by Eric Vall
“Aurora… ” I sighed. “They’re just Halcyan rockets, and I can’t believe I have to clarify this, but no one is allowed to send them to decimate whole regions. We’ve allied with the other regions, remember?”
“Not all of Nalnora, though,” Cayla pointed out.
Aurora gasped. “We could destroy the Elite with these!”
“Gods, I want to see Aeris and his sons twitching in agony as their innards freeze over and smoke billows from their orifices,” Deya growled, and all of us looked at the beautiful elf while she lovingly stroked her belly bump. “What? They are pigs. Surely, they deserve this sort of death, yes?”
“I completely agree,” Aurora admitted, “but I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about killing elves. I thought you kind of… loved Nalnora?”
“I do love Nalnora,” Deya allowed, “but I think a Nalnora without the Elite sounds much more enjoyable, and Dragir said last week that he and Mason will kill the Elite to free me of their horrid laws. Mason promised him.”
“He mentioned that?” I asked, and I gauged Deya’s expression from the side in case the notion really had upset her. “I, uh… I was going to tell you about our plans, I just didn’t know if--”
“I understand,” the beautiful elf interrupted, and she sent me a sweet smile over her shoulder. “You didn’t want to upset or worry me. Now that I have been blessed with our child, though, I feel certain your choice is the proper course of action. I know too well what Dragir suffered when he impregnated the half-elf he loved so much, and--”
“When he did what?” Shoshanne blurted out, but Deya waved the subject off, and I shook my head at the healer’s gaping look.
“I’ll tell you later,” I muttered.
“The point is, anyone who would threaten our prodigious family in the same way certainly deserves to be slain at the hands of a man as formidable as Mason,” the elf concluded.
“Or by his rockets,” Cayla added.
“Those, too,” Deya agreed. “It would be ideal if we could find a means of utilizing all our favorite killing techniques, I think. It’s elven tradition to slaughter your enemies with abandon, and I never got to partake in this sort of thing growing up.”
“Aww, we can kill the elves together!” Aurora realized. “It’ll be a family affair!”
“The Great Flynt Family Massacre,” Cayla mused. “The birth of a new age for elven kind. It’ll be in all of the historical records.”
Shoshanne side-eyed me while I snickered in approval, and when I shrugged without remorse, she chose not to share her views on the matter. Then the two of us continued onward in silence while the three women in front of us expanded our Flynt Family Massacre into a global domination scheme, and by the time we got to the mansion, our hypothetical children were each sitting on their own thrones across the various regions.
“And the Mega-Semen Blasters will remain aimed at all of the protesters to keep them in line until they yield to the might of Lord Mason and his band of ruthless child-kings,” Deya finished with a curt nod.
“I don’t see anything wrong with this plan,” Aurora sighed. “It’s perfect.”
“So… should I take this as a stamp of approval for the new rockets?” I chuckled, and Alfred handed me a stack of letters at the door.
“Oh, yes,” Cayla laughed. “I almost forgot what we were doing out there. The rockets are a revelation. Will we be using the bazookas to launch them? Because I think I could fire a bazooka with one arm while still getting to use my AR-15 with the other as long as you give me a loader.”
“Can just you and Mason launch the rockets?” the half-elf grumbled. “I want to play with my flail during the siege, and I can’t do anything fun if I’m stuck on bazooka duty.”
“Ideally, none of us will be on bazooka duty,” I replied. “I’m still working out the details, but I’ll keep you all updated once I touch base with my generals.”
I passed a portion of the stack of letters to Aurora while we headed for the atrium, and the half-elf had her nose buried in the first update when I dropped onto my stool to open a note from General Kin.
“It sounds like the attacks in the south have drastically decreased,” the half-elf reported. “Tellish has had a full three days of peace.”
“Same in Limont,” I muttered while I scanned the letter. “Kin hasn’t had any trouble in four days, and she’s got the Defenders restoring the village now that they have some time to breathe.”
“Pindor must be doing well,” Aurora guessed.
“Hopefully. He and Markus have had nine days to work on destroying the portals already.”
“The general overseeing defenses at the Zaelik village says one of his Defenders was almost sacrificed, though,” Aurora relayed, and I whipped around.
“Bring the whole troop back to Serin,” I ordered.
“The Defender survived,” the half-elf assured me.
“I don’t care, Haragh and I made it clear to Chonna that if any of her fucking cannibals tried to--”
“From this report, it sounds like Chonna was the one who intervened,” Aurora cut in. “The Defender was patrolling the forest when a pack of her residents hunted him down, but the warlord freed the mage before they could decapitate him. He only suffered a few bites to the arms, lost a chunk of his left-side calf, and got his clothing burned up before the ritual began.”
Cayla tried to quiet her giggles while Deya grinned at the thought, and I shook my head as I recalled the chiseled teeth of the Children of Siraos.
“I suppose we should thank the gods for big-breasted warlords,” Aurora chuckled.
“Don’t bring her breasts into this,” I scoffed. “They don’t change the fact that she’ll probably be cooking our Defenders up in a month.”
“She will not,” Cayla countered. “Don’t you remember? Chonna prefers her meat fresh off the bone.”
The princess winked before she snapped her teeth at me, and my women burst out laughing when I turned my back on them. Then I worked through another three updates while they waxed poetic about Haragh’s mom’s enormous tits for a while, but when I found a note from Pindor, I finally managed to block out their crass descriptions.
“Excellent,” I muttered to myself.
“What is it?” Shoshanne asked.
“Pindor and Markus are just north of the eastern border of Cedis,” I told the women as I scanned the note a second time. “They’ve finished tracking the portals in western Illaria, and they expect to be finished with the east in a couple days. So far, they’ve located more than a thousand portals.”
“What?” Aurora gasped as her smile fell. “That many?”
“I’m not surprised,” I snorted. “The Elven Scrolls explained that this elemental degree wears out from overuse, so the Master would need plenty of backups given how many attacks he was sending out before we ambushed the tunnels. It sounds like the portals were more heavily concentrated in the southwest, like we expected. Tellish alone had over a hundred in the woods surrounding the town.”
“I can’t believe Pindor’s doing so well,” Shoshanne admitted. “That’s a lot of work to take on.”
“Their magery must be exhausted,” Aurora agreed.
“I don’t know, Markus and Pindor are our top mages right now,” I said with a shrug.
“Excuse me?” Aurora snorted. “We are our top mages.”
I smirked. “Besides us. They were more than ready to head out by the time I finished training them, though, and they’re making faster progress than I expected. Let’s just hope they make it back in time for the siege.”
“You can’t bring Markus to the fortress,” the half-elf cut in. “The instructors at the Oculus said he’s the most knowledgeable Terra Mage they’ve ever met.”
“I know, and I’ll keep him at the Oculus with the others,” I assured her. “Markus doesn’t have any experience with wielding his powers for combat, but Pindor’s gotta be at the siege. He’s been around for nearly all of our battles, and Gene
ral Ralot won’t risk lending us the Knights of Rainard again without him.”
Aurora nodded as I shuffled through the last few updates, and all of our generals had similar reports to make. Both the frequency and intensity of the attacks in Illaria were way down, and a third of our outposts hadn’t gotten any possessed visitors since we stationed our Defenders, but I was concerned to read about the choice of species the Master was using lately.
No mages or elves had shown up after we wiped out the majority of his troops, but he stopped sending the Saurbrin and larger beasts around Illaria as well. Given that we didn’t see any of these creatures at the tunnels, he was either keeping them locked away for his next strike, or they were wasting away from wearing his branding for too long. The latter would be a big win for us, but I had a feeling the former scenario was more likely.
So, if the Master decided to stop wasting his most deadly recruits trying to draw me away from the foothills, then that meant he could already suspect we were coming for his headquarters next. I had no proof whether he was aware we knew he’d set up camp in southern Orebane, but I had reason enough to believe he’d pieced things together by now.
Deya and I were west of his fortress when we flew into a flock of fire breathing dragons to free them from his hold, and at the time, I suspected he or his lackies had to have noticed the scene. The Master would have to be an idiot to not realize how many mages I’d stolen back from him by now, though, and the probability of our recovered mages revealing his location would be a given.
I just hoped he didn’t double down on his defensive enchantments before we got there, because Stan’s task was already difficult enough.
I rifled my hair as I set the stack of updates aside, and Aurora let out a heavy sigh as she tossed her stack on top of mine.
“The storms are increasing,” the half-elf told me, and I nodded.
“I know, but there doesn’t seem to be any pattern to their locations,” I replied. “Kin’s had two heavier storms a lot like Nalnora experienced, and a few have blown through Rainard this week. In the order I sent out, though, I only asked for updates about storms that resembled what we had to deal with at the tunnels, so there could be others the generals didn’t think were worth noting.”
“Well, Rajeen hasn’t had any, but the towns just north and south got hit pretty hard,” Aurora reported. “Our mages couldn’t hold the rain off. They said it was like nothing they’d ever experienced.”
I furrowed my brow as I considered this, but Shoshanne spoke up before I did.
“There isn’t much use in dwelling on these storms,” the healer pointed out. “Every couple of years, storm systems would move over the islands I grew up on for months on end before they cleared. These things happen without any rhyme or reason sometimes. Besides, if it were an Aer and Flumen Mage working together to form the storms, I would have sensed it.”
“Do you think your powers could form a storm like this?” I asked, but I immediately regretted the question.
Shoshanne’s expression hardened as she promptly stood up, and she only offered a curt “no” before she made up an excuse to head for the infirmary. My women raised their eyebrows as they watched her leave, and as soon as the front door slammed shut, Cayla leveled me with a firm look.
“Why would you ask her that?” the princess clarified.
“It was an honest and relevant question,” I insisted.
“You know she won’t discuss her magery with you,” Aurora huffed. “If this is some attempt to--”
“It wasn’t another attempt to get her talking about magery,” I sighed, “but if it had been, I’d expect all of you to back me up on the topic. It’s been almost two weeks since she summoned her powers at all.”
“It’s no use,” Deya murmured. “When Shoshanne has made up her mind, there is no convincing her otherwise.”
“Well, we have to find a way to get her to change her mind,” I informed the group. “A mage as powerful as her doesn’t just become less powerful, and if she won’t work to gain control of her magic now, it’ll only get much worse later.”
“You only want her to practice so you can use her powers at the Master’s headquarters,” Aurora accused.
“That’s part of the reason, yes,” I allowed. “More importantly, I’m worried about what it could mean for her if she carries on ignoring the problem. Kurna burned down his ex-wife’s entire house by accident once, and he hadn’t even fully developed his powers at the time. What if Shoshanne gets upset and forms one of those cyclones in the middle of Falmount? Or worse, in the middle of the house while we’re all together? She needs to gain a healthier connection with her powers, for her sake, and for ours, too.”
“I hate being firm with Shoshanne,” Aurora groaned. “She’s too sweet and caring to boss around when it’s not related to sex.”
“She’s a part of this Order, Aurora,” I reminded my half-elf. “It’s our duty to make sure she isn’t a danger to herself or to others. If we don’t live up to our titles, we’re no better than Wyresus.”
Aurora avoided my gaze while Cayla looked just as reluctant as her, but I waited them out until all three women nodded in agreement.
“So, we’re on the same team, right?” I verified.
“Yes, Mason,” Deya mumbled.
“Thank you. Now, it would be a huge help if the next time I mention Shoshanne’s Aer Magic, the three of you work to ease her into the conversation rather than deliberately change the subject.”
“I only did that twice!” Aurora scoffed, but when I cocked an eyebrow, she bit her lip and looked down. “Alright, I’ll help, but if she uses that healer voice on me, I’ll have no choice but to retreat. You know how effective it is.”
“I do,” I chuckled, “but we’re stronger as a united front. I believe in us.”
“I do not believe in us on this particular matter,” Deya said without much concern. “I can’t even make Shoshanne stop tracking every morsel of food I put into my mouth. How can I possibly stand up to her about a magic I know nothing of?”
“You know, that could actually work,” Aurora mused. “Shoshanne hasn’t stopped worrying about Mason’s baby since we found out you were pregnant, and her powers put both of you in terrible danger. She wouldn’t want that.”
“Not to mention her own child once she’s pregnant,” Cayla added.
“Don’t prod at the baby thing,” I sighed. “Shoshanne’s nervous enough as it is. We can handle the situation some other way. For now, I need to touch base with our generals about a few things in town, and when I get back, I’ll finish up on making the last of these rockets.”
Aurora nodded as I came over to kiss her goodbye, but I noticed she and Cayla were exchanging somewhat calculating glances over my shoulder.
“What?” I asked flatly.
“Nothing!” Cayla hummed. “You should get going, you don’t want to keep your generals waiting.”
“Yes, take your time,” Aurora urged as she nudged me along. “Maybe stop by the training fields if you get a chance. You’ll love what you find there.”
I narrowed my eyes as both women plastered smiles on their faces, and I was still taking skeptical glances over my shoulder when Alfred closed the front door behind me.
Then I lingered on the entrance step for a moment, but it was dead silent inside.
“Yeah, they’re definitely up to something,” I muttered under my breath, but I headed toward the lane anyways because I knew damn well I only had about twenty percent control over what my women did these days.
Chapter 3
Four ogres were in the middle of a drinking match against ten of my Defenders when I got to the market, and while several residents were gathered around quietly watching, an elven warrior from House Quyn sat between the two groups. The elf had his brows knitted together in concentration, and I couldn’t tell if this was a quantity or pace competition, but all the participants were swaying on their feet as they chugged ale until it dribbled down their chin
s.
Then the elf called out one of my Defenders, and as the Flumen Mage stumbled away with slumped shoulders, a fresh ogre stepped up to join the other team.
“What are the rules?” I muttered to a merchant beside me.
“Elven rules, sir,” the man said in a hushed tone.
“Which are… ”
“Don’t know,” the man replied. “Dwarves should be bringing the next pint soon. I think the ogres are winning, sir. Maybe not, though.”
Sure enough, two dwarves wheeled a rattling cart full of fresh pints over from the pub, and once everyone was reloaded, the elven judge waved a hand for the chugging to begin again. I watched for another three rounds without gaining any clarity, but the elf sent two ogres and three Defenders out for whatever reason.
Then I shrugged and continued through the market, and even though it hadn’t been long since my allies came to Falmount, I was already used to seeing the various races intermingling. All the soldiers who’d survived the Master’s tunnels were settled in my town for the time being, and while my mages and merchants had finally warmed up to the idea, I could tell the dwarves were the local favorite.
The elves and ogres were tolerated pretty well, but there was still the occasional fight that broke out whenever an ogre decided they didn’t want me serving Rosh to elves. I didn’t understand why they never brought the issue up with me, but this led to several flipped tables and midafternoon brawls while the ogres roared their opinions, and the elves scoffed right back. In my opinion, this only made Falmount a little more colorful, though, and it kind of felt like I was living in an old western film. Except, in this film, the bandits were ogres, and the cowboys were elves who were just trying to enjoy the drinks they paid for.
I was obviously the sheriff who did nothing to intercede because no one was dying.
Everyone learned not to start a fight near the dwarves when they were working, though, and the dwarven smithing shop was the hottest spot in the market besides the pubs. The dwarven soldiers still berated all their customers over the shoddy quality of their blades and tools, but without fail, these conversations ended with the dwarves trading their own work for the shitty alternatives. Then they’d melt everything down to forge more adequate pieces, and now that the new shop was shelling out more resources, my residents seemed to have banded together behind the dwarves on all matters.