Lament of the Fallen

Since the two were at least nominally allies and Noyala was supposed to be helping her, Dee explained the current situation in as much detail as possible. The Sidhe woman showed her sharpness by asking several questions that Dee hadn’t even considered, and some that she didn’t have an answer to. Only one of the questions was really problematic though, and made Dee berate herself for not thinking about it herself before Noyala mentioned it.

“So did the grandmaster give you anything to prove your authority in the field in case you do need to take the life of this general? Written orders, a symbol of authority, anything?” Noyala asked. “Because if he didn’t, then what do you think the reaction will be from the troops if you suddenly behead their general and try to assume command? Even if they won’t try to put you in chains, which I assume would be wasted effort, they would at the very least stop in place to get a word back to the headquarters to confirm your claims. That would delay the whole thing.”

Dee grimaced at her own short sightedness at this. Something like this should’ve been within her calculations, but once again she was living proof that just because the mind of a psion works faster than a normal person’s mind, that didn’t mean they could not make mistakes out of ignorance or cognitive bias. Matters of authority had never been a worry for Dee. For the entire time she had been on Pantheon it had been clear who she had to take orders from, all the way from Lord Malik while she was an assassin, to Razark now that she was a scout in the Radiant Sun. Someone pretending to have authority that they didn’t wasn’t even a possibility she needed to consider.

During the time she had spent in training with the order, she’d had to lead a group of other trainees on some exercises, one of the few times she had held the authority. But that authority was given to her by the instructors just before the exercise started, in front of everyone. Thus there was never a point where someone questioned that authority. On a few occasions she’d held authority because of her strength, as happened when she went to help with the evacuation during the rift incident, but there her power was obviously on display so no one would question it.

She had killed people often in the past and it never even occurred to consider whether she had the authority or right to do so or not. Mostly because assassins didn’t have such authority. That was the whole point. That’s why they worked in secret. As a result, she’d never been in a position where someone would even think to question her authority to command or take a life. She knew of the possibility of something like that happening on an intellectual level, but couldn’t connect that happening to her. Who would ever do that anyway?

There was also the matter of something being rational. Dee was a very rational person, if you didn’t take into consideration the times her draconic heritage made its presence known. On some level she assumed other people to behave rationally as well, and expected them to do the rational and logical thing in most situations. This despite the fact that she knew better and often took advantage of their lapses in judgement. She’d seen enough of the world to know people acted irrationally. Yet when she was presented with a new situation, her default instinct was to assume the other people involved would make rational decisions as well.

Somehow it didn’t even occur to her that someone would be so irrational as to question her authority if she took the action of killing the general and taking her position. Obviously no one would be stupid enough to just bluff such authority, so the logical choice was to assume it to be true. Trust but confirm. And yet, that would most likely not be the case if things really played off if Dee had to take the general’s life.

Luckily for the both of them, one of the runners used by the order approached her before they got far from the keep and handed her a set of papers. One of them carried the orders of the grandmaster, granting Dee the authority they had just been talking about. Another one of the papers was a letter penned by the grandmaster, which basically laughed at Dee for forgetting such a thing. Apparently he had not forgotten. It also ordered Dee to keep the orders secret and safe unless they were required. If they were not, Dee was to make sure to burn them to avoid misuse, not that they really could be misused as both Dee and General Luthana were named in the orders.

Another thing included was directions to the specific gathering point where Dee needed to go. Those Dee had at least remembered to find out from the clerks at the keep, but written instructions were still nice. If the order had gathered and deployed all those soldiers from the headquarters directly, everyone who cared to look would have noticed what was going on. Even with precautions most communities that cared enough to find out knew that something big was going on, but at least their exact destinations and plans were secret.

The forces used for this operation had been divided into twenty separate armies, each deploying from a different location. Those locations were scattered around the Day city, partially because the order was drawing forces from different chapters instead of deploying entire complete chapters, which would leave areas controlled by the order unprotected. The place Dee’s group was deploying from was in the south part of sixth circle, covered by the 2nd chapter. The chapter in charge of the east side of the Day city, the 1st chapter, would of course provide the most forces for this operation, but this army was drawn from the 2nd.

As all the teleportation gates of that particular city were currently busy deploying the order’s troops, Dee had to make her own portal to get there. When they did arrive with Noyala, the duo immediately noted the orderly ranks of the order marching through the gateways. The troops made it through the gates relatively fast due to the fact that they were all going to the same place, and the mages employed by the order were helping with keeping the gateways open for longer periods of time. Nevertheless, it took a lot of time to move this many people, another thing that was made a little easier with the force being divided into smaller armies. There was still at least seven hundred thousand troops waiting for their turn, and big portion of them weren’t even in formation yet. And why would they be, considering it would take hours before their turn came.

“It takes a lot of coordination to move this many people, and even more so coordinating the movements of all the separate armies.” Dee voiced the thought that suddenly occurred to her. She had never really realized what was required for the movements of such large groups of people.

“And that’s not even considering supplies.” Noyala confirmed with a small smile. “That’s one of the reasons many high ranking communities give up on the idea and just focus on using a handful of stupidly powerful individuals. It’s not that a well-trained and large army can’t combine their powers and resist the attacks of a rank nine or even rank ten being. It’s just that it takes infinitely more effort to move and train such armies. Theoretically, if you could get enough people together, they could even stand up to a rank eleven immortal with their combined powers. The problem is that the one immortal can move around so much easier and faster and doesn’t require a huge commitment of resources and supplies. That one immortal can run rings around such huge armies and take them apart piece by piece, or strike at places where that army isn’t situated.

“There’s also a limit to what the combined weight of numbers can accomplish. Eventually an immortal can hit a point where they can simply wipe such armies out no matter how many stand against them. It’s not that an army of people can’t have an equal amount of power; it’s simply that an individual will always be better at using that power. That’s why it’s not done usually. That’s why the true battle strength of a second circle community is most often made up of less than a hundred people. They have more people that take part in battles of course, but the real do-or-die battles are resolved by the elites. Communities like the order are rather rare in the grand scheme of things.”

After a moment of observing the moving army, Dee spotted the person she was looking for. General Luthana had just exited one of the buildings near the gateways, along with some senior staff that would be coming along through the gate. Dee gave a small signal to Noyala, and the two started moving towards the general. Dee did nothing to hide their approach, so the guards surrounding Luthana and her staff noticed them easily. They saw Dee’s attire and recognized many possible reasons for her to be there, but Noyala’s presence was a little odd so two of them moved to intercept, though without drawing their weapons.

Luthana recognized Dee from a distance, which wasn’t hard as Dee wasn’t hiding her appearance and her tails were rather distinctive. She waved the guards away. “Let them through. We’ve been expecting her.”

Dee made a small salute while wearing a wry smile. Despite what she might be forced to do in the near future, the two had gotten along during Dee’s training. “General. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Dee, it’s good to see you. The grandmaster sent word we should expect reinforcements, and he didn’t disappoint.” Luthana greeted the approaching Dee, who wasn’t hiding her level of power. The people couldn’t tell her exact strength, but they could make an educated guess at least. “It’s also great to get a reliable scout with us considering where we are going. Information is power after all, and the centaurs are known for their mobility.”

Dee had idly noted the lack of scouts among the general’s staff. That could be because they were already busy scouting the area around their destination, but usually at least one of them would stay with the general to parse through the reports which were usually sent in code in case it was intercepted. That meant that the scouts were for some reason not taking an active role in this army at least. A curious situation.

One of the male officers walked up. “That would mean she is to be under my command then?” The male human asked rather stoically.

General Luthana was about to answer, but was pre-empted by Dee. “Actually, the grandmaster ordered me to become the second in command for the general.” She decided to push her luck a bit outside the orders. “Specifically I’m still only under the command of the Blade Razark and the grandmaster, but I’m nominally placed under the general for the duration of this mission.”

Luthana’s eyebrow rose a bit. “That seems like an odd arrangement. It’s not very good for the army to not have a clear chain of command.”

The other officers agreed with Luthana, and were making a bit more stringent objections about someone suddenly coming in to give them orders. Dee just smiled a little before answering. “Don’t worry, I’m not here to give any orders to mess with you. You could think of me as a free agent of sorts. I have my own orders, but I’m also here to help and provide assistance when required. And to observe. The grandmaster seems to think me worth developing and I’m here to learn what goes into leading an army by observing one in action.”

Noyala stepped up at this point and interjected with a smile of her own. “She’s too reserved to admit it, but it’s mostly a matter of power. Both of us are significantly stronger than anyone here. It might be a bit hard to admit but the two of us represent pretty much the biggest military power the order can commit without actually sending a Blade along. It doesn’t really make sense to put us under the command of an officer clearly weaker than us. We are here in case the enemy can throw something really nasty at us. Of course we will defer to the judgement of the general at the scene unless it is an emergency we need to react to immediately.”

Noyala’s words at the same time put the officers in their place, and softened the blow by providing a plausible reason why they were not under the senior staff’s command. The Sidhe woman clearly played off of Dee’s words, and she did it that way because she liked the direction Dee had decided to take it, even if Dee didn’t quite drive the point home well enough. This also provided a possible explanation for the future situation where Dee might have to assume command. They were on a special assignment. Of course they had special authority. It also discouraged the general from doing anything stupid by putting her on notice without actually making any threats or revealing their purpose here.

“Well, you’ve come a long way in the past three years Dee. I knew you had potential, but I didn’t realize just how quickly you would grow into it. Though thinking back on it, maybe I should have suspected this. Still good to see you here, even more so if what the lady Sidhe said is correct. We’ll be moving through the gate with the next batch. I would prefer it if you did as well. I know your scouting abilities, and it would be better if you started gathering information as soon as possible.” Luthana said, maintaining her attitude. She was genuinely glad for Dee’s progress, and didn’t mind the specifics as long as Dee could do her job.

Dee made a small gesture of agreement. As the two moved away from the general’s staff, Dee had to ask. “You know, I never did ask you how strong you were. I think it might be useful to know if we’ll be spending time together. I’ll also have to know what we can take on. I can somewhat fight with a rank nine warrior on equal basis, though the victory isn’t guaranteed. I’m a class eight psion in case you didn’t count the tails.”

Noyala pursed her lips a bit. “I’ve always thought the ranks to be a little subjective, but officially I’m a rank eight mage and a rank seven warrior.”

Dee gave a small whistle. “Well then. I guess you were right. We could deal with higher ranked threats. I thought the Sidhe were supposed to stick to one thing at a time? This may be forward or me to say, but you certainly don’t look old enough to have maxed your potential either as a warrior or as a mage.”

Noyala laughed mirthfully. “You’re not wrong, but you’re not entirely right either. The martial path is considered to be one single path in its entirety. Or at least I consider it to be such. Otherwise it would make me too one dimensional. Besides, there’s a limit on how much you can do to train as a warrior or a mage at one time without giving time a chance to do its thing. As you know, a person’s powers grow with time, and there’s only so much training you can do while waiting for that to happen. The two methods of training also support one another. In reality I’m much better as a mage than a warrior, but I trained my body and my weapon skills between the mage training sessions. There are also some benefits to being a Sidhe, since we’re naturally strong.”

Dee certainly understood that, as she had herself trained in multiple things at the same time. Sometimes one training took time from the others, but she was a much stronger person overall thanks to spreading her time a bit. Still, the fact that Noyala had become a rank seven warrior essentially on her free time was something to keep in mind. Dee herself wasn’t the only being capable of rapid progress in multiple fields. “Something worth noting. They didn’t ask any questions about your presence.”

“That would be because you alluded that you had special orders. They assumed those orders have something to do with the Sidhe and I’m along because of that. They also know they wouldn’t get an answer if they asked about your special mission. They know there’s something going on between the Winter court and the order and assume I’m here representing the court.” Noyala laughed. “Hide a big lie inside a half-truth. Something very commonly done in the seasonal courts.”

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In the end it took almost the entire day to get the army through the gate, though the first units started moving towards their destination as soon as they had gathered on the other side. It was impossible to move more than a million soldiers in a single group so even this army was divided into smaller parts led by their own officers. Every division had a certain amount of autonomy of movement, as was the order’s doctrine, but they would quickly gather when faced with a larger threat.

This army had come out amongst some ruins in the mountains north of Craghold. For Dee it would take a day and a half at most to traverse the distance, but it would take several days for the whole army. In fact the army would not even try to move faster due to the need to coordinate with the other armies. They were relatively lucky in the fact that they could use a gateway to get this close to their target, but many other armies had to traverse much larger distances. The main strategy of the order was to pincer the centaur forces from multiple directions, and then form a protective perimeter on the elven border. Some armies had to move large distances to get to the center area covered by the centaur spell stopping spatial magic.

Of course this army would not wait weeks for the central forces to get into position. They would instead push the centaurs towards the center and then converge on them when the other armies had arrived. Still, their army couldn’t move too fast, or that would ruin the plan. This of course made Dee fairly grumpy as it delayed them from helping Razark, but she did understand the necessity. That said, she would do her damndest to move things along and to give the centaurs something else to think about.

She and Noyala moved ahead of the army to eliminate the centaur scouts and patrols. Nominally this was done to deny the centaurs information on their numbers and approach, but Dee did her best to make sure none of the centaur scouts in the general direction made it back. The void of information would make the centaurs worry, and if one of their number stumbled upon the gruesome scenes of death, they’d find bits of centaurs scattered over the area as a warning to not come back.

Dee had many advantages when it came to locating the centaur scouts that many others didn’t. She could sense the mana or ki in their bodies, and she could sense their minds in the Mindscape. Noyala was less proficient at locating the scouts, but she was very good at silently eliminating them, and Dee had to give her grudging respect at the Sidhe woman’s ability to stay undetected. Those skills were not enough to hide from Dee, but again she had her special means. Noyala had more than enough skill to hide from the centaurs.

It was only a matter of time before the centaur warhost started sending larger groups to check the nature of the danger in the mountains. First a dozen centaurs together, and later on groups of hundreds. The two worked out a system where Noyala would assault the centaurs with her magic and Dee would get rid of any stragglers that survived the first contact. Even with this the two couldn’t be everywhere, and eventually word of the approaching paladins got back to the centaur warhost. Luckily this was late enough that the army was almost out from the mountains.

At this point there was no longer any point in hiding their presence, so Luthana ordered the army to move at the fastest possible speed towards Craghold. The distance between the two armies was short enough that the centaurs couldn’t utilize their trademark harassment tactics in the short time it took to close the gap. There were small skirmishes where the centaurs struck quickly and pulled back to avoid retaliation, but the paladins were experts at defense and protecting their own so losses were nominal at most.

Dee watched with interest from her elevated position as the Radiant Sun’s army took their own position on the field opposite of the centaurs. There would not be any real battle today as the light was already fading, but the two armies would most likely meet on the field tomorrow. The city of Craghold was in a sorry shape. There were several breaches in the walls and much of the city was in ruins as the centaurs had rushed the gaps in the walls and set the buildings on fire before being pushed back. Even the stone houses burnt when subjected to magical fire.

Razark had not been idle either. The centaur summoning arrays were no more, and Dee could see deep gashes and craters where they used to be, with centaur mages' corpses littering the devastated areas. That was most likely recent as the warhost had not yet claimed their dead for burial by fire. There were also a fair bit fewer of the centaurs arrayed outside the walls than there had been when Dee had left. She could also feel Razark’s presence in the city, and had felt him for days now. No doubt he had noticed their approach as well. Things were about to get interesting.