In the middle of the night, Lardel Keep stood as a beacon in the dark. Bright lights shone from the windows of the hybrid fort. One part was the stone walls, but a majority of the construction had been centred on the Great Trees, Adaviren trees, much like most of the cities and towns in the plane.

Rhain Hervard stood nearly a longstride away, along with a contingent of Vizugmonian warriors. The cat people looked at him uneasily, and well, they had good reason. For one thing, he wasn’t one of the People. He was human and he hailed from Tiath City. For another thing, the Vizugmonians probably detected the subtle aura he gave off as a Sorcerer.

Well, considering he arrived in their city standing on top of a mound of moving dirt, one that rolled over everything like a wave but left all natural vegetation unharmed, there was no hiding that fact.

For a moment, he thought about the fact that he had effectively been sent as a war asset, against a nation that was barely worth the name, but then again, the politics back home were confusing and annoying. The Reunification Party had finally managed to put one of their own on the Primal Seat. After centuries of work.

Ah, he was one of their seeds, sent out into the winds to grow, and once he had gained power, he had been called back. However, he had envisioned work as one wherein he strolled around infertile fields and used his sorcerous workings to make life grow. Spells, as they were often called by laymen, were a mark of a sorcerer’s prowess. He had reached the Adept level, and he knew five spells. Nearly all of them had to do with plants and fields.

And with the general composition of cities, towns, and fortresses, well, his repertoire was particularly potent.

Now, the Reunification Party had declared that it was time. The entirety of the Bella plane would come under one ruler, and the plane would finally be tethered. And the first step was to control as much of the land as was possible, then choke out the rest.

Vizugmon City. They were fools. Fat, rich, and lazy. They controlled most of the entrances to the Labyrinth, and wealth poured into their coffers. As for Tiath, humans always had allies, if not within the plane, then outside of it.

However, it wasn’t the fat cats that were the target of this particular operation. Lucenti City had bared their fangs at the cats, and normally, Tiath would aid the underdog, or undersnake, in this particular instance. Except for one thing. There was a Verdanian Knight in league with the snakes.

“Are you ready, Great One?” the catkin, a Tigris Wing Leader asked.

“Yes. Ready your warriors.”

Rhain took a deep breath. He would need to do two workings tonight and it would tax his limited strength to do so. A longstride away was a bit far, but he knew that if he came any closer, a sortie from the Keep would easily overwhelm his forces. He was with an advance force of five cohorts and already, it had taken a couple of days to mobilize from Vizugmon’s Angarth Stronghold. Admittedly, the armed forces’ headquarters was rather close to the city itself, unlike Lardel which was near the border.

Five cohorts, five hundred warriors, though most were hidden behind a ridge. There was no doubt the Lucentians could see them, but the snakes and lizards prefered to stay in the safety of their fortifications.

Rhain exhaled and held his breath. He emptied his lungs and focused. When he inhaled, it wasn’t air that came in, but distilled Chaos. A bubble of his Animus formed around his mouth and nose, and when the ambient Chaos came in, it filtered out the dross and kept the particles he needed. Life. Verdant energy. Radiant and Luminous, from the sun and moon. The last two particles were scant, barely a single particle to be had. Even though the Luminous Moon was out now, it was nearly impossible to gather its energy without the appropriate physique. The Radiant was even harder to gather, but thankfully, he needed only a smidgen, a tiny tiny ratio compared to everything else.

When he breathed out, his Animus came with it, dispersing into the air before him. A tendril remained connected to his tongue, to his Anima and his Geist. Within his Anima, a coniferous tree, a black yew, grew over his core. The Geist allowed him better control of his Animus, though at the price of losing some of it to feed its Anima.

Words tumbled from Rhain’s mouth. The language wasn’t anything the people around him knew, though others might call it the Ancient Tongue, the language of the gods, and the Old Ones’ parlance. The words, the language weren’t that essential to a sorcerous working, the Intent mattered more, but the precision of the language aided in anchoring the Intent.

He spoke with words that reverberated in the air and echoed in the land. The catkin around him staggered away as his every word caused their hearts to palpitate, and their knees to weaken.

The words loosely meant one thing, awaken.

What was to be awakened, how it was to be done, and what it would ultimately be, depended on his description. Even as he spoke, Rhain focused on what he wanted to accomplish. He focused on it so much that everything around him faded away and he was left with only one thing in his sight: the Great Tree the snakes had used as their wall’s cornerstone.

It towered over the ground level dwellings, over the wall. There were walkways amidst its branches leading to several other Great Trees within the compound. The Great Tree with bark so tough that the sharpest axe would only leave a little white mark. Fire wouldn’t find purchase no matter how hot it grew and frost barely clung to its branches.

Waves of ambient Chaos spread out in front of Rhain, forming a tendril to touch the Great Tree. The visible expression of his working no doubt woke and shook up the defenders. There was no helping it. Sorcery was not subtle and there was no hiding the naked manipulation of reality. This far away, it took far more Will and Intent to transmit. If he were not an Adept, he would have failed. He had the necessary control. But it was still slow.

The gates of Lardel flung open and Lucentians ran towards his position, enough of them to drown him in blades. The Vizugmon troops rallied and formed ranks in front of him. They gave him ample space, not wanting to touch the brilliant green tendril that connected Rhain and the Tree.

The cats readied their crossbows, spears, and shields. The Lucentians charged as soon as they came within a couple hundred paces away. But they had been so startled by Rhain’s working that they didn’t even manage to form a proper battle line. He could see a second group behind the first, much more organized than the forerunners.

Two minutes now.

He needed to wrap up the Spell or even more danger would come his way. He felt the tendril dig into the trunk, seeking the core and the sleeping Anima of the Adaviren Tree.

“Awaken!”

Even as the cats and the snakes traded blows, leaving a dozen wounded or dying, the Great Tree started to move. Its roots flexed and unearthed themselves, the huge branches started to sway. Slowly at first, then with more vigour. The smaller branches curled, the bigger ones swung.

The walkways snapped, shattering the wooden planks and showering splinters the size of Rhain’s arm to the ground. The entire tree swayed like a drunk, but the force of its movements ripped the wall down and sent several dozen warriors on the battlements flying.

The desperate fighting neared his location. In their minds, the only way to stop the Great Tree from laying waste to the Fort was to stop Rhain’s sorcerous working, but they were mistaken. He was already done, and the Adaviren Tree would continue to move. At least until the next sunset.

With a smirk, Rhain dispersed his Animus and prepared another Spell. He wasn’t someone classified as a War Sorcerer. He only had one spell that could be cast in a reasonable amount of time to be useful in direct combat.

He let his Animus pool into his fingertips, mind focused on the new Spell. It only needed a single word to activate, but the prep time still took a few seconds. That and his mind was fatigued from the first.

His Animus reserves had filled from the sorcerous resonance so there was little worry on that end. The Lucentians had managed to push his bodyguards to a dozen paces away, and the second group was less than a hundred paces from them. Well within range.

“Dance!” he yelled as his Animus sprayed out, touching leaves, grass, and twigs all around.

The air seemed to shimmer, and a sudden low pressure sucked up all of the loose objects. Then, with a gesture, he sent them all flying forward. The leaves fluttered around his allies, before slicing across the necks of the snakes. The edges of each leaf and grass had grown harder than steel and as sharp as a razor. It was like a gust of wind had picked up every bit of debris and created a devastating whirlwind of blades.

High pitched screams and wet gurgles.

“Fall back!” he yelled to the Wing Leader.

The awakened Great Tree wreaked havoc in the Keep, and their attackers were in a chaotic mess. All was well, and tomorrow, the Keep would be theirs. Even if they survived the Adaviren, reinforcements from Angarth would arrive.

Rhain hurried away while the cats surrounded him protectively. A glance back showed the snakes attempting to burn the tree down. Foolish, it would only spread the fire to the surrounding buildings. The last sight before they came over the ridge was of a large branch smashing into the remnants of the wall, leaving nothing but rubble behind.

________

“Why didn’t it work like before?” Yuriko muttered to herself.

That morning, she wrote another campfire runescript with similar results from the previous attempt. The entire thing needed a significant investment of Animus in order to continue burning without fuel, and it burned through those reserves faster than it did while she had been in Kogasi or the Labyrinth.

Thankfully, she had done the experiment not on the actual fire pit, but on a bare patch of dirt a few paces away so she wouldn’t disrupt the breakfast preparations.

She was certain that the pattern was identical to the ones she had used though she wasn’t certain if it was identical to the one from the Neophyte runescribe book. The runewords were the same at least, even if the placement wasn’t exactly the same.

One of the lizardkin handed her a bowl of porridge that she ate from mechanically. Oh, they used rice instead of oats. Hmmm, the texture was smoother. Did they carry bags of rice as their provisions?

She still couldn’t figure it out by the time they had packed up and were ready to go. Yuriko threw the problem to the back of her mind. It wasn’t really that important an issue, and she had a feeling that Damien would know the answer, but she didn’t want to ask.

It took until midmorning before they arrived at the village of Penrith, right smack in the middle of a broad valley. Most of the rice paddies here were on the flatter land, while the hillsides were left uncultivated. Well, they were used as pastures and logging areas, Yuriko supposed. She saw a small herd of cattle wandering the hillside, and it didn’t take long for her to see the herdsman.

The L’tik woman waved at them cheerily.

The village itself was nearly identical to Silvershear and it was untouched by the marauders.

“Strange, if they had hit Silvershear, they would have come through Penrith first if they came from the west,” Akko said

“You think they came from a different direction?” Yuriko asked.

“Possibly. Let’s hurry to Tanrill.”

“Sure.”

They bypassed the village and turned to the southern road. It took nearly the rest of the day, and it was close to twilight by the time they reached the village of Tanrill and, like Penrith, it was lively and untouched. The villagers welcomed them warmly and housed them in the village hall.

Yuriko tried to pay for the hospitality, but Akko stopped her.

“If the patrol has to pay for every stay, they would come to expect it. Lardel Keep ensures their safety, it’s fitting that they feed and house the warriors.”

“Wouldn’t a little gratuity help?”

“Not at all. A warrior’s earnings are slim,” Rhox grinned.

“Oh.” Yuriko acquiesced.

“Tomorrow, we make for Lardel Keep,” Akko announced. “And hopefully we’ll have news.”

“Yeah.”

Yuriko had an odd feeling though, a little bit of foreboding. She could feel Damien’s emotions within her mind, and he was leaking excitement and anticipation. Her sleep was troubled that night, and when she woke, it had started to rain heavily.