Winning Hearts and Minds 2 (2/2)

They came for the cult in the night. They came with torches held high, with shields up in the first few ranks, and with the more adept crossbowmen behind them, raining down rapid shots from their crossbows, sending the heavy bolts flying in ways that anyone without the archer job couldn't match.

The cultists returned fire from the walls, their own bows weaker but better ranged, even if their accuracy wasn't as good. They had volume, and they punished the first ranks.

Cecelia strode forward slowly in Reason, the darkspawn-enchantment on her inner helm letting her see despite the uncertain light. Well, as best she could with Reason's forearm held up to shield her visor's slit. Peripheral vision she had. Forward view? Nah. But she only had to keep pace with her front lines, keep going forward until she got to the gate. Even as an animi, she was pretty certain it wasn't going anywhere.

Arrows thumped and rattled off Reason's hide, and she swallowed. Occasionally one hit with enough force to do one or two points, but overall she wasn't worried. Was happy, even. The more that came for her, the less that went for her troops. No, the gorge churning in her belly was from the fact that she was going up against people who actually wanted to kill her. She'd felt that feeling when they cut down Baron Comfort's bandits, and she was feeling it again, here. It was bad. This wasn't monsters, or beasts, or a situation where she was up against a thing following its nature. These people had made the active decision that they needed a Cecelia-shaped hole in their lives and were doing their best to make it reality.

Well. She had a thing or two to say about that. “Mend,” she snapped as the damage started to mount.

“To the flank! Right flank!” Renick bellowed, and she shifted.

THINGS were coming out of the lake.

“Right flank shields!” She screamed through the magic mouth. “We planned for this, people!”

You don't go up against old ones without keeping eyes on the nearby body of murky water. That was just asking to get tentacle.

“Rally Troops!” Renick shouted. “Let's send these eldritch fuckers back where they came from!”

She heard the right flank roar with approval, as their moxie got a decent buff.

Oh yeah, I can do that too. She risked an unshielded glance at the walls, found them near, and snapped her arbelest arm back up as arrows clattered off Reason's helm. “Rally Troops! The gate's right there, let's go knock that fumper down!”

Then her men were cheering, or screaming, and she didn't know because she was lifting her sword up, and charging.

“Now now dispel now!” She yelled.

“Dispel magic!” She heard over the yelling, from just behind her. Then something that could have also been a dispel magic, from further back, where the other wizard was. She'd spread them out in the battle, to make sure at least one of them survived to get within range.

At least one of them got through, because when she hit the gate, that had been augmented animated wood but was now disenchanted, it broke. Ordinary, somewhat rotted mossy wood splintered into fragments as she brought the sword through it in a single ponderous thrust. Then the bulk of Reason slammed into it, and it burst into fragments.

Screams from above her, and the splash of liquid, and the smell filled her nose as she backed off, hastily.

Oil!

Her mentors had briefed her on this. Fire, sticky fire like Geek's fire from alchemists or oil or tar from sieges, could roast a steam knight alive in their suit.

Which is why, like most problems she'd come to, Cecelia had given a lot of thought and experimentation to finding a good solution. And in this case, the solution involved the outer layers of quilted cloth she'd sewn around Reason's helm and front. “Clean and Press!” Cecelia shouted, and sighed in relief as the first few flaming arrows clattered off of her, seconds too late.

Relief that lasted until something inhuman roared from above her. “Burninate!”

Her world became fire, and she shrieked as red numbers rolled up from Reason's components. She backed off further, hunkered down, and started hissing the spells of her backup plan. “Distant Animus blanket! Invite Blanket!”

Rustling from below her, as the fire-quenching blanket she'd commissioned from the royal enchanters wormed its way out of the cork-stoppered compartment she'd put it in, and crawled up Reason to smother the flames. “Mend, mend, mend,” she chanted, once the fires started going out. Distant animus was a good ace to play, but it had a range limitation of about one foot per level. Which was more than enough to land the spell on the blanket five feet from her.

“Ricochet shot!” She heard someone call, then whipped her cheek to the side, as a lucky crit hit Reason's visor slit, bounced toward her, and collided with her helm instead of her face. Close! Too Close! She wanted to turn, to flee, to retreat. Instead she slammed the burning arbelest up to cover Reason's visor, gritted her teeth as the heat roiled around her, and waited.

She'd done her part here. She'd shattered the gate, and she could hear the bellowing of the troops around her as they surged to and through the wall, and the shouts and cries of combat once they were past the gate. Cecelia and reason had given them their shot, and now it was on them to make it count.

So she knelt, letting the blanket do it work, breathing as shallowly as she could, mending the damaged parts of reason as the flames died, falling to the fireproof blanket's embrace. If I hadn't cleaned the oil, I'd be dead, Cecelia knew. There would have been no way to escape Reason quickly enough.

The minutes passed, the fire died, and when Cecelia lowered her the arbelest arm, an imp crawled through the visor. “Kayin has entered the village. Everything's chaos. The dolls are in charge, cult says follow their orders. Dreadbear's a teddy bear in a voodoo outfit. They have a dragon golem and Kayin wants to know if you want it dead.”

A dragon golem! Cecelia's eyes widened. She'd only ever heard about dragonfire. Never seen it in action.

Now I have, she supposed, shuddering at how close that last call had been. “Gods dammit grandfather, you nearly killed me,” she croaked.

“What? What what? What?” The imp jumped up and down, boggling at her. They were generally dim, she knew, their own intelligence a reflection of the creator's own. And the imp handler hadn't impressed her overmuch in that regard.

Cecelia cleared her throat. “Tell Kayin to take out the dragon if she can. Leave Dreadbare to me.” Gods, if Dreadbear was what she thought it was, she wasn't sure she could kill it. She really, really hoped she could take him alive. Get him away from grandfather, to a safe place where she could break the little golem away from the rebel lies the old man had been teaching it.

But first things first. “Return to her with those words. Do you understand?”

“Yes yes I go!” The imp screeched and departed.

She'd heard that the higher-level officers had access to better imps, ones her father had personally made. Ones that were suited to skilled recon and intelligent enough to operate independently.

They still creeped her out.

Finally, the arrows against her slackened, and she stood, to see the shattered gates before her, and most of her army fighting inside the town. No good place for her there, so she waited, observing, for the bodies to move so she could squeeze in without trampling her own people.

And then the level-up flashed across her field of view, and she sighed. She'd hit level five steam knight, finally. “Status, help,” she said, and settled in to read and best think how to synergize her new tricks into her tactics.

“Ma'am!” Graves rode up, an entourage of skeletons following him. “The things from the lake were animated boats with wooden wheels nailed on. They were full of skeletons. There was something in the water croaking eldritch song supporting them, but we drove it off with concentrated fire. Renick thinks it was some kind of bard.”

“Bard?” Cecelia blinked. “Seriously.”

“Yes. Also, uh...” he rode in closer. “I seem to have unlocked a Tier 2 job I've never heard of.”

“Really?” Academic interest fired up... then faded, as she looked to the battle raging in the town. There was a time and place to discuss this in depth, and it wasn't here. “What is it? Make it short.”

“It's called Death Knight. Big on necromancy and buffing undead. And plagues and frost for no reason I can tell.”

“Gods.” Cecelia rubbed her face. “You're one of the few people I trust with something like this. Look, will it help you survive this battle?”

“Most definitely.”

“Take it. As your current commanding officer I authorize it.”

“Thank you ma'am! Yes!” he stood there for a second, helm elevated as he read the details. “Intelligence and Con? Okay, works for me. Good news is the plague stuff is only plague resistance at this level. Everything else seems manageable, nothing that the inquisitor would kill me over. Oooh, this'll help. Bony Armor!” Half the skeletons shivered and fell apart, wrapping around him, until his pauldrons were jawless skulls and the rest of his plate was laced in ribs.

“Cute,” Cecelia sighed. “All right. Get Renick and the wizards and let's go get this over with.”

*****

Midway through the town, as they fought the fifth batch of cultists in the burning remnants of a block of houses, Graves stiffened up. “Shit! I just got Kayin!”

What was he... oh. Oh!

“Ask her where!” Cecelia shouted, rage filling her. “We'll fumping make them pay!”

“Speak with Dead.” He chanted, and Kayin's voice echoed through their minds.

“Hey Cecelia. Got the dragon, fucked up the escape. Bad assassin, no cookie.”

“Where!” Cecelia said, shaking, feeling the tears burst from her eyes. “Show us where!”

“Southwest, by the church. They've got a rallying point there.”

“ON ME!” Cecelia bellowed, and surged ahead, breaking Steam Knight protocol. Her friend was dead, and by the gods she'd make her killers pay.

They found her by the church, windows shattered, cultists inside firing arrows desperately at the approaching knight.

“TALK TO THE HAND!” Cecelia roared, and her arm, no longer needing to be in front of her visor, intercepted arrow crits as she charged the building. “STEAM SCREAM!” she bellowed, and Reason sent a shuddering howl to the skies, trembling the stars within their firmaments. She had the hot satisfaction of seeing green numbers, big ones streak from the cultists at the windows as they shrieked, and then she was crunching through the wall, sword raised high. “Oh yeah!” She yelled, sword chopping down as blood sprayed red, red on the busted bricks.

At some point in there she unlocked the berserker class.

“Undead!”Graves called. “I'm on it... what the hell?”

“That's it! That's the thing that got me, the dragon rider!”

A squeaky voice yelled in desperation. “Call Faiah! Least Elemental! Shape Faiah- shit!”

“Bitch please!” Renick roared, and then came the sound of heavy metal boots stomping through wood. ”Dolorous Strike! Dolorous Strike!”

“An Emberling? Seriously?” Graves said. “Oh. Oh shit, Kayin. Sorry.”

“Yeah, that's my body. The little shit got my throat,” Kayin said. “It was pretty messy. You might not want to see this, Cecelia.”

Finally, there was silence. Cecelia snorted snot from her nose, and blinked away tears. The fury drained from her, leaving her feeling hollow.

She wasn't sure what kind of people were insane enough to take rage as a job feature.

Then stillness. A change in the air, nothing she could put her finger on. It was like reality shuddered.

She backed Reason out of the church, wheeled around, gasped as she saw Renick and Graves off their horses, kneeling next to Kayin's charred corpse. Her darkspawn helm showed her the pool of blood her friend had died in, in agonizing full color. It pooled around the rent stuffing and green fur of a little dragon, torn and fragmented from Kayin's successful work.

Cecelia swallowed, hard. “We need to get her to the corpse cart. And make sure their necromancer gets nowhere near her.”

“Well, her spirit's with me. They won't lock her soul into a corpse, that's the important thing,” Graves promised. Then he glanced west, to the shore, and frowned. “The little puppet thing had a spirit. It was like an undead sealed into a toy body.”

“What? You can do that?”

“No shit?” Kayin sounded interested.

“I've heard rumors,” Graves said, muttering. “They can go into animi, but they pass on once the animi expired. Or if you're really evil you can enchant weapons and armor, make hauntblades or wraith armor.”

“I could maybe stand being a dagger for all eternity,” Kayin mused.

But Graves was still talking. “That... that puppet was a fire elementalist, though, and I've never heard of jobs carrying through. And it was a girl's spirit that ran by me, right into the lake.” He turned, surveyed the town. “And there goes another! On the edge of the shore. The dead cultists, their spirits are running into the lake.”

“Soulstones,” Cecelia whispered. “Soulstones don't need to breathe. They're under there somewhere.” She sighed. “It would probably take days to find them. And something capable of operating underwater.”

“The way is clear,” Anise announced, stepping out of the shadows. “We need to stop the rite.”

“Yes, of course,” Cecelia was drained, so drained. The battle had been long and hard, and now she understood why the cultists hadn't feared death. “Grandfather, what have you done?” She whispered.

“Your orders, Captain?” Anise asked, hands folded behind her back, smiling.

And oh, did Cecelia hate her at that moment. But why? She wondered. Anise was easy to blame, true, but she couldn't help what she was. And she hadn't killed Kayin.

Cecelia thought. And as she did, that sensation nagged at her mind. She'd felt something like that before, both in the Catamountain, and in the dungeon the elite knights had special access to...

“Renick, Graves,” she said, carefully. “A second ago, did it feel like everything shifted? Like when we ran Highmountain together?”

“Yeah. Yeah it did,” Renick said. “I didn't think anything of it because I was busy breaking that doll, but now that you mention it...”

Cecelia gnawed her lip. “Grandfather. Renick, take Kayin's body to the corpse cart, then get the army moving. I assume it's that thing?” She pointed across the lake, to where a green glow was visible to the southwest.

“Yes.” Said Anise. “I'll have the scout guide them.”

“You're not going yourself?” Grave asked.

“If this strange feeling is your grandfather, I need to be there with you when you find him,” Anise smiled at Cecelia. “You understand, dear.”

“I know,” the girl sighed. “You don't trust me one bit.”

“I trust you every bit as much as you trust me.” Anise smiled.

“That's pretty much what I just said.” Cecelia confirmed, then checked her coal reserves. A bit left. Enough for the task at hand. “Stand back. If there's a dungeon it'll be in the church somewhere. I'll clear the wreckage and see what we can find.”

The trapdoor they eventually uncovered, and the wooden stairs down, were too small for reason. With a sigh, Cecelia decanted from her suit, animating it and inviting it to her party. It should be enough to stand guard over the site while they explored, but... “Does Kayin still have a messenger imp on her?” she asked.

“Burned up like she was, sorry,” Graves said.

“No worries,” Kayin said from her soulstone. “I'm pretty much beyond offending, here. Besides, I've made too many corpses to be sensitive about my own.”

“Heh. Just sit tight, we'll get to you shortly,” Cecelia smiled, glad to hear her friend's spirit in good... well, spirits.

“Who are you speaking to?” Anise interrupted.

Cecelia shot Graves a glance, got one in return. “You didn't hear that?” Cecelia asked.

“Let's just focus on the job at hand.” The Inquisitor descended the steps, peering around, distracted and with a hungry look on her face. “A dungeon, yessss....”

“Might want to stay silent for a bit, Kayin.” Graves whispered. “Don't want that one getting ideas about you.”

The cave below was relatively small, and definitely not a dungeon. It had bloodstained sand next to a cove full of dark water. There was also a small chamber down a side-passage, that led to a room with bleachers, mattresses on the grimy floor, and an unexpected shock to her sanity when Cecelia saw the kind of drawings that lined the walls. If there'd been any doubt to the righteousness of her cause, it was gone now.

But it was also empty of any kind of dungeon.

At least, she and Graves thought so until they returned to the main cave, and found Anise crouched at the water line, staring into the darkness. “Clever, clever,” said the Inquisitor, a smile curving her flawless lips. “They put it underwater.”

“How far?” Graves asked.

“Not far.” And then Anise waded into the cold water, fading from view as she went.

Graves and Cecelia shared a look. “Invite me,” She said.

One invite later, she and his remaining three skeletons, and a hastily created animus blade and shield went into the water...

...and surfaced into the light.

“Oh,” Cecelia said, staring around her, at the riverbank, and the pine woods just beyond.

And there, up on a hill, was a two-story house. Cozy, hidden...

...and familiar.

Beyond the stretch of river, a narrow bit of woods, and the house, everything was foggy and unresolved. The colors were bleached and strained, and some of the trees had a translucent quality to them.

“It's new. Barely formed,” Anise hissed, to their side. She paced back and forth, hands flexing, fingers grasping. “Oh this will be perfect!”

But Cecelia didn't hear her. She was too busy looking at the house, where she had been safe. Where she had been innocent once. And her eyes burned once more, as she felt her heart burn in her chest.

Here was her reckoning, she knew. The final reconciliation, one way or the other, the final challenge to overcome, to put aside childish things and become the woman her Father and her future subjects needed her to be.

And she didn't know if she was strong enough.