God Rising

Chapter 106

Written by: AtheistBasementDragon

Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots

AN: Enjoy. I know some of you have looked forward to this as much as I have. :) Reviews feed me. Don't leave me to starve. ;)

...Prart…

That night Neia and Skana sat together at a dinner table with Queen Calca, the members of Blue Rose, and several of her noble supporters that had flocked early to her banner. The meal was a good one, a very fat turkey had been prepared for their pleasure as well as rich creamy gravy, good wine, and a thick stew rich with meat and vegetables.

"I have to say, I've never eaten so well in a siege before." One of the nobles said enthusiastically after the attending servants had prepared all of their places. All of those who attended as servants were freed elves, the volunteers who had insisted that they do something for their savior. It had neatly solved a problem when they'd presented themselves at the manor.

Neia almost wanted to laugh, that evening as the fighting had died down, she was just about to enter the building when she felt eyes at her back, she'd turned around, and there stood thirty elven males and females of obviously young ages, dressed in common clothing.

They'd stared at each other for a moment, though Neia had kept her eyes behind her customary visor. "...Yes?" She'd said, breaking the ice.

"M- Lady Neia, we want to work." The tallest of the men said.

"Work at the siege, you can put yourselves to task wherever you're needed." She'd replied.

"Wh-What we mean is, we want to work for you. You are the reason we're not in hell, we're too young to fight and the adults won't let us near the front, please, there has to be something you'll let us do?" He'd asked.

Neia was about to turn them down, but they all looked so earnest, so tense. The younger ones clung to the older ones, they all had fragile expressions on their faces, she wondered if she looked stern to them. She relaxed her shoulders and let out a sigh as a solution occurred to her, for a problem that had been bedeviling her.

She faced them and put her hands on her hips. "OK, there is one thing. I've been struggling with a problem that you might solve. As you know I have to ensure the absolute safety of the Queen of this country, however she has a distinct lack of servants. I got rid of all the ones I couldn't trust, and that means she has none. It isn't seemly for a Queen to go untended, and as you're aware I'm going to see that she's put on the throne where she belongs. I am sure you see where this is going." She said patiently.

"I'll take you all into the manor, you'll serve the Queen as her personal attendants, prepare food, tend the manor, serve at dinner, and so on. She'll treat you well, of that I'm sure, and I think we can trust elves far more than any humans around her at the moment, so, do you all want the jobs or not?" She asked bluntly.

Their faces lit up, and it turned out to be a very good fit, as former slaves, they knew all about taking care of people in homes, and it required minimal effort to give them the basics of noble etiquette.

Now here they were, and if some of those faces lingered longer on Neia or the other rescuers they recognized, and if those faces held awe, wonder, or abject devotion, well, if anyone else noticed it, they were too well mannered to comment.

Neia turned to the noble who spoke, he was a Marquis named 'Thrush', had two towns to his estate, sigil was that of a thrush. She'd vetted him first for any connections to Astraka and found none. "That's true, Marquis Thrush, but it isn't surprising." Neia said, taking a sip of her wine.

"You need only grasp why sieges succeed or fail from the attacker and defender perspectives." She continued, "The defender usually falls not because the walls are taken. Most of the time when an attacker is striving to take the walls, it is because they expect the defender will be reinforced, so they attack like swarming ants and usually lose without special circumstances altering the odds. What brings the defender down is running out of supplies, disease, and other trials that weaken them from within. Most of the time, unless there is a serious strategic reason to hold out or there is hope for reinforcements, a defender can do better by surrender through negotiation than they can through resistance. By contrast if they're going to be reinforced, the attacker is wiser not to attack the position at all if he can avoid it." She set her cup down and took a bite of meat.

"Fair enough, but then why are they out there?" He asked as he dug into his own meal.

"Well, I'm here for one, and so is Neia, if they kill both of us, the Sorcerer King loses his just cause and he loses his most important spokeswoman." The Queen replied, "This city is not terribly important on its own, but it has become a symbol of Neia's triumphs, the elven slaves fled here, it has the highest percentage of her followers outside of pre-civil war Hoburns, it was the place where she first defied royal authority by killing the governor…"

Neia interrupted, "Sorry, Your Majesty, but I'm afraid that isn't quite right, I didn't kill him. I gave him to the Sorcerer King, he's probably been begging to die for months now." She had a chilling smile on her face as she said that, and it froze Calca's blood. She'd seen the bloody Neia, she'd seen, from below and far away, the casual ease with which she inflicted death on those who came to the wall, but this was different.

"He's… not dead?" She asked, her voice hesitant as if she were not sure if she had heard properly.

Neia shrugged, "Well, probably not, he might be, I left that up to His Majesty." She said casually, "He was profoundly angry at how his followers were mistreated and by the theft of the supplies donated to the rebuilding effort, not to mention the abuse that he allowed through his collaboration with corrupt temples. I would imagine that the former royal governor is still alive and wishing that he wasn't." It was blood chilling to see 'Neia the Sadist' come out.

"I'm… not comfortable with torture." Queen Calca ventured.

"You don't have to be." Neia said, "You just have to keep people who are, and who will direct it where it should be applied. There are people in this world, Your Majesty, who deserve more suffering than you can imagine. They're mad dogs, plagues on not just humanity, but all races, sure killing such people is easy…"

"But it is far too kind." Skana interjected, and Neia nodded with hard eyed satisfaction.

"You had much respect during your reign, Your Majesty. You had much love, but nobody feared the consequences of deceiving you, hiding things from you, your reign had a weakness, and that was that you were naive. You assumed everyone is basically good and wanted the world free of tears just like yourself. But that isn't the case." Neias visor was gone, and her gaze turned hard and penetrating, and Calca could not look away, as if the eyes were swallowing her whole, and within them she saw countless images, beating into her brain as Neia spoke.

"They want their happiness only at the expense of others. They will lie, steal, cheat, rape, torture, abuse, anyone and everyone, they cannot be reformed, they cannot be corrected, the only justice left to them is to make them regret their existence before depriving them of lives they didn't deserve to have. You could show them kindness, but that would be cruelty to their victims. The carrot and the stick are both tools you must use, and some of us make better sticks than carrots."

Calca felt the chill leave her body as Neia stopped speaking, and the images that passed before her faded like the ephemeral things they were, but they were not to be forgotten.

She looked down at her plate. "I know I was naive, and I won't be that weak again, I don't think I'll ever find it in myself to enjoy the torment of others though."

"Nobody expects you to." Skana said, "You just need to do what needs to be done, even when you don't like it. Look at our situation, outside those walls are over two hundred thousand soldiers, if they break through those walls, if we don't stop them, they'll butcher this city. Men, women, children, these are the most die hard fanatics, and Astraka is on his way bringing more people to the fight. We're badly outnumbered, even with the population mobilized. We have to be absolutely ruthless, we have to make them fear to come close."

"You seem to be doing a solid job of that." The Marquis Thrush said with satisfaction. He was a slender, hard bodied man with deceptively gentle brown eyes and brown hair, he looked every inch his age of twenty two.

"You're not doing half bad yourself." Skana said, "Hell, that's true for all of you on every wall." She expanded her praise to the rest of the table.

There were satisfied expressions all around. The chatter shifted to more ordinary matters, with Neia and Skana trading jokes and stories with the members of Blue Rose, and a hearty round of congratulations went to the newly married couple, it became a tranquil evening and the tension near the head of the table faded until at last it came time to rest.

Neia and Skana embraced both Lakyus and Queen Calca with fierce gratitude for their part in the wedding, ensuring that no void would ever taint their memories of that day, whether it be for one year or for one hundred later.

They then departed for bed, when the door closed behind them, it was quiet, but to them both, it was loud as a thunder clap.

Neia began to undress. "I still can't believe it." She said.

"What?" Skana asked as she did the same.

"I'm actually… married." She said with a hushed and reverential awe.

Skana laughed, "I always knew I would be, but it is a damn sight different than what I expected."

"How's that?" Neia asked as she walked over to draw a bath for themselves.

"I was a brain dead peasant girl, I thought I'd marry some farm boy, pop out a few kids, and die ten feet from where I was born. I couldn't read, I couldn't write, I couldn't do math, I could dance, farm, screw, and I knew my way around the woods, and that about sums up the better part of the first two decades of Skana the Bold's life." She laughed, "You're no farm boy, Neia Baraja." She said, her laughter increasing as Neia bent over to check the water.

"True." Neia said with a half serious acknowledgement. "I never thought I'd have anyone, I thought I'd just hunt and scout and fight until I died. That was all I had in front of me, men tended not to marry girls who look like murderous bandits." She let out a laugh, but Skana could feel the well of bitterness that underlay all that, a past that for all their common ground, still set them worlds apart.

Intuitively, Skana approached her new wife and wrapped her arms around her from behind, she pressed herself firmly to Neia's back, their bodies bare and close together, she put her head into the crook of Neia's neck, longing to take away an ache that might never truly disappear, she whispered lovingly into the ear of her hero, her wife, "You don't look like a bandit, you look like my wife, and you'll never be alone again, not as long as I live." Neia melted and turned around, they kissed, and Skana didn't need to open her remaining eye, to know that there were tears of happiness in Neia's own.

The next morning began with the boom of siege engines. Catapults, mangonels, ballistae, all firing back and forth at one another from beyond the easy reach of spells, the soldiers on the wall were forced to take cover to avoid being smashed, but in this the magic casters of Neia's army had an advantage, they could shoot down projectiles, and end the threat. By contrast, when the opposition in the field tried to burst rocks with magic, it just turned them into shrapnel that would harm more soldiers than a single impact alone.

Neia chose to stand on the wall, to ensure she was seen, though she had to dodge occasionally, by virtue of being seen, she heartened her soldiers.

She would take a position, draw her legendary bow, and destroy projectiles. Fluder and Evileye proved particularly useful, with 'Crystal Wall' absorbing many an impact, while the powerful magic of Fluder saw boulders just 'drop'. Lakyus used her flying blades to great effect, and though the walls took blows, they held.

Still, it was strange to her that they didn't try to send soldiers to mount the walls again, or so she thought, until she caught a glimpse of 'why' in the distance, construction was underway in earnest, and she immediately recognized the shape.

"Oh shit." Neia said softly. "Towers."

...Astraka's Camp…

Astraka sat in the chair looking at the prisoner in the cage. The man was a pitiable site, but there was nothing of pity left in Astraka for anyone who got in his way. The last time he'd pitied someone, he'd gotten sloppy and she'd almost killed him or escaped.

He glanced over at the interrogator. "So you got everything?" The man grunted, not the most articulate fellow, but based on the papers Astraka had seen, they had indeed gotten everything of value from his own lips. Sadly, 'value' was something it didn't really have much of. Aside from the incredible amount of detail he knew about Neia, Tinamoc knew next to nothing about the Sorcerer King.

"So you really think that highly of that… girl, do you?" He asked incredulously, and the merchant nodded, he couldn't speak as his mouth was gagged, there would be no more outs via suicide this time.

"Doesn't matter how highly you think of her, she'll be put to ground soon enough. I suppose her showing up on dragon back was impressive, but the dragon did the real work. True, when I saw her at the conference she was… quite a presentable sight, but still, this is too much to swallow." Astraka said dismissively.

"I suppose if there is nothing of value left to extract from your brain, I could go ahead and kill you." Astraka said, standing up and drawing his sword, he poked it through the cage, pressing it hard enough into what fat was left on his prisoner's belly, hard enough to draw a little blood.

Tinamoc however, didn't beg for mercy, if anything, his body relaxed, death meant an end to pain, and as he was scrunched in a painful posture, filthy, stinking of unwashed sweat and still in agony from the various painful forms of interrogation, death seemed like such a sweet release, a reward, not a punishment.

Astraka put away his sword, "However, I think there is a better use for you. See, you're not the only one we've picked up. Not far from here, we've got a little holding facility where we captured a few Black Justice worshipers that were trying to get away from the fighting. I think I'll pick them up, and then I'll hand the lot of you over to Remedios Custodio. I'm sure when I tell her who you are, she'd love to find out what showing Neia your head, will do to her."

Tinamoc tried to make protesting noises and rattled his cage angrily, but it was drowned out as Astraka laughed and turned to walk out. He pointed to the interrogator, "If that prisoner dies, you die with him. He stays alive, till we turn him over. After that, I don't give a damn." The interrogator laughed, and Astraka continued to laugh as he walked out of the tent. 'Finally I think I'll get a good night's sleep.' He thought to himself, 'That felt fantastic.' As the sun fell and night swept the horizon, King Astraka laid himself down to sleep, with a smile on his face, confident that tomorrow would be a brighter day.

...Astraka's Encampment...Midnight...

Vanysa loved her wings, she considered them her best feature, or at least the most fun as far as she was concerned. Being able to fly was a dream everybody born on the ground, would have in their life, but now here she was doing it. Given that she had fulfilled that dream in part due to Astraka's actions, she thought she might shave a few years off of his torture for it. Not a lot, but some.

She smirked as she flew to his camp, it was easy enough to find, armies didn't hide well on roads, and in the darkness, cookfires and sentry lights stood out like a sore thumb on a hand. By now she was an expert at slipping past guards, her doppel helpers were doing a fine job of rumor spreading, but nothing helped rumors quite as much like reality.

She slipped in to Astraka's tent and used a scroll to put him into a deep sleep, she then took a tube and forced it down his throat. She then attached a funnel to the tube. After that, she removed from her satchel several bottles of hard liquor. She popped the cork, pulling it free with her teeth, then humming a dwarven drinking song, she began to force alcohol into his body. First one, then another, then another. She snickered, this was petty on the surface, but when he got up, aside from being hung over, he'd stink like a drunk and probably still be thoroughly intoxicated. His soldiers contempt and his officers mistrust of his stability would only grow.

She then used another scroll, and straddled him again after yanking the funnel and tube from out of his body and casting them aside. She lowered her forehead to his, 'So warm…' She thought, 'hard to remember you're human, more human than I… another thing you took from me…'

She entered his dream and found him sitting smugly on a throne. A happy one? No that would not do. The dream shifted, she called up her final minutes and made him stand in her place, feeling the nail carving a final epitaph into her breast, feeling the rats trying to tug on scraps of flesh, the bite of teeth severing tongue, and of course, the choking. She set the memory to loop, he would relive her death in his dream until he awoke, it would be anything but restful sleep. She then departed the tent, taking up the materials she'd used and vanishing into the night.

She then went to the other side of the river. She'd seen this habit a number of times now, so she was reasonably confident about where he'd approach, straight from the tent, to the point in the water closest to him. She pulled out a sixth tier scroll, and altered the weather conditions. There would be a thick fog coming up from the water soon, not too thick, but good enough. She then used two more scrolls, creating a pane of clear glass tall as her body, and a glass mirror. The pane of glass was placed against a tree, while the mirror was out of easy view, invisible in those conditions, and she laid them so that her reflection would be cast into the pane of glass. She grinned and said softly. "Illusion magic, without magic, instant ghost."

She then waited, it was hours, but she was happy, and when he awoke, oversleeping again, she could see as he staggered from the tent that he was feeling horrible, his sleep had tortured him, with her sharpened senses she could see his eyes were red, his body was staggering, he was obviously drunk, and from the reactions of those who saw him, he stank like a distillery.

But he kept to his habit of pissing in the water her corpse had been thrown away in. He didn't see what she wanted him to at first. She mimicked a bird call, he looked up, and she, shaped as she once had been, a beautiful, youthful, peasant girl, full of life and happiness in spite of all, was there before him again, with tears streaming down her cheeks, she pointed. The light hit the window pane, giving her a translucent, ephemeral quality enhanced by the fog.

He saw her image, her crying, wondering, beautiful, accusing face, staring at him and pointing. He screamed in horror and fell backwards, scrambling back and calling for help from a priest and a magic caster, so drunk and so horrified that he hadn't even properly pulled his pants back up.

She suppressed her laugh from the other side of the river. She took up the mirror and the pane of glass, and walked away. They'd find no sign of a ghost, and no sign of the type of magic used to raise one, his very sanity would be called into question.

Astraka returned after she'd gone.

"I'm -hic- telling you -hic- -hic- I saw her! A dead girl, a girl whose corpse I held in my own hands, I know she died, and I saw her ghost on the other side of -hic- that river!" He slurred out angrily, holding up his pants, too drunk to properly bind them shut again.

"Majesty," the priest said patiently, "I know when undead are near, my magic would find ghost or skeleton or zombie or any form of spirit, and none are there, nor were any." He said with an emphatically professional voice. However those who were near, who heard him talk loudly about a dead girl he'd held, immediately seized on it as a confession of his guilt in killing children.

"And Sire," the magic caster said, "If someone had used an illusion spell, I'd have found it, I am telling you that there was no magic at work, which means that there was… no… ghost, either real or magicked into being, you imagined the whole thing, it was just a delusion of your own." He said equally emphatically.

"Am I going mad?! -hic- No! I saw that girl, I know she died and she was there!" he pointed across the river and hiccuped several more times, "Shtanding right there across the river, crying and pointing at me as shurely as you stand here now!" He roared furiously as they refused to believe him.

Within hours the doppel soldiers were spreading the rumors about the madness of the man who would be king, and of course many overheard the drunken shouting about a dead girl he'd held, and seized on it as a confession of his crimes, what lingering doubt their was of his guilt, began to melt away. His 'guilt' was obviously driving him mad, that was quickly becoming the common consensus.

And as Vanysa sat in her little cabin and listened to the reports of all this taking place, she laughed as happily as she ever had, and clicked her talons on the table. "Oh Astraka, just wait till tomorrow…"