Liar King

by Adam Elliott

  “We’re still attached to our unit.” Cayden explained, we can’t go more than a mile from the gate.”

  “Ah.” Asch laughed. “Well that complicates things. This way then, there is a decent enough tavern nearby.”

  The silence that accompanied their walk was just the wrong side of awkward. A grown, professional woman flanked on either side by teenagers who were, for the next few weeks at least, her peers. It wasn’t hard for either of them to see why Dinah might dislike that particular arrangement.

  “Thank you, for opening the gates.” Silver said at last.

  “Not like you left me much of a choice.” Asch retorted with a tilt of her chin. “I’d have had a mutiny on my hands if I hadn’t opened the gates to permit you.” As Cayden and Silver smiled, Asch continued. “Not that I suppose you imagine it’ll do you much good now that you’re trapped in here with us.”

  Cayden’s eyes narrowed at that. “Excuse me?”

  “The walls?” When the confusion on the young man’s expression only deepened, she clarified. “The Warden’s summoned five walls in total. One behind our field army, and then four more on the gates furthest from their advance.” As horror replaced confusion, Asch allowed herself a bitter laugh “You didn’t know.”

  At any other time that bark of laughter might have driven Cayden into a fury, yet suddenly all he could feel was a blurry numbness. Warden troops would besiege the remaining two gates before he got so much as a turn to react, while the newly magicked walls would keep them pinned for at least long enough for the Wardens to complete the encirclement. It was just as Asch had said.

  They were trapped.

  “Ignorance is often mistaken for heroism.” The officer murmured the aphorism with a certain sense of irony.

  “If you’d told us-” Cayden began.

  “But I couldn’t.” Dinah shot back. “Even if we’d agreed to share information beforehand, their trap cut off all my communications. By the time I could have told you, it would have been too late.” She looked back over her shoulder to the ragged bands of Elan troops that were still following in their wake. “Besides, if I had told you, would you have abandoned us? Abandoned them?”

  As much as he hated to admit it, she had a point.

  “So what is our plan?” Silver asked, ever the pragmatist.

  “At the moment, I don’t see that much has changed.” Asch shrugged. “If anything, it reinforces my original strategy. A breakout is out of the question, even if we smash one of the walls, we have to assume the enemy will use the same strategy to bog us down with chaff to keep an escape from getting any real distance.”

  “What about an alternate method of retreat?”

  “There is one possibility.” Asch acknowledged. “I had a few of my men investigating the sewers to be sure there was no danger of a surprise attack once we retreat to the Royal Quarter, and they discovered-”

  “A dungeon, I know. It won’t work.” Cayden interrupted. “Elan can’t pass through an instance gate into a dungeon.”

  The officer’s face fell. “You’re sure?”

  “It can’t hurt to try, but yes. I’m sure.”

  “Then there is nothing,” Dinah said. “When the time comes we can use the dungeon to evacuate all of the players. Hopefully, we will have bled them enough, and bought enough time to make it worthwhile.” The woman smiled grimly. “If we are lucky they try and starve us out. That would buy you quite a bit of time for your plan, wouldn’t it?”

  Cayden clenched his jaw, teeth grinding against one another as Asch spoke. Islo was home to thousands of Elan, thousands of men, women, even children whom she had already written off for dead, regardless of the outcome of the siege.

  “You’re going to expand your militia.”

  It wasn’t a question, Asch could see that much plainly on his expression. “I am.”

  “You’re not even going to try and come up with an alternative?” Color flooded his cheeks as he pressed her.

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know!” Cayden shot back angrily, brushing away Silver’s hand as she tried to hold back his fury. “See if they can dig an escape tunnel if you plan to be under siege that long. Knock a hole in the back wall, or hell, just lower them down on ropes if you’re worried the Wardens are going to cross and leave the rear vulnerable.”

  “Any mass exodus is going to be noticed. They’ll be run down by Warden cavalry who have nothing better to do during the siege.” Asch retorted.

  “If you’d sent them away a few days ago, like I told you to, they’d already be safe on the Bastion side of the damn river!” Cayden shot back, nearly as angry about her being right as he was about her failure to act when the time had been ripe.

  Any pretense of walking to a destination had long since vanished, the two squaring off with one another in the middle of the street, Asch’s hand noticeably on the pommel of her dagger as she spat her own venom in reply. “A mistake, fine! What would you have me do now? Spend their lives for a purpose, or leave them unarmed and terrified as the Wardens take their city. I can’t very well teleport them out now can I?”

  “Why not?” Silver cut in, before Cayden could throw either words or the punch that his balled fist suggested he would prefer.

  “Why not what?” Asch snarled.

  “Why can’t you teleport them out?”

  The Israeli officer rolled her eyes. “Do I look like a spellcaster?”

  “No, not you.” Silver said irritably. “We were teleported to Bastion by one of the Duke’s mages. Victoria, I think her name was?”

  It was hard for Silver to keep a straight face as Asch and Cayden went through the same series of expressions. Irritation, confusion, realization followed finally by complete, red faced embarrassment.

  “The Ducal Palace has been closed since the event began.” Asch replied sternly, though there was no mistaking the fact that she had forgotten the Elan sorceress just as readily as Cayden had.

  “Then we go knocking at the end of turn. Kick the door down if we have to.” Silver replied, eyes turned to Cayden. “Unless you have a better plan.”

  “Nothing off the top of my head.” Cayden admitted. “But what makes you think she can help. Teleporting seven people from here to Bastion is a far cry from teleporting the population of an entire city.”

  “She might not be up to it herself.” Silver conceded. “But with help, she might be.”

  “What sort of help?” Asch inquired.

  “Player help, along with a generous helping of the city’s magical power. Which I doubt you’ll mind spending since it’ll all be lost anyways.” Silver smiled wanly. “I’ve been talking over some of the basics with Roberta the Builder back at-”

  “Wait, Roberta th-”

  “Not important!” Silver cut in, desperate to keep the topic at hand. “One of the things we’ve discussed is the possibility of enhancing her abilities beyond the novice level by having other mages, human mages, linking up with her as part of a ritual spell. If that holds true for her, it should probably hold true for this one as well.”

  “And if she’s above a novice you think she can teleport larger groups?” Asch

  Silver considered the question for a moment, and then shrugged. “Without talking to her, I can’t be sure. But I think so.” The girl thought about her own answer for half a heartbeat before adding. “Actually, I think we’d be better off doing something more than that. Maybe a teleportation circle. It wouldn’t go nearly as far as Bastion, but it doesn’t have to if the goal is just to buy some distance to run away.”

  “You were going to tell me about these conversations when exactly?” Cayden asked.

  “When I had something to report.” Silver scowled. “I never got the chance to test it out before Vilerat summoned you.”

  “Nobody summons-”

  “Yeah, yeah. Sure thing Megatron.” Silver snorted w
ith laughter.

  “How much would you need?” Asch asked.

  “Magic? No idea, but let’s default to all of it and be pleasantly surprised when it is less.”

  Asch seemed unimpressed by the reply. “And how many players?”

  “As many as we can spare, to be honest. Myself for sure, probably Celia as well, assuming her magic is compatible. If you have anyone else, we’ll use them too.” Silver shrugged. “Again, really hypothetical.”

  “Even a 0.1% chance is better than the flat zero we had a few minutes ago.” Cayden’s voice barely contained his relief.

  “Doesn’t some of your plan still hinge on us remaining?” Asch’s eyes were on the young man as she spoke. “To hold the Wardens in place long enough, I mean. If we retreat too soon that would impact your delaying tactic.”

  Cayden briefly scratched his chin as he considered her words. “Yes and no. They’ll get done with the city faster, but if we set things up right, they’ll be weaker for it.”

  “Set things up right?” Asch repeated with some consternation.

  “An idea I had a few days ago on the march. At the time I didn’t think you’d go for it, but if we’re abandoning the city. Well, I think you might like this one.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Day 10 - Midday

  Resources – F – 680 +20, Z – 720 +30, M – 255 +5, I – 600 +20, P +40, R +10

  Completed – Upper Township VI. (New Specialization Unlocked)

  “All right you raggedy sons of bitches, form up!” Aleph shouted, the pommel of his sword punctuating the end of his sentence with a clatter that, like his words, was almost entirely drowned out by the roar of a nearby formation. It didn’t matter, the words themselves weren’t really what was important, he’d begun to learn. In the din of battle, the men could barely hear him, but they looked to him all the same. In a lot of ways, it reminded him of raising his boy. The infant didn’t have even half an idea what he was saying, but the fact that he said it was reassuring enough.

  “In front of you, at least ten thousand of those stone-faced bastards.” He pointed with the tip of his blade to indicate the well-ordered horde just across the thin river that separated the Royal Quarter from the city proper. “Behind you, at least ten thousand of your fellow Elan. Your neighbors, your barbers, for some of you perhaps, even your wives and children!”

  “Between them, you.” His words continued unabated as he paced back and forth up the line. Aleph never had much-liked heights, and given the option, would have much preferred to be giving this speech with firm ground beneath his feet, rather than on the allure of the tallest wall in the damn city. “But our new commander is generous! We don’t have to stay here all day, or all week, with our arms getting tired from breaking open so many Stoneheads. No, as far as he is concerned, this is an afternoon outin-”

  The sudden flinch of his soldiers forced Aleph to a knee, mere moments before a ballista bolt rocketed just overhead. It wouldn’t have hit him in either case, but even with a couple of dozen feet of clearance between them, the weapon had come too close for comfort.

  “Do you mind?!” Aleph shouted over one shoulder, to the mirth of his soldiers. His heart beat heavily as he stood, a glare alternating between his men and the enemy. The latter was a far greater concern, the first of their great siege ladders moving into position. “Looks like they’re so impatient they won’t even let me finish my speech.” He snickered. “You know what to do. Smash their ladders, break their heads and we’ll be back in Bastion in time for dinner.”

  A deep, low horn sounded on the Warden side of the field, a terrible and unnatural air that split what little calm remained in the air. The sound of it reverberated across his skin, prickling gooseflesh as the bottom dropped out of his stomach. There was nausea and fear, like the sound of some great animal growling nearby. The humans had a name for the noise, but it was one Aleph hadn’t bothered to learn.

  He’d already heard the noise three times in a week; he knew what it meant. The Wardens were coming.

  As the deep note faded, a new noise replaced it, a sound far more familiar to any common soldier. The harsh snap and clattering whistle of arrows in flight. Hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands.

  His pep-talk hadn’t been entirely accurate. While it was true that the Warden forces numbered somewhere above ten thousand, they were only facing a fraction of that number. The section of curtain wall that bordered the river was only two miles in length, and even though it expanded slightly on the opposite side of the river, the space was still just large enough for about twenty-five hundred men at any one time.

  Twenty-five hundred men could still shoot a lot of arrows. Fortunately, they had among the best defensive positions one could hope for, including a high battlement for just this sort of situation.

  Almost as one, his men pressed forward, locking their shields together in an impenetrable wall above their heads as they sheltered behind the thick stone battlement. Hundreds of arrows clattered off stone, and hundreds more overshot the wall entirely to land in the courtyard below. Only a few dozen found any purchase on the top of the wall itself, and of those, the majority came nowhere near a shield, let alone a soldier.

  As a single attack, the volley was less than useless. The complete failure sparked another round of laughter among Cayden’s men, their morale soaring in the face of such a flimsy first strike. Then the second wave hit, followed by the third. The Warden archers had thousands of arrows, and the lack of an opposing force of artillery left them free to fire until they had spent the entirety of their ammunition.

  Each round of the withering fire took its toll, wearing down arms and inflicting the occasional injury here and there down the defensive line. The laughter didn’t last, especially since every man on the wall knew what was coming next.

  The Wardens had used a similar tactic in their assault on the outer wall, to great effect, forcing the defenders to keep their heads down while their infantry got into position to begin to storm the defenses. They hadn’t even lasted the full morning, not with so much wall to defend. The Wardens had shattered them in three separate places, forcing a complete retreat mere hours after the battle had been joined.

  They could have lasted longer, Aleph believed, if the players had devoted the militia to the wall instead of whatever madness they had put them up to in the city. Even just having them absent might have been enough, considering how damaging it had been to morale to watch as Islo’s citizens tore their home itself to shreds.

  Aleph couldn’t begin to fathom their plan, why they had devoted so much manpower to ripping the city to pieces. Some little parts of it had made sense, such as the barricades they had constructed as they’d shattered structures, and thrown belongings into the streets, but there was no rhyme or reason to where they’d placed them. They didn’t help the retreat, in many places they actively impeded it, in fact.

  The Wardens wouldn’t have to destroy Islo once they captured it, the humans had done it for them.

  Despite their earlier setbacks, however, he was confident that they could hold the Royal Quarter for quite some time, even if the Field Marshall didn’t need them to. Defending the outer wall had always been destined to fail, with the Warden forces able to bring the entirety of their numerical advantage to bear the odds were too great. Here the odds were, if not in their favor, significantly strengthened.

  Their forces were shaken from the morning engagements, true, but they were also concentrated. They had a river between them and the enemy, and had ruined the bridges in their retreat. If the Wardens thought they would take the Royal Quarter with ease, they were in for a sore surprise.

  A hard thud struck the wall, causing it to shudder beneath Aleph’s feet. His first thought was catapult, but then, that had been his first thought this morning as well. The Wardens seemed aware of how ineffectual their heavy artillery would be against the powerful and ancient walls of Islo, so while they did take the occasional pot shot, as e
videnced by his near decapitation earlier, they had saved the weapons for last on their first assault. The sound wasn’t a weapon; it was a tool.

  “Siege Ladder!” Aleph cried, rising from behind the defensive merlon, sword, and shield in hand. “Come on you apes! Do you want to live forever?”

  Another hail of arrows rained down upon them as the Fighting First rose to confront the new threat, the weapons blessedly finding nothing but shield and air in their flight. There would be no more; Aleph knew, not with enemy forces rushing up to meet them with all speed.

  His word choice hadn’t been entirely accurate, he now realized. What had appeared to be a ladder on first glance, had been assembled into a device that was as much ramp or staircase as it was ladder. Unable to cross the river to fix it near the wall’s base, as they had done outside the city, the Wardens had relied on a much larger contraption, one that was supported in a half dozen places by great pillars of earth that erupted sometime during the enemy’s volley fire.

  The magics had helped create a much more able siege weapon, one that would be simultaneously easier to climb and harder to detach. A worrisome combination.

  “Axemen!” Aleph shouted. They had some time before the first of the Warden troops reached the top of the weapon, and they needed to do work while they could. Below he could see that the earth supporting the device had wrapped around the very frame of it, giving it an incredibly stable base. This would not be so simple as pushing the ladder over; they would need to destroy at least a few feet of its top if they had any chance to disable it.

  Perhaps just as concerning, was what he saw below.

  The bridges that they had taken great pains to destroy upon their withdrawal had been replaced by the same infuriating sorcery that was supporting the Warden’s siege weapons. A pair of twenty-foot-wide stone arches now extended from one river bank to the other, Warden soldiers flowing over them faster than the river ran beneath. In the lead up to the battle, he’d questioned the wisdom of leaving some five hundred of their men in the garrison. He no longer did.