“A reasonable measure,” Amanda said. “Although I doubt any of them will be as useful as Lord Tarrick. It takes time to build such a large organisation. I think it’s more likely his territory will be split amongst the main competitors for years before an eventual victor emerges, assuming the authorities prove unable to deal with the situation. Right now, they are well positioned. If they act appropriately, the authorities may well be able to crush any criminals seeking to retake control of the city. Still, even if we assume one of the empire’s new puppets wins, they won’t be in a position to help during the coming conflict. This isn’t about the Combine, is it?”
“Well spotted.” Vicky smiled and gestured. A glowing map of the world appeared, wrought in incredible detail by her light magic. She pointed, and the magical construct shifted to focus on one region in greater detail. “We hold grave concerns for this area. The nations here are all supposed to be neutral, but they are also ideally position to pressure our western flank. As a result, the empire has begun encouraging nations under its influence to launch incursions. If left unchecked, their allies could eventually seize enough territory to establish a staging ground for a proper ground campaign. As a result, we’ve moved many of our covert assets there to try to contain the situation.” She pointed elsewhere. “At the same time, we’ve also fought multiple skirmishes against imperial forces here, and our intelligence indicates a massive build up of imperial infantry.” She paused, and her lips firmed into a thin line. Her light blazed brighter for a moment before dimming again. “We estimate there may be as many as twenty full imperial legions approaching with their associated auxiliary units.”
“Twenty?” Amanda’s blue eyes widened, and streaks of crimson bled through them. She growled, and her canines elongated. “Are you sure?”
Timmy rubbed his temples. If Vicky’s information was correct, they were in a lot of trouble. “That’s one hundred thousand imperial legionnaires, Vicky. They’re professional soldiers, not peasant levies or mercenaries. With the auxiliaries included, we’d be looking at an extra twenty thousand troops on top of the legionnaires.” He peered at the map she’d made. “They’re after the Straits of Tarcasius.”
Vicky nodded grimly. “Yes. They are.”
Timmy’s mind sped through the implications. The straits commanded the smallest gap between two of the major landmasses occupied by Everton and the Eternal Empire. Everton had heavily fortified one side after claiming it and establishing several outposts during a previous conflict while the other side was held by one of the empire’s major client kingdoms. Assuming they could take and hold the straits, the empire could pour troops across. They’d still have to march through several nations to reach the rest of Everton, but with a hundred and twenty thousand extra troops at their disposal, they should be able to crush whatever resistance they faced with relative ease. Even if Everton beat them back later, gaining control of both sides of the straits would give the empire an excellent launching point for future attacks.
Thankfully, the straits could not be taken easily. Everton had heavily fortified its side. A hundred and twenty thousand troops might be able to break through, but the casualties they would take would be horrific. Even the empire couldn’t afford to throw away so many soldiers. Ideally, the empire would use naval support – dreadnoughts and siege ships – to bombard the fortifications, but Everton had naval forces of its own in the area. A naval engagement would also be extremely risky for both sides since both Everton and the empire would be able to support their naval forces with heavy weaponry from their fortifications. The most probable outcome would be a colossal bloodbath with neither side able to secure a decisive advantage. In that scenario, the defenders would be considered the winners, which would give Everton the advantage. They didn’t have to conquer the empire’s side of the straits to win. They simply had to hold onto their own.
Timmy leaned back in his chair to study the map from another angle. It was always best to put himself in his opponent’s shoes. What would his opponent try to do? What would be the empire’s overall plan of attack? The empire wasn’t stupid. They were not going to throw all of those troops into the equivalent of a dragon’s den. “They have to have a plan. The emperor might not be the most pleasant fellow – or so I’ve been told – but he’s shown himself to be a highly competent ruler so far, and he has some excellent advisors that he actually listens to. Simply throwing men at the straits doesn’t seem like a strategy he would favour.”
“I agree. From everything we’ve seen, he’s a good tactician, albeit prone to using a sledgehammer where a dagger would do.” Vicky shifted the map slowly, allowing it to rotate, so they could view it from all angles. “But perhaps his best qualities are his eye for talent and a willingness to accept advice from experts in the field. He has highly experienced generals and admirals, and I have no doubt he will take their advice into consideration when formulating his overall strategy. Some emperors fall prey to hubris quite easily. The current emperor is not one of them.” She gestured again, and parts of the map brightened while others darkened. “We believe they will try to make landings up and down the coast before marching those forces toward our fortifications while simultaneously launching naval and aerial assaults from their side. Should the opportunity arise, they might try to force troops across as well.”
“Not the easiest strategy,” Timmy murmured. “Coordinating it all would be a nightmare, but it could work. If they come at us piecemeal, we’d grind them to dust. A short, sharp, and committed attack delivered from multiple angles might be able to overwhelm our defences, especially since the fortifications are designed primarily to defend against attacks from the other side of the straits.” He looked at Katie. His apprentice was deep in thought. She had spent most of her time focusing on smaller-scale plots and schemes, which was normal for an apprentice her age. However, the coming war would be a crash course in how to dream big. “I assume you’ve already begun to move further forces into the area to support the straits.”
“We have.” Vicky cupped her chin in one hand and scowled. “But we don’t have a lot to spare. We can’t overcommit in one area due to the challenges we face elsewhere, but we cannot lose the straits. Unfortunately, the empire knows that. Some of their allies have begun to make more aggressive moves – moves we cannot easily deal with using our present forces. That is why we need you to complete a mission for us.”
“Please, don’t tell me you want us to attack their side of the straits,” Timmy said. “Because I enjoy living, and that’s basically suicide.”
“Is it really that heavily fortified?” Katie asked.
He reached over to ruffle her hair. How adorable. She thought they could attack those sorts of fortifications and live. “If the fortress we attacked was a housecat, the straits are more like a rabid tiger that can fly and has magical powers. Let me put it this way. If I took every zombie we have in our castle, I still don’t think we could break the fortifications on the empire’s side of the straits.” He nodded at the map. “The empire’s side is protected by four gigantic fortresses, each of which is far larger and better manned than the one that held the princess. Each of them is home to thousands of troops and no less than a dozen Lords of Magic who are, remember, the empire’s elite mages. They won’t be like the ones we faced on the island. As powerful as they were, you could argue they were better known for their research and technical expertise. The Lords of Magic at the straits will be combat specialists. Throw in tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of other mages, and who knows what else in terms of specialised traps and defences, and we might, if we were exceedingly lucky, take down one fortress. Maybe. On a good day. And if that’s not bad enough, as Vicky said, there are another one hundred and twenty thousand troops headed that way, not to mention there should be at least one fleet in the sea nearby at all times.”
Katie cringed. “Okay. I really hope we’re not going there then. I still have a lot of projects I want to work on.”
“You’re n
ot,” Vicky said, much to Timmy’s relief. “At this point, the Council agrees that attempting to attack the imperial side of the straits would, as Timmy puts it, basically be suicide. Instead, we want you to go here.” The map shifted to show the Broken Mountains, which formed part of Everton’s borders. “I trust you’re familiar with this area, Timmy.”
“Dwarves live there, one of the largest groups in the world. They’ve been allied with Everton since the First War although they’ve fallen on hard times. They’ve been a shadow of their former strength for centuries.” Timmy chuckled. “Wasn’t the dwarf who built all those golems and who ran off with Council funding one of them?”
“Yes, and it is those hard times we want you to help them with.”
Avraniel took a big bite out of an apple and then handed it to Spot. The dragon devoured it in a single bit and lunged at Avraniel’s sandwich. He got a chop over the head for his audacity, but it wasn’t nearly hard enough to hurt him. Instead, he gave a playful growl followed by a yelp as the elf put him in a makeshift headlock. “It’s great that you care about those short bastards, but why should we help them? It sounds like we’ve got enough of our own problems to deal with.”
“We do have our own problems, but helping the dwarves comes with its own rewards. And we are their allies. We cannot exactly leave them to die in their hour of need.”
“Then go ahead and explain, sparky. Because right now, I don’t see why we should bother helping a bunch of idiots who’d rather spend their entire lives holed up in a mountain instead of out here with the rest of us.”
“To understand the present, we need to examine the past.” Vicky waved her hands, and the light she’d used to make her map shifted into different shapes to better accompany her words. This was an aspect of her magic that people often overlooked. Her light constructs could not easily be used to deceive – they had a tendency to glow brightly, which gave them away – but they had other uses besides combat. When they’d been at the academy, she had regularly visited orphanages and other places to put on shows, using her magic to re-enact stories and legends.
As part of a bet, she’d once spent an evening standing on a street corner and wowing people passing by to see if she could earn any money. The sum she’d earned had been impressive enough for Timmy to semi-seriously recommend it as a career path if the whole cleric thing didn’t work out. “The dwarves of the Broken Mountains have never been part of the empire, unlike Everton. However, prior to the First War, the Eternal Empire had begun to make moves, which suggested they planned on annexing the Broken Mountains.”
“Yes,” Amanda drawled. “I was alive back then. There was a lot of talk about it amongst the empire’s nobility, but when the war began, they were forced to focus most of their attention on Everton.”
“And people call me old,” Avraniel muttered. “You make me look like a damn baby, people eater.”
Amanda frowned and continued. “The Broken Mountains are rich in precious stones, metals, and various other materials that not only possess monetary value but also substantial magical utility. Perhaps the most famous and valuable of these materials is what the dwarves and many others refer to as star crystal.”
“If you believe the dwarves about its origins,” Vicky said. “Star crystal comes from stars that have fallen from the sky. Although we don’t know if they actually are one and the same substance, there have been many references throughout history to absurdly powerful objects made from fallen stars. The Desert of Glass you journeyed through was supposedly created when an artefact built around one such object malfunctioned.” She glanced at the bow Avraniel had laid out on the table. “Likewise, the Bow of the Sun is supposedly made of star crystal, as are a number of legendary weapons.”
“And where might those be?” Avraniel asked. “You know, out of curiosity.”
Rembrandt sneered something at her.
“What? I was not think about stealing them, you dumb rat.” When everyone, even Spot, gave her doubtful looks, she rolled her eyes. ”Fine. Maybe I was. But weapons deserve to be used, not locked up in some stupid reliquary for centuries on end.”
“The dwarves claim the Broken Mountains were created when several stars fell from the sky, tearing up the ground and creating the jagged peaks the area is famous for. They believe that at the heart of each mountain is a star crystal. I don’t know if those legends are true, but I do know that the dwarves found several such objects of substantial size, one of which was supposedly so large it had to be housed in its own room. Based on those rumours, it’s not surprising the empire took an interest in the area. When Everton rebelled, the dwarves sought an alliance. They knew that if Everton fell, they would be next.”
“They weren’t fools,” Amanda said. “One day, they knew they’d be fighting the empire. It was far better to do it at our side than to wait and end up fighting alone.”
“Unfortunately, mistakes were made.” Vicky waved her hand, and a scale model of a floating city appeared. It was beautiful. It combined the rugged toughness of dwarfish engineering with the strong, bold lines of their finest art and architecture. “This was Skygarde, the Sky City, pride of the dwarves. They crafted it in secret, and many believe they used the largest known star crystal in history to power it. No one except its makers knew how it worked or why it did, but it did work. The city could actually fly. As you can imagine having a mobile flying fortress with its own weapons and troops would be a huge advantage. One of the biggest problems with fortresses is that they’re stuck in one spot. The Sky City had no such limitations. However, something went wrong.”
Amanda sighed deeply and closed her eyes. “That is a very nice way to put. During a test flight, the city vanished, and it has not been seen since. The loss of so much manpower and expertise – not to mention an asset they’d poured so many resources into building – crippled the dwarves. They were still important in defeating the empire, but the effects of losing the Sky City would become apparent after the war.” She took a deep breath. “You have to understand, many of their finest troops, engineers, mages, and craftsmen were in the city when it vanished. The dwarves have never been as numerous as us, so losing so many of their best… it was a heavy blow for them.”
Vicky used her magic to display a detailed map of the Broken Mountains. “Here is a map showing the territory they once held. Here is how much they still have.”
Timmy grimaced. He was familiar with the history of the dwarves, but to see their decline spelt out so clearly was painful. At least nobody in the room was a dwarf. This was the sort of thing that would have kicked off another dwarf crusade, and those never ended well for anybody.
“So who kicked their asses then?” Avraniel asked. “Some of us have been too busy avoiding execution to care what’s going on in the mountains.”
“Goblins,” Vicky replied.
Avraniel snorted. “Goblins? Are you serious? You expect me to believe goblins took all that territory from them? I’ve fought goblins before. They suck. Even without magic, I could hack my way through hundreds of those stupid losers myself.”
“You’re not entirely wrong. The average goblin isn’t the most threatening foe. In terms of physical ability, they are inferior to dwarves in strength, endurance, and durability. However, they are quick on their feet, and they have excellent night vision. There are rarely only one or two goblins to deal with. The dwarves have been facing horde after horde. And although goblins aren’t known for being excellent tacticians, they are excellent at fighting in caves, tunnels, and underground. It comes naturally to them in a way it does not to most other races. The loss of Skygarde combined with the losses the dwarves took during the war against the empire left their eastern flank bereft of most of its fighting strength. Exhausted and outnumbered, the dwarves in that area were overrun. We offered what help we could, but we were in no state to fight another large conflict so soon.”
Amanda’s jaw clenched. “We barely beat the empire, and fighting goblins isn’t like fighting other pe
ople. The fighting always devolves into a drawn-out, arduous slog from cave to cave and tunnel to tunnel. We simply didn’t have the manpower to fight against so many goblins. They must have spent centuries building their numbers before revealing themselves. A normal soldier might be worth several goblins, but if there are dozens of goblins for each soldier, you are going to lose. Add in how quickly goblins can reproduce, and you have an opponent perfectly suited to battles of attrition in the caverns and tunnels favoured by the dwarves.”
“Since then,” Vicky continued. “The dwarves have fought the goblins. We have tried to help, but the nature of the fighting – almost entirely underground in tunnels, caves, and underground cities – is not ideal for humans or elves. Moreover, the goblins answer to something else. The level of organisation amongst them is unusually high, and there have been incidents that suggest other powers are at work. We have long believed – and there is evidence to suggest – that the goblins, some of them anyway, are in league with eldritch powers not unlike those that live under Timmy’s castle.”
“And fighting eldritch powers on their home turf is generally a death sentence,” Timmy said. “Believe me. If they’ve got even one or two guys as strong as Sam or close to him, trying to retake territory the goblins have seized would turn into a complete disaster unless you’re properly prepared. Of course, if they’ve got that kind of help, then whatever beings they serve must not be able to move around freely. If they could, the dwarves would already be dead.”
“Exactly. Based on the patterns of previous conflicts, we think the goblins are acting as minions, driving out the dwarves and performing whatever rituals are required to sustain the beings they serve and expand the area they can cover. As with your castle, Timmy, it is highly likely that the beings they serve are bound to certain locations. Given how sparingly their powers have been used, they must require certain conditions to move freely. Over the past century or so, the situation between the dwarves and the goblins has been mostly stable. The dwarves have established and held a defensive line that has kept their most important territory safe. Oh, the goblins have continued to attack on a regular basis, but they’ve been repulsed each time. Unfortunately, every attempt by the dwarves to reclaim lost territory has ended in disaster, to say nothing of how quickly the goblins have restored their numbers.” Avraniel snorted. Goblins were often compared to cockroaches or rabbits due to how quickly they reproduced. Many believed they were about as smart as cockroaches or rabbits too, but Timmy knew that what they lacked in pure intellect, they often made up for in cunning and viciousness. “However, the situation has changed.”
Two Necromancers, a Dwarf Kingdom, and a Sky City Page 29