Ekological Chimera
patreon
Chapter 30 - Prelude
🕑 Added 2024-10-01 17:17:07 +0000 UTCOrder Master Keres disembarked the ship while displaying more confidence than he felt. In truth, he felt like a fraud. He had seen his fair share of combat in his younger years, but bandits and brigands weren’t exactly challenging opponents. Often, they did not even try to fight, fleeing straight away. Those years were long behind him in any case. Even wearing his armour was an effort now, let alone swinging a sword.
His value now lay in his experience and learning. Order Master’s were first and foremost military commanders, all undergoing an extensive education in war and strategy. Keres had always seen it as just a precaution. Never in his wildest dreams would he have thought that he’d participate in the largest war of who knew how many generations.
Yet here lay the issue. Keres was no real general. Sure, he had the education, but his role was that of a peacekeeper. His duties had always been simple. Sending squads to investigate crimes, arresting criminals, very rarely riding forth to break a bandit band and the like. Sometimes he even got to punch a noble or two. Those were the days.
But war? Worse, an alien war? The Terrans made what he knew of tactics near useless. What did he know about fighting aliens?
Keres sighed, following behind one of the local knights to the city Temple. His two trump cards flanked him, instilling him with at least some confidence.
From what he could see, the Accadian port, Jewel, was subdued. Keres could tell with a single glance that the locals weren’t happy about their presence.
Tough luck.
He had to wonder how many would survive what was to come. Probably not many. The Custodian’s strategy was cruel and indiscriminate. It was his own bad luck that he’d be one of the people responsible for executing it.
Whether he had gotten dealt a better hand than his two fellow southern Order Masters, Finlay and Helen, he didn’t know. Unlike the two, he had no Order left.
He sighed again. The rage had left him a while ago. Only duty remained now.
_________________________________________________________________________
Keres watched another granary go up in flames.
He rode an unarmoured horse, as did his nine companions. Two of those were the Custodian’s champions. Nine knights and one old man didn’t seem like a terribly impressive fighting force, but the Chosen more than made up the difference.
The Order Master doubted that anything less than two hundred warriors could threaten them.
Not that he intended to give battle. As the Custodian had predicted, the rebels were laughably unprepared. Keres might be no general, but he still outmatched the locals quite handily. They lacked both the forces and training, having grown too used to the Custodian’s peace. And why not? Had the Terrans not come, she never would have allowed a war of such a scale.
His tired eyes watched dispassionately as the remaining villagers looked in horror at the burning fields, butchered livestock, or butchered family members. The village militias certainly didn’t give much of a fight. It was hardly surprising, used as they were to the safety the Church provided. Had provided.
It had been difficult to see the first few times.
Not anymore.
_________________________________________________________________________
Burning down warehouses and granaries in cities was harder, but over his long life, Keres had visited most of Kerania’s cities, giving him enough insight to know how to go about it. They couldn’t fight their way in, but sneaking inside wasn’t difficult. Stashing their armor outside and moving alone was enough for the guards to ignore them completely. Farmers, merchants, and others moved through daily, so they were hardly suspicious.
When they began, burning their targets down had been quite simple. The buildings were often unguarded, even.
That started changing quite quickly, yet in the streets of cities, the two Chosen were completely unstoppable.
It was in one such city that Keres lost his first man. They had just finished disposing of the guards when a gunshot rang out and one of the knights slumped. The Chosen quickly put up a shield, letting the rest finish their arson. As more shots came, Keres was able to make out their attacker on the top of a bell tower.
The Order Master decided that pursuing them was not worth the risk and so the group retreated, one Chosen covering their back, another leading the charge. Luckily, they managed to escape the city without any further casualties, the local guard and soldiers once more lacking the capabilities to even slow them down.
_________________________________________________________________________
Their luck didn’t last.
Keres hadn’t expected it to, not really. While there were many other Knight squads doing the same, his own went the deepest into enemy territory, long ago crossing into Kerania. It was why he was along, after all. After decades of service, he knew the kingdom like the back of his hand.
That their mission was most likely going to end in their deaths hadn’t been a secret.
Even so, he found himself surprised when Charles slumped in his saddle, bits of metal and flesh spraying from his back. There went one of the Chosen.
To his credit, the second Chosen, Edward, didn’t freeze, instantly conjuring up a silvery shield, just in time to absorb a hail of projectiles.
Keres’ horse reared from surprise, along with a few others in their group, but their training as warhorses took over a few seconds later.
The Order Master could barely make out a group in dark blue armour firing from further along the road, right where the path entered a forest. There was no real cover anywhere else, plains surrounding them.
Not seeing a better option, Keres ordered his remaining men to charge. They’d plow through their enemy and disappear into the woods.
Edward formed the tip of the wedge, shielding his brethren from the unceasing hail of bullets.
Despite all the chaos, Keres kept a cool head. Just as the knights began lowering their lances, the old Order Master’s concentration was interrupted by a strange noise behind them. Turning his head around in the middle of a cavalry charge was both dangerous and hard to do, but the Chosen’s shield blocked the air as well, making things easier for Keres.
Behind, he saw a machine floating in the air.
Keres felt his eyes widen.
“BEHI-”
Then the machine opened fire, a hail of bullets killing over half their group nearly instantly.
The Order Master felt his horse die below him, the momentum of the sudden stop throwing him from his saddle forward. He screamed as he impacted the ground, multiple of his bones breaking. With pained breaths, he turned his body enough to watch the unfolding fight.
Though Edward tried to frantically shield the remaining knights front and back, he succeeded only partially. Only two of them made it to the Terran line.
Though the nearest Terrans tried to dodge, Edward maneuvered his lance with supernatural speed, the weapon going straight through the metallic armour of their enemies. The second knight missed.
Unfortunately for Edward, he couldn’t properly shield them as they passed through the enemy line. Both their horses went down and Keres could see that the second knight didn’t get up. He couldn’t recognise who it had been, but he felt a pang of sorrow nonetheless.
The Chosen didn’t have such issues. He was standing on his own two feet almost before his horse even went down, still clutching his lance, impaled Terran and all, as if it weighed nothing.
As if just noticing his weapon, he quickly threw the lance away, unsheathing his sword. Blade and shield in hand, he advanced towards the Terran line.
The blue-armoured figures retreated backward while fanning into a half circle, firing all the while.
Seeing their plan, Edward rushed towards the closest one, slashing with his sword. The soldier froze just as the Chosen began his attack, letting the hit connect. The Terran was thrown away like a ragdoll, though his armour held.
The Chosen was just about to reach the second one when a loud boom echoed from the forest behind Edward. His physical shield fell to the ground along with his left arm, severed just below the shoulder.
Edward stood still for a moment, before he retreated sideways, keeping both the forest and the remaining soldiers in front of him. Unfortunately for the Chosen, Keres could see the metal machine already circling behind him.
The Order Master could only marvel at the fact that Edward was still standing. Even grievously wounded, the Chosen wasn’t out of the fight yet, the favour of the Goddess clearly with him.
Though scattered around Edward, the Terrans were still quite a bit slower than the wounded Chosen. He managed to get two more before the machine got behind him, forcing him to divert his shield.
Edward didn’t last long after that.
Though he did his best to block attacks as needed, a few projectiles quickly got through, finally bringing the knight down.
Keres could only sigh. Only now, in his dying moments, did he finally understand the Custodian’s reasoning. The Terrans were too capable, but they could not help with everything. After all, they had come on ships and in very limited numbers. There was no way they could have brought enough food to feed even a single kingdom, let alone three.
The shaky alliance of the three rebel kingdoms might not even survive and the war had barely begun. The Custodian would tear them apart.
Keres chuckled weakly.
It made him wish he could see it.
Alas, a change of mind did not help him survive lethal injuries. Soon, he breathed his last.
He didn’t get to see the medics scrambling around the half-dead Edward or the tall brown-haired woman who marched out of the forest and examined all the dead knights, pocketing the pendant of the second, dead, Chosen.
Nor did he see the shuttles that descended from the sky, collecting both the Terrans and the dead Knights, leaving nothing behind except blood and spent munition.
