Sara knew that she wouldn’t regret getting the Lemings soldiers to surrender in the future, but directly after the officer executions, she did because she didn’t know what to do with 1,400 soldiers. She was eating packed lunches with a gaggle of war-green children, and she had to deal with the soldiers with her hands tied behind her back. In Reemada, the customary thing to do would be to hold Trikal and the other high-ranking officers—the nobles—ransom and use the money to fund the war effort. Then, after executions and detentions deemed necessary, the victors would recruit enemy infantry members with similar religious beliefs and cultures and sell the rest into slavery. That was a controversial reality, but it existed because the kingdom had to feed, clothe, and house a massive number of people without getting anything in return. Sara didn’t agree or abide by the custom of slavery—and that caused her problems with what to do. Now, she had to figure out what to do: spend two weeks going back to Lemora with the soldiers or press forward. Sara’s solution: neuter them.
It started with Sara sending notes through the heroes' spatial rings, letting people in Lemora know that there was a great deal of weapons going through. The notes got to people on the other side instantly, but she couldn’t confirm the people on the other side got it (as the spatial rift only worked one way), so she waited for a few hours as she collected the weapons, armor, and shields (as 99% of the military only had traditional weapons, and the mages—the officers—were all executed). Then, she spent two hours with the heroes, throwing weapons through the spatial rift while people in Lemora moved them out of the way.
While that was happening, the Escaran troops encircled the area to prevent Lemings troops from escaping. The enemy troops created normal camps for themselves and cooked using food from their supply lines, which could last them a few months. She gave instructions to the Escaran troops not to take more than 50% of the resources, as King Alecov did not abide by human cruelty.
Escaran Troops and civilians stacked the dead onto the large pyres and burned them, using the embers and flames to light the victory celebration. That night, they eulogized friends, family, and comrades as they ate roasted meat off spits. Once it was over, Sara sat on a hilltop with a bottle of wine in her hand, agonizing over it. The last few days proved that she didn’t need wine, but the rational part of her brain told her that she was lying to herself, and the minute she had one glass, she would wake up face down with a hangover the next day, lamenting her actions. One drop, and it’d turn into a whole bottle. That’s just how it was. That’s what she’d have to accept—at least for now.
Darius and the others gravitated around her nervously until she sighed and looked at them. “Sit down already,” she said.
“Sorry,” Andy said, sitting down close enough to speak eye-to-eye but far enough to give her space. The rest followed suit before sharing twenty minutes of silence until Darius broke it.
“Is it always like this?” he asked.
Sara nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you get used to it?” Andy asked.
“You grow accustomed to it,” Sara said. “But that’s about it.”
Darius laughed lifelessly and ran his fingers through his hair. “What a shitty life.”
“Indeed,” she confirmed.
Andy agonized in silence for a while before turning to her. “Thanks…. For stopping me.”
“Don’t thank me.” Sara took a deep breath and exhaled. “There may be a time when you might have to do that. To save your friends. To protect your families. You did good just by committing to it. All I did was defer the need. You don’t need that on your mind.”
Andy swallowed and nodded, tears welling in his eyes. He turned away to hide his shame, and a few others did the same. Then they sat in silence, listening to the crackle and pop of the fire, feeling its heat, lamenting its presence.
“Good job, everyone,” Sara said. “It was hard—but you did well.” She trailed off and repeated, this time in a whisper, “You did well.”
2
Raul sat by a campfire, mind engulfed by the flames. Every enemy soldier had retreated after their demonstration, but he couldn’t get the thought of the consequences out of his mind. He imagined soldiers rushing to the general of other forces (a stern man with bushy eyebrows and graying hair in Raul’s mind), warning them that they needed to fan out to prevent massacres. General, listen to me! We need to switch our tactics! they’d say. The summonees have Delina on their side! They can rain fire and scorch Earth in rapid attacks! Then, the general would scoff and treat the soldier like they were exaggerating. But once he met all the soldiers, he would slowly doubt until he took them seriously. Just to be careful, he’d think. Then he'd follow the warning, and suddenly, there would be ants marching over Escaran territory like a peg board that was impossible to hit with a single attack. Then what could Raul do to stop them? Light the forests on fire like they were dropping napalm, roasting everyone alive? There would be no demonstrations after that, would there? Just a few soldiers (the ones that would die) seeing what happened, and then a lot of confusion.
Consequences, he thought.
Tara sat next to him. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” he replied.
“I’m not the smartest, but I am the loudest,” Tara said. “And so, people tell me the things they want to be heard.”
Raul took a deep breath, filling his lungs and exhaling slowly. “What do they want me to hear?” he asked.
“That if this goes south, we’ll all accept the blame,” Tara said.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Raul chuckled, but his smile faded. “Thanks.”
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“They want you to know that they’ll attack if they need to.”
Raul’s heart felt pierced at that moment, and he wanted to leave to cry alone on some mountaintop. He had been feeling really empathetic toward Sara over the last few hours, feeling the heart-wrenching guilt of asking people to do what needed to be done. People would die if he didn’t attack, but asking people to kill was another question. So he nodded a few times. “Then let’s scare the shit out of these people,” he said. “Let’s make ‘em sweat.”
3
Sara and the heroes flew to the city of Trolles in the southeast the next day, hoping that it hadn’t been raided yet. It hadn’t, but a few thousand enemy soldiers had camped outside, preparing for a siege. This time, Sara switched tactics to the same one that Raul was using over three hundred miles away. It started with her reaching out to the Lemings soldiers, asking them to surrender. They refused. That’s when she ordered the heroes to demonstrate their raw power by encircling them in fire.
“Do not hold back!” Sara yelled. “If they have even the slightest hope of victory, they will attack. So save lives with your fury!”
The heroes complied, silent-casting multi-tiered fire spells that rained meteors and fireballs upon the land surrounding the Lemings troops. Within an instant, soldiers were surrounded by an inferno—and they instantly surrendered.
They repeated the same cleanup as in Plem: they executed the others, stripped the soldiers of weapons, armor, and supplies, and left the Escaran troops in control of them as they passed away. That happened four more nights without incident. Over fifteen thousand soldiers had surrendered in a week. Things were going well—until King Lemings caught on. It wasn’t clear exactly when he got word, but the details were irrelevant. There was a massive trap that existed long before the heroes came to Reemada to wait for them, and King Lemings used it in a spectacular counterstrike against the hero strike team.
It happened in the Krenski region, a mountainous, hilly region filled with jagged rocks and animals similar to big horned sheep that crested the sharp rock bluffs. It was an area between two major mountains, so it was a location that both they and the Lemings troops had to pass through. That said, the actual area was three miles wide, and they were high in the air, so there wasn’t much risk of a ground attack. With that being the case, the mood was great, and the heroes were chatting merrily. Sara was watching her surroundings like a hawk, checking the mana signatures as usual. She wasn’t lax that day, proving the insanity of King Lemings’ trap.
“Wouldn’t it be crazy if we showed up to Teeka and King Lemings no longer had an army?” Darius laughed. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead! Buried, I tell you! Buried!” Andy and Wiles burst into laughter at his King Lemings impersonation, and Helen joined in with chuckles that said, Haha! I’m the cool girlfriend; you can tell by the way I’m laughing! while also rolling her eyes and wishing they wouldn’t laugh about murder. Emma was hugging her silver glider’s neck on autopilot (it was following the people out front), thankful that it wasn’t a human. She was healing and smiling more. It seemed everyone would come out of things okay—until it happened.
“I’d just pay to see his reaction when he learned that ten people crushed his entire army,” Wiles said as they crested over the pass. “That would be—“
“Get down!” Sara yelled, regretting playing the shepherd instead of being out front. As soon as they crested the mountain, they found twenty thousand soldiers spread out every twenty feet for miles like a deadly game of Plinko. Tim was the first to turn—and the first to suffer. As soon as he turned his silver glider and tried to return to where they came from, a colossal ward barrier shot up around them, and he hit the wall with full force. His silver glider’s neck snapped on contact, sending him flying into the barrier. He was sturdy but hit the barrier with a crack before screaming on the way to the ground. Sara’s world slowed, and she dive-bombed for the screaming musician. She swooped low, reaching out her hand, but couldn’t reach. Fuck! she internally screamed. Kataígonde stoichía! A sharp gust of wind slammed into him from the back, sending him crashing into her arms.
That was how the attack started.
Thousands of wind blades and ballista arrows shot toward the heroes, and silver gliders flew from mountaintops to attack them. The wind blades were the worst. Even though they were fifteen hundred feet up, wind blades could become larger as they passed through the air, and just the wind force alone could shake the heroes off their silver gliders. Worse, the mages were using amplification stones. The only thing saving them from instant annihilation was their barriers and the height they were flying at, which was still too low somehow. Thankfully, Emma was fast, putting up a massive barrier before fire, steel, and wind smashed into it. Compared to her mana and skill, nothing could penetrate. The others weren’t as lucky. Darius’s silver glider was hit with a wind blade and screeched as it fell to the earth in a spiral. Andy and Wiles screamed and went after him, but there wasn’t much time.
How?! Sara internally screamed. How the fuck didn’t I notice?! There was intense magic at play, and she didn’t even realize it. Mana deprivation ward? At that scale? Creating a ward that shot over three thousand feet in the sky over a three-mile pass was inconceivable. They must’ve been planning this for decades!
That barrier—it wasn’t built in a day or a year. It was the result of planning before, during, and after the Escar Lemings blood alliance. The heroes were just the unfortunate group that was testing it out.
“Fly up!” Sara yelled, weaving in and out of attacks with Tim gripping her stomach for dear life. “Now!” As Will (the blacksmith) led the heroes upward, Sara dive-bombed toward Darius, whom Andy was barely protecting with attacks. Helen was also on her way down, and she took the opportunity to get rid of Tim.
“Take Tim and go up!” Sara yelled at her.
“But—!” Helen couldn’t even speak before hundreds of attacks assaulted her. Sara scoffed and created a massive barrier, blocking the attacks as she approached Helen’s silver glider.
“No buts!” Sara screamed. “I’ll help them. Take Tim!”
“D-Don’t let me down!” Tim yelled, shaking as Sara hovered above Helen’s silver glider. They were over a thousand feet in the air, and Helen wasn’t famous for her dexterity or riding skills, so she couldn’t blame him for his fear.
“Too fucking bad!” Sara grabbed Tim’s arm and swung him off the silver glider—screaming—and then slowly lowered him onto Helen’s silver glider. “I’ll catch you if you fall. Now, shut the hell up! Helen! Grab him!” As this scene was playing out, Sara was brutally aware of how long Andy, Wiles, and Darius were alone. It was giving her anxiety.
“G-Got him!” Helen said, grabbing Tim’s waist to steady him. “Sit down, Tim!”
“Don’t let go!” Tim cried.
“I’m dropping you! Don’t die!” Sara let go, and Tim screamed as Helen balanced him. It took another thirty seconds, but Helen got him down on the glider. “Make a barrier, Tim! Now I have to save the others, so if you die, that’s on you!”
Sara swooped down at high speed. To her horror, Andy, Darius, and Wiles had reached the ground. They were alive—she knew because there were three barriers. But they were getting swarmed by over a hundred soldiers from every angle, and one barrier was cracking under a massive magical barrage. Sara’s heart was pounding so hard as she watched that she could barely think over the sound of beating in her ears. And her anger. Oh, yes, her anger. It hadn’t reached a boiling point in so long, but running into a trap of this scale after all the mercy she had shown to the Lemings Kingdom…. Sara chuckled and bit her lip. She had shown mercy—but for this battle, they would have none.