Chapter CXXV: The Dragon Pounces

"Sir!" A clipped salute drew the General from watching the fresh auxiliaries be beaten into the ground by his legionaries for the fifth time today "We caught another group of smugglers!"

The tired high elf contemplated simply ignoring the irritating overachiever but thought better of it and turned to face her "And what could they have possibly been smuggling that I would need to hear of it?"

Grinning like a cat that just caught a mouse, the girl puffed her chest out "Entire crates of moon sugar, sir!"

Out of the corner of the tent came a purr that almost sounded like a snicker.

The General, being thoroughly done with dealing with new recruits, power walked over to her, nearly making her stumble as he grabbed her by the shoulders and began lightly shaking her "And who exactly was smuggling moon sugar, soldier?"

She had the audacity to look confused as she blinked "A group of Khajiit, sir?"

"A group of Khajiit" He repeated tiredly, his grip on her shoulders tightening "And they wouldn't happen to have been dressed as merchants and were transporting their contraband in the open, now would they?"

"Umm" The fool shuffled and the General almost began to hope.

Only to have his hopes dashed utterly as she perked up once more and declared to the entire gods damned camp "They must have been fermenting rebellion, sir! Why else would they be acting in the open?"

The girl had actual stars in her eyes as she looked up at him.

"Fermenting." The General's voice shook slightly, gaze falling to the ground in despair before snapping back up, eyes aglow with a swirl of magic as he began shaking her like a twig "The only thing they were fermenting you damned fool, is their skooma! A substance legally owned and traded in both the kingdoms of Anequina and Pelitine!"

Once more the girl shook his world by daring to look confused "But-"

"But nothing!" He snarled "What you have done is not capture smugglers or insurrectionists but detained a group of legitimate gods damned merchants!" He paused, a sudden thought occurring "You didn't trash their cargo, did you?"

Finally, the fool seemed to start to realize just how much she had fucked up "Uhm-" She gulped "Maybe?"

-

The guards standing to the sides of General Tolindir's tent did not react as they heard their commander roaring at the overeager idiot, the flaps of the tent splitting apart as the junior Thalmor was thrown out with enough force to skid across the dirt "-I do not need you fools creating another bloody rebellion when we have four entire legions standing in spitting distance!"

The girl shuffled back onto her feet and went to salute but was instead forced to duck as a shard of ice nearly took her head off.

"Get out of my sight and deal with this mess!" Came the threatening roar "And without making it worse for once!"

And what must have been for the first time in her life, the girl chose wisdom.

Back within the tent, the General sighed as he sat atop his war table "Gods save me from foolish children." He muttered 'Since when did they send youths of merely twenty five to war? The complete idiots!'

Once more, the snicker-like purr came from the edge of the tent "Ja'razir thinks your Thalmor should focus more on educating their tools instead of indoctrinating them."

"They are your Thalmor as well." Tolindir corrected offhandedly, a growing habit by this point.

"Yes, yes, Ja'razir is ever a loyal servant to the moonkeepers." He said with the utmost extent of his sincerity, of which there was none "You wish me to... settle ruffled feathers, yes?"

"If you could, that would be lovely" The tired officer grunts.

"Khajiit is happy to help." The cat man smirked, their longstanding back and forth tilting into his favor. He leaned against a wooden pillar and hummed "Khajiit merely wonders, why focus your worry on the legions if the Alkosh child is the true threat?"

"You really know how to cheer an elf up, cat." Tolindir immediately scoffed "Because I wouldn't be able to do anything to her if I tried. We have a number of Archmagi in the camp, and an Elder is on their way to join us as support" He closed his eyes and sighed "Hopefully it will be enough."

"And if it is not?" Ja'razir asked.

"Then we die." The General shrugs "You'd think that would be obvious."

"Khajiit thinks you could use some sugar in your life" The large armored cat man purr/snickers before suddenly stilling so completely one could not be blamed if they thought he died.

Immediately tensing, Tolindir grabbed the hilt of his sword and stood up "What is it?"

"Khajiit does not know" Ja'razir's hairs were all standing on end "But something is very wrong."

Having learned to trust his friend's instincts, the Altmer General walked up to him and promptly pulled his ear, causing the poor cat man to hiss in pain "Pull yourself together, we may be under attack."

Ja'razir hissed at him but did as was told, rushing outside just after the high elf and moving over to his own tent "Jo'kosa, come!" He commanded.

An annoyed yowl greeted him but only a few seconds later what the other races would have no doubt confused with a very large golden-furred house cat dressed in perfectly fitted robes and wearing a charming wizard's hat stepped outside, immediately leaping atop Ja'razir's shoulder as she did.

"What is it?" She demanded irritably.

"Something is coming." was all Ja'razir said as he walked over to where Tolindir had gathered his officers and some magi.

Just in time as well, as a distant roar drew all of their attention, the Khajiiti present shivering in instinctual fear as they looked up in horror.

And then they saw it, no them as eight massive creatures that could only ever be dragons cut through the cloud cover and began hurtling down at the Dominion war camp.

Now if only things had merely ended there.

Before Tolindir could even begin giving out orders, it felt as if the world itself had sucked in a breath in anticipation, moments before a garble of thundering words too loud to understand cracked through the air, and a storm of death descended upon them.

Waves of fire, ice, lightning, and even corrosive acid in the case of one particularly nasty fucker, smashed into the Alinori camp, killing hundreds, and potentially thousands, in mere seconds.

The panic that followed only served to grow that number as some of the newer soldiers simply stampeded their comrades in an attempt to get away, a few of the truly unfortunate ones getting suffocated by their own tents as they were repeatedly stopped from getting up.

Again and again, the dragons abused the lack of concentrated opposition, butchering hundreds more as they shouted them apart, or simply devoured them once their confidence grew too great to simply let themselves fly by and pick the elves and cat men off.

And that arrogance would cost them, as Tolindir finally managed to establish some form of order and the trio of grounded dragons currently feasting on his soldiers were bombarded with arrows and magic, and even artillery as one particularly gutsy ballista crew managed to point blank a purple-scaled dragon in the eye.

The Archmagi and Alfiq Khajiit present quickly managed to organize themselves as well and prevented the two remaining dragons from ascending with their bloodied wings as one had a tower suddenly grow from the ground next to him and fall onto his head, and the other was flash frozen by a particularly irritated housecat, the suddenness of the situation slowing the orange dragon long enough for another Archmage to fry his brain with a concentrated burst of chain lightning.

The Thalmor cheered as the dragons were slain, even if each second they took to cut them down made them suffer casualties from their still undefeated enemy.

Three of the still flying dragons grew enraged at the demise of their brothers and began chasing after the mortal mages, crushing everything in their path up to and including spiked wooden barricades as they did their utmost to rip the elves and cats to pieces.

An Archmage duo managed to take one down at the cost of one of their own, the younger elf acting as bait, his powerful alteration useless to stop the dragon's teeth from bisecting him as the older one used the moment to shove a massive jagged pillar of ice through the beast's throat.

Another chased after an Alfiq and her Khajiit bodyguard, being blasted with lightning all the way and thus too enraged to notice the towering form of Ja'razir atop his armored Senche mount, the leader of the auxilia ramming his enchanted halberd directly into the dragon's wing joint before using it as a springboard to leap atop the beast's back.

The dragon immediately began thrashing, roaring a fire breath directly below himself and singeing Ja'razir's fur terribly, but not enough to dislodge the cat man as he used this alchemically treated claws to rip through the back of the dragon's head, killing him, and not quickly.

The final member of the enraged trio found himself surrounded by Tolindir's retinue, the many elite Altmer soldiers, spellswords all, having little to no trouble holding him back as they used their centuries of experience to effectively herd him into the line of fire of their most powerful Archmage, the deceptively young elven woman impaling the dragon numerous times with spikes of molten metal.

That then proceeded to invade the beast and burn it from the inside out.

Tolindir ignored his troops' cheers as he looked up to find two of the remaining dragons, one stormy blue and the other red, and both silently circling above the burning camp.

A moment passed in silence and then for the first time since the battle started a female voice joined that of the dragons, this time clear and crisp as can be "YOL TOR SHUL!" 

Tolindir and Ja'razir could only stare numbly as a wave of fire more befitting the sun instead of the earth descended upon the very center of their camp, instantly incinerating the armory alongside the vast majority of the artillery.

A deep, dark chuckle echoed across the battlefield as the red dragon spoke to his rider.

As one, the Thalmor Archmagi and their Alfiq allies cast their spells on the relatively slow moving targets, only to be forced to blink in surprise as they simply... disappeared.

And then, a full minute later, and just as they were all about to let out sighs of relief... their food supply exploded.

Tolindir was barely held back from blatantly showing his terror as Ja'razir stopped him from slumping onto the dirt, Jo'kosa patting his head and sending a burst of restoration through his body strong enough to jolt him back into action.

Immediately, the General began barking orders, and demanding that someone bring him a damage report.

He thoroughly regretted that last decision, as he soon learned that nearly four thousand Altmer and almost twice as many Khajiit had lost their lives.

And that was without even mentioning the injured, and those too broken to keep fighting.

"Sir!" The far too chipper Thalmor ran up to him.

"What?!" He rounded on her, eyes bloodshot.

She nearly fell over before saluting "Sir, the reports from the quartermasters just came in, sir!"

"Give me that" He ripped the parchment from her hands and began reading it, mentally blanking at what he saw and doing it one more time he felt his hands begin to tremble as he silently returned the report to the Thalmor.

"Did I do good sir?" She asked, her own expression looking thoroughly forced.

'Ah' He realized 'She was pretending that nothing had happened' "Yes, agent." He allowed tiredly "You did good."

-----

Four days after her surprise attack, having marched straight from Fort Black Boot west of Bravil, Minthara was once more greeted by the sight of Riverhold, her path forward cut off by the river Strid, the sabotaged bridge across it, and the fortified military camp at its banks.

A still smoking military camp, she noted.

"They raised walls." General Julius didn't quite sneer but it was a close thing "As if that is going to stop us."

"It very well could have if we were not so well equipped." Minthara nodded "And if their morale was not utterly drained by Vulstrunfeyn's constant raids*." That dragon was far too eager to hunt and stalk his enemies day and night.

"The lack of sleep would destroy any foe." Emir Kasimir nodded, the Redguard wearing far more elaborate armor than when he first met her in the White Gold Tower "But crossing the river will still impede us."

"Ha!" Skirnir Stormcloak barked out a laugh "As if a mere river could stop the power of the voice."

"Hear, hear!" Jullius grinned "A shame my engineers will not get to experience building battle bridges but I suppose it will save us the losses."

The nearby Questor in charge of said engineers blanched in fear.

"So that is our plan?" The General's son, one Tiberius Gracchus spoke up from his seat in the tent's corner "Just flatten the river and the wall behind it and simply walk over the tired enemy?"

"In essence." His father nodded.

The young Imperial shrugged "Hey, so long as it is less work for me."

The nearby officers all gave him looks of well concealed disgust, though no one was stupid enough to outwardly challenge a veteran Battlemage of the Legion.

"Not quite." Minthara finally spoke up and began walking out of the tent "First, a small addendum." She did not tell them to follow her, but they did so anyway, just as she expected "General, how ready are the other two legions?"

"The third is half a day behind us, and the fourth a full day." Julius answered easily enough "Commodus will be just in time to reinforce if the battle stretches out long enough, which it most definitely will."

"Not confident in the second, General?" Skirnir teased in the usual Nordic fashion.

"Pish posh!" The Imperial scoffed "My second would crush any other army, of that much I can assure you, but the numbers on both sides are simply too great for the battle to end in a mere day."

"And what if we were to break their morale?" Minthara asks.

"Well that would certainly allow us to take the city with ease" The General answered with only slight hesitance "The issue is keeping that number of trained combatants broken for long enough, especially with their mages present."

"So if I were to hypothetically manage some kind of morale shock, we should content ourselves with a crossing?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"Indeed, Your Highness" Julius saluted "The theoretical gains would not be worth the attrition with so many unknowns on the enemy end."

"Hmmm" She cupped her chin and tapped her foot for a moment "Very well. Is the second ready to march?"

"As soon as you give the order, my lady" He smiled cheerfully.

She shared a quick look with Skirnir who immediately rushed to get the Dragon Banner ready, and her two bodyguards both tensed and checked their weapons.

"Delphine, Esbern." She called out.

The two Blades, thus far relegated to mere observers, perked up "Your command?" Esbern asked.

"Infiltrate the city in the chaos, clear out targets of opportunity and create openings where you can." She ordered simply.

"By your will." Both of them saluted.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw her heavily armored honor guards carrying her personal banner with them, and nodded to herself "Wait here." She told her followers.

She took a few steps forward, Kohnariik covering her face without impeding her view as she felt for the presences of her fallen brethren.

She saw the enemy in the distance tense up atop their walls as they recognized her, an alarm rapidly spreading through the camp as they immediately began loading artillery to try and remove her from the board with a lucky shot.

'Not that they ever could.' She mused.

Minthara took a deep breath, focused on where she felt their presence, and commanded "SLEN TIID VO!"

For a moment absolutely nothing happened, an almost awkward silence descending upon the future battlefield before, at the very edge of her senses, she felt the telltale sign of teleportation magic, and then six previously dead dragons burst out from the middle of the enemy camp, slaughtering and destroying everything they could get their hands on.

General Julius, to his credit, gaped for only a moment as he unsheathed his blade and called "FORWARD, FOR THE LEGION, FOR THE EMPIRE!"

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Hippity hoppity hop

the mining shifts will never stop

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