Chapter Eleven
1000 Hours, 10 Erntemon, 1065 (Fifth Age of the Empire)
City of High Keep
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
'There was only one person,' the soldier said.
'One?' Orlon said. 'Are you sure?'
'Yes,' the soldier said, his eyes flickering with pain. 'Though I am hesitant to call it such.'
'Why was it not defeated?' Orlon said. 'A single person against a full complement of my most experienced soldiers, and we were the only ones to lose people?'
The soldier flinched at the rebuke but swallowed and continued, saying, 'Because I don't think it was a person, my lord. It moved with such speed and quickness, was in possession of such strength, that it could tear through our forces with ease and with just a single blade. A knife.'
He was standing before the emperor in High Keep's senate building, the various lords and ladies who held positions of power within the Empire seated around him and listening to the testimony of what had happened four days ago in the northern military posting of Marlton. Close to three-hundred soldiers dead, or maimed, or traumatised so badly they would not pick up a weapon again.
All at the hands of a single person, this Spor-Ten.
Ather was sat in his reserved spot, next to the emperor to denote his high standing and importance, along with Saria and Efla, who all listened with rapt attention as the soldier went on to describe the initial assault on the tavern, of how the Spor-Ten had blinded them all before rushing upstairs to rescue two of the slaves taken from the strange encampment on the western plains.
A third slave was also missing but it was safe to assume she had been rescued by the Spor-Ten as well, begging the question of how the Spor-Ten had known three of the people it was seeking were there. Luck was one possibility but Ather was reluctant to believe that was the case. Everything he had seen and heard so far suggested the Spor-Ten was very advanced, enough to remove the need for such things.
From the tavern, the Spor-Ten and its freed captives went into the forest with the bulk of Marlton's garrison giving chase shortly after. Now the soldier paused and looked away from Orlon, the traumatised look on his face growing stronger as the memories of what horrors had befallen him resurfaced. Ather had read a report on the matter and it failed to paint a pleasant picture.
The Spor-Ten had struck out at the soldiers from the shadows, wiping out whole files of them in the blink of an eye and with nary a sound made beyond the cries of the dying. Soldiers had their guts, their throats, torn open to disgorge the viscera onto the forest floor, often so quickly that the first indication a group was under attack was when their bodies were found by another file.
What few soldiers managed to escape their encounters with the Spor-Ten alive were the few to give a detailed description of what it looked like. Efla listened to them intently and worked to create a rough recreation, holding it up when she was done for the soldier to look at. He flinched and turned away, nodding once, and carried on detailing the attack.
Ather glanced over at the drawing and saw a truly monstrous thing easily eight or nine feet tall if the scale Efla had added was accurate, its figure adorned with horns and spiny protrusions and a gaping maw lined with sharp teeth. A wicked dagger was clutched in an oversized hand, more a claw, curved and serrated and dripping with blood.
'Now do another sketch,' Ather said softly. 'But take away the demonic features and make the height more reasonable.'
Across from them was Lord Kella with Nigh-Oh-Mee at his side, and it hadn't escaped Ather's attention the faint smirk on her face when she caught a glimpse of Efla's drawing. Obviously the soldier's trauma had coloured his perception of what the Spor-Ten really looked like. It also hadn't escaped his notice the growing bulge around her midsection.
Efla nodded a few times and got to work, scaling back the features from her first drawing and omitting certain other details. As she worked, the soldier got to the final part of the report of how they found the trail of the escaped slaves and pursued them, and of how the Spor-Ten had fought with great tenacity to keep the two parties apart.
'It carried this strange device,' the soldier said. 'that it held like this, in both arms. It would point it at someone, there would be a bang, and they would be killed or wounded.'
'A bang?' Ather said.
'Yes, sir,' the soldier said. 'It reminded me of a cannon, but much smaller and I don't recall ever seeing them place a new round into the muzzle to reload it. In fact, they seemed able to fire this device almost continuously without reloading.'
Mella was sat next to Orlon and she gave him a scathing look at the mention of this. She had made it known to him and Ather her opposition to further enraging the Spor-Ten given their abilities next to the Empire, a feeling that seemed to only increase with this new revelation. Then it got even worse.
'Just as we were readying another attack on their position this, I don't know, metal creationcame crashing through the tree tops,' the soldier said.
'Metal creation?' Mella said as she leaned forward.
The soldier nodded then shrugged, saying, 'I only caught a glimpse, ma'am, but it wasn't a living creature. I can assure you of that. Like the Spor-Ten, it moved and sounded like no living being I've seen before.'
'And how did it move?' Mella directed this to the soldier but her gaze was fixed on Orlon, and Ather to a lesser extent.
'Well, it can fly,' the soldier began. 'The first we knew of its existence was when it burst through the forest canopy and landed before us, but it has no wings. At least, none that flapped that I could see. Once the slaves and the Spor-Ten were on, it just floated upwards amid this awful shrieking noise. Then, it pivoted on an axis and took off to the southwest.'
'To the southwest?' Ather said. 'Do you have anything more specific?'
'No,' the soldier said with a shake of his head. 'As I mentioned, I only caught a glimpse of this metal creation as it came in to land, and of the general direction it went. I wish I knew more, Lord Ather.'
'You're telling us more than we knew before,' he said, waving away the concerns. 'How big would you say this creation is?'
'A hundred feet long, maybe?' The soldier scratched his head in thought. 'Maybe eighty feet wide. That's how big the gap it created was, right?'
He looked to an officer that had arrived late and chronicled everything else, getting a nod of affirmation back.
'Then yes, eighty feet wide,' the soldier said.
'And you're saying it flew?' Mella said. 'This metal creation that is a hundred feet long, eighty wide, and who knows how tall, managed to fly despite crashing into several dozen trees and taking on four fully grown adult passengers?'
'Yes, ma'am,' the soldier said. 'Myself and several others in my file saw the same thing.'
'My examinations of the site confirm this,' the officer added. 'A large object, roughly eighty feet wide, crashed into the trees from above before rising up again. My troops scoured the whole area but could find no evidence of heavy lifting gear, should the enemy be trying to fool us.
'As unusual as the report is, it is factually accurate.'
'Thank you,' Mella said. 'You are both dismissed.'
She waved them away and ignored the thunderous look from Orlon at having his authority usurped like that, rising to address the assembled senate as the two soldiers departed from the room
'Once more our enemy showcases a new capability that far outstrips anything we can muster,' she said. 'First was their craftsmanship, then the destruction of both New Bridge and Lake Dam, and now this assault on Marlton that ended with casualties only for us! Three-hundred experienced troops gone, at the hands of but a single person.'
'I refuse to believe one person did all this,' Orlon said. He rose to stand level with his wife, turning to address the senate himself. 'No soldier is capable of wreaking so much havoc in so short a timeframe by themselves, not even one of the Sanga. I have read the reports and our soldiers give conflicting reports and impossible timings, of the Spor-Ten being able to traverse vast distances in seemingly the blink of an eye.
'Rather, I believe this to be the work of a small group of people taking advantage of the fog of war to make the actions of many seem like the actions of a few, even one, to incite fear into us.'
'And what of the device that could kill our soldiers with a bang?' Mella asked. 'Or of the flying creation?'
At this Orlon faltered, because there really was no feasible way for anyone to fake such a thing. The miniature cannon could be nothing more than a crossbow being mistaken for something else, the banging the soldiers heard really the releasing of its string, and the apparent lack of reloading could be attributed to multiple shooters.
Orlon was right in that the fog of war could have caused the soldiers to misinterpret details, or miss them entirely. If the enemy was trying to build up the myth of the Spor-Ten then it would take a single member dressed menacingly in heavy armour, and a dozen others dressed to match the forest to hide from sight.
But Mella was right also. Nobody was capable of making anything fly with their current level of technology, let alone something made out of as much metal as was being suggested. It just wasn't possible, and yet the Spor-Ten had done so and it had managed to rescue them and the slaves.
Ather wasn't one for considering the possibility of defeat or surrender, but even he had to wonder if victory against the Spor-Ten really was achievable.
Around this time, though, laughter began filling the senate room before anyone could start to discuss or argue the merits of continuing or escalating this strange war they found themselves in. All eyes swivelled to where Lord Kella was sat, and in particular to where Nigh-Oh-Mee was seated next to him. She was grinning despite it all, laughing too, with a spark of defiance in her eyes that hadn't been there the first time Ather saw her.
'This is just the work of one,' she said in Lekian that had also gotten better. 'A single Spor-Ten did all that. A single Spor-Ten kill hundreds of troop. A single Spor-Ten. More will come if you keep me and others prisoner, and bring with them weapon that can destroy this city by fire.
'They will not stop until all are free!'
She jumped to her feet and shouted this directly at Orlon who recoiled slightly at the fervour which seemed to have gripped Nigh-Oh-Mee, prompting Kella to grab hold of her collar and force her back into her seat but Nigh-Oh-Mee kept laughing at the apparent misfortune set to fall upon the Empire.
Orlon looked at Ather for help but got a shrug back. If Nigh-Oh-Mee's words were to be believed, and the passion with which she had spoken leant itself to them being true, then a lone Spor-Ten had managed to cut down three-hundred soldiers by itself over a matter of hours with nothing more than a knife. If more were to appear in the Empire, it could spell disaster for them all.
But to try and appease the Spor-Ten meant to admit defeat. Whether they knew or not, the people in that camp had infringed upon the Empire's sovereign territory by settling there, and their rescuers had only further worsened the situation by choosing to attack rather than negotiate for their release. They were in the wrong here, not the Empire, so it made no sense for them to kneel in defeat before such a small group.
It made for a perplexing situation. They couldn't admit defeat, but it looked like they couldn't win, either.
'It what this slave says is true, we may well soon be party to the destruction of the Empire,' Mella said, gesturing to Nigh-Oh-Mee as she continued to cackle and grin. 'The enemy is obviously small in number, but for how much longer? She seems confident more Spor-Tens will arrive, and bring with them more destructive devices the likes of which we most likely cannot fathom.
'Would we see our home destroyed for less than two-hundred slaves?'
She turned to the assembled senate with an imploring look, begging them to weigh the balances. Some seemed to agree with her, but only some. Most others switched their gazes to Orlon who waited for his wife to sit back down before speaking again.
'It doesn't matter how many slaves we took from them,' he said. 'Or if the Empire does fall. What matters is that these people insulted us, disrespected our sovereign lands, and refused to even come before us and admit their wrongdoing. They have no honour and I will not bow before such barbarians.'
'You would risk our homes for such a thing as honour?' Mella said. 'No, pride. Pride is what drives this decision, isn't it?'
'Call it what you will,' Orlon said. 'But if you wish to prostrate yourself before barbarians of low birth, then you are free to do so. I will not.'
He rose and stood in the centre of the room, saying, 'Thus, I move to propose a full mobilisation of our armies to counter this threat. Those in favour?'
It was little more than a show. As emperor, Orlon could authorise the mobilisation of the army as and when he saw fit without seeking approval from the senate, which served as more of a forum between the various members so they could discuss issues arising between their fiefdoms. The real purpose of his proposal was to see which members were behind him, and deal with them accordingly.
A chorus of yeas rang out from the crowd with only a few people voting against, and their names were noted by the senate's scribe for later. With that the meeting came to a close and the senators began filing out, their aides following close behind. Ather remained seated, as did Orlon. Mella stormed out of the room without saying another word though plenty were said behind her back by the senators.
'I think our union might well be coming to its end,' Orlon said with an exasperated sigh once the room was empty of everyone else. 'Don't you think?'
'It's not for me to say,' Ather said.
The marriage between Mella and Orlon had been arranged over twenty years ago to solidify an alliance, as were most marriages within the Empire's nobility, but the political balance had shifted enough since then that the reasons behind it were moot now.
Orlon waved the issue away. 'If we are to mobilise the army, we must also know where we need to send it. Do you think you can provide that information?'
'I will certainly try,' Ather said. 'The reports said that metal creation flew southwest, didn't they?'
'They did,' Orlon said.
Ather nodded and moved towards a nearby wall that held a large scale map of the Empire's territory, placing a finger on Marlton's location and sketching a line heading away from it to the southwest with the other. Eventually it reached Krag Peak, and when he placed markers on all the other places the Spor-Ten had struck it created a loose circle around the mountain.
'I'll begin my search around here,' Ather said.
'Very good,' Orlon said. 'Whatever you require, you may have.'
0800 Hours, 12 Erntemon, 1065 (Fifth Age of the Empire)
Forests near Krag Peak
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
The mountain towered two and a half miles above them, its peak capped with pure white snow and sides barren of trees and the like beyond a few hardy specimens, and where Ather strongly suspected the Spor-Ten was hiding out.
Yesterday he and the Order, plus three files of troops, he set up their camp in the nearby forest and rode into the nearby towns asking if they or anyone they knew had seen or heard anything out of the ordinary over the past few weeks. Most of the locals hadn't provided anything useful but a few, mainly those assigned to maintaining the night watch, reported hearing strange noises coming from the mountain, plus maybe some unusual lights around one of the old mines.
They had more to say about the falling star that appeared in the night sky two days ago, a brilliant ball of light streaking in from the east before fading entirely after a few minutes, which was of no use to Ather and he dismissed it entirely.
His stood at the edge of the forest where it gradually gave way to the sloping side of the mountain, staring up at the numerous dark spots where caves and mines were located, plus outcroppings of rocks, plus gorges worn into Krag Peak by centuries of rainfall and snowmelt, all of which would make for perfect hiding spots.
And this was just on the mountain's southern edge. In truth, Krag Peak was a range of three peaks, the tallest of which gave its name to the geographical feature. West of it was Lesser Krag that only rose a thousand metres from the ground, and northeast was Middle Krag that sat roughly between the two in terms of height. The total area all three covered was immense and scouring it would take weeks or months to do properly, but the reports from the night's watch had narrowed the search down to just High Krag, to use its proper name.
Even so, it wasn't going to be an easy task to carry out. The paths and trails that crisscrossed the range were subject to the weather and seasons, and their treacherous nature meant it wasn't uncommon for people to die using them. With luck the same had happened to some of the Spor-Ten's forces.
0800 Hours, July 31, 2555 (Military Calendar)
Marine Camp Rory
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
'Somebody has an idea we're here,' Cobb said as he focused his binoculars on a solitary figure standing at the edge of the nearby forests, noting the plate armour and sword they carried.
'Well, that sucks,' Chavez said, peering through his own set of optics.
'Don't it just,' Cobb said, switching to SATCOM. 'Victoria, I need a thermal scan of the forest to our south. Grids to follow.'
He transmitted the coordinates of where the figure was standing and seconds later, a feed appeared on his HUD to show almost forty individual heat signatures clustered around several fires. A platoon's worth of soldiers which wasn't enough to assault a fortified location in mountainous terrain, but it was enough to act as scouts ahead of such an attack.
Cobb's first instinct was to order an Archer strike on their location but refrained from doing so, knowing it would just draw attention their way. He had no guarantee these people knew for certain they were hidden away on the mountain. They could just be part of a wider effort to find them and similar sized units were spread all across the country right now.
Better for these people to tire themselves out scrambling up and down these mountains than confirm their foe was here.
'Maintain observations on that camp, Victoria,' Cobb said. 'If more people arrive, or the bulk of them head our way, I want to know about it.'
'Copy, Spartan.'
'Make doubly sure our positions are camouflaged as best they can be,' Cobb said to Chavez. 'The longer it takes for them to find us, the better.'
Events had conspired against them to make retreat a literal impossibility now and until reinforcements arrived on scene, the UNSC troops were committed to their position. They could hold off their foes for a little while but not forever, and certainly not two full weeks even with orbital support.
Cobb fixed his binoculars on the figure again as they stood, hands on their hips, and said, 'Miss us, you bastard.'