by Eric Vall
Personally, I was on their side, too. Thanks to the dwarves’ craftsmanship, my town was expanding every day, and houses were continuously added as more residents moved in. Only a week ago, I’d signed off on my first parcel deal, too, so five farmers who’d already been selling their wares in my market were now breaking ground on my land and settling into new farmhouses with their families.
In a short time, the view in Falmount had changed rapidly until every tool or piece of metalwork in town was the handiwork of the dwarves, and I was especially eager to see the new copper-domed roof they were making for our library. From the signs on the shops to the wagon wheels being repaired daily, the dwarves took the utmost care in ensuring the highest quality results, and even the elves had no complaints to make about that.
In fact, the last time I’d stopped by the shop, I found out the elves were so impressed, the dwarves struck a deal with the heads of House Quyn and House Fehryn to forge armor for both of their armies. Now, the elven warriors were so antsy to check the progress on their new vambraces that they visited the shop as often as the mages, but the ogres still remained firmly opposed to the idea of wearing any kind of armor.
At first, this caused a lot of heated arguments between the two races, but once the dwarves learned the ogres were skilled swordsmen for the sake of principle, most of the tension subsided. The ogres even started hauling material from the station to the shop for the dwarves whenever they had a spare moment, so at this point, their daily scuffles seemed more like a chance to exert their pent-up energy than anything else.
Overall, life in Falmount was better than ever, and when I looked around at how well things had turned out, I couldn’t help wondering if there was any hope for the rest of this world. The idea of ogres living in Nalnora, or elves strolling through the streets of Aurum seemed impossible, but so had getting my allies to fight beside each other rather than against each other.
Anything had to be possible after that.
For now, I was just glad I didn’t have to threaten all my allies to get through a day’s work, and I offered my usual fist bump to the group of ogres outside Flynt’s Pub before I squeezed inside the door.
The only drawback I could find to our new arrangement was that the pubs were packed wall to wall now, and one ogre took up two seats, so tables filled up quickly. The elves had taken over the barstools to make sure they got refills first, and since the dwarves didn’t mind gathering anywhere they could rest their pints, only a thin strip of floor was accessible between the tables.
I didn’t bother working my way around since I couldn’t see through the crowd anyways, but Raynor sent me a smile as he craned his neck over the wall of pointy ears separating him from the rest of the patrons.
I cupped my hands around my mouth and hollered Kurna’s name, and the barkeep raised his arm up high to point me in the right direction.
Then I inched my way through the pub, and I was glad to see my generals had somehow managed to keep the far back table for their exclusive use. As I ducked under an ogre’s arm, I could just make out Dorinick’s tight black braid sitting on Haragh’s right side, too, and after a while, I finally reached the table with disheveled hair and a crooked vest.
“Made it in one piece,” Haragh said as he sent me a thumbs up.
“There ye’ are,” Dorinick growled. “Been waitin’ all day.”
“Drinkin’ all day,” Haragh corrected. “You forgot about meetin’ with Mason until I reminded ye’ five minutes ago.”
I grinned as the half-ogre slid a pint my way, and I managed to squeeze into a spot without tipping a bench of dwarves over in the process.
“How’s Taru doing?” I asked out of habit.
“Fine as always,” Haragh chuckled. “Like I tried to tell ye’, ogre women are a hearty lot. Pregnancy makes ‘em rougher around the edges is all, but in spirit, her skin’s twice as thick. She felled four trees yesterday with her bare hands.”
“Is that what all that banging around was?” Urn chuckled.
“Aye,” Haragh admitted. “I told her to wait until the sun’s up next time, but she really can’t help it. I think she’s nestin’.”
“Ogre babies need trees?” Kurna asked with a furrowed brow.
“Sharpens the teeth,” the half-ogre explained.
I nodded as I took a long swig. “Well, let her know Deya wants to try hunting wyvern in her elven form for once. I told her it was fine as long as Taru went along.”
“Ahh, the wyvern hunt,” Haragh mused. “That’s a rite of passage in Jagruel, ye’ know. Grot found a nice crop of wyvern nests up near the northern border of your land. Should be plenty to pick from.”
I lowered my pint while my other generals sobered as well. “I have wyvern nests near Falmount?”
“Seven of ‘em,” the half-ogre informed me.
“Don’t tell Aurora,” I quickly replied, but Haragh just shrugged and drained his glass. “Dude, she’s not even mad at you anymore.”
“Yeah, but ye’ never know with that one,” Haragh muttered. “An ogre bumped into her at the training fields, and I saw the look in her eyes. Don’t kid yourself, Aurora’s got that pure, Ignis rage ripplin’ just below the surface, and I guarantee she’d kill a bastard for less and less these days. Best to keep a few bribes in your pocket.”
“She has been a little short tempered lately,” I admitted, and when Dorinick waggled his bushy eyebrows at me, I failed to hide my huge grin behind the rim of my pint. “Anyways… we’re supposed to be going over more important stuff.”
“Uh-huh,” Kurna chortled. “How’s the new weapon coming along?”
“Oh, man,” I groaned. “You guys aren’t going to believe these rockets. Dragir sent the prototypes over this morning, and they’re perfect. We should have two-thousand of them here in the next few days, so we’re still on schedule.”
Haragh immediately perked up. “Can we see ‘em?”
“I’ll show you later on,” I assured him as I turned to Dorinick. “This does mean we’ll need those catapults, though. Have you made any headway with shipping them down from Orebane?”
“Ah.” Dorinick grimaced. “I have not.”
Urn snorted. “Why is that?”
“They’re fuckin’ huge, that’s why,” the dwarven general shot back. “Thrungrig was supposed to load ‘em up first thing. Then he says he’s gotta break ‘em down to fit them inside the train cars. I tell him to break ‘em down, and he tells me he snapped the throwing arm trying to do it. Took four letters back and forth to end up with nothin’.”
“So, the catapults are broken?” I clarified.
“Just the one,” Dorinick grunted. “Thrungrig’s gotta replace the throwing arm, and I told him to strap the damn things to the top of the train if he has to.”
“Then they’ll be on their way soon,” I led.
“Don’t know,” the dwarf said with a shrug. “Haven’t heard from Thrungrig in days.”
I nodded slowly, but eventually, Dorinick realized we were all looking at him, and he slammed his pint down onto the table.
“I’ll send a damn letter and see what’s up,” the dwarf growled, and he hauled himself up from his seat so he could wrestle his way to the pub door.
“I’m gonna mark that issue as resolved,” I decided while I turned back to the generals. “What about the mages? Aurora said they’re really stepping it up.”
“Took a few days to adjust,” Urn replied, “but I think you’ll be pleased with the results. We had the instructors from the Oculus come out like you asked, and once they caught on that we’re only interested in combative developments, things finally took off.”
“My old Ignis instructor recommended we cut the circuits down to three mages,” Kurna added. “Apparently, that’s the sweet spot for amplified effect without the hindrance of coordinating too many connections at once.”
“Huh,” I muttered. “I had no idea.”
“Me, neither,” Haragh grunted. “Ye’ can see the imp
rovement right away, though, and it’s made trainin’ easier to keep track of. We’re not having to gauge ten mages’ progress at once, and we’re switching up the groups more regularly, so the advanced Defenders can pull the others up to their level quicker.”
“It’s working, too,” Urn assured me. “I haven’t seen our mages looking as sharp since I joined the Order. Most of them are pursuing their own studies on top of their training, too, so it’s getting interesting out there.”
“You guys are doing great,” I sighed. “I can’t thank you enough for stepping up and--”
“Thank me all you want, but I didn’t step up to shit,” Kurna admitted. “It’s you and those crazy women of yours. You’ve got everyone trying to play catch up.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re right,” Urn agreed. “Half the Defenders are still going on and on about the cyclone Shoshanne formed, and I can’t count how many times I’ve had to listen to these young Ignis Mages lose their minds over Aurora’s fire whips. Then you walk down the street, though, and it’s nothing but ‘Mason’s a demi-god’ for the next hour.”
“Hold up, Aurora can form fire whips?” I asked as my eyebrows locked together. “Since when?”
“Beats me,” Kurna snorted, “but as irritating as it is to not be the best Ignis Mage anymore--”
“Ye’ never were the best,” Haragh clarified. “Aurora’s been puttin’ you to shame for the last--”
“As irritating as it is,” Kurna loudly continued, “I’ve gotta hand it to the pair of you. I knew the Order would improve when the king promoted you, but I never expected this level of improvement in such a short amount of time.”
“Me, neither.” Urn nodded. “It used to take a mage months to learn what they’ve been accomplishing in days. The instructors said they’ve never seen so many eager students flooding their halls, and they’ve even got a few recommendations for promotion already.”
“Seriously?” I asked.
Urn raised his glass to me and drained it before continuing. “I told them I had to run it by you since you want them fully trained with both their magery and the newer weapons, too. The Terra instructors offered to build another hall in the Oculus for combat training, though, if you approved the idea.”
“Hell yeah, I approve,” I assured the man. “I’ll talk to the dwarves about stocking the place, but I’d like to keep all firearm training confined to the Falmount fields. Let’s have the instructors send any of the potential promotions to Falmount tomorrow, and we can test out their abilities. If it goes well, I’ll have my women bring them up to speed on the firearms, and with any luck, we can expand our numbers a little before the siege.”
“We’ll need it,” Kurna muttered. “Ten of the ogres are still laid up at the infirmary, and that’s as good as losing forty Defenders. Shoshanne wouldn’t listen to a word about letting them join the ranks again until their wounds stop oozing puss.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “We may get lucky, though. I finally heard from Pindor and Markus, and they’ve destroyed over a thousand portals.”
“Already?” Urn asked as his eyes went wide. “They haven’t been gone long.”
I grinned. “Trained by the best, my friend. They’re finished with western Illaria, and they’re working their way along the eastern border as we speak. General Kin and five of our other posts haven’t had any attacks in days, so I’m thinking--”
“Gods.” Haragh clutched his pint. “Please tell me yer bringin’ the troops back.”
“I’m hoping to,” I confirmed, and the generals let out a collective sigh of relief before they hollered for another round. “The vassals’ knights should be able to handle the towns now that the portals are cleared out, but these storms haven’t let up, so we’ll have to send crews out regularly for repairs.”
Haragh nodded. “Did ye’ ask Shoshanne about forming a system like this?”
“I tried to,” I sighed. “She still leaves the room every time I mention Aer Magic.”
“Careful,” Kurna muttered as he sent me a warning look. “You really don’t want her bottling all this frustration up now that she’s harnessed so much magic. I’m saying this as your friend, you need to get that woman in hand, or one of these days, she’ll stub a toe and blast a crater open in the middle of your house.”
“I know,” I mumbled into my pint. “I’m working on it.”
“I’ll stop by the library and ask Barnik and Wyresus about the storms,” Urn offered.
“That’d be great,” I agreed, “but don’t mention the cyclone. Shoshanne will just be more pissed if we start talking about it with every Aer Mage we find. Let me know if Wyresus has translated anything else that could be useful, though.”
“Still nothing?” Kurna checked, and I shook my head.
“The last three chapters they’ve worked on were elements I already know about,” I replied, “but there has to be something in those parchments that could help us out. Besides all of that, let’s hold off one more day to see what the next batch of updates from the generals say, and if it’s still calm in the south, you can send out the orders and start pulling our troops back.”
“I’ll get the Terra Mages started on more houses this afternoon,” Haragh said with a nod. “The Defenders won’t want to be stuck in the middle of town after all the shit they’ve been dealing with in the south, and we’ve got twenty more mages moving in today. That’s after ten showed up yesterday as well.”
I smirked. “How is the Oculus not the ideal place to live as a mage? Hell, I’d live there if I didn’t have my own town to look after.”
“True, but you’re forgetting you and Aurora are the first heads of the Order to ever sit in a pub with your own disciples,” Kurna chuckled. “It’s good for the mages to see you’re not stuck up like Abrus, and they know both of you are still learning in the field these days, so they want to see you in action.”
“Probably helps that ye’ gave ‘em the freedom to explore their own powers out here,” Haragh snorted. “Nowadays, Falmount’s the best place to settle down without old-fashioned instructors looking over their shoulders.”
“You make it sound more dangerous than it probably is,” I pointed out. “It’s not like I’ve given them free reign on the elements. I made it clear they can only experiment with practiced Defenders present, and they respect the rules.”
Urn wavered his hand in the air in a so-so gesture as the other generals chuckled in agreement, and I rolled my eyes before I finished my last pint.
“Alright, let’s see what the damage is, then,” I sighed.
“Finally,” Haragh growled with an eager grin, and the generals downed their ales as well before we abandoned the table in the back of the pub.
Once Haragh cleared a path so we could make it out, the four of us stopped off at the dwarven shop to discuss stocking the Oculus for weapons training. Then Haragh convinced me to allow flails in the Order again, and after I added a hundred double-ended flails to the list, I led the way to the fields while Kurna monologued about why the Order had banned flails to begin with.
By the time we neared the training fields, I already regretted agreeing to the deal.
“And while we’re on the subject,” Kurna barreled on, “just because you live with a pack of bloodthirsty vixens doesn’t mean everyone wants to see that much gore while they’re trying to defend Illaria. Plenty of mages get queasy at the sight.”
“Do they?” I chuckled as I exchanged a glance with Haragh.
“No one said this war was for the faint of stomach,” the half-ogre informed the mage. “Flails are the best way to weed out the weaklings.”
“It’s not weak to prefer killing your attackers quick and clean,” Kurna countered, “and I take no shame in the fact I’d like to avoid injuring myself in the middle of a battle. Have you ever taken your own striker head to the thigh before?”
“Of course, I have,” Haragh replied, and he turned around so his huge shoulders blocked the entrance of the field whi
le he crossed his arms. “Anyone who’s taken a striker to the thigh will tell ye’ the same thing. It’s a lesson ye’ learn real fuckin’ quick, and a mistake ye’ don’t make more than once.”
“There you have it,” I sighed as I glanced at Kurna. “I respect your concerns, but I have to point out that your fighting style is neither quick nor clean.”
The brawny mage awkwardly shifted his weight. “That’s not… burning someone alive one inch at a time is entirely different than bludgeoning their brains out with iron spikes. It’s finesse versus brute strength.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” Haragh chuckled as he clapped the man on the shoulder, and then he headed into the fields while we all followed behind with Kurna scowling at the rear.
The moment we crossed the threshold, though, the air around me sent a static surge across my skin, and I abruptly stopped in my tracks while I tried to take in everything at once.
“Woah,” I muttered.
“Do you see those Aer Mages?” Urn asked as he nudged my side.
I turned in the direction the burly Terra Mage pointed, and I could hardly process what I was seeing. It seemed impossible at first, but as I watched more carefully, I could tell the Aer Mages were throwing their own currents ahead of them before they leapt and let the breeze carry them over their combat partners. Then they’d restrain their powers until enough had built beneath the surface of their palms, and the resulting blasts of air were strong enough to throw an ogre several feet back. Before the ogre landed, another Aer Mage rode a current to dodge three others and get behind the pack, and with the green giants cornered by the mages’ blades, the Defender overseeing them called for a break to give his feedback.
“They’re flying,” I mumbled blankly.