PRIVATE HESIA OF THE HIGHLAND ARMY
"...I'm telling you, you're safe if you don't put the helmet on." Alex said to me. We were stationed in the Crescent, a part of the Rift that bowed inward. It was the safest part of Sector Two, as the inward bow would funnel enemies into a crossfire. After being part of Droughtius's fifth division and getting absolutely smashed at the Battle of the Tundra, it was nice to just man a wall. There'd only been one assault of the Crescent during the entire stalemate, and we'd repelled them before they got halfway up. All-in-all, I considered myself pretty lucky to be there. Those poor bastards near South Fort had to deal with warg riders every day, and those near Mid Fort had to deal with a constant barrage of siege engines, but those of us near North Fort didn't have much to deal with at all. That was, until four days ago when the Dark Queen made her proclamation.
"Bullshit." I answered Alex.
"It's true!" He insisted, "Paulan of Bertia's Seventh told me that every man in his platoon got up one at a time, and walked right off the cliffside, except those without their helms on. I'm tell you, the metal amplifies her magic signal. She can't get in if you don't wear your helmet."
"That makes no kind of sense. It ain't how magic works, Alex!"
"The fuck you know about how magic works?"
"My daddy used to help clean the labs at the academy. He saw all the weird cultic shit those mages do, and he knows how magic works. See, magic is like a—"
The warning whistle screeched out, and we shot upright, searching the sky.
"There!" Someone screamed.
A faint dot on the southern horizon ascended from the orc ranks, shooting into the sky like it was pulling her upward.
"Go south." I whispered, "Come on, you bitch, go south!"
The dot disappeared into the overcast sky. We waited. The ballista crews cranked back their mighty bows, and slowly swiveled upward and toward our own line. She never attacked from the front. Then again, she never attacked north to south either, until she did. She never attacked men with shoulder armor, she never attacked the cooks, she never attacked the mages. I'd heard every fucking story, every man who thought he'd cracked her code, and they'd all turned out bullshit. One man was even convinced that if he walked around naked, that he'd be fine. I ended up cleaning his limbs off my tent later that day. No, the only code I could find, was that there was no code. No pattern. It didn't matter who we were or what we did. It was random. Complete chance. All you could do is pray that she got her thousand before your number came up. Then all you could do was worry about tomorrow. I hadn't slept in three days. I hadn't eaten hardly at all. My mind drifted from exhaustion to panic in a second. I wondered if I might just stumble off the cliff on my own in an insomniac delirium.
"She's going south." Alex hissed, his voice tight, "If she's up there for over a minute, it means she's going south."
In that moment, I chose to believe him. We stood there, our bows nocked, watching the grey morning sky for an eternity. A dot appeared overhead. The whistles screamed out.
"Get ready!" Captain Vician roared.
I pulled back on my bow. The mages ignited their hands with spells. The ballistae groaned as they adjusted their aim. The dot got bigger.
"On my word!" Captain Vician called, his voice tight and quaking.
My arms were shaking. My palms were slick. The tension didn't seem tight enough on the bow; how could I shoot in time?! Shoot between the heartbeats, but my heart wasn't beating, but vibrating in my chest! I couldn't see right. Was there one dot, or two? My mouth was too dry. I couldn't shoot with a dry mouth! The dot got bigger. It wasn't slowing. It was rocketing toward us, a shining missile sent from the heavens. A man shrieked and shot his bow too early.
"Fucking hold!" Vician screamed, his voice pitched high in panic.
"Run!" A man screamed, and sprinted away.
"Hold!" Vician screeched. The dot got bigger, and bigger, and smashed into the earth. I was sprayed with red and pink. I looked at my feet. It had been a light infantry general by the sigil on his armor, but which one, I would never be able to tell. I gawked at the mangled corpse before me, then looked at Alex.
"No helmet." I said, tapping the dead man's bare head.
"Shit." Alex gulped. He strapped on his helmet with quivering fingers, shakenly grabbed his bow, then turned around, let out a shriek, and sprinted off the side of the cliff.
A ballistae commander stood up suddenly. "No!" He screamed, "Someone pull me back! Pull me back!"
The corporal next to him grabbed him with one hand, and held onto the ballista frame with the other. The commander pulled out his axe, and chopped the corporal's arm off, before leaping backward off the cliff. A second later, the shrieking corporal sprinted after him. Men ran everywhere, some diving for cover, some simply making a break inland to get as far from the cliff as they could. It didn't matter. One by one, they went sprinting at full-tilt off the side until only I was left in the platoon. There was a whoosh, a blast of wind, and the Dark Queen landed ten feet away from me. She assessed the Crescent with a satisfied smile, then turned to me.
"What's your name?" She asked.
"Lucius Hecia." I said, my throat so dry.
"Lucius..." She tested the name in her mouth, "you must be from the—"
"DIE YOU BITCH!" I shrieked, and loosed three arrows as fast as I could. I actually caught her by surprise, for she flinched when I screamed. But the arrows just bounced off her, and by the time I got a hold of my short sword, I could no longer move.
"Wow," she said, "that was an interesting change of pace. Usually when I'm giving these monologues, the survivor just stands there wondering if I'm going to kill him."
"Why did you spare me?!" I snarled.
"You're lucky number one-thousand-one." She grinned back.
"But why me?"
She stepped toward me, and stopped so close that I could taste her breath. She extended a finger, and poked my nose. "I really like this nose. It's pronounced. Proud. Regal. Some people think a big nose is a bad thing, but it can be quite striking if it's shaped right. I believe the Highland population would benefit if more elves—who are notoriously subtly-featured—had pronounced schnauzers. What I want you to do, brave Lucius Hecian, is to take off that armor, put down that sword, and walk that way." She pointed west. "By the time this war is over, there will be a huge gender tilt in the Highlands. I want you to shoot your big-nosed genetics into as many Highland maidens as you can. In a hundred years, I expect to see many big-nosed high-elves, or I will be very disappointed. Do you understand me?"
"You want me to abandon the army?"
"You charged the Dark Queen. What more do you have to prove?" She laughed, "No one is going to chase you. No one can even see you right now. I killed every man within three miles of here. Chances are, by the time you reach the first Highland village, the war will already be over. So, you can either walk that way," she pointed west, "or that way." She pointed east, where the cliff was only six feet away. She released me from her spell, and I dropped my sword, threw off my armor, and waltzed westward without a look back.
ELENA
The sun was in its mid-morning position. In the distance, I could see the silhouette of Castle Thorum standing proudly before the Great Forest. It was strange how foreign it felt. It had once been home, and it had once been hell, but now it just seemed like some monolithic memory, an illusion atop a distant hill that would disappear if I blinked. I turned my attention back to the hole in the ground. Huntiata's men sat in clusters around the excavation site, and Xantian's few bannermen watched us suspiciously from a hundred yards away. At this point, it didn't really matter if Ternias knew I had bought Huntiata. There was nothing he could do about it.
"Any news?" Huntiata growled, stepping beside me.
"None." I replied coolly.
"We've been here for two days."
"There is no map of the mines, nor any knowledge of how many tunnels there even are. We were given a window of their expected arrival, not an exact date. You can leave if you want."
"You think I'm going to leave a million gold pieces to these fuckers?" Huntiata grunted, nodding toward his own men. "They'd rob you, rape you, kill you, then throw your body in the hole."
