A Dream of Empire Ch. 016

This chapter is mostly story, character-building, and combat. Don't worry, it's not too gory. Oh, and there's like, awkward romance and sex near the end of the chapter.

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Tatiana Vittori

The Midlands, Kingdom of Solais

10^th of Starset, 1282 D.f.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Three cloaked riders crested the grassy hillock and looked down upon imminent ruin. There, a small cadre of eight Orcs were advancing on a train of retreating peasants, who cried and screamed for dear life as they were harried.

Talos, the rider in the center, shifted in his saddle. "Great. Guess we better get to it. Got any more tricks up your sleeve, Tatiana?"

She glared at him. "They're not tricks, Talos, they're illusions."

Talos smirked. He unsheathed his blackened blade after another moment's thought, and urged his stallion to a gallop with a kick.

"Yah!"

Tatiana and Alanna followed him into the fray. Judging from their previous encounters with the Orcs over the past two suns, the green dimwits were horribly susceptible to magics of all kinds. Tatiana's trick today was more of an experiment, but from what she'd seen of Talos' sword arm as of late, she wouldn't need to play a particularly large role here.

She extended a gloved hand and signed the Invocation of Nehara with her forefinger and thumb. The image of Talos the swordmaster before her suddenly split into six, although five of them were faceless, ghostly apparitions which anyone with a brain could distinguish from truth. Fortunately for them, the Orcs were dumb creatures who sought only rape and plunder, and so they believed that half-a-dozen mounted swordsmen were headed their way.

All of the brutish Orcs but one halted their advance towards the hapless peasants, and prepared for the imminent combat with roars and much beating of chests. Alanna split off from the charge and rushed towards the crying peasants.

She met the single Orc harrying the peasants with a burst of flame. The Orc roared its defiance, then screamed a burbling cry, then fell to the ground in agony. Alanna halted her horse's steps two feet from the creature and let loose another jet of flame directly towards its face. The Orc stopped howling.

Talos, meanwhile, shifted his charge towards the right-most Orc of the band, and Tatiana shifted her illusory attack pattern to compensate. The swordsman leaned from his saddle to slice through the Orc's chest as he galloped past them. He dismounted when he was thirty feet from the remaining brutes and smacked his horse on the rump, causing him to whinny and retreat from the battle. Talos then turned about, and extended his arms as if taunting the Orcs, but none of them paid him any attention.

Talos, you see, wasn't aware of Tatiana's illusory riders; instead, he tilted his head in confusion as the Orcs swung at air, roared at the wind, and stumbled over themselves to retreat from a chill breeze. He advanced on them anyway, twirling his sword in a lazy vertical circle as he did.

One of the creatures had the right idea when Talos neared, but its life was ended by an unfortunate slash through its neck. The next wasn't even aware of the swordmaster's presence before a blackened blade plunged through its back and reappeared between its ribs. One spied its comrade's death, only for a crossbow bolt to strike it in the neck as Talos pulled his blade free with his other hand.

The last three Orcs ran from the carnage, two dropping their stone axes into the grass as they did. Talos trudged towards them with that... that look in his eye, a look to strike fear in any creature no matter their disposition, and they ran faster. Alanna then rode in front of them, and they stopped in their tracks.

Tatiana could sense the enchantress's will, but wasn't entirely sure what spell she'd invoked to force the Orcs to retreat from her. Whatever the spell, it was frightening enough to those green morons that they decided to test their luck with Talos and the five mounted illusions beside him instead.

Talos ducked under the first Orc's swing, then cleaved through the back of its neck without looking. The next was dispatched with a swift horizontal swing, and gargled its defiance as it fell to the bloodied grass below. The last didn't have time to think before it, too, was sent to the beyond by another slash from the swordsman.

Talos looked left and right once all had fallen, then whistled for his horse. "Status?!" he bellowed as the fresh blood dripped from his blade.

"Okay!" Tatiana replied as she cantered towards him. She didn't hear Alanna's response, but she saw Talos nod. He remounted his stallion when the horse soon returned to him, and the trio made their way to the train of peasants, who were standing about on the hillock in awe.

"Praise the almighties! Thank you lord, thank you!" a distraught woman said to the man riding at the fore when they neared.

Talos glared at her, and pointed his blackened, bloodied steel towards the horizon. "Get yourselves to Castle Eastwatch, now. There aren't any Orcs between here and there. You'll be safe there."

"W-we will. Thank you, m'lord, thank you," she said again.

"Don't mention it," Talos grumbled, turning his horse about towards the east. His sorceresses smiled at her, then turned about to follow Talos in silence.

-=-=-

The trio encountered two more raiding parties that day. No matter where they trode, the roars of Orcs could easily be heard echoing off of the jagged peaks of the Ironpoints to their left, or over the endless hills in front of them. Talos, for one reason or another, sought these creatures out intentionally, and his sorceresses agreed to his bloodlust without question. At last count, they had rescued twenty-eight Solaisian peasants over the course of three days. While the swordmaster had originally intended to ride in the wake of the King's army, the army's progress was now limited to patrols around Castle Eastwatch as the King awaited the main band of Orcs to the east. And so, Talos decided on a north-easterly course to travel around the main Orcish army, but didn't shy away from a skirmish when it presented itself.

"I don't get it," Alanna sighed, breaking a silence that had persisted for far too long. "Where is the army? Why do they allow these Orcs to raid unopposed?"

Talos shook his head, but kept his eyes fixed on the horizon. "They aren't playing by the rules of warfare is why. The King likely expects a decisive engagement here, a single battle to end the raid in its totality. The Orcs, as dumb as they are, aren't stupid enough to fall for that, and so they split up and harry behind their lines instead. The elves do the same. Saw it aplenty in Tardia."

Alanna frowned and slumped in her saddle, and Tatiana looked to her man for inquiry. "And how did you resolve it then, Talos? In Tardia?"

"We struck at the only static targets we could; we burned their homes down. That's rule number one in the book of warfare, really. There are no damned rules. I wonder how many peasants the King'll have to bury before he realizes that."

Tatiana pouted. She'd never read of that part of the campaign, but the thought process of young Talos made sense to her in a 'the end justifies the means' sort of way. Still, Talos wasn't giving the King nearly enough credit here.

"Well, we can't see the whole painting," Tatiana replied. "Perhaps the King is only-"

Talos turned his glare her way. She stopped talking.

There were reasonable times and places to play demon's advocate with the man, but this obviously wasn't one of them. She exhaled when he returned his gaze to the fore, and the trio rode on in silence for another half-hour as the howls of Orcs echoed over the hills on the horizon.

Tatiana wanted to take her mind off of it. Normally, she would look to Talos for conversation at this point. She could laugh at his dry jokes, or pretend to be angry when he teased her like he always did. They could speak of deep things that Talos had no right knowing, being the mundane man that he was. But Talos definitely wasn't in the mood at the moment.

She turned her gaze towards Alanna; the peasant-turned-sorceress that fate always seemed to smile upon. Tatiana simply couldn't believe it when she saw the ruby-laden ring on her finger. What in all the aetherius did she have that Tatiana didn't?

She bore a child for him, Tatiana gloomily thought to herself. But that wasn't enough for a ring, right? It's not like Talos was going to marry the Oracle next, right?

Oh, if only she hadn't ported her kitty back to Redstone. Dusk always loved her, even when she didn't have treats for him. But it wasn't safe here for Dusk. No. It was the right decision.

She then contemplated the logistics of reading a book on horseback. All she would need is a levitation spell, and perhaps some sort of potion to induce ocular stabilization. Wait! Perhaps she could stabilize the levitating book instead? It could bounce along as her horse did, so it always remained at the perfect level for reading! Superb!

Problem was, Tatiana didn't know how to make objects levitate, and she would need a book that she didn't have to learn how to do so. She sighed, then willed her horse to slow so she could ride alongside Alanna. Sure, she was a slut who had been fortunate enough to meet Talos before her, but at least she was a sorceress.

"Hey, Alanna," she faintly greeted her with a manufactured smile. The enchantress glanced towards her wearing a sullen frown.

"Hey," she murmured in reply. Alanna dropped her gaze, but then appeared to have recalled something and bounced back with a grin. "Wait, hey! What's up, Tatiana?"

"Oh, um, you know..." think of something! "th-that's a really pretty ring. That he gave you. I don't think I ever congratulated you."

"Oh, thank you!" Alanna beamed, fidgeting with the ring with her other hand. The girls let their horses fall away from Talos so they could have their privacy. "It was quite the unexpected gesture, let me tell you. It even has rubies, which are my absolute favorite stones."

Tatiana smiled. "It's really nice. It looks like your circlet," she softly replied. Alanna held her hand up to forehead as if to compare them.

"Right?! Who knew men could have such good taste in jewelry?"

"Well, we shouldn't give him too much credit. He only copied the idea after all," Tatiana dryly jested. Alanna gave her a confused smile, but chuckled after a moment.

"I suppose you're right," she said, looking at her hand again. "You know, he even had the jeweler cast an Obliviation Hex on the box so I wouldn't be able to read it on his thoughts. Isn't that so... unexpected?"

Tatiana nodded. "Definitely. It's almost too intricate a deception for your otherwise-forthright man to conjure."

Alanna giggled, "I'm sure it wasn't his idea. He probably walked in to the jewelers, put his hands on the counter, and said," Alanna took a breath and imitated a deep voice, "'hail mage, uh, I want a ring for my mate, uh, but she's an enchantress, uh, and uh, if you can't hide it from her with magics, then I'm taking my business across the street!'"

Tatiana couldn't help but giggle, and brought a hand to her mouth. "That sounds more like him. Could use some more 'uh's, though."

Alanna shrugged, laughing as well. "No soul can match his level of disfluency when he gets going. Anyway, I'm thinking of a wedding in the spring so I can have all the flowers. What do you think?"

I despise the idea with all my being, Tatiana thought. "That sounds like a great idea. I always thought it strange that everyone waited for Midsummer. Oh, just imagine how many more maids you'll have than his groomsmen."

Alanna smiled then, but it quickly fell away as she thought it over. "Yeah... hm. I think, um, I think that I probably won't have any maids but my sister. Talos doesn't have any male friends, or... any friends at all, really."

Tatiana pouted, thinking she may have said the wrong thing. She looked towards their man, riding twenty yards ahead of them whilst scanning his surroundings, and remembered something; he wasn't nearly as friendless as Alanna would have her believe. The man had a hundred and two purple strings traveling off to the west and to the north, towards civilization and all they'd ever known. They were faint and dreary compared to the pair of reds connected to the sorceresses riding behind him, sure, but they were certainly there. Tatiana sighed.

"Oh, I don't know Alanna. I think he's only forgotten where they are."

-=-=-

Talos decided on the most dismal location he could for camp that night; a burnt out farmhouse, still smoldering from a flame not long past. He buried two fresh corpses in the garden before he pitched their tent inside the barn, which was at no risk of collapsing by this point. His justification for picking the site did made sense, though; why would Orcs attack the same location twice, anyway?

Still, he wouldn't allow them a fire this night, and the trio silently ate a cold meal of jerky and hardbread as they tried to take their minds off of things. Tatiana was currently engrossed in a book titled The Great Hunt, which in retrospect was likely the worst book she could have brought with her. Luckily, Talos soon took her attention away from the tome.

"Hey, Tatiana. The Orcs; do you know if they're related to elves or man?" he asked her while he inspected his meteorite-steel blade.

"They certainly don't look like it, huh? Why do you ask?" she replied soft as rain.

He held his sword skyward. "Uh, my blade was blessed, you see, but only if it remained unstained by the blood of men or mer. I'm wondering if the blessing's gone."

"What childish nonsense. Talos, that's just pure superstition," Tatiana giggled. "There's no way a blessing works in that manner."

"But it was the Oracle that said it," he retorted with a shrug. Tatiana bit her lip, then looked towards her book to hide her idiocy.

"Oh. Well, um, there's no need to worry yourself. Orcs are very distant relatives to the elves, sure, but they were cursed by the gods thousands of years ago to be repulsive and daft. I'm sure that wasn't what the Oracle had in mind," she softly redressed.

"Good, good," he sighed with relief, sheathing his weapon. "Well, you two should get your rest. I'll wake you in six."

Sleep sounded wonderful to Tatiana. She was positively exhausted, but she wanted to sleep with Talos beside her. She shut her book and rose to her feet, but extended a gloved hand to cast a spell.

A softly-glowing circle of blue suddenly formed in the grass around her feet. She shut her eyes and willed the circle to expand, until it was so large it encompassed a hundred-yard radius around their campsite. The glow of the circle disappeared when she snapped her fingers.

Tatiana opened her eyes, finding Talos and Alanna looking on her with raised brows. "A Circle of Protection," she explained to them. "It alerts the caster to any bipedal movement that crosses its boundary. You can sleep when we do, Talos."

Talos groaned, rising to his feet with a creak of bones. "Tatiana, why are you only showing me this now?"

"Well, it keeps me in dreamsleep for the entire night, so it's somewhat draining. Though, I suppose the correct answer is 'we haven't yet needed it'," she softly answered with a smile.

"Shounds to me like she wansh you in our bedroll," the enchantress-slut mused with a mouth-full of jerky. She wasn't wrong, though.

Talos glanced at her, then turned his attention back to Tatiana. "You really think I'm going to trust a magic I've never seen before with our lives?"

Tatiana didn't reply with words; she pouted instead, a look she'd now perfected to get her way with Talos. He groaned in reply before turning to Alanna for support, who only pouted at him as well. He groaned again.

"Fine. I'm too tired to argue," Talos muttered, shaking his head in defeat.

The trio soon retired to their massive, shared bedroll within their small tent, where a mostly-clothed Talos laid betwixt his two sorceresses. There wouldn't be any debaucherous moment then like there had been in Tarin, though, since they were all completely drained by the day's events. They had all dozed off within ten minutes of laying down together, without incident from Orc or man for an eight-hour, dream-filled sleep.

-=-=-

The following morning the party rode ever eastward towards a small village known as Overton, which hosted one of the three available crossings over the river Topaz. Just like the day before, Talos offered her little distraction during the ride, and instead only scanned his surroundings and kept her safe. Damn him for being so diligent.

"So Tatiana, do you want to hear a story of my and Talos' homeland?" Alanna asked after a nigh-unbearable silence.

"Yes! Sure," she exhaled.

"Have you heard the one of Sir Robin and Lady Greta?"

Tatiana shook her head, keeping her gaze fixed on Talos in front of her. "Nope."

"Oh, it's a fun one," Alanna assured her. "So like, two-hundred years ago there was this handsome knight by the name of Sir Robin. Long blond hair, big muscles, and the bluest of blue eyes. Basically, everything you could ever want in a man."

"Hey," Talos groaned.

"Anyway, all the damsels wanted him, but he only had eyes for the Lady Greta of Evora, who he met when he attended a ball there. They danced and danced that night, and the pair caught the eyes of all the lords and ladies of Evora. He even wanted to ask for her hand in marriage, right then at the ball. But, the evil witch of Draynor's Leap attended the ball too, disguised as someone else. She was so very jealous of Robin and Greta's love, and so she hexed Robin with a curse; she told him that if he ever kissed the beautiful Lady Greta, that he and she would turn to stone!"

Tatiana rolled her eyes.

"The jest amongst the boys was that he should have just laid with her without kissing her," Talos interjected. Alanna shot him a glare.

"You can't do that, Talos! Anyway, Sir Robin rode out the next day to find a cure for the curse, but none of the sorceresses of Evora could help him. None of them could defeat the witch's magics. And so he rode ever onward, to Catriona, where he finally found a sorceress who told him that not only could she see the hex that cursed him, but that she could also defeat it. She told him she needed the eyes of a pink toad, the tongue of a winged serpent, and the feet of a two-toed wolf. And so Sir Robin rode ever onward, and somehow, miraculously, found all of these creatures in Falinor!"

"Mhm," Tatiana mumbled. Peasant nonsense.

"And so he returned to the sorceress of Catriona, who brewed him a potion to cure him of the curse, then he rode straight for the Lady Greta. He consumed it right in front of her, right in the gardens of Castle Evorus, and professed his undying love for her as all the city looked on. And as they embraced one another, crying tears of joy, they kissed! And then... they turned to stone anyway! For the sorceress Sir Robin had visited in Catriona was no sorceress at all, but the evil witch of Draynor's Leap once again! And you can visit the statue of them even now, right in the middle of the gardens of Evorus, where they will kiss for an eternity until someone can break the witch's curse."

Tatiana pouted. "That's a really sad story, Alanna."

"Well, I didn't make it up," Alanna warmly replied. "Talos, wasn't that how it went?"