Chapter 227: Chapter 227
Remedios stared down at the demihuman, a spriggan scout, it towered over the tallest humans, its limbs flailing about, two or three grown common men were struggling to hold it in place. Their heels dug into the dirt, and still it dragged them as it pulled its arms against the ropes.
'Stupid. They should have used metal chains, they shouldn't have dropped their guard when the light left its eye sockets… they fell for the trick, but won't fall for it twice.'
She held the torch down from where she sat on her horse, and jammed it against the spriggan's face. It howled like a banshee as fire caught, and fell back, staggering until it landed on its back.
It beat against its face with its hands, only to spread the flames, the humans who held it in place lept backward with cries of alarm.
"Help! Put it out! Put it out! Please put it ouuuuut!" The spriggan screamed and rolled as it tried to beat out the fires, only spreading them instead. The being of wood and magic, once vigorous and aggressive, was now a pitiable thing struggling for one second free of pain.
A soldier from nearby was bearing a bucket of water, brought from the fire pit where his meal was cooking, he was youthful, strong, and Remedios furrowed her brow, 'Stupid too. It'll just fight again. Let it burn more.' She thought and held out her hand, "Stop. Let it burn a little more first."
The soldier looked at her with dismay, mouth agog, while the spriggan screamed, "Mercy! Please have merrrcyyyy!!" it howled the drawn out plea as it pounded the licking orange burning tendrils with its leafy hands.
Half its face was gone and its brown limbs charred before Remedios lowered her hand. "Now."
The soldier had a cold sweat on his face that caught the fading light of the sun and made him almost reflect the light of the dying day. He rushed the last few steps forward and tilted the wooden bucket over the fallen spriggan captive, the water splashed down over it like a tiny waterfall, and the spriggan ceased to struggle as the last fires on its body were doused away.
Remedios cantered her horse over to where it lay, panting and moaning in pain. As demihuman races went, Remedios knew that spriggans were not the most malicious, nor were they common… but they blended in well with forests, had abundant natural magic, and as such made excellent scouts and could easily sabotage roads or other passages between settled places.
Catching this one was only possible because her paladins were exceptional. She dropped the torch and held the holy sword over the prone creature, "You will tell us what we want to know."
The spriggan huffed, and puffed… but said nothing as the humans flipped it over. When they bound it, the creature spoke.
"Others?" It said.
"We need firewood. You will talk, or join them." Remedios answered, and the spriggan howled like a wolf.
"No! No! No! You didn't! You couldn't?!" It shrieked.
Remedios looked away. "Bring me another torch!" She shouted.
"No! I'll talk… no fire… no more fire… please no more fire…" It begged, its body relaxed, the dark burns made darker by the damp soaking of water, it could only whimper in fear when it asked, "What do you want to know…?"
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Calca stood in front of the door and glanced up at the two towering guards who held position outside of it. They were so large she sometimes wondered if they didn't have some nonhuman ancestry. They bore shields and long swords, as well as a spear each. All of what they wore was runecrafted, the enchanted equipment from the foreign king arrived the previous day and Calca quickly outfitted her best and most loyal to create an elite guard unit under her direct command. Tests with the gear against regular knights and paladins showed that it made every man worth at least five on the weak side, and far more on the far end.
'I must get more of these.' She told herself again while standing before the oaken door with bands of metal binding it shut in multiple points. Breaking out would not be impossible of course, but even for the Mad Eyed Archer and his wife, it would be loud, obvious, and offer ample time to recapture them.
But the couple remained, checked on every day, fed every day, given ample wine to drink. Nothing strange was ever reported, not from the time of their capture.
"Let me in." Calca said after holding her breath for just a moment.
The guards did not question her, rather they took position, one ready while the other worked the door. He then entered alone, the noise of voices, rattling chains, nothing Calca could quite make out, though she knew what was happening.
The guard returned a minute or two later and swung the door wide from within. The quarters were luxurious, if not massive, a small window let natural light in, a good meal of hearty steak sat half finished on the table along with bowls of thick stew, a half finished bottle of good wine sitting between the couple.
Were it not for the fact that they were seated and chained to their chairs so that they could barely move, it might have looked luxurious.
The hair of both Pabel and his wife had lost its color. They had, despite Calca's best efforts, seemingly aged twenty years in mere months since their daughter's near execution and… return.
Neither the Mad Eyed Archer nor his wife met the eyes of the Queen.
"Leave us." Calca said to her guards.
The door shut and they were alone mere seconds later, and the Queen sat down. "Do you want news of your daughter?" The Queen asked.
Their dull eyes brightened and their heads snapped up to look at her.
Calca pursed her lips. "She has taken Vasa, Esha, and Fospo. Along with all the surrounding territories in the east. Do you want to know how many humans have died since she took the wall?"
The eyes of Neia's parents welled up, their fists clenched where they sat. Queen Calca clenched her own fists in turn. "Your daughter's invasion has killed over twenty thousand people… not to mention there are countless prisoners… her army is marching on Kalinsha now… if she takes Kalinsha…" She bit her lip, "It has one of the largest populations in the eastern part of the Holy Kingdom."
"What do you want from us?!" Pabel hissed, "Do you think we can talk her down?!"
"Are you just trying to torture us more… this is our country too!" His wife glared at the Queen, "We didn't ask for this!"
"Tell me something… anything I can use to defeat her!" Calca leaned forward and rested her hands on Pabel's knees. "I'm just trying to save lives!"
She did not understand right away when Pabel laughed. "My daughter… she's not human anymore… by your laws, our laws… that means she's not a person anymore. Anything you do to her is not only lawful, but the more brutal it is, the more justified it is."
"I… I don't understand your point." Calca said.
His wife's steady glare was broken, "Let me tell you a story… my greatest shame…"
The Queen sat back and held herself ramrod straight to listen.
"Many years ago, when our daughter was a child, she told a boy she liked him, he called her a monster and ran away. According to most of the boys, my daughter was ugly and evil looking… because she looked like him." She tilted her head toward her husband, "On a man, that face is fearsome, bold, powerful. On a girl? She might as well be deformed. After struggling to be liked and accepted by the others, she came to me and said how frustrated she was, and she was mad at her father for her looks. So…" The mother of the Queen of Frost swallowed, her body trembled a little and she looked down at her chained hands, "I beat her… I dragged her to the door, and I beat her raw, I beat her where everybody could see her, until she could barely move. I love my husband… and I couldn't bear what she had to say. I didn't even try to understand her frustration, what she was going through. I was single minded, and do you know what that got me for all my efforts, Majesty?"
Calca's eyes widened, her own pride in her beauty was such that the struggles of the Huntress of the Wilds cut her to her core. She shook her head.
"She never made a sound after the first cry of surprise. Not one. Not when I slapped her face, not when I picked up that damn stick and bruised her from her behind to the bottom of her calves. She just took it and wouldn't look at me… I think that's why I beat her harder… I wanted her to say something, to scream, to cry, some response to show she understood… she seemed so strong that I hit her worse than I would have if she'd just cried right away." Pabel's wife began to weep a little bit, but after gulping several times, she went on.
"She didn't speak to me again for days, maybe weeks, it's hard to say… she never talked about it again, she never said that about my husband, her father again… but a part of her, I killed, and something else was born. She never complained about anyone tormenting her, she never asked for my help, or anyone else's, she never told another boy or girl she liked them… I failed her. But from that failure, came something else… something unbreakable."
A note of pride touched the voice of the mother of the Queen of Frost, "She threw herself into her training, so much so that even though she was still barely a child, with just a little help from my husband, she earned the right to try for a place in the Paladin Order. That unbreakable thing was her stubborn will, she would never… ever quit when she was sure she was right. I made her silent, but she made me pay for it too. She didn't call me mother again until she was due to go to trial… when I finally told her I loved her." Her bleary, teary eyes stared with the promise of violence at the Queen.
"You want my help to defeat her…?" She spat onto the carpet, "If she's got a demihuman army at her back, there's only one way to do that. Make her change her mind. Give her what she wants, and make her realize that she doesn't need or want to fight you anymore. She won't give up anything for me, or my husband. She won't stop unless she's killed, and I don't think you can do that. Not anymore!"
"I just want peace… to save lives…" Calca pleaded as the mother's story came to an end and the woman became sullen again.
"My wife… she's right." Neia's father replied, "You want us to give you some strategy or tell you some weakness she has that you can exploit. Even if we knew one, we wouldn't tell you, not even for the sake of the Kingdom. We'd trade ten thousand Holy Kingdoms to have her back, safe and well again!" He spat and gritted his teeth.
"If you want to beat her, get her to beat herself or change her mind, because otherwise, it doesn't matter if she's alone and you wipe out the whole Demihuman army and her dragon. She'll fight by herself. She went to die on the wall because of… what she believed in. Do you think someone like that stops just because they're alone? She was alone before, and that meant nothing." He laughed heartily, and shook his head.
"Queen Calca, I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can offer you. Not for twenty thousand dead humans, or two hundred, or two million… but even when she was a relatively weak human, she was an immovable object. Unless you've got an unstoppable force… you will break." Pabel went quiet again, and stared at her for so long that Calca was compelled to look away.
She did not tell them thanks, nor think to ask, as she intended, about their treatment. Their words were like ice around her heart, and, like ice, it hardened her resolve regarding the coming visit of the Allfather of Nazarick. More than anything else, she was resolute. 'I will have my unstoppable force. No matter what.'
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