(I) Army

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133 (I)

Army

Whisper blasted through the air, tumbling several times with an imprint of Shiv's knuckles on his face. Before he even touched the ground, the Deathless slammed into him, pinning him against the far battlements beneath the obsidian tower. The stone walls shook, fissures spreading along them. Shiv gripped Whisper by his neck, lifting the orc high.

Whisper chuckled as he spat blood and broken teeth all over Shiv's chest. The Deathless was calm. He was extremely calm. His anger had all been spent. But still, he wasn't sure if he was going to kill the orc or not. Calmness was one thing, hatred was another. Part of him screamed for him to reach into the orc’s spirit and mutilate him beyond measure.

Far above, the other orcs cheered him on. A mithril ingot switched hands as Band lost a bet to Mortar. "I told you!" Mortar bellowed. "I told you the Deathless would see through it. He's uneducated, but that doesn't mean he's a fool."

As the other orcs grinned down at him, Shiv clenched his teeth.

"Now to see the interesting part," Tequila said, "is he gonna rip Whisper in half? Is he gonna come for us right after?"

In the background, Shiv could hear the Challenger's laughter turn to an amused sigh.

Adam hovered in the air. He had three Veilpiercers drawn, each of them aimed at one of the other orcs. Uva drifted behind him, her mana strands rearing back as if a few thousand hair-thin serpents prepared to strike.

"You could finish me off," Whisper said. He was entirely too calm about this. "I think it might make you feel better—"

Shiv jabbed him in the throat with the bottom end of the Skysplitter. The orc choked, but his expression didn't change.

"Don't talk to me," Shiv said. He pointed his blade high at the orcs as he glared. "None of you talk to me. Not until I get to you. Not a word.”

He met Band's eye, and the musical orc just smirked at him. That smirk became a grimace as Shiv blasted upwards, seizing Band by the throat. Whisper was left behind as Shiv’s ire fell on the true culprit. They rose high in the air, the orc squinted at the Deathless, shrugging in his grip and offering a near-comical gesture. And everything Shiv felt about what they experienced from cooking together, about how perhaps the orcs weren't just cruel monsters, was drowned in a new wave of cold loathing.

"Umbrals died," Shiv growled. He looked back at the first layer of battlements. Most of them were half-melted. Only a single section of the wall still stood. He couldn't see any bodies remaining atop the parapets. But he'd seen the defenders who gave their lives to hold the gate. "Weaveresses died. People died."

Band's lips curled upward as he met Shiv's eyes. "People die," the orc mused. "We die, you die. It's just what happens." With every word spoken, Band swallowed, biting back pain. "Difference is…" Shiv's arms trembled as he held himself back from immediate murder. "You come back. We come back. They sleep. They go away. For good. And you. Killed too. So many. Why mad? Three million lives. Fingerlings. As conscious as any spiderling. Jealous of you. Insul. Powerful. Brutal. Their families. Scream your name at night. Screams echo across history.”

Shiv wanted to crush the orc's skull. He wanted to rip his own body open and pour his wounds into Band. He wanted to torture the orc over and over again, bring him closer and closer to the brink until he finally got an apology.

But his massively strengthened Psychology Skill told him what would actually happen. These were orcs. He could shame them based on them failing to dominate him, or failing to live up to their potential. They were performers, builders, makers, Pathbearers of a savage extreme.

But it was as the Challenger had said before: philosophy was just a weapon for them. Morality was something they could utilize and discard at a whim. Torturing the orc likely wouldn't even inflict any mental trauma, unless he directly targeted the orc's mind.

Shiv and the orc swayed high in the air. Below, the Umbrals turned on the remaining orcs. Two teams of sisters held out their polearms. Ikki stood among them, her face coated under a layer of dried blood. Nearby, Can Hu regarded the orcs as well, and Valor hovered behind it, a Necromantic blade crackling with murderous intent.

Yet despite all this, the three orcs not within Shiv's grasp continued chatting among each other. Mortar and Tequila leaned over the parapets as if nothing was wrong, as if they were just taking in the sights. They ignored Adam and the Veilpiercers he had pointed at them. They ignored Uva and the threat she posed to their minds. And most of all, Band still taunted Shiv with his condescending gaze.

"You know, if I reach into your soul, I can tear you up for good," Shiv hissed. He tapped a strand of Vitamancy against the orc's jaw and slowly drilled it through Band's skin. It went deeper than the flesh, splashing into the inner recesses of Band's being, and the orc let out a slight grunt of discomfort. "I could finish you, or I could just rip you up, leave you crippled between every life. A mangled, broken thing that screams and screams when he respawns, but never gets to be a true Pathbearer again. Just a ruined lump of felling meat.”

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Band looked at him once more and shrugged. "If that is the price. For. Excitement. And ." The orc was entirely honest. An eternal wound meant nothing to him. An eternal wound was easily accepted if he got something of a novel experience out of it.

And another one of Shiv's assumptions about the orcs broke apart. They weren't fearless because they were immortal. No, they were fearless because their psychology simply didn't allow them to be terrified in the same way a human or Umbral might. It was by design, not simply a side effect of their metaphysical nature.

"Remember," Band continued, his voice strained. "Remember war. Need good warriors. Many warriors. Killed many. Only needed to kill fifty thousand." And Band smiled. It was a vicious sneer of a smile, and the orc licked at his bloodied lips. "But after that fifty thousand, so many others. Remember the rules of the ritual. Go. Get your reward. Accept your army. Insul.”

the Challenger carried on where Band finished.

Shiv turned his head backward, and he stared at the dimensional gateway that once led to Vulketh. It was roiling, pulsating with building waves of energy. Blackened tides splashed outward, each one crashing over another. On the gateway was a deep bowl, surrounded by cracked glass across the ground.

Countless Vultegs lay in the depression, their bodies disfigured beyond description. Some of them had expired. Some of them remained on their knees, whimpering for mercy. And some were broken of mind and spirit, wandering madly. Just the sight left Shiv briefly stunned. This was only a small group harmed by his soul-fire detonation.

Shiv wondered.

But then new shapes joined the Vultegs. Larger shapes that reached up through the gateway, pulling themselves over the black lip of Dimensionality. A shaking membrane of surface pressure broke free from the bodies of newly arriving orcs. They arose in an orderly fashion, one climbing up after another.

As a group of ten orcs slipped out from the gate, they formed a perimeter and held their blades high in unison. They all bore what seemed to be a butcher's cleaver, and their bodies were adorned with bloodied aprons. Along each of their hips was a chain of heads: elven, Umbral, Vulteg, automaton, and more.

"We come to serve you, Insul!" one of the orcs roared. "We come to give ourselves to your service! We depart from Lone Star for the coming summer! And we give praise to your slaughter! We give praise to your feats of destruction! We give praise!"

And the other orcs cheered with him.

Shiv stared in utter disbelief, but that feeling slowly faded as he descended from the sky. He dropped Band back on the parapet, and the orc readjusted his chainmail suitcoat. He cracked his neck and gave Shiv a slow smile.

“No, you don’t get to do that,” Shiv hissed through clenched teeth. “We’re not done. This isn’t over. You get a few moments. A few moments before I figure out what to do with you. But your life is mine.”

"Not over?" Band asked, flicking a tongue across his lips.

Shiv chuckled humorlessly. "Before any of this is done, Band, I'm going to hear you scream and scream for real. I will find a way to hurt you for good."

"But not yet," Band replied. “Not right now. Go. Go. Greet the army. Your army. Your gift. Your rite.”

Shiv simply glared at the orc, and then he turned his hateful gaze on the others. "All of you, come with me. You're not staying here, not anymore." He looked back at Band. "I want to know what you did and how you did it—Actually, no. Uva!” Shiv called out. The Psychomancer met his gaze readily. Behind her eyes, he read a hint of cold fury.

"This one." Shiv pointed at Band. "He opened the breach. Reach into his mind, but don't break him. Find out everything he knows—if he did anything else to the gateways. Find out if he has any other surprises for us."

"And any more mana bombs?" Adam added. "That's what he used to throw the Surface District into chaos. That, and a series of specially summoned dimensionals. They butchered slaves, mercenaries—more. That godsdamned mad bastard…”

Band held his arms open as Uva's strands pierced into him. His smile faded, and his eyes rolled back. He promptly collapsed as several of her Psychomancy threads pulled upward violently. She wasn't going to do this gently, and she didn't care if she broke him. Frankly, Shiv didn't truly care either.

"The rest of you," he said, calling out to the orcs, "with me."

"Oh, and where are we going now, Insul?" Tequila asked. He barely gave his friend a second glance as Uva began prying open Band's mind.

"We're going to the Tutorial," Shiv declared aloud. "All that death was to get an army, right? Fine. I’ll bite. I’ll see this army. But I want to see the fucking Challenger too. I want to see him tell me why he was so determined to be a piece of shit. I would have felling done the ritual eventually anyway.”

“Eventually,” Whisper said, sighing. “Eventually is too far away, Deathless. We were helping you. You didn’t have the time.”

“I have as much time as I decide I have!” Shiv growled. “It's not your place to decide for me.”

“Of course, Insul. I apologize.” Whisper bowed, and he wiped blood from his face using his robes.

Shiv wanted to crush the orc’s skull. But murdering the orcs pointlessly would be a waste. Too much of a waste with the war looming over the horizon. “Adam, you're with me too. Time for us to have our first formal conversation with the Challenger. And for us to survey our forces." Shiv frowned. "Well. Survey the orcs. Can’t exactly call them our forces if they’re going to do shit like this.”

"But we are yours to command, Insul," Mortar said with a chuckle. "Don't you trust us?"

The orcs were determined to taunt him, to see how far they could push him. Shiv wanted to kill at least one of them permanently to set terms, but a pounding coldness inside his head commanded him to think straight, to be pragmatic. Besides, if he did butcher them, they would have won over him in some—

Shiv raged internally. They were using their godsdamned Psychology Skill on him. They knew he hated bending as much as they enjoyed domination.

Once again, he considered just killing one of them. And once again, he held off. They were going to be facing Sullain at Blackedge soon. The Inquisition had an expeditionary force on the way. The orcs were using him, and so he was going to use them in return, because they were going to spend their lives the proper way.

Shiv thought to himself,

the Challenger crooned. .”

Mortar and Tequila jumped down from the top of the battlement. Shiv grabbed Band by the back of his neck and carried him away while Uva continued her Psychomantic delving. He wasn’t leaving her or the orc here. They would do this in the Tutorial—and not risk the remaining survivors in the gate anymore.

"Null Mont!" Shiv roared. He looked around, trying to find where the Exalted Mother was. "Null Mont!"

Lightning flashed above. An arcing bolt of electricity twisted past Shiv and slammed a Weaveress into shape atop the battlements. Null Mont materialized at the parapets, staring at the Deathless. Her posture was one of excess tension. Her many limbs were shaking, and the humanoid digits at the end of each limb vibrated even more so.

"Yes, yes! Honored Guest!" She coughed. "I mean, Hero Shiv."

"You hurt?" Shiv asked. He looked Null Mont up and down. His Biomancy couldn’t detect any wounds, but some of the metal quills running down her arms were broken, and she clutched at her torso like there was something wrong.

"No, no, I was... I took the Leviathan meat. I..." Her words came out as a messy stammer. She held up the wrapper, and he understood and gave her a nod.

"You're fine then."

"Yes, thank you. Because of you…”

Shiv offered her a brief nod. Null Mont was an idiot, but compared to the orcs, she was downright angelic. She'd even served an active role in combat. "Listen, I need you to get everyone together. Construct additional defenses around the gateway. Trap the gateway. Dome it in if you have to. Let nothing get in or out. Do you understand? Get the Geomancers now. We're going to go across. If we don't come back in 3 hours, you seal the gate, take whoever you can among the remaining inhabitants, and you leave as soon as you can.”

"In fact," Adam called out, "you should go introduce yourself to more people first. That should allow the mana core to synchronize with you as the next Gate Lord, in case something happens to me." Adam grimaced at that statement. He shot a look at the orcs standing around the dimensional gateway, and a tense breath left him. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Shiv?"

Shiv stared at Adam. "I think I’m too tired for good ideas.”

The Gate Lord laughed. “Ah. Well said. Well. Let’s go do something potentially stupid together.”