AO 4 Ch 4

Melida wanted a miracle, and I was in agreement with her.

We likely needed one if we were going to survive the onslaught of soldiers. It had been an absolute fool's errand for us to try and hold the fort against an entire army on our own.

Yet, here I was once again, playing the fool. Thoughts circled in my head as I tried to think of an option.

We were in the fort proper, and there was no way they wouldn't just collapse the whole thing on top of us, saving themselves the trouble of fighting us in close quarters where numbers wouldn’t matter.

After all, they had enough earth mages. They could just rebuild the fort. It was so much easier being the attacker where you could destroy everything at a whim. Being the defender and trying to keep everything up was far harder. 

With that idea in mind, I blinked and looked at Melida. "Just how much do you trust me? How long can you hold your breath?" 

"What the--?" She paused. "You know what? If I have to hold my breath, then I can do that. Based on everything I've seen from you, do what you need to do." 

I glanced at Maribelle. With a look, I ripped her soul out of her body, stuffing it into Soulgard before I pointed behind me. A bolt of lightning zipped to the mass of soldiers flooding into the fort.

The soldier didn't even hit the ground before I had stuffed Maribelle's soul into him. He got up, and death magic rippled off of him as his sword stabbed into his neighbor's face. 

I turned to Melida. "Quick, to the escape tunnel!" 

"What the fuck are you talking about? There's no escape tunnel." Despite her comment, I grabbed her hand and pulled her around the corner. As we moved, the earth opened up before us, and we fell into the cellar of the fort. Aurelia had Maribelle’s body over her shoulder, and Brusset stabilized Melida as he landed in a heavy thud. 

"What now?" the large man asked. 

"We go on the attack," I said with a grin. The ground opened up underneath us again, swallowing us into darkness. Zuri had a blade held in the air, casting light around the earthen cell that I had made for us. 

"You do realize they have enough earth mages. They will find this pocket." Melida gestured around. 

"Well, it's a good thing we're not going to stay here." I moved the block underground through layers of stone and dirt. I had discovered that moving this much earth for very long was not something a normal wolf mage could do with their magic. This was me showing off just how much earth magic I could tap for a prolonged period of time. 

Melida looked at the moving earthen wall. There was a pulse to it as I was constantly pulling earth from in front of us and wrapping it around back, keeping up with a slow, steady walk. 

"And what exactly is your goal in doing this?" Melida asked. 

I pointed up above. "We were never going to be able to hold the fort against the army. They just have too many bodies to throw at us, even with the strategic force of the pass. Just the two of us," I pointed between myself and Melida, "just aren't enough." 

The older mage wrinkled her nose, but nodded. "I might have been a little boneheaded to try and defend it. So, if you aren't creating a miracle for defending the fort, what are you doing?" 

"We're attacking the fort." I gave her a giant smile, enjoying the reaction on her face. "You see, I was thinking about how much easier it would be if we could pick them off, if we could be on the offensive. So, that's exactly what we're about to do. Let them flood the fort with their people." 

"Oh no." Melida interrupted me. "You're going to collapse my goddamn fort." 

I held my hands up. "I built this one. I can build another.”

“You're going to destroy my fort, with the enemy inside." Melida rubbed at her forehead. "I can't believe you're going to destroy my fort. Again." 

"We'll rebuild it," I waved away her concern. "But collapsing the fort is not the first step." 

"Then what's the first step?" she asked. 

At this point, I felt Maribelle's soul rebound to me and I looked up through the moving cell of earth. In playing with souls, I'd been able to sense them and I sensed upwards for the brightest souls I could find. Those that would be radiating magic and belong to the mages that were the biggest problem. I threw Maribelle's soul up into the many bodies that lay in the pass, courtesy of all of the damage we had done thus far. 

"I'm working on that part as we speak.”

***

Maribelle opened her eyes but didn't move. The body Ard had thrown her into was incredibly weak. She could see desiccated bodies around her and realized he must have thrown her into one that had been killed earlier with death magic. Rather than attempt anything, she let life magic flow through the body, bringing it to a usable state while she assessed the situation around her.

"There aren't even ten people," a woman said. "Well, two of them appear to be powerful mages. Did you see what they did to the mountaintop? Not to mention, one of them was apparently a Vel'Shae."

At the mention of the Vel'Shae, Maribelle frowned, realizing that they had been separated from the magical juggernaut and the Zenovian mage. But that separation would be something for them to solve later. For now, she needed to be Ards knife, slicing through his enemies.

"Still, verse thousands, they don't stand a chance," the woman said. "We killed those suicidal anchors. They were disturbing."

Maribelle was offended, that woman was going to die a gruesome death for that.

The man seemed to agree with her. "Life anchors are always a little sick in the head. However, those were something special. I've never seen an anchor throw magic that far. Do you think Aventi has discovered a way to augment their anchors?" he asked.

The woman shrugged. "Let's not talk about that too loudly. Experiments with mages and anchors aren't something you want to put on his mind."

Even without a name, Maribelle knew who she was talking about. After all, all three kingdoms were discussing the King of Garrish and his experiments. Considering what they had just seen with Colin, she wasn't surprised that even his own mages were skittish of the king.

"We just have to take the fort and open up a line of soldiers that we can steadily dump into Aventi. I hear the king is busy with some new pet project," the man said. “Last thing we need is his direct attention once he’s done.”

At this point, Maribelle felt like she could take out a good handful of people with her newest body. However, she was gleaning some interesting information from the two mages.

"He always has a new project," the woman said. "And if you don't want to be the next one on his weird experiment tables, getting sliced, diced, and turned into a monster, then we have to take the fort. He sent one of those council members with us."

Maribelle could hear the distaste in the woman's voice and a shift in her posture as her voice became more distant.

"That one gives me the creeps," the man said.

"Better or worse than that Colin guy?"

"Better," the man said quickly. “At least he, I feel like, will just kill me. Colin, I always felt, just wanted to hear other people scream."

His voice wavered as he shivered. "When this is all done, I'm going to find a nice corner with some good farmland and I'm going to grow enough crops to feed a giant family," the man said. "And hopefully stay as far away as I can from any officer or whatever new batch of royalty springs up."

The woman laughed. "Not me. I will find myself some noble halfwit, pop out a few children, and make myself a nice gilded seat wherever the capital ends up."

Maribelle figured she'd heard enough. She didn't need to hear their plans for after the war.

Springing forward on all fours, she rushed towards the two voices, getting to her feet just as the man made a shocked noise, waving a hand at her for a ripple of earth to try and stop her. But she'd already kicked off the ground and grabbed both the mages, or at least she had tried to grab them. Her hand wasn't quite where she expected it to be, and she ended up punching the woman in the throat.

Causing her to lose all focus on her magic, too busy trying to breathe, while the man managed to create two spikes of earth that he drove into Maribelle’s other arm.

She whipped around, having to pay attention to where her hand was as she grabbed the man. Death magic rippled out of her palm, turning his skin black and causing his magic to falter.

The wounds on her arm and the earthen spikes healed over in moments. She punched through the man's fancy officer outfit and ripped his heart directly out of his chest. She spun, pulling the saber from the sheath at his hip, using his falling body to clear the blade. As she spun, she sliced a gaping hole in the neck of the sputtering woman. Again, she underestimated the reach of her current body and nearly hit the woman in the throat with the hilt.

That stopped her from cleaving the head clean off and knocked the woman to the ground where she’d bleed out. 

Whatever body this was, it had damn gangly arms, nearly half a foot longer than she was used to using. But she didn’t have time to correct the arms now. She appeared to be amongst officers and mages at the back of the army and quickly understood Ard's desire.

Magic flew at her from multiple angles. Rather than block it, she let ice and fire nearly tear her apart, all for getting the saber stuck in another warm body before ripping it out savagely and throwing the corpse into another. 

She was going for her third mage when a massive blast of light ripped her off her feet and threw her well over a dozen yards clear of the group of officers.

A man who looked like he couldn't have been over 40 stood nearby. But despite not being old, he had a sagging, hollow appearance to him, as if he had lost too much weight recently. He looked like he had been fat only months ago, but now he was nothing more than skin and bones. His skin dripped so much that you saw too much of his incredibly hollow eyes. As he lifted another hand, beams of light coalesced all around him. 

Maribelle felt herself snap back to the Soulgard, she shook herself out of that one. She felt Ard probe at her soul, asking if she was ready for another round. "For you, sir, I am always ready." She knelt and put a fist against the ground.

To be honest, she had always been treated as disposable by Carmilla. She trained for and understood how to be an assassin, one that focused on killing over survival. 

What Ard was sending her to do was well within her existing training and at the moment she knew she was an absolutely invaluable resource. The care and concern that Ard showed her after each time he sent her out was warming her cold heart and a reward in and of itself.

It almost made Maribelle excited to sacrifice herself once again, knowing that doing all of this would only make Ard dote and care for her more later. 

She grinned, sending Ard an affirmative, only to feel her vision snap back to a normal pair of eyes, feeling the warmth of a fresh pool of blood seeping out from her throat. "We might be able to save her," someone rolled her over and Maribelle groaned, quickly realizing the role she needed to play. 

"Save me," she rasped, holding on to the life mage that was currently attempting to resuscitate the woman she had just killed. 

"Don't worry, I got you," the mage said.

As Maribelle carefully slipped a dagger from his belt, he felt it and glanced down at her fingers, not nearly as nimble as she had hoped. Maribelle shoved the knife up into the life mage's chest, piercing his heart. As she held him by the shoulder, he sputtered, blood beginning to dribble out of his mouth. Maribelle used her own life magic to seal what was left of the wound on her neck. 

"Thank you, you helped me so much." She prepared herself.

With a burst of action, she shot to her feet, throwing the life mage at another, and hurling the dagger end over end at the strangely hollow looking mage.

The dagger slowed as it spun towards the mage, coming to a complete stop, the point resting just on his forehead.

Maribelle moved in a burst of action, touching two other close mages and pumping death magic into them. She moved close to two other mages and grabbed them by the throat, holding their bodies up between her and what she identified as the most powerful mage there. 

Searing heat slammed into her gut, and the two bodies suddenly felt lighter as their lower halves fell to the ground just as his beam of light had bisected all three of them. Maribelle flooded herself with life magic to stay alive a moment longer.

The mages and anchors around her scrambled at the sudden shock of another attack so quickly in the wake of the first. Mages were squawking, screaming at one another, trying to understand what was happening.

Amidst the confusion, Maribelle grinned. She knew she would be able to do far more as she felt her soul slip away once again, only to be shoved into another dying soldier's body.

***

"How long is this going to take?" Melida asked as I shoved Mirabelle into what had to be her sixth or seventh body, continuing to send her again and again after the Garrish mages. 

"Well, the good news is that the enemy mages don't have enough time to search for us." I gestured around us, the walls still rippling as I moved slowly underneath the pass. 

"Small miracle. The bad news?" 

"Though Mirabelle seems like she's having some success, she's still dying far too quickly," I reported. I continued to throw her back into bodies, checking with her every time. There was a determination within Mirabelle, though it seemed she had found an enemy that she wanted to kill. 

"Maybe we should send Emlyn," Aurelia said. 

My first anchor held up her hands in surrender. "Look, I don't mind the assurance of being brought back. But I don't think I can do what Mirabelle's doing and stay sane." 

Aurelia scoffed. "It's funny you think she was sane in the first place." 

Emlyn paused and tilted her head. "Fair. But we shouldn't talk about her behind her back when she's not here. Mirabelle and I have an agreement, and I would loathe for her to find that I wasn't holding out my end.”

“Care to share with the rest of us?" I asked Emlyn, my curiosity piqued.

"Nope." She ran a finger over her lips, as if locking them. "It's not in my best interest or yours for you to understand the deal that Mirabelle and I have. Just enjoy the fact that she would quite literally die for you dozens of times. She would do probably just about anything for you," Emlyn said. 

I knew Emlyn’s words to be true. All of my anchors were dedicated to me, but Maribelle was a particularly special case. Her particular brand of loyalty went far and beyond what most people would consider reasonable. The best thing I could do in return was to give back her loyalty tenfold. If she said she was okay, then I had to believe her. And if she had some deal with Emlyn, I was going to ignore it until Mirabelle told me herself. 

"Fine, but there has to be something I can do," Melida said, interrupting the banter between Emlyn and I.

"Well, we have a time limit here," I said, still moving the block of earth underground. "Because eventually we're going to run out of air." 

Melida whipped her head at me, frowned, and then realized what I had said was true. "Then how about we make a hole?" 

"Working on it," I said, "I'm trying to move us closer to the cliff face. Then I can open a decent-sized hole without being noticed." 

Melida nodded at that. "Meanwhile, you send the undying assassin at their people time and time again." 

"Pretty much," I said, "if I can whittle down their mages, then this all becomes far easier." 

While I didn’t like talking about it, I had now killed multiple times as a mage. But somehow, discarding the Garrish army, like their lives were nothing more than the core of an apple to be disposed of once they were no longer useful, was disturbing on multiple ethical levels. 

Maribelle died nearly instantly as I sent her back out, but I threw her out again. I scanned for the shiny souls of mages, but as I did, I realized there were far fewer than when we had started. But there were also significantly fewer bodies. 

Mirabelle rebounded again, and I stuffed her into her actual body as we came to the edge of the cliff. I made a hole the size of my head to give us some air. 

"What's going on above?" I asked.

"Twenty-three mages dead," she reported, wiggling out of Aurelia's arms and curtsying to me.

“However, they have started to destroy all of the bodies around them, realizing what was happening.” She frowned. "I haven't been able to kill the creepy one. The one with the sagging skin. He stopped even the knife that I threw at his head. He started to kill me quickly every time you threw me into a body. I think at this point he's just watching for one to twitch, only to annihilate it with light magic."

I stared up through the stone above us, seeing that one of the souls was an incredibly bright soul. I assumed that was the one comparable to an elder mage, and likely held a shard of the King of Garrish's soul, the one that Missy had warned me about. "Well, until that one dies, I don't think they will give up their assault. Most likely, he's in charge."

Maribelle nodded. "The first time I went up I laid still and listened. Your assessment is correct. They called him a counselor, and I can only assume with a title like that comes a decent amount of authority."

Melida clicked her tongue. "A sham counsel. Once upon a time, Garrish had a ruling council that led everything before the most recent king took up his throne. At this point, they all just nod and smile at whatever King Martin says."

I smiled. It seemed that Avente forces didn't quite realize just how much control King Martin had. According to Missy, the councilman's body above was nothing more than a shell being controlled by Martin. I imagined that would make him rather creepy for anyone to see, confirming Maribelle's description.

"All right then," I said, "if you are having too much trouble, then what we need to do is wait and let them flood the fort before we turn it into a giant tomb."

Melida groaned. "And destroy my fort yet again."

"I didn't destroy it the first time, and then I rebuilt it for you. It's like knocking down a sandcastle."

Emlyn rolled her eyes. "Only you would compare knocking a fort down to knocking down a sandcastle. It takes most mages a week to build one."

"I can't help it that I'm just outstandingly incredible, Emlyn. Though please feel free to continue reminding me."

Emlyn grunted, and I moved us along the cliff face, sensing for the fort, and also reaching out, looking for bright souls. There were some that were between basic footmen and mages. I assumed those were the anchors and mage-forged, but I continued to scan. I looked for Eva and Uncle Valken, not sensing them anywhere in the fort. I wondered if the Vel’Shae had already escaped with her, and just how far he would go. I didn't blame him for leaving. It was his responsibility to protect a member of the royal family, and her safety obviously came first. And if we were honest, it really was suicide to try and defend the fort. Which the Garrish were about to do while distrusting whoever stood next to them.

"Maribellele, I'm going to send you up a couple more times," I told her. She nodded as I threw her into another body, hoping she would at least be a passable distraction. Given the body I used was coming from far closer to the fort, I hoped it might pack a surprise.

I then grabbed onto the fort's walls, throwing them higher into the sky as stone erupted from the dirt, turning the fort into a massive trap.

There was some resistance on the wall, only for it to disappear. My assumption was that the mages were currently dealing with a rather feisty distraction. As the walls grew forty, fifty, sixty feet into the air, I then packed as much earth and stone as I could at the top of the wall, before bowing them inwards and taking out the foundation of the fort. 

Even underground, I could feel the rumble as the fort collapsed before the walls caved inwards and tons of stone hammered those below and shook the ground.

Melida shook her head next to me. "Can't believe we're going to have to rebuild it again."

The rumble of stone continued on for several minutes as everything collapsed, trapping and killing what I hoped was a large chunk of the Garrish forces. Everything went still in an eerie silence, even amid our earthen box underground, before suddenly everything shook and boomed up above. 

"What are you doing now?" Melida asked. 

I shrugged. "Oh, that wasn't me. Don't worry. I didn't build it and collapse it again."

"That's not nearly as reassuring as you seem to think it is," Melida said, glancing up. 

I too could use my senses, and what was causing all of the noise above was not earth magic. Rather, lightning seemed to be crashing down with unbridled fury above.