Reckoning
937 A.O.P.
One
VANYA
Eleventh Month dawned with smoke and ash riding the wind, blowing across the summer dry expanse of the grasslands surrounding the frontier town Vanya and the Legion were hunkered down in. Vanya couldn’t smell it, not through the filters of his gas mask, but he kept having to wipe a film of ash off his brass goggles.
Avenyah had been evacuated of civilians and now served as the launching point for the Legion’s effort to whittle down the Rixham revenant horde clawing its way north. The horde had broken up into countless smaller groups that had spread across the southern half of the continent. The walking dead had essentially laid siege to every frontier village, town, and city south of Calhames. Traveling by road was impossible now, and even steam trains were a risk but one the Legion had to take when getting their soldiers into position.
The wardens had offered their expertise for the fight, with a few dozen attaching themselves to battalions and traveling south with the Legion. Delani couldn’t spare the numbers she would have liked, not with so many wardens bogged down by the war in Ashion and trying to get a handle on the numerous walking dead there. The death-defying machines were still active, and with the numbers of dead littering the battlefields, Eimarille had plenty to transmute into revenants.
At the moment, Ashion and its civil war with Daijal was the least of Vanya’s worries.
“Someone get those poison bombs in the launchers!” a Legion officer yelled over the hectic sounds of legionnaires shouting at each other along the wall and heavy artillery going off.
Vanya flexed his hands, the flicker of starfire warming the air around his fingers. He, like everyone else in the Legion, wore a uniform in the field in lieu of robes. Vanya’seffiyehwas checkered gold and red as a mark of the crown he hadn’t taken with him out of Oeiras. He turned to look at Javier, the major staring grimly back at him. “Will our position hold here?”
“The revenants are massing near the western gate and the railway station there. I’d rather they didn’t break through. The legionnaires can hold the wall here,” Javier said.
“Then let’s get to the western wall. I need to get up on the observation platform.”
Avenyah had no airfield, though it was serviced by railroads. The Legion had barricaded the entrance for defense purposes upon their takeover of the town, but the sheer number of revenants on the other side of the wall was a problem. The Legion couldn’t evacuate by steam train if the town was overrun. While the airship anchored above the town’s public plaza remained intact, Vanya hated the thought of being evacuated out on it while leaving the rest of his people to die. That wasn’t why he’d come south.
Javier nodded. “I have a motor carriage waiting.”
Vanya let the major guide him away from the squadrons lining the wall alongside the main gate. The wall surrounding the town wasn’t as tall or as thick as the one surrounding a city would be, but it would have been enough against the intermittent incursions of revenants that came up from the Wastelands. With the number of the walking dead presently massed against it and attempting to climb their way into the town, the wall was at risk of being overrun if they didn’t burn through the horde.
That duty fell to Vanya, as it had since he’d made it to the fight. This was the third frontier town he’d landed in, hoping to provide a bulwark against the revenants making their way north. Of those in the major Houses who could cast starfire of any degree, only a handful had heeded his call for support. Some minor Houses had sent magicians, and while the Legion was gaining support, Vanya knew many of the Houses hoped he’d die in the poison fields, a victim of his House’s many mistakes over the years.
Vanya had no plans to die out here.
Javier drove Vanya to the western side of the town, where sentinel-class automatons ringed the barricaded gate there, Zip guns aimed at the entrance. The automatons were too heavy for the town wall to hold their weight, so legionnaires manned the wall with grenade launchers, sending warden-made poison bombs into the horde.
No one paid Vanya any mind when Javier braked to a halt beside the observation platform, a mechanical contraption that could rise higher than the wall when its four legs were extended. Yadvir waited for them there, the young man giving him a sharp nod in lieu of any formal address. “Your Imperial Majesty.”
“Yadvir,” Vanya said.
“I’ll be joining you on the observation platform for your security.”
“I welcome your assistance.”
Yadvir had been one of the first to heed his call for aid, joining Vanya when he’d left Oeiras for the battlefield, determined to keep him safe, despite the young man having no inclination for war nor skill with a pistol. Neither was he able to cast starfire, but Yadvir was a magician and had handled himself well during their escape of the old palace last year. His House was a minor one out of Oeiras, but their loyalty was unmatched compared to some of the major Houses.
Those of the Houses who could cast starfire and had heeded the call had been deployed across the south to areas the Legion commanding officers could best put their magic to use. Vanya’s position here in this frontier town was where the horde was thickest, drawn to the living on its march north to Calhames.
A legionnaire was already ensconced in the control seat that hung below the circular platform, allowing the pilot to guide it into position. The platform above it provided a circular view of the entire area and space for Vanya to cast starfire.
Vanya, Javier, and Yadvir climbed the ladder to the platform, holding on to the railing as the officer on the ground gave the signal to rise. With a grind of gears, the pilot began their ascent, the platform rising up until it cleared the top of the wall.
The sight that greeted them made Javier swear and Yadvir go pale. Vanya didn’t make a sound, gripping the safety railing with both hands as he stared at the oncoming threat. He knew the ground beyond the wall was scorched black from starfire, ash all that remained of half the horde that had greeted his arrival yesterday when his airship made it to Avenyah. But that was difficult to see when the horde had seemingly doubled in size since yesterday. The night had hidden the numbers, despite the near-constant battle the Legion persisted in.
Yadvir gripped his wand tightly, the clarion crystal at the tip encased in sturdy metal wire that didn’t impede the glow of the aether that danced around it. “I will guard you as you focus on the horde, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“We both will,” Javier grunted.
Vanya nodded, gaze sweeping over the mass of walking dead that undulated like waves on the land before them. Burning the dead in such quantities spread out before them took effort and was a risk to the land as well as the people hunkered down behind the walls. He also had to be mindful of the steam train and railroad tracks situated beyond the wall. Too much heat could warp them both, and then the legionnaires would be stuck here until airships could be spared for transport out.
