V3Ch86-Ah Choo

The sun rose, and with it, General Caracalla.

He brushed his fingertips over one cheek, felt the stubble, and thought perhaps he could use a shave whenever they made it to a place with running water.

Fort Hadrian could be suitable. He dressed quickly, donning helm and battle armor, stepped out of his tent, and immediately rustled the flap of his son, Geta’s tent.

The boy who Caracalla had seen elevated to a major before his twenty-third year poked his head out of the opening.

“What is it - oh, it’s you, father. Er, what brings you to see me so early?”

“Checking to make sure you’re ready for action this morning,” Caracalla replied. He raised an eyebrow and finally asked the question. “Is there someone else in there?”

The boy stiffened. “I don’t see what concern it is of yours, father.”

“You have spent too much of your time in the company of that nature mage over the last few weeks,” the General replied bluntly. “If she’s in there with you, you won’t be able to keep that sort of thing secret. Rumors will spread.”

“I had no idea you were so worried about our reputation.”

“It’s not our reputation I’m worried about. Don’t give her a reputation, even if the stupid girl throws herself at you. We don’t need bad blood with other noble houses, even minor ones like Baron Greentear’s. We have enough problems without creating new enemies.”

Like the Grand Duke not properly understanding the scope of the threat we’re dealing with.

“Well, don’t worry, in any case. She’s been the picture of propriety despite my best efforts.”

“Good. I have a marriage in mind for you, and she’s of much higher birth.”

Geta shrugged, and Caracalla restrained the urge to scowl. His son had as of yet no mind for the political and strategic. If he hadn’t inherited his father’s class, the General would have kept the boy out of the military entirely.

Now that Geta was commissioned as a Major, Caracalla wasn’t going to waste him on some vapid girl with nothing more to offer than a pretty face.

The General stepped back and moved to the other side of the camp. It felt a bit absurd to be in this position, but he wanted to check on the paladin who had become a prisoner. He had already seen from previous experience in this situation that she was important - could be a valuable asset in the fighting to come - but this sequence of events, where she became a prisoner, was a twist.

An idiotic twist, because I’m surrounded by fools. Next time, I need to keep her away from her sister entirely. As it turned out, the High Priestess didn’t care about the paladin’s safety at all. I had assumed Samara might be a positive influence on Asha. Instead, the bitch was happy to use her own sister as a tool.

Caracalla half expected the paladin to be gone when he reached that side of the camp, but no, as he got close enough to see properly, there she was. Samara rose to a seated position, still shackled. She had been lying down. She looked unharmed, even content and well rested.

That’s good. Before, I recall, she wasn’t sleeping.

Perhaps she had reconciled herself to her present captivity.

He breathed a little sigh of relief. That was one less matter for him to worry about. The next couple of days would settle everything, and then he wouldn’t have to be concerned about what became of the paladin anymore. She would have served her purpose.

Either that, or he’d loop back and prevent this from ever happening at all.

“General, what are you - I mean, is there something you need from us, sir?” The leader of the little group, Mathias, managed to salvage whatever impertinent question he’d been about to ask. Caracalla drew close to him and looked down imposingly into the man’s eyes. The General saw the appropriate level of fear there.

“I wanted to ensure that you were treating Lady Samara appropriately to her station and the fact that she has not yet had the opportunity of a fair trial,” Caracalla replied, deliberately loud enough for her to hear everything. “Mistreat her, and you’ll answer to me.”

Never mind that they had actually abused her a bit within his hearing over the previous days.

At those words, the paladin stepped toward him, a small smile spreading over her face.

One of the soldiers stepped in her way.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” he asked.

“Let her through,” Caracalla ordered in a benevolent tone. He wasn’t close to the paladin, but he wanted to let her see him in as kindly a light as possible. He knew that there was at least one timeline where the necromancer attempted to corrupt her via means that the General did not yet understand. Samara should be one of their strongest weapons against the undead otherwise.

The paladin stepped through, her shackles dragging slightly in the sand. She smiled at Caracalla and looked him right in the eyes.

“Thank you for your - ah choo!”

A slightly twitchy nose was the only visible warning before she sneezed right into his face.

Caracalla forced himself to keep his expression normal, despite the annoyance and intrinsic disgust he felt at this situation.

He drew a handkerchief out of his pocket and quickly wiped his face off.

“You should make sure the lady has a blanket,” he said, looking at everyone but Samara. “Evidently she’s caught a chill.”

Which she sprayed right into my eyes. Do the people of Walia not teach their children to cover sneezes?

“She had one!” Mathias exclaimed defensively. “She must have kicked it off in her sleep—”

Caracalla gave the man a withering look.

Sure, she kicked it off with her shackled legs and ended up fully uncovered.

“Um, Goddess bless you, General,” Samara said apologetically.

“Oh, and her blessings to you as well, my lady,” Caracalla replied. “And I’m sure this misunderstanding about you and your sister will be cleared up soon after we return to the capital.”

He kept himself from smiling grimly until after he had walked away. As things stood, High Priestess Asha and Lady Samara would almost certainly be executed for their defiance of the Grand Duke, unless the holy women had some extremely highly placed defenders.

But he would dangle as much hope as he could to get the most use out of Samara until that wasn’t possible anymore.

The rest of the day dragged on.

Caracalla rode at the rear of the formation, since they were entering presumed hostile territory. The necromancer and his army of unholy creatures - plus the beastfolk, though that was not common knowledge, so the General didn’t advertise it - could be waiting around the next rock formation. This part of the desert was mostly flat, but there were a number of groupings of plateaus that obscured line of sight.

In none of the futures that General Caracalla had experienced did the necromancer mount an assault in this area, probably because he was hoping to surprise the Army when the battle began, with the resilience of the undead. If he spoiled that advantage by having smaller scale skirmishes with them, the men would be less likely to despair when fighting creatures that did not die from having their hearts stabbed or tire from hours of battle.

The men all around General Caracalla - his advisors - discussed battle plans and formations, environmental conditions and how they should use Fort Hadrian, but the General himself barely participated in the conversation. He viewed this as a loop that would probably end in failure, and he was most invested in trying to figure out why and how the necromancer kept doing things differently.

There had been five loops so far - ten months of Caracalla’s life! - wasted to figure out what sort of force he needed to defeat the necromancer, only for the prick to start using disembodied spirits in the last loop. That had made waiting for some holy magic users to join Caracalla’s brigade an absolute necessity, and of course, that just had to happen in a time when the High Priestess and Grand Duke hated each other for stupid political reasons.

More time wasted.

As they approached Fort Hadrian, however, an anomaly occurred.

A rider rode up to Caracalla’s position from among the rank and file.

“General!” he called after saluting. “Something’s wrong with a number of the men, sir!”

“What is it?” Geta asked.

“Some of them are vomiting or, um, soiling themselves, sir. Captain Savino was the first to report it, but about half of the other lieutenants and captains are noticing similar problems. The march was a little slower today, and they gradually realized it was the men… wandering off from the column to relieve themselves… repeatedly. There’s something going around the brigade. Worse than the usual stuff, if my experience is anything to go by, sir.”

Caracalla groaned inwardly. Another loop wasted…

“They’ve been marching for ten hours,” the General said, rubbing at his temple irritably with a single wrinkled hand. “We might have to make camp in the desert if this continues. I had hoped we would reach Fort Hadrian today.”

We’ll be sitting ducks if they’re out here. I’ll have to stay up half the night, sleep in shifts with Geta again, to make sure we aren’t overrun and killed in our sleep, before one of us can use our power.

“How much further do we have to go?” asked one of his advisors, Staff Sergeant Lepidus.

“Uh, the scouts mentioned that they could see the fortress, last I heard, Staff Sergeant,” the messenger said.

“We shouldn’t be more than a few miles away, then, I’d wager,” Lepidus said in a confidential voice.

“Then we keep marching to the fortification and rest there,” proposed Geta, looking at his father carefully.

“That sounds like our best option,” Caracalla agreed. “Assuming the necromancer has not taken the fortress, it will be the safest place for us to stay the night.”

The others looked at him as if wondering if he knew something they didn’t. All of them except Geta. He was the only one in on the secret.

The order was transmitted to everyone in the brigade. They would continue until they reached the fortress, proceed cautiously, and then rest there for the night.

It’s ridiculous that this would happen. Is it some power I have yet to see of the necromancer’s, or is it natural?

He opened his mouth to issue another order, then coughed.

My throat feels funny.

A few more symptoms manifested themselves as he continued riding forward.

He sneezed despite nothing getting in his nose. He found himself taking out his handkerchief to wipe snot from his upper lip too. His head began to feel sore, and the fluids gathering in the back of his throat disgusted him.

Caracalla became suspicious of this and asked Lepidus to make inquiries as they marched, but it seemed as if the men didn’t have a phlegmy throat or a runny nose among them.

Just a fucking cold. The rest of them might have been poisoned, or the necromancer has some power to spread disease. I probably caught this from the paladin, though. The idiot did sneeze right in my face.

There was one more thing.

His mana flowed more weakly through his body. The feeling was like sludge moving through a pipe instead of water. It still got to where it was going, but the motion was more laborious and slower.

Did the necromancer do this? My cold and the brigade’s dysentery? It won’t stop my power from working, but it would imply he knows I’m a mage. Through some unknown means, he’s getting closer to understanding me. Will he manage it before I understand him?

As they drew near the fortress, Geta and Caracalla moved a bit apart from the others to speak privately.

“What happened here last time?” Geta asked.

Caracalla shrugged irritably. “The necromancer is supposed to come and face us here, but he doesn’t usually bother using the fortification to his advantage.”

“So he has the fort?”

“He’s butchered the inhabitants for sure. But he and his minions should be charging out right about now or at least beginning to launch projectiles. In which case we’d wait a little while, see what kind of advantages he has, and then probably start the loop again. But assuming he’s truly not here, he’ll be holed up in the port nearby. If that’s the case, it’s a terrible mistake on his part. The people of Whadesgart will undoubtedly begin to turn against him if they have to endure a siege. He knows I would send back to the Kingdom for reinforcements if I’m likely to lose that fight, so he’d be too outmatched to give battle outside Whadesgart, where I know he has access to a ready supply of men and women who can be forced into fighting, raised after they’ve fallen, and then forced to fight again. Whatever else our opponent is, he’s familiar with the Kingdom’s procedures and strategies.”

“So, what do you think he’s doing?”

The General shrugged again. “He changes what he’s doing in different loops. Somehow. It feels almost like a sort of direct counter to our class. But the upside is that as far as we know, he doesn’t have the same power in his arsenal. Only our family possesses these skills, as far as anyone can trace. He’s probably performing some form of divination and guessing what we’ll do. Just getting lucky at interpreting the signs correctly so far. Well, luck and skill are involved. But they’ll fail him in one of these loops. Time just isn’t on his side.”

Geta rolled his eyes at the pun.

I’m your father, Caracalla thought. I’m entitled to make bad jokes.

The General rode forward as the bulk of his men reached attack range from the fortress.

The men at the front were loudly calling out, trying to hail whoever was in charge at Fort Hadrian. But of course the General knew they wouldn’t reach anyone.

Not anyone living, at least.

“Break the doors down!” Caracalla ordered briskly in a loud clear voice. “The enemy has already been here.”