The Messenger, part 5
This was a time to run, not to contemplate the Philosophy of Ascension. I will make sure to relay my concerns and doubts to the Anavasi priests, once my mission is complete. Now there is simply not enough energy for my mind to ponder such questions.
The sun now has full reign over the stone road below my feet. My left side is radiating, I am sure of it. I can feel a slight warmth in my stomach too, slowly massaging my innards, and not in a good way. I hope it doesn’t come to a time when i would have to release my bowels on the run. Not that anyone will think less of me, considering what I am doing here, but I would not like to meet the King in that state.
Ah, it’s good to still be able to think of banal thoughts. I slow just a bit my pace, so I can be able to take deeper breaths, calming myself as much as I could under the circumstances. I’m suddenly aware of the life all around me, the bird’s song from the trees lining the road, their gentle flaps of the wings, the dance of the leaves choreographed by the gentle breeze, and the rhythmic thumping of my own feet.
And, of course, the buzzing of the cicadas, always a faithful companion to the summer heat. Just some months ago, their buzzing was only representing the overall lazy and sluggish ambient of the season.
The maddening buzzing started a week after our unsuccessful attempt at an offence. By then, we had put up our oil traps, added more cannons to the front walls, reinforced the northern gate, as well as deviced a plan for dispatching of the pyrocriners when the time came. The veshter invented some new bombs and cannon fodder that we hoped will help us hold off the invasion.
Also, they were the frequent one-on-one meetings between the old man and general Janek that started many gossips. I, on the other hand, was not a part of all this. I was silently excused, as well as the rest of the survivors, and we passed most of the time playing cards, occasionally helping the locals with some lighter jobs, or just sitting in one place and contemplating everything. It was a first battle for the majority of us, and the losses hit us hard.
But when the buzzing began, when the hundreds of thousands of insects enclosed on the city, none could be left to rest.
First we raised the great net, that under any other circumstances could never be made in such a short time, but it was, and in such a manner that in my trance I never really noticed that they were building it in the first place. Erect, it looked even grander than on the surface, and it managed to encompass the northern part of the city wall, from mountain to mountain. Next, all of the town’s chem-generators were used to electrify this great fence. The veshter was proud of his invention, saying that this would surely set back the flying invaders.
Assuming that the fence was high enough, that is.
This fence had its disadvantages, though, as the archers and cannoneers now could only shoot from within the wall. Also, as the veshter was careful to warn more than a few times, once electrified the fence will scorch everything that touched it. As a demonstration, he threw a mouse at it, and the poor thing cracked with lightning, and fell smoking on the ground, charred.
One more disadvantage was that it needed one of the lectrocriners to function properly, for reasons that I never really understood, only hearing the veshter mumbling something like ‘voltages behaving unpredictably, no time, no time.’ All I understood was that one less lectrocriner meant more chaotic pyrocriners.
As we predicted, the first wave came, again, in a form of wasps, only now there were three groups of about thousand giant wasps, each led by a Insectomancer. They tested our fence, and to our great relief, they were immediately fried, falling dead, and soon there were real fireworks in the sky over the city, followed by smoke and smell of fried meat. The defence net was working, and although some of the wasps managed to enter the city by flying over it, they were too few to cause any problem and were dispatched with almost no casualties.
Meanwhile, the troops on the ground, the ‘suicide gang’ as they were called when general Janek was not around, were igniting the oil traps, and with the help of the archers and cannoneers, soon the whole area before the city was glowing in fire. Soon, the wasp battalions retreated, and we were ready to take on the land troops.
Our ‘scorched earth’ tactic didn’t seem to bring casualties to the enemy, because they simply waited a day/two for the fire to die out. Meanwhile, we tried to barrage them with fire arrows and cannons.
They didn’t anticipate our electrical nets, but we didn’t anticipate their spider nets. The fire arrows simply doused off when hitting the net, barely doing any damage. The cannonballs managed to puncture it, but were significantly slowed in the process, and the spiders were extremely adept at fixing them. So, we only got two days to figure out another defence. By that time, we were deep into the cockroach problem.
I stepped on a sharp rock, pain shooting all the way to my chest. It’s hard to keep the pace, but somehow I know that if I stop now, I won’t be able to continue. I reach for the food inside my pouch, try to eat as much as I can, and wash that what I cannot swallow easily with water. Fueled by the intrusion of food, the nausea gets stronger in my stomach. But I have to keep on, I must not give in.
I start imagining myself falling on the road, engulfed by darkness even though the sun is beating relentlessly over me.
The sun now has full reign over the stone road below my feet. My left side is radiating, I am sure of it. I can feel a slight warmth in my stomach too, slowly massaging my innards, and not in a good way. I hope it doesn’t come to a time when i would have to release my bowels on the run. Not that anyone will think less of me, considering what I am doing here, but I would not like to meet the King in that state.
Ah, it’s good to still be able to think of banal thoughts. I slow just a bit my pace, so I can be able to take deeper breaths, calming myself as much as I could under the circumstances. I’m suddenly aware of the life all around me, the bird’s song from the trees lining the road, their gentle flaps of the wings, the dance of the leaves choreographed by the gentle breeze, and the rhythmic thumping of my own feet.
And, of course, the buzzing of the cicadas, always a faithful companion to the summer heat. Just some months ago, their buzzing was only representing the overall lazy and sluggish ambient of the season.
The maddening buzzing started a week after our unsuccessful attempt at an offence. By then, we had put up our oil traps, added more cannons to the front walls, reinforced the northern gate, as well as deviced a plan for dispatching of the pyrocriners when the time came. The veshter invented some new bombs and cannon fodder that we hoped will help us hold off the invasion.
Also, they were the frequent one-on-one meetings between the old man and general Janek that started many gossips. I, on the other hand, was not a part of all this. I was silently excused, as well as the rest of the survivors, and we passed most of the time playing cards, occasionally helping the locals with some lighter jobs, or just sitting in one place and contemplating everything. It was a first battle for the majority of us, and the losses hit us hard.
But when the buzzing began, when the hundreds of thousands of insects enclosed on the city, none could be left to rest.
First we raised the great net, that under any other circumstances could never be made in such a short time, but it was, and in such a manner that in my trance I never really noticed that they were building it in the first place. Erect, it looked even grander than on the surface, and it managed to encompass the northern part of the city wall, from mountain to mountain. Next, all of the town’s chem-generators were used to electrify this great fence. The veshter was proud of his invention, saying that this would surely set back the flying invaders.
Assuming that the fence was high enough, that is.
This fence had its disadvantages, though, as the archers and cannoneers now could only shoot from within the wall. Also, as the veshter was careful to warn more than a few times, once electrified the fence will scorch everything that touched it. As a demonstration, he threw a mouse at it, and the poor thing cracked with lightning, and fell smoking on the ground, charred.
One more disadvantage was that it needed one of the lectrocriners to function properly, for reasons that I never really understood, only hearing the veshter mumbling something like ‘voltages behaving unpredictably, no time, no time.’ All I understood was that one less lectrocriner meant more chaotic pyrocriners.
As we predicted, the first wave came, again, in a form of wasps, only now there were three groups of about thousand giant wasps, each led by a Insectomancer. They tested our fence, and to our great relief, they were immediately fried, falling dead, and soon there were real fireworks in the sky over the city, followed by smoke and smell of fried meat. The defence net was working, and although some of the wasps managed to enter the city by flying over it, they were too few to cause any problem and were dispatched with almost no casualties.
Meanwhile, the troops on the ground, the ‘suicide gang’ as they were called when general Janek was not around, were igniting the oil traps, and with the help of the archers and cannoneers, soon the whole area before the city was glowing in fire. Soon, the wasp battalions retreated, and we were ready to take on the land troops.
Our ‘scorched earth’ tactic didn’t seem to bring casualties to the enemy, because they simply waited a day/two for the fire to die out. Meanwhile, we tried to barrage them with fire arrows and cannons.
They didn’t anticipate our electrical nets, but we didn’t anticipate their spider nets. The fire arrows simply doused off when hitting the net, barely doing any damage. The cannonballs managed to puncture it, but were significantly slowed in the process, and the spiders were extremely adept at fixing them. So, we only got two days to figure out another defence. By that time, we were deep into the cockroach problem.
I stepped on a sharp rock, pain shooting all the way to my chest. It’s hard to keep the pace, but somehow I know that if I stop now, I won’t be able to continue. I reach for the food inside my pouch, try to eat as much as I can, and wash that what I cannot swallow easily with water. Fueled by the intrusion of food, the nausea gets stronger in my stomach. But I have to keep on, I must not give in.
I start imagining myself falling on the road, engulfed by darkness even though the sun is beating relentlessly over me.
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