Arcane Exfil-Chapter 69: Ashpoint (2)

Cole didn’t much like the tone of Stroud’s voice – not that it was rude, but that it suggested bad news. So he nodded and braced for impact.

“To business, then. I shall come directly to the point,” Stroud said. “Dispatches have reached us from the Allesoire–Strinrik expedition. A sandstorm has driven them to shelter in the Velanth corridor, and their return is halted until the weather breaks.”

The commander’s ears flattened.

“I mislike the situation. Their delay in the Wastes can end only one way if it continues, and I have no intention of allowing matters to drift toward it. I have therefore readied a relief column – two sections of Second Company, with a Slayer Elite squad in support. They are to depart within the hour.”

That rounded to about eighty personnel, give or take. Cole subtracted that from Ashpoint’s complement, then subtracted again for base security minimums. The number left over wouldn’t be nearly enough if they needed to assault the cultist base.

“What does that leave for Ostreva?” Cole asked.

“One Slayer platoon, a single section of Third Company, and such artillery as the situation allows. Naval fire remains available at your judgement.”

Yeah, Cole honestly should’ve seen that coming. Wouldn’t be much of an op if everything went according to plan, after all.

Somehow, he’d almost let himself forget that over the past few weeks. Celdorne had almost fooled him. Subtract finicky geopolitical nuances, then add in some luxury R&R, and all of a sudden he’d started to go soft at the edges.

Good thing he got a reminder now, with relatively low stakes.

Stroud continued, “If you judge it necessary to await their return and the restoration of our full strength, you shall have no impediment from me. But if your time will not bear delay, we can take the briefing this afternoon and proceed with the operation as appointed.”

Cole hummed and thought through it.

It sounded pretty sparse at first glance, but then again, their goal was recon – in and out, quick something-hours adventure. They sure as hell wouldn’t be there to kick down doors, so the support that Stroud could afford was more than enough.

The real question was risk tolerance. If they got compromised and needed extraction under fire, could one platoon hold the perimeter long enough? Probably. The Slayers weren’t green, and destroyer guns had a way of discouraging pursuit. And if things went so catastrophically wrong that eighty extra bodies would’ve made the difference, they were already dead anyway.

Besides, delay had its own costs. Every day they waited was another day the cult had to move assets or plan a new contamination op.

Cole glanced at Vale and Graves. They’d already come to the same conclusion, if their determined looks were anything to go by.

“We proceed,” he said.

Stroud nodded. “Very well. You will meet Lieutenant Langston in the lobby at fifteen hundred.” He rose and extended his hand. “Until then, your quarters are prepared; Langston will conduct you to them.”

They met Langston outside, waiting by the door. He led them downstairs and out of the building, taking them back along the waterfront in silence.

Cole found his attention drifting toward the harbor.

The sight of the Celdornian destroyers continued to strike a chord in his inner battleship enthusiast. Even the smaller craft that remained anchored along the coast. Despite his perception of them as antiques, he had to admit that they were solid ships, all of them – workmanlike, functional, and no doubt valuable assets if the time ever came for war.

But this had been an Istraynian naval base once, which raised a question that had been sitting in the back of his mind.

“Lieutenant,” Cole said. “Do we know anything about the Istraynian Navy?”

Langston glanced at him. “Such information as survives suggests it was considerable. By contemporary standards, the finest in the world prior to the Fall.”

“So where is it?”

“Gone, Sir Cole.” He slackened his pace. “When the coastal fortifications were breached, their fleet hastened to sea under general evacuation orders – every vessel capable of bearing weight: ships of war, merchant craft, fishing boats, passenger liners. The airship yards were likewise cleared. Contemporary accounts state that the sky above Istrayn was blackened with departing traffic, the vessels taking aboard such refugees as could be accommodated and then standing out for the Thalassic Expanse.” He paused. “None were observed thereafter.”

Cole recognized the name of the western ocean; it was one of the first things he’d pulled from the Royal Archives back when they’d still been in Alexandria, trying to piece together Celdorne’s geography. The Thalassic Expanse had warranted its own section in the atlas, which had seemed excessive at the time.

Then he’d actually read the thing.

Vast didn’t quite do it justice. The Expanse made the Pacific look like a swimming pool – thousands of miles of open water sprawling west from Celdorne’s coast, most of it still uncharted because nobody who’d sailed far enough to chart it had ever come back.

Tenria’s cartographers hadn’t even attempted accuracy past a certain longitude. But what they had managed to record – in meticulous, almost uncanny detail – were the things that lived out there.

As expected of a vast, uncharted ocean of a world with magic, it hit all the quintessential tropes: sea monsters long enough to dwarf a man-of-war, krakens with tentacles that could whip an ironclad apart, perpetual storm systems that made the Bermuda Triangle’s stories look like fairy tales. There be dragons – literally.

What lay beyond all that? It was anyone’s guess, really. It could be unexplored continents, dungeons of the deep, a random smattering of islands, hell, maybe even Tenria’s version of Atlantis. But it could easily be more of the same – more ocean, more storms, more nightmares lurking in the depths.

Every few generations, some expedition got ambitious enough to try their luck. Fleets stocked for a year, crewed by explorers or prisoners or poor bastards who’d drawn the short straw. The Expanse swallowed them whole. Every time. Ships, crew, ambition – all gone with nothing to show for it, except for the occasional survivor and tales to boot.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to novelbuddy for the genuine story.

The upside, if anyone could call it that, was more strategic. It meant that Celdorne’s western flank was functionally unassailable. The ocean that swallowed fleets made one hell of a moat.

Meanwhile, the southern and eastern seaboards opened onto calmer waters and friendlier trade: routes to Aurelia, Elnoir, and the rest of the known world. It was the same geographic jackpot that had made Britain a colonial power back home.

But that was just basic geography. None of it really suggested any hint as to what became of the Istraynian fleets.

Maybe they really did make it, and found a safe haven past the hellscapes. Regardless of the outcome, that mass exodus meant they had no ultra-powerful ships to reverse-engineer or repurpose.

“What about the rest of the Istraynians?”

“They withdrew by land, through the Isthmus of Hope, and passed thence into what is now Celdorne, and from there fled beyond. The refugees were driven onward, falling back as ground was lost, and holding out elsewhere only so long as men and means could be assembled. Thereafter, no Istraynian dominion remained to which they might return.”

Cole looked along the derelict machinery that stood abandoned throughout the base and its perimeter. “And I’m guessing not much of their stuff really survived?”

“Well. It would not be wholly accurate to say that. Very little of it was ever brought out, and that only in fragments, such as the refugees were able to carry with them while retreating, most of which were lost or ruined soon after. Working pieces are seldom met with at all, and when one is secured it does not long remain in circulation, but is taken up either by a noble household or committed to the keeping of the state. Beyond Celdorne, Aurelia holds the largest vault.”

Langston pointed beyond the base’s walls. “What survives in any number lies further inland, and is brought out only in such measure as the expeditions permit.”

Cole followed his gesture toward the promontory in the distance. Somewhere past that was Ostreva.

They walked on. Langston stopped in front of a building that looked like a frozen wave, which somehow wasn’t even an exaggeration.

“These quarters were assigned to senior officers under the Istraynian administration. We have made such alterations as were necessary, but the general arrangement has been retained. Your room is the first door on the left. I shall see Sir Graves and Sir Vale to theirs, and will meet you all in the lobby at three o’clock.”

Cole nodded then headed into his room, and damn was it massive.

To be fair, pretty much all Istraynian architecture featured expansive open space, and this was apparently for senior staff. Still, it felt like having a mansion all to himself – and that was saying something, considering he actually owned a mansion.

He dropped his pack on the couch, which was actually nice. Celdornian in origin, of course, but still way too nice for anything military. Matter of fact, the whole room was – fancy new furniture replacing the dusty old Istraynian stuff.

Seemed a bit weird at first, but that was the point, wasn’t it? Who the hell in their right mind would risk their asses setting up a base in demon territory? And if they had to do it anyway, the least they deserved was a nice home.

Not a bad place to stage an op, all things considered.

Cole walked over to his pack and retrieved his helmet and ENVG-Bs. The goggles had held up remarkably well despite the fight with the Vampire Lord, but visual inspection was only the tip of the iceberg. The question now wasn’t whether they still functioned – of course they would; rather, it was whether burning battery life on this operation would be worth the trade-off.

Night operations were the obvious choice for reconnaissance. Reduced visibility cut both ways, but his team had technological advantages that the cultists almost certainly lacked. The absence of a fifth set for Elina presented a constraint, alright, though definitely not an insurmountable one; she could maintain close formation during movement, or they could opt for a daylight approach and render the issue moot.

The thing was, once these batteries died, their night vision capabilities would be gone for good. Celdorne didn’t have electricity, let alone the infrastructure to recharge American military hardware. The Istraynian ruins might contain some miraculous power source that happened to be compatible with hardware from another world, but Cole wasn’t inclined to stake operational planning on that kind of fantasy.

And sure, maybe there was a magical substitute out there, either waiting to be discovered or readily available in the Celdornian repertoire. But even if it existed, learning it would take time they didn’t have, and hoping for it was a good way to end up blind in the dark when it mattered.

He checked the charge. What remained would be good for another twenty-four hours of continuous use. Enough for this op, probably one more after that if they were conservative.

He was still weighing that when a knock sounded at the door.

Cole crossed the room and opened it to find the whole crew assembled in the hallway – Mack, Miles, Ethan, and Elina. Miles had his arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe like he’d been waiting for an hour instead of probably thirty seconds.

“So?” Miles asked. “How’d it go with the commander?”

Cole stepped back to let them in. “Typical meet and greet,” he said. “Mostly, he wanted us to know that OTAC’s expedition hit a sandstorm. They’re pinned down in something called the Velanth corridor, so the Commander’s decided to play it safe and get them. He’s sending a relief column – two sections of Second Company, plus a Slayer Elite squad.”

Ethan did the math faster than anyone else. “That’s almost half the garrison’s current combat power.”

Cole nodded.

Miles whistled low. “So what’s that leave us? Three dudes and a mule?”

“One platoon of Slayers, one infantry section, plus naval guns if things go sideways,” Cole said. “Should be more than enough for what we’re actually doing.”

“Well, shit.” Miles rubbed his face. “Feels like we’re askin’ for trouble.”

Ethan shook his head. “Nah. What are the chances we’ll need a whole army? They’re infinitesimally small.”

“Just don’t jinx it,” Cole said.

“So we’re proceeding as planned?” Mack asked, tone serious.

Cole clocked the subtext immediately. Normally, Mack would’ve added something – a quip, a comment, some sort of banter. This time, though, he let it sit. And Cole could guess why. Given what he’d been through, he probably wanted it to be a jinx. He wanted the excuse to annihilate every cultist in Ostreva, down to the last man.

And the anticipation probably felt good. Justified. Clarifying. A vector for all that pain, finally pointed at something that deserved it. But Cole had seen this before, in other men, after other losses. The anticipation always felt righteous, yet the aftermath was always emptier than anyone expected.

Mack was still clearly holding onto the idea that killing the people responsible would balance the scales. Nothing Cole could say would convince him otherwise – it was a lesson he couldn’t teach; he could only let Mack learn it. Let him have his vengeance. Let him wipe out the cultists and feel the satisfaction of ending their pitiful existences.

And then, when the smoke cleared and the emptiness was still there – when he realized the hole hadn’t closed, that Gerrick was still dead and he’d still been the one to do it – then he’d be ready to reach for what he really needed.

Grace. Forgiveness.

Cole kept his answer short. “Yeah. Briefing at fifteen hundred.”

“Captain,” Elina said, jumping in at just the right moment. “Your impression of Commander Stroud?”

Cole smiled. “Y’know, he actually caught me off guard. Turns out he’s a wolfman.”

“Wolfkin?” Elina corrected.

“Yeah, that. Wolfkin. Decent guy, actually. Not ready to canonize him quite yet, but he genuinely seems like a good officer.” Cole headed back toward the door. “C’mon, let’s go get some lunch. I’ll tell you more.”