Beneath the Dragoneye Moons

Chapter 488: The Han Civil War XIV

I took the news of Leonidus’s death with a cold, almost clinical detachment. The man was efficient, but we weren’t particularly close, and so many people were dying I was practically numb to it. The part that worried me the most was I was now a single heartbeat away from being in command of the entire Legion. Thousands of lives would become my responsibility.

Katerina had to live.

At the same time, that thought was personal, selfish. If I had enough mana to save Katerina or three other soldiers, life won. I’d save more people, and accept the burden of leadership.

I gathered a few more details about how he’d died, all the better to protect the rest of the Legion.

In short, my healing radius just barely covered the Legion when I was in the middle. When I was deflecting the charge, more than half the Legion was no longer covered, including command. Officers had potshots heading their way all the time, and Leonidus had simply been unlucky.

The battle continued to rage, and my mana ping-ponged all over the place. It went down hard after a bad clash, then for nearly an hour it steadily crept up as Meng Ao’s forces refused to properly engage with us, choosing to move around the unkillable block of legionnaires, then crashed down as Wang Jian used us as the ‘anvil’ in the classic ‘hammer and anvil’ strategy.

Auri flew down to my shoulder, pleased as punch.

“Brrpt BRRPT!!” She chattered gleefully in my ear. “Brrrpt!!”

Spears clashed against shields, and people screamed and wrestled with each other, locked in a bitter struggle of life and death.

“Auri, this is not the time or place.” I reprimanded my little fiery friend.

Auri puffed herself up unhappily.

“Brrrpt.”

“Tell me all about it later.” My words came out a little meaner than intended. “I’m sorry, Auri, I am interested, but it’s the past now.”

Auri stomped unhappily on my shoulder, her little feet going ting ting ting on the chainmail, but otherwise accepted that it was indeed a poor time to tell me about her aerial adventures against the harpies. They were out of the picture, that’s all that mattered for now.

I got to witness the Legion’s cognomen and reputation for alchemicals in person, for real.

“Hold! Brace!” Katerina ordered, the entire Legion coming to a halt a few moments later. The front row knelt as the second row stepped forward, everyone doing their best to interlock shields. Katerina’s shadow Legion joined in, the third row put their shields up, and the entire Legion turned into a prickly hedgehog.

“Elites incoming. Prepare for Firestorm.” Katerina ordered.

“Firestorm.” I repeated the order to my [Batteries]. “Rods down, wait for the signal, then rods back up.”

Eight rods got tucked into belts as Nike and the rest of my line acknowledged my order, the [Batteries] grabbing and hefting the lethal potions in one hand, keeping their shield up with their other.

“Wait for it… wait for it…” Katerina cautioned in my ear, then my ear clicked as Reed changed the communication channels around.

“Ironside Brigade! Firestorm!” Katerina ordered.

In waves, the front centuries of the Legion threw out their potions, arcing them up and over the first few lines of the hostile Han soldiers charging at us. Some of the potions were deflected, others were grabbed by skills and thrown back at us. Defensive abilities prevented some of the potions from breaking, and a few were just plain duds.

We knew that would happen, which was why we’d thrown over 500 of them. The vast majority got through.

In a great ripple of explosives, the potions detonated, throwing ceramic shrapnel and green flames roaring through the ranks of the dullahans, cutting the first few rows off from the back and their reinforcements. They had nowhere to run to, not unless they wished to dive through the deadly flames, and we were waiting for them on the other side.

“Legion. Advance.” Katerina calmly ordered, and the butchery continued.

The century in front of me continued to attempt to take prisoners. One of the captured elites, in a fit of idiocy or preferring death over capture, tried to kill one of the line leaders as we passed over her, gesturing with her hand and sending a metal bullet up and under the chainmail protection we all wore.

I flicked a finger out, intercepting the shot with [Nova Lance] - far cheaper than healing what that attack would do - and permitting the rest of the century to put her down once and for all.

Why? Why couldn’t she have chosen life?

I chose instead to focus on all the people I did save. The occasional prisoner was nice, but seeing Grizzly walk away from a spear in the throat made my heart leap for joy. Boots had a nasty shot take a bite out of her flank, and her walking it off made my soul sing.

Shame about her boots though, they were utterly ruined now.

All up and down the Legion, dozens, if not hundreds, of people survived blows they should have no reason to shrug off. I wasn’t invincible or omnipotent, but I chose to look at the bright side. At the rising sun promising a tomorrow for us all.

Auri eventually recovered enough mana, and gods, phoenixes were terrors.

She darted off my shoulder and, hovering only inches above the ground, zipped forward, ducking and weaving between legs, dodging boots, and generally being almost impossible to see until she’d passed by in a burning streak. She was out of my view and outside of [The World Around Me] in seconds.

Moments later, deep inside Meng Ao’s lines, near the command center, a massive fireball erupted, almost too bright to look at until my immunity to fire kicked in. Even from way back where we were, it felt like a bonfire, crisping my eyebrows and drying out my mouth.

A molten pile of cooling metals was left behind as Auri triumphantly soared back to my shoulder.

“Brrrpt!!”

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I half expected battles to end with large climactic fights. Meng Ao dueling with Wang Jian high above our heads or something. Instead, it was more of a whimper, where fewer and fewer people fought, my mana caught an upswing and didn’t stop, and eventually the command came over the voice channel.

“Ironside Brigade. Looks like we’re done here. Let’s clear the field, take what prisoners we can, and start handling the aftermath.” Katerina ordered. “I don’t want any surprises, or any last-second problems. Nobody dies until we get back to our camp. Understood?”

A chorus of acknowledgements came from the various tribunes.

“Legata, I’m peeling off to deal with the battlefield wounded.” I didn’t ask for permission. I was going to do it one way or another, and asking just invited trouble. Me and mine were safe and sound, and there were hundreds, if not thousands, of wounded left on the battlefield, just like before. Acid and Fire, Metal and Stone, Dark and Brilliance had all left their mark, both on the landscape and the battlefield.

“Go. Officer’s meeting shortly after we get back.” Katerina said. Reed chimed in a moment later.

“Dawn, do you need a line detailed to your command?” He asked.

“Yes please. I’m keeping Nike and her line, but a few extra bodies to prevent trouble would be appreciated.” I said.

“Understood. Wren and his line work for you?” Reed asked.

“No issues with Wren. Send him over.” I said.

I refocused back on the present.

“Sorry all.” I apologized to my [Batteries]. “Battle’s over, but our work’s just begun.”

The news wasn’t well-received, most of the members groaning.

“Oh come on!” Nike complained. “We’re done! It’s over! Let’s get back and celebrate!”

“The quicker we clear the field, the sooner we can party.” I tried to mix being stern with compassion. Wren jogged over, spear over one shoulder.

“Woo! That was some dustup. You Bunny? The old lady said I had to look after you for a cinch.”

I glared at Wren, my stature not helping any intimidation attempts, while struggling to think of what to say.

“Brrrpt.” Auri’s threat, while unintelligible, was a good reminder that I had someone in my corner.

“I am.” I answered. “Going to clear the field, see if we can keep people from dying. Wang Jian’s troops might object to us healing Meng Ao’s soldiers, so expect some conflict.”

Wren grinned and spat.

“Wang Jian’s bastards? Ooooh, you’re my new favorite person Bunny. I’ve been looking for an excuse to punch one of those smug dicks in the face a while now, and handed to me on a silver platter?” Wren rubbed his hands together gleefully, perfectly balancing his spear on his shoulder while he did so. “I can’t wait.”

This was going to go swimmingly.

===========================

My cover was somewhat blown already. Between deflecting the majority of Meng Ao’s opening move, and my instant repositioning to bluff the triceratops charge down, the existence of a healer Classer in the Ironside Brigade was revealed. The battlefield wasn’t quite as large or as bloody as the first fight I’d been in, which let me dash up and down the field, healing the wounded as quickly as I could. The Tears of Vulcan erupted again on the horizon, great gouts of lava blowing high into the air before coming back down again.

“Brrrpt!” Auri gazed in adoration at the flames emerging all around the eruption.

“Thinking of taking a Lava element?” I asked.

“Brrrpt… brrrpt?” Auri wasn’t quite sure. Maybe. It had some appeal, it was related to the Fire element, but it wasn’t Fire.

“I’ll support whatever you do.” I promised her. “Plus, mobile ovens whenever you want them!”

Auri threw me a disgusted look.

“Brrrpt.” She patronized me, then out of the tiniest flames, constructed a perfect little Inferno oven right in front of my face.

“Alright, alright.” I dismissed it with a laugh. “I got it.”

Looters quickly arrived on the field, and again, some of them tried to kill the wounded, to make it easier for them to rob their bodies.

“There.” I pointed a set out to Wren, who cracked his knuckles with glee.

“You are my favorite boss.” He praised me before dashing off.

“Try not to kill them!” I shouted after him.

“Spoilsport! Least favorite boss!” He yelled back.

“BRRRPT!” Auri shrieked a threat after Wren. He better listen to me OR ELSE.

Auri puffed herself up and settled down on my shoulder, content that she’d Done Her Part. I patted her, more out of needing the happy contact than anything else.

I kept half an eye on him, but to his credit, nobody died. Four broken limbs, yes. Poetic justice as he robbed them instead, I was all for the karma. Pissing on them after? That was just going too far.

How Katerina didn’t live with a perpetual headache was beyond m-

Aw fuck. I was the source of just as many headaches to Katerina, wasn’t I?

We cleared the field in record time, and returned back to the fort. I was sitting on a pile of level up notifications, but I wanted to wait until I was done with all my work and healing before checking them out. The stats and improved skills were automatically applying in the background, so it wasn’t like I was deliberately weakening myself.

A number of small pyres were being assembled. I counted them all, learning the patterns and arrangements of the logs, memorizing the grain in every stick of wood. Each pyre was a failure on my part. A life I’d sworn to save, and failed to do so. Their bodies laid in rest next to the pyres, a full century acting as an honor guard while the funerals were prepared. Two of them I knew by name.

Only two.

“Detail. Dismissed.” I softly ordered, letting Wren, Nike, and their lines off on a break, to go do what they needed to do.

“Brrpt!” Auri hopped off my shoulder, hovering in front of the pyres. “Brrpt, brrrpt!!” She conjured up a [Mage Hand] and tried to point at various things that needed improving, so the fires would burn as strongly and as brightly as possible, giving her fallen friends the best possible sending-off.

I forced myself forward, forced myself to walk up to the shrouded bodies. I made my hand peel back the cloth covering the faces - or what little was left of them. A mess stared back at me, a head so mangled and ruined I didn’t know who it was.

But I’d remember. For eternity, I would remember.

“What was his name?” I asked one of the honor guards.

“Titus.” He answered with a tear. “Just Titus.”

I nodded solemnly.

“Titus.” I repeated. “I will permanently remember him.”

The solstice was coming up. My day of remembrance. The day practically everyone I knew and loved had died.

[Astral Archives] was like a mental library, a mind palace of books. I walked up and down the imaginary rows, finding the fat book in question in a place of honor. A podium at the center.

Book of the Dead.

The list, the knowledge, the names and memories of everyone I knew who had died, in a single solemn place. My own Indomitable Wall, one that only I could visit. I flicked it open, the first entry an ancient wound.

Lyra. My childhood friend, the one who’d inspired my [Oath]. A poor girl, whose only record of ever existing was me and my memory. Night wouldn’t know her. There wouldn’t have been a single record anywhere in Remus of her existence. After all, she was a girl, a second class citizen thrice over. Her entry was thick and detailed, the years of our lives together etched into paper. From our first meeting, to the games we played, the way she laughed and danced, the way she begged for food and inhaled every morsel she could get her hands on, it was all there.

Name after name, life after life, I flipped through the pages until I reached the end, a blank space for a new name.

Titus. I mentally inscribed the words, not having much to say. Soldier of the Sixth Legion. Died under my protection fighting Meng Ao.

A whole life, boiled down to a simple sentence. I wish I could do more. I wish I had the time to talk with his friends, find his family. Ask about him. See what he’d been like. His interests, his desires. I wish I could record the entirety of his life in a way that would make him come to life.

I didn’t have the time. The relentless clock of time continued to tick in my ear, every heartbeat letting me know that people were still wounded and injured, and I needed to get to them now before they succumbed to their injuries. It was entirely possible that I’d be gone so long that I’d miss their funeral, and I was still regenerating mana.

“Dawn.” The soldier respectfully interrupted my thoughts. “I just want to say thank you. You saved my life and my friend’s lives at least twice. There’d be dozens more pyres without you. You probably know all this, but I just had to say it.”

I rewarded the man with a sad smile.

“I just wish there were no pyres at all.” I was feeling morose.

One by one I learned their names, flinching as I was told Spec’s name.

I hadn’t even recognized his body.

It hit me then.

One day, every single man and woman in the Sixth Legion would be inscribed in my Book of the Dead. I was Immortal. I was going to outlive them all. By fire or flames, sword or spear, or, by some miracle, the sweet embrace of White Dove as they died of old age, one day I would have every single name written down. Their lives would end, and mine would continue.

The weight of Immortality briefly threatened to crush me. I shook it off - I had no time for a crisis of conscience now, not even with [Parallel Thoughts]. There were wounded who’d been dragged off the battlefield to help and save.

I cut through the layers of security, making it straight to the Legata. I threw off a crisp salute.

“Legata. I’ve got [Oath] business elsewhere. I’ll return in a bit.”

Katerina frowned, then shrugged. Were the crinkles in her crow’s feet a new headache I’d just given her, like Wren had given me one?

“You’ll miss the officer’s meeting, which is unfortunate. You need to start attending now that you’re the second in command. I’m tapping Tribune Tristanus or Hazel to take acting second in command, but you’re still next if I die. We’re doing the funerals at sunset, then after action reports. Be back by then.” She ordered.

I took off at full speed, my anti-friction runes the only thing that stopped mountains of paper from whirling in my wake.

I had a Black Crow to disappoint.