The Fall of the Red Boar

The Red Boar Fort was shaken by an explosion that threw a column of red flames to the sky. While the echoes of the blast were still rolling between the hills, the grey clouds that obscured the firmament seemed to convulse. Ghost lights appeared in the heavens before lightning fell in the middle of the large rectangle delimited by the palisades.

Contrary to the saying that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, a real harrow of lightning falls on the bastion. The gleaming zigzags formed without ceasing, wounding the eye of the beholder of this apocalypse, while his ears resounded only with the rolling of thunder.
Even for an idiot, it would have been obvious that a supernatural power was raging over the Orc fort.

Merlin swallowed, pressing heavily on his magician's staff. His face had taken on a sallow complexion. As his hands groped on his belt to open his satchel and take a potion filled with a blue liquid, his eyes ran across the battlefield.

A few delayed flashes fell here and there, striking the silhouettes of Orcs rising up...
Everywhere else was standing thick clouds of smoke mixed with dust. The air stink ozone while static electricity made everyone's hair stand up.

At the sight of such carnage, it was better understood that Merlin did not like to use his powers. As he drank the potion of Magicka, a clear voice resounded among the smoking ruins:
"Soldiers of Verandia, let us put an end to this nightmare, forward, towards victory!"

Leaping over the disorganized Orc phalanx, a fuzzy shape falls passed like a tornado in their ranks, mowing down fighters, disappearing to reappear further.

Accustomed to the prodigies constantly provoked by their young leader, the Bretons militiamen were moved by jubilation and enthusiasm:

"Lady Artoria is a goddess of war!"

"We've never seen a greater war leader since Tiber Septim!"

"Merlin is right, she will found a kingdom!"

Archers handed the ropes of their weapons. For a long time, they fired only Orcs arrows, having fired all their own. The projectiles struck among the masses of combatants who were still not engaged, the latter retreated, lifting their shields.

For the first time since the beginning of the war... the Orcs hesitated. This reaction was understandable... Despite a clear numerical superiority, they had suffered several stinging defeats, cut to pieces by powers they did not recognize.

The Goblins had passed the stage of hesitation. Here or there, a chief was haranguing his troops so that they evacuate the camp as soon as possible! Elsewhere, tribes without leaders, disparate bands, solitary individuals spontaneously converged towards the gates.

For them, the fort had ceased to be a shelter to become a rat trap!

But the doors were locked. The escapees were turned away by the Orcs guards, while the shamans called archers who gathered on the way of the palisade walkway.

Having stopped, Artoria contemplated the altercation with a frown. Having pushed back the first ranks of Orcs, Verandia's soldiers gathered behind her while one of the shamans had just straightened herself ordering to shoot the escapees... an arrow pierced the Orc throat.

Shiro was standing on the roof of a rough building made of unmarked logs. A second arrow had just appeared on its large black bow and struck an Orc that pointed its bow at the crowd of routed Goblins.

As the battle broke out between Goblins and Orcs for the control of the gates, the Amber's Eyed Hero was slaying the archers and shamans stationed near the gates. Under the pressure of the escapees, the doors leafs opened wide, disgorging thousands of terrorized fighters who sought only to flee as far as possible from this carnage...

Her legs covered with bright lines, Rin ran like the wind, swiftly slipping between the fighters when she simply did not jump over them. Sometimes, she struck an Orc with a gandr but without turning away from her goal, a tower near the door of where archers and shamans fired at the fleeing Goblins.
When she arrived at the foot of a shaky staircase leading to the walkway, she dodged an arrow drawn by a guard and replied with a volley of black projectiles haloed in red. Without even verifying if the opponent was dead, she rushed to the top of the steps.

The log tower was at the end of the elevated road. Except that a small troop of shamans and warriors in armor stood between her and her objective.

An evil smile appeared on the lips of the Red Magus, while her eyes narrowed until they were no more than thin slits:

"Neun, acht, sieben... Stil schießt, Beschießung erschießen!"

She threw a handful of small soul gems at the defenders. The gems broke as they hit the Orcs. For perhaps... a second... nothing seemed to happen, then crystals appeared in the affected place... growing... merging... In less than five seconds, all the enemies found themselves enclosed in a giant crystal, frozen like insects caught in an amber cast.

Without dwelling on the lives she had just taken, Tohsaka leaped to the door of the tower.

Shiro Emiya had seen Rin running to one of the two towers that defended the door.
He knew his friend and... lover well. Despite all her faults, she had a gentle heart. While the battle was raging between the Bretons and the Orcs, Tohsaka wanted to help the Goblins who were trying to escape.

His arrows had cleared her way without even being seen by his friend. Letting his bow fade into blue prana butterflies, the Amber Eyed Blacksmith stretched out both hands in front of him, looking for plans of his favorite weapons in his Reality Marble:

"Trace On!"

He leaps into the middle of the battlefield, spinning about like a whirling dervish, the Married Blades mowed down several Orcs. However, it was only a step for Shiro. Strengthening the muscles of his legs, he jumped up to the roundabout road leading to the second tower. There were guards and shamans. The young archer threw Kanshou before him. Similar to a sharp boomerang, the rotating blade plunged into the mass of enemies, wounding and killing before returning to it.
Shiro make a somersault over the fighters he had just neutralized, caught the short Chinese saber with one hand before throwing its twin blades in the direction of the warriors still able to fight.
When his two feet crossed the threshold of the tower, behind him, there remained no enemies capable of fighting.

Every battle knows a point of balance, a moment when things can continue to favor the camp that dominated the confrontation... or be reversed.

Exhausted by the deployment of power that he had orchestrated at the beginning of the fight, Merlin was content to heal the wounded or weaken enemies; retaining his strength for... well... no one had ever died to be careful, right?

In any case, he could sit comfortably and enjoy the spectacle. Wherever he turned his eyes, panic spread in the foe ranks. Most of the Goblins were already in disarray and the Orcs were starting to throw their weapons and start running.

Suddenly he frowned...

Six colossal figures were advancing towards the heart of the confrontation... These giants were dressed in fur loincloths with a belt of human skulls. They had the skin of a dirty white, the head completely bald with vague eyes and a limp and slimy mouth that made them look like complete cretins. However, nobody wanted to make fun of them. Their body was only a mass of swollen muscles and the club they brandish was as large as a young tree, a threat more than enough to impose silence.

And they were headed straight for Artoria.

Worried, Merlin rose to better distinguish the fight between his King and this primitive monsters...

In the smoke, in the middle of the corpses littering the ground, she seemed to draw to her all the light. The dying themselves looked only at her, blown away by this incredibly beautiful teenager.
Her blond hair was tied by a blue ribbon in a braid wrapped in the back of her head, shiny as if sprinkled with pure gold. Her skin was like ivory, white, and without blemish. Her eyes were emeralds.
Her outfit, a blue dress embellished with a few gold threads on white petticoats, disappeared partly under a silver armor breastplate, gloves, and metal boots, as well as an incredible skirt of metal blades that protected her sides.

She literally seemed to dance with death.

The woman in armor held an invisible blade. It could only be discerned by brief air distortions or by a blue light that briefly appeared when the knight blocked an attack.

The Orcs kept coming after her...

She cut the arrows of their archers in the air...

She received the spells of the shamans without seeming to be bothered...

Then she leaped to fall among the adversaries who attacked her from afar and mowed them with her invisible blade.

As for the warriors who confronted her at close range, she offered them a few graceful dance steps before they collapsed...

Even when her enemies managed to inflict a slight wound, always the slightest ones, the blood stopped to flow after a few moments and even the scar eventually disappeared.

Saber danced on the battlefield, her invisible sword in her hands, as beautiful and untouchable as a goddess of death.

By reflex, Artoria jumped back as a huge mass hit the ground where it was held. The legendary King Arthur folded her eyes, contemplating the Ogre foaming with rage that stood before her.
Shaking her hands more tightly on the guard of Excalibur, she glanced at her right and left to see other colossi running towards her. Saber waited until the last moment to dodge their attack by a new leap backward. From the tip of the blade, she lifted up the mud mixed with melted snow and blood that constituted the ground and then sent it into the eyes of one of her adversaries to blind him.

As he collided with another Ogre, beating him in his irritation and receiving blows in return, Artoria Pendragon smiled... The impulsive and stupid opponents were a blessing.

However, her expression quickly became neutral.

Of course, she did not fear a lonely Ogre. She had defeated one with just a goblin spear during the Battle of the Bjoulsae. But... six... it was more difficult.

Her third dodge brought her under the canopy which protected crates and barrels piled against the wall of a warehouse.

Two of the ogres followed her... except that they were too big and too wide to pass. Too dumb to get around the obstacle or separate, they bothered each other. As they smashed crates and barrels to advance and entangled more, Artoria struck an opponent at the hip... The blade sank deep and the monster screamed of pain as the knight was retreating in a jump who led her to the awning of the nearby warehouse and from there to the roof of this building.

A glance below showed her the agony of the first Ogre.

From a mighty leap, she fell just in front of one of the monsters chasing her. The enemy wasted no time thinking and sought to crush the opponent who stood before him... Saber took a step aside, dodging the club from a hair length and blocking it on the ground by putting her foot on it. A stroke for counter axes, spears and two-handed swords known as the Coup du Paysan.

The Ogre showed a stupefied countenance when, bandaging his knotty muscles, he tried to lift his weapon without succeeding.

Artoria, seeing that another Ogre was heading in her direction, did not play any longer. spinning before the eyes of the monster, her dress dancing like the corolla of a flower caught in the wind, she struck... cutting her opponent in half at waist level.

Chased by the two closest enemies, she leaps up to grab the floor of the covered way with one hand before pulling herself up.

The Orcs archers who saw her coming opened big eyes terrified... by her or the two Ogres who were climbing the rampart after her.

Except that the first monster that raised his head at the height of Artoria lost it. She blew it head off its shoulders...

With a pout of disgust, without taking advantage of her dominant position to kill the second monster, the King of Knights jumped to the ground in search of an opponent able to fight back.
Having accelerated her speed thanks to the Wind King's Slash, a technique combining Mana Burst with a lowering of atmospheric pressure, Saber seemed to materialize in front of an Ogre. He remained speechless, unable to exercise a defensive move.

Saber's invisible sword pierced him in the chest. However, as the knight sought to remove her blade to leave her enemy to his agony, the monster seized Excalibur from one of his enormous hands, raising high his club:

"Krush the head!"

The corner of Artoria's lips folded in what approached a pooing... she had just made a stupid mistake. Except that she was not out resources...

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
It seemed incredible that such a powerful cry could come out of the throat of such a small woman. The Ogre was surprised and hesitated... a brief moment... during which the power of the Mana Burst poured into the invisible blade whose air sheath fluctuated... revealing a golden light and blue flames.
Then the monster, in turn, screamed as the blue flames devoured him before shooting towards the sky in a prodigious column that joined the low clouds.

There was a moment of stupefied silence.

Artoria was always in the same place, now holding Excalibur wrapped in a golden aura. However, the colossus had been transformed into a curled, burning, smoking figure, held upright only by the blade still planted in his chest.

Then... suddenly, the column of fire fell back on the burned remains, it became a silver lance as incandescent as the sun, disintegrating the Ogre leaving only a crater with vitrified edges behind it.

Artoria merely looked around the circle of silent people. No more noise was heard... The bowmen have immobilized an arrow in hand. The shamans still pointed their magical wands. Swords and scimitars were still raised on defenseless chests, but no one thought of fighting. They all looked at her.
As Saber's eyes stopped on one of the surviving Ogres, the monster uttered a cry of terror, turned around... and began to run heavily to escape the one who had killed his comrades. This reaction seemed to bring everyone out of their trance.

The Orcs dropped their weapons and fled to the door... In a state of absolute panic, they thought only of taking shelter away from Saber.

Merlin smiled when he saw the confounding scene. Although no one could hear it, he could not help but be ironic:

"Oh, they seem to have been caught up in such a sudden nostalgia crisis for their natal caverns. I doubt they'll stop running before they reach the Wrothgar Mountains... "

The city of Koeglin resounded with songs and laughter.
The population crowded the streets, gathering around the fire of joys, putting barrels in a hole.
It was a carnival of scenes of happiness. Eliaranna, the cantankerous aldmer, danced with Orthelon the alchemist. Cirthile, his beautiful niece, french-kissed a militiaman whose name she did not even know. Others danced around the Sleepy Sailor inn.

After several months of siege and fighting, the Orcs were in disarray.

The largest gathering was around the manor of Mordane Hawkstone, Baron of Koeglin. Everyone was looking to see the heroes who had allowed this victory... the first offensive victory since the beginning of the war.

The largest room in Koeglin's Baron Mansion had been used as a war room and had just been restored to its original role. A large table had been set up, welcoming dozens of guests in a slightly less noisy atmosphere than that of the people communing in the streets of the city.
Mordane Hawkstone was a Breton that looked very much like Artoria Pendragon with green and oblique eyes, and blond hair with an elegance that betrayed his elvish origins. The young aristocrat looked embarrassed at Shiro, who was returning from the kitchen with his arms full of the dishes that had been concocted.

"Finally, Mr. Emiya, you should be at the table and not cooking. You are one of the heroes of this battle!"
But the young redhead scratched the back of the skull while pouting. Even after meeting Emperor Uriel VII several times, he still had not learned to speak to Tamriel's noblemen.

"It's that I love cooking and it's been two weeks since I had a real kitchen."

A sound roar interrupted them. The eyes of all the guests (amused or surprised) turned to Artoria. The young woman succeeds in keeping a perfectly innocent appearance... as if her hungry stomach did not come to imitate the thunder... while an adorable trace of rose had just appeared on her cheeks.
Coughing in her fist, the legendary King Arthur spoke:

"Baron Hawkstone, I assure you that Shiro loves to cook more than anything. This is his way of calming his nerves after the trials of these last days. Please, let him do it. Plus... you'll never eat better."
Could Mordane refuse his guests of honor to use his kitchen for convenience? He shook his head, amused by the situation. The Breton knight pointed to the very elaborate dish that Shiro had just placed before him:

"And what do you call this, Mr Emiya?"

"An Okonomiyaki... a kind of omelet. But since I didn't have all the ingredients, I replaced some with local equivalents."

Taking his fork, Mordane cut a small piece of the Japanese omelet and brought it to his mouth.

"It's... very good! All my congratulations, I see that Lady Artoria does not rent without reason your talents as a cook. Even if you weren't an archer and a mage like there aren't many in this world, the lords of the Empire would argue for you to organize their banquets. What's in this Oko... mikayi?"

"Okonomiyaki", corrected Shiro, "As it's a kind of omelet, the main ingredient is eggs. It also includes flour, chives, shrimp, cabbage, and bacon."

Tohsaka, who practically had a drink with all the militiamen who had invited her since their entry into town, was staring empty-eyed at the banquet table, shaken by untimely hiccups... perfectly drunk.

Shaking her torpor, she suddenly threw herself at Shiro:

"You! Don't move... "

She looked at the Amber-eyed Magus and shook her head:

"Actually... What do I see in you? You're a complete idiot... a heroic... and cute idiot... but an idiot..."

Embarrassed in his turn, Shiro had a forced laugh trying to push away his favorite friend/foe. She caught him by the chin plunging her eyes into his own.

"Uh... Toh... Tohsaka?"

"Shiro... marry me!"

While Shiro remained ruled, the Red Demon closed her grip on him, riding on his lap. Her eyes turned to Artoria who looked at them, seeking to hide her jealousy:

"Saber!"
Artoria stood up, almost at attention:

"Rin?"
"Marry me!"

The King of the Knights shook her head, shared between fun, embarrassment, and also... a feeling of deep affection.

"You are drunk."

"So what? It's not because I drank too much that I don't want to marry you."

"You just made the same offer to Shiro!"

The nauseous look, Rin reeked of a new hiccup... seemed to reflect and took a serious look barely disturbed by her greenish face:

"Yes... I know... I have a solution. You're also marrying Shiro, so we're all three together. Isn't that the ideal solution?"

"Rin, it's no longer called marriage and I don't think it exists."

"Well, then it's simple... we make you the queen? King?... what does it matter... something like that and you change the laws!"

While Mordane was concentrating on his plate and Shiro was shaking his head with an absolutely desperate air, Artoria turned to Merlin:

"Do you know a spell that cures drunkenness?"

The Magician of Flowers had a large smile: "naturally, my king."

"So, could you please use it?"

"On Rin?"

Saber's eyes were full of fire:

"Naturally, this situation embarrasses everyone!"

"No..."
"Sorry?"
"My king, if I cure her, who will cheer this party?"

Mordane Hawkstone, Baron of Koeglin, looked at his guests with a little dismay. Rin Tohsaka was becoming more and more enterprising with Shiro... busy containing the adorable drunkenness, Merlin who played deaf in front of his "King" who was angrier and angrier.

Who could guess by seeing them they are the four heroes who had saved his barony from the horde of Goblins and Orcs that besieged it? Twelve days ago, he wondered how to protect Koeglin from the horde of 10,000 to 17,000 Orcs and Goblins that surrounded the city.

And then they arrived with two hundred men... a laughable reinforcement.

And then, now, the horde was in disarray, leaving five to eight thousand dead behind.

What they had succeeded was at the height of the feat of Tiber Septim, at Sancre Tor (1)

Who were they, then?

Heroes or... family?

1) Battle of Sancre Tor: In 2 E 852, the Allied armies of Skyrim and Hight-Rock invaded Cyrodiil. The general of King Cuhlecain of Colovia, a certain "Talos" (the future emperor Tiber Septim, the unifier of the continent) replied by raising an army in the middle of winter. Greatly outnumbered, ill-armed, poorly trained, ill-equipped, this troop advanced on a forced march to join a confident enemy who had settled in the Sancre Tor valley, easy to defend. Through treason and incredible tactical talent, Talos returned the trap against his foes.

Author's Note: Don't make Rin drink!