Ekological Chimera
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Chapter 18 - Rebellion
🕑 Added 2024-09-18 19:24:53 +0000 UTC“The Kerania, Accad and Faras kingdoms are in open rebellion, Lady Custodian,” Aisac announced while beginning his daily report and rousing Serana from her thoughts.
The two of them stood on top of her tower, her in plain white robes and him in armour, helmetless. The rubble was now fully cleared, leaving the space open, barring the three surviving pillars. The roof was completely gone.
Serana stood near the edge, the morning sun shining on her and a few more meters off the roof. She watched the former battlefield. Their dead had been buried and equipment salvaged, leaving the dead Terrans and the many scars caused by the battle to mark the battlefield. Though the former would be gone too, soon. Even now at the crack of dawn, soldiers scurried down there like ants, taking down the Terran corpses.
After all, there was no need to be barbaric and leave them to rot.
Not to mention that the smell would have been unpleasant.
“Unsurprising. How fare our people?”
The southern kingdoms had always been problematic. Mostly because of their geographical position. Mountain ranges had a way of complicating things.
“Reports are still coming into the aviary, but from what I’ve seen, we are mostly on the back foot,” he paused, “The Order in Kerania has been all but wiped out. They were the first to be attacked.”
Serana closed her eyes, feeling the sun’s rays on her face.
“Terran weapons?”
“None were reported, though hiding such a thing from us would not have been overly difficult.”
Serana inclined her head in agreement, though Aisac could only see the back of her head.
They’d likely possess only a few, if any. Unfortunately, with her new understanding of the ‘guns’, she knew that even a small number would be very impactful against ordinary soldiers.
There would have to be a paradigm shift in warfare, especially if she was going to be tied up watching the skies.
“The others?” Serana asked.
“With forewarning, the other Orders managed better. As of two days ago, the situation was relatively stable in the Faras and Accad Kingdoms.
Serana hummed, “They’ve acted too soon, then.”
“I imagine so, Lady Custodian. At least we can be reasonably sure they are yet to properly ally with the Terrans,” Aisac responded.
That the local Orders would not have been able to stall them at all in such a case went unspoken.
“What of their northern neighbours? Have the Orders there acknowledged my orders?” Serana changed the topic.
“Raising armies to crush the heretics while loudly proclaiming their loyalty, led by the Sarak Archduchy,” Aisac paused, following the Custodian’s gaze to the battlefield, “Authentic as far as our people can tell.”
Serana could not help but find that rather droll. By all reports, most of the nobility of the countries north of the Teilen mountain range shared much of the southerner's attitudes towards her and the Temple. Unfortunately for them, they were in quite an unenviable position. To become nought but a shield for the Southerners and be the first to be stomped down, or fight Serana’s wars for her and be the first ones to properly test the impact of Terran weaponry on the human body.
It wasn’t difficult to see why they sided with her. While the southern trio had clearly bet everything on Terran support, whether the aliens would even do anything was still in question. Her own actions were not.
It’d be rather amusing if the Terrans did not help after the three southern royal families quite literally staked their lives on their intervention.
Aisac brought her out of her musings as he continued with his report, “We’ve received acknowledgements from the Order Masters of all four of the countries in question, though all four seem confused, especially Master Sharpspear of the Caspian Order.”
“That is to be expected. They have yet to gain any real understanding of our enemies.”
Holding the entire continent with just her thirty-seven barely trained helpers against the Terrans was a fool's errand.
Were Eternity awake, she could bless others now that the Custodian herself was most likely to be insufficient. An ugly truth, but one she could not dispute after studying Phaedra’s notes. Regular soldiers were simply too useless against Terran technology and she herself could not cover an entire continent.
The thirty-seven would help enormously, but only the Goddess knew whether that would be enough.
Which brought her to the next matter, “How are the chosen progressing?”
“Another five managed to form a shield today, now for a total of twenty-six,” he paused, “Will you be imparting another lesson, Lady Custodian?”
His voice was carefully neutral, but the hunger underneath could not escape Serana’s perceptive eyes.
“Soon. Continue practicing. The more you do, the more accustomed to Her power you’ll become.”
“I understand, I will do so,” Aisac responded, his disappointment clear. With his report finished, he bowed and began to leave.
She nodded, more to herself than as a response. Soon, each of the thirty-seven chosen knights would be capable of holding their own and more importantly, their bodies would grow capable of serving as proper conduits of her own power.
A stop-gap measure, since she’d be forced to act through them against anything significant, but better than nothing. Training them to wield Eternity’s power with any real skill would take years they did not have.
Annoyingly, she could not think of any other way to strengthen her people. In the short term, at least. Reverse-engineering the Terran technology was an obvious solution, but one that would take decades, if not centuries to bear fruit.
No, withdrawing from the South was the only intelligent move to make. However, that did not make it any less irksome.
She stood up there for a while, watching the surrounding forests, many plans and counter-plans going through her mind.
Eventually, she was interrupted by a knock quickly followed by her grey-robed maid entering once she had given her permission.
The young girl bowed before speaking, sounding a bit more sure of herself than during their previous interactions, “Lady Custodian, your ‘English’,” she pronounced the foreign word carefully, “instructor has arrived. Shall I send him here?”
Serana scrutinised the black-haired girl for a second before acquiescing, “Yes, I doubt she will mind a little wind.” Giving the matter some more thought, she added, “Have someone bring a table and a couple of chairs.”
The handmaiden nodded and with a final ‘My Lady’ she was gone.
A few minutes later four of her knights came, hauling a table along with two chairs and then carefully setting the furniture on the floor. The distinct sound of her instructor’s boots clanking on the stairs could be heard soon after.
Soon, the door opened to reveal a tall figure clad in black and purple armour, her owlish helmet cradled under one arm, leaving her impassive face and brown hair exposed.
The female figure surveyed the top of the tower, her eyes lingering on the view for a few seconds before turning to Serana.
“Good morning, Lady Custodian,” the instructor said in the Terran tongue, though the words were simple enough for Serana to understand.
“Good morning miss Jane. Please, sit,” Serana spoke, enunciating carefully, while gesturing towards one of the chairs. She herself moved towards the other.
Jane nodded, before retrieving a tablet and placing it on the table between them. Then she started tapping on it, “You’ve made remarkable progress in these past few days, Lady Custodian. I imagine that soon our deal will be concluded.”
Serana inclined her head in agreement. The Terran language was not particularly difficult to learn, sharing at least surface similarities with many of the other languages she already knew.
Of course, the instruction itself was invaluable. The captured prisoners did not speak Sirnesian and forcing them to teach her people would have been… unproductive. Having the Terrans help her learn their language was well worth the price of surrendering Phaedra’s remains. The Colonel’s sour face after her suggestion was just a bonus.
With the pleasantries concluded, Jane started teaching.
Hours passed with Serana making great progress. The Terran teaching program that Jane utilized was extremely helpful. With only days of tutelage, the Custodian was, of course, nowhere near fluent. Yet she felt that she had mastered the basics enough that memorizing a dictionary (that she had received as part of the deal) would let her converse well enough.
The thought of improving her mastery of the Terran language through interrogation of its native speakers amused her greatly.
Eventually, as the sun began to go down, the lesson came to an end and Jane excused herself.
The Custodian watched the skies well into the night.
