Chapter 106: 106
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Three months after the award ceremony in Shärleden, right about the time Halloween was just around the corner back on Mudgard, my newly reformed Foolhardies was in the midst of our first battle since that fateful war Fayne historians now dubbed the Fall of the Magesong Saga.
It was an apt name depicting one of the biggest betrayals since the Scarlet Moon betrayed and slaughtered the other moon clans. Ironically enough, the previously mentioned Scarlet Moon was also responsible for this most recent act of treachery. Never mind that they weren't supposed to be part of the conflict between the Magesong clan and the Trickster Pavilion. They were still able to steal Great General Darah's thunder and pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
As for the Magesong clan, well, without their lone great general leading them they lost everything. What few soldiers survived the battle returned to the Spellweave River Valley only to later lose their lives in defense of the Magesong capital of Caster's Peak when the Scarlet Moon arrived to sack the city.
They didn't just sack it though. They razed it to the ground, and only its central sorcerer's tower survived the onslaught, blackened beyond recognition and surrounded by a dark pit of inky black earth and the bare boned ruins of a dead city. Many argued that it was now cursed, a shadowy plot of land that only the undead now dared to walk.
The rest of the Magesong territory quickly fell to the Scarlet Moon who in the these three months expanded their territory to encompass their lands in the north to the former Magesong borders of the Gemsea Coast in the east.
Thus came the untimely demise of the Magesong, the first of the twenty-two major clans to fall in the Fayne's five-hundred year conflict to fill the empty throne left behind by a dumbass king who failed to take into account that his would-be successors were all willing to murder each other over his seat.
As for that duplicitous, father-killing son of a whore, Ardeen Spellweaver, well, word on the street was that he and his followers were granted asylum into the Scarlet Moon. They'd even given him the rank of general or some equally bloated title to suit his ego.
But I've spoken enough about the Scarlet Moon and Magesong debacle. This is the tale of the Foolhardies, after all. It was time to get back to the more important stuff.
Where was I? Ah, yes, I was regaling you, dear reader, with how awesome my unit's become since I got promoted to five-hundred man commander, wasn't I?
Well, this part had to do with one of Darah's promises to Kallista, the one where the Foolhardies were required to perform a single task for her, no questions asked.
Kallista's task had us sieging a bandit's hideout north west of Lover's Embrace's territory and about south of the Westmarch gates, the contested area between the Trickster Pavilion and another of their rivals, the Sunspire Dominion.
Incidentally, the Foolhardies were now undergoing operations west of Shärleden, far from the protection of Darah, and pretty darn close to the area under Great General Garm's control.
For those of you who don't remember, he's Aura's half-elf uncle who lost the Patriarch seat to his sickly nephew. So we might as well have been in enemy territory. At the very least, we came here fully expecting no chance of reinforcements.
"Your soldiers seem better trained than last time I saw them, Five-Hundred Man Commander Dapper," Kallista said in her usual sultry tones.
Just hearing her say my title in that husky voice of hers was giving me the weird teenage boy kind of goosebumps. I kind of liked it.
"Um, th-that's because we're better armed thanks to you, Kallista," I said quickly. It was hard to not blab on when you were next to such a sensually appealing salamander like her.
To keep her from commenting on the obvious blush on my cheeks, I turned my attention on the structure fifty yards away from where she and I sat on our mounts.
Under the light of Idunn, the Fayne's golden moon, the ruins of the lone tower that made up the centerpiece of the thieves hideout seemed like the tip of some misplaced iceberg. It had a wide circular base, jagged in some places like it was roughly hewn out of an outcropping of alabaster rock that had reached out its lone middle-finger to the sky. Its white walls had been covered in faded leaf-like geometric patterns indicative of elven architecture, but the near-perfect linear shapes of its entryway and windows were clearly dwarven designs, right down to their equal measurements in length and width. Even the broken down walls, a loose ring around the tower were the same kind of dwarven style common in places like Broken Sellsword's Canyon.
The tower and its surrounding wall were located on the eastern shore of a small lake called Titania, named after the consort of the last fairy king. Legend claimed she'd wept this lake into life with her tears after her king vanished from the Fayne.
At the tower's east, north and south was an expanse of grassy slopes and a spattering of poplar trees which were common in the western regions. These particular grounds served as the battlefield for the Foolhardies and the pitiful thieves who had the unfortunate luck to be on our crosshairs tonight.
Our newly formed cavalry had gone in first.
When he officially joined the Foolhardies after the war, I ordered Xanthor Xor to lead a group comprised solely of swifthart riders as well as the centaurs formerly of their old Dash Kadash unit. Rechristened as the Dash Riders, the seventy-member cavalry was in charge of sweeping the surrounding field and driving the thieves back into their lair, and they got the job done really quickly too.
The hundred or so thieves group fled to the safety of their broken down walls that were effective enough to force our cavalry back. But unknown to these self-assured criminals, their safety was just an illusion. There would be no safety from me and mine.
I took a quick glance behind me to my quartermaster astride her boarhound mount. "Varda, signal the Talons and Hazy Moon to get started, will you."
Varda gave her boar a good pat on its big head before she replied, "Roger, Commander."
After saluting me like she always did, Varda glanced sideways at Jensen who she instructed to, "Light the fires and start the tires, Jensen. Mission Bat Droppings is a go."
And Jensen, after rolling his eyes at the command words I'd forced on Varda, gave instructions to his own signal crew. My commands relayed, they finally raised the neon green signal flag that would have been noticeable enough from the sky.
I sighed. The new system was incredibly convoluted. There were too many working parts to get that one thing done. Even if this was how the big boys did it, I was going to have to find an alternative to bypass all that crap.
Still, my commands were received by those they were given to, and seconds later, like a lightning bolt crackling down from the sky, more than a hundred drow and pixie warriors descended from the air.
As if he was channeling Batman, Thom, in his shadoweave cloak, landed hard on one of the hooded thieves who hadn't immediately noticed the enemies from above. After he'd taken one down, he reached into the pockets of his new leather utility belt—courtesy of Kallista's auction house—pulled out two throwing stars, and fired them into the chests of the two thieves nearest to him.
Surrounded as he was, Thom's annoyingly confident grin was still plastered on his face. He had cause to look smug though. For no sooner had they charged toward him with weapons raised when they were suddenly peppered with dozens of black-feathered arrows, each one finding its mark and incapacitating the thieves. Drow after drow landed then, securing the area for our side.
"Huh, they're not killing them," Kallista noted.
"On my orders," I explained.
Kallista raised an eyebrow at me but didn't say anything else.
If I'd intended a slaughter, things would have been quick and easy. Our forces were overwhelmingly better than our opponents. Not just because there were more of us now, but because many of my troops were survivors of the previous war, and they had obviously gained experience from that.
I felt a slight chill in the air, as if the wind was a little colder now after it had passed through the lake. I took a deep breath and shrugged it off.
Things would heat up soon enough, I thought. Then I raised my hand and formed a fist.
The effect was instantaneous and much better than using the signal flags, but it was really only useful when the troops were close enough to see me.
Ashley's revamped Shield squad, eighty soldiers strong and mostly comprised of humans and elves of similar height, hefted their new bronze shields, and like the Spartans of myth, proceeded to stroll up the hill in turtle formation.
Just watching them move in unison was giving me goosebumps. They were the linchpin of my new infantry force, after all.
Behind the Shield Squad were three other infantry squads, each one a fifty-man unit led by their new squad leaders.
For precision strikes and hit-and-run tactics, there was Luca's Ravagers. They were a group of veterans from the first days of the Foolhardies and boasted the highest survivability rate in the entire unit.
Luca himself, decked in his new electrum chainmail and midnight blue tabard with the Foolhardies logo splashed across its chest, was standing at their head. Strapped behind him was his new silver-rank broadsword, a gift from the patriarch for his achievements in the last war.
The second infantry unit, the Bastards, was a specialized unit that could perform a myriad of important functions like building ditches and barricades for defense. They served under the command of Edo who I promoted to lieutenant once he'd healed from his injuries and returned to active duty. It was a fitting name, not only because their leader was a bastard himself, but because many of them were the elves leftover from Theren Everleaf's old squad.
Believe it or not, Edo was wearing a steel-rank chest plate now. I'd convinced him to wear armor after reminding him he'd almost died after getting skewered in his bare shoulder.
The final infantry unit was more conventional than the other two and was solely comprised of former viseres of the Magesong clan. Their leader was none other than Azuma, who, after breaking his bond with Ardeen Spellweaver and contracting with Darah, had agreed to serve under me. Partly because Darah asked him to, but mostly because, and this is my own opinion, I think he's grown rather fond of me.
At the very least, the dude who'd traded in his black armor for a much lighter padded gambeson dyed in midnight blue colors had agreed to train me, and I was now spending half my time in the Fayne getting floored by his lessons.
Whatever had happened between him and Darah, Azuma's body seemed to have been revitalized. He still had cancer, but he didn't look like he was dying anymore. There was more meat to him these days.
"Ah, I see your plan now," Kallista said approvingly.
She'd noticed what the thieves hiding in the tower, who in their growing fear of the marching soldiers, failed to notice. And that was the Talons who'd landed on the Tower's roof.
"Hail Mary successful, Commander," Varda chirped.
I looked skeptically up at Qwipps' troops.
"They've got this, right?" I asked.
"I have faith," spoke the masked elf beside me. "We sent Pike to watch Qwipps' back just in case."
"She has become reliable… more reliable than Qwipps, at least," I agreed, turning to look at Aura and admiring the confident look she sent me. "Are you ready?"
Aura raised her staff forward and saluted me playfully. "Foolhardies new Mage Hand Squad reporting for duty, Commander."
I sighed. "Just make sure to remind Donar not to raze the tower to the ground." I jerked a thumb toward Kallista. "Wouldn't want her to charge us for repairs…"
Aura laughed her brilliant laugh that never failed to make me feel all warm and tingly inside.
"Alright, let's begin phase two." Aura raised her staff high, its red orb glowing a fierce orange. "Oh mighty servant of the Pillar of Flames, I beseech you, come forth and rampage across this fairy plane!"
At her command, a giant fireball came to life in the air above us. It expanded and exploded outward, spraying us all in a scorching heat reminiscent of the sun on a beach at high noon.
Then, like an egg that had hatched, the flames gave birth to a fiendish creature formed of shadow and flame.
"I know I'm just a guest, Dean, but isn't all of this bordering overkill?" Kallista asked while she gazed enthralled by the efreet hovering over Aura.
"Yup… but I wanted the unit to stretch its legs, you know," I answered nonchalantly, as if I wasn't at all disturbed by Aura's display of power. "Incidentally, I named this entire op, Operation Overkill."
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Three months after the award ceremony in Shärleden, right about the time Halloween was just around the corner back on Mudgard, my newly reformed Foolhardies was in the midst of our first battle since that fateful war Fayne historians now dubbed the Fall of the Magesong Saga.
It was an apt name depicting one of the biggest betrayals since the Scarlet Moon betrayed and slaughtered the other moon clans. Ironically enough, the previously mentioned Scarlet Moon was also responsible for this most recent act of treachery. Never mind that they weren't supposed to be part of the conflict between the Magesong clan and the Trickster Pavilion. They were still able to steal Great General Darah's thunder and pull the wool over everyone's eyes.
As for the Magesong clan, well, without their lone great general leading them they lost everything. What few soldiers survived the battle returned to the Spellweave River Valley only to later lose their lives in defense of the Magesong capital of Caster's Peak when the Scarlet Moon arrived to sack the city.
They didn't just sack it though. They razed it to the ground, and only its central sorcerer's tower survived the onslaught, blackened beyond recognition and surrounded by a dark pit of inky black earth and the bare boned ruins of a dead city. Many argued that it was now cursed, a shadowy plot of land that only the undead now dared to walk.
The rest of the Magesong territory quickly fell to the Scarlet Moon who in the these three months expanded their territory to encompass their lands in the north to the former Magesong borders of the Gemsea Coast in the east.
Thus came the untimely demise of the Magesong, the first of the twenty-two major clans to fall in the Fayne's five-hundred year conflict to fill the empty throne left behind by a dumbass king who failed to take into account that his would-be successors were all willing to murder each other over his seat.
As for that duplicitous, father-killing son of a whore, Ardeen Spellweaver, well, word on the street was that he and his followers were granted asylum into the Scarlet Moon. They'd even given him the rank of general or some equally bloated title to suit his ego.
But I've spoken enough about the Scarlet Moon and Magesong debacle. This is the tale of the Foolhardies, after all. It was time to get back to the more important stuff.
Where was I? Ah, yes, I was regaling you, dear reader, with how awesome my unit's become since I got promoted to five-hundred man commander, wasn't I?
Well, this part had to do with one of Darah's promises to Kallista, the one where the Foolhardies were required to perform a single task for her, no questions asked.
Kallista's task had us sieging a bandit's hideout north west of Lover's Embrace's territory and about south of the Westmarch gates, the contested area between the Trickster Pavilion and another of their rivals, the Sunspire Dominion.
Incidentally, the Foolhardies were now undergoing operations west of Shärleden, far from the protection of Darah, and pretty darn close to the area under Great General Garm's control.
For those of you who don't remember, he's Aura's half-elf uncle who lost the Patriarch seat to his sickly nephew. So we might as well have been in enemy territory. At the very least, we came here fully expecting no chance of reinforcements.
"Your soldiers seem better trained than last time I saw them, Five-Hundred Man Commander Dapper," Kallista said in her usual sultry tones.
Just hearing her say my title in that husky voice of hers was giving me the weird teenage boy kind of goosebumps. I kind of liked it.
"Um, th-that's because we're better armed thanks to you, Kallista," I said quickly. It was hard to not blab on when you were next to such a sensually appealing salamander like her.
To keep her from commenting on the obvious blush on my cheeks, I turned my attention on the structure fifty yards away from where she and I sat on our mounts.
Under the light of Idunn, the Fayne's golden moon, the ruins of the lone tower that made up the centerpiece of the thieves hideout seemed like the tip of some misplaced iceberg. It had a wide circular base, jagged in some places like it was roughly hewn out of an outcropping of alabaster rock that had reached out its lone middle-finger to the sky. Its white walls had been covered in faded leaf-like geometric patterns indicative of elven architecture, but the near-perfect linear shapes of its entryway and windows were clearly dwarven designs, right down to their equal measurements in length and width. Even the broken down walls, a loose ring around the tower were the same kind of dwarven style common in places like Broken Sellsword's Canyon.
The tower and its surrounding wall were located on the eastern shore of a small lake called Titania, named after the consort of the last fairy king. Legend claimed she'd wept this lake into life with her tears after her king vanished from the Fayne.
At the tower's east, north and south was an expanse of grassy slopes and a spattering of poplar trees which were common in the western regions. These particular grounds served as the battlefield for the Foolhardies and the pitiful thieves who had the unfortunate luck to be on our crosshairs tonight.
Our newly formed cavalry had gone in first.
When he officially joined the Foolhardies after the war, I ordered Xanthor Xor to lead a group comprised solely of swifthart riders as well as the centaurs formerly of their old Dash Kadash unit. Rechristened as the Dash Riders, the seventy-member cavalry was in charge of sweeping the surrounding field and driving the thieves back into their lair, and they got the job done really quickly too.
The hundred or so thieves group fled to the safety of their broken down walls that were effective enough to force our cavalry back. But unknown to these self-assured criminals, their safety was just an illusion. There would be no safety from me and mine.
I took a quick glance behind me to my quartermaster astride her boarhound mount. "Varda, signal the Talons and Hazy Moon to get started, will you."
Varda gave her boar a good pat on its big head before she replied, "Roger, Commander."
After saluting me like she always did, Varda glanced sideways at Jensen who she instructed to, "Light the fires and start the tires, Jensen. Mission Bat Droppings is a go."
And Jensen, after rolling his eyes at the command words I'd forced on Varda, gave instructions to his own signal crew. My commands relayed, they finally raised the neon green signal flag that would have been noticeable enough from the sky.
I sighed. The new system was incredibly convoluted. There were too many working parts to get that one thing done. Even if this was how the big boys did it, I was going to have to find an alternative to bypass all that crap.
Still, my commands were received by those they were given to, and seconds later, like a lightning bolt crackling down from the sky, more than a hundred drow and pixie warriors descended from the air.
As if he was channeling Batman, Thom, in his shadoweave cloak, landed hard on one of the hooded thieves who hadn't immediately noticed the enemies from above. After he'd taken one down, he reached into the pockets of his new leather utility belt—courtesy of Kallista's auction house—pulled out two throwing stars, and fired them into the chests of the two thieves nearest to him.
Surrounded as he was, Thom's annoyingly confident grin was still plastered on his face. He had cause to look smug though. For no sooner had they charged toward him with weapons raised when they were suddenly peppered with dozens of black-feathered arrows, each one finding its mark and incapacitating the thieves. Drow after drow landed then, securing the area for our side.
"Huh, they're not killing them," Kallista noted.
"On my orders," I explained.
Kallista raised an eyebrow at me but didn't say anything else.
If I'd intended a slaughter, things would have been quick and easy. Our forces were overwhelmingly better than our opponents. Not just because there were more of us now, but because many of my troops were survivors of the previous war, and they had obviously gained experience from that.
I felt a slight chill in the air, as if the wind was a little colder now after it had passed through the lake. I took a deep breath and shrugged it off.
Things would heat up soon enough, I thought. Then I raised my hand and formed a fist.
The effect was instantaneous and much better than using the signal flags, but it was really only useful when the troops were close enough to see me.
Ashley's revamped Shield squad, eighty soldiers strong and mostly comprised of humans and elves of similar height, hefted their new bronze shields, and like the Spartans of myth, proceeded to stroll up the hill in turtle formation.
Just watching them move in unison was giving me goosebumps. They were the linchpin of my new infantry force, after all.
Behind the Shield Squad were three other infantry squads, each one a fifty-man unit led by their new squad leaders.
For precision strikes and hit-and-run tactics, there was Luca's Ravagers. They were a group of veterans from the first days of the Foolhardies and boasted the highest survivability rate in the entire unit.
Luca himself, decked in his new electrum chainmail and midnight blue tabard with the Foolhardies logo splashed across its chest, was standing at their head. Strapped behind him was his new silver-rank broadsword, a gift from the patriarch for his achievements in the last war.
The second infantry unit, the Bastards, was a specialized unit that could perform a myriad of important functions like building ditches and barricades for defense. They served under the command of Edo who I promoted to lieutenant once he'd healed from his injuries and returned to active duty. It was a fitting name, not only because their leader was a bastard himself, but because many of them were the elves leftover from Theren Everleaf's old squad.
Believe it or not, Edo was wearing a steel-rank chest plate now. I'd convinced him to wear armor after reminding him he'd almost died after getting skewered in his bare shoulder.
The final infantry unit was more conventional than the other two and was solely comprised of former viseres of the Magesong clan. Their leader was none other than Azuma, who, after breaking his bond with Ardeen Spellweaver and contracting with Darah, had agreed to serve under me. Partly because Darah asked him to, but mostly because, and this is my own opinion, I think he's grown rather fond of me.
At the very least, the dude who'd traded in his black armor for a much lighter padded gambeson dyed in midnight blue colors had agreed to train me, and I was now spending half my time in the Fayne getting floored by his lessons.
Whatever had happened between him and Darah, Azuma's body seemed to have been revitalized. He still had cancer, but he didn't look like he was dying anymore. There was more meat to him these days.
"Ah, I see your plan now," Kallista said approvingly.
She'd noticed what the thieves hiding in the tower, who in their growing fear of the marching soldiers, failed to notice. And that was the Talons who'd landed on the Tower's roof.
"Hail Mary successful, Commander," Varda chirped.
I looked skeptically up at Qwipps' troops.
"They've got this, right?" I asked.
"I have faith," spoke the masked elf beside me. "We sent Pike to watch Qwipps' back just in case."
"She has become reliable… more reliable than Qwipps, at least," I agreed, turning to look at Aura and admiring the confident look she sent me. "Are you ready?"
Aura raised her staff forward and saluted me playfully. "Foolhardies new Mage Hand Squad reporting for duty, Commander."
I sighed. "Just make sure to remind Donar not to raze the tower to the ground." I jerked a thumb toward Kallista. "Wouldn't want her to charge us for repairs…"
Aura laughed her brilliant laugh that never failed to make me feel all warm and tingly inside.
"Alright, let's begin phase two." Aura raised her staff high, its red orb glowing a fierce orange. "Oh mighty servant of the Pillar of Flames, I beseech you, come forth and rampage across this fairy plane!"
At her command, a giant fireball came to life in the air above us. It expanded and exploded outward, spraying us all in a scorching heat reminiscent of the sun on a beach at high noon.
Then, like an egg that had hatched, the flames gave birth to a fiendish creature formed of shadow and flame.
"I know I'm just a guest, Dean, but isn't all of this bordering overkill?" Kallista asked while she gazed enthralled by the efreet hovering over Aura.
"Yup… but I wanted the unit to stretch its legs, you know," I answered nonchalantly, as if I wasn't at all disturbed by Aura's display of power. "Incidentally, I named this entire op, Operation Overkill."
Three months after the award ceremony in Shrleden, right about the time Halloween was just around the corner back on Mudgard, my newly reformed Foolhardies was in the midst of our first battle since that fateful war Fayne historians now dubbed the Fall of the Magesong Saga.It was an apt name depicting one of the biggest betrayals since the Scarlet Moon betrayed and slaughtered the other moon clans. Ironically enough, the previously mentioned Scarlet Moon was also responsible for this most recent act of treachery. Never mind that they weren't supposed to be part of the conflict between the Magesong clan and the Trickster Pavilion. They were still able to steal Great General Darah's thunder and pull the wool over everyone's eyes.As for the Magesong clan, well, without their lone great general leading them they lost everything. What few soldiers survived the battle returned to the Spellweave River Valley only to later lose their lives in defense of the Magesong capital of Caster's Peak when the Scarlet Moon arrived to sack the city.They didn't just sack it though. They razed it to the ground, and only its central sorcerer's tower survived the onslaught, blackened beyond recognition and surrounded by a dark pit of inky black earth and the bare boned ruins of a dead city. Many argued that it was now cursed, a shadowy plot of land that only the undead now dared to walk.The rest of the Magesong territory quickly fell to the Scarlet Moon who in the these three months expanded their territory to encompass their lands in the north to the former Magesong borders of the Gemsea Coast in the east.Thus came the untimely demise of the Magesong, the first of the twenty-two major clans to fall in the Fayne's five-hundred year conflict to fill the empty throne left behind by a dumbass king who failed to take into account that his would-be successors were all willing to murder each other over his seat.As for that duplicitous, father-killing son of a whore, Ardeen Spellweaver, well, word on the street was that he and his followers were granted asylum into the Scarlet Moon. They'd even given him the rank of general or some equally bloated title to suit his ego.But I've spoken enough about the Scarlet Moon and Magesong debacle. This is the tale of the Foolhardies, after all. It was time to get back to the more important stuff.Where was I? Ah, yes, I was regaling you, dear reader, with how awesome my unit's become since I got promoted to five-hundred man commander, wasn't I?Well, this part had to do with one of Darah's promises to Kallista, the one where the Foolhardies were required to perform a single task for her, no questions asked.Kallista's task had us sieging a bandit's hideout north west of Lover's Embrace's territory and about south of the Westmarch gates, the contested area between the Trickster Pavilion and another of their rivals, the Sunspire Dominion.Incidentally, the Foolhardies were now undergoing operations west of Shrleden, far from the protection of Darah, and pretty darn close to the area under Great General Garm's control.For those of you who don't remember, he's Aura's half-elf uncle who lost the Patriarch seat to his sickly nephew. So we might as well have been in enemy territory. At the very least, we came here fully expecting no chance of reinforcements."Your soldiers seem better trained than last time I saw them, Five-Hundred Man Commander Dapper," Kallista said in her usual sultry tones.Just hearing her say my title in that husky voice of hers was giving me the weird teenage boy kind of goosebumps. I kind of liked it."Um, th-that's because we're better armed thanks to you, Kallista," I said quickly. It was hard to not blab on when you were next to such a sensually appealing salamander like her.To keep her from commenting on the obvious blush on my cheeks, I turned my attention on the structure fifty yards away from where she and I sat on our mounts.Under the light of Idunn, the Fayne's golden moon, the ruins of the lone tower that made up the centerpiece of the thieves hideout seemed like the tip of some misplaced iceberg. It had a wide circular base, jagged in some places like it was roughly hewn out of an outcropping of alabaster rock that had reached out its lone middle-finger to the sky. Its white walls had been covered in faded leaf-like geometric patterns indicative of elven architecture, but the near-perfect linear shapes of its entryway and windows were clearly dwarven designs, right down to their equal measurements in length and width. Even the broken down walls, a loose ring around the tower were the same kind of dwarven style common in places like Broken Sellsword's Canyon.The tower and its surrounding wall were located on the eastern shore of a small lake called Titania, named after the consort of the last fairy king. Legend claimed she'd wept this lake into life with her tears after her king vanished from the Fayne.At the tower's east, north and south was an expanse of grassy slopes and a spattering of poplar trees which were common in the western regions. These particular grounds served as the battlefield for the Foolhardies and the pitiful thieves who had the unfortunate luck to be on our crosshairs tonight. Our newly formed cavalry had gone in first.When he officially joined the Foolhardies after the war, I ordered Xanthor Xor to lead a group comprised solely of swifthart riders as well as the centaurs formerly of their old Dash Kadash unit. Rechristened as the Dash Riders, the seventy-member cavalry was in charge of sweeping the surrounding field and driving the thieves back into their lair, and they got the job done really quickly too.The hundred or so thieves group fled to the safety of their broken down walls that were effective enough to force our cavalry back. But unknown to these self-assured criminals, their safety was just an illusion. There would be no safety from me and mine.I took a quick glance behind me to my quartermaster astride her boarhound mount. "Varda, signal the Talons and Hazy Moon to get started, will you."Varda gave her boar a good pat on its big head before she replied, "Roger, Commander."After saluting me like she always did, Varda glanced sideways at Jensen who she instructed to, "Light the fires and start the tires, Jensen. Mission Bat Droppings is a go."And Jensen, after rolling his eyes at the command words I'd forced on Varda, gave instructions to his own signal crew. My commands relayed, they finally raised the neon green signal flag that would have been noticeable enough from the sky.I sighed. The new system was incredibly convoluted. There were too many working parts to get that one thing done. Even if this was how the big boys did it, I was going to have to find an alternative to bypass all that crap.Still, my commands were received by those they were given to, and seconds later, like a lightning bolt crackling down from the sky, more than a hundred drow and pixie warriors descended from the air.As if he was channeling Batman, Thom, in his shadoweave cloak, landed hard on one of the hooded thieves who hadn't immediately noticed the enemies from above. After he'd taken one down, he reached into the pockets of his new leather utility beltcourtesy of Kallista's auction housepulled out two throwing stars, and fired them into the chests of the two thieves nearest to him.Surrounded as he was, Thom's annoyingly confident grin was still plastered on his face. He had cause to look smug though. For no sooner had they charged toward him with weapons raised when they were suddenly peppered with dozens of black-feathered arrows, each one finding its mark and incapacitating the thieves. Drow after drow landed then, securing the area for our side."Huh, they're not killing them," Kallista noted."On my orders," I explained.Kallista raised an eyebrow at me but didn't say anything else.If I'd intended a slaughter, things would have been quick and easy. Our forces were overwhelmingly better than our opponents. Not just because there were more of us now, but because many of my troops were survivors of the previous war, and they had obviously gained experience from that.I felt a slight chill in the air, as if the wind was a little colder now after it had passed through the lake. I took a deep breath and shrugged it off.Things would heat up soon enough, I thought. Then I raised my hand and formed a fist.The effect was instantaneous and much better than using the signal flags, but it was really only useful when the troops were close enough to see me.Ashley's revamped Shield squad, eighty soldiers strong and mostly comprised of humans and elves of similar height, hefted their new bronze shields, and like the Spartans of myth, proceeded to stroll up the hill in turtle formation.Just watching them move in unison was giving me goosebumps. They were the linchpin of my new infantry force, after all.Behind the Shield Squad were three other infantry squads, each one a fifty-man unit led by their new squad leaders.For precision strikes and hit-and-run tactics, there was Luca's Ravagers. They were a group of veterans from the first days of the Foolhardies and boasted the highest survivability rate in the entire unit.Luca himself, decked in his new electrum chainmail and midnight blue tabard with the Foolhardies logo splashed across its chest, was standing at their head. Strapped behind him was his new silver-rank broadsword, a gift from the patriarch for his achievements in the last war.The second infantry unit, the Bastards, was a specialized unit that could perform a myriad of important functions like building ditches and barricades for defense. They served under the command of Edo who I promoted to lieutenant once he'd healed from his injuries and returned to active duty. It was a fitting name, not only because their leader was a bastard himself, but because many of them were the elves leftover from Theren Everleaf's old squad.Believe it or not, Edo was wearing a steel-rank chest plate now. I'd convinced him to wear armor after reminding him he'd almost died after getting skewered in his bare shoulder.The final infantry unit was more conventional than the other two and was solely comprised of former viseres of the Magesong clan. Their leader was none other than Azuma, who, after breaking his bond with Ardeen Spellweaver and contracting with Darah, had agreed to serve under me. Partly because Darah asked him to, but mostly because, and this is my own opinion, I think he's grown rather fond of me.At the very least, the dude who'd traded in his black armor for a much lighter padded gambeson dyed in midnight blue colors had agreed to train me, and I was now spending half my time in the Fayne getting floored by his lessons.Whatever had happened between him and Darah, Azuma's body seemed to have been revitalized. He still had cancer, but he didn't look like he was dying anymore. There was more meat to him these days."Ah, I see your plan now," Kallista said approvingly.She'd noticed what the thieves hiding in the tower, who in their growing fear of the marching soldiers, failed to notice. And that was the Talons who'd landed on the Tower's roof. "Hail Mary successful, Commander," Varda chirped.I looked skeptically up at Qwipps' troops."They've got this, right?" I asked."I have faith," spoke the masked elf beside me. "We sent Pike to watch Qwipps' back just in case.""She has become reliable more reliable than Qwipps, at least," I agreed, turning to look at Aura and admiring the confident look she sent me. "Are you ready?"Aura raised her staff forward and saluted me playfully. "Foolhardies new Mage Hand Squad reporting for duty, Commander."I sighed. "Just make sure to remind Donar not to raze the tower to the ground." I jerked a thumb toward Kallista. "Wouldn't want her to charge us for repairs"Aura laughed her brilliant laugh that never failed to make me feel all warm and tingly inside."Alright, let's begin phase two." Aura raised her staff high, its red orb glowing a fierce orange. "Oh mighty servant of the Pillar of Flames, I beseech you, come forth and rampage across this fairy plane!"At her command, a giant fireball came to life in the air above us. It expanded and exploded outward, spraying us all in a scorching heat reminiscent of the sun on a beach at high noon.Then, like an egg that had hatched, the flames gave birth to a fiendish creature formed of shadow and flame. "I know I'm just a guest, Dean, but isn't all of this bordering overkill?" Kallista asked while she gazed enthralled by the efreet hovering over Aura."Yup but I wanted the unit to stretch its legs, you know," I answered nonchalantly, as if I wasn't at all disturbed by Aura's display of power. "Incidentally, I named this entire op, Operation Overkill."
