Vaelyn Quarterly
The Exalted Legion and Fears beyond the Firmament
By Maximilian Pula
The Exalted Legion and Fears beyond the Firmament
By Maximilian Pula
Every night thunderous booms echo through the valleys of the Exaltunate as the sky parts and multitudes of fiends emerge from within the purples of the tear to ravage the landscape with maw and spell. They come in many forms. They speak in tongues unknown. Their whims are meaningless or misunderstood. One truth stands above all confusions, that their evil is pure and is in perfect dichotomy to the Exaltun’s light. The force of their will and constitution exudes a darkness that's nature corrupts even the purest elements of the Wheel and transforms them into a heterogeneity of certain demise. All who come upon it beware, for it is a bewitching concoxion. Its curses sire fabled charms from depths forgotten that under the guise of greed consume without prejudice and feed the hungry machine of the depths. For every soul lost to the forces of the cataclysm that wretched organism beats another day.
With sabre and on horseback, with tomes held in calloused hands, and led by tacticians of prodigal instruction, the Legion is the external instrument of the Exaltun. It carries by carriage an ark within lies an artefact of luminous origins gifted by our Empyrean. Its power spurns within all soldiers a great will to march forward against all threats. By day and night, an endless thrump pummels the ground like a beaten drum and sends frightening reverberations into the dark of the wilds. The message is always the same: We are here. We are ready. We will never stop fighting.
This unofficial motto is an elastic remark made lovingly by the soldiers themselves, often in huddles and stretched to such extents that a certain fervor erupts within them–a great desire for battle in the name of their home. They fight for themselves last and their brethren people first. The Exaltun is on the forefront of the mind, understood as being as much a participant in their struggles as the soldiers themselves. The atmosphere of the barracks here in Vaelyn is always lively. Often in spite of the consistent loss of members on every expedition beyond The Firmament and in other efforts to ensure its security, the well-being of surviving outsiders, and missions to capture vital resources from lost territories. Sometimes even from distant colonies, whereon such operations the losses are often exponential.
One such journey comes as a story from a late acquaintance of mine and a frequent contributor to the journal. We’ll call him James, to respect his memory and his rest. He was a senior corporal and in the Legion for many years, often dispatched alongside such reputed ranks as the current commander of foreign expeditions and his former apprentice, now a commander of her own, A. Dawley of the southern naval guard. At one time as a neophyte and finally as a corporal, James was a lancer and a rider since his youth, a family passtime he’d inherited in his own blood. While by no means a master, having a natural edge for riding on horseback provides one caught in dangerous situations with a greater likelihood for survival. I believe it’s what kept him with us for so long as he continued to be assigned to further and further travels.
On the assignment third prior to his passing, James was placed as support to a company visiting the jungle islands of Caan and Vuhl far beyond the eastern seas, past the eye of torment and the passage of leviathans–as pompous cartographers have take to calling them, really no more than regions of high storms known for swallowing ships whole. The Legion is keen on protecting its assets. As such, these trips come stock full of supplies, foods, ale, and the help of farseers to protect the sailing vessel from surprising weather patterns and lost guidance. This trip was no different and James painted the cruise as rather pleasant and uneventful. What few things disturbed them were but distant images high up in the sky, wailing from the deep, and the far-off remains of past failures and unlucky would-be survivors from towns and cities under siege.
There wasn’t ever anything in those remains but mood-souring mental conjurations of the sorry souls aboard once proud vessels. No matter the quality of construction, no ship is grand enough or armed well enough to stand up against the mighty winged daemons of the cataclysm. Their size alone could reach that of even the longest frigates. Creatures of that calibre, however, were stories even to James. From his account, the scariest beasts were like ogres, some eight to ten foot tall and muscular like wrestlers. With deafening roars and razor claws, such bipedal atrocities could single-handedly wreck havoc on entire squadrons of swordsmen. That is why, on his report, the Legion operates with a diversity of strategy and tools. Such tools even include the incredible sorceries of the Exaltun himself against those targets so great that even all the cohorts of the first legion could’t quash them. On this occasion, James was in the company of some forty all adorned in tropical fatigues decorated with brushwood chunks and petrified leaves.
When the legion goes to destroy there are no fancy costumes. Dressed in the finest metals and chains and gambeson, they disembark with weapons ready and lay down decimation unmatched by any other army in the known world. On those days, however, the modus operandi was secrecy and speed. As such, James carried only the dark tones on his shoulders, soft boots on his feet, and a dagger held close in a padded sheathe. No sound. No hustle. Only efficiency and a single target, to recover a rare and valuable artefact from the wreckage of a ship thrown ashore and deep into one of the twin islands from a great tsunami. Which one, he said, they knew not, but by chance the isle of Vuhl held the prize they sought and James’ team engaged to secure it. A few cretins lingerd, easily dispatched, but where danger lurked was not in castaway daemons, but from the islands themselves. Unbeknownst to them or even their leaders, a great evil infected the flora.
The presumption to date, an opinion combination of official publications and James’ remarks to me, is that the nature of the few beasts left behind from the crash contaminated the plants and imbued them with a terrible evil that rapidly transmuted them into something dangerous. Vines ornamented by piercing thorns lashed out at random, sinkholes of putrid mud disrupted walking paths, and large flowers released noxious gases at the slightest detection of the vibrations of a walking figure. Like denspiders, the plants on those islands stood in wait, perfectly innocent, for prey to come within striking distance. Once they had secured the relic, held within a chest half-submerged in muck and overgrown by moss and ferns, they turned and ran at full speed, following their footsteps through the jungle back to the beachhead. On the way, they waged war against all the life that surrounded them. Legionaries were plucked out as if by random, dragged into the darkness of the brush by the branches themselves. Who could be saved by an arm or a swift slash were, but many were lost that day. By count, nearly two thirds didn’t return home. The value of the prize? Priceless. But the value of lives lost? We can only mourn and support one another in the understanding that it is all to secure our survival against the cataclysm.
Rest in peace, James. You perished valiantly to Fears beyond The Firmament. Your Legion fights on another day.
