Zareth gave a slight bow as he entered the war room and came to stand with us at the grand map. He reached under the table to bring up an ashwood box filled with models and markers, using them to fill in the latest information on the movements in the Grimwald region.
Gundurgon, at its center, had the largest concentration. And there was a tower marker beside the city to represent what they were building.
“The harpies have been invaluable,” he said. “And I thank you for trusting me with their administration.”
Organizing the scouts was more a job for a general than a castellan, but Zareth’s mind was as well suited to ordering the movements of resources and troops as arranging the shifts of the fortress staff. Gastard was off on his adventure, and Esmelda and I were too distracted to keep up with the now constant stream of harpies coming and going from the aery.
“You're the best one for it,” I said, then pointed at a few coins he’d added to a stack by Gundurgon. “Are those more demons?”
“Yes,” he tugged at his goatee. “The city housed eight influential demons, and most of those had at least one of lower rank working under them. While keeping an exact count is difficult, the total is likely nearly thirty now.”
“That’s almost all of them,” I said. Orobas had been the fifty-fifth demon to enter Plana, and only Gremory, as far as I knew, had come after him. Two were in Henterfell, three counting Astaroth. Almost twenty were dead. Zareth would have a more exact list than I kept in my head.
“A few unaccounted for,” Zareth nodded, “but nearly so. There have never been so many gathered in one place in my lifetime. He moved a few more pieces, the blue triangles that represented Atlan raiding groups.
“Our window to act is closing, we need to break that monument before it is finished,” Esmelda said. We’d previously discussed my conversation with Torgudai, and she hadn’t taken a firm stance on whether waiting or attacking preemptively was the better move, so this certainty surprised me.
“They’re still recruiting in Nargul,” I said. “We’ve got new weapons and armor for the entire garrison here, but I haven’t crafted enough for the entire army. Plus, it takes time to train new people. I don’t want to field a bunch of laborers who’ve never held a sword before.”
“I know that a large offensive is what we discussed,” Esmelda looked up at me, “and I no longer think we can afford it.”
“It’s not like I’m going to run out of diamonds.”
“I mean we can’t afford to wait. With the tools you have made, we can trust the garrison to defend the mountain. The two of us, along with our templars, can attack alone.”
“That’s a lot of demons,” I said. “I know I just killed five of them, four, since you shot the last one. Thirty, though, that’s too much magic flying around, especially if they see us coming. Ten might be too many.”
“If you destroy the monument,” Zareth said, “it would alleviate some of this urgency. A few more demons banished, and you will be that much closer to your goal.”
“It feels like a mistake. Wouldn’t this be doing the sort of this I always do?”
“No,” Esmelda said, taking my hand. “This time, you will not be alone.”
I wanted to protest. A part of me had been considering doing exactly this, a quick in and out to blow up their portal by myself. No risk to anyone else. That would never fly with Esmelda though.
“Noiverns back,” I said, “but wyverns aren’t reliable travel anymore. There are clouds over Gundurgon, so we could fly in at night, but we’d be stuck there at least a day, or have to come back on foot.”
“The Atlans would be glad to lend us horses for a return journey,” Esmelda said. “Or we could camp with them. Wyverns would bring us there fastest, but I had something else in mind.”
“What?”
“Do you remember when we talked about hot air balloons?”
***
Aside from what ended up being more of a dirigible than a hot air balloon, Esmelda had given me a list of equipment she wanted me to craft for her that was more suited to the fighting style she’d developed since gaining her class. Her stats had improved on a different track than mine, with improvements to her Speed and Presence rather than Might. She wasn’t any stronger than a regular human soldier, though that was still more than one would expect from a glance at such a lithe, tiny woman. Her Speed, however, had already caught up to mine.
She was getting a complete set of enchanted leather, along with new weapons. While the bow was still her mainstay, I’d made her a pair of swords, cerulium, and atreanum. Both were more fragile than I would have liked, but she’d insisted that orichalcum, or even a xanthium alloy, would be too heavy for her combat style, and she flat-out refused my offer of a durak shield.
The fact that we were leaving together meant we had to figure out what to do with Leto.
“I want to go with you,” he said as we boarded the wooden gondola of the largely untested flying machine.
“You are going with us,” Esmelda said.
“Not all the way,” he said. “You’re going to leave me in Nargul.”
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“Your grandfather will love having you there, and you should be excited to be able to spend time with him again, and with Brenys,” she chided him.
He crossed his arms and frowned like he felt he was being tricked.
“Enjoy the flight,” I said, “this is going to be different than riding a wyvern.”
“We still could,” Leto said, glancing out the window at Noivern, who rested under a canopy out of the fading sunlight. “He’s right there.”
The gondola quickly became crowded as the templars filed in to join us. Hurin, Thrund, Yent, and…others. Esmelda knew who they all were, we were taking six with us, leaving one behind with Zareth to look after things while we were gone.
I’d parked the dirigible on the parade ground so the garrison could see us off. Major Garron and my vizier were there to say a few words and make it more of a ceremony, but I was ready to be off. It was hot in the gondola, and it was only going to get hotter.
Instead of a furnace, I’d brought on my brewing stand. The elemental core that powered it was an unlimited source of heated air, and with a trapdoor and some creative use of planks and slabs, it could keep the airship filled. The balloon was cloth fortified with runes of Unbreaking, and the gondola was basically made of Protection shields. Hot air wasn’t as good as helium for generating lift, but aside from not having a ready source of lighter gasses, I wasn’t interested in flying under a giant fire hazard.
A flying machine powered by some combination of Fixation and Speaking runes would have been nice, but I hadn’t been able to figure out how to make it work.
We rose to the cheers and shouts of the garrison, and the fortress slowly shrank beneath us.
Attached to the gondola, a set of propellers allowed us to generate thrust in different directions. They were powered by redstone switches connected to pistons that spun the propellers, with the only downside being that someone had to rapidly press the button attached to the chosen piston to keep it pumping. Noivern was going to be helping us with forward momentum as soon as night fell.
Until then, we had a flock of harpies to help tow us through the air.
Celaeno had been less than enthusiastic about the prospect of her brood being reduced to the status of draft animals, but she understood the importance of swift travel, and the harpies had no trouble grabbing the towing lines that hung from the thin wooden frame of the balloon.
Leto and Esmelda claimed a spot by the side window to watch Dargoth drift by beneath us.
It wasn’t as swift as a wyvern’s flight, but we would make better time than on horseback, and the view was gorgeous. Dargoth looked so different bathed in light than it had beneath the brooding shade of a sorcerous storm. Still not much in the way of vegetation, but the mushroom forests had been reduced to desiccated gray swaths, and the rocky, rugged land had a solemn beauty of its own.
The air smelled fresh, and I felt hopeful for our prospects. A quick voyage to Nargul as a test run, and soon after, we would be dropping bombs on a demonic construction site.
“Can you hear me?”
The voice was coming from one of my sticks. No room for privacy in the gondola, so I gestured for a templar to keep pressing the rear propeller button and took two steps to the fore of the cabin.
“Gastard?” I held the stick to my ear like a long, cylindrical cell phone.
“Yes. Are you available for a debriefing?”
“Sure, are you guys in Henterfell already?”
“The city is secure.” The statement was crisp, matter-of-fact. Had he just told me they were already done?
“I need some more context, buddy,” I said, waving to Esmelda to join me. “What about Godwod and the demons.”
“Asmodeus wasn’t prepared to face crystal arms, and I hunted Vual myself.”
“Is that Gastard?” Leto said, brightening. “Tell him I said ‘Hi’.”
“Leto says ‘Hi,’” I said, then segued quickly. “What about Godwod? Did they try to ambush you? What actually happened?” With such a small party, we’d expected taking back control of the city to be an ordeal. Now he was acting like it’d been a walk in the park.
“Hello, Leto,” Gastard said. “It is good to hear your voice.”
“Hello, Gastard,” Esmelda said warmly, getting on her tiptoes to speak at the stick.
“Seriously, guys,” I put my other hand on top of my head, momentarily bemused by the absence of the horns I’d grown accustomed to. “Important information is missing. Please let him fill us in.”
“There is little to tell,” Gastard sounded almost bored. “Vual was in the field when we arrived, orchestrating a sally against King Egard’s men. Godwod allowed us entrance to the keep, pretending to seek diplomacy while Asmodeus prepared to strike us from the shadows. Astaroth gave us ample warning, revealing the demons' hiding place behind a secret door, and he was swiftly dispatched by my companions. The mortal soldiers loyal to Godwod were no threat to me, and with your authority behind us, it took less than an hour to establish a chain of command with the more reasonable nobles of the city.”
“Well done,” Esmelda beamed. “I’m so relieved.”
“What about King Egard? Is his army still there?”
“Camped beyond the city, yes. We are attempting to establish a line of communication.”
“Holy crap,” I said.
“What?”
“Sorry. If you can get the king on the line, I want to talk with him. That would be amazing.” It was hard to imagine how this could have gone better. Now all we needed to do was make nice with a foreign ruler who saw me as the ultimate bad guy.
“On the line?”
“On the stick, I mean. He might not be willing to use it, with how Drom feels about witchcraft, but we can at least try.”
“Understood. Godwod is imprisoned, I expect Egard to ask for his head.”
“What about Johanna?”
“He will not have her head,” his voice hardened.
“Not what I meant. Is she okay?”
There was a pause, then, “She is…here.”
“Good. Listen, we’re flying right now, so keep us up to date. We don’t have anything to do but talk until we get to Nargul.”
“Flying?”
Oh, yeah. We hadn’t explained what we were doing to Gastard. I gave him the gist of the situation, and he came very close to yelling at me. He was not pleased at being left out of the assault. It was ‘his duty to be at my side’ and all that. Esmelda took the stick from me after a few minutes of this to talk him down.
The broken land of Dargoth spread out before us, slowly becoming whole.