Beneath the Dragoneye Moons - Chapter 553: ROUS

Ten years after the Eventide Eclipse returned from the Phoenix Peaks

“Sentinel Dawn. Excellent, I was looking for you.” A young-looking Katerina said the moment I stepped into the command tent. The [Legata’s] curse wasn’t one she could exactly hide from people – she had to delegate effectively everything, including putting on clothes and feeding herself. Fortunately, her [Empire of Nightmares, We Fight In The Shade, We Are Masters Of the Darkness, Rise Up, Shadows of the Legion!] skill was still perfectly serviceable – it was a mass delegation, or so Katerina had speculated.

I personally thought White Dove knew exactly what she was doing, and making sure to keep the Legata in the line of fire.

Part of me was a hair suspicious of the second one – I wondered if she simply wanted an excuse to have her staff feed her grapes at all times.

I half-froze at her greeting, my heart sinking into my boots. That meant trouble.

“Legata.” I saluted. “Where do you need me?”

She pointed to the second-closest town to the Legion on the map.

“Local Ranger team’s reported a, and I quote, ‘biomancied horror’ that they’re unable to take care of. For reasons that elude me and I’ll be following up on later, they’ve elected to contact us to give them a hand instead of requesting a Sentinel from the capital. If it’s outside of their expertise, I want a Sentinel on-hand. I’m dispatching the Fifth Cohort and Tribune Lavender to handle the problem. I envision you as a subject matter expert first to be consulted if they need assistance, a healer second – bring everyone back alive – and lastly, the big hammer if they’re unable to solve the problem themselves. Don’t step in unless you absolutely have to.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“A full Ranger team is already calling for help, and you think it’ll be handled without me?” I asked.

“Rangers… as a team, tend not to be idiots.” Katerina said after a moment. “Any individual one? Yeah, some questionable judgment now and then.”

“Frequently.” Someone faux-coughed in the tent. The corner of Katerina’s lips twitched in amusement. There was a definite rivalry between the Rangers and the Legions, and I’d started my career on the other side of it. While I’d spent significantly more time as a member of the Legion than as a Ranger, my loyalties were still firmly on ‘Team Ranger’.

“Frequently.” She agreed. “Same could be said about any of our soldiers though, so let’s not sling rocks around too hard, yeah? All in all though, Rangers are trained to go to the Sentinels first, so the fact that they’re reaching out to us makes me suspect we’re better suited for the job than a hand-picked Sentinel, so I’m willing to let our people have a crack at it first. Right, Tribune Lavender is probably still forming up, and it’d be a huge morale boost if you made it before they left. You still on for drinks with the rest of command later?”

I nodded, the recent tradition a favorite of Iona’s.

‘See you then.” I agreed.

“Dawn. Bring them back. All of them.” Katerina said without looking up from her table.

I nodded, saluted again, and left the command structure. It took me a moment to swap my gear around – going into a fight, no fancy capes permitted – then I took to the air, blazing [Universal Cure] around me, the daily ‘check up’ on the Legion.

The [Healers] here got plenty of experience on the daily scrapes, sprained ankles and occasional accidents that occurred when around five thousand people were either bored, or training with sharp weapons. I didn’t feel bad in the slightest here that I was giving them a daily ‘once-over’ when I swung by in my morning report. Legions moved and deployed slowly, and my time was valuable. If they didn’t need me for the day, I headed back to Sanguino.

I zipped over to where Tribune Lavender was forming up the Fifth Cohort, silently landing next to her as she ordered everyone into formation. I scanned the soldiers with a smile, catching a dozen familiar eyes past their helmets, and noting a new-yet-familiar face.

Nix.

Well, at least he’d listened to some of my advice and joined the Sixth Legion. He looked way too excited at seeing me, and his line leader smacked the back of his helmet.

… Were we seriously letting kids join the Legions? Although, wait. I scrunched my eyebrows up as I calculated.

He wasn’t really a kid anymore, was he?

Fuck.

I swear he’d been seven like, three days ago! Where did the time go!?

“… Once again, we are going on a live excursion.” Lavender shouted, her [Standard-Bearer] ensuring she was heard by all eight centuries in the Cohort. “We’re heading to Massa, where the local [Ranger] team will let us know more. Sentinel Dawn, would you like to add anything?” She asked.

I stepped up a bit, automatically starting to take in a deep breath to project my voice before remembering the [Standard-Bearer].

“I am here primarily as an expert in the field of biomancy, and secondarily as a [Medic].” I said softly. “You are fully capable of handling the problem yourselves, and I will be deeply disappointed if I need to start firing off Radiance attacks to bail you out. Tribune Lavender will be the one expressing that displeasure.”

There we go. Some reassurance on my part, coached in language they all understood, and hopefully the threat of Tribune Lavender’s displeasure would keep them all motivated and moving. Otherwise they might get complacent at ‘oh, the Sentinel’s watching over us, we don’t need to try too hard’ or some other nonsense like that.

“Right! Fifth Cohort! Move out!” Lavender shouted with a sharp chop of her short sword. Bugles blared, drums rolled, banners flashed, and like an ancient arthritic rhino, the Cohort moved out.

Armies did not move quickly. At all. I was bored after two minutes of flying above the cohort after the order was given, when some of the centuries were still standing there. Like, yeah, I’d seen and done all this in the Han Empire, but it was a little different when I was free flying above, and my lunch plans with Auri had gone up in smoke.

Actually… that was a good idea. I’d been a Sentinel here in Exterreri far longer than I’d been one in Remus, but the old, ingrained habits died hard. I had a team now, a full group to support me. I didn’t have to do everything alone, and from the pace of things, it looked like the Cohort was going to reach Massa tomorrow.

I dropped down to where Tribune Lavender was.

“Can I help you, Sentinel Dawn?” She asked.

“Yeah. Going to check in with the Rangers in Massa to ensure it’s not an immediate crisis, then fly across the country, pick up a teammate or two of mine, then fly back. You know, an extra round of my morning commute. I figure Sentinels work in teams, I should have my team here.”

Lavender nodded.

“Thank you for the clear communication. When do you anticipate you’ll be back?”

I turned my head all the way around, deliberately squinting at the parade ground where the last few centuries were getting moving. The way my neck twisted had some of Lavender’s personal line looking green.

“Might be back before the Cohort gets on the road?” I suggested lightly. My joke was met with a choked laugh, and Lavender wasn’t as steely as Katerina. She chuckled to herself.

“Gods, what I wouldn’t give for a skill to make everyone march twice as fast. Right, get going.”

I spiraled high up into the sky on six wings, then shot off to Messa. My arrival gave the gate guards a bit of a heart attack, and wind whipped around everyone in line. I interrupted a pair inspecting a wagon.

“Sentinel Dawn for the local Ranger team, please.” I ordered.

The farmer decided not saying a damn thing was the wise move, and the guards looked at each other with frozen shock. I cleared my throat and pointed to the higher level one, with formless and grey eyes constantly shifting, rippling like a breeze was blowing through them.

“Please go get me the local Rangers.” I said, and he took off sprinting.

“Ahem, beggin’ yer pardon yer Sentinelness, but is the city… safe?” The [Farmer] asked. I landed and shot him my best winning smile.

“Yup! Minor hiccup that they didn’t ask me for. I’m basically running some very high-level messages around, because their last communication was terrible and my boss wants to chew them out a little for it.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

All true, and reassuring to boot. Katerina hadn’t explicitly said she was annoyed with them, but ‘biomancied horror’ was so vague a description of the problem as to be utterly useless, and I was starting to get a vague idea how she thought.

“‘Kay. I’ma just askin’ ‘cause I don’t see no cape, and my old granda always said to look fer a cape on a Sentinel, ‘cause if they don’t have it on, it’s all about to go to shit.”

I didn’t let how accurate that was slow me down at all.

“They’re probably going to have a bad day.” I acknowledged. “You’re going to be fine.”

The farmer got waved through the gate – the guard deciding that a full inspection wasn’t needed and loudly talking about problems with a Sentinel was probably worse than any minor goods getting smuggled in – and a few minutes of extremely hasty gate checks later, the original guard and a pair of Rangers hurried up to the gate. I waved to them.

“Hi! Is there a nice little guardhouse we could chat in?” I asked.

A minute later we were sitting down around a table, a large pile of freshly baked cookies on the table.

I had to give the idea to Auri. Free cookies to the guards would result in a never-ending supply of loyal customers.

“Sentinel.” The leader gave me a crisp nod of acknowledgement. “I apologize, we requested a detachment from the Sixth, we didn’t think the issue quite rose to the level of needing your intervention.”

My eyebrows climbed as I nabbed a cookie. Om nom nom.

“I’m War Sentinel Dawn with the Sixth Legion.” I said. “Mostly I’m here because your communication was piss poor and we have no idea what we’re actually up against. I’m mainly going to be on overview and oversight.”

The Rangers relaxed a bit, and the leader leaned in.

“You’re right, our missive probably wasn’t the best. I’ll take responsibility for it, and all of us will be attending lessons from a [Scribe] in the city.”

I tasked part of [Luminary Mind] to figuring out what, exactly, he was saying between the lines. There was clearly something there.

My fingers drummed the table, my gaze boring into him. I didn’t want to have to order him to REPORT! Like he was some grunt – he was a fully fledged Ranger leader like Julius had been – but I would if I had to.

“I will fully admit, we were not present at the start of the problem. We’ve traced the earliest reports of the Problem to quests posted in the Adventurer’s Guild, where the [Sewer Sweepers] couldn’t properly handle an increase in vermin.”

I raised an eyebrow, and the Ranger lifted his hands up and shook his head.

“I know, I know, I also asked them the obvious question – why didn’t they go to the guard? Something about not wanting to look bad, internal competition nonsense.” He waved his hand dismissively.

I got a detailed breakdown of how things had quietly escalated. More rodents, bigger ones, meaner ones. The guard had gotten called in, and when they found themselves struggling, the Rangers had been promptly summoned.

To the Ranger’s credit, they’d neatly handled the source of the problem, finding the [Weaver of Flesh] responsible and promptly subduing, and arresting him, before handing him over for trial. The gears of justice could spin like a Steam Classer was having fun when they wanted to, and he’d been executed shortly after his trial.

“The issue is how many rodents are left.” The Ranger said. “They’re too big and too mean for the guard to handle with their equipment, not unless we wanted dozens, if not hundreds, of fatalities and the streets to be unpatrolled for a week, and forget us trying to hunt them all down ourselves. They’d outbreed us!”

I froze at that last bit.

“Say that again.” I demanded.

“They’d outbreed us?” The Ranger said. My eyes bore into his.

“Have you gotten anything from the [Priests] about a violation of the Divine Decrees?” I asked, wondering if I needed to pick up Sentinel Calamity on the way back. He wasn’t the nicest Sentinel, but when it came to ‘mass murder on a city scale’, well, with his level I assumed he could tailor something that hit only the rats.

“No, we haven’t.” He said. I wasn’t quite ready to relax.

“Have you seen them breeding? Do you know it for a fact?” I fired off. The two Rangers traded looks, the quiet one shrugging.

“No… I was mostly using it as a comedic expression on the situation.” The leader said. “Apologies. If I’d known it was that serious, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

I sagged in relief. Couldn’t quite expect people to know the boundaries of every threat in the world, and I had been tapped partly due to my biomancy expertise. Cohorts were deployed all the time to handle minor problems and I was occasionally with them.

“Go on. Do you have a sample?”

The Rangers did, and it was… frankly piss-poorly done. I could see what the [Weaver of Flesh] had been going for – gigantic rats with a carnivorous dinosaur’s jaw. Some mad scientist slicing with a scalpel revealed just how poorly it was done – the digestive tract was the same, which, fair, rats could eat everything, but I was willing to bet there was no ‘proper’ compensating for the radical change in diet. Add in the lack of [Priests] going nuts, and…

“They’ll all die out in a few years anyway.” I sighed. “But we can’t concede the sewers to rats for a few years.”

One of the Rangers coughed awkwardly.

“Well, using some smoke and some clever use of cattails, we’ve mostly got them out of the sewers, setting them up nicely for the Sixth Legion…”

Oh what fun.

Armed with knowledge about what we were going to face, I left with minimal polite noises. We all saw the problem, knew the job, and I had things to do if I was going to help exterminate a bunch of rodents. The Rangers enthusiastically volunteered to help in the combat line, and I looked forward to seeing them perform. A little bit of cross-discipline rivalry should make that part of the battlefield spectacular. I filled Lavender in on the situation, then shot off to Sanguino.

Along the way I briefly said hi to Ciriel.

Heya Ciriel! Got a bit of a fun job today, we’ve got some biomancied rats running round! Want to watch?

Oooh! Sounds like fun, yeah! She replied back. Give me the details? What’s new?

Only if you tell me the latest divine drama. I replied. The gossip’s literally out of this world!

We traded notes as I headed back, then it was time to work again. Auri was the easiest to find, and I had a new trick. A last-moment [Teleport] shed all my speed, bringing me from faster than the speed of sound to a dead halt in a single moment. It cost more mana, but I had mana to burn, and I couldn’t use it to go faster, no matter how I tried, but it was fun.

I finished my teleport by shamelessly cutting in line.

“Hey Auri!” The spluttered protests of the person behind me were smothered as they took in my level and armor, and they decided that waiting a few more minutes for their order was wise. “We’ve got a thing, probably a bunch of rats to burn, wanna come?”

“BRRRPT!” Auri shrieked in excitement, her wings beating so quickly they caused a stiff breeze to blow through the bakery. “Brrrpt brrpt BRPT BRPT BRTP!!” She shot off a dozen orders to Atlas, who was unofficially part of the team at this point.

The [Guard Captain] and [Phoenix Minder] sighed, stood up, and took his place behind the counter without a protest about how this ‘wasn’t his job’ or anything like that.

“Joined the guard to avoid working in a store my whole life, ended up working in a store my whole life. In hot armor.” He muttered to himself with a smile.

I grabbed Auri and we zipped over to Fenrir’s cave, where I dropped her off to wake up the wyvern and check to see if he was interested in coming along with us. I had to tear my eyes away from my mango grove – oooh, just a bit of pruning here, an examination there, then I could read the afternoon away, surrounded by my beloved trees – but duty called. Iona was the only one who was hard to track, and I eventually almost literally sniffed her out like a bloodhound. Super senses were a pain at times – but when I wanted to know or find something, they were excellent.

“Elaine! Hey!”

“Want to murder a bunch of rats?” I asked after explaining the situation. Iona raised an eyebrow at me.

“I love doing anything and everything with you, but honest question. Do you think I’ll be the slightest bit useful? Rather, will I be helpful, or am I taking the overkill to stupid amounts of overkill?”

“No such thing as overkill!” I gleefully quoted Artemis before thinking about it.

I paused, imagining the situation. 512ish soldiers in a long shield wall stabbing the heck out of the rodents… or 512 soldiers stabbing the heck out of them, and one Valkyrie acting as a one woman [Reaper]?

She gestured to the work she was doing. I sighed.

“Love you, see you later, might borrow Fenrir anyway.”

Iona snorted.

“Okay, if Fenrir’s coming along, I am absolutely overkill.”

Turned out Fenrir wanted to mostly snooze, and Auri and I zipped across Sanguino, back to the Fifth Cohort.

“You’re late!” Lavender teased. “We’re all off the parade ground!”

I rolled my eyes as Auri fluttered up to perch on the standard, puffing herself up as the soldiers cheered her presence. She was well and truly the mascot of the Sixth, and there were occasional rumblings at changing our cognomen to ‘Undying’, both for my healing and Auri’s phoenix-ness. There was an added layer of ‘smoke and mirrors’ I approved of. Anyone who thought we were ‘Undying’ because of Auri would get surprised by my healing, and anyone who thought it was because of me would have an Auri-shaped surprise burning through them.

“Any thoughts?” I asked the Tribune.

“Quite a few, but I’ll see what the scouts have to say before committing to any plans.”

I drifted up, remembering what my job here was supposed to be. Healing, subject matter expert, and only if things went to shit, Sentinel. I got no experience trying to run a Cohort, meanwhile the [Tactician], Tribune, [Scouts], and the hundreds of men and women of the Cohort did get experience by doing their thing. Pressing too hard on the scale now would either bungle things up, as they knew things I didn’t and were experts in areas I wasn’t, or just utterly ruin any experience possible for them.

I did have things I could do to level though, and I grabbed an old favorite book from [Repository of the Magus].

Yup. Leveling. That’s totally what I was up to here.

Nix

Nix trembled in formation. The Cohort was spread out in a thin line, three deep and almost two hundred wide, the classic killing formation they’d drilled in time and time again. A thick mist hung over the valley, unusual for the time of day. Nix suspected a skill, but was too low in both level and rank to know what the Tribune was thinking.

“Shields up!” The [Centurion] barked, and Nix hefted his shield again, cursing as it was already feeling heavy. “Spears down!”

Nix dutifully obeyed, damning his past-self for volunteering to be on the front line, instead of one of the smarter third-line soldiers. Their job was to stab everything they walked over, making sure they were dead.

“It’s just rats.” He tried to convince himself. “Just rats of an unusual size.”

He didn’t believe it. They didn’t deploy the Legion for rats. Rats that they’d herded with steel and blood to a killing ground they couldn’t escape. This was it. No more screwing around. He was going to ask Hasta to marry him once and for all if he got out of this alive.

Nix’s eyes started to drift skyward, to see if Sentinel Dawn was still there.

Was- Was she reading a book?!

“Eyes forward!” His line leader barked, and Nix snapped his eyes back to the ground.

“Cohort, advance!” The order echoed oddly in his ears, but his legs automatically moved on their own, endless months of drills and training proving effective.

Left, right, left right. One foot after another.

Sentinel Dawn would stop reading when the battle started, right? She wasn’t going to ignore them all as they died?

Fireballs started to explode deep in the Mist, waves of heat washing over them. Sweat instantly prickled Nix’s brow as they marched towards the Inferno.

I signed up for the Legions, not firefighting duty! He complained to himself.

A rat almost as tall as he was lunged out of the thick Mist, jaws filled with serrated teeth as long as knives flashing to his face. Nix instinctively stabbed forward, as the soldiers next to him and behind him stabbed.

His shield was in the right place, his helmet strapped on tight, and what few skills he had were active. It wasn’t enough to stop a several-hundred pound rat, who snapped off their spears deep inside its body before bowling him over entirely, breaking through the line and snapping his left arm and ribs with a sickening crunch.

Nix didn’t hear the orders being screamed or see the shortswords coming out, ramming again and again into the rat’s side. His entire life became trying to keep gigantic jaws away from him. Tiny scrabbling paws ripped and tore at his body, his armor crushed under the weight. His hands were sliced cleanly through before the rat bit down. It felt like red-hot knives were ripping into his throat, and convinced he was dead, his eyes drifted to the heavens, ready to meet the gods.

I’m sorry, Hasta. He thought. I’ve failed you.

The rat suddenly got heavy on him, and Nix ignored the kill notification. He was dead. Everyone was shouting and yelling. Geez. Couldn’t he die in peace? Thirteen years of borrowed time, and-

His line commander slapped him in the face as the ruined parts of his armor fell off him.

“GET UP!” He roared, bodily hoisting Nix up, thrusting a spear into his hand. “You do not stop! You do not lie down to rest! You take your spot in the line, and you HOLD YOUR FUCKING GROUND!”

Nix jumped and hurried forward.

This was a weird afterlife.