Queen Yavara Ch. 40

Part Twelve: Losses

Chapter Forty

BROCK

"...put your arms forward like this," I instructed the little imperial scout, "then, when you're at the precipice, you want to open them like this," I motioned my arms outward, "and you'll just glide over the top. Did you get that?"

"W-w-w-what?!"

I rolled my eyes. "Practice it with me, little imperial. Ball." I crouched and hugged my knees, "Arrow." I shot up with my hands together overhead, "Eagle." I finished, spreading makeshift wings. "Ball, arrow, eagle. Ball, arrow, eagle. Ball, arrow, eagle. There, it's not so hard. Now, put these on, and this, and... oh, and put this on." I said, dropping a suit of heavy orc armor, four bags of sand, and a berserker helm.

The imperial gawked at what I'd laid at his feet, then began to put it on. The orc armor was much too big for him, even though it was the smallest I could find, and it rendered him unable to pick up the sandbags. I tied each fifty-pound sack to his torso and legs, then put the helm on him.

"There." I said, stepping back to admire my work, "Can you raise your arms?"

Shaking with the effort of it, the imperial managed to raise his arms, and the contraption flared like a fan from his armpits. It was my own design, and I was quite proud of it.

"Weight distribution's off." Trenok muttered beside me.

"Won't matter." I grunted, picking up the elf, "Once he's airborne, the only direction that matters is down."

"AIRBORNE?!" The imperial squeaked.

"You must be new to this sector." I chuckled, and placed the elf in the carriage of the catapult.

He tried to scramble out of it, and I palmed his entire head, and pushed him back in. "Remember," I said, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder, "ball, arrow, eagle. When you get over the top, pull this cord," I handed him the cord that looped into the contraption, "and the parachute will engage. Many of your comrades have died so that you could succeed, little imperial." I gave him a grave look, "Make sure that their sacrifice is not in vain." And I pulled the lever.

He flew across the sky, tumbling in his ball shape.

"Come on..." I growled, watching him grow smaller before the imposing wall of the Highland Rift.

"He can't open his arms." Trenok grunted.

"He'll do it." I muttered. The little ball disappeared before the grey rock wall, then reappeared above it. "Arrow!" I shouted as though he could hear me. For a moment, the ball stayed the same, then I saw his arms struggle against the wind and weight of his armor, and become an arrow in the sky. "Eagle!" I yelled, and his arms opened, the wings catching the wind. He soared even higher, clearing the edge of the wall, his resplendent silhouette catching the sun to gleam like an iron bird in the sky. "Pull!" I cried in delight. He pulled the cord, the parachute unfurled, and the straps broke. He fell a hundred feet, flapping like a bird, then he crashed to the ground with a boom that could be heard across the meadow.

"Yes!" I roared victoriously, "Success! How do you like that, Trenok?!"

"The straps—"

"THE STRAPS CAN BE MADE STRONGER!" I yelled over him. I snatched the mirror at my hip, drew the sigil on it, and palmed it. Field Marshal Shordian came into view.

"Did you see that, old man?" I laughed.

"Have you run out of boulders to hurl at me?"

"Have you run out of boulders to hurl at me?" I laughed, "I'll have thousands of orcs flying over your head in no time at all!"

"An interesting choice of ammunition."

"They'll float like a feather right on top of you."

"Our archers could use the target practice."

"Your archers can suck my dick!" I roared, and palmed the mirror again.

Trenok smirked at me.

I scowled. "I don't need that ornery old bastard ruining my day."

"He's right though. His archers would only have to punch holes in the chutes, and the whole thing goes to shit."

"Attack at night during a siege and use the flying orcs as support. They drop into the fort when everyone's distracted and wreak havoc from the inside."

Trenok puzzled over the ridgeline. "If you think this will really work, then you would have to be the one to lead the raid. That is, assuming the queen ever gives you the go ahead."

"Yeah..." I grumbled.

A score of boulders suddenly ascended from atop the ridgeline. I sighed, and braced myself against the catapult. The rocks rained down on us, smashing into the ground, occasionally creating an explosion of timber when they struck an engine. They fell behind us, before us, and beside us; too great a range to run away from after launching a salvo, and too random to worry about becoming a target. It was a game of chance, and I was getting bored of it.

"Did you talk to her?" Trenok asked.

"You know she won't budge. Even as our losses mount, she refuses to change tactics."

"That's not what I was talking about."

I frowned at Trenok. "Now's not the time." I grunted.

"When will there be a better time than when you're the Froktora of a horde at war? You'll never be more important to her than now."

"Something you need to understand about women—"

"I'm married."

"So that makes you the fucking expert?" I growled, "Something you need to understand about women, is that emotional circumstance is everything. She's really stressed as of late, and—"

"I can smell your vagina from here."

I shoved a finger in his face. "You used to live in my nuts, boy, and don't forget it."

"Did I take them with me when I moved out?"

"I've popped skulls for less." I growled.

"Did you pop your cherry for more?" He sneered. I looked down at his feet. They were spread in an easy stance, but the weight was shifted on the balls. A rock struck a catapult twenty yards away, but the screams of the fallen barely reached my ears.

"You know that the Froktora is not inherited." I said.

He nodded with a smile. "And the tribes mean nothing anymore, but I've been training since I was ten to kick your ass one day, and I will not be denied that birthright."

I snorted, a smile coming across my own face. I pulled the daggers out of my belt, and set them on the ground. "Fwelok!" I yelled over my shoulder, "Do you stand as witness to this match for succession?"

"What?! Right now?!" He yelled, huddled behind his trebuchet.

"Right now!" I laughed, and tossed my axe off my back.

Trenok disarmed himself, and kicked off his boots. I kicked off mine, and we stepped away from our catapult as our ogre loaded another boulder into the carriage.

"Gods pray this goes better for you than that bout with Adrianna." I sneered, matching his stance step-for-step.

"Gods pray that it doesn't end the same for you." Trenok laughed back, then charged me. Fuck, he was fast. I barely had my weight shifted in time before he was grappling with me, his iron grip clutching my shoulder, mine doing the same. Our heads butted, our brows locked, and we snarled with tusked grimaces as we lurched for position. I was still stronger, but he could adjust faster, and before I knew it, he'd used my momentum against me. I toppled to the side, corrected to a roll, planted my hand into the earth, and spun upright with a sweeping kick aimed neck-high. He ducked, threw himself forward, and tackled me to the ground. My head struck the earth with a concussive shock, and my blurred vision caught the sight of Trenok raising his fist overhead, ready to deal the ending strike. I drove my knee into his groin, and sent him careening over the top. I jumped to my feet, ducked his flailing backhand, and scampered back, my fists held before my face.

"Bitch move!" Trenok gasped, bending with pain.

"I'm just preemptively kicking my grandson's ass." I laughed, "Might as well, seeing as how you fight."

"I'd retaliate, but I'd hit nothing but an empty sack!" Trenok roared, and rushed me. I pivoted on my back heel, dodged one jab, and was struck squarely by the following hook. The shock of the blow sent me spinning backward, and I had to summersault just to keep from sprawling. He was on me before I could even catch my bearing, assaulting me with blow after blow to the body. I caught one strike between my forearms, dropped my weight, and forced him to lurch after me. Before I could put him arm in a bar, he'd planted his heel on my chest, and kicked back. His wrist was wrenched free, and before I could clamp down on his foot, he'd pivoted off me, and sent a sharp kick right to my ribs. I grunted with pain, and let the momentum carry me upright.

"Fuck!" I gasped.

"Did you really think I was going to let you take this fight to the ground?" Trenok laughed, backing off until he was five yards away, "I felt something crack there, didn't I?"

"You just knocked it back into place." I grinned, failing to disguise my hobble.

Trenok grinned broadly back. "I got you, old man."

"Oh, you do?" I laughed painfully, "Then why don't you come over here and finish it, you little shit?"

Trenok pivoted, took one step forward, then charged. There was a flash of movement, and I was blown backward. My body was showered with soil, my eyes were filled with it. I was wet. I was hot. I rubbed the muck from my face. There was a boulder behind me. It was rolling away, its surface black with soil. Black with blood. It was sprayed all over me. There was a hole in the ground five yards away. I scrambled to it. I looked inside. There was a mess of dreadlocks and a body of tattooed flesh. It was flatter than parchment. Pieces of shattered skull and brains were blown along the side of the crater, guts and ruptured muscle were splattered from their fleshy constraints. I sat back from the lip of the hole, and watched the rocks ascend into the sky from the Highland Rift.

"Chief!" Fwelok yelled, "CHIEF?! Oh god, Trenok!"

I shouldered him off me, and walked away. As the boulders crashed to the earth, and the soil shot from it, I made my way to the edge of the marshlands, and pulled out the mirror at my hip. I drew the sigil, and palmed the glass.

"Brock," Shordian sighed, "are we done throwing rocks at each other for the day?"

"Trenok's dead." I muttered. My voice sounded like it was coming from someone else.

Shordian's face hardened. "And?"

"And... I guess I'm going to kill you." I said, "I... guess I thought you should know."

Shordian just nodded. No humor on his face this time.

"Goodbye." I said numbly, and palmed the glass.

ELENA

Leveria had kept me sequestered in her tower for five days since the assassin struck. Though she'd made sure our time was wasted well, it was still wasted, and I knew she was doing it for more than my safety. While she was free to play the game of nobles, I was left alone in the high tower and put under constant watch. We went to court together, and Leveria made a point of keeping me by her side for all the nobles to see. Who had I run to when my life was in jeopardy? Why, the queen, of course. While that wasn't the truth, the perception was all that mattered, and it made Lord Feractian's barons cautious when I tried to approach them.

"They're worried about your closeness to the crown." Sofia whispered, glancing over her shoulder as the nobles shuffled out of the court, "The queen's been making such a stink about insisting that the assassin was a Lowlander, and the rhetoric scares them. Are we to make enemies of both Alkandra and the Lowlands?"

"She's just trying to weaken the value of Ternias's Lowland backing."

"But she has nothing to counter the offer!" Sofia hissed, "All she is doing is distracting the court from the real issues! Feractianas is in rebellion, the Night Wolf has slaughtered three more villages in Feltianas, and the Jonianas grain stores have been burned! The others are getting desperate, and in your absence, Ternias has gained their favor!"

"Distracting the court is all Leveria can do." I said gravely, "Yes, our people are suffering greatly, but Ternias's plan to attack from South Fort is suicide! Let Leveria blab on about assassins; anything but the stupidity coming from Ternias's bench."

Sofia rubbed her shoulder nervously, looking over at the Feractian section. "Have you heard about the rebel leader?" She asked, "The one called 'Esmerelda?' They say she was raped in front of her father by a Feractian tax collector. Now she wields an axe like a barbarian, and... emasculates any Feractian bannermen she takes prisoner."

"That's not exactly a great military tactic. Good luck getting people to surrender."

"There's a rumor that she's trying to petition the Dark Queen for aid."

I laughed. "Yavara would think it's sacrilege to remove that many penises from the world."

"So... you know nothing of it?" Sofia said, giving me a critical look.

I raised my brows. "You think I must be involved?"

"It's just fortuitous that Feractianas is being consumed by rebellion, and you may be the only one who can help them."

"Don't mistake good fortune with conspiracy."

"And Yanas Feltian's absence from the court?" Sofia asked with a raised brow, and motioned her head to the empty Feltian seat, "I've heard that the stories of the Night Wolf's horrors have driven the poor man nearly to his death bed. Not to mention the ongoing disasters occurring in Lady Jonias's province."

"It's war, Sofia." I said, though I was uncomfortable with her analysis. I had thought the same things myself at times, and wondered in my darkest moments if telling Yavara about the nobles I needed had been a mistake. But no... Yavara could never be so callous. Zander though...

I glanced at the six barons conversing around Feractian's section, "Can you make an arrangement with them tonight?"

"Will you be able to fulfill it?"

"Yes, I promise." I said, and glanced back at the empty seat in Feltian's section of the court amphitheater. "When will Percian arrive?"

"Any day now. I have told him about you, and he's very anxious to meet with you." Sofia said, still studying me carefully. I doubted Sofia would judge me too harshly if she suspected me, but though she was a cold pragmatist, she was still a good and kind-hearted woman, and I wanted her to think the same of me. Of course, until she learns you betrayed her.

"Good." I said, nodding to myself, "Meet me at my house an hour before our guests arrive, and we'll... prepare."

The suspicion left her eyes, replaced with an excited glint. "I shall be there punctually, Lady Straltaira." She sauntered away, strutting so that her hips swayed dramatically in her noble garb. She glanced over her shoulder to see if I was looking, and I made no attempt to hide it. She smiled to herself, and walked out the door.

I sighed. Now I just got a figure out a way to free myself from Leveria.

LEVERIA

When I got out of the shower, Elena was gone. I was about to call for Sir Raftas when I saw that the window was open, letting in the cold fall air. The bedsheets had been taken, and one was knotted to the leg of the bed, while another was knotted to that sheet, creating a rope that disappeared out the open window. I leaned out, and looked down at the terrified hybrid desperately clinging to the first few inches of her escape line.

"How cavalier of you." I smirked down at her.

"Fuck off."

"Scared of heights?"

"Fuck off."

I leaned on the windowsill. "It's like a scene from a romance novel. You're the dastardly villain here to steal the virtue of the bare-breasted maiden princess, only her father has interrupted us, and now you must flee down a cord of bedsheets still rank with our lovemaking." I looked past her, "I was in the shower for twenty minutes. How have you only gotten this far?"

"Fuck off."

"The balcony's only fifteen feet down. Of course, the ground's three-hundred feet below that."

"Fuck off."

"If you jump that way, you might hit the water instead."

"Fuck off."

"Just scoot down the rope, Elena." I giggled, "Didn't they teach you that in ranger school?"

"Fuck. Off."

I squeezed my tits together, and loomed above her. "Come back to bed, Baby."

"You can't keep me in there."

"Has five days of unending sex with the one you love been so terrible for you?"

"My penis has friction burns."

"I know that's not true. I'm always so wet for you." I purred, and extended my hand, "Come on, Elena. Stop this nonsense."

She looked hopelessly up at me. "Leveria, I need my independence. You're not keeping me safe; you're keeping me prisoner. Don't make me resent you."

I chewed on my lower lip to mask that it quivered. "Don't make me lose you."

"Then don't hold on so fucking tight."

I reached out, took her hand, and helped pull her back into my room. I held her for a long time, trying to imprint the memory of her flesh onto my own. Eventually, she had to separate us, though I was pleased to note that it was a struggle for her.

"Leveria..." she said warningly.

"Fine." I said, "but if you die, Elena Straltaira..." I touched the pearl necklace that rested upon her chest, "...we had a deal, remember?"

She laughed, her freckled nose crinkling. "You're the worst person in the world, you know that?"

"You think I'm joking?"

"No, and for some fucked up reason, that's why I love you." She said, raking her fingers through my hair, "But Leveria, we both know that you'll be the death of me."

And she left me with a kiss burning on my lips.

YAVARA

I pinched the bridge of my nose, and massaged away the threatening migraine. When Leveria had told me the assassin was a Lowland agent, I almost tore down the Ardeni palace. That was, of course, undoubtedly what she would've wanted, which is what gave me pause. I wouldn't put it past her for a second to fabricate an attack on Elena just to get me to react rashly. It seemed very convenient that I would be in Ardeni Dreus and on the mirror with Elena when the assassin decided to strike.

"Maybe I'm just paranoid." I sighed.

"A healthy level of paranoia is a good thing for a ruler to have." Zander replied. He'd gotten back last night from where ever he'd been.

"I wish I could get Elena the fuck out of there."

"If Leveria hasn't killed her yet, she won't now." Zander said, "Elena has proven herself to be quite adept at making herself invaluable."

"For now." I muttered, looking at Bentius on the map of Tenvalia. My eyes drew east, over the Alkandran Horn, and to Ardeni Dreus, "King Dreus supports Ternias because Ternias will never make peace with me. He sees Elena as an existential threat to his kingdom. I wouldn't put it past him to send a killer to Bentius."

"What about to Alkandra?" He asked.

I shook my head. "He wouldn't risk it. Killing Elena in Bentius would give him a lot of plausible deniability, and no assassin is fool enough to go after me."

"Alkandi said the same thing."

"I'm better than she ever was. My healing expunges all poisons, my shield deflects all blades, and my mind can read from a thousand yards away. Unless Dreus or Leveria has a Creator on their payroll, I doubt I'll see an assassin's hello."

Zander extended his hand, and touched the bare flesh of my throat with his index finger. "Trust is more dangerous than even a heathen god, my queen."

Brock walked into the tent, and sat down beside Zander. Zander withdrew his finger, and placed it upon the map. "The Highlanders are doing an effective job concealing their formations from aerial surveillance," Zander said, "they have protections spells everywhere keeping us from infiltrating their camp. We can only gain information from our assault teams. Brock, which sectors are showing the least amount of resistance?"

Brock's black eyes stared vacantly ahead, then slowly fell upon the map. "None of them show any resistance." He said numbly, "They kill us all the way up the cliffside, then flee before we summit, and fire upon us from range until we climb back down."