Chapter 16, Wolf Consolidation

Tanya Russ

Out of all the roads, I thought I might take in life becoming King of the Russ was not expected. Not unwelcome, however.

My quote adopted unquote "father" had died 10 years ago, a peaceful death in his bed. His age had finally caught up with him while I had been away on an adventure that left me with a new scar. The local lords allied to the King of the Russ had recognized me as the new king. Not queen, thankfully. It would seem that king was gender-neutral for 'ruler of the people' which made my life slightly easier as I didn't have to think about the implications of being the Queen of the Russ. But it had made my life somewhat more complex as, ever since that day, the number of local lords asking to be my consort rose. In fact, there had been one very enterprising gentleman who tried to woo me at my father's funeral.

Internally I had been laughing my ass off but externally I simply said I was not interested in such situations as the time was inappropriate, very politely. After all, I still had to light the damn timbers to set the former King's body on fire.

After a proper period of mourning for the fallen king, some of those lords had become a little bit pushier on the subject. So I had come up with the standard response that all of my people were my family and I would not play favorites. It actually seemed to slow the incoming proposals. I would still get one at least twice a year from young gentlemen thinking they could come in, make me swoon, and rally me to their cause, but I frankly was just not interested in a long-term relationship with a gentleman. A short-term relationship with a shield maiden… Well, it was good to be the king. That's all I would say on that matter.

Anyways over the first four years of my rule of Russ, I had to deal with the politics of the dead king. Which meant reassuring our allies and fixing up the political system. Thankfully the allies on our coast of the great continent were pretty much already cemented to us by my rise to power. For all matters really they were already essentially vassals of the Kingdom of Russ who simply hadn't signed on to the contract yet. Seeing things from that point of view I went to work, making the idea of joining the Kingdom of Russ more palatable to our allies on this side of the continent.

The first step in it was military reforms. I expanded the Housecarls into the formal branch of the military and made sure every Housecarl could ride a steed, giving them more mobility to rapidly deploy against problems within the kingdom. Over the course of the next winter, the amount of attacks on the Kingdom of Russ dropped to an all-time low. I don't think there was a safer kingdom on this planet. Oh, sure attacks happened but the more mobile Housecarl force was able to redeploy to meet these threats quicker, using the old forts I had turned into watchtowers as official barracks and building up the old stonework until they were basically miniature castles.

I, of course, didn't touch the local lord's forces. If I did that it would feel like a power grab, I assumed, and that could be a problem for… well, for my existence. Rather I did everything I could to make the lords feel like they didn't need as many forces as they had before, which allowed them to use any excess money that they would previously have spent on their troops to build up local infrastructure. Said infrastructure was then was taxed up the line to me, which I would use to fund the larger military that was now protecting the Kingdom of Russ.

It had the exact effect I wanted. Over half the neighboring lords saw the improvement and asked to swear fealty to me at the end of that winter. I took it with some joy that I was bringing in more territory, allowing me to continue to help improve the situation of the people. A happy populace was a good way to increase productivity.

The only other military reform I engaged in was the creation of a personal bodyguard unit of shield maidens, to make sure I was secure from assassination attempts. I doubted that anyone would try but I would rather have a few eyes watching my back rather than none at all.

The next thing I did to maintain my control was to establish a parliament. Sort of. You couldn't push feudal kingdoms to do democratic things in a single reform, unfortunately, attempts to do that usually ended in violent failure. What you could do was create a council of the lords to give the local nobilitya say in the government and how the system was run. Showing that you respected your staff's opinions was a good way to build a rapport, having semi-monthly meetings was also a good way to keep an eye on what your staff thought of you. Thankfully the lords that were under me seemed to have good things to say and were not interested in rebelling from what I had seen. There were squabbles, old clan rivalries that would pop up during these meetings, but I mediated them as best I could.

The biggest issue that arose was the areas that were getting double taxed, villages on the territorial edges of two Lords that were claimed by both and had to supply resources for both. This was not a good situation as it made sure that those villages were always going to be poorer than the ones closer to the Lord's capitals. In a few places, I could negotiate the situation away, trading two or three villages to create a solid border. This clarified what was theirs and what was owned by the clan next door to everyone and the situation would be handled. Though there was at least one small village that was on the border of three lords' territories and was getting triple taxed.

Attempting to negotiate that had been a literal nightmare so I declared the village a free city. It would elect its own mayor and would be the trading hub for these three lords, paying taxes directly to the crown. No one had been happy with that but it was the simplest solution to the problem and, in this one case, I had the military backbone to make it stick. That one village had been near one of my Housecarl fortresses and had already been trading heavily with the forces garrisoned there, giving them food supplies for protection.

Though, to show that It was not some money-grubbing thing, I had specifically lowered the taxes on that City to encourage trading between those three Lords. I had highhopes that they would eventually even out.

This effort to try and create a more stable government created a niche situation in which the rest of the lords were willing to sign on to my rule, ending with me having control of the coast that Russ had traditionally inhabited. Eventually several of the sea tribes also signed on, as long as I was willing to help fund the creation of coastal cities like the one I had created for the invaders years before.

This turned out to be a great situation for everyone in my mind. As the population of sea travelers grew, the industry along the coast grew as well. Oh sure 2 months out of 24 those coastal cities could not be inhabited properly due to the boiling water and the unstable weather conditions that the Time of Fire brought and for 6 months the ice was so bad that those ports froze over but the times in between those periods became a time of great economic transfer and growth. Spring became less a time of war and more a festival to celebrate trade and with all the experienced sea tribes, at least the ones that traveled on our side of the coast, now held at making a summer home in our ports, I was able to push for the creation of a fleet. Frankly, the boats the sea peoples used were not sturdy enough to deal with the creatures they fought, so I did the best I could in trying to remember anything about my first life that I knew about shipbuilding industries.

It was practically nothing but creating shipyards, allowed for larger ships to be built on the coast and slid into the water below, which did seem to work. I had explained the concept of dry docks as best I could, though how we were going to use that I was still not sure of. There weren't a lot of machines on the planet and likewise for power-creating devices. Even with a rudimentary understanding of steam engines because of their prevalence in history, there was not much I could do to push forward our industrial revolution.

The best I could do was create systems to try and help the occurance of an industrial revolution. AKA proper schooling. I knew I couldn't just create a school system from nothing as a lot of people would find some elements of it rather useless if I were just to try and create a copy of the Japanese school system.

Instead, I gathered to me the wise men of the region, the so-called priests. I had expected only the Rune Priests and Wolf Priests to show up, since they had been the most prominent groups I'd run into. That's when I found there was something called the Iron Priests as well, as they too had shown up to this gathering. Where the Rune Priests dealt with the magic of this world and the Wolf Priests with the spiritual element, the Iron Priest dealt with iron. On the nose, I know. They were, from what I could tell, just an order of priests that were blacksmiths who knew all the secrets of creating long-lasting metals that would not rust easily in the weather conditions of Fenris. Useful for this meeting as they were probably the most tech-literate group of the three.

These three were the only priestly orders to attend the gatherings, although, there may have been others of minor orders who simply didn't wish to announce themselves for reasons their own; which in all honestly I was quite fine with as a separation of church and state was a good standard to adhere to. That said, I was very pleased to find skills amongst the three that were very useful for my plans and so I went on to propose how best to use them.

I explained the need for a standard, for reading and writing as well as for developing basic math skills, with the intention of applying it to the next generation. I assured them that the last few years of peace had filled the coffers of Russ and we not only had the capital to establish a system of education within the kingdom for such basic skills but also enough to fund one major academy dedicated to each of their orders... provided of course, that the were willing to work with me on this.

I knew they would probably use these schools I was going to create as sources of new talents but I assumed that at most the combined percentage those three orders would take would only be 30%. This would still lead to a slightly higher education of the non-priestly population.

The three heads of the orders spoke to each other for a bit before coming before my throne and saying they could do what I requested, which was good because I had no real backup plan if they had said no.

Thankfully that would not be a problem and I was able to start funding small schools in the large towns and villages, creating a school system that would at least give the kids basic reading comprehension . We standardized the runes from the get-go.

In exchange, as was agreed, I built for the Order of the Rune Priests an academy devoted to their school of magic. This, I hoped, would benefit me just as it did them as having a dedicated location away from the general population would allow them to explore their craft in a safe and controlled environment, which seemed very reasonable in the long term. The assumption being, that any advancements made would eventually be shared with me for my own needs.

Likewise, the Wolf Priests would also gain an academy aimed at training the next generation of their order of militarized monks. Frankly, with the Housecarls, I didn't think they were needed but perhaps they would surprise me, innovating new and useful techniques I otherwise would never have conceived of. Should that happen, I would be sure to implement any such advancements into the Housecarls and the shield maidens.

And finally, the Iron Priests were gifted their own which featured a complex forge, aimed to aid in their studies of metallurgy and smithing to produce more materials of increased quality for the Housecarls. I also slipped into their repository of knowledge information on a powdery substance capable of violent reactions made from charcoal, sulfur, and other elements. Basically, I was outsourcing the creation of black powder in hopes that something would come of it because that would be a very useful tool in fighting the monsters of this world.

It was a net benefit for my position, at least this would increase the civilization level of the world and give the people what they wanted. A lot of my initiatives were based around thatand what I saw could help improve the planet. In time,these initiatives began to blend together as if it was a game of civilization, except instead of some all-knowing God playing behind a computer screen it was just me living here with these people, listening to their complaints and trying to find ways that I would not have to keep doing so by fixing their issues.

Of course, this did not stop beings, the ever-present monsters from the mountains and megafauna, from causing mayhem once in a while but the peace between humanity and the wolves remained. Civilization was progressing and I just had to let the Council of Lords argue about situations. In most cases, I just made my decisions based on which of the lords seemed the most reasonable.

After 10 years of this peace, I'd say people were on their way to a stronger economic future than they've been since their entire civilization started and any threats to my rule seem to have either been defused by my behavior or went stillborn as I grew in power.

Though I did notice one extremely strange thing. For the first 10 years of my life, I had stood around 7 ft, maybe 5 ft for the first few months if my estimates had not been wrong and I had just not noticed the growth. Now, I was standing at about eight feet tall and as far as I could tell, securing my control of Russ to my satisfaction seemed to be the catalyst for the growth spurt. That was not normal, growing because you've taken control of something was not how biological creatures work. At least to my understanding. There could be some one-off animals in the world that did have that ability and I was not a biologist, I was a human resource manager.

Up to that point I had been operating on the idea that my biology was just improved through methods that were although unknown to me, were at least scientific in nature. Perhaps this method was in play in some way but the idea that growth was linked to control over the people around you or the pride you took in it... That sounded more like magic and I had no idea what that meant. Was I a half spiritual creature of some kind? Was that why it was semi-easy to grasp the magics in this world even though they ran off slightly different logic? I didn't know and unless I found the person who had created the body I now had… I probably never would.

I haven't given that much thought in the years since my arrival on this planet. Survival came first, then came the wolves, and the Russ after that. But the fact of the matter was once you've become the King of the Russ and unified half the continent as well as a good portion of the sea tribes under your rule you had a lot of extra time to think. Doing just that as I thought upon

my arrival I was now of the firm opinion that I was not from this planet. The technological disparity between the device I had woken up in and everything I'd seen on this planet were too extreme. And the merging of technology and magic opened a lot of possibilities.

Sure teleportation spells had not been a thing in the magic system I vaguely remembered from the shadowy second life I'd led but then again we didn't have super-computers under our control. Perhaps I was part of an operation to unify a fallen human empire, one of many beings with immense ability sent out to help progress those far distant worlds of humanity back to space.

Of course, this was just a theory and, well… I was not a fan of it. The only reason you would send out send a bunch of super teenagers amongst the stars was if you planned to one day reconnect with them. And if you planned to reconnect with them that meant you planned to reintegrate the worlds.

Which could mean I had programming deep within my mind that would compel me to conquer the planet for its prospective new owner, and who knew what else. It was a terrifying thought, to question if your own actions were motivated by yourself or an unknown alien entity that held sway of the thoughts inside your skull. Even more terrifying was the thought that if the programming was activated… Would I still have control or would I end up trapped in my own skull when they arrived? The idea of beating on a metaphysical screen as I watched my body be a Yes Man to whatever entity had designs on Fenris… I didn't know how to solve that, so I decided to not worry about it. Oh sure I looked into my memories and tried to find magics that might bolster my mental strength in case I ran into such a situation, but I had no control over my future. I had control of the 'now' and it as of now and things were running fine.

So I let myself indulge. In my last life, I was of the firm belief that you needed to fit into society to get the best results. Well, I quickly figured out that drinking was a perfectly standard cultural practice for kings as well as holding large parties for your people and your lords. Flirting and more with the shield maidens… Hell some of the lords, I swear, had full-on harems of shield maidens. It made some sense, considering a lot of men went out there and died fighting to secure the frontier there would most likely be a slightly larger female population.

But anyway! These were all perfectly acceptable standard practices so I made it a thing to indulge a bit, nothing too drastic. I would not let myself get sideswiped by being too drunk, which I found was controllable. There seemed to be settings in my liver where I could be toasting people and let myself get drunk, and then when I needed to be completely in control it would filter out everything. I would give whoever designed my body that, they were very good at their jobs. For that, I had to thank them if I ever got the chance. But back on the matter of everything that a good king should do to keep up appearances, such as the flirting and the drinking and the partying, I engaged into some degree and quite enjoyed.

It was a happy time. And I was really frankly annoyed when on the day of my 20th year on this planet someone decided to screw my peaceful life up.

Tanya Russ

I rubbed my hands together to warm them as I looked over the sea. I was still not a fan of sea travel but conditions had created such a situation that I was forced to travel by ship. We were close to summer and the Ice Worms would be active in the mountains so trying to move an army through that would be absolute insanity. They would pick us off one by one. It didn't matter that weapons had progressed quite a bit and tactics for fighting such creatures existed, access to the sea made traveling on it much safer at this point.

The ship designs were still aesthetically Nordic, though much larger and for most cases, it just seemed like they had scaled the vessel up from their original designs. The one I was standing on had two decks instead of one and felt a lot more like a trireme than the Nordic vessels I'd seen in books in my first life.

As for how many there was about 40 vessels, all carrying anywhere from 100 to 200 men. The biggest vessel in the fleet was actually carrying around 300 so it very much depended on how large the vessel was. And that didn't count the wolves as they were considered gear for the purposes of logistics on this operation, same as horses.

I had mobilized the army. Calling them my Housecarls was almost a joke at this point since the organization that had been my Housecarls was such an expansive force that you couldn't exactly call them the elite guard anymore.

Why had I called forth this massive host? Well, my ally, who had had 20 years to settle all the conflicts on the other side of the coast, was dead. Apparently, he had been out hunting with his son when a mega-elk had attacked him and he died valiantly saving the boy. And every single lord underneath him had declared independence and were now laying siege to his lands, trying to claim them. It would seem he had never gotten around to building up the rapport I had with the lords of my area, an unfortunate thing but something I would deal with soon enough.

Now, because it was so close to summer, sending a trader with the information about the fall of the House of Bretakollrsson should have most likely failed. But by some miracle, it did not. To be more exact the trader had told me that an old man with a pair of ravens on his shoulder had appeared before him and guided him through the mountains before disappearing once he had firmly found safety.

I had had to deal with 'the Allfather works in mysterious ways' from several people trying to imply that I was being called to duty by the unknown entity of this world. This one felt significantly more legitimate.

Why he had done this I didn't know, perhaps there was some code in his head that allowed him to greenlight helping this man to bring his information to me. Perhaps he was not the Allfather and just some crazy wacko who lived in the mountains. All I knew was I had been called to save Bretakollrsson 's lands as part of the treaty that had been set up 20 years before.

And I had no way to get there but to go by sea. So, being a reasonable person, I had called for the army. Meanwhile, I negotiated with the sea peoples for travel along the coastline to the other coast, past the mountains and glaciers that separated the one continent on the planet creating the two different worlds that the people of Fenris lived in for much of the great year. I don't know what the young king of Bretakollrsson was expecting but I was going to show that the kingdom of Russ was a worthy ally, one to keep. With any luck the overwhelming forces I was bringing would allow me to negotiate a ceasefire. If it didn't I would have to fight on this coast again. I already had memories of the last time I'd been on this side and they seemed a lot sharper than I would have assumed. I was conducting more strategy meetings with my officer core, the creation of which I had pushed for over the last 5 years. Nobles still led for the most part but I was pushing for the them to take counsel from their non-commissioned officers and treat their decades of experience as something to pay attention to. So far I think it worked out but I'll see if it actually did when things went badly. I needed to know if they could actually fight. This time I had also gone out of my way to make sure that the army was equipped with crossbows, I was not going to let them have the advantage in this fight.

With any luck, this would be swift and I could be on my way back home before summer really went into high gear, preventing sea travel.

As if something was trying to rain on that parade one of my warriors came up next to me, a member of the officer core I'd been training. He said. "My king a Sea Tribe vessel has arrived from the port of Ira under Bretakollrsson 's control, they bring word on what we are about to sail into."

I nodded my head, I had hoped we'd get briefings like this. I even paid for a few of the Sea Tribes to arrange trips ahead of our main army to get information but I had no idea if it would work out. Thankfully it seemed everything was working out perfectly fine. "What does the captain of this Sea People's vessel have to say?"

"The enemy coast is in full revolt. Bretakollrsson forces are barely holding on to their castle and the town of Ira which we are sailing to. If the rebel forces weren't fighting each other though, he doubts that the young king would even hold that. And the situation has only degraded further since their first call for aid as several Sea Tribes have been hired as mercenaries by the local lord. Besides being used as a military force their boats are transporting Glacier Nomads as mercenaries to the continent."

Ah, the Glacier Nomads, a people I had had little contact with over the years. Like the Sea People they did not live on the main continents, unlike the Sea Peoples they did not raid the coast. The Glacier Nomads lived on the central glaciers during winter, in spring and fall they migrated nearer to the main continent. During summer they used the connections between the glaciers and the mountainous regions to build camps in the coastal mountains. They did sometimes attempt to raid down from the mountains into the lowlands but for the most part they kept to themselves and, after they had been defeated enough, they had stopped doing that entirely.

I didn't know much about the Glacier Nomads but they lived a very hard life and probably trained against some of the worst creatures on this planet since they were more likely to enter the mountains than the lowlander Fenrisians. Thankfully if they were all fighting each other in some sort of grand game of Battle Royale that gave us quite an advantage. A centralized force would have been harder to deal with since they would be more likely to work together to try and stop our landing in the town of Ira. Without that it looked like the way to that landing was clear.

"Well, perhaps we can intercept these boats and put them out commission till the end of the conflict. I would hate to have a constant flow of troops to interfere with the situation," I said, thinking about the logistical nature of bringing in troops from floating islands of ice. It must have been rather complex to organize that.

"The captains of the fleet are thinking the same, though the captain of the vessel that just arrived from Ira also informs us that they barely got out of the town. It is now being blockaded by the majority of the fleet of ships being paid for by the enemy lords, they've apparently all agreed to work together. In a naval capacity at least."

"Now why would they do that?" I said, a bit confused by the idea that the enemy lords were fighting each other to death on land but were letting their fleets work together.

"I was curious too, my king. According to the captain, he believes that the Sea People vessels have worked this out on their own. They're mercenaries on land but at sea, they have no reason to fight each other so they're working together for the blockade."

"Well, isn't that troubling," I muttered, looking off in the distance and wondering how long it would be till we hit our destination. "Do the captains of our fleet believe we will have issues with the enemy fleet and should divert our landing to somewhere else?"

The old NCO shook his head and answered "No, my king. The captains believe that this Grand Fleet you've created will break through any blockade and run over their fleet if they try and stop you."

In my head, most of our ships were of the new larger design so that would make sense. Put them at the front and just break on, though perhaps there was a possibility that the enemy fleet would have some tricks up its sleeves. The fact of the matter was that once I got there we would have to break out of the city and trying to break out of a besieged city was a lot harder than holding a besieged city.

It's not like I could just avoid the town either. Whatever force was besieging the city was between me and the rightful king of this coast and in order to make sure that negotiations went successfully I would need to make sure that the boy king was protected and break that siege.

Negotiations could not begin without those two objectives undertaken, as any attempt to start the negotiations before then would be seen as foolish. Sure I probably had a reputation with the local lords if any of them were around 20 years ago when I first crossed this Coast but that was 20 years ago. They had 20 years to prepare for a conflict, 20 years of peace, for all I knew. I hadn't heard of any conflicts up since Bretakollrsson took control of this castle, even with that one lord who had remained independent after the conflict.

So there was a good chance I was dealing with a fresh army that had either moved past the loss they took 20 years ago or remembered it well and had been training to deal with it again. Either one could be a problem. Rubbing my chin and looking at the snowy air as the waves crashed on the vessel I came to the realization that there would need to be a landing outside the city, preferably somewhere far enough away that the sieging forces wouldn't notice but close enough that we could take them apart after the blockade was destroyed. That would require a lot of coordination. Coordination my army had. Smiling I petted The raven on my shoulder, thankful that I had finally got around to integrating them into the army in a way similar to pigeons during world war I.

There were specially trained people, mostly wolf, and rune priests, that came come along on this little expedition who had their own ravens. I had talked to them and I had proposed on the starting days of this trip to use their ravens in such a way that messages could be transported between forces. Thankfully the priests were more than willing to let the ravens be used in such a way once I'd shown them the canisters I'd had the iron priest make a few years before, specially created to strap to the side of ravens' legs. On the condition that I let them keep the devices after we returned back to the other coast, which I was more than willing to do. no doubt they would use it to pass their own messages between orders without having to use the attempts at a postal service I had begun to implement a few years before, but that was fine. Exchanges of knowledge between the Priestly orders and their convents would probably need to be kept secret anyways and to give this freely would remind them that loyalty was rewarded.

Nodding my head I turned to the NCO and said "Alert the command staff that I wish to have a meeting to discuss strategy within 24 hours. I believe the captain of the fleet said there would be an ice flow blocking our routes within 12 hours so we will make that the time when the command staff is transported to my ship."

The NCO nodded his head and said "It will be done, my king!"

King Kori Bretakollrsson

So this is how the family line of Bretakollrsson ends, not in some glorious battle but an atrocious siege. My ancestors must be crying at the stupidity of it, to lose our castle for so many decades, only to regain it but be caught outside when it was needed most.

I should have been there. I had been planning to move back the moment my father's body was cast away upon a ship into the unknown in a pyre of flame. But before I had the chance the lords beneath us began rebelling and the castle was put under siege as they had assumed I was in it.

If it weren't for my desire to see my father off on his journey into the afterlife, I would have been there, trapped within its walls waiting for aid to arrive. We hoped it would come, but that was a hope with no certainty. The castle stood well supplied and could hold out for half a year, yet here I am, stuck within the town of Ira. The siege that came upon this place wasn't immediate so the opportunity to sneak out was there, but where was I to go? With my castle under siege, no other defensible position was available to me.

Thankfully my location was still a secret to the rebel lords, otherwise, they would have laid siege directly to this Port Town upon the start of the uprising. This had given the local mayor time to bring in enough supplies to survive for a quarter of a great year under siege. It would get us through summer at the bare minimum. Would that be enough time for the Wolf Witch of the other coast to make it, I didn't know. I didn't know what to think.

I had been alive on this land for 14 winters, and were the Allfather merciful, would have preferred my lord father ruled 14 more if only to have been given the chance to gain a better handle on this life. Instead, the gods saw fit to lay before me a damned mega-elk and through my fathers' sacrifice in my stead, thrust me into a position of power for I was ready.

The entire world seemed to want me dead, that's what it felt like. I had no guarantee that the Wolf Witch would want me around after she showed up, if she showed up. I heard rumors about how she conquered the other coast through quote kindness unquote, using her military force to muscle the other lords into believing joining her would be better than fighting her. No doubt if she did show up it would be after I was dead, just to conquer this coast with the army she had been building for the last 20 years. if she did show up before then I was probably not going to be king by the end of this conflict, just another vassal among all the other vassals.

Shaking my head I got up from my bed, tired from looking up at my ceiling. It was another glorious day in Ira and I would need to do something. At least the mayor let me have the run of the town. I was just a guest in it till either supplies ran low enough that he would consider turning me in or the siege went from a passive effort to an active effort.

I had no doubt that the mayor of the town would throw me to the wolves the moment his life was in danger and I wasn't so sure my guards would give their life for me. Sure they served my father well enough but I was not my father. I was half a man compared to him, mostly figuratively though somewhat literally as I reached for the crutch and pulled myself out of bed.

Damn crippled-leg screwed up my life more than anything else in these last few months. Healer said I would probably never walk right again and if you couldn't walk right… well, you couldn't fight in the line. If you can't stand in the line then your respect amongst your fellow lords falls drastically which was probably one of the reasons they had decided to rebel when they did.

Damn mega elk… Father should have just let the beast kill me and tried for another child. This rebellion would never have happened and I wouldn't be looking at whatever fate the rebel lords decided on as my doom.

Shaking my head I hobbled my way out of my room and onto the balcony of the tower of the town hall. Most buildings were not more than one story tall but this building, thanks to the tower, gave me a good view over the walls and into the sea around us. I spent a lot of time up here, looking at the enemy army and trying to figure out what they were doing. I didn't have much else to do.

Today the enemy army looked like it was having a brunch of sorts. I could almost smell the roasted meats on the wind. Made my mouth water since we hadn't eaten any fresh meat since the siege began, everything was either dried or preserved in some way.

I might get out. There were somewhere between 1500 to 2000 soldiers surrounding the town, more than enough to overrun it if they really wanted to push since the town only had about 400 in garrison. That was not enough to stop the siege, even factoring in 200 of my guards. I did not have a good position for surviving this. Sure we could try and raise a militia from the town folk and maybe reach around 2,000 people. But that would take every woman and child out to fight a professional army. Better just to hold within the walls and use them as militia inside to defend themselves than to take them out to be slaughtered like cattle.

Not a great position to be stuck in but at least the thick walls of the town would keep them out. Turning to look out to sea I saw the enemy fleet guarding the port entrance of the town. Thankfully they had not attempted to do any landings because there was no real way to stop them from entering if they wanted to. We would just have to fight them in the backyard if they wanted to push into the city. But on the plus side, the entrance from the backyards into the main city was rather small, forcing any enemy group to only come in a trickle which gave the advantage to the defensive force. Perhaps they were smart enough to realize that, perhaps it was just laziness. Either way, the port was the biggest hole in the defenses and where most of our men were prepared to defend.

Sighing in discontent I looked past the fleet to the sea beyond wondering… what those strange black masses were in the fog. Whatever thought I had been about to have had gone right out the window as I noticed the large black masses moving swiftly through the fog and heading towards the port.

As I watched the masses approach they broke free of the fog, revealing themselves properly. Ten massive vessels, a good three times the size of the enemy vessels holding the port, pushed their way out of the fog as the many rows of oars propelled them through the water. The front vessel was angular, almost pointy, and at the end of it was a… figurehead, one of a giant wolf's head with many teeth.

As if it had been waiting to break the fog a large thumping of drums began beating in the air. The vessels sped up, heading directly for the enemy fleet that responded slowly and sluggishly, most likely the crews had no idea what was going on. They attempted to come about to face the enemy vessels but they weren't fast enough and eight of the 10 large vessels smashed into the blockade fleet. There was a sickening crunch and splashes as the vessels were either cracked in half by the front of the larger vessels in a ramming action or pushed under the water by the sheer weight of the vessel rolling over it. The initial hit had been shocking to the enemy fleet but there were a lot of smaller vessels left and they attempted to come around and then circle the enemy ships.

I watched as daring crews attempted to scale the sides of the ship, using the oars as climbing holes since their targets were too tall for them to try and simply jump from one boat to the other.

And then I beheld a jet of flame spurt out of the side of one of the larger ships. A continuous jet of flame that seemed to light the smaller ships on fire quickly. In fact, I could swear I saw flames land on the water itself and still burn.

And as I watched more of the large ships seemed to open up with these strange jets of flames, setting the enemy fleet aflame where they could. The enemy ships immediately started to pull away, leaving the daring souls who tried to crawl up the side of the ships to their fate as they desperately tried to row away from the larger vessels. The crews of those that were alight desperately attempted to put the fires out but seemed to have no luck. In the end, most just pointed their vessel towards the shore and tried to make it there as quick as possible.

With a quick attack, the blockade of the port was broken and I was left there stunned for a moment, wondering what the hell had just happened. Looking at the light blue sails of the vessels and the wolf figureheads on the front of the vessels I could guess that the Witch had arrived much faster than I had suspected she would.

I was considering hobbling my way downstairs to get the staff set up to welcome the king from the other coast when I saw a raven leave the ship and head over the corner of the town into the trees along the coast.

Why was there a raven on a ship? That was odd, there were of course seabirds out here but ravens didn't travel by boats to the best of my knowledge. But before I could really delve too deep into that mystery a force of soldiers marched out of the woods where the raven had disappeared, wearing the light blues of the King of Russ too. Hobbling to that edge of the balcony I watched as this force piled out of the woods in disciplined order, as silent as possible. They made their way towards the enemy camp in that manner, attempting to not alert them of their approach.

Making my estimates off the banners and the regular size of what a unit would be I theorized there were maybe a thousand soldiers marching across the open ground, as silent as the mist that hung in the air this early in the morning. Most of them were infantry though I spotted maybe two to three hundred warriors mounted on wolves. One warrior near the front was mounted on one of the larger wolves and was a good head taller than the rest, their wild blonde hair blowing in the wind as they directed their forces towards the enemy formation.

The enemy soldiers seem to have missed this entirely as they were focused on the sea where the drums were still beating. The wolfhead ships were now chasing down the enemy fleet as best they could, drawing as much notice as possible and keeping the enemy preoccupied and looking towards the sea. Right up to the last moment where the wolves of the light blue cavalry bellowed howls into the air.

There was no time for the enemy who had been looking out to sea to really get a chance to move out of the way as the wolves galloped into their unprepared lines, ripping and tearing as their riders slashed and cut.

Infantry hit next, securing the sides of the wolves and pushing deeper into the enemy camp.

I watched in wonder as the sieging force that had threatened my life for the last few weeks melted away, the organized troops descending into full route as they attempted to escape a slightly smaller force that had the advantage of surprise.

Over the course of an afternoon brunch, the army and fleet that had been plaguing me for the last several months had been destroyed and routed. My death that had been a certainty up to a moment ago was now much less so and there was a chance for things to turn around.

However, as I watched the blonde rider dismount from their wolf, I knew that that chance for life depended on me giving up the sovereignty of this Kingdom to the Wolf King. From what I heard of her exploits on the other coast it would not be a quick demand. She would just make efforts to secure control over the kingdom slowly and steadily, a slow annexation so that people didn't rebel against her.

There really was no way out of it, my choices were death or annexation of the kingdom. I guessed I would prefer to take that slow annexation, maybe I could secure a good position within the new government. Shaking my head I used the crutch to turn around on a dime and started moving towards the stairs. It was time to meet the Wolf King and swear fealty and all the words.

Writers note: Okay here chapter that deals with ten more years of a time skip and gives us the tale about how the other side of the main content fell into Tanya's capable hands… besides those points, that sure everyone will debate bit warning, I finished chapter 17, the problem is it may require a bit rewriting because it an important chapter, so no guarantee of the chapter next week.

Editor: Preier
Community edited by: Sound Logic, Ryan Pirtle

Community editable doc (Chapter 16) No story suggestions in the community editing document, Keep all story suggestions and comments in the thread

Supporters: Neso, Markus, Mackenzie Buckle, Silver Wolf, Falk H, Mana Rope, Daniel Martinez, michael, Devilstar101

reviews
Guest, Trane671, , AcceleratorStrongestLv5: thank you
Qinlongfei: true true, though not jumping over it persay here
Clare Prime of Ultra: hmm perhaps though I doubt Tanya would get violent as Russ.