As the soldiers dealt with the wounded and corpses on both sides, Razark and few of the dwarves from the city of Craghold approached the command post of the army. The dwarves looked ragged and nobody could fault them for that. They had been through a wringer in the time before the order’s army had arrived. A large portion of their people had died and a big part of their city was in ruins. Razark didn’t really look any worse for wear though. A bit tired perhaps, but that was to be expected.

“Lord Razark.” General Luthana greeted him with a warrior’s salute, while the rest of the officers behind her bowed.

“General.” Razark returned the simple greeting with a simple nod.

“Your attack at their rear was very timely. I have to thank you for that. It probably saved us from another day of fighting.” The general said genuinely grateful. In battles such as this the difference between one day of fighting and two was major.

“I’m not entirely sure that’s true considering the disadvantage the centaurs had fallen into, but there’s no point in debating that point. I’m curious to know what the plan is from here.” Razark asked in reply. More specifically he wanted to know if the general carried orders for him.

He also noted the lack of any scouts besides Dee in the camp. It was likely the scouts had refused to take part in this whole operation. The order was not nearly as unified as it might look from the outside. The chapters often viewed each other as rivals, and the scouts viewed nearly all of the paladins with a degree of dislike on the good day and almost hostility on the bad ones. Over the years the scouts had been on the receiving end of enough internal politics to have little trust left. Razark was also part of the reason as he had done his best to separate the scouts from the order. And now the grandmaster had started a war near the elven empire with justifications and goals that were ambiguous at best. No wonder there were no scouts present.

The dwarven elder leading their delegation interjected. “More importantly, what are the odds the clippity-clops are coming back? The city isn’t really in a state to mount much of a defense at this point. Is the order going to help with the defense of the city?”

The general had been expecting the questions and didn’t mind answering them at least partially. “It’s unlikely the centaurs will return in force, for as long as our armies are here at least. That said, it’s not unlikely that they might try sending raiding parties around our army once it moves to go after them. In exchange for using your portals for supplying our army, we’ll pitch in to help with the repairs of the city. Note that I said we’ll pitch in. We won’t be footing the whole bill. Since the city will be an important supply point, we’ll of course station some forces here to safeguard our interests. That all said, we can’t be entirely sure they won’t try to do a run-around our forces to attack again to cut off our supplies, but such an attack won’t be as large as this one.”

With the centaur army gone, the suppression inhibiting the teleportation gates from working was gone as well. The city’s gateway was a fairly small one so it wasn’t really enough for the order’s purposes, not to even mention the need for supplies for the city and its repairs. The army’s quartermaster and the dwarven elder started arguing about the details of the use of the gate. Luthana meanwhile handed Razark a sealed missive from the headquarters.

As he tore it open the contents of the missive were unsurprising. It was one thing for him to get involved while he was caught inside the city, but the situation had not escalated to the point of immortals getting freely involved. That always marked a threshold that signified a large change in the nature of a conflict. If the Blades were sent to participate in the war, the war would become very short but it would also become a major conflict that might draw in other major powers, and the whole situation was already delicate enough as it was.

No one was silly enough to think the order was here to protect the border cities. They were clearly meddling in the internal affairs of the elven empire with this move, but it was still borderline acceptable with the current level of involvement. If the immortals stepped in however, other powers might feel free to do the same, and that might result in the whole great forest turning into a smoldering crater as it became the battleground between immortals. So his orders were simple. “Return back to the headquarters immediately.”

“General, where might I find my disciple? I’ll have to exchange some words with her before leaving.” Razark asked, receiving directions towards the battlefield.

He didn’t really need directions as Dee was currently easier to find than normal. He felt her long before seeing her as he approached the edge of the battlefield. Almost no one else would’ve noticed, as she was being careful for once, but Razark knew what to look for and noted the signs. Dee was ever so slowly drawing in the souls of those that had died on the battlefield. Razark had noticed that souls of the dead were drawn to her even if she wasn’t making any effort towards that goal, but now she was making effort. She was simply trying to be sneaky about it. Personally Razark didn’t mind as he knew it increased her strength and had the added benefit of making the appearance of undead less likely. Dee’s method of gaining power from defeated enemies differed from others, but she wasn’t the only one to gain from the deaths of others. Her method was just the most blatant and effective one.

What he had not expected was the Sidhe woman standing next to Dee, seemingly observing the devastation. The two seemed familiar with each other judging by their proximity. When had that happened? Dee had never mentioned a Sidhe friend before. When did she get the time to familiarize with one in such a short time? Razark’s eyes widened further as he observed the Sidhe woman.

The dark skin and silvery hair identified her as an Unseelie from the Winter court. She was also strong and carried herself in a way very similar to Dee. Both had experience working from the shadows. What really drew his attention though was the intricate ear ornament that had a thin silvery chain running from the tip of the ear to the bottom, and it had several intricate little symbols hanging from it. Most people were unaware of the significance of the ornament that the Sidhe wore on their right ear. The little symbols signified her name, rank, house and family connections. They also often showed the particular Sidhe’s progress on the paths she had chosen, although as the woman in questions was too young to have completed any path, those were absent. Normally you could identify a master craftsman for example by those little symbols.

Razark wasn’t perfectly versed in the iconography of the earrings, but he knew enough to be shocked by her presence here. “Dee, a word if you would.” He called out to his distracted disciple.

Dee pulled back from drawing in the souls and walked closer to Razark. “Certainly. What’s going on? I’m assuming you’re alright. A little battle like this shouldn’t have been too much for you, right?”

As Razark started to tell the story of what had happened since she had slipped out of the city, Dee was surprised to feel his mind reaching for hers. As a psion she was perfectly capable of mind-to-mind communication over such a short distances, but she was surprised he felt the need for such secrecy. One of the upsides of such mind conversation was the speed, as you could send over entire thoughts instead of slowly speaking word by word. Of course such connections required a willing partner.

‘Ok, I can hear you now.’ Dee sent the thought, after forming the connection.

‘Mind explaining to me why a member of the Sidhe high nobility is following you around?’ Razark asked with a worried tone to his thoughts.

‘A high noble is it? I suspected she had a connection with the Winter court, just didn’t know exactly what that connection was.’ Dee also quickly sent out the circumstances of their meeting, and what Noyala roughly seemed to want.

‘Hmm, that might explain her presence, though I’m still surprised to see a potential heir to the throne chased out of the forest.’ Razark mused.

‘Heir to the throne, as in potentially the next Winter Queen?’ Dee asked in surprise.

‘Yeah I think we’ve discussed the subject before, how the position isn’t hereditary. In fact the Winter Queen and Summer King can’t have children. The heir for the Queen’s position is chosen from among the relatives of the last couple of Queens as well as some high nobility.’ They had talked about the court politics of the seasonal courts in passing during the lessons. ‘Truth be told I’m not entirely sure what makes someone eligible besides politics. Anyway, that earring of hers signifies that she is a potential heir, but also that she’s pretty far down the list of what I would assume to be hundreds of young women. Not that it matters much I suppose with the current heir apparent crushing all competition so completely.’ Razark gave his thoughts while still talking out loud about the siege.

‘I get the feeling that she might be some sort of problem solver. Her stealth skills and knowledge are pretty top-notch at least. She also has this air about her.’ Dee mentioned her impressions.

‘Ah. That means that she probably isn’t the eldest eligible daughter in the family. Her family probably decided to train her older sister as a potential heir, while she was trained to become one of the shadows of the court.’ Razark guessed based on his experience with the Winter court.

‘Shadows of the court?’ Dee asked, noting the specific term.

‘Yes, the four seasonal courts are busy plotting both against the other courts as well as within their court. Sometimes the battle between houses turns quite violent. Only thing is that it would be quite dishonorable to kill people out in the open. A weird distinction in my mind, but that’s how their minds work. As a result, every noble house trains some of their members in the more clandestine parts of intrigue and diplomacy. These people handle anything ranging from assassination, to extortion, to smuggling, and they even work as bodyguards sometimes. These people are often called shadows of the court.’ Razark explained.

The puzzle pieces started to fall into place in Dee’s mind. Truthfully she rather preferred the shadowy ways of doing things herself, as it was silly to confront people head on if you could just stab them in the dark. That was one of the things that separated her and Razark. She didn’t feel the need for honorable combat and found the whole concept a little silly, while Razark was something of a realist while preferring to act openly. He wasn’t a stickler for honor or pride, but did frown upon the more shadowy methods somewhat.

That also hinted at something else that Dee had been thinking about. Noyala had mentioned having certain goals, and revenge was one of them. Maybe what drove her was some sort of resentment towards her sister that had been groomed for the possibility of taking the throne while Noyala had been forced to train in the darker side of things. Dee could imagine a difference in treatment like that might foster resentment, if not against the more favored sister then at least against the parents who had made the decision.

‘Anyway, do you have some sort of purpose for staying here, or are you coming back with me?’ Razark asked, still silently. Now his spoken words had become about his own plans.

‘The grandmaster assigned me a mission.’ Dee replied, not really sure how to feel about the whole thing.

‘Did he now? What did he order you to do?’ Razark asked while his eyes narrowed dangerously. The grandmaster should know better than to order around his disciple. They had been through this. It was one of the conditions he had given for his continued stay with the order. The grandmaster would not meddle with the people Razark considered his, and he in turn stayed.

Dee explained her mission, and while Razark found the whole thing a little annoying, he had to admit that the mission carried benefits for Dee, not the least of which were the souls she was still discreetly absorbing even now. All that death could be very beneficial to her. As long as she survived herself, which he didn’t really doubt. She had the ability to flee and no compunctions about doing so. ‘Stick with the army for now. I’ll contact you if things change. Be ready to leave with your new friend on a moment’s notice. I’ll have to have some words with our dear grandmaster.’

As Razark left back towards the city, Noyala approached Dee. It wasn’t immediately obvious that there had been two conversations going on between the two people, but Noyala had some practice with reading such situations. The duo’s expressions were rather stoic in general as they didn’t let things slip easily, but the expressions still hadn’t quite matched the voiced conversations, so Noyala could figure out what had happened.

“So I assume he recognized my earring?” Noyala straight up said.

“Yes, somewhat at least. He’s not an expert on the subject. He did mention you being a possible heir though. Should I start calling you your majesty now?” Dee made a playful little stab.

Noyala gave a small snort. “Hardly. I’m about as far down the succession list as one can get and still be on the list. Our house wouldn’t qualify for the ‘honor’, if it wasn’t for the fact that both of my parents are major figures in the army. There’s also the little fact that our lands are located right on top of one of the largest deposits of Moonstone in the entire forest. Not that I can say for sure whether I even qualify as an heir anymore.” Her use of air quotes with her fingers when she said the word honor made it rather clear what she thought of the subject.

“Why?” Dee asked, curious.

“The troops that were chasing me? Yeah those were my mother’s subordinates. Let’s just say we had a bit of a disagreement. My parents might have disowned me by now, in which case I probably don't qualify as a candidate anymore. Not that my parents would consider me over my dear sister anyway, so that’s all immaterial.” Noyala seemed flippant on the surface, but Dee could sense some hint of being truly hurt by her family’s actions. Not over the whole heir thing though, but something else. Her tone also made it clear that now was not the time to talk about it further.

Thus Dee returned to slowly absorbing the souls that hadn’t moved on yet. There were still plenty of them floating around. Most of them were only a marginal increase to her power, but every little bit counts in large enough numbers, and their ‘skulls’ also added to her totem. She was reminded of the old saying: “quantity has a quality all its own.”

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The next day most of the order’s army moved on to give chase to the centaur warhost. They weren’t really trying to catch the centaurs, they simply wanted to herd them in the right direction. The overarching plan of the different order armies was to surround the centaur warhosts and drive them together in a central location. Defeating the gathered centaurs in that central engagement would hopefully drive the fight out of them, leaving the order free to safeguard the border between the forest and the plains.

Of course, now that the armies were more mobile the situation had turned more favorable towards the centaurs adept at mobile warfare. The army Dee was part of was constantly harassed by hit-and-run attacks. Dee had at first thought of striking at the harassing parties, but the general had other ideas. Their forces were relatively good at dealing with such attacks thanks to their excellent defense and the offensive spells of the templar. As the paladins could heal much of the damage done, the centaurs often had to pay an equal price for their attacks despite the orders inability to tie them down for a battle. The order also refused to take the bait to chase the raiding parties and avoided being split up.

Instead of dealing with the harassing parties, Dee was assigned by the general to make sure the centaurs didn’t send warbands around their army to harass the city of Craghold or their supplies and reinforcements. In addition, while the rest of the army wasn’t able to catch the main forces of the centaurs, Dee and Noyala had no trouble doing so as they could move much faster. Almost every night death stalked the centaur camps. Some nights the two rested just to keep the centaurs off balance, so that they could never be sure when their camp would face another wave of mysterious deaths. The uncertainty was worse than knowing every night brought more death.

With such large amount of death and absorbed souls, Dee started noticing a change in her own powers. The goddess Death had mentioned that Dee’s abilities that carried the power of death would grow in strength with the amount of souls she devoured and now the effect started to become more and more noticeable. Thus the centaurs started finding desiccated corpses when the morning came instead of those with slit throats and signs of poison, as Dee changed her methods.

This cat and mouse game carried on for a full month until the centaurs were focused in one place, and the separate order armies closed on each other. Dee was almost unable to use her Mindscape with the amount of beings gathered in a relatively small area as all the minds filled her vision. As the order armies united in preparation for the final push against the centaurs, other higher ranked officers took the command away from general Luthana. There were three chapter masters present at the scene, so a general’s words carried much less weight. Thus Dee’s mission had been successfully completed.

Dee was personally rather pleased that she didn’t have to take Luthana’s head, as she rather liked the elven general. Luthana had held her end of the bargain and Dee had learned quite a bit about leading armies from her. The logistics had been a particularly important factor during this campaign, so she had received good experience in that field. The mobile battles had also been a good learning place for tactics, albeit in a somewhat narrow area.

The generals and chapter masters had already gathered to plan for the final offensive, and Dee was considering whether to take part in the battle or return back. Those thoughts were put on hold though as an emergency message from the headquarters reached the army. While the Winter and Autumn courts held the advantage in troops, the other two seasonal courts had not been idle all these years. They all knew this conflict might turn armed and the Summer and Spring courts had made their own preparations. While they didn’t have the same number of experienced troops, they did have something of their own. Money and resources. And the Radiant Sun wasn’t the only large organization interested in the affairs of the elves.

What better place to find mercenaries than the freelancer’s guild? While the Radiant Sun had only peripherally assisted the Winter and Autumn courts, the freelancer’s guild had sent their hired forces directly into the great forest to counter the advance of the two stronger courts. This of course opened the floodgates, as the other large communities now felt free to throw their hat into the ring. The whole internal struggle was escalating out of hand.

The messenger brought simple orders. “Negotiate a peace and the withdrawal of the centaur forces, don’t engage them in a decisive battle.”