Chapter 9: An Onslaught of Consequence

This chapter marks the onset of war.

         Tuesday morning, Lord Balder’s caravan of seven horsemen and a buggy pulled by dual oxen traveled en route to Viki. Balder sat aboard his buggy in the company of his advisor who asked, “How seriously are you considering this, my lord?”

         “What? Having another child? Not so seriously, I don’t think. I just think if I had a son, my daughter wouldn’t have to…”

         “Not that. I meant what we were talking about before we went off topic.”

         “Oh, what was I talking about?”

         “Seceding, my lord!”

         “Oh, yes, well… You must understand how much this summit has changed my perspective of King Alexander.”

         “I can understand that. I feel the same way, but that doesn’t mean it ever crossed my mind to secede from the greatest kingdom on earth.”

         “Macedon is no longer the greatest kingdom on earth, Bartholomew. Even Alexander has said so time and again, spreading his anti-Macedonian propaganda in every province he visited; however, I agree with him now, not for the reasons he names but because of him.”

         “Do you really go so far as to say that he would lead us to ruin?”

         The conversation was abruptly interrupted as the caravan halted suddenly. Lord Balder frowned and rolled his eyes, irritated by whatever minor obstacle had impeded his progress this time. He opened his mouth to answer Bartholomew’s question when a calloused hand shoved the curtain on his left to the side. A soldier whom he did not recognize put a spear to his neck and said, “You are under arrest by authority of King Donar of the Gargonian province of Nozerland. Come out peacefully, and we’ll take you alive.” Lord Balder and his frightened advisor reluctantly stepped out of the buggy only to see each of his horsemen alive yet subdued, and in the distance at the end of the dirt road on which the buggy was parked, he saw giant catapults outside the walls of Viki; listening carefully enough, he even heard the faint sounds of battle. With a spear to his neck and his eyes fixated on his besieged city, he said, “Bartholomew, ask me that question again; I’ve an excellent retort in sarcasm right now.”

         Meanwhile in Tatsu, Lord Ryūjin’s high draft rate was testing the limits and capacities of Tatsu’s training grounds. His mandate had been that all non-elite military personnel be trained to a particular specialty of some kind; he preferred the fewest number of soldiers at normal rank. With everyone training at once, many training grounds were spilling over with activity such that training sessions leaked into certain city streets. Prince Hiryū stood amongst several peers in the street under Master Kokuryū’s supervision. Kokuryū said, “Alright, Hiryū and Garyū, step forward. Forty-five seconds, disarm drill, wait for my mark.” They stepped forward as instructed. Garyū smirked and said, “I hope you’re not overconfident.”

         “Hmph,” Hiryū rebutted, “I’m the reason my class’s average was higher than yours. 65GJ…”

         “10 with that armor on.”

         “Ten times your own. Feel free to make a point if you’re gonna talk.”

         “Hold it,” Kokuryū said. “Wait for the royal caravan to pass. Everyone bow.”

         “Father?” Hiryū said as he turned to see what Kokuryū was seeing. Indeed, Lord Ryūjin’s caravan had returned and was now advancing up the street. Everyone bowed as Ryūjin’s open buggy passed. Hiryū lifted his head slightly to make eye contact with his father who nodded to him in approval. He put his head back down until the caravan had passed. Inside the training grounds and not obstructing the street, Kōryō stood in a crowd of young soldiers, each bearing the generic Tatsuvian armor. Hakuryū said, “Note that your Joule Grades have dropped upon donning the armors. This is because the weight of your armors has increased the amount of work necessary to move. Your Joule Grade measures your potential activity, and you have the potential for far less activity when these armors weigh you down; nevertheless, I will be teaching you how to perform basic maneuvers efficiently in these armors. Afterward, we will begin developing your transmutation abilities.”

         Outside, the skin of Hiryū’s face was ensconced in the reptilian scales indicative of transmutation beneath his armor, and Garyū’s skin was of the same likeness. They lunged at one another, and their swords clashed. Hiryū forced Garyū’s sword to the ground and leapt forward, thrusting his knee into Garyū’s chest. Much to his chagrin, Garyū did not drop his sword; rather, Garyū slashed diagonally upward and leftward, which was an attack succeeded by three subsequent strikes of varying direction. Hiryū ducked under the first and dodged the rest via series of sidesteps and strafes, always leaning to the side most advantageous for evading the current attack. Following the final strike, though, Hiryū grabbed the wrist of Garyū’s sword hand. He brought down the pommel of his sword’s hilt upon Garyū’s forearm forcefully, but Garyū simultaneously punched him in the face with his free hand. Both yelped in pain and dropped the swords.

         “Draw,” Kokuryū said. “You should have won that, Hiryū. Next up…”

         It wasn’t long before Kōryō found himself in what all rookies considered a daunting drill called “Front Lining,” which entailed two groups of four people sprinting at one another at full speed and clashing swords at full power. This drill’s purpose was to simulate the act of being on the front lines when charging an opposing army, selecting an opponent mid-rush and attacking mercilessly. Kōryō ran with two people on either side of him, and they were tightly packed together, which caused problems when Kōryō reached his opponent and attempted a strike. His strike was weak because he felt he had no space to move his arms due to the close proximity of those on either side of him; he was knocked onto his back. “Up, Kōryō,” Hakuryū said. “Everyone back to their lines.”

         In Aztlan, Alexander stood in the assembly hall of one of the military forts. A congregation of soldiers stood before him, and behind him stood Enoch and Shugoryū. “You!” Alexander shouted. “You who rise together to become the impassive mountain. You! You who bind together to become the impenetrable fortress. You! You who move together to become the unstoppable force. You! You who stand together to become the immovable object. YOU shall now be first to strike! Gargon is to fear YOU! Gargon will bow to YOU!” The army roared, emboldened with every inspiring line. “Gargon has made the mistake of waiting to strike. Why? Because they FEAR you! They fear you, so they sit and wait. Macedon does not sit! Aztlan does not sit! RISE, mountain of Aztlan! BIND, fortress of Aztlan! MOVE, force of Aztlan! STAND, object of Aztlan! STRIKE! AND! THEY! SHALL! BOW!”

         Alexander turned and looked at Shugoryū with a smile, proud of his speech and its effects as the crowed roared sonorously. Shugoryū smirked and nodded. Enoch approached from behind and spoke in Alexander’s ear saying, “The First Strike Speech will be famous after today, my lord. Now, it’s time to deploy and destroy.” Alexander nodded, and the celebration was cut short, not because Alexander commanded his troops to move out but because the building rumbled and shook. Silence befell the congregation, and it gave way to the faint sounds of panic outside. Shugoryū sprinted through a side door of the assembly hall and into the street. In no time, he returned with a grim facial expression. He shouted, “Everyone! Action D14! NOW! This is NOT a drill! I repeat! This is NOT a drill!”

         Soldiers began running from their rows to the nearest exits, yet they moved in single file lines one row at a time. Alexander turned to Enoch and said, “I’ve been out of the military for a little while, I guess. What’s D14?”

         “I…” Enoch hesitated, “honestly don’t know. Shugoryū, what is this?”

         “This is D14, sir,” Shugoryū answered.

         “Clearly. What is D14?”

         “Didn’t you read my revision to the Protocol Formation and Procedure manual?”

         “Is it on my desk?”

         “Yes, sir.”

         “I’m getting to it.”

         “Sir Enoch, number fourteen is the CTA (Call to Arms) evacuation strategy. It outlines building-specific strategies for evacuation of every building in which soldiers could possibly find themselves in the case of an emergency.”

         “What emergency?” Alexander asked.

         “We’re under attack, my lord!”

         “In the future, I’m gonna have to ask you to lead with that information.”

         As rapidly and orderly as possible, the troops evacuated the fort and filled the streets. By this time, the Rivulet army had already infiltrated the city and begun damaging various infrastructures. Boulders were being hurled over the walls and landing in the further areas of the province, closer to Aztlan’s center. Alexander, Enoch, and Shugoryū rushed outside and found themselves circumscribed in pandemonium. A tear came to his eye as Alexander realized that the street was littered with peasant bodies. “Shugoryū,” Alexander commanded, “round up your generals and strategize as briefly as humanly possible. Enoch, go with him.” The three of them moved immediately.

         With no time to waste, Alexander lifted a small panel on his armor’s left forearm and pressed one of three buttons to decrease the hardness and, thus, the weight of his armor. He crossed the empty street and sprinted through an alley on the other side with accelerated quickness to reach a wider, more major street on which the battle was raging. Exiting the alley, he rounded the corner and veered right, drawing his sword with refined sleight of hand and pressed another button. He closed the panel as a perfectly transparent, alchemic field encompassed his body. He charged two enemy soldiers, one of whom swept his sword horizontally at Alexander’s chest with the full length of his arm to force Alexander’s hesitation in approach. Alexander stopped on a dime, allowing the blade to pass him before lunging forward and extending his sword toward the enemy’s gut. At this same time, the other soldier took Alexander’s attack as an opportunity to strike vertically.

         The first Rivulet soldier was thrust backward, stumbling and nearly falling due to the force with which Alexander’s sword collided with his armored torso. The second was shocked to find that his blade met unseen resistance as he attempted to bring it down upon Alexander, and the resistance felt remarkably analogous to the repulsion of polar magnets, greatly decelerating the strike so that Alexander had time to yank his sword from the lunge in a wild swing to deflect this second swordsman’s attack with all his might. The deflection caused the soldier to stumble away from his comrade, and as the two stumbled in opposite directions, Alexander spun into the space between them using the momentum of his previous deflection for rotation, refocusing his next move on the first.

         Coming back around like Karmic retribution, Alexander’s blade swung, again at full force in addition to the added momentum of rotation, directly into his target’s hip, effectively knocking the soldier to the ground since he had barely regained his footing by the time Alexander’s rapid attack had landed. Alexander wasted no time in placing his foot atop the man’s breastplate and decapitating him. The second soldier advanced only to encounter the same, strangely repulsive phenomenon with which his last strike had been met, and Alexander turned toward him, pinched the man’s blade in his right armpit to restrict it, and threw his left elbow into the man’s throat. The soldier was knocked back, letting go of his sword and grabbing his neck. Alexander dropped the enemy’s blade and grappled the soldier with his free hand, forcing him to the ground. He lay on the soldier and forcibly stabbed the man in the neck, allowing blood to spray into his face.

         In the same fort as the assembly hall in which Alexander gave his first war speech, Shugoryū stood in what once was General Cassius’s office. In his office were Enoch and two defensive generals, and on his desk lay a map of the province with representative pawns resting on it in various places like paperweights. “We’ve been running them since your first day,” one general said.

         “The D14 drills?”

         “They all know exactly what to do in this situation no matter where they are. I promise you they executed flawlessly.”

         “Alright, our priority right now needs to be the catapults. I’m going to round up a squad and lead them out of the city to get those things taken down.”

         “You’ll be swimming upstream.”

         “Options are too few at this point. I can handle it if I get enough backup.”

         “Backup?”

         “The squad’s job is to kill anyone I miss so I don’t get flanked. Aside from that, I won’t need much more assistance.”

         “Awfully confident,” the other general said.

         “What about the archers?”

         “They were already on standby, and they mounted an impressive defense at the onset of this attack. Looks like you chose the right places to put them.”

         “Good. Alright, go to your marks like we planned, and I’m going to get some able-bodied men together for those catapults.”

         Alexander jogged down the stairs of the primary wizard guild and reached the basement from whence spells were cast. Several wizards stood around a crystal ball in the dark with only the luminescent orb amongst them for light, and the familiar, gray afro of the Mystics advisor loomed behind them, accompanied by its omnipresent clipboard. “Myendore?” Alexander said in surprise. “You just happened to be down here when they attacked?”

         “No, sire,” Myendore replied. “I know the military advisor’s the only one who’s supposed to be outside the bunker under the palace during an attack, but I felt you might need me.”

         “So, you snuck out before the palace could be completely locked down, and you went where I’d most likely need you. You’re smarter than you look. File that complement wherever you like in that big brain of yours.”

         “The ‘miscellaneous’ column will suffice.”

         “So, how are we doing up there?”

         “You tell me, sire.”

         “Well, I’m kicking a*s, but that won’t matter if we’re losing collectively. Show me on the crystal ball.”

         “Do you have time?”

         “I’m waiting for the Liger Set to recharge.”

         “Waste too much alchemic energy on all its extra features, did you?”

         “S’not a waste if I’m winning, and repulsion is nothing if unused. Show me the thing.”

         “What you’re seeing now is essentially a review of the attack. We did exceedingly well under the circumstances. The Rivulet army swarmed this district of the city despite a valiant effort from our archers who held them at bay until the catapults began firing. Once the enemy got its foothold, we watched from a bird’s-eye view as Aztlatin soldiers suddenly thronged the streets in a very systematic formation. It was sheer luck that everyone seemed to swarm from within buildings at the same time and in the same way throughout the district. See how all these dots sweep across toward these dots over here and form a ‘V’ with them? It almost seemed choreographed perfectly to catch the invaders right inside the vertex of the ‘V.’”

         “It wasn’t luck.”

         “What’s that?”

         “… D40 or something like that.”

         “What are you talking about?”

         “Shugoryū… never mind it.”

         “Well, whatever it was, it may have saved us. We stand a fighting chance now because that formation allowed our people to ambush the ambushers. It countered the element of surprise in a way. The further toward the palace you go, the more dead Rivuletines you’ll find.”

         “All we have to do is gain the upper hand somehow, and we can make this attack more costly for them than it has been for us. Tell me: can we cast a spell right now?”

Author's Note

This chapter and several to come cover the war, and it's important the action throughout is as captivating as possible. The reader should also be impressed with the protagonist's abilities in combat as well as Shugoryū's savvy as a defensive strategist. Tell me about the part in Tatsu that goes back and forth between Kōryō and Hiryū. Is it TOO back-and-forth? Is it not as interesting? Because I wanted the reader to be waiting for an attack of some kind that never came, and I don't want it to be a lull in the story.