FVN Chapter 21 - Extermination
Chapter 21 - Extermination
They were, Mirian knew, fucked. Even if they did want to rely on 'we're innocent, don't shoot us,' which the Akanans clearly didn't give a bog lion's ass about, they'd just become a major target.
"Tell them to retreat somewhere else!" someone shouted.
I'm going to die again, Mirian realized. Nicolus must have known. Who else had known? And how had they found out? It hadn't been through her, because Nicolus had done the same thing the first time. He'd left the exact same day.
On one hand, he was a piece of shit. On the other hand, she sort of got it. She'd tried to save everyone. What had that gotten her?
Mirian stood. "Let's clear the hill!" she shouted. "Who's with me?"
She did not get the rancorous cheer she was hoping for. But she did get a few people.
Someone she didn't recognize tried to stop her. "Don't get yourself killed. We're safer sticking together here," he said.
"They will absolutely kill us all," she told him. "But you do what you want."
"I'm not going to let more people get killed," he said, and held out his hand.
Mirian drew her spellrod. Her voice turned cold and she fixed him with a penetrating stare. "Get out of my way," she said flatly.
The man backed away.
"Let's go," she said. Mirian noticed only Lily and Xipuatl were following her. "Selesia! Come on. We still have a chance."
"I can't," she complained.
"You can."
Mirian went and knelt in front of her. "Selesia, the first time this happened, we didn't meet. This time, I fixed that. Don't give up yet. I still owe you... I owe you a date. Duels lesson and dinner, yeah?"
There, she'd said it.
That just made Selesia burst into tears, and Mirian felt this wretched feeling. She couldn't stand it. She took Selesia's hand. "Come on. Let's go. Together."
Selesia wiped her face, and nodded.
The gunfire was getting closer. Flashes of light now flickered on the underside of the low-lying clouds. As they began to summit the hill, those flashes illuminated the tops of the trees. North of them, they could see fires burning and lighting spells dancing.
It was Lily who came to the rescue with an enhanced lift object spell. With the frost scarabite's soul rapidly deteriorating, she was able to heft the corpse up just enough for Mirian to scramble out from under it, though she had to quickly unclasp her cloak and leave it beneath the myrvite; it was too sturdy a weave to simply just tear free.
She stood and assessed the situation. The frost scarabites were either dead, trapped in the banebriar, or scurrying off, their fear of danger outweighing the carrion prize. Several people were screaming in agony, though the now constant roar of gunfire and explosive spells nearby kept drowning it out. One of the townsmen was dead, having been bisected by pincers. Mirian turned away from it as soon as she realized what she was looking at.
Then she realized Selesia was one of the injured. She was lying on the ground, clutching her side. Mirian rushed over to her and knelt down. "I need a light spell!" she called. Her light spell was in her spellbook, which was in her satchel, which had gotten lost on the ground somewhere. Someone obliged.
Selesia was breathing rapidly, and blood was leaking from between her fingers. "Get a priest!" Mirian called, though she knew there was little hope of that. She could hear the screams down below where the population of Torrviol was corralled into a tiny section of the road, trapped between the thick forest and the river. With the thunder of the artillery landing nearby, even her shout might have gone unheard. She ran back to her cloak and cast her force blades spell again, then took one of the shredded pieces to wrap around Selesia's wound. Then she flicked the button on her spellrod and adjusted the dials so that it was on the manipulate object to tighten the fabric so that it created a better seal over the wound. "You're going to be okay," she said to Selesia, and tried to smile.
The girl was pale. She'd lost a lot of blood, and not just externally. The pincers had sliced open something important.
"Mirian. Mirian!" Valen was calling her.
"We need a priest," she repeated.
"No. We have to go. That Tlaxhuaco guy is opening a passage in the banebriar. Some real druid shit, I'll tell you what, but it's working. But we have to go now."
"Fuck you, I'm not leaving her," Mirian said, though even as she said it, she knew it was a stupid thing to say. She could hear the screaming below. A panicked mob was coming up the hill, and it didn't just contain townsfolk, either. She saw Baracuel soldiers running too. It was a rout. A total disaster. But how had the Akanans broken through the force so fast? She'd read that book on battles, and it constantly was talking about how artillery and good cover could bog down even a clearly superior foe for hours if not days.
"Mirian," Valen said, and her voice was different this time. Sorrowful. Then she said, "I suppose it doesn't matter." And she looked up.
Mirian had been so focused on Selesia and the commotion at the bottom of the hill that she hadn't even seen it. Once she did, it was impossible to miss.
A pair of colossal airships floated in the sky above, drifting southward towards them. They resembled one of the great warships she'd seen in Alkazari's harbor as a child, except twice the size and far more angular. The huge wooden hulls were studded with steel, brass plating, and hundreds of glyphs along sections of it. Six thin beam-like rods extended from the sides like wings, magic sails stretched between them like a cross between a storm and a spiderweb. Protruding from ports in the hull were dozens of guns, angled down towards the ground.
Towards them.
Mirian gaped at the sight. She'd seen airships before. They had been fifteen feet long at most. Nothing like these behemoths.
Gods, she thought. Ominian save us. Please. She remembered the statue of Yiaverunan in the Kiroscent Dome. Was that who had saved her? Yiaverunan, give us all another chance. Together. I can't do this alone.
Great gouts of flame erupted from the guns above, illuminating the night. There was a moment of silence. It lasted a breath, a heartbeat—and then the shells landed. The roar was deafening, and the earth around them shook. Some were earthquake shells that cracked open the hillside; others exploded into dancing lightning that ripped through the trees and through the crowds of refugees from Torrviol. Other shells exploded in brilliant fireballs. Mirrian felt the lancing pain as a pressure wave from a nearby explosion burst her eardrums. The world became silent.
She stayed on her knees, gazing up at the sight, tears running down her cheeks. There was no point running. Despite Xipuatl's efforts, the way was still blocked. She held on to Selesia's hand as tight as she could.
In a way, it was beautiful; a light display like she had never seen before. Another volley erupted from the airships, the two of them lashing out with a synchronicity that reminded Mirian of a show she'd seen as a child with dancers and glyph lights. She tried to focus on that, and not the horror around her. She didn't want to see Lily die again. Or Valen. Any of them. She was glad she couldn't hear the screaming any more, but she didn't dare look down the hill to see what had become of the Torrviol exodus. Didn't dare gaze anywhere but up at the heavens, least she see where the blood and viscera that she could feel on her face had come from.
She let out a scream—of rage, of sorrow—as the third volley flashed from the cannons in the sky.