NOVEL SIMPLE 78. Fort Crissna
"Something wrong, officer?" The deep and pure voice, while incredibly captivating, was not what the colonel expected the enormous wolf to sound like. Especially since the said wolf was very amused.
"Mr Fluffles, this is my uncle!" Marie announced happily and walked easily near the man frozen in primal fear.
Marie ignored the visible dread of her relative and proceeded to approach the huge wolf, which almost made her uncle cry in panic. He was looking straight into insanely blue wolf's eyes that were on the same level as his head. But the wolf, instead of swallowing the small child, lowered itself and allowed it to be mounted, utterly shattering Fornal Ban's knowledge of the world.
"Nice to meet you. My name is Mr Fluffles. I am Marie's familiar." Mr Fluffles nodded its large head and wagged his tail, which sent two terrified and previously motionless Cridian soldiers flying into the air. "Sorry."
"What's going on here?!" Fornal Ban finally snapped and looked around, first at his niece sitting on Mr Fluffles, then to Galahad who was stoically looking down from his majestic mount and finally at his soldiers who were afraid and uncertain if he really made the right decision.
"You are being saved, Uncle! Please, stop resisting..." Marie smiled at him, making him sit down heavily in the bloodied snow.
•••
The surrender of the Cridian forces took a much longer time than Galahad had anticipated. In the meantime, Galahad talked a lot with colonel Ban, who decided to cooperate with the forces of Avalon. He even warned Galahad about the army detachment in Girsion, to which the knight of Avalon shrugged and explained it was no longer a threat. Fornal Ban grieved over his fallen soldiers and managed at least to strike a deal that their fallen would not be used as another cover-up story for the Cridian investigators. They were sitting in the field tent and the colonel was wearing a special cloak that already would be warm on its own, but runes built into it made it into a state-of-the-art piece of clothing that not only kept its owner dry but also in perfect body temperature.
They were observing former Cridian soldiers mounting the wagons that Marie brought with her. Some of the soldiers were angry, and some indifferent, but all of them trusted their colonel, which shouldn't be that surprising after learning how queen Josla treated her subjects. No one could bring back the dead back to life, but everyone else was fully healed. While sitting in the wagons, they ate a steaming hot stew with fresh bread. From the loud jokes coming from the wagons, most of them decided they were staying prisoners as long as the food was this good.
Marie decided that she was going to stay with Galahad and her uncle, since returning to Avalon on her own right now was very, very dangerous. Especially when the Eagle courier returned, bringing news that she was indeed grounded. He also informed Marie how her mother was furious.
"I told you it was a stupid idea..." Mr Fluffles laughed at the distressed girl.
"Lord Thor ordered me to tell you, Mr Fluffles, that you are grounded as well. He is very angry at you, and if not for the fact that Marie is now safe with Lord Galahad, he would take four Shadow Fenrirs and pursue you himself. There will be punishment for your reckless actions." The laugh of the large wolf was abruptly cut when he dropped to the ground and covered his head with his paws.
"We are doomed, Marie!" He wailed in terror.
"We should run!" Marie looked around as if she was expecting her mother to emerge from the shadows.
"If they send Auburn to catch us, we are screwed! I can't outrun Lord Thor and four Shadow Fenrirs!" Mr Fluffles started whining like a puppy.
"Then we are doomed..." Marie dropped on her back, straight into Mr Fluffles’s long fur, just before she hugged the massive wolf.
"You should just give up and accept your fate." Galahad started laughing, looking at them.
"Marie, your mom is right to be angry." Fornal was sitting at the table at which was standing a courier eagle. He looked normally big, but after Ban saw Lord Arani, every other eagle was just small. "That was dangerous! The winter beasts could hurt you!"
"No chance. They are not moving in the shadow realm." The five-year-old murmured under her breath, still trying to figure out how to avoid the punishment.
"Shadow realm? I... I do not have any strength left..." The colonel looked heavily at his shaking hands and hoped that he was not in some fever dream.
•••
I ruffled my hair and groaned, looking at Amber, who was visibly amused.
"That's not funny!" I said pointedly, but she just burst into uncontrollable laughter.
"Maybe a little, your Highness." Annika finally smiled. "Fornal... He always was a much better man than his no-good older brother. But that was just my luck *sigh*... On the other hand... If my parents wed me to Fornal, I would never have had Marie and we would never have found a home in Avalon, so maybe I shouldn't complain..."
We were sitting in the war room, watching the map where the little figures of surrendered Fornal Ban's forces started mounting wagons and my legions formed marching lines. The Cridians were disarmed and all their weapons and armours were stored in the items of holding given to the legions. I was very glad that Galahad thought about taking their gear because our smiths would put the material to good use. Annika was smiling mysteriously, lost in her thoughts while Amber was breathing heavily, trying to calm down.
"Theon, you overreacted." She started once again and quickly put a finger over my lips to prevent me from denying it. "Marie is a child, that's true. But she always admired Fornal. Besides, he was more of a father figure to her than her real father ever was."
"That is right, my Queen." Annika fixed herself on the chair and tilted her head when it turned out that Galahad's forces were not heading straight back to Avalon. "Where are they going?"
"I don't know..." I looked at the map.
•••
Captain Stuur was sitting in the colonel's office, smirking widely. For the next few months, he would be unquestionable lord over this castle. He never liked Fornal Ban and his idea of justice and fairness, but if everything went smoothly, he would retain superiority over Fort Crissna. His father sent him a message that Queen Josla looked at their family with favour and was going to elevate him to the official governor of Crissna Province instead of that talentless peasant who just was lucky to end up as the colonel of the Cridian Army. It was natural that only nobles should be responsible for such prestigious outposts.
"Sir! The colonel is returning!" The sergeant opened the doors in panic.
"WHAT?!" Stuur stood up in a panic and quickly moved towards the doors.
They ran towards the main gate. He might hate Ban, but he was not going to receive any reprimands. He was a second son of a baron after all, and no peasant would destroy his flawless records.
"We noticed the standard he is always using and his company is going to reach us in a few minutes!"
"Why didn't he send any messenger pigeons?!" the captain asked with unmasked anger.
"I think this is the problem, sir! We checked the dovecote and someone forgot to take the pigeons! All of them were waiting in their nests!" The sergeant was running right behind the captain.
"Gods! Who was responsible for preparing them?" The heart of the young captain was pounding hard in fear. "The colonel is going to rip someone's head off for that!"
"I checked the orders. The logistic group that had gone with them, so we should be safe, sir!"
The captain just nodded, which went unnoticed by the huffing sergeant. They crossed the dark and cold halls of the castle and just after five minutes; they were standing at the gates with the ten more soldiers awaiting the colonel's arrival. The gatehouse was impressive- it was wide enough that a column five men wide could easily march through it. It was three metres tall, allowing for easy transport of the siege engines. The main gates were made from thick ironwood and required at least five soldiers to close one wing manually, but most of the time, four mages poured their mana into the runic mechanism. Captain Stuur looked towards the snow-covered plain and felt a strange tingle of his instinct. Something wasn't right.
"Who are these soldiers escorting the colonel, sergeant?"
"They have our cloaks, sir..." The sergeant shrugged. "It's way too cold today so I wouldn't even show my nose from under the hood if I were them..."
"Yeah..." the captain confirmed with little confidence.
In the meantime, the colonel and his guards entered the gatehouse. The darkness inside the gatehouse was dispersed only by the light of the sun reflected by snow drifts outside. Even so, Stuur still felt something was very off.
"Captain Stuur!" Colonel Ban yelled, standing in front of him, but the rest of his soldiers, except two, headed inside the castle.
It was at that moment when Captain Stuur noticed a black armour under the Cridian cape of one of the warriors who was standing behind the colonel. His eyes widened when he understood that some enemy soldiers just went inside the fortress and used the colonel as bait, so he just opened the gates for them.
"Alarm!" He managed to yell when the world turned black.
Before Captain Stuur understood what was going on, he was dead.
•••
"Tsk..." Galahad sighed as he killed the captain who had just yelled.
"CALM THE FUCK DOWN!" Fornal Ban yelled and soldiers hesitated. "We had a rat in our ranks."
"Sir?!" The miserable sergeant looked at the tip of the blade.
The sergeant, instead of raising his hands, ducked down and suddenly he lurched towards the soldier in front of him, drawing his sword. He thrusted his sword right into the stomach of a strange soldier in front of him, but the blade, instead of ripping the armour, bounced harmlessly away, with the characteristic chime of metal hitting the metal. He never learnt what killed him.
"I see there were two of them!" Ban was standing unfazed and turned his head towards the rest of the soldiers in the gatehouse.
"Sir!" The oldest of the remaining soldiers simply saluted.
He noticed that all two hundred of the remaining soldiers in the stronghold entered the gatehouse and the colonel's guards were standing behind them. It took them less than ten minutes to gather in front of the colonel, who was standing over the bodies of the captain and sergeant. Right now, everyone was almost sure that something was absolutely not right.
"There was a traitor among our ranks of soldiers!" he declared with a voice full of passion. "Shame that the traitor was me." Ban smiled at the soldiers, who paled. "Soldiers! Would you follow me and help change this world?"
"But, sir?! How could you betray the kingdom?!" One of the soldiers looked towards the colonel.
"Better tell me, how could we be loyal to it?!" Fornal Ban walked towards the questioning soldier. "To make sure that Queen Josla gets more gold? Or maybe so she can allow more slavers into this kingdom?! No, Dan... No more!"
Some murmured their agreement, but others hesitated.
"What choice do we have? The Gods favour her!" Dan asked in a resigned tone, as he agreed with the colonel, but he was not too keen on receiving the wrath of the Gods.
"NO. NOT ANYMORE." An incredibly loud voice boomed in the gatehouse, startling everyone except the black-clad warriors, as a bolt of lightning hit the lonely tree near the entrance. "GO TO AVALON, MY FAITHFUL! I AWAIT YOU THERE!"
•••
"Oh, these bastards… And Zeus. He butt in as if he wanted to rebuild his follower base in just a few weeks." I rubbed my eyes and looked at the system pop up. My jaw almost dropped.
Fort Crissna was surrendered to Theon Avalon. It could be refurbished to be used as a dungeon outpost. In the outpost, the mana build is disabled. You can't install spawners or nodes there. Avalon units in the outpost are counted as if they were in Avalon. The outpost counts as dungeon grounds. Fast travel to the outpost is allowed.
Of course YES!