No Fury Like a Cornered Dragon

I dared only steal a glimpse of the Witch Hunter before I retreated back behind the heavy door of the vault. It was a bizarre, pill-shaped thing, wiry mechanical limbs protruding from an ovoid body. On one arm was the unmistakable bulk of a crank gun—the other appeared to host a bulky stabbing implement that I couldn’t quite make out.
 
There is nothing on this plane under the providence of the Great Spirits that a determined sword cannot fell, but there was nothing holy about the design of that mechanical monstrosity. How on earth were we supposed to take it down? I offered for a moment the possibility that we sneak by it altogether, but my companions would not be dissuaded—Orlando was intent on finding his contact, and it would be worse for us to confront this thing while it had reinforcements available than it would be to destroy it now. I resigned myself to a confrontation with this devilish thing. Not that I was intimidated, of course! No magitech can match a veteran Blade for agility. That said, it would be unlikely that we would escape this encounter unscathed, and from how I judged our current situation, we would need—will need—all our strength if we are to break free of this place. There was still one way we might leverage a tactical advantage, though: I raised the Speaker Bauble to my mouth and whispered for my sister.
 
Hikora hardly seemed to be expecting me; I have attempted, throughout my years, to not bother her too much with my younger-brother’s troubles. In this instance, though, I required all of her wisdom. After I expediently described our position, Hikora offered me two key morsels of information regarding Witch Hunters:
 
By the standards of mechanized platforms, they are built to avoid hits, not take them. Now, I did not imagine this would mean our weapons would be as strong as they would be cutting through ordinary foes, but I was not about to underestimate the potential of our dragon-forged steel.
 
The weapons of the Blades are forged from a metal that is smelted with dragonbone to make an incredible sharp and resilient alloy—in ordinary hands, a kesh’tam can fell even a goliath in a single swing. In the hands of a Blade, they have been known to shear through dwarven plate armor. Izem himself still trains his cutting technique on boulders from time to time (though his swords are of a stouter build than mine—I balk at the thought of risking a broken blade for ordinary “morning exercise”).
 
But, I digress; please pardon my boasting. Hikora also mentioned to me the tendency for Witch Hunters to be equipped with a dangerous anti-personnel countermeasure, a “haze” which apparently dispersed through the air in gaseous form. Nothing deadly, but thoroughly incapacitating—and excruciating, apparently.
 
Much as I valued the time I had to hear my sister’s counsel, our conversation was interrupted by the presence of this very haze, creeping its way inside the vault. It was a yellowish hue, not bright, but rather dull and deadened, like sunbeams drenched in rain.
 
Gas weapons. The world’s freshest mortal-made horror. I had only just received a briefing on it in those six months when I had returned from Del’Orta, so new is the concept. We had witnessed it ourselves in some form when we had our run-in with the Imperium, and I was not eager to confront it again here.
We had to act fast; the gas was a fiendish tool being leveraged against us, but we could also use it to our advantage. I instructed my companions to tie wet rags over their mouths as masks and we dove into the miasma.
 
Inside the cloud, it was as if I was wandering some stretch of the Dark Road, nothing but that dim, sickly shade of yellow with the silhouette of the Witch Hunter looming on the other side, a demon in the mist. And then, despite my preparations, I felt a claw raking the inside of my throat, a burning in my eyes as the gas swept over my body, and I was seized by a fit of coughing, raking coughs which doubled me over in my tracks.
 
I saw the Witch Hunter swivel my way, and the grinding roar of its crank gun drowned out my coughs and cut swirling trails of air through the yellow cloud.
 
Just barely, I managed to twist out of the way of the salvo, rolling out of the mist and coming to my feet with the Witch Hunter fixed in my vision… as well as an ornate chandelier, poised above it—favor from the Great Spirits! A well-aimed throw of my rash’tam sent the thing hurtling downwards on top of the machine.
 
To my surprise, the mechanical monster yet moved after the crushing impact, but quick thinking on the part of Kyliko froze the debris of the chandelier to its prone chassis. It was a brilliant tactic—the mightiest dragonborn are those who use their dragon’s heritage to its fullest effect.
 
We ducked behind a column, having earned a brief opportunity to collect ourselves in the midst of battle. In that short moment, I heard Orlando’s voice whisper in my ear: he believed it was most prudent of us to flee and locate his contact. Perhaps so, but if we ran from this fight before it was over, we would be confronted by the Witch Hunter again, only with infantry support next time. No, we had to finish it while it was helpless, pinned to the ground—it was our only opportunity to banish its threat from our minds. Admittedly, though, I cannot deny other motivations for my continuing the fight… I seldom face a foe such as this, and the opportunity to destroy this grandiose monument to the science of death was one I could not deny.
 
We had no further time to ruminate; this mecha pilot was resourceful in their own use of the tools they had been given, and the chain-linked harpoon buried itself in a nearby pillar as it began to tug itself from the rubble. I attempted to cut the chain with a rising draw cut, a Skyward Wing, but, still reeling as I was from the gas, my efforts did not sever the chain.
 
I did not have time to ruminate upon my failure, as a burst of sound washed over me, hitting me like a wall and sending me tumbling into a pillar. It was no ordinary sound, though, I realized—what had hit me was Orlando’s voice, magnified a thousand times over. It was doing literally here what it had always done to me metaphorically, it seemed. Still, the dangerous ploy on my friend’s part may have been just the advantage we needed: the Witch Hunter, too, had been scattered to the ground by the blast. Kyliko and I used the opportunity to fall upon the cockpit itself of the machine, targeting the caged glass with precise, blows. Such was our ferocity that, in one fearsome stroke, I even managed to damage the foul whirling firearm which adorned its hand—still not enough, though! Under our strategic assault, hairline cracks crept across the cockpit, but the beast yet moved, and we had not yet mustered the force to break it. All through this battle, I found myself faced with the same challenge: I knew exactly what I needed to do, but was unable to muster the focus to do it. As I delivered another blow to the machine, I heard Kyliko cry out, sent sprawling by the harpoon-stake, his torso rent by a brutal wound. I was not going to lose him! He couldn’t die, not now… I almost disengaged from the Witch Hunter entirely to aid him, but he struggled to his feet and pulled forth a rakím, a throwing blade. The audacity of this dragonborn, covering his bloodied retreat from a mechanical warrior with a throwing knife! But further calamity struck as it slipped from his blood-soaked fingers and delivered its toxic payload into his own body.
 
I was torn between two battles: one for Kyliko’s life, as he crawled behind the nearest pillar and weathered his baleful wounds, and the one for all our lives, in which I had to muster enough focus to drown out the haze the gas weapon shrouded my head in and deliver a blow which would end this struggle once and for all. Even now, more pale yellow smoke billowed from vents in the Witch Hunter. Soon, we would be in a deadlock, surrounded by foes as the walking armor hedged us in…
 
Just like that, though, Orlando, so ready to flee before, came rushing forward in a bombastic purple swirl. I imagine he intended to execute a series of acrobatics which would leave him in the perfect position to deliver a devastating blow to the Witch Hunter. Instead, though, the slippery tile floor, covered in stone dust, stole his feet out from under him and sent him sprawling at the feet of the beast. I saw him blink but once at the groaning machinery creaked around the fix itself on him.
 
And then another burst of sound erupted from his strange cone, and the Witch Hunter fell back again. I saw it raise its harpoon arm as it had before, taking Orlando in its sights…
 
And then clarity pierced the veil within my mind as I saw the next fraction of a second unfold exactly how it would.
 
The stake shot from the Witch Hunter’s arm with a pneumatic hiss, barrelling towards Orlando, chain rattling in its wake.
 
I returned Cloudpiercer to its sheath, the harmony of the Great Spirits unfolding itself to me.
 
My friend grimaced and grunted as the harpoon pierced his thigh, digging deep into his flesh. My hand went to the hilt of my sword. In just another moment—
 
—the chain links, like chimes. Jingling once, twice—and then pulling taut as they sought to reel Orlando back towards them. At this, a louder ringing, like a bell.
 
And then, at the moment of greatest tension, I sounded my own note. A clear chord resonated as Cloudpiercer and my’s Skyward Wing severed the chain.
 
And it was as I knew it to be. And Orlando wrenched the stake from his leg, fitted it within his cone like a bolt upon a crossbow, and another roar from that wondrous thing sent the projectile careening through the already-weakened glass, painting the cockpit red from within.
 
And Cloudpiercer returned to its sheath.
 
The battle was over. Simple warrior’s resolve and ingenuity won us the fight, not the nightmare of some mechanic. Here, the old ways had triumphed—the ways empires have built their legacies upon. The Great Spirits had seen us through. It struck me that Izem did not, in his morning training, swing his sword haphazardly at boulders: he saw his sword cutting through boulders, and he never doubted for an instant that it would. Less an exercise for the body than for the mind.
 
As if on cue, Baltos burst in, bearing tidings from when we’d sent him away before. He had found Orlando's contact! … And to get to them, we would have to march straight through Olivia’s office.
 
Well… at least now I have my chance to meet her. Something tells me that if we can manage her mechanical monstrosities, the woman herself cannot be too deadly herself. But, then again, my training has taught me to not underestimate my opponents…
 
...And my scars are proof of what happens when I do.
 
May the Great Spirits watch me through the gleam of my sword, enlighten me in the hidden places of the world, guide me in the words of the strangers I've yet to make familiar, and bless me in the light of sun and moon. May they walk in the stride of those I walk amongst, and touch the world through the hands of my companions. May their deeds echo in my actions and their will echo in my wishes. May I honor them in the paths I follow and the waters I tread and the mountains I climb. I am but a transient pilgrim walking the tracks of this past and future world, my blood the blood of my lord and my father and my people.