Since when do I have a tail? The three men closed around her. Elizabeth leaped forward to dodge the next attack, sidestepped another man’s blow and sank her spear into his throat. In a reflection of his armor, Elizabeth saw her head now features two thin horns. Huh? She didn’t have time to think about it as she also saw the men behind her. Elizabeth rotated the spear, ducked and stabbed backward with all her strength. The spear pierced through the man’s scale armor and exit through his back. It got stuck in him. Elizabeth sidestepped to dodge the next blow. Her knee gave out. She collapsed to the ground. She rolled, drew her dagger and stabbed the man below the knee. He fell to the ground. She pushed herself up, caught his head and cut the nape of his neck. Elizabeth rose and made a step back. The last two men, who were in front of her, jumped to the sides. Pain erupted from all over her body as six arrows sunk into her. She fell to the ground. They both charged at her. Elizabeth dodged the first, swept the man’s legs and made him fall on her dagger. She tried to rise, but her legs gave out. Elizabeth fell on her knees. A heavy kick hit her in the head. It threw her sideways. Her vision was blurry, ears and head pounding. The last of the five soldiers stepped to her and raised a heavy axe. Elizabeth got up on her knees. She tried to stand up, but her legs finally gave out. She saw him smirk and start the swing of the blade that would cut her head off. Elizabeth closed her eyes. She knew the end has come. I’m sorry, dad, I won’t be able to keep my promise.
A loud thud made her open the eyes. Next to her fell the soldier’s corpse. Above her stood Astril. “Why’re you bleeding?”
Elizabeth’s body was wrapped in pain. She wanted to thank her, she wanted to scream, but all she could do was to grunt in pain.
“Why would you let them hit you? Gah! Did you even listen when I told you to dodge things like arrows?” she exclaimed viciously. “We will talk about this later. Please get her in the cave, girls, I will handle the rest,” she shouted at the rear guard that was now almost at them. Pair of hands grabbed Elizabeth from behind. Andia pulled her into the cave. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was Astril dashing back into the forest. There were no more soldiers anywhere in sight.
54
Zerae
“Form a cross formation to the right, prepare to flank the left!” Zerae thundered. She was trying to organize the main camp into a defensive formation.
“I can’t keep this up much longer,” Leena breathed. She was standing in a pillar of grey flame. Her flame reached up and extended into a dome made of stone.
“Alright, done!” Zerae announced.
Leena breathed out and the stone dome turned to dust. Soldiers surrounded them. An entire army with perfectly formed ranks was surrounding their camp.
Hopeless… that’s what this is.
“Leena,” Zerae turned to her, “I know Astril’s hiding her strength from me. I don’t know why, but now I don’t care about that. If you are hiding anything, this would be a really good time to use it because we are all going to die here if we don’t manage something big.”
“Promise you won’t get mad or investigate it, neither me nor Astril,” Leena requested.
“I promise.”
“What do you need?” Leena asked.
“We need to somehow disrupt their ranks; I have no idea how to do it though,” Zerae admitted.
Arrows started flying at them from all directions. Their formation held, but couldn’t move.
“Okay, step aside a little,” Leena smiled. She picked up her huge pointy hat and put it on her head. Leena closed her eyes and focused. Then she roared. Magic erupted from her. It hit Zerae like a blast of pure force. It almost swept her off her feet. A massive pillar of grey flame shot up into the sky. Then it shattered into hundreds of large cubes. Then they solidified into stone. They fell everywhere Zerae could see and beyond. The fall of the cubes was like an earthquake. Most of the soldiers dodged, so it didn’t kill too many of them. But it broke their ranks.
“CHARGE LEFT!” Zerae shouted and they advanced. She cut into the disarrayed soldiers like a hot knife cuts into butter. Zerae led from the front. Soon, the carnage consumed her. She killed man after man after man. For every man she cut down, there was another. She killed him too. She kept going and going and going. She didn’t count how many places she was bleeding. She didn’t care. Just rarely she glanced over her shoulder to see if the rest is following her. They were. She could see Chloe hacking people apart with her glaive. Above them, she saw stone blocks form themselves and disappear to block off arrows. Leena isn’t juiced even after that insane bombardment? Incredible.
The soldiers were shooting at them in the barrage, which would normally be the best strategy. This time, it was a fatal mistake because it let Leena form the stone shields to cover them and have enough time to refocus her magic for the next barrage. The forest helped them tremendously. Due to it, the soldiers never managed to remake their ranks. Zerae didn’t know how long she was swinging her blade. She was tired, every single muscle in her body was hurting. But she didn’t care. She just kept killing one man after another for hours.
I’m just… speechless to see how strong they all are. I knew Chloe could fight really well since I faced her in the tournament, I just had no idea how close the others are. I feel like an idiot… which I fully deserve for underestimating my sisters. Honestly, I can’t tell the difference even between the warriors and the non-warriors, much less between the different ranks of warriors themselves.
The soldiers eventually started panicking. The battle turned into a slaughter.
“DISPERSE AND KILL THEM ALL!” Zerae thundered. A mighty cheer was her answer as the Faye went to spread out.
Zerae headed in the direction where she expected the enemy headquarters. She forced her way through the vegetation and soon arrived at a meadow with a large tent. Men were running all over the place. It was in total state of panic. Zerae leaped among them and cut down three with a single blow. The men shouted and turned to her. She just cut the men down and advanced. She felt the arrows hitting her from the back. They didn’t matter. Her coat was too thick and heavy to be pierced by arrows. She reached the tent. Inside were four guards and three men in decorated armors.
Found you!
Zerae ducked under the swing of the first guard and ran her sword through his belly. This armor was thick, but not thick enough to stop her blade. She sidestepped the next swing, spun to free her blade and cut the throat of the third guard with the same move. She dodged the next swing, shattered the man’s knee with a kick and broke his neck with a strike of her hand while she used her sword to block. She parried the next strike and flipped her blade into a counterattack, slicing the last guard’s throat with a sliding cut. She looked into the tent. Inside lied three corpses.
What? She quickly examined the scene. There were two gaping holes in the walls of the tent and the three decorated men lied dead. She rushed to the holes and looked out. There was nobody. Just corpses. Corpses covered the clearing. Zerae made a quick map in her mind and rushes by the trail of bodies that led outside of the forest. She couldn’t find a single living soldier. After a while, she finally made it to the edge of the forest. There she saw it. A last group of soldiers was desperately trying to get up the hill. They were running for their lives. Running from Astril. Teleport, cut, teleport, stab, teleport, cut. Each stab or cut sent a man to the ground. Astril was like a blur. A blur of death. She cut the last fifty men down in about a minute. Zerae stared at her breathlessly.
Their eyes met. Astril sheathed her blades and casually headed to Zerae.
“I guess we’re done,” she said merrily.
Did my eyes lie to me? No… I am absolutely sure I saw Astril do almost a hundred consecutive teleports after more than four hours of fighting. Nobody should be able to do that.
“Yeah, let’s regroup with the others.”
They regrouped in about an hour.
“Status!” Zerae commanded once the leaders gathered.
T
hey all gave it to her.
Thirty-one dead, one hundred twenty-two heavily wounded, everyone else lightly wounded. That’s… astonishing. I have no words of praise strong enough to express how well they all must have fought today.
“Pair up the wounded and dead with the lighter wounded ones. You stay here, everyone else, with me!” Zerae commanded. They all confirmed and soon headed out. Zerae led them straight to the city.
Right now, their army is scattered and didn’t make it into the city. I have counted about three thousand dead soldiers, give or take a few hundreds. Five hundred are in the fortresses, which leaves two thousand men about who I have no idea, but for as long as they aren’t in the city, it doesn’t matter.
The vacated city walls proved her right.
“Leena, open up if you wouldn’t mind,” Zerae whispered sweetly.
Leena made a giant ram out of her flame and flung it at the gate. It solidified, broke through the gate like it was made of paper and instantly crumbled into dust.
Of course, she can do it. She isn’t even close to getting into backlash.
“Kill anyone who gets in the way, spare the rest,” Zerae ordered as they marched into the city.
The people panicked. Some ran away screaming; some shut themselves inside their houses, some straight up fainted as they saw the Faye army march in through the main gate. Zerae headed straight to the town square.
“Chloe, got anyone who can amplify my voice?” Zerae asked.
“Sure, here,” she motioned to one of her companions.
“She stays with me. You take a hundred and find all oil you can, then spread it over the roofs. The rest will soon join you to help,” Zerae ordered her.
“Got it,” Chloe nodded and motioned her warriors to follow her.
Zerae waltzed up to the city square. There were many people gathered around them. Nobody dared to attack them or get in their way.
“Amplify my voice as much as you can,” she ordered the Voidwalker Chloe left her.
She did some spell around Zerae and covered her ears. Zerae motioned the others to do the same. She took a deep breath and shouted: “I am Zerae Hellwind, War Leader of the Faye and this city is now mine! One hour from now, I shall put the city to the torch. Pack your things and leave to the southwest, else you shall burn in our flames or die by our blades!”
The people stared at her for a confused second; then they realized she isn’t kidding and started running all over the place. Zerae sat down by the city fountain and commanded the rest of the Faye to help with the oil.
Two hours later, they were leaving through the main gate, the city burning behind them.
Southeast is the general direction I need the refugees to go. The dreams I made Leena spread among the people should do the rest. She couldn’t get as much as we wanted, but even a few people having the same vision of a safe haven at the southeastern coast should be enough to direct the flow in that direction. There is no safe haven, of course, but it will send them straight to the camp of the Palai fleet.
They rejoined with the wounded. Hilmeria and her unit were already waiting for them there. Zerae was pleased to see the massive supply food that stood on the clearing. She had Hilmeria use the city escape tunnel to steal as much of them as they managed.
“Bring me a quill and a parchment, ready a bird to send to our main camp. Keep the pairing of the heavily wounded with less wounded ones,” Zerae commanded, “it is five days back to our base, which is too far for the seriously wounded. We shall find a nearby place to stay until they get better. I’m open to suggestions on such a place.”
They brought her the quill and parchment soon, she wrote the message of their success and sent the bird off.
Alright, this should keep me off getting exiled. Now, where do we hide with the wounded?
“You look like you want to say something, Astril,” Zerae observed.
“You won’t get mad about anything I say or do today, right?” Astril asked carefully.
“My word holds, without exceptions,” Zerae confirmed.
“I have a hideout nearby, it’s a couple of hours of walk to the north, we can rest there,” Astril stated evasively.
“You have a hideout that can shelter almost three hundred people?” Zerae didn’t believe her ears.
“You promised you wouldn’t get mad!” Astril exclaimed.
“I’m not mad… just, surprised. Alright, we head there.”
I’m not even surprised anymore. The Kaeby army hasn’t shown up, that means they aren’t scattered but dead. We killed about three thousand men together with the advanced camp. About five hundred men man the fortresses. That leaves two thousand men unaccounted for. Two thousand men that likely died by Astril’s blades. The battle took a bit over four hours, which makes Astril’s killing speed about almost nine soldiers per minute, without counting her running several miles in the process. If I didn’t see her cut down fifty men in a minute, I would say it’s impossible. On top of that, we would have had five times more causalities if Leena didn’t just shatter their formations in the first place. The two of them made the difference between all of us dying and the glorious victory we have achieved. How many times in the past did they save my ass without me even knowing about it? The reason my plans always go so smoothly is that the two of them cover any flaws on the fly. My achievements aren’t nearly as much mine as I had thought. Then again, the fact that they have been doing it without me noticing means that the plan was never so bad that it would need too much saving. Not like today when I lost the wager on them not finding us. I seriously need to work on my self-control, because this mistake was definitely caused by my emotions being messed up by what happened on the first day.
“You know, you shouldn’t brood so much over this,” Chloe interrupted her thoughts.
“Hmmm?” Zerae turned to her.
“You did well. We all know it. The night ambush was unfortunate, but such is life. You can’t predict everything,” Chloe revealed.
Zerae unhappily grunted in acknowledgment. She didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t happy about what happened. She still fucked up.
“That sounded weird, okay, I will try differently. We know we got saved by Astril and Leena. It’s not the first time, trust me, it’s not the last time either. But we also know that the reason we succeeded was that you made a great plan on how to win. We survived mostly because you spent hours by dragging us through the forest until you found a place to have both main and advanced camps on an elevated ground, while having an easy path between them and the advanced camp had somewhere to retreat to. You also arranged our camps perfectly to be easy to defend and organized the scouts so we knew the enemies are coming in advance so we could gear up. Then you calmed us down and made us create a formation that shielded the wounded and got us out. Anyway, what I want to say is, you are the only one from all the Faye clans who could have pulled this off. We all know it. That’s why we accept you as the War Leader, why we respect you and why we follow you. So, stop beating yourself up, you have done great.”
Zerae just smiled. She was utterly speechless.
55
Luna
“Oh come on, Luna, you can unlock me for a bit, my love cave will be better with a bit of fresh air,” Miranda tried sweetly.
“You are so, so, soooo sweet when you want something. But no, you need some rest to recover from the past stressful months,” Luna refused, “I honestly don’t know how you even managed. I mean, all that sex with women, really, I’m surprised you have anything other than a desert down there.”
“You know that Sibyl didn’t necessarily tell the truth, do you?” Miranda asked softly.
“I believed her. And not just because she called me the Mighty Werewolf, that was awesome, but even without that I believed her,” Luna stated.
“Yea, Sibyl and her shitty ability,” Miranda sighed, “anyway, spread out. I’m ready to earn my freedom.”
Luna lied back and spread her legs. Miranda slowly kissed
her way down all over her body to get to where it counted the most.
“What ability?” Luna pried as she started getting into it.
“Sibyl is insanely, unbelievably, insufferably lazy, but she happens to be able to predict the future, really fucking well… so when she wants to lie, she always knows how to put it, so everyone believes her,” Miranda revealed.
“Does she?” Luna pried.
“No, of course not. That’s just stories to hide what she had done,” Sibyl replied from the side of the room.
“Come the fuck on!” Miranda exclaimed.
“How did you get in?” Luna breathed.
“I’m Faye; I can teleport,” Sibyl smiled innocently.
“Anyway, what the fuck are you doing here?” Miranda demanded.
“The Mighty Werewolf told me to come see her at about this time, so here I am,” Sibyl replied.
“Right! It’s time for Miranda’s punishment for cheating on me!” Luna smiled and grabbed Miranda tightly.
“That’s already long in the past! You can’t be serious about that anymore!” Miranda exclaimed as she struggled.
“It’s not even a week old,” Luna smirked. She didn’t give her a chance and soon tied her up so she couldn’t move even a fraction of an inch.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me you rotten mongrel!” Miranda screamed angrily.
“Right, I almost forgot!” Luna remarked happily and grabbed the ball gag. She soon forced it into Miranda’s mouth. “Sibyl, how do you put the belt on a more active mode?” Luna inquired.
Sibyl came to her, “like this, this and this,” she showed. The belt started releasing a humming sound and Miranda started shaking and moaning into the ball gag.
Legacy of Death_Revenge Page 45
