B5 Chapter 13 – Storming Across the Plains

No matter how much time he spent on the plains, Tyron could never grow used to the wasteland. In fact, he could go further and say he actively disliked it, even hated it. An unnatural, inhospitable state, where everything he would expect from a natural environment had been stripped away or destroyed.

No trees, not even stumps. The soil was barren and dry, without insects, or worms, or anything living within to make it vibrant and rich. Instead, it was dry and hard, ground down to a hard, blackened sand. Where one would expect to see flora and fauna there were crystal growths, some ankle-high, others towering a dozen metres into the air. Shards and flakes of the stuff were everywhere, ground into the dirt, or lying as a fine powder atop the surface.

This was what the entire world would become if the magick wasn’t contained, wasn’t pushed back. The kin had invaded, destroyed and purged every living thing in these lands, and then the highly concentrated arcane energy flowing from the unregulated rifts had gone to work.

The crystal lizards were probably what he hated most. They weren’t overly strong, as kin went, but it wasn’t how dangerous they were that made him hate them, it was the fact they had never come through a rift.

They were being grown, born right here in the ground, home-grown kin.

Even if they had never engineered the deaths of Magnin and Beory, the Divines deserved to die just for the ruin they had brought upon the world that birthed them.

Towards the head of the column surrounded by his honour guard, Tyron stared out across the landscape with hard eyes.

“You look angry,” Filetta purred from beside him. “Something you want to get off your chest?”

She prodded him in the side with one finger, but since he’d donned his armour, he didn’t really feel it.

“Go to the front and fight something,” he ordered. “You’re close to advancing your Class, aren’t you?”

“I still need three levels,” she exclaimed. “I’m not that close.”

“You won’t get them standing around annoying me. Go.”

“Shouldn’t have poked him,” she muttered to herself as she lightly stepped away. “Although he poked me often enough.”

“You know I can hear you,” he said.

“Of course. Why else would I say anything?”

Tyron rolled his eyes, but at least she was gone.

Ghosts roamed ahead of the column, seeking out any sign of life for them to torment and hold in their freezing grasp. Every now and again, he would check on them, ensuring they were moving correctly and hadn’t been distracted by their single-minded viciousness. A task he would normally leave to Laurel, but she wasn’t with him right now.

A roaming pack of monsters caught his attention. As large as horses, they ran on two powerful legs, their four arms tipped with curved blades formed of bone or chitin. Seeing the column approaching, they shrieked and turned, lifting their pace as they rushed headlong towards the skeletons.

Deal with it, Tyron ordered.

From somewhere behind and to his right, he felt small, rhythmic vibrations through the ground as the cavalry charged, pounding the ground with their skeletal hooves. Before the kin could even intercept the frontline, they were run down, the undead horsemen expertly controlling their servant mounts to slam into their sides, shoulder-checking them into the dust, then skewering them with their blades.

It was nice to charge into the kin, rather than be charged by them all the time, Tyron reflected. His disciplined ranks of skeletal infantry were strong, able to absorb all sorts of punishment, but the skeletal cavalry certainly expanded his options.

More movement caught from the corner of his eye caused Tyron to turn and raise his hands. Responding to his silent order, the skeletal cavalry returned to the column as the front ranks of skeletons turned to face this new threat.

Shields braced and spears at the ready; the skeletons stood silent and still, unflinching and unwavering, without fear, without passion. Tyron spoke the words of power, each syllable slamming into the air with the force of a giant’s hammer. He could feel the magick within him, a veritable ocean of power, roil and crash as he seized and shaped it, using words and sigils to give it meaning, form and purpose.

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

This was a large pack of kin, likely fresh from the rift. A mix of beasts, some large, some small, ran towards Tyron as he continued to cast.