RE: Monarch

I maintained the slow, unaffected strut until all four of us broke line of sight, disappearing behind the ruin’s walls. Then I scooped up Annette and broke into a sprint, Alten and Sera flanking me on either side. We had perhaps a half hour before the regiment finished their selections and advanced. Less, if they were organized about it. Banking on less, we moved as quickly as possible, dashing inside the shelled out temple we’d previously scouted and selected as our operating base.

Then, I began stripping off the high steel armor, tossing it onto the ground as I went, replacing it with banded leather pieces.

“Pity,” Sera said, doing the same. “I know it’s ridiculous, but I feel a hell of a lot safer with metal strapped to me than leather.”

“Too heavy,” Alten grunted. “Can’t hit and run if you can barely run.”

“At least you get armor,” Annette said, shedding her bright dress for a dark slip. “I know we’re trying to get them to see me as a non-combatant, but I’m feeling incredibly exposed at the moment.”

“Vogrin, movement?” I asked.

He reappeared, hovering before me, looking beyond a wall towards something unseen. “Feedback from my constructs is facing some interference. Salven and Aetherya’s banners are still making their selection. Mari and Zin have finished their selections and are headed towards the ruins. They do not appear to be coordinating. As you predicted, this has turned into a race to the prize.”

“Good.” I smiled viciously. They’d bought our show at the base camp and taken the bait.

“Wait.” Vogrin hesitated. “Zin’s banner has stopped. They’re returning to base camp.”

“I cannot be certain from this distance, but it looks like troops from the infernal’s banner are calling them back.”

Salven. I knew he was going to be a problem.

“Dammit.” Sera leaned her head back. “So much for taking half of them off the board in one fell swoop.”

“Mari?” I asked Vogrin, gripping the top of a pew until my fingers turned white.

“They are also being called back… but they do not seem to be listening. If anything, they’ve picked up speed.” Vogrin chuckled. “So desperate to prove her worth. That insect you placed in her ear is most certainly bearing fruit.”

The plan had been to create a crossfire with the early arrivals and turn as many of them as we could in the chaos. But if we could secure an entire regiment in one fell swoop—especially one made up of the best melee fighters in the regiment—that could possibly be better. “Which side?”

“South,” Vogrin confirmed.

I glanced at Annette. “Up for the bridge?”

Annette’s face was pale, but her green eyes radiated with excitement. “I can do it.”

“Sure you’re not gonna get in your head about it, like the first few times?” Sera muttered.

“I can do it,” Annette reiterated, staring at me with conviction.

It was a big play so early in the skirmish. But that was the only way this was going to work. If we chipped away at them, eventually the numbers would turn against us.

I made a snap decision and scooped Annette up, blowing through the derelict doors, putting a small amount of mana through the inscriptions on my legs and racing down the main street, leaping over detritus and keeping an eye out for vines or anything else that could trip me up. I glanced over my shoulder. Sera and Alten were falling behind, but that was fine. We needed to get there first. “Tell me again,” I huffed, “What do you do if you get caught out?”

Annette looked away.

“Annette.”

“Surrender,” she said finally.

“Thank you,” I said. She was unarmed, and I didn’t think the soldiers Cephur personally vetted would go out of their way to hurt an unarmed child, but there was a chance they’d eventually figure out what she was doing. Her sticking it out wasn’t worth it if things took a turn and it cost her life.

I approached the south entrance at a breakneck pace, racing against time. If Mari’s banner breached the sightline of the crumbling wall to the east before Annette got the illusion in place this wouldn’t work. I could hear them over the pounding of my heart, as I dropped into the reservoir at full speed, using my inscriptions to cushion my landing, putting Annette down, quickly planting four small sparks at either side of the reservoir.

Mari’s banner approached from outside, Alten and Sera’s from the right.

There was a flare of mana as Annette reached up with both hands. A crumbling, decrepit bridge slowly phased into existence. She held it, monitoring the structure as she moved well clear of it and wedged herself into an alcove, phasing into the stone.

The sound of marching ceased. Sera and Alten’s distant sprinting continued growing closer.

Come on. Come on. Buy it.

“Charge!” Mari screamed. I pumped a fist, falling into a crouch as the sound of marching bootsteps escalated into a roar as men in armor rushed toward the bridge.

“Hold,” I whispered to Annette.

The din of boots grew tantalizingly close. I nearly gave the signal as Mari crossed the bridge, two-handed axe held over her head, a battle cry ripping from her throat.

“Hold…”

Two soldiers crossed ahead of the others.

“A little longer…”

Then a mass of bodies pushing tightly inward began to cross. I waited until the men at the front were in mid-step over the bridge before I raised my fist and threw it down. “Now.”

All at once, the bridge disappeared. The soldiers crossing it fell, even more pushed in by those behind them. But they were piling up too quickly. It was both a tactical problem and a humanitarian one, as those at the bottom would begin to be crushed, and those at the top could easily breach the gap to the other side.

I shot forward, ascending the pile, jumping off breastplates and shoulders, planting sparks on every blue ribbon in my view before I leapt over them and landed on the other side of the empty reservoir.

“Right here!” I roared, pounding my chest.

The soldiers in the pile recognized me, their faces twisting in anger and stunned expressions fading as they struggled to free themselves, many toward the top and the middle of the cluster succeeding in pulling themselves free and rushing toward me. I drew my blade, pushing the first one’s sword aside and snatching his ribbon free. He froze, aware of what had happened but uncertain how to proceed.

“Fight!” I spun him around and kicked him in the back, sending him stumbling towards his previous allies.

He was still stunned and disoriented, and they tore his orange ribbon free easily enough. But my greater efforts were working. The men in the pile were pulling themselves free, others still spilling over the top.

There were too many advancing on me now for me to handle.

But I didn’t have to.

I skipped backward past the sparks I’d planted, connecting a line of fire on either side and feeding mana into them, watching in grim satisfaction as the walls of fire trapped the fallen soldiers in the reservoir.

A single spark shot from my hand, trailing up the wall of the reservoir and over the side the soldiers had come from. I maneuvered sightlessly, the same way I’d repaired the dimension gate, propelling it as close to the far wall as I could.

I looked at the spark, and let the fire in my hand consume me until there was nothing but black and the distant bead of violet fire.

With great effort, I pushed myself through the void and reconstructed, snapping back into consciousness, nauseated and off-balance, behind the group of a dozen or so soldiers still left on the other side of the bridge. Alten was fighting two soldiers that had crossed, while my sister dueled with Mari.

Focus.

I moved close, snatching five ribbons free before the others noticed, and screamed for the orange ribbons to fight. Despite their clear displeasure, they were well trained and turned on their companions. Swords clanged off shields as they struggled for purchase, armored gauntlets grasping for ribbons.

I stayed long enough to skew the odds in their favor, then leapt back over to the city side, grabbing the sword arm of Alten’s remaining opponent long enough for him to snatch the ribbon free.

He nodded at me, then turned toward Sera. Mari was pushing her back, moving far quicker than she should have been. And she wasn’t going for Sera’s ribbon. The brutal, two-handed swings of her broadaxe weren’t meant to injure. They were meant to kill.

“Want her legs or torso?” Alten asked, wincing as Sera ducked under a blistering horizontal strike.

“Legs.” I sprinted down the line of the reservoir while Alten stayed static, poised and ready, until I had an angle perpendicular to his. I paused for a moment, just long enough to confirm he was ready, then sprinted directly at Mari’s back. She must have sensed me because she spun, braided ponytail whipping around as she roared in a scream of fury.

I dropped at the last moment, avoiding any early signal that would have likely earned me an axe to the face and kicked at her knees, just as Alten smashed into her from the side, bringing Mari crashing into the ground.

Sera approached, blue ribbon held in her hand. I looked down at the lieutenant’s waist to check, seeing only orange. Sera had already grabbed it before we tackled her. Sera thrust the ribbon in Mari’s face as Alten held her by the shoulders. “Yield—and tell your men to stand down. You’re one of ours now.”

Mari thrust her head forward, spitting in Sera’s eye, then smiled with bloody teeth. “Might as well slit my throat here. Took me fifteen years to get what I earned. No way in hell I’m giving it up to some spoiled brat.”

There was a tense silence as Sera crouched down. She was furious, but I felt a swell of pride as she buried it, looking at me for confirmation.

I nodded.

“The banner will remain yours.”

“What?” Mari looked between all three of us.

“The rumor you were told was bullshit, Mari,” I confirmed. “On my honor as crown Prince of Silodan. We have no intention of taking your banner away from you.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a soldier beginning to crawl out from the pit, waited until the blue ribbon on his waist was visible, then hit him with a bolt of compressed air, knocking him back in.

“Then whose banner are you taking?” Mari growled. “Just because it ain’t mine and the others are prissy bitches doesn’t mean they didn’t earn it.”

“No one’s,” Sera said “If we win this, Cairn’s creating a fifth banner. Volunteers and the dregs. Anyone who isn’t a good fit in their current structure.”

Finally, Mari’s struggling seemed to slow, and her eyes gained a sharp clarity, the berserker rage slowly filtering out of her. “It was all bullshit.”

“Yes.”

“But not the drinks at the end.”

Alten chuckled. “Definitely not.”

There was a long silence as she absorbed that. “I yield.”

We let her up, and the large woman walked to the reservoir, screaming for her men to stop. They listened, and within a few minutes they were organized again, though the two-thirds of her number that remained looked understandably cowed.

Vogrin popped into existence. “The other banners are organized and moving now. Safe to say they heard the racket.”

I swore. “How long?”

“Atherya’s banner is fragmenting into pairs, spreading out along the treeline,” Vogrin said, then squinted, the fabric that covered his eyes crinkling. “Salven and Zin are marching in tandem, approaching the south and east, respectively.”

“Checking to see what happened to Mari.” I rubbed my forehead. In a way it was good, because they’d effectively lost the initiative. But they were being more cautious, which was less than ideal.

“What about me?” Mari asked. Her expression was still a little wild, but she’d organized the rest of her troops and approached with approximately eighty men in tow.

“Backup.” I gave a quick run-down of our plan, then stopped. “Is Salven as good as I think he is?”

Mari growled. “Better. More tricks than a Panthanian brothel. Disciplined. Plenty of expertise to back it up. But Atherya’s going to be our biggest problem once her people get vantages. Thwip thwip thwip til the sun sets.”

“So Zin first?”

Mari nodded. “We rush it. Batter him down, bend him over and tear as many ribbons as we can before cover becomes a problem. See that sword of his?”

When I said that I did, she continued. “He’s fast with it, with strength to match. The man is, hands down, the best one-on-many fighter I’ve ever seen. Knocks arrows out of the air like it’s nothing. Struggles one-on-one if you can match his speed or batter him with power, but if you try that and don’t end it fast enough, he’ll use the sword’s range to his advantage.”

“Magic?”

“Air. Keeps it close range, but he’s unnaturally fast with it.”

I was beginning to understand why Cephur picked her. Despite her brash, savage demeanor, she could be a pragmatist when the things she cared about weren’t under threat. And when they were, she was ready to die for them. She was being far more upfront with information than I’d expected her to be.

“Sera, you’re with me. Annette, you good on mana?” I was getting increasingly worried about Atherya’s banner getting too comfortable. My younger sister nodded, though she looked a bit frazzled as she approached. I leaned down and whispered: “You okay? Guessing it was as chaotic down there as it was up here.”

“Fine,” she said, blinking several times. “Just a little more intense than I imagined. And hot. Really hot.”

“What’s with the princess?” Mari asked. “Thought you dragging her into this was a little weird, but couldn’t put my finger on why.”

There wasn’t really any harm in telling her. If they were going to be my regiment, they were going to know, eventually. I shrugged. “Annette did the bridge.”

Mari’s eyes immediately narrowed as she stared down my sister. I was about to divert attention by saying it was my idea, before Mari extended a slow fist towards Annette and held it out. “Well played.”

Annette, completely caught off guard, tentatively returned the gesture, bumping the side of Mari’s fist with hers. “Well fought.”

Mari nodded stoically before she turned to me. “What now?”

“Got any spare helmets lying around?” I asked.

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