Chapter 306 - The Bell Tolls V
The ships came into view after just a few minutes of flight. They started as distant dots on the horizon, but their forms became clearer as the distance continued to shrink. Each of the floating structures was a castle atop a pointed crystal, with different colours to represent their classes and designations. The massive blue castles were carriers, the vertical crimson cylinders were destroyers, and the sleek green arrows were dreadnoughts. None, however, stood out as much as the three white-cored motherships. Each was over ten times the size of every other castle; they were the homes of the lords at the helm of the operation, uprooted from their capital cities and transported abroad.
Their banners made their identities clear. All three lords involved in the assault had territories that bordered the Pollux march.
Two of them—Lord Ephesus and Lord Flaccus—were marquises themselves. Like Pollux, their domains interfaced directly with the neighbouring lands. The last was a count. As far as the court’s structure was concerned, they were all on the same level. In theory, it was only the lands beyond their borders that differed, but in practice, the frontier lords were treated with greater respect. Given their mind-boggling tenure and their duty of guarding the nation’s outer rim, it was only natural for their titles to bear more weight.
However, while the marquises were certainly well praised, they were not commonly considered to be strictly superior. They were certainly more experienced when it came to keeping their neighbours at bay, but the outside forces were weaker than their intranational counterparts; territories with more dungeons often had troops with far greater combat experience and lords better versed in commanding them. The length of the marquises’ careers was certainly worth noting, but they were not alone in their extended service. Even in single combat, they did not strictly rise above the rest, with haphazard estimates suggesting only above-average performance. It was difficult to say for certain. Unlike gladiators, nobles did not publicly release their status sheets, though the numbers would be difficult to interpret even if they did. Individuals could only be easily compared if the skills they possessed were, for whatever reason, exactly the same in all but level. And even then, the supposedly stronger individual would not always come out on top.
That was not to say that the nobility refused to do battle. Decisions in court were settled more frequently through brute force than they were through logical debate. It was hardly the most effective method of government, but it had been ironed into its people through longstanding tradition. Such duels rarely ever ended in fatalities. The thrice ascended were durable, and with defensive builds like Pollux’s as common as they were, deathblows were quite difficult to perform. More importantly, murder led to resentment. That was not to say that violently forcing one’s rivals to submit was all that much better, but the resulting grudges were not quite as fierce as they were with an ally slain.
Some were more often embroiled in duels than others. Count Titus, the neighbour sandwiched between Pollux’s, Ephesus’, and Flaccus’ lands was precisely one such individual. The constant fighting allowed him to propagate his beliefs throughout the nation, despite the fact that he was typically looked down upon. Being a relatively new entry to the court—a man of a mere three hundred years—his fleetfooted approach was tuned specifically for performance in duels. It was a strategy that only worked in the vacuum that comprised the court’s proceedings—he was unlikely to survive the chaos of the battlefield with his defensive stats as low as they were. Still, the political system made it so he could have his way.
His forward-facing attitude was made clear from their formation. Titus’ mothership was front and center, leading the charge through the foreign airspace with its weaponry on open display. Seeing his banner renewed Claire’s confidence; there was simply no way her father would have approved of a plan that entailed a foolish blind charge.
“So that is the Cadrian Armada?” Arciel climbed out of the coach and hopped onto the longmoose’s back. “It is certainly an intimidating sight to behold.” She sat with her heels down, like she was riding a horse. To the lyrkress’ annoyance, it only made sense. In her true form, she was about the same width.
“It’s just a small detachment,” said Claire. “The real thing would be a thousand ships strong.”
Arciel furrowed her brow. “A thousand? Surely you jest.”
“Every small-time noble has his own ship. Higher-ranking aristocrats can have dozens to their name.”
“Woah. That’s a lot,” said Sylvia, who was still captured in the squid’s embrace. “Imagine all the fish they could carry.”
“It would go bad before any reasonable person could consume it,” said Ciel.
“Mmmnnn, not really. I could probably finish a boatload by myself in an hour.”
“She said reasonable,” said Claire.
“Wow! Rude!” cried the fox.
“Her words. Not mine.”
When faced with the fox’s questioning, unamused stare, the squid only scratched her ears and smiled. “Now that we have drawn closer, might I inquire as to what it is precisely that your plan entails, Claire?”
“I’ll take down a mothership or two with my breath, make my demands, and then defeat anyone that tries to challenge them.”
“Didn’t you say that using your breath hurts?” asked Sylvia.
Claire shrugged. “It’s not that bad.”
“It doesn’t matter how bad it is! If it hurts you shouldn’t do it,” said Sylvia with a huff. “It’s not like it needs to be your breath anyway, right?”
“The attack needs to be powerful enough to break the ship’s barrier and inflict enough damage to take it down.”
“Mmmnnnn…” The fox stood up on her hind legs and looked beyond the horizon. “What if I do it instead then?”
Claire shook her head. “I don’t want you to get involved.”
“I know, but I do,” said Sylvia. “Things wouldn’t have turned out this way in the first place if I did more than just sit on the sidelines. And besides! I helped you mess up that city, didn’t I?”
Claire closed her eyes, opening them again only after a few moments of silence. “Fine. Just this once. All of the important parts are in the crystal. That’s what you’ll need to destroy. Make sure you take it down in one hit, but don’t go overboard. It’s better if most of them are allowed to live.”
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“Don’t worry! I’ve got just the thing.” She scuttled up the length of the qiligon’s body and positioned herself on her snout. She was standing on her hind legs, with one paw to her side and another held in front of her. At some point or other, a wooden branch had appeared in her fuzzy grasp, a tiny twig that never would have stood out if not for the fact that the fox had never used it before.
Ten magic circles appeared in front of her, each slightly smaller than the one next in line. The array was impressive, but the individual circles were relatively plain. Their shapes were simple pentagrams, the only runes they contained signified magnification, and they glowed in a uniform, scarlet red. It was arcane magic—a spell backed by naught but an impossible amount of brute force.
“Alright, here go—”
Claire stole the fox’s mana just as she was about to unleash the attack, disrupting it before its cast could complete and robbing it of its final result.
“Huh? What the heck was that for!?” cried Sylvia.
“You’re using too much magic,” said Claire. “I told you to take down the mothership, not mow down the whole fleet.”
“Oh, come on! It wasn’t even that much. I barely used enough to break the barrier.”
There was a moment of silence, with the fox blinking three times in confusion and the lyrkress lamenting her stubby arms. It was impossible to bridge the gap between her face and her palm without craning her neck.
“I believe that it is Claire’s intention to inform you that the barrier is not quite as powerful as you have anticipated,” said Arciel.
“Huh? Really? I was only putting enough power into it to bust through something like the barrier around the city we blew up.”
“That one was powered by a leyline,” said Claire. “Mobile barriers aren’t nearly as strong. They’re more like the one around Ciel’s city.”
“Oh… oops.” Sylvia innocently stuck out her tongue. “Guess I won’t be needing this then.” She put her stick back in her tail and raised both her fuzzy front paws instead. She only used three magic circles for her second attack, placing them in a triangular formation that spun as she filled it with power. “Mmnnn… okay that should be about right.”
With a casual nod, the fox unleashed the arcane blast and dyed the sky in a brilliant red.
They were still roughly twenty kilometers out from their target, but the spell had no trouble finding its mark. It pierced the bottom of the mothership in front and wrecked the battlecruiser right behind it as well, among a few other things and people.
The attack was a product of the fox’s quaternary class. Arcane magic may have seemed like a strange choice given the finesse exemplified by the rest of her build, but it was effective as a brute-force solution to the problems that her songs and vectors couldn’t fix on their own. Soul warden was present for the same purpose, and though the legendary branch of magic was certainly effective in single combat, there was little to match the raw destruction that an arcane caster provided.
Case in point, the two castles in the midst of falling out of the sky. They did not immediately plummet. Though certainly damaged beyond the point of repair, they descended slowly enough for the emergency escape vessels to fill and fire. They were crowded with servants and administrative workers. The soldiers themselves didn’t jump ship until the evacuation was complete. The winged formed ranks in the air, while those still stuck on the ground did the same below. Lord Titus himself was the sole exception. Armed with a runecloak that allowed him to fly, the wingless rabbit joined the centaurs that lined the sky.
The mage units took the front, with many of them lining up on the other floating castles’ ramparts as well, but their retaliation never came. Spell ranges were supposed to be measured in meters.
“Amplify my voice,” said Claire, as she assumed her humanoid form. Her ear braces were turned into an accompanying suit of armour. She didn’t want to reveal her identity. With all the confusion that it was sure to cause, the benefits were more trouble than they were worth. The coach and her riders were thrown off in the process, but they failed to share the mothership’s fate. Supported by her vectors, they floated in the air behind her.
“Mmmk, one second…” Sylvia hummed a quick tune under her breath and enveloped her pet in a faint orange glow. “Okay! It’s ready.”
Nodding, Claire further refined her armour as she floated towards the enemy lines. She obscured her ears with a pair of massive spikes, adjusted her visor so it was easier to see, and etched an intricate design into each of its parts—specifically in a style that was Valencian at its core.
“Halt.” Her words rang through the soldiers’ minds, but not the area around them. It was quiet but heavy, spoken with an absolute, domineering confidence. “Lower your weapons and return to your domains.”
Unlike the city, which was less accustomed to enemy attacks, the fleet was largely unperturbed. Bards were key units on the battlefield, and there was hardly a veteran with no knowledge of their influence. But it was also precisely because they were aware of common bard abilities that they understood precisely how absurd it was for a mage to project her voice to each individual in the fleet’s range. Still, the soldiers remained stoic, not stirring up a fuss as they awaited their masters’ orders.
A group of sensible leaders would have met to discuss their strategy, but the Cadrian warlords could hardly be labelled as such. Driven by his indignance, the count whose castle had fallen was the first to speak. Like the assailant’s voice, his was amplified by a bard, but the Cadrian singer’s technique was not quite up to par. He only magnified the sound, and poorly at that.
“And who are you to stop us from attacking the territories that have wronged our honour? Name yourself, vagrant! And prepare to die!”
“I have no name to give the likes of you.” Claire laughed, her dark, seething giggle echoing through the army’s minds. “But I daresay, you should know it, Lord Titus. It is truly a shame that you have fallen so low that you are unable to recognize my voice.”
It was a ridiculous demand. Even before she had ‘lost her voice,’ Claire never said much in public. Living so far from the capital, Count Titus would have had even fewer opportunities than most to hear her speak. Their cultural norms only added to the absurdity. In the eyes of the warrior class, noble ladies were like flowers. Their lack of ascensions ensured that their lives were short, blooming and wilting as the men went about their regular affairs. It was only in their portraits that their images and images alone were ever preserved.
That was not to say that there were no female warriors at all. A third of the standing army was of the fairer sex, but the ratio was further skewed when the upper classes were considered.
“A nameless warrior dares to criticize me?” She could practically hear the angry bulging of his veins. “Know your place, Vel’khanese mutt!”
“I would’ve preferred if I was Vel’khanese, but unfortunately, I share your Cadrian roots,” she said, calmly. “If you were any more attentive, perhaps you might have noticed. But I suppose it would not be like you to see the truth. That was why you always failed to notice that the Grand Magus had no interest in your affections, after all.”
The man’s tail puffed up in a mix of rage and indignance. He had certainly made a number of advances on Allegra in the past, but it was not something that the public had ever known.
“I can still recall, as clear as day, the absolutely dreadful poem that you composed in her supposed image. It almost would have been funnier if she had replied.”
“Enough! You are spouting nonsense!” His voice was firm, but his spirit was shaken. The last thing he wanted was for his words to be repeated in front of his men.
“Unless your skill with the bladework is any more polished than your tongue,” said Claire, with an audible, snarky grin, “I suggest you turn your army around. If you would rather not listen, then I am quite happy to field any objections as we might any other matter in court. Bring me your champions, and I will crush their spirits.” She floated towards the armada with a dagger-shaped Boris in hand. “Just know that you will never win.”
Count Titus gritted his teeth and tightened his grip around the base of his blade.
She had injured his pride. The Grand Magus’ friend or not, he would make her pay.