JACKAL AMONG SNAKES-Novel

Erlebnis fought from an incontrovertibly advantaged position. He had already proven that his emissaries were a match to the elven gods. Every second he waited, his presence on this realm grew stronger, allowing him to field more of those potent combatants. If they should bunch around his breach, their strength would rise and rise until it was unassailable. It was low-risk, high reward. Even as the invader, the onus for attack rested on the elven gods.

It was unfair, but then so was the world. But fighting with an advantage inclined one to certain strategies, and fighting a defensive battle, even more so. Recent events had proven Erlebnis was not unpredictable. Indeed, he was quite reactive… and with his point of entry stemming from one breach, he had a location he was inclined to defend.

Argrave and Anneliese stood on the matriarch Ujin’s shoulder, holding the reserves as Ghan, Merata, and Dairi advanced towards the lone emissary standing on the beach. The patriarch led the three of them so that lightning magic might be rendered ineffective. They seemed foolhardy, brash… and they were, trusting Argrave to fulfill his promise so absolutely. But Erlebnis’ emissaries did not disappoint.

The sea roared up into the sky, all the water displaced by a surge of magical power on an unprecedented scale. Hundreds of emissaries stood, holding their grotesque hands out like musketeers prepared to fire a volley. Flames bright enough to melt metal and winds powerful enough to cleave the earth cut out in tandem, seeking to begin this battle with a decisive and humiliating blow.

As the defender, if the enemy overextends, punish them. With a show of overwhelming force to begin a battle, a large portion of the enemy forces could be wiped out, and morale would be shattered. It was brutally effective logic.

But Erlebnis could not know that this strength might be used against him.

Anneliese finished her spell, and her spirits wrapped around Argrave. He was standing on Ujin’s shoulder, and then he was gone, spirited away. His eyes next saw a light so blinding it pained his eyes. The heat set his hair aflame immediately, and the fast-moving winds shredded bits and pieces of his armor, distant thought the spells were. This was a barrage meant to slay a god, and he stood before it alone.

But long before Argrave arrived, the matrix for [Requite] was already complete in his hand. He merely allowed the magic in his body to fill the matrix... and once shamanic magic seized him, he reached deep within himself and called upon all the spirits that had found purchase inside his vessel. They were eager actors.

Incorporeal red and black spirits surged singing out of Argrave’s hands, slipping inside of the burning flames and unstoppable winds that approached ever closer by the second. His enchanted gloves grew hot enough he felt them burn through his fingers, and Argrave lost his sense as he howled in pain… but then, he didn’t need to make sense of that incomprehensible mass of spells—the spirits acted for him at his urging.

Argrave felt the link between him and the spirits break as they fulfilled their task. The intense heat and pressure faded away for half a second… but before he could even appreciate this fact, a concussive force rocked into him. Intense power slammed the whole front of his body as the spells made contact, and though his armor took some of the pressure away he flew backwards through the air from the intense force of the S-rank spells.

Though Argrave’s eyes felt like liquid, he managed to see an inferno raging where the emissaries had been standing. Seawater exploded upwards into the air, making it seem like it was raining for half a minute. The emissaries, the majority of whom had been lying in wait underwater, were exposed to the elements. Many managed a ward against the intense blast, but already seawater from elsewhere moved to fill the vast crater.

The three vanguard gods had managed to avoid being taken by the blast, but Ghan raised Chiteng’s ivory blade into the air to catch lightning bolt after lightning bolt, empowering it. Dairi walked boldly into the ocean as the emissaries did nothing—Argrave thought they seemed afraid to cast a spell after what had occurred—and seized the ocean water bit by bit, bringing it under her control as it pooled into the vast crater left by the impact.

Argrave’s terrible backward momentum was finally stalled by meeting someone. He flinched wildly, his entire body aching. Immediately, serenity spread into his bones, and spirits danced around at the edges of his vision. Anneliese had come to catch him. She healed him. He looked backwards to see her face scrunched in concentration and worry, and hurried to orient himself.

“We have to keep up the momentum,” he told her, despite wishing to bask in the relief for a while longer.

“Together, then,” Anneliese said, holding her hand up and calling upon the spirits once again to stride the world with fragments of divinity.

Just as before, they were afloat in the high sky, and then they were elsewhere. They drifted high above the battlefield, and Argrave pushed past his aching bones and tired mind to focus on aiding the gods.

Though Ghan swung his blade and Dairi blasted the emissaries with torrents of seawater, the emissaries ramshackle defense proved unassailable. As before, Argrave sent his spirits forth, seizing their spells and making them his own. When Ghan’s blade came next, Argrave procured and dispelled their wards in the same motion, the god’s power finally cleaved through the fragile flesh of the emissaries.

High in the sky, with Anneliese stabilizing him, Argrave was free to focus on destruction of the enemy. The emissaries fell back, heading deeper into the ocean as they sought to gain their footing. They tried all they could—attacking Argrave directly, changing their attack patterns… but with momentum in their favor, Argrave pressed the advantage single-mindedly. Any counter they mustered worked only once, and any defense broke before his probing. And soon, it was not only the van upon the emissaries.

Ujin joined, weaving the earth as her weapon. The last of the children, the weaker Lunho, Orda, Murgid, and Volgar, all fought. Orda called upon the wind, seizing gaps Argrave created with skill. Lunho, Murgid, and Volgar, all with powers unsuited for combat, used brutish force to isolate and end emissaries. In the midst of all this, Merata defended from each and all rogue spell. With the imperial [Requite], what had been monstrous days earlier proved to fall before them easily.

But then… not all lasts forever.

When Argrave felt the last of the spirits leave him for the battlefield below, his heart caught in his throat. He looked to Anneliese, and she saw his fear and knew what had happened. His mind whirled, searching for answers—he hadn’t instructed she learn the spell to relinquish spirits, and so she could not. Without [Requite]…

“I’ll need… I need to go down there,” he told her as the high winds howled around them. “[Bloodfeud Bow], the Blessing… it has to be enough. We need to—”

“Argrave,” Anneliese gripped his shoulders, looking down as they drifted down through the air slowly. “Given enough time, momentum continues even if one party falters.”

Argrave stared at her amber eyes to discern her meaning, then looked down back to the battle. And as he watched… Ghan’s blade broke past an emissary’s ward, cleaving it in two. Dairi advanced further into the sea, parting the water around them to make way for their charge. The gods’ patriarch fought with primal ferocity, barging into their ranks and dividing where he or his family ended them with ruthless discipline.

Argrave studied the scene in paranoia, feeling that something must be wrong—the emissaries must be lurking somewhere, waiting for an opportunity to descend upon them and end them. But then… Argrave’s eyes fell upon something peculiar. It was a flash of red in the sea.

As Dairi continued to advance, Erlebnis’ breach revealed itself. The emissaries rushed inside it by the dozen. When they saw their spells were not countered, each and all began a relentless assault, using it to cover their retreat as they headed back inside. Four or five dealt spell after spell towards the elven gods, while the rest fell back.

It was a brief moment of pause… but it was enough for the remaining emissaries to head into the breach. The endless metallic red in the land beyond it made Argrave feel quite uncomfortable. He looked at Ghan as the man ran towards the breach, ready to enter…

But the breach began to smooth itself, like a crease on fabric. Then only air remained. The breach was gone like it never was. Argrave stared blankly, blinking his eyes to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

“It’s… over,” Argrave finally said.

#####

Argrave and Anneliese stood in the spot Erlebnis’ breach had once been. Now, nothing remained but the sea floor. Dairi kept the water around them at bay, holding it still as they stood in silent lament.

“He retreated,” Anneliese said soberly as she tended to Argrave’s battered body. “He abandoned the position.”

Ghan stood there, blade held in hand… and then stabbed it into the ground, kneeling there. Rage, disbelief, dissatisfaction… he embodied it all.

“He cut his losses, abandoned this project,” Anneliese continued. “Rather than lose all of his emissaries fighting to the last, and a fragment of his realm along with it… he gave up the moment he realized victory was not assured.”

“After all that…?” Argrave said, in disbelief.

“What did he spend in this venture?” Anneliese questioned, taking her hand away from one cut and moving to the burns on his hand. “A few hundred emissaries. He lost his mortal champion, too. And with only that risked, he nearly had Kirel’s alliance, all of Vasquer under his thumb, and… all of you,” she finished, looking about at the somber elven gods.

Argrave closed his eyes. Even though they’d made Kirel enemies to Erlebnis as much as Vasquer, it felt a pyrrhic victory… and perhaps it was, as it spelled the beginning of a long and extended war. Already, more variables than he knew what to do with swirled about in his head.

“We should check if Sarikiz succeeded,” Argrave said after a time. “Then, the rest of you need to make this land yours. Project your authority, claim the Bloodwoods as your territory for this cycle of the arbiter. They cannot breach into this land if you make it yours completely. I need strong allies.”

Ghan looked back, words of duty bringing him out of his shocked stupor. “We owe you more than alliance, Argrave. But you—no, we only barely survived. Even if this land was meddled with by Gerechtigkeit, allowing early advent of monstrous deities like that… soon, such powers will erupt all over this continent. All across your kingdom, from the greatest holdfast to the smallest slum, the gods will come. And two of the most powerful now deem you their enemy.”

“My people have been preparing for what comes,” Argrave nodded, trying not to let himself feel hollow. “We survived one day. Now, we survive the next, and the next, and on and on… and before we know it, it’s all over.”

Anneliese finished healing his burns, and gripped his hands to reassure him.

“Let’s settle things,” Argrave continued, returning her grip. “The elves, the dryads… this forest.”

“And Onychinusa,” Anneliese reminded him.