Chapter 66: Ego Death (Patreon)

The Lord of the Blue Sky stared at the land before him, steadying his horse as it tried to buck from the sight of the grand fires blazing. The fire illuminated his features quite well. He wore lamellar armor. The overlapping plates, dulled by dust and battle, creaked faintly as he shifted his weight in the saddle. His gloved hand rested on the hilt of his saber, fingers idly tapping against the worn leather grip. He watched the sight of the blazing fire with a quiet patience, his gaze unreadable beneath the shadow of his fur-lined helm. A giant crown of blue feathers, easily standing two feet tall, rested atop his helm.

“It seems that whoever rules this land has decided to do our work for us!” the Lord shouted.

The men behind him laughed and cheered. He had intended to strike at the Kingdom of Ravenveld first, whose wide-open and fertile grasslands would be the most suitable for his herd, and whose halls possessed the most wealth to satiate the desire of his men for loot. Now… now, all of the grass, all of the fields of crops, and the majority of the villages ahead were being reduced to ash. He might be able to wait to pass, but their army thrived on momentum, on the unrelenting charge. They would starve faster than their opponent if they tried to press on into this scorched earth.

And even once the embers cooled… there would be no bridges, no grass for horses to graze upon, poisoned water… and worse yet, his men would receive no glory or gold. He would never admit it, but Lazzaro van Ravenveld had effectively halted his advance. To proceed would be to consign his army to doom.

“I want little to do with ashes,” the Lord declared, turning his horse. “We shall descend on them later, when all around them have been brought to heel.”

The men enthusiastically agreed with his assessment, but as the Lord hurried his horse, a bitter taste flavored his tongue. He would have to deal with the neighboring realms before descending back on Ravenveld.

He would be sure to leave none living to recount this temporary victory.

***

“He didn’t bother proceeding at all?” Willem asked the scout.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” the man kneeling said. “His armies have turned eastward, where they now descend upon the kingdoms of Osterveld, Dravenhoek, and Zuydermark. Already, the forces of Osterveld clash with the armies of the Lord of the Blue Sky.”

Willem laughed, then looked to Junior. “Boy gives up quick, don’t he? Heheh. Alright. Go on,” he told the scout, who quickly left them.

Willem and Junior stood on the ramparts of a fortification overlooking the river. This was going to be the site for the kill zone, but instead, the Lord of the Blue Sky had turned his eyes elsewhere. Willem couldn’t deny it was the better move. They’d used mages to set fires to just about everything. Scorched earth, on a grander scale than anything that came before it.

“You burnt up half of the countryside,” Junior said incredulously, arms crossed. “I’m starting to wonder just whose side you’re really on.”

“If I had napalm plus those mages… could’ve been a lot smoother,” Willem mused. “But we evacuated most of the people, and that’s the most important part. Land can be reworked, but healthy adults take about eighteen or so years to grow back.”

“That’s some calculus,” Junior noted grimly, eyes scanning the countryside.

“We got as much food as we could, and now we have a displaced labor force who’ve witnessed firsthand the atrocities of the Lord of the Blue Sky. We’ll have to start rationing food immediately, but I’d say they’re going to be sufficiently motivated to help me in digging trenches. And good thing, too—since he’s not going to charge from the north, we’re going to need to dig a hell of a lot more of them.” Willem turned, then tapped Junior’s chest. “Aura should be great for digging ditches, don’t you think?”

“Don’t know,” Junior noted, tapping his foot against the ground. “We’re deviating away from what’s known.”

“That’s life,” Willem acknowledged. “But in my eyes… the Lord of the Blue Sky just royally screwed himself. He gave us more time to prepare. His armies are going to be weakened, too. And when they finally do cross over into Ravenveld… he’s not going to encounter a simple moat. He’s going to encounter miles and miles of staggered trenches.”

“Why the hell are you so insistent on trenches?” Junior asked. “The horses can just move around them.”

“If they do, it’ll be because the trenches are designed to funnel them toward a particular location,” Willem said certainly. “I fought in a jungle back in my day. Didn’t use these kinds of trenches, but I know the principle well enough. They were essentially designed to handle shelling, cannonfire, gunfire—and all of that is a lot more intense than their so-called ‘aura bow.’

“You find an open field flanked by hills or mountains, and you dig great gashes into it,” Willem continued. “Each of the trenches… I’ll make ‘em about five feet wide, six feet deep. Throw caltrops all around, disguise them with branches, leaves, whatever. In some of the trenches, you put spikes, traps—won’t need more than sharpened sticks. The horse’s own momentum will impale it. In other trenches, you stash people. Pikemen… well, they’ll just stand up, stab anyone that tries to approach. In the most pivotal locations, you stash aura users.”

“They prefer plains, but that doesn’t mean cavalry can’t climb hills,” Junior pointed out.

“That’ll be your job,” Willem said. “Intercepting any that decide fighting in the trenches isn’t worth it. They’re largely light cavalry. If you have a defensive position on a hill, I think the advantage is yours. Since the Lord of the Blue Sky likes to lead charges, I think you shouldn’t have any trouble killing him… if the trenches don’t get him, that is.”

Junior couldn’t necessarily disagree, crossing his arms thoughtfully. “Theory is different from practice, Senior.”

“Then let’s start practicing,” Willem said, patting the man’s shoulder. “Teach me aura. I need to dig holes.”

“Learning aura for petty labor,” Junior lamented. “I’m a little embarrassed to know you, Senior.”

***

“Usually, we’d need to go through a long process about how you cultivate aura… but as it turns out, you were born rich,” Junior said, staring at Willem as the carriage rolled onward. “You’ve got me to hold your hand, give you a tremendous inheritance, Senior.”

“Hope you don’t mind if I still call myself a self-made man,” Willem said. “Better for the image.”

Junior brushed past that comment as he continued, “Drawing out aura is a hell of a lot simpler. I’ll teach you as I was taught.”

Willem nodded, focusing.

“Close your eyes and draw a slow, deep breath, allowing the air to fill your lungs completely, then exhale, releasing tension with each breath,” Junior said.

“Yoga? Really?” Willem frowned.

“Just do it,” Junior instructed.

Willem obeyed, muttering all the while.

“Focus inwardly, visualizing your aura as a glowing, pulsating golden energy that resides within your core,” Junior stressed. “With each inhale, feel this energy grow, expanding from your heart and radiating outward. Extend your hand before you, fist closed, and imagine your aura flowing through to your fingertips—a visible light that can be seen as shimmering tendrils or a faint mist. Once you do, it—”

Junior was cut off by a violent golden explosion in Willem’s hand, which spread out and devastated the carriage all around. Junior’s aura rose up to defend him, but great holes appeared in the carriage. Beyond, the army marching along with them peered in confusedly. Willem, alarmed by the noise, opened his eyes and looked around.

“—should manifest,” Junior finished.

“Did… I do that?” Willem asked.

“No, you missed the real culprit,” Junior said. “The hell do you think, Senior?”

“That was like the conclusion to a period of prolonged abstinence,” Willem said. “Is it really that easy? Just like that, I’m one of you freaks now?”

“No,” Junior said. “Now that you’re aware of the forces within, you need an ego.”

“No problems there,” Willem cut in.

“No, I’m talking about something else,” Junior said, shaking his head. “Some people call it a fighting style, but in reality, it’s an ego. It’s the well-trodden pathway through which aura flows through the body, charted long ago by our ancestors. They’re commonly passed down through generations. I learned the Brugh ego. Arend learned the Rook ego, while Viviene and Hans have the Dubois ego.”

“I feel all weird,” Willem complained, looking around. “I feel… I feel like… I don’t know. It’s like I’m magnetic, and you’re a polar opposite. Feel something pushing against me.”

“You’re gaining a perception of the aura of others,” Junior explained. “You’ll get used to it. It’ll help you figure out how dangerous people are. For now, focus on the ego. As suggested, it’s a mental thing. If it wasn’t, you’d already have mine. You need to develop an ego in your mind. The Brugh ego is infinitely too difficult for a beginner to learn. I’ll give you one that Tielman taught us as children to train once the carriage gets to its destination.”

“Why not now?” Willem asked.

“Because it’s dangerous,” Junior said. “Your little tension releaser spewed everywhere. I’d rather not walk.”

***

Willem Junior came to a very unpleasant realization about Willem Senior. In terms of developing an ego, the man was a mental midget.

He’d thought it would be a very simple matter to introduce him to the ego that Tielman had taught him as a child. It could be considered a mental exercise no more difficult than counting backward—sure, it was unconventional, but once the mechanism was discovered the child generally picked up pretty quickly.

Jansen was impatient, and in more than a few ways, resistant to changing his thinking. Junior supposed that living as long as he had predisposed him toward narrow-mindedness, but he assumed that because the man was so willing to analyze and examine new businesses, it wouldn’t be a problem. He was entirely wrong.

It took Willem Jansen a week to learn the ego that Junior had learned in a day at his father’s instruction.

Still, he couldn’t entirely disparage the man. In matters of commanding troops, Willem Jansen was incredibly efficient. His voice and style of command was, in many ways, better than Junior’s. His ability to lead and dictate menial labor was far superior. Day after day, those trenches were carved into the earth in the designated spots. They were staggered and interspersed throughout pivotal points throughout the Ravenveld countryside, ensuring that even if one set of trenches was overcome, the horsemen wouldn’t have freedom to roam the whole of Ravenveld. In this way, several ‘fronts’ were established, by Senior’s words. Moreover, Senior established protocols of guerilla warfare.

Beyond their borders, the Lord of the Blue Sky achieved tremendous successes against the kingdoms that had been lost to the annals of history. He met armies openly—each time they clashed, it was proven that to engage the nomads in open battle was a fool’s task. The benefit of the trenches meant that only a few men were needed to hold it, and Jansen assured it would stand up better against the aura bows.

The days passed by relentlessly in the Eye of the Sovereign, with news of flawless defeat after flawless defeat reaching them in Ravenveld. Rumors of brutality demoralized the men, but Jansen’s military drill proved an effective stabilizer. That, coupled with the fact that he was in there alongside them digging the trenches with his own two hands, made their army prepared for what came.

After about a month of preparation, word finally reached them. The Lord of the Blue Sky intended on returning to Ravenveld to finish what he started. And the very next day, they saw tremendous clouds of dust in the distant horizon, heralding a charge of the fiercest cavalry of the age. At their helm was the grandiose Lord of the Blue Sky, his crown of blue feathers striking an imposing figure.

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