by Logan Jacobs
I hadn’t put on my own battle armor yet, but I still had time. I just wanted to reassure my soldiers individually, or at least as many of them as I could, before I led them all out onto the battlefield. All my soldiers had been tested at this point, and they had all more than proven how fierce they were, how loyal they were, and how much I could rely on them.
But even though they had all been tested against elven fighters, none of us had faced an army of nearly twenty-thousand fucking elven soldiers before. That was the number that my scouts had given me, and every time I checked the magic map, it sure as shit looked like there were that many troops under Tevian’s direction.
It was an overwhelming number, especially since at least two thousand of them were on horseback, but I still felt pretty confident about our odds. I just wanted to make sure that my soldiers all felt the same way. After all, if they believed that they were invincible, they would fight like they were invincible, and that would make it just a little bit easier to win the battle today.
I glanced across the next row of troops and caught Ava’s eye, as the blonde assassin talked to one of the Elite archers. She smiled before she turned back to face the archer, and my heart felt like it jumped straight into the back of my throat at the sight of my beautiful assassin’s smile.
All I wanted to think about was how to rebuild our world once the final battle was over, so it would be a safe place for our child to grow up in. After all, Ava was a big part of the reason that we had launched the revolution when we did. Actually all my women were, besides Clodia, because I couldn’t stand the thought that my children with them might grow up in the same kind of world that I had.
I wanted it to be different for them.
I wanted it to be better.
But Ava was definitely the biggest reason that our army was so fucking badass. She was without a doubt the best assassin in the whole empire, and she had trained the Elite and the human guards to fight like her, so then they had been able to train more of our troops to fight like her, so now we had a whole army of fierce, loyal soldiers who just wanted to serve me as their king.
If Ava hadn’t helped train all the ground troops, not to mention the Elite archers, I didn’t know where we would be, other than in some deep fucking shit. Then again, the same thing was true of all my women. I relied on them, just like they depended on me.
Cimarra had taken my whiskey business in hand so well that I had continued to double and triple my profits with every new city that we had taken over, while Twila had supplied me with so much information that I always knew what was going on in the Capital and even in the rest of the empire. Ashlin had also been incredible, since she always helped with anything that needed to be done.
Penny had been with me from the very beginning, so she had seen me when I was just a kid who first came to the city, but she had been by my side every moment since then, and she had always believed in me, even when I hadn’t. And Clodia… well, Clodia had been a surprise, but now that she fought on our side with us, I couldn’t imagine fighting the revolution without her. Her magic was incredibly powerful, and it worked as a perfect companion to my own magic, so between the two of us, I didn’t think the elves really stood a chance against us.
I couldn’t believe that all my women were pregnant at the same time, except for Clodia, and I hoped that after the battle today, we would be able to start making the world ready for the entrance of my children. If they were even half as powerful and badass as their mothers, the world had better watch out. My children would be unstoppable, and I would make sure that there wasn’t a single thing that stood in their way.
And as for Clodia, I wasn’t concerned that the night elf wasn’t pregnant yet because I had a feeling that wouldn’t be the case for too much longer. We just needed a few more rounds before she was sure to be pregnant, too, and then our baby would be the first halfie of the new world who wouldn’t be looked down on or called names just because of who its parents were.
I would make goddamn sure of that.
It was hard to stay focused when I knew that the results of today’s battle would determine so much. They would determine everything, and if I didn’t win… but I wouldn’t think like that. I had my friends on my side, a badass army of Elite soldiers and human guards to follow me, and the magic and power of the Ancients with me.
I would not lose.
Still, I had to force myself back to focus on the troops all around me. There would be time later to think about what the world might look like after the battle today, but first, we still had to actually get through it and win the victory.
“My king!” Dar called out.
I turned to find my halfling friend in the crowd of soldiers and smiled when I saw the halfling charge toward me with his hands balled up into fists at his sides.
“What’s going on?” I asked when he reached me.
“The scouts just came back from the fields,” my halfling friend replied. “The elven army has been spotted in the distance, and it looks like they’re in the formation that you predicted.”
“Good,” I said. “Do we still have plenty of time to get into position?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s fine,” Dar said. “I just wanted to let you know that they’re on the move, and they’re headed exactly where we want them.”
“That’s perfect,” I said. “Now we just have to make sure we get into position to meet them, so we can take the battle to them instead of waiting inside the walls.”
“And we’re, uh…” Dar trailed off. “We’re sure that we don’t want to just wait inside the walls? Let them try to starve us out? After all we could use the portals to go back and forth to other cities for supplies.”
“I know,” I said. “But if we don’t break them now, this war could drag on for a long time, and I don’t want that. I want to start rebuilding the kingdom, so I want to destroy any obstacles between me and that goal.”
“Fair enough,” my halfling friend said. “I guess the Rainbow Keys wouldn’t have led you to that magic map if it wasn’t time for you to take what rightfully belongs to you.”
“What rightfully belongs to us,” I said. “I may be the human king, but my kingdom will be for everyone, not just humans. The races will finally all be treated as equals.”
“If we can make it through the battle,” Dar sighed.
“That’s the idea,” I said with a smile. “Well, my friend, did you ever think that we would be here?”
“You mean back when you were just some scrawny kid from the country?” Dar snickered. “No, I can’t say that when I took you under my wing and decided to teach you all my very best thieving tricks that I thought we would end up inside the Blood City one day. And I definitely didn’t think that there would be an elven army outside the walls that we were about to go fight like it’s the most natural thing in the world.”
“Any regrets?” I murmured.
“Not a single fucking one, my friend,” Dar said and clapped me on the shoulder. “Not a single fucking one.”
“That’s good,” I laughed. “Nobody wants to have any regrets on the day they ride into battle.”
“What about you?” my halfling friend asked. “Is there anything that you would do differently?”
“Not a damn thing,” I said with a smirk. “Sure, maybe I wish that we could have started the revolution earlier, but honestly? It worked out perfectly. Everything fell into place at exactly the right time, you know?”
“Probably because you’re favored by the Ancients or some shit,” Dar teased. “So, I guess if you could go back and steal that first key that started all of this shit, you’d do it all over again, right?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” I said. “And now there’s just one battle that stands between us and victory, and then we can build the world however we want it to be.”
“Then on that note, I’d better go check in with the new unit of halfling pike-men,” Dar said. “I want to make sure that they know exactly what’s expected of them.”
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br /> “I appreciate that, my friend,” I said. “But when the fighting starts… look after yourself, alright?”
“You do the same,” Dar replied. “And don’t worry about me. Melia has already told me that she won’t leave my side during the battle, and to be honest, she’s such a damn good fighter that I’m a little scared of her.”
“Good,” I said. “I’m glad you’ll have someone who can watch your back, but I’ll do my best to keep my eyes on you, too.”
“Then I’ll see you right before battle,” Dar said.
I nodded and waited until my friend disappeared into the ranks of halfling pike-men, and then I turned my attention back to the soldiers directly around me. These were foot soldiers from the Gold City, so I knew that they had been tested in a real battle before, not just in the initial uprising after the equinox festival.
I was just glad that all the guards and soldiers from every city across the empire had been ready when I called upon them. As soon as the magic map from the temple had shown me that Tevian turned all of his forces outside of Riverhome, I had known that the final battle would happen sooner rather than later. So when the map then showed me that Tevian was leading his army straight toward the Blood City, I knew that this really would be the final battle.
After all, the Rainbow Keys had already shown me that in a vision.
Of course, I had known that it would take Tevian a few days to get to the Blood City, and that meant I had only a few days to gather together all of my soldiers and all of my human guards from each one of the ten cities, so we could stand as one united army against the might of the elven empire. I had used the portals to travel from one city to another to summon all my fighters, and I had led them through one unit at a time into the Blood City, where we could make final preparations for our final stand against the elves.
The whole time, I had continued to check the magic map from the temple to make sure that Tevian didn’t have any surprises in store for us, but the only elven troops left in the whole empire were massed under the night elf general, and they never strayed from their course for the Blood City. So when I gathered up all my soldiers, I also made sure to gather all of my friends at the same time, so we would all make our last stand together.
Of course, right before our final battle preparations tonight, I had stashed my magic map in the safest place in the Blood City, and that was right back inside the temple where it had come from. It would be too valuable to keep on my person in the middle of all the heavy fighting, and if things didn’t go well, I wanted Cimarra and the others to be able to reach it, so that everyone in the Blood City would be able to make other plans if they had to. I sure as shit hoped that it wouldn’t come to that, but I also wanted to make damn sure that my people would be protected.
As I scanned the troops around me now, I saw Leif’s huge frame off in the distance, and I smiled as the big gladiator laughed among the soldiers to try to get them to relax before the fight. Skam was around here somewhere, too, although I hadn’t seen him since he started to lead an ancient dwarven war chant among some of my dwarven soldiers.
And Golierian and Clodia were somewhere near the head of our forces, since even though they were eager to fight for me again, our troops still weren’t quite ready to see two night elves on the loose just yet.
All in good time.
“So, tell me, are you ready for a battle?” I asked the closest soldier from the Gold City.
“M-me, my king?” the soldier murmured.
“Yes, you,” I said with a smile. “Don’t you know the outcome of this battle all depends on you?”
“Wh-what?” the soldier stammered again.
“You think you’re just a soldier, right?” I asked.
“Well… yes,” the man admitted.
“None of you are just soldiers,” I said. “You’re fighters, that’s true, but you’re also the future of this whole fucking kingdom. You’re not just soldiers. You are citizens who have just as many rights as any other citizen. You are husbands and fathers, you are sons and brothers, and it’s you who will make the difference today.”
“Do you really think so?” the soldier asked.
“I do,” I said. “Because you are not replaceable. Not to your families, not to your children, and sure as hell not to me. Do you understand?”
“Yes, my king!” the man said, and the words were instantly repeated as a chorus by all the soldiers around me.
“Good man,” I said and clapped him on the back. “Now get ready to march. We’ll head to the fields soon.”
I continued to stride up and down the ranks of my soldiers to try to encourage them whenever I could, but I knew that in just a matter of minutes, I would need to put on my battle-gear and prepare to lead us onto the field. I had planned for the battle to start at dawn, and based on the movement of Tevian’s army, he had planned for the same thing, so I wanted to make sure that we were positioned at the greatest advantage on the field before Tevian arrived with all his forces.
I planned for us to march out far enough away from the Blood City that we would still be able to see the red walls, but we wouldn’t be so close that the elves would just try to move around us and go straight for the city gates. Of course, the elves knew as well as we did that the Blood City was impossible to break into, so the only way they would get through the front gates was if we opened them and let them inside.
But with the Blood City still relatively close to the battlefield, I knew that we had backup just in case things didn’t go according to plan. If the battle went badly, I would have my troops fall back against the walls of the Blood City or if things went even worse, we could even fall back inside them.
I didn’t want it to come to that, since that could easily turn into a siege, but I had still made sure that I had covered every possibility to keep my people and my troops as safe as I could. After all, if I hadn’t thought the Blood City was a safe backup plan, then I would never have agreed to bring Cimarra, Twila, and Ashlin through the portal with me into the Blood City.
At first, I had wanted to keep them all safely in the Capital, but they had all been very insistent that they wanted to stay as close to me as possible, and I couldn’t argue with them. Even just the knowledge that they were close by made me feel like I was stronger, and if things really went badly, they could always use the portals to escape.
Hell, even Osman had come through the portal with me to the Blood City, and he was somewhere among the crowd of soldiers now as he prepared for the fight, too. The blue-skinned djinn had told me in no uncertain terms that Chef Marver could mind the bakery while he was gone, because he’d be damned if he wasn’t front and center in the final battle against our elven overlords.
I couldn’t blame him, and I sure as shit wasn’t about to refuse the extra help. Osman might not be able to cast fire like Clodia and I could, and he might not be able to freeze things in place like I could, but he had more than a few djinn tricks up his sleeves, so I had a feeling that he would be one hell of an ally today.
Selius had come through the portal with him, of course, because the halfling kid had wanted to be part of the battle as much as the rest of us, and since he was pretty decent with a blade, I figured that he would make a good foot soldier, especially under the watchful eyes of Skam.
I was able to spend a little more time with the soldiers, but when I finally decided that it was time to gear up and lead my troops out onto the battlefield, I threw a single white flame up into the air to signal for my friends to join me at the head of my army, and then I made my way up to the front of the ranks myself.
Golierian and Clodia were waiting for me there with my armor and my steed, and I smiled as I patted the former elven warhorse. When I had taken the horse from its elven rider in the battle at Riverhome, I hadn’t planned to use it again, but the animal actually turned out to be kind of fond of me, and as long as I kept it well-supplied with scraps of non-human meat, it had proven to be a faithful mount, and it would serve me well
on the field today.
While I waited for all the rest of my friends to join me, I patted the horse’s neck and watched Clodia practice little rings of blue fire that exploded from the ends of each finger. Golierian, Clodia, and Ava would also each ride a horse today, but since they were the only ones of my friends with enough experience to ride easily, the four of us would be the only ones on horseback, other than a handful of other human riders in our ranks.
Of course, if everything went according to plan, I wouldn’t be on horseback for very long, but at the moment, that all depended on a certain redheaded pixie.
When my friends had all joined me at the front of my troops, I took a moment with them before I geared up. Whatever happened today, I wanted to remember this moment, because in this moment, I knew that we were already free.
Selius and Skam stood beside each other on my left, as the tattooed dwarf tested the halfling kid’s blade to make sure that it had been sharpened recently enough. Osman stood beside the horses, but they all seemed surprisingly fond of the djinn, and Golierian only seemed a little bit concerned about the fact that an unchained djinn was now right beside him.
Dar and Melia stood directly in front of me, but their fists were both clenched so tightly that I knew they were eager to get onto the field and have their weapons in their hands. But as I turned away from them, I saw that their clenched fists relaxed for just a second as their hands found each other, and then Dar squeezed the halfling woman’s hand so tight that her face blushed nearly as dark-red as her thick curls.
And on the other side of the circle around me, Clodia and Ava stood beside Ashlin, Twila, and Cimarra. Clodia was brushing Ashlin’s brunette hair out of her face in a surprisingly sweet gesture, and Twila had linked arms with Ava as she whispered something into the other halfie’s ear.