***Tirnanog, Tros***

***Astra***

The Thich warrior got hit before he could disappear into the tunnel.

My javelin pierced through his lower abdomen and ripped out the other side to embed itself into the wall while pulling a few filaments attached to its end with it.

The man screamed and ineffectively tore at his belly as he tried to dig the invading filaments out of his flesh. Then his muscles locked up and he shook in place as the electricity transmitted by my filaments paralysed him.

He fell and face-planted into the cobblestone while his muscles spasmed ineffectively.

In a moment, I caught up to him and ended his suffering by driving my spear through his head. Once he was dealt with, I retracted the filaments from his wound and retrieved the javelin.

After partnering up with Magnus, I had admittedly struggled to come up with a fighting style and fitting weapons which made proper use of all my abilities.

The rapier was still a good choice for a sidearm, but using it as a main weapon just left too much to be desired. Larger monsters could impale themselves too easily or were sometimes simply unimpressed by a single stab wound. There was also the relatively short range compared to a two-handed weapon. A weakness which forced me into unfavourable close combat situations more often than not.

Switching to a spear and mimicking Magnus's fighting style solved a large part of the problem, but it simply wasn’t my thing.

I needed something like his flechettes to deal with opponents from afar. Hence, my request for the new weapons. And Gilbert had delivered my little order once he arrived with the fleet.

Magnus respected my close combat capabilities when we sparred, especially my wrestling potential due to my much longer filaments. But the truth of the matter was, I simply disliked getting close to my opponents. I used what abilities fate had provided, but I didn’t have to like choking the life out of everything I encountered.

For that sake, Gilbert had updated my armour set with ten javelins. With a little more than one meter in length, they were rather short to be called javelins, but also too large to be labelled throwing darts. Each had a small ring at the end for my filaments to hold onto during flight.

Thanks to this feature, I now had not only access to a frightening ranged weapon but also one I could retrieve quickly as long as I didn’t let go or launched it with too much force.

Once the target was speared, the filaments provided a direct conductor for my electricity. At first glance, this method might look redundant since we could throw lightning bolts if we wanted to. But compared to having a direct connection to the target, generating a lightning bolt was an exhausting and relatively badly aimed form of attack.

No matter how much we concentrated, it was impossible to guide the magnetic fields to the necessary degree at a distance. And launching plasma had the opposite problem. It allowed precise aiming at a distance but lacked penetrative force.

Magnus had jokingly called my new weapon idea an oversized stun gun. Nobody in Tirnanog used such weapons, but once he explained the concept I had to admit he wasn’t completely wrong. I figured his making fun of the idea was just a little jealousy because his filaments were too short to do the same.

Nonetheless, I liked the new style since it was easy enough to integrate the javelins into an armoured skirt and cape, allowing me to look larger and quite menacing.

Much like Magnus’s flechettes I could throw the javelins or launch them with a significant boost via electromagnetism, though the latter I had yet to perfect. For now, simply throwing the javelin was the better option.

For smaller targets, I still carried a set of my partner’s flechettes.

I shook my head in dismay when I realized I was just trying to distract myself with these musings.

Father had gone after the sniper while tasking Magnus with taking care of the normal soldiers and drawing their attention. Meanwhile, it had been my job to look out for the appearance of the other juggernaut while providing backup to my partner.

Except for the group which tried to sneak up on Magnus it had been a boring affair so far.

The Thich juggernaut who thwarted our first probing attacks was nowhere to be found. We had seen him from the ship, but he departed the battlefield as soon as we joined the fighting. It looked like he had taken tunnels to escape, but I couldn’t be sure.

For a moment, I considered going down into the tunnels to hunt him down, but Etan had been adamant about not risking anything.

Many powerful people had fallen during the war not because they were slain in battle, but because of some elaborate trap. Going down into a narrow tunnel system where the ceiling could be brought down on our heads would be just the right thing for Thich to celebrate the deaths of one or two juggernauts while paying the reasonable price of a few dozen or even a hundred of their regular soldiers.

Hence, my father’s order was to not follow the Thich under any circumstances.

Just like with our first probing attacks, the common soldiers would be first to judge the enemy’s strength while searching for possible traps. A juggernaut would be deployed only once the battlefield had been checked.

I sighed and left the body behind. Second Sight led me directly to my next target and the one afterwards. Normally, I would have had qualms about slaughtering the common soldiers without giving them the chance to surrender, but there was no other choice.

Neither Aerie nor Hochberg had the resources to entertain prisoners of war. Both clans had gone into this conflict knowing full well there was no quarter to be given by either side.

A gruesome truth which came to reality when I traversed the empty buildings while shadowing Magnus. There were no bodies, the nightly predators had taken care of the remains, but other things pointed out what had happened in this settlement.

The pool of dried blood on the street, or the ransacked family home. With a hunter’s eye for tracks, hints and marks, I had no problem piecing the tale together.

How the defenders had met the attackers at the edge of their settlement in open battle, only for their resistance to be broken. How they desperately fought in the streets to allow others to retreat into the tunnels.

The destruction of their fortifications had doomed the settlement. The Thich forces just had to retreat and wait out the night while the predators slowly widdled down the defenders.

What Tirnanog’s wildlife had left behind made it clear what had happened once the settlement’s defences were in tatters.

The defenders of Tros had retreated into the tunnels, no longer able to hold the settlement. Tirnanog’s monsters had probably killed a majority of the non-combatants after the Thich had slain the clan’s combatants. Which didn’t mean the Thich hadn’t laid hands upon the civilians. There was plenty of evidence of humans breaking into various buildings.

And the mass grave at the edge of settlements was something only humans would do to their victims. Taking care of bodies was something the nightly predators and scavengers were quite good at.

Though, it left me to wonder why the Thich had even bothered.

An act of humanity? An attempt to clean up and hide the mess? Or pragmatism, an attempt at limiting the number of monsters drawn to the served feast?

Humans had brought the idea of war to Tirnanog, but on this planet, there were always at least three parties to every conflict.

When I caught up to Magnus, I found him at the lookout which had served the Thich sub-commanders. It was located at the settlement’s highest point.

He had slain the two sensors who had been overlooking the Thich forces together with the enemy juggernaut.

A girl no older than sixteen lay at a hatch which led down into the tunnels. She was probably younger, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Her neck was broken and her sightless eyes widened in mute surprise.

Magnus still held the other sensor with a clawed grip, his strained fingers buried in the man’s face. The corpse’s leg twitched thanks to a minute discharge of electricity my partner channelled subconsciously while Magnus overlooked the landing of our regular troops.

Our hunters from the twelfth were brought down to the ground by the fifteenth’s drake riders. Each airship had its wing of riders for operations such as these, since landing the entire airship would pose more logistical problems than a few quick transport flights.

“Are you okay, Magnus?” I asked. “Are you having second thoughts about… this?”

I indicated the body he was still holding in a death grip.

My partner shuddered and straightened. His fingers loosened and slipped out of the Thich’s face, allowing the corpse to hit the ground. The face was gone, leaving a mangled mass of flesh. “It’s alright. I was just a little stunned by their age. I may have hesitated more than I should.”

He muttered to himself and looked down at the body. “It was stupid of me. They shouldn’t have managed to do so much as touch me, but I let them get close like a bloody beginner because they were so young.”

Magnus’s expression was hidden beneath his helmet, but thanks to Second Sight I could tell he was bothered by what he had done.

My gaze wandered back to the girl’s dead eyes.

My partner’s feelings were easy enough to understand. What had happened in this settlement bothered me too, but for different reasons. I had years to get accustomed to the Thich’s wickedness. All they had achieved here in my eyes was hitting a new low. I could muster some understanding for the individuals caught up in the Thich's militaristic system. But as a whole, their clan was the enemy. Now that the peace was broken, killing any who wore the name Thich proudly was the only option.

My father had been right to take us down here and see the reality of war first-hand.

Magnus looked away at the sensor who lay at his feet, then at me. “They are even younger than Iv! No, that’s not what troubles me. I guess, I just wondered what I should do if I found Evanne among them. Is she even still alive? Or is dying in this war the greater danger for her? What if she is killed on some other battlefield and turned into a nameless corpse? I wouldn’t even know what happened to her!”

I took his hand, not caring about the blood on it. “The war would have happened whether with or without us. You know as well as I that there is more than us driving this conflict. The battlefield would be a different one, but that’s all. Maybe we would be fighting at Hochberg or Aerie instead of the border. And haven’t you found Ivonne already? You changed at least her life for the better. Where would she be right now if not for you?”

Magnus looked into my eyes and I could feel the electricity around him shift before he nodded and chuckled. “I guess finding Iv was already more than I ever hoped for when I allowed myself to be thrown through that godforsaken wormhole.”

I smiled and coughed to remind him of something. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Ah, of course. You are the most important thing aside from my little sister which I picked up on this cursed planet. Definitely the most important thing in my life! Where would I be right now without you?”

“Inside the belly of some horrible critter.” I bonked him on his helmet right before Etan landed next to us, carrying an oversized rifle.

The sight of the hilarious weapon finally got Magnus out of his funk. “What the fuck is that? Did they really shoot at us with that thing? I don’t know whether it’s still a rifle or already a cannon.”

Etan regarded the monstrous barrel which was as long as himself. “They did – and they might have been successful if it had been any other juggernaut. The more important question is how they got it.”

He removed the barrel which was attached with a quick-lock mechanism to the rest of the rifle. Then he pointed out a series of lines and squares on the barrel. The gravure had been placed in a manner which protected it from scratches once the weapon was assembled.

“I can believe that some highly skilled Thich artisan is capable of forging a weapon like this, much like we forge our own auto-cannons for the airships. But I doubt they would bother to use a QR code as a serial number.”

“Which means they either used an antique from the first settlers or they got it from Earth,” Magnus remarked. “The first option is one I doubt. Unless they are already desperate?”

Etan nodded. “I think this is another hint at what we are up against. I will take this to the council so they can see for themselves.”

“What do you think of them, father?” I asked and gestured.

Etan only looked at the girl’s body for a moment before he shrugged. “It’s nothing I didn’t expect. The Thich’s culture treats those they see as lesser as nothing more than expendable meat. Slaves, without quite calling them such, and while giving them just enough so they think themselves free. It’s a fine line they walk, but they had decades to perfect their art.

“I see their presence here as another hint at the true extent of this operation. The Thich have a sort of ‘academy’ where they train the young exiles they recruit from the Old Camp. Those they deem worthy are paired or ‘bonded’ as they call it to one of their loyalists. The ones with evolution paths which are deemed useless – no matter whether it is thanks to their experiments or not – are trained to become regular soldiers. Normally, such units are treated as disposable. From what I have seen, all the warriors here belong in that category.”

“So they sent what? A hundred? Two hundred soldiers to their doom? Because they think them worthless?” Magnus shook his head.

“I don’t believe this was the case here,” Etan amended. “I was just explaining how the Thich would see the youngster who fought and died today. Judging by the damage, I believe this settlement was taken by elite forces. These…” He gestured at the bodies. “They were just left here to hold the position while the real soldiers were needed elsewhere.”

Etan’s words proved true over the course of the next day.

That was how long it took our regulars to dig the Thich out of the cave system. The operation would have taken longer if the Thich had complete control of the tunnels. Thankfully, the lower levels were still held by Tros survivors.

Though finding the survivors wasn’t much of a relief. Of a population of over a thousand, less than a hundred Tros survived.

Matriarch Vanya was quick to offer the decimated clan to be absorbed into Clan Hochberg, which didn’t meet any resistance since Tros’s leadership had been obliterated. There simply was no cohesion left under the survivors.

Sadly, the survivors couldn’t tell us anything we hadn’t already figured out on our own.

It was decided to leave a contingent of Hochberg pioneers at the settlement while the fleet moved on. The Hochberg were famous for their defensive structures and Vanya promised us Tros wouldn’t fall so easily a second time, given her pioneers had a few weeks to dig in.

In fact, Tros had once been an old Hochberg stronghold. A leftover from the clan wars. But years of lacking resources and giving priority to living circumstances and a much too large population had left the fortress in an undefendable state.

Not a day later, the scouts hit us with the next bad news.

“The Old Camp is destroyed, the grove burned to the ground,” the scout informed us. “The Thich have three airships and at least two flights of some kind of flying mounts at the bunker. We didn’t dare to get close since we didn’t know how fast their mounts are. They looked like some kind of bat. But from what I could see, the damage to the Old Camp looked old – with new growth overgrowing the damaged structures. I believe the Old Camp was already destroyed the previous year and the plants had time to regrow since the end of winter.”

Teresa’s lips worked silently while she and the others digested the news. “Which explains why the Thich attacked the recruitment team. Whoever ordered the attack back then knew that the war was coming.”

My mother suddenly turned towards me and hugged me. “I am so glad you got out of there before their forces arrived.”

Juliana massaged the bridge of her nose. “The permanent staff we have there is most likely dead, just like the exiles.”

Vanya had also stopped playing with her cube. “It at least takes away the itch I felt.”

Having become a little more comfortable with the elders’ presence than was proper, Tianna bobbed her charge on the back of her head. “I said you shouldn’t formulate your considerations as if they were feelings!”

The matriarch rolled her eyes. “Then let’s call it an inconsistency in the tapestry of social interactions and events visible to me.”

She turned to address the command staff, “I suggest you send ten airships to retake the Old Camp. That place is in a strategically valuable position, and unlike Tros, the Thich will put up a real fight.”