To a mage of Antipatra’s power, donning her armor could’ve been done in a flash, taking less than a second. It might as well have been instantaneous if she so wished.
But as she stared at her armor before her, she began putting it on by hand, instead. It was a relatively short ritual, but one that felt more necessary with every passing second.
With shaking hands, she covered herself in the finest Torreni linen, all red. The rustle of the cloth did little to overpower the roar of blood in her ears, nor could it hope to quell the intense thumping of her heart within her chest. A glance at the mirror in her changing room showed her as she had always seen herself, no matter how much power she’d attained: human.
Her fingers trembled as they brushed against her long aketon, all red and trimmed in fiery gold. It brushed her chin at the top and hung just above her knees. Made of the finest fire-eyed buffalo wool, secured across her front with straps of leaping lion leather and Aurichalcum buttons, and glimmering with Lumenite threads woven amongst the fibers, she glimmered like the sky at dusk, when the higher domain turned red, and stars began to show themselves. Enchantments within even this layer were great enough that she was practically untouchable already.
The heat of this padded layer brought her some measure of calm, but her heart still raced, and she still felt a tremendous weakness in her arms and legs. When she stole another look at the mirror, she saw a girl that she’d thought she’d long ago ceased to be. Water in her eyes, threatening to spill. Hair, long and barely tamed in a tight bun. Her raiment gleaming like she was about to go to a warrior-themed ball, not face off against the single most dangerous monster that she’d ever faced.
She tore her eyes away, returning them swiftly to her armor. For a moment, she thought she heard a scream echo in her ears. It curdled her blood and sent a chill down her spine, but it was one she’d heard many times in her dreams. There was only one reason why she never slept anymore, and it was that scream.
She blinked rapidly to relieve her stinging eyes and restore her vision. To lend herself strength, she laid a hand on cold metal; the hauberk and chausses of the next layer of her armor.
Scales, each one smaller than a quarter of her smallest nail, woven together with spectacular intricacy, and fitting her body like a glove. Soon, she was clad in these scales from shoulder to ankle, save for a few places around her joints. Each of these scales had been torn from a large red dragon during Kamran’s invasion of Arushae centuries ago. The largest scales were more suited for outer armor, with some of the largest scales being large enough that they could almost act as shelter; these scales, however, were some of the smallest and lightest from the creature’s body, and while still practically impenetrable, they weren’t quite as tough as the larger scales.
Their weight brought her steadiness. She needed to use her magic to ensure all the straps were properly tightened, and then inspected herself to ensure that the enchantments were all functioning correctly and not interfering with any from the other layers. When she was finished, something that was looking much more like a warrior stared at her from the mirror, the scales shining almost like mirrors themselves in the room’s light.
She could feel her heart steady with every layer she laid atop herself. Her hands and knees remained jittery, however, and she began donning the final layer using her magic power rather than trusting her faltering fingers.
Shining red Adamant awaited her on the table. It was her finest armor, a set that she hadn’t thought she’d ever need to wear; she’d dreaded the day that she’d have to wear it instead of her usual armor. It had been forged by Kamran himself, or so he claimed, and would see her to victory over any opponent.
A promise like that was one she cherished and never wished to test.
The certainty of having that armor at her disposal, ready to use in any circumstance, was something she now abandoned.
The cuirass was first. The red Adamant was telekinetically lifted from the table, and the engravings sparkled with inlaid Lumenite. The very image of the Great Lord himself, striking down the King of the Primal Gods, would protect her front, while his three luminous sons would watch her back. A material of the highest rarity shone in their eyes: Heartwood amber, taken from the Heartwood trees that acted as graves for the greatest of humanity’s champions. She felt their will fill her; the threats they faced and conquered were so great that the monster she faced was but a shadow of their malevolence. They faced the Primal Gods and Devils themselves, while she had only to slay a single man, his blood tainted by the depravity of his forebears.
Her greaves came next, powerful runes etched into the Adamant that had likewise been inlaid with Lumenite. She felt her legs steady and strength return to her. Cuisses, with more runes of power, came next, covering her thighs.
Vambraces, rerebraces, gauntlets, and pauldrons followed, until her arms were covered from finger to shoulder. Her hands began to steady, but she could feel a tingling in her skin, a cruel anticipation of pain.
The wet tearing of meat and sharp cracking of bone again reached her, echoing from her memory like immortal specters. She closed her eyes, a tear squeezing past her eyelid as, for just a moment, she saw her father on the floor of the family hut, bleeding from the stump of his neck, his head rolling across the floor until it reached the wall, where it stopped, his lifeless eyes finding her where she hid beneath the bed. She heard her mother screaming as a beast in human form took what he wanted from her body—pleasure, then blood and meat.
Her fingers slipped as she lifted her helmet. She almost dropped it, but she caught it with magic before it could be dirtied by her spotless floor. She returned it to her hand, the weight and heat of the hellish Adamant stilling her fingers. It would cover her face entirely, leaving not even an eye slit. It had been carved to resemble a face—Kamran had claimed it to be Queen Mintiri, one of the Great Lord’s greatest allies, but the helmet was twisted almost demonically, and the Heartwood amber in the carven eyes was an almost dirty brown compared to the richer gold of the amber in her cuirass.
But for the armor’s purpose, Antipatra thought it apt despite the implicit disrespect to one of the most dignified and refined members of Khosrow’s coalition. She caught her reflection again, and the girl she saw was almost lost in the armor. Just one more piece, and she would disappear entirely, replaced only by a warrior, one who felt no fear or mercy, one who was ready to face the greatest danger that the universe had seen in generations.
She thought of the Doomfire, the silver-blue lightning, and the fearsome black lightning that the mongrel wielded. Her heart skipped a beat, but as she lowered the helmet over her head, her transformation was complete, and only the warrior remained. Her hands twitched, and her heart fluttered, but she was strong again; strong and ready for war. Ready for the moment that she would face him again, when she would face his twisted powers and vindicate the honor of humanity that she championed.
Her duty settled about her shoulders and around her neck as she tore herself away from the mirror. She would not fail now. She couldn’t.
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The bridge hummed around her; magic flowing through magical circuits, enchantments alerting operators of control consoles to various things, and the quiet conversation of her bridge officers ensuring that everything was ready, all contributing to the din. No one met her gaze, and she was sure that part of it was the terrifying helmet—no one wanted to look at an ancient saint’s face contorted in furious agony, not even that saint’s detractors.
She quietly listened to the reports from the rest of the fleet as she waited for the final checks to finish. Eirenaios was confirming with his arks and Strategoi their places in the coming battle; Aristarchos was complaining to her about how long it took Makarios to finally bring him the monster’s bombs; and Makarios himself was almost silent as his arks checked in.
Antipatra paid little attention to the organized chaos around her. Her heart beat calmly, but her stomach felt like it had sunk into her toes. A chill had found her despite the heat of her ark, her armor, and her own aura. Still, when the time came, she gave the order to depart. Teleportation portals opened, and her vast armada ventured from the light of the nearby plane into the pitch darkness of the Void. As Flame of the Mountain’s prow pierced the dark blue halo of its portal, Antipatra couldn’t help but wonder how many of her people were going to see another sunrise.
When her ark reappeared in physical Voidspace, her surroundings were dark. There was no light where they now found themselves, save for what little light that reached them from distant stars, but the sensor enchantments on the ark identified what was around them easily enough. A vast debris cloud—the shattered corpse of a plane, nestled amidst a thin nebula of magically-charged dust. The largest chunk of the former plane formed something of a broken backdrop, vast pieces carved from it and flung into the Void above it, where they then shattered into the asteroids and debris that now littered the area.
The field was dense, making it difficult for any fleet to get through. There were countless places to hide even the largest arks, and somewhere within, Antipatra knew that Leon had sequestered himself.
The rest of the armada soon appeared, but they had spread out considerably and now needed to take a few hours to not only pull back into formation, but also to approach the debris field—Eirenaios had been insistent that they appear a good distance away so that their quarry couldn’t ambush them while they were still forming up. As they did so, Antipatra and her Despots and Strategoi contacted each other, though the Strategoi largely remained quiet.
“No arks lost,” Eirenaios reported. “We’re looking good. The situation here looks unchanged from when our scouts found it. Assuming our new friend was truthful, then Leon Raime is somewhere in there…”
“My men are honorable,” Makarios said, clearly offended. “We will find him whom we seek somewhere here.”
Sensing her Despot was about to say something venomous, Antipatra cut in, her tone hard and uncompromising. “There will be no bickering here. You are not children.”
Harsh and blunt, but with how her heart had started to race, she felt it was warranted. Arguing in a private meeting was one thing; arguing in a far more public setting in the midst of an operation was another.
“Aristarchos?” she said as Eirenaios and Makarios fell silent. “What is your status?”
“Ready,” the man said almost numbly.
“You don’t sound ready.”
“I am ready, my Basilissa. Do not let my dejection paint too dark a picture; I would simply rather be studying those fascinating explosives. Perhaps if any other spectacular devices are found, they can be delivered to me without delay.”
The rebuke was subtle enough that Antipatra let it slide, especially since Makarios didn’t rise to the challenge. Still, she agreed with the sentiment—Makarios had dithered for almost two days before sending the bombs, despite his insistence that he’d be hasty. Aristarchos had been close to storming his ark to find them, and Antipatra had been seconds away from calling her newest Strategos to order him to move those bombs immediately when his transport left his ark. All three bombs that he recovered from the dark plane were now in Aristarchos’ hands, but it meant that he hadn’t had much time to study them; Makarios’ scouts had seen Leon’s arks within this debris field mere hours later, and now, after not even two days, Antipatra’s entire fleet had come to finish Leon Raime off once and for all.
“Keep your sensors tuned,” Antipatra warned them after a moment of silence. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened in our last encounter. Anything that has even a trace of magic is to be destroyed. Take no chances.”
An aggressive order, and one that made almost every stone in the debris field a valid target. Still, she thought her sentiment was communicated, and that her sub-commanders would use their own discretion.
She was about to continue when, on the projected screen showing the debris field, she saw her arks firing star-like flares into the field. In a few places, she saw flashes of silver that were far too obviously manufactured to be confused for seams of unmined metal within the tattered remnants of the local plane—Leon’s arks, undoubtedly.
Her adrenaline spiked as alarms started sounding all over her ark. The enemy had been sighted, and everyone had to be ready for violence.
“Begin the operation,” Antipatra ordered, and her fleet accelerated, ensuring good spacing between them so that any missed mines and bombs would take as few of them as possible.
As they drew closer to the debris field, even with little more than a few hints of shining hull within, some of her arks opened fire—literally; their weapons began to burn through the outer asteroids, from the smallest pebble to the largest continent. Most of her arks didn’t follow suit and instead concentrated on spreading out to envelop as much of the debris field as possible, though that would amount to less than she’d hoped given the field’s size.
Still, they left nothing to chance and endeavored to leave Leon Raime no room to hide. This place that he’d fled to hide from her would be his grave.
A flash of silver-blue, however, drew her eye, and her heart sank when she saw what was happening: Leon clearly had no intention of hiding, as he’d appeared in his shining armor, his aura resplendent, his sword sparkling with lightning as he cut a frigate in half. Fire consumed him as the ark detonated, but a moment later, when the fire had been snuffed out by the unforgiving Void, Leon remained, his armor not so much as singed.
His featureless faceplate turned toward Flame of the Mountain and seemed to bore through the many armored and warded decks to find her. She could almost imagine that he was able to physically see her. He was far from Flame of the Mountain, however, and soon turned away. He targeted a dreadnought, one commanded by one of Aristarchos’ Strategoi, and shot toward it.
Antipatra almost let out a sigh of relief, but as he tore into the dreadnought, she realized that she was already late. She swallowed the lump forming in her throat and rose from her command throne. She opened her mouth to speak, but her voice caught in that lump, and she almost choked. Never before had she been so glad that her face was obscured.
After a moment to compose herself, Antipatra told her bridge crew, “There is only one person in this entire fleet who can stand against that monster. And that person is me. I ask all of you to keep your duty in mind and to do as you are ordered. I will fight our enemy in person, and I expect nothing but the highest standard of conduct from every one of you.”
Speaking became easier with every syllable, but as Leon carved deep furrows into the dreadnought, tearing it apart, she knew that she didn’t have the time to wax lyrical. So she cut herself off, turned command of the ark over to the ark’s Captain, put Eirenaios in charge of the fleet as a whole, and launched herself into the Void from the nearest airlock.
Her heart raced again; the calm her armor had lent her was gone in the space of minutes. She had no White Dragon scale to protect herself. Her armor would have to do, but that black lightning…
She knew that she had come to the shore of the Aesii. She could almost feel the sand around her greaves-clad toes. The list of places she would rather be than there, about to cross blades with Leon Raime, was nearly infinite, but of all those places stuffed into the universe, she wished she could return to her family’s hut before the attention of that monster had been drawn. Those childhood years had been her happiest, until they came to a bloody end. She let the memory buoy her confidence; she was the only person who remembered her parents in the entire universe, and she wasn’t going to let that memory fade into nothing. She steeled herself as the dreadnought exploded under Leon’s attacks, killing all of her people within.
It was now time to see if she was strong enough to return to the land of the living from this Aesii shore, or if she would fall into its ghostly waters and take her place amongst the endless hordes of the dead…
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