Uninvited Guests

Until the wyvern riders arrived, Kies did all that he could to keep the soldiers from making progress and brought time for the wyvern riders to get to the castle. He destroyed more parts of the castle above to gate to constantly drop debris on top of the soldiers, forcing them to halt their progress every time something fell. Hopefully, the queen wouldn't mind him breaking pieces off her castle as he was doing it to protect her.

It became clear to the soldiers that someone was trying to stop them but they didn't know who was causing this, or where they were. They were running out of time. The wyvern riders were nearing the castle and the soldiers spotted them. Fear spread among them and a few of them protested out against the commander, not having been informed of who they were going against.

"You never said that we would have to fight the d*mn wyverns!"

"What is this all about!? Is the queen really in danger!? It looks like we're the bad guys here!"

Kies listened in on the soldiers with his winds just outside the anti-magic field. Somehow, the winds were able to inform him of what they were saying, but couldn't convey a message for him? Strange, but he didn't have the time to wonder about that.

From what Kies heard, it seemed that the soldiers didn't know that their commander was actually trying to kill the queen. This was not what Iris and Sirks told him. The way they spoke about the soldiers, Kies really thought that all of them were their enemies, but it looked like it was only just the commander that he needed to deal with.

"Shut up and breach the gate already!"

The soldiers looked at each other with questioning faces, wondering if what they were doing was right or not. In the end, they went back to hitting the door, choosing to trust their commander. A terrible mistake.

The first wyvern rider, likely the vanguard of the pack, reached the gate and sprayed fire on the soldiers. However, they were trained to stay calm and they lifted their shields, forming a wall to block the flames.

They separated into two groups. Half of them worked on opening the gate while the other half defend against the wyvern. "Men, slayer's formation!" the commander shouted.

The soldiers tasked with fighting the wyvern clamped together and formed a tight cube. In Kies' eyes, this looked like a terrible idea since the wyvern could just step on them and crush them all with its feet, and this is exactly what the wyvern did.

The big beast stomped its foot down on the soldiers, but to both the wyvern and Kies' surprise, the soldiers held up its weight with their shield and pushed the foot off, toppling the massive creature over along with its rider.

"How crude..." Kies shook his head, stunned by the tactics they were using. No, there was no tactic here. The soldiers were just brute-forcing things, but it somehow worked.

The soldiers attacked the helpless wyvern with their weapons now that it was rolled over. Its rider got crushed by the wyvern, not a good way to go. The beast might have scales on its back, but unlike dragons, who had scales covering their entire bodies, a wyvern's underside had nothing but soft skin. The armor was designed to block against arrows that were shot at its stomach, but it wasn't made to handle spears and swords.

The armor was light and thin to allow the wyvern to fly without hindering the beast too much. Because of this, it was useless against the soldiers and they easily pierced through it. The wyvern screeched and wiggles in pain, trying to get back on its feet. However, a couple of the soldiers were holding onto its wings and keeping it pinned down, allowing the rest to attack the poor creature until it was dead.

With a dying wail, the mighty wyvern stopped moving and its body went limp. Kies clicked his tongue, disappointed at how easily the soldiers took care of a beast that much bigger than them. They weren't Otane's elites for nothing.

But, they weren't out of the clear just yet. The gate was slanted and only a few more pushes from falling down, but the other wyvern riders made it to where their fallen rider was. This was the main force. Alone, wyverns were weak, as demonstrated by the soldiers already, but in numbers, they were incredibly hard to deal with.

One of the wyverns flew close to the soldiers and the rider on top of it, presumably the leader, yelled down at the commander, "Hanroh, you traitor, what do you have to say for yourself before I purge you!?"

"Traitor? I'm no traitor. The princesses are the traitors! They're inside the castle and are trying to assassinate the queen!" the commander yelled back.

Iris and Wompa were in the castle!? Kies sent his winds through a window on the side of the castle and scouted the insides swiftly, locating every person inside. There were many presences, but all of them were gathered around one of the rooms, likely the bedroom where the queen was. Out of them, Kies didn't identify any of them to be the two princesses.

"..." In the first place, Kies knew the location of the fragment and that was the inn. Why did he fall for such an obvious lie? The soldiers, however, also fell for it. Some of the riders glanced at each other, to see if what Hanroh was saying was true. Even his own soldiers believed him, not daring to question their commander. They continued to work on the gate even in the presence of the wyvern riders. Hanroh was buying as much time as he could for them to get it open.

Fortunately, the lie didn't affect the leader of the riders. "Stop lying! The princesses are not in the castle! The Iceblade told me herself! The poison, it was you!" he shouted back, exposing the commander's lies. Upon hearing this, the red-scarfed soldiers all stopped what they were doing and turned to their commander.

"Is what he is saying true?"

"Have you been lying to us all this time!?"

His own soldiers turned on Hanroh. The commander looked flustered, swinging his hands frantically as he tried to defend his innocence. "No. The Iceblade is lying! She wishes to take over the kingdom! After all, she is not even one of us! She comes from the wretched Silverfield, a place full of deceivers. What better way is there to take our kingdom than to put a puppet on the throne!?"

The lie was so good that even Kies was speechless. With just these words, Hanroh managed to get the soldiers to start doubting what is the truth.

Bingo. This was exactly what the commander wanted. To sow seeds of doubt in everyone's minds. Even the captain of the riders was shocked. He opened his mouth a few times, as if to say something, but closed it without saying a word. He didn't know what to say.

"Do I have to interfere?" Kies stretched out his hand and got ready to do something, but before he could, there was a loud creaking sound as the left half of the gate fell inwards, landing on the red carpet floor of the castle entrance with an even louder thump.

"This doesn't look good..." Kies tried to lift the gate back up with his magic but the magic field was too powerful and was nullifying his winds. "I need to be closer..." Kies needed to be inside of the anti-magic field for his magic to work, as contradictory as it sounded. He was too far from the castle and his magic was drastically weakened by the distance.

During this time, all h*ll broke loose. "Go!" Hanroh shouted at his soldiers, ordering them to run into the castle. The soldiers, still confused about what was going on, took a moment to think logically about what they should do. However, a couple of soldiers decided to believe in their commander and ran in. Seeing this, the other soldiers threw about their doubts and also ran in.

"No! Take them down!" the leader of the wyvern riders commanded. His soldiers were also a little slow on the take, thinking about Hanroh's words. They made sense, and that was what made it so believable.

"Too bad. I win!" Hanroh laughed in their faces. The last of his soldiers entered the castle and he was the only one out here with the riders now.

"So you are lying!"

"Yes, and this is the end for you and your men."

One by one, the wyvern riders were shot by arrows. Bodies fell from the sky and the wyverns that lost their riders flew away, having no reason to stay anymore. Like horses, the wyverns turned wild again after losing their owners. The arrows were so fast, they were practically invisible. The riders had no idea where they were coming from. They were also powerful enough to pierce through the plated armor of the riders and this took them by surprise.

Riders dropped like flies with the squad losing half their soldiers in a matter of seconds. Dumbfounded, the captain gave the order to retreat. "Disperse! We will regroup outside the city!" The wyverns flew off. They lost the fight before it had even started. They fell right into Hanroh's trap. The wyvern riders didn't even get a chance to demonstrate their might as they were defeated before they had a chance to do anything.

Kies' winds didn't pick up on their presences the first time, but he now sensed around ten or so people hiding on the walls of the castle. They all had their faces hidden, but Kies knew who they were the moment he saw them.

The Black Fang... Hanroh was working together with them. They were the ones behind this mess! He didn't know what their goals were, but it was surely not good for the kingdom.

"Winds, take me there!" Kies could no longer afford to sit by the sides and watch. The pride of Otane, the wyvern riders were defeated so easily that it was like they were a joke. He leaped across the city, jumping from rooftop to rooftop. "Not fast enough..." Kies wanted to go even faster but he couldn't. Not unless he wanted to blow a quarter of the city away with him.

By the time he made it, it could already be too late...

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