Beside the northern peak floated the great ship of Redmoon Hall, the pyramid of Abyssal Palace rolled in on flying stones to the west, and a serpentine raincloud held the Stormcallers to the south.
The four cults loomed over Sacred Valley. Many of them still bore marks of their fight with Fury—Abyssal Palace had a huge chunk missing and was listing to one side—but their leaders were still in fighting shape. Malice’s perception was somewhat blunted by scripts inside the Redmoon Hall vessel, but she thought she sensed Red Faith in there as well.
These cults arriving so quickly meant they knew this was going to happen. They knew the suppression field script around the Valley was going to be inverted, meaning they had one of their most advanced sacred artists inside the labyrinth. Maybe Shen himself.
Instead of a desert of aura, Sacred Valley now gushed with power…but so much of it was hunger. Dreadbeasts would be born or empowered every second. The land around the labyrinth was like a slowly erupting volcano.
“I have to thank you,” Malice whispered into the air. The newly refreshed aura carried her words to the cults. “It’s not so often I’m given such a fine excuse.”
She drew her crystalline bow and used its binding to Forge a matching arrow onto the string. Air rippled as the fabric of the world was warped by the power she invested into the arrow, and she let it loose casually in the direction of Abyssal Palace.
See if their Herald could stop that. Even if he did, there were more arrows where that one came from.
An arrow flew from the island of the Silent Servants, striking her own in midair.
The collision of the two missiles created a thunderous detonation of light, which whipped up a hurricane and darkened the sky. Even the island was pushed back.
Malice’s mood soured even further.
“What a wonderful veil you have,” she said, and this time she didn’t enhance her voice with aura at all.
Miles away, a blonde woman in golden armor strode out onto the edge of the Silent Servants’ island. Larian of the Eight-Man Empire rapped her knuckles on her own breastplate. “Wish I could take credit for it, but I’m more about hitting things with sticks from very far away.”
“So you have chosen to side with the beasts, then. Curious. I thought you liked being on the winning team.”
Larian leaned on her bow, which looked to the mortal eye to be made of twisted gray driftwood. “The ‘human versus beasts’ line doesn’t work without the dragon around, you know. It’s not like all of us are human anyway. Besides, you know why we’re doing this.” Her voice sharpened. “The Monarchs are the only ones who benefit from the system the way it is. It’s about time we shake things up.”
Malice itched to beat some sense into this shortsighted Sage, but no one on the Path of the Eightfold Spear traveled alone.
Sure enough, seven other presences removed their veils all around Sacred Valley. The Eight-Man Empire was here in full, surrounding Sacred Valley.
“You think Shen is going to change things?” Malice asked softly. “He will never do anything that costs him power.”
Larian shrugged. “We’re not like the rest of you; we don’t need an ironclad plan before we’ll put one foot in front of the other. Any change is better than none.”
“Beautiful. So noble of you to be involved to change the world, and not for any sordid material motives.”
“Malice, he paid us so much.” Larian staggered under the invisible weight of a fortune, only her bow keeping her upright. “We were going to say no at first, but then he just kept bringing out more and more. I felt bad! I said, ‘Reigan, how are you going to feed your people if you give us all this?’ He didn’t even say anything, he just kept dumping treasures into this big pile.
“Priceless art? Right onto the pile. Gold? Pile. Scales? Weapons? Natural treasures? Pile. By the time he was done, I swear on my heart, it was taller than my head. Best day of my life.”
Larian sighed fondly. “So anyway, we can’t let him down after all that, right?”
From the lands all around the valley, war-bands of the Eight-Man Empire raised their banners. Not crude constructions of cloth and wood, but projections of symbols made of Forged madra. Ghost-Blade, Nine-Hands, Flame-Gift, Blood-Chorus…each of the eight wandering mercenary armies that made up the Eight-Man Empire’s workforce was arrayed against her.
Malice had sensed them already, but without closer inspection, had taken them to be the forces of House Shen. The war-bands averaged one Archlord, a handful of Overlords, and two or three dozen Underlords apiece, so only when they were gathered in one place could they possibly face down a Monarch’s forces. Just like the Eight-Man Empire themselves.