It would take two days for the Spear of Retribution to reach her destination, twelve hours behind schedule thanks to several of her engines being destroyed and her electrical systems largely fried by angelic lightning. Her torn hull and mangled midships turrets were going to make it obvious she had been in a fight as well despite the madness of anyone attacking a capital warship in a time of peace.
For her part Talitha spent most of her time sitting through the painstaking process of having magical healing applied to her broken right arm, teeth gritted, a great deal of tea consumed, forcing her intangible defences down as a nervous young naval mage concentrated a complex weave of water and earth to accelerate her healing. It was a form of magic she had no personal aptitude for and she found herself bitterly considering how much more useful the mage's talents might be applied to the most grievously injured of the legionaries and crew aboard.
But first impressions are important and showing up crippled would undermine her entire message. Even so she dwelt upon the butcher's toll. A hundred and fifteen dead, two hundred wounded, the loss of seven mages. Roughly a third of the ship's compliment casualties thanks to four angels and an idiotic watch lieutenant who had been napping instead of concentrating on sensory magic to warn of impending attack. She would have to ensure that woman was executed upon their return home.
For now though she was holding distracted conversation with the battlecruiser's first officer as her arm was worked upon, Commander Escamilla was one of the trio who had felled the last angel, a skilled fire mage in her own right as expected for the second daughter of a ducal house and senior military officer.
“Your grace, we were able to retrieve the bodies of three of the angels along with their panoply, the one you defeated atop the hull went overboard. Do you have any instructions for what we should do with them?” Talitha paused in sipping yet more tea at the question, considered.
“Keep them in storage for now, they will be useful bargaining chips or failing that material for enchantment. Hmm, no, upon considering that further I want the wings of the fire angel amputated so that I have something dramatic to show the summit. Have some sort of frame put together so that they can be carried in at the right moment.”
The commander nodded there though she also looked more than a little disquieted. “Does this mean we are at war with heaven now though your grace?” Talitha set down her tea at this, a clunk atop the wardrobe table. “Not yet.” Empthasis upon the yet. “This was a warning, or an attempt at one. They wanted to show that they could kill me and silence me despite passage aboard a capital ship, that nobody was safe and able to defy the will of heaven.”
She then allowed herself to smile. “Instead they have shown weakness. They will respond with greater strength of course but what have we just seen? Four angels, striking from ambush. Yes we lost over a hundred troops but you know as well as I that the kingdom has over half a million men and women under arms then another two million reservists. Seventy capital ships, three hundred escort vessels. They have demanded the tithe of the firstborn for millennia and we have no reason to still let them.”
The commander continued to look less than entirely convinced. “They would have won if you had not been aboard though your grace. You had help yes but three of those angels died at your hand or near enough and would you have survived if two of them had attacked you at once?”
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“Yes.” Talitha did not let any doubt creep into her voice. “I would have survived but the collateral damage would have been excessive. For that matter if the lieutenant on watch had given proper warning and the turret pressure chambers charged along with proper searchlight patterns and every mage on deck? Your crew would have crippled down two or three of the angels before they could board. You killed one yourself, they are potent but an angel cannot face a dozen magically gifted and properly armed warriors and hope to triumph.”
“Or one of you.”
A tight, deliberate smile at that comment. “Or one of me, though I do appreciate being addressed with the correct honourific commander. I trust that any doubts you or your family might hold about my having earned it have been dispelled?”
A wince from the other woman followed by a nod of her head. “Entirely your grace. But how? I hope to be an archmage before I am fifty but you are barely older than me and reached that point over a decade ago. I do not mean disrespect but when combined with your... Crusade, there are dark rumours.”
“Rumours of my selling my soul to dark powers are greatly exaggerated commander.” Talitha pulled a face as something twinged inside of her arm, a pointed look given to the mage working on her arm, who paled, focusing back upon their task. “But you are right, it is not 'natural', I took my power over flame from the dragon Undat when I struck him down. Though I was still a twenty nine year old archmage at the time who was able to kill an adult dragon. That however was pure talent and hard work. Along with a well trained air skiff crew and some very expensive equipment.”
The commander nodded slightly, intent, her own tea forgotten. “Then of course you ended the civil war your grace. Though according to my mother it was as much through bribery as it was through your immolation of the Summer Palace. I feel the immolation helped though.”
“It helped.” Talitha confirmed. “The old Arch Duke would never have abandoned his claim and the northlands still allow succession to pass through the male line, they would have continued to back him. I killed the entire family and thousands of their retainers but fighting the war to conclusion would have ruined our nation.”
“And yet now you want us to wage war upon Heaven your grace.” The commander interjected.
“I want us to deny Heaven the souls of our sons and daughters, if they respond to that with violence then they will answer for it and the queen is fully in agreement. Anyway. You are dismissed commander. I need to prepare for our arrival.”
Talitha took a while longer to dismiss the mage working on her arm, she was not altogether fixed but could use the limb now, tender, aching, incapable of fine or strenuous use, but she hoped not to engage in anything heavier than lifting a glass of wine over the next few days. For now she called in her squire and had Eleni dress her.
Her armour again, this time not pulled on hurriedly but affixed with full care and attention in full array, no three quarters suit leaving the backs of her legs and her feet unprotected but gold chased steel from neck to toe. It was marred a little from her recent combat, but that could not be helped. An emine lined cloak of silk, scarlet and gold, embroided with dying dragons, a velvet slouch hatch to match instead of her helm, which, fitted with profligate plumes, would be carried by her squire along with her gauntlets.
One prepared she reviewed the thirty seven remaining legionaries of her forty strong honour guard, tall women in heavily enchanted half plate, gleamingly bayoneted long rifles and heavy shortswords at their sides, a mental chide at herself for having allowed them to be quartered so far from her own accommodations.
Ascending to the bridge she gave a slight nod to the captain, considered the pair of Palatinate cruisers now alongside, the walls of the city approaching ahead as, the desert now passed, villages and farms sprawled a mile below. Eyes closed, a deep breath. She had called representatives of every major nation together and they had answered, now to convince them to join her.