The Other Tower

“Hah! Looks like we both got here at the same time!”

“Didn’t you say this was a race?” Viviane asked, looking down at her hand that was still firmly joined with Medrauta’s.

“I did, but you wouldn’t let go of my hand.” Medrauta grinned teasingly as she gently led her lady along, the two girls making their way across the walkway of the border wall.

“And whose fault is that?” Viviane asked, giggling sweetly before giving Medrauta a quick peck on the cheek. It’d been a while since the two shared a relatively peaceful, intimate moment like this with their recent days being filled with nothing but fighting and action. The excitement was welcome, but the noblewoman felt like they could use a little break.

Granted, being surrounded by slumbering witchspawn that were just a few hundred meters away while also looking for a special mana core didn’t exactly fit Viviane’s idea of a relaxing date, but she was willing to take whatever she could get at this point.

As the two of them stood atop the massive walls and looked toward the vast, moonlit expanse, a strange sense of peace settled upon them. Hand in hand, Viviane and Medrauta stared not into the distance, but up into the sky above. The stars twinkled with an almost tentative light against the dark tapestry as if they were preparing to fall, but the sea of luminous clusters and multicolored nebulae produced a beauty unrivaled even if they must one day plummet to the earth.

Medrauta’s grip around Viviane’s hand tightened gently, causing the noblewoman to squeeze her knight’s hand in turn. It had been a long while since the pair was granted such a moment to themselves, no matter how fleeting. Far away from the constant bloodshed of battlefields, the incessant mountains of papers, and the duty-bound obligations, Viviane and Medrauta allowed themselves a brief reprieve from the endless trials they had been put through and were still going through.

“...Hey, Medrauta.”

“Hm?”

“When all of this is over... Should we settle down in the countryside?”

Medrauta laughed. “Wish we could... It’d be a lot simpler than what we’ve got lined up.”

Viviane grinned sheepishly. “Yeah... I suppose so. You’ll be there, right? At the end of it all?”

“Damn right I will, ‘duchess.’”

“Oh, please. I’m hoping to put off inheriting the duchy for a long while.”

The pair shared a round of laughter as they returned their attention to the scene before them. Though their moment had been brief, it had been enough for them to continue pressing on, knowing that there would be many more moments to come after the trials ahead. Below them on the once-green prairies of the empire laid droves upon droves of slumbering witchspawn, yet the thought of such accursed hordes waking upon daylight no longer struck fear within the two.

Together, their keen vision pierced through the shroud of their night, cutting through the darkness and forcing it to divulge the secrets it held. A massive carpet of creatures blanketed the entirety of the empire as far as they could see, the beasts collapsed in what appeared to be awkward and painful positions—if they even felt pain—as they fell dormant immediately upon moonrise. The unchanging blanket of black cascaded throughout the whole of the empire, overwriting the greenery beneath with its terrifying visage.

Like an unstoppable mist of nightmares, Amelia sought to have her army of witchspawn sweep across the empire while its knights and soldiers were occupied by Kaslavna or turned against the empire as a result of her allies, but never did she think that this terrible sight would be her accursed army’s own undoing. Indeed, it was the very homogeneous nature of this horde that gave away its most vulnerable positions.

“Look! Over there, Medrauta!” Viviane clutched her knight’s arm excitedly, pointing toward an object in the distance.

Medrauta nodded. “Yeah, I see it.”

The object in question was a semi-large structure constructed entirely with what appeared to be pitch-black bricks that almost blended seamlessly into the night. Had it not been for their enhanced vision, Medrauta and Viviane would’ve missed it easily. Rising high above the beasts beneath it, the structure took on the form of a tower similar to the spire within the capital, albeit on a much smaller scale. Four spikes not unlike prongs capped its top, piercing into the air like teeth from a leech. In the center of those spikes was a black-red orb that pulsated rhythmically as if a heart, beating in tune with the rise and fall of the waves in the lake that surrounded the tower.

Upon straining her eyes, Viviane could spot a gossamer thread of what appeared to be silver mana leading into the orb. Despite her best attempts to trace the source of the silver thread, it quickly disappeared into the night, leaving its origin and purpose unknown. At the very least, Viviane and Medrauta had confirmed their theory of a supply unit that aided Amelia in diffusing her power over the whole of the empire.

“It doesn’t look too far from the walls.” Medrauta remarked. “Maybe around fifteen or twenty minutes away on horseback. Less if not for the witchspawn.”

Viviane nodded in agreement. “With the witchspawn still dormant, don’t we have a pretty good chance of getting there now? There’s still a couple hours of night left.”

Medrauta shook her head. “Best to wait until tomorrow night. We’ve no idea what the interior looks like and what awaits us inside. It’d be foolish to think that Amelia would leave such structures unguarded. Plus... I doubt that’s the only tower in the area.”

Viviane nodded. “I saw something that looked like a thread of silver mana streaming into the orb from afar. I couldn’t see where it led, but I’m fairly certain that there’s another tower nearby. Amelia must have a whole network of these things throughout the whole empire...”

“Yeah... It’ll take a concerted effort to destroy all of them, and it’s not like we can have the soldiers march out at night. Failing to return by daybreak would be absolutely disastrous.” Medrauta sighed. Although she had expected as much, knowing that everything fell to herself and Viviane once again was a burden she would never truly get used to.

“...How about we speak with the garrison before doing anything?” Viviane asked, recalling the suggestions Medrauta made before they ascended the wall. “A few of the braver tacticians stayed behind, so I’m sure we’ll be able to think of something together!”

Medrauta nodded, pulling Viviane into a gentle embrace. Though the tacticians wouldn’t be able to help on the battlefield, their existence alleviated some of Medrauta’s burdens at the very least. Though she was a powerful knight and Viviane was now more than competent as a noblewoman and an archer, they were still young. In fact, the pair should’ve been in the middle of their first year at Avalyne Academy right about now. Instead of that, they were forced to fight against seemingly insurmountable odds with the empire’s very future riding on their shoulders.

It wasn’t a burden they were meant to bear, yet they did so without complaint.

“Thanks, Vivi.” Medrauta murmured.

Viviane shook her head, wrapping her arms around her beloved knight. “Whatever we have to face, we’ll do it together.”

Illuminated by the moonlight, the two held their embrace for a few more moments. Though the stress of their responsibilities weighed heavily on their shoulders, they found it much easier to bear together. As Medrauta and Viviane made their way down from the walls, they were greeted with a rather surprising sight.

“Dame Medrauta, Lady Castellia!” One of the officers greeted the pair as they approached.

Medrauta waved to the man. “What exactly is going on down here?”

The officer grinned. “Looks stupid, doesn’t it? One of the other officers thought of this. We saw you heading up the walls to observe the situation and felt guilty just sitting around, so... We thought we might as well do something.”

“...Right.” Medrauta watched the soldiers slowly push large cylindrical pieces of wood across the witchspawn-infested grassland. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be battering rams now repurposed into tools for pushing the slumbering monsters en masse. It was a silly sight for sure, but not one that Medrauta could truly deem ineffective. After all, the witchspawn truly were getting pushed back toward the walls.

“We figured we couldn’t kill ‘em, but that wouldn’t stop us from at least movin’ ‘em outside the wall. We’ve still got a good couple of hours before sunup, so we’ll see if we can patch up the holes a bit.”

Viviane nodded in approval. In the end, the value of an idea wasn’t in how it looked, but whether it worked or not, and it certainly appeared to be working. While the massive gates were a lost cause, repairing the breaches in the walls would allow the soldiers to focus on only one ingress point come morning, reducing the need to cover multiple fronts.

“We’ll give you a hand.” Viviane decided.

“Huh? What about talking to the tacticians?” Medrauta frowned. “I’m sure the soldiers can handle this on their own.”

Viviane shook her head. “Trust me, Medrauta. This is going to streamline everything.”

“Well... Alright.” Medrauta sighed. Despite her skepticism, she was willing to place her trust in Viviane. The way she had managed to outmaneuver everyone in the bid for dominion over Revelo duchy was a mark of her growth and tactical skill.

Besides, it was her duty as a knight to ensure Viviane’s plans came to fruition. The pair headed toward the nearest battering ram, preparing for the long night ahead of them.