Chapter 412 - Parley

Chris

Standing there talking while in excruciating pain was wearing on my patience. My still lingering anger didn’t help matters, and what I was about to do next was something Abigail would say was… ill-advised, but I didn’t much care at this point.

I wanted to sleep, wanted to magically teleport home. I wanted to wake up tomorrow and have everything already solved and over with.

Yet when I woke tomorrow, none of that would be true.

“You,” I pointed to Robert, “Go home and relay my words.”

“You,” I pointed to Zuri, “Gather your army and return from whence you came.”

“And you,” I pointed to Bri before tilting my head in confusion, “I don’t remember seeing any members of your Faction. Where are they?”

“Thank god for that,” Bri muttered under her breath before answering louder, “I was forced to come, but my Faction was not. I guess Ryan thought that I’d bring them with me. He was wrong.”

“Then wait here if you want our help breaking that contract.” I stated and turned to Vanessa, “And I would like the best Healer within fifty miles without fire mana so that I can finally be healed for the first time in what feels like weeks. If I have to run back tomorrow with the same fucking wound, so help me, I might lose it.”

“Run back?” Vanessa questioned, but I ignored her when I remembered there was a Faction I was forgetting.

“And someone tell the Canadians to fuck off as well,” I said to no one in particular. Their time would come, but it wouldn’t be now, unfortunately.

“What are you going to do?” Vanessa asked.

“I’ve dealt with four Factions. Now I only have one left to deal with.” I said before walking away.

I needed to lie down, but I had one last thing to take care of. Pulling out my Messaging Stone, I sent off a message to our incoming forces.

The Stone’s range wasn’t far enough to reach them, but we had people set up to act as relays in most Northeastern cities. A woman in Habordeep would pick it up and send it out for me.

"Elliot, take our forces and turn back around to help Marcus. Things have been dealt with here, and we no longer need your assistance. I will be on my way in the coming days, but it will be much slower. Things were… difficult.

“Tell Hal to finally pick a Vice Captain to delegate to, as I need him here. Killian as well, with his team. There’s someone I need them to find.”

The trail would be a few days old, and Hal was a skilled tracker, but his Class wasn’t dedicated to it. That was what Killian’s team was for. He had started out as our investigator for criminals. He and a team he’d put together to track down and find fugitives and bring them in.

They’d quickly become known as the Bloodhounds. A fitting name for what they did, and matched Hal’s Wolf Order theme well.

“And Elliot, Mikayla and the Heartlands won’t be the last. We have one more foe we need to put down, and this one is a little closer to home.”

I was not looking forward to the following days.

___

Mikayla

Southwest of Gemini City

“You’re saying that Frostheim’s forces turned around and are headed back towards our direction?” Mikayla asked, just to make sure she was hearing the Messenger right.

“Yes, my Lady,” the Messenger answered, “Scouts have them two days out from our position. If we don’t take the pass soon, Marcus will soon have reinforcements.”

Mikayla held back the urge to throw the cup in her hand across the room. Nothing had gone right on this offensive, and Tasunka hadn’t been one bit of help. The dullard had gone and gotten himself killed in a fight she told him to avoid.

He had the speed. He could have run around them, but nooo, he just had to prove he had the bigger–

“Ma’am,” It was Sylvia who interrupted her thoughts this time. A rare boon in the shit storm this had become. The woman’s green hair had seen better days, and there were subtle rings under her eyes, but she sat strongly inside the command tent without slouching.

Competence was hard to find nowadays, which made Sylvia all the more valuable.

“With just the arrival of some of Frostheim’s forces, our offensive has slowed tremendously. The ground fights us, we can’t rip down the walls without great effort, and sometimes it's just easier to go over them. If the rest get here, not to mention their Lord…” She left the rest unsaid, but all knew what she implied.

Mikayla knew, had known, that they needed to finish this before Christopher came back. Him being drawn away was a gift from fate herself, but now it looked like it was over.

“Then it’s best we hurry,” she said with a feigned smile.

“If we kill Marcus before he arrives, do you think he’ll demand vengeance? I heard he killed a Baron from New York already.” Delancey asked. He’d been a thorn in her side when the Alliance first formed, but the Baron of Omaha had become a true ally over time. What he said had merit, even if Mikayla didn’t want to think about it.

Mikayla wasn’t sure, but she took a reasonable guess, “Not if it’s done in battle. If we assassinate him, on the other hand, most definitely, but in honorable battle? No, I don’t think so.”

She’d have to make contingencies in case that wasn’t the case, but she felt confident enough in her answer. They’d wrung as much about the man as possible out of Alaric and a few other people who knew him, so that she could understand the gist of the Honor the man abided by.

The meeting took a few more hours, but a plan was made. Not everyone of the Leadership agreed, but that was the thing with compromises. Everyone was on the same page and ready to move forward; that was all that mattered.

Their time was running out. If they didn’t push through now, they wouldn’t get through at all.

Lord Shieldwell was already proving to be a tougher foe than expected, and that was without the majority of his Northern alliance helping him. If they managed to combine… Mikayla wasn’t sure of victory.

No, more than that, she wasn’t sure half the people she brought with her would survive, let alone victory.

The sun rose the following day, and their bombardment began. There was just one last fortification to make it through before they could march on the city itself. They’d blown through three already, leaving one left standing.

It had been a battered, crumbling mess on the edge of collapse a few days ago when the stone shifted. Reinforced with an energy Mikayla could barely feel, but knew was there and that it was powerful. Roots struggled to tunnel through it, and her plants failed to weaken it.

The Earth Mages faced the same struggle, reporting a tremendous increase in difficulty to bring the walls down. Bordering on impossible for most. Only the strongest managed to do anything at all, and even they couldn’t manage much.

It was those same walls they battered with attacks now. Vines braided into long slings launched Boulder after boulder landed, followed by volley after volley of artillery spells.

The first day ended the same way it had started, and so did the second. No matter what they tried, they couldn’t push through. Water, stone, and ice rose to meet whatever they could throw at the walls.

The third day passed.

The fourth.

When a week of the siege was underway, a group in blue appeared in the northeast.

What little progress they were making came screaming to a halt from the new reinforcements. The Water, Stone, and Ice that had been staunchly defending the walls were joined by Metal, and even more Ice.

Still, Mikayla pushed on.

The losses were light compared to previous battles. Assaulting the walls directly was stopped cold one time, and that was more than enough to force a change. That change had been to attack from a distance while trying to sabotage the walls in various ways.

Not that any of those ways worked.

If only that dumb bastard could have held out for longer than half a day! Mikayla raged internally. They’d have made it to the city by then if Tasunka could have stalled them for a few days longer or drawn them into a chase.

They’d had Marcus on the back foot for a week. They’d sent him back one step after another, all until he got reinforcements. It wasn’t even the numbers that saved him. It wasn’t even their strength, either.

It was one man. One man’s ability to saturate the stone and block all attempts to pull it down or burrow through it stopped them in their tracks. Without the wall, they would have taken the pass days ago.

Mikayla spent hours, days trying to push through whatever energy was keeping them at bay. It was different than mana, and something she’d only ever read about. Not many had Spirit Anchors, and it wasn’t something widespread enough to commonly come across.

She tested it. Probed it. Tried to siphon it off, to deplete it, to destroy it. None of it worked. Some attempts were better than others. It was like clarity was coming into focus, even if she wasn’t sure what it meant.

She lost herself in the process, delegating all command to Delancey and Sylvia, while she concentrated on what she was feeling.

It was like altering a spell, sort of. The way the mana was shaped ended in different results. Like how using different techniques caused different plants to grow from the same seed.

Something impossible to do Before, but possible now.

She tried every plant in her arsenal, but none of them worked. She even experimented with new plants. Hybrids, mutations, grafts.

Thorns worked best, for some reason.

It was like the idea of them was more solid. Spells with thorns weren’t even the highest grade spells she had, but for some reason, they were the best.

With the idea fixed, she honed in on type. Color. Species. Properties. Was it long and thin or short and fat? Was it thick and hard to break or thin and made to pierce? Was it green to blend in with the stem or red to stand out? Was it poisonous, or was it purely for deterrence?

Mikayla wasn’t sure why this felt so important to figure out, but for some reason, she knew it was. Something deep inside her was tugging on her, wanting to be let free.

Wanted to be realized.

It was the beginning of week two when something clicked. Everything she had been iterating and altering solidified into one, complete idea. An idea, an image, that resonated with something she only just then felt for the first time.

Power rushed into her, and the stone that had been thwarting her was torn apart. Her plants rushed through and began burrowing through the stone. It fought back, but she pushed through with everything she had.

Whenever enough roots were in place, she ripped and tore the stone apart. The wall began to fracture and crumble. For the first time in weeks, progress was being made. They could do this. They could-

“Ma’am! The Lord of Frost has been spotted two hours out!”

No. No, no, no, no, NO! We were so close! I just got it! We can–

Sylvia, even more haggard and frayed, gave her a look. A look Mikayla didn’t like but understood. “It’s not worth it. We’ll lose too much.”

“We can fight him. I can fight him.” Mikayla said. She felt so good right then that she felt as if she could take the Fort by herself.

“Mikayla, it’s over.” Delancey walked over.

“No. Not yet–”

“If we push on and face them both, you might live. Hell, even I might live, maybe Sylvia too, but did we do this for conquest regardless of the cost, or to build our Faction’s strength to protect all those we could? The losses we take wouldn’t outweigh the strength we’ll get in return.” Delancey said grimly. Always the man of reason.

“I can–” The words died in her throat. He was right. They were both right. She just didn’t want to see it. Not when she was on the edge of–

Oh, hell, it didn’t matter now.

“Stop the bombardment. Send word of a parley,” She ground out unwillingly.

For the first time in two weeks, attacks stopped raining down. All because one man showed up.