Fortress Al-Mir

“So, what exactly is the plan here?”

“We tell the army that their services are no longer required.”

“And forgive me if I’m nagging, but could you remind me once again why we are sending away an army right before a battle in which we’re heavily outnumbered?”

Arkk pressed his lips into a tight frown as he looked at Kia. Despite the dark elf’s unsteady state, her tongue was as sharp as ever. “Is it really that bad of an idea?”

Drawing in a short breath, Kia rubbed at her forehead with several afterimages of her hands. “Let me answer your question with a question of my own. What did your circle of advisors have to say about this plan when you sat them down for one of your regular meetings?”

“I…”

“Didn’t have one of those meetings?” Kia scoffed. “Yeah, I could tell.”

Arkk looked out. He, along with Kia and Claire, stood on the rebuilt eastern wall of Elmshadow, watching the King’s army approach. At this distance, the army was just a meandering mass in the valley. Nothing distinct about any part of them, save for the obvious line of supply carts. About halfway between the army and Elmshadow’s wall, riding right along the river, a small group of far more distinct horses was riding ahead of the main group.

“There isn’t exactly time for a meeting,” Arkk said. “Those riders will be here in twenty minutes. Thirty if they decide to slow their pace. The rest of the army will be here mid-to-late afternoon.”

Kia narrowed her eyes. She lifted a spyglass and peered through it. “And you think one of those riders—or someone else in that army—is a demon? That’s why you want to reject them all?”

“I have Edvin, Katja, Inquisitrix Lui, and a handful of others keeping an eye on the Prince at Cliff. There has been no sign that he has summoned a demon.”

“Then what?”

Arkk shrugged. “I don’t know. I was told to watch my back around this army, that something in its ranks isn’t what it seems, and that they aren’t necessarily here to aid us. Worse, I don’t trust the source of this information.”

“Why not accept them? If the source isn’t trustworthy, aren’t they just trying to weaken us?”

“It is a possibility, but it feels—”

“Why not…” Claire started, speaking up for the first time since arriving at the wall. She trailed off, however, looking uncertain of herself. Slowly, a smile spread across her face. “Let’s just find the one who isn’t what they seem and peel them apart. Then you can use the rest of the army all you want.”

“Good point,” Kia said. “If the problem is only one of them, just kill whoever it is. Easy solution.”

“If we can find that person. And that still doesn’t solve the problem of the army as a whole stabbing us in the back. If the Prince gave them orders to do so, it wouldn’t matter who we take out, whether that be leaders, field commanders, or some individual member of the rank and file. Killing someone well-liked by the rest of the army might only inflame their anger with us.” Arkk let out a breath, closing his eyes. “Which is why I want to go with this plan. Send them off somewhere that they won’t be able to attack us easily but close enough to let them watch what happens to our enemies. As long as we are perceived as a slightly above-average free company, we are an opponent that can be fought. But shift that status to that of an overwhelming force that cannot be stopped…”

“And no army would fight against you,” Kia finished, nodding her head. With a laugh and a small shrug, she looked up to Arkk. “All well and good, if you can pull it off. That fact that you’re entertaining our ideas means you aren’t sure if you can.”

Arkk shifted, moving in mild discomfort. Kia and Claire were two of the very few who knew about the final delay tactic Arkk had implemented against Evestani, so he felt he could tell them some of his plans.

“I currently have a team of servants excavating Gleeful Burg,” he admitted. “Along with a few other sites where battles took place between Evestani and the Duke’s Grand Guard, various free companies, and even a few destroyed villages and towns. The undead were extremely effective against Evestani. A normal necromancer can raise a hundred undead if they’re particularly powerful. Me?” Arkk chuckled. “I can raise them all.

“It isn’t just that. Zullie is working to gain safe access to the Festival, the plane overseen by the god of undeath, the Laughing Prince. I don’t know if it will be in time, or if there will be anything useful there, but the Silence gave us our weapon against the avatar and the Underworld increased our might tenfold, so it stands to reason that another realm might just boost our combat ability even more.

“Then there are all those obstacles we threw at Evestani. A lot of them didn’t work. That was fine. We learned what did and didn’t work. Zullie, Savren, and everyone else involved worked hard to modify their plans and work on better countermeasures.

“I am nervous. I won’t lie. But I think we can destroy Evestani and the Eternal Empire.”

Claire shuddered. The soft-spoken dark elf looked at him with a wide grin. “Talk a little more like that and I might admit envy toward your elf.”

Arkk didn’t even get a chance to say how much that horrified him before an afterimage of Kia’s elbow slammed into Claire’s ribs. Or it would have were it not for a hazy ghost of Claire’s hands blocking the attack. Two more left elbows shimmered through the air at the same time, only for Claire to split her hands into four separate copies, each lifting to block the elbow strikes. A fifth hand split off from the rest, reaching over to poke Kia between her ribs and her hips.

The ghostly manifestations of the two warped back into their bodies. Neither had actually moved. That didn’t stop Kia from clutching her side with a light yelp as Claire put on a victorious smirk.

“I’ve been at this much longer than you, dear,” Claire said, speaking in a sing-song voice. “Remember that before picking a fight.”

“You better remember that you’re mine. All the experience in the worlds isn’t going to save you if you try to ditch me for the commander.”

“Ditch you? Never… But if Arkk keeps sweet-talking me like that, I might invite him along with us—”

Arkk cleared his throat, loudly and obviously. Awkwardly as well. The way they both turned to him with a grin did little to set him at ease. It was almost like they plotted out their little fight specifically to put on a show. Which, given what he knew of the two of them, wasn’t all that far-fetched.

Why, oh why had he not listened to Rekk’ar when the orc said that giving these two more power was a bad idea?

“Talking is well and good,” Arkk said, shifting a step away from the two dark elves, “but why don’t we see if I can pull this off before we start… uh… anything.”

“So you’re saying we should wait until after the war?” Kia asked without a trace of animosity in her voice. “Claire?”

“I think that’s waiting too—”

“Oh look,” Arkk said, pointing vaguely. “The horses must have picked up the pace. They’re almost here. Better go greet them.”

“And kill them?” Kia asked.

Arkk hesitated, then slowly nodded his head. “If we can figure out which isn’t what they seem,” he said, glad to be on the much more comfortable topic of assassination compared to… whatever Kia and Claire wanted with him in private. “Though, preferably, we make it look like an accident. Too soon or too obvious and we’ll end up sieged on both sides of the burg.”

“What’s wrong?” Kia asked. “Can’t handle two sides?”

“This is the kind of talk I expect from Lexa,” Arkk said with a frown, “not the two of you. Are you alright?”

The two looked at each other. Icy blue eyes locked onto dark brown. They both nodded their heads, turned to Arkk, and said in unison, “Fine.” “Fine.”

“Just try to act normal, then.”

“Sure.” “Okay.”

Arkk slowly shook his head, reconsidering whether bringing these two to something akin to a diplomatic meeting was really his best idea.

“Magatherion Goth, at your service,” the portly man said with a shallow bow. “Feel free to call me Mags.”

The man before Arkk looked like someone fresh out of one of the old Duke’s parties. Despite having traveled across half of Mystakeen, he wore an immaculate and extravagant costume, covered in dangling medals, colored strands of braided rope, and a hemming that made his wide figure look almost majestic. The honor guard accompanying him was equally resplendent, with armor that looked freshly painted in the blues and yellows of Chernlock, representing the sun high in a cloudless sky. Two of them carried large and unwieldy banners, holding them high over the rest of the quintet.

Arkk stood along with Kia and Claire. He had considered bringing along several others, meeting the newcomers with a full retinue. However, having seen the small number of individuals in the forward group, Arkk decided to meet with them with a smaller number. Just to make sure they didn’t feel threatened. He didn’t want to spark conflict if he could avoid it.

The two groups met in the rebuilt gatehouse. Much like Fortress Al-Mir and his walking tower, it had been rebuilt with reinforced stone tiles that bore a faint maze-like pattern embedded on their surface. Every so often, violet glowstones dotted the tiles. All the land in and around Elmshadow was under his full control. Buried tunnels, the small size of a compressed lesser servant, wove throughout the burg to ensure that the tower remained in contact with the rest of the land no matter what kind of destruction the surface ended up facing.

“Greetings,” Arkk said slowly, returning his focus to the central figure. “Arkk. Commander of Company Al-Mir. These are two of my aides, Kia and Claire.”

They were doing a remarkable job of holding in their afterimages. It helped that they weren’t moving, even after being introduced, but the faint shimmering glow that surrounded them was barely visible and he knew what to look for. Neither Mags nor his retinue made any show of noticing.

Mags, however, did curl a lip in a slight sneer. “Dark elves,” he said in a tone of voice that Arkk didn’t find agreeable.

“Is there a problem?”

Mags quickly smiled. “Of course not,” he said after a moment of hesitance.

Arkk pursed his lips but refrained from saying anything. Two minutes after meeting the man and Arkk already didn’t like him. “You are the commander of the King’s army, correct?” he asked, holding out a slight hope that this Mags wasn’t in charge.

“I am but a humble seneschal to my lord, the Prince Cedric Valorian Lafoar. My lord has granted me charge of this army to see to the defeat of the barbarians that encroach upon our territory.”

Arkk held in his sigh. “I see,” he said. “I appreciate that you’ve come all this way to aid—”

“Think nothing of it, my lad,” Mags said with a wide smile. “Anything for a fellow countryman. And the country, of course.”

“Of course,” Arkk slowly repeated. “However, the services of you and your men are no longer required.”

The wide smile on the portly man’s face remained in place for a moment too long. It slowly shrank down until his trim beard and mustache obscured his lips entirely. “Excuse me?” he finally said. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”

“We have been observing and, in some cases, prodding the Evestani army as they made their way back across the land. In doing so, we have discovered their increased aptitude for destructive magics. Especially those brought by their new allies, the Eternal Empire.” Arkk shook his head slowly. “In light of this, we have reevaluated the situation. A conventional army such as yours will only be a hindrance in a battle. Or, more accurately, your army will be dead within minutes of engaging.

“So you see, your aid is not going to be… well, aid.”

“Then what is your plan? Retreat? Fall back from the greatest bastion we have in this territory outside Cliff itself?” Mags asked. A bit of red color flushed through his cheeks. “You can’t possibly expect Prince Cedric’s men to spend weeks marching here only to march back.”

“We are not retreating,” Arkk said, keeping his voice firm and full of conviction. “We will handle Evestani. As for your men, we have procured and converted old mining tunnels in the mountains for lodging. We have enough food and beds for every man. You are welcome to stay until you receive new orders.”

“Latest reports put the Evestani army at ten thousand and then another seven to eight thousand Eternal Empire soldiers with them. Your force, unless the reports were grossly inaccurate, numbered less than a thousand. I don’t care what kind of magic you’ve got, the disparity in manpower alone is enough to lose this battle.”

“That’s where we’ll have to disagree.”

“You—”

“If you truly wish to get your men killed, order them to fall on their own swords. I’m sure it will be a kinder death than what awaits them if they try to fight.”

The red in Mags’ face was swiftly turning to a purple hue, darkening as the man clenched his fists. The slight tremble in his arms stopped abruptly. A smile crossed his face. “It seems my lord was most wise. I have been granted authority to act as I see fit to ensure the security of the Greater Kingdom. I will be taking command of Elmshadow’s defense. You may serve me, you may flee, but interfere and you will be charged with high treason. Turn your tower, your magics, and your men over to me. Immediately.”

Arkk slowly crossed his arms, shaking his head. As he did so, he glanced at Kia and Claire. They both had smiles on. Far too wide of smiles.

He let out a small sigh.

“I urge you to reconsider. For your men’s sake.”

“My men are well and prepared to die for the country’s sake if that is what it takes to see these intruders repelled.”

“Is that true,” Arkk asked, raising an eyebrow as he looked over the four soldiers that stood with Mags. “These four are well trained, I presume?”

“The best,” Mags confirmed.

“Really?” Arkk half turned. As he did so, he teleported Dakka into one of the gatehouse’s side rooms. “Dakka,” he called out.

The orc pushed through a door, fully armored. Kia and Claire were here just in case there was something surprising amid this group, but they weren’t the only ones he had prepared. Dakka’s full squad was ready and waiting to be teleported anywhere at a moment’s notice. As were gorgon, battlecasters, and Lexa.

“This is my lead field commander. An orc,” Arkk said, smiling a little as the soldiers fought to keep their footing. In her shadowy black armor and spiked helm, carrying that black scythe, Dakka looked like a monster from old legends. “All four of your best men against her. If you manage to scratch her and draw blood, I’ll believe your army can contribute to this fight.”

Mags seemed to pull over the challenge for a moment, glaring at Dakka. “And if we win?”

“I’ll capitulate. You lead the defense. I’ll follow without complaint and ensure that my men do as well.”

Mags showed off his teeth. It wasn’t exactly a smile. More like the expression a feral animal might use to frighten off a bigger predator. “You won’t cry when we kill the demi.”

Arkk scoffed. “Dakka, you aren’t allowed to kill them. In fact, you can’t hurt them more than what Hale can fix.”

Though her face was hidden behind her helmet, Arkk could sense her amusement in her posture. “What, you want me to hand over my weapon too?”

“Actually? Yes,” Arkk said, holding out his hand. “Might as well give them a sporting chance, huh?”

“Ugh. Me and my big mouth…”

Despite her commentary, Dakka whipped her hand to the side, dropping off the haft in Arkk’s waiting hand. Unlike Dakka, the soldiers of the King’s army wore their visors lifted, letting Arkk see the growing confidence in their faces now that Dakka lacked her scythe.

“Now, shall we take this outside?”

“Don’t forget the terms of this contract,” Mags said, looking absolutely gleeful. He even rubbed his hands together like this was already decided in his favor. “You’ll bow to me when this is over.”