My first thought in one of those APC like armored carriages, was that traveling to war was terribly boring. All of us hunters chatted amongst ourselves, but the talk soon died off, and we were left without anything to do. The only window to look out was terribly small and at the front of the carriage for the driver, making it nearly impossible to even watch the scenery. I sat there in the slightly uncomfortable silence, thinking of possibly rescuing Dmiyo, as unlikely as I believed that to be.

Traveling continued for a while. We’d camp outside at night, then head back into the APCs for the day, stopping only for lunch. At night, I could see campfires campfires stretching to the ends of my vision down the road in both directions. The days passed by, and I was starting to go a bit stir crazy from being trapped in the small vehicles, when finally there was a change. We’d found the tracks to one of the mobile cities that the Tesser used. The ground was ripped up, the massive weight of the city having indented the ground, leaving a scar in the earth.

We got out of the APC, and I saw in the distance a man in much fancier armor than the average soldier, with gold trim on his blue undercoat. He was talking with another man with not quite so fancy an outfit, gesturing emphatically. It wasn’t surprising to me when I saw that the man wearing the fancier armor and clothing won the argument. They had clearly been the ones in charge of the traveling, as we all turned towards the tracks on the ground, driving along them rather than continuing in the direction we had been going.

The traveling soon faded back into monotony. We’d been on the move for a couple of days when I heard a shout from the driver. Looking out the only window, I could see one of those moving cities, the amalgamation of wood and metal looking terribly misshapen. My examination soon made me realize that the city wasn’t the same on that had taken Dmiyo, so I leaned back in my seat, leaving room for everyone else to get a look.

The carriage we were in sped up, and I assumed all the other carriages were doing the same, when I saw a bright light outside of the window, seeing a fireball fall only a few meters ahead of us. I blanched. I was trapped inside this carriage, my life dependant on luck and the skill of the driver. We started to swerve side to side, but I still heard the roaring of the flames, and I occasionally heard screams echo, likely from an APC getting hit by one of those oversized fireballs.

It seemed to take forever for us to get close enough to the mobile city that they couldn’t fire at us anymore, and I was then lost on how on earth we were going to get up onto the city. Getting out of the APC, my confusion was soon solved when a massive shimmer in the air flew through the air, impacting on the mobile city with a crunching noise. An entire building of the city was knocked inwards, and oversized harpoons lanced into the opening, stabbing into the metal walls, ropes trailing behind them. Soldiers were soon climbing the thick ropes into the mobile city. I sat there, and watched as another shimmer in the air quickly moved towards the mobile city. This time, it impacted on a forcefield, causing small flashes of light to flicker along the dome shaped shield. A few more vehicles, looking like giant cannons, rolled up beside one of the APCs, and soon the flashing lights were repeated, showing me that the shimmers were coming from the vehicles I decided to call force cannons. I watched as two more of them rolled out and began to strengthen the barrage on the forcefield.

I wondered why the Tesser army wasn’t coming out to fight as flashes of light burst out in an almost constant light show. I continued to watch, until eventually, I started to see what looked like glowing cracks in the air, and then the forcefield shattered in pure silence. The next barrage from the force cannons impacted the city with a massive crunching noise, a multitude of the metal buildings collapsing inwards. From two of them I saw spatters of blood where people had been crushed. Harpoons were soon stabbing into the openings in the city, and soldiers were climbing up the thick ropes to attack it. The fireball barrage resumed on any APCs or soldiers they could hit, but the fireballs were met with massive walls of water put up by the Kyren mages.

Eventually, I raised my rifle as Tesser soldiers found the holes in their city, and started to take potshots at them, keeping them away from the harpoons so they couldn’t cut down the soldiers climbing the ropes up to them. My blood filled game of whack-a-mole soon ended as our soldiers reached the opening, and took over the fighting. I sat back, looking at the long lines of soldiers waiting to climb into the openings, and flinched every time that loud crunching noise sounded, causing another breach in the city.

I was starting to think that I wasn’t going to get to do any fighting, when I saw a cloud of dust coming from the other side of the city. As they crested the horizon, I got a good look. They wore the familiar cuirass over red clothing, each of the soldiers holding a shield and a wand. I wasn’t sure if I should grin or frown, it seemed I would be getting some more Tesser to shoot at. As they got a little closer, the frown I wore grew. Among the Tesser were lines of chained up people. They’d raided another city. That did explain why there was so little resistance in the mobile city itself. I stood there as they noticed us, and the soldiers not climbing into the mobile city started to line up between the Tesser soldiers and the hunters. Deciding to get a better view and angle to shoot from, I climbed atop one of the APCs, taking my rifle and waiting for them to get close enough to shoot at.

It wasn’t too long until they did arrive, and I took a potshot at them before cursing. I’d forgotten about their large scale forcefields that prevented things from getting through them. Annoyed, I watched as the front line of the Tesser soldiers stepped out of the forcefield, wands at the ready, before sending a stream of fire at the Kyren soldiers. Grinning at the fact that they’d stepped out, I instantly fired again and again as quickly as I could. Heads exploded, bodies had holes punched in them, and with how large my bullets were, they nearly tore off a couple limbs.

While reloading, I watched as the streams of fire simply splashed off the shields of the Kyren soldiers, only occasionally making it through holes in the formation. Those occasional breaches in the formation of shields led to screams ringing out, and each time I would wince in sympathy. I finished reloading as the Tesser soldiers started to stream out of the forcefield, sending blasts of fire at our soldiers as our soldiers advanced in their shield covered formation. I got off as many shots as I could before the two battle lines met, the Tesser taking up their swords as the melee was joined.

I soon climbed off the top of the APC, grouping up with Iosyo, Alya, and Lilya. Alya spoke quickly, explaining to the group, then gave me a short “Go side,” which I took to mean we would be flanking the Tesser soldiers. My guess was soon proved to be correct as we started running in a looping manner around the side of the battlefield. Looking around, I could see a good deal of the hunters doing the same thing. It took around ten minutes to get far enough around that we could assault the Tesser, and I stayed towards the back as we ran towards the Tesser soldiers. Unfortunately, we didn’t really take them by surprise, and they were ready to face us by the time we were close to them. A couple of them stepped out to send their streams of fire at us, but a few quick shots from my rifle dissuaded them from continuing that course of action.

Taking position at the edge of the assault along with my group, I took up my sword and shield, getting into the fighting crouch I was now reasonably comfortable with. Fortunately or unfortunately, I didn’t have to do much as Alya, Iosyo, and Lilya started to carve through the Tesser lines. I found myself following after them, covering the side so they wouldn’t get completely surrounded. My first real taste of melee combat was with a very young man, barely older than a boy. I hesitated before striking, and it cost me, as he stabbed out with his own sword, which bounced off my too slowly positioned shield and gave me a slice on my arm. I hissed in pain, and got my mind in the game. No matter how young they were, they were an enemy soldier for now. With my newfound focus, I went to cut at him with an overhead slice, only to have him block it with a wince and retaliate with a chop from the side. Blocking it on my shield, I went as if to stab at his head, but was blocked yet again. I was getting frustrated, neither of us seemed to be skilled enough to get around the shields we had. Out of frustration, I used all the mana I could in body strengthening and slammed my sword downwards at him, ignoring the fact that I should be saving my mana for an extended battle. He collapsed to one knee, and I had to rip my sword from his dented shield before stabbing into his open neck.

I watched his expression of surprise as he died in horror. It was one thing killing someone from a distance with my guns, it was a completely different one seeing their expression from a foot away as the life bled from them. I swallowed my bile, turning to my next target. The fighting continued, sometimes with more of the hunters next to me, sometimes just with my group. I was constantly blocking the swords that the Tesser Soldiers used, but my shield was much more up to the task than the shields the Tesser soldiers used, not even getting dented from the constant abuse. I didn’t have much luck in actually killing anyone without another hunter to aid me, or without using prodigious amounts of mana. Each time I did manage to end a life I felt a small part of me break.

Eventually we managed to hack through enough of the Tesser that we hit the slave line. By that time my breathing was ragged, every inch of me feeling worn, and I doubted I’d be able to continue using body strengthening magic for much longer. When we reached the slave line, we instantly turned to the side, staying between the slaves and the Tesser. I didn’t think that the Tesser, even as slavers, would kill the slaves simply to prevent us rescuing them, but none of us were willing to take that risk.

The battle continued, until my mana petered out completely, and after that I sat back for a bit, not skilled enough to fight anyone without the strength advantage that body strengthening magic gave me. Stepping back from the battle line, I sheathed my sword and took my revolver from its holster. I stayed up next to the battle line, firing at anyone that I could get a clean shot off at while not risking life and limb. The Tesser soldiers soon found out they needed to keep their faces covered with me shooting at them, but that left our melee fighters free to chop at their legs, sending them to the ground where they were easy pickings. The fight continued until the sun started to set, when we met up with the main line of Kyren soldiers. We’d won the fight. I wondered for a bit why I hadn’t seen a single Tesser soldier surrender this time, as last time plenty of them had, but shrugged off the thought quickly.

My thoughts soon turned to wondering why the soldiers had been so weak. The hunters had carved a path through them with practically no trouble, abusing their greater physical prowess. Even I’d been able to beat them one on one, and I was a significantly worse hand with a sword than the soldiers were. Simply by using my mana to strengthen myself, I’d been able to crush them with pure power.

The slaves were soon being unchained, but while a ragged cheer went up, most of them seemed too traumatized to celebrate. The soldiers were soon appropriating blankets from the supply vehicles, giving the women something to cover themselves with. My rage was burning at the sight. While the guys were left with cuts and bruises, the women were left with something far worse.

I had to turn away, no target for my anger in sight. I was looking at the moving city, deciding if I should go climb up one of the ropes to get inside when a good portion of it lowered down, creating a ramp to the ground, Kyren soldiers coming out of the cleared out city. Deciding to check out the city to distract myself, I climbed up the ramp and started looking around. The first thought in my mind was that it was utterly chaotic. There didn’t seem to be a straight road anywhere, just twisting things that went up and down levels at a whim, spitting off into tiny alleys where two people could barely squeeze by each other. Ladders were everywhere, and the roofs of the buildings also made up more pathways. I could see in the distance soldiers guiding more slaves, these ones looking even more beaten down than the recently taken ones outside. While these slaves were more often clothed, their eyes seemed to lack even the slightest spark of hope, even as they were being rescued.

I slowly explored the twisting paths, ducking into buildings here and there. No matter how hard I looked however, I didn’t find what I had been fearing to see. The entire city was utterly devoid of women and children, the only women being the slaves we had rescued. I walked around the puddles of blood, which sometimes had a body lying in them, and eventually found one of the areas that had been knocked open in our attack. From up there, I could see the dozens of APCs, along with a few vehicles I hadn’t seen before. One of them had to be the harpoon launcher, as it had a large amount of harpoons in tubes, looking like a missile launcher to my modern eyes.

I could also see quite a few supply vehicles. I’d wondered where the food was coming from, but it was from these giant wagon looking things. I turned away from the hole in the wall, and slowly and awkwardly made my way back to the entrance, nearly getting lost a couple of times due to the winding nature of the paths. Exiting again, I wondered what we were going to do with the mobile city. The sun was almost all the way beneath the horizon when I found my group, and we set up camp. The military soon handed out some hardtack, dried meat, and dried fruit to eat, a meal I was getting terribly sick of.

While wishing we were in a forest so I could go try and find some of those gourd like yabka fruit, I slowly fell asleep. I woke early in the morning, having slept surprisingly well for having seen people die just feet in front of me the other day. I shook my head to dispel the lingering images. From what I’d seen they had deserved it. The entire group then started to head the direction that the people taken to be slaves had come from. The APCs, and even the mobile city drove behind us, going slowly so as not to outpace the people who had been taken from their homes.

It took around half the day to get to the city that the people had been taken from. When we arrived, I noticed that the city was an utterly burned out wreck. Looking around, every other building seemed to have either collapsed or burned down, the entire area looking like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie. I shook my head, I didn’t know how long it was going to take them to rebuild their homes and lives. As we went further into the city though, I saw something that gave rise to a small sprout of hope.

It was a massive stone construction, that hadn’t been damaged whatsoever, and had a line of terribly tired looking hunters out front defending it, along with more on top of its walls. It seemed to be the keep of a castle, with crenellations and murder holes galore. I smiled, it looked like the Tesser hadn’t taken the entire city. When the hunters at the gate saw the procession of captured people being brought back, people started streaming out of the large stone building, running up in the hope of finding their loved ones.

Watching the shreds of hope ignite within those searching unfortunately only made it that much worse to see those who had their hopes extinguished, not finding the person they were looking for. I watched as some ran to their loved ones, hugging, kissing, and talking excitedly. Then there were the ones who couldn’t find those they looked for. Some kept searching, following after a vain hope, while others would fall to their knees, lean heavily against a wall, sit down, or simply collapse; the last of their hope flickered out of existence.

We stayed the the rest of the day, and then the night in the husk of a city, packing into the buildings that still had a roof. Eventually, I got to sleep, listening to some of the soldiers celebrating the victory, and others mourning the loss of their friends.