Chương 1055: 1085 - First Test I

The fleet of attacking arks was still thousands of miles away, leaving Leon's forces with ample time to assemble. Despite that glut of time, Artorion was a hive of activity as everyone rushed to get ready. The Wailing Dirge had been a problem, but this was going to be their first real test of whether or not they were strong enough to survive in the Nexus. To combat this threat, Leon hurriedly met with his advisors and strongest mages in his meeting room in his portable villa.

The atmosphere was tense, the gravity of the situation not lost on anyone. Leon's family was present, as were his friends and former retainers. Anastasios and Eva would participate in the fighting, though Clear Day would remain in Artorion—by his own admission, the tau wasn't much of a fighter despite his power. Leon also had his high officers and elders present to offer their wisdom. All of the ark captains were present in some form, though mostly as projections on comm slates.

Leon paid special attention to Seeker-of-Mountain-Springs, the captain of the frigate being pursued by the mysterious fleet.

"Bring us up to speed, Springs," the Jaguar ordered once the room had been packed with people.

"We were keeping an eye on the portal leading out of the Nexus," Springs began, the Hawk's voice clear and calm despite his ark pulling some impressive evasive maneuvers to avoid being hit by any of the magic from the pursuing arks.

"Our enemies appeared without warning and turned immediately toward Artorion. They have not responded to any attempts at communication."

"Are they coming to us, or are they only pursuing your ark?" Runs-Through-Grassy-Fields, the Hawk elder leading his Tribe during this phase of the expedition, wondered aloud.

"We were nearly a thousand miles away from the portal," Springs reported.

"The enemy arks turned toward Artorion before we were engaged."

"Have they offered any kind of explanation for their actions?" Marcus asked.

"None, Sir Exarch," Springs answered.

"Have there been any casualties amongst your crew?" Fields asked.

"None, Elder." Leon breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

"How many enemy arks are there?" Cassandra darkly inquired, her voice tinged with anger and outrage. Again, Springs was quick with his answer.

"My Queen, we've counted twenty-four frigate-sized arks, nine arks that are larger than destroyers, but smaller than our heavy cruisers, and five that match our heavy cruisers in size."

"We'll have a significant disparity in forces," the Jaguar stated.

"But by the bloody fangs of my Ancestor, they will tremble!" Spiritually echoing his words, most of the others in the room belonging to one of the Ten Tribes whispered their Tribe's traditional words. When the brief din quieted, the Jaguar looked to Lana.

"How sharp are our fangs?" The Bison activated an enchantment that projected Artorion and its surroundings for all to see—Leon presumed those absent captains would have to either imagine the same or have their own projections to work with.

"Most of our frigates are too far away to return in time," Lana explained.

"That will leave us with four carriers, six heavy cruisers, six destroyers, and only three frigates. Four, with Raindrop." She nodded at Springs, acknowledging his ark.

"We also have Bright Intent, Silver Spear, and Bolt in Shadow." Beast Breaker, the elder with the Booming Brown Bears, added when Lana went quiet, "We have fifty pegasi, too."

"And wyverns," Anna contributed.

"Nidar and Astar are ready for battle!" Leon shot Red a questioning look. The elder wyvern shrugged noncommittally. It appeared she was more ambivalent about the relatively young wyverns' battle skills.

"More than a hundred fighters and as many Ulta suits," Marcus reminded the room.

"Two hundred of my people stand ready to defend our new home," Siddi stated. While Leon's Ulta suit was being repaired, he'd permitted Siddi to transfer to a golem frame, this one much smaller at only nine feet tall, so that she could socialize with her fellow giants. He wanted her to socialize with her people and not simply wait for him in his Ulta suit, and as the giant closest to Leon, she'd almost de facto become their leader in the Nexus.

"And you have us," Anastasios boldly declared as he linked his hand with Eva's.

"Those people are fools to come here!" Eva chipped in.

"It's been long since I last fought in a battle, but I'm still sharp!" She flexed her aura to make her point. Leon had already accepted their offers of assistance, but he appreciated them making their stances known in this setting. He gave them both grateful nods.

"Most of all," Cassandra added with a vicious grin, "we have my husband!" A chorus of agreement resounded throughout the room.

"With our King, any enemy that challenges us is doomed to fail!" Lycurgus, the Jaguar elder—the Jaguar himself was there as Leon's Marshal, not as an elder of his Tribe—obsequiously proclaimed.

"Our victory is assured!" Tachys Pteryga, the Eagle elder agreed. A few more such declarations were made, but they were mercifully brief, and discussion once more turned to the practical side of their situation. At the very least, though he wasn't much of a fan of the more servile declarations, Leon was pleased to see that no one amongst his advisors was shying away from this battle. He certainly wasn't going to—his hands were subtly shaking with excitement and fury.

His people were being attacked by unknown assailants, and he was going to test himself against his first real foe; his glee was matched only by his anger. Putting a bit of a damper on matters, the Jaguar asked Lana, "What is the status of our static defenses?"

"The wall that will surround Artor Valley is far from complete," Lana reported, indicating the high ridges surrounding the valley. A few sections were highlighted in red, which Leon could see showed the areas where the wall had been completed, but not even ten percent of the valley was so protected.

"The fortresses at the north and south pass have only just begun construction," Lana continued.

"A few outlying towers have been raised…" she pointed to a few of the mountain peaks around the valley, "… but they have yet to be fully warded or armed with anything more than a single Lance each."

"We cannot fight over the valley," one officer audibly murmured. Another disagreed.

"Should we leave the city defenseless, then? The size of the enemy fleet is too large to face without bringing our entire fleet to bear!" Split-Knuckle, the Lion elder, angrily responded, "Let us meet the reaving fucks in glorious battle! Let us ride out and slaughter them amongst the mountains!"

"We are stronger here!" Ustaloch, the Spider elder, argued.

"To maximize our chances of victory, let us ensnare them in our web! Not 'ride out' unprepared! We take unnecessary risks that way!" This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. There were some murmurs of agreement, and Leon could see the logic in that argument.

"You would have us wait for our enemy to reach our gates?!" Split-Knuckle angrily spat.

"Rest on our laurels while they attack our ark?! Our enemy has shown themselves!"

"We can control the battlefield more effectively closer to Artorion," Lycurgus offered.

"Letting them near our cubs is tantamount to inviting them in," Split-Knuckle growled.

"With our King present, no matter what we do, the enemy will die!" Tachys insisted.

"Our focus should be on mitigating any risks to our people! There are many noncombatants working in Artorion! We should not let them come to harm! Let us fight away from the city!"

"And what if this is only a distraction?" Lycurgus asked.

"Should we leave Artorion defenseless while we handle this threat?"

"We have not noticed any sign of any other threats aside from this encroaching fleet," Lana reminded the room.

"Just because we haven't found any doesn't mean there aren't any," Ustaloch pointed out.

"If they're present, then we'll kill them, too!" Split-Knuckle insisted, the pale face behind his golden mane of head and facial hair growing red with anger. Others started arguing more, talking over one another until they were practically shouting at each other. Some of them, such as the Jaguar, were merely attempting to quiet the room, but were having little success. Finally, Leon, sick of the infighting and heated disagreement, released his aura, silencing the room in but a moment.

Every eye turned in his direction, some of the arguing men and women that had risen from their seats freezing in place now that he was going to make his opinion known. In contrast to the near-violence of his aura and incandescent anger with the arks that were attacking his frigate, Leon spoke calmly, quietly, measuring every word carefully since he knew what he was going to say was risky. But he earnestly thought it was the right choice to make.

That, and he despised the thought of waiting for his enemy to come to him.

"We have been challenged," he said.

"We will meet that challenge in battle. Prepare the fleet, we fly out as soon as we are able, and will intercept the enemy before they reach our new city." His words were final, and they silenced all arguments. Split-Knuckle grinned like a cat who caught a mouse while Ustaloch looked more uncertain. Both attitudes Leon could see reflected in many others, but as everyone began moving to fulfill his order, those emotions were buried beneath determination.

Whatever they thought of his chosen strategy, it was time to ready themselves for battle.

From a small pavilion erected on the slope of the Nine-Peaked Mountain, shaded by the giant redwoods and nestled amidst the grass and shrubs, Leon stared to the north. He could just barely make out the enemy fleet as it pursued Raindrop, some ten thousand miles or so away. With them drawing closer and his fleet almost ready to fly out and meet them, he estimated that they would enter battle within six hours. Strangely, he didn't see the mysterious fleet slowing down at all.

Raindrop was fast enough that she had pulled just far enough ahead of her pursuers that she was no longer in danger of being hit by any of the enemy's strange Lances, but the fleet didn't stop. He couldn't imagine they couldn't see his fleet readying itself to intercept them, but still, the enemy fleet didn't slow in the slightest. Leon wondered why they were so confident, or if they were simply unfathomably stupid.

He was going to assume they were stronger than they looked, an assumption that was strengthened by his observations of their weaponry. Their Lances appeared to be from a completely different technical lineage than his—those Lances he'd designed were based on using lightning magic to propel a metal bolt at great speeds. The bolt could be enchanted to further increase its devastating power, such as adding fire enchantments to make it explode, or other enchantments to weaken whatever material it hit.

Other Lances, mostly those descended from Thunderbird Lances salvaged or aped by the Empires and Ten Tribes, were fire-based, hurling molten metal or stone at tremendous speeds. One type of short-range Lance that Leon vividly recalled used on Jormun's ship during the Serpentine Isle campaign were enormous flamethrowers mostly used in ship combat on the open seas, though a few of his MALLs and smaller arks were outfitted with similar weapons. In short, lightning and fire were used by his Lances.

These mysterious arks, however, appeared to use some kind of earth magic, with the arks launching boulders that exploded in the air as they closed on their target. Some of the boulders detonated into showers of ice that seemed to try and enclose Raindrop when it was closer, but those shots grew considerably less frequent the further Raindrop pulled away from the pursuing fleet. While contemplating their strange Lances, Leon closely watched the enemy fleet as it moved.

He found it rather notable that they didn't seem to be flying in much of a formation, with not much apparent thought put into where their arks were placed or how far apart they were spaced.

'Unprofessional,' he harshly judged. The arks, he noticed, all appeared to have different designs, too. Some were longer and sleeker, while others were stubbier and wider. No two arks looked entirely the same, indicating they were all built by different hands and according to different design philosophies—though all were using largely the same weapons.

'Retrofitted arks?' he wondered.

'Are these all from one people? Or is this a fleet of vagrants and exiles? Pirates, maybe?' He sighed and halted his ruminations. He didn't have anything else to go on other than speculation, but he was sure that despite his intentions, some of the enemy might survive the coming battle, and he could simply ask them about their origins before making them a head shorter.

Though the enemy wasn't flying in a sane formation, he thought he could spot a couple of arks that looked like they may be the flag vessels of the fleet. They were both on par with his heavy cruisers if he could rely on their size and armament to make such assumptions, but one was just a little bigger and shinier, with more polished outer plates. The other was made of darker metal and was less eye-catching as a result.

'My target,' he thought as he stared at the shiny ark. As he glared at the oncoming fleet, Elise approached him from the side and took his arm. He looked from the fleet to her, his eyes also momentarily flickering to Cassandra, Maia, and Valeria, his only other companions in the pavilion.

"You look excited," Elise said in a somewhat reprimanding tone.

"That keen to go out and fight, are you?"

"Why wouldn't he be?" Cassandra asked before Leon could respond.

"A good battle is good for a King! Victory will keep his legitimacy strong!"

"A lot of people are going to die for that victory," Elise replied. Cassandra scoffed, but it was Maia who answered while wearing a dismissive sneer.

"They shouldn't have come, then. They own their deaths."

"Battles are rarely one-sided," Valeria stated.

"Many of our people will die."

"That's what they're here for," Cassandra responded.

"Peace is secured through blood. If our enemies think we're weak, then they'll attack. If they think we're strong, they'll leave us alone. Fighting a battle is the best way to show strength, and while it's best to minimize casualties among our people, some will inevitably die. But they'll die ensuring that no one threatens us again!"

"Bare your fangs and the monster will think twice before attacking," Maia agreed.

"It would be better if it weren't needed," Elise grumbled.

"Not everyone thinks like that," Cassandra replied.

"Some think so differently that they might perceive a willingness to negotiate as weakness, or valuing peace as weakness. And showing weakness is to invite conflict with such people."

"Our enemies must be defeated," Elise conceded with a sigh.

"But don't blame me for wishing we didn't have such enemies in the first place."

"We didn't ask for them to come here," Leon finally said.

"But they're here now." He pulled Elise a little closer.

"I don't wish for unnecessary death, you know that. But when a threat emerges, we cannot shy away. We must confront it. Challenge it. Kill it with such prejudice that no one tries again." Elise smiled with some bitterness.

"Do what you must, husband." Leon nodded and turned his gaze back northward. Turning to Valeria, Elise all but ordered, "Keep this one safe, will you? Without a good guiding hand, he's likely to charge the enemy without thought." Smirking, Valeria replied, "I don't think there's a power in the universe that'll stop Leon from attacking the enemy leader."

"It's a sound strategy," Leon protested, his attention drawn once again away from the enemy fleet.

"Cut the head from the enemy and they'll run. This is basic warfare!"

"They might be operating under similar strategies," Elise warned.

"If they notice that you're leading our response, then you'll draw their attacks." Leon grinned.

"Let's see if they get close…"

"Arrogance can be hot under the right circumstances," Elise said with a playful smile, though her expression grew more serious when she continued, "but when you're going to war, I'd be much more assured if you spoke with more caution." Leon smiled at her, though he was unwilling to argue in circles.

"I'll come back," he promised her.

"No need to worry about that. Whoever these people are, on the other hand… their families might have to get used to their absence…" His gaze hardened with anger. He'd make them pay for disturbing his people.

"Just come back to me," Elise said, drawing him into a deep kiss. She repeated the gesture with Maia and then gave Cassandra and Valeria hugs. They received word not long after that the fleet was ready. It was much sooner than he'd expected, but it was time for Leon's first real test in the Nexus. He grinned viciously. He felt he would pass with flying colors.