BECMI Chapter 480 – Horde-Breaking the Demoralizing Way

Everyone accompanying me was at least a Ten, and so they’d all been issued back-up prismatic sabers, with magitech power cores that could be recharged fast and easily with electrical magic to the capacitors. Nobody else had a magical one, however, something that would be covered using magic Cast on them in any other situation, but that was fine. Their cold Weapons would work just fine if required.Said cold Weapons were used to vivify the remains as we passed them by, helping feed this sparse land. The Mule was trundling along behind its designated handler, Sergeant Chuco, who would also hop into it and use the heavy auto-laser mounted on its front if required.

I kept the at arms as I trotted along, scanning for more enemies. Compared to weight, the Rifle was nothing, but I felt somewhat blind without my going, especially . I could keep it on passive scan, but if I shuffled it around, it would fade and be unusable until the No Magic ended.

We had a good hundred miles overland to cover, which was no small distance in a landscape as rough as that of the Bleaklands. However, nobody in this group was slow, everyone had at least a tier of lightfoot, and the Mule was carrying most of the weight. We could trot at a pace normal folks would be sprinting at, the terrain wasn’t much impediment (the Waveskating Step was the most common lightfoot technique, and it generally ignored rough terrain penalties) and everyone was used to running for long distances, although normally it would be magic-aided.

Banter was light, eyes that would normally have to scan the skies continually able to stay on task down lower, looking for signs of nifloids moving around… of which there were more than a few.

“ Cirruluxul’s even voice came over coms.

“What does Regent Himmelstern want to do, Cirruluxul?” She had to have been in contact with them before filling me in.

“Is anyone else covering the Bloody Trail? It’s the most likely to have elves on it heading for shelter,” I asked her.

Likely true. Radio coms were not as good as the Markspace, but Erendyl’s air cav, the few who could make it aloft, were proving again why we had them available: hoping to never need them, and having them when we did!

“Let the Regent know you’re peeling off to do a sweep of the Long Road all the way to Federyn, starting at the White Bridge. If you see nifloids moving on the Road, feel free to strafe them and put the fear of the skies back into them.”

“We’ll move to the Trade Road as well, and sweep to Zanzyr along it. We’ve still got a couple mountains in the way, however, so we won’t reach it until nightfall, when Duum can join us.” Ahead of me, Sergeant Ilkers raised his hand as he came up on a ridge, prompting rifles to come up on alert. “Excitement coming. Signing off, Cirru. Be careful!”

She could certainly handle the long flight through the Bleaklands without stopping, but without accentuating her natural flight her speed and maneuverability would suffer… and there were no end of territorial beasts around, especially other dragons.

Magical Beasts would be weak and not want to fight her if they could help it, but they could still be ornery. Cirru’s reputation for working with bipeds didn’t win her a lot of friends among many dragons, and Red and Amber Dragons in particular would be happy to seek her out and challenge her.

Sergeant Hrackhem manning the Gatling Pulse Laser currently mounted on her saddle was going to give them a rude surprise if they tried anything.

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Keeping low to the game trail, my group trotted up to the edge of the hill and looked over it cautiously, down at the teaming horde that was gathering below.

“I’d say three hundred goblins and hobgobs for the moment, forty wolf-riders,” Sergeant Ilkers said, the swarthy former slave from the Hinterlands looking it all over with experienced eyes. “War banners out, they should be blowing horns shortly.” We’d been hearing them slowly building up in the distance, echoing off the mountains around us and carrying for miles as they did so. Harsh and raggedy for the orcs, iron-edged and shriller for the various goblins, deep and stony for the ogres, rolling and brazen for the gnolls. “They are really reacting fairly quickly to this, Lady Edge!” the Vanguard noted to me.

“Good instincts. All of mine are saying this is going to be a multi-day event. If there are some good opportunists among them, they could do a lot of damage in a week, if they can muster the hordes. I can practically guarantee you that most of the Zanzyran wizards in the army are cowering in garrison right now, or riding hard to get there.” I briefly considered the implications of what might be coming from the West during this most opportune time, and wondered if the Master would bite down on this chance.

Well, if it happened, it happened. At least there was a big wall he had to get through without using magic to do so!

“Pity they don’t all have Gritworks pulse lasers to fall back on!” Lieutenant Wallen snorted meaningfully, also studying the group in front of us. “Orders, ma’am?”

“Unleash that weird magic called High Technology on them, Lieutenant. They’re in our way, after all.” I brought up the to pick a target, wishing I could activate my Mask, but I hadn’t had it on when the No Magic fell, so it wouldn’t ‘turn on’, as it were. “Pretty sure they’ll scatter pretty quick when the flashy magic starts killing them, and if they dare to charge, they are going to find out what autofire does to grouped-up hordes.”

“And they’ll be spreading the word that we have magic,” Ranger Karista nodded, her Daisho partner Holgurs, a crimson-skinned and black-bearded Moorian dwarf, nodding along with her. He had magical Boots that had been helping him keep up with everyone else on his stumpy legs, the same as the Hyn Nysha had for the other Daisho team, and a nigh-mandatory issue to the shorter members of the Daisho teams so they could keep up with their taller companions.

“How do you want to handle it, sir?” Lieutenant Wellen asked, absolutely confident they were in no real danger.

“Seems to me like we’ve got a fair shooting slope here, range on them, and lots of ammo, plus a recharger right there.” I dropped down on my face, sticking over the edge of the hill line, and sighted. “Drop down and give me at least twenty, soldiers.”

They all grinned at that, rifles coming out as they all flattened to the hill line, adjusted their scopes, sighted in, and waited for me to fire the first shot.

Normally I would have rode a Reserve or something along the shot, but the flash of white-hearted red, and the blooming black thorn shadows twisting in the air behind it, reached out and punched a hole in a rider’s worg, dropping it almost instantly to the ground and pinning its very startled rider. A heartbeat later, ten more rays of bright blue light flashed out and harvested targets, the junior Poli over there cursing as he missed his shot, but then it was a sniper’s harvest as everyone just reacquired and shot as fast as they reasonably could… which is to say they rained fire down upon the green-skinned goblins and yellow-skinned hobgoblins and began to drop them where they stood in murderous cycling volleys as I counted out, “One, two, three, fire!” for endless coordinated shots.

There was occasional accidental overlap, but not much, as their leysers lit up their targets and helped stop overlap. I focused on taking out the dire wolves and worgs, having no problem tracking them, my red and black shots standing out in the blue volley and naturally proving to be the kiss of death for whoever was hit by them.

Becoming a Grandmaster with sidearms and rifles had taken me a lot of shooting, but that was okay. I’d had time and the Karma to spend, and unlike Immortals, Weapon Mastery was still valuable to me.

Also, playing at fast-draws and trickshots was a lot of fun, even if I wasn’t going to be a dedicated gunmage. I hadn’t strapped on, but I could if it looked like there’d be closer action.

As for the goblins, they were panicking under the volley fire. They could tell how many people were shooting, of course, but the speed and punch of the shots was much more impressive than, say, some flaming arrows. This time, there was no chance to see them coming, the 6-36 base damage of the rifles was punching right through most of the targets, and the fire every four seconds was dropping them like flies.

Rather than attempt a charge up at us, they panicked and fled in the other direction from the unexpected ‘magical firepower’ coming down at them.

Laser rifles had a pretty good range. We dropped another five dozen of them or more before they could get out of range, leaving bodies strewn across a quarter-mile of the valley below us.

I stopped the count and instead pushed myself to my feet, taking a look around to make absolutely sure there were no monstrous fliers around angling in for a free meal. The others quickly matched me and did the same.

“Okay, down and vivisize anything not Burning, then keep going.”

It had been a long time since I’d been down the Trade Road to Federyn with a bunch of junior students, and there’d been a lot of changes to it in that time. Some were done by me on a nightly lark and use of time, some by Belle, some by junior Cryptomancers.

All that work was paid for from Federyn’s deep pockets.

The Trade Road was much smoother than it had been, for starters, paved and angled to shed water and dust. The foundation was built up solidly, with occasional sluices to let water flow down existing channels, but smoothing out the natural ups and downs of traveling along mountains and valleys. Rough fords were replaced by actual bridges of great width, the roads had siderails (which didn’t impede wild life), and best of all, the Road was enchanted with the Curse of the Road: fuck with the Road, become part of the Road.

It only took a few dozen overeager and stupid nifloids hacking at the Road and then being turned to stone, then sucked in to replace the damage they’d inflicted, to inspire the rest to give up and motivate them to spread the tale to the rest of them.