"Is everything prepared?"
Hubert nodded. He was not smiling now. He seemed at ease and calm. That was a good sign. Hubert had always been her strong left hand, her stalwart retainer, willing to do anything and everything to help her achieve her ambitions. If he felt at ease on this, the night of battle, it was a sign that every possible problem had been accounted for.
They were standing on the great pyramid of Yezzan, looking over the city as the fires from a thousand houses twinkled in the light, a warm reflection of the cold stars overhead. The Yellow City was beautiful at night when shadows hid the blood and refuse that flowed freely in the streets. It was enough to make Edelgard homesick, if only for a moment
"I like to think of this as a practice run," Hubert said, his voice excited and energetic despite the late hour. "When we return, we will have to deal with my father and Duke Aegir. By comparison, this petty empire won't be much of a challenge, but still, it should prove most instructive."
Edelgard sighed. Every thought of home filled her with worry. Her father might be dead by now. Arundel might have made his move without her. The Professor might be… She scowled and sealed away that thought from her mind. "Everyone knows their duty?"
"We only await the dragon queen's signal."
Edelgard took a moment to center herself. The hours since her interview with the dragon queen had been filled with activity and struggle and it would be many hours more until she could safely rest. Was it morning yet, or did this still qualify as night? She could not say.
The dragon queen had been different from what she had expected. She had expected a bloody-handed tyrant, a slave who had crawled up from the gutter and forged a loyal army of brave companions through her own will and charisma. Edelgard had expected a figure like Wilhelm von Hresvelg or Loog or… or herself she supposed. Instead she had found a pampered, naive princess, who put on airs and filled her court with lickspittles.
I should not dismiss her so quickly, she reminded herself. The Breaker of Chains had seen her people through terrible times, and come out intact. The stories of her, of how she had burned the sorcerers of Qarth, of how she had survived crossing the Red Wastes… all of it was true, and that only made her seeming lack of conviction all the stranger. From what well of strength did the girl pull her power?
Her advisors? Edelgard dismissed that notion immediately. Her advisors had scarcely spoken during their counsel, except for that oaf Jorah Mormont. Most of them had not even been with her in the trek across the red waste. They were glorified bodyguards, brutes that had little utility beyond violence. Edelgard's thoughts on the matter refused to clarify, refused to settle on any one explanation. For the moment Daenerys would remain a mystery.
A star rose from the distant camp of the Unsullied, a fiery comet springing from the ground to signal the advance of the Dragon Queen. The Queen's plan was both simple and effective. She had delivered an ultimatum to the Yunkish Masters, that she would attack if they did not free their slaves in three days, but the offer was a farce. She would attack at dawn on the first day, and crush them when they least expected it.
This made things easier for Edelgard as well, as no one would question why so many of her troops were in the city when the attack began. Rather, they would not question why until it was too late.
Hubert and she both sprang into action the moment the flare rose into the sky. The heavy pavise troop filed in behind them as they walked. Chaos ruled the moment in the pyramid of Qaggaz, with servants running in every direction bearing food and weapons and barrels of oil. No one minded them or stopped them until they were almost to the palace itself.
Yezzan mo Qaggaz's palace at the top of the pyramid was the height of decadence. A building of nine sides that had stood for five hundred years with a bronze harpy perched upon the peak of every one of the hundreds of windows, and a golden harpy on every gable.
"Halt!" A line of five guards blocked the entrance to the house, armored in plates of etched steel and armed with halberds and curved swords. These men were slave soldiers, but paid and fed like royalty and raised from birth to defend their master with their lives. 'My immortals,' Yezzan had called them, and in the few days that Edelgard had been able to observe them, she had acquired begrudging respect for their fervor and skill at arms.
There was nothing she hated more than human virtue bound in dominion to an evil cause.
"Halt!" the Immortal captain repeated. "You are not permitted into the great Yezzan's quarters, mercenary."
"I am no slave, immortal. I go where I will."
"You go no further than this." The Immortals brandished their halberds and formed a half-circle around the door, light from the torches glinting off the gilding on their weapons and armor. For five hundred years immortals like these had guarded the palace door atop the pyramid. For five hundred years new baby boys had been purchased, branded, chained, and trained at arms until they were the envy of Ghis.
Hubert ended their legacy with a gesture.
Black smoke rose from between the flagstones of the entryway, forming into shadowy claws that clutched at the Immortals' lungs and forced them, choking, to the earth. They lay, convulsing on the ground as their flesh melted away. "Sorcery!" the servants cried, "Shadowbinder!" All fled from them as they walked over the bodies of the Immortals and into the palace itself. Other guards were rallying now, forming up just past the doorway. Twenty or thirty men, lightly armed and armored, likely stirred from their beds to fight against the dragon queen in the field.
Edelgard and the pavise company pushed through them without slowing. Light swords and spears bounced off her armor as she advanced. She pushed a man onto his back with her shield and then crushed his chest with her armored boot. Her crests were burning, signing within the heat of battle, and she felt truly invincible.
The slaves broke before she had pushed through even half their number. Yezzan slept on the main floor of the palace, and Edelgard had intentionally memorized the route to his quarters. Two more immortals awaited them at the entrance to his chambers, and Hubert ended them with little ceremony.
The door was a great oaken thing with carved panels that depicted the glorious history of the Qaggaz line. Edelgard's armored foot reduced it to splinters with a single kick.
A crossbow bolt pinged off her armor, clattering in the hallway behind her. A slim purple-haired youth held the crossbow, and their face fell in dismay as they realized that their one shot had been wasted.
"Sweets," Edelgard stated, remembering the slave's name. "Stand down. I have no intention of killing you or your master." Not yet, at any rate.
"I am happy to hear that," Yezzan's voice came from just beyond the antechamber. Edelgard and Hubert pressed forward to find him lounging amidst a great pile of pillows, covered only by a thin silk sheet that was soaked with sweat.
"You betrayed the terms of our arrangement," Yezzan said, his voice full of hurt and betrayal. Edelgard rolled her eyes.
"It's your city's own fault for relying on mercenaries as the bulk of your military force. Anyway, you should be glad that I turned my coat. I negotiated terms with the dragon queen that will allow you to live through the night."
Yezzan sighed. "She destroys my city and prolongs my suffering and asks me to thank her."
Edelgard turned on her heel and walked out to the ante-chamber, into the hallway and beyond, to the reception hall of the palace itself. Servants ran from her as she passed among them, but for the most part, she paid them no mind. Her pavise company had already spread throughout the building, covering each of the exits that they had mapped out ahead of time, so she had no fear of Yezzan's wealth being looted by unfaithful servants
...other than herself, of course.
The Courtyard outside the palace was teeming with life, nearly a hundred men and women gathered on top of the great pyramid of Qaggaz, armed with spears and knives and staves. There was a man among them attempting to rally them, to organize them.
"Am I a dog that you have come here to chase me off with sticks and stones?" She called aloud, her crests burning again as they increased the power in her lungs. "Lay down your feeble weapons and you will be spared."
The leader turned to face her. He stood only a little taller than Edelgard herself, thin and sharp like a folding knife, with the red-black hair distinctive to the Ghiscari and a carefully trimmed beard bound up in golden wire.
"We have three hundred here!" He spat. "You cannot hold against us! Deliver Yezzan to his people!"
"You have rabble," Edelgard countered, "And after the first fifty die trying to break through our armor with sticks, perhaps they will reconsider how much they truly love their Wise Master."
"Yezzan is a great man. These and more will happily die for him."
"Will they kill him too? For the moment Yezzan lives, and I have no intention of killing him. That may change depending on what you choose next."
The crowd wavered. These were not soldiers, were not even particularly well-off slaves, for the most part. These were servants, for whom praising Yezzan's greatness had become as natural and necessary as breathing. They had never expected to die for their master, not in this way… and perhaps even such blinkered rabble as these could sense that the winds had shifted.
"The past is dead," Edelgard continued, her voice growing more powerful with each passing moment. "The past is dead and I have killed it. Already the Dragon Queen's forces are at the gates, and before long they will be allowed in, ten thousand Unsullied who fight as free men, not as slaves. Break off your chains and rejoice that you live in such times as these! Rejoice that your children will grow old in a city without chains!"
The leader's eyes grew wide with horror as he realized that her words had found purchase in the crowd around him. "B-but what of Yezzan?" he cried, "What assurances of his continued health and life-"
Hubert appeared from behind her, dragging the purple-haired Sweets with him. "Tell them," Hubert commanded, his voice low and dark.
Sweets swallowed and nodded, "The Great Yezzan is as well as he can be, though… in great distress."
The leader of the group deflated, and opened his mouth to speak…
But before any words came out, a great rush of wind interrupted him as Ferdinand Von Aegir descended from above on Wyvernback. He leapt to the ground before his beast had even landed, and with some chagrin, Edelgard realized that he had flown in on the wyvern she had tamed herself. Damn that bastard and his smug grin, she thought, he did that on purpose.
"Hold them here," she ordered Hubert, and gestured for Ferdinand to follow her indoors.
"Well?" She demanded, as soon as they were out of earshot.
"I have succeeded completely in the mission you laid out for me, as expected," Ferdinand began. "However, a complication has arisen, which..."
"Get to the point."
"Mero and a loyal band of Second Sons captains seized the gatehouse," Ferdinand stated, deflating as he said it.
"So go in and kill him."
"I would do that happily, but he has something like thirty servants in there with him. Women and… and children. He's holding them hostage. I attempted to challenge him to single combat, but..." Ferdinand's expression grew dark and angry, "He demanded to fight with the leader of the company only. I weighed my options and determined it would be swiftest to send for you."
Edelgard rubbed the side of her temple with the palm of her mailed gauntlet. "This is the Fish Gate, I assume? The one gate we need to let Daenerys in the city?"
"Just the one, Edelgard."
"Give me the wyvern. You're in charge here."
"With Hubert?" Ferdinand sputtered, and Edelgard checked herself. He had a point. Ferdinand and Hubert hated each other and fought constantly. Leaving both of them in charge of a key location like this was folly in the extreme. Yet she could not back down from her standing order.
"Hubert will come with me," she said, walking out into the courtyard again. "Hubert, there's a situation at the gate, and I need you there with me."
"Flying." Hubert smiled tightly. "Joy."
Edelgard climbed into the saddle and offered him a hand up. "I'll do the flying, all you have to do is not fall off."
Hubert climbed uneasily in behind her and wrapped his arms in a death grip about her waist. With effort, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Honestly. The most dangerous man in Adrestia and yet he can't stomach a trivially short flight? Edelgard snapped the reins and the wyvern leapt into the night sky.
She picked up speed, arcing the wyvern down the side of the pyramid, so close the beast's talons nearly scraped against the stonework, pulling up just before they crashed into the streets at the base. Sometimes Edelgard thought that she was never truly alive except when in flight, with cool air rushing over her, draining away the excess heat of her crests. Her crests… She was one of the few that knew their true origin, the source of their power. Crests were the imprint left by draconic blood on a human body. Was that why she adored flight so much? Some draconic instinct coming to the fore?
The city below her had fallen to chaos. Looting, warfare, and fire ruled the night as every man laid hold of what he could before the fall of the city. Men and women and children were crying in fear or rage, and Edelgard could not tell the difference. It mattered little in the end. This time of trial was just the ebb and flow of history, the changing of the tides. It would hurt for many in the present, but she would see to it that the future would make it worthwhile. Better to die in an inferno than a cage. She knew enough of flames and cages to know that much to be true.
She landed at the Fish Gate like a meteor fallen from heaven, crashing to a halt amidst her Eagles on the inward side of the gate and vaulting over the wyvern's head as she landed. Someone - it was Dorothea - tried to speak with her but Edelgard did not pause or look to the side.
"MERO!" She screamed, her crests still running hot and pulsing with power. "MERO! Come out and die, you coward! Come out and face me or die hiding behind a child!"
The Titan's Bastard appeared at the balcony, his eyes fierce and his beard practically aflame in the torchlight. He wore a suit of plated mail of a sort Edelgard had never seen, blackened steel with silver panels.
"Ha! There is the whore of Volantis! Come to have a taste of my sword, have you?" he rushed down the stairs, cutting the air with a long thin blade. "Come now! What do I get if I win, eh? Mayhap I'll get your head mounted and stuffed to show to the whores I take to bed, eh?"
"I won't be the one losing my head here today," Edelgard stated.
Mero feinted left and struck from the right, cutting in around her guard and taking advantage of his superior reach. She sidestepped the blow and pushed into him with her shield in an attempt to force him off his feet. Instead, he simply stepped back and circled her, leering and twirling his sword in the air. Edelgard's Black Eagles were gathered around her in a circle, but Edelgard ignored them. She could not lead them if she did not take the front in every battle. No matter what, she had to win this without their aid.
She pushed in, he circled her, light on his feet. He taunted her, jeered at her, called her by every cursed name she had ever heard and then some. Whore. Bitch. Cunt. The words washed over her like wind. I will be called worse than that by better men than you, she thought, and leapt forward, throwing her greatshield in his face.
He stepped back, and dodged to the side, thrusting at her with his full weight behind it. The blade cut through the joint between her shoulder and chest where the armor was weaker, cutting deep into her body. Mero howled with glee as the blade struck true, bright white teeth flashing amidst the roaring flame of his beard.
She knocked every tooth from his head with a single blow of her mailed gauntlet. Then she crushed his knee with a kick. The Titan fell, a bloody mess amidst the cobblestones. "Wah..." he said, "Whah ahr oo?"
The fire of her crests burned to a fever pitch and she found herself screaming, putting both of her hands to the haft of her ax and bringing it down upon the man's helm with such fury that she split him from head to groin.
Silence reigned. Edelgard grabbed the hilt of the sword still stuck in her chest and pulled it free from her body with a grunt of pain. The theatrics of taking the enemy sword could have been avoided, she knew. She could have exhausted him, or crushed him with her wyvern, or simply asked her mages to kill him. But tiring him out would have taken time she did not have, and allowing another to kill him would have shown weakness she could not afford to show. In the end, as in the beginning, there had only been one path for her to take.
Healers rushed to her side, Dorothea and Flayn among them, but they were unnecessary. Already the Crest of Flames was healing her, closing the wound and restoring the lost blood. Tomorrow there would be no sign of where the blade had torn through her lung. The rend in the armor would prove a greater difficulty than the cut in her flesh.
"Take the gate," she rasped, blood filling her mouth as she talked. "Take the gate and let the Queen enter the city."
Dorothea nodded and left without a word, taking Flayn with her, and finally Edelgard allowed herself to slump.
"You take too many risks, my Lady." Hubert wore his tight smile still, the smile reserved for when he was truly furious.
"I didn't get stabbed in the chest to have this argument with you again."
"If you will not take steps to safeguard yourself, then I will," Hubert replied, a dangerous edge to his voice.
"What steps would those be? Do you mean to lock me in a tower?" She replied, her voice icy. Hubert's father and Ferdinand's had done just that to her whole family. Well, not a tower. More like a cage in the dungeon from which only Edelgard had survived of all her siblings.
Hubert said nothing, only breathed in and then out again. When he opened his eyes his face was calm and relaxed, no hint of his corpse smile. "I only mean that I would have intervened in your duel, Lady Edelgard. I believe your insistence on fighting on the front lines is foolhardy, but I cannot prevent it."
Edelgard sighed. The power of the crests was flowing away from her now, receding like the tide and leaving only weariness in its place. She had grown tired, and yet the work of the day had only just begun. "I am sorry, Hubert. I should not have said that."
Hubert only looked away toward the now-opening gate. The ancient doors had been built of heavy timber and bronze in some distant century, and they creaked unwillingly as they prepared to welcome their conqueror.
"Linhardt notified me of his success," Hubert said suddenly. "He is bringing Ghazdor zo Ahlaq and Grazdan mo Eraz to us."
"And Caspar?"
"No word, but I expect success."
Edelgard ran a mental tally. Qaggaz, Eraz, Ahlaq, Yunzak, and Faez would all be captured then. Melazza and Myraq and Rhaezn had been with the army and Daenerys would capture them. All in all, it was more than half the Wise Masters of the city captured, along with their pyramids and all their treasure. Would it be enough? She looked out to the approaching ranks of Unsullied.
It would have to be.