Chapter Text
Zien-Ka stood slightly elevated upon the stone, his back straight, the sceptre resting loosely in his grasp. Before him, his warhost lay stretched taut like a tool awaiting use.
Quilen pawed at the softening clay soil, massive bodies of muscle and teeth bristling with impatience. Behind them stood ranks of steel and discipline — spears, shields, bows, seasoned Mogu warriors who had long since learned not to hesitate. Fifty, perhaps more.
Enough.
Not a scratch marred their armour. Not a single grain of dust clung to their boots. They were not marching into battle — they were marching into a correction of history.
Between them — by strategic necessity dispersed among the front lines and along the flanks — crouched the trembling bodies of slaves.
Not many. But enough.
Enough to steep the air in fear.
Enough to draw blades toward them.
If they died, they would at least have been useful.
Ahead of them, the Tonlong Steppes opened in vast, undisturbed calm. Grasses swayed beneath the wind, the sky stretched clear and unblemished over the land. And there, beyond the gentle rises, loomed their objective: the Kypari.
A living colossus of wood, bark, and amber — a breeding ground for those loathsome creatures.
Low. Exposed. And, above all, unprotected enough for his designs.
A gift.
The mere sight of it filled Zien-Ka’s chest with satisfaction.
He raised his sceptre decisively — not in haste; he had time.
“Dokani Clan!”
His deep, powerful voice carried effortlessly to the foremost ranks of the battalion.
Grim faces turned toward him. Necks craned. Weapons stilled. The motion rippled through the formation like a drawn bowstring, and Zien-Ka savoured their anticipation.
“Today,” he thundered, “we crush those wretched insects where they believe themselves safe!”
A murmur of approval passed through his followers. Zien-Ka allowed it.
“We strike their brood. Their nests. Their continuation — and smother every future assault upon our empire before it can even begin!”
A brief surge of acclaim followed. They were too disciplined for more.
He knew what his warriors thought; they had all been taught the same lesson.
For millennia, the mantid swarms had come. Always in the same rhythm. Always with the same arrogance. A siege upon their lands.
Between them, a century-long illusion of truce. Every hundred years, blood paid.
When attempts upon the Empress failed, the wall was built.
And so they waited.
A foolish waiting.
Zien-Ka had seen the truth. The Empress was not the heart of this blight.
The eggs were.
In time, even the Mantid Queen would wither and die. But without her brood, there would be no swarm. No assault. No reason to continue tolerating these insects at all.
Of course, it was no heroic tactic — he knew that, and accepted it. Other warlords might sneer, speak of honour or cowardice. But honour and cowardice did not win wars.
Honour was a word for chronicles. Cowardice for silence. Results were tangible.
And this result would carve Zien-Ka’s name into history — as the one who had made the correct cut.
The certainty of impending victory tingled through him, down to his fingertips. The Dokani Clan had never hesitated when it came to severing a threat at its root.
With a single motion, he lowered the sceptre. The army surged forward. The ground shuddered beneath their synchronised steps.
As expected, the first mantid appeared on the horizon mere moments into the march. A small swarm. Perhaps a dozen.
Zien-Ka regarded them only briefly.
“Archers.”
Twenty bows rose in perfect alignment. Strings drew taut — dry, assured. A familiar sound.
“Fire.”
The whine of arrows split the air. Seven bodies fell, scattered and still. The rest hurled themselves screaming into the front ranks. Quilen roared. Steel met chitin.
Zien-Ka smiled and lowered his sceptre once more.
“Advance.”
He expected no serious resistance. These shrieking, insignificant creatures would be silenced beneath his forces.
The troops moved —
Slower.
Then faltering.
An almost imperceptible, wrong hesitation — before the advance ground to a halt.
Zien-Ka’s brow furrowed.
The defiant screeching of those abominations had not ceased.
No — only one of them still screamed.
Zien-Ka craned his neck to see past the forward lines. His soldiers pressed onward, but the push was no longer a steady tide — they were fighting for every inch of ground.
The roar of the quilen no longer sounded like assault, but like pained howling. Shieldbearers collapsed as though their bodies were made of brittle stone — pillars giving way without warning.
Zien-Ka blinked.
Dissatisfied.
“What is this?”
His voice rumbled low and cutting, heavy enough to carry over the clash of steel and the shrieks of beasts.
“Are you telling me that the warriors of the Dokani Clan are incapable of dealing with five individual mantid?”
Blood surged hot and demanding through him as more of his soldiers fell. The earth darkened beneath them, as archers dropped their bows and drew blades, forced into a fight they had not calculated for.
Zien-Ka stared.
Not in disbelief — but in profound irritation.
His ranks came apart, not in panic, but like a carefully constructed framework from which supports were being removed, one by one.
Unbelievable. And yet inevitable.
He could barely make out the fighter moving among the massive bodies of the Mogu. The mantid vanished into the tangle of armour and muscle.
And yet, no one struck him.
He evaded.
Every blow.
Every clawed strike.
Every sweep of steel.
His movements were swift but never hurried, precise, as if governed by an internal measure. The spear traced short, lethal arcs, finding flesh, throats, joints.
Merciless. Without hesitation. Without expression.
“Bring him down!”
Zien-Ka’s voice rose, sharp with fury. There was no panic in it — only rage at the humiliation of a single mantid was thinning his carefully chosen ranks.
No. Not thinning them.
Dismantling them.
Systematically.
Irrevocably.
Like a shadow, the creature slipped every assault. There was no discernible logic. No pattern to grasp.
Too late, Zien-Ka understood that his plan had failed before it had even been allowed to unfold.
War beasts and slaves littered the ground, mingled with the bodies of his warriors. More than half his host already lay motionless or dying in the dust.
A furious sound tore from his throat. “Enough!”
The anger pierced him like a thorn in the side — not deep, but grinding — and it spilled over.
Zien-Ka swung his sceptre.
His fury erupted in a raw, unrestrained arcane sphere. Lightning lashed outward, tearing through the ranks, flinging Mogu and mantid alike aside. They fell like toppled pins.
Bodies convulsed, twitching in defiant spasms. Not dead — but broken enough to offer no further resistance.
Breathing heavily, Zien-Ka strode forward, sparing no glance for the bodies of his own fallen.
He felt no regret — not in the face of the burning disgrace he now endured because of their failure.
Before him lay the mantid, writhing uncontrollably in the dirt, limbs still caught in the aftershock of magic.
How could a single being contain such strength?
The remaining warriors raised their spears, but Zien-Ka lifted his sceptre toward them.
There was no need to voice a thought — no justification required while his mind worked.
His gaze shifted to the distance. There, in the sky, a larger swarm was already forming — dark specks multiplying rapidly.
It was clear that before long, the swarm would darken the sky above them, should they remain in mantid territory.
“We withdraw.”
The words were not a command.
They were a murmur. A crushing expression of disappointment. An admission that tasted of bile, searing into his mind like acid.
Zien-Ka looked down at the mantid once more. The body lay still now, unmoving. He nudged it with his foot.
No response.
Then he turned his gaze toward the swarm — and back to one of his swordmasters.
“Take this one with us.”
The Mogu stared at him grimly. He was wounded. Blood stained the fine metal of his armour.
“What? Why?” Utter incomprehension marked his features.
Zien-Ka’s gaze returned to the motionless form — the lattice of chitin and antennae.
An idea took shape.
“Because this creature is evidently stronger than my hand-picked army ever was.”
A narrow, cold smile touched his lips.
“I will dissect his strength — and make it useful to me.”