Aranea left the hospital. A makeshift prison camp was constructed in hours, some distance away from the camp. One of the crawlers was standing guard near it, along with most of the pack of warlord Valerye. Fresh forces continued to pour in to Chokepoint A, reinforcing defenses and bringing supplies. Drones were replaced, bunkers and trenches were restored, and new artillery positions were created. The shield gleamed once more over the state's positions. In a few weeks, this place will be even stronger than before.
The wounded and dead were hauled to field hospitals. By the orders of Wyrm Lord, prisoners were to receive the same treatment as state personnel. This caused some people to grumble, but Ivar and Scorpio quenched all dissatisfaction. The blue wyrm might disagree with his liege, but at least he was carrying out his orders to the letter.
As Aranea almost reached the barracks, she noticed two giant forms, lazily lying on the overheated sand. Blue and black wyrms were seemingly chilling near the barracks, speaking with each other.
"All in all, losses are below an acceptable level, soldiers showed themselves to be capable enough," Ivar said, looking at his bandaged shoulder with a scowl. He treated his injury like an insult, some of his golden bracelets were removed by the doctors to clean his wounds, and now captain Ivar fumed with held back rage, "My forces started moving. Yours?"
"After we secure this place, my army will move out. Unless a miracle happens, Regulators are done," Scorpio was speaking with an amiable tone, yet something flashed in his eyes. A dangerous spark, "I am a bit disappointed in the lack of information about Huntsman… One might think that certain someone wanted to get rid of my warlord."
"Don’t blame me for your mistakes," The blue wyrm responded in a cold voice, turning to look into the eyes of Scorpio, "We are both privy to the same reports. You knew about the existence of this human trash. You made an excellent choice in countering him, and yet you failed to find the proper pawn to finish him off. The east was, and still is, your responsibility. Because of your ineptitude, we almost lost a valuable asset and my warlord was injured. Speaking of reports, latest information shows that some new civilians from your area of control are busy openly voicing their dissatisfaction with their new rulers. This is a result of your softness. Stomp out dissent. Stop playing with the food and just devour your foes. Your weakness makes us look weak. Troublemakers are to be dealt with, not negotiated with."
"Ofelia was never in any danger," Scorpio became strangely tense at the implication that his servant was an asset, "And I will make my amends to Valerye soon enough. As for your suggestion, I fully reject it. Does it matter if a few people try to stir trouble? These crazies don’t amount to much in the long run, let them run their mouths all they want, in the end, they will just make fools out of themselves. I ain’t making martyrs out of them. Common people want nothing more than to have a well protected life, be on the winning side, and have a secured future. By winning here, we have proven that Resistance is weaker than us. By rebuilding cities, we have proven to be more stable rulers. People are not stupid, they will see that they have no reason to betray us. In the end, troublemakers just serve our goals by creating annoyance with the resistance in the minds of regular citizens."
Aranea was too tired to listen to their banter anymore. She walked toward the barracks, her pack was currently moved to one of the buildings on the slope of the western mountain range. When a wolfkin from the Foulsnout pack saw Aranea, he lifted his paw to the helmet.
"Spies, cowards, and traitors do have their uses, I will give you that. But by refusing to treat the rot, you will only let it fester in the future…" Ivar turned his head, looking at Aranea. The blue wyrm not even try to hide the fact that he expected to see the wolf hag, "Speaking of which, the woman of the hour is here as expected and not a second too late. It is almost curious how this particular wolf hag manages to be in the most interesting places at the right time."
"Captain," Aranea said, standing at attention, wanting nothing else than to fall, "I must ask you to refrain from punishing members of my pack in future. If anyone of them is at fault, punishment must first start with me."
"It is admirable that you understand the responsibility of leadership. When you are in charge, if something goes wrong, you are always at fault," Ivar nodded in approval, "Of course, it means that I also share responsibility for Chort’s survival. I would like to let you go and have a well-deserved rest, but there is one thing that I wanted to know, however. What is your connection to Iterna?"
Aranea blinked in surprise as Ivar continued to look at her. She had a feeling that he was mildly confused. Whatever reaction he wanted to get from her, he was not getting what he wanted right now.
"Please don't be surprised. We are listening to what our officers speak or send to faraway lands," Scorpio said, purple eyes locked on Aranea. There was no hostility in his voice, just curiosity, "To be honest, you've fooled us far better than the others so far. Selling information is common, even expected sometimes. We allow some soldiers to run their mouths to reporters or to agents of the intelligence agency from Iterna from time to time, which helps to feed disinformation to our rival."
"Yet we failed to crack your code," Ivar admitted, "Your gibberish that you were speaking to this "doctor" Philip leaves us at a loss. We checked him, he had no earlier ties to intelligence of Iterna. What is going on? Who is he? What exactly is so important, could you even possibly know?"
"Captains," Aranea tried to carefully find the right words, but understood that she was too tired. She decided to come clean, "I hurt my friend and looked for a way to help her. To… I don’t know, make it all right again…"
"Gibberish again. Captain Scorpio, find out the truth, please," Ivar cut off Aranea in an annoyed voice.
The wolf hag wanted to argue, even to fight at first. She hated, hated having her mind open. She was loyal, always trying her best and… Then Aranea understood that she was simply too tired. She lost pack members today, she saw the biggest battle of her life, she was beaten and humiliated… She looked into Scorpio’s eyes, fully knowing that he would rummage through her brains. And halfbreed didn't care this time, she just wanted to get it over with. Let him do his worst, she wanted to sleep.
Purple light fell on her, creating a strange tingling feeling over her body. Thoughts were suddenly gone from the head of Aranea, she felt drool dripping from her mouth and no longer cared. All her worries and fears were gone, as someone was looking through her memory, picking them one by one, checking them from each side… Minutes, hours, days, and years passed, and the halfbreed felt her tongue turn to a dry piece of meat, her skin about to wither... Still, no fear, no care came. Her mind was no longer her own. Pain, anxiety, hunger... all those feelings were no longer her. She knew that she existed, but that was it. She had no desires, save for eternal numbness while purple light flayed her thoughts, dissecting and reading her memories, rummaging through her darkest secrets in search of treachery that never even existed.
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With a sudden snap, control was given back to her. Emotions flooded back into her. Humiliation, pain, and fear nearly spiraled out of control when she stumbled and fell on her ass. Barely a moment passed in real time, yet Aranea felt as if she lacked her mind for eternity. Her bravado was gone, she grabbed her own shoulders, shaking with fear. This was her own body, right? She was still her, right? She remembered Kate's words and tried to search her memories. Surely, if she had lost something, she would have known it, right?
"She is clean," Scorpio said, in surprise. The eyes of Ivar betrayed a whole rainbow of emotions, from distrust to acceptance and confusion. The black wyrm looked at Aranea and spoke in a suddenly gentle voice, "My apologies, child. Fear not, you are exactly as you was before. And…" He stopped, unwilling to say something near Ivar, but then pushed through, "I will have quite a few things to discuss with Ice Fang order, it seems."
"What do you mean?" Ivar demanded to know, and Scorpio looked at him. While they had a conversation between themselves, a link of light connected the eyes of both blue and black wyrms, "My beautiful tool!" Ivar hissed, crashing the stones underneath his palms, "Kalaisa had paid for her retirement in full and this is how they dared to treat her? We will announce that Aranea is still alive and will sue them out of existence for this."
"Don’t you dare," Aranea whispered, her voice barely a hiss. Ivar looked at her with suspicion, "Don’t you dare take this away from me." The blue wyrm looked at Aranea for a long time with unblinking eyes. Finally, he gave a single nod.
"Venerable captains, pray tell me, what exactly is happening right here?" A cheerful voice asked from behind Aranea. Two paws took her by the shoulders, lifting her in the air, before putting her on the ground. One arm wrapped itself around the wolf hag to help her stand.
Warlord Valerye, still in her helmet, was standing near Aranea. She was dressed in green colored pants and a green t-shirt. Her body looked weird. There was no fur on her abs, her fur coat was thin on her arms and chest. She had so many scars that they were covering her entire body. Like rivers, they run across the body of the perfect warlord. A few scars run from under the neck protection of the helmet onto the shoulders.
"We were just investigating a possible lead. No harm was done to the wolf hag, we just checked her memories for a bit." Ivar replied, looking up. His tail rose, the tip of the claw on his tail moving to his lower jaw, scratching the scales, while the blue wyrm was lost in thought.
"How curious!" Aranea blinked. She barely knew Valerye, but this right here felt as if another person had hijacked the body of the warlord. This woman here was cheerful, her posture was relaxed, the land was not cracking underneath her feet. And most importantly, confidence was emanating from Foulsnout, "I assume that you have bothered to inform Janine… Oh wait, she is injured. Tsk, tsk, guess this makes me warlord in charge of Aranea’s pack until Janine is healed. Surprisingly, I received no mention about the Investigation Bureau's taking an interest in one of my subordinates. This is the strangest thing, I do remember that there is a certain law that only allows for the questioning of a warlord’s subordinates, after the warlord is informed and is present for the trial. You have no right to look into the minds of our people without permission from the warlord or from the commander himself. Shall we ask the Wyrm Lord if he was the one who gave you the permission?" Scorpio quickly frowned and Valerye continued speaking, "And I sure as shit never gave you permission. It's a good thing that I asked my soldiers to wake me up, if either of you appear next to my kin, right? Why was I not informed?" All cheerfulness was suddenly gone from her last words, a thinly cold rage was behind them.
"We will make sure to make up for any trouble that we caused to the honor of both you and young Aranea." Scorpio smiled, trying to mediate the situation.
"You surely will! Strange thing, I accidentally called Wyrm Lord before I arrived here. Sorry for failing to mention it, but the commander can hear everything we say," Valerye gently hugged Aranea and giggled, "How careless of me not to mention this from the start. What a sleepy head I am."
Ivar almost smiled, "Sometimes I forget how different you are after having a nap," Actual warmth appeared in his blue eyes instead of his usual cold expression, the blue wyrm enjoyed admired that someone took advantage of him and put him in a difficult spot, "There was no trial, the honor of Aranea Wintersong…" This name bit Aranea like a snake. Aranea tried her best to bury this name, to never speak it… Ivar knew Aranea’s origin, and he used knowledge like a weapon, twisting it like a dagger, guessing her weak spot perfectly, "… Is fully protected. I apologize for our actions. Take the wolf hag and have her rest. We will think about compensation." Ivar gave command, unbothered by the news about the fact that Wyrm Lord was aware of his breach of rules. Instead, there was concern about something else on his long snout, "If not her… Who is the dagger then?"
"There is no dagger," Scorpio said casually, shaking his shoulders, "and you are vastly overestimating King. He is but a shallow person, with shallow plans and a huge ego. Charismatic, true, but a pest at the end."
"No." Ivar said, his neck twisting, allowing his head to look up even higher at the skies, "We are missing some clue, some part of the picture. There is a pattern behind what he is doing, behind even this defeat. Why did he feed us, if not to lure us in?" The neck carried the head to the left side and then to the right side, giving the blue wyrm an uncanny resemblance to a snake that was trying to hypnotize its victim, "We will work with what we got. Chort made a number on our scout parties. Time to return the favor."
"Alpha and Zero still some time away and we just…." The back wyrm tried to say something, but Ivar’s body moved in a sudden burst of speed, carrying him close to Scorpio. The head of Ivar lowered down, allowing the blue wyrm to look into the mocking purple eyes of the black wyrm.
"I know it. Remember my words about responsibility. I will take responsibility myself and will rile up this annoying pest. You, on the other hand, must make up for her death. Valerye, be ready. He will come for you. You are to face him in your prime next time, and this decision is final. Everything else is irrelevant." Ivar spoke with boredom, moving his wings and preparing to take off into the skies.
"Don’t you forget about something, captain?" Aranea let out a breath, speaking with difficulty. Ivar moved his serpentine neck, lowering his head almost to the ground to look into the eyes of the wolf hag. Once again, she marveled at just how huge he was. His jaws could easily swallow her whole, a mere twitch of his neck could leave her a blood smear on the ground. Ivar gave Aranea a fish-like expression, with no emotion visible behind his cold eyes. "You owe me compensation, right? Here is the idea, leave my pack and Janine out of your schemes. You want to put someone in a life and death situation?" Aranea wanted to say "pick someone else" but stopped herself. The sheer thought of sending someone else to die in her stead was unbearable. She bit her tongue to keep herself awake and continued, "Pick me. And only me," She looked in the eyes of Ivar, unbothered to hide her hate, and said, "Don’t you ever dare to make me lose anyone else like you made me lose Kostya and Yuki. Or I swear to the Spirits, I will tear out your throat."
"I have no idea what you are speaking about, but your dedication to your pack is admirable to the point that I will ignore this jest," Ivar responded calmly, yet his eyes betrayed his lie. There was warmth yet again. Ivar admired her for putting two and two together. His head moved up and he proudly stood, towering over Valerye and Aranea, "Worry not, Aranea Wintersong. We are well past the point where your personal involvement could be useful. And warlord Janine will need time to heal the damage," Ivar said, looking toward the hospital, "Live on, Wintersong, you have no foe in me."