Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Two — With Catlike Tread
Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Two — With Catlike Tread One of the soldiers tripped on some loose stones and his armour rattled as he caught himself against the cliffside.Bastion half-turned and made a gesture that I didn’t need my translation abilities to understand meant, “I said be quiet.”In the soldier’s defence, it wasn’t easy. We were walking more or less single-file along a path picked out by a few of the scouts. It wound around the cliff edge below the tower, mostly keeping to outcrops and nooks where someone looking from the tower wouldn’t be able to see our group moving.The tower did as towers do, and towered above us. It was quite a bit larger than I expected, actually. The building’s footprint must have been more than a hundred metres across, and it was shaped like a large octagon, with sheer walls only broken up by the occasional balcony that stuck out above.The entire structure was clearly made from the same kind of stone as we walked upon, though I imagined that there was some magic involved in its construction,seeing as it was so remote.Ahead of me, Caprica paused, then nipped into a depression against the cliffside where she set her shield down and took off her gloves. A moment later she was holding onto a long slip of paper.“Anything good?” I asked as I came closer.“Report from the Royal Pride. It’s beginning its run now. Let’s pray to the World that this works,” she said.I nodded along. “I’m sure they’ll take the bait. It’s big and juicy!”She snorted and pulled her gloves back on over her communication ring, then she picked up her shield and hefted it. “Come on, we still need to get into position ourselves.”As it turned out, our position was only a little ways away. The scout explained to us that it was the last point where we could reliably hide without being spotted by anyone who looked. Even then, the spot was rather tight with all of the sylph soldiers bunched in close to stay in the shadow of an outcrop.I didn’t mind so much; I got to bunch in close to my friends. “Do you think this will go well?” I asked.“It might,” Amaryllis said. “If we can move swiftly and with overwhelming force, things will go just fine, I suspect. These sylph are well-trained, I’ll give them that. Probably better than any common pirate rabble.”Awen shrugged. “Ah, I don’t know. But we have to try, right? If we don’t, they might end up freeing Rainnewt, and that wouldn’t be any good.”A pit opened in my tummy. I still hadn’t told my friends what Caprica had told me — that Rainnewt had already escaped. I probably should have, but there hadn't been a good time for it. We’d slept in a tent with walls thin enough that anyone could eavesdrop on us and we’d been walking since the morning.“Who’s this Rainnewt fella?” Calamity asked.“He’s a fool of the highest order and someone whose head can’t be separated from his body soon enough,” Amaryllis said.“Um. Rainnewt is a riftwalker who destroyed a bunch of dungeons,” Awen said. “But he also, ah, tried to start a war.”“A war between who?” Calamity asked.“Everyone,” I said. “The Trenten Flats, Sylphfree, the Nesting Kingdom, and even the grenoil down in Deepmarsh. He hurt a lot of people, framed innocent people, and basically did terrible things just because he was too lazy to find a more peaceful solution to his problem... our problem, I guess.”“Huh.” Calamity rubbed his chin. “Well, he sounds like the sort of person nya wouldn’t mind getting into a hunting accident with.”I shook my head. “No, you wouldn’t want that. He’s actually pretty strong. He even fought Bastion. Though Bastion’s a better fighter, Rainnewt is a lot trickier.”“He fought the Paladin?” Calamity asked. He glanced to Bastion who was talking to some of Caprica’s royal guardsmen at the moment. “Bet I could take him.”Amaryllis snorted. “Maybe if he was tied to a post, blindfolded, and wearing only what he hatched with.”I giggled at the mental image of Rainnewt covered in egg-goop. Amaryllis gave me a confused look, and I shook my head. “You’re cute,” I said.She huffed a very clear “I am no such thing,” kind of huff back at me.“This Rainnewt guy work for any country?” Calamity asked.“As far as we’re aware, no,” Amaryllis said. “It’s very probable that he’s an independent actor.”“Except that the pirates want him, so they have to have been working with him too,” Awen pointed out.“We’ll be taking care of them shortly enough,” Calamity asserted.Bastion cleared his throat. “Quiet down,” he said, voice a low rumble that still carried. A few of the soldiers had also been chatting, and they clammed up right away.I did the same, with a little zip-up-my-mouth motion that only had Bastion shaking his head in confusion. I guessed that zippers weren’t a thing yet.“Check your gear, weapons at the ready,” Bastion ordered, again in the same tone that wouldn’t carry far.Was Ventriloquism a Paladin skill?I checked on Weedbane while Awen loaded up her crossbow, Amaryllis checked the straps on her holstered dagger-wand, and Calamity strung his bow. His weapon was the most well-worn in our bunch, but he looked really comfortable with it. It was a simple wooden recurve bow, with only a few scratched-on flowers on the shaft as decoration. He set a quiver up against his hip with a couple dozen arrows within, each stuck through a bunched up piece of cloth to prevent them from rattling around.“Are you ready?” I asked.He nodded. “Never hunted pirates before,” he said. “A whole new sort of prey.”“Try not to hurt them too much,” I said.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.He blinked at me, then Amaryllis jumped in to explain. “She has a pacifist streak a flight wide. Even if the people we’re fighting are clearly criminals.”“That’ll make it a bit more of a challenge.” He paused, then grinned. “I like challenges.”We were interrupted by Caprica who spoke up from the middle of the formation. “The Royal Pride reports they have been spotted,” she said. “Just a few more minutes now and we’ll know if our plan will work.”The next few minutes passed like molasses through an hourglass. I fidgeted, then tried to stop because I didn’t want to waste any energy before we started.Suddenly, one of our scouts appeared from behind a rock. I hadn’t heard them moving at all, and I had the impression that I only noticed them because they didn’t mind being noticed.He joined the princess and the Paladin,speaking to them in low tones. We were just close enough that if I twisted my ears their way I could eavesdrop a pinch.“Ma’am, sir. I believe the pirates have taken the bait. Three of their ships are scrambling to cast off as we speak.”“Only three?” Caprica asked.“They might not believe they need more,” Bastion said. “Or, perhaps that’s as many as they can have ready on short notice.”“Three out of seven isn’t ideal,” Caprica said. “But I suppose they’d leave some guards behind for their hostages. It’s better than having to face off against the entire force, in any case. And it means less resistance for the Royal Pride. It might be able to outrun them.”“It also means fewer ships already in the air once our transportation arrives,” Bastion added.Caprica nodded, then turned her focus back onto the scout. “Alert us as soon as the ships have taken off. We’ll move then and try to time it so that our attack coincides with the ships being out far enough that we’ll have time to secure the tower before they can return.”“Yes, your highness,” the scout said. He snapped a quick salute, then flew off over the rocks with a buzz that faded almost instantly.“I guess we’ll be heading out soon,” I said. My grip on Weedbane tightened.“Don’t be so worried. We’re only facing rabble and pirates,” Amaryllis said.“I think I’ll be worried no matter what,” I replied. There was no reason to assume that these pirates weren’t going to be tough opponents. And our main priority was still finding and saving their hostages.“Buff time?” Awen asked.I nodded, happy for the distraction, then I pulled out my tea set. I didn’t have anything particularly useful, but I had one tea that could soothe the nerves, and so I prepared a quick brew of that. It smelled nice, and when it finally came time to share, I had a few soldiers looking at us longingly, so of course I shared.Then, once the third kettle of tea was gone, I stuffed everything away and started giving out hugs liberally. The buff from that was tiny, but it might still help, and sometimes everything counted!Plus, it was an excuse to hugs!Bastion perked up at about the same time as I was done snuggling all of my friends. “We’re heading out,” he said. “Stay low, move fast. Keep quiet if you can. Once we reach the tower we’ll be dividing into two groups. But before that, we need to secure an entrance. The scouts have determined the tower likely has only two entrances. We're going to use the one at the base of the tower; unfortunately, it's on the other side, so we'll need to circle around. Securing it will severely impact the adversary’s ability to manoeuvre.”Caprica nodded. “Once inside, our primary objective, above all else, is securing the hostages. So clearing the route from the hostages-wherever they may be-to the first floor will be our second priority.”“Our third,” Bastion continued right where she left off. “Is crippling the pirate’s operation. We don’t have the ability to imprison such a large group. That means that we need to make it difficult for them to operate so that a larger force can properly remove them as a threat later.”Caprica grinned. “Take out food supplies if you see them. We might be destroying whatever cisterns they have and piercing their fuel supplies as well. A small team will be sent to cripple their remaining ships. Cut important ropes, break flight mechanisms, poke holes in their balloons and ballast tanks.”“This is off the books,” Bastion said. “Officially, we’re not here unless this mission is a resounding success. For the moment, you are technically not soldiers of Sylphfree, but mercenaries working at your own discretion. That also means that we can’t afford to leave anyone behind. These pirates won’t play by the same rules as a proper army would.”“Keep yourselves safe,” Caprica said. I think she was really enjoying her byplay with Bastion. “Keep your brothers and sisters in arms safe as well.”The scout returned, perching next to the outcrop we were using for cover. “Ma’am, the ships are leaving.”I looked past him and saw that he was right, three airships were taking to the air. Two of them looked like naval ships, and I suspected they were harpy designs, the third and largest was all boxy and square.“Not all of them are Snowlander ships then,” Awen said. She sounded a smidge disappointed.“Good,” Amaryllis said.“Let’s move out, everyone,” Bastion ordered.We did as he said, filing out from behind the rock and moving at a quick jog towards the tower. The scout took the lead, walking a zig-zag route that was easier to follow up the cliffside.My heart was beating so fast in my chest that I could hardly hear anything else, even with all the ears I had. This was going to be something, and I wasn’t sure I was entirely ready for it.
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Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Three — Octagon
Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Three — Octagon The tower’s base was another octagonal ring, but this one stuck out a little, with archways leading up to a crenellated terrace maybe ten metres off the ground that encircled the entire building. That’s where the docks started. They were a series of long platforms, connected together and with wooden trusses rising from below to hold them in place.The plateau the tower was on had to be somewhat artificial, there was a wide space around the tower that didn’t have any large stones on it, and those on the edge were cut into as if someone had just... sliced through the stones without any resistance.“There are the guards,” Bastion said.“Five of them,” Caprica said after pulling her head back from around the boulder we had crept up behind.“Six,” Bastion said. “Four by the entrance, two above. There’s one in the shadows of those crates. Might not be a guard, but it’s another set of eyes.”I looked out myself, grabbing my ears to hold them down so that only the top bit of my head would be poking out.I spotted three guards near the entrance, with two more up on the top of the base, looking bored behind the crenelations. Finding the sixth took a bit of squinting, but he revealed himself when my eyes caught the motion of him scratching his nose. Just as Bastion said, he was half hidden behind a stack of crates.They were all human. Or close enough to human that I couldn’t tell them apart from this far out. For all I knew, they were catfolk like Calamity and I couldn’t see their ears from way over where I was hidden.“The scouts might be able to take one or two out before they’re noticed, but I wouldn’t gamble on any more than that,” Bastion said. “I’m open to ideas.”“We need to remove the ships from play as soon as possible,” Caprica said. “Whatever we do to reach the tower, we should have a team split off right away to sabotage their ships. We should probably avoid fire though, I didn’t expect the docks to overhang the forest at all.”The docks, unfortunately, did. Though in Carpica’s defence, it was on the other side of the rise as the one we’d climbed on. I guessed that they needed the additional space for some of the larger, missing ships.“We don’t want to destroy the docks themselves either,” Amaryllis added. “We can use them.”“Good idea,” Caprica said. “So, clearing the docks is a priority.”Bastion considered that, then gestured up the length of the tower. “We can’t do that if we don’t clear all the floors in the tower above the docks, or else someone could toss spells and stones down at us.”“Didn’t we plan on clearing it in any case?” Caprica asked.“We’ll try, but to do something like that, I'd prefer to have four times as many soldiers at my side,” he said. “Ideally, we’ll fulfil our primary mission objective and extract from there.”“Right, of course,” Caprica said with a nod. “So, how do we move from here?”Bastion’s eyes narrowed as he thought, then he nodded. “We have a few decently capable mages, including you, Miss Albatross. If they each pick a target and hit them all at once... it’ll be noisy, but some noise is better than someone outright sounding the alarm.”“I’m in,” Amaryllis said.“After that, we’ll grab those here who can’t fly and move up to the space above the entrance,” Bastion continued.“I am significantly less in,” Amaryllis amended.“It’ll be less guarded than the main entrance. Though I suspect the hostages will be kept below,” Bastion said.‘Because it’s easier to bring things down for them than up?” Awen asked.“Because you can toss things onto their heads for a laugh?” Calamity added.Bastion shook his head. “Because they have four guards at a door leading to nowhere in particular. It’s likely the exit nearest the one the hostages would use if they were escaping.”He turned after saying that, and then picked out five sylphs from the soldiers behind us. Two of them were the royal guards attached to Caprica, and the other three seemed kind of random to me. I guess he had a way of knowing who could do what, or he’d just read their profiles or met them or something.I was having a bit of a hard time remembering all of the soldier’s faces, and they mostly just called each other by their rank or by nicknames, which didn’t help at all in getting to know them.The five that Bastion had tapped moved to the front, and then he pulled Amaryllis closer too. After kneeling down, he started to doodle on the ground, and I recognized it as a top-down view of the tower’s front. He drew X’s where the guards were, then pointed to each soldier in turn and to one of the guards. “We must neutralise them before they can react. Use a spell that flies as fast as possible and is guaranteed to silence them. You’ll only have a couple of seconds to line up your shot on my command.”He allowed all of them to peek out for a second to see where their targets were, then all six of them started to prepare their spells.“This is interesting,” Calamity said. “We do something similar when hunting cockatrices.” He unshouldered his bow and pulled an arrow out from his hip-sheath.“What are you doing?” I asked.“Just in case,” he said with a smile.“Go!” Bastion snapped.Amaryllis was the first to duck out to the side while a soldier followed her, the other four jumped up above the stone we were using as cover.Six spells were cast in the same breath, beams of light, flashes of actinic electricity, and a few quick-moving blurs of mana all speared out towards the tower.“No!” One of the soldiers hissed.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.“See,” Calamity said. He bolted up the stone, planted his foot against it and jumped into the air.My friends and I rose to see what he was doing.Calamity nocked an arrow, aimed, and fired, all while still in mid-air and with the kind of grace that made the whole thing look like it was easy for him.Near the tower, five of the guards were on the ground, some shaking, some bleeding, and one covered in green goop. A sixth was still up though and running towards a bell on the far end of the entrance from where he was.Calamity’s arrow thumped into the guard’s knee, and he went down with a scream.“Move!” Bastion said.We moved.“Squad B, secure the prisoners, then rendezvous with us above. Squad C, carry the land-bound to the balcony above. Squad A, with me, we’re clearing the floor,” Bastion barked out commands so quick that I had a hard time keeping up.A sylph approached all of my friends, wings buzzing as they beat hard. “I’m good!” I told the one who moved over to me.A group rushed ahead, pulling ropes out of their backpacks which they used to tie up the pirates by the front entrance. That had to be squad B, then.I was nearly at the base of the docks, now. I started pumping stamina into my legs then hopped twice before launching into the air. The momentum was enough to catapult me up and onto the landing above.The sylph landed around me, and then they fanned out into a line, weapons out and eyes peeled for trouble. My non-flying friends were dumped next to me with a bit more speed than grace before squad C reformed into the line.“Alright, B, once you’ve secured the last prisoner, you’re on sabotage duty,” Bastion said. He gestured to the ships still moored in place. “Go make those inoperable. Squads A and C, you’re with me, we’re going to clear this floor, then work our way up. Squad D... that’s Broccoli’s Bunch, you’re working with Princess Caprica and her guards. Clear the bottom-most floors.”“Got it!” I said with a salute. I would have preferred squad B, for Broccoli, but I could live with being squad D.We would need to come up with a cool name for our squad. The Destroyers? The Danger... somethings? Yeah! And we needed a uniform, or maybe just some pins, and of course we needed a secret handshake.“Broccoli?” Amaryllis asked.“Oh, sorry, yes,” I said. “We’re going down, right?”“Yeah,” Amaryllis said. “I think Caprica’s in charge of our little squad?”The other sylph were moving out with alacrity, quickly following Bastion’s instructions with the kind of almost-janky motions I’d come to expect from soldiers who’d trained for the moment a thousand times before.Carpica nodded. “I suppose I do outrank everyone and I do have more training than most of you.” She glanced at her two quiet guardsmen, a pair of sylph men who’d barely spoken a word at all in the last couple of days. “I just wish we were squad C, for Caprica,” she muttered so low that I wouldn’t have picked it out without extra ears.“So, how’re we doing this?” Calamity asked. He tugged a fresh arrow out and held it pinched in the same hand holding his bow.“We go in now,” Caprica said. “Bastion’s squadron will clear this floor, so we’ll go down as soon as we can, then we clear every room we come across. Awen, Calamity, can you take the middle? Broccoli, Amaryllis, at the rear, and myself and my guards will take the front.”“Got it,” I said. I made sure Weedbane was folded up. It wouldn’t be handy while deployed inside of a building unless the tower interior was much more spacious than I expected.We moved in as a group through the large doorway into the tower, and I noticed something right away. The doorway was almost exactly as large as the corridor within. It was not spacious at all, with walls that were too close together and a ceiling that was a bit on the taller side. The frequent archways didn’t help any since they squeezed the space in a little and had some space behind them where someone could conceivably stand.“This place is weird,” I said as I glanced over the heads of my friends ahead of me. The corridor was dimly lit by lamps hanging from the wall and burning a bit of oil.“It’s built for war,” Caprica said. “Narrow corridors mean that one or two trained soldiers can defend an entire passage on their own. If the pirates had time to prepare, this is going to be challenging.”Fortunately, the corridor ended in a large room with a much taller ceiling. The room was octagonal, with doors into rooms along the edges and eight more corridors leading outside. The path down was right in the centre, a big stairwell that probably rose up through the entirety of the tower.Bastion’s squadron was already in the staircase, three sylph looking up, three looking down, while the rest of the squadron barged into each room, one at a time and checked it for pirates.I saw them dragging one pirate out of what was obviously some sort of restroom. The man was screaming into the rope they’d tied over his mouth and he was walking awkwardly with his pants around his ankles.I turned away before I saw something I shouldn’t. Poor pirate, being caught on the toilet of all places was just embarrassing.“We’ll stop anyone from coming from above,” Bastion said.“Thank you,” Caprica replied as she passed. “And the exterior?”“The scouts will report it if anyone approaches,” he said. “They’ll be acting as runners between the squad leaders.”“Understood. Good luck up there,” she said.“And you, Princess,” he said. Bastion gave her a rare smile and a quick salute.Judging by the flush on Caprica’s cheeks, she’d treasure that smile for a while. “Alright, let’s go!”
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