God Rising
Chapter 104
Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
AN: Another chapter, enjoy, I've written out to 106 now, had some fixes to do on that which my stellar beta team caught, Prart's siege was originally intended to be 5 chapters, looks like it will be a bit longer after all. I never get these estimates right. Then we're back to the rest of the world.
...Prart...
Inside the city, Neia and Skana went back to their shared quarters, neither minded the blood that stained them, if anything it seemed to bond them, Neia refused to let go of the bloodsoaked hand of her betrothed, and at this point they did not even draw any looks, most of the city already knew that Skana had ridden out and slain those coming to slay them, so a bloodsoaked one eyed heroine was not the last thing one would expect to see.
The only one doing the unexpected was Neia, rarely did she take the lead in any emotional or romantically physical sense, being more comfortable leaving it in the hands of the experienced Skana, the killing demon whom she loved. Yet now, driven by her earlier distress and her present relief, she did take the lead, and Skana did not object. They went into the manor and made their way through the long halls, indifferent to the blood and dirt they left tracked behind them.
In such conditions as these, that was of no account to anyone. Their quarters were placed near to those of both Blue Rose and Queen Calca, so it was no surprise that Lakyus should be seen standing outside on guard against a potential intruder. As soon as she saw the bloodsoaked pair she smiled with relief, though she did not leave her position.
"I'm glad to see you're alright." Lakyus said sincerely. "I wish we could have joined you but... after what happened..." She trailed off.
"Not a problem, the twins performed admirably and the ambush was ambushed... twice, and they're all dead." Skana casually said, "No doubt Remedios is raging about now, and if our information on Suchala is right, he'll have paced the site to figure out what happened and have worked it out almost to the last detail. In short, we can't use that strategy again, he'll be prepared for it next time, Fluder's presence with us is known now. I'm sure they'll be here before the sun has set all the way, so I need to get cleaned up. Join us for dinner later?" She asked.
"We'd be happy to." Lakyus said warmly, "Would you like to speak to the Queen before you clean up, or after? She'll want to know how things went, and to be honest, she's been worried since she heard about the sally out of the gate."
Neia and Skana traded a look, "Better to do it now I guess, I've been soaked like this for a little while now, what is two more minutes?" She asked rhetorically.
Lakyus chuckled, "Been there." She said, and knocked three times on the door. "They're back." She said through it, and the door opened.
Queen Calca stood in the center of the room, and relief swept her face as she saw that Skana was alive. She was obviously trying to mask her feelings about seeing the pair as bloodsoaked as they were, but the relief was clearly not a mask. Neia and Skana walked through the door, tracking blood into the Queen's room, though if she cared, she gave no indication.
Skana knelt to the Queen, while Neia simply bowed her head politely. "Your Majesty, we have victory. Several hundred of theirs are dead, and we lost fewer than twenty of our own, none of them our elites."
"Twenty is still high given the circumstances." Neia said somewhat unhappily, "We will have to redouble the training for our second stringers. We shouldn't lose that many when we have the enemy at a disadvantage like that."
"Maybe not, but it happens. These were fairly skilled, and they were fanatics, none of them tried to run or tried to surrender, so I would say twenty is within the range of acceptable losses." Skana said pragmatically.
"I will visit with the wounded and pay my respects to the fallen this evening before dinner." Queen Calca said, "I'm glad you came back alive, the city's defenses would have been poorer without you. That said..." She looked over to Neia, "Do you object to me leaving my quarters now? I daresay I feel like a prisoner locked up here, I really don't want to be trussed up and tossed through a gate back to the Sorcerer King, but I am the Queen of this country and I will be forever shamed if I'm seen as hiding away while my people struggle to face this threat without me."
"Hell." Neia said as she grabbed her own forehead. "That is a good point, I've been so focused on securing you that I didn't think about your duties, I apologize for that. Your Majesty, move about as needed, but there are three things that must be consistently adhered to."
"Yes?" Calca asked.
"First, you must have at least one adamantite adventurer or two of my elites with you at all times. Second, you must vary any of your visits to the wall." The Queen looked confused, "What I mean is, you go to different parts at different times, don't adhere to any pattern that would allow you to become an easy target to prepare for, and never stay there longer than needed. Third, you don't sleep without a guard in your room and a guard at your door at all times. To protect your modesty we'll ensure it is always a woman, but I will not let you risk yourself again the way we did before." Neia said in a crisp, professional tone, but out of the corner of her eye she noticed something that would forever haunt her memories. Every mirror or reflective surface in the room, was either covered up or broken.
Queen Calca's face was a mask, but Neia could see well enough through it at least, that she knew the memory of the pain, her proud, beautiful face, being smashed into hideous fragments, still touched a nerve, and though she could keep herself from showing an excessive reaction, Neia's eyes could not miss the emotion in those of the Queen. The Black Paladin wondered how long it would be before she allowed mirrors around her again.
"Those are acceptable." The Queen said with some reluctance in her voice, "Thank you for your concern and for your sense of duty, and of course, thank you for your service to myself and our lord, the Sorcerer King." She said, "Now, I'm sure you want to get cleaned up, so I will not keep you longer. I will see you for dinner this evening." She said, finishing her statements with a warmth for the pair that she had once reserved only for her closest family and for the woman who had tried to kill her.
"Your Majesty." Skana said as she stood, bowed, and departed with Neia to return to their own quarters.
Neia immediately went and drew a boiling hot bath, throwing a bar of soap in with the water to give it a pale white shade. Skana entered the room and immediately began to undress.
"No..." Neia said softly, taking Skana's hands, "Let me." Skana relaxed her hands, and Neia knelt to her, and undid her lover's boot laces. Skana raised her foot, and allowed Neia to remove first one, then the other, and she set them aside. She stood, and unfastened the buckles that held the armor in place, and then removed it over one shoulder. Underneath lay the gambeson, a padded shirt, which was... harder to remove, given that Skana's height was greater than Neia's. So the taller woman bent forward a bit, to allow its removal over her head. So it was with one piece of war gear after another, until she stood naked but for the blood of her enemies on her skin. Neia wasted no time in disrobing herself, and took Skana's hand again, leading her into the soap clouded waters of the bath. She fumbled around for the bar for just a moment, and with a smile, she began to wash the victorious woman completely clean, ignoring not an inch. The water turned a faint shade of pink as the blood mixed with the clouded white water, and it was in this way that, when their bodies were washed, their arms entwined for more passionate intentions. Intentions that carried on until the horn rang again, and the city was alerted to the coming of their foes.
...Ambush Site...
Remedios fumed when she saw the bodies, her face turned purple with rage as she realized her ambush had been ambushed and her hated enemy had gotten the better of her again.
She walked to a corpse and kicked it in the head. "Idiot!" She screamed at the corpse. "This should have been an easy win and you screwed it up!" Her fists balled tight enough that her palms bled, and it was only the intervention of Suchala who approached and laid his graying hand on her shoulder, that stopped her in mid rant.
"No." He said, shaking his head. "The dead can't answer you anyway, but this man is not at fault, and if he were, he has already paid for it with his life." He said and pointed to the thin wisps of smoke still rising from the woods. "He did his job, the others died before he got here, and their faster mounts took these men down, they tried to fight..." He started stepping around the area, pacing it out. "The clash began here." He said, pointing to a clump of bodies on their sides. "That man back there," he pointed to a body with a sword wound in his back, "was the first to die, the others realized the ambush failed." He paced, a few feet away. "They tried to turn to fight here, whoever led the fight came in a V formation, they killed several to get deep in..." He stepped a dozen feet or so inwards, "and were finally stopped here."
He took them through the course of the fight, his eyes glazed over as if he were watching it unfold, "Poor men never had a chance, they were outnumbered, out equipped, and their comrades who were to help them were already dead." Suchala sighed, "Leave a contingent behind to bury the dead and then join us as we establish our siege. We'll need a priest to lay them to rest properly to ensure none come back as undead."
"Fine." Remedios said, knowing all too well how important that was.
"Move the bodies out of the way first, throw them into the woods for now, we don't want the army behind us to get cold feet seeing their dead comrades." Yuri added pragmatically.
A dozen were set to the task and within a short period of time the bodies were temporarily tossed into the woods close by where they would not be seen, though nothing could be done about the blood on the dirt. 'Evidence of a battle' was tolerable, while 'evidence our side got its ass handed to it' was not.
That evening they arrived at Prart. They outnumbered the city considerably, and began to move to surround it, tents went up, siege equipment was assembled, and then, there on the walls, they saw something seemingly insensible occur. Someone was putting up... decorations. Flowers were being hung from the walls, ribbons and banners, they could faintly hear the sound of music being 'practiced' from the interior of the city. It was as if they were preparing for a celebration and not a battle.
"Have they all lost their wits?" Suchala wondered openly.
"I have no idea." Remedios said, "If I didn't know better I'd say it was for a wedding or something. What daft madness is this?" She asked in her own disbelieving tone of voice.
"I suppose we'll find out soon enough. It'll take us most of the evening to get the city completely surrounded, and we won't really be battle ready until tomorrow afternoon after that forced march, so for now we keep watch on them and find out for ourselves. If we can get someone close enough to use appraise magic, maybe those decorations are enchanted in some way to protect the walls? I don't know." Yuri suggested in a rare moment of absolute uncertainty.
...Astraka's Encampment…
The march had been a poor one by his reckoning, his reputation was suffering from a run of horrible misfortune, misunderstandings, and rumors, the reverence and respect his men rendered him before had been reduced to hollow gestures given by rote discipline and the enforcement of his noble supporters, and… the threat of harsh punishment if it were to falter.
However he did have one thorn in his side at least, that was almost ready to come loose. He visited the 'discipline tent'. This one was unique, on the outside, it was an ordinary tent, on the inside, a cage, a very small, uncomfortable cage, one the prisoner could neither sit in, nor lie in, nor stand in. Within the tent, a number of implements of pain hung on display before the eyes of whoever had the misfortune of finding themselves in confinement.
Astraka closed the tent flap, the tent was one of the only enchanted fabrics he had with him on the march, and it kept the screams in when the flap closed. By now, the prisoner knew what the closing flap meant, he started to sweat.
"You're looking leaner." Astraka said sarcastically.
The cage sat on a swiveling table that allowed the one outside of it, to make any area of the prisoner accessible through the cage. Hours in there would leave anyone to sore to move or resist, they could be brought out, 'questioned' and put back with relative ease with a little assistance.
The man looked at him.
"Will you tell me your name now?" Astraka asked.
"No." Tinamoc replied.
"We've been gentle with you so far since it is a minor question, but I will know everything I want to know. One way or another." Astraka said with cool confidence.
The man was quiet.
"How about you just tell me this first, are you a spy?" Astraka asked reasonably.
"No." Tinamoc replied.
"No you won't tell me, or no you're not a spy?" Astraka asked.
"No, I am not a spy." He said in the weak voice of an almost broken man, Astraka knew the signs, he was reaching the limit of his strength and will. He'd held out longer than a pampered overweight man like him had any right to, but he was nearly broken now.
"Good, see, you can answer questions, and it hurts a lot less to answer them than to not, doesn't it?" Astraka asked rhetorically.
Astraka gestured to the torturer, and the ugly trollish looking human approached and knelt at the feet of the king.
"Time for some 'hard' questions." Astraka said sharply, and he took a seat nearby.
The large, muscular torturer was easily to much for the overweight, weak, sore merchant, and he quickly had Tinamoc secure to a pair of wooden posts embedded into the ground.
"First question. I'll ask it again." Astraka said. "What is your name."
Tinamoc tried to lie, he'd tried a dozen different names and somehow Astraka always smelled a whiff of untruth, and it started all over again. The blows were painful, the implements, many, until a shredded and bloody mass hung limp between the poles, to weak to even stand to ease the strain on his wrists.
'I'm sorry… Neia… looks like I'll suffer the fate of a sinner… I'm just… not strong enough…" Tinamoc thought to himself.
"What is your name." Astraka asked, the question had been repeated again and again, and Tinamoc had either been silent or tried to lie his way out of it every time, but now, he could bear no more.
"Tinamoc… my name is Tinamoc…" he blubbered out as best he could manage it.
Astraka's eyes widened. 'The kingdom's greatest merchant, the former economic advisor to Queen Calca, Neia's wealthiest supporter, looks like my luck has started to turn.' He thought happily.
"Next question." He said, confident that there would be no more lies going forward.
...A cabin in the woods...
Vanysa was very happy. She gave her instructions to the four doppels and they clearly understood what to do. It wasn't that hard, but she did wait two days, that was the hard part, all the anticipation. However, if events transpired too closely together, suspicion would grow that someone was manipulating things. This… probably would not happen, but she wanted to avoid any and all risks.
So two days later, four doppel peasants and an invisible erinyes with a scroll, sat hidden in the woods well beyond where Astraka would arrive. Birds chirped and beasts walked or crawled, a doe hopped across the road near where they lay in wait. To ensure success Vanysa had measured out the distance and marked it by transplanting a bush right beside the road, from her location, she could see it easily. When Astraka passed it, he was in range.
"Are you ready?" She asked the doppels. They nodded together, their peasant faces were dignified and rough, they looked like ordinary, common laborers, two men, and two women on the older side of life but not quite ancient. Still firm enough of body and mind for work, they were exactly what you'd see on a farm or a boat, they were the definition of 'the everyman'. Just looking at them and their common clothing would resonate with the army, most of whom came from that social class.
She smirked, it was almost time. She could hear the army marching in the distance, step by step they drew closer to where she wanted them to be. She looked at him from where she'd concealed herself, his handsome beard was still in place. She hated that he was still not unpleasant to look at, after what he'd done, and another frown came to her face.
He stepped across the place she mentally referred to as 'the threshold'.
She nodded to the doppels, and they ran from their place across the woods, they swang ordinary farm implements, an ax, a hoe, a mattock, minor things of no real threat to even an ignorant and untrained young knight.
She smiled, they were screaming at him.
"This is for what you had done to our children, you bastard!" One of them cried out, Vanysa used her 'Scroll of Greater Fear' and terror seized his heart, and he shrieked like a child, wheeled away on his warhorse, and tried to gallop away squealing in abject terror shouting for someone to protect and save him.
The peasants were immediately dispatched by other attending guards, but the general disgust with the king's cowardice was already sweeping the ranks as those who saw, informed those behind them of what they bore witness to.
The four were quickly bound with their hands behind their backs, struggling desperately to have their chance at revenge.
Astraka was ashamed of his unexpected cowardice, he sought distraction by answers and asked, "What are you talking about?"
"You killed our daughter!" A couple said. "You killed our son!" Another said. "Then you took our grandchildren and abused them! You monster! You monster!" They sobbed from their position, bound on their knees, they spoke as loudly as they could, feeding in to the rumors.
Vanysa pulled out another scroll, 'Scroll of Greater Wrath' and used it. His face twisted in fury.
"Stupid know nothing worthless peasant trash! How dare you!" He said as the rage enveloped him, he drew his sword and he stabbed or slashed at each of them once, striking in painful, lethal places that would kill them slowly
The watching soldiers were disgusted and horrified both at once, and with their horror and disgust, he had lost not only his reputation as a brave monarch, but also his reputation as a fair one or a just one, he appeared the worst of tyrants, and more than that... he looked guilty, like killing them would cover up his murders or his abuse of small children.
With the spell still in effect, he only snarled at two soldiers to throw the corpses into a ditch to be devoured by wild animals, it was a cruel fate. The natural result was that his reputation for cruelty against even the grieving, not to mention his 'coverup', and his abject and total cowardice, fleeing from old peasants who barely qualified as 'armed' grew exponentially.
Vanysa departed the area and returned to her little base of operations. She spent the next few hours laughing happily as the doppels undertook the next stage on their own, whimpering for help that the king, ensnared by the scroll, forbade, with every whimper they increased the hatred and contempt his army had for him.
That evening, alone in his tent, he wondered what was wrong with him. "Goddamnit, how the hell could I have run from mere peasants?!" He snapped at himself, "How could I have wet myself and shat myself over them, in front of my whole army?! Damn it... my reputation!" He snarled out, then froze with fists clenched.
"Gah! Damn it all! Where did anyone get the idea that I did these things?! Abusing children? Murder? As if my reputation were not already sullied, this is disastrous!" He snapped out at no one. Something had to be done. He went and started to pour himself some wine, his hands were shaking violently, he tried to tell himself it was just anger, but he knew it was worse than that, it was anxiety, it was the feeling that the value of his name was slipping away like sand through an hourglass.
He took several deep breaths. "It's alright, Astraka, it'll be fine, I just have to show them I'm generous to them. Tomorrow I'll pause for a little longer and hold a feast, remind them that good things flow from me." He said aloud as he spoke to the empty air. One thing he wanted to do first... he walked out of his tent into the darkness, found the small river where he'd dumped that stubborn peasant's corpse months ago, he dropped his pants, and relieved himself. He wondered where her corpse was now, probably out to sea, reduced to bones and scraps, it felt good to think about that. While she seemed amusing at first, her stubbornness ate at him. He looked into the river. "Stupid bitch, you could have had everything, you could have been rich, comfortable, even gotten a title and an estate, instead you made me do all those things to loosen your tongue." He spat into the water, it still got to him.
"Did you really think there was some purpose to holding out? That you'd get rescued, nobody heard you call for your master except me and my servant, peasants aren't supposed to do that anyway, just do as you're told, and everything works out okay. I guess it was kind of impressive that you held out no matter what we did to you... I really thought the wooden horse would do the trick... and I never expected you to carve a farewell into your own breasts and bite off your tongue. Of course, not that anyone else ever knew you bade farewell, so all being a 'faithful servant' got you was an ugly death in a dungeon instead of in the gutter you crawled out of in the first place. Though in retrospect, holding on to your head would have been useful at least, I could have given it as a gift at the treaty signing after this war ends." Astraka laughed at his own wit as he resecured his pants. "Ahhh, much better." He said as he stretched out and looked into the river one last time, he briefly fantasized about how such a beautiful girl would have felt to have seen the mutilated results of resisting his questioning, and he resolved to have a mirror put into the dungeon.
"Now I'll be able to sleep." He said out loud to himself, and strolled back to his bed with a confident smile on his face.
When the army made camp that evening, the doppel-peasants assumed the guise of soldiers and entered the camp. There, they awaited Vanysa's instructions to undertake the next step of her revenge.