AN: Just a shoutout to reviewer 'Crit' EXCELLENT feedback, just saw it, gives me a lot to work with, and just so you know, I do actually read books/watch videos on learning to write. Knocking the suck off of my work has been quite a process, and... I doubt I'll ever really be done, but you know what they say, the journey IS the destination, so thank you for taking the time to provide the feedback you did. If you're interested, I'd definitely welcome you as a beta reader on discord. No pressure, but that kind of feedback is worth my labrador's weight in gold!
...Just North of Yanana...
Neia stood between two prisoners who were bound at their wrists and ankles, forced to their knees, heads over a pair of 'borrowed' tree trunk execution blocks. One prisoner stood by to bear silent witness, while a formation of Black Justice soldiers observed. "Skana, have you confirmed that the marks upon these men are parole brands?" The Pope asked calmly.
Reluctantly, Skana nodded. "I have. They were released upon conditional withdrawal from all conflict, and now they bear arms again against an oath on their lives not to do so."
The prisoners were shaking and blubbering behind their gags. They desperately shook their heads in denial of the charge. "You gave your word to cease fighting, to live peaceful lives and never bear arms against us again. Yet you joined a raid against us, seeking to kill those who graciously spared you. You were bound by trust—marked by fire and steel—and you betrayed that trust. Therefore your lives are forfeit." Neia said solemnly, "You will be buried in accordance with the will of the gods you worship, I do not know how they receive oathbreakers, but may they have mercy upon your treacherous souls."
Nea took up her sword, and then, ignoring the muffled cries emanating from the gags, swung the sword down in one swift motion on one exposed neck. She spun and repeated the process with the second. She wiped the sword down with the long hair of one of the newly slain, then sheathed it and turned to the prisoner bearing witness. "You will be marked as they were and released. Tell the soldiers there that if they are caught fighting again, they will not get a third chance." The prisoner nodded mutely, and a waiting attendant lightly touched a heated steel sword to his wrist. The prisoner screamed for a moment, then the flat of the sword was withdrawn and a cool cloth was wrapped around the burn. "Go, take one of the horses that survived your raid, return to your city, and do not get caught in uniform a second time." Neia said quietly, her black-coated eyes boring into his heart and inflicting him with soul-consuming fear.
The prisoner shook his head quickly, clutching his stinging wrist, and bolted for a horse as soon as he was released. He was gone in minutes.
Neia approached Skana and touched her wife's shoulder gently. Skana was staring at the pair of bodies, but the touch snapped her out of her thoughts. "My love, come, don't think of them further. They knew the risks. Let's go to bed."
Skana looked past Neia. Everyone was now dispersing, save for the few whose feet crunched on the hard ground as they hauled the corpses away for burial. "You're right." Skana said, touching Neia's cheek. Her thoughts weighed heavily upon her, but when Neia led her away, she followed.
The message came the next morning. The dew was fresh on the grass and the leaves, and the wind was crisp. Neia woke to Skana's arm over her chest. Their night had been... intense. Skana may have only one eye, but that single green orb seemed to see into Neia's very soul. The pope lay beneath the furs and shook her head in confusion. 'What had Skana so... intent on me last night?' She wondered idly. From the moment the tent flap had closed, the taller auburn-haired woman had her in a tight embrace. Her kisses and her expressions of love had been fervent to the point of near desperate longing, with every look seemingly filled with tenderness, as though some fresh horror had been thrust like a dagger into Neia's heart. The Black Paladin sighed, it had been pleasurable at least, but troubling that Skana had given so much of herself in the act of love, but would take nothing in return.
Removing the arm draped over her, Neia sat up and leaned over to kiss Skana on her forehead with the greatest tenderness. "Next time it will be you, my beloved." She stroked the auburn hair delicately and then stood up to stretch. It was a predawn hour and the dim light of a candle left burning nearby was the only light to see by. However, curiously enough, Neia found less and less need for the light as time had gone on. She turned that oddity over in her head as she dressed and reached for a message scroll, when she heard from her lord. The pope immediately dropped to her knees.
"Neia, There is a special request for you." Ainz said to her through the message spell.
"Father, name your will and I will grind myself to worms' meat to see it done!" She answered rapidly.
"I will not order you to do this, Neia. This is a request from Cardinal Raymond. He desires that you meet with him at a neutral location." Ainz said indifferently.
Neia thought it over for a moment. "Raymond... that is unexpected. What could he want?' She began to wonder, only to recall the current situation as he might see it. "Sire, I will meet with him at Illyana's grave, but if I may ask one humble thing, may I visit Nazarick first? I wish to borrow the weapon lord Demiurge used to test me, the Dagger of Paradox."
'Test? What test? Dagger of Paradox?' Ainz wondered, then rushed to cover the silence. "Of course Neia. Come to Nazarick and explain your intent, I'm sure it will pose no problem." Ainz replied. "Are you ready now?"
"I am Sire, but... I was letting my wife sleep in a little, forgive her unreadiness for departure, I will awaken her at once and-" She started to apologize profusely.
"No, no, this can wait, take an hour and see to it." Ainz answered, and then the message cut off.
Neia finished dressing and immediately awoke her wife. Skana woke up slowly, that was fairly normal, and as she sat up and stretched her arms out over her head and yawned, Neia felt her eyes immediately drawn to the woman, and the sudden impulse to pounce upon and ravish her beloved sprang to the fore. The desire in her eyes was not lost even on the sleepy woman, and she winked at Neia. "Want to go again?" She asked archly.
"Yes! No! Yes! Goddamnit yes but not now is what I mean to say." Neia replied, suddenly flustered and blushing a deep beet red. "You need to get ready to go, we're going to meet Raymond in a little while. I just have to make a brief stopover in Nazarick to pick up the dagger and then we can leave." Neia explained, putting on her sword and taking up her bow.
Skana quickly got herself ready, and before they knew it, the dagger was retrieved and they were sitting across from one of the leaders of the Slane Theocracy. Skana watched carefully as Neia almost immediately went for violence at the sight of the elf with Raymond, and though she shared the impulse, her wife's raw fury of her wife struck her to her core. 'Neia, Neia please... don't lose yourself." The way she spoke so casually about killing everyone, even to Skana, chilled her blood and she shook in her armor. The broken hearted look in Neia's eyes as her wife touched Illyana's grave, the look of surprise when the little elf, Nua, spoke for the Theocracy and all but accused Neia of planning atrocities... it all hurt so much that Skana was barely able to maintain her composure. *
But of all of it, what ached the most, what caused her face to shake as she struggled to maintain her neutral expression, was when Neia told Cardinal that she understood that the actions she was about to take would haunt her forever. 'No... how much more is she going to have to do?' Skana wondered. The wondering didn't stop even after they departed the meeting with Raymond and returned to their own encampment.
"Get everyone ready to move, I want us at Yanana in an hour." Neia ordered crisply as she walked away from Skana.
"Yes, Ma'am." Skana promptly replied, moving to see to the rest of the camp.
"What was all that about?" Lakyus asked Neia curiously.
"Nothing of importance, just a hopeless request that the raindrops not strike the ones who chose to stand in the storm." Neia brusquely replied as she mounted her horse.
"I... see." Lakyus looked at her dubiously and got into the saddle at the same moment as CZ did.
A gentle rain began to fall, it was cold, Lakyus felt a wave of relief come over her when she saw concern on Neia's face as the Black Paladin looked over her shoulder back down the road that led to Prart. "I hope the refugees make it back before it gets too cold."
"I'm sure they'll be fine." Lakyus smiled with warm encouragement and Neia turned her attention to the road ahead of her rather than behind.
"You're right, I'm worried over nothing. Everything will be fine." Neia smiled so radiantly in that moment as she spoke that when Skana saw it as she approached and took her place on the horse beside her wife that it was possible to forget everything she'd said.
"Yes, everything will be fine." Skana smiled warmly and a single beating of the drum signalled the start of the march.
So it was a complete surprise to them all when Neia stopped beside the great river that cut through the city, but before getting to the city itself. "Neia... ah... Ma'am..." Skana said, hesitantly as she saw the beautiful blue green eyes of her wife disappear in a whorling darkness of inky black.
"Begin to fill bags with sand, and have soldiers begin to dig a course in that direction, use as many as you need to get it done." Neia said as she pointed to the terrain and traced a line in front of them. "We'll need... a few thousand bags of earth I think, take it from the area you're digging for greatest efficiency. CZ, come with me, Skana, take command of everything while I'm gone." Neia did not answer her question, she only gave the order, leaving her wife behind her as she spurred her mount forward.
CZ and Skana traded a silent expression of neutrality that disguised their uncertainty, but as soon as the pair was gone, Skana set the Sons of Iontariil to the task due to their experience with digging. She added the undead skeletons and horses from their army to augment the labor force and speed up the work. They fell to it with a vengeance, and slowly a wide trench as broad as twenty people standing abreast with arms extended, and as tall as Gagaran, began to take shape along the course Neia laid.
Neia rode silently forward with CZ beside her, trotting at a steady pace until they neared the city, CZ was a silent companion, and for that the Pope was grateful, she was in no mood to converse. She arrived in time to hear the shouts of the city dwellers and the fortifications tightening up, soldiers lined the walls of the city. Neia raised a banner of truce as she came close enough to be heard, and the city grew quiet near the gate. It didn't need to be, not for this. [Voice of God] [Echo of the Underworld] [Fear of Death] [Wrath of God] She whispered the arts quietly, and then spoke. Her voice boomed like thunder and shattered the sky. "I am Neia Baraja! General of the Sorcerer King's Armies in the West, Pope of Black Justice, Bane of Paladins of the Six, Destroyer of Cities, The Black Paladin, Hope of the Slaves, and Child of the Unliving God. I come to you today to tell you that you have committed the gravest of sins! You have shown weakness of loyalty, weakness of integrity, weakness of justice. Because you have committed these grave sins, I, scourge of the one god left in this world, have come to punish you! Anyone remaining in this city in the morning, will be subject to the flood of my wrath! Flee now while you can, and I will not pursue you. I will be more merciful than you have been to my followers and to me, when you had power over us. You may leave with what food and clothing you can carry, and go South to where your 'new nation' can provide for you, and your children will live."
Neia's voice carried from one end of the city to the other, so that there were none who did not hear her, Whether they were inside or underground, her voice reached their hearts and caused them to tremble. But she was not finished.
"Moreover, I hereby challenge General Suchala to single combat, if he has the courage to face me as a man and as a soldier, I will present myself here before the city in the morning, if he should triumph, my wrath will not fall upon you, but if he should fall, then generations will speak of his end with terror in their hearts! Do not disappoint me, General Suchala!" She shouted, sure he would hear her wherever he was.
"Alright CZ, we're going back, that should do it." Neia said, and turned her horse around.
"Yes." CZ said simply.
It was clear that it was indeed sufficient, chaos reigned in the city as the terror of the voice drove people to rush to grab their things and hastily pack up. Merchants were quick to raise their prices for traveling gear to ten or twenty times the usual cost, and people were paying it. Suchala however, was quick to give the order to lock down the gates. An order Yuri ruthlessly enforced.
"Double rows of guards at every exit, lock this place down! Anyone who gets within a halberd's length of the gate gets cut down!" She snapped out as she and the senior officers of both commands moved about the city ensuring that the orders were understood. "Double row of archers on the walls, shoot to kill anyone who looks like they might be trying to get out!" Yuri said ruthlessly.
The number of guards needed for the task nearly tripled within the first hour of giving the order.
Such was the state of affairs when the local administration and priesthood sat down with Suchala and Yuri to discuss what Neia had said. "Letting people leave says that we plan to lose. That can't be tolerated." Suchala said firmly.
"Do you plan to fight her?" The governor asked hesitantly, sweat beaded on his face as the fear had not loosed its grip on his heart.
Suchala's entire body shook of its own accord. 'It's just an effect, it isn't real damnit!' He told himself as the very notion rocked him to the core, 'The bitch targeted me so that I would feel fear, but fear does not rule General Suchala!' He thought with confidence he didn't really feel.
"Yes, I will fight, and I will win." He answered, unable to keep the terror entirely out of his voice.
"On another note," Yuri interjected, "Perhaps we should get some out, the elderly, the pregnant, the children, that sort of thing, they're useless trash in a fight, all they'll do is eat up resources for a siege, and remember we don't have to win, just last until the Secession treaty is signed, then we'll have peace and Neia will have to withdraw. It will be a real victory for the South and help solidify the new king's legitimacy."
"A reasonable point." Suchala said thoughtfully and rubbed his chin, "Alright, allow those to evacuate, but everybody of fighting age stays."
"We can sort them out among our flock, that will be easy enough, summon the people to the temples around the city, we can organize the exit." The head priest said confidently.
"I'll have the word put out immediately." Yuri said, "Why don't the rest of you work out supply distribution plans, we'll take care of the rest tomorrow, and Suchala, good luck with that bitch tomorrow." She said with a sadistic smile on her face.
Suchala did his best to keep the fear off his face when he nodded, but he was sure he was not entirely successful.
Within a few hours the pregnant, elderly, and young children with one parent each, began to be evicted from the city. They carried with them one days food and water, a little clothing, and the few artisans who could, kept some of the tools of their trade with them. It was a grim and terrified departure, some got into boats to take the river, but without enough boats for all, others had to trudge overland with both knowing they would spend the night in the deepening cold.
That night, Suchala was alone in his quarters kneeling in prayer beside his bed. "Gods, all the gods, give me courage for tomorrow, give me victory that I may serve my nation and yourselves as I always have, give me the wisdom to see the way to victory over that demon in human skin and the will to see that way through, let me be the instrument of your righteous wrath upon the wicked."
When he heard the slow clap, behind him, he looked behind him with a sudden start. There was the demon herself in full battle kit in front of a whorling void in the air. "Interesting prayer, figured I had a reputation like that with you people by now, but I've never heard it first hand." Neia said with amusement.
The shadow of her eyes fell on him and he leaped to his feet and reached to his side to grab a sword.
It wasn't there, he looked behind where she stood, where he'd laid the weapon into its rack after coming into his room.
"Relax." Neia said in a soothing voice, "I know, you want to kill me." She said sweetly as she took out a dagger. She threw it at his feet.
"I know you helped Remedios to perpetrate her atrocities." Neia said coldly, "What she did on her own, she 'might' have accomplished anyway, but it was you who made sure she was successful. You were chosen by your masters precisely because of me, weren't you?" Neia asked in a professional voice.
Suchala looked at her warily, but took up the knife. "Yes, I was." He replied.
"Why?" She asked in the tone one might use with a peer of some equal standing who did not understand a comrades decision.
"Because I am relentless, because you are relentless, because it was decided that only exterminating you all was going to end the heresy, and some of my colleagues didn't have the guts for that." Suchala answered as he drew the dagger from its sheath.
"I see, so you were sent to my country to aid it in destroying itself, if that was what it took to destroy me. I'll remember that when I visit Kami Miyako." Neia said with ice in her voice.
Suchala looked down at the dagger uncertainly. "Tell you what," Neia said casually, "You manage to place one cut on my skin with that, I'll spare your army and I'll skip my little work visit to your capital." As she spoke, Neia removed the gauntlet from her arm and held it out.
"Why?" Suchala asked suspiciously.
"Because you won't succeed, you can't, you're a failure, your nation is doomed and your army is nothing but dead men walking. I want you to know that before the end." Neia said, she harangued him hard, using the power of her voice to cut into his ego and his pride and his every belief until he was almost frothing with the rage of denial. Neia held out her arm and smirked at him. "Go ahead... cut me." Neia said with utter tranquility.
Driven by the taunting power of her influential voice, he snarled and tried to slash the dagger at her naked throat, ignoring the offered arm, only to his shock, this arm bent inward towards his body, and the blade drew across his own throat.
He looked at the dagger in bafflement, then to Neia with equal confusion. "Looks like your gods didn't listen to your prayer." She said snidely as he staggered and fell backwards onto his bed. He tried to speak, but the blood in his throat closed that option off.
"If you'd tried to wound me, you'd have only wounded yourself a little, the fact that you tried to end me, has ended you. Tomorrow they'll find your body, you'll be the general who committed suicide out of fear, the story will spread among those who 'survive' my wrath. All your years of reputation and honor will be..." she held out her palm close to her lips and blew over it, as if scattering dust to the wind, "poof, wiped away as if it never were. A fitting end for someone like you." Neia remarked coldly.
He looked up at her in horror and denial.
Neia held his gaze. Looking down at him in contempt, letting the fear fill his soul so that he died in terror, and she held that look long after his eyes went blank and his body stopped moving. When she was satisfied, she took the dagger back and went to where his gear was resting and picked up his own. She then took his blade and drew it over the same spot in his throat, coating it with blood, after which she placed it in his cold, dead hand. 'It wouldn't do to leave one of Nazarick's treasures behind.' She thought with a smile, as she departed through the gate, leaving his body behind like the trash it was to her.
The camp was pitch dark when she returned, not that it mattered to her, she went to her command tent and found Skana was already asleep, she stripped off her clothing and laid herself down next to her wife, spooned her slowly and let her arm drape over Skana's side, and drifted off with a tranquil, satisfied expression on her face.
When she awoke it was dawn and the sun was rising, this time she was awakened by her wife. "Good morning." Skana said sweetly as they stretched out almost in unison.
"Yes, it is." Neia said happily.
"Are you really going to fight General Suchala this morning, remember we talked about you staying off the front lines?" Skana asked with a bit of mild, anxious reproach in her voice.
"No, he's dead." Neia said sweetly. "He killed himself last night."
Skana looked at her, open mouthed. "That was... fast." She said with surprise.
Neia shrugged, "It needed to be, that treaty might be signed at any time, there's always a chance we could be recalled before I can finish."
"Neia... is this... really necessary?" Skana asked gently as she dressed.
"Yes. Else we'll face bigger problems down the road, I will not deliver His Majesty a conflict twenty years from now because I left some unjustly proud traitors alone. They want to go, fine, but they will not go proudly, they'll go as the whipped dogs who fled fearing the lash, they'll go remembering that we do not forget and we do not leave scores unsettled, they'll go fearing us until they collapse from within and we reclaim the land for the Sorcerer King." Neia said with brutal pragmatism as she put her bow back on.
Skana looked at her with doubt, her face somewhat downcast, "If you say so... I'll trust you, but I don't like this. I want the ones who... Who tried to hurt you, I want to defeat the Theocracy, but this is different somehow." She said as she took Neia's hands and folded them in hers. "Nobody has ever 'done' anything like this before..."
Neia reached up and put her hand behind Skana's neck, she gently pulled so that their foreheads touched and those beautiful, human eyes of Neia's were on Skana's face. "I know, and that is why it will leave an indelible mark on their collective memory for generations to come. I do what has to be done, for tomorrow, not just for today, everything has a price, they're paying theirs, and I... I'll pay mine." Her voice choked briefly and she cleared her throat, "Just... please understand... even if no other in the world does... please..." Neia begged her with an aching heart.
Skana clasped Neia's cheeks in her hands impulsively so that their gazes could not break, "I don't, it's true... but for you, I'll try, and wherever that takes you, I'll go too." She kissed her wife tenderly upon her lips, and their touch broke apart.
"Then let's be off, go bring Blue Rose, lets ride out there together and see who they scrape up for a fight." Neia smirked confidently at that, and Skana could not hold back a smirk of her own at the awkwardness the city would face.
Within a short span of time the group was on horseback with the cheers of their army behind them, and with a white flag planted in front of the city, they waited.
Inside Yanana, Yuri couldn't believe it. She was staring down at the dead body of Suchala. "Damn, I didn't think you were that scared of her." The squire said with a shaking of her head. "I mean I guess a dagger across the throat beats whatever she had in mind for you, but still, way to bring down morale." She said flippantly.
Behind her, one of the priests looked at her in disbelief, "Could you be more dismissive! Don't you see the problem here?!" He asked her fervently.
Yuri looked over her shoulder, "Yeah, this is really going to be an administrative pain." She said with a sadistic laugh.
The priest went purple in the face, "No! He was the chance to fend off a siege!"
Yuri looked down at the corpse of the old man. "Seriously? If he could kill himself over this, he wasn't a real chance in the first place."
That drew unhappy murmurs from the holy men, and Yuri rubbed the back of her head with annoyance, "Well, I suppose I'll have to fight somebody, but at least it won't be Neia. With Suchala dead and me a substitute, they'll pick someone else too. Hopefully not someone better."
Relief was on their faces as she said that, their shoulders slumped as breath they hadn't noticed they were holding, escaped their lungs.
"Well, assuming they're out there, send them word, and I'll get ready." Yuri said with an easy shrug.
'OK so... how do I escape from this one? Guess it depends on who they pick.' She thought with annoyance as she went to her quarters to pick up her sword.
The city's panic was averted when it was announced that Yuri was taking the place of the deceased Suchala, her reputation within the ranks of both armies as a combatant who had survived uninjured against Blue Rose and multiple engagements against Black Justice elites, as well as her reputation for unbridled joyful and fearless brutality in battle, made her a popular figure within the remnants of the city. People lined the streets to cheer her on as she made her way to the gate.
'Heh, so this is what it feels like to be people's hero? Not bad. No wonder people do it.' She thought to herself as she waved and smiled to the people who raised their weapons in cheers and salutes. The gate opened slowly, and out she stepped. Her eyes narrowed as she readied herself for a fight. She removed the small round shield from her side as she got within the customary distance.
"Where is Suchala? Unless the world has changed in the last few hours, you're not an old man." Neia said teasingly.
Yuri shrugged as if she hadn't a care in the world. She stroked her shining blonde hair and twirled a lock around one finger, her voice took on a sing song quality and she turned her dancing brown eyes on the party in front of her. "Dead, coward killed himself, I'm not a coward, but... under the circumstances, I suppose you'll need a substitute." She folded her arms in front of her small breasts and rhythmically tapped her fingers on opposing biceps and tapped her foot impatiently.
"It's unfortunate really, I'm sure you'd wanted to get your hands on him in person but..." She giggled and a monstrous smile split her face, "I guess he won that one. Sort of!" She cackled at the lot of them as they looked on at the rather short woman who had terrorized so much of the north for so long.
"I volunteer." Gagaran said happily. "I want to squash this bug." Her voice was gruff and hungry, and Yuri looked at her in surprise.
"I remember you. You're that big ox from our little meeting, the one that improved Calca's pretty face!" She smiled at the behemoth of a woman, "You're the one who couldn't beat a nail into wood with her hammer."
Gagaran's face turned red. "We'll see about that you bitch!" She snapped out sharply.
"Fine, fine!" Yuri laughed, "I've got to admit, I wonder what killing you will do to the rest of your friends here. I can't wait to find out."
"Some things you have to live with never knowing." Lakyus said in a tranquil tone and looked over at her enormous companion. "Go, show her the thorns of the rose."
"You got it boss." Gagaran said enthusiastically. The walls were packed with spectators waiting with bated breath for their salvation.
Gagaran took out her hammer as her comrades stepped out of reach of the fight, and Neia shouted a loud 'begin!' when the two combatants looked at her to acknowledge their readiness.
First they began to circle one another, watching for the way they moved. Yuri took note of the cross legged motion of Gagaran, one leg crossing over the other to propel the next step, different from her own crab like motion of one leg coming close to the other and then pushing off.
Her sword was out and shield at the ready as they activated their martial arts. Yuri darted in first, her sword flashing in a rapid thrust, Gagaran's motion made it easy for her to step aside, her hammer came up and then came down at Yuri's body, but the woman was already past her, spinning, and leaping in again. The hammer hit the ground and an explosion of dirt clods filled the air.
For a moment Yuri believed she had the lummox, only to be shocked by the way Gagaran spun and kicked her in the side, sending her rolling along the ground.
She got up, much to Gagaran's surprise. "That felt...great." Yuri grinned, and moved in again, the two began to swing their weapons wildly at one another, or rather, wildly from an amateur perspective. The veterans of many battles could see that in fact they were attempting precise strikes, Yuri's sword darting for chinks in the armor and attempting to force Gagaran on the defensive, while Gagaran's heavy weapon forced Yuri to dodge and dip and move in acrobatic ways that also were intended to offer opportunities of their own.
"She's a sword dancer... a good one." Skana said with surprise.
"And a masochist, apparently. Never seen a human take a kick from Gagaran and smile about it." Lakyus said calmly.
"If she thinks she'll wear Gagaran down, she doesn't know Gagaran." Evileye said confidently.
"No." Tia said in a banal voice.
"She doesn't." Tina agreed.
Gagaran's hammer was hitting air more than anything else, but Yuri seemed willing to take the kicks and punches and happily smiled through them all. However, it was clear she was more than a little unhinged as the fight unfolded, though her sword and shield work continued to batter against the behemoth, it was like chopping at a castle wall with a hand ax.
Gagaran had a bloody nose, bloody ears, bloody cheeks, and a grin on her face. Holes were appearing everywhere as with every overhand strike, dirt clods were flung around. Yuri used these more than once, flinging one into Gagaran's face as a distraction before launching a strike to a chink in the armor. Sometimes it worked, most times it didn't.
'Okay, this is starting to hurt, and not in the fun way.' Yuri thought, and she saw her opportunity. The hammer came around in a wide arc across Gagaran's body, so she ducked to avoid it, spun in, used her momentum to get her hand behind the crook in the behemoth of Blue Rose's knee, and shot up to her feet, forcing Gagaran to fall backwards onto the ground with a crash that could be heard all the way to the city walls. They cheered when the giantess went down and Yuri jumped on her to thrust her sword through Gagaran's eye to finish the woman off.
Only to freeze in a moment of shock when her sword stopped in mid thrust, once she saw through the dust, she recognized that the reason for the sudden stop was that Gagaran had grabbed the blade with her hand.
Her deadly narrow eyes had only one instant to understand this when Gagaran said, "Hop around now, you annoying bouncy bitch!" She then swung her hammer up from the ground and smashed it straight into Yuri's torso, sending her flying over the ground. Gagaran used the momentum of her own swing to rise, rush to the fallen woman, roll her onto her back, and while she was stunned, punch her in the head until Yuri went limp.
She stood, dusted herself off, flipped Yuri over, picked her up by the back of the neck, and held her unconscious body up to display to the watching army. They wailed in horror and despair as their champion was utterly defeated.
"Well done, Gagaran." Lakyus said proudly, and the behemoth grinned at the praise.
"Agreed, fantastic fight." Neia said enthusiastically.
Gagaran nodded at Neia in turn and grunted her agreement.
"Go ahead and take her, we'll bring her back to camp, she's going to the Sorcerer King. That's both of them now, so we've only got one more tiny thing to do." Neia said enthusiastically.
Gagaran threw the defeated Yuri over one shoulder and headed back to her horse.
As they were riding back, Lakyus asked, "That one more tiny thing to do, is it what I think it is?"
"Yes." Neia said coldly.
"Oh." Lakyus replied. "They're your countrymen. Are you sure...?"
"Not anymore they're not. Come on, I've got work to do." She said, and they rode in silence back to their camp. Behind them they could hear the city preparing for the inevitable attack.
Neia was laughing as she listened to all the different orders being shouted behind her, she couldn't be sure of what they were saying as she left, but it sounded like chaos.
When they returned to camp, she went and checked the long trench and called the Sons of Iontariil to formation. She looked over the enormous piles of bags of earth that had been assembled, thousands of them, far more than were needed. "Marvelous." Neia said happily. "Alright, dam that river to hell!" She shouted, and Skana rolled her eyes at the terrible joke as Neia pointed from the bags to the place in the river to deposit them so that the river course would be diverted through the long wide channel they'd prepared.
Skana paled as she suddenly saw what was happening, it was even worse than the destruction she thought her wife had planned. The bags at first seemed to do nothing, but as the numbers began to rise higher and they began to pile up, a trickle over the top of the last few inches of the long trench became a stream, and the stream became the new path of the river.
The Vice Commander was so surprised by this action and fascinated by the literal reshaping of nature as a weapon of war, an unprecedented act, that she almost missed Neia riding away alone to follow the course of it. "Neia, wait!" Skana shouted and she jumped back on her horse to chase after her wife. Neia hesitated as Skana caught up, and still longer when CZ rode up, having been briefly distracted by the sight herself.
"Where are you going?" Skana asked anxiously as she brought her mount up next to her wife's.
"I gave the order, I can bear to see the result." Neia said numbly.
"Then I'll go too. Where you go, I go, we do not ride alone." Skana said boldly, bringing a faint cracking smile to her face.
"Never alone." CZ said in her usual monotone, and she put a sticker on Neia's cheek.
Neia bit her lip and gave a hesitant nod as they followed the new river course.
The city of Yanana had been built around this feature more than any other, boats would routinely travel to the great lake at Wenmark and pass by numerous towns and villages that sprung up to take advantage of the river traffic. However one thing it had not been built with was the idea that its walls had to be proofed against it. The people atop the walls were prepared for a siege, they were prepared for a flood of steel and war cries, they were prepared for magic or whatever horrors of war that they had ever seen, even in their fear, they were prepared to fight.
But when they saw the river stop flowing, their first thought was confusion, they could after all, still hear it, their second thought was horror, because that thought was prompted by understanding born of sight. The river crashing full tilt along the lay of the low land and heading toward their walls with more force than any siege weapon.
Belgis was a proud man, Yanana was his city, his wife had fled the place with their son and daughter, but he felt it his duty to defend it from the heretics. Sending them packing was the right call, he was smugly sure of that. So he'd volunteered for duty at the wall. "Let them come, I'll give them steel!" he'd boasted over and over again between drinks with his friends. That was why he was on the wall and among the first to see the wall of water approaching his position. "Noooo!" He shouted in understanding as the water smashed against the stone, it cracked, he tried to run for the tower, but was slow in his heavy armor, the water was faster in its work than he was in his effort to save himself. The stone gave way with him on top of it, he fell screaming into the water and sank straight to the bottom, his last thought was wondering whether he would drown or be battered to death by debris. He never found out which it was that killed him.
The wall of water followed the course of the city streets, the pressure destroyed buildings with people inside them, it picked up carts and carried them, people desperately clung to any debris, but most of the time all that did was ensure that they were battered to death by other objects, walls, or drowned by someone else clinging desperately to them to stay afloat.
Those in armor had no prayer, though that did not stop them from trying as they cried out to the six gods to save them, and were answered with silence, like the soldiers of the Holy Kingdom before them who prayed for salvation from the demihumans and Jaldabaoth, and got only silence in return.
Those who drowned quickly were lucky, those who drowned more slowly were less lucky, those who were battered to death were among the most unlucky. Some were swept into the former river channel that had cut into the city and so were carried downstream, but the locked gates and the many buildings eased the pressure of the flow enough to slowly fill the city like a bucket, and debris swept into the river gradually created an additional dam that at least temporarily would ensure that the water would continue to pile up.
The trio of women could hear the screams from where they sat by the tide, and though Skana tried her best not to flinch, she could scarcely help herself, but Neia never did, she never looked away, and she did not make a sound, not until there were no screams left to hear. "That is the wrath of god's scourge." She whispered.
Only then did she wheel her horse around and start to head back. "OK, we can stop now." Was all she said, though she displayed no urgency on the return to camp. Skana could not think of anything to say, not the entire ride back.
Neia passively ordered the Sons of Iontariil to cut open the bags of earth and allow the river to flow naturally again, but as she did so she added a caveat. "When you send soldiers into the river bed to cut those bags, ensure you tie the soldiers securely to ropes and have those ropes secured to fixed positions, deeply buried poles ideally, so that they will not be pulled away and drowned by the rushing waters, I will lose no soldiers that I do not have to."
They saluted proudly and carried out her orders, and though ten of them were swept up by the rushing waters, they were each pulled by their comrades to safety as a result of the precaution.
It was by then, early evening, and Neia was sitting silently, barely eating a bowl of stew. Skana didn't say anything, Lakyus didn't say anything, Gagaran only approached to inform them of the delivery of Yuri to Nazarick, and then went off on her own.
They all went to sleep silently that night, Neia did not try to reach for her wife, and Skana turned away as she slept with her thoughts in turmoil. "A battle is one thing... this was... I never imagined... I don't even know what to call it.' She thought with dismay.
Neia woke up first in the morning as she usually did, dressed and ate without a word, and waited for Skana to be up in her own time to join her. She felt only numbness, hollowness, emptiness inside. "This war will end, once, and for all, one way or the other, no matter what it takes." She said quietly as she watched the sun slowly rise. She did not watch for long before Skana joined her.
"What next?" Skana asked abruptly.
"Now we finish this, the water should be drained by now." Neia explained, and as soon as the army was formed up and camp was broken, she ordered the march to begin. It was not a long one, the army drew an enormous collective gasp at the sheer scale of the destruction. Few bricks stood atop one another, everything was overturned or completely shattered, gates had given way and been torn from their positions and ended up far from where they'd been as if thrown away by an angry child. Bodies lay everywhere.
Skana swallowed hard and could not turn her eye away again. Neia looked over her shoulder at the officers behind her. "Priority one, search for survivors, anyone who lived, take them prisoner, treat them, but do not hurt them. Second, start dismantling everything, break brick away from brick, smash them to pieces so that they are pebbles, throw those and the bodies into the river, everything goes in there, let it be swept to the Great Lake of Wenmark. Leave not one stone on another to show that anything was ever here, uproot the roads, destroy any remnant of the Court of Justice. No trace survives. Questions?"
There were none. With the army descended on the dead zone, work was extremely fast, twelve people were found alive amongst the rubble, and as the army worked, and after they were treated and fully healed, they were brought before Neia Baraja. They were forced to their knees as she sat atop her undead mount, looking down at them. "Raise your heads. You will live." She said calmly.
One by one they raised their heads, and to her surprise, she recognized one of them. "Do you remember me?" Neia asked in the quiet voice of death. "I hope so, because you were one of those who sentenced me to be whipped for challenging your priests."
"P-Please... I... I..." He wet himself as he tried to talk, the smell of ammonia was thick in the air as he had obviously had... lots of water to drink. His chubby body had evidently helped him float, or so she guessed.
Neia raised her hand, "No need. I promised life to those who survived. I will release you, all of you. But when you go south, tell them what happened here. Black Justice does not forget, and injustice will be avenged. You harbored the burners, you harbored the persecutors, you cast my own people out naked to die of cold because you feared your own neighbors. Tell the south when you travel there, what happens when you wrong the north, and we come for you."
She looked over the remainder, and a dark grin formed on her face. "Inquisitor, you are a lucky one, do you know that?"
"The six preserved me!" He said proudly, even defiantly as he looked up at her.
Neia's grim visage gave him cause to hesitate as he sensed she had something to say about that. He was right.
"Perhaps they did." She said in a voice that was almost kind. "But I will tell you what they did not, I will tell you 'why' you have been spared my wrath this day."
His eyes went wide as Neia held her arms open as if to embrace him, a black aura seemed to surround her that made her seem like some sort of dark angel in his eyes, "You were spared for purpose, inquisitor. You will be sent east, specifically, you will be sent to the Slane Theocracy, you will travel to its cities, its towns, its villages, and you will tell them my words."
He swallowed, or tried to, it caught in his throat, he looked up at her with awe, "What words will I give to them?" He asked as her evangelist voice pounded into his terrified heart.
"Tell them that General Neia Baraja is coming for them. Any breaker I capture will be broken. Every hand holding a whip, I will cut off. For every mutilated ear on an elven slave, I will remove the ears of slave masters. Any city, town, or village that holds out against me for one hour after my arrival, will suffer the fate of Wenmark and Yanana, it will cease to be. I am the child of the unliving, the Black Paladin, the scourge of god, and I will punish you who have sinned against him if you do not yield. Your cities will be fire, your fields will be salt, your hopes will be ashes and your lives, like your pride, will be crushed under my undead horses. Yet those who yield, will be spared, save for those who are unjust, then only they who are the worst, will feel my wrath. Do you understand?" She asked him in a horrifically angelic voice.
"I... I do." He whispered, regretting that his gods answered his prayer.
"Good. This once I will spare you to perform this duty, but should I catch you in inquisitors robes again, it will go worse for you." She said with her angelic smile still on her face, when the gate opened, he could scarcely believe what he saw, and had to be thrown through it, finding to his shock that he was in front of a sign reading 'Welcome to Wheaton'.
When this was complete, Neia ordered food and water provided to the few survivors, and allowed them to go on their way.
It took two full days of work in rotating shifts, but brick by brick her will was done, the remnants of the Court of Justice, the pride of Yanana, was erased entirely, right down to the pillars that had held her to await the beating they had ordered, right down to the last stick of wooden furniture where she'd sat when meeting Sudaj. Nothing was left.
Yanana, was dead. Only then, after the army was formed up again, did Neia send a message to the Sorcerer King. "My Lord, if it is your will, the West is finished, your servant is ready to march upon the Slane Theocracy. If you will send us a gate, we will send you victory."
*This shows the meeting through Skana's observations and reflections, for the more overarching view, see 'Blood in the Streets' Chapter 21.