Tail
Tail
Aslan couldn't cut down every Warrior Monk without taking wounds himself. Not even him.
Fighting a running battle against multiple Warrior Monks meant getting hit sooner or later. So he didn't try to wipe them out.
One—the monk Angie had been fighting—had to die, but the rest weren't worth the cost of killing.
The priority was holding the line and driving the Warrior Monks off. Aslan deliberately threw away the advantage of surprise, showing himself to strike.
Their wave assault had been planned around his absence. Once Aslan was visibly back on the field, the Warrior Monks had no reason to stay. If they lingered and took a counterattack that gutted their numbers, the loss would be theirs. They pulled back fast.
Seven dead in total. Five who had guarded the tomb, the one who had fought Angie, and the one who had gone after Tiyamal.
Aslan carried the unconscious Angie on his back and returned to camp with Tiyamal.
By the time he laid her down inside a tent and stepped back out, dusk had thickened into night. Ground-spiders shrouded the trees, weaving shadow so dense the silhouettes seemed to reach for his feet.
The hour was perfect for an ambush, but the forest was eerily still. His Luck stayed silent.
One man had shown himself, and the Warrior Monks had vanished without a trace.
The fact ought to have felt strange, but Tiyamal showed no sign of curiosity. He tilted a bizarre-shaped bottle and drank.
The sharp, pungent smell of liquor. Tiyamal reeked of it, long bandages wrapping from his shoulders down his back and along his arm. Beneath the bandages came the bitter scent of medicinal herbs, and Aslan could read in that how hard the rest of them had pressed themselves during the two days he was gone.
Something like guilt crawled up his throat. Tiyamal eyed him, wrinkled his nose, and asked:
"What's with the face?"
"...Thinking you all had a rough time while I wasn't here."
"Won't say it wasn't rough, but nobody asked you to fret. I'm the old man who picked where to fight."
Tiyamal wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, catching spilled liquor, then held out the bottle. Aslan declined. He was a lightweight with alcohol to begin with, and he wasn't in the mood. Getting blind drunk while his party lay injured wasn't the kind of man he was.
Two days without him. The Warrior Monks hadn't come in small numbers. Beating them back had cost the party—wounds and exhaustion.
Inside the tent where Aslan had set Angie down, Fay and Ereta were laid out too. The only one still intact was Tiyamal, who had fought at range the whole time.
If he had at least brought the Master of the Spear along, the taste might be less bitter. But he hadn't, and it wasn't.
Aslan twisted his mouth and let out a breath. Tiyamal watched him, then clapped him twice on the back.
"Don't dwell on it. The little ones in there won't dwell on it either. And this old man's too damned manly to fuss over small things."
Tiyamal laughed, a low rumbling sound, and blew a long breath into the breeze threading through the ground-spiders' shadow. The air from his nostrils was sweet with drink. Aslan looked at him for a moment, then nodded reluctantly.
They stood in silence until Tiyamal's bottle finally ran dry.
He clicked his tongue, tossed the bottle aside, and glanced at Aslan.
"Letting them go—was that on purpose?"
"...Yeah."
Tiyamal rubbed his scale-covered jaw and made a low, considering noise.
"Not a bad call. Long as they don't figure it out."
"They won't. I killed them ugly."
When the tomb's owner died and the structure began to collapse, Aslan had worked the last of it—brought the walls down and crushed every Warrior Monk who had surrounded him. Like an enormous hand grinding a giant bug into paste. He had left the scene deliberately brutal so the Warrior Monks wouldn't suspect they had been spared.
And the Master of the Spear had already slipped away from the battlefield, heading elsewhere. Whatever his movements implied, the Warrior Monks would be busy reading strategy into them.
To them, Aslan was the symbol of Victory. The Priest Slayer.
They couldn't help but over-watch his smallest moves and load them with meaning. He had counted on exactly that.
If things flowed as he intended, no matter how the Warrior Monks assessed his actions or guessed at his motives, the wave assault would stop. They would decide pressing it was a waste.
"Anyway, we'll be safe for a while. At least long enough to recover and tend the wounded."
Aslan said it while folding Stymphalos's Wings around himself and turning to Tiyamal.
Even in the dark, the red scales gleamed. Tiyamal had shed his outer tunic, scales partly bared, and he still hadn't lowered his guard. His bow sat beside him, ready to loose the instant a Warrior Monk entered his sensory range.
Normally, Tiyamal would be the picture of ease. Seeing him like this, the thought struck Aslan abruptly: they couldn't stay on this battlefield forever.
It had to end.
"How's the ceasefire agreement?"
He asked, and Tiyamal opened his jaws in a yawn, then shook his head.
"About what you're imagining."
So it's the worst case. Aslan packed the thought away with a sigh, brushed himself off, and stood. Tiyamal spoke as he headed for the command tent:
"Good to have you back."
Aslan nodded. Tiyamal's mouth quirked.
With that half-sendoff behind him, Aslan passed soldiers collapsed in exhausted sleep and entered the command tent.
Light still seeped through the canvas—officers awake inside. Their response came the moment they saw his face: a collective rush of relieved breath.
"Thank the gods you've returned."
The first to speak was the bald, middle-aged general. The Emperor's man. A bandage wrapped his head, crossing his face; he had taken a wound in the last fight. One eye was hidden beneath the cloth, a dark red stain spreading where the socket should be.
"I'm sorry I'm late."
"No apology needed. We're simply grateful you're back."
The general smiled as he spoke. The officers around him, sallow-faced and pale though they were, offered nods and ghosting smiles. Agreement, mostly. The prevailing sentiment was the relief of having him back at all.
That relief told him everything about their condition. It wasn't good.
A man missing an arm. Another with bandages wrapped around his belly. Some so pallid and reeking of medicine they looked fresh off the edge of death.
Aslan shut his eyes and let a breath leak out.
Two days. Just two days, and he could see what had happened to them.
The general waved a hand before Aslan could voice the sigh.
"Please, don't. Truly. We avoided the worst, didn't we?"
The worst had been avoided only because the Masters Aslan had brought along had held on.
Aslan opened his eyes.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be here in time."
"No, you really needn't—"
Despite the protests, Aslan bowed his head.
If he hadn't fallen into that tomb, not so many would be dead. Death beyond his reach still sickened him. Twelve years later, that was why he still roamed: so he wouldn't have to protect anything larger than his own life. Even that was a distant luxury now. He shook the thought off and faced the gathered officers.
"The ceasefire agreement... didn't go well, I take it."
"...No."
The bald general nodded grimly and laid out the situation.
It was as bad as Aslan had expected.
Count Sholukund was dead. Count Warpol had seized on that, denouncing the Emperor's faction while hardening his justification for civil war. Worse, Sholukund's heir was his young son—still a child. For now the boy held the title, but that wouldn't last. A newly minted child-count couldn't accomplish anything. He would be doing exactly as Count Warpol's hands directed.
The Sholukund domain was effectively already in Warpol's grip. That was the real disaster.
The existing plan for a ceasefire required Sholukund's cooperation. It couldn't function without it. And they couldn't abandon the agreement and push for full-scale war, either. The moment they advanced into Sholukund territory—relatively vast—the front would stretch thin. A wider front meant more ground for the Warrior Monks to operate on.
The last two days had already proven that dispersing the Masters' strength across an extended line couldn't hold. All they could do was maintain the current front.
The only way out was the ceasefire.
"So we need you to step forward, Sir Aslan."
With Sholukund gone as a mediator, the sole remaining path was external. They needed promises of cooperation and support from an outside power, enough to make Count Warpol balk at continuing the civil war.
Aslan took in the information, thought it over, and spoke.
"You want to make this bigger than a civil war."
"Precisely. With the Warrior Monks pulled back and still in hiding, now is the moment."
What the bald general wanted from him was one thing.
To serve as the Empire's envoy. To secure the aid of a foreign nation whose military strength yielded nothing to its neighbors.
Aslan's gaze met his, and the general allowed himself a thin smile.
"Belus Alpen."
The name of the nation Aslan was to bring on board was Belus Alpen. A city-state in name only—its power and renown matched any kingdom around it. But it was no ordinary city.
It was the city of the Dragon-kin, their homeland. A city divided into districts named after the body parts of a dragon, with a class hierarchy mapped to each district.
And those names were not mere labels.
The god who had created the Dragon-kin and fathered the wild dragons that roamed Geladrion.
The God of Fire and Smithing, who had forged the arms and armor of the gods themselves.
That colossal dragon had died when the Predator's molten tungsten shot shattered its spine. The city had grown up beneath its remains.
That was Belus Alpen.
"I would ask you, Sir Aslan, to secure that city's cooperation."
And only those with the right qualifications could enter.
Two things mattered in Belus Alpen: martial strength and smithing.
On the first, he had no concern.
Aslan was Master of Combat.