It had been an odd battle.
Well. Honestly, Melthar wasn’t even quite sure if calling it a “battle” was quite right. He supposed that was technically correct, but… could something so unusual really be called by so banal a name?
The trick with the boulder had more or less had the intended effect. Finding the rock itself hadn’t been too hard – there were plenty of large stones to go around on Aead. From there, teleporting it alongside himself had been a trivial effort for Melthar, and all that had been left after that was to drop it. By doing that, Melthar had hoped to raise the psychological pressure on the enemy army, and just crush a good few of them to death too if he was lucky – and the trick (he utterly refused to call it a “tactic”, even in his mind) had accomplished both goals. After the boulder dropped, the enemy army panicked a bit and started retreating faster, clearly eager to get out of any place where they could be herded in so easily – and then, once they were just outside the city grounds, Melthar had teleported his own army to just inside the city and had them casually stroll out.
That had been the real master stroke, honestly. To see an enemy army chasing you was one thing – to see an enemy army appear behind you when you knew they weren’t there before and just start walking toward you leisurely was something else entirely. Melthar himself, of course had, marched at the head of the army, a pleasant smile on his face and an intentionally cruel glint in his eyes. And just to add to it, as he walked, every so often, he bent space to teleport an enemy soldier to himself and skewered them before just continuing to walk on.
And that had clearly been the last straw for the Council’s force. Many of them simply started running, fleeing from Melthar more than from the Bloodhorns’ army. Which, of course, had been exactly what Melthar had wanted them to do.
From there, it had been easy. The Bloodhorns’ force, or what he’d taken of it, didn’t even need to bother to give chase – Melthar could just teleport them all to the enemy, and do it again when they got out of range. Admittedly, it was a huge drain on his energy, but as long as they were all willing it wasn’t that hard, and besides, he’d only taken a small contingent – less than even a hundred people. So as long as the enemy just kept running and Melthar didn’t need to use his powers for anything else, it’d be easy, right?
Unfortunately, Melthar’s luck hadn’t lasted that long. Eventually, Katherine and Ihab (Melthar hadn’t actually seen him leading this army yet, but he refused to believe it was anyone else) had evidently managed to convince their army they weren’t improving their chances of survival by running and made them line up and make a stand. And, because the universe had apparently picked that exact moment to say “fuck you” to Melthar, that ended up happening right after he’d done the last teleport he thought he probably could, exhausting almost all of his reserves of energy in the process.
At that point, Melthar wasn’t ready to even think about fighting, and the Bloodhorns’ army was still enormously outnumbered. So, Melthar gave the enemy his best ominous remark and evil smirk and, using the reserve of energy he’d made absolutely sure not to expend before, teleported the army right back to the city.
Point is, Melthar had, indeed, as he’d planned, used the element of surprise and psychological warfare to inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. Well… somewhat, anyway. Really, they weren’t so much “heavy” as “barely noticeable” – as it turned out, terrified people were really damn good at running for their lives – and the way he’d ran away the moment the enemy decided to make a stand probably wasn’t a great sign for the continued effectiveness of any tactic relying on the foe being scared of him.
Still, it was better than nothing, he supposed. At the very least, Melthar figured, the enemy still probably didn’t know the real extent of his powers. And even if he hadn’t caused that many casualties, maybe he’d given their commanders something to think about. After all, honestly, at this point, anything that forced the Council to delay was something the Bloodhorns desperately needed.
Well, whatever the outcome had been, there was nothing to be done about it now. All Melthar had left to do, for now, was to report back to Azal.
–
Ihab looked vaguely at the sky, the grey sky of Aead. Katherine, in turn, looked vaguely at him, thinking she knew what he was thinking but not quite sure enough to actually point it out.
Finally, he spoke. “You know what I’m thinking, don’t you?”
“Our men are lacking in morale,” she said, “and the problem is worse than we thought. Maybe it’ll recover eventually, but it’ll take far more time than we’d like unless we do something about it.”
“Well, yes, that,” he said, shooting a sideways glance at her. “But there’s something else, too.”
“What is it?” Katherine asked.
“See, no sane rebel leader would ever give the order to attack with odds like that,” Ihab said. “We really took a chunk out of their army in that one fight, and while their golden guy’s powerful, he’s not that powerful, as evidenced by the fact that we’re not all dead right now. So the way it looked from their perspective, they were horribly outnumbered and wouldn’t stand a chance in a straight-up fight, not unless they had some sort of advantage – like, for instance, our army being terrified of Mr. Golden. And they’d only ever decide to attack in that situation if they knew they had that sort of advantage.”
Katherine’s eyes widened. She realized what Ihab meant instantly. “Then we’re being spied on.”
“Indeed,” Ihab nodded. “Well… maybe not here. Remember that back then, we were talking in the city, where there’s a lot of convenient places for someone to hide. Out here, in the open plains? Good luck with that.”
“Still…” Katherine murmured. “We must be cautious.”
“I won’t deny that,” Ihab said. “But it’s not like we’ve got many options. I mean, how do we hide our communications when we’re like this?”
Katherine thought for a moment. “I suppose.” She looked around a bit nervously, not quite able to stop herself from looking like panicked prey. “But even then…”
–
“Thank you, Aya,” Azal said. “You were of great assistance.”
“R-really?” she beamed. “I-I mean, I didn’t do that much, b-but… you know, if… if it helped out, I’m happy! Y-you’re welcome, Sir Azal!”
“Again, thank you,” Azal smiled pleasantly, nodding his head. “I may not yet know how successfully Melthar’s operation went, but were it not for the information you obtained, we would not have been able to conduct it at all.”
“T-thank you, Sir!” she said, her voice excited. “S-should I go out there again, Sir? Try and figure out what they’re planning again?”
Azal considered it for a second. “No,” he finally said. “Outside of the city, you won’t be able to hide nearly as well. You’ll be caught.” And while the loss of a spy would normally be nothing particularly awful, the loss of a shadow was a different matter entirely. It wouldn’t be worth it, even if not sending Aya meant they wouldn’t know anything about what the enemy was planning.
“O-oh,” she said, suddenly crestfallen. “Y-yeah. I guess you’re ri-“
“Hey,” Melthar said, flickering into existence besides them. Even with how used Azal was to it by now, he still couldn’t help but flinch back.
Azal sighed. “Hello, Melthar,” he said. “How has the operation gone?”
“Well, not great, admittedly,” he shrugged. “I mean, we took out a few of them. Not enough to make much of a real difference, though. I say that’s probably my fault – there’s definitely things I could’ve done better. Sorry about that.”
“Hmm,” Azal murmured. “What about our side?”
“No casualties, fortunately,” Melthar said. “We got out before things could get too bad.”
“I see,” Azal said. “Then this operation can still be considered a success. Even if we only inflicted mild casualties on them, that is still better than nothing, especially since none of our soldiers were killed.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Melthar admitted. “But I’m not sure how well the “psychological warfare” angle will work again. After they saw me bail out of there like that, I don’t see it working that well anymore.”
“It would not have worked a second time anyway,” Azal said. “The second time, they would know running would only harm them. And besides, a leader has many ways to improve an army’s morale.”
“I guess,” Melthar said. “Still, can’t say I’m all too happy with it.” He turned towards Aya, and a small smile grew on his face. “Don’t worry, though. You did great. I’m the only one to blame here, really.”
“O-okay,” Aya nodded.
“Very well, Melthar,” Azal firmly said, trying to get the Great Power to focus on what was important. “What shall we do next, in that case?”
–
“No, we must still take all possible precautions,” Katherine said. “For all we know, their spy may still be here. We cannot speak of anything important, not when we are so vulnerable to an eavesdropper.”
“Look, we’re not planning anything at the moment anyway,” Ihab said. “If you want to stay away from the more… dangerous… topics, go ahead. But right now, we’re really just trying to figure out what in the world that thing they’ve got with them can do. And sure, I get it, it’s reasonable to keep as much information away from the enemy as possible – but come on. What can they really do with that sort of stuff, even if it gets to them?”
Katherine sighed. “No,” she said. “I refuse to speak of anything like that in such an unsafe way.”
Ihab looked down at her, a curious look in his eyes. “Hm. Nice, Katherine. Looks like you really are learning to disagree with me when you need to. I approve.” He slapped her gently on the shoulder, nearly sending her to the ground.
“You did that on purpose,” she accused after regaining her bearings.
A wry little grin spread across his face. “Maybe.”
“Regardless,” Katherine said after a long sigh, “while I am happy to earn your approval, we must focus on the task at hand. Simply put, there is no reason to not do whatever we can to stop the enemy from gaining information.”
“Again, it’s not that you don’t have a point,” Ihab admitted. “But come on. Even you’ve got to admit you’re getting paranoid at this point, right?”
“Perhaps,” Katherine said, her gaze iron. “But being paranoid, Ihab, is better than being dead.”
Ihab chuckled. “Well, not wrong, I’ll admit. But you’re still getting overly paranoid. Yeah, it’s better not to take overly large risks, but… this isn’t large. This isn’t even noticeable. There’s barely a risk here.”
Katherine sighed, once more. “Fine. One way or another, we do need to discuss strategy. If you’re so opposed to safety, I won’t fight you about it.”
“Alright,” Ihab said. “So, what’s the plan?”
Katherine considered it for a moment. “Well, you said it yourself, didn’t you? In their current state, our troops probably won’t be able to withstand a second attack by that golden man. They fear him too much. And besides, while we may not have sustained large losses, there was still a number of casualties. In our current state, we are weakened.”
“Right,” Ihab said. “So the problem’s going to be overcoming that.”
“No,” Katherine interrupted.
Ihab raised an eyebrow, looking at her curiously. Now what was this about…?
“Yes, we may be able to overcome such a weakness,” Katherine said. “But again, there is no need to take that sort of risk. Would it not be far more prudent to retreat and regroup? Here, we are on our land, and though we may have been attacking the rebels before, we still have the advantage of being the defensive side in this war. Time is on our side, and there are still many soldiers that have not been utilized in this war yet. If morale among our army is collapsing, would it not be better to retreat and request different troops from the Council, troops that have not faced the golden man yet? If we explain what he can do, they will have no reason to fear him, not when they didn’t have the sort of first impression our army got. They will be able to fight far more effectively than our current troops, and there will be far fewer casualties.”
“And what do we do with our army, then?” Ihab asked. “Surely you aren’t asking us to just discard such a large fighting force.”
“We can send them to Verta, to fight our wars there,” Katherine said. “Put them under General Leonid’s command and take them away from this war – from that golden man they fear so much. And in exchange, we’ll switch them out for soldiers that will be able to fight more effectively. We have time, Ihab. Even if we delay for a while, we will still have the advantage over these rebels.”
“Maybe we will,” Ihab said. “But they won’t just sit there twiddling their thumbs while we go back for more troops. They’ll take the opportunity, you know? And if we leave them alone for a while, they’ll have time to regroup. Our victory here would be for nothing.”
“And if we attack now?” Katherine asked. “Perhaps we could crush them. But when that golden thing came out to face us, what do you think would happen? These people are terrified, Ihab, and not for no reason. That thing can show up anywhere, defy the universe itself as if it was nothing. Anyone fighting against something like that could simply be killed at any moment, and they wouldn’t have any way to stop it. Maybe we would win eventually – maybe we would exhaust it and get a lucky hit, and from there, we would be able to defeat the remains of the rebels’ army and claim victory. But how many lives would it cost? How many would have to perish before they even got their wits together enough to fight? How many demons would die just because we got impatient? And, more than that – what if that thing is concealing its true powers from us? If we push into a corner… can we really be certain it will not be able to annihilate our army?”
Ihab narrowed his eyes. She had a point. But…
“But if we do not attack, how many more demons will die later?” he asked. “If we hesitate now, we give the rebellion time to regroup, to repair their damaged army. And if they do, if this war stretches out, how many more people will die before it ends?”
“I do not know, Ihab,” she said. “But this is different. We would be leading them into a slaughter, knowing all the while that that would be all it would be. Could you truly bear to do something like that?”
Ihab looked into the sky. “Not too long ago, that would’ve been something I’d have expected to have to ask you,” he murmured.
“But no, Katherine,” he said firmly. “We have a chance, here and now, to end this. Will you really back out now? Could you bear to leave the rebellion alone, to allow the insurgents another chance to win, just because you didn’t want to take a risk?”
She closed her eyes and thought about it for a moment. And then, she put a hand on her steel-plated heart, her expression relaxed. Like it was obvious what the answer to that question was. “If what I would be risking would be the lives of my people? Absolutely.”
“Katherine, we have a chance to win, now,” Ihab urged. “We can crush these rebels easily. I know we withdrew, I know we already took a step back – but that was just so we could figure out more about Goldie over there. If we take another step back, if we go back to the Council, who knows what the rebels will do with that sort of time? Who knows what tricks they’ve still got up their sleeve? If we attack now, we will win. That’s all there is to it. I know people will die, I know there’ll be a lot of losses, and trust me, I don’t like it any more than you do – but that’s the nature of war, isn’t it? Things happen, and people have to die. That’s the only way we’re going to win this. So please, Katherine. Don’t just back out now and give the rebels the chance to do what they like. We can win this, here and now. Seize your chance.”
For a long, long moment, Katherine didn’t open her eyes.
Then, when she finally did, her voice was… not cold as such, perhaps. But there was something to it. No, more like there was something that wasn’t there anymore. Before, all this time, when she’d spoken to him, there had always been a quiet undercurrent of admiration in her words. Now… it was gone.
“Councillor Ihab,” she said.
“I told you not to call me that,” Ihab said.
“Councillor Ihab,” she said again, more firmly this time, “if you were to attack the rebels now, how many troops would you need to win the battle?”
Ihab narrowed his eyes at her. He couldn’t fault her for being angry. After all, she was right. If they went ahead and did this, many of their own people would die as a result. But Ihab refused to back out now.
“Maybe four times what the rebels have left,” Ihab said, “and that’s being pessimistic. They’ve got a good defensive position, not to mention the golden guy – that’s something to worry about. But it’s not that good of a defensive position. Three and a half times their number, maybe four… that’s all we’ll need to make sure of our victory. We’ll probably need far less than even that, honestly, but… better safe than sorry.”
“Then take that many people,” Katherine said. “If you believe you can crush the rebellion here, I will not stop you – I cannot deny that you have a good chance. But I will take the rest back. Many of our troops are too terrified of him to even fight properly, after all – and besides, the risk that the golden man is concealing his true power is too large to ignore. If he turns out to be powerful enough to crush our entire army, taking any more men than is necessary would simply allow him to kill more of our people. And besides… they have suffered enough, Ihab. Allow me to relieve at least some of them.”
Ihab narrowed his eyes at her. “And what if we need backup?”
“As you have just said, four times the rebels’ number is a large estimate for how many people would be needed to defeat them,” Katherine said. “If you take that many people with you, you shouldn’t need backup. And if you will, it will most likely be because the rebels employed some sort of strategy that would also allow them to defeat any backup that did arrive. Take the men you need, Ihab – but there is no reason for the rest of them to remain here, at that golden thing’s mercy.”
In response, Ihab just snorted. “Sounds like you’re starting to get scared of it too.”
“I’m terrified of that thing, Ihab,” Katherine said, her voice carrying a sharp, piercing sense of calm at odds with her statement. “Do you mean to claim you aren’t?”
“Fear has no place in war,” Ihab replied. “I know that thing’s scary, Katherine. But fear’s going to get you nowhere. And besides, you’ve got to remember that your life’s always at risk anyways – so what if now, it’s the golden man that’s putting it in jeopardy instead of just an enemy army?”
“Ihab, have you seen what that thing can do?” Katherine retorted, voice barely above a whisper. “It could simply appear next to me and drive a sword through my heart before I knew what had happened. It could, and you know it would if it were allowed to. The only reason it hasn’t done that yet is because, as far as I can tell, it isn’t able to specifically detect our positions that easily. If that were to change, Ihab, we would both be dead in an instant, and there’s nothing anyone would be able to about it. It’s different from an army. At least against an army, you have a ghost of a chance, no matter how insubstantial it might be. At least against an army, you can go down fighting. Against that… thing? I know that if it decided to kill me, there wouldn’t be a thing I could do. And the same goes for you.”
Ihab frowned, looking down at the ground. “Well, maybe you’re right,” he admitted. “But we still can’t afford to be afraid of it. After all, you’ve seen what fear did to our army just now, haven’t you? The only reason we could get it back under control was because we managed to stay calm. So we have to keep staying calm, because if we don’t, this war’s as good as lost, no matter how many people we have.”
“I know,” Katherine said. “I know, Ihab. I understand that we have to remain calm. Even in the direst circumstances, we, more than anyone else, cannot afford to break down, not even for a moment. You said it yourself. But being calm doesn’t mean being unafraid, does it? You’re right – we need to be calm. And I’m going to remain calm. But inside my heart, deep within my thoughts, I’m still terrified of that thing. It could kill us with barely more than a thought – how does that not scare you?”
“Hmph,” Ihab grunted. “Okay. So sure. I get it. That thing’s terrifying. But you’ve got to get past that, Katherine. You’ve got to be unafraid.”
“I… can’t do that, Ihab,” Katherine said. “I apologize, and I do not know why it’s different from you – but I never won’t be scared of something like that. I know I’ve said this already, but as long as that thing’s around, I can’t rest easy, not when I know that at any moment I could be dead. Don’t worry – I’ll always remain calm on the outside. Of course I will. But…”
Ihab sighed, a slight note of disapproval in the sound. “Well… alright. I get it, I guess. Can’t say I like it, but I guess it’s the best I’ll get.”
“Thank you, Ihab,” Katherine nodded. “Then… will you agree to my plan?”
“Well, I guess we probably won’t need that much men,” Ihab admitted. “Yeah, I guess that’s fine. You can take your people back, Katherine, if you’re worried about them. I’ll figure out how to do this.”
“Thank you, Ihab,” she nodded. “And… one more thing?”
“Yeah?” Ihab asked.
“Please… don’t do anything stupid,” Katherine almost whispered. She laid a hand on his arm. “You told me, a while ago, that I should think for myself. So… so here I am, doing that. And if it leads to our demons losing their lives, or… or something happens to you yourself because of it… then… I don’t think I could ever stand to look at myself in the mirror ever again. So… please, Ihab, just… if it starts to look bad, just get out of there. Okay?”
Ihab smiled. He couldn’t help it. For all that she was a General of the Council, for all that she was probably their most competent military strategist – at least, in most ways – for all that he respected her and saw her as an equal to himself, when she was like this, he couldn’t help but think that she just seemed… cute. Even if sometimes, he didn’t like how she followed the Council more than her own mind, and even if sometimes he couldn’t help but find it worrying just how absolutely loyal she was to them… right now, he couldn’t see her as anything but a little girl looking up to him, and he couldn’t help but find it a little endearing.
Gently, as gently as he could manage, he reached out and gave her a little pat on the head. A quick expression of shock and scandalized surprise passed over her face, but he took the opportunity to ruffle her hair a bit anyway, this time managing not to misjudge the amount of strength to use.
“Don’t worry, Katherine,” he said as he pulled his hand back, still smiling. “I’ll be back safe and sound, and you don’t have to worry about my soldiers, either. I’ll do everything I can to make sure as many of us as possible get back alright. Okay?”
“Okay,” Katherine nodded. “Thank you, Ihab.”
Ihab smiled as he stood up, but as he looked away from Katherine, in the direction of Redgate, the smile turned just a little bit sad. Because… this opportunity really was too good to pass up. This was their shot to destroy the rebels, and he’d take it, no matter what it cost.
Even if it meant breaking his promise.
Well… at least the ones who went with Katherine would be safe.
The Demon Rising 