Even in the Empire, nobody fought during Winter. War was business and Winter made it extremely expensive. Travel took longer, soldiers required more supplies, campfires revealed positions, magical heating also did through the magical emanation scanners.
In the first week of Spring, the army assembled. It was time for me to claim my territory, which was basically mine already because almost everyone in there worshipped me.
Divination magic was very advanced in the Empire but that’s a topic for another day. Because today, we were about to break the three-thousand-year fairy curse.
“Are you sure we should invade them, father? The werewolves always supported the Empire. I think it is a stupid idea,” I protested for the umpteenth time.
“And why is that, my son?” The [Emperor] leaned forward, while his generals snickered behind my back. “I gave you an order. Can you fulfill it?” He challenged.
I groaned. “I could conquer that place single-handedly. If you want me to do it so badly, father, then so be it. The [Emperor]’s will be done!”
I stormed out of the command tent, moving around the troops and into the hill we used as an observation post. Earth mages erected a tower there and I jumped on top of the four-story magical building.
“Leave me alone!” I ordered the sentries. The soldiers quickly saluted and marched downstairs. I raised a privacy bubble and Nenandil came out.
“Is this how the mutiny happens? Will you kill the [Emperor] now?” She asked with an incendiary tone. “I didn’t try freezing dicks. I don’t think it will be as fun as freezing pussies.”
“Nah. Even if it is half as fun, you’re freezing twice as many dicks. Because you’ll freeze a dick’s dick. And a frozen dick is a meat popsicle, if you freeze a dick’s dick, someone can lick it.”
“And that’s your limerick,” she giggled.
“I think the metric is wrong. How does one compose a limerick anyway?”
“Dunno. Oh! The volcano is new!” Nenandil pointed at Therian’s new geographic feature. Or Theria, as the empire called it nowadays.”
“Brenna must’ve been busy.”
“Can you imagine? That lazy ass self-styled fairy Queen actually working?” Nenandil sniggered. “I bet she had someone else raise that volcano.”
“The [Emperor] is up to something,” I conjectured.
“No! Does the self-styled ‘most powerful man in the world’ have any hidden agenda! Shocker!” She mocked.
“And I can’t kill him now. I’d be replacing one problem with another two. Unless I am at the top of the succession line, if the [Emperor] dies, my first brother takes the throne and dumps all of us out of the rat race to put his sons. He has some over the age of majority, he can do it. And he would probably persecute all of his brothers including me just to keep anyone from having the wrong idea.”
“Why haven’t you already removed at least half of them? Not many among them will be as friendly as Leodec if any.”
“I wished to move people out of the Palace and into Raswaria before I go John Wick on them. And I have to be careful because it could trigger a civil war.”
“Yeah, I heard that the last hundred times you used that lame excuse. People die by the thousands, tens of thousands every day. A war or two won’t change much, and you can always go in and break the fighting. Or kill both armies including their leaders. Do that enough and the others will see they don’t want to be the next.”
“Tomorrow, maybe. Or in a hundred years, if everyone is going to sleep today.”
I dispelled the ward and jumped down from the parapet. The [Emperor] gave me full discretion to go with my own plan so I went back to the command tent. Some officers were standing next to the planning table with a map of the region.
“Lieutenants!” I barked and flashed my {Royal Aura}.
They quickly snapped to attention, their plate armor clacking against itself with the sudden movements. “Yes, Your Highness!”
“Prepare the troops. We are marching to meet the enemy in one hour. Any unit that’s not ready to fight in one hour will be eliminated.”
“But–“ The lieutenant’s objection was silenced with a glare.
“Are you going to save me time and tell me you won’t be ready with your unit in an hour?” I asked as I drew my sword.
“We will be ready in half an hour, sire!” He snapped a salute and hurried out through a side exit. The others followed suit.
The [Emperor] and their generals were just observers. Father explicitly said I had full authority over the army. I went to my tent and donned my armor. It was an improved version of the H&H light plate just like the one the girls wore but without the armored silk skirt. It could make no noise upon command but I let it clatter normally.
The camp was on fire, figuratively. People ran every which way in what could only be described as controlled chaos. Squires helped their knights don their armor, stable hands readied the horses. The Light Infantry had an easier time donning their brigandines so they were already marching to the front of the staging area.
The squire assigned to me came with a horse. He was not my page, he was just assigned to me by the Imperial army, and that was not my horse, it was just assigned to me by the Imperial army. This was not my army either, it was just assigned to me by my father. Who had some hidden agenda regarding this whole curse-triggering shitfest?
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At least the people back home were as safe as I could make them. Not only I had the wards all checked and powered, but I also had two hundred third-rank cloth golems hidden in the Palace, along with a few weaker ones. The latter had orders to charge any enemies and just die. They were the canary that would warn me of something going on there and I could be back in less than a minute at full speed.
“Thank you,” I said to the squire as I mounted. The stallion was wilful but some empathic Mental magic and my own “natural” System abilities were enough to keep it under control. I guided it to the staging area and took the front, watching the troops assemble.
Father gave me four thousand soldiers. Men and women ready to die for the glory of the Empire. I could solve this without shedding a single drop of blood and without triggering the curse but the [Emperor] was adamant I had to attack with soldiers. My personal prowess was already proven, he said. Now he wished to see my leadership skills. Numerically, it was at 401, rivaling his strongest generals.
As the troops gathered, I activated my Abilities.
> > War Technique: 44% Evasion, Damage, and Accuracy to all units under your command.
>
> > Leadership: +80% Morale
>
> > Commanding Presence (2,400 troops gain +5 to Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Mind, and Willpower).
>
> > Lead from the Front (all allies in 3km gain 44% extra Morale, Damage, Accuracy, damage reduction, and Evasion).
>
> > Shining Beacon (The 670 soldiers closest to you gain +8 Strength, Dexterity, and Endurance).
That exposed a few cards to my father as he was in range for some of these benefits. The Attribute boosts would be reported to him later. Several soldiers looked at me with awe as they figured the source of the buffs. For most of them, it was more than fifteen levels worth of Attributes.
Once all the soldiers were organized in the field, I rode slowly to make my speech.
“By orders from the [Emperor], Theria is to be subjugated. Look down the hill! Already the werewolves and their human allies assemble to fight us back. See the [Priests] of the Matriarch among them! For three thousand years they have been your brothers-in-arms, loyal subjects of the Empire!” I made a pause to let the irony and contradiction of my statements sink.
I was playing both hands in this skirmish. Therian (to hell with the Empire’s bullshit naming) had the second most Matriarch priest density per capita in the world. I had a Fur-Tag for every werewolf and person on their side. They would fight and then be raised later if push came to shove. The Imperial soldiers were basically Exp and Proficiency training dummies for them.
“But the [Emperor] felt they need a demonstration of Imperial power. At his beck and call, we march. At his command, we fight. At his whims, we die. We are the instruments of his will! It is better to die for the [Emperor] than to live for yourself!”
> > Charisma test successful.
The troops went crazy with my 40k bullshit.
“Now, show me what discipline is taught to an Imperial soldier. Form ranks and march, slowly!” I turned the stallion and urged it to descend slowly. The wilful beast wished to run, to charge down the hill. It was trained to fight, to kill, to ignore its herbivore instincts. I reined it and controlled the pace.
The Imperial army marched behind me. I didn’t need to glance behind me to know they were arranged in perfect battle lines.
Time slowed to a crawl as the werewolves started to howl. The [Priests] granted their brothers-in-fur my blessings. The Imperial army marched inexorably. None of the soldiers behind me would return alive. My jaw was clenched. The stallion wanted to charge, the footmen behind me wanted to charge. The werewolves wanted to succumb to their primal rage and tear flesh apart. Yet discipline in both sides prevailed.
I reached charging distance and pinged my {Detection} across several modes. Therian fielded five thousand troops, between humans, elves, werewolves, kin, and fairies. A swarm of two hundred pixie archers was ready to take the air, protected by sylph wind mages’ magical countermeasures.
Behind the forest, Brenna’s volcano started to fume menacingly. A few embers escaped its mouth. At the seat of power of one of the five masters over the world’s nature, the Empire marched defiantly.
I raised my sword to command the charge. The wind froze. I could only hear my heartbeat and the unspoken war cry in the throats of the soldiers. As I lowered the sword witnessing the events in slow motion, a voice bellowed over the whole field and beyond.
“{HALT}!”
> > Contested Ego+Willpower+Charisma test won.
Even I felt the command wash over me. The soldiers stopped, my arm lowered without giving the order. The werewolves kept behind the treeline. I turned my horse to look behind me. Five mighty horses galloped down the hill. The troops parted for them and at the head of the new group I saw my father. The [Emperor] was the one who issued the order to halt.
He looked angry. I sheathed my blade because he had no weapon on his hand.
“Percival, what in all the hells do think you are doing?” He asked me, fuming.
I met his gaze inch by inch. “What you ordered me to do, father!”
“Are you insane?” He shouted-spat at me. “Do you have any idea what will happen if you attack?”
“I do, father. Do you?”
His gauntlets were clenched so hard he would split his reins out of sheer pressure.
“What do you believe would happen if you attacked?” He challenged me.
“A covenant three thousand years old would be broken but you had no idea, did you?” I scoffed.
I was an inch away from committing parricide. Again.
“You were the one who...” My answer surprised the [Emperor]. He pulled on the reins and his horse took a step backward. “Wait, you know?”
“Do you? Do you know?” I retorted with the same question. “Because I doubt you do.”
“Order your troops to stand by. {None shall attack until we return!} he ordered. Percival, ride with me.”
We broke to the left at a gallop, the [Emperor] leading as I followed. He took an hourglass from his storage ring and stopped his horse. I rode to his side and stopped too. He turned the hourglass and the world around us stalled to almost a halt. A bubble of Force magic enveloped us as a pulse of magic outside of it dispelled all the pesky scrying sensors watching our every move.
“So you know about the curse. Why didn’t you tell anything?” He asked.
“What is there to say, father? Isn’t it a guarded secret? Isn’t it why the Were-Cat Princesses were erased from history? The Empire’s shame, when the Mad Empress attempted to enslave what should never be touched? The spirit uprise and the silk tabards? I know everything, father. I tried to dissuade you from the attack at every opportunity.”
He narrowed his eyes, “Where did you learn this?”
“Books from out of the Empire. Try as you might, you cannot hide it, someone will always remember the truth.”
“Do you have the Perk?” He asked as if confiding the darkest secret ever.
“Which one? Are you talking about {Were and Fae Protector (ultra-rare)}? Do you wish me to recite the description?”
* Were and Fae Protector (ultra-rare) perk. Unless you act with hostility, all were-kin fae will recognize you as kin and act friendly toward you. Enraged were-kin will not attack you. Should you fail to heed a call for help from the fae, the whole Realm under your bloodline's rule will fall asleep unmolested for a hundred years. Your descendants inherit this perk. This perk cannot be removed by divine means neither by anyone with a 100 Soul Attribute or less. +2 Dexterity. +2 Endurance +2 Charisma.
I didn’t have the Perk. I remembered it because I was the one who drafted it.
Relief washed over the [Emperor] and his steel visage softened. Then he cracked a relieved smile, “You are truly my son. Your brothers, my brothers, even myself, all of them asked their father about this Perk at the first opportunity. You never mentioned it and I feared.”
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