Chapter Fifty- Five – A Warband

"The picture she paints is terrifying," Shvaughn admitted, watching the warrior girl run off faster than she could attain with magic. Sama looked human enough in ears and build, but those eyes were either magical or something else, and the mottled skin on her shoulder and neck very unsettling.

The black nose and whiskers Tattoo had been almost unsettlingly cute, however.

"Yes," agreed Usilla, also watching Sama and her floating Disk with its load of cabinets disappearing quickly. The extra pork was all left behind to dry out and get added to the rations of the rangers, disappearing into their packs quickly.

"Your tone is unsettled. How went your magic?" Shvaughn asked the elfin diviner.

"I decided to follow her advice and see what would happen. It was… unsettling. The very tenor of the spell changed. It was as if I was being called on to answer questions unspoken.

"The nature of the spell is that I am, in essence, disturbing a higher being with questions for answers I don't know. This time, I could feel it thirsting for my next question, a dire need arising, and an eagerness to hear my words." Usilla took a deep breath. "I believe she played it perfectly. If I had simply sought to inform them without asking questions, I would have gained nothing, or been subverted. I have never felt such approval on the other end."

"And we cannot play a waiting game, if her words are to be believed, as the forces coming are scattered, varied, and not coherent… but they are endless. If a true Champion emerges and unites them…" Shvaughn trailed off.

"We know from the tales that the forces of Heaven have their disagreements, but in the end, they are united and have their own places above. If there is information to be shared, it is shared quickly and universally. Portents, dreams, omens, visions, and possibly even direct divine servants are being sent out even as we speak, and all the faithful of the lands threatened are going to be whelmed in a short time." Usilla took a deep breath. "There should be forces moving quickly even now. Adventurers and special agents of the Divine and great powers will be stirring to action at the early alarm.

"I do not know how many lives she has saved by arranging for this early alarm, but it was a clever ploy."

"The enemy sees this as a great game, a chance to spread more seeds of corruption. To stop them, we must find the center from which they are spreading, close it, and then slaughter the agents they have brought to this world. They move in groups of hundreds to thousands, like an endless number of bandit raiders." Shvaughn frowned. "We will have to split up our own forces in order to intercept them all. This will weaken our fighting ability."

"Yes, if the war magic they can call upon is as powerful as she described. The Shaper seeks to change the very nature of magic here. I will have to witness it myself, of course, but I am not looking forward to it." Gathering dozens of Casters together would have an incredible effect on a battlefield with Ritual Magic helping boost their strength, but this unknown war magic of the enemy might be something to fear. "It should not work, but the Shaper is directly intervening to warp the Laws of Magic. It must not be allowed to endure."

Shvaughn watched the last of the rangers heading out, following Sama north, along the tracks of the beast-men warband. Such tracks were basically an open road to follow for these hunters, who could track a week-old spoor faultlessly through the forest, let alone a thousand abusive, arrogant bastards chopping it apart as they advanced.

The rest of the rangers were burning away the last of the corpses of the dead. Sama had told them that as long as they got at least 95% of them, the vivic energy would be enough to purge anything they missed. But, they more the merrier, it was like a huge offering of alien invaders to the Land, and they were going about their task with religious zeal.

They'd be forming mounds of the dead, and Ash Nap would set them alight, cool unwhite fires pouring mists down into the Land. The crows and maggots wouldn't be pleased, but it was what it was.

The little swordswoman's advice and knowledge about what kind of foes they would be fighting was impressively deep, and her voice had carried to every ranger about her as they discussed such things. The calm professionalism and level of detail, especially the flat and rather unimpressed threat level assessment, had sold them on the information, even before she had put up remarkably detailed illusions up of what to expect via her talking Sword.

Even Ulissa hadn't heard much of this information, as the Mad Gods of the Warp were not something wise people delved into for details. As rangers, learning details about what they were hunting was very important, and would quickly pay off as they learned more fighting, but the most important thing had been… attitude.

---

"Listen, warriors. You're facing the Mad Gods of the Warp. They have only two objectives: be entertained, and spread their power. They want fights, and they want to corrupt and claim more mortal souls.

"What they do not want, because it's not possible in their home realm, is to lose. And you can definitely make them lose!

"They are insane and malevolent, but they are not stupid. What you have to do in this battle against the forces of mad gods is stop treating them like serious foes, and start treating them like Food for the Land.

"Feed them to the Land. All of them. Burn their items of magic and use them to reinforce and strengthen your own. Keep NOTHING. It all gets burned to make you stronger, and the Land stronger.

"And what that means is… the Warp is making their enemies stronger and stronger, instead of claiming ground for themselves.

"The gods are going to get involved very soon, and they are going to start making things difficult for the servants of the Warp. This whole thing is going to get shoved down to the mortal level like normal, and become a test for our peoples to defend the Land and decide our own fates. The Warp Gods like fights, so they'll happily agree to this, since they always win in the end at home.

"But things are different here. As you fight, you get stronger. Take their goodies, and make your own stronger. And always, always, Feed them to the Land. Take the power they invest in their servants, and give it to the Land. This will force them to expend more power to resist the Land trying to seal them off, and stop them from reclaiming the power they blessed their champions with.

"Take it all, steal it away, and Feed it to the Land. Get stronger by killing them, and then kill them even faster. They'll throw even more servants out, and they'll die even faster. It'll become a rapid spiral of them expending power and getting nothing back.

"And then, if you magic people are really good, you'll shut whatever Rift they are coming through in a very explosive vivic manner, and really cost them some power… so pass on to your heavy Casters that they need a way to rupture a planar breach and collapse it in a really nasty way.

"I'm going out in the morning to find another warband to turn into a continental appetizer. I'm going to burn them all and everything, one way or another. I'm going to make them very, very pissed at me, because they can't see me and can't do anything about me.

"Start building your warbands. Encircle the lands, and don't let a one of theirs escape if you can. Make names for yourselves, make them want to seek you out and fight you, and reap them when they do. You'll need kill teams, battle companies, and war bands to contest with all the different shit they are going to be throwing out against you.

"Don't waste what they have to give you. Burn it, and become stronger!"

---

It was a hard, cold, violent, and very ambitious mindset. She had been eager at the thought of fighting hundreds or thousands of insanely violent Warp marauders all by herself.

And she sang The Evening Wind, the Salute to Sylune, and Greet the Morning like some kind of wild, avenging angel, totally uncaring of the rangers around. Elf-blooded, they were drawn into her songs despite themselves, taking up the songs to the Huntress, the Silver Queen, and the Sun King when her and her Sword were done.

"Did you notice she learned our language in minutes?" Usilla spoke up abruptly.

Shvaughn blinked. "What?"

"She was speaking to us in Fey until she sang to Aethra in Human, and the rangers all repeated her words in Elven. From then on, she spoke to us in our own language."

Shvaughn shook her head slightly. "I… had not thought about it," she admitted. Of course, singing to Aethra in the language of the godless Fey would have been unnatural, so hearing it in Human had not been anything surprising. Her command of the Elven language had been so natural that Shvaughn just thought she did it as a courtesy. "I had thought her related to the Fey…"

"Yes, I noticed the Brownie, too. But no, there is nothing Fey about that Null of hers. Her teeth are not human, nor her nails."

"Yes, I noticed the double canines. Another half-blood of sorts?"

"With interesting parentage, no doubt," Usilla mused.

"The Fey gossip. Certainly they will have information about her, if we but ask."

"A wise thing to do, for someone as dangerous as that."