The Smokeless Host left al-Aliriq under the rampant cheers and well-wishes of its population, more than were even present inside the arena a day earlier. Pretty much everyone, including the few children and many spouses watched the procession leave the city in rank and file, with Arakiel and his group having been given some of the best horses that the people of the desert had been able to provide.

The citizens probably thought it quite odd that Mellia, Aurora and Selene were walking next to their horses, while Nyanna was once again put on display by being tied to Arakiel’s saddle while her sisters got off free, having been deliberately put under the radar.

To lead over half a thousand people, to spearhead this army… it put a satisfied smile on Arakiel’s face and he let some of the festive, venerable atmosphere infect him, or rather, he had been unable to not let it affect it him.

He had hoped to find people with whose help he could conquer this plane: Well, Arakiel had found them.

Akili and Aisha joined him at the front soon after they had left al-Aliriq, their horses also being of a rather potent and sturdy breed and just a few moments later, another rider joined him, one whose horse was more or less clad in protective mail barding with a few plated elements. He wore the heavy lamellar armor and a dark-colored cloth overcoat while his head was fully wrapped in a veil, revealing only a pair of dark-brown eyes that held a wise and piercing gaze.

He introduced himself as Basam ibun Zaki, designated commander of the cavalry after which he turned towards Aisha, asking her about some tactical details that hadn’t been entirely clear apparently.

After receiving his orders, he galloped away and from then on, the march began in earnest.

The Smokeless Host followed the trail north for an entire day and although they had a good pace, the army was still only moving by foot, yet the jinnum siblings were content overall. The respective captains and commanders had done an excellent work in not only maintaining disciple, but in ensuring that things were done efficient whenever something needed to be done.

Morale was incredibly high and the soldiers quickly made camps when the order was given just after the sun had gone down for good.

Light fortifications were put in place and then it was time to sleep.

Arakiel could barely sleep in the first night and if it weren’t for his aurea whispering sweet words of encouragement, he might’ve stayed awake, but he did not.

On the next day, the army eventually reached a splitting trail that led west as it would be highly unwise to walk straight through the desert with this many people, animals and provisions.

The Smokeless Host marched from dusk till dawn after which the soldiers were given a bit of leisure time before it was time to sleep in order to cover more ground on the next day.

On that evening, Mellia and Aurora approached him with the request to teach them riding.

Thinking about the alternative, he saw no reason to refuse them even if he wasn’t the best teacher. Luckily, however, Nyanna was a good rider and when she meekly asked him to grant her request of using thaumaturgy to help and assist, as her nature spells would make the horses more docile. After some introspection, he accepted on the condition that she submit to an extra round of training afterwards. The sorceress accepted as well.

An entire week passed by and the army had fully fallen into gear, becoming a well-maintained machine that operated on ground naara while Arakiel’s own schedule had become more or less set-in as well.

Wake up, cuddle with Aurora and take her shard, get some refreshments, eat breakfast, correct slight mistake’s in Nyanna’s posture and then heave her onto his saddle before breaking camp.

While riding, he would set his mind to work on concepts, mainly focusing on the astral paths for now, mainly anything to do with ‘space’, ‘anti’ and ‘fate’.

Once the evening came around, it was time to set up camp, hold a little meeting with the jinnum siblings and occasionally Basam who relayed scout reports after which it was time for dinner and then some riding exercises, although his little sister and even Aurora had proven to be quick studies and as long as Nyanna soothed the horses in the morning, the other two girls could easily ride on them for the course of the day.

After these exercises, he trained Nyanna in a different manner and then went to unwind with his aurea since he always felt particularly pent up after being so close to his rather curvaceous slave for the majority of the day.

At first, Aurora had actually tried to refuse him, claiming he should just bed the sorceress if he liked her so. It had been easy to dispel her anger; he only needed a few strips of silken cloth, a challenge and a reminder. In return, he had gained an exciting activity to look forward to just about every evening and he once again felt reminded of his times of his old self, when the young lad who still had another name discovered that the girl he grew up with not only had the means of satiating his steadily flaring desire, but that she took great satisfaction from it.

Aurora was the same, but also different since she had only been with him for four years, but the search for her had been going on for twice that time.

Ten years of chasing after legends, but they had succeeded – he had succeeded. And while he hadn’t been completely devoid of pleasures in these ten years, he still felt as though he a lot to catch up on. He realized this now the more he began to think about himself whenever he cuddled or toyed with a partially bound Aurora in between episodes of rough and tender, intimate sessions.

He was just like back then, but also not.

In the past, Arakiel used to be a vainglorious scion full of potential, but without any substance to back it up.

Now, he was a Mortal Ascendant at the helm of an army with which he would undoubtedly conquer this minor plane.

Time did indeed march on ever onward, but he would not repeat the mistakes of his past.

* * *

Lady Chryse had once claimed that so-called ‘pillow talk’ was one of a woman’s greatest ways of nudging her spouse to do something she wanted, especially so when the spouse happened to be a rather stubborn one, as she had often called Lord Lyktos.

Over the past twelve days, Aurora had begun to grasp but a fraction of what statement entailed, but one thing was most definitely certain: Arakiel’s elder sister had been correct.

Aurora hadn’t nudged her Lord to anything yet, but he certainly hadn’t ever been as open towards her than during those short moments of intimacy that followed the relatively intense albeit one-sided battles that he seemed to have developed a taste for.

Well, to call them battles at this point might be misleading. It had been in the beginning, when she had been angry with him for spending so much time with that servant and in her hubris, she had jumped at the challenge he issued her. He had massaged and caressed that emotion out of her bound body in the first evening and on the third, she hadn’t even tried to resist anymore, instead taking pride in the way he appreciated her all over again.

More importantly, the satisfaction he took from her demeanor differed to that he gained by subduing Nyanna, although Aurora should probably be thankful to that sorceress. She had opened Arakiel a path that Aurora would’ve never been able to do by herself – and now he was feeling better all the more for it.

In general, it had been an absolute joy to behold the manifestation of Arakiel’s pride and confidence ever since assuming the mantle of Lord Executor. The way he carried himself on the horse, the means by which he addressed the jinnum siblings and the other commanders, even the very way he enforced his will onto Nyanna – it spoke of a conqueror in the making, but it was a conqueror that still realized that he was by no means invincible, whether it be in spirit, body or soul.

And the fact that Aurora could help him sort his thoughts made her the happiest girl ever, for it was the greatest show of trust he could possibly do.

In these moments of ‘pillow talk’, whenever he openly pondered about his state of mind, his goals and fears and most importantly, his past, he was vulnerable. And through self-reflection and confrontation, he began to sort out his issues. Bit by bit, Arakel cleansed himself of the shadows of doubt by using Aurora, just as she had offered him to.

She liked to think he even gave her an active role in helping him combat it, for the first round of sex always had him take full control of her, but the second round after his introspection was much more sensitive and intimate since Aurora was no longer bound or gagged. In that time, she could ask questions, raise concerns or soothe doubts he might have and this made her even happier than the lovemaking itself.

She was truly becoming the means by which he would seize his new dawn and though that, he would become not only her Lord and Conqueror, but also her Protector.

And one day, he might even become her Monarch.

Traveling by horse was rather easy and above all, very comfortable, Aurora had learned and although it had been achieved through Nyanna’s magic, she wasn’t too upset by it.

Having one’s own horse did have its advantages, such as allowing to fully flutter her wings whenever she felt like it and lately, she did so often.

Her brief flight and subsequent plummet still occupied her mind and she had been too afraid to try it again, instead taking some of free time atop the horse to try and actually work on her wings, which was much harder than it sounded.

They were there just like her arms and legs, another pair of limbs wired to her mind, but she couldn’t really move them around like her arms or dawn forbid her hands and fingers.

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She could move them at once, could even make them flutter a little, but she had great trouble getting them to do anything more refined, never mind using only one of her wings.

But, she did feel slight improvements and that alone was motivation enough to keep going, even if Selene occasionally offered berating comments about how ridiculous and unseemly Aurora looked in doing so.

She usually only offered a snide remark as reply, not wanting to plunge the silver seraphim into despair as she was truly a remarkable failure in Aurora’s eyes and Ezekiel had already begun to feel the lack of support he got out of his argent who was really nothing more than a sex slave with a slight attitude.

Granted, she also couldn’t understand the slaver’s insistence on keeping Selene on such an incredibly short leash that left her little room to breathe, but it also wasn’t her business.

If anything, she found it quite sad because Arakiel and Aurora were showing them a way that would undoubtedly work for the others as well, yet neither had any interest.

Selene had no interest in being a servant, just like Ezekiel had no interest in raising her as one. It was really just a one-sided relationship where Ezekiel took everything and Selene had found closure in offering herself voluntarily for as long as he performed – because if he didn’t, she saw her own value plummet and the vain Selenyean princess couldn’t stomach that.

Again, it wasn’t Aurora’s business but it also kind of was just because these two traveled with them, and while Ezekiel had initially been an incredible boon, she truly hoped he wouldn’t become a liability as her Lord and Conqueror had no room for such people yet.

Mellia, on the other hand, stuck by her oath of nonviolence which Aurora found not only praiseworthy, but even something to aspire to. It aligned perfectly with the way her own Lord was pursuing.

But Arakiel’s little sister was so much more than that, for she would be the link to reunite him with his family whose attention he so craved. She could only become a liability if she ended up cutting Arakiel off of his kin and so far, Aurora saw no signs of that. If anything, the two slowly began to get along.

Traveling was truly a time of introspection as one really didn’t have a lot to do, especially with her Lord focusing onto his astral sigils which left her no color to focus on her own spells. Granted, she didn’t really need it as much. For as long as she wished for something and saw it happen, she could always just figure out the underlying emotions by memory alone.

As such, traveling really came down to lots of free time which was quite pleasant in and by itself. She sometimes wondered if the soldiers that marched behind them saw it the same, or whether they were tense or perhaps even full of anticipation?

Soon, she’d find out.

In the third week, the desert’s sand gave way to the sparse vegetation of dried out grass, lone trees with few leaves and the occasional pond that drew in fauna that quickly fled before the army, which was a bit unfortunate as Aurora found these wild animals to be rather fascinating.

Meanwhile, the Smokeless Host’s scouts were always one or two days ahead in order to prevent the Middles from spotting them too quickly and so far, the army remained unseen although Aurora had her doubts that this would remain so in a few days’ time.

They were about to cross over into Middle Kingdom territory and she was curious how it’d actually differ from what she had seen on the plane thus far.

While the desert was rather charming in a way, she had gotten quite sick of it lately and this savanna was really just boring, because there wasn’t a lot happening here.

The brief foray in the forest when they had chased Count Filann had been more promising. The lush green all around, the noises of little insects and birds in the distance, it had all seemed rather untamed and wild, not quite like the measured gardens in the Djinnum Palace.

Alas, for now, such thoughts were a dream of the future, but she did begin to dream of a true change in scenery.

It would be met twenty-two days after having left al-Aliriq when the army did indeed cross over from the savanna into forests, where the number of trees grew to a nigh staggering amount and Aurora quickly stopped trying to count them.

Unlike last time, she had a lot of time to take in her surroundings this time and she quickly felt as though she had truly missed this scenery. All this lush green grass, the thick bushes with its thin branches and numerous leaves and the even more dense underbrush that covered most of the ground except the trail they followed. And that really didn’t even account for how the forest had changed compared to the last time she saw them, for where there had been lots of green, there were now all sorts of yellow and even reddish shades in the leaves and although she couldn’t hear a lot of animals during the day, they came out in full force at nighttime, when the forest quite literally turned to life with insects buzzing about, birds chirping in all sorts of weird ways in the distance and even some other animals howled or growled in the far, far distance.

It was all so very eerie but also exciting and Aurora couldn’t wait to see how the Middles had actually built their towns and cities here, for it seemed like madness.

There were so many trees – how could a group possibly remove them – or maybe there were truly only patches of forests with wide open plains in-between. She couldn’t wait to find out.

For now, she delighted in the forest and its song, especially at evening and nighttime.

Her suspicion was once again confirmed three days later, when the Smokeless Host truly marched into the heart of the county of Fillansforst, the south-eastern domain of the duchy of Irialswell and according to the scouts, they still hadn’t been spotted yet, which Aurora found hard to believe but she also had no idea about these matters.

Granted, she also didn’t really care.

She did care about the outskirts of Filannsforst, however. The forest gave way to a large stretch of land only covered in meadows filled with all sorts of colorful flowers where a myriad of little insects and animals buzzed about… she found it most charming. The dry grass did kind of feel a little bit too scratchy on her skin and she couldn’t imagine walking through the high grass with her current outfit.

Thankfully, she didn’t have to, leaving her all the time in the world as her horse trudged along the others while she took in the spotless blue sky and the majorly green meadows with little colored dots everywhere.

That impression changed over the course of the day when the land became a little less flat; low and shallow hills began to dominate the landscape at first, only for a sizable river to suddenly cut it all apart.

On the bank, people had begun to plant some sort of white-golden plant that had to be corn or wheat as she couldn’t imagine nature growing naturally into relatively even squares. But there were countless fields like these, all following the sizable stream of water further along and on the next day following the river, the fields were suddenly empty, having been harvested already.

She heard about the scouts having taken some Middle peasants under arrest and apparently, the town of Filannsforst had no real defenses besides a little palisade for nearly all the guards had been conscripted or lost during Count Filann’s failed expedition.

To this day, its people were still waiting on news about their ruler’s fate.

According to Arakiel, they were about to find out soon, and yet Aurora learned that night that he had also planned for something else.

The Smokeless Host arrived at the first Middle town on the following day.

Filannsforst lay in a basin of a little valley through which its river winded rather painterly. The hills surrounding the small town had probably been covered in wheat and other crops, but it had all been harvested recently, leaving it in a relatively bare state, showing only soil and massive wheels of mashed stalks that looked a little out of place to her.

One of these hills’ top ‘held’ a windmill while the another one ‘housed’ a relatively sizable keep made of mainly wood with bits of a foundation of stone that overlooked the entire valley and the town. It formed a part of the town’s palisade wall, but there was a quite of bit of unused land between the keep’s moat and the first building of the Middle town. If there were people up on the keep’s walls, they had undoubtedly seen the flying banners of the Smokeless Host that was but one large shallow slope away from reaching the city. So far, however, she couldn’t make out many people on the small roads of the town itself.

Granted, it was very early in the morning as the army had marched even before sunrise in order to catch the Middles off guard.

Filannsforst itself was surrounded by a low palisade of wooden logs and even the two gates leading outside the two trails. The entrances looked fairly inadequate as a defensive measure. From what she could make out, the town had been built around two squares in the north-eastern and the southern portion, with the multi-leveled buildings closer to the count’s keep appearing larger and more grandiose, having been built in actual truss while the southernmost buildings, the ones furthest away from the keep, were little more than thatched cottages. Next to no stone had been used in any of buildings’ constructions and even the larger halls near the river and the jetties were of simple make.

Even Boundary had been more impressive than this disappointment and that settlement had lacked a keep, which was really just an oversized, walled building on a hill in Aurora’s critical gaze.

Arakiel, given how unprepared the Middles were, ordered to storm the town right away as they were already quite pressed for time and the palisades were so pitiful that he doubted that it’d cause a problem.

His advisors agreed, as did Basam ibun Zaki who had nothing but mockery left for the Middles.

Aurora’s Lord unsheathed his black scimitar as these types of curved swords were apparently called and, without saying anything, pointed towards the town.

Just like that, the Lord Executor had given his army the first order – and it obeyed right away.

The riders reached the palisade before the Middles even realized that they were being attacked and by the time a loud bell began to resound throughout the town, two Earth Evokers on horseback had burst the palisade’s door open at which point the Smokeless Host began to swarm the town and as they did, they called out to the Middles to remain inside their houses unless they wished to be treated as combatants.

To her surprise, many soldiers of the Smokeless Host, like the lightly-armored riders, actually didn’t storm the settlement, but had instead begun to circle around in order to catch anyone that tried to leave.

Arakiel, Ezekiel and the jinnum siblings didn’t even attempt to move in, just like most of the mage corps that watched from the distance while down below, the warriors of the Smokeless Host rushed through the town, running down any Middle that tried to flee, which actually weren’t that many.

Aurora saw a few people heading for the keep that had lowered its bridge in order to allow the town’s residents to get inside quickly while some few had grabbed a horse in order to escape, but the light riders of the Smokeless Host intercepted them quickly.

From what she could tell, Filannsforst fell in the first wave with next to no combat happening and although a very few people had managed to flee into the keep, the majority of the population had been confined in their houses while the soldiers of the Smokeless Host waited for the next order.

Arakiel, recalling the tenants that Sultan Zimraan had put in place, noted that half a day of looting would surely be enough for a small settlement such as this. As decreed, the peasants were to be spared, but any burghers had to relinquish a set amount of goods, coin or food, or, alternatively, offer an adolescent son or daughter as tribute. Lastly, any nobles and mages were to be enslaved or killed on the spot, although it was pretty hard to tell whenever the latter was applicable. One couldn’t tell if someone was a mage or not.

Although, again, these things held little value to her.

Instead, she was more excited when her Lord told his jinnum advisors that he would now conquer the count’s keep as a means to prove to the Smokeless Host that their Lord Executor wouldn’t just sit in the back.

When the siblings didn’t outright refuse although they offered some questions, Arakiel motioned for his party to follow and then rode towards the north.

Aurora, having gotten at least passable at riding, followed along and when she began to feel the wind all around her as their horses accelerated, she gained yet another curios insight.

Feeling the wind clashing against her wings was quite fun, actually.

And so was riding fast!