“You… you used us…”, holding her cracked ribs Elana stared hatefully at Agate, who sat upon the headless corpse of a necromancer.

Drinking casually from his wine sack, Agate wore a refreshed smile.

“You’ve done your job perfectly, second in command. Without you ants, I might have gotten injured, and that would have been worrisome with the battles to come. Come now, go rescue those hostages, I have to nurse this wine and recover my energy.”

Looking at the egotistical Agate then at her surroundings, Elana only saw the devastation. No one in their group besides Agate came out of the battle unscathed. Some had lost limbs and a few had even died only to turn into beams of light and vanish.

Those less wounded were helping to treat the injured, stopping blood loss or helping the ice mage to cool limbs in hopes for the white mages to be able to reattach them. The most pitiful of the group was Tänzer, who had had his legs crushed from one of the necromancer’s attacks. He just stared at his legs in a daze, the light from his eyes gone.

Elana’s body trembled as her heart burst into flames, “You could’ve prevented this, all of this! You had the power to easily deal with that monster!”

Looking at her like she was retarded Agate scoffed, “Why is it my fault? They were weak and the weak are made to be used. That’s just a rule of the universe, no matter where you go. They should be thanking me for giving their pathetic lives some worth. What’s that saying, the one that retarded king kept repeating? Oh yeah. For the glory of dwarven kind! What a fucking joke, it should be for my glory. Now go rescue the hostages. Hopefully, they’ll be better than these dumb rats and midget foxes.”

Feeling something snap within her, Elana gathered the earth mana around her. As she was about to attack Agate, a wolf stood before her.

It growled at Elana making her confused.

Falling to her knees she mumbled, “Reaver, Ubel… why?”

“Haha, see what I mean? The weak have no say in front of the strong. Even that Ubel kid is sensible. I mean, no one is really going to die here as long as that fake ‘King’ pays up. You’re getting too emotional for nothing. If we were back on Red Mountain I would have killed you for even thinking of rebellion.”

Inwardly Agate was happy, Good, this Ubel is scared of me. I wonder how much more I can milk out of him before leaving. Humph, being a follower doesn’t suit me at all. I should just kill that fake king and take over.

The wolf stopped growling and turned to Agate to tap its paw.

“Medic heading over. Clear skeletons, rescue hostages, take the mecha’s power core, and retreat to the temporary camp for more orders.”

With a smirk Agate enunciated each word loudly and clearly, enjoying how the words seemed to pound into those nearby like hammers. In their hearts hatred burned for Agate, and Ubel for looking the other way.

***

“Info Scribing.” Kist murmured as he closed his eyes, holding onto a large ruby. Soon misty white energy flew out of his nose, ears, mouth, and eyes. It collected upon the ruby before slowly seeping inside.

It only took a minute for Kist to finish his spell, and when he was done the floating white smoke receded back into his brain.

Opening his eyes, Kist handed the stone to the awaiting Ubel.

Placing the stone on his forehead Ubel spoke the words “Info accept.”

Eyes closed, the stone flashed and information began to pour into his mind. Memories began to appear, one by one. The battles, the necromancers’ abilities, the number of wounded, the states of the hostages, everyone's contributions to the battle, and even Agate’s ruthlessness.

It took him a few minutes to digest the information before he opened his eyes and sighed.

“So the bastards are forming up to retreat from the outposts. Three out of our twelve powerhouses are too wounded to engage. The rescued fox-kin are malnourished and have only half their strength.”

Ubel paused with a sigh, “I was expecting the undead to charge at us but instead they’ve decided to retreat. My orders are as follows, those too wounded to fight are to be cared for until a medical unit arrives. Next, each hit squad is to move out and group up with another squad. We’ll be ambushing six of the seventeen retreating outposts. If they can kill more afterward, before they reach the castle, then do so. Allow magicians to cast large area spells to level the skeleton armies.”

Gritting her teeth Reaver turned to Ubel, “Are we really going to do nothing about that monster?”

Ubel just glanced at her lazily, “Of course not. I plan on killing him in this event. He’s just too useful and dangerous to attempt to assassinate him at this moment. Does this motherfucker think he can play games with me? He’s going to pay with his life for making light of me. Now go relay my orders, use writing this time as some were confused with the code we were using.”

“You promise?”

Ubel pushed his glasses up, “I don’t promise things I’m not a hundred percent sure of. But you can rest assured that I do take down those who try to undermine my authority. Now send out the message, we’re on the clock.”

Reaver stared at Ubel, searching for something in those dead fish eyes.

“It’s not what I wanted, but I expect you to follow through.”

Turning away, Kist and Reaver reconnected to begin sending out orders as the wind mages headed out with the healers to help the injured.

Ubel leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes.

Well, those rat-kin and fox-kin show some metal in a fight. The rat-kin show utter loyalty and ferocity, although they fail to compare to the fox-kin with their innate magic. They killed just as many selections as we dwarfs did, if not more, and even helped assist in killing a few necromancers.

If the kids are this good I wonder how the adults compare. It’s a good thing we got them so cheaply. If we can bring them back home they’ll be excellent citizens.

Now… I expected Agate to not conform to my expectations, but his brother is a nice surprise. He actually tried his hardest in his fight. His team even has no wounded to speak of, which means he seriously wants to make a good impression.

Now the question is how greedy I want to be. If we kill off his brother will Bishop stay with us? Or will he side with his brother? I’m going to have to talk with him, one on one, to get a feel for where he stands. I’ll have Reaver set something up with him after this field battle. I’ll also have to deal with those sacrificed to feel out that roaming bomb in the skin of a dwarf. I’ll need them to not make a scene before I can make use of Agate to his fullest ability or it’ll affect morale.

To do that I’ll need to remove them from Agate’s control. Thankfully most of them are injured.

“Reaver, tell Agate that his team is to stay back to meet up with another squad. They need a healer afterall.”

“Alright.”

“Good. I’m heading out for a bit with some spearmen. I’ll need to borrow some mounts, Reaver.”

“But Ubel, the battle isn’t over yet. What if they decide to pull something?”

Ubel handed her a paper as he walked past her, “I’ve written some scenarios on this instruction sheet. Follow it to the letter. Has Agate left?”

Kist responded, “Yes, he snorted at being overworked and followed the wolf.”

“Excellent, then I’ll be heading out.”

“To do what sir?”

“To set the trap.”