Chapter 9 - Part 3

The lead ship drifted, letting the prevailing tide take it towards shore. It moved within a magically created fog bank, and the admiral in charge of all four vessels was trying to stay hidden until the last possible moment by acting as an autumn fog coming across the Eldeen Bay would. Only one of the four vessels was a real warship, the other three were slow, bulky, troop carriers, and none of the four had been tested in at-sea combat. They had been built in secret to the west of the Whispering Woods, launched in secret under cover of darkness, and manned in secret by careful wagon load after wagon load from House Cannith.

There were almost seven hundred individuals aboard the fleet, and only about one hundred and fifty of them were born by biological process. The rest were all warforged.

“Watch the lines, we’re drifting too far!” an artificer whose coat bore the sigils of the Arcane Congress. “I can’t maintain the fog correctly!”

“Who are you, Lord Major Derge ir’Lain?” came the sarcastic reply from the deck officer. “You do your job and I’ll do mine!”

“Chattering doesn’t roll the barrel, gentlemen,” said a tall figure passing by. Both the artificer and the deck officer jumped, not having seen Lord Ibraim ir’Wynarn until he was right on top of them. Lord Ibraim was rumored to by something of a wizard along with being a tactical genius, and the tall man in the black coat with the rapier that seemed to be made of pure shadow intimidated all of his men.
Ibraim moved on, satisfied that his men would quit their bickering. Tensions had been running high since the ships were launched two days ago. Aundair’s navy was never the most successful, and trying to put an invasion force to sea without being spotted by House Lyrandar in Stormhome, agents of Brelish intelligence, Lhazaar pirates, or others, had been a daunting task. In a few hours they would be close enough to shore to where the three troop carriers would drop their load and the warforged soldiers could be expected to swim to the shore. The warforged units could not drown, but they could be swept off course by the tide if they did not get dropped off close enough. To get them in close enough without losing them to the current, but far enough away so that the renegades of the west would not see them coming, that was the trick.

Ibraim walked to the aft deck and down the stairs to the command cabin. No guard stood on duty here, for the reputation of those within was grim enough. The tall human opened the door and then quickly shut it as he entered.

Most of the maps and books had been stowed away, leaving one long map pegged into the long table that ran the length of the room. The map showed the town of Merylsward and the coastline near it. The porthole shutters were closed, allowing in no outside light, but enough magical sources of light left the room without any shadow. Three others were waiting for Ibraim when he came in.

Kleris Zenden, a longtime member of the Royal Eyes of Aundair, stood by the table, peering at some detail of the coastal reefs. It would be his call as to when the warforged would be released, and the meticulous half-elf was reviewing his calculations. Kleris’ face was devoid of emotion as he did so. Ibraim assumed that the Khoravar was trying not to think about the battle plan that called for the termination of all potential witnesses within fifteen minutes, child or adult. Many officers in Aundair referred to Kleris belittlingly as ‘Risia’ for his supposed lack of feeling, but Ibraim knew that the half-elf had simply accept long ago that the only way to survive this war was to accept necessity as the only moral.

Sitting across from Kleris, puffing on an ornate pipe, was Herschem Banekert, a wizard of renown who had been at the Arcane Congress for decades. The white-haired and bearded old human was still spry at seventy-some years of age, and enjoyed affecting all of the cliches of a wizard, even so far as to wear pointy hats with stars sown onto them. For all of Herschem’s affected joviality, he was a deadly serious man when he needed to be. Herschem would be in the vanguard of phase two of the assault, and the important buildings that he planned to destroy with his magic were marked in red.

Ibraim noticed a new mark on the map. “The Sivis building? Is that necessary?” he asked.

“I’m not making unnecessary antagonisms with a dragonmarked house,” Herschem said seriously. “It is unavoidable. And we will antagonize Vadalis as well, for they run many operations in the town. But we have no choice, our actions are dictated by necessity. Merylsward is to be the base of our operations, and we can’t risk letting anyone know we are here. The druidic spells of communication will be bad enough without the more efficient Sivis facilities notifying Oalian. We’ll claim that it was an accident within the fog of war.” He shrugged. “Besides, phase one of this operation calls for the extermination of everyone on the bay’s edge, and I think if any attention in the form of moral outrage occurs, it will be focused on that.”

“One more atrocity in a long line of them going back a hundred years,” Kleris noted calmly. “No one will object, unfortunately, any more than objections were raised when Karrnathi undead went through three tents of Aundair’s wounded last year, killing all of those abed and the halfling healers who were attending them. If we don’t make it look purposeful then Sivis will be forced to look the other way. Not even the Houses are immune to the mistakes of war.” Kleris’ eyes darted toward Ibraim. “MiLord I opened the sealed scroll, I know our first objective.”

Ibraim nodded. Striking a decisive blow at the rebels who were bleeding Aundair’s back while it dealt with Karrnath, Thrane, and Breland, was a good reason for hitting this far west, and even for using Merylsward as a base of operations, but it was all a cover. Ibraim had a charge from his cousin, the Queen herself, to follow the dictates of the Mosaic Committee, an obscure group that Ibraim had not even heard of until two months ago. “Somewhere in Merylsward, in the company of a Gatekeeper druidess, is a halfling with magical powers that must die,” Ibraim mused. “It sounds like something out of a fanciful bard’s tale. Powers beyond our shores manipulating events, a half-sane Talenta savage acting as their conduit here, and a druidess who is supposedly dead directing the entire thing.”

“The evil manipulations of the chamber are real,” Herschem assured him. “I wouldn’t have been called away from our front lines if it was a fanciful tale.”

“I believe you,” Ibraim said. “Although in truth it does not matter if I did, I do as my Queen orders. And now that we have al of these warforged, er, on loan from House Cannith, as it were –”

The bitter, mocking laughter from the room’s fourth occupant interrupted him. The woman sometimes seemed rational and normal, but mostly she came across as obsessed and unstable. Whatever her mental state, Lo’Paih acted on behalf of one of Cannith’s major players, and when she had offered the field-testing of five hundred new warforged units – new models that had been crafted with a layer of ironwood, Aundair grabbed the opportunity. “A loan, you say? Oh but they are yours, if you follow our directions!” laughed the woman. “And make no mistake, the druidess must die, or all five hundred units will withdraw from the field of battle.” Lo’Paih was human, or nominally so. Thick robes and cloaks surrounded her, but they did not hide the giant metal fist that was in place of her right hand. Bits and pieces of the woman were no longer flesh, instead they had been replaced with metallic parts from a warforged or some similar construct. Perhaps Lo’Paih had once been beautiful, but the woman’s face was full of scars, many of which appeared to be self-inflicted.

“Dirty hands stroke a white beard,” Ibraim sighed. These five hundred units were being provided at no cost so that someone in Cannith could be sure to butcher and slaughter Pienna and all that knew her. Once that was done, Lo’Paih had made it very clear that Aundair could do whatever they wanted with the warforged. Lo’Paih’s strange obsession with Pienna meshed nicely with the Mosaic Committee’s odd, arcane desire to slay a deranged halfling that somehow represented a dangerous threat to the world. As such, the eccentricities of a dragonmarked woman who chose to butcher herself had to be tolerated. “Sivis and a highly placed Gatekeeper. We risk a backlash but we have no choice. It all rests on your spells, Herschem.”

“Wizardry has ever served Aundair,” the old man nodded. He gestured to Kleris. “But only Master Kleris’ intelligence and your direction will get the warforged units to, ah, properly subdue those who may warn the town of my approach.”

“Yes, yes, follow our directions and the Reaches no longer threaten you,” Lo’Paih chortled with a strange raspy sound. “Leaving you free to smash Thrane, teach them a lesson, gain glory for yourselves.”

Ibraim kept his face smooth. He wanted to spit at the woman, which would have been insane, especially given her proficiency with artificer magic, but he was a professional. And he had read the file that Kleris had provided. Sword, infusion, and now surgically attached battlefist, all made Lo’Paih a dangerous opponent. As a graduate of Rekkenmark her proficiency with a blade was not to be underestimated.

The greatest concern to Ibraim was not the woman’s battle prowess, but her place in the grand scheme of things. She simply did not fit. Kleris had told Ibraim a week ago that this odd woman from Cannith was feuding with her uncle over a recent failure of some sort, and that the Gatekeeper Lo’Paih wanted dead so badly was her own second cousin. A cousin that everyone in Cannith thought had died in a lightning rail accident. Lo’Paih’s place in things made no sense, and her cousin and the other House elders allowing her to casually use five hundred new models of warforged was did not make sense. To Ibraim the whole thing was a harebrained knot of trouble. But Ibraim took orders, he did not argue with them. “What of phase three?” Ibraim asked Herschem.

“The reject units, those composed of criminals and deserters fighting for a pardon, land by longboat to the south under Captain Thiel’s command,” Herschem said. “They’re thirty men, twenty of them the rejects, and they camp out on the Orien road. They ambush any Wardens of the Wood coming to the rescue or any inhabitants fleeing southeast. No prisoners. We expect them to suffer high casualty rates so that they can earn their pardon.”

“Why do you need flesh at all?” Lo’Paih asked, knocking her metal hand on the table. The map twitched. “Why do not you take what I have given you?”

“Because the force holding the road is the most likely to be spotted at a distance,” Kleris explained. “And as the road is the fastest method of travel for the area, anyone who might get away will report seeing Aundair humans, not Cannith warforged. Any villagers who get away fleeing through the woods will not encounter anyone to report to about the warforged for weeks. It is about maintaining tactical surprise.”

“They’re also not participating in the direct attack because we don’t trust them all that much,” Herschem added. “Each has a close friend or relative back in Fairhaven as additional insurance, but they have already abandoned law and country once, they may abandon family, too. And as Kleris said, if phase one succeeds and no one knows of the attack from the sea, any low-level divinations will point to a force on the Orien Road as the source of trouble, not the new warforged, buying us some more time.”

“You don’t trust me,” Lo’Paih laughed. “Precious toys buy nothing.”

“Delayed notification of the enemy is our goal, trusting you is not relevant to that,” Kleris said. “We need strategic surprise even if we can’t get tactical, but tactical surprise is even better.”

“I spent my life reading currents of power in the House, and untwining lies from truth,” Lo’Paih told him. “So don’t lie to me. I don’t care that you do not trust me, whatever military reasons you give. Pienna must die. That is all.”

“Our plans are in accordance,” Ibraim said. “No one disagrees with you, Lo’Paih. We have to kill this Pienna because she will protect the halfling and the town. She is a viable military target. Fear not.”

“I have crafted myself a pure crafting, free from fear!” she cackled.

Ibraim ignored her, addressing Kleris and Herschem. He hated the fact that this Cannith woman had to be at the meeting. “What’s the casualty rate expected amongst the warforged?”

“If I manage to take out the Gatekeeper and the halfling before they know I’m there, only ten percent,” Herschem assured him. “If I don’t, about fifty. This woman is a powerful druid, and she has a great panther and a dangerous dwarf at her side. Other than her there is no one of import in the area that we know of. Vadalis has a presence, and an Orien trade caravan may or may not be in the town, but so far as we know there is no other unusual activity. Of course, there’s always going to be some intelligence we don’t have, but that’s life. You have two strings for your bow, and you pray to the Host.”

“He will be in Merylsward, I have been assured of it,” Lo’Paih said suddenly.

“He?” Ibraim said, swinging to look at her. “Who is ‘he’? What are you talking about? I though you were looking for a woman named Pienna!”

“Fear not, for I will deal with him,” Lo’paih said, unfazed by the temper of the Aundarian Lord. “My power will be at your side, bringing death to the Reachers.”

The wizard, the spy, and the noblemen all looked at each other, but said nothing. It was far too late to turn back now.