DF233 - Blister In The Sun (Patreon)

“I didn’t break her,” Anton insisted. It was dawn, and he was on the east wall with Aris and Kelsey. They were standing a little way away from the main command group so that the attending nobles wouldn’t be bothered by the girls’ irreverent ribbing. Suliel was commanding at the harbour-side tower.

“Then where is she, hmm?” Aris teased.

“She’s sleeping. She had a long day, and a longer night. I wasn’t going to ask her to get up at dawn.”

The truce was scheduled to end at dawn, so expecting an attack as soon as the sun rose was only common sense.

“How much sleep did you get?” Aris asked.

“Not much,” Anton replied, meaning none at all. “I don’t need as much as I used to, and this battle will be important.”

Truthfully, he’d been too keyed up to sleep. And this would be his first battle… not as King, exactly. He was… a Pretender? A candidate? Consort? Whatever he was, right now, he found himself in charge.

That was why the whole marriage had worked, after all. The nobles were scared of losing; they wanted someone else to be in charge. To take the blame. Or, just maybe, to win.

A Hero with an epic class might be the one person who could win in this desperate situation. With Kelsey’s help, that possibility went from a long shot to something much more likely. Banding together under him was their best chance of immediate survival, at least for this battle.

Anton shielded his eyes as the sun rose in front of him. The feild below him was shrouded in shadows and glare, at least until the sun rose higher. This would be the point where the troops started moving. He looked, but he couldn’t see any sign.

A hush fell over the wall, as every soldier looked for the enemy. Dawn bathed the field in light, but there was nothing to see. Only the detritus of war—broken shields, discarded arrows, unrecovered corpses… Nothing living. Nothing moving.

“Are they attacking from the other side?” Anton asked. He looked across town, but the other wall was standing in the same silence that they were. He called for messengers anyway.

“This just in from Suliel,” Kelsey said slowly. “There’s no sign of the Tiatian fleet.”

Anton stared at her. The fleet had pulled back—far further than was necessary to stay out of range of the cannon—but they had stayed in sight of the shore. Until now, it seemed.

“Ask the west wall if they have sight of the enemy,” he told one messenger. “Launch the balloon,” he ordered the other one.

“My lord,” one of the counts said. Anton could hear the uncertainty in the man’s voice as he reached for a form of address. “Have they retreated? Have we… won?”

“We’ll see,” Anton told him. “If the aerial scouts don’t see anything, we’ll send out a patrol to look.”

The count nodded and backed away. Kelsey watched him go with a sour look.

“And not even a short fired,” she grumbled.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Anton said wryly. “I know you were looking forward to seeing those guns used.”

Kelsey flashed him a grin. “Don’t feel too bad for me,” she said. “No gun goes unused for long.”

“So, if we did win, does this mean that Anton is king, now?” Aris asked. “I thought there would be more fighting before that happened.”

“No, this is just a strategic retreat,” Kelsey explained. “They decided that they’d rather not charge into the hail of bullets that the Maximators can make.”

“That sounds… sensible,” Aris allowed. “The… number you said was a lot.”

“Mmhm. It might even go higher once some Traits get developed for them. So, anyway, they decided that they’d rather have this fight behind their walls.”

“But we don’t have to follow them, though?” Aris asked. “They were after Elara… if they leave, they can’t get her.”

“We still have to put her on the throne,” Anton said. “Or should that be me? Whatever it is, we need to take the army to Bures before we can win.”

“But we beat the Tiatians, at least? Or will they go back to Bures as well?”

“I think they will,” Anton said. “Prince Jiro seems to be playing both sides. I don’t think he’d mind if Elara took the throne, as long as he can control the Kingdom.”

“But she’s not going to listen to him, is she? Not after the whole kidnapping and all. And besides, you’ll be the one in charge.”

“I’m not really sure how it works—or how it’s going to work,” Anton admitted. “She knows a lot more about ruling than I do.”

“Don’t be too surprised if he makes an offer to turn sides in exchange for you accepting the sovereignty handover,” Kelsey said. “From what he said, Zamara is already a province of the Empire; he just has to make it stick.”

“How does he do that?” Aris asked.

“With violence, of course! My favourite legal maneuver.”

“I shudder to think of you in a courtroom,” Anton told her. Kelsey only grinned.

“I’m a little rusty, but I could rustle up a mock court to get some practice in. “Your Honour! The prosecution’s case is see-through! Oh, wait, that’s the prosecution.”

She nudged Anton in the ribs. “Get it? Because you can see right through a skeleton. Or a ghost. Maybe it works better with a ghost.”

“Alright…” Anton said, puzzled. “But what does the first part mean? Are you talking about a box made of glass?”

Kelsey groaned. “We’ll workshop it,” she promised. “There’s still time for me to get my joke repertoire ready for court.”

“As long as you’ve got your priorities in order,” Anton said, suppressing the shiver that came thinking about Kelsey in court—legal or otherwise. “We need to figure out if we’re having a battle today.”

*

They were not, it seemed. The balloon saw no sign of encircling forces; the patrols found only deserted camps and cold trails. Elara woke up and was informed of the news. She sagged into Anton’s arms.

“I’d hoped that you would save me, but I never thought it would happen this fast,” she confessed.

“It’s not over yet, Pr—uh—my Queen,” Anton said.

Elara buried her face in his chest. He might not be wearing a hard breastplate, but he didn’t see how that could possibly be comfortable.

“If I’m to call you Anton, then you must call me Elara,” she said. “Save the formality for when you’re sitting on the throne. I know there is more danger ahead of us, but lifting the siege is a great relief.”

It was a relief for more than just Elara. Anton never made an official announcement—word had spread before he was sure it was true. Successive waves of elation passed through the crowded town as early reports were replaced by confirmations, as rumour was finally believed. By the time the cheering had started, Anton and the nobles were already planning for the next steps.

Not just for the march on Bures. The army did need to be reorganised, and decisions had to be made on who was going where. Riders needed to be sent North and West to inform the rest of the Rose Circle nobles of the current state of the war.

The attackers had retreated to the east, suggesting they were falling back to Bures. They might be planning to make a stand along the route, or they could fall back all the way to Bures. The majority opinion was that the army should follow them, but some suggested travelling north to meet up with Rose Circle remnants and late-coming reinforcements. It was a slower path, but safer. If the besiegers parked themselves halfway, then going north could avoid half of the King’s forces.

There was also a lot of work involved in cleaning up Kirido. Anton delegated that to Suliel, authorising her to take some of the troops for work crews. She scrounged up some appropriate priests to take care of the appropriate rites for the bodies, over Kelsey’s protests.

Once it was clear that Suliel wasn’t just going to have the bodies tossed down the hole that Kelsey had made, she filled it up, leaving no trace that it had ever been there.

Cheia was dragged off her ship to celebrate with the others. She’d gained more levels than anybody, putting her halfway through her new second Tier Class: Original Naval Gunner. She had a lot of crazy stories about the battle—Aris made her promise not to tell their parents any of them.

In all of that, Anton somehow managed to find time to share a drink with Zaphar, chasing him down to a makeshift drinking hole that had been set up in a building that had yet to be rebuilt. Some enterprising soldiers had found some barrels of watery beer and were selling it by the flagon. Zaphar managed not to look out of place, but his lighter yellow skin made him easy to find.

“Congratulations. A victory for the ages,” the Elitran said. Anton marvelled at the lack of attention he was getting. Elitrans weren’t the enemy of the day, but they weren’t well-liked. Was it a Trait at work?

He let it go and sat down at what passed for a table in this place. He set his drink down untouched. “It’s not over,” he said.

Zaphar’s eyes narrowed. “Bures,” he said simply.

Anton nodded. Zaphar grimaced and took a sip of his beer.

“Ehhhh… I am not good with armies,” he said. “I saw some fighting here, but it was on the street, where I am at home. Not on the wall.”

Anton nodded again. “Kelsey thinks that if you don’t come, you’ll fall into a hole and end up in the King’s bedchambers.”

“Around here, I am thinking that if I am falling into a hole, it is her fault,” Zaphar muttered darkly.

“True,” Anton laughed, “But that’s not what she meant. Your green friend isn’t done with you.”

“I suppose not,” Zaphar sighed. “Was he entertained, do you think, by our little siege?”

“I should hope so, given as much as he arranged of it.”

Zaphar nodded. “There is no fighting fate, or green men,” he said. “I will go and see what pranks he plans on playing on me.”

*

The sail was spotted the next day. Not soon enough for everything to be organised, but plans were starting to take shape. Anton didn’t really have the time to climb the harbour tower and see who it was, but everyone was curious about the first ship to arrive since the Tiatians left.

He didn’t often use his Perception to see long distances, and Kelsey’s spyglass only added to his sense of unreality as it brought the distant speck into clear view.

“Elitran slave galley,” he told the others. He knew the look of them by now. “It’s—” he let out a curse. “Kelsey!”

“Huh? Kelsey pulled out her double-spyglass and took a look. It took her a moment to identify what he’d seen. She let out a snort of laughter.

“What is it?” Suliel asked.

Anton looked down at the dock, where the Whiskerwind was still flying the flag that Kelsey had made. Suliel hadn’t wanted to fly the Kingdom’s flag and claim a navy, so the original flag still flew.

Kelsey answered for him. “They’re flying the flag of free men,” she said. “The flag of adventure, danger, plunder and pirates.”

She pointed where Anton was already looking. “They’re flying the good old Jolly Roger!”