Author's Nightmare: Chapter 159 (Patreon)

Beam POV: Day 144

Current Wealth: 213 gold 21 silver 32 copper

The orcs had backed off, for now, and they’d left us with death and absences. The ground was carpeted by their corpses for hundreds of feet out from where we were, a great ocean of dead and dying things that thickened in density as you drew closer to us.

Of course, we had our fair share of corpses too. Six of our twenty-two recruits had bitten it during the fighting and four more were injured bad. A single conflict had almost halved our strength. If Solitaire were here he might’ve given us an idea of how many orcs we’d killed, probably he’d have known with just a single glance at the battlefield.

But he wasn’t, he’d been snatched off by the enemy while I watched. Everything was blank and quiet. Sound eaten by the shrieking in my ears, the beating in my chest, the constriction of arterial blood in my body. Someone was talking to me but I couldn’t hear them, only stare at where I’d last seen my brother. I screamed, slamming a fist down into the ground and watching as a few cracks spiderwebbed out from the point of impact. The vent of fury did nothing to calm me. But it did give me my hearing back after a second.

Well, that and being slapped.

“This isn’t the time to shut down Beam.” Elizabeth snarled, glaring at me in a way that brought back unpleasant memories of mean old schoolteachers. “Solitaire’s gone, you’re in charge, what do we do next?”

I blinked, mind slowly working through the avalanche of information to realise that she was right. I’d only just gotten to my feet, though, when another voice came out, this one angrier and grimmer. Corvan. 

“Army approaching.” He spat. “Looks like Viras.”

I turned, and felt myself gutted by the sight of just how right he was. What looked like hundreds of men were closing on us. Us specifically, not the orcs. And they were already in the city. 

From our elevated position I could make out a few details about their armament, which was impressive, and their cohesion, which was very impressive. It wasn’t until they were just a minute or two away that I recognised the sight of Viras himself at the front though. 

He was in some kind of lamellar armour built under a set of robes, like the sort Corvan wore, and carrying a ludicrously thick scroll of coiled paper. Not smiling, never that, but looking more than a little pleased as he made his way over to us. 

“Good evening.” He said, voice like steel on ice. “I’m pleased to see all of you are alive and well.”

Something about that sent a chill down my spine, and I was actually glad for a moment that Solitaire wasn’t here. A surefire way to escalate anything into violence was giving him the creeps. 

“What do you want?” I asked, eyes flicking to our dead men, and his very much alive, well-armed ones. A decently sized army with this equipment could have cut the orcs’ flank apart with how they moved, the enemy might not have even known they were coming before contact. But they’d pulled back. 

Viras soaked up my hostility the way Shango might have, just swallowing it like debris in the ocean and moving past without another word. 

“With respect, Belahont, I am not here on matters of your family, but rather the town of Swanhen itself.” His eyes moved over to Lord Appleberry now, who was panting and gasping beside us. I hadn’t even noticed him joining the fighting, but he was covered in plate armour, blood and more than a few nasty dings. I was almost surprised he was still alive, and more so that he looked so healthy even now. 

“You want to speak with me?” Appleberry frowned, rightfully nervous and growing more so as Viras’ scroll was unfurled. 

“Lord Appleberry, I am here to inform you of my family’s claim on the land you are currently holding as your own. That land being the town of Appleberry, its mines, and its surrounding territories.” Viras spoke slowly, but somehow it was still almost hard to follow him. “This town was loaned to your ancestor some fifteen decades ago following the death of the last heir of its original owners, the Devenar family.”

Appleberry’s face was tightening like garotte wire, but he nodded.

“Correct.” The man whispered. 

“Well, you may be surprised- and perhaps understandably disheartened- to find that my own family has distant ties to the Devenar, dating back almost two centuries. Very distant, of course, to have only been discovered now, but…Well, strong enough to contest your claim to it, I’m afraid.”

Appleberry stared, aghast, as Viras continued.

“I am afraid that I have decided to make a press for my land, all legal under the King’s law and, naturally, all to be resolved between our own families and their heads. How you choose to respond is entirely up to you.”

I must have been slow from the battle, or exhausted. Maybe I’m just dumb. But it only hit me then what was happening. Swanhen was crippled, Appleberry’s forces in tatters long before we even arrived, and Viras was suggesting they settle the matter between their families alone. If Appleberry accepted, things would become martial. He’d lose Swanhen, and we’d have gained nothing from this escapade.

If Appleberry didn’t accept, it would turn into a contest of influencing the powers-that-be for preferential judgement. Appleberry was obviously not as powerful as Viras, and Appleberry himself was clearly not as driven. I had no doubt that that would be an even harder win.

“This is…This is outrageous!” Appleberry snarled, face turning beet red, hands turning to fists. “You, you can’t do this it-”

“-Is quite legal.” Viras replied, calmly. “But I understand, of course, that we find ourselves in extraordinary circumstances. It would be cruel to expect you to engage in a clash of armies at such a time as this. So, I intend to offer you an alternative. A contest of champions. You may pick a warrior to do battle with me, and the victor will determine how this conflict is resolved.”

Appleberry hesitated, and I stared, waiting for him to shoot that idea down too. But he didn’t.

“You…Have offered generous terms.” The noble- the moron- replied, as if he were not suggesting a fight with one of the deadlier magic users alive. “And so I shall accept. Who here shall be my champion?”

I stepped forwards, obviously, and felt the fear washing through me in dense waves as I did. This wasn’t good, not good at all. It…

This might be how Shango ended up alone in Redacle. Solitaire gone and me killed. But what else could I do? Our men had died here, our brother had gone missing. We needed this win or we’d be dangerously weak after. I had no choice.

“If I might interject?”

The new voice surprised me, it was lighter, calmer, and rather more out of breath than anyone else on my side. I turned to find Adannaya standing at my back, looking over the conversation with cool eyes. 

Lord Viras eyed her, head tilting. 

“I do not believe I have had the pleasure.” He began, but she breezed past him to study the document. 

“Hm.” Adannaya noted. “I was not aware these champion-duels of your people would pit nobility against commoners, are there not injunctions against that scenario?”

As she said it, her eyes flicked back up to Viras and lanced him with an accusatory stare. 

Viras, for his part, didn’t seem very rattled. Only met the stare.

“That is tradition, not law. And I am afraid I take the rule of our lands too seriously to disobey its legal precedents on the whims of cultural pressure.”

Spoken like that, with all the big words and stuff, it sounded perfectly logical. Or at least smart. Adannaya wasn’t done though. 

“And you believe it would suit the rule of your lands to endanger yourself in a bout with the man who almost bested the King of Blades?”

A shudder ran through Viras’ men, but not Viras himself. I saw muttering, shifting gazes, disconcertion. Evidently, Viras saw it too. Adannaya kept going. 

“History is full of young rulers with something to prove, but it is novel to meet an old one.”

With that single sentence, the tumours she’d sewn among the confidence of Viras’ men calcified.

Viras picked up on it, or at least I think he did. With a single glance back at his soldiers his mind changed instantly, and he eyed Adannaya like some barricade to be dismantled.

“You would not object, then, to my sending out my own champion instead.” He noted. Adannaya hesitated, clearly trying to think of some way she could get out of that as well, but then shook her head. 

“Of course not.”

Viras smiled, like a cat with a rat between its paws.

“Then I shall call forth my champion.”

The champion in question was one I remembered. Nine feet tall, and covered in so much plate armour that every footstep sounded like a trebuchet impact. His shoulders were well over a metre across and his curled fists were like anvils. The last time he’d fought, it’d been against the King of Blades. But Xerght the Giant looked healthier now. 

And certainly more confident. 

I was aching everywhere, exhausted. My head throbbed and my mouth tasted of blood and puke. I was weakened, tired, closer to death with every scrape I got in. Could I win?

Yes, probably. But it was hard to tell myself that looking at the guy.