“Yes, my king.” The guard used his interface. The other royal guards watched for threats as Sigaird shared the message with Lady Merguine and continued reading the report.
A shiver went down his back at how accurate the information was. He had no idea how the Stone Raiders had been able to get such information. Whoever their spymaster was, they were a master at their trade. Not even Lady Merguine had been able to get this kind of information out of the southern kingdoms.
The main players were named and pointed out. Battle plans were guessed, but there was nothing solid.
Sigaird opened up a personal channel with the southern border army’s general.
“General Eckan, we have reports that Lord Esamael’s army is moving. I want you to take some of your forces to Emaren to place pressure on Lord Esamael,” Sigaird said.
“Yes, my king. I will have my forces moving within a few hours. It will take us a day or two to reach Emaren,” Eckan replied.
“Good. I am sending you reports that have just come to my attention. Do not share them with anyone lest we might give away our abilities.”
“Yes, my king. It will be as you command,” Eckan said.
King Sigaird could hear him running. “Good. Let me know when your forces are on the move.” King Sigaird closed the channel and opened up another with General Tortessin.
“My king?”
“Check the city. I want Haugr to be ready for an attack in the next couple of days. I am sending you a message right now with all the information I know about what is going on.” Sigaird looked up as Merguine walked into his office.
“It will be done,” Tortessin said.
Sigaird cut the channel and looked up to Merguine. “What are you thinking?”
“I have no idea how the Stone Raiders have so much information on Lord Esamael. They’ve practically given us the entire roster of every single person who was working against us,” Lady Merguine said.
“So, they knew about Lord Esamael and his plans. What the hell are they going to do?” Sigaird asked.
“I don’t know, but they must’ve known for some time. This is not just simple reconnaissance.” Merguine shook her head and slumped into a seat.
“So, what do you think is going to happen?”
Merguine looked into Sigaird’s eyes. “I think that Lord Esamael and his forces are in for a rude awakening. They could’ve sent this information to us at any time and we could have removed Esamael and his people a hell of a lot easier. They waited until Esamael’s forces were on the move, ready to attack us. I don’t think this is a battle. I think it’s an example,” Merguine said.
“How so?”
“They’ve clearly showed that they have intelligence-gathering abilities which well exceed our own. If they knew all of this about Lord Esamael, I can only guess how much they knew about what we were doing. They were using this for their advantage. To what end, I do not know,” Merguine said.
Sigaird rubbed his forehead in frustration.
Lady Merguine opened up her interface, checking her messages and sending out queries. She paused with her finger in mid-air. “How did they get your personal contact information?”
Sigaird’s hand paused as he looked to Lady Merguine. “I have no idea,” he answered, his heart troubled at what her question implied.
***
Josh yawned, stretching out fully in his chair before relaxing and looking at his lieutenants. Florence, Jules, Dwayne, Esa, Lucy, Kim, Malsour, and Suzy were there. Dave was supposed to be there, but Deia said that he was very ill and someone was looking after him. Thankfully, Malsour had been able to replace him. Both Malsour and Suzy didn’t have any real power, but they were still seen as advisors: Malsour for tech, Suzy for anything that Lucy or Florence might forget or she had more knowledge of.
“Lucy, you want to start this all off?” Josh asked, still not fully awake.
“Loughbreck has started to move in the north. He is moving toward Verlun, his forces linking up with one another as they do so. They have something between two hundred and three hundred thousand soldiers, including mages, which make up nearly half of their army. Lord Esamael has ordered the cities to the south to prepare to move. The people allied to him are moving to take power from those who are under the king’s thumb, while Emaren is fortifying itself. It’s rather quiet right now. I believe in two days, they will carry out their attack with Loughbreck hitting us with his forces and Esamael attacking Haugr with his forces. Their plan is to use the teleport pads in Emaren and Verlun to move their troops into Haugr and take the city.”
“Sounds like they don’t think of us as much more than a stepping stone,” Dwayne said, casually, a cold smile on his face.
“Ah well, we’ll just have to educate them.” Josh chuckled. “How is the recall going?”
“We’ve got Stone Raiders coming in from all over Emerilia. They’re gathering in the city, getting their weapons and armor ready,” Lucy said.
“Kol and a group of Master Smiths working the Devil’s Crater smithy moved into the Terra smithy to help with repairs,” Malsour added.
“Good—don’t want to be going in with low durability weapons,” Josh said, thinking of his daggers that were hidden away. While fighting, they were awesome, but they were a pain when he was just sitting in a chair. Having a dagger that ate your damn soul to power it poking you in the back, even if it’s through a sheath, was not good back support.
“Florence, how are your people doing?”
“The higher-ups have known this is coming for a while. We’ll let our people know tomorrow to not cause a panic. I don’t think that we will be that bad off.” Florence shrugged. “What I am worried for is any of our allies who are in the city, as well as customers.”
Josh tapped his fingers on the table in thought. “Lucy, have the Aleph scouts shadow the spies who are in Verlun. Use the scouts, rangers and such as you feel fit.” Lucy acknowledged his words as his eyes turned to Florence. “The day before, warn those you trust. A few hours before Loughbreck arrives, kill off the spies in Verlun and pull those people back to Terra. The less people out there, the less we have to worry about using our spells.”
“Can do.” Florence and Lucy looked to each other, their looks telling each other they would talk about their plans afterward.
Malsour put a finger in the air.
“Malsour?” Josh asked.
“Dave has been working on something that will be of use to Verlun. We also came up with a way to defend the guild hall there a little better.” Malsour pulled out what looked like a diamond encased in a soul gem that had runes carved into it.
“What is that?” Kim leaned forward in interest.
“This is a prototype of a Mana barrier generator. Inside, there is a Mana well that constantly gives off power to the soul gem construct, which serves to contain the power and make it available for the covering runes. When activated, it will keep up a constant barrier using any power that is held within the soul gem and fed from the Mana well,” Malsour said proudly.
“So how strong are we talking?” Esa asked.
“Not sure, but Dave had this built a few days ago. He didn’t know how strong it would be, but he felt that given a few weeks without being used, this barrier could hold up to a god’s power.” Malsour looked around the room.
Dwayne whistled.
“He also said that there is the ability to link people to the Mana well. It can increase the Mana density within an area, allowing allied people to regenerate their Mana at a much higher rate. However, the more people connected, the larger the power draw and less going to the Mana barrier,” Malsour warned.
“Well, I say we just use it as a barrier for now, but that is certainly interesting,” Josh said.
“Aw, I wanted to see if it could fuel some of my higher-level spells.” Kim pouted.
“Even more reason to put it on defense. I still remember when you blew out Cliff-Hill’s Guild Hall with one of your ‘tests.’” Josh stared at K
im.
“How was I supposed to know that it would work that well?” Kim muttered, barely audible to the rest of the gathered Stone Raiders.
“Or the time at the Aleph Guild Hall?” Josh added.
Kim scratched her head, an awkward and embarrassed smile on her face.
“You said that there was something else to increase our defenses?” Dwayne asked Malsour.
“Yes, prebuilding new defenses. I have been learning about magical coding and Magical Circuits with Dave for a long time. While he is out of commission, we still have two choices. We can form new walls within the ground. When Lord Esamael’s forces attack, we can raise them up through the ground, creating defenses almost immediately that are better than what we have in place. Either that or I can plant a soul gem construct that will do essentially the same thing, but with the walls being made from soul gem crystal. This process will, however, take longer, unless we feed it with energy from Terra—which actually wouldn’t be that hard,” Malsour said.
“If we go with the soul gem construct, what are our drawbacks?” Josh asked.
“Power needs. We can generate a ton of energy, but right now, we don’t have the number of soul gems we need to move it all. We would have to put certain areas on power saving in order to grow it and it would take a few hours. With the pre-made walls, we can make them today and tomorrow, then pull them out of the ground in a matter of seconds. Also, it would be able to buff us some, but we wouldn’t have much time to put in complex magical coding. With the other wall, we can rune it and use soul gems to give our defenders some rather large boosts,” Malsour said.
Josh scratched his cheek in thought. “Let’s go with the normal walls first. The soul gems have too many things that could possibly go wrong and having them appear out of the ground is sure to shock them a little.”
“I will talk to a few people and we will begin. We’ll try to make it low enough so that the spies can’t sense anything going on,” Malsour said.
“Perfect. Esa, Dwayne, how are our people looking?” Josh asked.
Esa and Dwayne looked to each other. They had now both become leaders with the melee fighters. There were just so many of them that it was necessary to break them up. Esa had taken over the training aspect while Dwayne took over the ongoing operations, knowing where people were and setting up raiding parties.
Esa nodded and looked to the rest of the people at the table. “Our people are looking good. We’ve got some good ole Stone Raiders spirit in them. Honestly, this will be a good test for them. Show them what the Stone Raiders do. If they can’t crack this, then we can lose them. If they do, then I say that they’re true Stone Raiders.”
“Our veterans are ready for whatever might come. We’ve been grouping the older groups up with the newer ones. Some parties haven’t agreed to this, so it’s been a bit of a pain in the ass. We’ve kept Party Zero separated from everyone. There is simply no one who can match their strength right now. As people are coming in, we’re sorting them out into their fighting groups. It looks to be a smooth transition. Most are excited to get started. We’ve grouped POEs and Players; there’s no discrimination,” Dwayne said, proudly.
“Good—that sounds good. Kim?” Josh asked.
“We’re ready to rain some destruction down on these asswipes, though I agree that it might be a good idea to have the surrounding city cleared out. We’ve had three months to just get stronger and train. Few of us have been able to use our full-powered spells, so they might be,” Kim shifted in her seat awkwardly, “powerful.”
Josh raised an eyebrow, but didn’t remind her of how she had wanted to test out her even stronger spells fueled by the Mana well.
“Very well.” Josh shook his head. “Anyone else got any points they would like to bring up?”
“I think we should send word to our close allies, like the Dwarves, Kufo’tel Elves, Devil’s Crater and Aleph,” Suzy said.
Josh waved for her to go on. Lucy said that they shouldn’t send out word until the day of the battle so that word didn’t make it to Esamael or Sigaird’s ears ahead of time.
“These people have shown great faith in us. There is little risk of them going on to tell others about what we’re doing. Also, it gives us a chance to let them see Terra, to show off our abilities and assure them that they are held in a deep confidence. We have many people we are affiliated with through trade and various agreements, but with these groups, we answered their call and they answered ours. We’ve worked well with them before. A show of trust and vulnerability will go a long way in securing ties with our groups,” Suzy said.
“Under what pretense do we invite them into Terra?” Lucy asked.
“To establish their embassies, which we can do at the same time,” Suzy replied.
Josh looked to Lucy.
“Suzy raises some good points and it makes sense. If we can show the effectiveness of having embassies here and moving troops to support one another, it’s going to be a powerful deterrent to anyone who might challenge one of our allies and a reason for others to join us.”
Josh checked around the room.
“Okay, let’s go for it,” Josh said, not seeing anyone overly concerned about the idea. “Anyone else have anything they want to share?”
No one was forthcoming.
“Okay, then, let’s go wreck Esamael’s plans!” Josh grinned.
Chapter 19: Today’s the Day
Florence took a meal out to Malsour, who was crouched inside one of the guard huts, his eyes closed as sweat ran down his face.
“Malsour?” Florence asked. Seeing he was focused on his work, she put the tray of food to the side.
Malsour groaned, moving his shoulders and moving around.
“You okay?” Florence asked as Malsour pushed himself into a chair.
“Fine, just a bit hard to make walls and such underground. All the pressure from the rocks is a big pain in the ass.” Malsour’s eyes fell on the tray.
“I thought you might be hungry.” Florence smiled and took the cover off the tray.
“Oh, you are a goddess.” Malsour smiled and grabbed the tray. He startedeating, closing his eyes as he tasted the home cooked meal.
“So, do you think we’re ready?” Florence asked, playing with her hands.
“I think we will be. The wall will be complete. Lucy thinks that Loughbreck and his forces will group together to make sure that their command structure is solid before they move to attack us.” Malsour dug in again.
“When do you think they will attack?” Florence asked.
Malsour drank from the canteen with the meal. “Mmm, nice,” he said, cheering Florence.
“Least I could do for the one building us this wall. I’ve heard from the other Dark and Earth mages that they’ve never seen anything like it, or someone as powerful as you,” Florence said.
“Thanks. You’ll make a man blush.” Malsour chuckled and took another drink. “I think that they will attack tonight. They don’t think of us as that strong of an opponent. They want to establish a beachhead here and then move through us to Haugr. We’re just a small bump in the road. They might get wary when their spies start disappearing, but they’re confident in their abilities. They’ve been training for months or years for this. They think they’re ready for anything. After all, they’ve been told as much through their training.”
“What do you think will happen once they start taking casualties?”
Malsour chewed on some ham, looking to the ceiling of the hut in thought. “They have been trained rather well, enough that they won’t just fall apart under a little pressure. They are pretty strong, but it just won’t be enough. It’s going to be huge blow to them once we actually start fighting. They thought that they were just attacking a small, nothing guild. However, once we show up with other races backing us, that’s going to be something of a shock. I think we’re going to have to hit them hard and fast to decide the battle. Otherwise, they can pull back, regroup and come up with a new strateg
y to fight us. If they get out of our range, we’re going to have to chase them down. Giving them time is the worst thing we can do.”
“Is there anything that me and mine can do to help out?” Florence asked.
“Well, I’ve got all of your mages working on building this wall. Once the spies are gone, I do have a few ideas that might be worth testing out. Going to need a few Earth mages, though.” Malsour smiled.
“I’m listening.” Florence smiled and moved closer.
***
Josh watched the spies sitting in the inn to his front. They were playing cards without a care in the world. One of them even looked as if he was asleep in a chair.
In fact, the spy was using a bird familiar to watch the Stone Raiders’ Guild Hall. Josh was relaxed in the shadows of a rooftop, twirling one of his daggers in his hand.
Josh had gone through the apartment last night. The spies regularly sent up owl familiars to do recon on the guild hall. One of them would cast seer or familiar spells, while another relayed the information. The rest would take over, so there was always someone watching the guild hall.
Josh used his dagger to clean his nails. The shadows on the roof covered him, making him all but invisible. A few enchantments that made people look away and boosted his stealth abilities were also at work with his leather armor.
He opened up his interface again and looked over the different maps. There were dozens of Stone Raiders throughout the city. They had hidden in wagons or moved into the city over the last two nights.
Red markers showed where all of the spies and any other allied with Esamael were located. Stone Raiders were out and about in the town, acting as merchants or dozens of other people. Those who were friendly were harboring them as they waited.
Aleph scouts and drones were doing most of the recon work. All of the Stone Raiders scouts were taught how to control the Aleph scout automatons. There weren’t enough for all of the Stone Raiders in Verlun, but they took turns, watching over their targets through their invisible spies.
Stone Raiders' Return (Emerilia Book 6) Page 21