Chapter 11: New Tactics

“AVEN!”

The shout came the moment Aven was led outside the gates, coming in Ko’jan’s booming voice, carrying above the rushing wind. Aven barely had chance to pause, even the Battle Mind only giving him a chance to see the powerful beastkin bearing down on him.

Ko’jan slammed into Aven with a force that drove the breath from the smaller man’s lungs. Followed by the most bone-crushing hug Aven had ever experienced. The beastkin lifted him up and shook him back and forth until Aven’s eyes were spinning.

“My brother!” Ko’jan set Aven back down. Aven took a breath to steady himself when the beastkin’s grip loosened slightly. “You saved my life! I owe you everything!”

Aven’s intended reply cut short when Ko’jan’s grip tightened again. Another ten seconds of near suffocation before Aven cut between the beastkin’s proclamations of undying loyalty and gratitude, “Could you repay me by not crushing my ribs?”

Ko’jan laughed and slapped Aven on the back, before grabbing Aven’s head in both hands and planting an unnecessarily demonstrative kiss on his forehead. “Of course, brother!”

Aven winced as Ko’jan finally released his hold and gave a nervous laugh. At this point, Ko’jan as a devoted friend seemed more dangerous by far than Ko’jan as an enemy. Thankfully, Ko’jan next dashed to Logash to give near equal gushings of gratitude. Slightly less sycophantic than towards Aven, though.

Eventually, Erdrak came along and yanked Ko’jan away from the pair, “Snog on your own time. Get your sorry arses in line.”

With Veese gone, a prisoner wound up chained to Ko’jan, a man who introduced himself as Ouron. Veteran of the legions, with a lame arm.

“Don’t worry about the arm!” Ko’jan declared, puffing out his chest while taking shield and spear from the guards. “I am the shield; you can be the axe!”

Ouron paused while accepting the axe, “Why not have the front man with shield and axe, and the back line with spears to support?”

The group paused to consider that.

“That would require trust and coordination between the pairs,” Logash finally said, “and those are hard to come by.”

“A question, captain!” Ouron declared as Erdrak passed by.

Erdrak paused, then turned slowly, as if shocked by the sheer audacity.

“I saw plenty of spears in the supply cart,” Ouron said. “Enough for the back line to have spears as well and support the front.”

Erdrak looked the veteran up and down, then growled, “Get this through your thick fucking skull. This ain’t a legion. You aren’t a fucking soldier now. You’re meat to stand in front of the voidspawn. We aren’t wasting more weapons on meat. You’ll use what you got. And you’ll be grateful, or you’ll get the rod.”

Ouron paused for only a second before saluting, “Understood, sir.”

Erdrak lowered his halberd, looking a bit deflated at the lack of defiance, “Good. Don’t forget it.”

The troop set off, past the fields where the villagers were leading out cattle to graze.

Ouron spoke again, in a quieter voice, “What are our tactics?”

Aven glanced at Logash before answering, “Not how things work around here, I’m afraid.”

“Then we’re marching off to die,” Ouron said shortly.

“Aye,” Aven said. “That’s the idea they have for us.”

“And you’re going to accept that?”

Another glance at Logash, then at Ko’jan. Aven finally responded, “Not for a godsdamned minute”

“Then we need tactics,” Ouron said. “What kind of voidspawn are we up against?”

A practical man. And the exact kind of single-minded determination and unyielding spirit in short supply out here. In quiet tones, between shouts from the guards urging them to keep quiet and keep marching, they filled Ouron in.

* * *

In the stillness of the Battle Mind, Aven saw the attack coming, “Ko’jan, right! Ko’jan, right!” The words seemed to echo in that slowed time, and when his mind returned to normal speed, he saw Ko’jan react to the warning, catching the voidspawn in the mouth with his spear and giving Logash enough time to sweep in from the other side to plunge his own spear through its skull.

Their fourth kill. Four full-sized voidspawn, and not a scratch on any of them.

In fact, they’d been so effective that the rest of the prisoner line had withdrawn slightly, leaving the four of them in front. The curse of success, it seemed. Ko’jan laughed in satisfaction and yanked his spear free.

“I like your tactics, gizra!” Ko’jan slapped Ouron on the shoulder.

“Gizra” apparently was the beastkin’s tribe’s word for veteran. Aven felt only a little put out that Ouron hadn’t also started off as “yellow”. The tactics themselves were nothing sophisticated. Aven called the movements and threats, one of the front liners took the attack, the other finished the voidspawn off. Three vis working in tandem. Even Ouron managed to contribute the odd axe swing when the position allowed, veteran’s one handed blows frankly stronger than Aven could get with two hands.

Now for the butchering.

As always, Aven waded into the mass of dead voidspawn without fear. Ouron followed. Once again, the rest of the prisoners hung back. Some of them looked on in mistrust or nervousness as Aven and Ouron ripped through the cursed gore without fear.

“Get to it, you limp-cocked shits!” Erdrak roared, guards shoving the other prisoners forward.

Aven ignored their struggles, working with the new veteran. By the time they were finished, Ouron was also elbows deep in the black blood. And when they’d completed the grisly work, Ouron nodded to Aven.

Aven reached into the void and let the power pull at the cursed blood clinging to Ouron. Just as he had with Ko’jan’s wound, Aven drew the poison out and absorbed it, letting the power burn away from the tainted energy and absorb into himself.

“Feel like it worked?” Aven asked, dismissing the hand of the void.

Ouron inspected his hand, wiping it in the snow to get rid of the lingering traces of blood, “Don’t feel cursed. That should do it. Hell of a vis power you got.”

“Joys of being voidtouched,” Aven said nonchalantly.

Ouron only raised his eyebrows, “Strange. All the voidtouched I’ve seen went mad and turned cannibal. One I saw scratch open his own throat.”

“I must just be the lucky one,” Aven said.

Ouron nodded, “We could all use a little luck on the battlefield.”

* * *

On to the next pit. This time, the rest of the prisoners didn’t even bother to engage with the voidspawn, instead hanging back and letting the four of them take the brunt. All the while, the guards never fired their bows.

The four of them slaughtered the voidspawn anyway. A group of smaller ones, only half the size and strength of most they faced.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

One turned away from the four of them. Aven saw its intention and shouted out to the prisoners hanging back, “On your left! Left!”

Several of the prisoners draw back. One stepped forward, a woman. Even when her shield-bearing chain mate stepped back, she stood still, catching the voidspawn in its charge with a swing of her axe and sending it skittering back, giving enough time for Logash to swoop in and skewer it.

The woman gave Aven a nod of recognition before Aven had to turn away to coordinate the rest.

A break at noon for the meager lunch. The four sat together, both prisoners and guards staying well away.

Ko’jan crowed through a mouth of food, “We should have done this long ago! We are stronger together!” His face clouded, “If we had, Veese might not have died.”

Aven bit his tongue, holding back the spiteful words that Ko’jan would never had worked with him before. The beastkin had been...effusive with apologies. No need to stamp on that enthusiasm.

“We can honor his death,” Logash said, “by living in spite of this place.”

“Any other Battle Minds here?” Ouron finished the meal swifter than any of the others, scarfing down the food with an efficiency that only the military seemed to manage.

Aven shrugged. For all he knew, none of the others among the prisoners were even Vis.

“Remos has something close,” Ko’jan piped up.

Aven paused, “Who?”

“Remos,” Ko’jan repeated, looking at the others expectantly. “You know. Scar-face. Bald bastard. Chucked in here ‘cause he deserted from the army.”

Ouron frowned at the mention of desertion, but none of the others gave any reaction. Like Aven, it appeared none of them knew who Ko’jan was talking about.

Ko’jan turned to a knot of prisoners several yards away, huddled together beside a boulder as shelter from the wind, “Hey! Remos! Get your gnarled ass over here!”

The group glared at Ko’jan. Aven saw the man in question now. True to Ko’jan’s description, he was an older man, perhaps forty with a scarred face and bald head. At Ko’jan’s call, the man lowered his head and didn’t reply.

“Come on,” Ko’jan gestured again.

“Want nothing to do with voidtouched,” the man finally called back.

Ko’jan bristled. Aven reached up and put a hand on the larger man’s shoulder to calm him. “If he doesn’t want to associate with us, that’s that.”

“Bastard,” Ko’jan grumbled. “Never even paid Veese back after losing at cards.”

Amidst Ko’jan’s grumbling, there was a real problem there. Coordinating was impossible if the others still saw Aven as cursed. Apparently, saving Ko’jan’s life hadn’t convinced anyone else.

Or maybe it had. Another pair of prisoners was approaching them. The lead was the woman who had actually responded to Aven’s warning during the battle. She had dark, curly hair in a thick braid and some sort of tattoos on her face, markings that must have been in some other language. Behind her, much more reluctantly, a larger woman also with braided hair (hers blonde) followed behind.

“Ah, Katrin! Gretchen!” Ko’jan called out jovially, sitting up straighter. “Come sit! Our company will be brighter with lovely ladies joining us!”

The lead woman, apparently Katrin, gave Ko’jan a brief look of distaste. She sat across from Aven, giving the shortest nod, voice surprisingly soft for the hard look in her eyes, “Thank you. Your warning helped.”

“We’re in this together, aren’t we?” Aven asked. The question wasn’t entirely rhetorical.

“We are,” Katrin said. She glanced at her companion, who was still hanging back. “We are.” She repeated, giving a nod.

The larger woman sat down, though she still looked at the group warily.

“I don’t believe I’ve seen you on these hunts before,” Aven noted.

Katrin gave another terse nod, “Gretchen and I were on quarries before.”

New blood to replace those who’d been killed by the burrowers, it seemed.

“The others seem afraid of you,” Katrin said.

Gretchen shifted uncomfortably.

“Well, comes with the territory of being voidtouched, I suppose,” Aven said nonchalantly.

“In my village, we cut the throats of those touched by the void!” Ko’jan added cheerfully.

“I don’t think we can afford the luxury of being so picky here,” Aven said.

“Of course,” Ko’jan wrapped an arm around Aven’s shoulder. “Besides, you are different! You are a brother first and voidtouched second.”

“If only everyone else shared that opinion. Everyone else treats this as an every man for himself affair,” Aven said. “Which means everyone else keeps getting picked off like flies.”

Katrin nodded, “Yes. No one is willing to work together. And new arrivals see that no one is willing, so they trust no one. They believe they cannot trust others, and so they themselves become untrustworthy. A vicious wheel. Round and round, and it leaves us dead.”

A prisoner with a poet’s soul, it seemed.

“And you’re here to help us break that wheel,” Aven said.

Katrin nodded again, “I have something to show you.”

“Katrin,” Gretchen leaned in and whispered in warning. “We can’t trust them. They’re voidtouched.”

Katrin glanced at her companion, while rolling up her sleeve to reveal more tattoos, “And I’m Maledictus.”

Aven leaned closer, interest renewed. The Maledictus, cursed folk of the west, were a mystery to most of the empire. Even here in the far northwest and back home in Tenebras they were an uncommon sight. Some villages of their people had been part of the empire for many decades yet still kept their old traditions instead of following the Imperial Ideals.

Ko’jan gave Katrin an alarmed look and scooted away as the tattoos began to glow, and the woman’s voice took on a strange quality, as if echoing in senses other than sound. The incantation was in a foreign tongue, bringing with it a power that brought a chill in Aven’s soul and raised the hairs on his neck. A ghostly figure appeared in Katrin’s palm, almost like a doll made of twisting smoke. Faceless, form shifting like dancing flames.

“You’re a witch,” Ko’jan growled, drawing back and glaring at the figure in her palm. “That’s a ghost!”

The figure raised its arms to its sides. The head turned. The body did not. When the head twisted around, the blank side that would have been a face settled, pointing towards Aven, and the figure’s arm raised to point at him.

“Vrada?” a girlish whisper came from the spirit.

Katrin blinked in surprise and brought the figure closer to her face, carrying out a whispered conversation with it.

After a moment, the doll-like spirit nodded and spoke in a more decisive voice, “Saku.”

“This is Vili,” Katrin spoke again in her slightly accented Tarnin. “A guardian spirit. She...” Katrin glanced at Aven, looking bemused, “she has declared you her cousin.”

Aven laughed, “And what have I done to deserve such an honor?”

“She hasn’t shared that,” Katrin shrugged, looking down at the figure. “She tells me what I ask, but not always in a way I can understand. She does, however, follow my commands.” Katrin pointed at a point in the snow nearby, “Rranak!”

Fast as an arrow’s flight, Vili shot out of Katrin’s hand and stabbed into the snow, legs fused to form a knifelike point. Vili’s head continued to turn where she was buried in the snow. One of her arms waved at Aven. In their air behind her, a faint gossamer thread led back to Katrin’s hand like a puppet’s string.

Katrin glanced back at the others and flicked her wrist in a motion that brought Vili flying back to her hand, “I can summon other spirits as well, lesser ones at home in this environment. I’m...not sure they could help fight against voidspawn. But the spirits listen. They watch. I can see and hear what Vili tells me, if I am willing to listen. In the quarries, she and other spirits would help me find places where the blackstone was weak. Perhaps here they can watch for voidspawn. Distract them, if necessary.”

“That would help a great deal,” Aven said. He looked at the spirit, which had taken up the posture of a dancer, arms raised and poised in a graceful stance, this time the body slowly spinning while the head remained still. Aven gave the ghost a bow of his head, “Thank you, Vili.”

The ghostly spirit responded with a curtsey, the head spinning to remain looking at him. Then, as soon as it had appeared, it vanished.

As Katrin started to roll the sleeve back down, Logash spoke up, “May I look at your markings?”

Katrin offered her arm. Logash took it carefully, massive paws handling the limb as delicately as if it were made of glass.

“They are different from the runes of my people,” Logash said. “But I can feel their power. A great vis made these markings.”

“My mother,” Katrin said softly, offering no further explanation. She rolled down the sleeve, “Thank you for hearing me out.”

“And thank you,” Aven offered his hand to Katrin to shake. After a moment’s pause, she returned the gesture. “I’d offer the same to you, Gretchen,” he nodded to the larger woman. “But I think I understand if you’re not comfortable with the idea of working with us just now.”

Gretchen glared at him, then each of the others, “...if Katrin’s working with you, I guess I am too.”

* * *

Once again, on the next voidpit the guards never lifted their bows. Once again, Aven’s group of four, now six, had moved up to the front. Gretchen was the shield-and-spear bearer of the duo, not a vis as far as Aven could see. Without Ko’jan or Logash’s supernatural strength, she struggled. Yet with Aven calling out the voidspawn’s actions as they came, the group still handled the beasts. Better than ever, in fact. Katrin was able to give them the number of voidspawn hiding within the pit as they arrived, courtesy of Vili.

Then on to the next pit. The group walked together now, though Gretchen remained on the outside, still watching the others warily.

They were halfway to the pit when Ouron stopped and called out, “Burrower! Right flank!”

They froze. With the warning, the front three had time to raise weapons before the wormlike body burst from the snow, pincers spread while lunging at Ko’jan.

The worm didn’t reach him. Instead, the body stopped short as earth closed in on it. A shriek of protest, a segmented body trying to wriggle away.

Ouron was crouched, hatchet dropped and his good right hand on the ground, jaw set and veins standing out from his neck. The stone closed tighter.

Logash and Ko’jan finished the beast off with their spears, striking from out of range of the pincers. Ko’jan gave the monster a good kick and spat on its carapace after finishing it.

Aven turned to Ouron, “You didn’t say you were a vis.”

Ouron looked at him oddly, “I’ve been using Earth Attunement this whole time. I’m a stoneshield.”

Aven laughed. All the power of the Battle Mind, and he’d missed what was right in front him. Here he was preaching about working together, and he hadn’t noticed Ouron’s efforts.

“Excuse me while I remove my head from my own asshole,” Aven caught his breath. “Let’s start again. Who here is a vis?”

All five of his companions raised their hands, Gretchen pausing for a second before doing so.

“Right,” Aven clapped Ouron on the shoulder. “Let’s really talk tactics.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *