Chapter 107: Her Army Marches

Zion stood on the edge of the cliff looking down at the valley.

Smoke rose from three different points on the horizon.

Oakhaven, Riverbend, and Ashwood.

Three Church-controlled villages burning at the exact same time.

She didn’t wait for the Church to come to her. Waiting was for NPCs. Players took the initiative and controlled the board.

[FACTION: THE UNCHAINED. MEMBERS: 847. MORALE: HIGH. LOYALTY: 82%.]

[WARNING: FACTION IS EXCEEDING “REBEL GROUP” PARAMETERS. RECLASSIFYING AS “INSURGENT ARMY.”]

Zion swiped the notification away.

Insurgent army. It sounded better.

She had liberated the serfs, burned the tithe records, and opened the armories.

Anyone who wanted to fight the Church was handed a spear.

Those who didn’t were told to run north. Most took the spears.

Varek climbed the rocky path and stopped beside her. He looked at the three columns of smoke.

“The southern outposts are ours, Liberator,” Varek said.

“But the scouts just returned. Exarch Darius crossed the river two hours ago.”

“Numbers?”

“Two thousand.” Varek unrolled a leather map on a flat rock.

“Heavy infantry, cavalry, and at least fifty battle clerics.”

Zion looked at the map.

Varek pointed at their current position. “We are fewer. Worse armed. No fortresses.”

Zion drew her black dagger. She pressed the tip against the map, right where the river met the canyon.

She traced a line cutting the Church’s path.

“They are more. Better armed. With fortresses.” Zion smiled. “And they are still going to lose.”

Varek frowned. “How do you know?”

Zion looked down at the camp below the cliff.

Her people were sharpening rusty swords, binding wounds with dirty rags, and sharing stale bread.

“Because they fight for a salary,” Zion said. She sheathed her dagger. “We fight because we have nothing to lose.”

Varek didn’t look convinced. Mathematics didn’t care about morale.

Two thousand against eight hundred were bad odds.

Zion knew that. That was why she didn’t plan on fighting fair.

She turned toward the shadow of the trees. “Bring them out.”

Thirty figures stepped into the light.

They didn’t look like soldiers.

They wore torn novice robes, dirty rags, and chains that had been broken but not removed.

They were the heretics.

Novices with Gifts the Church deemed dangerous, chaotic, or impure.

Zion had spent the last two weeks raiding prison convoys and hidden cells to find them.

They were rejected by the system of this world, which made them the perfect elite units for her army.

A girl with burned hands stepped forward. The air around her smelled like ozone.

“You know the plan,” Zion told her.

The girl nodded. “We break their lines.”

“Exactly. You are my commanders now.” Zion looked at Varek.

“Let Darius bring his two thousand men into the canyon. We will close the door behind him.”

The battle didn’t start with a horn. It started with an avalanche.

Exarch Darius marched his army through the narrow passage of the Red Canyon. It was the fastest route to the southern ruins. It was also a massive choke point.

Zion stood on the canyon ridge.

She waited until the Church vanguard reached the exact center of the pass.

“Now.”

The thirty heretics moved.

The girl with burned hands threw a sphere of concentrated lightning directly into the cliff face above the vanguard.

BOOM!

Tons of red rock rained down on the heavy infantry.

Screams filled the canyon as horses panicked and threw their riders. The strict lines of the Church army broke instantly.

“Archers!” Varek yelled.

Three hundred Unchained stood up from the ridges and fired. The arrows weren’t steel-tipped; they were dipped in pitch and lit on fire.

The rain of fire hit the Church clerics before they could raise their holy shields.

Zion jumped from the ridge.

She fell forty feet, using a basic [Feather Fall] skill to slow her descent at the last second. She landed right in front of Exarch Darius’s command chariot.

The Exarch was a fat man in golden armor, shouting orders to soldiers who couldn’t hear him over the chaos.

Two Paladins charged at Zion.

Zion didn’t even draw her sword.

She raised her hand.

ZMMM!

[SKILL ACTIVATED: VOID SLASH]

The invisible blade of compressed air cut through the first Paladin’s shield, his armor, and his torso.

He fell to the dirt in two pieces.

The second Paladin hesitated, that was a fatal mistake.

Zion grabbed his wrist, twisted it, and drove her knee into his chest.

CRACK.

His ribs caved in. He dropped his sword and collapsed.

Darius looked at her with wide eyes. He tried to cast a light spell, but his hands were shaking too much to complete the somatic components.

“Heretic!” he screamed.

Zion jumped onto the chariot. She grabbed him by the throat and threw him to the ground.

“I prefer Liberator,” she said.

The battle lasted forty minutes.

Without their commander and trapped in a canyon raining fire and rocks, the Church army shattered.

The two thousand men turned into a disorganized mob trying to flee back to the river.

The Unchained hunted them down. The heretics used their anomalous magic to block the exits.

It was a total massacre.

The sun set over the Red Canyon.

The smell of blood and burned flesh was overwhelming.

Zion walked among the corpses. Her black boots stepped over broken shields and torn banners.

Her interface tallied the loot automatically.

[GOLD: +4,500]

[WEAPONS: +850]

[ARMOR: +420]

She wasn’t looking for loot right now. She was looking for information.

She checked the bodies of the clerics, searching for any dispatch orders or maps that indicated the capital’s next move.

Varek walked a few steps behind her, finishing off the wounded Church soldiers with a spear.

Zion stopped.

She looked down at a corpse lying near a destroyed supply wagon.

It wasn’t a Paladin. It wasn’t a cleric.

He wore standard Church infantry leather, but the armor was cut open, exposing his right arm.

Zion crouched down.

She wiped the dirt off the dead man’s shoulder.

There was a tattoo deeply inked into the skin.

It wasn’t the sun or the scale of Zhalyr.

It was a circle with nine points. The exact same symbol that was on the piece of cured skin the messenger had delivered days ago.

The symbol of the Ancient Pantheon.

Zion froze.

She grabbed the dead man’s jaw and turned his face.

His lips were slightly blue. She pried his mouth open.

He had a crushed glass capsule hidden in his back teeth. Cyanide or some local equivalent.

He had killed himself before the battle ended.

He wasn’t fighting for Exarch Darius. He was embedded in the Church army, watching the tactical movements.

Watching her.

The interface flickered rapidly. Red text replaced the standard blue.

[HIDDEN FACTION DETECTED: “THE RESTORERS.”]

[ALIGNMENT: UNKNOWN.]

[OBJECTIVE: THE FORGE.]

Zion let go of the corpse.

She stood up slowly.

The Forge.

The message from the other Player said: “The Forge awaits. Don’t trust the System.”

Now a hidden faction was looking for the exact same thing, infiltrating the Church’s armies just to keep an eye on the board.

They were playing a completely different game while everyone else was distracted by the civil war.

“Liberator?” Varek called out, noticing her stillness. “Did you find something?”

Zion didn’t answer immediately.

She looked at the bloody canyon, at her Unchained looting the dead, and at the red sky above.

This wasn’t a two-sided war anymore.

The Church was just the loud, stupid enemy in the front. There was a third player sitting in the shadows, moving pieces on both sides of the board.

“Varek,”

“Yes?”

“Strip the armor off the dead. Burn the rest.” She turned around and walked toward the command tent.

“We march north tonight. I need to find out what the fuck the Forge is before they do.”

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