Welcome back to Mammoth Monday!After spotting not so few errors in the last chapter, I decided to recheck all chapters from that one and until two weeks ago for grammatical errors. That is 60k+ words even without the last two week's 20k+ words! You better appreciate my obsessional sense of writer's perfection! Or just forget that I ever said so, either actually works for me.
-Rant ended

Enjoy!

Where is he?

Loivissa POV
We are so screwed, Loivissa thought with dread as the black-shielded men began clapping their swords against their shields in an orderly rhythm.

"Shit, those are the Dead Guard, the elite personal guard of the ra'zac", Captain Lauran cursed beside Loivissa, "we have to warn the others".

At that very moment, at least three lethrblaka chose to announce their presence by eliciting terrifying screeches somewhere behind the main expedition's campsite.

"I think they already know by now", Loivissa said dryly, but complied nonetheless with the captain's recommendation to rendezvous with the others.

They had only reached the halfway point between their previous lookout and the campsite, when a small group of officers burst forth from the foliage with clear panic evident on their features, before they, upon noticing the pair, panicked asked, "what is happening?!"

"The lethrblaka spotted us earlier and has set a trap for us", Captain Lauran spoke, his calm restored, "have the men bring all the bows and arrows that we have and begin setting up ambush points in the trees. This is not a battle, so have them armour lightly…oh, and Loivissa, tell Adûn to meet us here as soon as possible, but without alerting the entire city of his presence".

"Yes, at once captain", the officers said in unison, before dashing off to fulfil their orders.

"What do you need Adûn and I to do?", Loivissa asked curiously after forwarding the message, "I am the best archer that we have got, as well as the best swordsman, but when the lethrblaka spots us, they will come in greater numbers. Three, we might be able to hold off, but any more and we will be completely overwhelmed".

"I have no intention of letting you face those things in the air", the captain merely responded, but upon her confused expression, he clarified, "in the open, we will be completely and utterly crushed, but if Adûn can stall the enemy from reaching the forest for long enough for us to set up enough ambush points, then we might be able to skirmish our way out of this mess. Plus, as long as we keep to the denser parts of the forest, then the lethrblaka will be practically useless".

Seeing the cunning in his strategy, Loivissa quickly relayed it to Adûn via their bond, and not a minute later, they both stood at the forest's edge, although Adûn only had his snout visible. The Dead Guard had begun their march in an orderly formation, completely in sync with each other, so that it looked like they were moving as one.

Currently, they were three quarters of the way between Feinster and the forest that Loivissa and her expedition were in. The clanging of swords against shields had never stopped, and it was more than a little unsettling to hear if Loivissa had to be honest.

Light them up, Loivissa requested of her beloved partner-of-heart-and-mind.

Adûn did not even waste a second to hesitation, before he let loose torrents of sea-blue coloured flames upon the ranks and files of black soldiers. Unfortunately for the pair, the soldier's only response to the torrent of death coming their way was to open every fifth rank and let soldiers, whose only distinction from the rest was a shining gem placed in the middle of their black shields, come up to the front, where they quickly moved three steps ahead of the rest, before crouching down and ducking behind their shields.

As the torrent hit the soldiers, the gems lighted up all across the line, which caused the fiery torrent to pass harmlessly above its intended targets.

"Barzûl", Loivissa cursed as the fire seemed to have absolutely no effect on them. In hindsight, she should have realized that during the eight-year war between the ra'zac and Alagaësia, the ra'zac had to have developed a counter against dragonfire. The Dead Guard meanwhile seemed to also have realized that nothing further was coming, which prompted them to start up their forward march once again, still with the shield-bearers three steps in front of the rest to break the fire.

How much longer do you need us to keep them occupied?, Loivissa asked, as she stretched out her consciousness and was allowed entry into Captain Lauran's mind.

At least another ten to fifteen minutes, the captain answered, though if it proves impossible to do so, then I would rather have you withdraw than die trying.

I will not fail you, Loivissa answered with determination, before cutting off the link.

Any better ideas?, Adûn asked her, while still maintaining his torrent of fire, because although it did not stop them completely, it did slow them down considerably.

If we cannot kill them, then let us stop them, Loivissa said after some consideration, try aiming your fire down upon the earth nearer the forest's edge. If we can heat a long enough stretch enough to make it impossible to walk on, then we might be able to stop them.

Adûn quickly complied with her idea, which took the fire off of the soldiers, but they did not break their previous formation, as he could direct it at them again with a moment's notice, although they did quicken their pace considerable now that they were no longer holding off a torrent of fire.

It did not take long for the Dead Guard to reach the stretch that had been heated, where they stopped as Loivissa had hoped that they would. What she had not hoped for however, was the barrels of water being brought forth and emptied upon the scorched land from somewhere behind the front.

No matter how much Adûn tried, he simply could not keep up with the water being splashed to cool the ground and it was not long before the Dead Guard started moving forward again.

Captain, they are almost at the forest now, Loivissa alerted the captain.

Fall back then. We are almost finished setting up anyway, Captain Lauran instructed.

Loivissa quickly complied, but because Adûn was grounded on the earth, and the fact that he was as large as he was, they could only slowly move between the trees. The Dead Guard on the other hand was not hindered by this, so they quickly began to catch up to the pair.

It was not long before the first three descended upon them, but because Loivissa had stayed behind Adûn to protect him against just that, she was ready to repel them.

The first strike was easily enough parried by Loivissa, but before she could exploit the soldier's opening, another had already moved in to block her strike with his black shield, while the third attempted to get behind Loivissa, while her attention was kept on the two in front.

Loivissa did not fall for this however, so after a quick slash at the third, which more was meant as a distraction than an actual attack, she retreated further backwards, which was possible because Adûn kept moving during her fight.

When next the soldiers struck, two additional had joined them in their onslaught. The cycle quickly repeated itself, and despite her far superior skill to all of her opponents, Loivissa was unable to kill even one of them, and as more and more joined the onslaught on her, the distance that Adûn was able to put between them during her fights grew shorter and shorter until it finally ended up with one long consecutive fight.

At this point, a group of 15 Dead Guards had formed to swarm Loivissa, and no matter how much she tried, she simply could not finish off any of them. Whenever she eventually managed to expose one, which was an event that became rarer and rarer as she tired against the enemy, who was able to constantly shift out to avoid fatigue, that person would simply be protected from being killed off by either a sword aimed at her or a shield blocking her strike.

Adûn was unable to do anything to help her in the dense forest. His massive size obstructed him from being able to do anything other than keep retreating towards the hope of salvation by their expedition.

Just as Loivissa thought that all hope was out, when the Dead Guard had managed to surround her and cut off any further attempt to fall back, an arrow suddenly appeared at an odd angle between the cuirass and the helmet of one of the Dead Guards.

The arrow had appeared in such an angle that the only explanation could be that it had been fired from above, but before either Loivissa or the remaining Dead Guards had time to comprehend this, a hail of arrows began raining down upon the Dead Guards from above.

The men screamed as they died, but none had time to as much as raise their shields in defence, before they too had arrows imbedded in them.

Upon looking up, Loivissa was able to spot several of the men from her expedition perched on the branches above her, although she doubted that anyone without the knowledge of them being there would be able to.

"If you would follow me back to our new campsite, while the others guard our backs, my lady", a man dropping down from the trees said, before he started to walk in a new direction.

"Why has the campsite been moved?", Loivissa asked as she followed the man.

"The captain ordered it to be so in order to keep it hidden", the man answered.

They did not talk much after that, but when Loivissa occasionally looked up into the trees, she thought that she saw blankets and quivers in them.

Not long after she had first met the man, they reached the new campsite, where she found Captain Lauran hovering over a table with what she recognized as their urgal maps of this part of the Spine. Upon the map were several pinecones, branches and rocks, which Loivissa guessed to be representatives of their men and their enemies'.

"Send Wurst's group to help Anders', and have Kenneth's move to point three", the captain barked orders to his runners, before he noticed Loivissa's arrival.

"Good, you are here. Soldier, dismissed", the captain said in their direction, upon which the man that had escorted Loivissa and Adûn here saluted and took off to rejoin his group.

"How are we doing, captain?", Loivissa asked worried.

"We have been able to inflict enough damage to force most of them to withdraw from the forest and are in the midst of routing the rest", the captain answered, "your efforts bought us enough time to even out the odds".

"I can see that you changed campsites", Loivissa stated after nodding in consent to the acknowledgement.

"Yeah, but I still have some fires burning in the old one to keep the enemy thinking that that is where we are hiding. If they reach it, I have arranged for a trap to ensure that none of them come out alive. Although it may have been unnecessary to do so, as the enemy appears to be withdrawing enough already to allow us to retreat back to Kuasta, before returning back north".

"But if we do that, then we will not be able to help Mercury once he arrives", Loivissa objected.

"We have only been able to throw them back this time because they were unprepared for skirmishing, who knows whether we will be able to do so again", Captain Lauran argued, "plus, even if this being arrives, then we will not even be able to assist him in any way unless he makes it to us himself".

"You said that you prepared several ambushes, can they not hold them off for just another week?", Loivissa pleaded, "if we wait that long, then I am sure that he will arrive. If we do not, then all of this, and all the lives that have been lost until now, will have been in vain".

The captain looked like he was conflicted between his duty to his men and to his liege, until he finally grudgingly complied, "fine! We might, and I emphasize might, be able to hold out for another week, but if I believe our position to be overrun, then I will order a full retreat, your boyfriend be damned".

"That is all that I can ask", Loivissa hastily agreed, overlooking the inappropriate and untrue boyfriend comment at the end.

Time skip(four days later)
It was in the morning four days after they had first arrived here, and during those four days, the ra'zac's assault on them had not seized, only changed.

After they had managed to drive them off the first day, the ra'zac had come back as ghosts in the night. Quite a few men had been killed during that night, but the ruse of the fake campsite and nimbly placed ambushes and fall back points had managed to deter the ra'zac from personally trying such a thing again.

They had been left in peace for the remainder of the next day, only to be woken the second night by a night-time raid by more lightly armoured troops scouring the forest. Luckily for them, Captain Lauran had decided that each night, they were to pack up all of their tents and belongings that they had used during the day, and sleep with it in the branches high above the ground.

This had ensured that their campsite had not been discovered and had helped to sow further chaos as to where exactly these numerically superior troops should concentrate their strength on. As the captain had said, "even the mightiest of beasts can be defeated if he does not know where to aim his strike next".

When military might seemed to be ineffective, the ra'zac had tried something else entirely. On the morning after the night-time raid, a number of plates filled to the brim with the most delicious looking and smelling food had been scattered throughout the forest edge.

Naturally, Loivissa, the captain and the officers had tried to dissuade the men from eating the food, as it was clearly not meant as a peace-offering, but more likely was part of some sinister plot. As it turned out, they had been right, because after a few of the men had given in to their desires and started devouring the food, they had begun coughing up blood and eventually died.

If that was not bad enough, then they had also learned the hard way that any that came into contact with the blood of the infected also became infected, so in the end, they had had to quarantine the ones that had been near known infected and burn the bodies of the infected.

On the third day after their arrival, no word or sighting of the ra'zac or their forces had come. It was decided that they were likely hoping that by waiting, they could let the infection take care of most of the problem without wasting too many assets on them or risking becoming infected themselves.

During the fourth night after their arrival, several small lightly armoured groups of men had come through the forest. Judging by their behaviour, their purpose were more to check on the food's impact on Loivissa's expedition than to fight them, but Loivissa's men had been feeling vindictive after the food trick, so none had left the forest alive.

Now, on the fourth day, the mood among the men had deteriorated greatly from the light optimism that had been there after the first foray. Everywhere Loivissa went, the men stopped talking and turned their heads away, before resuming in a muffled voice as soon as they thought she was out of hearing range.

They blamed her for their misery, for having to constantly wonder what the ra'zac could possibly come up with next. Would they be killed by some foul dark magic the next day, or perhaps eaten by a ra'zac, or killed on a sword or pierced by an arrow? They never knew what fate might have in store for them, but what seemed to be the most recurring theme was that they did not understand the reason behind why they had to do this.

All of them had been briefed about their mission shortly after leaving Nolondil behind, ensuring that no one could let it slip by accident to an outsider, but although they knew the purpose behind this expedition, they still did not fully understand it.

Sure, they may have heard tales of 'The Shadow' from their childhood, but when told that he is in fact not a mythical being directly employed by Angvard himself, their bubbles kind of burst. If something that had been common folklore in Alagaësia for more than a century turned out to be untrue, then what else might be?

Still, even with Loivissa assuring them that Mercury indeed was not this mythical messenger of death, most of them still considered him to be beyond the scopes of mortals, and therefore in control of powers beyond their comprehension.

This should have had a positive effect on the morale of Loivissa's men, but as it turned out, it also had an exponentially bigger negative effect the longer time they were forced to wait here. The reason behind the negative effect was simple; if Mercury was such a powerful being, then why could he not show up when he was supposed to, instead of having them have to fight off the ra'zac every day in a pointless battle?

And so their inability to understand the reason behind staying here came down to this; if Mercury was powerful enough to turn the tide of war by himself, then he was simply choosing to let them get killed right now, but if he was not, then their dying would be equally pointless. All in all, dying here was pointless to them.

"Any idea on what they might try next?", Loivissa asked Captain Lauran, whom controlled all the military aspects of this expedition.

"None, I am afraid", the captain answered her while perusing their maps of the forest, "I do not like this silence any more than you do. At least when they are hammering on our doorstep, I know where to look and what to defend from, but when they are quiet like this, it never bodes well".

"I know what you mean", Loivissa agreed, before changing topic slightly, "I do however wonder why they persist so much. It is not as if we stand even a chance of taking the city from them or doing anything in the open, and we are not even bothering them as long as we stay here, so continuing to waste troops on eradicating us seems illogical, especially when they know that we must eventually withdraw due to lack of supplies".

"I suppose that it is not something that one such as you would understand, my lady", the captain answered heavily.

"Why not?", Loivissa questioned suspiciously. If this was about her being female, then she would give the captain a piece of her mind about what she thought of how the humans viewed their females.

"You have never bothered with such things as prestige or gaining and holding fame", the captain answered, likely anticipating what she was thinking, "and as such, you do not understand the mind of commissioned officers. Officers live on their name, so when we first came, the officer in charge of Feinster likely saw us as nothing more than a nuisance to be rid of as a matter of principle, rather than necessity, but when we won and continued to win, then it became something quite different. Our continued presence here is now not only a symbol of his own failure to defeat such a minor force, but could also set an example for the rest of Alagaësia that even as severely outnumbered as we are, we were still able to stop the ra'zac empire's armies at the very core of their power. Unless the officer gains a decisive victory soon, then he will likely be stripped of command entirely and probably eaten alive if he is human".

"So he literally has no choice but to continue fighting, even if he too finds it pointless", Loivissa surmised.

"Yes, I am afraid so", Captain Lauran agreed, before changing topic, "and on the topic of pointless; I am afraid that our own men thinks that being here is pointless as well. Several of my officers have already begged me to make you reconsider withdrawing, and I have even had to stomp out the beginnings of a mutiny yesterday. I am afraid that if they attack again tomorrow, then the men will demand that we retreat afterwards or they might begin deserting en masse".

"So neither party wants to fight each other but has no choice but to", Loivissa chortled, "what is the world coming to when two enemy armies are in agreement that they do not want to fight each other but still have to?"

"It is how it has always been", Captain Lauran said besides her, sounding more like a wise old man than a grizzled war veteran, "when two powerful entities' ideals conflict, then they will both seek to cow the other, more often than not resulting in a military solution".

"I wish it was not so, I wish tha-", Loivissa said before stopping abruptly, "do you smell smoke?"

The captain took a long sniff, before shaking his head, "no, are you sure that it is not just the smoke from the city that you smell?"

"It cannot be, the wind is coming down from the mountains to the north", Loivissa objected, "and I think that it is growing stronger".

"Hmm…Azoroth, Harulf, run north and see whether a fire has been started", the captain quickly barked out orders, before turning to Loivissa and saying, "I still do not think that it is something to concern ourselves with, but I would rather be proven wrong than be caught by surprise".

Not 15 minutes later, the two came running back. They looked like they had just seen their worst nightmare come to life and were completely out of breath and looking like they might faint any moment now.

Yet despite this, they still managed to give their report between gulps of the water skin that had hastily been handed to them, "a great fire is ablaze a little north of here. It covers the entire length of the forest and is beginning to move this way swiftly".

"Blast it, no way that it is coincidental", the captain cursed, "the enemy must have set it up during last night to attempt to force us into the open".

"Is there any way for our mage and the lady to ward us against the flames as we walk through them?", an officer asked.

"No, it would not be possible", Loivissa denied, "to ward so many against so much heat would be incredibly taxing for even a very short while, but as the fire spreads, so does our time in it, if that were to be attempted".

"So we have the option between dying a fiery and gruesome death or going outside the forest to die against a vastly superior army?", the same officer surmised grimly, "I do not know about you guys, but I never was one to go down without a fight, and if it is a fight that they want, then I shall fight them unto my dying breath and make damn sure that they will remember me for it".

The speech quickly spread a wave hurrahs and "to the death!" among both officers and soldiers alike. The will to fight seemed to spread far quicker than the very fire that would soon consume them if they continued to loiter here.

It was…strange…for Loivissa to observe how the human mind could change so rapidly from one moment to the next. Not half an hour ago, many of the ones that spoke loudest now were also the ones that begged to leave and stop fighting the loudest, but now, any such thoughts seemed to have vanished from their mind.

She supposed that it was something that she would never understand, now that her time alive seemed to be at its end. For some reason, it saddened her that she would never truly be able to understand those men around her that had given so much for her hopes.

Mercury, where are you? Why are you not here like you promised?, Loivissa thought at the very moment before the battle.

The plan was simple; she would ride out on Adûn and try to incinerate any part of their army that was not protected by those shields, before engaging and hopefully taking down as many lethrblaka as she could, while the rest of the men would storm out of the forest and fire their loaded bows on the run, before dropping it and drawing their swords.

'Take down as many of them as you can before dying' was the unspoken agreement among the expedition members.

As Loivissa looked from atop Adûn towards the ocean from the forest edge, she could see that it had a dense morning fog obscuring all but the last 50 metres to the shore.

A shame, I would have liked to see it one last time, Loivissa mused darkly, before being answered by Adûn, I know how you feel, but if it is any conciliation, then my scales are said to be as beautiful, if not more, than the waters of the ocean.

Leave it to a dragon to be prideful right before impending doom, Loivissa thought with a dry grin, but thank you anyway, my partner-of-heart-and-mind. I was truly blessed to have been chosen by you.

As I was truly blessed to be presented for you, Adûn answered and poured all of his love for her through their bond, which Loivissa soon reciprocated.

A horn sounded and Adûn let out a mighty roar before sprinting out of the forest and taking flight, trying but failing to do a quick fly over and incinerate some black-clad men.

Below them, the duo could hear the trampling of feet and the twangs of bows being fired, before the two armies clashed in a fiery battle to the death. Around them, at least three lethrblaka circled, all looking ready to spill more than their fair share of blood for the grief that Loivissa's expedition had caused them.

Just as Loivissa and Adûn were about to engage the first one, a mighty horn sounded to the west, which seemed to make both sides stop the fighting to witness what this new thing was.

Out of the thick dense fog came the navy-blue stem of what seemed to be a giant ship with at least three decks above the water. Then, as the ship proceeded to exit the thick fog, one, three masts with pure white sails came into sight.

He came, he finally came

Oh, I am keeping you guys in suspension, am I not? The truly great thing about this is that I just showed A ship coming out the fog, not necessarily The ship, but I surely would not be so cruel as doing something as that...or am I?