FIELD MARSHAL SHORDIAN
I was groggy the next morning. Battle always took its toll the night afterward, when adrenaline and terror had eased from my body, and pain took up residence in their wake. I stepped from the citadel, and out onto the ruins of Mid Fort. Usually, I would have to take a few downward steps before crossing the threshold to the courtyard. Not today. The bodies were piled five-feet-high, and even higher along the walls. Thousands were dead in this small spot, no larger than three tennis courts laid adjacently. The defenders had poured from the citadel, the attackers had poured from the south wall, and they had met here, and here, they had learned the truth of war. It was nearly a religious experience. I was there when we lost all sense of ourselves and became nothing but terror and wrath. There was a strange and terrible joy to abandoning everything that made you who you were, and to commit yourself to death.
I surveyed the courtyard, my eyes running all the way to the gate. There she was, waiting for me. She nonchalantly opened and closed the gate while my mages desperately tried to hold it fast. The archers rained arrows on her, the engineers loosed their ballistae, and she yawned, letting the projectile bounce off her shield.
"Hold!" I growled. My men ceased their frantic defense, and I carefully stepped through the new floor of bodies until I reached her.
"Field Marshal." She said.
"Your Highness."
She proffered a mirror from her hip, and handed it to me. "I told you I would give you this back."
"And so you have."
There was a silence between us. She floated over the wreckage she'd left of the causeway, and drew her eyes across the battered fort. "Congratulations on your victory, Field Marshal."
"Should I thank you?"
"It would be the polite thing to do."
"Thank you, Your Highness."
She cracked a smile, her impossibly-luscious lips opening to reveal sparkling white teeth, her orange eyes laughing about her pointed nose and high cheeks.
"Did I say something funny?"
"No, it's just strange. You know a secret that could turn my army against me, but you won't speak it, because it might force me to do something terrible."
"Will you tell me why you did it?"
She laughed derisively, "Love, probably. I don't really know why I do things anymore. Every day this war drags on, I hate the Highlands a little more, and I had so many fond memories there. 'Had' being the operative word here, as my present disdain has tainted the memories somewhat. Isn't it funny how that is? Those present moments were filled with nearly two decades of experience, and all that time amounts to just bitterness right now. Perhaps it will change."
"I've found that looking backward has very little use. Reflection is for those who can't act anymore."
"I suppose there's wisdom in that." She mused, then looked me over, "Do you want to have sex?"
I coughed, but managed to maintain my composure. "I'm afraid I must decline, Your Highness."
"Pity. You're a very interesting man, and I would've loved to get a measure of you."
"Is that really how you gauge a man?"
"Big, small, curved, straight, cut, uncut, veiny, smooth; the parts don't matter as much as men think they do, but a fellow as utilitarian as yourself undoubtedly knows how to use what he's got. I'm a hoarder of experiences, and I bet you'd be a unique one."
"Why did you come up here?"
"To give you back your mirror. Obviously, you and Brock won't be talking anymore."
I looked at the fractured mirror in my hand. "Why won't you and I be talking then?"
"We're talking right now. I prefer to talk face-to-face." She looked over her shoulder at the vast orc line below the Rift. "Zander brought the division commanders to me today so that I could select one to fill Brock's position. None of them could. And so, there will be no Froktora. I will lead the army now, and since orc leaders must be the first into the fray, I will be personally attacking you every day."
My throat went dry, but I did not show a reaction. I could feel her probing at my brain, and though she certainly could've taken control of it, I would not let her read my thoughts. She smiled. "So well trained. Tell me, how many men do you have alive?"
"Seventy-thousand."
She burst into laughter. "Field Marshal, please. I'll get the information from someone else if I need to."
"Less than forty-five thousand."
"And I double that even with my losses. In a month, I'll have triple."
"And? I know your game now, Your Highness. You're not here to invade the Highlands."
"No." She said softly, "I am here to kill every soldier on this wall." She said louder so that all could here. When she spoke next, she projected her voice with her mind, and every man within sight could hear her seductive whisper as she said,
I will kill a thousand each day. You will not know when it will come. You will not know where it will come. You will not know how it will come. Your best friend could stab you in the back. You could be compelled to leap to your death. You could burn in a great gout of flame. You could be tossed a thousand feet into the air. If your queen does not call for peace within forty-five days, every single one of you will die. I promise it.
A silence proceeded her proclamation, the echoes of her voice ringing within our minds. She looked upon the ranks behind me, savoring the terror she saw. She looked back at me, and grinned wolfishly. "Starting... now."
ELENA
The tone of the Noble Court was drastically different than the day previous. It didn't benefit Leveria or Ternias to read the battle report, so I did, trying to keep my voice dispassionate. "The enemy casualties are as follows: an estimated three-hundred who tried to summit sector four, fifty who tried the South Fort causeway, between seventy and ninety during siege exchanges, and seven-hundred dispersed between sector one and sector three in a large, but ineffective assault. Friendly casualties are as follows: fifty-three in siege exchanges, then exactly forty-seven men walked one at a time off the wall. Two-hundred men then systematically killed each other. Three-hundred men were picked up individually and thrown hundreds of feet into the air, and four-hundred men exactly were burned to death by fireballs sent from the sky. The exact total of deaths is one-thousand."
The familiar drone of the nobles' whispers followed, though it was more akin to a panicked buzz. Lord Ternias was the first to break it.
"Cheap intimidation tactics!" He yelled, "There are ways to repel her! She is not invincible!"
"Would you care to share your knowledge with the group, Lord Ternias?" I queried, "Or will she be repelled by your bluster?" I turned to Leveria, "You said that we would outlast the hardships the winter would bring, but our army won't even make it through the second winter month.
Till victory or death?
It sounds like the choice has been made for us."
"Should we bend at the first sign of a challenge?" Leveria asked, "Yesterday, the enemy was humiliated and broken at Mid Fort. Today, they have retaliated in force to try and regain their morale. The Dark Queen is not invulnerable, as we all know. If she continues to put herself at risk, eventually she will make a fatal mistake, and this war will be over. How many of the men she killed were mages? Ten in total. She fears attacking our magic users. Field Marshal Shordian will adjust tactics, and this terroristic campaign will come to an end."
"And if it doesn't?" I asked. "What will you all say if we convene here a fortnight from now, and a third of our army is gone? The Dark Queen is not fighting the war herself. Every man that dies is a hole in the line, and the more that die, the harder it is to fill the holes when the orcs climb the cliffs."
