God Rising
Chapter 95
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
AN1: Birthday gift release to reviewer Akin2018. Happy 22nd, enjoy. :)
AN2: Thanks for reading this far, we're coming up on the climax of act two, and I'm already a little sad that this story is that much closer to its end. We've got somewhere between 60 and 100 chapters to go. But before we get to that, I want to place a special thank you squarely where it belongs. First to the amazing beta readers who have done so much to refine my work, couldn't do this without you all.
Second, to all the members of my, or I should say 'our' community discord server. They make this an amazing shared experience, whether you're a beta reader, a writer, or a fan, it's you who makes it great because a community IS its members and how they act, and nothing else.
Third… I want to say this to all the new writers who have sprung up since my… 'dare to be awesome' author note. (Somebody else's term, not mine :D ). The fanfic community needs writers to survive and to thrive, and the Overlord Community has produced some of the best (not self praising here, though I think I'm passable). So in that spirit THANK YOU for stepping up to the plate and creating some amazing stories. To the rest of you still waiting for that moment to dare to put the story in your head out there, but who are afraid of criticism. Do it. Trust me, do it. Don't fear the critique, embrace it, learn from it. Ignore that voice in your head telling you not to do it, because you 'can' do it if you try. Even if it is bad, it is something you created out of nothing, and you'll never regret it, even when you get a troll or two along the way. Your effort is necessary to make the community stronger, better, and more enjoyable for all. Put simply, we need you.
Now, last but not least… my Discord server (link in the author page) has kept growing, and we've now got a number of very talented authors and beta readers there, sooo… here's the last thing before we get to the story: If you're worried about the quality of your work, we'll help you. If you're a reader wanting early access, well the googledocs format we've used lets you literally watch the story get written before your eyes. If you're a beta reader looking for good stories to edit, well we've got em, and it's done collaboratively, so even the largest chapters don't take all day. Discord has made Beta reading soooo much easier since we can talk about the edits and suggestions along the way. If you've noticed an improvement in my work in the last few months… THAT is why.
OK, that's all, on with the show! (BTW, the overall story for God Rising, side materials included, broke 1 million words recently, I've now written more Overlord than the original author of Overlord) :D How neat is that?)
...Nazarick…
Vanysa sat at a table in the Nazarick bar, it wasn't her usual spot. Between the library, the 'music room', and Demiurge's office, she had a pretty busy schedule. Today, however, she had some spare time and a map that she was focused on. She sat alone at a table in her human form and stared at it. That map laid out the battle lines as they had been drawn. All she could do was look at Prart, because King Astraka was going there. 'Astraka… Astraka… Astraka…' She thought on a loop. She stood up, slamming her hands down on the table and just staring at the little tiny dot on the map that represented the city.
She couldn't get it out of her head. The bartender ignored her, if he ever left the space behind the bar, she had never seen him do it. Sometimes she wondered if he was capable of acknowledging anything not directly addressed to him. That uncertainty gave her a comforting feeling of privacy. She could have easily experienced the same feeling by secluding herself in her private quarters, but there was no alcohol there, at least not in the quantity she wanted.
She snatched up her cup and drank it swiftly, then slammed it down on the table. She gritted her teeth as she stared at the dot.
The memory of his hands on her body, his fingers running through her beautiful golden locks, the grip tightening at her scalp, the pain when he yanked her head back while she stood naked and chained to the wall, and demanded answers from her that she wouldn't give, those memories still plagued her.
She hated him. She hated him for hitting her, hated him for touching her, hated him for shaming her by taking away the Sorcerer King's present, humiliating her by not even giving her the privacy of a bush to relieve herself, having her chained up or tied like a dog. Then the whip… god… the whip.
It had stripped the flesh from her bones, she had never seen her own bones before then, and all she could do was wail for her master, the only king she'd ever serve, but bad as the pain was, she remembered how he mocked that loyalty in their hours long session. "He'll retch to look at you, you'll be ugly in his eyes when we're done unless you speak. He doesn't really care about you, if he did, you wouldn't be here…" So many horrible things, things she couldn't believe, wouldn't believe. The only saving grace was that, bone stripping or not, the torturer was bad at his job. The blows came so quickly against her body that the pain from one blow bled in to the next one, she never felt the fullness of any one agony. She wasn't sure which was worse, those cutting blows, comments, or those fingers on her body when he was close to her. 'Nobody… never again… never again…' She thought and the memory of it caused her eyes to well up as if to wash remembrance away.
Bitter tears fell to the silk map on the table and she shook with rage, and she felt her mind start to slip. If she didn't regain control, she'd relive it again, so she refocused on that little dot just as a tear landed on it, staining it with her burning rage.
"You'll be mine soon, all mine, and I'll be so glad, so very glad to see you again." She said softly.
"See who again?" A familiar voice responded. She'd been so lost in her own thoughts that she didn't notice the entry of Lady Albedo.
She fell to one knee with her eyes down in deference to the guardian overseer. "Never mind, ignore my words, Lady Albedo, it was nothing of importance." She said, unable to still the shaking of her body.
It was no secret that the succubus did not like her, but most of the time there was simply no opportunity for her enmity to be expressed. For whatever reason, the guardian overseer chose not to dismiss the matter this time. She took a glass of wine from the bar as it was proffered to her and approached Vanysa.
"I didn't ask if it was worth my time, I asked you who you meant. Were you speaking of Lord Ainz? Do you think he will be yours?" She lowered herself slightly and stuck her thumb and forefinger beneath the chin of the blonde female and forced her head up. She squeezed tight, not tight enough to crack Vanysa's jaw, but tight enough for a flash of pain to come and go.
"Nah… ain't that." Vanysa got the words out, and Albedo dropped her hand, releasing her as she straightened up.
"No, while you're certainly crying about someone, you definitely were not speaking of my beloved Lord Ainz." Albedo said with a measure of satisfaction.
"'Taint like that with'im." Vanysa said softly.
"What did you say?" Albedo said sharply.
Vanysa flinched at the sharp tone, but answered, "Ah said it ain't like that with'im, the Sorcerer King ah mean." She said.
"Do you deny offering him your body, are you going to kneel there in front of me and lie to my face?!" Albedo began to get very, very angry.
Vanysa shook her head vigorously, "Nah ah, ah done offered it to'im lotsa times back then, an wah the hell wouldn't ah?" She dared to retort, and before Albedo could even respond, Vanysa's speech and gaze shifted from that of an uneducated and largely insane peasant, to the calculating look Albedo had seen in those moments when she was focused on her work.
"He gave me everything and I had nothing to offer in return but my body. When you're a poor peasant girl, that's not just the best, but sometimes the only currency you have. Also, I was truly grateful and wanted to see him happy, to make him feel like he made me feel. But he turned me down every time." Vanysa caught the overseer off guard by actually laughing at that moment. "Only male who ever did that, but it is also part of why I revere him as the Supreme Being he is. May this humble servant beg a question, Lady Albedo?" Vanysa asked.
That was a curious turn of events.
"Ask it." She replied.
"Why do you hate me?" Vanysa asked. This encounter was reminding her of her question to King Astraka on the journey to his capital and the worst experience of her life, she privately prayed that this would not end the same way.
Albedo looked down at her for a long moment.
"I can see it in your eyes when you look at me, Lady Albedo. If the Sorcerer King gave me over to you, or perhaps even to Lady Shalltear, I'd be lucky if I were dead by sunrise and I'd remember Astraka like a kindly uncle by comparison." Vanysa said plainly. "I just… I want to understand why. What did I do wrong, and can I do nothing to make it right?"
Albedo thought for a moment. "You offered your body to the Sorcerer King, you came into our home, into our very baths, flaunting your… whatever it was, with him. You took a place at his side! You traveled with him alone for weeks! Then you come here, take a room here, the same home I share with the man I love?! And now you can kneel before me and ask that question in seriousness?" Albedo's voice rose in disbelief, and her fists balled up.
"Lady Albedo, I think this is a terrible misunderstanding. Will you permit me a few more words?" She asked.
"They had better be good ones." She said with an edge to her voice and tight clenched fists.
"Do you know what I was before…" she finished her sentence by shifting to the form of an erinyes.
"You were a worthless human worm, a bug beneath his feet that he chose not to crush." Albedo snapped out, and to her surprise, Vanysa did not disagree.
"Lower than that. In a human society like I was born into, you know there is a hierarchy, kings and queens at the top, nobles below them, merchants, soldiers, craftsmen below them, and down at the bottom there are peasants. Among them, males were above females, we had few options for tasks, we could farm, we could weave, we could work in the temples, or we could become whores, very few could become adventurers or soldiers. Not much else was available to us. For the poorest of poor peasants, like… me, a girl's only currency was her own flesh. For a beautiful one such as I…" She paused, wondering if Albedo would interject and deny that she was beautiful. To her surprise, the succubus did not.
"... I might have managed to become a mistress to a noble or wife to a village headman or something, but I had nothing but my body and my clothes. When the Sorcerer King did… everything he did. He saved me, taught me, gave me books, treated me kindly… do you know what I had to give him in return?" She asked the now curious Succubus.
"What?" Albedo asked.
"Just my flesh, just my body, and you know, I was happy to offer it because he made me feel so good about… everything, I was happy, and wanted him to be happy, and I could see he wasn't. I felt how sad he was, and…" She paused and looked down, Albedo reached down to her chin and forced her to look up again. The storm grey eyes of the erinyes went and glassed over with her madness again before the eyes of the overseer.
"Ah couldn'a bear it, ah won't deny offerin mahself to him, an ahm nae gonna deny ah'd 'av been appy if'n he'd taken me, but most'vall ah jus didnae want im ta hurt no more, he done give me stuff ah ain't had no place even dreamin of, an when'eed talk of is friends bein gone… Well ah lost all mah friends too, beastmen got some, time got others, and a few didnae want me round no more cause ah got prettier than they didn they got men ah their own they ain't trust alone round me. Ah saw how he done lost all them he liked, so ah gave'im what ah could. Even ah dumb, stupid, ignint peasant what aint got no home an no money can be company so some'n ain't lonely." She whispered softly.
She dragged her sleeve in front of her eyes, wiping them clean and seemingly clear of her insanity again.
"I am not trying to be his queen, I am not trying to take your place, if he commands my body it is his, but I will never pursue a place at his side as you and Lady Shalltear seek, that is not what I want. I don't see him the way you do, as a potential mate, nor do I see him as Neia does, as a fatherly figure, maybe it was because I wasn't created from nothing, but rather that he created me from the dead flesh of my old self, but what I want to be to him is different." She said firmly.
Albedo, now with somewhat less hostility in her voice asked, "What is that?"
"His break." Vanysa answered instantly.
"His… what, like a toy?" Albedo looked at her, at a loss.
Vanysa shook her head. "Not what I mean, Lady Albedo. The Sorcerer King is surrounded by responsibility and subordinates, myself included, but all of you were created specifically to serve, I wasn't. I offered my service in gratitude and loyalty, I chose this life, if not this body. So he doesn't see me as he does you, and when we started traveling during the Beastman invasion, he took me on as a lark more than anything else, I think. Just so he wouldn't be traveling by himself. So I treated him like a companion to talk to as much as a lord to serve, and he seemed to like that. He can be at ease, I make him feel relaxed because I talk to him like he's just good company and not like a mate or a lord or a god or an all-powerful conqueror, he may be all those things, he definitely is, but he's also a man who lost his friends. As someone who lost the same, I can make him feel… like it isn't all gone. That is all I want, I cannot say this enough, I don't want your place as his queen. When the day comes that he gives in and marries you and Lady Shalltear, I'll be happy, not envious. I don't want your place, I have my own, and it is enough for me." Vanysa said in a gentle voice that Albedo could not find a lie within.
"Please forgive any offense I have ever given to you, Lady Albedo. I never wanted to give the impression that I thought… or sought… that." Vanysa said, and lowered her gaze again.
Albedo was silent as the grave for a moment, but Vanysa faintly saw that her fists had relaxed, and that bone crushing grip hadn't come to her chin again.
She didn't look up, but she felt the shift in demeanor, she didn't need to be a mind reader to know that Albedo was reframing everything she'd previously thought in a different light to see if it 'fit' what Vanysa had said. The little fury knew very well how intelligent the Guardian Overseer was, and the succubus was looking at her very, very differently, though she couldn't feel any 'affection' it was something else.
"Perhaps I am seeing you the wrong way, perhaps you are not an obstacle or a rival, perhaps… you are an asset." Albedo said.
Vanysa looked up at her.
"An asset?" She asked, her mind already racing to the logical conclusion, given Albedo's goal.
"Yes. As you no doubt are aware by now, the various maids are all divided over whether Lord Ainz should wed me or that flat chested lamprey first. You do know this, don't you?" Albedo asked.
Vanysa nodded. "I do, Lady Albedo."
"Where do you stand? You have been closed-mouthed about it, not one hint of gossip about your thoughts. I had believed it was because of your own foolish ambition, but if that is not the case, then you must have formed an opinion." Albedo said.
"May I speak freely, knowing that my words will not be carried elsewhere?" Vanysa replied.
"You may." Albedo answered.
"Lord Ainz is a genius, his first born should also be a genius in order to ensure a wise eldest heir. Whatever the strengths of Lady Shalltear, a brilliant mind is not one of them, therefore it is most logical for you to be the head wife, and perhaps the only wife at least until you have birthed a child for him." Vanysa said pragmatically.
"And here I'd planned on just tormenting you." Albedo said with a shake of her head, "Your… opinion, is safe with me. And… so are you." She said, "Your past offense is forgiven, but do not pursue a place that can never be yours." She pointedly reminded the erinyes.
Vanysa nodded solemnly.
"Now, you still haven't answered my question, if it wasn't Lord Ainz, then who?" Albedo demanded.
Vanysa got up and went back to the table, she turned the map to Albedo.
"I was looking at this, Lady Albedo." She replied and pointed to the dot representing Prart.
"What is so special about that dot?" She asked.
"That is where Astraka is going." Another familiar voice said.
The two looked over, Demiurge was approaching.
"How…?" Albedo began to ask.
"The siege of Prart is at hand, it'll be the biggest fight of the war so far, and just as importantly, the one who tortured her and drove her to suicide out of loyalty to Lord Ainz, is going to be there too. It was easy enough to guess what she was thinking." Demiurge answered with his casual and remarkable competence.
Vanysa's eyes shone like stars as he came over to speak, and Albedo picked up on the change in her demeanor immediately, were it not so undignified, she might have slapped herself for not having seen it before, even if Demiurge didn't yet.
"Exactly correct, I just… I'm sorry, may I sit?" She asked.
"You may." Demiurge said, and she sat back down at her table, the two guardians did not ask as they took seats as well.
"I was powerless then, helpless, a nothing that was going to die in a gutter if nothing changed, and the change I got was to die in a king's dungeon with my body ripped apart. I'm stronger now… relatively speaking." She said as she looked at the pair sardonically, they did not refrain from satisfied expressions at the contemplation of their own strength.
"In a strange way, he did me a favor, driving me to the end that resulted in the Sorcerer King making me this." She flapped her wings for emphasis, "But I want revenge… I don't like to be… touched, uninvited like that, I hate him… I hate him… I hate him, I hate him, I hate him… I hate him so much…" She shut her eyes tight and clenched her fists, her body shook to the tips of her wings, "I will make him pay for it, for leering at me, for touching me, for stripping me and shaming me and humiliating me, and stealing from me and for torturing me. I know the time is close… so close, when I can truly deprive him of everything. So… I came here, I thought I could drink, and look, and plan." She said savagely.
"Plan?" Demiurge and Albedo asked.
"Yes, our god has recreated me in his sacred home, given me a new body and new purpose, and the one who tried to get me to betray him, is his enemy. I am now shaped perfectly for punishment, and Lord Ainz has promised him to me when the time is right. I can feel it approaching like I can feel the beating of my heart. So I want to make it devastating, terrible, horrifying beyond measure. So I got these." She said and reached down to a satchel by the chair and took out documents which she laid out on the table.
"What are these?" Demiurge asked.
"These are Astraka." She said sweetly.
"Explain." Albedo said.
"More precisely, it is absolutely everything our operatives could gather about him, I know who he likes and who he doesn't like, I know who his favorite concubine is, and what she likes and doesn't like, I know his mind as close as I know an intimate lover's. And His Majesty has given me leave… and the resources... to make his march to Prart a living nightmare, so I was refreshing myself. He will lose everything he values first, then, when he's at his lowest point, I'll take him, and make sure he knows it was me, right before I show him how to 'properly' carve up someone." She said with absolute joy written all over her face.
"I told you she was an asset." Demiurge said cockily to a quiet Albedo.
"Perhaps you were right." The succubus answered.
"But before you do that, I came here looking for you to tell you that the Draconic Queen's prime minister sends word that they have 'reacquired' your old house, you need only go by the property house with the returned funds and they'll give it back to you." Demiurge said casually, finding, unexpectedly, that he rather liked the way her eyes lit up when he said that.
...Prart…
"Are you sure about this, Your Majesty?" Neia asked Calca. The pope had removed her visor and was staring intently at the Queen. Calca stood close to her, holding Neia's hands gently, one over top of the other. "The Sorcerer King can provide vastly better protection than I can even at my very best, I'll do anything to see you back safe, it's what I have to do. But… I can't emphasize enough that he will do it better than I."
Calca looked into the eyes of the woman. Neia was shorter than she was, but even while looking down, she felt like she was craning her neck to look up. In the eyes of that woman whorled a maelstrom whose depths she could not fathom, and within her mind she felt like she could hear a constant pounding, as if something was nearly breaking the surface. Though she felt no fear as she looked at the oddly 'cute' face that framed the eyes of a demon of demons, she understood why others did. "I believe you." She said, "But think about it, if I go with an escort of the Sorcerer King, I'll seem like the prisoner she believes me to be. Even if the escort is hidden, if she chooses to test to see if they're there, she will have 'exposed' that I truly am a captive, even though I am not."
Neia put her other hand on her sword hilt. "I…" She started, only for Calca to shake her head.
"No. Whatever happens, you'll do your best, that's all I ask, if I die, I die, and it won't be on you. This is atonement, or its beginnings, for all the sins that haunt me when I walk the streets. You say that 'weakness' is a sin, right, and it comes in many forms?" She asked.
"We do." Neia said. "Justice cannot come from weakness, nor can right, they are safe only on the sufferance of evil, which will not suffer them to exist." She said as she'd uttered the statement at a thousand sermons.
"Then I died a sinner and am back for another chance at making things right. I won't do anything that will add to the wrongs I am at fault for already." Calca said firmly.
"But…" Neia said, only for Calca to take the beautiful, long, luxuriant hair she had prided herself on, and hold it in a tight grip at shoulder length. She then took out a small knife from her side, and sawed it off crudely.
The length fell to the floor and she looked at it somewhat regretfully.
Neia looked from the pile on the floor and up to the face of the Queen for whom she fought.
"As I said, I died a sinner, I will live to atone for my weakness of rule. I will do nothing to add to my old sins. Perhaps if I had spent less time looking at that and more time at who my subordinates were, we would not be here now." Calca said in a royal voice that brooked no argument from anyone standing before her.
Neia knew that argument was lost, so she tried something else. "At least let us bring Blue Rose with us, they're stronger than I am and their connection to His Majesty is still not widely known to have deepened." Neia said fervently.
"No wonder you were Tinamoc's head of security." Calca said with the beginnings of a smile on her face.
"No wonder." Neia said flatly.
"Fine, I'll allow that much additional protection." Calca said, giving in just a bit.
Neia looked around the empty hall, no other guards were present, so Calca wondered why she was doing this. She was answered by what Neia said next.
"Before… everything, with Jaldabaoth, I admit I did not have the best view of you. Not to say your reputation was bad, but I thought you a fairly run-of-the-mill royal. The fact that you died rather than flee was the only good thing I knew about you. And later, I would have spoken against your resurrection and advocated for the kingship of His Majesty. When you arrived in this city, I didn't want you here, I thought you were a liability. But when I look at you now, I'm glad you're here, and I'm proud you were our Queen once before, and I'll be proud to set you on the throne again. I thought you wouldn't be right for this, I thought you'd be in the way." Neia held her gaze up at Calca's own, and in her gaze the Queen saw something she had not seen there before.
"I was wrong… Your Majesty." Neia said, and put her other hand over Calca's own.
Calca saw respect.
"Thank you. But now we need to get going, we'll get Blue Rose on the way out, they're probably still in their rooms, and I have a lot to say to my former Paladin." Calca said, visibly moved.
"Yes, you're right." Neia replied, and abruptly turned on her heel and walked purposefully towards the door.
Watching Neia, the Black Paladin of the Sorcerer King, move away from her, she quickly fell into step behind her. As she watched the slowly rolling shoulders, the steady swing of her arms, the steps longer, harder, and louder on the floor than they had any right to be, all she could think was, "This was just one of my squires?!"
Neia knocked firmly on each of the rooms housing the members of Blue Rose, and they came to the door battle ready, much to her surprise.
"The Queen requests your services as an escort to a meeting with Remedios and Suchala. I need your help protecting her." Neia said plainly. "But ah… why are you already dressed for a fight?" She asked.
Lakyus gave a knowing smile, "I'm not stupid, I figured that she'd refuse security from the Sorcerer King, and that you wouldn't accept that. You'd want her to have more, but you were too smart to suggest additional members from your hundred, that meant we were the best option that was a known quality."
Neia couldn't keep back her enthusiastic expression as she slapped Lakyus on the shoulder. "You're not adamantite for nothing."
"Nope." Lakyus said with a confident expression.
"So what are the parameters?" Evileye asked as they walked down the hall, already surrounding the Queen.
"Victory comes in several possible forms." Neia said, starting her mission brief on the go.
"First objective, Remedios surrenders without a fight, this is ideal, and I don't have to tell you, unlikely, if it happens, it only happens because of the Queen. Secondary victory objective, Remedios refuses to surrender, but we get the Queen back alive and unharmed. Tertiary victory objective, the Queen is injured but we get her back alive. Each victory condition includes the goal of dragging the meeting out as long as possible, if we can engage in several days of talks, that would be ideal." Neia said in a professional, perfunctory voice.
"OK, what is the probability of drawing talks out?" Gagaran asked from her position at the rear.
"Fair to good. Remedios is a moron. I don't know Suchala, but even if Remedios found someone to do her thinking for her, like Suchala or this 'Yuri' woman I've read about, well that fallen paladin is obsessed with the Queen, just the chance to gaze at her for longer might do it." Neia said thoughtfully.
"Oh, it's… like that?" Tia said.
"Like that." Tina added.
"Like what?" The Queen asked.
"Like…" Lakyus blushed a little, "Like Neia and Skana."
It took Calca a moment to work out what she meant, and when she did, her face turned strawberry red. "No, no no, definitely no." She said emphatically, "She was just very dedicated to my beliefs is all."
"Moving on," Neia chose to spare the Queen further embarrassment and continued the briefing. "Defeat conditions include Queen Calca's death or capture, while worst defeat conditions include that for all of us. Top priority is her security and safety, we get her in, we talk for as long as possible, we get her back here safely. Questions so far?" She asked.
"Special equipment?" Lakyus asked.
"Extra healing potions and undead horses, otherwise use your personal equipment, any losses to you will be reimbursed or replaced." Neia added.
"Special conditions?" Lakyus asked further.
"We'll be on open ground a half day's ride from the city, their army has pulled back for this as well, giving us equal distance. Trees are being cut fifty feet back so there will be no opportunity for easy ambush or assassination by either side." Neia replied.
"You thought this through." Lakyus said.
"I learn from my mistakes." Neia said coolly.
"So do I." Lakyus said regretfully.
"The same." Calca said with equal regret in her voice.
They walked in silence until they exited the building. The city was a buzz of activity still, everybody knew that the army coming to kill them had been delayed, and that meant extra time to prepare. Unsurprisingly, there were many couples working together, everybody was wondering if this might be the end for them, armies like those coming to end their lives had never existed before. It was terrifying to the common mind, and so it was no surprise that many had paired off and would lie together when the work was done.
"Assuming we win this battle," Neia said with a somewhat crude laugh, "you can probably expect a baby boom in this city next year."
Gagaran was the first to get what she meant, and she laughed just as lewdly.
It took the others a little longer, while both Lakyus and Calca blushed, Evileye and the twins managed a minor chuckle at the crude bit of humor.
They walked the streets proudly, waving to everyone who waved in turn. Word flew faster than their feet moved, and what had been a deliberate walk through crowded streets became an impromptu procession, with people moving aside to line the streets. Behind them, a group of soldiers fell in and began to march as a kind of honor guard.
Spirits were high, all the way to the wall. Neia went into a guard house and removed a satchel, then held it out to each of them. There were several potions in there, and they each took a few. "Now, we're ready to go." She said, and went to one of the undead mounts, as did all of the others.
The gate was opened, and they rode out into the open, leaving the safety of the walls behind them.
As they rode on, Neia reflected on how beautiful the morning was. She could hear everything around her, birds in the trees calling for mates. Scrabbling in the bushes signalled the presence of small animals digging nests or scrounging for food to stay alive. Rain drizzled down, it wasn't bad, but as she looked to the east, she wondered if it was falling harder on Skana, wherever she was.
She was glad of her position at the front, for as she turned to face the way ahead, nobody could see her bite her lower lip. 'Was Skana still alive out there, was she in danger?' She wondered. The proposal was the last word she'd gotten, no prisoners had come from that direction, and all other communications were on blackout. "Yes." That was all Neia wanted to tell her, but she couldn't, not yet, and she couldn't know if it was even possible to answer that question.
A horrible thought flashed briefly through Neia's mind as she imagined that Skana might have died somewhere out there, she pictured herself growing older, alone, with nothing left but a question she couldn't answer in a letter that would yellow and fade with time. She shook off the dreaded thought and focused on the task at hand.
They rode in silence, there was no need to rush. If anything, it was the opposite of that. They needed to go slowly, every minute made another arrow, every five another sword, every hour was more time to train those who were still battle virgins.
So they went slowly, watching the terrain creep by. Everyone could feel the anxiety rise as they drew closer, and that did not change when they finally came around a bend and emerged onto open ground. There, as promised, was a table. At it, among those she did not know, was one face Neia would never forget as long as she lived.
She called a halt to her delegation and looked over her shoulder. "Guard the Queen, I go first, anything happens, get her out and forget me." Neia said, then added, "That's an order, you carry her out if you have to."
The hesitation of Blue Rose melted away, "Understood." Lakyus said, "But you'd better not die, drinks are on me when we get back."
Neia's stern face melted into a friendly expression. "I'll live just to hold you to that one."
She then turned away from her companions and looked ahead of her, she spurred her horse forward, trotting it casually over. She did not dismount as she approached the assembly. There were five men and women lined up behind Remedios, and one woman beside her. At a guess, Neia thought it was the 'escort' and that would make the woman 'Yuri'. Beside her sat a man old enough to be Neia's grandfather, she supposed he must be the Slane Theocracy general, given he wore the Theocracy uniform and matched the descriptions she'd seen from intelligence reports. She held in her smug expression as she thought of all that information seized when they'd blinded the Slane Theocracy's intelligence agency, executing or kidnapping all those agents had been a bonanza of material, giving detailed names, descriptions, and more when properly assembled. She set the thought aside as she came within a few feet of her adversary.
For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, Neia got a close look at Remedios's face. Her eyes were dark, featuring prominent circles underneath them, while in the eyes themselves all Neia could see was hate and rage.
"Hello, Remedios." Neia said coldly.
"Neia." Remedios acknowledged.
"Not getting much sleep? Well, you know, if you'd stop burning people, maybe the light wouldn't keep you up at night." Neia snarled at her.
Remedios looked at her in outrage, "Undead worshipers will be purged, you stupid squire." Her voice was filled with bile as she spoke.
"I'm not a squire anymore." Neia said. "I am the Sorcerer King's Black Paladin." As she finished that sentence, she reveled in the twisted expression of impotent rage on Remedios's face as the word 'paladin' was applied to someone who followed the undead.
Before she could retort, Suchala spoke. "Enough, you insisted on talking, so we'll talk. Bring over your delegation." He said.
"First I'll be checking the area, I don't trust you not to kill Queen Calca in an ambush." She said, looking spitefully at Remedios, rather than Suchala, and she enjoyed watching her face twist into a mask of pain at the thought of Calca dying.
Neia checked as slowly and methodically as she could, venturing into the woods on either side. This was not just a matter of dragging things out, in her mind it was a very real possibility that someone might try to target her charge. Only when she was at last satisfied did she get back on her horse and wave the group over.
When they came close, they spread out, and Calca got down off of her horse. She stood across from the table, and Neia saw Remedios's face light up with joy like she'd never seen on the woman's face before.
"Queen Calca!" Remedios shouted in disbelief and happiness.
Calca's face did not reflect that joy when she saw her former paladin. "Oh Remedios… " Calca said with a broken hearted voice and a deeply saddened expression, "What have you done…?"