There was no preamble. No moment of banter or mocking. Just a long, pregnant pause where Arkk issued a few brief commands to get the most wounded out of the battlefield while the knight in golden armor sized up the group before him.
Were Arkk in the knight’s place, he wouldn’t have engaged. Dakka’s group contained a dozen strong orcs and Joanne’s had an equal number of human swordsmen. Alma might not be so imposing but she could hit just about anything with her smaller hand crossbows. Kelsey, large and muscular, nearly matched an orc in size and strength while Lyssa… Well, she wasn’t a feral werecat but she sure fought like one. The knight wouldn’t know how they fought but he should be able to recognize a threat when he saw them.
Not to mention those of Kia’s strike team who were readying weapons and, finally, Arkk and Agnete, both standing with eyes aglow.
The knight in golden armor bounded down the hill with great strides carrying him three paces with every step.
“Electro Deus,” Arkk intoned, slinging his arm forward after building up a moderate amount of magic. Enough to fry a goblin and kill an orc outright.
The lightning struck the dead center of his mass, arcing around his breastplate. It crackled and clung to the man, the magic trying to work its way into Arkk’s target, but failed. In the span of a single step, the lightning faded and dispersed into the air around him. He didn’t even break stride.
Dakka hefted her spiked shield in front of her. “Form up!” she shouted. An unnecessary command with the way her orcs were already moving to defend the weaker members of the group. They got in place, stances wide and stable, just before the knight reached them.
He didn’t stop. He lowered a shoulder, charging forward without hesitation. The moment one of those massive pauldrons struck the front of Dakka’s shield, a small shockwave went off. The nearest three orcs went flying with Dakka, launched from their stable stances into the air. Alma had to dodge and roll to one side to avoid one of the orcs crashing into her.
With the golden knight in their midst, the still-standing orcs pivoted, raising their hammers and axes.
A brash hand knocked one axe into a mace while the knight’s armor took another attack. He grasped one of the spikes on another orc’s helm, likely intending to use it as a handle, only for the spike to snap off with little effort. Although the sudden lack of resistance gave him some surprise, it wasn’t enough to stop his hand from lashing out. A fist caught one of the orcs square in the face. His head snapped back with enough force to shatter the metal of the back of his helmet as it clipped the back of the gorget around his neck.
The employee link snuffed out as the orc collapsed.
The knight didn’t stop. He caught the bottom lip of another orc’s breastplate. With only one hand, he hefted the orc up and over his head, bringing him down on another of the orcs.
“Scutum!” Arkk shouted.
A pulsing violet light surged around the orc just before his head crashed into the ground. The light spread out into the ground with the impact, taking the blow that would have shattered the orc’s skull.
Lyssa’s chain whipped out, whipping around his leg. She pulled but the man’s leg barely budged.
With a kick into one of Joanne’s men’s chest, Lyssa lurched off her feet and into the air. The knight barely seemed to notice that he had brought the werecat along for the ride. He simply moved on to grasp Joanne’s helmet.
Another Scutum saved Joanne from having her face caved in against the knight’s knee. She still stumbled back the moment the knight released her, disoriented and discombobulated. A small corner of Arkk’s mind made a note to thank Priscilla for teaching him a few other old magic spells. Though getting the spells out of her had been like prying open a blacksmith’s vices, he would probably be down two more employees were it not for her.
Even if he managed to intercept every lethal blow with the shielding spell, the fight would still end in their loss at this rate. The gold armor was shrugging off blows from axes that would lop heads from shoulders, bashes from hammers and maces that should have crushed the gold metal, and the less said about Alma’s crossbow bolts, the better. Even though she was aiming for the joints and the gap in the thin slits in the man’s helmet, not one had struck true.
Agnete stood at Arkk’s side, burning hotter than ever and yet unable to act without hitting their own side in the melee. Her flames, even under her control, were too indiscriminate.
Priscilla, though alive, was still in the crater she had made after being thrown down to the valley.
“Desidia,” Arkk shouted, trying another of the spells he had learned from Priscilla. If his lightning wasn’t going to do a thing, he had to find something that did.
This one had an effect. The knight’s fist, about to hit Kia, slowed in mid-air as if a pot of sticky molasses had been dumped over the knight. It didn’t stop him completely but it allowed the dark elf to duck to one side, avoiding the blow with time to spare. She even managed to swing her greatsword straight down on the overextended arm.
It clanged off, chipping a chunk from the blade without so much as scratching the golden armor.
“Need ideas!” Dakka shouted, her axe looking like one of the lesser servants had been taking bites out of the blade.
With the knight slowed from Arkk’s spell, Zharja saw an opportunity. She slithered forward, iridescent black scales gleaming as she coiled her body around the knight’s body. She only managed to pin one of his arms to his side as she started constricting but, seeing what she was doing, two of the orcs threw their weapons aside and grasped hold of the knight’s free arm to keep him from tearing Zharja away.
Grasping hold of the knight’s helmet, Zharja first tried to rip it from his head. She must have been trying to petrify him but found herself unable with the helmet in the way. Unfortunately, it didn’t budge. Undaunted, Zharja opened her mouth wide enough to swallow a boar whole. Caustic venom dripped from her fangs. She didn’t try to bite through the armor. Gathering a mouthful of the venom, she spat directly in the knight’s face.
That elicited a reaction. The first noises the knight made were shouts of pain as something hissed and sizzled inside that helmet. The slits for his eyes and the dozen small holes in front of his mouth weren’t much but some of that venom must have gotten inside.
Whether it was a surge of adrenaline from the pain, Arkk’s spell fading, or the armor somehow revitalizing the man, he found a renewed source of strength. The two orcs clinging to his arm went flying as he swung. Now freed, his gauntlet dug into Zharja’s side, making her hiss and squirm. The weakening in her constriction let him get his other arm free from Zharja’s coils. He grasped the gorgon and flung her. The lower segment of her tail, coiled around one of his legs, ripped clean from the rest of her as she joined Priscilla in slamming into the ground.
A shielding Scutum kept her from splattering against the ground but Arkk could do nothing for her tail at the moment.
The knight pivoted on one foot, swinging his arms wide to clear the immediate area around him. When he finished, he stood stooped, one hand pressed to his helm. Some wisps of white smoke steamed out from the holes in his helm along with a faint labored breath, but as the smoke dispersed, his breathing cleared up and, after a moment, he stood straight with no signs of internal injury. The golden armor itself looked entirely untouched. Not just on the helm but everywhere. He didn’t have a speck of blood or smudge of dirt, not even around his feet where he had been trudging through the muddy ground.
Arkk’s eyes flicked down to the ground and then back up to the man.
He was glaring now. Though his eyes were hidden in the shadows of his helmet, Arkk could tell just by the way his helmet angled toward him.
“Agnete,” Arkk said, planting a hand on her shoulder.
Zharja’s venom had gotten through. Thus, Agnete’s flames likely could as well. Her flames had already failed once against the gold magics of Evestani back at Elmshadow. She hadn’t been able to melt those gold statues. So, in case the fire through the helm failed, Arkk had a secondary plan.
“Melt the ground under his feet,” he said before casting the last of his newly learned spells on the purifier. “Acceleratæ.”
The heat around Agnete exploded, forcing Arkk backward with his gloved hands shielding his face. Small hairs of stray threads on his gambeson caught flame, burning to ash in an instant.
When Agnete moved, she moved. She crossed ten paces in the blink of an eye. The knight, for all the invulnerability of his armor, flinched back at her sudden approach. The rest of Company Al-Mir, already backed away thanks to the knight pivoting around, scrambled back even further. Those who couldn’t walk ended up dragged by others.
The knight lashed out, attacks more ferocious than earlier. Agnete simply tilted her head, dodging the first strike by a hair before she slid to one side to dodge another. Flames swirled around her, obscuring her exact movements. The enhanced speed was already visibly wearing out—Arkk could feel the drain of magic lessen—but it was easy to forget that she had been an inquisitor and could hold her own in close-quarters combat.
As expected, Agnete’s fire didn’t seem to do much to the armor. Even when Agnete planted a palm directly on the man’s breastplate, it didn’t start glowing let alone melting. From some second-hand analysis Zullie had done following the incident at Elmshadow, they had two theories on why her fires didn’t affect the Heart of Gold’s namesake metal. Either the Heart of Gold, being on this side of the Calamity, was simply stronger than the Burning Forge’s trickle of power or, as in alchemic theory, the Heart of Gold represented a purity that was so magically great that nothing could truly affect it directly.
All that didn’t stop the ground under their feet from turning red and molten. Even though the knight moved like he was wearing a light tunic, it had to weigh a ton. He rapidly started sinking into the ground. Agnete carefully kept him in one place, simply stepping side to side to dodge his attacks with a renewed haste spell from Arkk while she kept his focus on her, he didn’t even realize until his ankles were well into the ground.
But it wasn’t the flames in the ground that affected him. He kept grabbing at his helm like he was trying to wipe something off the front. His breathing, once again turning more laborious, grew in intensity the longer the flames surrounded his head. Giving up his attacks against the now normal-speed Agnete, he tried to take a step backward only to twist and bend at the knee with his feet unable to move.
As his back hit the ground and the earth turned red under Agnete’s increasing heat, Arkk let out a small sigh of relief.
A sigh too early.
The knight thrust his hands together, letting out a sound like the ringing of a church bell. A bright golden flash filled Arkk’s vision for a brief instant.
The ground, once molten, gleamed bright gold. Agnete, clutching at her chest, was on her back on the golden ground. The few tattered strips of burned clothing that had clung to her body gleamed gold just as the ground did. One body, two swords, and a shield, left behind near the fight while the others backed away, now matched. The living beings and plant life were spared, nothing else was.
The knight himself was still in the now-golden ground, audibly panting and gasping for breath. Now that he wasn’t under Agnete’s constant attack, he might just be able to rip his feet out of the holes. Or pull out some magic trick that let him escape. His hands were still free. Arkk wasn’t sure if he could repeatedly use that clapping trick but he wasn’t about to test it.
This was a chance to escape.
Arkk let out a sharp whistle, catching the attention of all his employees. “Back,” he shouted. “Help anyone who can’t move on their own. Alma, Kelsey, get the dragonoid.”
Agnete, slowly sitting up and ripping the golden cloth off her chest, snapped her fingers, sparking a fresh flame in the area. The fire rushed forward from her even as the others began their retreat.
“Desidia,” Arkk said, enveloping the golden man in the slowing spell again just to keep him from doing anything in retaliation. Maybe Agnete could burn away all the air around him again. Maybe she could melt the gold and trap him further.
Arkk couldn’t take the chance. He grabbed her by the arm, meeting her fiery eyes for a brief moment. He didn’t say anything. Neither did she. After a moment, she nodded her head and started backing away. That didn’t stop her from keeping the flames circling the golden knight.
They were leaving four of their own behind. Arkk hoped the knight would die from the flames but couldn’t chance staying to watch. They were still in the scrying fog. The enemy could be just around the next hill. Maybe they could fight off a regular force of soldiers but if another of those knights showed up, or this one got back to his feet, they might well be done for here and now.
So he turned, following behind the rest of the retreating Company Al-Mir with Agnete at his side. Alma and Kelsey were dragging Priscilla while Orjja and Krett’al hauled Zharja. Two other orcs needed assistance walking and one of the humans was leaning on Dakka’s shoulder.
They had rescued Kia, Claire, and the rest of the strike team. From a pure numbers game, the rescue had been worth it.
Morale was buried at the bottom of a latrine. Even as they made it back to the teleportation circle, even as they passed through one at a time without Evestani harassment, he could feel the dour mood in the air and the discordance in the group. Arkk wasn’t immune.
He was livid.
Right when it felt like things had been looking up. The Walking Fortress and its near completion, the new spells from Priscilla, Hawkwood and the deserters gathering to help push back Evestani, Katja taking the Duke’s place to turn his armies against the invaders…
Now this.
Losses were inevitable in wars. Hawkwood had sat him down and told him that the moment the war began. Losses of personnel, losses of battles, losses of territories and holdings. Arkk didn’t expect to come out the victor of every engagement but this… This felt different. It wasn’t an honest loss. Evestani and the Golden Order had a literal god sitting on their shoulder.
The closest thing Arkk had, the Lock and Key, had taken his lead researcher out of commission.
The moment they returned to Fortress Al-Mir, Arkk sent the wounded off to the infirmary, including Agnete and Kia even though they had only superficial injuries. Hale was certainly getting all the practice she needed with the Flesh Weaving spell. There were no immediate calls for his attention from Vezta or the scrying team. A small relief. He still had to look over the group left behind.
“We rescued the strike team,” Arkk said, taking the small silver lining to this dark cloud. “And we uncovered the existence of another heavy threat, one we can now begin planning around. Four lost their lives in exchange.” He pressed his lips together. Perhaps he was still just a little too idealistic, but he did not view that as an acceptable exchange.
There would be four new names on the memorial wall now.
“Go,” Arkk said. “Rest and recover. Eat and sleep. But keep the encounter in the back of your mind, thinking of the strengths and weaknesses that Golden Knight had. We’ll do a full debriefing later.”
“You all survived!” Dakka shouted to the morose room, ripping her helmet from her head. The sudden gruff bark left Arkk stunned, though he tried to avoid showing it. “Against a foe worthy of legends! We’ll have a feast tonight and we’ll crack open the kegs!”
That got much more of a reaction, earning some cheers. Arkk could tell that the cheering wasn’t wholly enthusiastic, the tone was just a little too flat, but at least the troops weren’t showing their displeasure so overtly. Her shout got them moving as well, filing out of the room and into the rest of the fortress.
Arkk couldn’t help but notice Dakka remaining behind, not moving with the others.
As soon as the room was clear, she turned on him, face drawn tight in consternation. “Arkk,” she said slowly. “You need to work on your post-battle speeches.”
Arkk drew in a breath and let it back out, nodding his head without a word.
“And… Arkk… I have very much enjoyed my time under your service. Compared to being a raider, it feels good, you know?”
Arkk’s eyes widened as he looked up at Dakka’s face. The tan-skinned orc’s hair hung in a mess, matted with sweat and a small bit of crusted blood. She looked… worn. “You aren’t thinking of leaving, are you?”
Dakka didn’t answer right away. She stared down at him, eyes looking back and forth for a moment before she snorted. Her lips peeled back, showing off her tusks. Not in a snarl, but in a smile. “No. Not yet. But Arkk, something needs to change. I’m a girl who enjoys a good fight as much as the next orc but I’m no spellcaster. I’m not a fire witch blessed by the gods. I’m not a dragonoid or even a gorgon. We keep fighting these things. The golden avatar and now this gold knight.” She paused, pressing a gauntleted hand to her chest. “I’m not even going to say that I need fights I can win, just fights where the field is even. And it isn’t just me.
“Get us fancy golden indestructible armor or spells we can cast without taking a nap after. Get us opponents that aren’t gods walking among mere mortals. Something.
“Something needs to change and it needs to change fast. Or you might be finding yourself with less of an army to work with.”
Dakka stared for a moment longer before nodding her head. She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, leaving Arkk alone in the teleportation chamber with just his thoughts.
Something needed to change. A walking tower wasn’t good enough. He needed something for his people.