The Beginning After the End: Book 7: Divergence

by TurtleMe

  Decisions Made

  TESSIA ERALITH

  Darvus stepped up beside me, his knuckles white from gripping his dual axes for dear life. The smug grin that he always wore was nowhere in sight. “This doesn’t look good, Tessia.”

  Behind me were gathered the two hundred soldiers that made up my unit, along with the ragtag squads of elven soldiers that had been placed under my command. Amongst them were many more civilian elves garbed only in cloth or leather for protection. These were the brave men and women who stayed behind to protect their home and their fleeing loved ones from the approaching army.

  Every one of them wore a grim expression. The soldiers gripped their weapons while the civilians anxiously clenched their kitchen knives and gardening tools, and the steady drone of marching grew louder and louder.

  The once lively elven town just behind us had long since been evacuated, but we knew the evacuees would be slow moving; there were many children and elders amongst them. If we fled here—if we couldn’t hold out long enough—they would all die. This wasn’t just a matter of protecting an abandoned town on the outskirts; this was our chance to halt the Alacryan forces’ momentum and show them we wouldn’t give up Elenoir without a fight.

  My heart pounded against my chest and my knees felt weak. No matter how strong my mana core was, no matter how much I had trained, I felt nothing but fear in that moment.

  Yet I couldn’t show it—I wouldn’t.

  The morale of every one of these people behind me was relying on my strength, not just as a mage and warrior but as a leader. If I let fear take my heart, the foundation of their strength would collapse.

  Holding my feelings in, wearing a mask of confidence and strength—such was my burden.

  Turning to face the small army, I unsheathed my sword and conjured a wind to carry my voice. Projecting a wave of mana to reassure myself and show power before my forces, I began to speak.

  “Behind me, the Alacryan army approaches. Behind you, the children and elderly of this village flee for their lives, forced to abandon their only home. We are the only thing standing between the enemy marching toward us and the slaughter of these innocents.” Murmurs of consensus rang throughout the crowd. “Though our numbers are few, I am honored to be the first line of defense in the protection of our people, of Elenoir—of Dicathen!” I waited for the soldiers’ shouts to die down, then continued. “Lance Aya is currently leading an army of able-bodied elves to beat back the invaders, but the question before us is”—I held up my sword—“will you stand with me, will you be the shield that protects the defenseless from the blades of our enemies, no matter the odds?”

  There was a breath of silence, and I was afraid my pounding heart would be heard through all of Elenoir, then a roar of cheers and battle cries resounded through the forest. Caria gave me a reassuring smile and Darvus nodded grimly, but Stannard only fidgeted over his strange weapon, checking it again to make sure it was ready for combat.

  At my signal, a defensive line formed around me and the rest of the ranged spell casters. “Conjurers, archers, ready your weapons!”

  The foreboding thrump, thrump, thrump, thrump, of the Alacryan soldiers marching grew louder and louder within the dense veil of the fog and trees between us.

  I pointed my sword forward. “Prepare your attacks!”

  With my heightened senses and familiarity with the Elshire Forest, I was able to sense the moment the enemy vanguards came in range.

  I thrust my weapon, releasing condensed bolts of wind. “Fire!”

  An array of colors dotted my line of sight. Dozens of arrows flew past, followed by sharp shards of earth, arcing bolts of lightning, blades of wind, and blasts of fire that lit up the mist like fireworks.

  I held up my sword for everyone to see, then dropped it to signal another flight of spells and arrows. “Fire!”

  Another volley rained down on the enemy, but this time I could see the results. Shimmers of light shaped like shields and walls deflected or absorbed our attacks; very few appeared to have made it through.

  “Another flight?” Stannard proposed hopefully, gripping his artifact in preparation for another spell.

  “No. We’re just burning up resources.” I turned to Vedict, the soldier in charge of the front line. “Get in there and break the line, open it up so the conjurers and archers can hit something.”

  With a nod, the steel-clad elf raised his shield and ran forward, relaying my order. The gallant warriors brandished their weapons, the augmenters ignited their cores, and our soldiers charged forward into mists. They faded like ghosts into the thick fog, but I could hear the thunder of their impact against the shields.

  Steeling not only my weapon and body but my will, I looked at Stannard, Darvus, and Caria—my closest friends and most trusted aides. None of us said a word, but we had spent enough time together that words weren’t necessary. We were all thinking the same thing: Let’s get out of this alive.

  I reached for the necklace Arthur had given me, which still hung around my neck. Kissing the pendant, I tucked it into my cloak, vowing to keep it—and our promise—safe.

  Reaching deep into the pit of my stomach, I let out a guttural cry. “Charge!”

  ALBANTH KELRIS

  “Captain,” a concerned voice sounded from my side.

  Prying my eyes off of the beast horde slowly lumbering toward us, obscured by a blanket of dust, I looked down at my assistant. “What is it?”

  Sinder, who I had trained and groomed since he was just a kid, pointed down toward my hands.

  I realized that the reinforced railings, built to keep soldiers from accidentally falling off the top of the Wall, had been bent out of shape.

  “Ah.” Readjusting my grip, I twisted it back into its proper form before letting go.

  With a gentle smile, my assistant placed an armored hand on my pauldron. “I know it’s in your blood to worry and overthink, but look at the mayhem General Arthur is causing to our enemy.”

  All the Wall’s defenders had gathered to watch the spectacle. With how large the enemy army was, it was not always obvious where the young Lance was within that sea of mana beasts, but we could see the changes occurring within their ranks, like nuts and bolts becoming undone, causing the larger pieces to become more unstable.

  I let out a sharp breath. “I know, Sinder. But it just pains me to be standing here twiddling my thumbs while the Lance has been tirelessly fighting for hours.”

  “Our time will come. No matter how strong the general is, he is only one man. He will need our support soon,” my assistant reassured me. “Now please, Captain, straighten your shoulders and don’t let the soldiers see you faltering.”

  “Since when did you start lecturing me, boy?” I teased, smacking Sinder’s back and almost throwing him over the edge of the Wall.

  The soldiers nearby laughed. Sinder wasn’t as amused, but his expression softened after noticing the smiling men and women around us.

  I continued making my rounds, walking the length of the Wall to make sure everything was in place. Not only did it bolster the men’s courage to see the captain walking among them, but seeing my men, giving them encouragement, helped me as well. These soldiers, most of whom I had trained, lectured, and fought beside, relied on me, and in this moment, facing an army of beasts much larger than any force seen at the Wall before, they needed my presence.

  “Wess! I’m not seeing you shake, am I?” I called out to a middle-aged conjurer who gripped his staff as if it was the only thing keeping him on his feet. Patting his shoulder, I gave him a kindly smile. “After this fight, let’s have your wife make us one of her crumbled pies, right?”

  The conjurer laughed nervously, but his body visibly relaxed. “It’s just like you to be thinking of food at a time like this, Captain. Very well, Maryl will be delighted to know that you like her pie that much.”

  I winked and continued my stroll. It wasn’t much—a wave here, a joke there, making a plan for the future—anythi
ng to get the soldiers’ heads out of the dark cloud caused by the looming battle.

  That’s when I saw General Arthur’s little sister, Eleanor. The little girl was hard to miss with the large mana beast beside her. Stella, the soldier I had assigned to her, was nowhere in sight, replaced by a dark-haired archer with bright eyes. She seemed to be teaching her the basics of firing from higher ground.

  “Miss Leywin,” I greeted. “What happened to the soldier I had assigned to you?”

  The little girl stiffened into a rather clumsy salute. “Ah, yes! Hello, Captain…”

  “Albanth.” I smiled before turning to the woman that was teaching her. “And you are?”

  The sharp-eyed woman saluted gracefully. “Helen Shard, Captain. My apologies for the confusion. I’m this one’s longtime instructor, so I relieved Stella of her duty to watch after my pupil.”

  “I see,” I said. I was relieved that the general’s younger sister wasn’t the one to shrug off her protector. “In that case, I will leave her in your care.”

  “Yes sir!” she said, brimming with confidence.

  “Miss Leywin.” I turned to face the approaching beast horde, which appeared to grow larger each passing moment. “Do you still feel up to helping us out even after seeing that?”

  “Yes.” The little girl’s expression hardened as she gripped her intricate bow. “My brother is fighting out there with only Sylvie to help him. The least I can do with all the training I’ve been given is fight and be brave, like him. I can help protect my parents, too, who are here as well.”

  She couldn’t have been older than twelve or thirteen, yet here she was, her innocence and youth left behind in the face of death. I wanted to ask whether her parents knew she was here and if they would approve, but it wasn’t my place to do so. With a salute to Eleanor and Helen, I turned and spotted a messenger running toward me.

  The messenger dipped his head before speaking to me, breathing hard. He must have sprinted up every flight of stairs in the Wall to reach me. “Senior Captain Trodius has called for a meeting and has requested your presence immediately.”

  “Got it. Thank you,” I replied, leaving the man there to catch his breath as I made my way to the main tent.

  By the time I arrived, Captain Jesmiya was leaving the tent wearing a sour expression. She bumped my shoulder as she passed, muttering a string of curses under her breath.

  “Captain Jesmiya,” I called out, grabbing the captain’s arm.

  The she whirled around, her free hand already holding her saber before realizing who I was.

  “Captain Albanth,” she nearly spat out, sheathing her sword again.

  Surprised by her venom, I asked her what was going on, only for her to shrug me off and turn her back to me. “Ask Trodius,” she hissed before striding away.

  I opened the entrance to the tent to see Senior Captain Trodius leafing through some paperwork, his posture eerily impeccable as always, no trace on his serious face that there had been any tension in his conversation with the captain.

  The senior captain knew I was there, but he continued on with his work. This went on for a few minutes before I grew impatient with whatever game he was playing. I couldn’t wait any longer and cleared my throat to get his attention. “Senior Captain—”

  A raised finger cut me off. The man didn’t even look in my direction until he had finally finished whatever it was he was doing, despite the fact that he had sent a messenger to find me for this urgent meeting.

  Finally, after meticulously filing his papers into three even piles, he looked up and met my eyes. “Captain Albanth.”

  “Sir!” I saluted, my armor clanging.

  “Have your melee troops prepare to march,” he stated. “They will be confronting the beast horde on our terms, in the open field.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, confused. “My apologies, Senior Captain, but it was to my understanding that the melee troops would enter the field only after we’ve lured a majority of the beast horde into the trap we have—”

  “Captain Albanth,” the senior captain snapped, cutting me off. “Do you understand how many resources we’ve expended excavating those underground passages for our Trailblazer Divisions to safely explore the Beast Glades? I won’t go as far as to weigh the value of lives against the efforts spent building this fortress, but I have determined that it doesn’t make sense logistically to detonate the underground routes.”

  “But, sir…” I took a step forward but was met with a blazing glare from Trodius. Taking a step back, I continued. “With General Arthur’s plan, we’ll be able to immobilize the majority of the beast horde. This will give our melee forces a much better chance to—”

  “As I have stated before, Captain Albanth, I won’t go as far as to weigh the value of lives…” The senior captain let his sentence trail off, letting me know that was exactly what he was doing.

  “Besides, the Lance said it himself—it was only a suggestion. I said nothing at the meeting out of respect for his position, but he’s merely a boy, and clearly ignorant of war. It would be in your best interest to realize that as well.”

  Clenching my fists behind my back, I stood silent.

  Trodius seemed to take the silence as my answer and smiled. “Good! Then we’ll have your melee troops advance immediately. You and your troops will do whatever it takes to hold your ground until Jesmiya’s forces come around the flank to assist you. By then, the archers and conjurers will be in range to fire freely at their back line.”

  Gritting my teeth in anger, I was barely able to respond with a nod before turning around to leave. I now understood Jesmiya’s mood when I’d met her outside the tent.

  ARTHUR LEYWIN

  ‘Arthur.’

  My gaze shifted from the Wall, barely visible through the dust that hung in the air, back to the sight of the Alacryan army well within the forest.

  ‘Arthur!’ Sylvie’s voice rang louder.

  “I don’t know!” I snapped. “I don’t know what to do, Sylvie.”

  My role was to stay here, to help the forces of the Wall defeat this beast horde. Even if all of this was nothing but a diversion, my family and the Twin Horns were still here. What if I left and something happened to them? But then, what if Tess was in danger? With so many elves stationed around Sapin, it would be almost impossible for Elenoir to properly defend itself against an army of that size.

  ‘I know it’s a hard decision,’ she responded, her soothing voice calming me slightly. ‘Rest assured that I will support whatever choice you make.’

  The gears in my brain turned as I debated myself. The Alacryan forces would be at a disadvantage fighting in the Elshire Forest because of the fog, but then that hadn’t stopped them from navigating nearly all the way to the heart of Elenoir, and they outnumbered the elven defenders there by tens of thousands, so far as I could tell. The traps already set at the Wall would even the odds between the Wall’s defenders and the approaching horde, although, if I left, was there anyone here capable of taking down the larger S-class mana beasts? I couldn’t be sure.

  Pressed for time as both the beast horde and Alacryan army advanced relentlessly toward their destination, I made my decision.

  “Sylvie, we’re going to Elshire Forest.”

  218

  From Leader to Soldier

  TESSIA ERALITH

  Digging my feet into the ground as I leaped forward, I used a mana vine to pull myself to the nearest enemy mage.

  The surprised Alacryan didn’t even have time to turn toward me before my swordstaff sunk deep into his hip. The blood rolled right off as I pulled out my weapon, leaving its pale blade spotless.

  “Tessia, duck!” Caria shouted in warning. I dove under a swinging axe and rolled out of its reach. By the time I was on my feet again, Caria had dropped from her perch in the tree above, landing on the Alacryan and driving a gauntleted fist into his skull.

  To my left, Stannard was falling back before an Alacryan Striker, but a wind blade t
argeted at the Striker’s unprotected legs dropped him with ease.

  “Thank you!” Stannard shouted. With his artifact charged, he unleashed a blast of mana directly at an approaching group of enemy soldiers.

  Darvus came into view, his dual axes drawing trails of fire in the mist as they cleaved both flesh and steel.

  “We can’t let them get past this point!” I reminded them as Caria flew into action beside Darvus, her gauntlets enveloped in thick mana.

  We can do this, I reassured myself, watching my teammates battle alongside our second unit of mages. Hachi, one of our new recruits, stood out even from this distance, as he was a head taller than everyone else and his fists were clad in brilliant flames.

  Suddenly a bright beam of ice lanced down from a tree nearby. Caria and Hachi each dodged, but an elf from his team wasn’t as lucky.

  Damn it, I cursed, watching as the elf—I couldn’t even tell who—slumped to the ground, clearly dead.

  Infusing my legs with mana, I jumped up into the tree from which the ice beam had originated. Before the Caster could finish another spell, my swordstaff had pierced her heart. The body slumped and fell from the tree.

  From the tree, I was able to survey the battlefield below and make sure there weren’t any other enemy conjurers hiding nearby. It was chaos. I couldn’t get an accurate count of my men, nor make out where the enemy forces were moving. Despite my difficulty in navigating the battlefield, at least I knew it to be much worse for the enemy. If not for the fog, our small force would likely have been crushed within minutes.

  A piercing scream reached my ears. It came from nearby. Not knowing whether it was friend or foe that made the pained cry, I whirled toward the source.

  It was an elf. From the leather apron with a metal sheet clumsily attached to the chest—most likely a baking pan—I could tell he was a civilian who had chosen to stay and defend his town.

  The elf crumpled lifelessly to the ground, a puddle of blood forming around him. The killer was an Alacryan mage whose open hands were surrounded with a spinning ring of wind. He sneered proudly as he trampled over the elf’s body.