“First I crush this half-breed, yes, easy prey, squashed, like a bug.” She pressed her foot down into the floor as if stepping on a particularly offensive insect. “Easy enough.She has no chance. Not against my armies. No, no, no!” Another manic giggle.
She didn’t think we’d put up much of a fight. She didn’t know Izzy, and that ignorance, matched with her arrogance, might be her downfall. I hoped.
“Then, while the elves are recovering, the titans attack, crush them all, kill them all. One. By. One.” She punctuated the last words with three vicious stabbing motions. “Then the dwarves and undines retaliate and kill the titans while they’re still weak. Then the dragons and sylphim kill the dwarves. Yes, yes, yes! Undines can rot beneath the waves, they don’t matter.”
By the spirits!
She wasn’t just insane, she truly believed she could play these races against each other like puppets. And the sad part was, it might work. All you needed was the right push at the right time.
If the dwarves and undines knew any of this…
And that’s when it hit me. We had to tell them. I had to get this information back to Safir and the others. I didn’t know if the dwarves would believe a secondhand report, but… they had to. They’d help us if they only knew the true depths of Valnea’s plotting and treachery against those she should be protecting.
Another giggle interrupted my thoughts.
“Yes, yes, yes, all together. Slay the nymphs, squish the shifters.” She made a shivering motion as if we shifters were disgusting bugs that she both feared and hated. “Then free Urval from the pyrkai and take all those pretty incubi as my pets. Yes, yes yes.” She had a way of running those three “yesses” together, each pitched a little higher, making her sound truly unhinged.
“All will be mine. No rivals, only servants. All together.”
I shook my head. The fact that she didn’t even see the hobgoblins and pixies as a threat, as anything other than what they currently were, administrators and servants, was debasing.
I waited to see if there was more, and there was, but it was all some repetition of what she’d already said, rambled into one long diatribe of madness.
I couldn’t wait any longer, I shadow-stepped away.
There might be more information I could glean here, but I already had their war plans and Valnea’s true intentions. I needed to get back to the others. I jumped from shadow to shadow, out of the palace, out of the capital, to where I was to meet my dragon when she returned.
I still had more than a day to wait for my extraction time, but I hid well, keeping to the shadows of the forest outside the capital. I prayed I could get this information back to our forces. If everyone knew how insane Valnea was… they’d have to join us. Then we’d have a fighting chance against the elven armies.
AMARHUK (ROOK)
One on one,or in a small group, I could be very persuasive, especially when it came to sex. I was an incubus after all. But trying to convince the hundreds of men and women, concubi and salmaeri, arrayed before me to go against the dwarves and fight with Izzy… I’d never admit it, but I was scared shitless.
It was also strange being back in Urval after being away for so long. I’d gotten used to the blue skies and warm-temperate climate of Seial. Here, in Urval, it was ragingly hot all the time, the skies a twisting maelstrom of fiery reds and twisting ashen clouds.
I’d been transported to the main military camp outside the city of Baelzerus. I’d be able to reach the greatest number of salmaeri and concubi here. At least those of fighting age. The hope was, they’d spread the word to those in the nearby city and all over Urval.
“My fellow warriors!” I began, a magical microphone amplifying my voice. “I have stood where you stand now, listening to our leaders tell us victory was near, that we can end this ages-long war with one last push, one last battle.”
There were grumbles through the crowd. They’d heard similar things and knew them to be lies. The pyrkai giants were strong and solidly entrenched in their strongholds. We might take down a few, but there were hundreds and their dark rituals of fire, brought forth more every year.
“We all know it’s a lie. This war will not end, not any time soon, not without a massive force from another realm helping us. We all know it.”
More grumbles and a few shouts and cheers.
I had to speak fast; I could already see people running to tell their leaders. I was undoing generations of programming and hindering their fighting force.
“I am not here to offer you false promises, only a choice.” I paused after that word, looking out over the group below. “How often have we been able to choose our own fate? So very rarely, perhaps, in the heat of battle, but even then, it is often a choice of life or death.”
I had them on the line now, listening intently.
“My choice, I’m afraid, is not much better. I wish I could offer you life, a way out, a way to live free, with no more fighting. I cannot.”
There were some grumblings at that, probably wondering what Iwasoffering.
“Instead, I offer you this…”Okay here goes.I drew in a deep breath and continued. “I offer you a chance to throw off the shackles of our masters. I offer you a chance to fight for your freedom instead of fighting some interminable war. I offer one last fight, but unlike any fight you’ve been in before. Not against the pyrkai, but against the elves in Seial!”
That got some gasps and a whole lot of wide eyes staring back at me.
