by Jan Stryvant
"Send someone out then to get them here," Robin nodded and looked at her grandson, "and that's something I should have realized!" she said and grinned at him.
Valerie flagged down one of the pages who had been assigned to them by the council to run messages back and forth.
"Maria, go fetch healers Sven, Norbert, and Jeri. Tell them to head up here immediately."
Maria nodded, "Yes, Ma'am," and quickly ran off.
It didn't take Maria long to find Sven or Jeri, and both headed off to the library to heed the summons immediately. Finding Norbert however took a little longer. When she finally did catch up with him, he was bandaging up an injury on one of the workers in the steam plant on the lower levels.
"Yes, Maria?" Norbert asked as he worked.
"Healers Valerie and Robin have requested your presence in the healer's library. They need you to come immediately."
Norbert glanced up at the ceiling and grumbled, "What is it this time?"
"The lion that Daelyn Gold married was injured in battle and is in need of special healing."
"So? Geris here is in need of healing too."
"If he's not healed by tomorrow afternoon, Healer Robin says that he will die."
"What!" Norbert looked at her.
"It's true, I've been listening to them talk all day. They've been researching special spells. Apparently he put himself into some sort of suspension as he was dying, and now they're going to reverse it before his spell runs out."
"Well damn, why didn't you say so!" Norbert grumbled.
"I just did," Maria smiled.
"Geris, hold your arm like this, and get two of your friends to take you up to the hospital. I got work to do, and you'll survive a lot longer than apparently our friend will."
Geris nodded and then looked over to where a couple of his co-workers were watching, having now fixed the broken valve that had come off and punctured his arm and broken two of his ribs.
"Come on you two, give me a hand, you heard Norbert, he's been summoned."
Norbert packed his things up quickly and followed Maria out of the room as Bryn Knudson and Tarl Youngson helped him to his feet.
"So, apparently Daelyn's new husband got himself in a spot of trouble?" Bryn asked as they helped Geris over to one of the small carts they used to haul some of the heavier parts.
"Apparently. It must be pretty bad if our two senior healers are calling in all of the others to help."
"I heard that battle Sunday night was pretty nasty," Tarl said.
"Where'd you hear that?" Bryn asked.
"My sister's friends with Daelyn's cousin Jocco. He was talking about it when he was over last night."
"So, someone's finally courting that sister of yours, hey?" Geris joked.
Bryn barely listened after that. The lion had killed his older brother, shot him dead in front of a whole bunch of witnesses, because they said he'd betrayed him. Bryn knew that his brother had some pretty purist views about things, and he knew he didn't approve of Daelyn or her lion husband, but Bryn couldn't see him doing anything to deserve getting murdered like that!
Bryn remembered that his brother used to do some tasks for one of those mages councils up above ground in Reno. Maybe he should give them a call, let them know what was going on. See if maybe they couldn't avenge his brother's death for him. Sure, Branff could be an ass, but he was a Knudson, and he was his brother.
That lion guy should pay, after all it wasn't like he was a dwarf, he just married one is all.
"Sheila, I need your help with something."
Sheila stopped and turned to look at Cali, who was both the newest and the youngest of Sean's wives. Sheila really didn't know all the much about dark elves, they tended to inhabit the Scandinavian countries and had never really spread out very far from there. The stories of their intrigue however painted them as capable of incredibly cruelty and viciousness. Their loyalty was the thing of legends, which perhaps explained their ability to hold a grudge for generations.
Peg was rather infatuated with Cali, but had not shared her reasons for it with Sheila, though Sheila guessed it probably had something to do with Peg's own rather dubious morality. Something she'd inherited from her father, no doubt. Cali was after all, a rather beautiful young woman who had a tendency towards skin tight clothing and showing lots of skin.
"What do you need?" Sheila asked, a little hesitantly.
"I need you to drive me somewhere, so I can take care of a small matter," Cali said nonchalantly.
"Why do you need me to drive?"
"I don't know how to," Cali admitted. "Back home, it wasn't considered a skill I needed to learn."
"Why not ask one of the others?"
"Um," Cali gave her a very small smile of embarrassment, "Peg has let it slip to me that you are both discrete and reliable when it comes to certain, how do you say it? Nefarious activities?"
Sheila looked around, to make sure that no one was nearby, then leaned in closer to Cali and that impressive bust of hers. "I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"Of course you don't," Cali nodded, "I was thinking we could sneak out of here about an hour after midnight, then you can drive me where I need to go, perhaps help me with a few small details and wait while I took care of something.
"Then we could both leave and come back here and no one would be the wiser."
"I'm not helping you!" Sheila growled.
"You help Peg," Cali said, pouting.
"Peg helped me when I needed it, I owe her."
"But you saved her life, you paid her back. Yet you still help her."
Sheila grumbled a little, "Peg and I are lovers, okay?" Sheila admitted with a glare.
"Oh, well, would you like to be lovers too?" Cali said with a wink and a smile.
"What!"
Cali looked down at her and pouted again, and damn if she wasn't attractive, which told Sheila two things, the first was that Cali had obviously been trained; the second was that she was in trouble.
"Well, I don't know who else to go to for help, this isn't something I want anyone else to know about, it's a private matter, a very private matter. I don't want to ask Peg, because, well, she's not a professional like you are."
Sheila felt her face go very red then. "I'm going to strangle her."
Cali giggled, "Gotcha!"
Sheila froze, "Wait, what?"
"Well, I searched your room; actually I searched everybody's room, and let's just say I found a few things that I know from my own experience you shouldn't be having. Then of course there are those things that Peg seems to turn up with, whenever the two of you go out together."
"You're not going to tell anybody, are you?" Sheila asked a little worried.
"Why would I? Peg trusts you, if she didn't this conversation would probably be happening in a much less pleasant manner."
Sheila almost flinched, as for just a brief moment; she saw something in the young dark elf's eyes that she hadn't seen since she'd gone through her training back in the UK.
"Where are we going?" Sheila sighed, admitting defeat.
"Oh, I'll tell you when we leave tonight. Bring that black suit of yours and all of your other toys.
Sheila watched as Cali turned and walked away, or more like slinked away. She'd seen Deidre do it enough times that she wasn't sure it was being put on for her benefit, but she had to admit, Cali was extremely attractive.
Richard Sorother looked around to make sure he hadn't been followed. He'd rented a private conference room in the Silver Legacy, because of its being warded against scrying and other such magicks. He didn't know if the people he was worried about finding him here did those sorts of things, but after being robbed not that long ago, while sleeping in his own bed, he was a bit more paranoid than he used to be.
The head that wears the crown lies uneasy after all.
Entering the building, he took a roundabout way to where he had set up the meeting, just making sure, once again, that no one was following
him. When he arrived at the door, he checked his appearance one last time, then putting a confident smile on his face he opened the door and stepped inside.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," Richard said looking around. Joseph Kinyon was there, as well as Richard's younger brother Kevin, who as now on the council as well. The rest of the people in the room however were folks he was much less acquainted with. The first was Lee Mills, the new leader of the Totis Viribus. Richard had met him a few times in the past, back when Totis Viribus was one of the Gradatim's staunchest allies in Reno. He was here with two other members, though Richard didn't know either of them.
Next was Kyle Wennegar, the head of the Tall Men council, and the two people he had brought with him. It was rare for anyone to work with Kyle or his group, but there were only two larger groups among the lesser councils in Reno, the Lux, who would never agree to this sort of thing, and the Elevens who were so secretive that Richard had no way of knowing how to even contact them.
They all nodded to Richard as he sat down.
"As you all undoubtedly know by now, we have a lycan revolt on our hands. One which if we do not do something about, the rest of you will lose your lycans, as Gradatim has already lost theirs."
"Why now?" Lee asked.
"What?"
"Why now, why are you proposing this now? And why do you need us?"
"I need all of you, because this is too big for just Gradatim to take on. Otherwise we would. Trust me when I say that we have a bone to pick with Sean Valens, however we can't do this by ourselves, or none of you would be here today.
"As for why now?" Richard looked around the room, "As you all know, the Vestibulum launched an attack, while it was repulsed, at great cost to them, they succeeded in one thing."
"What was that?"
"They critically injured Sean Valens."
"Wait, they did what?" Kyle spoke up, leaning forward over the conference table.
"They critically injured him. He's currently in a coma, has been since the fight."
"So, what do you want us to do then? Attack his place and try to finish him off?" Lee shook his head, "That's way too much to ask. From what I've heard, they got a lot of people up there, and a lot of weapons."
Richard grinned at them, "Oh no, I have something far easier than that planned, you see, I have certain contacts in the dwarven community, and it seems that our enemy, Sean Valens, is dying."
"You're kidding me," Lee said in a soft voice.
"Are you sure about this?" Kyle asked.
Richard nodded, "Positive. He's got less than twenty-four hours to live at this point, unless the dwarven healers can come up with a way to heal him. The problem for us," Richard sighed theatrically, "is that they have found a way, and will be leaving in the morning to drive up to his home and save his life."
"Damn," Kyle swore, "we gotta stop them. But dwarves? They're a lot harder to cast spells on, and they're pretty damn nasty in a fight."
"Who's looking to fight them? I just want to delay them long enough that Sean dies. We block off their exits, I have a map with all of them on it. That'll slow them down for a few hours. Then once they hit the road, we stage a few accidents, snarl up traffic, and keep our eyes open.
"There's only two roads that they can take coming into Reno from the south. If we close one with a massive wreck, we can have our people watching for them on the other. We damage their cars, I don't know, give them flat tires or something. That'll force them to stop and change tires or maybe wait for someone to show up with another car.
"The point is, we don't attack them, we annoy them, slow them down. They're down in the Carson City area, Sean is up between Lemmon Valley and Spanish Flats." Richard motioned to his younger brother, "Kevin, the maps please?"
Kevin took several folded maps out of his briefcase and opened them up on the table so everyone could see them.
"As you can see, I've marked the places where I think we could cause the most issues for traffic with just a couple of accidents." Richard moved over to point to one of the other maps, "These are the locations of all the exits that the dwarves use. Apparently my predecessor had taken quite an interest in them for some reason. But a hundred of us could easily lock those all down for a while. When they come after us, we just run away. Sure, they'll be annoyed, but it's not the kind of thing that the dwarves will kill us over."
"You know," Lee said looking over the maps, "we could send out a bunch of our wives and kids to drive around the area where we stage the wrecks to make traffic even worse. Cause you're right, there's not a lot of options coming up outta Carson."
Richard gave a silent cheer as Lee signed on.
"What do you think, Kyle?" Lee said, turning to look at him.
"I'm thinking that I've never had any run-in's with this guy, why should I risk my people?"
"Well, if he lives, he's gonna take your lycans away. Me personally? I don't like those animals telling me what I can and can't do. Besides, what are we really risking here? I don't see a lot of risk, but I see a metric butt-ton of reward."
"If we're going to do this," Richard spoke up, "we have to start planning it here and now. Right now, this minute. We have to be in place come the morning, and everybody has to know the plan. I can't do this without either of you, and you know it. Like Lee said, it's low risk, high rewards. If we fail, we're no worse off than we are today.
"But if we win? We get rid of a huge thorn in our side, and hopefully without him leading their rebellion, it all falls apart."
"What about the Vestibulum?" Kyle asked.
"What about them?"
"Why aren't they helping? This benefits them as much as the rest of us."
"Because after what they did to the Ascendants, I really don't trust them," Richard told him. "Also, the rumor mill is still buzzing that the Ascendants are looking for a little revenge. They were responsible for that little dustup downtown last week. Now that the word is out, that the Vestibulum got their asses kicked and lost all of their lycans," Richard shrugged, "I'd think that they're going to want to stay home and guard their families."
Kyle pondered that a moment, and then nodded.
"Okay, me and my people are in. Let's get a plan worked out," Kyle turned to one of his people, "Victor, go back to my office and call everyone up. Tell them we're going to fuck up this Sean guy and ruin his day. I need everyone to show up by midnight, and tell them there's gonna be one hell of a party after this is done."
"Got it, Kyle," Victor said with a nod, and getting up he left the room.
Richard smiled, if he could pull this off, national would get off his ass and they'd help him replace his losses. But win or lose, at least he was doing something, not sitting around and crying in his beer.
"Well, let's get this party started," Richard smiled and pulling over the second map, he started going over the gates into the dwarven town, so they could discuss just how many magic users would be needed to block each one.
Morgan sighed and looked at his watch; it was getting later, after eleven, if he didn't want to be tired when they left here tomorrow morning, he'd need to get to bed soon.
"So, is everybody ready for the big day tomorrow?" He asked looking around the room, all of the surviving council members where here, except for Mike, who had taken his pet and gone home this morning. Mabel had told him that Mike would be a while recovering yet, same for the three from out of town who were wounded. However the other three were all here.
Al nodded, "I got a bunch of our mages quartered over in the barracks, the rest are going to start showing at six. I've got vehicles for everyone, rifles, ammunition, some heavier weapons, and I've pulled every magical weapon or device that can be used as one out of storage."
Morgan nodded and smiled, "Good, good. I'm looking forward to teaching those animals what real men and women can do." Morgan looked over at Jerry, "Have you learned anything new on what's going on up there?"
Jerry looked up, "On their numbers or their disposition, not really.
Everything I told Al earlier this morning still stands: to the best of our intelligence, Valens is definitely still out of action. But that leads into another piece of news that I got from some of our informants on the other councils."
"Oh?" Morgan looked up at Jerry who nodded.
"There's a rumor that Valens is actually hurt quite badly, far worse than we first thought, and that he needs some sort of special healing, and that if he doesn't get it soon, he'll die."
Morgan sat up straighter in his seat. "When?"
"Tomorrow. It also looks like Gradatim is meeting with some of the minor councils to try and enlist their help in blockading the dwarf town starting sometime early tomorrow morning."
"That won't last long," Al chuckled, shaking his head.
"It doesn't have to; it just has to last long enough."
"Excellent!" Morgan said, smacking his palm down on the table. "We're definitely striking in the morning, no matter what! With everyone pre-occupied to the south, no one will expect it! It may even draw forces off from the Valens compound, to try and help."
Jerry considered that and nodded slowly. While he didn't think it was likely, it was possible. "Has there been any word on us getting any help?"
Morgan shook his head, "Not yet, but that doesn't matter now, they'd never get here in time. Look, we're going to win this! We're going to kill that bastard and take back not only our lycans, but all of the lycans he got from his attacks on the others! And we're not going to give any of them a choice. They're ours now, spoils of war! Hell, we should even take those fae and any humans we find and collar them too! Anyone up there will either be ours, or dead!
"And after that? Maybe we should see about those so-called 'free' lycans in this town as well! That's a problem that has gone on for far too long!"
Jerry nodded along with Al and all the rest, but he still wished that they'd have waited for some reinforcements to bolster their numbers before going up there. He was starting to worry that Morgan might be misjudging just what they were up against. He'd redoubled his efforts to try and guarantee that he was providing Morgan with the best information, and some of it hadn't been pleasant. But Morgan hadn't been dissuaded, nothing it seemed could anymore. But still, Jerry was worried, he'd missed critical information twice now, and they'd paid for it heavily Sunday night. Jerry felt the heavy weight of that failure falling on his shoulders now, that the deaths of his friends had finally started to settle in.