Ecdysis

Chapter 92. The Concerto: Development (Part 2)

My feet gouged the earth as I landed slightly to the side of the melee. It felt like I was in the eye of the storm. On one side, there were loud noises of battle as our maniples systematically crushed through the enemy ranks. On the other side, there was an unending rumble of hooves as the cavalry repositioned itself for the next assault. If not for the plentiful flags and standards, one wouldn’t even see the individual riders through the clouds of dust. I, alone, stood in the zone of silence. For now.

An arrow plunged into the ground nearby.

“Have patience,” I murmured.

I ripped two arrowheads from Irje’s arrows, crushing the protective layer of clay around the steel. Making sure I didn’t lop off my fingers or an entire arm for that matter. Using their extremely sharp edge, I cut out two holes in my brigandine slightly below my armpits.

Not too large — just big enough for my lashes to crawl inside and attach themselves directly to the core of my body.

“Considering I am called a Forest Walker no matter what I do, there is no need to bother with a ‘those are just whips’ appearance. And it is better to keep my hands free for other purposes.”

As my skinsuit expanded across the rest of my body, I carefully embedded the arrowheads into the tips of my lashes. Since they were expendable, small, and specialised, Isra had forged them hard. They were brittle but they could hold the edge much longer.

The sword was next. Now that my hands were free, I could attempt to do some opportunistic slashes here and there without getting disarmed in the process. First figuratively and then — literally. If my plan worked as I intended — I would have plenty of time to resharpen my blades as I flew from one wing to another. The sword first, then — the kattar.

Finally, I pulled out my keyboard and strapped it over my armour, covering it with but a thin layer of aramid silk. Can’t go into battle without music. It worked quite well the first time so I wouldn’t dismiss it now. Moreover… My fingers found the chords again and I could almost feel the wave of unease spreading through the enemy infantry. Like the chime of a coin falling on a busy street, the piano notes were too unique for them to miss. Like a faint buzz of mosquito in a large empty bedroom, music stirred their memories of my previous onslaught, promising anything but safety and respite.

If I had to distract hundreds or even thousands of wermages with my presence, I couldn’t rely on my swords and lashes alone; it would take me days if not weeks to kill them all. I couldn’t rely on the visual threat of my ‘dance’ in the clouds of dust either. I had to ‘sing’.

Another arrow scraped across my back and fell onto the ground, joining a small but growing outgrowth of its brethren.

I sighed, “So impatient…” got up, and started to jog toward the approaching cavalcade. My pace grew with every step, my jog turned into a sprint and soon after — my lashes took over my legs entirely. A familiar howl of wind inside my ears — a reminder of my nightly raids across the steppe.

The riders shifted to spellcraft and steered to the side, spraying me with all sorts of nastiness. Fortunately for me, they were unable to saturate the air with their spells, giving me plenty of space to manoeuvre. Unfortunately for them, my trajectory still brought me close enough.

Inhaling as much air as I could, I screamed at them. Not with a normal, human yell, but the ultrasonic skinsuit-augmented hum that no barbarian horse ever heard before. And horses did what prey animals tend to do when they hear a loud, mysterious sound they hadn’t grown accustomed to. They bolted.

I kept moving forward, leaving the cursing and yelling nomads behind. They would regain control eventually but I had another target to delay and horses were herd animals. That fear would bounce around from horse to horse… Or not. I gritted my teeth as the riders recovered in a matter of seconds. Shamans, of course. So that was a bust.

Well, not entirely — I could still rely on it to sow temporary confusion and chaos but that alone wasn’t enough.

The steel of my brigandine groaned under the movement of my lashes as I twisted toward the next target. My hand reached out for my sword as the other one continued to play — if I couldn’t spook the horses, I would use more permanent solutions.

A wall of earth jumped out of the ground in front of me, but I was well familiar with this trick by now. A slight twist, a mighty yank, and my trajectory was well awa-

With a thundering roar, a sheyda pounced at me right behind the wall, raking his claws over my skinsuit. Swinging my sword across, I screamed back at him, hard enough for his grip to let go before he could slow me to a halt. I still ploughed the ground with my face from our collision, half-skipping half-tumbling thrice before my lashes got a proper grip and pulled me back into the air. Accelerating back to safe speeds, I glanced around to witness two halves of sheyda slumped on the ground.

Ah, yes, I was meant to do that. That was my plan all along.

My lash plunged deep into the earth and I slung myself around, going for another pass. This time I wasn’t aiming for a fly-by but for the stunned wermages themselves. My fingers pinched the sizzling blade and sharpened it once more — now that the sword was in the air and passed through the sheyda’s flesh, the physics began to take its toll. Depending on how much I would have to use it, I might end up with nothing more than a fruit knife before the sun was at its peak. A more than acceptable cost, considering the petrified looks of enemy wermages as they witnessed the peak of nomadic might reduced into two chunks of bleeding flesh in the blink of an eye, but it was a cost nevertheless.

The second pass was moderately successful as well. Realising that their horses couldn’t match my speed, they stood strong and tried to swarm me with spells once again but none tried to get close and personal either. That was when my lashes came into play. Unravelling them at the most opportune moment, I made a couple of broad swipes close to the ground, crippling almost two dozen horses in the process. Two or three passes like that and this wing would be down a quarter of their mounts. At that point, I could move on to the next target.

The nomads shifted their strategy immediately after, scattering afield like a bag of glass marbles spilt on the wooden floor. While I wanted them to do so in a panicked rout, an organised retreat would suffice for now. Snatching a nearby bahatur, I pivoted once again and headed for the next wing of mounted archers. I didn’t kill the wer immediately — not until I plundered his brain for the knowledge I needed most at the moment. Common knowledge. I had no time to spare on secrets of magic and even the late chieftain of his tribe wasn’t privy to the Daimon Lord’s stratagems. Something I now knew because of this wer. Just like I also now knew the location of the supply camp they’d left behind where the steppe was still green. Not very useful knowledge for our arm but a strategically important one if my speed was part of the equation.

And neither did I need to wrangle a wermage, let alone a sheyda, for it.

Flying faster than the information about me could spread, I scattered two more wings in a similar manner before I had to ‘re-visit’ my earlier targets. This time, it was starting to get trickier — the shamans resorted to following me with their birds and could forewarn their riders that I was approaching. Chirp was helping as much as it could but there were too many to remove them fast enough. Manipular was loving it without a doubt, considering our maniple had succeeded in routing a few enemy units already and was now busy massacring another flank, but my smooth sailing was rapidly running out of wind. The enemy was assuming broader formations, accepting the inevitability of me snatching one of their riders here and there like a peregrine falcon and severely limiting my ability to cause widespread damage.

Nor was I able to stop every attack on every maniple despite my previous boasts. Sensing that the previous ‘approach as close as possible to maximise ranged damage and pull back’ strategy was becoming untenable, many nomads put aside their bows and readied their sabres and spears. They would start their movement in a similar spread-out, loose formation to diminish my intervention attempts and only clumped into a charging fist once they were close to a maniple and in a full gallop. I really hoped that this tactic was known to them before because I had no desire to be responsible for the accidental creation of nomadic husaria.

The maniples weren’t entirely helpless either: the constantly lit runes of Kosenya armours shrugged off arrows and spells, the unfeeling throngs of Kishava arusak-at braved charges without flinching, and the fierce werwolves of Kamshad frequently bounded over shield walls and snatched up the reckless riders who got just a little bit too close. There were also chariot wings roaming about and acting as a general deterrent. My task, however, wasn’t to ogle the might of the Houses of War.

“Your tribe impressed me, Nergui the first!” I boomed from the sky at the next target of my psychological warfare. “While other riders of Barsashahr lacked honour and courage, your tribe has shown both!”

The newly-appointed chieftain tried to look away but my pointed lash made hiding impossible. “Why does an evil spirit know my name!?”

My skinsuit shifted into a fierce mask as I observed his unease at my ‘praise’. The name drop was intentional, but it wasn’t his name that unnerved him so much, rather the ‘first’ that I’d attached at the end. The sheyda chief was dead and there was no ‘second’, ‘third’, or more of his line here to replace him. Only a strong spellsinger, the first of his line.

“An evil spirit? Is that how the steppe riders call anyone stronger than them?” I landed in a most theatrical fashion; close enough to talk but far enough to respond to their attacks. A handful of bows creaked in tension and I glanced at the archer closest to me. “Haven’t you learned your lesson yet? Go on, shoot at me.”

The arrow slammed into my neck, skilfully avoiding my brigandine, and my skinsuit hissed in response, dissipating the kinetic energy into heat. “Are you ready to speak now, or shall I assume you are nothing but a pack of wild beasts and have to be hunted down accordingly!?”

I twirled my sword, shook the fresh blood off the blade, and hefted it on my shoulder. “I lack the patience to wait forever.”

More like, I needed to keep them off-balance, uncertain, and vulnerable.

The chieftain urged his horse to step forward. “What do you want?”

“You have impressed me so I decided to offer terms rather than continue slaughtering your kin. Return to your pastures in peace and I will spare everyone who goes with you.” The nomads started clamouring at my words, rocking in their saddles, and I pointed in a south-east direction. “Including that camp of yours. The flocks of sheep and goats, your servants and followers that travelled with you across the steppe. Your lifeline and sustenance for the path ahead. The camp is far — three days of travel on your horses, fifteen for Emanai arms… A tenth of a day for me. Will you be a wise chieftain of your tribe, Nergui Erdeni the first?”

“Our Lord will make you choke on those words as he wraps your intestines around your neck!”

I tilted my head. “Your lord? The one who swore loyalty to him is dead and you haven’t renewed the vows. Yet. And before you do, let me ask you — even if your lord takes pity on your losses and grants you bigger pastures, slaves, loot… How long will you keep them to yourself once this campaign is over? Once your neighbouring tribes realise you have no adult sheydayan but two cubs? I am not asking whether you will return victorious or not, I am asking whether you can even afford to return victorious at all.”

“Those words are nothing more than lies of a coward! What say you?”

I ignored the peanut gallery as I kept my attention on the chieftain. The nomads sat with pride in their saddles but I could see my words piercing deep into their hearts. For I was using their knowledge against them and they knew it even if they refused to acknowledge it to my face. I just had to cherry-pick a few most favourable facts and present them as a whole. My gambit was a reckless one, but Barsashahr tribes used different methods of achieving cohesion and loyalty in their forces in comparison to Emanai. Rather than forging an arm-like solidarity through months of training and discipline, nomads relied on tribal cohesion by keeping each tribe as an independent fighting unit. It was significantly faster and cheaper, and likely the only decent option in their environment, but it wasn’t without limitations. A nomadic warrior was unlikely to betray and abandon their family in battle but a tribe was loyal to itself first and foremost. Their loyalty to the ‘Great Lord’ was measured only in how much they trusted him to bring them fortunes. I just had to shake that trust apart hard enough.

The chieftain clicked his tongue, demanding silence. “What are you?”

It was a good thing I could hide my grimace under the suit. My ploy was working but it was dragging out. The other wings weren’t patiently waiting until I finished my negotiations and if I wasted too much time here all my gains would be negated by two or three more tribes replacing this one in a short order. “Many call me a daimon-”

“You!? A daimon!?”

I detached one of my lashes, threw it on my wrist, and slapped the naysayer across the face. I ignored the rattle of sabres afterwards. “-of the House Kiymetl. But I prefer the title of The Alchemist. For my alchemistry is unrivalled across those lands. I am also the hunter preying on your scouts every night. The silent blindness of your shamans. I am a Procurer of Kiannika and I’ve come here to procure. Not your lives or hearts but victory. And I will take it, whether by walking over your corpses or by allowing you to stand aside in peace.”

Nergui worked his jaw, casting glances on my sword in one hand and my leash in the other. His feline tail whipped the sides of his horse in frustration just as his vertical pupils glared down at me. “You speak tall words-”

I scoffed and started to move. “I do tall deeds. And I have short patience.”

“A battle then! Between you and I. The winner claims what he seeks.”

I paused and glanced back. “You wish to join your late chieftain and walk the sky pastures with him?”

“An honest battle!” He slammed his bow into the leather holster. “No bows, no swords.”

“How amusing,” I murmured and sheathed my sword. “You know, there was another of your kin who thought me weak without my weapons. He welcomed me as a guest, broke bread with me, and — once I was alone in his yurt — he tried to strike me down. I silenced his song and spilt his guts.”

His gaze twitched toward my sword handle and back at me. “That whip is a weapon.”

I shrugged. “So is your song. This whip was crafted with my flesh and blood, it is as much a part of me as your song is yours. Or does your ‘honourable fight’ mean I have to fight you naked, with arms tied behind my back, and blindfold over my eyes? Should I drink a vial of poison beforehand?”

“No song, no whip.”

I took my whip, coiled it, and hung it on my sash. “No song — no whip.”

He nodded tersely and jumped off his horse. “Clear the area.”

I stood still, keeping track of every nomad that was encircling us. The situation was tense and I was at the centre of many gazes but everything seemed normal according to my newly-acquired memories. His demands were pushy but as I was this close already I just wanted to finish this charade once and for all.

A shaman approached us with an ornate arrow on her bow, rattling the bones on her headdress with every shake of her head. “Once the arrow lands.”

Nergui crouched down in a fighting pose and I mirrored him. “Once the arrow lands.”

The bowstring twanged and the arrow flew into the sky, dragging a white ribbon with it. She was skilled enough that there was almost no arc to the arrow. It flew up, froze for a moment, and fell straight down to where the shaman once stood.

Our punches flew out at once, then again and again. Magical flesh against millennia of human knowledge and ingenuity. The flesh was strong — each punch felt like a sledgehammer and my scales began to crack and shatter. But not strong enough — his punches were quickly accompanied by a splatter of his blood. And that was his downfall. Despite being a living-tech, skinsuit was designed to act as a machine first and foremost, with me acting as its living part. Just matching our strength and toughness was never enough. No matter how bright his Spark, how melodic his song was, it couldn’t match the longevity of the nuclear hum and glow. At least not with that difference in power output. I knew this since I’d plucked that bahatur and now it was Nergui’s turn to find out.

“For Erdeni!” He yelled at me but all I heard was the near-silent hiss of my blade being drawn.

I threw my hand outward at the descending edge, guiding it between my middle and ring fingers and deep into my palm. My wrist. My arm. Only then was the constricting pressure of my skinsuit strong enough to stop the blade in place. Nergui tried to yank it out but it wouldn’t bulge. Meanwhile, my other hand gripped his neck.

“Did you think my weapons could hurt me?” I hissed at him without bothering to remove the blade. I would heal the damage in time but now I had to look as invincible as possible. “Or did you think that I was blind enough to miss the desire in your eyes? Your side glances? Your silence when I left my sword on my belt? I was expecting you to grab it ever since that arrow fell.”

“I did it for my tribe.” he croaked. “Do it. Kill me.”

I laughed at him. “Kill you? Do you think I am stupid? Your tribe saw me split a sheyda in a blink of an eye. Your death won’t stand close to that, let alone topple it. Why don’t you look down, instead? Listen to your song.”

He looked downward at my other lash buried deep inside his stomach and tried to scream. My grip muffled his sounds and all he could muster was a gasping wheeze. “My song! What… did… you do!” His fists slammed into my chest but there were no sledgehammers I had to root myself against anymore. Those were strong punches of a human.

The punches of a murk.

It was working.

“Why don’t you ask your shaman?” I offered, hiding the curiosity in my voice as best as I could, and glanced at the archer who started our fight. “Sarnai shaman, your chieftain wants to know what I’ve done to his song.”

She observed me in silence for a second, then turned her eyes towards Nergui’s increasingly terrified face and shook her head. “He did nothing. Your song sings strong just as it were. Do not fall for his tricks.”

“Did you hear?” I made sure that my voice was loud enough that all of them did. “Your song sings strong. But you are deaf to it! I am the Alchemist of Kiymetl — if I can grow snakes into my loyal whips, something simple as an alchemical poison to make you deaf to magic is well within my reach.”

My hand gripped the coiled whip and I unfurled it with a hiss, observing the crowd. I made sure to pause on the shaman. “And my reach is long.” My tongue was even longer, but my theatrics were working splendidly for a while now so there was no point in stopping. Even the quiet shaman took a step back.

Back to the matter at hand. “Do you admit defeat, Nergui Erdeni the first?”

“Kill me.”

I tsked. “That’s it? A handful of heartbeats being deaf and you are begging for death? There are people who live their entire lives without magic. And many of them are beaten, tortured, and enslaved. Yet they survive and scrape by.”

“I did what I had to do,” his eyes jumped back to my sword, then onto my armour, lashes, and the silken band across my chest that hid my keyboard. His hand gripped my arm in another futile attempt, ripping off his claws on my scales. “And I failed. I am Erdeni no more. And you took ‘the first’ from my name by sealing my song inside of me. Finish off Nergui or let me do it myself.”

Break them down and build them up.

“Did I say you will be deaf forever!?” I thundered while my lash deftly and surreptitiously withdrew from his stomach. At least this part of the experiment I was quite certain about for I wasn’t pumping him with unknown substances. After the arrowhead pierced his runed bronze and wermage skin, my lash coiled around his Spark gland, established a regional nerve blockade, and started pumping the nearby tissues with a cocktail of inhibitors for every potential ‘Spark-enzyme’ Yeva had discovered so far. Results were unquestionable yet peculiar since others still saw his Spark, but that would wait for another time. It was working and that was all that mattered right now.

I let my skinsuit mask unravel like a blooming flower, giving him the ability to see my real face for the first time. The nerve blockers didn’t last long without a constant supply, so his magical perception should be returning already. “Hoping to claim my weapons and use them against our arms, you put your honour on the line for the sake of your tribe. A sign of a shrewd chieftain. A wise chieftain. And this is why Trymr Rurkha the Fifth is dead while you remain alive.”

I put him on the ground, pulled my sword out of my arm and slammed it into its sheath. “Use this temporary numbness and grow wiser through it. Or not — I am still waiting for an answer.” The skinsuit would hold my arm together. As long as my wives didn’t notice it before it healed back, everything should be fine.

I would get an earful from Yeva anyway.

Nergui was too shocked to respond in a coherent manner. While my words were dismissive of his plight, this wasn’t just a temporary deafness or even blindness. Whether they called themselves wermages, shamans, or spellsingers, magic was the foundation of what they were. It was akin to me dragging a family of murks to an execution cliff, only to say that their life was spared just as they stood in front of the abyss and smelled the stench of death from it.

I paused and glanced back at the flags and standards of my maniple. Two fingers had their spears completely broken by now and shifted to a sword and shield formation, but the unit never stopped moving forward. Routs happened more frequently but the sheer size of the enemy force allowed them to plug the holes with fresh detachments. The same was true for us — some of the maniples that opened the charge had stayed behind the advancing front, replaced by their fresh counterparts. But what was he-

The lash plugged itself into my torso and my skinsuit dumped the accumulated heat with an angry hiss, shedding the cracked scales and immediately beginning the regrowth of new ones. The nomads were getting an eyeful but that wasn’t a long-term issue. This wasn’t Samat, where everyone knew each other and my actions were scrutinised by multiple Pillars just as a precaution tactic. The nomads would be either dead by the end of the day or on their way to the far far eastern regions of Barsashahr. My current focus was elsewhere.

Muramat’s lackey had been glaring at me ever since the battle began. And now he was starting to slither.

“Your strength is without a doubt, Daimon Alchemist,” the chieftain finally gave in. “We will not interfere in your battle-”

“Good.” I quickly replied without bothering with further theatrics. “Gather your riders and leave the battlefield. Take others if they wish to follow you.”

I was about to launch myself back into the air when I heard him calling out to me. “What?”

The Erdeni chieftain was sitting proudly in his saddle but the shadows under his face betrayed his appearance. The wound was nothing more than a thin line — his magic was back already. He gripped the reins of his horse and cast a quick glance at his companions. “And if the… forces of Emanai would follow?”

I had to suppress the urge to roll my eyes. My hand slapped my sash and pouches but there was nothing I could use. Kattar or Artefacts? Fat chance. Procurer’s ribbon? Too common and without gravitas. My slave medallion? I wasn’t that stupid…

“Here.” I ripped the golden Gestr of Kiymetl off my neck. One of the few things I could part with that was impressive enough for the chieftain to believe me and give a pause for any Emanai would-be pursuers. Virnan Shah would be devastated. And then promptly get me another one, no doubt. “If they do, show them this. Tell them to seek Erf or his wife — Anaise Kiymetl Hilal. The young Lady of the Pillar House and the granddaughter of Kiymetl Matriarch. Abuse it, and I will find you faster than you think.”

“Then let this medallion be the symbol of your protection, Daimon Erf.”

I didn’t dally anymore. My lashes lifted me into the air and, with a slight flick, sent me flying back to my maniple. Hundreds of combatants were now removed from the battle and plenty of others were confused and in disarray from my previous fly-bys, so Manipular had better be ecstatic. If some Kishava logistician started moaning about ‘letting slaves-to-be go’, I would remind Sophia about the ‘twelve thousand against twenty-five’ speech to shut them up.

And if Siavash would try to do anything to Irje, Muramat would have to find himself another Companion.