The Weaver of the Warp and Weft of the World knelt on one knee, on the soft grass, head bowed and careful to keep his sight level only to the feet of their Graces. The feel and weight of Chaos soothed him after an extended foray into the forsaken plane. The injuries he received in battle still sizzled, letting loose a waft of acrid smoke. But with the sheer amount of Primordial Chaos in the air proved that quantity was a quality of its own. The lingering Radiant energy soon burnt itself out. It was absent of a Will and Intent anyway, otherwise the Chaos would have only served as fuel.

The three Marchionesses of the Asheron Court sipped their tea and chatted amongst themselves. The Fysalli that was their Domain was set into a garden party, with the ruling three on their thrones at the top of the hill while the rest of their courtiers scattered along the slopes in their grotesque parody. It was a pleasant change from the Watcher’s Fysalli though, and the Three didn’t flaunt their power over every Chaos Lord here.

The Weaver closed his eyes for a second, at least this body did. An incarnation remained in the halls of what the worshippers called Ouera Bo, while another stood at the border between life and death in the Domain of his Master, the One Who Watches and Waits. He was both liaison and spy when it came to the rival courts.

“What news do you bring?” The Lady of the Everpresent Dark asked. Lady Darkness sat in between the other two and looked to be a human in her mid-twenties, if one had eyes of pure black.

“I’ve encountered an Ancient, Your Grace, a fledgeling in Rumiga’s shore and interfering in the orchestrated war.”

“You are certain?” The Herald of Madness, the youngest looking one of the three asked. She looked like a barely pubescent girl in a purple sundress. She kicked at her skirts while she was perched on a too-tall chair.

“Certain, Your Grace. And,” He pursed his lips thoughtfully, “I caught the scent of Emerys lingering around her.”

“The Primordial of Lust and…?” She Who Divines Secrets, the last Marchioness frowned. She looked to be in her twilight years, but her hands were long, slender, and unwrinkled.

“Do you recall that He had lost his Heart and it turned against him?” Lady Darkness asked.

“Oh, yes, carved away by the Lord of the Dawn.” Herald snickered.

“I felt the touch of Belzarius, too,” Weaver said.

“Belzarius and Emerys,” The Watcher said, though of course, the Three didn’t hear him. He was in another Fysalli after all, and the Weaver gave his report simultaneously.

“Are you certain that it was an Ancient?” The Herald asked.

“Yes. The Chains of Order circle around her while Chaos Flows swirl,” The Weaver answered.

“An Ancient. Another in the Empire,” Lady Secrets muttered. “Will she ruin our plans?”

“Who can say? Disasters and catastrophes follow in the footsteps of the Ancients.” Lady Darkness muttered.

“What is your wish?” The Weaver asked.

The Three looked at each other for a moment.

“Watch and wait,” The Watcher said with amusement.

“Kill her before she becomes a problem,” The Lady Secrets said.

“No, wait, why waste a possible agent?” The Herald asked.

“She is a random variable!”

“We are the Lords of Chaos. A little randomness is normal,” The Herald said.

“Action or inaction can lead to ruin or success,” The Lady Darkness insisted. “So let it be. Continue with the plans and react accordingly. If we strike purposefully, we will need to pull warriors from other fronts.”

“So what? You’d let a known danger grow in power?” The Lady Secrets hissed.

“You know as well as I,” The Lady Darkness said, “that opportunity flirts with danger. I say let this Ancient grow. As long as we stay out of sight, she will serve our goals unwittingly.”

“Very well,” The Lady Secrets pouted. “But make sure she is tough enough to survive her own growth.”

The Weaver bowed his head. “By your Wills.”

__________

The ominous silence had Yuriko running towards the north wall. Halfway through the courtyard, she saw the boulders falling. But there were more than five this time around. The carronades fired to deflect, but half of the bolts missed.

B-boom! B-boom! B-boom! B-boom!

“Argh!!!”

“Watch out!”

“Hunters!”

Shouts from all four walls made her freeze for a long moment. Where should she go?

“Chaos Lord!”

“It’s the Will!”

“Barbarians!”

Where…where should she go? Paralysed by indecision, Yuriko’s eyes spun towards each of the walls. On the north face, cries of ‘barbarians!’ were heard while the Plasma Carronades fired on the boulders, of which, another set had come from the plateau.

On the south wall, there were screams calling out hunters and Chaos Lords. For that matter, the same could be heard on the east and west wall.

“Yuri!” Gwendith yelled as she grabbed Yuriko’s shoulders and squeezed. “Go to the south, that’s where your rotation is after breakfast!”

“Ah, right!” Mind made up, Yuriko dashed towards the wall and leapt up to the battlements which were crowded with militia. A fourth of them were shooting down towards the field but several squads were formed in a semi-circle, collapsible spears jabbing at a few Hunters that managed to scale the wall.

As she landed on the crenelations, Yuriko smelled the acrid stench of Wyldling blood and metallic scent of human blood. It was hard to miss the crumpled form of a militiaman with a grotesque smile on his throat while he bled. In another corner, a legionnaire clutched at the stump of her arm, face pale and teeth clenched on a piece of rope tied around the limb, holding tight the tourniquet preventing her from bleeding to death. The Hunter that did that was waving its clawd limbs, batting away spears as it hissed and lunged.

All along the wall, there were Hunters being cornered into pockets. Legionnaires were all at least at the Journeyman level, while the minimum Anima strength for militia members was Apprentice. She wasn’t sure if it was Low or High Apprentice but either way, that meant that they were barely a match for a Wanderer, much less a Hunter. If they fought one on one anyway. Still, it was better to avoid casualties.

Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew! Pew!

Pebbles shattered the Hunters’ skulls and their bodies collapsed into twitching heaps. As soon as she wiped out the infiltrators, Yuriko looked over the wall. The swarmlings now contained pockets of Wanderers, and off in the distance, a longstride away at least, stood groups of humanoids that could only be Chaos Lords. Barons, she hoped. There were more than a dozen of them by the trees.

The marksmen among the legionnaires started sniping at the Wanderers while the Warders stood next to the Destroyers, head swivelling to and fro. The wounded were quickly evacuated from the wall and brought to the healers’ quarters, but Yuriko could see that it was too late for at least two of the victims. Above, the dome flickered on and off as it protected the camp from more boulders. In the meantime, the Plasma Carronades shifted targets to enemy formations.

“A simultaneous assault,” Yuriko muttered. She kept her eyes focused on the Chaos Lords even as she used her Anima to snipe at the Wanderers and the odd Hunter that she noticed.

Nearly two hours later and the Chaos Lords still hadn’t moved. She’d killed dozens of Wanderers and Hunters, and the Imperials killed thousands of swarmlings. Nothing too different from the last couple of weeks.

Just as it was about time for her to go to the next wall, the barons made their move. Two of them held up their hands and expelled Chaos into the air. Three more contributed their power while the rest formed a wall in front. Their Protective Field combined into a single whole, something Yuriko had never seen before. The Plasma Carronades on the south wall blasted bolts, sizzling blue superheated plasma, at the barons, only for their payload to splash harmlessly away. Well, the plasma liquefied and burned the surrounding swarmlings but the barons were unharmed.

Feeling nervous, Yuriko created her sunshards and drew Fri’Avgi, allowing her to make and control more shards. Acting on a hunch, she drew the Adamant Guardian Seal Technique using her Animus and set it on ten of the shards. Just in time.

The group of barons flung a scintillating bolt towards the walls. It crossed the distance in the blink of an eye and if she hadn’t been ready for it, she would have missed. If they hadn’t aimed it at her vicinity there would have been nothing she could have done. As it were, she managed to interpose her shards and activated the Adamant Guardian Seal. All of the Animus powering them were drained dry, and the bolt puttered into nothingness.

A hush covered the battlefield as the barons and her allies stared at the impact point. She blocked their bolt in midair, and some of the attack splashed back. Not only did the backsplash melt the swarmlings nearby, but it also dissolved the earth. Letting that hit the wall would be a bad idea.

Ah! They were doing it again. No way!

Yuriko braced herself against the crenelations then jumped. Her Anima spread out into glider wings and she crossed the distance as quickly as she could. She didn’t make it.

The next blast was aimed away from her and it impacted the middle of the wall. A crater several paces wide opened though it didn’t manage to dig more than half a pace deep. The battlements above the impact site started to crumble and the warriors scrambled away.

Yuriko growled as she landed a dozen paces away. She charged, Fri’Avgi swinging, imbued with the third dance.

Skrttt!

The Animus edge skittered and scratched at the barrier, leaving a finger width scratch behind. The damage healed even as she watched, but if one blow couldn’t make it, then perhaps dozens would. Radiant energy suffused Fri’Avgi and created near a dozen sunshards. She slashed a dozen times, then got a better idea. She reared back, stomped hard on the ground and thrust Fri’Avgi, and at the same time, the sunshards blasted into the exact same spot. The artefact pierced the Protective Field, and the sunshards slipped into the breach. Each one attacked the barons, gathering power. Two of them dodged out of the way, another tried to block, while the last two were too preoccupied to notice.

Blue blood sprayed into the air accompanied by shrill screams of pain. Yuriko sawed the barrier open and leapt at one of the other Chaos Lords. Fri’Avgi bisected and absorbed one. Her artefact glutted on the Chaos dweller’s Anima, then pushed at Yuriko to kill more.

She spun and attacked again, but enough time had passed for them to get over their shock. However, instead of fighting back, all but the one she was attacking turned on their heels and ran deeper into the forest.

She wasn’t silly enough to chase after them. Yuriko shook her head, waited for a moment for Fri’Avgi to finish devouring the slain Chaos Lords’ Anima, then retreated towards the outpost. She cleaved a bloody path through the swarmlings, and noted that the Chaos dust was immediately swallowed by her artefact causing the bodies to quickly decompose. She leapt up the wall after a bit of a run up.

The boulders continued to smash into the dome and she wondered how much of a deficit it caused to the engine’s Animus balance. With the threat of the Chaos Lords gone, she hurried towards the north wall. The sounds of furious battle were still on going, and when she leapt back up on the walls, she saw why.

Five Colossi wrestled with two materialised Geists, one a bicorn whose shoulders were as the walls, and the other was a gargantuan bear whose fur was a mix of grey and white. Rearing on its hind legs, it towered over the Certus Colossus, not to mention the Koinos.

Beyond the battling behemoths, she could see a horde of barbarians cheering for their beasts. Yuriko couldn’t see who the Geists belonged to, but it was clear as day that the Colossi had their hands full.

Two of the Koinos carried spears, another had an axe and a shield, while the last didn’t carry melee weapons but was laden with plasma emitters. The Certus, standing an extra pace taller than the others, had a glaive and was using the haft to block the bear’s maw from crunching down on the armour. The four Koinos danced around the bicorn, dodging out of the way of its charges and swiping its flanks as they did so.

Sparks erupted from where the metal weapons struck the hides. The blows left white streaks on the bicorn’s flanks, but nothing more. Every now and then, one of the Plasma Carronades shot at a beast, but then, a Protective Field would spring up and block the superheated plasma.

Yuriko hesitated from joining the battle. None of the barbarians interrupted the duels, though four on one was hardly a fair fight. Still, her people weren’t winning. Oh, the Certus seemed to be a match for the bear, but the Koinos couldn’t even hurt the bicorn!

She only hesitated for a moment more before images of what she saw in Ouera Bo, and stories of what the freed women experienced rose to the forefront of her mind. Mouth set in a grim line, Yuriko flared her Anima, condensed it, then jumped off the wall and straight into the melee.