Chapter 23

“Specifically Gold dragons. They sit in their caves resting on piles of treasure and they scry on everyone and everything.” Sir Tanel said in mock disgust.

“You lot need to move off to the side we are getting ready to start here.” Sharl put out his arms like he was herding sheep as the millitia came out of the barracks and began to pick up their weapons.

Lilith, Celeste and Sir Tanel gave Sharl an odd look as they walked back to the side of the Drill Field continuing to talk as they went. “But I thought Gold dragons were lawful and good. Wouldn’t they listen to reason?” Lilith asked not sure exactly how dragons behaved here. She thought there had to be differences between what was in the books and the reality on the ground.

“Well they would, if they let you talk to them first. But sometimes when they fight Chromatic Dragons and Fiends they just attack without warning and go into a kind of rage.” Sir Tanel explained as they rejoined the other observers at a safe distance turning around to face the two arrayed lines of men, some holding extra long spears the others wearing swathes of green cloth to look like orcs.

“So if we see a gold dragon coming I should get out of the city?” Lilith asked with a worried look.

“Oh look they are starting.” Celeste said with glee as Sharl held his sword high only to drop it a moment later.

“Yes, if you see it coming.” Sir Tanel said but his eyes were clearly set on the group of green colored men that had just begun moving.

Then it was, that the 45 brave ‘Orcs’ made their final charge. In a column 4 x 11, with one tail end charlie in the rear, they charged, their voices calling out loudly. As the front of their line met spear tips, three of the first four orcs fell only one making it past the line of spears. This lone survivor still moving at a brisk jog was soon caught in the chest by the second row. The blunted spears knocked some backwards as they hit at some speed the ‘dead orcs’ making an obstacle for the next row in their column. Onward they came, some falling in a pile as they slowed to step over the first line. The next row and then the next, they all fell to the dense pack of spears. Finally orcs began getting to the third line but they could not push them aside nor advance. The spears would be pulled back and thrust forward hitting every orc that approached.

It was a flawless victory. The ‘shield wall’ only took 4 hits and they weren’t in the same location. The militia let out a loud cheer that could resounded off the near by buildings and walls as onlookers began to clap and cheer in response even if some of them didn’t fully understand what was going on. Meanwhile, the orcs began to untangle themselves and put their wooden weapons back in the storage crates.

“I must say, I wasn’t expecting that Lilith.” Sir Tanel looked on in amazement. The militia unit was still standing as if there had only been a slight breeze thrown against it.

“Well I certainly was. That's how Alexander the great conquered half the known world where I come from.”

“Ha. Half the known world? I guess that would get you a title like that. Much better than champion or former champion.” Sharl said in jest as he walked over to the group.

“He might have kept going and conquered the rest if he hadn’t run up against war elephants.” Lilith explained while she began to clap for the victorious militia.

“Wait, your people tamed Elephants and used them for war?” Sharl asked not even wanting to think how you would fight such a beast.

“Yep.” She elongated her single word response as she continued to clap.

“Sharl, good job on the drills today. See the men get paid for their efforts. Double for team green they put on a hell of a show.” Sir Tanel said as he slapped his friend on the back and started to walk East off the field. “Now Lilith and Celeste report to the master study in an hour for a debriefing on today’s events.”

“Yes regent.” Celeste said quickly.

“Sure thing Tany” Lilith replied as her clapping grew slower and then came to a stop.

Sir Tanel, Lilith and Celeste walked back to the Ducal castle together but then split up.

Celeste and Lilith went to guest room 3 and began to work on their undergarment empire while Sir Tanel back to the study where he began to fiddle with the combination of a safe where documents and gold were stored.

Entering her Room, Lilith kicked off her shoes and fell face first onto the bed where she was absorbed by the feathery softness. Celeste looked for her spare bra and found it had been moved slightly and folded differently. ‘Perhaps the maid had taken a look at it while she dusted’ Celeste thought.

“I’m so tired its been a long day!” Lilith exclaimed.

Celeste moved further down the bed fallilng backwards onto it where she looked in Lilith’s direction with a smile. “But it was a good day.” Celeste said with absolute certainty in her voice.

“Want to do a pact spell and make some more bras? We have an hour it seems.” Lilith asked finding a bit more energy in her voice.

“Sure, How many are we going to make?” Celeste asked sinking into the bed a little more.

“Thirty but we are going to make them in three sizes. You, medium and large.” She said with a grin.

“Oh ha ha ha.” Celeste looked right to the pillow at the head of the bed and then left back at Lilith. She had thought about hitting her with a pillow but decided it wasn’t worth unmaking the bed over such a harmless joke.

After they hoisted themselves out of the goose down bed, Lilith and Celeste made several pact spells each using 10% of their pact or spell energy. First they copied Celeste’s spare bra making 9 copies. Next Lilith and Celeste altered one of the bras to have a larger bottom band and straps. Celeste tried it on but it was too big for her now which was a good indication that it was right for the average woman. They then made 15 copies of that one giving them 16 mediums currently. Then one of the mediums was altered extensively to be 2 inches larger in the band and the straps. Lastly the cups were changed to something that looked like a D cup to Lilith’s untrained eyes. This one would serve as the Large Bra. Seven more copies were made giving them a grand total of 30 bras but they would only sell 27 keeping 1 of each size in her room for safe keeping. With all the magical fabrication done the two ladies freshened up with Prestidigitation and headed to the master study taking a look at the clock on their way.

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Arriving at the closed door of the study that was normally open. Celeste decided to knock. “Excuse me Sir Tanel, are you ready for us yet?” Lilith was standing next to her tapping her feet which were back into her flats. She was hungry again and she could smell the kitchen only a hallway over.

“Come on in.” A familiar voice said.

Celeste pushed the door open and entered the room followed by Lilith. Sir Tanel guided them over to a table which displayed a map of the battlefield north of town. He was about to start drawing on it when Lilith cut him off.

“Don’t do that!” she begged with a worried expression as she also moved her hands to protect the paper.

“What?” Sir Tanel asked as if he had just been accused of kicking someones puppy.

“Don’t write on the map someone spent a lot of time making that.” Lilith said as she was looking at the wall towers and the details in the stone work.

“I know! I paid them for it yesterday to be used for this very demonstration.” Sir Tanel was looking for ways to write around Lilith’s arms but couldn’t find a way as she moved and shifted to block him.

“Well let me get some more paper we can cut them to size and you can move the paper pieces around to demonstrate what you want” Lilith suggested. She used to draw things for a living and hated to see someone else’s work go to waste for no reason.

“Oh. Paper shapes that I can draw on. That's brilliant.” Sir Tanel exclaimed as he walked over to his desk to fetch a pair of Scissors for Lilith as she was already walking over to the page’s desk to get paper.

Once the regent handed the scissors over, Lilith cut out several squares and rectangles of various sizes before handing them to Sir Tanel.

He began labeling them with the charcoal pencil as Orcs1, Orcs2, Orcs3, and Militia.

“Can you cut me out a smaller circle about the size of your thumb and a large long rectangle the size of your forearm.” Sir Tanel asked quite impressed with this way of showing movement and action.

Lilith cut out the paper pieces and handed them over quite glad that no harm was going to come to this well made map. She could see him label them as ‘Cav’ and ‘Lil’.

Sir Tanel began organizing the pieces of paper in much the same way the field had looked on the first day when Lilith arrived.

“Alright so when the orcs return, the militia will form ranks in front of the farmer’s gate. We are going to use them as bait and impale them on the spears just like we practiced today. Over here you see the cavalry on the right flank at safe distance held in reserve. If any enemy formations try to flank the militia we will hit them with arrows first from the wall then send in the Cavalry to scatter them. After their charge the Cavalry have orders to keep going and continue to attack the Warchief in the back. Once the Warchief is dead the Cavalry can return to hit the enemy in the rear.” Sir Tanel was moving the paper pieces around on the map as he said all this and seemed quite confident in his plan.

“What will Lilith be doing during all this.” Celeste asked.

“She will be holding the Left flank with support from Wendel and yourself on the city walls.” Sir Tanel drew a W and a C on the city walls to the left of the gate only to hear a hissing noise coming from Lilith as she drew in a pained breath.

“Really?” Lilith tried giving him a look that could kill but once again Sir Tanel wasn’t phased.

“Oh its fine. So the three of you can do whatever magic you want just don’t breach the walls and don’t kill any of our own men.” he finished looking explaining and then looked up at the ladies to read their expressions.

“So its just me in a field against the left unit of 200 orcs?…. I am so going to use fireball.” she confirmed with a grin that went ear to ear.

“Me too!” Celeste yelled in a much higher pitched voice than Lilith had ever heard her make.

“We should probably do some more Magic practice tomorrow.” Lilith suggested with a more serious look at Celeste who was still excited as could be, her eyes darting around the map. Lilith then looked again at the map and studied it some more as she noticed a few problems that might arise. “I have something I would like to propose for the Cavalry, if you don’t mind Sir Tanel.”

“Sure, go ahead.” he said as he motioned at the map.

Lilith began moving the pieces back to their starting positions so she could act out their plan again. “So you want the cavalry to charge and scatter this force of orcs here”

“Yes”

“But what if they don’t scatter. What if they are committed to taking the flank of our militia?” She questioned

“Then the charge would falter and the horses would come to a stop possibly amongst a horde of angry orcs.” Sir Tanel’s voice became more concerned as he finished his sentence.

“So lets give them different orders that take into account the possibility of an enemy that can absorb a cavalry charge. Instead, we have them charge just like you had planned but before their speed runs out have them wheel about and exit at a 90 degree angle from how they came in. Once they are well clear of the formation they can turn around again and come back charging again and so on until they do scatter.”

“Ok that sounds way better. You really are a lady student of war.” he said with a big smile having Lilith help with the war planning was paying off in leaps in bounds in his mind.

Lilith gave him a bow for the compliment and continued. “We have a name for this tactic that our air cavalry use. It is called boom and zoom.”

“So you just keep the cavalry in motion the whole time and keep repeating the charge?” he asked.

“Well your cavalry commander should practice this beforehand. The horses might get tired after the third charge.”

“Is there anything else you see wrong here.” Sir Tanel asked in a genuine tone as he motioned at the full extent of the map.

“Other than that change I think it is a sound plan. As long as the militia isn’t flanked they should grind the enemy into dust.”

“Good, now that brings us to the main reason I called you here tonight. Payment for your work these past few days.” Celeste’s eyes lit up and she turned to grab Lilith’s hands. Lilith gave her friend one of her hands and let it go limp so she could flail it about in her excitement. Which she soon did with a quick series of hops. Sir Tanel had walked back to his desk and taken out two coin purses. He walked back over to the ladies and said “This sum of 15 gold is for Celeste. For helping to seal the false duchess in her magical prison and for continuing to assist Lilith on her mission here in Daggerford.”

Lilith clapped for her friend as Sir Tanel handed her the coin purse. Celeste of course gave Sir Tanel a hug. “Thanks Tany!” she said as she hopped in place again. The coin purse making a clinking noise as the coins moved.

“And for Lilith. For the defeat of an orc champion and for her well deserved maiming and imprisonment of the false duchess and for helping strengthen the defenses of this town. I award this purse of 100 gold.

It was now Celeste’s turn to clap and Lilith took a step forward picking up Sir Tanel as she hugged him. Sir Tanel only let out halfhearted protests as she spun him in a circle once and then set him down again with a big smile. “Thank you Sir Tanel I don’t know what to say.” she looked him over glad that she hadn’t hurt him as he was wearing his breast plate an pauldrons like he usually does.

“Well there are two more things.” Sir Tanel said as he handed the rather large coin purse to Lilith. “First, we need to give you a title of some sort. Since I am the regent I decided to make one up as there wasn’t anything fitting for such a unique situation.” Sir Tanel returned to his desk only to pull out a Leather document case and a small box. “These are the official titles as you can see there are three. One is to be kept here in the study vault. One goes to the Lords’ Alliance. And one is yours to keep. We need all three to match. So I wanted to give you a chance to write your official name and title here. The title I came up with is ‘Defender of Daggerford’.”

“I like it.” Lilith said with a nod. “Ahh a quill”

“Yes here” Sir Tanel handed her the quill off of his desk and put the ink well on the map table where the three letters were spread out.

Her two friends watch as Lilith wrote out her name and title. ‘Lilith of Devine Defender of Daggerford’

“Did you misspell divine?” Sir Tanel asked in confusion. How could she misspell something on an official document.

“No that's the name of her home town.” Celeste interjected.

“Yep Devine, Texas.”

“May the wonders never cease. Well go ahead and write it out on the other two then. I have one last surprise for you two tonight.” he confirmed with a smirk.

Lilith focused on her handwriting finishing the remaining papers and putting the quill in its well, careful not to get any ink droplets on either the documents nor the map. “Done and Done.” she concluded.

“So now that you are a titled citizen of Daggerford you must remember that what you do will reflect on me as regent.” Sir Tanel gave Lilith a stern look. “So if you must go out drinking or partying always have an escort and plenty of friends around as witnesses.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Lilith asked looking at him with a bit of confusion.

I reserved a full half of the tables and half of the rooms at the Lady Luck Tavern. Master Wendel is already there, otherwise he would have been here to witness this. So are a few of your other friends he has invited. Including me, but I will be there in about 30 minutes I still have a little business to attend to here. Oh and here is your ring. You can use it to seal documents that carry your authority.

“What type of authority? I’m no leader.” Lilith asked her smile shifting to confusion once again.

“Don’t worry we will talk about it tomorrow. For Tonight, you kids go have fun! You earned it.”