Serpentlord (Rise To Omniscience Book 9), page 14
“Excellent. We hadn’t received our report from Nunnu yet, but it’s good to hear we succeeded. How are the troops reacting to the news?”
“None have been told yet,” Nadia replied. “We were ordered to keep silent for the time being. We have another meeting in an hour.”
“Give me what you’ve got now. I won’t be available in an hour.”
“That’s fine,” Nadia replied. “Their plans aren’t likely to change. They plan on marching to the Brutal Bayou to claim those food stores as their own.”
“And for survival in the meantime?”
“They plan on sending the human, Morgan, to raid several caches in the Arcane Kingdom.”
“That will be a bit of a problem. From what we can tell, we do not have a single fighter capable of matching him. Well, no one but the World Beast herself.”
“You’re smart,” Nadia said. “I’m sure you’ll figure something out…”
She trailed off as she heard some movement from up above, but when she looked, she saw nothing to cause alarm. Still, she’d been speaking for too long already. The less time she spent on the communicator, the better.
“I’ll check in again if plans change. My next phrase will be ‘calm and greasy.’”
“Very good, my reply will be ‘sunny five.’ Keep me updated. Luriel out.”
The communication went dead, and Nadia closed up the device. The passcodes were ridiculous, but they served their purpose. The point of a code was to be hard to crack, and seeing as the words ‘calm and greasy’ would never come up in casual conversation, it was easy to use.
Nadia twisted the communicator shut, hiding the switch, then pulled on the puddles of iron around her and encased the device once more. She pushed it upward, choosing a new spot about a third of the way up and behind her, sliding the metal in. She then had to manually cover the hole, roughing up the dirt to keep things uniform.
She then climbed back down into the hole and spent a further twenty minutes there, reading a book. She had no idea if someone had discovered her hiding place and was taking the chance to seem less suspicious. When the proper amount of time had elapsed, she shut her book and climbed back up into her tent, shifting the rug and bed back into place.
“My, don’t we look suspicious?”
Nadia resisted the urge to whirl around guiltily – only an amateur would do that. Instead, she fixed an affable smile on her lips and turned to face her accuser.
“Oh, and why would you say that?” she asked, hiding her surprise at seeing Morgan, of all people.
He was sharp, but just seeing her come out of a hidden trapdoor wasn’t enough to level accusations against her. She was the wife of the beastman leader, after all.
“Because, apparently,” Morgan said, shifting his stance, “you’re calm and greasy.”
20
The beastman spun, her muscles taut as she prepared to dive through a barely perceptible slit in her tent wall. Morgan had been prepared for this as soon as he’d mentioned the strange code phrase and stepped casually into the tent. He used his Rift, snagging the woman by her arm and dragging her to another prepared cell, constructed right beneath the tent where Katherine had set up all her pendants.
The woman swayed in his grip when they emerged from the tunnel but didn’t display any other signs of being nauseous. She twisted, bright claws extending from the tips of her padded fingers and slashing at his face. Morgan easily caught her hand, locking her in place.
She reacted with lightning speed, launching her body into the air and unleashing a powerful double kick at his chest. Morgan barely felt the impact and began walking calmly toward the far wall of the small cell. The woman continued to struggle and thrash, even going so far as to try biting him, but he was far too strong for her.
He slammed both of her arms up against the stone walls, and they melded outward, locking her wrists in place. She tried to twist away, but another band came out, pulling her torso to the wall. She hissed, trying to kick him again, but Morgan caught her feet as easily as her hands. When he stood up a moment later, the traitor was locked firmly to the wall.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she hissed. “Do you have any idea who I am?”
With her escape route cut off, the woman resorted to threats, but Morgan didn’t much care for them.
“Yes,” another voice – Elyssa’s voice – answered. “We know exactly who you are, Nadia.”
The ceiling rippled, then opened, revealing a rounded platform made of stone, which descended into the room. Elyssa, Katherine, and Sarah all stood there, having been brought down by the elven queen’s ability.
“What is this?” Nadia asked, painting a sneer on her face. “Some sort of weird binding thing? I’ve seen you eyeing me, staring when you thought I wasn’t looking. You going to ravish me and dump my body?”
“You’re trying to throw me off my game by making me uncomfortable,” Elyssa said as the ceiling filled in, blocking off any chance of escape. “We know who you are. We know what you’ve been doing. Now, you can either ‘fess up, or we can strip you out of your pretty clothes and start searching you. I’m sure we’ll find that serpent mark somewhere on your body. It’s your choice.”
“My husband will–!” Nadia began, cutting off as Morgan’s body seemed to flicker.
One moment, he was standing on his own. The next, Malachi was there with them, looking extremely disoriented.
Sarah held out a bucket of ice as the beastman leaned over, emptying the contents of his stomach.
“Was he alone?” Elyssa asked.
“Someone had just left. So, yes, he was on his own,” Morgan replied.
“Sorry about the mode of transportation, Malachi,” Elyssa said as the beastman looked up from the bucket. “We needed to get you here quickly and without anyone noticing.”
Malachi looked at his surroundings. The room was lit only by a single lantern, the walls made of solid stone. They finally locked onto the figure of his wife, Nadia, shackled to the far wall.
“Does someone want to tell me what’s going on here?” he asked, his voice sounding strained.
“My love!” Nadia called out, her voice sounding higher-pitched and far more innocent than before. “These people grabbed me and locked me up down here for no reason! I think they’re trying to overthrow you and take control of the beastmen tribes for themselves. Run! Save yourself, my love!”
Malachi looked to Elyssa with suspicion then, but she rolled her eyes.
“Your wife is a spy, Malachi,” she said calmly. “I suspect she’s part of Strangler’s cult as well.”
“What proof do you have of this?” Malachi asked, straightening to his full height and wiping his mouth. “This is a serious accusation you’ve leveled against my wife of six years. So, it better be good.”
“Morgan heard her,” Elyssa said, “talking to the enemy through a communicator she keeps hidden in a trapdoor under her bed.”
Malachi turned to look at his wife, who bristled in outrage.
“Lies! All lies! Malachi, my love! Don’t believe them! They’re trying to turn us against each other and steal your rightful place as the leader of the tribes. Kill them now and we might still be able to escape!”
“Why should I believe you?” Malachi asked, turning to Morgan. “You’re an outsider. A human who came into our lands and allied yourself to the elf queen for some unknown reason. Why should I believe you over my own wife? Because what she’s saying right now sounds a lot more plausible than your story.”
“Because she fed the enemy the information about where our caches of supplies were hidden,” Morgan said. “And as soon as we announced it, she went to tell her handler, Luriel, I believe, about the good news.”
Morgan smiled here, looking directly at the traitor.
“The great thing about discovering a spy is that once you do, it’s easy to feed the enemy false information.”
“Wait, what are you saying?” Malachi asked.
“That we stopped the simultaneous raid on all our caches and wiped the enemy out completely. We even managed to capture their handler and have him imprisoned beneath the camp. It’s only a matter of time before Morgan gets him to talk, so we don’t really need Nadia to tell us anything. It would just make things easier if she did.”
“So, we still have our food?” Malachi asked.
“Oh, yes,” Elyssa replied, smiling widely. “We still have it, and best of all, the enemy now believes we’ll be making a desperate charge to the Brutal Bayou, while Morgan will go to raid the Arcane Kingdom for supplies to keep us going until we do.
“While they’re focusing the bulk of their most powerful fighters in the gnome homeland, we’ll be sending Morgan and a group of a thousand elite soldiers ahead of our main force to attack a weakened and unprepared border. With him spearheading this mission, the capital of the troll homeland will be under our control within the week.”
“That sounds like an ambitious plan,” Malachi said. “But I still don’t see any proof of what you’re saying about my wife.”
“You seem very adamant in protecting her,” Elyssa said. “We’ll leave you two here alone. She’s tied up, so she won’t be going anywhere. Search her. Check her body over thoroughly. If there’s nothing there, we’ll let her go and pay the proper price for the insult. But if there is…” she trailed off, her meaning clear.
“I have seen her body hundreds of times,” Malachi said stubbornly. “There is no mark of any sort. I would have seen it.”
“Did you miss all of the fur?” Elyssa asked with a raised eyebrow. “As far as I can tell, hiding a tattoo under all that wouldn’t be too difficult.”
Malachi growled, turning to Nadia, who looked at him with wide, innocent eyes. She was putting on a good show, and Elyssa briefly wondered if bringing him here before exposing the mark had been a bad idea. She’d been looking to soften the blow to an ally, but her act of decency might end up costing them dearly.
She tensed, preparing to order Morgan to step in when Malachi straightened, letting out a long breath.
“Leave us. I’ll check her for a mark.”
“You- you can’t believe them, my love,” Nadia said, sounding shocked.
“I don’t know what to believe,” Malachi said. “Fighting, I understand. Scheming and plotting are definitely more suited to the elf queen. If you have nothing to hide, you’ll be fine, and we will have our revenge. So just bear with me. This will be over quickly.”
“No, you can’t!” Nadia yelled as Malachi reached out, and Elyssa, Katherine, and Sarah gathered around Morgan so he could teleport them out.
“You can’t!” Nadia shrieked.
There was a flash of something dark, and Malachi staggered back, clutching at his neck where a piece of sharpened iron protruded from his skin.
“I won’t let you degrade me in that way!” Nadia shrieked. “I’ve worked too long and too hard for this! You won’t get anything out of me, and if I’m going down, I’m sure as shit gonna make sure you go down with me!”
“Well, that’s a pretty damning accusation, don’t you think?” Morgan asked.
To Nadia’s utter shock, Malachi got back to his feet, though the beastman leader looked as surprised as she did. The piece of iron protruding from his neck floated out, leaving a small cut in its place.
“You were quick with that iron,” Morgan said. “Did a hell of a job hiding it, too. Luckily for Malachi, I was fast enough to stop it.”
Nadia glared at them all, blood dripping from the side of her jaw. She’d apparently capped a couple of teeth in iron and had used that to try and kill Malachi. Morgan hadn’t thought to check for iron in her body, as he’d never come across someone quite like this woman before.
“You tried to kill me,” Malachi said, his shock turning to anger.
“And I would do it again! A thousand times over!” Nadia screamed. “I serve the one true god of this world, Strangler, and I’ll die before I tell you anything!”
“Then die,” Malachi said.
He stepped forward, and in a single motion, drove his hand into her chest. There was a horrible crunch as her ribs gave way and blood spurted from the massive wound. Nadia’s eyes went wide, and her body began to thrash, but when Malachi ripped his hand free, and blood began pouring down her chest, the woman could do nothing to stop it.
She looked up, meeting Malachi’s eyes with her own, then slumped forward in her shackles and expired.
“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Elyssa said. “We could have—”
“No,” Morgan said, interrupting her. “Cultists are insane. We could have torn her apart piece by piece, and she would never have told us anything. Besides, I won’t begrudge someone their vengeance, especially when a betrayal cuts this deep.”
He walked over and placed a hand on the beastman’s shoulder.
“Take time to mourn. You won’t be needed for the next few days. I’m… sorry.”
Malachi nodded, staring blankly ahead at the body of his dead wife.
“Leave him a way out,” Morgan said, turning to Elyssa. “We need to get back to the surface. You have a plan to lay out, and the other leaders need to hear about what happened down here.”
Morgan felt no joy at what had been done. He tried to put himself in Malachi’s position, with Sarah having secretly been working against him this entire time. He couldn’t even imagine the pain something like that would cause.
Thankfully, Elyssa didn’t argue, opening a tunnel to the tent above using her Liquid Stone ability and carving handholds into the wall. Then they all left, stepping through a portal conjured by Katherine and leaving the poor man to mourn the passing of his wife.
21
Morgan and Sarah stood side by side, hovering just inside the tree line and examining the massive wall that stood between them and the Brutal Bayou. It looked quite a bit different than Morgan remembered, the wall, for one, as well as all the mana cannons mounted there. He could also detect a vast network of blue threads littering the miles of open ground between them and the wall and knew that any pressure would set them off in a wave.
Below, the thousand soldiers he and Katherine had ferried over there were in various states of nausea.
Katherine herself, as well as Garrison Blue, would be joining them on this mission, while Elyssa and the other leaders concentrated on marching their forces there as quickly as they could. The World Beasts were moving closer with each passing day, so standing still for too long would be a very bad idea.
The meeting where Elyssa had revealed everything to the other leaders had taken place nearly three days ago, and while some had reacted with anger about being kept in the dark, most had understood her position. They’d needed to ferret out a traitor, and they had all been suspects.
After that, she’d organized the attacking force and laid out their short-term plans. Now, here they were, preparing for their assault on the walls of the Brutal Bayou.
“How hard do you think this will be?” Sarah asked, her keen eyes picking out the soldiers marching on the walls.
“We’ve overthrown kingdoms before,” Morgan joked. “Should be a piece of cake.”
When Sarah gave him a sidelong glance, Morgan rolled his eyes.
“I don’t exactly love fighting the way I used to. The idea here is less about destroying the trolls as a whole and more about trying to get them to surrender or maybe even join us outright.”
Morgan had finally gotten their captive troll, Nunnu, to talk last night. The troll had revealed to him that there was a lot of discontent with how they were being treated, especially when compared to the cultists. He said that a lot of the gnomes didn’t particularly want to fight either, so if given the chance, the trolls might very well give up.
However, Nunnu had also revealed that they wouldn’t simply surrender. It wasn’t their way. They would need to be shown their weakness and bludgeoned into submission. In other words, that meant that fighting would be inevitable.
“Morgan, do you have a communication?”
Morgan looked down to see Katherine standing some three hundred feet below and looking a bit confused.
“That would probably be Le’vine,” Morgan said to Sarah’s unanswered question. “This might be important.”
He drifted down, landing beside Katherine and offering her an apology.
“Sorry I did this without asking, but you were the only one she could talk to.”
“What’s this all about, Morgan?” Katherine asked.
“I’ll explain everything when we’re done. Would you mind relaying what she says?”
Katherine sighed but nodded all the same.
“Morgan, I hope you’re doing well,” Katherine relayed.
“I am,” Morgan said. “I hope things are going well on your end.”
“They are,” Le’vine answered. “I’m contacting you to give you an update on our current status. We have nine-hundred and ninety-six ships that are ready to set sail. However, moving them with skeleton crews will take some time.”
“How long?” Morgan asked.
“A month, maybe six weeks,” Le’vine replied. “It really all depends on the weather.”
“That’s cutting it a bit close,” Morgan said. “But it should still work. How soon will you be able to set out?”
“Within the next two or three days,” Le’vine replied. “We just need to load the proper supplies and wait for the weather to clear up a bit. It’s been raining hard the last few days.”
“Very well. Please keep me updated, and thank you for doing this.”
“We are allies, after all, and so long as you’re covering the cost, we should be fine. Please keep me updated on any information regarding Grace and Shul.”
Morgan thanked her, inwardly cringing at the cost of this operation. He could pay it back, but he had to be careful with how much gold or precious metal he took from the earth. After all, he didn’t want to devalue their currency or crash the market on something like adamantine.
“So,” Katherine said, tucking away her pendant and crossing her arms. “You going to explain?”
