Chapter 15 - Council Meeting

Chapter 15

Salran Mountains, Starnor Imperial Border Territories

Village of Klareswasser

Airah opened her eyes, and for a split second she felt a wave of wrongness, then panic washed over her.

She wasn't in her lair. There was no question of that. The feeling of the air, the smells, the temperature, all of it felt wrong.

But first and foremost, she was in her human form.

As she began to awake further, she realized that not only was she in her human form, but she also was hugging some warm and soft.

She looked at the young woman she was holding, and the memories of last night came back in a rush.

Airah blushed furiously. As Stellyra had predicted she hadn't spent a lot of time sleeping that night. Especially as the hard life on the frontier had made the young lady -Elaine, was it?- very endurant. Not nearly as much as Airah herself, but still. And she had been very enthusiastic as well, not to mention experienced.

Airah carefully disentangled herself from the young woman, and got up from the bed. It felt odd to have slept in a real bed again. Not that she'd had much experience back in the Galactic Empire, at least during this memory cycle. She'd tried some physical beds sure, but suspension grav fields were much more to her taste.

She started looking for her clothes, and had just found the scattered remains of her armor -they had been very energetic last night, and it was hard separating her clothes from her partner's-, when Elaine stirred.

"Going already?" She said, softly.

Airah stopped, and hesitated.

"Well, the call of adventure and all that..."

She hoped the young woman wouldn't ask her to stay, marry her or something. She was pretty sure they'd both agreed that this was most likely a one night thing. Hell, Elaine herself had brought it up! She understood that she was an adventurer, unbound by her village, and more importantly that she'd do more good roaming the area and continuing fighting the good fight rather than staying there.

She heard the bed creak as Elaine got up, and felt her hug her waist from behind, the young woman's breasts pressing against her back.

"Yes..." Elaine whispered in Airah's ear. "But I think that can wait at least an hour, can't you?"

Airah felt Elaine's hands sneak lower, and bit her lower lip, debating with herself for a second...before turning around and kissing the young woman. She could spare a few hours.

*****

When Airah left the village, after some profuse goodbyes and laden with a fair amount of gifts, she had a spring in her step and felt better than she had in weeks. Hell, she was positively beaming!

That beam wavered a bit as Stellyra's avatar materialized, leaning against a tree as Airah went out of sight of the village. The AI looked very satisfied.

"See? Told you so." Said the AI, and Airah sighed.

"You don't have to play matchmaker, Stelly."

"I disagree. Besides, without me and my expert advice, you would never get your shy ass laid. Dare tell me you aren't feeling better than you have in days."

Airah simply kept walking. There was no point denying it, the AI was literally built to monitor her vitals and psychological state, among other things. It wasn't perfect but it wouldn't take a psychologist to diagnose how she felt.

"Look, I'm not going to brag or anything." Said the AI as she began walking by her side. "But you need to loosen up a bit. This a new world, with new norms. I mean hell, you saw it yourself!"

Airah winced. She had. The young people during the party had been very...forward and explicit. Much less circumspect than even in the Galactic Empire, which already had been a nation far more liberal and relaxed about such things than any other on Earth.

She understood that she was very desirable as well, not only in terms of physique but also status -local hero, plus the mysteriousness of the adventurer from far away-, but it was still a bit odd. She had tried to never reveal her credentials to anyone she wanted to date back home before they'd actually started. A single experience of being swarmed and quasi stalked at the beginning of her memory cycle had left quite the mark. Thankfully that was more or less usual, and the security team the Empress had around her during her first decade of any cycle had kept the more insistent ones at bay, and evacuated her.

"Alright, fine, I get it." Airah shrugged, and smiled sheepishly. "I guess this just felt a bit odd, that's all. Now, where do we go next?"

"Back to the bandit camp would probably be a good idea. We never looted theirs remember?"

Airah smacked her face. Right, she'd completely forgotten, what with everything.

"Alright, let's see what they've got!"

*****

"So, light on equipment, but heavy on currency. That's...unusual for bandits." Said Stellyra as she looked over the camp.

Airah hummed in agreement as she started stashing away the purses and bags of currencies they'd found. She'd have to enquire what the hell the conversion rates were at some point.

"They might have just been back from a run to whatever fence they use."

"Or they might have specialized in kidnappings and selling off slaves."

Airah nodded.

"Or that, yes. That would explain why they attacked the siblings. They weren't exactly laden with goods after all."

"Yeah."

Airah gave the camp another once over, before sighing and closing the bag of holding.

"Alright, I think we're done here. What do we do with the rest?"

There was a fair bit of miscellaneous equipment she hadn't bothered taking. Most of the tents and bedding, various trinkets, ect.

"I'd say burn it down, but the fire could spread up to the village. Let's just leave it here. Let other bandits stumbling upon it think some of their fellows looted it."

Airah nodded. She hadn't...exactly been subtle in her looting either, even using her sword to slash grimy pillows and bedding in case there was stuff hidden inside of them, a trick she'd picked up from Lenna's men during the raid on the larger camp.

"Well, time to leave then." She made her way to a clearing a decent distance away, turned into her dragon form, and took off.

*****

"My lady. We cannot just rely on that...Airah, to help us. We must act."

Lenna turned around from the window, and looked at her assembled council.

Stavros, of course, her ever loyal guard commander, who had served her father before her. Damek, her financial advisor and prominent merchant, whose dark purple skin betrayed his dark elf ancestry. And finally Malcom, her seneschal and general right hand man, who had just spoken up.

There were, of course, a handful of aides and guards scattered throughout the room, but those were generally ignored by the council. Still, she exchanged a quick glance with her maid, Milia, who served as her personal secretary. Most people simply ignored her, and took her as little more than furniture, which had been the last mistake of a great deal many nobles back when she'd been an assassin. Fortunately Lenna's mother had proven a tougher target than most, and offered to spare the assassin's life, if she were to watch over her daughter.

"I agree Malcom. The question is, what can we do? Our resources are too limited to conduct a full search of the forest. We cannot simply stay on the defensive, as we will die from a thousand cuts. But without a target, we cannot attack. So tell me, besides Airah, and her unique advantages, what can we do?"

Malcom sat straighter, and Lenna sighed internally. He wasn't a bad man, he truly wasn't. But he was a member of the old guard, and still believed in many ways which had long passed.

"We should call upon the Emperor. Ask him to honor his oaths, and send us aid."

Lenna sighed physically this time.

"Malcom. The Empire today is not the one you once knew. The Emperor cares little for the plight of the Frontier, and is too busy defending his throne from pretenders, and keeping the great nobles from tearing each other apart." She shook her head. "Had it been the time of my parents, I would have agreed, and Imperial troops would have surely poured through the train station, and we would have crushed those bandits in a heartbeat. But you know how our last requests for aid have gone."

Malcom winced, and nodded.

"Still, I suppose it is worth a try, if nothing else." Lenna nodded at Milia. "Prepare a letter for me to sign, addressed to the Imperial Bureaucracy. The Emperor might care little for us, but maybe some in his government remember their duties."

"Yes, milady." Said the assassin in a soft voice.

"As for the rest." Continued Lenna. "The best we can do is organize convoys. The bandits have stopped attacking freight primarily, and have begun just taking prisoners in general. That is a great threat, for a lot of our riches come from our hunters and foragers. Any ideas?"

Stavror rose.

"I do, milady. Roving kill squads, made out of small groups of elite soldiers, able to quietly move through the woods, if possible spearheaded by locals familiar with the terrain." Lenna rose an eyebrow, and the commander chuckled. "Not, perhaps, the most effective or legal of solutions, but it will look like we are doing something, and it will give the villages a small detachment of trained troops to rely on. If we randomize when the squads are out as well, we will induce uncertainty in the bandits, and might force them to be more circumspect, out of fear of having a squad stumble upon them at the worse possible moment."

"That...has merit. Make it so. Anything else?"

Damek leaned forward, his golden jewelry flashing in the light of the rising sun. He was covered in fine clothes and jewels, and Lenna wondered once again how many people realized that all of that ostentation was a deadly disguise. She knew that Damek had once been an adventurer himself, and a powerful enchanter. Each of his amulets, bracelets, and other trinket were carefully enchanted, military grade weapons, capable of unleashing streams of fire, scouring winds, and forks of lightning. His rings alone probably contained enough firepower to take out an entire infantry platoon.

"While the convoys would help with the economic situation, I was wondering if perhaps we should contemplate announcing the presence of a great dragon here, or at least lay the groundwork." He opened his hands. "After all, great dragons have always been a source of great protection and economic prosperity for the areas under their protection."

Lenna sighed.

"We talked about this. Only if Airah wishes for us to do so. Currently she wants to keep her presence quiet, and we shall oblige her. We do not, after all, want to anger the living war machine. So far she has been friendly, even acting as our ally, and I would very much like to keep it that way." Lenna shrugged. "As for laying the ground work, as long as you keep it quiet, and I mean very quiet, you may. But be discreet, above all else, understood? Push comes to shove we can scramble to prepare, but I'm fairly sure we won't be able to repair our relationship with her if we slip up and let the truth of her presence out."

"Of course milady."

Malcom nodded.

"Speaking of which milady. It might be a worthy consideration to look into ways to strenghten the barony's bonds with our new ally."

Lenna rose an eyebrow.

"You mean besides bribing her and helping her whenever possible? I'm all ears Malcom."

"Well...with the matter of the succession up in the air, and her apparent celibacy, we could take out two birds with one stone. And the offspring of dragons all inherit potent power from their sires. Dragonic bloodlines rule the magic academies for a reason."

Lenna spluttered, and blushed furiously. She knew she had some effect on the dragon -she wasn't blind-, and vice-versa, but she wasn't about to throw herself at her for political convenience!

"Divines, no!" She shook her head as Malcom opened his mouth. "No, and that's final. I'm not going to throw myself at her for political convenience, even to settle the succession, or ensure her loyalty."

The seneschal nodded, and Lenna glanced back at the window to regain her composure.

"We might have to consider that the bandits are not operating a vacuum as well." Continued Malcom, after an awkward few seconds. "The Republic has never been shy about their claims to the valleys, and Kaisergrenze itself. They might be offering some form of support to the bandits, besides fencing their goods I mean."

Lenna nodded.

"That's a possibility we have to consider as well. We might need to try and capture the leader of one of the larger bands, and interrogate them."

"They won't break easily." Interjected Stavros, and Lenna snuck a look at Milia.

The assassin's eyes were colder than the deepest ice of the arctic.

"They won't. But they will break." Said Lenna. "We just need to grab one alive. And we happen to know just the person to help us, don't we?"