.

A hand belonging to a person who had not been on the Waverider a moment ago.

Blurring into reality itself, the figure of the one everyone had identified as Ingram Holt appeared on the deck of the ship. He was dressed in strange clothes, an outfit of all black, something tailored to fit him perfectly, with an odd noose-like garment about his neck. He flashed a smile.

“Here I come to save the day,” he sang in a deep baritone. 

“What are you doing here?” Sami hissed.

“I owe Rua a favour,” he said. “Two, to be exact. Two small favours. And what a coincidence. I count… yes, why, it’s two annoying things I can deal with.”

Sami managed to get her wrist out of his grip, and then drew a shortsword from the bag, and slashed at him. Holt rolled his eyes and caught the blade with his bare hand. 

“Do you mind?” he said irritably. “I’m trying to help.”

The hum from the Stormcallers built up once more, and Holt held up his hand and said, “No.”

Streaks of lightning froze in the air, white energy stalled out and not moving, pointed at where their ship had been. They raced ahead, the ship outpacing where the strikes would have landed. And then the bolts unfroze, striking the empty ocean behind them.

“Really? Did you just pull a Neo?” Sami asked.

“All my references are apt. Also, I know kung fu.” 

Kir had no idea what they were talking about, but if she didn’t have a healthy respect for the level of power this man had wielded before, she definitely had it now. 

Holt closed his eyes, a look of concentration coming over his face. And then he smiled to himself.

“I reject your reality, and substitute my own.”

“There’s no way you’ve ever watched Mythbusters,” Sami said. “You don’t have the brain power for it.”

Holt smirked, and then the Stormcallers fired once more. But the lightning didn’t come at them.

It rained down on the Stormcallers themselves.

The structures were immediately blasted to pieces, glyph-carved stone and wood flying in all directions. Men screamed in the wake of thunder. Kir could see a few survivors crawling from the wreckage, but there weren’t many. Each Stormcaller had a crew of ten.

She only spotted three survivors. And none of them were capable of standing.

“Tell Rua we’re even,” Holt said, and then vanished. 

On the beach, he reappeared, walking amongst the bodies. The Waverider wasn’t close enough to do anything about what came next. Kir could only watch as Holt systematically killed the three surviving men, and then cut them open for their soul crystals. Once he was done his grisly business, he waved at them, and disappeared once more.