Skulduggery 10: Building a Criminal Empire

by Logan Jacobs

Then we just had to wait.

  I didn’t sleep much that night, but I tried to get some rest the next day so that I would be prepared the moment our lookouts spotted the elven army in the distance. Sure enough, just like I thought, the elves finally appeared at twilight the next evening, and once I checked the magic map again, I knew that we still had two days before Tevian’s forces arrived here.

  It was just enough time to kill the elves and then set their fort on fire.

  Cimarra took charge of the infirmary in the city, so whenever the wounded started to come in, she would be ready for them. Clodia took the river side of the city to handle any elven troops that circled around and tried to invade that way, and Dar and Melia stayed on that side with her. As for Ava, Penny, and me, we all waited with the Elite behind the spiked wooden fence as we prepared to face the main bulk of the elven force.

  When the elves finally came into view, I saw that their formation was identical to the formation of the elves that marched from the fort outside the Capital. Golierian had really meant it when he said that the elves liked their law and order and standard formations, but it certainly made it easier to plan a defense against them.

  The cavalry led the charge, and the foot soldiers followed right behind them. The foot soldiers bore swords and shields, while the cavalry were all armed with lances and short swords. Based on how fast the horses trotted toward us, my guess was that the elves hoped to intimidate the human rebels with a show of their power, so we would just throw up our hands before they even reached Riverhome. Elves weren’t used to lesser races standing their ground against them in battle, and they were counting on our troops to crumble and run away in fear at the first onslaught. In all the previous wars and rebellions, the lesser races were defeated at the first charge of the elven noblemen on horseback. They clearly assumed that the lesser races would be beaten before the first blow was struck.

  They were about to find out just how different the ‘lesser races’ were now.

  Our pike-men rested their poles on the wooden perimeter, so that the cavalry would face both sharp spikes and deadly blades, and then we waited. My shield was ready, my sword waited faithfully at my side for when I needed it, my fierce redhead and my beautiful assassin were right beside me, and my troops were eager for another test of their courage.

  By the time the arrogant and overconfident elvem horsemen realized that Riverhome was not as defenseless as they thought, and the defenders of the city wouldn’t turn tail and run at the first sign of danger, it was too late for the front row of horses to slow down without the risk that they would be trampled to death by the cavalry right behind them.

  The first wave of cavalry fell into the deep moat in front of the wall of spikes, and the horses twisted and flailed around as they searched for human flesh to bite, but they couldn’t get up in time. Instead, the second wave of cavalry rode in on top of them and crushed the first wave of horses and riders underfoot, anyway.

  As the second wave ran right into the weapons of our pike-men that thrust out through the wooden spikes of the perimeter fence, Ava gave the signal to her archers to launch their attack, only this time, the archers started with fire-tipped arrows to help shed a little light on the elven forces in front of us.

  The arrows found their targets in the first wave of foot soldiers behind the cavalry who were bringing up scaling ladders to take the city, and as they plunged to the ground with fire in their throats, the next wave of enemies stumbled over the bodies that had been trampled in the moat or that were skewered on the ends of our pikes. As one wave after another of elves tried to push forward, each one determined that they would be the wave to break through our defenses, fire-tipped arrows continued to rain down from the sky like burning hail. I could see the elven officers shouting encouragement to their men to advance, but they were already starting to waver in their resolve.

  Then I joined my magic to the fight.

  As I watched about a third of the elven force break off and head to the east, I launched a massive ball of white fire up into the air, froze it above the crowd of elves on the field in front of me, and then let it slam down into the middle of the foot soldiers. I knew that the elves who had just left the field were headed to try to enter the city from the other side, but I also knew that I didn’t need to be worried about them.

  After all, they would find that Clodia, Dar, and Melia were all too eager to meet them.

  I hurled another burst of white flames up high into the air, and this time, I let it fracture apart as it fell, so it set an entire row of elven foot soldiers on fire. I threw one blast after another up over the cavalry at the foot soldiers behind them, while Ava and the Elite archers continued to send one volley of arrows after another, until the whole field outside of Riverhome looked like a burning plain of gold and white fire.

  But still, even though the foot soldiers dropped like flies, more kept coming. Now that the elves had crossed the moat, they tried to climb over the high wooden stakes and bring their scaling ladders up to the walls. Plenty of them fell onto the stakes or onto the pikes of our troops, but plenty more of them began to actually make it across.

  But my Elite and I were ready for them.

  Each time an elf managed to jump over the high perimeter fence or found a weak spot in our pike-men’s ranks, the elven rider quickly found themselves face to face with my sword, or with a team of Elite soldiers who all surrounded the rider and dragged both horse and elf to the ground.

  I swung my sword at each new horse that broke into the city, and any time I made an initial wound or cut some elven asshole’s arm or leg off, Penny was right beside me to finish off the job. My shield became an extra weapon as I slammed it into the elves who broke through, and the force of each blow from my shield was damn near enough to shatter their bones before I used my sword as a quick follow-up.

  Ava fell back with her archers, so they could continue to shoot past the perimeter fence but not be in danger from the elven cavalry that broke past our front lines. As her archers continued to rain fire and dark arrows down onto the foot soldiers, I paused my fight against the cavalry every few seconds to send another blast of white fire out into the field or to freeze all the cavalry in place for just long enough to give my troops the advantage.

  I didn’t know where Golierian was, but I hoped that he would be able to keep himself out of harm’s way until he could break through our ranks and join our side. The night elf had to be out there somewhere, although he might have been able to fall back when the initial onslaught happened, and now he might just be waiting in the darkness for the battle to finish before he showed himself again, just to make sure that he didn’t get caught in any crossfire.

  I was actually pretty convinced that this was what he had done, until my next burst of fire over the field outside the city told me otherwise. There in the middle of the foot soldiers was a single horse and rider, and it only took a second to identify him as Golierian. As the night elf galloped back and forth along the ranks of other elves, he slashed his sword down left and right to mow down every bastard that he could and then galloped off before being surrounded.

  “He’s gonna get himself fucking killed,” I groaned.

  “Not if we can help it,” Penny said, and then she turned to run back toward Ava to tell her that we had spotted Golierian.

  As soon as Penny talked to her, Ava had her archers unleash another volley of arrows, but this time, they all landed in the center of the field in front of Golierian’s position. I fired my own magic at the field next to clear the path even more, and after only a few minutes, Ava and I had cleared a way for Golierian to gallop all the way toward Riverhome and jump the high perimeter fence.

  Now I just needed to get his attention.

  I only needed to hold my magic for a second, but it took all my concentration to focus on the elves all around the path that we had cleared. I focused on every single one of them, and then as I exhaled, I let them all freeze into place.

  Golierian instan
tly realized that all his enemies had grown still, so then he looked toward the city, saw the white light of my upraised sword, and turned his horse to gallop straight for Riverhome. As soon as he started toward the city, I felt my magic collapse, and all the elves regained consciousness at once, but by then, Golierian was well on his way to our side.

  As he came closer and closer to the perimeter fence, I slashed my sword at every enemy elf and horse that came close enough to feel the heat of my blade. We had already destroyed a bulk of their force, and I would have bet anything that the elven commanders regretted the fact that they had split up to attack Riverhome from the other side.

  For one thing, I was sure that they faced just as much death on the river side of the city, and for another, their main force was so weakened now that it wouldn’t take long to bring them all to death or surrender.

  When Golierian was just on the other side of the spiked fence, he crouched low over his horse’s neck and urged his mount into a high jump. The horse had started to foam at the mouth in his blood-craze, but it seemed to give him extra energy, and just a few seconds later, both the horse and Golierian made the leap over the fence and came crashing down a dozen paces away from me.

  I ran toward him to make sure that the Elite didn’t treat him as an enemy, and then I ordered him off his horse, so he would be less of a target. The night elf instantly slid off the horse’s back, handed me the reins, and retreated with Penny to Ava’s side, where he would be safe for the rest of the battle.

  As soon as I saw that my friends were safe, I froze, mounted, and then unfroze the raging horse and began to ride it up and down the length of the perimeter fence. Every time I came across an elf on horseback, I cut him down, and every time I came to a clear spot in the ranks, I fired another blast of white flames out onto the field.

  I didn’t know how long we fought, only that it was still nighttime, but all at once, I looked around and realized that all of the elven cavalry were… gone. The foot soldiers almost all laid in pools of their own blue blood out on the field, but there was still one unit that remained. As Ava directed her archers to shoot again, the elven foot soldiers dropped to their knees and shouted for mercy, so I signaled to Ava to hold her fire.

  We had actually done it. We had destroyed an entire fort of soldiers before they could join Tevian’s ranks, and that meant the odds had just shifted even more into our favor for our future final battle with the elven general.

  “Move out and take prisoners!” I shouted to my troops.

  As the unit commanders all began to follow my orders, I sheathed my sword and glanced at the magic map again. Tevian was a little bit closer, so I knew that we needed to destroy the fort before he could gain any more ground, but first, I needed to make sure that the elves on the other side of the city had been defeated as soundly as we had just beaten the elves on our side.

  “Stay here!” I called to Ava, Penny, and Golierian. “I’ll be back!”

  But when I was only halfway to the other side of Riverhome, I pulled my horse to a quick stop when I saw Clodia up ahead. She grinned when I caught her eye, and then she ran over to meet me and looked up with a breathless smile.

  “We won,” the night elf said. “Dar and Melia are organizing the prisoners, but there’s hardly any of them. Those stubborn bastards wouldn’t give up, so… but we won!”

  “So did we,” I said, “but now we have just one more thing to do.”

  “What’s that?” Clodia asked.

  I reached down, grabbed her by the waist, and pulled her up to sit in front of me on the horse.

  “Let’s go light some shit on fire,” I whispered.

  “Ohh, Wade,” Clodia purred. “You always know how to make my pussy drip.”

  I galloped back through the streets toward the perimeter fence, told my friends the plan, and then cleared the wooden spikes with a single solid jump. Then all we had to do was ride all the way out to the fort, but since the horse was so crazed from all the blood of battle, it didn’t even hesitate as we urged it forward faster and faster, so we finally reached the wilderness fort just as the sky had barely started to lighten.

  After Clodia and I destroyed the fort with so much blue and white fire that the whole countryside seemed almost as bright as if it was the middle of the day instead of just before dawn, my night elf lover and I returned to Riverhome so we could check in with the others, and so I could check on the magic map again.

  It was almost noon by the time we rode the horse back into Riverhome, so the elven prisoners had already been given new housing, and the clean-up process had begun when we entered the city. Our side had lost some troops, of course, but not nearly as many as we could have, and overall, the elves had lost almost their whole damn force, except for the few smart elves who had surrendered at the end, so they had certainly come out worse than we had.

  The wounded were all being cared for in the infirmary, and when I went to check on things there, I found Cimarra still in charge of things, along with all the rest of my friends who had come to help her out. My women were safe, Dar and Melia had also managed to come out the other side without any injuries, and even Golierian had escaped unharmed except for a few shallow cuts on his legs.

  I felt a wave of relief wash over me that all my closest friends were still well. It was hard to constantly put those closest to me into danger, but it was the only way to build the world that we wanted together. But one day soon, we would fight our last battle, and then I would rule the kingdom in peace as we rebuilt everything exactly how we wanted it to be.

  I felt fucking sure of that.

  But first, we had to fight Tevian’s growing army, so I pulled out my magic map from the Blood City to check on the position of the elven general and his forces. Once the map zoomed in onto his position, I saw that the black specks had all stopped about three-quarters of the way to the fort that we had just destroyed outside of Riverhome.

  I glanced at my friends, but their gazes were all fixed on the map as well, so I just turned my attention back to it and waited for some change. Only a few minutes later, Tevian and his entire force of tiny black ink flecks on the paper turned around and headed back in the opposite direction.

  “Holy shit,” Penny whispered. “It really worked.”

  “It sure as shit looks like it,” I said with a grin.

  “Wait,” Clodia said. “He’s not headed back to Skam’s city.”

  I followed the night elf’s finger as she gestured to Tevian’s army to the map, and sure enough, Tevian had set off in a new direction completely, and if his plan was what it looked like, I knew that we were about to have our final battle even sooner than I had thought.

  Maybe he saw the fort on fire and decided to attack before he could gather the rest of his troops, but if that was the case, then I needed to gather up all of my troops from all across the empire to make sure that we were ready to face him. I still didn’t have Azure with me, so I would have to send someone to get my dragon, because in the meantime, I needed to summon my soldiers from every city to come help me in our last stand.

  Because Tevian was leading his army straight toward the Blood City.

  Chapter 18 - Tevian

  It had been a few days since I saw the night sky outside of Riverhome explode with magic bursts of white and blue flames, but I still couldn’t shake the image from my head. It was more magic than I had ever seen in one place before, and I sure as hell had never seen white fire like that before. Elven magic was almost always blue, so that only left one question.

  Who the hell had conjured white fire?

  I rolled my eyes as I continued to pace up and down among my soldiers’ tents. I had a feeling that I knew exactly who had conjured the white fire, just like I knew exactly what happened to the secret stronghold of magic casters. After all, there was only one reasonable answer.

  It had to be Wade.

  I just didn’t know how he had done it… how he had done any of it, really. But I had no doubt that the human thi
ef was behind every obstacle that I had encountered, just like he was behind this whole goddamn revolution. Still, even though I was certain that he was the answer to everything, I couldn’t figure out how he kept moving from one city to another so goddamn fast.

  As soon as I had seen the blue and white fire on the horizon, I had looked at my map to make sure that it was the fort outside of Riverhome, and then I had promptly turned my troops around and started to head toward the Blood City instead. There was so much fire that no one could have survived that kind of fight, so there was no point in checking for survivors.

  Especially since I was sure that meant Riverhome belonged to Wade now, too.

  After all, I had seen the scorch marks all over the narrow mountain pass behind the secret stronghold. The fire had long since gone out by the time I found all the burned elven corpses there, but it was clear that no ordinary fire had caused their deaths or that kind of damage to the rocks themselves. It was obvious that it was magic, and while the blue flames might belong to one of our own, the white flames… well, they were something else entirely.

  Plus, not only were the elven soldiers from the stronghold dead, but every last fucking magic caster that the stronghold had to offer was dead, too, and that meant we had hardly any real magic casters on our side… except for me, of course.

  I honestly didn’t know what I was more upset about, the fact that so many elven soldiers were dead or the fact that I had even fewer reinforcements to recruit to my side. It had already been one hell of a struggle to get the elves from the wilderness forts to all cooperate together, much less to contact all of them and try to unite them under me.

  But one messenger after another came back and told me that the forts that I’d sent them to had been destroyed or were completely empty of all their soldiers, so I couldn’t recruit any elves from the forts outside of the Gold City, the Capital, or the secret magic stronghold, and now even Riverhome hadn’t made the cut.

  Instead, I was stuck with the armies from half a dozen forts all across the empire. I should have been happy with that number since it totaled about twenty-thousand elven troops, but I couldn’t help but feel like at the end of the day, that number might mean absolutely nothing against Wade.