Arthurian Cultivation

Lance nudged Gring, pushing the pegasus a touch higher, so the payload on the line that trailed behind them wouldn’t strike the valley floor. Taliesin had stressed just how essential it was to avoid getting even a hint of the lure on themselves. No amount of warnings could quite equal his commitment to avoiding contamination.

The sudden nudity had disrupted her grim thoughts. They’d all laughed as the normally unflappable bard, blushing, clothed himself, explaining for the fifth time how essential it was not to get any of this on anything they valued.

That had prompted another round of laughter.

Now that it was just her and Gring, between the rolling clouds and glittering snow, her mood had soured once more. Lance wasn’t sure what was going on with her family. It wasn’t just their safety she was worried about, but also the underpinnings of their very nature. How did she have a Moon Gift? What did it mean that the Lady was indebted to her father and knew his name? Her mind was clouded with questions, and not one of them was simple.

The stewing worry was set to a frantic boil, fuelled by the knowledge that in a few hours the founder’s festival would be reaching its peak. If it hadn’t happened already, whatever sinister plan her uncle was plotting was going to reveal itself, and her family and home would descend into civil war.

She looked out over the valleys, once again wishing she could just fly out to the green plains she could spot between the gaps in the snow-capped peaks. Find someplace where this damned interference wasn’t drowning out her voice.

Not being able to talk to her mother was particularly galling. The dream gift that so stalled her was meant to deliver one thing, the ability to talk through dreams. To have even that ripped away left her feeling resentment towards it that she’d thought she’d mastered years ago. She'd been so profoundly disappointed in her gift that it'd stunted her growth. It just wasn't the gift of a Knight.

She'd known since she was five that she was meant to be a Knight, to follow the martial path. She came alive in combat in a way nothing else came close to. She respected her mother's witchery, but it held no allure. It was a tool, not a passion. She knew on some level she'd never really given it the attention it deserved, but it was hard to see how it could be helpful in the heat of battle. It was a flaw she had to overcome. It'd been a foolish outlook then, and would be the height of idiocy now.

She looked back at the trailing lure. Such a mundane-looking parcel, a drinking horn poked full of holes. With this and a bit of preparation, they were going to take down an army.

Gring's beautiful wings twitched, and their path shifted. Looking ahead, she could see why. Bors and Gaz were staring at a vast expanse of snow.

The mountains here were tall, holding great sheets of snow, enough to cover the trees near her home from top to bottom. Avalanches were common, mostly small things, where a few feet of excess snow was shed. Big avalanches were rare. They happened when conditions were just right. You needed the snow to not be too compacted, the twitch of the mountain to be strong enough, and the angle of the slope to be just so. Or you needed to have Gaz and Bors.

She paused to watch, Gring using his wind gift to keep the lure blowing away from them. It wasn't every day you got to see cultivators change the shape of the world on such a grand scale.

Gaz had found numerous locations. He could do something with sound she didn't fully understand to find the right place to strike, having some way to use echoes to see beneath the snow. With him finding the weak points, they were turning the valleys and mountains into a pair of funnels, both aimed right at the Divine cultivators.

From what she could see, he was doing his other trick right now. With his water gift, he could spread water below the surface of the snow, cutting the snow apart, and leaving a plane of ice between it and the ground. That created a natural point of weakness, ensuring the entire slope began to move, not just the top layer. Gaz stepped back from the ice and joined Bors up on a spur of rock that rose above the slope.

Bors knelt, pressing his hands against the grey stone. Up above, she felt nothing, saw nothing. For a minute, she just watched, and with the slightest hiss, a crack appeared in the snow field. A wound that became wider with every passing second.

The snow peeled away, and with it came a rumbling sound. It was gentle at first, not to scale with the huge swathes of snow that now slid down the mountain. The sound began to build.

In mere moments, the rumbling grew to something that echoed in her bones. The pounding snow, once moving as a singular piece, was now tearing itself apart. Chunks of snow the size of houses were hurled into the air by the uneven landscape below. Lance breathed in awe as enough snow to drown Fosburg tumbled down the mountain, the whole mass becoming an unstoppable force of nature.

Gring whinnied, and she tore herself from the sight. Best to not be near this. There was a chance that a divine cultivator might come to check this out. Getting caught now would ruin everything. She didn't need to stay to know that the valley was now cut off. The plan was coming together.

Now it was time to do her part.

"Let's go, Gring gotta let the monsters know where the divine cultivator buffet is."

An hour later, she watched the results of their labour, hidden in the snow with Gaz. Gring was in a nearby clearing ready to get them both out of there if things went wrong.

They'd spread the scent around the mountains, and now the first monsters were starting to appear. She'd already seen signs of them when flying. The furred trolls stood out the most, but there were stranger beasts she could now see.

Through one of the valleys that overlooked the southern approach, snakes made entirely of snow flanked an elk with horns made of living ice. The elk came pounding through the snow, churning the white powder apart as if it were little more than mist. The snakes used this as cover to approach alongside the beast. All of them were called by the smell of the lure.

She heard the alarm sound, the cultivators shouting at each other. The elk, she'd guess, was high Bronze or low Iron. That was likely the upper limit of what the lure would directly attract, though more powerful beasts might choose to investigate the fuss their lessers were making.

The elk burst from the deeper snow into the area that the cultivators had stamped flat with their occupation and locked eyes with the now panicked humans before them. Its nostrils flared and it charged.

The cultivators, exhausted from constantly fuelling the runes, were still struggling to find their footing. Only a handful of them were fully armed and armoured. It was an insult to discipline. The guards at Fosburg wouldn't have tolerated recruits acting like this.

The elk closed the distance, ice churning around its hooves, forming living armour that coated its chest and face. The few spears flung at it bounced off, only angering it further. It began to bellow its challenge.

A call that was swiftly answered.

Lance barely saw it. A hiss of wind and a streak of shadow were all that marked its passing. That and the hole it punched through the elk.

The creature crumpled into a pile, its legs collapsing under its heavy body. Its momentum held, causing it to slide forward across the snow and ice until it came up to the rough pile of snow and dirt that formed a chest-high wall at the edge of the camp. One of the two Paladins stood blinking in confusion at the dead beast.

Lance's heart was pounding, even as her blood ran cold. This was the real power of a Steel Rank. She had seen Steels in action before, but it had been her uncles showing off. It had pomp and flair, and while impressive, it lacked the casual power that she'd just witnessed. The way the beast had been treated as nothing more than a pest to be slain. In an instant, something that she'd have been hard pushed to slay was gone.

And she couldn't even see the Saint!

She understood then and there that being caught by that 'Saint' meant death. She'd known it. It's not like she'd ever planned to fight the Steel. That'd be madness. But to actually see and feel the gulf in power between them left her with chills that the mountain frost could only envy.

For a moment, it all seemed hopeless. How could they hope to distract this force of nature? The beasts were but a scant few arrows against full plate, missiles destined to bounce off, no more than a nuisance. Then the snow and ice exploded into a hissing frenzy, and she remembered why any good cultivator took out archers when they could.

With enough arrows, one would find a chink in the armour.

The snow snakes used the distraction of the elk to get close and now burst from the snow, attacking the unsuspecting pages and squires who were staring dumbfounded at the slain beast.

There were maybe eight or nine of the strange elementals. They carved into the unsuspecting foes with lethal fury. The snakes were far weaker than the elk, but the surprise element and the speed of their attack tore into their opponents. Their snow-coated forms flowed red with blood.

The response from the cultivators was quick. The Paladin was taking one out with each strike, and after the initial shock, the squires started to send out gouts of flame or lashes of water. At this distance, it rapidly became a chaotic mix of glamour.

That storm of power was silenced as the Saint arrived. She wore no helm, long copper hair flowing behind her. Her armour was exquisite, and her stance had a sense of poise that still radiated danger. Some kind of levity technique made it seem like she'd teleported into their midst. In her presence, the few remaining snakes turned to mist.

Lance couldn't even get a whiff of the glamour. Just how did she do that?

“What the Unseelie fuck?” Gaz whispered. Lance's friend swore rarely and only when it was appropriate. Lance grunted in agreement. She was immensely glad their plan didn't require them to be anywhere near that harbinger of death. They were half a mile away, and that didn't feel like nearly enough distance.

A whole mountain would still be too close.

The Saint was vexed. At her feet lay slain cultivators, four of them killed in the sudden attack. She turned to the rest, who all dropped to one knee, even those whose wounds were still dripping blood. Whatever she was saying to them was turning them paler than even the blood loss.

“What’s she saying?” Lance asked, turning to her friend and long-time method of gossip collection.

“You think I dare use the glamour to find out?” Gaz hissed back. Lance froze and winced at her own foolishness. Taliesin had warned them just how careful they needed to be.

“Sorry.” She pinched her nose in frustration. A mistake like that could've been the end of it all.

“It’s fine, just don’t forget yourself. Look, more beasts are coming.” Gaz pointed out some more movement in the valley that led to the southern point. Lance recognised the big lumbering shapes of the snow trolls. She’d heard tell of them called the Abominable Snowmen, a pathetic name for the savage giants that approached. Ranging between eight and nine feet tall, five of the beasts were loping towards the cultivators.

With faces a cruel mockery of a human, their eyes sunken into glowing blue pits, and their mouths impossibly wide and lined with teeth made from ice glamour. Their fur left them looking soft, a deception, as beneath it were lean bodies. A single one would’ve been a fearsome opponent. Five would be enough to lay waste to any village without at least twice their number of cultivators.

Lance shuddered. This was the power of witches, a power she respected but had never mastered. Taliesin's accidental nudity now made more sense. If this is what they'd already called, she could see why he did not dare get any upon himself. She knew she should talk to her mother more when she got back.

“She’s seen them,” Gaz said. At this distance, even with cultivator-enhanced vision, it was difficult to see much. They were going off of people’s body language mostly. The Saint had turned and stood staring straight into the oncoming enemy.

Then she was gone. And for a second, all was silent before the trolls began hooting and screeching. Their cries lasted less than a few heartbeats before silence reigned again.

“You reckon she’s getting suspicious?” Lance asked, watching the woman calmly step out of the bloodied mess of snow she’d created. The trolls were in pieces all around her.

“Nothing we can do if she is but wait. I'll signal the others and check if they've got movement.” Gaz moved about in their tiny hide so he could look through some disks of ice. It was a trick Gawain had taught him. He used water to melt the ice just to create the right shape and then coated the outside with a layer of his glamour-infused water so they wouldn’t turn cloudy. If the Saint hadn’t been about, he could’ve just manipulated the water for the same purpose, but this meant there was no chance of being detected.

They didn’t dare point the lenses at the cultivators directly. They were prone to catching the light and revealing their position.

He peered through the lenses at what would’ve looked like a random patch of earth and a few seconds later grunted. “They’ve got movement. If she didn’t know something was up before, she will soon.”

“Well, let’s hope it’s enough and that Ursul takes the opportunity to try and break out. I'm mostly worried that the bagpipes won't be loud enough over the inevitable screaming. If my dad's stories are anything to go by, Ursul didn't ever take being cooped up well.” When she was small, her dad had told Lance quite a few stories on the same birthday that he gave her a stuffed 'Ursul' toy. The details were visceral.

Her mother had thought it would scar her. Instead, that toy became her favourite. What wasn't to like? It was a huggable murder machine!

“Please, I've heard your father play. There's a reason your mother makes him practise in the basement. I just hope he's right and it doesn't just enrage the giant murder bear further.”