Ulric sat recovering on a stone next to the nook from which he'd hidden before his assault on what had been Port Edunshire, sea breeze cooling the sweat on his face. Sweat mixed with no little blood, actually.
Idra'se had said once that he was not greatly impressed by the combat art of Prespang.
Ulric knew why now. They fought like the battle existed only from the waist up. Ulric was no master, he'd seen them in action and knew well the long leagues between himself and that level of skill. But the subhuman bastards that had been posted here must have been even lower than the low, chosen for sadism rather than any other characteristic. If the huddled, maimed, and savaged Aes'r in front of him were any indication they were over achievers in that respect. When no more Valin walked the city except for himself, Ulric had gone to each and every building and freed its captives. What was left of them, anyway.
At some point, the men left in the city had decided to start slaughtering their slaves. They hadn't got very far with that before Ulric found them and pulled their guts out from their still screaming bodies. He wasn't being metaphorical there. With his gauntlets on he could easily punch his fist into a human's body, one that wasn't being reinforced by mana, at least.
Even so, he had not saved everyone, and, of those he had, the mass of traumatized Celestin was in shock. Some of them had been here for weeks, what little Ulric could get out of the survivors. The slave collars were no trouble, they'd been linked to the mage overseer. When he died, they were rendered inert. It was common knowledge, amongst the slavers that is, and that was why the first order given a slave was to never harm a master. So it was that Ulric had been able to break the collars loose of the Elves and set them free. Three then immediately threw themselves off the cliff, a sight which would never leave him. Not to his dying day.
Gaping in stunned silence for a moment he'd cried out in horror "Why?!" when he recovered. None answered. Nobody else jumped, but they didn't answer either. He guessed it was a stupid question, really. Nothing had prepared him for what he'd found in those huts. Even when he'd thought he understood what it meant to create the Bane he hadn't. Not until he saw the attempts. Not until he saw the "failed products", stacked in a mass grave outside the city awaiting burning. Gods' blood.
Sometimes you need to turn to something greater than yourself. Ulric had few illusions about justice in the world. But he wished hard that there existed some punishment that found men this evil and inflicted some sort of balance to the scales of the world. There was magic, and even godlike beings, and all that shit. Maybe something was out there that could repay the pain reaped by those mad men.
Clouds were moving in. Again. It was only Sunscrest and his soul had taken a pounding this day. Now he had to find some way to keep over a hundred or so naked, tortured, and half-starved Elves from dying to exposure. His hand was stroking his knife hilt automatically and Ulric forced himself to stop. He decided his first move: He needed to keep these battered folk out of the rain.
Concentrating, Ulric envisioned a set of eight domes of hardened air. It took more effort than he liked to admit to force the spell into place but the [Skyshields] came, forming a set of shelters over the assembled mass. Next, they would need heat. That was a more mundane task. Ulric cut down parts of the palisade wall and gathered thatch to use as kindling. He built log cabin style fires that would burn for a long while near each little cluster of freed slaves. Nice. On to the next thing.
Food wasn't hard, since the bestial Bane crafters apparently felt like they worked up an appetite inflicting suffering unmentionable on innocents. The grain bins were full, the larders well stocked. Ulric ended up putting kettles over each of the fires, held up by more pieces of the palisade and cooked stews with meat, tubers, rice, vegetables, and fruit just thrown together. He was slightly ashamed by the lack of subtlety but these people needed nutrients, not a fancy feast.
That brought him to the next trial. Some might take illness. Normally that wasn't a concern but they were just so weak, so hurt. And covered in wounds. Ulric's first aid kit was gone now, he'd done his best to triage and treat but there were too many. Five more succumbed to wounds in the following hour. One was the female who'd been put on the wedge with weights. She'd bled out. Ulric was sick. And then numb. There's only so much a mind can take before it starts hitting off switches to stop from coming apart.
For the rest of the day, he sat in his nook, his helmet thrown aside and his head buried in his hands. He really wished he could see Taipan right about now.
************Orlethrem Crown Command Post, Zelussin Territory*******************
Taipan found herself wishing for her mate's presence. He was alien, even for Valin, but, despite a cool exterior, gave her whatever warmth he possessed freely. She could use the comfort. Heir Lumyt'seit, along with the Chiefs of the other tribes, with notable exception of the Zelussin, were assembled around a round table. They were silent and brooding, still digesting the most recent news: Betrayal.
The once princess's message to her brother had included the possibility that Lord Sam'sav Morion was a traitor to the Orlethrem, a seller of Aes'r blood, and had conspired with Prosper to provide gaps in the blockade of the Zelus. Lumyt'seit, as was proper as Crown and acting Chief of Iriel, had sent Hunters to investigate the truth of this matter. Three of the eight were slain and Morion had fled, but not before also murdering the Chief of the Zelussin to slow the response to his crimes.
A triad had been involved in the escape, though, fortunately, they were caught alive. It was not long before enough information was extracted that could corroborate Taipan's report that the traitor had been feeding Prosper information and padding its coffers through slave trade. The Zelussin were still appalled by the situation and none of them would meet eyes with their cousins for shame. They were not to blame, but still held close this great stain on their tribe. A representative for the new Chief of the Legranel, recently chosen at their Moot had arrived ten days after Taipan’s run, along with three thousand Herd riders who would act as light cavalry units and flankers. They had mangled the auxiliaries sent against them, had pinned the Federated Defense Corp, preventing them from spreading their numbers wide to encircle the lines of the fewer in number Elves, turning what should have been an overwhelming victory into a blood bath for the invaders, for they had been forced to fight into the Elves, without leverage of position.
As of this morning, the last of the Havens was empty, their secrecy that had shielded them destroyed by the artifact somehow gained by their enemy. Iriel's people were safe, as were the Melondi, the Celestin, and the Zelussin noncombatants. Ironically enough, it was decided that the Havens should send their peoples to the [Plateau of Ancients], that place considered a no man's land for over a thousand years, thanks to the fell guardian that killed any who dared approach. If all else failed, the kilometers high cliffs would make assault all but impossible and the [Ancient's Gate] could be held for as long as necessary. The Aktinian, within a week of receiving word, were ready to take to the seas if need arose, carrying their civilization on their fleets, and the Legranel would be incredibly difficult to pin down, vanishing into the plains like dust motes on the winds. None of those contingencies had been necessary.
What remained of Prespang's army was currently licking its wounds, trying to find its way out from Elven territory.
Two months and more of maneuver, stalling, running battles, and almost constant fighting at night had left the so called "Federated Defense Corp" a mangled remnant of itself. They had lost seven in every eight generals. Infantry officers were, as her Honor liked to say "rarer than frog fur". The Aes'r had done as the Aes'r always do: Turn Orlethrem into a verdant crypt for invaders. The difference this time was that they had suffered more grievous casualties in the doing. And that they did not consider themselves done when the enemy withdrew its shattered remnants from Orlethrem’s borders.
Brighteyes, Heir Lumyt'seit, Taipan found herself correcting her husband's aggravating habit of misnaming everything. She grew vaguely irritated that his mannerisms were brushing off on her, but concentrated on her brother, who had finally raised his namesake emerald and gold eyes from the status reports to hold those of the attending Chiefs.
"We have blunted the advance, and broken the forces sent to invade. The Aes'r people are defended now, upon the [Plateau of Ancients], with enough forces to hold the way up for as long as necessary. I believe the battle is not done." the young Golden Crown told the council gravely.
He glanced towards the corner of the room where his father, Bald'rt Iriel lay in a bed sleeping, still recovering from his poisoning, and from the efforts of preventing Prespang's armies from ever being able to marshal their numbers effectively.
"Our enemy has used the Bane once, and, I believe that they will attempt to do so again. They will wait until they can inflict maximum harm, regardless of strategic impact. I have a glimpse into the mind of our enemies. They hate the Orlethrem, hate them completely. This war is not one of conquest or to expand their influence by weakening a rival. They want our extinction as a people." Lumyt'seit told his peers.
They shared considering gazes before they agreed with the assessment. Each had come to similar conclusions also. No other reason for such mindless aggression, absent cause or provocation could be found. The Elves of Orlethrem had always been fair in their dealings with the Otherkin. Hard, especially amongst the Iriel’en, but always fair. Bargains struck, and treaties signed were inviolate; none of the Aes’r would tolerate an oath-breaker amongst them. That so much of Prespang’s mage power should be expended to murder a Lord of the Elves, that so much of the army Prosper normally hoarded conservatively would be wasted on an attempt to murder the children, crafters, gardeners, and noncombatants was unthinkable. Unless they intended to exterminate the Orlethrem.
Brighteyes, seeing that this was not a point for discussion presented his strategy, "First and foremost, we must seal the Zelus to Prosper. They must not have access between the Southern Ocean and Vatyn or they will, inevitably, move supplies and, likely mercenary armies against us."
Immediately, he turned his singular gaze on the representative for the Zelussin telling that woman with a gentle tone, "This task is, and has always been, yours of the Zelussin. It is still yours, if your kin want it. Morion's seized coffers will pay for the expense."
The middle aged Zelussin woman shelved her surprise and nodded firmly, without speaking. Iron in her expression said that the Zelus might as well have stopped flowing for all that Prosper would get a ship down it.
Taipan sat back and listened as her youngest sibling, her only living brother, set a strategy of strangling Prosper. Similar to his previous initiative but with the main difference being that they should triple their internal security and be especially vigilant against espionage or attempts to use Bane as a depopulation threat. Too many of the Orlethrem had already given their lives.
"And then, " Crown Lumyt'seit said with an angry glint in his eyes, "We will kill this invading army to a one. None are allowed to leave Orlethrem who have carried a weapon into it. Are we agreed?"
A round of "Aye" circled the table.
There were formalities, which didn't interest her and then the council dissolved and she was left with only her family in the meeting room.
From the corner of the room, came a loud exclamation "Whew! By the Roots below and the leaves above do they ever drone on! Are you sure you will not keep the crown after I am hale again?"
Bald'rt Iriel, once and future King of Iriel, had been pretending sleep in the corner to avoid partaking of the meeting and now stood to stretch.
His heir smiled up at the father's antics, glad that his sire was regaining his energy and his humor. Dour and desperate had been times of late, Prosper’s venom dripped thick from the knife they had tried to drive into the heart of the Orlethrem. His people and the Clans of the Orlethrem, had survived. As always, at cost too great, with too many widows and widowers, and not a few orphaned. Seeing the [Lord of the Deep Wood] reclaiming his former glory dispelled much of the young Lord’s gloom. The sooner Bald’rt reclaimed his mantle, the better.
"I would rather not, Father. I am a child yet, and there is much I would rather learn to do first, before I make a life of jostling the elbows of ones who already know what their duty tells them to do." Lumyt’seit of Iriel said quietly.
The older Elf, still thin and wane for one of his brown skinned clan, ruffled his child's golden hair lovingly.
"You jostle them so gently and with such care that they believe it is their own thoughts that drive them to move. I am proud." Announced the Father to his son, and they both smiled.
Three women, jewels of their clans, entered from the side room where they had been holding their own meeting.
Bald'rt's wives were scarcely better off than he after his initial poisoning, having burned their own vitality to hold the Bane at bay, but they had recovered far more swiftly and had nearly returned to the picturesque appearance that was held by their clans as the standard for beauty. They had just decided how they would each best utilize themselves in the upcoming battles and made the final arrangements for enacting an embargo upon Prosper.
Messages would soon be delivered to the respective Tribes to be themselves passed to every port of call that any merchant vessel trading to or carrying goods from Prosper would be considered aiding the enemy of Orlethrem in its war. The trio beheld their husband and children, the eldest and youngest of their brood. Shor's daughters, along with their husbands, had gone ahead, coordinating the fleeing peoples, keeping order, and leading the warriors escorting those masses in their flight. They continued to help the other Great Houses organize the populace hidden upon the Plateau.
Lady Vedyr stepped forward with a determined expression leveled at her husband.
"If you are well enough for staying awake through the entire meeting, you are well enough to give me a child, Bald'rt, Son of Jold'ir." Declared the Elf whose skin matched her husband's, her eyes holding heat.
Taipan's mother Vedyr had been awaiting her coming season with intentional anticipation. The near parting had motivated her to bear her husband another child. Both of Vedyr's offspring were, in a way, dead to the world. Her Eldest lost to assassins and her youngest had chosen to leave her name behind, to join her Twice Born Husband's household. This third child's life would be charmed.
Bald'rt shied away from his first wife and hid behind the other two, "Stop her! You don't know what she'll do to me! I am too young, and too pretty, to become a brood stallion, useful only for its remarkably potent seed." He japed.
Bathe Iriel, his third wife and mother of Lumyt'seit, calmly took her husband by the collar and threw him bodily towards his first wife. Shor, the second wife, looked on in amusement. Shor had had seven daughters by her uncanny husband and knew exactly what Vedyr was going to be doing to the man. Later on, when Vedyr had sated herself, she might join them.
Vedyr caught the weakened King of Iriel and lifted him over her shoulder like a sack of grain, turning to haul him towards their temporary bed chamber. Now that her season was upon her, she was having none of his nonsense. He struggled feebly, honestly too tired and weak, unable to resist her.
"Perfidy most foul! You will not have heard the last of me! Bald'rt will return!" Came the shrill cries of the [Lord of the Deep Wood] cut off when the door to the room slammed shut, driven by Lady Vedyr's foot.
Taipan could only stand in awe of the shambles that Iriel's reputation would be in if the behavior of its lord in private were common knowledge. Utterly shameless.
Disregarding her father's lack of dignity, she turned her thoughts again to her mate, many leagues distant. After delivering her message and recovering three days from the utter exhaustion, she had activated her Hunter's Mark ritual, using one of the four vials. Her Honor was far, far, to the North at that time, but not in the right direction. She didn’t know why he had deviated from the course they agreed on, but assumed it was for good cause.
Their plans had come undone, almost from the start. Taipan of the Glade had carried word to her kin. Instead of returning however, she had become part of the effort to repel the attack. Her strength was needed by her brethren, and her Honor would have joined to their defense, she knew. She carried his honor into the battle, ravaging them in his stead. It was not an easy decision, to stay and join the fighting to oppose Prosper's attack over going to her partner. She was his Shadow, in addition to his wife and that duty she took as seriously as the other. In the end, she felt it was what he would have done, had he been here himself.
Two and a half moons of endless hunting of invaders had it taken to break their wills. It had been a close thing, that first critical call to arms to stop Prespang's secret advance forces, funneled through the blockade courtesy of a blood traitor, who was still alive. For now. Taipan joined her kin in merciless savaging of those enemies en-route to the Havens. Then they had turned to repel the advance from the Northern borders, driving along the Eastern coasts of Vatyn amongst the hilly highlands of the Melondi, the wooded forests of Celestin, and the persistent attempts to claw down the Zelus.
Now though, the expedition into Orlethrem was stalled, defeated, and retreating in shambles, which meant it was dead, though they did not know it yet.
All the while the combined arms of the Aktinian, the Melondi, the Celestin, and the Zelussin had held the line of advance, most of the Iriel’en not mage hunting and destroying command structures were circling behind the Prespangers. Scouting reports and orders had not come through one way or the other between Prosper and her generals for weeks now. Nor had supply wagons. Or healers. The few stragglers that might manage to escape Orlethrem would discover that most of the settlements along the border, careful encroachments of decades, would be empty. The livestock killed, the wells poisoned, and the people driven away to find new homes much farther to the North. Iriel’s patience was ended, Lumyt’seit, son of Bald’rt had commanded the border cleared for seven leagues and the Hunters saw it done. No succor would the retreating armies of Prespang find when they left Elf country. Only the lurking Hunters, who would see the defeat completed utterly.
Today's meeting had established most of the details for how that execution would be done and how they would handle the treason of one of their own. That meant that Taipan was not needed here any longer and she burned to be gone, to find her Glade Chief before he managed to upset the order of the world a second time. It would be years before the Greater beasts reshuffled their territories, the hierarchies resettled, and the wilds would not be safe to travel until then. Iriel would be years returning order to the wilderness of Orlethrem. Orlethrem would be a century recovering the lives lost in the defense. In spite of it all, the violent attack, the treason, those returned to the forest, Taipan knew that the Aes’r were victorious.
"Brother Lumyt'seit, Mother Shore, Mother Bathe, it is time that I return to my Honor's side. Our people are defended, and so I must go." She informed her family, without preamble.
They each gestured the hand signs for "It is so." before also signing "Fare thee well". They did not speak further, there was no need. In the months spent fighting, many a silent meal had been shared and many a conference held. Things were not as before, she was not any longer a daughter of the House of Iriel. Taipan belonged with her Honor and mate. She turned immediately and left the meeting place, stopping only long enough to stock her travel pack for the long, long run and to retrieve the vial which would prime her [Hunter's Mark] to locate the quirksome creature that she had, once full of loathing, and later gladly, bound herself to. For both their sakes.
***************Outside the Port Edunshire********************
In the end, Ulric had had to burn the small town to the ground. None of the Elves would enter again its walls, not even to escape the elements or retrieve supplies. That had been entirely left up to Ulric, who was thankful that he had only to haul the stores of food and water a short ways downhill to where the milling, weeping lot of them had settled. Clothes, medical supplies, anything that might be useful he packed into barrels and stored in cargo wagons, hitched to stout, cloven hoofed beasts remarkably similar to horses that would have been tough to handle, before his time spent driving TMF1 and TMF2.
Compared to [Direhorn Oxen], the mules were easy. He had the wagons just down the hill to where the Orlethrem huddled inside a few hours of daybreak, and the smoke of the burning Port Edunshire rose up, would be visible for kilometers from the sea. He didn’t worry overmuch about that, he’d left plenty of smoke pillars rising in his wake, one more wouldn’t hurt.
The barren, stony highlands were not conducive to leading a bunch of naked, abused victims of absurd cruelty with any degree of success so Ulric had to compromise by creating crude long houses using [Stone Walls] and [Skyshields]. Once he’d recovered the mana to do so, that is. The stone walls would remain in place for weeks before the binding magic fell away from them, Terra was amongst the most stable and long lived manaforms. But Caelum, that one rejected stasis fundamentally and would unravel within a day, in spite of all that Ulric might do to keep it held in place.
However, the wards and barriers around Irielhos were designed to protect the citadel, Ulric couldn't even come close to replicating it. A sneaking suspicion said that it wasn't the construction of any living mind as he knew it, but a working of the living demigod into which and from which the fortress was built, [Irielhos] itself. Ulric had seen the core of that entity once, like a beating sun, deep, deep, within its subterranean roots. The tree was sentient and powerful in the extreme. It just didn't have the same thoughts and needs as anything Ulric had ever interacted with. So far as he could tell though, it did everything in its purview to shield the Iriel'en.
Whatever the case, Ulric couldn't fathom how to produce air barriers that didn't unravel swiftly and thus spent every morning recasting the roofs of the long houses. It wasn't a huge mana expenditure, it was merely annoying. Similarly annoying was that he was now playing nursemaid to a bunch of Elves that had lost about seventy percent of their will to live. In the two days since he'd slaughtered the tormentors and guards they'd shown little motivation to do anything but huddle in clusters and weep.
The raw agony and grief that enshrouded them was a nearly physical thing and it was starting to get to him. His nightmares, freshened by recent experience, weren’t helping anything.
His nerves were on the ragged edge. It was coming to the point that he was hoping some Magister from Prosper would wander by so he could murder-death-kill them to release some of the pressure. It did not escape his notice that hoping a living creature with a conscious mind and feelings would stumble through for the express purpose of slaughtering them was not exactly a healthy mindset.
Grey eyes surveyed the hillside, its firepits lit and smoking and the forms clustered into the warmth but refusing to do much other than, occasionally eat and drink. His already sour expression tightened. On the other hand, perhaps wanting to murder the people responsible for this atrocity was a healthy mindset after all. What Ulric had witnessed in these past days went beyond barbaric. At least no one else had jumped off the cliff. A few more had gone off the edge yesterday, a group of five, and it was purely awful to know that they probably had good reason.
Probably the worst of it though was the stillness. He wasn't moving. Neither advancing nor retreating. Waiting here for some sign that the former captives could do something, anything, to take control of their lives and ease the burden off of him. So far, nothing. Worse than nothing, really, he was having to actively clean up after them all. He'd had to dig the latrines for them, for fuck's sake! They were just aimlessly wandering over to some rock that took their fancy, seemingly at random, to defecate or void their bladders. No attempts to clean themselves or wash. That, at least, they would do once he provided buckets of water from the, now ruined, city.
His chores to keep the Elves alive, though tedious and aggravating for its necessity, did not occupy him long. That meant that he was left to brood and to worry, two things which were not conducive to a happy Ulric. Or a stable one.
Muttering to himself, the former scientist sat on a rock counting his fingers to try to figure out how long it had been since he'd set out from the Moot.
"Sixty and change days of being lost on the plains. Seven days sidetrack with the M’rakur. Then there were the first two days in Bartala, Varrock got murdered, and then an unknown span not less than four days and probably more like ten days after that before I bombed the port and left. Then twelve days being a pirate along the Vatyn’s coasts. Next was this hellhole and I've been here for…three days? Yeah, three days. Then that's sixty-three plus seven plus twelve for eighty-two. Add twelve more and three gives us fifteen plus the big chunk and…ninety-five. It's been a little over three Vardan months."
Ulric sat back and let that sink in. Two entire months and some change since the lunar cycles on this world were thirty days on the nose and that’s how they judged months. And, in that time, he'd probably killed close to fifty, maybe upwards of seventy men, depending on how many were patrolling those docks. Holy fuck. His eyes searched the, for once, cloudless blue sky for answers. There weren't any. Probably because it was the wrong question drifting around in his brain. The question wasn't "did they deserve to die?" it was, "would I do it again?". Repeatability is the heart of science, after all.
He scanned the hillside again, the squat, magically raised walls of the structures dotting the land, the shattered people still not free of what had been done to them, even if the collars were gone. He thought about Varrock.
Yeah, Ulric decided. Yeah, he'd do it all again. Someone had to. None of these people deserved what had been done to them. Not the Elves here. Not Varrock's kin, who were facing exile from civilized lands back to their remote holds because they demanded justice for a murder. Not all those downtrodden hunkering in Bartala's slums because they couldn't beg, steal, or buy a Magister's grace to own or partake in legitimate business within the city. They were all made criminals for not being born into connections and not willing to sell their integrity to get them. All these people needed someone to destroy the corruption that seeped into the bones of the City States.
It's sort of like radiation therapy, Ulric rationalized. You have the cancer, it's going to only get worse and kill you, so you go to a professional who's only going to kill you a little bit. Very carefully, very precisely kill you, and only enough that you'll recover completely in a short while. It's the only way to reach the cancer hiding inside. He snorted to himself, then, because radiation therapy hadn't been used in almost two hundred years. Gene therapy was, without exclusion, the superior treatment with none of the risks and side effects. Might as well cure headaches with trepanation.
Well. Ulric couldn't change Prespang's genes and overwrite its society. The work of the nemesis was too complete and Ulric was just some guy who woke up in a forest in his birthday suit. What he could do though, is keep cutting the heads off this hydra and maybe buy the people here space to break loose, like the Wolfkin clans did. Big ass maybe there, Glade Chief.
What else was he to do? And, while he sat here on his dead ass mulling it over, armies were being gathered and marched against the Orlethrem for the sake of conducting a genocide. His armored fingers tapped against the bone plate on his thigh, unable to really snap within the confines of the gauntlets. A steady clicking of bone against bone would have driven any nearby who wasn't already batty off the deep end.
Something's gotta give here. He owed these people. The generosity of the Elves had probably saved him dying on the plateau over the hard, hard Winter, he knew that now. But he couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't go, but he couldn't stay, and he couldn't leave them behind. What do you do when there are no good choices? Make the ones you can live with, no matter how much you hate them, no matter what anybody else might think about them. Ulric Einar, [Lord of the Ancient Glade] would not be weak here, not when weakness might doom more than just these few tattered souls on this stony hillside. He would not permit all the killing done so far to be rendered null and void because he shied away from the right thing, when it was also the most painful thing.
Ulric's voice rose, loud and deep and channeling the total absence of tolerance for anyone's shit that was his maternal grandmother's legacy.
"I'm done baby-sitting you [Bark Weasels] you hear me!? " He bellowed at the hillside, turning heads at the unexpected tirade.
"Three days now you sit wallowing in your own misery, doing nothing to help yourselves, doing nothing to prove that you are anything more than meat for some Prosper dog's dinner! Done is done! You were enslaved. You were abused. You could not stop it, and did not, and nothing you ever do from this day on will ever change that past!" Ulric raved.
He pointed at that hateful cliff, and screamed, "At least some of you had the will to make an end of it, for all that it pains me that they did! For all that I grieve for your hurts, and theirs, I say that this sight before me is disgusting! You are Aes'r, you are children of the forest. Yours is a people ancient and powerful but you let yourselves be broken this easily? And worse! You will hand yourselves back over to the first Magister with a collar in their hand and, eventually, one of you will succumb. One of you will resist just that fraction long enough to become twisted, your core rendered into Aes'r-Bane and then used against your kin!"
Voice lowering threateningly, Ulric shouted, with conviction, exactly what he thought about that, "I tell you this, I will kill everyone on this hillside before I let you become the fuel for your people's extinction! Had I known that this was all the strength in the hearts of Celestin I would have just burned the city down to start with and saved myself the days to head towards Prosper, that I can get my hands around their necks faster!"
The thoroughly fed up, stressed out, partially combat fatigued bastard that was Ulric Einar pointed up at the Twins and prophesied, "When next those Twins rise, I will leave this place. If you haven't found your courage by that time to come with me, then I will cleanse this wasteland of your shame and speak of it to no one! None will know you failed! None will know your spirits withered! It will end. Forever. But none of you weaklings will I leave behind me to maybe become the Bane."
Glazed eyes cleared somewhat in the face of his tirade. When he delivered his ultimatum, some even grew angry. Good. Let them be angry. They deserved to be angry. They deserved a lot of things, but what they didn't deserve was to be left here on this fucking rocky shit heap to be tortured to death when he was gone.
It pained him greatly, but he couldn't stay. He couldn't keep watching over them forever. Every minute here was one he wasn't finding his way to put an end to this travesty. Every day let the Merchant Lords guide this land called Prespang further into darkness and stacked the odds harder against the Orlethrem. Eventually, numbers would add up. It might take a long time. But it would come. Unless somebody managed to put an end to the ones pulling the strings, it would come.
More gently now, still furious, but more gently, Ulric told them what they needed to do, even though they already knew what they needed to do and had simply chosen to do nothing instead.
"Go up the hill, take what clothes and arms as you may from the dead there. Use whatever supplies in that accursed place you need to create litters to bear those too wounded to travel under their own power. Clothe yourselves, feed yourselves, and rest tonight. Tomorrow, the decision comes and either you follow me to the next port town where I will obtain ships for you to sail back towards your homes, or I will judge you undeserving of the mercy that compelled me to not simply end you all where I found you."
Ulric hated this place. He hated this choice. But it was the only one he had. He wondered for only a moment what Taipan would do. She would have cut their throats one by one while they watched, without hesitation. He'd only had glimpses of it but Bald'rt Iriel, that joking, silly Elf bastard, would have turned that hillside to dust before he allowed his people to come to harm for what, to the Iriel'en, were dead men and women who had merely not yet realized it. Hard was the [Heartwood] but it needed to be to support the heavy crown of the forests.
He turned away from them then and returned to his boulder nook. Whatever they decided, it was their choice now. At least, at this last bit, they would be given a choice.
In the shadow of the boulder lay his helmet and his pauldrons. The right shoulder pauldron itself was undamaged but one of the critical straps and buckles that secured it was ruined. Hanging awkwardly as it did it would impede his fighting, blocking his sword arm or vision as it flailed about.
Doubtless the armor had saved his life probably a dozen or more times, especially against the spell that had destroyed the strap. If he'd taken a hit like that without it, it was likely his entire shoulder would be gone. As it was, the entire upper right part of his chest and arm were incredibly sore, though the shock of that impact had been distributed expertly through Galed Uldin's craft.
Well would Ulric remember the lessons of that fight against the mage. Maintain contact, do not let them gain space to whomp up something nasty out of sight. Use Ektyl'rt to destroy their barriers or continual workings where possible, drain their resources and steal their initiative while they restore their defenses. Most importantly, they aren't dead until you see the corpse. Gother's training was the difference between living and dying. The precision and mastery of his workings, the tightness of the will and weave of the mana, and the exposure to rapid, continued assaults from afar were critical to his being able to respond effectively. An Adept focused on one manaform was incredibly potent with it. But they were also limited by it.
Tenderly rolling his shoulder he winced. Part of his armor compromised and a thrashed arm were probably a small price to pay to gain the experience of a life and death fight with one of Prosper's combat mages. Without being burned nearly to a crisp, that is.
Ulric set to trying to see if he could, perhaps, rebind the broken strap with some of the rope in his pack. He didn't have much and it wouldn't be anywhere as good as the strap had been but it might let him wear the pauldrons without compromising himself. It had been surprising how effectively he'd been able to push into opponents, using his shoulder armor to turtle through their strikes and render their weapons ineffective. When he had Christ's level of mastery he wouldn't need to do such things, he'd be able to, as far as Ulric could see, walk through the attacks unharmed.
Ulric was tying a square knot to join the two pieces of remaining strap into one, fiddling with the lengths to try to mimic the previous fit, when a hand took his shoulder roughly, approaching footsteps completely soundless.
"Ghaag! Ora!" He yelled, starting, his entire body flushing with instant aggression.
The grip pulled him half up from his seat and he was almost shocked at the easy strength. This assassin was a cut above any of the enemies he'd come across in the last weeks and he dropped the pauldrons, adrenaline pulsing, core lighting with power.
In the grip of his foe, caught unawares and nearly defenseless, Ulric was drawing his knife and readying a desperate magical onslaught when his cheek was turned by a second hand with incredible tenderness and he was kissed extremely thoroughly, the smell of a familiar Elf woman filling his nostrils, her taste on his tongue a thing of dreams.
Taipan!
Ulric sat recovering on a stone next to the nook from which he'd hidden before his assault on what had been Port Edunshire, sea breeze cooling the sweat on his face. Sweat mixed with no little blood, actually.
Idra'se had said once that he was not greatly impressed by the combat art of Prespang.
Ulric knew why now. They fought like the battle existed only from the waist up. Ulric was no master, he'd seen them in action and knew well the long leagues between himself and that level of skill. But the subhuman bastards that had been posted here must have been even lower than the low, chosen for sadism rather than any other characteristic. If the huddled, maimed, and savaged Aes'r in front of him were any indication they were over achievers in that respect. When no more Valin walked the city except for himself, Ulric had gone to each and every building and freed its captives. What was left of them, anyway.
At some point, the men left in the city had decided to start slaughtering their slaves. They hadn't got very far with that before Ulric found them and pulled their guts out from their still screaming bodies. He wasn't being metaphorical there. With his gauntlets on he could easily punch his fist into a human's body, one that wasn't being reinforced by mana, at least.
Even so, he had not saved everyone, and, of those he had, the mass of traumatized Celestin was in shock. Some of them had been here for weeks, what little Ulric could get out of the survivors. The slave collars were no trouble, they'd been linked to the mage overseer. When he died, they were rendered inert. It was common knowledge, amongst the slavers that is, and that was why the first order given a slave was to never harm a master. So it was that Ulric had been able to break the collars loose of the Elves and set them free. Three then immediately threw themselves off the cliff, a sight which would never leave him. Not to his dying day.
Gaping in stunned silence for a moment he'd cried out in horror "Why?!" when he recovered. None answered. Nobody else jumped, but they didn't answer either. He guessed it was a stupid question, really. Nothing had prepared him for what he'd found in those huts. Even when he'd thought he understood what it meant to create the Bane he hadn't. Not until he saw the attempts. Not until he saw the "failed products", stacked in a mass grave outside the city awaiting burning. Gods' blood.
Sometimes you need to turn to something greater than yourself. Ulric had few illusions about justice in the world. But he wished hard that there existed some punishment that found men this evil and inflicted some sort of balance to the scales of the world. There was magic, and even godlike beings, and all that shit. Maybe something was out there that could repay the pain reaped by those mad men.
Clouds were moving in. Again. It was only Sunscrest and his soul had taken a pounding this day. Now he had to find some way to keep over a hundred or so naked, tortured, and half-starved Elves from dying to exposure. His hand was stroking his knife hilt automatically and Ulric forced himself to stop. He decided his first move: He needed to keep these battered folk out of the rain.
Concentrating, Ulric envisioned a set of eight domes of hardened air. It took more effort than he liked to admit to force the spell into place but the [Skyshields] came, forming a set of shelters over the assembled mass. Next, they would need heat. That was a more mundane task. Ulric cut down parts of the palisade wall and gathered thatch to use as kindling. He built log cabin style fires that would burn for a long while near each little cluster of freed slaves. Nice. On to the next thing.
Food wasn't hard, since the bestial Bane crafters apparently felt like they worked up an appetite inflicting suffering unmentionable on innocents. The grain bins were full, the larders well stocked. Ulric ended up putting kettles over each of the fires, held up by more pieces of the palisade and cooked stews with meat, tubers, rice, vegetables, and fruit just thrown together. He was slightly ashamed by the lack of subtlety but these people needed nutrients, not a fancy feast.
That brought him to the next trial. Some might take illness. Normally that wasn't a concern but they were just so weak, so hurt. And covered in wounds. Ulric's first aid kit was gone now, he'd done his best to triage and treat but there were too many. Five more succumbed to wounds in the following hour. One was the female who'd been put on the wedge with weights. She'd bled out. Ulric was sick. And then numb. There's only so much a mind can take before it starts hitting off switches to stop from coming apart.
For the rest of the day, he sat in his nook, his helmet thrown aside and his head buried in his hands. He really wished he could see Taipan right about now.
************Orlethrem Crown Command Post, Zelussin Territory*******************
Taipan found herself wishing for her mate's presence. He was alien, even for Valin, but, despite a cool exterior, gave her whatever warmth he possessed freely. She could use the comfort. Heir Lumyt'seit, along with the Chiefs of the other tribes, with notable exception of the Zelussin, were assembled around a round table. They were silent and brooding, still digesting the most recent news: Betrayal.
The once princess's message to her brother had included the possibility that Lord Sam'sav Morion was a traitor to the Orlethrem, a seller of Aes'r blood, and had conspired with Prosper to provide gaps in the blockade of the Zelus. Lumyt'seit, as was proper as Crown and acting Chief of Iriel, had sent Hunters to investigate the truth of this matter. Three of the eight were slain and Morion had fled, but not before also murdering the Chief of the Zelussin to slow the response to his crimes.
A triad had been involved in the escape, though, fortunately, they were caught alive. It was not long before enough information was extracted that could corroborate Taipan's report that the traitor had been feeding Prosper information and padding its coffers through slave trade. The Zelussin were still appalled by the situation and none of them would meet eyes with their cousins for shame. They were not to blame, but still held close this great stain on their tribe. A representative for the new Chief of the Legranel, recently chosen at their Moot had arrived ten days after Taipan’s run, along with three thousand Herd riders who would act as light cavalry units and flankers. They had mangled the auxiliaries sent against them, had pinned the Federated Defense Corp, preventing them from spreading their numbers wide to encircle the lines of the fewer in number Elves, turning what should have been an overwhelming victory into a blood bath for the invaders, for they had been forced to fight into the Elves, without leverage of position.
As of this morning, the last of the Havens was empty, their secrecy that had shielded them destroyed by the artifact somehow gained by their enemy. Iriel's people were safe, as were the Melondi, the Celestin, and the Zelussin noncombatants. Ironically enough, it was decided that the Havens should send their peoples to the [Plateau of Ancients], that place considered a no man's land for over a thousand years, thanks to the fell guardian that killed any who dared approach. If all else failed, the kilometers high cliffs would make assault all but impossible and the [Ancient's Gate] could be held for as long as necessary. The Aktinian, within a week of receiving word, were ready to take to the seas if need arose, carrying their civilization on their fleets, and the Legranel would be incredibly difficult to pin down, vanishing into the plains like dust motes on the winds. None of those contingencies had been necessary.
What remained of Prespang's army was currently licking its wounds, trying to find its way out from Elven territory.
Two months and more of maneuver, stalling, running battles, and almost constant fighting at night had left the so called "Federated Defense Corp" a mangled remnant of itself. They had lost seven in every eight generals. Infantry officers were, as her Honor liked to say "rarer than frog fur". The Aes'r had done as the Aes'r always do: Turn Orlethrem into a verdant crypt for invaders. The difference this time was that they had suffered more grievous casualties in the doing. And that they did not consider themselves done when the enemy withdrew its shattered remnants from Orlethrem’s borders.
Brighteyes, Heir Lumyt'seit, Taipan found herself correcting her husband's aggravating habit of misnaming everything. She grew vaguely irritated that his mannerisms were brushing off on her, but concentrated on her brother, who had finally raised his namesake emerald and gold eyes from the status reports to hold those of the attending Chiefs.
"We have blunted the advance, and broken the forces sent to invade. The Aes'r people are defended now, upon the [Plateau of Ancients], with enough forces to hold the way up for as long as necessary. I believe the battle is not done." the young Golden Crown told the council gravely.
He glanced towards the corner of the room where his father, Bald'rt Iriel lay in a bed sleeping, still recovering from his poisoning, and from the efforts of preventing Prespang's armies from ever being able to marshal their numbers effectively.
"Our enemy has used the Bane once, and, I believe that they will attempt to do so again. They will wait until they can inflict maximum harm, regardless of strategic impact. I have a glimpse into the mind of our enemies. They hate the Orlethrem, hate them completely. This war is not one of conquest or to expand their influence by weakening a rival. They want our extinction as a people." Lumyt'seit told his peers.
They shared considering gazes before they agreed with the assessment. Each had come to similar conclusions also. No other reason for such mindless aggression, absent cause or provocation could be found. The Elves of Orlethrem had always been fair in their dealings with the Otherkin. Hard, especially amongst the Iriel’en, but always fair. Bargains struck, and treaties signed were inviolate; none of the Aes’r would tolerate an oath-breaker amongst them. That so much of Prespang’s mage power should be expended to murder a Lord of the Elves, that so much of the army Prosper normally hoarded conservatively would be wasted on an attempt to murder the children, crafters, gardeners, and noncombatants was unthinkable. Unless they intended to exterminate the Orlethrem.
Brighteyes, seeing that this was not a point for discussion presented his strategy, "First and foremost, we must seal the Zelus to Prosper. They must not have access between the Southern Ocean and Vatyn or they will, inevitably, move supplies and, likely mercenary armies against us."
Immediately, he turned his singular gaze on the representative for the Zelussin telling that woman with a gentle tone, "This task is, and has always been, yours of the Zelussin. It is still yours, if your kin want it. Morion's seized coffers will pay for the expense."
The middle aged Zelussin woman shelved her surprise and nodded firmly, without speaking. Iron in her expression said that the Zelus might as well have stopped flowing for all that Prosper would get a ship down it.
Taipan sat back and listened as her youngest sibling, her only living brother, set a strategy of strangling Prosper. Similar to his previous initiative but with the main difference being that they should triple their internal security and be especially vigilant against espionage or attempts to use Bane as a depopulation threat. Too many of the Orlethrem had already given their lives.
"And then, " Crown Lumyt'seit said with an angry glint in his eyes, "We will kill this invading army to a one. None are allowed to leave Orlethrem who have carried a weapon into it. Are we agreed?"
A round of "Aye" circled the table.
There were formalities, which didn't interest her and then the council dissolved and she was left with only her family in the meeting room.
From the corner of the room, came a loud exclamation "Whew! By the Roots below and the leaves above do they ever drone on! Are you sure you will not keep the crown after I am hale again?"
Bald'rt Iriel, once and future King of Iriel, had been pretending sleep in the corner to avoid partaking of the meeting and now stood to stretch.
His heir smiled up at the father's antics, glad that his sire was regaining his energy and his humor. Dour and desperate had been times of late, Prosper’s venom dripped thick from the knife they had tried to drive into the heart of the Orlethrem. His people and the Clans of the Orlethrem, had survived. As always, at cost too great, with too many widows and widowers, and not a few orphaned. Seeing the [Lord of the Deep Wood] reclaiming his former glory dispelled much of the young Lord’s gloom. The sooner Bald’rt reclaimed his mantle, the better.
"I would rather not, Father. I am a child yet, and there is much I would rather learn to do first, before I make a life of jostling the elbows of ones who already know what their duty tells them to do." Lumyt’seit of Iriel said quietly.
The older Elf, still thin and wane for one of his brown skinned clan, ruffled his child's golden hair lovingly.
"You jostle them so gently and with such care that they believe it is their own thoughts that drive them to move. I am proud." Announced the Father to his son, and they both smiled.
Three women, jewels of their clans, entered from the side room where they had been holding their own meeting.
Bald'rt's wives were scarcely better off than he after his initial poisoning, having burned their own vitality to hold the Bane at bay, but they had recovered far more swiftly and had nearly returned to the picturesque appearance that was held by their clans as the standard for beauty. They had just decided how they would each best utilize themselves in the upcoming battles and made the final arrangements for enacting an embargo upon Prosper.
Messages would soon be delivered to the respective Tribes to be themselves passed to every port of call that any merchant vessel trading to or carrying goods from Prosper would be considered aiding the enemy of Orlethrem in its war. The trio beheld their husband and children, the eldest and youngest of their brood. Shor's daughters, along with their husbands, had gone ahead, coordinating the fleeing peoples, keeping order, and leading the warriors escorting those masses in their flight. They continued to help the other Great Houses organize the populace hidden upon the Plateau.
Lady Vedyr stepped forward with a determined expression leveled at her husband.
"If you are well enough for staying awake through the entire meeting, you are well enough to give me a child, Bald'rt, Son of Jold'ir." Declared the Elf whose skin matched her husband's, her eyes holding heat.
Taipan's mother Vedyr had been awaiting her coming season with intentional anticipation. The near parting had motivated her to bear her husband another child. Both of Vedyr's offspring were, in a way, dead to the world. Her Eldest lost to assassins and her youngest had chosen to leave her name behind, to join her Twice Born Husband's household. This third child's life would be charmed.
Bald'rt shied away from his first wife and hid behind the other two, "Stop her! You don't know what she'll do to me! I am too young, and too pretty, to become a brood stallion, useful only for its remarkably potent seed." He japed.
Bathe Iriel, his third wife and mother of Lumyt'seit, calmly took her husband by the collar and threw him bodily towards his first wife. Shor, the second wife, looked on in amusement. Shor had had seven daughters by her uncanny husband and knew exactly what Vedyr was going to be doing to the man. Later on, when Vedyr had sated herself, she might join them.
Vedyr caught the weakened King of Iriel and lifted him over her shoulder like a sack of grain, turning to haul him towards their temporary bed chamber. Now that her season was upon her, she was having none of his nonsense. He struggled feebly, honestly too tired and weak, unable to resist her.
"Perfidy most foul! You will not have heard the last of me! Bald'rt will return!" Came the shrill cries of the [Lord of the Deep Wood] cut off when the door to the room slammed shut, driven by Lady Vedyr's foot.
Taipan could only stand in awe of the shambles that Iriel's reputation would be in if the behavior of its lord in private were common knowledge. Utterly shameless.
Disregarding her father's lack of dignity, she turned her thoughts again to her mate, many leagues distant. After delivering her message and recovering three days from the utter exhaustion, she had activated her Hunter's Mark ritual, using one of the four vials. Her Honor was far, far, to the North at that time, but not in the right direction. She didn’t know why he had deviated from the course they agreed on, but assumed it was for good cause.
Their plans had come undone, almost from the start. Taipan of the Glade had carried word to her kin. Instead of returning however, she had become part of the effort to repel the attack. Her strength was needed by her brethren, and her Honor would have joined to their defense, she knew. She carried his honor into the battle, ravaging them in his stead. It was not an easy decision, to stay and join the fighting to oppose Prosper's attack over going to her partner. She was his Shadow, in addition to his wife and that duty she took as seriously as the other. In the end, she felt it was what he would have done, had he been here himself.
Two and a half moons of endless hunting of invaders had it taken to break their wills. It had been a close thing, that first critical call to arms to stop Prespang's secret advance forces, funneled through the blockade courtesy of a blood traitor, who was still alive. For now. Taipan joined her kin in merciless savaging of those enemies en-route to the Havens. Then they had turned to repel the advance from the Northern borders, driving along the Eastern coasts of Vatyn amongst the hilly highlands of the Melondi, the wooded forests of Celestin, and the persistent attempts to claw down the Zelus.
Now though, the expedition into Orlethrem was stalled, defeated, and retreating in shambles, which meant it was dead, though they did not know it yet.
All the while the combined arms of the Aktinian, the Melondi, the Celestin, and the Zelussin had held the line of advance, most of the Iriel’en not mage hunting and destroying command structures were circling behind the Prespangers. Scouting reports and orders had not come through one way or the other between Prosper and her generals for weeks now. Nor had supply wagons. Or healers. The few stragglers that might manage to escape Orlethrem would discover that most of the settlements along the border, careful encroachments of decades, would be empty. The livestock killed, the wells poisoned, and the people driven away to find new homes much farther to the North. Iriel’s patience was ended, Lumyt’seit, son of Bald’rt had commanded the border cleared for seven leagues and the Hunters saw it done. No succor would the retreating armies of Prespang find when they left Elf country. Only the lurking Hunters, who would see the defeat completed utterly.
Today's meeting had established most of the details for how that execution would be done and how they would handle the treason of one of their own. That meant that Taipan was not needed here any longer and she burned to be gone, to find her Glade Chief before he managed to upset the order of the world a second time. It would be years before the Greater beasts reshuffled their territories, the hierarchies resettled, and the wilds would not be safe to travel until then. Iriel would be years returning order to the wilderness of Orlethrem. Orlethrem would be a century recovering the lives lost in the defense. In spite of it all, the violent attack, the treason, those returned to the forest, Taipan knew that the Aes’r were victorious.
"Brother Lumyt'seit, Mother Shore, Mother Bathe, it is time that I return to my Honor's side. Our people are defended, and so I must go." She informed her family, without preamble.
They each gestured the hand signs for "It is so." before also signing "Fare thee well". They did not speak further, there was no need. In the months spent fighting, many a silent meal had been shared and many a conference held. Things were not as before, she was not any longer a daughter of the House of Iriel. Taipan belonged with her Honor and mate. She turned immediately and left the meeting place, stopping only long enough to stock her travel pack for the long, long run and to retrieve the vial which would prime her [Hunter's Mark] to locate the quirksome creature that she had, once full of loathing, and later gladly, bound herself to. For both their sakes.
***************Outside the Port Edunshire********************
In the end, Ulric had had to burn the small town to the ground. None of the Elves would enter again its walls, not even to escape the elements or retrieve supplies. That had been entirely left up to Ulric, who was thankful that he had only to haul the stores of food and water a short ways downhill to where the milling, weeping lot of them had settled. Clothes, medical supplies, anything that might be useful he packed into barrels and stored in cargo wagons, hitched to stout, cloven hoofed beasts remarkably similar to horses that would have been tough to handle, before his time spent driving TMF1 and TMF2.
Compared to [Direhorn Oxen], the mules were easy. He had the wagons just down the hill to where the Orlethrem huddled inside a few hours of daybreak, and the smoke of the burning Port Edunshire rose up, would be visible for kilometers from the sea. He didn’t worry overmuch about that, he’d left plenty of smoke pillars rising in his wake, one more wouldn’t hurt.
The barren, stony highlands were not conducive to leading a bunch of naked, abused victims of absurd cruelty with any degree of success so Ulric had to compromise by creating crude long houses using [Stone Walls] and [Skyshields]. Once he’d recovered the mana to do so, that is. The stone walls would remain in place for weeks before the binding magic fell away from them, Terra was amongst the most stable and long lived manaforms. But Caelum, that one rejected stasis fundamentally and would unravel within a day, in spite of all that Ulric might do to keep it held in place.
However, the wards and barriers around Irielhos were designed to protect the citadel, Ulric couldn't even come close to replicating it. A sneaking suspicion said that it wasn't the construction of any living mind as he knew it, but a working of the living demigod into which and from which the fortress was built, [Irielhos] itself. Ulric had seen the core of that entity once, like a beating sun, deep, deep, within its subterranean roots. The tree was sentient and powerful in the extreme. It just didn't have the same thoughts and needs as anything Ulric had ever interacted with. So far as he could tell though, it did everything in its purview to shield the Iriel'en.
Whatever the case, Ulric couldn't fathom how to produce air barriers that didn't unravel swiftly and thus spent every morning recasting the roofs of the long houses. It wasn't a huge mana expenditure, it was merely annoying. Similarly annoying was that he was now playing nursemaid to a bunch of Elves that had lost about seventy percent of their will to live. In the two days since he'd slaughtered the tormentors and guards they'd shown little motivation to do anything but huddle in clusters and weep.
The raw agony and grief that enshrouded them was a nearly physical thing and it was starting to get to him. His nightmares, freshened by recent experience, weren’t helping anything.
His nerves were on the ragged edge. It was coming to the point that he was hoping some Magister from Prosper would wander by so he could murder-death-kill them to release some of the pressure. It did not escape his notice that hoping a living creature with a conscious mind and feelings would stumble through for the express purpose of slaughtering them was not exactly a healthy mindset.
Grey eyes surveyed the hillside, its firepits lit and smoking and the forms clustered into the warmth but refusing to do much other than, occasionally eat and drink. His already sour expression tightened. On the other hand, perhaps wanting to murder the people responsible for this atrocity was a healthy mindset after all. What Ulric had witnessed in these past days went beyond barbaric. At least no one else had jumped off the cliff. A few more had gone off the edge yesterday, a group of five, and it was purely awful to know that they probably had good reason.
Probably the worst of it though was the stillness. He wasn't moving. Neither advancing nor retreating. Waiting here for some sign that the former captives could do something, anything, to take control of their lives and ease the burden off of him. So far, nothing. Worse than nothing, really, he was having to actively clean up after them all. He'd had to dig the latrines for them, for fuck's sake! They were just aimlessly wandering over to some rock that took their fancy, seemingly at random, to defecate or void their bladders. No attempts to clean themselves or wash. That, at least, they would do once he provided buckets of water from the, now ruined, city.
His chores to keep the Elves alive, though tedious and aggravating for its necessity, did not occupy him long. That meant that he was left to brood and to worry, two things which were not conducive to a happy Ulric. Or a stable one.
Muttering to himself, the former scientist sat on a rock counting his fingers to try to figure out how long it had been since he'd set out from the Moot.
"Sixty and change days of being lost on the plains. Seven days sidetrack with the M’rakur. Then there were the first two days in Bartala, Varrock got murdered, and then an unknown span not less than four days and probably more like ten days after that before I bombed the port and left. Then twelve days being a pirate along the Vatyn’s coasts. Next was this hellhole and I've been here for…three days? Yeah, three days. Then that's sixty-three plus seven plus twelve for eighty-two. Add twelve more and three gives us fifteen plus the big chunk and…ninety-five. It's been a little over three Vardan months."
Ulric sat back and let that sink in. Two entire months and some change since the lunar cycles on this world were thirty days on the nose and that’s how they judged months. And, in that time, he'd probably killed close to fifty, maybe upwards of seventy men, depending on how many were patrolling those docks. Holy fuck. His eyes searched the, for once, cloudless blue sky for answers. There weren't any. Probably because it was the wrong question drifting around in his brain. The question wasn't "did they deserve to die?" it was, "would I do it again?". Repeatability is the heart of science, after all.
He scanned the hillside again, the squat, magically raised walls of the structures dotting the land, the shattered people still not free of what had been done to them, even if the collars were gone. He thought about Varrock.
Yeah, Ulric decided. Yeah, he'd do it all again. Someone had to. None of these people deserved what had been done to them. Not the Elves here. Not Varrock's kin, who were facing exile from civilized lands back to their remote holds because they demanded justice for a murder. Not all those downtrodden hunkering in Bartala's slums because they couldn't beg, steal, or buy a Magister's grace to own or partake in legitimate business within the city. They were all made criminals for not being born into connections and not willing to sell their integrity to get them. All these people needed someone to destroy the corruption that seeped into the bones of the City States.
It's sort of like radiation therapy, Ulric rationalized. You have the cancer, it's going to only get worse and kill you, so you go to a professional who's only going to kill you a little bit. Very carefully, very precisely kill you, and only enough that you'll recover completely in a short while. It's the only way to reach the cancer hiding inside. He snorted to himself, then, because radiation therapy hadn't been used in almost two hundred years. Gene therapy was, without exclusion, the superior treatment with none of the risks and side effects. Might as well cure headaches with trepanation.
Well. Ulric couldn't change Prespang's genes and overwrite its society. The work of the nemesis was too complete and Ulric was just some guy who woke up in a forest in his birthday suit. What he could do though, is keep cutting the heads off this hydra and maybe buy the people here space to break loose, like the Wolfkin clans did. Big ass maybe there, Glade Chief.
What else was he to do? And, while he sat here on his dead ass mulling it over, armies were being gathered and marched against the Orlethrem for the sake of conducting a genocide. His armored fingers tapped against the bone plate on his thigh, unable to really snap within the confines of the gauntlets. A steady clicking of bone against bone would have driven any nearby who wasn't already batty off the deep end.
Something's gotta give here. He owed these people. The generosity of the Elves had probably saved him dying on the plateau over the hard, hard Winter, he knew that now. But he couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't go, but he couldn't stay, and he couldn't leave them behind. What do you do when there are no good choices? Make the ones you can live with, no matter how much you hate them, no matter what anybody else might think about them. Ulric Einar, [Lord of the Ancient Glade] would not be weak here, not when weakness might doom more than just these few tattered souls on this stony hillside. He would not permit all the killing done so far to be rendered null and void because he shied away from the right thing, when it was also the most painful thing.
Ulric's voice rose, loud and deep and channeling the total absence of tolerance for anyone's shit that was his maternal grandmother's legacy.
"I'm done baby-sitting you [Bark Weasels] you hear me!? " He bellowed at the hillside, turning heads at the unexpected tirade.
"Three days now you sit wallowing in your own misery, doing nothing to help yourselves, doing nothing to prove that you are anything more than meat for some Prosper dog's dinner! Done is done! You were enslaved. You were abused. You could not stop it, and did not, and nothing you ever do from this day on will ever change that past!" Ulric raved.
He pointed at that hateful cliff, and screamed, "At least some of you had the will to make an end of it, for all that it pains me that they did! For all that I grieve for your hurts, and theirs, I say that this sight before me is disgusting! You are Aes'r, you are children of the forest. Yours is a people ancient and powerful but you let yourselves be broken this easily? And worse! You will hand yourselves back over to the first Magister with a collar in their hand and, eventually, one of you will succumb. One of you will resist just that fraction long enough to become twisted, your core rendered into Aes'r-Bane and then used against your kin!"
Voice lowering threateningly, Ulric shouted, with conviction, exactly what he thought about that, "I tell you this, I will kill everyone on this hillside before I let you become the fuel for your people's extinction! Had I known that this was all the strength in the hearts of Celestin I would have just burned the city down to start with and saved myself the days to head towards Prosper, that I can get my hands around their necks faster!"
The thoroughly fed up, stressed out, partially combat fatigued bastard that was Ulric Einar pointed up at the Twins and prophesied, "When next those Twins rise, I will leave this place. If you haven't found your courage by that time to come with me, then I will cleanse this wasteland of your shame and speak of it to no one! None will know you failed! None will know your spirits withered! It will end. Forever. But none of you weaklings will I leave behind me to maybe become the Bane."
Glazed eyes cleared somewhat in the face of his tirade. When he delivered his ultimatum, some even grew angry. Good. Let them be angry. They deserved to be angry. They deserved a lot of things, but what they didn't deserve was to be left here on this fucking rocky shit heap to be tortured to death when he was gone.
It pained him greatly, but he couldn't stay. He couldn't keep watching over them forever. Every minute here was one he wasn't finding his way to put an end to this travesty. Every day let the Merchant Lords guide this land called Prespang further into darkness and stacked the odds harder against the Orlethrem. Eventually, numbers would add up. It might take a long time. But it would come. Unless somebody managed to put an end to the ones pulling the strings, it would come.
More gently now, still furious, but more gently, Ulric told them what they needed to do, even though they already knew what they needed to do and had simply chosen to do nothing instead.
"Go up the hill, take what clothes and arms as you may from the dead there. Use whatever supplies in that accursed place you need to create litters to bear those too wounded to travel under their own power. Clothe yourselves, feed yourselves, and rest tonight. Tomorrow, the decision comes and either you follow me to the next port town where I will obtain ships for you to sail back towards your homes, or I will judge you undeserving of the mercy that compelled me to not simply end you all where I found you."
Ulric hated this place. He hated this choice. But it was the only one he had. He wondered for only a moment what Taipan would do. She would have cut their throats one by one while they watched, without hesitation. He'd only had glimpses of it but Bald'rt Iriel, that joking, silly Elf bastard, would have turned that hillside to dust before he allowed his people to come to harm for what, to the Iriel'en, were dead men and women who had merely not yet realized it. Hard was the [Heartwood] but it needed to be to support the heavy crown of the forests.
He turned away from them then and returned to his boulder nook. Whatever they decided, it was their choice now. At least, at this last bit, they would be given a choice.
In the shadow of the boulder lay his helmet and his pauldrons. The right shoulder pauldron itself was undamaged but one of the critical straps and buckles that secured it was ruined. Hanging awkwardly as it did it would impede his fighting, blocking his sword arm or vision as it flailed about.
Doubtless the armor had saved his life probably a dozen or more times, especially against the spell that had destroyed the strap. If he'd taken a hit like that without it, it was likely his entire shoulder would be gone. As it was, the entire upper right part of his chest and arm were incredibly sore, though the shock of that impact had been distributed expertly through Galed Uldin's craft.
Well would Ulric remember the lessons of that fight against the mage. Maintain contact, do not let them gain space to whomp up something nasty out of sight. Use Ektyl'rt to destroy their barriers or continual workings where possible, drain their resources and steal their initiative while they restore their defenses. Most importantly, they aren't dead until you see the corpse. Gother's training was the difference between living and dying. The precision and mastery of his workings, the tightness of the will and weave of the mana, and the exposure to rapid, continued assaults from afar were critical to his being able to respond effectively. An Adept focused on one manaform was incredibly potent with it. But they were also limited by it.
Tenderly rolling his shoulder he winced. Part of his armor compromised and a thrashed arm were probably a small price to pay to gain the experience of a life and death fight with one of Prosper's combat mages. Without being burned nearly to a crisp, that is.
Ulric set to trying to see if he could, perhaps, rebind the broken strap with some of the rope in his pack. He didn't have much and it wouldn't be anywhere as good as the strap had been but it might let him wear the pauldrons without compromising himself. It had been surprising how effectively he'd been able to push into opponents, using his shoulder armor to turtle through their strikes and render their weapons ineffective. When he had Christ's level of mastery he wouldn't need to do such things, he'd be able to, as far as Ulric could see, walk through the attacks unharmed.
Ulric was tying a square knot to join the two pieces of remaining strap into one, fiddling with the lengths to try to mimic the previous fit, when a hand took his shoulder roughly, approaching footsteps completely soundless.
"Ghaag! Ora!" He yelled, starting, his entire body flushing with instant aggression.
The grip pulled him half up from his seat and he was almost shocked at the easy strength. This assassin was a cut above any of the enemies he'd come across in the last weeks and he dropped the pauldrons, adrenaline pulsing, core lighting with power.
In the grip of his foe, caught unawares and nearly defenseless, Ulric was drawing his knife and readying a desperate magical onslaught when his cheek was turned by a second hand with incredible tenderness and he was kissed extremely thoroughly, the smell of a familiar Elf woman filling his nostrils, her taste on his tongue a thing of dreams.
Taipan!
