Chapter Thirty-Four: Guess Who?

Presimiwe invited Calivar and me to sup with her as our armies rested for the march on Harvesthall. We brought wine we'd procured in Maple Ridge, a town we'd liberated a week before, and the meal was what little the queen's servants could prepare with what was on hand - perfectly serviceable, but a far cry from the royal meals I'd enjoyed before. Frankly, sometimes a simple and hearty meal is just what the doctor ordered, especially after a day spent successfully breaking a siege. As we dined, Queen Presimiwe told us how she'd come to find herself under siege in Rosevale.

She sat in the commander's chair, now adorned with bits of golden and aureliate regalia, swirling a dark wine with a faraway look on her face. Queen Presimiwe was not beautiful by fae standards, but she was striking, appearing barely older than me with a slightly feline look to her eyes and lips... I'd have suspected some tiny fraction of oncaran blood in her past if I didn't know she was as pure fae as we came. Her eyes glittered red, gold, and brown like dazzling amber medallions, and her hair hung in loose coils of every autumn color. I might have mistaken her for a goddess of the harvest if it hadn't been for her haunted look, like some vital part of herself had been enervated. She offered a tired smile before starting on her tale:

"They came in so quickly, we didn't have time to prepare. One day, we received an urgent message from Baphyria that they'd been invaded from the sea and, before I could even discuss the proper response with my captains, they were shelling the coast, marching thousands of men across the wilderness, and were invading our realm. Humans, mostly, and dancers, with a few others interspersed. Obviously, I ordered the army to confront them, with two dozen battle-mages to see that the job was done properly. But neither I nor my generals accounted for the range and accuracy of these ryfles, and our forces were badly beaten, retreating to the north, taking heavy losses, and finding themselves cut off from Harvesthall. Twelve thousand strong, the Masked Vizier... that is what the leader of these men calls himself... he marched on Harvesthall, but I was confident we could withstand him until help from the other realms arrived."

"It obviously didn't work out that way," I said.

Presimiwe shrugged, wincing slightly as she did. "It did not," she agreed. "We held them for two days. During that time, my mages and rangers managed to chip away at their number, and I hoped that we might hold them like that indefinitely, killing a dozen men here, capturing twenty there, until their numbers were depleted and they were forced to surrender. Even their kanons, as fearsome as those thunder-throwers are, did little damage to the inner city's walls - my mages were able to protect and heal the stone... until they got an inside man. It must have been the dancers, the tricky bastardy. Some of them planted destructive alchemicals inside our walls and blew them wide open along with half my mages. They surged in and soon had my palace surrounded. It was only a matter of hours before they breached the palace and took me prisoner or worse.

"I resolved to escape and regroup. Surrounded as we were, I flew with a dozen of my honor guard, hoping to make the stables and ride to Rosevale to regroup. However, the Masked Vizier had warned his men of this possibility. We took flight close to midnight and, even so, they shot us out of the sky. My wings were injured and I landed well short of my goal. Hobbled and exhausted, they chased me down... of the thirteen of us, three escaped and five died in the fight. I was one of five captured, and it didn't take long for them to realize who they'd captured. Their vizier... he's a fae like us. He’s fae, but madness dances in those ice-blue eyes, which is the only bit of his face that he'll permit to be seen. And, being fae, he demanded that I relinquish my throne to him... this would require severing my own spiritual bond to the realm, and I insisted to him that it could not be done. But the Masked Vizier swore that he knew a way and, if I wouldn't do it, he would take matters into his own hands. And... and so..."

Presimiwe sobbed quietly, dribbles of wine spilling as her hand shook. I pulled her into a hug, mindful that this was an eight-hundred-year-old queen of the fae who wept into my shoulder. "There, there," I said, and I went to rub her back, but the queen recoiled at my touch.

"I... I apologize," she muttered and, as her teary eyes gained resolve, she very much reminded me of my fae mother, Alathea. "I will not be broken."

"Did he sever your bond to the realm?" I asked.

"Is... is he king now?" Calivar asked.

The queen shook her head. "No, but I let him think he succeeded for a time. He thought he could sever the bond by... by..." she looked me in the eye, struggling to rein in her tears. "He severed my wings... amputated them, m... mutilated me. He ground them into some sort of potion and ingested it. Thank Gaia it didn't work. It's an old peasant's tale, but one with a grain of truth. Our wings are magical, but they aren't the source of our magic. That resides within our very souls, and the soul must be severed before a new soul can bond with the realm."

I gasped. "He would need to curse you to a true death before the ritual would work!"

Presimiwe nodded. "Exactly right, Laeanna. And he had the means to do it - the vizier had already tried and succeeded on several of his fae prisoners, and it wouldn't be long before he tried the same on me. Fortunately, we Autumnal fae are experts at illusion who put even the dancers to shame. We managed to fool the vizier for all of about five minutes, but it was the five minutes I needed. One of my battle-mages managed to kill our dancer guard and assume his identity. Then, in that disguise, he freed me and assumed my identity while I assumed the dancer's guise." The queen managed a smile. "A fae queen impersonating a dancer... how's that for irony?"

"I was barely out of their dungeon when the vizier's men realized that something was amiss, but I stole a charob to ride and fled into the countryside. The troops didn't shoot at me as I fled for fear of killing me - it's hard to inflict a true death upon a woman who will be in Elysheim for the next few years. And by the time their search parties were out and scouring the land for me, I'd found loyal subjects to keep me safe. Ryfles or not, a dozen scouts do not fare well against three dozen rangers and a very angry fae queen. In retrospect, I should have just stayed in the countryside with those loyalists instead of hunkering down here in Rosevale, where a single disloyal bastard was able to get word to the Masked Vizier before we were prepared for a siege." The queen downed her wine like a town drunkard, ingesting it in a single quaff without any indication of difficulty. "Thus I find myself dining upon mutton with my royal cousins in the fortress commander's suite."

"I'm sorry that happened to you," I said. "I can't believe they took your wings... that's just barbaric." As somebody who never had wings until a few months ago let me tell you: once you get used to them, losing the things would be every bit as traumatic as losing an arm.

"They didn't take my wings," Presimiwe said. She refilled her glass, angrily regarding the dark liquid. "He took a bolt-cutter, heated up the tip red-hot, and then severed my wings as I screamed and wept, topless and bound in chains. I would never treat my lowliest subject's dog like that, let alone a queen, and I hope I can count on my allies to see that justice is served."

My husband grit his teeth and clenched his fists. Looking between Presimiwe and myself, perhaps imagining somebody mutilating me in such a horrific fashion. "When we find this Masked Vizier, whichever of our armies find him, his punishment is entirely at your discretion."

I nodded, imagining what I'd want to do if somebody invaded my realm, shot me out of the sky, and mutilated my wings. "Agreed."

+++++

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We marched on Harvesthall that night. It was a good thing we'd saved Rosevale and spoken with Presimiwe, too, because we'd have flown in to take the bastards by surprise and been shot out of the air like the queen and her honorguard had been. But, if they were keeping their eyes to the skies, Calivar thought we might turn that to our advantage.

"These air spirits that you and Laeanna enjoy so thoroughly... what would you say their range is?"

Meliswe wiggled her nose. "Perhaps fifty yards?"

He dissapointed by that. "And no further?"

"At first, yes. They grow stronger over time. I've heard of some kept for centuries that can range for a dozenmiles. What is this strange line of questioning, husband?"

"Have you ever heard of a kite?"

Kites are not unheard of in Alfheim, though they are uncommon. Calivar's scheme was thus: to construct a score of roughly man-sized kites, equip them with small explosives and alchemicals, and use zephrylites to float them over enemy lines. The air daemons might even flap at little "wings". At night, even a keen-eyed oncaran might mistake them for flying fae, and as they shot at the things, they would explode or drop explosives, giving the impression of a deliberate bombing run. Unfortunately, they lacked the range when recently-summoned to do such a thing.

"They don't need any range at all," I observed. "We just strap the grimkey to the kite and let the zephrylites carry themselves in whatever direction we like."

With thousands of soldiers at your disposal, including a few dozen siege engineers and two score of battle-mages, you can accomplish a lot in a surprisingly short time. In fact, it was still three or four hours before dawn when we were ready with twenty kites equipped with twenty makeshift grimkeys and whatever zephrylites we could summon. As our forces advanced under cover of darkness, the kites took to the skies, gliding under green moonlight and wispy, soot-gray clouds.

The vizier's forces were plenty attentive - the first shots cracked out within fifteen seconds of the first kite flapping into view and, within a few minutes the whole western front of the city was crick-cracking with gunfire as the kites wheeled overhead, occasionally bursting into the yellow bloom of explosion or dropping fulminating alchemical explosives groundward. Meanwhile, our real strike force waited until I blasted the eastern gate open before landing behind cover on the ruins and firing on the defenders while Vittoro's wedge pushed right into the city, overrunning the riflemen on the ground before they'd even taken all of our kite decoys out.

Minutes later, there was a pitched battle in the yard outside the palace, with two hundred infantry and a few riflemen storming out as our forces moved in. We'd encountered only a few hundred men defending the rest of the city and weren't expecting anything like that inside the palace. In the blink of an eye, I found myself in the middle of pitched combat, with rifles cracking and blades clashing all around me. The fighting was far too close for me to cast a devastating spell to weaken and demoralize the enemy - they were right on top of us!

"Meliswe! Meliswe?!"

I made my way though the thick of the fighting, dipping under charging brutes and tossing men like ragdolls with propuls, desperate to find my wife. Perhaps it's some remnant of old-fashioned chauvinism in me, but I knew Calivar could take care of himself, whereas I was always worried about exposing Meliswe to the horrors and dangers of battle, even though she got more competent with each battle and could no longer be considered the worst shot in our group - her rifle skills were about average. But, in the midst of that violence, my thoughts turned to her, and I charged toward where I'd seen her last, leaping over combatants, taking swings at enemy soldiers as I passed, and tossing around magic whenever I could. An enemy rifleman stumbled into me, his gun already lowered near my abdomen. I didn't have time to cast him aside or attempt any other magical hijinks, and the rifle fired. Pain blossomed out from my belly, I stumbled back and, even as I came to realize that I'd just been shot, somebody spun the man away in a magical vortex of roiling air, catapulting him away.

"Laeanna! Oh, sweet Gaia, Laeanna! Please don't die!"

It was Meliswe, her pretty face contorted in rage and panic. I held my hand to my abdomen, wincing in pain and feeling the sticky warmth of blood... actually, there wasn't all that much of it. I lifted my hand and glanced at the hole in my gown. Something hot and metal pressed against the small of my back - the bullet. The alchemically-reinforced fabric of the gown had deflected the bullet, caught it before it could exit, and left me with a flesh wound. It hurt, but I wasn't going to die.

A large sauryx man charged at us, roaring as only a lizard-man can, so I spun in front of Meliswe cut him down with my combat sword, and moved just enough to toss him over my hip. Hope brimmed in Meliswe's eyes when she realized I wasn't nearly as badly injured as she'd feared. Calivar, apparently, didn't get the memo, because he came charging in with a squad of shock troopers, screaming for us.

"Laeanna! Meliswe!" His dark knuckles had gone white around his rifle grip and the bayonet was streaked with blood. The heat of the battle had moved away from our spot. "Thank Gaia... I'm... I thought..."

I wanted to leap at him, to smother my Calivar in little kisses. But we were still in the middle of a heated battle, even if we were currently surrounded by friendly forces and we looked to be moments from victory. But, I realized, the attack had been unleashed to misdirect us more than any desperate hope that the enemy could beat us on the battlefield. An enemy who took a fae realm by surprise and whose leader had mutilated a fae queen was not an enemy who made a valiant last stand.

"They're trying to escape!" I shouted, scanning the skies.

Sure enough, taking flight across the shimmering night sky, were six or eight fae. They'd used the attack as cover for an escape and were already out of range of our arrows... though we might still shoot them down. Calivar had the same thought. He leveled his rifle and took aim...

"Wait!" I pushed the barrel down - I had a better idea.

I raised my spellsword, shaping my mana and channeling a modest pulse. I projected it as far out as it would go - hopefully, just past the fleeing fae. And... BA-THOOM, a thunderclap pulsed the area around them, just a bit lower than I'd intended. The fae were tossed through the skies like flotsam on the breakers some of them arcing upward before fluttering down and others simply dropping like flies struck mid-flight. I unfurled my own jeweled wings.

"Come on!"

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We chased the survivors down to the outskirts of Harvesthall, down the gentle hills and out to a foundry at the edge of town. There, I expected to have to give further chase and perhaps do combat with the escaping officers of the King in the South. At least three of their number had died, plummeting to the earth from hundreds of feet up, close to the height of the Eiffel Tower. We passed one dead fae, his soul spirited away to Elysheim, his body broken and misshapen from the descent... if the shock of my thunderclap hadn't killed him, the fall certainly had. This is why it's always best to take fae alive - if you kill us, we'll just come back in a few years and you may find yourself dealing with us all over again.

One of the survivors started in with the spellcraft, calling down lightning bolts and pushing out propuls blasts, practically begging us to kill him. Nobody had told him about the woodsong, though, because he stayed put in the weedy scrub of the foundry yard, spitting fireballs at Calivar, who danced through the grasses, taking shots with his rifle, but missing on purpose. The mage didn't even notice my concrete-hard vines growing about him and his friends until it was far too late to do anything about it.

I am not

the the sort who kills;

nay, mercy runs

fast in my blood

slow in my sap.

I am not

one to let her fields grow fallow,

nor thus neglect my precious garden.

But I see one who does,

whose reckless excess

burns the earth,

whose fires of purpose

submit now to fury.

Case him in your might,

in corded vines,

and I shall sing you thorns,

but I shall also

sing you flowers.

The foundry yard writhed and twisted, a living, growing beast, ensnaring the mage and the several recovering officers he'd been guarding. He attempted a few pathetic puffs of hands-only magic (any of the three of us could have done better) before the vines wreathed around his fingers, too.

"I'll put thorns in your toes, tongue, and earlobes, too, if you make me," I said.

The mage didn't challenge me further. Calivar and Meliswe extricated four fae from the vines while I hummed, using my woodsong to shift the vegetation to push them out with bindings reasonably intact. Beautiful, thorny cuffs and manacles speckled with blooming wildflowers. We were busy extracting the last of the four when Queen Presimiwe's guard came thundering down to the yard atop their charobs, those tough-hided lizard mounts that some preferred over horses. She leapt from her mount and stormed over to the man, a masked fae of slim build in fine robes now torn by my thorns.

"You!" she snarled. "Let us see who dares to mutilate the Queen of the Autumnal!"

With that, she unsheathed a dagger and cut the mask from his face, nicking a cheek with what I'm pretty sure was deliberate malice. The placid gold and ebony mask fell away, revealing a handsome fae, one who looked to be about my age, with cream green hair and ice blue eyes. He sneered, violet blood dripping down his cheek.

"You!" Presimiwe gasped.

"Your majesty." The man nodded his head, but the gesture came across as mocking. Then his contemptuous gaze shifted to me. "And I'm glad to see you, too, sister."