Chapter 52- Who Chooses To Stand Under A Collapsing Wall?

The disciples of the Courtyard didn’t seem to appreciate Tian’s motivation. Which was a shame. They looked stressed. Doughy took charge again.

“Inverse Falcon Peregrination, then Drifting Sunsparks. Earthfang Wasteland for zone control, but hold until ordered. I remain the formation eye, set South to true South.”

“SET” They chorused back.

Tian shared a quick glance with the others. Everyone just shrugged. This was a new sort of fighting for them too.

Doughy called out numbers, colors and directions, and the array masters around him would adjust arcane emblems on their compasses. Another order, and they placed tiny talismans on prepared squares or circles painted on the wood, only for the paper talismans to vanish in a puff of blue fire.

A bare moment later, a few hundred ghostly blue motes of fire appeared in the jungle, winking through the trees. They didn’t seem to be burning anything, and, Tian noticed, they did seem to be heading their way. Quickly.

“Taking your time from me,” Doughy spoke with a heavy cadence, his horse hair whisk bobbing in time to his words. “Worshiper offers his bow to the Heavenly General, offers incense and sacrifice, from the North-East enemies descend, the people wail and tremble. Worshipers bang the gong and ring the bell, calling forth the Heavenly General and his hundred thousand fire bearing archers-”

The whisk flicked in time, leading the disciples in their chanting. Little cones of incense burst into fire, then thick ribbons of smoke, on the compasses, rising and vanishing into the trees.

Tian saw Hong’s eyes fixed on a point up in the canopy. He followed her gaze, and found a twisting morass of elemental energy. Fire dominant, but there was an underlying process going on that he wasn’t understanding. The effect of the array, presumably, but why chant? Why chant together? It must be doing something, or they wouldn’t bother with it. Even Elder Rui did it. He just didn’t have the first clue why. It’s not like chanting could affect how your vital energy or qi moved. Could it?

“Accept our humble offering, sortie and crush the enemy at the gate!” Carved gems the size of Tian’s fingernail were set into waiting receptacles, and vanished with a sun-bright burst of light. The twist of elemental energy convulsed, and streamers of fire descended.

The ten-leg horrors had reached the camp, rushing over the wide tree roots and weaving around the thick trunks, screaming and waving their too-long mandibles in insect fury. Jets of orange bile started flying towards them. They were hitting the earthwork for now, but Tian reckoned they would rush in and it would be down to hand-to-hand fighting in just a few seconds.

The Courtyard didn’t give the bugs those seconds. The streamers of fire reached for the little ghostly flames that were burning on the ten-leg horrors. The creatures burned.

Tian learned ten-leg horrors could make different sorts of screaming sounds. As the fires burned, some of them started to whistle as they screamed. With growing nausea, he realized it was steam bursting through cracks in their hard exteriors. They were burning and boiling alive, cooked in a kettle of their own shells.

He felt the Snow Grace Crane’s disgust. She was hiding up in a tree, ready to pick off any horrors that were isolated. Now she just felt revulsion. The whole scene was sickening. It took the horrors two minutes to die. It felt longer.

“And that, Daoist Tian, is how the Five Elements Courtyard goes to war. A little preparation, a good sense of timing, then two hundred and forty seven in one blow!” Doughy smiled victoriously.

“Well done.” Tian nodded. “Dead is dead, and the horrors certainly are dead. Out of curiosity, how much did that cost?”

Doughy tilted his head to one side. “Cost?”

“Yes, you used… I’d say six talismans each, a gem, and incense. How much did they cost?”

“That is none of your affair. Just be content knowing that our Five Element Courtyard can afford this little price, even if others struggle along with… are those even enchanted weapons?” Oily had stopped pretending to be polite.

Tian smiled, and did his best to project what he wanted to the Crane.

“Oh, that’s a relief.” Brother Wang patted his big chest. “I’d hate to think we’d bankrupted the younger generation. Again.”

“Well said, Brother Wang. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to afford another round of fighting, but since you can afford it, let’s clear the whole forest now. I’ve asked the Snow Grace Crane to-” Tian was cut off when a horror crashed from a hundred feet up onto the edge of the campsite. It splashed everywhere. There were a series of thuds coming from deeper in the forest, then in an arc around the campsite to the north.

“She’s already on it, it seems.” Liren nodded with easy approval.

“What, exactly, is your bird doing?!” Oily hissed.

“Well, since these consumables don’t cost too much, I figured, “Why fight through all these things in the jungle? Why risk getting ambushed?” You have a nice defensive position here. We just need to lure over all the Horrors between here and the temple, then you can clear them out. Safe and stable, a fine example of teamwork between our sects.”

Tian sounded entirely reasonable. He thought his plan was reasonable. His wallet might not stretch to expensive incense and talismans, never mind gems, but if theirs could, then they should take advantage of his support.

“Are you insane?” Oily reached towards Tian with convulsing hands.

“No?” He didn’t think he was. He was suffering with a heart demon, but it was much better these days. He only sometimes got lost in the mists and found himself back in the desert, and the times when he suddenly lost his temper for no good reason were becoming fewer. They might even be down to puberty.

Even if this cloud forest was starting to smell like the Redstone wastes. Even if he had the uncanny feeling of having been here before, or that everything that had happened since he met Elder Rui in the meeting hall had been a dream of peace.

He was quite sane, just not completely well.

“Incoming. I count five hundred horrors, incidentally, but that’s because of the limited range of my perception art.” Lin’s voice was cool as flowing water. Her tone made it plain she considered the oncoming rush of corrosive bile spitting insectoid abominations a problem for the help to solve.

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Tian clapped, half smiling. “I was worried she wouldn’t understand what I was trying to communicate. After all these months, a brief flash of telepathy, just as Sister Lin promised. Alright, Doughy. Let’s do it just like last time.”

He couldn’t keep up the calm enthusiasm for very long. Five hundred turned out to be just the closest bands outside the already slaughtered horrors. The cloud forest was infested with the monsters.

Tian’s brothers and sisters were all on the same page, following his lead. Everyone had their weapons ready. No one used them. They watched, and waited, and ignored the shouted insults and threats from the Courtyard daoists. The crane kept up the pressure, leading more and more insects over. Hundreds, then thousands of the spitting things, all screaming, all hungry.

The grinding pace of the battle started to run their nerves ragged. The ten-leg horrors got within bare feet of the wall before Doughy’s nerve broke. He swore and yelled “Earthfang!” The array masters pulled long teeth from their rings- animal fangs turned into stone. They vanished into the air in a cloud of dust, burned away to fuel the next formation.

From out of the earth, a forest of teeth arose. Earthfang was well named. The horrors were ripped apart as they approached. Then the ghostfire marked them and the sunsparks burned them.

Then the next wave came, and started climbing over the bodies of the ones who died before. The legs clattering on the hard exoskeletons now and then producing hollow thuds as the insides of their former cousins were burned and boiled away.