Free Web NovelChapter 310: The End of Conquest
Marcus dragged his chained wrists across the cobblestones. He pushed his body onto his hands and knees to keep his face out of the dirt. Grime stained the pristine white fabric of his undershirt.
He stared at his empty palms and repeatedly curled his fingers into tight fists. The familiar surge of golden mana was completely absent. The calluses he had built swinging a divine broadsword remained on his skin, yet the power to lift the weapon had vanished entirely.
Elena pulled her knees against her chest and buried her face in her arms. Tears tracked through the soot coating her cheeks to drip silently onto the stone pavement.
She scratched frantically at the skin of her arms, desperately searching for the comforting pink glow of her healing magic. Her nails left bright red welts across her flesh.
The other captives mirrored her absolute despair. Ethan lay flat on his back, staring blankly at the gray clouds overhead. Isabella rocked back and forth while clutching her rusted iron bindings. Liam rested his forehead against the stones and wept.
They had spent three years ruling Aethelgard as untouchable champions. The royal mages had served them banquets on silver platters and draped them in fine silk.
Voranthar had handed them absolute authority over the elements to slaughter thousands of native creatures without sustaining a single scratch. Stripped of the stolen soul mass, they reverted to ordinary high school students trapped in an alien wasteland.
Marcus looked up at the figures surrounding the captives. Iron-Scale polished his blade with his scales. Krax leaned his massive greataxe against his pauldron and picked his teeth with a metal splinter.
The commanders offered absolutely no sympathy or malice. They simply treated the fourteen humans like livestock waiting for the slaughterhouse.
"We can negotiate a trade," Marcus rasped. His throat was entirely dry from swallowing dust. "Voranthar will pay a ransom. We know the layout of the inner palace and the locations of the hidden armories."
Iron-Scale adjusted his monocle and looked down at the shivering boy. "Voranthar is dead and you know it. You possess no currency, herald. Your minds belong to the Void-Weaver, and your flesh belongs to the bio-vats. As for your soul..." Iron-Scale looked up at the sky. "It belongs to the spiral."
Marcus dragged his heavy iron chains across the cobblestones and forced himself onto his knees. The dirt caked on his face mixed with the blood seeping from his nose. He craned his neck to look up at Iron-Scale.
"Let us see him," Marcus begged. His voice cracked, stripped of its former booming resonance. "Let us talk to Red. We can explain. We can make a deal."
Elena crawled forward and grabbed the hem of Iron-Scale’s dark coat. "Please. Just five minutes. He used to be our friend before we were... before everything happened. If he could just look at us—"
Iron-Scale pulled his coat out of her grasp. He adjusted his belt and stared down at the groveling Earthlings. There was absolutely no anger in his emerald eyes, only cold indifference.
"You do not dictate the Sovereign’s schedule," Iron-Scale stated. He placed his dagger in the belt and continued. "He will summon you when he wishes to. Until then, you will wait in the dark."
"You don’t understand!" Ethan shouted from the back of the chained group, rattling his restraints. "He’s going to kill us! At least give us a chance to beg for our lives!"
"If he wanted you dead, you would already be rotting in the aqueducts," Iron-Scale replied.
He turned his back on the crying captives and looked toward the other commanders. Krax rested his greataxe against his shoulder, while Hawl and Gulag stood silently waiting for their next directive. Syra emerged from the shadows of a nearby pillar, wiping her dagger clean with a cloth.
"Krax, Hawl, Gulag. Drag them to the holding cells beneath the palace," Iron-Scale ordered. "Throw them in the deepest block. Make sure the anti-magic wards remain active, even though their cores are empty. We are taking absolutely no chances."
Krax grinned, exposing his fangs. He grabbed the primary chain connecting Marcus and Elena. "On your feet. Walking is a privilege. Do not make me drag you."
The fourteen broken humans scrambled to stand. Their legs shook violently as Krax and Hawl marched them away from the sunlit courtyard and toward the gaping maw of the palace dungeons.
Marcus looked back over his shoulder one last time, searching the high windows of the citadel for any sign of his former classmate, but saw nothing but dark stone.
Krax hauled the rusted chain down the spiraling stone staircase. The metal links scraped violently against the steps, echoing through the subterranean depths of the palace.
Marcus stumbled over his own feet and dragged Elena forward as the group of fourteen humans descended deeper into the dark.
Hawl marched at the rear of the line. He shoved Liam in the shoulder whenever the pace slowed, forcing the captives to keep moving. The torches lining the walls grew sparse as they entered the lowest containment block.
Gulag stepped ahead of the group and grabbed the iron wheel locking the primary cell door. She spun the mechanism with a harsh grind of metal and pulled the massive slab open.
A blast of freezing, stale air washed over the prisoners.
"End of the line," Krax announced.
He grabbed the lead chain and yanked it hard toward the cell. The sudden momentum sent Marcus tumbling through the doorway. He hit the stone floor hard.
The remaining thirteen captives tripped over the taut chains and spilled into the dark room in a tangled pile of limbs and torn clothing.
Elena scraped her knees against the masonry and choked back a sob. Ethan curled into a tight ball near the back wall, shivering uncontrollably. Lucas and Isabella huddled together in the corner, staring blankly at the shadows.
Krax stepped back into the corridor and grabbed the iron handle.
"Wait!" Marcus scrambled toward the door. He dragged the heavy links behind him and reached out with bare, bruised hands. "You can’t leave us in the dark! Please!"
"Get comfortable." Krax grinned, his fangs catching the dim torchlight from the hall. "You are going to be here a long time."
The iron door slammed shut. The locking mechanism engaged with a deafening clack that reverberated through the stone floor. Absolute darkness swallowed the cell.
Marcus rested his forehead against the freezing metal. His breathing hitched as the reality of the situation crushed the remaining air from his lungs. He instinctively tried to summon a spark of golden light to illuminate the room.
However, to no surprise, nothing happened.
’We are nothing,’ Marcus thought, listening to the muffled sobs of his friends echoing in the pitch-black room. ’We are just fuel.’
Once Krax and the others dragged the screaming prisoners out of earshot, Iron-Scale turned back to the plaza. Syra stepped out from the shade of a shattered marble pillar and smoothly slipped her dagger into its sheath.
"Open a communication line to Aethelgard," Iron-Scale instructed, adjusting his monocle. "Contact Torix and tell him to prepare the Trinity High transport caravans." freёwebnoѵel.com
"You want the others moved?" Syra asked.
"Yes. There are still Heralds rotting in the Aethelgard prisons. I want them transferred to Tarnstead immediately," Iron-Scale confirmed. "Lock them all in the exact same cell block. Let them sit together and realize that absolutely no one is coming to save them."
Syra crossed her arms. "Torix left Tarnstead for Aethelgard only a few days ago. Given the shifting terrain, only the Sovereign knows if he actually reached the city gates yet."
Iron-Scale shook his head and began walking toward the palace entrance. "We shouldn’t trouble the Spiral for such trivial administrative matters. He has just reclaimed another massive piece of his soul. Let him rest."
Syra fell into step beside him. freewebnøvel.com
"Contact the garrison forces at Aethelgard anyway," Iron-Scale continued. "Get a full status update on what happened in the capital while we were away. And confirm if Torix has arrived to take command of the transfer."
"Understood," Syra nodded.
They climbed the grand marble steps of the citadel and entered the Tarnstead palace together. The vast foyer lay empty, stripped of its former royal guards. Syra melted directly into the shadows cast by a towering statue to carry out her orders.
Iron-Scale continued down the vaulted corridor alone, his cane clicking rhythmically against the polished floorboards until he reached his commandeered chambers.
He pushed the heavy oak doors open and walked over to a massive mahogany desk. Iron-Scale unbuttoned his dark coat, draped it over the back of a chair, and sat down with a heavy sigh.
’The war is won, yet the true torture begins,’ he thought, staring in absolute disgust at the stack of blank parchment resting near an inkwell.
He despised writing reports. Commanding an army on the battlefield felt natural, but detailing logistical summaries and combat metrics felt like an entirely different kind of warfare. Gritting his teeth, Iron-Scale dipped a quill into the ink and began transcribing the events of the aqueduct breach, the capture of the fourteen Earthlings, and the subsequent soul reclamation.
He spent the next hour summarizing the magical outputs of the captured targets and outlining the current structural damage to Tarnstead’s subterranean network. When he finally finished, he dropped the quill and rubbed his temples.
Iron-Scale rolled the parchment into a tight cylinder and sealed the edges with a drop of crimson wax. He walked over to the open balcony window and held his hand out toward the eaves.
A large chimera the size of a raven dropped from the stonework and landed on his wrist. The ant-fly clicked its mandibles together, fluttering its translucent wings.
Iron-Scale secured the sealed report to the leather harness wrapped around the insect’s chitinous abdomen.
"Take this to Gildreath," Iron-Scale ordered. "Deliver it directly into chief Krug’s hands."
He tossed his arm upward. The ant-fly launched into the air with a loud buzz, carrying the Tarnstead victory report over the conquered city and toward the distant horizon.
The war had ended, but the aftermath had not. There were still many things left to do.
Unbeknownst to any of them, everything was going to change soon.
