V3Ch88-Hailgrim’s Ultimatum

“Let’s meet to discuss next moves,” Caracalla told his inner circle as they moved into Fort Hadrian.

Ugh, I feel what the holy men felt, he thought, suppressing a shudder as he stepped further past the threshold. Something is wrong with this place. Even the air feels unclean. Is it truly just residue of what dwelled here before?

The paladin had seemed certain, and her whole reason for being here was to defeat the necromancer.

“Yes, sir,” answered the men all around him. Major Cassius Silanus, Commander Lucius Felix, Commander Quintus Longinus, Staff Sergeant Lepidus, and Sergeant Aemilius all spoke in unison, leaving only Geta, Caracalla’s son, silent.

The General took a look at his son and caught the young man jerking his gaze away from none other than young Lady Miranda.

Geta’s and Caracalla’s eyes met, and the father sighed.

“Go and find the fortress’s war room,” Caracalla said, looking at Lepidus. “I will speak with my son, and then we’ll be along.”

The others moved on, while the General took his son aside.

“What did I tell you about messing with that girl, Geta?” Caracalla asked.

“You may have mentioned something about longer term consequences, I admit, but…”

“But what?”

“This loop is fucked anyway, right, father?” Geta asked.

The General tilted his head, first one way, then the other, thinking the question over, and finally nodded.

“Yes, we will almost certainly end up resetting a month or two back by the end,” he said. “That is not guaranteed, but it’s as close as I can get to certainty right now. The state of this fortress when we arrived only confirmed that the nature of the powers we’re facing will require us to be on good terms with Lady Samara as well as the Divine Trust’s agents here. Instead, the paladin is in chains, and Inquisitor Bram is almost dead, leaving them leaderless. So we’re probably just here learning.”

“Excellent. Then I’ll just go and learn some things from Lady Miranda. You see, her bodyguard is suffering horribly from that stomach bug that’s going around, and I promised her a tour of the fortress…”

“You don’t even know the layout of Fort Hadrian,” Caracalla said, resisting the urge to laugh. He had been young once too.

“She doesn’t know that,” Geta replied with a wink. “Besides, once you’ve been around one fortress, you’ve basically seen them all, right?”

“It’s your life you’re gambling with, Geta. If you intend to do anything foolish, it will be your time that you waste to undo it. Not mine.”

The way their shared skill worked, the person who activated it sent their body back in time. All injuries were healed in transit, but the time lost with each trip remained lost. This led to each generation of the family prematurely aging.

But it had also made Caracalla and his predecessors undefeated in battle and taken them to the highest ranks of Nietian society. It might potentially have made them kings, but that path had seemed too perilous to the earlier generations of the family, so they had ended up where they were.

“Thank you for understanding, father,” Geta said, nodding eagerly and stepping back before Caracalla could say anything more.

Is it really worth some fraction of your lifespan merely to enjoy one night with a girl like her? the older man thought. There are brothels back in Enh… Perhaps his allowance hasn’t been enough, or perhaps he’s just fond of the thrill of the hunt.

It didn’t seem like too much of a chase, if Caracalla was being honest.

As his son walked away, Lady Miranda stepped into view. She had been twenty feet or so from them. Out of earshot for their fairly quiet conversation, but close. She was already biting at the bait.

Maybe her family had kept her so sheltered that she was jumping at the earliest opportunity to be let off the leash.

The General took a step forward, and a hand fell on his arm.

“Hm?”

He turned his head, only to see the two other members of the Party of Heroes who had joined the expedition standing there.

Black Hailgrim and… what was the other one’s name?

Caracalla could barely pay attention to the woman to even try and remember her. Hailgrim was the one who had grabbed his arm, and the two gray-haired men’s eyes met, instinctively feeling each other out.

He’s strong. As strong as me? Stronger? Perhaps, on a raw level. I can’t be certain.

The man had a reputation. Black Hailgrim had served alongside two different Heroes now. Caracalla had a certain mystique of his own within the Army, but Hailgrim was known worldwide.

“My apologies for being… a bit forward, General,” Hailgrim said after a moment. “But there were precious few opportunities to have a private word with you on the march here. We wanted to choose our moment carefully.”

“You and your colleague,” Caracalla said, tipping his head slightly at the young woman.

“Yes,” Hailgrim said. “We wanted to discuss the current circumstances of our other colleague.”

“A very unfortunate matter,” the General said.

“Unfortunate is a little bit gentler than the word I would use,” the woman said.

“Really?” Caracalla said. “Hm. Forgive me, young lady, what was your name again?”

“Mischa,” she replied, her lips forming a flat line. “Sir, you must let Samara go.”

“Oh, must I?” He snorted. “It’s been a long while since a woman your age thought it wise to give me orders. My wife has been dead these ten years. Gods rest her soul, she was the last woman who could tell me what I must do. Try again, girl. Tell me why I ought to do what you’re requesting, and perhaps I’ll consider it.”

Only because I don’t want to deal with Hailgrim without knowing what he’s actually capable of. You benefit from his reputation, you impudent child.

“We’re members of the Party of Heroes, sworn to take no part in the wars between nations or the factional struggles within them,” she said.

“It seems your friend didn’t keep that oath, then,” Caracalla observed. “The High Priestess entangled herself in Nietian factions and bit off more than she could chew. Then Lady Samara became her accomplice as she sought to escape the house arrest that her interference had earned.”

“She is a part of a religious order!” Mischa said, gritting her teeth. “She is also sworn to obey the High Priestess of the Great Temple. When High Priestess Asha ordered us here to help you, she was the one who insisted most fervently that we follow that command. When the High Priestess demanded that Samara help free her, she was equally bound to follow her in that.”

“I confess, I know little of the details of her order’s vows, but I truly hope that what you say is true. If Samara can testify to those facts under the compulsion of a Confessor, then the Grand Duke may show her some leniency.”

He began to turn away, but Hailgrim grabbed his shoulder roughly and spun him around.

“Listen, General,” he said in a calm, steady voice. “If you don’t set Samara free yourself, I’ll do it. I don’t mind if I can’t ever set foot in this country again. She’s one of our friends, a good person who follows her conscience… even if she has been a bit troubled of late.” His hand dropped to a sword he wore at his waist. The hilt bore the markings of many years of use. “I’m willing to bet that I can carve a path through your soldiers to reach her if I need to. Are you interested in betting your soldiers’ lives that I’m wrong?”

“That assumes you would get past me, having declared your intentions so openly,” Caracalla replied.

Mystic Barrier.

A wall of dense mana instantly rose, separating Hailgrim’s hand from the General’s body. The barrier was as tall and wide as the hall the three stood in, enough to keep them from getting by. Hopefully thick enough that Hailgrim would be unable to pierce it.

“Is that how this is to go?” Hailgrim asked coldly. He began to pull at the hilt of his weapon. The first flicker of steel came into view, and the General felt a prickle of unease at the back of his neck. In that metal he sensed death, cold and inevitable.

“The two of you threaten violence in order to break my country’s laws,” Caracalla replied. “I was not raised to the rank of general to stand by and allow that.”

He prepared himself, gathering mana in case he needed to loop backward in time. Not the full two months that he had been contemplating earlier, but a few hours so that he could do something to prepare for this confrontation.

“Violence is not my preferred path,” said Hailgrim, calming. “But if you will not free our companion—”

“I need her here right now in any case,” the General said. “The enemy we fight - the enemy she brought you here to face - demands that the religious authorities and the military stand together. This fight might be the only opportunity the world has to keep itself from a sudden, dark end.”

“That… may be,” Hailgrim replied slowly. “It’s a fact that Samara was as committed to that battle as any of us. Will you agree to free her after the fighting?”

Caracalla let out the breath he was holding in a hiss.

This was an opportunity for him to avoid conflict, and the truth was, he had already thought the arrest in this matter was a counterproductive nuisance.

“Yes,” he said after a moment.

He wasn’t even lying. After he saw what happened in the battle, he would loop back in time and ensure she was never in this situation. It was better than merely freeing her.

Black Hailgrim looked Caracalla in the eyes for a long moment, seemingly gauging the General’s truthfulness. Then he simply nodded and pushed his blade back into its sheath.

“Let’s find our quarters, Mischa,” he said, stepping forward.

Caracalla realized he was still blocking the entire hallway, and he pulled his Mystic Barrier down at the moment before Hailgrim would have collided with it.

The confidence of those steps… The lack of hesitation almost feels like he believes he would have simply broken through my mana with his body alone.

His eyes narrowed. He would have to be careful of that man. Hailgrim was undeniably as good as his reputation, still one of the continent’s strongest warriors despite his age.

The General finally made his way to the war room, where the others were patiently waiting for him, seated around a table carved with a detailed map of the Salt Waste region, including the elven islands off the coast.

“That was a long conversation with the Major,” Commander Lucius Felix ventured.

“Yes,” Caracalla agreed, choosing not to explain what had happened after he spoke with Geta. “He and I debriefed each other on what we think about the present situation, so there was no need for him to attend this meeting.”

The others uttered noises of agreement.

“You wanted to discuss next moves, sir?” said Major Cassius Silanus.

Caracalla nodded.

“It’s a simple question I’m wondering about, really. What is this necromancer doing?”

“Doing, sir?” asked Commander Quintus Longinus. “We assume he’s preparing for war, right?”

There were murmurs of agreement from around the table.

“A whole squad of ours went missing out here months back,” said Sergeant Aemilius, repeating something everyone present already knew. “As best we can guess, that would be around the beginning of his activity in the Salt Waste. Which means he’s been preparing all that time. He’s probably got what he thinks is a decent war plan.”

“What I mean is, he could have used this fortress as his base of operations,” Caracalla said. “Or he could have engaged us in the sand. The men are tired and sick, so those circumstances would be advantageous to him. Why isn’t he doing either of those things?”

The men around the table looked at each other. They knew that the General had ways of knowing certain things that the rest of them simply didn’t have access to. Their long association with him had told them that much. They also knew he would never reveal the full extent of those secrets.

“Running scared, perhaps,” said Lucius after a moment.

Caracalla shook his head.

“No. Cassius?”

“I don’t know, sir. Waiting for us to weaken?”

“Plausible. Quintus?”

“The men have found the fortress devoid of life, sir. It’s possible that the necromancer has turned it into some sort of death trap. Wasn’t that what the holy folk were chanting about earlier? Maybe that was the necromancer’s whole plan. Hide and let his dark magic kill us all.”

“We have elite mages and holy men and women among us, and I think he knew that we would,” Caracalla said. “He can’t have been relying only on that.”

“Trying to bleed us slowly, then,” said Staff Sergeant Lepidus. “First, waits for us to get sick. Maybe that’s one of his powers?” He looked at the General for a long moment but got no answer and finally continued. “Then he puts a hex on the fortress, knowing this is our only safe position to camp in. He leaves a few undead to get the first people to enter Fort Hadrian. Finally… for his next move, maybe he attacks us on our way to his true stronghold, when we’re most exhausted and not expecting it. He probably can’t get the element of surprise, not truly. It’s not possible to hide an army in this desert. But he could hit us after a full day of marching, when we’re about to make camp again. He knows we have to advance toward his position. We can’t just hole up in the fortress and wait for him.”

“Still, doctrine suggests he should have taken the fortress and used that to attack us,” said Aemilius, again repeating what they all already knew. “Unless this disease is part of his strategy, and it gets markedly worse over time, there is nothing to be gained by waiting. He had the advantage of a fortification, and we were already fatigued by the time we arrived here.”

“So maybe we’re all going to get much sicker,” Lucius said.

Caracalla sighed. They were just suggesting ideas that he had already come up with himself. Sometimes that was the way of things when one knew one’s advisors so well.

“We’re staying the night here in any case, men. Double the watch. We don’t want our defenses dropping because disease made someone tired on duty. That could be what our enemy wants. And make sure you get some rest yourselves. Perhaps his force will materialize to face ours tomorrow. If not, it’ll be a long day. I’m retiring early myself.”