Moral Support (Chapter 5, Part 2)
Farmani sank to her knees and prayed. “Shepherd of Dust, Mother of our Empire, envelope me in your grace and fortify my heart, that …”
Gvish didn’t rush her. What Farmani needed to do was within the abilities of any alchemist, particularly a Ranger Corps combat alchemist. However, it was contingent upon proper devotion to her idol.
That was the way with most magic, whether it be the Soul or another source of power. Habarzelan metallurgists were graced by Truth directly, the pagans prayed to idols, and the disciples of daímōns made pacts with their masters. Only daímōns did not need to submit to a higher power. If Farmani didn’t properly observe these pagan rituals, the team could find themselves trapped halfway up the hill, assuming they didn’t suddenly slip and tumble down it.
Flickers of shadow at the edge of his vision made him look up. Dozens of golden eyes shone in the black. They were moving down Thunderhead Hill, making a beeline for the squad.
“Apes!” Gvish barked.
Seeing their surprise had been lost, the apes hooted feral battle cries – uncannily similar to those of the Tamseszéns – and rushed downslope.
“Intimidation protocol!” Gvish snarled.
Shooting was out of the question. In the dark, they would waste their ammunition, and the sound would carry a lot farther than the ape troop’s hooting. Shamshirs sang free of their scabbards, but not to fight. Gvish, Eskandar, and Tawfiq brandished these weapons and yelled at the troop while backing behind Farmani.
The combat alchemist didn't budge. She was their best hope of defusing this situation, after all, and she had a prayer to finish. Beneath the din of the shouting and hooting, Gvish still heard her hiss, “Let this prayer be golden-clad.”
A tremor went through Gvish's gambeson.
Farmani sprang up and drew her shamshir. The Soul flowed through the blade. The steel instantly shone yellow-white in the darkness and radiated heat like a furnace, yet it did not melt. Farmani slashed it at the nearest tree trunk. The blazing blade passed through the hardwood as if it were yogurt, and fire burst from the woody wound.
The apes balked at the display of magic. The front ranks lowered themselves cautiously into the firelight. They were no larger than Gvish’s five-year-old daughter, if one only considered their bodies, but their arms were as long as a grown man’s, and their heads were as big as Gvish’s. Black hair covered them. Their eyes were the same shade of gold as Euryálē’s. The light of the burning tree reflected in those eyes, but it was outshone by the reflection of her sword, a blazing white line far brighter than the blade itself. They brandished crude weapons: rocks, sharpened sticks, and bones that still had clumps of dried flesh clinging to them.
Gvish waited for the back ranks to spread out and encircle the Rangers. Instead, a single ape pushed through the front rank and dropped to the ground. This male was larger, closer in size to a woman than a child. Instead of a club, he carried a long, slender staff made of a steel pipe with a strip of wood bound to it. The top of this staff had been mutilated by multiple impacts, with the metal warped and the wood reduced to a few bloody splinters, but Gvish still recognized it as a Frontiersman’s rifle.
The ape chieftain held this staff off his head and roared at Farmani, stamping his feet. She yelled back, waving her sword through the air. Swelling up, the chieftain repeated the challenge. The troop began rhythmically hooting in time with their chieftain.
“Move up, Farmani,” Gvish commanded. “Slowly.”
Farmani shuffled forward a step, waving her sword slowly before her. The ape troop stirred, and some retreated to higher trees. The chieftain only stamped his feet more emphatically.
He was a stubborn one. The apes of the Tamseszén Front were able to see magic, but since they were animals and didn’t have daímōn blood, they couldn’t use it themselves. A display of power and a show of confidence was usually enough to get them to back down. Either this ape was supremely reckless, or he was smart enough to recognize the advantage of his numbers.
Gvish growled, “We need to make more of a show. Farmani, can you transport us without putting down the sword?”
“Not while I’m waving the sword, sir.”
“Eskandar, Tawfiq, either of you have any Black Hand training?”
The pair stopped baying at the apes just long enough to deny it.
There was one option left. Two, really, but cutting the lamé scarf out of his gambeson would take time they didn’t have. Gvish sheathed his blade and tore off his gloves with his teeth. To Farmani, he said, “In a few seconds, I’m going to take your shamshir from you. Keep the Soul inside the blade until I do.”
He hadn’t said these prayers since his coming-of-age rites. Every Habarzelan child learned just enough metallurgy to keep the molten tip of an iron mitzvah candle from cooling. Farmani’s sword was currently lit by less holy means, but at the end of the day, it was still a metal object heated up by the Soul. Truth’s grace would sustain it.
“Truth,” Gvish prayed in Habarzelan, “let my heart be not gilt, but iron most pure. Let my hands work not for wealth, but for life.”
There was more to that litany, but it had been more than twenty years since he’d had to recite it, and the angry hooting of the chieftain made it impossible to dredge up anything more. Gvish repeated these two lines as a mantra. Reaching over Farmani’s shoulders, he insinuated his fingers between her palms and the hilt of her shamshir. Then, with a sharp jerk, he tore the sword from her grip and raised it high over his head.
Searing heat assailed his fingers. The Soul was subject to gravity, just like physical matter. It also wasn’t meant to pass through the gases of the air. The shortest path back to the earth ran through Gvish’s flesh. Without gold to insulate his hands, only Truth’s grace could keep it at bay.
“Move us, now!” Gvish snarled, and then he emptied his mind, pouring all his focus into the prayer.
Truth, let my heart be not gilt, but gold most pure. Let my hands work not for wealth, but for life.
He barely noticed the tremor of Farmani drawing more of the Soul from the ground, the increasingly frantic hooting of the ape troop, or how the ground lurched beneath his feet. All he was aware of was the molten weight bearing down on him, and his own desperate plea that said weight remain suspended.
Truth, let my heart be not gilt, but iron most pure. Let my hands work not for wealth, but for life.
Truth, it is heavy. Do not let me waver.
It would be so easy to call out to the Shepherd. He’d served alongside enough combat alchemists to know the prayers. Just a few words, and the idol would step in.
No, Truth. I will not waver. That is not Your will.
The sound of the apes flowed around them. Gravity skewed. Gvish started to fall, but hands grabbed him, holding him at an angle. The molten weight continued to strive against him, fighting to crawl down his arms.
Truth, let my heart be not gilt, but iron most pure. Let my hands work not for wealth, but for life.
The apes fell silent.
“We’re clear, Staff Sergeant!” Eskandar grunted.
Gvish opened his eyes. He stood in a thick layer of unidentifiable sludge. Farmani knelt before him, handing plunged into the muck. Trees slid towards them as the sludge flowed uphill, dragging the Rangers with it. He glanced over his shoulder, seeking the apes, but found only shadowy forms swinging into the canopy below them.
“Thank Truth,” he breathed, and ceased his prayer.
Immediately, the Soul rushed out of the blade and down through his feet. His gambeson tightened and then eased at the passing of the rolling wave of magic. The molten glow faded from the shamshir, restoring it to its original state. If Gvish inspected it, he knew he’d discover that the metal hadn’t even been warped by the intense heat.
Gvish flexed his knees and, with Eskandar and Tawfiq’s help, collapsed next to Farmani. “Nicely done,” he told her, clasping her shoulder.
“Thank you, sir,” she grunted.
Gvish turned his gaze upwards once more. Thank Truth, there was still no sign of the orkai.
We might yet pull this ambush off.
The thought brought him only a moment of triumph before being replaced by unease.
Thank you all for reading! Chapter 6 arrives on December 4th!
If you’d like to read more adventures from the Kimian Empire, you can find them here!