H - 71: Put Some Elbow in It (Patreon)

It was so smooth and painless it was jarring.

Cora arrived upon the darkened riverbank in silence, with no discomfort or even much of a sensation. She was just…there. As if it had been done by a proper portal mage.

Unconsciously, she turned the artifact over in her hands while pivoting slowly to take in her surroundings. There wasn’t a lot to see, especially in the middle of the night: river, ruins, forest. Well, sort of forest. As the adventurers had reported, everything was burned to the hells; the ruins were a lot more prominent among the blackened trunks of trees stripped of their foliage. In the near distance was a flow of firelight illuminating a gap in the walls of the ancient foundations—that would be her next destination.

For now, she stood still, silent, breathing slowly and reaching out with her mind. Cora didn’t activate any wards, just extending her senses both mundane and magical, and waited. Of the artifacts in Boisverd’s treasury which could provided rapid transit, she had selected this one to borrow because it was the most subtle, the least likely to be detected in operation by a powerful mage. However, one did not take blithe risks around the likes of Emeralaphine. So Cora waited, letting her skin adjust to the cooler, damper air, waiting for any sign that her arrival had been noticed. She kept the clockwork contraption in her hands, heedless that the softly glowing crystals in its construction might give away her position in the darkness.

If the bandits approached her, well, they had nothing she couldn’t deal with. If a dragon suddenly descended upon her, she was going to turn the dials again and get the hells out of here—straight into the Highlands, rather than leading the beast back to Boisverd.

But silence stretched on. Cora sensed nothing, heard nothing but the night birds and insects which would also not be so brazen in the presence of a dragon. She gave it twenty minutes, the skill of precisely counting time in her head being among the tricks apprenticeship in her particular magical path had taught her.

It was, of course, not impossible that Emeralaphine had detected her arrival and was observing from a level of stealth beyond Cora’s ability to penetrate. She had as good an estimate of the White Wind’s capabilities as anyone alive, and knew better than to assume herself safe. Ever.

But to remain eternally frozen out of paranoia was as grave an error as to act rashly out of overconfidence. One had to move forward, eyes up and mind open, ready to react as needed to whatever came.

So forward she went.

The ancient foundations stood twice her height, even with most of their original walls long since gone. Rubble surrounding them had lain fallen for so long that huge trees now grew from the piles, their roots entangled with the tumbled stonework. A valley between these led to a broad crack in the foundations themselves, which had originally been a door before its frame had tumbled in. Now the gap glowed orange in the darkness from a small fire in front of it. Behind that, in the doorway, stood a human shape, holding a crossbow.

If the bandit gangs were posting watch, it meant they were worried about attacks from one another. It wasn’t as if this guy and his crossbow were going to do anything about a dragon.

Cora didn’t slow, and cast before she emerged from the darkness beneath the skeletal limbs: at the flex of her will, a gag of solid iron appeared snugly around his lower face, clamping his jaw shut and carefully not blocking his nose. She deliberately left its ontological matrix unstable enough that it would decay to scraps of rust within an hour. Ruthless she could be at need, but not sadistic.

The man leaped and flailed, emitting muffled sounds of incredulity and accidentally discharging his crossbow into the river.

She emerged into the ring of firelight, hand upraised and casting again. Blocks of ice appeared around his feet, rooting him to the ground, and another encased his weapon to render it uselessly affixed to his hand.

“That’s mundane ice,” she informed the stupefied bandit guard as she walked past. Anything but mundane ice would require actual cryomancy, but any half-competent conjurer could create plain ice. “No fancy nonsense. You can chip it free with repeated impacts. I’d get on that quickly, if I were you. Put some elbow in it and you’ll probably escape without frostbite.”

He made noises of strangled rage at her back as she walked past him into the ruins, which she of course ignored.

Clarent had briefed her on the layout of the underground structure claimed by this gang, and by casting a quick expanding ward, she found it just as he’d said. Down this short corridor and a short descending staircase beyond lay an ancient vault, partially collapsed but now braced with rough timbers and relatively stable, where most of the gang was gathered.

Not slowing, Cora first summoned a vial of the antidote and chugged it. Safety was job one. Only then did she project her will, creating a conjuration circle in the center of the floor in the vault. Ahead of her she could immediately hear shouts of spreading alarm as the glowing lines appeared in the bandits’ midst, quickly tapering off as the circle silently gushed forth a torrent of invisible, odorless gas.

By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, they were all out, slumped where they’d been standing, sound asleep. She performed a quick visual survey while crossing the room, making sure nobody had fallen onto a fire or blade or something. Everybody seemed safe—many in uncomfortable positions, but she had little sympathy for that. These were bandits.

That established, Cora quickly cast another summoning circle, this one completely encompassing the doorway along the far side of the room to produce a column of pure air that would block the heavier-than-air sleeping gas from pouring down the staircase beyond.

It was actually rather pleasant, stepping across that. Crisp and clear as a mountain valley in spring.

Descending the steps, she emerged into a smaller vault, this one designed with an elevated dais along the wall opposite the entry, and rows of columns along the perpendicular walls. It was a dead end, and where Clarent had told her the local bandit lord held court.

And there she was. There could be no mistaking who was in charge here: the woman sitting in an ornately carved wooden chair upon the dais in an obvious ploy to evoke the symbolism of a throne was powerfully muscled, and sparingly dressed to show it off. Her reddish-brown hair was swept back in a disheveled, shaggy style that made her resemble a wolf. A musket was propped against her throne, her right hand held a goblet of wine, and her left arm was wrapped around the pretty girl sitting in her lap.

There were seven others below the dais, the bandit boss’s inner circle. Two, a man and a woman, sat right in front of the throne, both in clothing that was noticeably finer in quality than everyone else’s. Faded, tattered, and inexpertly patched, but stylish—between that, their carefully groomed hair, and the clearly expensive rapiers both held, these two practically screamed “exiled nobility.”

Cora identified no particular standouts among the other five enforcers. Everyone here was of pale Vale stock, with hair in shades of brown, red, and gold, with the sole exception of the doxy perched in the boss’s lap. That girl was Rhiva, with tawny skin and dark curls piled up in a style that had clearly taken some effort.

Everyone save the boss and her plaything surged to their feet upon Cora’s arrival, grabbing weapons. The bandit leader maintained poise, simply raising an eyebrow, while the girl studied Cora with the sharp expression of someone who could be doing much better things with her life than serving as a thug’s arm candy.

“Good evening,” she said in a tone that did not go out of its way to endear. “I am Cora d’Acron, Court Mage to the Queen of Boisverd. Who is in charge here?”

Both the well-dressed bandits at the leader’s feet bared teeth and aimed swords at her.

“I’m Gunhild,” stated the obvious boss, idly swirling her wine, “and these good folk look to me for orders. Or are we doing that thing where you then cast some horrible hex on me to demonstrate that it is you who are in charge, Cora d’Acron?”

“Nothing like that. I’m here to talk business. So long as everybody behaves, it serves my purposes to have you still in charge when I’m done.”

“How very gracious the Queen’s representative is,” Gunhild replied, deadpan. “And how many of my people did you slaughter on your way in here?”

“I said I heard someone shout,” one of the onlookers hissed, brandishing a hatchet in Cora’s direction.

“Your people are having a pleasant nap, and will awaken without so much as a hangover unless someone turns out to have an unfortunate and very uncommon allergy.”

“Omelets and eggs, I know how it is,” the leader said, inclining her head.

“That’s more than enough cause,” hissed the woman below her with the rapier. “By your leave, Gunhild, allow me the privilege of dispatching this interloping little ferret!”

“A Court Mage, though?” countered the other noble, grinning unpleasantly. “I might have to contest you for the prerogative.”

“I’ll flip a coin for it. Unless you think there might be enough of her to go around?”

“A fair point, my dear, they don’t give just any hedge witch off the street a title like that.”

“Hush,” Cora ordered. “No mummery whilst the adults are talking, if you please.”

One of the men along the sides of the room snarled out loud, bringing up two unnecessarily murderous-looking daggers in a double reverse grip that Cora knew was more showy than effective. “This one’s full of herself. Let’s see if she bleeds as loud as she talks!”

That was the correct countersign to the code she’d just spoken. He lunged at her, blades-first, and thus Cora knew what to cast without doing him any lasting harm. The timing was tricky, but she’d downed her usual mental accelerant potion before riding the transit artifact here.

The bubble of flexing space formed upon his body, bending light around him as he charged, and the spell completed in the instant she sidestepped his attack. The bubble of distorted space which had formed upon him snapped down, catching them both.

He tumbled to the floor, retching, and Cora couldn’t suppress a wince and hunched over at the pain, even as relatively accustomed to similar sensations as she was. She was already clawing two vials of custom-blended healing potion from her vest pocket and downed one with shaking fingers.“Here. This’ll help.” She held out the second vial as the agony receded. He looked up at her, face creased in pain, but had enough presence of mind to take it from her, fumbling.

After getting the potion down his own throat, he seemingly recovered enough to squint at their surroundings.

“What is…”

The two of them were encased in a swirling vortex of shadows, through which the bandit lord’s throne room could still be dimly seen, everyone frozen in place.

“Personal storage dimension,” Cora explained. “With the standard preservation effects, so time outside is slowed so much it might as well be stopped. An idea I had to steal a quick conversation right here in the middle of public.”

“Ingenious,” the spy marveled, getting back to his feet. “No wonder you called for an attack on yourself… This is an absolute game-changer.”

“Not really—this is not designed to put people in. There’s no fresh air, so we’ll have to talk quickly, and you can expect a lot worse than what we experienced transitioning in if we linger. Here—for later. It’s going to hurt just as much coming out, so sneak away and—”

“Better not,” he demurred, holding up a hand to refuse the additional vial of potion she was handing to him. “I assume the plan is to play this off as you doing something horrible to me via magic when we step back out? Then it works better if I’m actually afflicted. The less I have to act, the more believable.”

“As you wish,” she said. “I need to secure cooperation from this bandit group in the name of the Queen, to carry out tasks they are probably not going to want to perform, pertaining to the dragons. I will obviously need every possible advantage. What can you tell me?”

He nodded. “Gunhild is profit-motivated, albeit with a non-standard definition of profit. She’ll respond best to assets which can secure the well-being of her gang. It’s important not to threaten her—she meets violence with violence and immediately escalates to maximum possible force.”

That was it, no reaction at all to mention of the dragons. It was very agreeable to work with a professional who didn’t want to linger over pleasantries for once.

“Any complicating factors?”

“Among the gang there are three you’ll have to consider: those two by the dais,” he said, turning to nod at the pair of fencers, “and the girl on her lap. That pair are aristocrats chased out of their respective homes and unjustly outlawed by some coup or scheme or other. Both are spellblades, capable enough they could be making an impressive living as adventurers if they weren’t wanted by their home countries. The pair of them have purged this gang of crown agents from the Vale states; they despise royalty and nobility and live to interfere with the schemes of the crowned heads.”

“Hm. So there are no other spies embedded in this gang? How did you escape their notice?”

“I would assume there are at least a couple of others remaining, this is still the Evervales and every country keeps eyes and ears in the Dragonvale gangs on general principle. But any other agents will be like me. Sleeper agents are undetectable until activated, that’s the whole point.”

She nodded. “You said three?”

“Yes, the girl up there on Gunhild’s lap is an Imperial agent.”

Cora grimaced in annoyance at this complication. “You’re certain of that?”

“Only reasonably. The gang captured her crossing into Dragonvale from the southern plains with a load of jewelry and the like and not much in the way of travel rations, telling some tale about being chased from her home by aristocratic schemes—a story calculated to appeal to Valefolk sensibilities and rather implausible given how the Rhiva upper class operates. She immediately cozied up to Gunhild and talked her way out of being ransomed or anything of the kind. That’s Imperial doctrine: send agents with the minimum plausible deniability and plant them directly in the highest position possible. They’re not very good at the great game, never have been.”

“If it’s so obvious, why haven’t they purged her?”

“Nobody cares. The Empire isn’t going to send forces up here so it’s no harm to the gangs if they keep an eye out. From Gunhild’s perspective, the Lord Regent sent her a pretty plaything for free. And those two aren’t interested in spies as such, it’s specifically Vale state interests they want to attack. The Empire’s schemes are outside their concern.”

He hadn’t mentioned any of the names of these three—if she didn’t know them, she couldn’t let them slip and raise questions about how she’d learned them. Cora took no offense, it was a sensible precaution for working with someone outside the field. The idea of trying to handhold one of Clarent’s spies through part of her job was nauseating.

She glanced aside at the darkening of the magic swirling around them. Their little bubble was also growing smaller, and the air tasted noticeably stale already.

“That could be a problem. Izayaroa might approve of what I’m doing here, or she might take personal exception. I’ll need more intel to be sure.”

“Shall I eliminate the girl?” he asked calmly.

“Can you do that without blowing your cover?”

He shook his head. “Not with the kind of attention that’s on her. Given a week I can manufacture a motivation that won’t implicate the Crown or suggest I’m a state actor, but the likelihood of escaping after an act like that is low.”

“Then no, preserve your cover. I’ll consult with Clarent and the Queen before doing anything to jeopardize our field assets. With regard to the mission at hand—recommendations?”

“You’ll need to offer Gunhild something that’s worth the risk and hassle, and in particular, worth undercutting her own authority by cooperating with a Vale state. Most of all she wants legitimacy, security, assurance of no reprisal from state authorities, and protection from the dragons. If none of that is feasible, more mundane bribery could suffice if it’s sufficiently generous. She’ll heavily favor materiel, food, weapons, and supplies over liquid currency—particularly anything that’ll give her an advantage against the other Dragonvale gangs.

“Those two spellblades are the big complication. They are close friends of hers and by far her most potent combat assets, so you can’t kill them—it’ll be war to the death if you do that under any circumstances. The other side of that coin is they won’t sit still for this; they’re going to attack you, and Gunhild will have to let them, at least at first. She’s an aggressive thinker but not a brute or fool, and understands how to balance the interests of her people. The only path forward I can see is for you to fight both of them to a draw. Do that, show you can both exercise great force and do so with restraint and without killing, and create an opening for her to step in. I believe at that point she’ll be able to call them off and negotiate, and that’ll put you in the most advantageous position for that possible.”

He didn’t bother to ask whether she was capable of handling two expert spellblades in a fight, and she didn’t get into it.

“Understood. What can you tell me about their abilities?”

That was key. Any fight between wizards came down to forewarning and preparation. Cora was not a combatant by specialty, but as long as she knew her opponents’ capabilities and they didn’t know hers, she liked her chances.

“She’s a straightforward elementalist. I’ve seen her use fire, wind, lightning, and frost. She favors her sword, which is her strongest point; it’s a runeblade enabling her to channel magic along it and use it like a wand or staff, as I understand. She’ll use slightly weaker attack spells to disorient and position her opponents and then attack primarily with the blade. He is similarly blade-focused, but works primarily with physical enhancement magic.”

Cora bared her teeth in displeasure. “Does he use speed spells?”

“Not that I’ve ever seen. He has a teleport spell, but it’s extremely short-range; he uses it to get into blind spots and attack from the flank or behind. The spells I’ve seen him use in combat are to enhance his physical strength and augment his blade so as to pierce any defenses in as few hits as possible, most often only one, and he’s got a kind of personal shield that clings to the skin. I’ve seen attacks penetrate his clothes, but not draw blood.”

She nodded; good. It had been an early lesson of her career, brutally learned, that all the preparation and power in the world wouldn’t achieve much against an opponent who could think and react faster, hence why she downed those mental accelerants whenever she went into the field. All the rest of that, Cora could deal with.

“That’s all I need, then, thank you. Good work. I’m going to release this spell; it’ll put me out first, and then you on a delay of a few seconds to sell the deception. The harm from that shouldn’t be lethal or permanent, but I’m afraid it’s going to be rather rough.”

He nodded, expression unchanging. “Part of the job, Lady Cora. For Queen and country.”

She nodded back, and gave a mental nudge to the spell she was holding while downing the vial of potion she’d just offered him. The effect kicked in at the same time the dimensional containment spat her back out; between the medicine and her familiarity with the sensation—and her typical Valefolk ability to conceal and dissemble—Cora emerged without any outward sign of the physical distress the experience caused. The act of collapsing the little storage dimension moved her body right back into the configuration from which she’d entered it.

As far as the onlookers had seen, Cora had not moved or changed; she had simply cast some kind of bubble spell over her attacker which caused him to now be suspended mid-lunge, wreathed in a corona of swirling darkness.

“Release him at once!” barked the man with the rapier, taking an aggressive step toward her and aiming the sword right at her heart.

Cora held up three fingers, then lowered one. Then the second.

“Oh, very cute,” the woman spat. “I should—”

The last finger went down and she released the spell, discharging her prisoner from its grasp.

He was already gasping and retching as he went stumbling out of his lunge, dropping both daggers and vomiting as soon as he hit the floor. Blood leaked from his nose, adding to the mess.

“Claude!” one of his fellow bandits cried, rushing forward protectively.

Both spellblades attacked. Cora was prepared for them.

The man charged right into a brick wall she conjured between them; it trembled faintly from the impact. That strength enhancement was something else. At the same time, she summoned a conjuration circle in midair to her left, perpendicular to the floor, from which emerged a huge blade of translucent metal etched with glowing runes, intercepting the woman’s lunge.

“Mine’s bigger,” Cora said mildly.

The magical fencer sneered. “The bigger, the slower—”

She immediately broke off, having to parry frantically as the huge sword began stabbing and slashing at her with all the nimbleness of her own rapier. Simultaneously with that, Cora summoned an elemental transmutation circle at the woman’s feet, anchored to her own center of gravity, and then had to deal with the other one.

With not an instant to spare, she got another conjuration circle in place right behind her—much larger than before and also discharging pure air, but this time at a vastly greater velocity. In his attempt to flank her he flash stepped directly into it and was sent flying across the chamber.

The female spellblade shrieked as she attempted to cast something frost-aligned at Cora and found it transmuted into electricity by the circle she hadn’t noticed at her feet; lightning arced back along her own sword.

Before he had a chance to recover, Cora turned and conjured a heap of pumpkins on top of the other fencer—not from high enough up to fall on him with painful effect, but burying him in awkward obstructions.

It had been seconds. Both of them were temporarily out, one buried and one recovering from a shock with Cora’s huge magical blade pricking her throat. Cora banished the brick wall she’d conjured and turned an expectant look upon the bandit leader, raising one eyebrow.

“All right, enough,” Gunhild ordered, affecting an amused little smile. “Rafaela, Oswald, heel.”

Oswald’s head emerged from the pumpkin pile with a gasp, sending gourds rolling across the floor. “Gunhild, this wretched—”

“Enough,” Gunhild repeated with a sharp edge to her voice that tolerated no rebuttal. “Anyone who can do all that could have killed you much more easily, along with everyone in this room. I’m not going to turn up my nose at such a courtesy. Be so kind, d’Acron, as to clean up your mess? I’ll happily accept the pumpkins as tribute, though. I’m fond of pie.”

“Conjured food has no nutritional value,” Cora said, making the pumpkins disappear along with her various spell circles and the glowing blade and clean air emerging from them. “Might be tasty, but it’s like eating paste. You’d still starve.”

“Typical,” Gunhild grunted. “Kessi, sweetling.”

The Rhiva girl pouted prettily, but hopped down and moved herself behind the throne chair.

Gunhild rose to her feet and picked up her musket; Cora tensed for a moment, but the bandit only rested it across her shoulders. It probably wasn’t loaded, or it would have been damned foolish to have it sitting around like that.

“What exactly did you do to Claude?” Gunhild asked mildly, looking down at the fallen man who was currently curled up in a ball having his face wiped gently by a friend.

“Just put him in storage for a few seconds.”

“And what else was in that storage?”

“Nothing, but that spell is not designed to use on people. He’ll be fine in a week. Fine enough by tomorrow. Might have some nightmares, but who among us doesn’t? Here.” Cora pulled another vial of potion from her vest and tossed it to Claude’s caretaker, who glared venomously at her but caught it. “That’ll put him…mostly right.”

“Very well, then.” Gunhild tilted her head back to look down her long nose at Cora. She had sharp features and deep-set eyes; the combination of that and her ragged mane of hair gave her a wolf-like aspect that suited a bandit boss. “You went to a lot of trouble to fight your way right to my presence, and a lot more to do it without massacring my people. That earns you enough of my time to further catch my interest. Tell me, Cora d’Acron, what the good queen of Boisverd wants from my humble crew, and what it’s worth to her.”