Kingdom Come: Chapter 11

Four days later, we glimpsed Myszno for the first time.

Behind us was some of the most beautiful scenery I’d ever seen in my life. We crossed the Sathbar Plains, an endless sea of grass and soaring blue skies, sandstorms and stampedes. At the edge of the province, the Western Tashkar Range reared up over the flat grasslands like towering sentinels. The black mossy mountains were so tall they vanished into the clouds, and in the morning of our arrival, they were streaming with mist that poured down into crystal-clear lakes far below. The air was like nothing I’d ever smelled. Clear, dusty and grassy-sweet, it filled me with a strange longing. But once we passed into the shadow of the mountain, it turned bitterly cold.

Karalti was slightly faster than the warships and was able to fly much higher, to a maximum ceiling of twelve thousand feet. We cruised at just over five thousand, but even at this great height, we came nowhere near the height of the mountains. Our entry point was Vastil Pass, the major trade route between Myzsno and the rest of Vlachia. From a mile above the ground, it looked like a complete clusterfuck. 

Camps sprawled out like old bloodstains from the mouth of the pass, turning it into a bottleneck. They were disorderly and irregularly-shaped, with no planning or structure. Lines of caravans crawled away from the camps - west, toward civilization. There was no farmland, no settlements, and nothing to eat. The land around the camps was a dirty red-brown color, trampled to mud by wagons, animals, people, and their cargo.

“Woah. That’s a lot of people,” Karalti remarked. “Is that the vampire guy’s army?”

“No. I’m pretty sure those are refugees, but we need to drop about two thousand feet if I’m going to make out any detail.”

Karalti dipped her wingtip and soared lower, gradually descending the required two thousand-feet in a lazy spiral around the perimeter of the camp. The cold leather saddle creaked under my hands, tightening as we descended into mountain shadows and the temperature plummeted. Water vapor beaded on the crystal visor of my helmet, freezing in fine patterns across the glass. Swallowing against the change of pressure in my ears, I pushed myself upright and leaned forward on the saddle grips so I could see around her neck. “Yeah, no way those guys are undead. It doesn't look like a Sathbari plainsmen camp, either. Definitely refugees."

"You’re right. It’s all scared people. Smells bad." Karalti pulled into a thermal, filling her wings like sails. She pointed with her snout at one part of the camp. "Look, down there. People are fighting."

I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and zoomed my vision to the area she was indicating. My HUD took over from my eyes at that point, magnifying the scene below to a superhuman level. Close to twenty people were arguing over a wagon loaded with livestock, with some trying to drag the goats and chickens off, and others standing on the wagon, beating them back. Everyone down there looked ragged and desperate. Unless you were a good hunter, food was hard to come by on the steppe.

“There’s nothing we can do for them.” I grimaced and shook my head. “The only thing we can do is win the war.”

Our course took us through Vastil Pass and then south. The Pass was bleak and rocky and vaguely unnatural, as if a giant worm had burrowed a tunnel through the mountains. As we drew closer to the lowlands, ruins began to appear. Fortresses, crowded with crumbling wreckage, and rows upon rows of monolithic statues weathered by time. They were so old that their features had weathered away into nothingness, leaving tall, pillar-like figures looming over the road to either side of the pass. But at the end of the bleak tunnel, Myszno transformed again. The road broke out into a verdant greenhouse of a land. I’d been expecting Myzsno to be alpine, like Germany or Switzerland. It wasn’t: it was more like Kentucky. Mild, leafy, humid… the hills were brilliantly green with sycamore and walnut, fading out into alpine pastures and meadows brilliant with flowers. Three thousand feet off the ground, and Karalti and I kept running into butterflies. Mashka hadn’t been exaggerating about the beauty of the place.

On the last day of our journey, we flew wide around Litvy, which was barely a smudge in the dark horizon. We knew we were getting close when the air became grittier and smokier. Another hour, and a sweet rotten stench carried to us on the wind. That was when we spotted our destination: the Endlar Swamp. 

The Demon’s fires raged on the southern side of this natural No Man’s Land, the flames gnawing away at the edge of the waterlogged forest that lay between the army of the dead and the fortifications of the Prezyemi Line. When we were about half a mile away, my HUD came into view, and a holographic map lit up the dark landscape beneath us, tracing the main landmarks of the battlefield.

As I was taking all this in, I noticed a side-quest alert. I leaned up on the saddle and swiped it in.

New Quest: Survey the Line

You have reached the place where Myszno’s fate is to be decided: the Prezyemi Line. To learn more about the area, survey it by focusing on and labeling different features of the environment. The more thorough you are, the better knowledge you will gain.

Reward: Skill EXP, Knowledge (Grade Varies)

I accepted, and a ticker appeared. I leaned to the right to get Karalti to drop a wingtip and began to hunt for landmarks. 

The Line was not a single fortress, but rather a network of trenches, bunkers, bastions and rammed earth ramparts that zigzagged behind the rivers. I started by assessing the most obvious feature: the rivers. 

The Gul and Sarviz Rivers converged into a delta, which surrounded several islands and then plunged into a great waterfall that flowed into the Endlar. The largest fortress of the Line was built over those islands: the star-shaped Koronya Fort. It had a commanding view of the land over the waterfalls, which flowed underneath a series of grand bridges and walls.

Each time I spotted something, a point was added to the ticker and a label was added to the virtual overlay. I marked off cannons, bastions, gates, siege equipment, the stone barracks and the militia encampment behind it, the bridges linking them. It was like the JADE-IV holomaps we were given in the Army during mission briefings. Actually… now that I thought about it… it was exactly like a J-MAP, except that I didn’t need an augmented reality helmet to see it.

My experience paid off here. I was used to doing this exact task IRL, and after I hit forty-two tags, my HUD pinged.

[You have new knowledge: the Prezyemi Line (A-grade)]

[You have acquired a new map: the Koronya Fortified District]

A-Grade!? This was my first A-grade knowledge entry for anything in Archemi. Only S-grade was higher, and that required you to be on the ground to gather facts. I’d never gotten an A for anything before. I eagerly thought my way over to the ArchemiPedia.

The Prezyemi Line

The Prezyemi Line (Prez-yeh-mi) is a series of ‘fortified districts’ that protects the northern border of Livada County, the historic Southern frontier of Vlachian-occupied Myszno. The line was constructed by the second King of the Vlachii, Volod Lawislaw the Burned, during his conquest of Myszno and its incorporation as a province of Vlachia-

“Hector! There’s an assault on the Fort!” Karalti’s voice cut the narration short, and my combat HUD jumped to life. 

“Fuck.” I squinted at the battlefield, and sure enough, a straggling line of dark shapes were cutting the waters of the swamp. No sooner had we spotted it than the watchtower bells began to ring, and the defenses of the bastions along the walls came to life. I tapped the group PM I’d been using to communicate with Rin and Suri these last few days. “Be advised, there’s a small assault happening on Koronya right now. Karalti and I are going in to help.”

Suri replied first. “Roger that. We’re just coming into view of the Line now. Will advise crew, over.”

I looked back over my shoulder to see if I could spot the Orozlan, but then something snagged the corner of my eye. Frowning, I turned to look as a squadron of swiftly moving shadows dipped in around the massive waterfalls plummeting from under the curtain wall and then vanished.

"Should we go back?" Karalti, who didn't have my insane peripheral vision, was oblivious.

"No. Descend five hundred and hold. I just saw something."

The dragon tilted against the roaring wind and soared down quickly enough that my ears popped. As we leveled out, I saw the shadows gliding forward again, and then the creatures that were making them: nine massive gray and black vultures almost the size of Karalti. They were sneaking up on the bastions that projected over the river, flying out of sight of the cannons that were firing on the rest of the assault force.

"Look sharp to your three o'clock," I ordered. "Are we close enough for you to scan them?"

"Maybe? I think so." Karalti swiveled her head in that direction, and I smelled ozone as she began to work magic.

"Ten bogeys attacking the refugee camp from the NE, going to engage." I rattled off the PM to Suri and Rin before the spell took hold, closing the dictation box just before my HUD pushed in the monster description:

Kalxat

Level 12

HP: 883/883

Weak Against Fire

Also known as Plague Rocs, Kalxat are huge predatory birds warped by mana. Intelligent and social, they work in flocks to spread disease, and their attacks can cause blindness, deafness, muteness and other disabilities.

"Nine Level 12 monsters. Let's figure they get a bonus to attacking as a group, so plan for damage to about Level 16," I muttered aloud. To Karalti, I said: "Think we're ready for our first dogfight, Tidbit?"

"Yeah! Roast turkey for dinner!"

“Kentucky Fried Vulture. Gross.” I pulled my spear off my back, just as my HUD chirped and played a message from Suri.

“Hector, Royal Dragoons are suiting up their quazi and will assist as soon as we’re in range,” she said. “If you have trouble, kite the monsters back toward the ship and we’ll support.”

"Roger-dodger." I banged the top of my helmet with a fist, then unclipped the safety straps that connected me to Karalti's saddle and knelt up, fighting the pummeling wind to crouch. "Okay, girl: let's see if all our training’s paid off."

“Okay! Hold on!” Karalti dropped her wing and slipped out of the thermal, swooping toward the vultures as they dived at the fortress below.