Chapter Fifty Three

Numerous emotions ran through Cinna at finally seeing her father again for the first time in ages. At seeing him up and about, even, rather than wasting away in bed, barely able to move or speak. Relief, joy, guilt, fear, and more that she didn’t even have the time to fully process.

He looked…better. Not as healthy as he’d been in his prime, or just before the gods announced Mortos’s death, but Cinna saw more color in her father’s face than she had since he became bedridden at least. No longer were his shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He stood tall and broad once more. His armor made it hard to tell, but he also appeared to have regained some of the weight he’d lost. She could tell that his cheeks were less gaunt, if nothing else.

Even so, there were some things that King Artemisias would never get back. His hair had gone prematurely gray some time ago and now it was verging on white. It had thinned as well; he’d shaved his face, and Cinna couldn’t help but wonder if that was because his beard had grown so thin as to look unseemly, necessitating its removal. The loss of his facial hair cost the king a good deal of the gravitas he’d once possessed.

“You’re looking much better, father,” Cinna observed aloud, a thin smile on her face.

“And I see your uncle wasn’t entirely lying,” Artemisias noted with a frown as he looked Cinna over. He spotted the sling holding her arm up immediately, of course, and his trained eyes didn’t miss the way she stood favoring one leg and holding even her injured arm away from her ribs. “You should be in the infirmary, not on the battlefield.”

“Alas, but that’s not an option. I’ve brought someone back with me and it’s my responsibility to see to her safety,” Cinna replied, stepping aside so that her father could see Lilia, who’d been mostly hidden behind her. Suddenly finding herself the focus of the king’s steely gaze, Lilia jumped in alarm and tried to hide again, but Cinna had already stepped back to place herself flush with the wall. The necromancer had nowhere to hide.

“So she’s the one, then,” Artemisias said knowingly. Much like Tryggve, it appeared he’d already figured out the meaning of Cinna’s message. “Timid. Unsuited for the field of battle. I see what you mean—she wouldn’t be able to entrust herself to just anyone.”

“I’m glad you understand,” Cinna responded with a smile. She had feared a repeat of her argument with her uncle, but it seemed her father wasn’t quite so protective.

“You’ve been fighting since the age of fourteen and training almost your entire life. I trust you to know your limits by now, as well as when it’s necessary to push them,” Artemisias told her. Then, wordlessly, he stepped closer, opening his arms wide. With her one working arm Cinna accepted the hug, armor clanking as the two fully armored royals embraced. “Welcome back. It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you again as well, father.”

“And now that that’s out of the way, I imagine you summoned me here for a reason, Tryggve,” Artemisias stated as he broke off the hug and turned to his brother-in-law.

“Aye. We’ve determined a single necromancer is likely responsible for that bridge and I’ve come up with a plan that should allow the young lady there to deal with both,” Tryggve replied.

“There are only a few things you would need my permission for. Which leads me to one conclusion: you intend to use me as bait,” Artemisias guessed. Hearing that, Cinna inhaled sharply.

“You must be joking!” she objected.

“I’ve been observing their movements from up here for the entirety of the siege, and I’ve noticed something. Every time the king takes to the field, the draugr engaging his guard directly become more focused. I’m sure you’ve noticed it as well. The necromancers are responding to the sight of your banner. They’re aware that your presence emboldens our own forces and wish to collapse our morale by claiming your head,” Tryggve explained.

“I see. So, to draw the necromancer out, you’d like to feign a collapse of our defenses. As we retreat through the outer courtyard and towards the middle walls, there would be an opportunity for enemy forces to give chase and kill me,” Artemisias continued for Tryggve, easily grasping his line of thinking.

“That doesn’t mean we need to use the king as bait!” Cinna hissed, keeping her voice down so as not to be overheard by the farspeakers nearby. “Fighting on the frontline is one thing. A plan like this calls for a double, not the king himself.”

“Oh, but it does,” Artemisias refuted. “Another person with the right build could wear my armor, but could he mimic my accent? Unlikely. It’s an unfortunate reality that as a foreigner, my voice stands out. The soldiers under my command would notice the difference immediately, and it would have an effect on morale that we could hardly afford.”

“The retreat is almost certain to transform into a rout as it is. If the soldiers believe their king has abandoned them, they may not recover when the time comes for it, even when I appear with reinforcements and attempt to make a stand in the courtyard,” Tryggve added.

“More importantly, how do we know a necromancer would pursue me personally?” Artemisias asked.

“…I’ve engaged three necromancers at close range now,” Cinna began reluctantly at Tryggve’s prompting. “In every encounter I’ve been able to see a difference between how their undead fight when they’re present and when they’re commanding them remotely. Lilia could explain the reasons better than myself, but it seems draugr under the direct control of a necromancer fight more effectively. Any time they believe they’ve identified a target they must eliminate they take to the field personally to ensure it.”

“Is that true?” Artemisias asked, directing the question towards Lilia, who once again shrank under his gaze. Cinna patted the woman’s shoulder to encourage her.

“Um, y-yes! W-we can look through the eyes of our familiars, but the further away they are, the longer it takes for them to do things we tell them to do. So, ah, if they want something done, they’ll need to be there for it,” Lilia squeaked, looking everywhere but directly into Artemisias’s eyes.

“And she has reason to believe the necromancer that constructed the bridge also engaged us on it. That one is likely the closest, and will be the first to respond if there is an opening in our defenses,” Cinna added.

“We’ll do it gradually to keep them from suspecting anything. First, we’ll continue withdrawing wounded soldiers from the walls, but we won’t replace them. We’ll also cycle our mages out more slowly, giving the impression that they’re growing exhausted and we don’t have enough time to let them rest between shifts. Then, once the ranks have thinned enough, we’ll stage a retreat to the inner courtyard,” Tryggve explained.

“How do you plan to deal with the bridge?” Cinna asked.

“I’ve already sent an earth mage to the basement with instructions to dig a tunnel towards the gatehouse. You and Lilia will use it to get close enough to collapse the bridge once the necromancer advances in to the courtyard. Two others have been deployed to make holes in the walls where the outer courtyard meets them. When the bridge collapses we’ll open those holes up and send soldiers through to cut off the necromancer’s retreat,” Tryggve answered.

“Otherwise there’d be nothing stopping them from leaping into the Stryk, after all,” Artemisias agreed. “I’d prefer to simply drop the gates instead of undermining the walls, but…”

“It would take too long to retake the gatehouse. Much simpler to attack the intruders from three directions at once and surround them,” Cinna finished.

“If we could have gone through the basement, why’d we waste all that time!?” Lilia whispered into Cinna’s ear, apparently too frightened of the king to voice her concern for everyone to hear. Cinna smiled and leaned down to answer her question.

“It will take time to make a tunnel without collapsing the courtyard and gatehouse. We had hoped to destroy the bridge before the undead could make much use of it at the time, but the chance for that has passed,” Cinna informed her.

“Cinna, take this,” Tryggve said, holding out his hand. Cinna extended her own, palm up, and Tryggve dropped something into it. She brought the item closer to get a better look at it, finding it to be a token with runes engraved into it. A beacon used by farspeakers. “Wait in the basement until I contact you. I’m sure Lilia will be able to tell when the necromancer enters the courtyard, but I’d prefer if you wait for my signal before you enter the tunnel.”

“Right. Because the necromancer may see us if they look in the right direction with their soul sense, so we need to wait until they’re too busy to notice,” Cinna stated more for Lilia’s benefit than anything. Seeming to understand that, Tryggve just nodded.

“And, of course, when the time comes I’ll be sending every mage I can scrape together to engage the liches and prevent them from assisting our target. It’s going to leave us in dire straits for some time afterwards, but we’ll figure it out,” Tryggve finished.

Frankly, Cinna had to say that seemed like the sloppiest part of the entire plan, but she couldn’t argue with the necessity. Many of the liches present had means of defying gravity, so if enough of them gathered to overwhelm the Selkarcian mages they might be able to rescue the necromancer. It would be absolutely vital to match the liches’ numbers at a bare minimum. Exceeding them would be preferable, as liches didn’t tire the way that living mages did.

As a consequence, most of the mages present would be tired by the time the necromancer could be captured and utterly exhausted by the time Lilia dealt with them. They would have to hold off rescue attempts in the meantime, not just fight back the liches during the ambush. Cinna expected the necromancer’s allies to stop at nothing in their attempts to rescue what might well be one of the most skilled of their number. If not due to sentiment then due to sheer pragmatism.

It went without saying that, without mages to counter the magic of the enemy liches, Selkarc’s soldiers would have no defense against them. There were means of countering liches without magic under normal circumstances, but the fjord would prevent anyone from actually reaching the liches, giving them an unassailable position from which to rain death on the fortress. A single lich, unopposed, could annihilate the entire garrison singlehanded.

Combat magic hadn’t been much less powerful at the time the fortress was constructed than it was now, if only because the departure of the gods had robbed most mages of access to their most powerful spells. The fortress had been built with the expectation that its garrison would include mages, though. Defending mages could neutralize attack spells with counterspells or simply block them with their own elements. Attempting to defend the fortress without any would be suicide.

But conventional logic said doing so without access to priests and their healing miracles was just as suicidal, and the defenders had already been denied that. Every minute that passed meant more soldiers wounded. Those men and women would need weeks, if not months, to recover naturally. If that bridge wasn’t eliminated soon, attrition would take its toll. Already a great deal of Selkarc’s forces were wounded from the battles prior to the retreat to the Stryk, and those soldiers hadn’t yet returned to the frontlines. This defensive line needed to serve its purpose of limiting actual combat for a little longer so that Selkarc could replenish its numbers.

“I have my misgivings about this plan, but I don’t see that we have a choice. Before we head down to the basement, though, please tell me you have a plan to compensate for exhausting all our mages in one fell swoop,” Cinna pleaded as she stored the beacon she’d been handed in a pocket of her armor.

“It’s a gamble, I admit. It depends on how long it takes Leo to deal with the other bridges. If he gets here in time, though, we won’t have anything else to worry about.”