Eve took a deep breath and looked down at the jagged rent torn through her gut. She felt great all things considered, at least she knew how Tristan felt when the Lord of the Underworld had manhandled him at the mine.
They had expected a respite, to be attacked in a pincer between two groups after the second had already surfaced. Eve couldn’t be sure, but something had changed. The Forest Caldera had attacked and they had no tier fours to respond to Custodian’s rampage. Eve watched several of her guards die before she took things into her own hands.
A snow flake shaped piece of ice formed over her bracer. It was the last thing that Ruth had given her. Her sister kept Eve safe even after her death. The shield saved her life against Regis, it would save her life against Custodian.
She drew her artifact longsword. At tier three she had no issue using it one handed. It could cut through any water, a useless seeming ability until an elemental with water kern confronted her. The last artifact she had was a ring, that made her blood twice as dense when impacted. It was not that helpful in her opinion.
When she saw Janis lose a leg to Custodian’s axe, she gritted her teeth and attacked. The fact that the elemental lord had gotten this far was not a good sign.
Custodian's first blow cracked the shield, but as it was not truly connected to her arm, none of the force transferred. She took the opportunity and thrust forward with the needle sharp tip of her sword.
“Take this!” Eve shouted.
Custodian grabbed the blade with an emerald gauntlet. The sword cut through it easily, but the blade was not wide enough to cut all the way through the stone armor. With a flex of its wrist Custodian used friction to lock her sword in place.
“Gladly,” The elemental responded in his refined voice.
The axe came down again, shearing through the shield. That exhausted the weapon's momentum, so Custodian wound up for a second blow. Its eyes widened when a second snowflake construct popped up in its place. The elemental had been so confident in its victory that it had loosened its grip enough for Eve to pull her sword free and jump back.
“What is that tool?” Custodian asked.
“A gift from my sister,” Eve answered as she readied her stance.
She rested the blade of her sword on the top of the shield as her instructors told her to. Every member of the River Caldera family was trained to fight. Unfortunately, being taught motions was not the same as learning the art of violence. Also, it had been with a war pick, not a sword.
“She will make a fine addition to the lord’s court then,” Custodian made it sound like a compliment.
Eve charged the elemental, “You already killed her.”
“Pity,” was all Custodian said before slapping her slash aside, breaking her shield with a rapid set of punches, and bringing his axe into her gut.
She was picked up off her feet and thrown backward. Blood ran down her side from where the supposedly invincible mythical leather had been cut through. She hit the ground and rolled to a stop against something warm and soft and damp. It took her a moment to realize it was a body. Eve was surprised she could feel her legs, that should have cut her in half. Miraculously, she had survived, it was a deep, but survivable injury. Maybe dense blood was a bigger deal than she had initially assumed.
A shadow fell over her, at least it was survivable if she was left alone. Custodian stood over her, it raised its emerald axe over its head. Eve braced herself under her shield’s last charge. The axe fell, cracking the shield. Eve braced for a second blow, but it never came. Custodian’s outline, which she could see through the cracked ice of her shield, froze. It was looking off toward the lake.
Then the elemental lord shot off towards the lake. Several soldiers tried to impede the enemy general, only to be batted aside like they were toys. If Eve at the peak of tier three, and equipped with two tier three artifacts and one tier four could not stop Custodian, the tier zero conscripts had no hope,
One of her healer guards quickly dragged her out of the fighting. Eve was done, but she also wasn’t. She couldn’t keep going, but she could still contribute. Yanking her scabbard off her waist, she thrust the weapon into a nearby soldier's hands.
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“Find a water kern warrior, tell him Eve wants him to use it,” The soldier barely had time to nod before she was gone.
“Relax,” the healer said, “You have a bad gut wound, we need to get you to the hospital.”
For the first time, Eve recognized Lesley hauling her away. How had she missed that? It did not take long for Lesley to arrive at the hospital. Eve was given preferential treatment, cutting to the front of the queue. At first, she felt bad about it, but she did not get angry or offended looks from the other patients. They were oddly respectful.
She was set on a mat near the tent flap. It gave her a steady supply of fresh air and an intermittent view of the battle’s progress. It was even, at least to her novice eye. The trench was still a barrier, but some areas had bled over the trench and those locations were bloody melees. Lesley stayed by her side the whole time, even helping carry Eve outside to make room for more wounded.
“How many people will die?” Eve asked. She was thinking back to the time Tristan had mentioned that she was asking thousands of families to sacrifice a brother, sister, father, or mother. In her head, she knew it, but being able to watch the conflict let her see individual people die drove the point home. She did not know many of them, but it still hurt.
“A lot,” Lesley said, “There’s no way around that.”
Eve had nothing to say to that. The blood bath continued for another few minutes before something odd happened. All the elementals propping up the Forest Caldera froze. It did not last long, but when they started moving again, it lacked any violent intent. A good portion simply wandered off, another portion started attacking other elementals, and one even got down on one knee as if it were proposing.
“What is going on?” Lesley frowned, looking down on the chaos below.
Eve was in a good position to explain for once. Tristan could be considered the caldera’s expert on elementals after the death of Hadrid, and they had spent a considerable amount of time together.
“They are reverting to their natural state. Elementals normally act in accordance with their greatest regret,” Eve pointed to the one that was down on one knee, “That one probably regrets not getting married, the ones attacking the elementals are most likely the remnants of the Stone Caldera.”
“Wait, so you’re saying that the Forest Caldera now has to fight their own elementals?” Lesley asked.
Eve shrugged, she doubted that it would be that simple, “I don’t know, but they clearly aren’t being assisted anymore.”
As soon as the Forest Caldera lost the assistance of the elementals, all active warriors were freed up to run roughshod over them. The Lord of the Underworld had equipped the people of the Forest Caldera well. Most had metal plate armor, it was not as full coverage as Tristan’s armor or Siren’s black carapace, but it was better than what the Lake Caldera possessed. It was not enough to allow a craftsman to match a career warrior with a multiple tier advantage.
Lesley and Eve looked at each other, “We won? We won!”
This was the end of the conflict. Looking in the opposite direction she saw several tiny figures moving about in a lake. She was only able to find them due to the large metal cylinder on the lake shore. It was too far for Eve to tell what they were doing, just that they were moving.
“Lesley, could you take a few healers and make sure our tier fours survive?” Eve requested.
Lesley’s eyes widened. Most people had probably forgotten that this battle had been decided in the background, out of sight and out of mind. Eve’s friend nodded nod gathered a few healers and sprinted off towards the lake.
As for Eve, she had a choice, she could relax, even now she felt the adrenaline where off and sleep started calling. Instead, she called over an aid to get some people to take her to the Commander. She wanted to walk, but the doctors required her to stay on a stretcher.
Blacklake still had his crutch and his arm in a sling, but he was still being his normal harsh self. Eve arrived as he was yelling at one of his subordinates, “No we don’t follow them. Blind gods, what’s wrong with you? We only need to heal up and send a tier four at them.” Then to another man, “Put down every elemental, don’t worry about the lost essence spheres, we can’t have another army on our doorstep.”
“Hello Commander,” Eve said as she entered.
“You were supposed to stay out of the conflict, you’re not Siren,” Blacklake criticized.
Eve felt a little insulted by that. Custodian had come to her. She wrestled the feeling down and looked at the Commander, “What do we need to do now.”
Blacklake gave Eve an assessing look, then said, “Elder Lake was killed.”
Eve blinked. Elder Lake was not a fighter, but he was just as protected as Eve was. That would be a problem for the Caldera, Elder River was so old he could die any day, and such a rapid change in leadership just after a conflict would cause enormous problems.
“I want you to give the victory speech to the army. Unless we want anarchy, the people need someone to follow,” Blacklake went to steeple his fingers in thought, but his broken shoulder made that hard, he winced and then continued, “You have the support of the Caldera’s hero, Siren, the lightning devil, the caldera’s next alchemist, your father and fiancé are tier four. In addition to that, Guider Matthis has a positive view of you, putting the temple behind you. I can also spread a rumor that you fought and bled like everyone else, building a link between you and the common man.”
Eve frowned. She remembered the time she spent crying about the civil war between Elder River and Elder Forest for kingship. Siren had claimed that there was a solution that would allow her grandfather to survive. It seemed the solution was for her to become king of what was left of the Caldera.