~Cedric Penrose, A Treatise on the Gods and Their Powers
Fiona
The cave feels different when Darian, Jorren, and I walk through the tiny opening. There are smiles all around. Even Isola’s eyes have a sparkle to them. An entire travel pack lies open in the middle of the hand-dug cave, and inside it is more meat than I could eat in a day.
“Weheard the screams,” Rurik says with a grin. “Quite the distraction. Were you skinning them alive? Didn’t think you ink drinkers from Carradan were into that kind of thing.”
“No one skinned anyone,” I say. “Jorren made them…”
“I reminded them of the ones they’ve lost. Vividly.” He sits down beside the travel pack, and Isola hands him a waterskin, which he takes a deep swallow from. “Oh, that’s good,” he mumbles.
Everyone looks from him to Darian and me. Darian ignores them and sits down beside the food. Elara hands him a waterskin while I sit beside him. Rurik offers me his, and I take a deep pull from it. I want to drink the entire thing in a single swallow, but Rurik takes it from me.
“Slow down, lassie. Too much too fast, and someone will have to clean up the sick off the floor. A little food and a little water. Then a little more.”
I nod to him and pick up a piece of meat. It’s as dry and hard as boot leather, but I’m certain it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. I close my eyes and savor the first food I’ve had in two days. My body feels like it’s waking up. My mind is clearer. The world is both darker and lighter at the same time.
I open my eyes and take another sip from the waterskin, this time making sure it’s only a sip. My stomach knots up a little, and I realize the wisdom of Rurik’s warning. I hand the skin back to him and take another bite of meat.
Jorren and Darian slowly chew and sip water as well. Isola, Rurik, and Elara take more pieces from the travel pack, and all of ussit quietly as we accept that this moment is real. We’ve managed to get food and water, and none of us have died.
Isola’s dark eyes seem to hold a question, though. Jorren notices and asks her, “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking it’s almost time. We don’t know what we’re going to do yet.” Her words are somber, even though the food and drink have lifted our spirits. “We don’t know who we’re facing. We don’t know…”
Darian stops her. “We know who holds the tower. It’s Serica’s team. Two Chained are still alive. I assume her abomination is as well. Her team also had a Burning One and another Corpsebinder. There was a lower-ranking Mage of Nyxthos and one of the Undying. I don’t know how many are still alive. I assume that, unless they were the first to hold the tower, they would have lost some when they stormed it. Though knowing Serica and that team, holding it from the beginning might have been their plan. Their entire team could be whole, and that would be…”
“That would be very bad,” Isola says softly. “The Undying on her team is Saelyn. She’s powerful, but not exactly the smartest of our people. The Mage is Albin Smith, a brute but a damned good Mage. His demons are bigger, faster, and have alterations. You mentioned Nyxthos might throw a demon the size of a dragon at us, and Albin may not be able to make one that size, but there’s a distinct possibility that he could conjure one with wings.”
“I’m not worried about flying demons,” Elara says without a shred of doubt. “But there’s no way we can hold the tower against them all. Even if we came at them from the rooftop, I’m useless attrying to push them down those stairs. Between the raw strength and combat prowess of the Chained and the destructiveness of the Burning One, I don’t know if there’s any strategy we can use to force them out. Or even to hold the rooftop.”
All of us look to Darian, who’s begun to pace slowly. His naked body is covered in dirt and leaves, and in any other instance, all these members of the nobility would mock him. But right now, we know he’s the one who might make a plan which could have some of us surviving and possibly winning.
“I don’t know if it’ll work, but there might be a way,” he says slowly. “We set traps before we left the tower. We can probably assume that Serica’s group is down one or two members. Her team was built to both assault a structure like the tower and defend it, so it’s unlikely she lost more than two. That means they could be down to five.”
“We’d have the numbers then,” Rurik says slowly. “But do we have the strength?”
Elara shakes her head. “Not inside the tower, we wouldn’t. On the battlements, maybe. In an open field, probably. But inside the tower, I’m not all that valuable, and the two Chained who are definitely still alive are worth twice what they’d be worth in a field.”
“What if we evened the numbers a little more, though?” I ask.
“What do you mean?” Jorren responds.
“Well, they don’t know how many of us are left. Serica and her group probably expect the creatures Nyxthos released into these woods to have ravaged all the groups, with ours being hit hardest because we were obviously the weakest.”
I take a moment to put the rest of my thoughts together. “Let’s pretend Darian and Elara are dead. The four of us can assault the tower from the ground. We’ll do our best to hold their attention. Maybe we’ll even kill a couple of them. But the goal will be to force them to focus on us rather than what could be happening on the roof.”
“Then we sneak in from the top,” Elara finishes. “Quiet as a mouse in a cat house, we’ll make our way down the stairs and strike from behind.”
I nod slowly.
Darian is silent as we talk, but Jorren speaks up. “What about the other teams?” he asks. “What do we do about them if we’re being loud and drawing attention away from the roof?”
My stomach sinks at the thought. Rurik laughs then. “We let them fight first. We… lie and tell them we’re just there to watch since none of us are in the mood to go through a Return if we can’t win. Fiona’s plan to feign weakness fits perfectly here. Returning is bloody miserable. Serica and her team will beat any other group almost certainly. But the ones on the ground only need to keep their attention. If we can let the other cunts do that for us, all the better.”
“Will that work?” I ask. “Won’t they suspect you’ll betray them and attack their backs or something?”
“You’d be surprised, Miss Fiona, but I’m quite the negotiator. Was born a prince and all that shite. Throw in the fact everyone thinks our team is weakest, and they’ll believe it.”
