Chapter 70: First Strike

Eli POV

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The cold crisp of the morning was still hanging over the air as I was looking over the underground fort. In the middle of a man-made clearing that scarred the forest stood three entrances into what looked like small hills tucked into small forts. The trees had been cleared for several dozen yards from each of the enclosed walls of dull grey brick that was at twice the height of a man. While not dilapidated, even from this height I could see the sloppy construction that had been hastily employed in the three camps construction. Odd off-ramps from the wall that obstructed anyone trying to leave the tunnel, walls so hastily constructed they had several other layers of bricks added to re-enforce the sagging bits at odd intervals. In front of these walls and the main entrances stood rows of spikes adorned with orc and Frojan heads in varying states of decay.

Atop the walls were the occasional odd watchmen in dirty leather armor. It seems that this is indeed one of the more neglected forts as the men had no metal armor and the whole assortment of workers was made up entirely of bandits. In the middle of the three wall segments was a tower about four times the size of a man. While the array of men in the sizeable yard in the walls went about their daily chores, I scanned the forest floor for my compatriots as Salamede did the same off to my left.

It was another five minutes before Cell came back with his spirit connection giving me the impression that he had found her. His doll suit had the same overlay of vines woven to form muscles but in the five days since our meeting with Gula I had made several improvements to the design. He now had a pair of wooden arms peeking out over his shoulders along with a long robe of interwoven grass and vines. The head was now supported with a full musculature made up of thick vines that helped make the head sturdier and more durable as it now resembled a human head instead of a mask on a stick.

A mask that was now done up with the darkest oak wood I could find. That and a few bones hidden amongst the vines now provided a vision much closer to what Gula described. Likewise, I had put a thick layer of dark wood over the deer skull I used as a helmet and replaced Salamede's with another wooden helmet done up in the same color scheme, this one also sporting several white branches around her horns to make them less obviously horns and more like wild white branches. All accentuated with a few bones from a variety of animals on the sides of our legs and chest where they would be properly displayed but not get in the way.

I had Cell get Salamede while I headed over to where Cell was previously stationed. Sure enough, Gula and the band of Frojan were looking at the fort as they hid behind some trees. Deciding that I had made enough of an entrance the last time, I just gently came down a few feet behind them and casually walked up while giving off a light cough.

They turned around suddenly, and I put up my hands with woven grass gloves in mock surrender.

Gula just smiled as she put away her sword and strode up to me.

"That's much better, I was beginning to think you were just a misunderstood actor who taking revenge for a poor performance review. Got any ideas on how to do this?" She said in a lighthearted tone, apparently determined to show she wasn't under my thumb.

I just huffed as I walked up to the group and looked on the fortress with them.

"Some people have no more artistic appreciation than a mouse. But aside from your lack of creative soul, I'd say the biggest issue is what to do when they retreat underground. From your description, I assume you've actually managed to take the outer defenses before." I prodded.

"Plenty of times. We're the reason those walls are such a patchwork of stone braces. But every time, they retreat into their underground hideaways and just wait for the rest of the army to clobber us or until we give up. We haven't got a solid grasp on the exact number of defenses but the entire first floor is nothing but murder holes and spike traps littering long hallways. Beyond that, it's a black void for all we know." She finished.

I was looking out over the fog as it got sucked in through the hallways leading into the hill as a vent on top of the tower pushed the fog upward, clearly showing where they got and expelled air for the fort.

"So why not just plug up all the holes and suffocate them?" I asked as Gula came up beside me.

"It takes too long. I don't know how the humans manage it, but I heard of one attempt where we spent a half an hour trying to smoke them out of that rat hole before having to retreat from the oncoming army. There's been a few times where the commander has had the Frojan use the water demolition magic but even after a full hour a few creeks is all they can manage" Gula said in a miffed tone.

"They got a bird out?" I asked.

"No, every hour a messenger comes by to check up on the base to make sure it's not under siege. That it relies so heavily on other forts to rescue it was probably why they didn't make any more underground bases." She said.

I pondered over the set up for a while. I had spent some the past five days going through dung heaps for saltpeter and mined sulfur and charcoal for a crude explosive. This formula wasn't the most explosive powder I could make but it was the one I most clearly remembered and had the resources to make. So odd, using something as precious as wood, albeit with a few more steps, to make an explosive. The sheer strangeness of the ingredients was fascinating to me, despite, or perhaps because of, charcoal not being readily available on any space station.

It had taken some testing in another cave that occasionally resounded with the sharp pop and crackle of small explosions but eventually I got the mixture down. Explosive powders that were now resting inside several specially crafted barrels of solid wood.

That was not to say it was the only thing I worked on. While I waited for my main solution to the Viper base to 'cook' in the crafts molding it with the ambient mana I also condensed several mana stones, a task that had been considerably easier since I had Cell on the outside of me now and presumably no longer taking up mana. All the while, Salamede worked on getting food, cleaning, and doing all of the smaller items that allowed me to focus on the big stuff.

I had thought to simply blow up the base by using several barrels of the explosives on one of the points that supported the most weight, but it seems the state of the walls had been deceptive as to how well made the whole of the fort was. Since that meant one or two explosives probably wouldn't do the job, another solution would have to be worked out.

I nodded up into the trees where Salamede and Cell were. They both jumped through the air and landed with a solid thud a few yards behind us. All the Frojan and Gula turned as she put her hand to her sword.

After seeing their similar appearance to mine the rest of the group relaxed a bit. Of course, this didn't stop Gula from growling.

"Do any of you just say 'Hello'?" She said after turning back around to look back at the fort.

I chuckled before making my way over to a fallen tree on my right and ripping off some pieces of bark as Cell and Salamede joined the rest of us.

"All right, since we can't burn them out then maybe we can just suck the air out of the base. Crafts typically use less mana than spells so I'm going to make some quick and dirt ones that will cover those entrances in an air manipulation field that sucks out all the air while also covering up the hole on top of the tower to keep any air coming in through there." I said as I went to go sit on the log and started laying down the circles and triangles for the needed tasks. In-between working on them I debated a plan of attack with Salamede and Gula.

After a while, I got fourteen of them done as our plan was gradually ironed out. Then It was just a waiting game for the messenger to come and get out of range of the fort as the crafts filled up their mana batteries with ambient mana at that point.

As I sat on the log in the late morning sun that filtered through the trees, Gula leaned against a tree to my left as the rest of the group kept an eye out amongst the woods. Cell had gone with a Frojan, named Baloo I think, to follow the messenger who came through and we were now waiting on Cell to come back with the all clear to go ahead.

'Watch over us in temptation, in war, and in strife. Guide our hands in craftsmanship as you will in life-'

Gula spat into the underbrush to my right.

'Push aside grievance and pettiness. See us through to our tasks end.' I finished my prayer and turned towards the orc.

"I must say, you orcs aren't very ladylike for an all-female species." I said in a light-hearted manner.

She looked down at me with a laugh in her black eyes with golden irises.

"Well since the boys died out, we've had to take on both roles." She said.

"The boys?" I asked. Gula raised a bemused eyebrow.

"What do you know of us? History wise, at least" She asked.

"Garren came by a small forest village and dumped you guys off with no real explanation or motivation." I said honestly as I turned to fully face her.

"Ah well, here's some history you aren't likely to find in the Coalitions books. We aren't an all-female species. Maybe we could be considered two species, I don't know what terms should be used. But we were supposed to be a male species, only there were a few female ones who didn't take whatever process he put us through in the way they were meant to. To top it all off, whatever the bastard did to us, it locked us into giving birth to the same gender. So, for a while it was mostly male orcs running about with a few scattered female tribes. It was so many thousands of years ago that no one has the whole tale, but it turns out that having the orcs rely on getting to the females of another species to reproduce is a bad idea once they start taking you as a serious threat.

My mother told me that if an all-male orc tribe failed to take a village the entire clan died out as their current breeding stock couldn't replace their lost numbers fast enough. But the female tribes didn't need to take an entire village. Just getting one injured male from a battlefield unnoticed would be enough to keep the whole village with child. And since we could only sire with humans, interbreeding wasn't even a concern as long as we continued to get just one or two dying men from the chaos of some skirmish or war. After barely a century, the male tribes all died out while we females took over"

I raised an eyebrow beneath my helmet.

"How do you know you were supposed to be male and that's not just how the initial gender balance turned out by accident?" I asked, now completely taken in with the conversation.

"That's what the note said." She replied.

I stared for a moment before replying.

"You came with a note?" I asked incredulously. Gula gave a light laugh before she continued.

"It's said the bastard went to talk with the local village chief and during it produced a note for him to reference. An actual, real note that detailed what we were and our purpose. The worst part is it makes using the toilet damn awkward, having to look down and every single time thinking 'the guy who made you thought that should be a penis'" She finished, to which we both chuckled.

"You're a philosophical people" I responded in a light tone.

"Deeply philosophical. You'd imagine having our creator literally write out the meaning of our existence on paper would help but it seems there are always more damned pesky questions." She agreed in a joking manner at first but got a bit more serious at the last part.

We relaxed in silence for a few more minutes before Cell finally came back through the woods to tell me the messenger was out of range.

The time had finally come.

Salamede moved to the left wall while Cell moved to the right one. I would join up with Gula and the Frojan after the initial volley since they were the ones who would be in any real danger. After a minute, the sharp cracks of the bullets from two guns rang out as Cell simply charged over the small field of stumps as did Gula and the pack of Frojan. I shot another sentry atop the wall and then dropped down to join the charge with Gula once all the men outside abandoned their posts and work to run screaming inside their soon to be tomb. While the gate was reduced to chunks with a quick boulder from me, Cell started ripping the gate on his end apart while Salamede moved off to make sure no patrols randomly came by.

Moving quickly, the Froan came up and around the hill and activated the bark crafts as the others went to the other mini forts with four to each entrance. I sprinted up to the middle of the three forts that had the tower of solid stone. Using magic to move some of the stone blocks aside, I saw that the tower had an iron core and wasn't going to be moving without force that I didn't have the means to deliver in the hour I had to deliver it, at least without some preparation. Digging a bit further down I saw that the core appeared to only be a tube with stonework for support which was a spot of good news.

There was the sound of tearing wood behind me as Cell ripped open the other fort entrance for the Frojan to enter. Leaping high up into the air and grabbing the lisp of the towers top, I pulled myself up and came towards the metal grate that was currently sucking air into it as the crafts that now surrounded the underground entrances went about their jobs. Placing down the last two pieces of bark, the sucking sound of air stopped as the bark craft began pushing air out of the area around the grate.

I pulled out a finger sized mana crystal and cracked it with another similar mana crystal as I set them down beside the crafts to use as fuel as the mana gradually leaked out of the light blue glass into the air. This was the part where the plan got risky. I didn't think for a moment that I could get all the air out of the fortress since the internal vacuum would almost certainly overwhelm the quick and dirty crafts but I made them as strong as I could and would give them as much mana as I had. When the equilibrium point was reached where the crafts couldn't suck out any more air, but the vacuum wasn't strong enough to overwhelm them, there would hopefully be so little air that the occupants would suffocate in the mostly vacuum.

I went around to the other entrances to give the crafts there some extra fuel as well, drawing more than one askance look at my willful use of such priceless treasures from the Frojan. Gula didn't seem to get what the big deal was about as she patrolled the wall of the fort she had helped take.

After a few minutes, there was call from the Frojan at entrance Cell had attacked. Jumping up the fort wall where Salamede attacked, I made my way over there. The Frojan had killed one soldier who had barely made it out of the entrance, a man who now laid face down in the rough dirt outside with several holes bleeding out of his still body.

Satisfied that anyone, or at least enough people, had died in there as to not disrupt the next stage of our plan I whistled for some of the Frojan to come near the central tower.

I came running up to the tower of stone and saw some of them looking at the metal core I had exposed.

"Damn, is our plan still going to work?" A red frogman with a green robe to my right asked.

"Even better than before. The surrounding supports all appear to be stone so that means once we weaken that, the metal core will act like a hammer crushing everything beneath it once it stars falling." I said in a cheerful tone. The rest of them nodded and went to work sending tendril of vibrating water into the dirt and stonework surrounding the tower.

Killing all the bandits inside would be a big blow but our ultimate purpose was to knock out their ability to use this base as a place to safely move troops through and if the structure was left intact, it would have been worse than doing nothing at all. Coming into a fort of dead bodies they would probably put the pieces together on how it happened, or at least a close enough guess. But collapsing the fort not only completed the main point of why I was here, it also made it harder to determine exactly how it had been done. Even one day in delaying them finding out about my presence could make the difference in this war.

It took almost an hour but eventually a series of ominous cracks was heard.

"All right, I'll take it from here." I announced as the Frojan quickly left not only the tower but the forts they had taken as well, of course not before making off with some food stuffs and clothing materials from the now abandoned workshops and mess halls. While they did this, A few went about collecting the crafts we used as we would need them for the next base.

I went up to the top of the tower and took a deep breath as I sucked in all the mana around me and formed the largest spell for summoning a square block of stone that I could, a low tier scion spell that Cell had learned sneaking into the scions book room at night by molding the stone around the door frame. Using wind magic and my suit I launched myself as high into the air as I could. As I came to the top of my jump, I used the earth spell I had prepared and summoned a block of solid stone at least five times my height and almost twice as wide as the tower itself.

Falling back down to earth, I guided the stone boulder directly onto the top of the tower. The top of the stone parapet crunched like paper as it split from the sheer momentum of the solid mass of stone. Sadly, the metal core bent to the side crushing the stone exterior as a giant hole appeared to its left. The whole thing now looked wobbly but as the stone block evaporated into nothingness the fundamental structure beneath was probably still good.

Off in the distance I heard a shot and looked across the forest in the darkening sky as clouds began creeping over the sun.

Dammit! That was Salamede's signal that someone was coming and too fast for her to get back to us in time.

I quickly repeated the process, only this time when the boulder fell out of the sky like a one rock avalanche, it smashed the metal core fully into the earth before a loud crack was heard and the earth below started giving way. I didn't have time to look as I used my air magic again to shoot myself off to the right towards the trees as the rumble of crashing stones and creaking wood went on below me. Making my way up a tree, I turned around to see a giant sinkhole where the fort used to be with three smaller forts surrounding it. One of the pillars on the outer wall of the underground structure teetered and fell into the mass of rubble. Even from here I could see bodies amongst the wooden beams and stones. The strain was already setting in as pain ached throughout my body. It was like a long spiderweb of agony running all throughout my body in razor-thin lines as the mana pathways in my flesh ached from the extreme casting.

I moved around the woods and towards the opposite side of the clearing towards where we agreed to meet up. Below, I saw a caravan of supplies moving along the road. All the guards and drivers had stopped dead with mouths open at the empty hole where their current destination used to be. Some people from the back moved forward yelling and cursing up a storm as they shoved onlookers aside only to join the mass of standing people staring at the scene of destruction in disbelief as some of the surrounding guards tried to get the rest of the people turned around to head back from whence they came.

Coming back towards our original spot I saw Salamede and Cell standing off to the left of the group of Frojan who were patting each other on the back and whooping with Gula looking especially self-satisfied.

"Holy shit, did you see when that floor lifted up into the air?" One of them called.

"We showed those bastards! And not even a scratch on any of us." Another cheered.

Gula was practically dancing as her voice cut through the small celebration.

"We did it! After so long and after so many deaths we actually pushed them back." She said with some tears starting to form in her eyes as she was drawn into a group hug.

As much as I hated to interrupt, we needed to get moving.

"I understand your excitement, but we must move before mages come to start piecing together what happened to this fort. Meet up at the mine fort tomorrow?" I asked her.

She calmed down somewhat but when she came up to me her golden irises still held a great joy.

"I suppose it's still too close to the Viper base. But they will probably be sending it a lot of reinforcements after we took the base so close to it" She said with a light smile on her lips.

"Possibly. The more important priority for the Coalition is keeping the Viper base up since its now the front line of the battle with the orcs. Keeping the mine base fully staffed would probably only draw strength from the three forts they need to keep the Viper base protected and stocked since sending the supplies this way is no longer a safe option. But we can't just ignore it since it's still close enough for them to send mages to attack the siege if they were willing to risk it, which would defeat the ultimate goal of doing this; to capture the Viper commander. Unless you think they'll deploy some kind of a third option?" I asked.

She merely shrugged with an upward throwing of her hands.

"What to do after taking a fort was always a theoretical, kind of like what we would do if we all suddenly sprouted wings. This is as unknown as it gets for me, tactics wise." She responded.

"All right then, if they have re-enforced the base, then we can move on to attacking one of the three intermediate forts since they're still far enough away from each other to make saving them almost, I repeat ALMOST, impossible if we strike hard and fast enough. At that point we may get enough notice from one of your commanders to help us take out the mine" I finished.

Not being an idiot, I did a thorough scouting of the other bases to get a good idea of their strengths and distances from each other in the five days I had to prepare. The other three were a more typical setup with high walls resembling a box with a tower at each of the four points.

Gula got a serious look at that and then stood straight, but her eyes still had this kid tasting candy for the first-time aspect to them.

"Understood. See you tomorrow morning?" She asked in a light tone.

"Mid-day. Casting something that large is hell on the body." I said, as I turned to go with a slight ache in my legs. But I pushed through as rain began to fall. I got as far as I could in the treetops with Salamede and Cell but eventually Salamede saw me struggling and stopped me.

As I landed on a large branch and my legs nearly gave out, she came up beside me with Cell looking at us a few branches ahead.

"Eli, you can't keep going on like this," She said in a firm tone as she rubbed my shoulder as the rain pattered across out suits.

"We've got to get out of here. This place is going to be swarming with mages and scouts soon." I refuted as sweat covered my face and every fiber of my body was yelling at me in protest as the true cost of my casting started to set in.

"We will," She said as she supported my weight by moving under my left arm as Cell came forward and took my right. It wasn't nearly as fast as regular jumping, but we got home around mid-day. The thought occurred to me to work on some more of my projects, but my body sent a pre-emptive strike on such thoughts when we entered the cave and my sides screamed from having to support themselves.

The rest of the day was spent lying down and trying not to move as Salamede tended to me and the other dozen tasks that needed doing. As I was laying down in the vine hammock, Salamede gradually fed me a bit of deer that she had caught and skinned earlier. Looking at her caring eyes, I was left feeling… feeling like I was home, I felt something I hadn't felt in any of the stations I had worked on or any of the vast complexes of moon-sized machinery I had help various corporations build. Something that wasn't found in a schematic, blueprint or a sea of marketing data.

I felt… truly content. It seems that despite all of my people's abilities, we still can't replace some experiences from humanity's earliest joys. As she fed me another bit of deer steak, Salamede suddenly paused like she was considering something as she sat down with her green dress beside me, plate and fork in hand.

"Eli, I've been wondering how… does combat feel to you?" She asked hesitantly in a spirit connection.

"It depends. Mostly it's just annoying to me because I always feel like I could have done more to avoid it, either taking the enemy out beforehand or by making sure they knew attacking me was a bad idea. But obviously that hasn't been much of an option since I got here" I answered. I obviously wanted to know what brought the question on, but I felt pressing her on this issue wouldn't be a good idea.

She sat there in silent contemplation for a moment before she offered an explanation without prompting.

"When I shoot someone, I feel this rush and exhilaration. Seeing their heads blow apart and knowing I ended their life with my own hand. I keep getting flashbacks to how powerless I felt during the bandit raid and I feel like I could actually do something about the raid now. I was repulsed by these feelings no matter how powerful it made me feel, but in the back of my mind I just shrugged because the demon side is always there balancing out the good human side.

But something occurred to me earlier when I shot that sentry on the wall. He was a younger man in a dirty leather jerkin and as the bullet went right through his head of black hair it occurred to me as I watched him fall backwards over the wall that I felt… nothing. Or at least it was far more muted this time. Then I realized that feeling I've been having wasn't the bloodlust of the demon but something from my human side and I… I don't know how to feel about that. I've always thought of my human side as being the good part of me and all of my violent impulses and selfish desires being the part of the demon." She finished as she stared at the plate.

I got a light smile and held her hand, causing her to look up and into my eyes.

"The human part isn't all good. I can personally attest to that." I said with a warm smile as my mind went over just of the few of the countless instances of humans being shitty by themselves and in groups that I had personally witnessed.

"So, am I only a third good? Or even just a quarter?" She asked in a very put out tone as the ears underneath her horns drooped slightly.

"You're you. The demon, the human, the good and the bad. Over time necessity will make things easier and part of that is making sure to exhaust all of your options before pulling that trigger, which considering we're fighting bandits is an easy conclusion to make. When you start feeling down about yourself, know that I consider your aid and companionship invaluable and I will always treasure our time together." I finished with my most honest feelings.

Salamede gave me a big smile at the last part and leaned forward with a bit of deer meat on her fork to continue feeding me.

"But it's not just the bandits. We'll probably be fighting the soldiers eventually." She said as she put in another bit of steak in my mouth.

"On that account, we've already crossed the line when we killed the grey cloak mages." I pointed out as I swallowed the meat.

"Yes, but… I don't know. We thought they were bandits then but knowing they're part of the military makes killing them different." She responded uncertainly as she idly rand the fork over the plate.

"About that. Several of them tried to kill me as they disguised themselves as bandits. Maybe they were just a few who tried to get me for the necromancers, but there were a few others involved who didn't seem to even know who I was and were probably there for sport" I told her.

She stopped fiddling with the fork and looked at me for a moment.

"Well that certainly makes things easier. "She finally said with a note of anger.

"As for the rest of the military, maybe when we take out the two underground bases, one of the orc commanders will be so impressed that we don't need to take out the other three before they agree to move onto the main base. That way the regular soldiers would be spared." I responded hopefully and truthfully.

Gula said that wasn't likely to happen, but it seems she also doubted us taking out any of the bases in the first place so maybe she was underestimating how much sway our actions would have.

Salamede was still struggling with it as she sat there, so I decided to lift the burden on her scruples.

"Some actions are inherently good; some actions are inherently bad. Most actions can only be judged by context. The soldiers are here to protect themselves and their people. But when we attack them, we will be doing it to protect ourselves and our people. No, they aren't involved with the people who threaten us, but they are still in the way of our survival and we have exhausted all other options.

If it comes to that and you still can't bring yourself to do it, then I won't think less of you if you abstain from those fights." I offered.

She got a firm lip and shook her head in denial.

"No. If I'm going to enjoy the fruits of you being alive and working wonders then I'm not going to hide from their cost. I just… I just wish I could stop worrying about my mother. She was a tough old goat before I gave her the weapons, but I can't stop thinking how little she could do against some of the people we've been fighting." She said with a hint of angst as she raised the fork with deer meat on the end.

I kept my face passive as she fed me the last of the deer but on the inside, I felt the numbing ache of shame. These were my problems and my burdens, yet Salamede and her family had been made to bear them as much as I. I was used to dealing with other people's problems and having them owe me favors before I had died, and this was the first time in untold ages I had let my failings fall on someone else. This was not a feeling I intended to experience again.

The day passed on with me staying in more or less the same position as I used spirit magic and Cell's help to try and make some adjustments to our masks to change how our voices sounded. I continued this work in the same position until the very last moment when sleep finally moved in to soothe my aching muscles.