Serpentlord (Rise To Omniscience Book 9), page 25
And just like that, the battle was over. They had won.
***
Grace dipped her fingers into her drinking bowl, then ran them through her oily hair. She hated this feeling. Her hair, which was the thing that brought her the most pride and joy, had grown lank and shiny, the strands sticking together in a most unpleasant way. Not even a braid helped anymore. You could only do so much for hair before it needed to be washed, and a good scrubbing was long overdue.
She silently lamented the poor state of her hair, trying to blank out the moaning of the sick and dying all around her. She knew she was being petty, what with the horrible conditions these poor villagers had been subjected to, but it was one of her few luxuries. Worrying about the state of her hair had kept her sane and focused on her own escape, as well as those of the others here.
She was finally getting somewhere with the gnome and thought that if she kept working on him, she might be able to get him to help in the next few days.
Strangler’s next big sacrifice would be coming soon, and if she had to witness another five thousand deaths, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to forgive herself.
Grace felt her fingers snag on a knot and pulled them through, wincing at the pain. She was going to have so many split ends, knots, and dry strands to deal with when this was all over that it would take months until her hair would recover.
She sighed, pulling the strands back into their clumps before weaving them back into a braid, trying to ignore how dirty and disgusting it felt. Even in the worst days in her old life, she had always been able to care of her hair. It was like adding insult to injury, not that she was actually injured.
If anything, she was receiving far better treatment than all the other poor souls locked up down there.
Reaching down, she lifted the small bowl of slop, leaning back against the bars of her cage and tilting the bowl up. Experience had taught her that this was the best way to eat it — to let it slide down her throat. It was enough of a liquid that she wouldn’t need to chew but still substantial enough to keep her alive. Not chewing gave the food less time to be in contact with her tongue, which meant less time tasting the foul concoction.
“Hey, old man, you up?” she asked, looking sidelong at the bundle of rags that was the gnome.
“I’m not old,” the gnome replied, sounding exactly like an old man would.
“You have a white beard. That means you’re old,” Grace replied, though she already knew better.
All gnomes had white beards, even the young ones.
“Don’t pretend to be stupid,” he replied. “That’s hardly becoming of you.”
Grace let out a snort, then slurped her gruel, shuddering at the horrible taste and texture of the cold, slimy substance trickling down her throat.
“Have you thought about what I said?” she asked, her eyes flicking between the dozing guards.
“I’m not interested. We would never make it, and everyone here would be killed.”
“How can you be sure?” Grace replied. “The gnomes and trolls who’ve been locked up look like they can fight.”
“Do you really think Shedra would leave guards who couldn’t handle a few riots?” the gnome replied. “They wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“But the guards are asleep almost all day,” Grace retorted. “Surely we can catch them by surprise.”
“Maybe,” the gnome replied. “But what would we accomplish? We kill a guard, maybe two, but that still leaves all the others to punish us for our insolence. How many do you think they’d kill just to send a message?”
“But if we do nothing, they’re all going to die anyway,” Grace said. “Doesn’t that mean something to them?”
“We,” the gnome replied. “We are all going to die, and while that might light a fire under you, not everyone will be so inclined to fight.”
“But—”
“But nothing,” the gnome said, curling in tighter. “Now shut up and let me go back to sleep.”
Grace glowered at the gnome’s back, but he ignored her. Once he got this way, she knew that no amount of prodding would get him to move. She turned her attention back to the poor souls locked in here. There were so many, and they would all be killed. She had a plan, but in order to act on it, she needed the gnome’s cooperation.
She picked the bowl of gruel up, eyed the contents, then dropped it in disgust. She’d lost weight in her time here, and not in a good way. She couldn’t be sure, but she’d lost a good few pounds of muscle, not just what little fat reserves remained.
Her arms, while showing more definition, definitely looked scrawnier. Recovery from her incarceration here would be long, and that was if she even managed to survive. Once again, Grace felt tears prickling behind her eyes as she thought of her friends. She’d endured weeks and weeks of imprisonment, having borne witness to the slaughter of thousands, and they still hadn’t come for her.
Would they ever? She wasn’t so sure about that anymore.
Her eyes began to drift shut, her tired mind forcing her to rest. Sleep in this place was always fitful, and when she woke, it was to find herself still locked away here. Still, a body needed rest, and hers was no exception. Grace drifted off into an uneasy sleep. She was plagued by nightmares of knives in the night, a massive serpent, and the pain of a blade drawing across her throat.
“Grace. Grace, wake up.”
Grace stirred as a voice beckoned her, a nudging on one of her shoulders getting her attention.
“Grace, wake up.”
She sniffed a few times, trying to swat away the annoyance. Sleep wasn’t the most pleasant, but it was an escape of sorts.
“Come on, Grace. Please wake up.”
She felt a hard nip on the skin of her shoulder and let out a small yelp, shooting upright and banging her head on the bars of her cage.
“Ow,” she groaned, clutching at her head as one of the guards yelled for her to be quiet.
She peered through her fingers, bleary-eyed, and found herself looking down at a small shape near the bottom of the cage.
“Good. You’re finally awake. Took you long enough.”
Grace blinked a few times, wondering if she was still dreaming. However, the throbbing pain in her head convinced her otherwise, and as her eyes began to clear of the fog of sleep, the form of a small silvery drake came into focus.
“Lumia?” she asked, her eyes going wide and her heart skipping a beat.
This couldn’t be happening, could it? She had to be imagining things.
“Yes, it’s me,” Lumia replied, Grace finally realizing that the familiar voice was sounding in her mind.
She felt her bottom lip begin to tremble, then lunged down, squeezing the small drake’s body to hers and beginning to cry. She was lucky they were facing away from the guards and that Grace was large enough to completely block Lumia from their sights; otherwise, she would have been found out.
“I…I can’t believe you’re here,” Grace sobbed, her voice coming out as a half-whisper. “I thought no one was coming…I…I…”
She trailed off, her body shaking as the last six odd weeks of suppressed terror, anxiety, and loneliness came pouring out of her in a rush.
“There, there, child. I’m here,” Lumia said, her warm presence soothing Grace’s frayed nerves. “We’re going to get you out of here, I promise. There’s no need to worry anymore. I’m here. You’re not alone.”
Grace continued to cry, her body shaking with silent sobs. Her prayers had been answered. Someone had finally come.
38
“How many did we lose?” Elyssa asked, sitting back in her makeshift chair and sipping from a clay mug.
The battle was over, and the commanders and rulers were meeting for a short briefing before going to rest.
“We don’t have an exact count,” one of her commanders said. “But estimates put us somewhere in the rage of four thousand dead and another six or seven injured.”
Morgan watched these proceedings from the back, as usual. He sat in a stone chair, Sarah right beside him. Her left arm was bandaged, though it was already healing, and she’d changed out of her armor and into more comfortable clothes.
“That leaves us with how many fighting men?” Elyssa asked, rubbing at her temples.
“Perhaps twenty thousand,” the commander said.
“And the enemy?”
“Estimates say near thirty, and that’s without considering their captured beasts and that we’ll be attacking fortified cities.”
“So, even after all we’ve done, we find ourselves outnumbered and disadvantaged,” Elyssa muttered.
The ground shook then so badly that cracks began to form in the walls, and several of the commanders needed to grab onto something to retain their balance. The lanterns flickered, and several went out, small chips of stone falling and scattering across the floor. The tremors finally stopped after a few moments, and Elyssa used her Liquid Stone to fix the damage to the temporary building.
“How far are the World Beasts?” she asked, turning to Beatrice.
The Queen of the South Kingdom had just returned from a scouting mission of her own, which focused on the approaching threat from the east.
“They seem to be speeding up,” Beatrice replied, looking grim. “At this rate, they’ll catch us before we even reach the capital.”
“Caught between a hammer and an anvil,” Elyssa sighed. “Can we bypass Gnomia and make straight for the capital?” she asked, directing this question to Ragnar.
“It’ll leave us open to an attack from behind,” Ragnar said.
“We’re already facing that issue,” Elyssa said. “If the World Beasts catch up to us, we’re already done for.”
“If you don’t mind me cutting it,” Beatrice said, surprising the elven queen. “We can’t afford to go to the capital either. We’ll never make it.”
Elyssa’s brows came down at that.
“What are you saying?”
“That unless we make for the closest coastal town and ship off the continent, we’re all going to die.”
A low muttering went through the room at that, the others clearly not liking what she had to say.
“We’re not abandoning Faeland,” Elyssa said, crossing her arms. “We’ve fought too hard to just give up now, and besides, I promised my people we would take our home back.”
“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Beatrice said, “you have no home to return to. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The east is a wasteland, and the fringes have already begun breaking off into pieces and drifting away into the ocean. Faeland is doomed, and unless you all leave, you’ll die along with it.”
More muttering ran through the room, and this time when Elyssa spoke, it was with a bit of heat in her voice.
“Enough,” she said, glaring at the Southern Queen. “While we appreciate your help, you have no stake in this. This is our homeland, and we will not let an outsider dictate how we handle our business. Besides, there aren’t enough ships anywhere to get us all off the continent. And even if we do manage to find space, where would we go? To the Five Kingdoms, where we would be under your rule? I think not.”
Beatrice bit back an angry retort and remained silent at that. But now that the subject had been broached, Morgan knew he had to speak up.
“She’s right,” he said, rising from his seat and striding to the center of the tent. “I’d already suspected as much back when the World Beasts first began battling, and as they tore their way across the continent, my suspicions grew.
“All you have to do to see the truth is look for the signs. The days are darker, the nights longer. The ground shudders and shakes, and the tremors grow worse every day. I can forgive ignorance or disbelief to a point, but by now, trying to convince everyone that things will be fine is just gross negligence.
“If you do not abandon Faeland, you will die. Each and every one of you. Your families. Your friends. Everyone you hold dear will be killed. Not by an enemy who seeks to subvert your will and grind you beneath their heel, but by your own foolish actions.”
Silence greeted his words. That was, until the predictable outburst.
“How do you know we will all die?” Elyssa snapped, shooting to her feet and allowing her chair to topple backward. “And if you claim to have known all along, why are we fighting our way across the continent? Why did so many have to die? Why are we doing all this if we’re going to have to leave anyway?”
“Because we had no choice,” Morgan said, his voice quiet. “Faeland barely has any ships, and the dwarves, elves, and beastmen have the fewest of all. From what I understand, the gnomes have the largest navy, as they’d been preparing for the invasion of the Five Kingdoms. That is the first reason we’ve fought so hard.
“The second is because the gnomes obviously don’t have enough ships for everyone. The World Beasts are moving quickly. Do you think that had we waited in the Glimmerlands for ships to come from the Five Kingdoms that we’d all still be alive? If you’re unsure, I can take you to where they once stood and let you have a good look.
“Third,” Morgan continued, not giving Elyssa or anyone else a chance to interrupt, “is because I don’t believe that all of the gnomes wanted to go along with this. Shedra is a singular ruler who seized power. Along with the cultists of Strangler, they declared war on us all, forcing the others to join.
“I refuse to condemn an entire race to die, simply because of the actions of a single deranged person. Now, if all of those reasons don’t sound good enough to you, I think that choosing you as the de facto commander of this alliance was a bad idea. I know that Faeland is your home, but as you said when we were abandoning the elven capital, ‘home is where the people are.’ So long as they follow you, your home will be wherever you land, no matter where it is physically.
“It’s also important that you remember the thousands who follow this army. The thousands of innocents. The thousands who can’t fight and have been displaced from their homes by the very beasts who now threaten to destroy this continent. Don’t condemn them all to die out because of your selfish pride.”
Morgan crossed his arms as he finished speaking and waited, his eyes flicking around the small makeshift room. Katherine, Beatrice, and Sarah all gave him nods or smiles, while the other commanders looked less than happy. Ragnar looked thoughtful while Malachi’s wife ground her teeth.
He didn’t care about the opinions of those who couldn’t make this decision. Ultimately, Elyssa would be the one to decide. They had agreed to follow her, so long as this war went on, and if she said they’d be abandoning their positions and making for the coast, then that was what they would do.
Elyssa, who’d been glaring at him, finally looked down, seeming to cave in on herself. It didn’t help her case that the ground shook again a moment later, the walls cracking and threatening to cave in.
“I take it you have a plan,” she said once the rumbling had stopped.
She sounded defeated and lost. It was as though all the fight had been drained straight from her body.
“Ships from the East Kingdom are on the way,” Morgan replied. “Just shy of a thousand.”
“And where are they planning on landing?” she asked.
“The closest port city.”
“You know Shedra won’t just let us go, right? He’ll send his armies after us, and that’s not to mention that a thousand ships won’t be nearly enough. If we’re to fit everyone we have left, we’re going to have to attack the capital. However, we can’t risk bringing our civilians to a battle like that, and there’s no way we’ll be able to land foreign ships there without first taking the city.”
“We’ll have to split up,” Morgan said. “Send the civilians and a small portion of our forces to an undefended spot on the coast where the ships can make a landing.”
Despite the way Elyssa was glowering, the fact that she was already talking about how the plan couldn’t work meant that she was on board. Now they just had to hammer out the details of how to get everyone off Faeland before the World Beasts reached their location.
“We can’t afford to split our forces, not if we’re still going to have to fight our way into the capital,” Elyssa argued. “Besides, if the World Beasts are moving as fast as you say, there’s not a chance that we’ll be able to breach the walls, fight our way to the ships, and set sail while we’re under enemy assault.”
“Which is why we’re going to draw them out,” Morgan said, walking over to the map. “I don’t know a whole lot about battlefield tactics, but I’m pretty sure that someone like Shedra would jump at the chance to attack a weakened foe.”
He pointed to a spot between Gnomia and Arcane City, then traced it along to a town marked several miles away, one that he had heard about from Katherine before this meeting had even started. He’d received some particularly good news, which was why he was so confident he’d be able to get her to listen.
“This town is where we can send our civilians, so long as we send a force of at least two hundred. I have it on good authority that our missing villagers, the thousands who disappeared without a trace, are being held here as sacrifices waiting to be slaughtered in the name of Strangler.”
Now that got everyone’s attention.
“How do you know this?” Elyssa asked, her eyes wide.
“Shul contacted Katherine just a few minutes before the meeting,” Morgan replied. “He says they’ve found Grace, locked up in the very place where all the sacrifices are being kept. In addition, they have only thirty guards, as far as he can tell. There’s room to dock nearly two hundred ships at once. The place is sparsely guarded, making it the perfect spot to land our ships.”
“Even if this is all true,” Elyssa said, “that still doesn’t solve our problem of getting the rest of our army into Arcane City and onto their ships. Nor does it help us draw Shedra out of hiding.”
Morgan’s smile grew a bit wider as he pointed to another spot on the map, and once again, the arguing ensued.
39
