Free Web NovelChapter 222: Bait and Interception at the Gates of the White Jewel
My words caused them all to stare at me for a moment, before they then peered into the dimming city, tyring to gleam the answer from it’s silent stores and abandoned houses, before the impatient Cyrus directly asked me.
"What do you mean brother? How can this ghost town have any answers?"
Laughing for a moment, I ask them in return "Have you not asked yourselves why unlike everywhere else we’ve passed through, this place in particular was spared the pyre’s scourge?"
My question returned to them the thought they all had when they first saw the famed metropolis, but had been forgotten as it was devoured at the sound of our previous conversations of strategy and schemes.
"Maybe they didn’t have time?" Nizam loudly hypothesized. "It is far larger and far more prosperous and populous a settlement than the rest, after all. I’m sure evacuating it couldn’t have been as easy as any ordinary village by the roadside."
I beamed at my clever little brother in silent praise, before I then said in urging "Do you see anything else?"
Yet he didn’t immediately speak, but frowning his brows in concentration for a moment longer, seemingly calling upon all his wit and ingenuity to answer my question, yet unfortunetly for him, another voice between him to it.
"Or they didn’t dare to?!" Tessiphina said a moment later, half in befuddled shock, half in sudden understanding, her eyes as wide as I’ve ever seen them.
"Exactly." I nod in appreciation, an action mimicked by my Grand Marshal as well, as I continued with some amusement to my tone. "They didn’t leave this place untouched for no reason, after all no one can forget to torch a city; no matter how daft they are." freeωebnovēl.c૦m
"So they either didn’t have enough time to burn it, or they simply didn’t want to lay waste to their home." Hasdrubal chucklingly summarized with a nod of donning understanding.
"So the question standing now is then, which is it, tardiness or cowardice?" Leonid mused with a frown.
"I believe Avestan already has the answer, correct?" I say, as I look to the demon’s right hand man, as he finally rose from the ground he was inspecting.
"Yes, sire." Replied the scarlet eyed warrior, as he came to my and Hamilcar’s side.
"Please smell this earth, my lords." Avestan said, his hand still clutched around a handful of dirt, as he brought it to us to inspect. "It does not have the acrid scent of oil. Something all the other places we passed shared."
"Indeed." I say.
"But there is a still a stale trace of iron to it." Avestan pointed out.
"Blood." Hamilcar instantly answered.
Avestan nodded. "And this is the only place with any sign of recent arsonous acts."
"They thought of burning it as well, but they instantly punished the idiot who dared pick up the fire." Cyrus quickly said.
"Exactly." I smiled to my excited brother, who threw a triumphant glance towards our slightly scowling brother.
"So it was cowardice." Leonid then said, as he slowly approached the three of us.
"But how do we use any of this to our advantage?" Hasdrubal asked, as he idly stabbed the charred dirt where Avestan kneeled a moment, with the tip of his serrated sabre.
"We do what they couldn’t." I chillingly declare. "They wanted to safeguard their most important homes, their economic hubs; islands in which they can regroup back to so that they might rebuild their ransacked territories that they themselves robbed and tore apart, long before we were beset upon them? I don’t think so. We will finish what they started, unless of course, they willingly come to stop us themselves, sacrificing their advantage for their futures."
My brothers visibly shivered, Leonid, Avestan, Horus and Abraham merely nodded, Hasdrubal grinned, Barrafin took a terrified step back, Tessiphina’s brows creased, while Hamilcar’s eyes blazed a monstrous, infernal red.
"Hasdrubal, Horus, Leonid." I called my fastest lieutenants.
"Sire!" They answered as one.
"Find me every single city they betrayed to mercy." I commanded, my eyes blackened cauldrons of poisoned tar, pulsing with a dark, writhing madness horrifically joined with a splash of sadistic amusement.
"As you command!" They echoed, as they wrapped themselves in their different aura and vanished from my sight.
Looking back to the empty city, I apathetically, with an almost listless tone say "Raze it." And with the same breathe I turn on my heal, exiting through the open gates, as the echoes of my most trusted and competent generals and officers salute me.
My command spreads to my soldiers like a virulent disease, infecting them with a terrifying joyful glee and an insatiable desire to destroy, for after so many days of slowly, silently stewing in their own hateful thoughts for our enemy’s snivelling schemes that robbed them of so many of their brethren, it was akin to rainfall to those dying of thirst.
Therefore, they were all too eager to obey my mandate with meticulous perfection, as they finally belched out the fire that’s been haunting their waking dreams and twisting knots of their stomachs, demanding they make right the wrongs of their vulpine foes, as they burned the city whole to cinder and ash.
And so my armies marched again, but no more were they like a loosed arrow, racing towards my enemy’s heart, but now like a tidal of wave of ruin and destruction, as they tore a sunder all that stood in our way, be it civil or military structures, all was trampled to dust, as we flattened their civilization beneath our heals, all the while we brazenly gloated about it to their far off scouts, who would intermittently appear on the horizon.
Willing and perfect messengers we never bothered to halt, as we always sent them off with a hail of jeers and mockery, so that they may spread our dread and deeds further and further, to force their illusive masters’ hands.
And for a while, we harvested no fruit for our labour, as the four leaders of the united Middle Murathicus army remained resolute in their retreating doctrine, pulling farther south the further we push towards them.
So after a week, four more cities and dozens more villages and towns put to the torch, I decided that a greater prize is necessary, a fatter prey, a more precious target that would force them into action; which is when Tessiphina and Barrafin came to me with news of a start studded city, one of marble and silver, of mysterious magic and everlasting winter, the capital city of one of the great clans of the middle tribes.
I swiftly drive us in that pointed direction, making sure to postulate as much as possible for the quickly dwindling scouting parties around us, to where I intend to unleash my roving demons of men next; hoping that this will finally catch the attention of my evasive prey, for if it did not, then I would need to rethink my designs for this war all over again.
But I refuse to believe that they would stay so obstinate after I erase one of their capitol cities to the ground.
Thankfully, and finally, after so long my patience is handsomely awarded; like a fisherman finally seeing ripples around his fishing line, after hours of nothing, my scouts for the first time in weeks, come to me with reports of a massive horde that extend as far as they could see, is marching north. freēwebnovel.com
My and my generals’ grins are a sight to see then, expressions of pure excitement and triumph, despite being told that we face a gargantuan host of half a million fighting men against our little less than three hundred thousand.
I do not change course, nor do I accelerate our march, I maintain the same slow, agonizing advance, making sure that they do not have a chance to retreat back, making sure that they are able to reach their city in time, making sure to switch our strategical positions, slowly pulling them into my own trap.
See how they like it.
Within a week’s time, as planned, we see for the first time our quarry, perched half way up the gentle slope of a white peaked mountain, with walls of pure white marble and sleeked with a thick coat of snow, stood the White Jewel, Oigbier, the capital city of the great Ban-Sgurr Clan; the mightiest mage centric clan in the Murathicus Middle lands.
And below it, shrouded in the mountain’s shadow, lay the vast throngs of my enemy’s bannermen. A veritable river of flesh and steal ready to bar my entry into their dear city, that I now see has become a citadel of cannons, mages and siege craft.
"Honestly, even I have to admit that I can’t help but feel slightly apprehensive when I behold such an enormous army." Hasdrubal trepidatiously whispered, though we all heard him words due to our superhuman senses.
"We certainly have our work cut out for us this time." Leonid said as he looked at them.
"This will be a daunting task, there is no doubt about that, but victory is ours regardless." Horus confidently declared, as his grip tightened around his Iridescent Ideal.
"Should we ready a strike force to give them our greetings?" Hasdrubal asked, his hands instinctively going to his blades.
"No." I calmly say. "It’s already close to sundown, and I have little interest in the complexities of a night battle this day. Begin the camp’s construction, and make sure that our sentries and plenty this evening."
"Sire!" They acknowledged, before they rode past me, while I continued to stare at the city I would feast in the halls of tomorrow.
