Asheron's Fall: The Power of Ten, Book Six

The Mick finally hit ground level on his roller coaster run, coasting down to a trail along a stream below, his blood pumping at the sheer fun of doing what he’d done. He hopped slightly, and came down running and Skating for speed.

Behind him, the train of Disks smoothly snaked into place and began to move back into proper formation, the Stoneholders all flushed and gasping for breath as the last of the illusion they’d been enjoying faded away. Some of them looked nauseated and ready to be sick… and then the Lady Magos waved her hands, golden sparklies fanned out and washed back over everyone, and the upset stomachs and spinning vertigo vanished like they had never been.

He heard Adso swallow in great relief. “I’d say a little more warning next time, Lord Mick, but I think that was entirely the point, wasn’t it?” the Hunter asked softly.

“Well, aye. Ye should see it when Her Highness does it, especially without that illusion prepping ye. Ye’re stomach ends up between yer ears, an’ ye swear yer brains are in yer toes!”

The Green Hunter’s right hand took a carefully deep breath, but the gold sparklies had done their work well, and his guts were pretending that nothing whatsoever had gone on at all, and he’d better not mention it to them, either!

“I’d like to learn how to do that,” Adso finally admitted quietly.

“Aye? Stick with the Princess, an’ ye’ll learn all sorts o’ crazy shite. Ye kin bet yer short hairs that she’s already Opened up Commander Briggs, an’ he’s going to be making his own runs, belike.”

“Is there a word for what that was? Does it have a combat use?” Adso asked, wondering.

“Well, aye. Sliding through the air in maddeningly evasive patterns, ‘til down an’ up make no difference, an’ even the birds are wondering how t’ catch up with ye? Gotta practice. Secondary purpose be it’s bloody fun an’ a total thrill once ye can pop it off. The Lady Magos calls it Roller Coaster Running, says it be actual sport on some worlds.”

Adso thought about that, and slowly shook his head. “That… sounds like a lot more fun than endlessly grinding the same Dungeon, Lord Mick!”

“Aye, an’ the crowds might be able t’ watch ye from below. Ye just need a high enough starting point t’ make it fun!”

Adso shook his head, then pointed ahead. “Left fork. The course is mostly south until we get to the Esper Inlet, then we veer southeast towards Zaikhal.”

The Mick grunted, picturing the course from old memories overlaid on the Markspace into what the Princess called a ‘rough map’, and he called the finest cartography he’d ever witnessed in some disbelief. Of course, when he then compared it to the incredibly intimate Map of the Vesayan islands and the course of the Princess’ travels around the south, he had to agree it was pretty crude in relation.

Filling in with tremendous speed and clarity now as he cut between the hills and peaks right now, he also observed, rough memories and painted details sharpening into real-time observations of the land, the trees, spawn points being tracked and plotted in real-time as the sniping of Summons re-commenced. Half-remembered hills and trails became iron recollections seen through a dozen eyes, even the date and time of passing something that could be looked for and noted, meaning this was a map that updated in real time. They could even compare it to what it looked like a day, or a year before, if someone else passed by.

That could be very crucial for tracking and noting the amount of traffic and development in the area. Even now he could watch a timestamped delay of Fort Overlook developing, by the minute, hour, or day, as he liked, a fascinating scene of the fort and town below it coming into being almost magically, like ants a-working, or a set of blocks being stacked up by children, only this time making a town.

The Map was something that could eat up a lot of time, if the Princess allowed you to just stare and people-watch, which she wasn’t likely to do.

It was seventy-some miles to Zaikhal. Adso had definitely traveled the course not too long ago, and there should be no surprises to speak of until they arrived at the Esper Inlet, the long body of water providing a conveniently straight travel path from the western edge of the island and inland for many miles.

There might be some undead forces arrayed as reinforcements on the inlet, but they rotated in and out, so it was impossible to tell if they were there without Scrying… and Ryin had blithely said the undead Scried one another all the time, so them doing so was going to be noticed, and be as good as alerting them that not only could she Scry, but that something was coming.

The Mick stretched out, running more with his soul and spirit than any physical effort, a pace faster than a man sprinting taking no more energy than a casual stroll right now.

Twenty miles, an hour to the inlet the Empyreans called ‘The Knife’ for the way it stabbed into the side of the island. Then a turn south and east, and heading for the old Gharu’n capital on Dereth.

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It had been a very long time since many of the Stoneholders had seen a body of water that wasn’t easily seen across, and extended west out of sight. The rest of them had simply never seen so much water, never even seeing the ocean as it was too far from the defenses of the Hold.

The Mick came down out of the hills and coasted down the beach, hands clasped behind his back as his feet ghosted above the ground beneath, riding the stone, grass, and sands down towards the water.

Seawater, as he remembered it, connected directly to the sea. Brackish, pushed back by the streams and rainwater that fed into it. The tidal rolls had been entertaining to watch every day, massive waves rolling up the estuary against the flow of the water as the moon passed by.

Disks and Disks shifted back and forth as the riders spread out to look at the waters, the Holders almost mesmerized by the sight.

Bows thrummed, and heads turned to see the Royal Scouts lowering their Bows, a floating niffi down the beach shriveling up and starting to Burn vivic.

“The Shit in the Sea,” murmured Princess Kristie, rising to her full height on her Floating Forge, her every word biting and clear to everyone. “Magos?”

“The channel is unnaturally shallow and the currents stirred by something. There is no Shoreward, and given the terrain, this should be a stagnant pool, a great marshland gradually filling in as the mountains wear down into the seas.

“There is subtle magic keeping this intact and unchanged. This should have long filled in and been naught but a swamp and marshlands at best by now,” she reported to them, looking out over the defiant waters with her silver eyes.

“There is an island in the middle of the lake at the end,” Adso spoke up, standing up on his Disk and looking over the water with everyone else, his hand pointing unerringly east and south. “That shadow on the water and hills rising there is not the far shore.”

All the eyes turned that way, contemplating. “Something that came out of the dimensions during the Fall?” Briggs rumbled thoughtfully, not having seen it before, his pale green eyes intent.

“Master Oswald said the place is crawling with undead and multiple Dungeons forced into reality, the place is often honeycombed with them. He scouted the surroundings, but declined to enter more deeply without good reason.”

“Faction?” Briggs asked fatalistically.

“Believed to be the Wind. It might even be Geraine’s formerly secret base of operations, but that is mere supposition,” Adso replied evenly. “There are undead going to and from it regularly, but mostly messengers, no large forces entering or leaving,” he informed them.

“Meaning they aren’t concerned about their defenses, being able to see anything coming from so far away,” Kris mused, biting off the words. “Another time. It is not our goal. Lord Mick?”

They’d forgotten about the Black Aluvian, who straightened from his crouch, dusting the sand from his gauntlets. “The last sign of numbers passing this point is at least three days old, Highness,” he reported coolly. “Any places they like to station themselves, Adso?” he asked evenly.

Adso pointed in the other direction from the island. “Trident Point is where they station relief forces looking to contain Stonehold, if they bother to rotate them. They’ve left the same companies in passes and valleys for months and years at a time, but sometimes nobles arrive and depart with entourages.”

“So we might meet some real undead on the way. We wipe them and keep going,” Briggs stated crisply. “Lord Mick, you may resume. Eyes forward and sharp, everyone.”

The Mick tossed the huge young man a salute, turning on his heel as the many Disks and Disks once more moved into formation behind him, a bit wider a wedge than before.

He pushed off, and once more, began his run.

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Zaikhal was a city in foothills, protected from the north, east, and west by rising ridgelines which were not insurmountable, but certainly would have been easily defended were the need to arise, and a good place to set up watchers over the surrounding landscape. The southern approach, with the road that led to Al-Jalima, was the most open and would be the most well-defended.

The path they chose there was to come in from the north, as the Mick’s lightfoot and the Disks made the climb up the hills a quick and sure thing, and word would be difficult to send before the force was upon the sentries upon those hilltops. Those sentries were likely not the most alert after years of literally nothing happening, unless the virindi or the shades had attempted attacks at some point, something nobody was sure of.

The path skirted the edges of what hills were in the way, being mostly forest for mile after mile. Yet this was terrain Adso had traveled many times, and it was plain where the undead had done so, as they’d hacked clear trails and stamped them flat, searing them with fire and acid to make sure they stayed that way as they moved their forces around.

All of which didn’t help the undead who almost ran into the Mick as he was flowing along a forest trail, rounded a corner, and found a force of fifty undead accompanying a central undead in blue and yellow robes.

Said undead were almost instantly the target of six Chained Shardrays converging on it, even before the Scouts could draw back their Bows.

The Mick barely checked his progress forward as the undead before him exploded, Bunita sweeping out as six Rays converged on the centermost undead, and just before they blew it to vivic dust, his Claymore arced past it.

While Disks crashed through disintegrating corpses, telekinetic hands yanking anything valuable off of empty armor and clothes falling to the ground, Kopf reached out, snatched the tumbling head out of the air, and added it to their stack of soon-to-be Baneskulls.