Chapter 150: A Long, Long Day
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Chapter 150: A Long, Long Day
Tala was completely surrounded, barely fending off the Leshkin that swarmed around her.
However, swarmed wasnt exactly accurate. They were like a pack of dogs, circling and lunging at her, whenever they thought they perceived an opening. The empty eyes of the lessers, fixed on her with a cold detachment, added a creepiness to the situation, underlying the terror and desperation that Tala already felt. Shed been able to keep her focus off their eyes for most of the battle, but now, surrounded and almost entirely on her own, she couldnt, not any longer.
Even saying that she was fending them off was not accurate. She wasnt fending them off, not in the individual sense like keeping back a lion with a whip. She was slaughtering them by the dozen, creating an ever-rising low barrier of plant matter around her self-assigned charges while she danced around the group, killing the vicious plant-people that just kept coming.
After a heavy, near silence that had extended for what felt like an eternity, Mistress Oderas voice finally replied. Advance into their attack, so that we can get the wounded with less interference. Be ready to retreat when I say.
Hah, I knew she could hear me. The thought was fleeting across her exhausted mind. Agreed.
The quarrels buzzing overhead increased in quantity for a short space of time, opening a hole for Tala to move deeper into the Leshkin tide.
With another curse, this time for luck, Tala lunged into that opening and away from the humans on the ground.
From what little she could see, the Leshkin pursued her, ignoring the guards as they passed over them.
Alright, now to survive.
One of the warriors must have seen her glance and intuited something of her priorities, because it disengaged, moving back towards the downed guards.
Growling, Tala threw one of the prison darts at its retreating form, and after hearing a satisfying thunk, she dove away, deeper into the Leshkin ranks.
The Leshkin warrior screeched in confusion as it moved backwards, even as it continued to try to run forward.
Tala laughed, her exhaustion continuing to cloud her mind.
Flow was moving in constant, looping circles by that point. She no longer had a wall of safety, in the form of guards. That had allowed her to focus her efforts and maintain a modicum of control over her surroundings. It had been a great strategy, which shed used for the whole of the day so far. It was no longer an option.
Now, she was a solitary island of humanity in the middle of a frenzy of inhuman monsters.
Breathe. Strike, block, dodge. Focus.
As she fought, she became one with Flow to an extent that shed never achieved before.
As a glaive, Flow decapitated three lessers with its blade, then struck a knight that she hadnt seen approaching before that moment, driving it back with the butt of the staff.
As a sword, the weapon lashed out to either side, taking eyes and driving life from these temporary forms as Tala advanced on the knight that was still stumbling backwards.The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
Right hand raised in a familiar gesture, Flow striking out, gripped in her left hand, Tala forced Crush to latch onto four other knights, driving them to the ground, then squashing them to sappy paste.
As a knife, Flow drilled into the still stumbling Leshkin knight almost as fast as a sewing machines needle, stitching a path of holes from its groin to its all too human, rage filled face, completely ignoring the wooden armor along the way.
That knight burst apart.
Good to know, sufficient punctures can end them too.
A circular sweep of her glaive gave Tala a bit more space, enough to see a juggernaut coming in the distance.
Flow moved to her left hand as her right hand came up, her arm extended, her palm out. Her first two fingers were pointing towards the sky, the second two bent down. All four fingers and thumb were tucked close together. The target was acquired. Crush.
The juggernaut was being dispatched, but it had cost her a moments concentration, leaving her defenses imperfect.
Even as her rod swept aside a pair of Leshkin swords, and her sphere knocked a lesser back with a hit to its sternum, a spear drove through Talas low back
Flow swept around, severing the offending weapon, even as Tala dropped to a knee, a cry of pain ringing through the forest and easily heard over the rustle of foliage and periodic Leshkin screeches.
Terry flickered into being behind her, gripping the spear with his beak and ripping it free to drop to the forest floor before he vanished once more.
Tala gasped, spinning to decapitate the monsters who had swung for Terry and been unbalanced by his quick disappearance.
Her flesh was already pulling back together, but the echoes of pain were building. The ending berry power merely mitigated injury in this fight with the Leshkin, when it would have negated it against any other foe. The power was anything but ideal under these circumstances, but it was enough to keep her limbs attached and her life her own, at least for the moment.
Mistress Tala, retreat. Weve got them. The Mages voice was clear in her ears, and it caused relief to wash through her. One task left.
Tala didnt argue, turning on her heels advancing back the way that she had come.
The caravan was quite a ways away by that point, but Tala could make it. I have to make it.
She cut a path free of the closest press of Leshkin and began sprinting. There were no signs of the fallen guards, so she was reasonably certain that they had, in fact, been retrieved.
Remembering her last fights with the Leshkin, she took her anchor into her left hand and Flow in sword shape into her right, even as she kept moving.
True to form, a juggernaut tried to take her from the side, this time erupting as if from the ground to her right.
Tala pulled with all her souls might and managed to get her tungsten rod and ball between herself and the two-fisted punch barely in time, mirroring her inertia onto the three bloodstars within.
Rane clapped her one the shoulder. You did fantastic. I imagine youre hungry?
She nodded. Famished.
With a sly grin, he nodded. Ill get the cooks to start bringing you food. You tell them when youve had enough, all right?
She smiled gratefully at that. That sounds wonderful.
Youll be up top? He indicated the direction hed just come from.
Thats the plan.
He nodded and left, another smile obvious across his features.
As Rane dropped off the side of the wagon, down onto the little ground beside the vehicle, inside the bubble, Tala swung out and climbed up the ladder.
In the center of the roof, Mistress Odera sat cross-legged, sweating despite the cool winter air. Her eyes were closed, but not clenched shut. Her breathing was regular and deep, but even still, her effort was obvious.
The oblong bubble surrounding the caravan moved with them through the forest at a steady clip, a testament to the womans power and experience.
The drivers were spurring the oxen on as quickly as the beasts could safely move. We might make it, yet.
Tala turned her gaze outward and felt herself pale.
They were surrounded by juggernauts, moving along with them through the woods.
As the wagons advanced, the juggernauts in front of them were nudged backwards at a slow walk for their massive frames. Even so, they attacked relentlessly with a myriad of weapons.
A great club user stood beside a Leshkin wielding sword and shield. Another struck with a greatsword that put Force to shame, if only in its sheer size. A warhammer added its strikes beside a war-pick as well as a long spear. And on and on the variety went: short spear and shield, axe with reverse spike, maul, and others that were too obscured to make out clearly.
If Tala was counting correctly, and that was in doubt due to the constant ripples across the shields surface, there were at least ten of the giants, maybe as many as fourteen.
Tala cracked her knuckles. Time to do this right. She was still mildly embarrassed that she hadnt dealt with the last two juggernauts on the last leg of their voyage to Makinaven. Ill correct that, now.
Her thumb and middle finger came together, and she immediately targeted the two most forward of their advance, ramping up their gravity as quickly as she could without using the Crush mental constructs. She didnt want to burn out her inscriptions from the strain.
Unfortunately, the last one shed dealt, the one that had split into two knights to foil her spell-working, wasnt an outlier, and they were showing their cleverness.
As soon as their gravity was altered sufficiently to be noticed, the two juggernauts cracked apart into knights, breaking her lock and spoiling the working, before they faded from view.
Cursing them, she, nonetheless, immediately targeted two more juggernauts, ramping up their gravity as well. Before that reached inconvenient levels for the creatures, two more juggernauts returned to the front of the shield, renewing the attack. These wielded polearms of differing kinds.
She couldnt tell if the new arrivals were completely new juggernauts, taking the place of the departed, or a new combination of the same knights. No, they couldnt be a recombination, that is much too quick for that.
It was disheartening to see her enemies replaced so quickly, but still, she persisted, attempting to relieve some of the strain on the shield for Mistress Odera.
Over the next half-hour, Tala tried all sorts of things to get around their new understanding of her magics, but nothing worked.
Each juggernaut that she forced to split was replaced shortly thereafter, and the weaponry they used continued to alter, covering the gambit from dual daggers to one with a war scythe. If anything, they seemed to be testing if any given weapon affected the shield more easily.
Blessedly, that didnt seem to be the case, and the shield held.
Even so, there was just no end to them.
Do they have that many? Or were they recombining, somehow. We are surrounded by great trees It was most likely a combination of having juggernauts in reserve, and the knights going to recombine and then returning.
In the end, she was sure that the majority of the juggernauts attacking the shield were, in fact, just recombinations of those shed previously forced to disassociate.
To her horror, as she became better at identifying the individual Leshkin, she became increasingly certain that at least some of those that now harassed them were ones that shed slain that morning.
Is a spawning ground that close? Are some of their heartseeds that close? It was a disheartening thought. Even if I do kill them, theyll just return in short order.
She had a brief desire to strike out and hunt down whatever hiding place contained the heartseeds so near to hand, but that would be colossally foolish, and so she squashed that desire for the time being.
Finally, she had to admit defeat. At this point, she was just wasting inscriptions. So, with a growl of irritation, she stopped trying.
As shed been trying to contribute, even while being carted along, the cooks had been bringing her a feasts worth of food, even by Talas standards. That meant that it would have normally counted as a feast for a small family. The deliveries of sustenance continued, even now that shed stopped working with her gravity manipulation.
She had done a lot of self-healing throughout the morning even despite her defenses, and that had put an incredible strain on her body, inscriptions, and reserves. Thus, even as she continued to devour the food, she could feel a vortex of her power breaking the food down in her gut and shunting the nutrients and energy outwards to refill her reserves and help return her to top form.
Between bites, she topped off each of her bound items, even refilling Terrys collar, despite it not really needing it. Still, the act allowed her to have the terror bird near, and that gave her some additional comfort.
After that was done, she recharged the cargo-slots, just in case. Who knows what the rest of the day will bring.
Beyond that, she made note to refill them as often as reasonable, probably every half-hour to hour.
It is going to be a long, long day.
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Chapter 150: A Long, Long Day
Tala was completely surrounded, barely fending off the Leshkin that swarmed around her.
However, swarmed wasnt exactly accurate. They were like a pack of dogs, circling and lunging at her, whenever they thought they perceived an opening. The empty eyes of the lessers, fixed on her with a cold detachment, added a creepiness to the situation, underlying the terror and desperation that Tala already felt. Shed been able to keep her focus off their eyes for most of the battle, but now, surrounded and almost entirely on her own, she couldnt, not any longer.
Even saying that she was fending them off was not accurate. She wasnt fending them off, not in the individual sense like keeping back a lion with a whip. She was slaughtering them by the dozen, creating an ever-rising low barrier of plant matter around her self-assigned charges while she danced around the group, killing the vicious plant-people that just kept coming.
After a heavy, near silence that had extended for what felt like an eternity, Mistress Oderas voice finally replied. Advance into their attack, so that we can get the wounded with less interference. Be ready to retreat when I say.
Hah, I knew she could hear me. The thought was fleeting across her exhausted mind. Agreed.
The quarrels buzzing overhead increased in quantity for a short space of time, opening a hole for Tala to move deeper into the Leshkin tide.
With another curse, this time for luck, Tala lunged into that opening and away from the humans on the ground.
From what little she could see, the Leshkin pursued her, ignoring the guards as they passed over them.
Alright, now to survive.
One of the warriors must have seen her glance and intuited something of her priorities, because it disengaged, moving back towards the downed guards.
Growling, Tala threw one of the prison darts at its retreating form, and after hearing a satisfying thunk, she dove away, deeper into the Leshkin ranks.
The Leshkin warrior screeched in confusion as it moved backwards, even as it continued to try to run forward.
Tala laughed, her exhaustion continuing to cloud her mind.
Flow was moving in constant, looping circles by that point. She no longer had a wall of safety, in the form of guards. That had allowed her to focus her efforts and maintain a modicum of control over her surroundings. It had been a great strategy, which shed used for the whole of the day so far. It was no longer an option.
Now, she was a solitary island of humanity in the middle of a frenzy of inhuman monsters.
Breathe. Strike, block, dodge. Focus.
As she fought, she became one with Flow to an extent that shed never achieved before.
As a glaive, Flow decapitated three lessers with its blade, then struck a knight that she hadnt seen approaching before that moment, driving it back with the butt of the staff.
As a sword, the weapon lashed out to either side, taking eyes and driving life from these temporary forms as Tala advanced on the knight that was still stumbling backwards.The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.
Right hand raised in a familiar gesture, Flow striking out, gripped in her left hand, Tala forced Crush to latch onto four other knights, driving them to the ground, then squashing them to sappy paste.
As a knife, Flow drilled into the still stumbling Leshkin knight almost as fast as a sewing machines needle, stitching a path of holes from its groin to its all too human, rage filled face, completely ignoring the wooden armor along the way.
That knight burst apart.
Good to know, sufficient punctures can end them too.
A circular sweep of her glaive gave Tala a bit more space, enough to see a juggernaut coming in the distance.
Flow moved to her left hand as her right hand came up, her arm extended, her palm out. Her first two fingers were pointing towards the sky, the second two bent down. All four fingers and thumb were tucked close together. The target was acquired. Crush.
The juggernaut was being dispatched, but it had cost her a moments concentration, leaving her defenses imperfect.
Even as her rod swept aside a pair of Leshkin swords, and her sphere knocked a lesser back with a hit to its sternum, a spear drove through Talas low back
Flow swept around, severing the offending weapon, even as Tala dropped to a knee, a cry of pain ringing through the forest and easily heard over the rustle of foliage and periodic Leshkin screeches.
Terry flickered into being behind her, gripping the spear with his beak and ripping it free to drop to the forest floor before he vanished once more.
Tala gasped, spinning to decapitate the monsters who had swung for Terry and been unbalanced by his quick disappearance.
Her flesh was already pulling back together, but the echoes of pain were building. The ending berry power merely mitigated injury in this fight with the Leshkin, when it would have negated it against any other foe. The power was anything but ideal under these circumstances, but it was enough to keep her limbs attached and her life her own, at least for the moment.
Mistress Tala, retreat. Weve got them. The Mages voice was clear in her ears, and it caused relief to wash through her. One task left.
Tala didnt argue, turning on her heels advancing back the way that she had come.
The caravan was quite a ways away by that point, but Tala could make it. I have to make it.
She cut a path free of the closest press of Leshkin and began sprinting. There were no signs of the fallen guards, so she was reasonably certain that they had, in fact, been retrieved.
Remembering her last fights with the Leshkin, she took her anchor into her left hand and Flow in sword shape into her right, even as she kept moving.
True to form, a juggernaut tried to take her from the side, this time erupting as if from the ground to her right.
Tala pulled with all her souls might and managed to get her tungsten rod and ball between herself and the two-fisted punch barely in time, mirroring her inertia onto the three bloodstars within.
Rane clapped her one the shoulder. You did fantastic. I imagine youre hungry?
She nodded. Famished.
With a sly grin, he nodded. Ill get the cooks to start bringing you food. You tell them when youve had enough, all right?
She smiled gratefully at that. That sounds wonderful.
Youll be up top? He indicated the direction hed just come from.
Thats the plan.
He nodded and left, another smile obvious across his features.
As Rane dropped off the side of the wagon, down onto the little ground beside the vehicle, inside the bubble, Tala swung out and climbed up the ladder.
In the center of the roof, Mistress Odera sat cross-legged, sweating despite the cool winter air. Her eyes were closed, but not clenched shut. Her breathing was regular and deep, but even still, her effort was obvious.
The oblong bubble surrounding the caravan moved with them through the forest at a steady clip, a testament to the womans power and experience.
The drivers were spurring the oxen on as quickly as the beasts could safely move. We might make it, yet.
Tala turned her gaze outward and felt herself pale.
They were surrounded by juggernauts, moving along with them through the woods.
As the wagons advanced, the juggernauts in front of them were nudged backwards at a slow walk for their massive frames. Even so, they attacked relentlessly with a myriad of weapons.
A great club user stood beside a Leshkin wielding sword and shield. Another struck with a greatsword that put Force to shame, if only in its sheer size. A warhammer added its strikes beside a war-pick as well as a long spear. And on and on the variety went: short spear and shield, axe with reverse spike, maul, and others that were too obscured to make out clearly.
If Tala was counting correctly, and that was in doubt due to the constant ripples across the shields surface, there were at least ten of the giants, maybe as many as fourteen.
Tala cracked her knuckles. Time to do this right. She was still mildly embarrassed that she hadnt dealt with the last two juggernauts on the last leg of their voyage to Makinaven. Ill correct that, now.
Her thumb and middle finger came together, and she immediately targeted the two most forward of their advance, ramping up their gravity as quickly as she could without using the Crush mental constructs. She didnt want to burn out her inscriptions from the strain.
Unfortunately, the last one shed dealt, the one that had split into two knights to foil her spell-working, wasnt an outlier, and they were showing their cleverness.
As soon as their gravity was altered sufficiently to be noticed, the two juggernauts cracked apart into knights, breaking her lock and spoiling the working, before they faded from view.
Cursing them, she, nonetheless, immediately targeted two more juggernauts, ramping up their gravity as well. Before that reached inconvenient levels for the creatures, two more juggernauts returned to the front of the shield, renewing the attack. These wielded polearms of differing kinds.
She couldnt tell if the new arrivals were completely new juggernauts, taking the place of the departed, or a new combination of the same knights. No, they couldnt be a recombination, that is much too quick for that.
It was disheartening to see her enemies replaced so quickly, but still, she persisted, attempting to relieve some of the strain on the shield for Mistress Odera.
Over the next half-hour, Tala tried all sorts of things to get around their new understanding of her magics, but nothing worked.
Each juggernaut that she forced to split was replaced shortly thereafter, and the weaponry they used continued to alter, covering the gambit from dual daggers to one with a war scythe. If anything, they seemed to be testing if any given weapon affected the shield more easily.
Blessedly, that didnt seem to be the case, and the shield held.
Even so, there was just no end to them.
Do they have that many? Or were they recombining, somehow. We are surrounded by great trees It was most likely a combination of having juggernauts in reserve, and the knights going to recombine and then returning.
In the end, she was sure that the majority of the juggernauts attacking the shield were, in fact, just recombinations of those shed previously forced to disassociate.
To her horror, as she became better at identifying the individual Leshkin, she became increasingly certain that at least some of those that now harassed them were ones that shed slain that morning.
Is a spawning ground that close? Are some of their heartseeds that close? It was a disheartening thought. Even if I do kill them, theyll just return in short order.
She had a brief desire to strike out and hunt down whatever hiding place contained the heartseeds so near to hand, but that would be colossally foolish, and so she squashed that desire for the time being.
Finally, she had to admit defeat. At this point, she was just wasting inscriptions. So, with a growl of irritation, she stopped trying.
As shed been trying to contribute, even while being carted along, the cooks had been bringing her a feasts worth of food, even by Talas standards. That meant that it would have normally counted as a feast for a small family. The deliveries of sustenance continued, even now that shed stopped working with her gravity manipulation.
She had done a lot of self-healing throughout the morning even despite her defenses, and that had put an incredible strain on her body, inscriptions, and reserves. Thus, even as she continued to devour the food, she could feel a vortex of her power breaking the food down in her gut and shunting the nutrients and energy outwards to refill her reserves and help return her to top form.
Between bites, she topped off each of her bound items, even refilling Terrys collar, despite it not really needing it. Still, the act allowed her to have the terror bird near, and that gave her some additional comfort.
After that was done, she recharged the cargo-slots, just in case. Who knows what the rest of the day will bring.
Beyond that, she made note to refill them as often as reasonable, probably every half-hour to hour.
It is going to be a long, long day.
Chapter 150: A Long, Long DayTala was completely surrounded, barely fending off the Leshkin that swarmed around her.However, swarmed wasnt exactly accurate. They were like a pack of dogs, circling and lunging at her, whenever they thought they perceived an opening. The empty eyes of the lessers, fixed on her with a cold detachment, added a creepiness to the situation, underlying the terror and desperation that Tala already felt. Shed been able to keep her focus off their eyes for most of the battle, but now, surrounded and almost entirely on her own, she couldnt, not any longer.Even saying that she was fending them off was not accurate. She wasnt fending them off, not in the individual sense like keeping back a lion with a whip. She was slaughtering them by the dozen, creating an ever-rising low barrier of plant matter around her self-assigned charges while she danced around the group, killing the vicious plant-people that just kept coming.After a heavy, near silence that had extended for what felt like an eternity, Mistress Oderas voice finally replied. Advance into their attack, so that we can get the wounded with less interference. Be ready to retreat when I say.Hah, I knew she could hear me. The thought was fleeting across her exhausted mind. Agreed.The quarrels buzzing overhead increased in quantity for a short space of time, opening a hole for Tala to move deeper into the Leshkin tide.With another curse, this time for luck, Tala lunged into that opening and away from the humans on the ground.From what little she could see, the Leshkin pursued her, ignoring the guards as they passed over them.Alright, now to survive.One of the warriors must have seen her glance and intuited something of her priorities, because it disengaged, moving back towards the downed guards.Growling, Tala threw one of the prison darts at its retreating form, and after hearing a satisfying thunk, she dove away, deeper into the Leshkin ranks.The Leshkin warrior screeched in confusion as it moved backwards, even as it continued to try to run forward.Tala laughed, her exhaustion continuing to cloud her mind.Flow was moving in constant, looping circles by that point. She no longer had a wall of safety, in the form of guards. That had allowed her to focus her efforts and maintain a modicum of control over her surroundings. It had been a great strategy, which shed used for the whole of the day so far. It was no longer an option.Now, she was a solitary island of humanity in the middle of a frenzy of inhuman monsters.Breathe. Strike, block, dodge. Focus.As she fought, she became one with Flow to an extent that shed never achieved before.As a glaive, Flow decapitated three lessers with its blade, then struck a knight that she hadnt seen approaching before that moment, driving it back with the butt of the staff.As a sword, the weapon lashed out to either side, taking eyes and driving life from these temporary forms as Tala advanced on the knight that was still stumbling backwards.The origin of this chapter's debut can be traced to N0v3l--B1n.Right hand raised in a familiar gesture, Flow striking out, gripped in her left hand, Tala forced Crush to latch onto four other knights, driving them to the ground, then squashing them to sappy paste.As a knife, Flow drilled into the still stumbling Leshkin knight almost as fast as a sewing machines needle, stitching a path of holes from its groin to its all too human, rage filled face, completely ignoring the wooden armor along the way.That knight burst apart.Good to know, sufficient punctures can end them too.A circular sweep of her glaive gave Tala a bit more space, enough to see a juggernaut coming in the distance.Flow moved to her left hand as her right hand came up, her arm extended, her palm out. Her first two fingers were pointing towards the sky, the second two bent down. All four fingers and thumb were tucked close together. The target was acquired. Crush.The juggernaut was being dispatched, but it had cost her a moments concentration, leaving her defenses imperfect.Even as her rod swept aside a pair of Leshkin swords, and her sphere knocked a lesser back with a hit to its sternum, a spear drove through Talas low backFlow swept around, severing the offending weapon, even as Tala dropped to a knee, a cry of pain ringing through the forest and easily heard over the rustle of foliage and periodic Leshkin screeches.Terry flickered into being behind her, gripping the spear with his beak and ripping it free to drop to the forest floor before he vanished once more.Tala gasped, spinning to decapitate the monsters who had swung for Terry and been unbalanced by his quick disappearance.Her flesh was already pulling back together, but the echoes of pain were building. The ending berry power merely mitigated injury in this fight with the Leshkin, when it would have negated it against any other foe. The power was anything but ideal under these circumstances, but it was enough to keep her limbs attached and her life her own, at least for the moment.Mistress Tala, retreat. Weve got them. The Mages voice was clear in her ears, and it caused relief to wash through her. One task left.Tala didnt argue, turning on her heels advancing back the way that she had come.The caravan was quite a ways away by that point, but Tala could make it. I have to make it.She cut a path free of the closest press of Leshkin and began sprinting. There were no signs of the fallen guards, so she was reasonably certain that they had, in fact, been retrieved.Remembering her last fights with the Leshkin, she took her anchor into her left hand and Flow in sword shape into her right, even as she kept moving.True to form, a juggernaut tried to take her from the side, this time erupting as if from the ground to her right.Tala pulled with all her souls might and managed to get her tungsten rod and ball between herself and the two-fisted punch barely in time, mirroring her inertia onto the three bloodstars within.Rane clapped her one the shoulder. You did fantastic. I imagine youre hungry?She nodded. Famished.With a sly grin, he nodded. Ill get the cooks to start bringing you food. You tell them when youve had enough, all right?She smiled gratefully at that. That sounds wonderful.Youll be up top? He indicated the direction hed just come from.Thats the plan.He nodded and left, another smile obvious across his features.As Rane dropped off the side of the wagon, down onto the little ground beside the vehicle, inside the bubble, Tala swung out and climbed up the ladder.In the center of the roof, Mistress Odera sat cross-legged, sweating despite the cool winter air. Her eyes were closed, but not clenched shut. Her breathing was regular and deep, but even still, her effort was obvious.The oblong bubble surrounding the caravan moved with them through the forest at a steady clip, a testament to the womans power and experience.The drivers were spurring the oxen on as quickly as the beasts could safely move. We might make it, yet.Tala turned her gaze outward and felt herself pale.They were surrounded by juggernauts, moving along with them through the woods.As the wagons advanced, the juggernauts in front of them were nudged backwards at a slow walk for their massive frames. Even so, they attacked relentlessly with a myriad of weapons.A great club user stood beside a Leshkin wielding sword and shield. Another struck with a greatsword that put Force to shame, if only in its sheer size. A warhammer added its strikes beside a war-pick as well as a long spear. And on and on the variety went: short spear and shield, axe with reverse spike, maul, and others that were too obscured to make out clearly.If Tala was counting correctly, and that was in doubt due to the constant ripples across the shields surface, there were at least ten of the giants, maybe as many as fourteen.Tala cracked her knuckles. Time to do this right. She was still mildly embarrassed that she hadnt dealt with the last two juggernauts on the last leg of their voyage to Makinaven. Ill correct that, now.Her thumb and middle finger came together, and she immediately targeted the two most forward of their advance, ramping up their gravity as quickly as she could without using the Crush mental constructs. She didnt want to burn out her inscriptions from the strain.Unfortunately, the last one shed dealt, the one that had split into two knights to foil her spell-working, wasnt an outlier, and they were showing their cleverness.As soon as their gravity was altered sufficiently to be noticed, the two juggernauts cracked apart into knights, breaking her lock and spoiling the working, before they faded from view.Cursing them, she, nonetheless, immediately targeted two more juggernauts, ramping up their gravity as well. Before that reached inconvenient levels for the creatures, two more juggernauts returned to the front of the shield, renewing the attack. These wielded polearms of differing kinds.She couldnt tell if the new arrivals were completely new juggernauts, taking the place of the departed, or a new combination of the same knights. No, they couldnt be a recombination, that is much too quick for that.It was disheartening to see her enemies replaced so quickly, but still, she persisted, attempting to relieve some of the strain on the shield for Mistress Odera.Over the next half-hour, Tala tried all sorts of things to get around their new understanding of her magics, but nothing worked.Each juggernaut that she forced to split was replaced shortly thereafter, and the weaponry they used continued to alter, covering the gambit from dual daggers to one with a war scythe. If anything, they seemed to be testing if any given weapon affected the shield more easily.Blessedly, that didnt seem to be the case, and the shield held.Even so, there was just no end to them.Do they have that many? Or were they recombining, somehow. We are surrounded by great trees It was most likely a combination of having juggernauts in reserve, and the knights going to recombine and then returning.In the end, she was sure that the majority of the juggernauts attacking the shield were, in fact, just recombinations of those shed previously forced to disassociate.To her horror, as she became better at identifying the individual Leshkin, she became increasingly certain that at least some of those that now harassed them were ones that shed slain that morning.Is a spawning ground that close? Are some of their heartseeds that close? It was a disheartening thought. Even if I do kill them, theyll just return in short order.She had a brief desire to strike out and hunt down whatever hiding place contained the heartseeds so near to hand, but that would be colossally foolish, and so she squashed that desire for the time being.Finally, she had to admit defeat. At this point, she was just wasting inscriptions. So, with a growl of irritation, she stopped trying.As shed been trying to contribute, even while being carted along, the cooks had been bringing her a feasts worth of food, even by Talas standards. That meant that it would have normally counted as a feast for a small family. The deliveries of sustenance continued, even now that shed stopped working with her gravity manipulation.She had done a lot of self-healing throughout the morning even despite her defenses, and that had put an incredible strain on her body, inscriptions, and reserves. Thus, even as she continued to devour the food, she could feel a vortex of her power breaking the food down in her gut and shunting the nutrients and energy outwards to refill her reserves and help return her to top form.Between bites, she topped off each of her bound items, even refilling Terrys collar, despite it not really needing it. Still, the act allowed her to have the terror bird near, and that gave her some additional comfort.After that was done, she recharged the cargo-slots, just in case. Who knows what the rest of the day will bring.Beyond that, she made note to refill them as often as reasonable, probably every half-hour to hour.It is going to be a long, long day.
