Knights Apocalyptica

Chapter 74: Style Of Leadership

“Sometimes, we must make harsh calls on an expedition. Not everyone returns to our home alive, so it is up to a Knight to make the correct calls to bring survival.

Just like the wasteland tests you, so will the people around you.

It is up to you to stand firm and never bend to death's whims.”

- On Leadership, Grandmaster Oak (293, 3rd Era)

Dust and sand haunted the wasteland. Its pervasive nature infected every single thing that passed through it. Despite the week of dragging the centuria through the wasteland, Erec couldn’t help but dwell on the annoying feeling of sand stuck in his Armor.

It was just another thing on top of the pile irritating him.

Jefferson was the first on that list. The senior Knight’s constant complaining and fighting was the reason Erec sulked away from the camp. Erec’s eyes drifted back to the trail of his footprints in the dirt behind him. A self-appointed scouting expedition, while helpful, was utterly an excuse to get away.

Everything he and his friends agreed to, Sir Jefferson found fault in. The annoying prick kept flexing his rank, yet he did worse than nothing when it came to trying to ease the already worried centuria. He went around doom speaking and trying to cast the already worried troops deeper into their fears about the White Stag. Claiming they’d lose their minds to the White Stag eventually.

Jefferson also insisted they cut loose the possessed they struggled to bring with them.

Not that such a suggestion wasn’t worth merit, but it was a calloused move that Erec didn’t want to do unless they ran low on supplies. Besides, Boldwick’s direct orders called for them to return home with those poor people.

High above, the sun hung in the sky and blazed its full might upon the desolate world. It was as always a witness to their struggles, as it had been since the dawn of humanity. Did it pity them from so far above? Or was hate burning within it, the same angry inferno that Erec found in himself?

Erec’s eyes scanned the horizon, his view adjusting to zoom slightly at a distance. It was easier to scout now as they left the rocky terrain. Far in the distance was a small pack of walking-geckos. They were some weird mute breed but otherwise harmless to human numbers this big.

[…Oh my.]

“What is it?” Erec asked, watching one of the walking-geckos trip over its malformed tail and struggle on the ground.

[A breakthrough!] VAL chimed in his head, the excitement carrying through in its weird way that emotions colored its tone. [After that assault in your head with the White Stag, I took readings during and after… I was curious why those creatures fused with a radio tower to accomplish their goal.]

“…It was strange, yeah.”

[They powered the structure to give off a precise radio wave, then fused the radio wave with anomalous energy.]

“Really? That’s… Kinda crazy, but I don’t understand why that changed things.” Surprising, and not what he’d thought a being like the White Stag would be capable of. But if that was the extent of it, why had it been in his and Boldwick’s dreams for so long yet unable to do a thing? “…But it could already reach us mentally before that. What’s the difference here?”

[Have you heard the term “Constructive Interference?”]

Erec shook his head. “I didn’t exactly get the best teachers growing up, nor the time; no, I haven’t run across the term.”

[Waves interact in a few ways. How to explain this? Think of ripples on the surface of your cistern tanks down below. They can cancel one another out, but if they touch at the right angle, they can grow into a more substantial ripple. What a surprising intelligence. The White Stag determined that the proper application of anomalous energy operating at a certain ‘energy level’ could merge it with a radio wave of the right length and achieve a greater result.]

“…That sounds terrifying.” Erec shivered, trying to put together how much that threatened his people and how they might fight back against its discovery.

[Indeed. But it does open a door the White Stag likely didn’t think you humans would be able to puzzle out.]

“How?” Erec asked.

The walking gecko struggled on the ground, unable to regain its feet. Seeing that the creature was defenseless, another one of the opportunistic bastards decided to make its move. Many things out here were cannibalistic, or at the very least, more than capable of attacking competitors within their packs.

[Whatever anomalous energy ‘frequency’ it’s using to control the people within your numbers has a proven correspondence with a known radio wavelength. Taking what I’ve gleaned in your anomalous energy lessons…]

Suddenly an image dominated Erec’s vision. It was an intricate hexagon woven in and out with triangles and a rudimentary channeling focus circle in the middle.

It was something he’d expect to see within his Mysticism textbook. Though a bit cruder, already a design of a glyph Erec would’ve never been able to guess the function of. His jaw dropped.

“What the fuck, VAL? Is this a real glyph?”

[Likely? Without testing, I can’t be entirely sure of my conjectures from processing your textbooks. It should be capable of emitting anomalous directional energy in a pulse. However, if we do this…] The triangles around the edge of the hexagon shifted their angles, the lines changing just slightly, while the overall structure of the glyph remained the same though its configuration was undoubtedly altered. […And we keep twisting this around… Then test it against different radio waves. Eventually, we’ll hone in on a format replicating the anomalous energy the Stag is using.]

Erec stared at the glyph in his vision, turning over a few things. For one, an old-world machine just utterly outdid him in learning magic, all while denying it to be magic in the first place. Frustratingly, mindlessly paging through books for VAL did more than he’d ever imagined.

It wasn’t the most complex glyph. Even Erec understood that with what little he knew. But the manipulation and underlining grasp of the theory were… beyond him.

“Shit… VAL—so, we find the glyph corresponding to the radio wave, and then…?”

[Watch.]

A pentagon wrapped around the overall shape—filled with a bunch of connecting geometry and another ring around the whole structure.

[If—and this is a big if, as I haven’t done testing. If I understand this function correctly, it should be able to detect the type of anomalous energy wave within it and point toward its source.]

“VAL… How sure of this are you?”

[Low confidence interval. Your textbook doesn’t provide a very scientific method and explanations and is far too sparse on theory for me to fully confirm my conjectures. Ultimately, the first step in this process could lead to an explosion, especially if done incorrectly. Yet, I remain optimistic despite the fact that I cannot back my theory. It seems ideal for an experiment. So get to it, Researcher!]

In the distance, a walking-gecko was munching on its friend. Not a care in the world. Erec narrowed his eyes as he weighed what VAL was saying. Nothing here was a guarantee—he’d be better to dismiss it and maybe bring it up to Boldwick when they reached the main army.

But…

“I can’t be the one who tests this.” Erec hedged, and he admitted a fact. His control over Mysticism was nonexistent. He’d never formed a glyph, and doing something like this was far too risky for a guy whose sole aim in a fight was to hack stuff apart with his axe. “…We’ll go find Colin.”

— - ☢ - — - ☼ - — - ☢ - —

“We should flee back into the rock lands—it seems far enough away from the fighting! If we find a cavern, we can hold out until this ends!“ Sir Jefferson shouted in the middle of the camp, and a gathering of men and women formed around. Some of them nodded their heads; others gave off an uncomfortable feeling. Colin and the rest of Erec’s friends were far off to the side.

One of the soldiers let out a cheer as Jefferson continued on his rant. Jefferson’s helmet tucked at his side, and his face red as he spewed out the thoughts he’d been driving into Erec and the rest of the Knights for the last weeks.

Erec settled in next to his friends.

What a bastard. Erec shook his head while Jefferson dug into his grievances with the situation. He struggled to tamp down the anger inside.

The energy here wasn’t good. There was a fission to the air, a charge of volatility that was coming close to an explosion. It seemed Jefferson had gotten tired of them contesting the rest of the Knights and decided to take leadership for himself.

Just as Boldwick predicted, the man wanted to run away and hide.

“This can’t keep going on,” Erec whispered over to Garin, who nodded.

“You’re right. This is dangerous, but he’s sure to call us out on rank if anyone goes against him,” Garin whispered back.

Colin scoffed. “Rank? He’s from some barony. I’m the son of a duke—“

“Most of these people are commoners. I’m betting if you walked up there on the merit of your family, they’d find an issue with you trying to call shots in this circumstance.” Garin said. Trying to be diplomatic, huh?

Erec sighed as he watched more soldiers gather around. Every second that Jefferson continued spewing this nonsense, it’d only get worse. They couldn’t just concede to what Jefferson was aiming to do. Not with Boldwick’s orders and not for their long-term safety. Hiding away in a cave while everyone fought would only end badly, especially as their rations began to run out.

And they would run out. These wastelands weren’t precisely a bountiful place to forage from.

“Erec, you need to stop him,” Garin said quietly.

“Why me?” Erec asked, confused. He’d expected his friend to take the stand and do something. Garin was the one who was good with people, and if anyone stood a chance at deescalating the situation, it’d be him. Sending Erec in was like sending in a fire to a fuse…

“They’re looking for a strong leader. Someone who can lead them to safety through hell. These people had to kill their friends and since then, struggled to force-feed those very same brothers and sisters who slew others among them. Jefferson is up there telling them that we have no hope and need to hide—there isn’t anyone within our ranks besides you that can counter that narrative.”

“If I go up there—it won’t end well,” Erec worked his jaw. Already the sparks were flaring inside of him, even from the sidelines.

Coward. The beast cried out inside of him. There was almost a visceral disgust at the man welling up inside, and getting closer would only heighten the feeling.

“It doesn’t need to end well.” Garin said. “You have the reputation already. Use it.”

The reputation? Had word spread about him to the centuria? About how he fought? Or was it from seeing him take out their previous Knight Protector—a woman far above his rank? Either way, the implication of that was a bit troubling. And… It didn’t need to end well?

Just what did people see him as?

Erec cleared his throat. Even Colin was looking at him expectedly.

But he didn’t have a single plan. No clue what to say or how to deal with it. The fact that the course of this mission likely rested on his shoulders. Yet both of them were looking to him to solve this problem.

[Would Bedwyr hesitate?] VAL asked, and Erec stopped.

That was a dirty blow.

The anger swelled in him; and caught flame. Just a bit. A small controlled fire in the pit of his stomach. Enough to eliminate the distractions, to burn away the weakness and hesitation.

What did these people's opinion of him matter anyway?

Erec pushed past the crowd of gathered soldiers; they made way easily enough once they saw it was him. Jefferson’s voice quivered and broke as he stepped into the ring of people. His head locked on the older man.

“W-what is it you want, initiate?” Jefferson asked.

“Coward.” Erec growled out as the crowd went quiet.