Queen Yavara: Chapter 58 free porn video

CERTIOK

The city was in chaos. People ran to and froe, shouting and screaming. No longer did the wide boulevards of Alkandra feel like a beast utopia, but like the walls of a cage. Windows were frantically boarded, men and women sprinted toward the castle in various stages of undress, watchmen handed out spears and swords without a care for who grabbed them. Everyone was a soldier now, and no one was.

“Go to you posts!” I yelled, and began thrusting my finger toward the docks, “Remember which group you belong to! Group A goes with Commander Faltia, Group B goes with Magistrate Furia, Group C goes with Director Eva, Group D goes with Scribe Soraya, Group E goes with Liaison Kiera, Group F goes with Director Brianna, and Group G goes with the queen!”

“Which fucking queen?!” an old Ardeni orc yelled at me.

“What do you mean which queen? Queen Yav—” I stopped myself, and looked toward the dock. Yavara was supposed to command five-thousand swords, but who would follow her now? Then again, seasoned battle commanders were in short supply, and Yavara was at least that. Leveria probably hadn’t even been in a fistfight her whole life.

“Certiok?” the orc asked.

“Uh… Group G goes with Yavara! Wait, scratch that!” I fumbled through my clipboard for a second, cursing Yavara with every breath for putting me in charge of this shit. Goddamn it we could use you right about now, Adrianna, I thought with gritted teeth as I paged through list after list of census data Brianna had compiled. “OK, Group G is now under my direct command. All members of my battlegroup marshal before the castle!”

The Ardeni orc nodded, and raced up the castle steps.

“You, boy!” I snapped at a passing incubus child, “Find the queen—I mean Yavara—and tell her that her battlegroup has been reassigned. Tell her that she will now act as independent support as she sees fit.”

“Oi, you think a wee shit like me is gonna get anywhere near royalty?”

“Just get close enough to yell it to her, now go!”

I rounded up dozens of orcs at a time and sent them racing toward their respective groups. Faltia was the most seasoned tactical commander, so she would be the general of the battle; not Leveria, Yavara nor Zander could supersede her. The two-thousand members of the city watch were the only paramilitary group available, and so Faltia put them at the center of the dock’s walls, ready to take on the brunt of the Lowland navy, and man the ballistae. She ***********ed ten-thousand more of the best available fighters to fill in the tiered walls that loomed over the docks, as well as the courtyards preceding the castle. These were the male orcs of fighting age—mostly Ardeni construction workers—as well as the trolls, centaurs and ogres. Furia and Eva commanded the battlegroups at Faltia’s flanks. Eva’s nine-thousand melee troops were primarily composed of young tribal she-orcs, and would hold the beach to Faltia’s left, while Furia and her one-thousand missile troops—mostly goblins—held the cliffs to Faltia’s right, just above the docks.

After the first three battlegroups had been filled, teenagers were the best available fighters, and they made up Soraya’s force of seven-thousand. They would be stationed at the city’s perimeter on the southern side in case the Lowlanders opted for a beach landing. Kiera’s battlegroup consisted of those not yet too old to be geriatric. The three-thousand wizened men and women would be positioned throughout the city to fortify chokepoints when the inevitable fallback occurred. Brianna’s battlegroup consisted of four-thousand non-tribal women, mostly Ardeni immigrants. They would hold the central rendezvous point—the arena—and reinforce any battlegroup that fell back to that position. There were several independent subgroups that would act as support for battlegroups A through F; these were the succubi, the incubi, and the vampires, who would be more effective hunting alone than fighting in ranks. The last battlegroup, Battlegroup G, consisted of the five-thousand citizens who were disabled or elderly. They would be the last line of defense in case of an all-out retreat into the castle, where ten-thousand children were currently housed. It was terribly callous, but someone had to hold the enemy off for long enough to bar the doors and lift the drawbridge, and the members of Group G were expendable. And I was their commander. Holy shit, where had I gone wrong to end up here?

“Hey!” I shouted at a passing centaur, “Hey, Group A is that way!”

“I’m supposed to be in Group D!” He shouted back.

“Centaurs go with Faltia!”

“Males between the ages of fifty and sixty-five go with Kiera!”

“Wait!” I growled, and rifled through the pages on my clipboard, “I thought race superseded age… or is it… hmmm…”

I didn’t notice the change right away. It was subtle. The city faded sonically, dimming as though I were walking away from it. The frantic squeaking of carts and the patter of feet had ceased. The shouts and calls of the criers had all dwindled. The bells rang cleanly from their towers, clanging off the canyons of stone and wood that made up the many boroughs of Alkandra, now all deathly silent. I turned around.

A great cloud of fog obscured the bay. It consumed the bay’s mouth, and moved steadily closer, devouring the buoys and islands that speckled the waters. I couldn’t make out any shapes in the mass of grey, but the breadth of it foretold the greatness of the foe it concealed. The sun dimmed. The shadows grew dull. The bells in the city clanged out, but the sound was somehow muted. A chill crawled slowly up my spine, and carried its cold terror into my skull.

“Certiok?” the centaur asked, his voice hushed as though fearing the enemy would hear him.

“Group A.” I muttered, and wondered if I’d just condemned him to die. Likely, all I’d done was hastened the inevitable.

FALTIA

The battleplan was rather simple. The docks were a heavily-fortified tiered-wall system that stood only a hundred yards before the base of the castle. It was the shortest path to victory for the enemy, and so they would hit us here the hardest. The docks were lined with a hundred ballistae aimed toward the sea, each of which were capable of punching a hole in any vessel’s hull. I expected that the famed Lowland mages would have something to mitigate that. Still, just one of our missiles could do more damage to them than scores of theirs could do to us, so I expected the enemy wouldn’t dally too long exchanging salvos. They would blast us with a rapid succession of missiles and catapults, shock us into inaction, then hit us with the invasion underneath the cover of the siege. Our goal was to hold them at the docks, rain on them with our skirmishes on the cliffs, force them back into their boats, and make them try their luck at the beaches. If all went well (which it wouldn’t), the Lowlanders would have a disorganized landing on the beach, and Eva’s battlegroup would massacre the assault. It was far more likely that Battlegroup A would be forced backward toward the castle, and Eva’s group would have to attempt a haphazard flanking maneuver to keep the enemy bogged down. Worst case scenario for us would be if the Lowlanders didn’t attempt an amphibious assault at all, and simply dropped anchor out of range of our missiles and waited until the superior Highland army arrived. If they did that, we were doomed, however there was no reason to think the Lowlanders yet knew of the Highlanders. The Jonian spire had been destroyed, and though the Lowland mages possessed great vision, it was mostly limited to the sea and coast, and not too far inland. Still, by now they would know that the horde had not arrived, and if they looked closely, they might notice that the Dark Queen looked just a little different. I hoped they didn’t look too closely. Fear was our greatest weapon now.

I never felt fear before a battle. I didn’t feel any thrill at all, actually. A strange calm always preceded the terror for me. The terror would come, it always did, but it would not consume me with panic. Now, as I watched the fog filter toward me in the bay, I only felt a heightened sense of awareness.

“Ten clicks.” I said to the ballistae commander, and the order was telephoned down the line. The great iron crossbows that lined the tiered walls above the docks all ticked back as their gears were cranked. I eyed the grey mass, judging its distance by the markers set out in the water. How far ahead would the concealing spell precede the actual enemy? We wouldn’t get a proper range until we saw the silhouettes.

“Eleven clicks.” I ordered, and a single resounding note responded from the mechanical symphony. Could I hear the sound of water against wooden hulls, or was that simply the waves crashing upon the shoreline? The bells in the city clanged and droned, creating an ambient echo that died in the muted grey before me.

“Fifteen clicks.” I said.

“Ma’am?” the ballistae commander asked.

“The strings will hold.” I answered, “Fifteen clicks.”

She gave the order, and five more clicks were added to the great bows, maxing the tension. I could hear the groans of the iron bolts grinding in their places, and the dangerous whine of the strings stretching to their limit.

I narrowed my eyes at the fog, and muttered, “Ballista One, loose.”

The ballistae commander looked back at me, then nodded to her personal crew. The men at the levers stepped to the side, and the commander kicked the release. The wrought iron bolt shot into the fog with such speed that its only movement was discernable by a line that bisected the world on either side of it. The fog swallowed the bolt with a puff, and then… nothing. Not the sounds of wood cracking, nor screams of alarm, nor the thud of a mast. There wasn’t even the sound of a splash.

The ballistae commander looked back at me. “Commander?” She asked, her voice high and tight in her throat. And then, she was gone. Or rather, she was everywhere. I was misted by pink and red, and staring at the wrought-iron eleven-foot shaft of a ballista bolt that had been returned to its sender. It quivered with energy into the wood it was planted in, and shined with the gore it was now fertilized with. Panic rippled through the line, but I silenced it with a raise of my hand.

“Hold.” I said, and stepped atop the wall, “Hold!”

The fog moved ponderously towards us, inch by inch, foot by foot. It swallowed the last of my markers, then the last of the buoys. It swallowed the rocks before the docks, the ropes floating in the surf, and the planks riding the tide. Then it swallowed me. The world was grey and opaque. I could only see the silhouettes of the soldiers at my sides, but not their features. The world was muted and dull. The clang of weapons was stifled, the toll of the buoys was silenced, and the pervading chatter of fear was snuffed out. Soon, there was only the faint whistle of wind, and the distant sound of the waves that crashed right before me. Though I peered with my keen elven eyes, I could see nothing in the vast grey. It was a monochromatic matte painting, a wash of intimate blank nothing. And then, there was something. A single line painted a different shade of grey than the rest. It was so subtle that I wondered if it was there, but it became darker with every passing second until it formed the shape of a masthead. Then, there were dozens. Scores. Hundreds. The fog disappeared, and the full breadth of the Lowland navy was revealed.

One hundred man-o-wars towered over the approaching invasion force, their masts reaching seventy feet, their hulls stretching three-hundred feet from bow to stern. The three lower decks of the great ships were festooned with ballistae, and the main decks were lined with catapults. They were facing us with a full broadside.

“Take cover!” I screamed, and the entire weight of the Lowland fleet was launched at once. Thousands of ballistae missiles lined the air as hundreds of blazing boulders were sent arcing above. I was only allowed a moment to marvel at the shear magnificence of the destruction barreling toward me before it was there. The iron missiles thudded into the wall, pierced through a foot of rock, and blasted out the other side. The bars twisted and contorted violently with the impact, spinning like iron cords to smash through barriers, armor and bone. A thousand successive impacts cratered the front wall, sending debris blasting backward, filling the air with dust. I was hurled into the wall, my helm smacked the stones, and a concussive bell rang through my skull. The dust cleared enough just in time for me to see the blazing boulders rain down on us. They exploded atop the wall, punched great holes in the lines, and sprayed blazing pitch like splashing water. Sparks flew into the air, great red gouts of flame enveloped trenches of men, and smoke billowed out from behind the walls. When the last great booms of the salvo had ended, the front wall was nothing but rubble. Wrought-iron poles stuck from the stone like rebar in cement, mortared by the blood and awful of my screaming soldiers. Limbs were torn cleanly from the bodies, great puncture wounds were shaped jaggedly through the flesh, and pink entrails and brains were splattered across red pools.

“Commander!” a she-orc yelled, and hauled me to my feet. She was missing her arm below the elbow, but she did an admirable job of pretending otherwise. “Commander, what are the orders?”

“What do you mean, what are the orders? Return salvo!”

“With what?!” She screamed, and motioned behind her with her stumped arm. I hadn’t even noticed the ballistae. I guess that was because there wasn’t much to notice. Our entire arsenal had been turned into twisted metal and splinted wood.

“Do we fall back?” She yelled.

“And give them the docks?! Our only chance of stopping their landing is to stop it here!” I pushed past her, and ran down the line, “Hold your positions!” I roared to the tiers above, “Hold your positions, and take cover! Get as low as you can! The enemy will try to break us here!”

I tripped over a man holding his intestines in, and stumbled into a man who had failed to do so. My hand squished into his guts, and he shrieked. I jolted myself upright, and continued racing down the line. “Hold!” I yelled, “Hold and take cover! The next salvo is—”

FURIA

A line of debris exploded from one end of the docks, to the other as the missiles smashed into the stone, and the flaming boulders cascaded downward. In all my life, I’d never seen so much mass move so quickly. The ballistae missiles were so numerous and so fast that they seemed to form a momentary plane between the ships and the docks, and the arcing boulders created an infernal rainbow. I watched the fire splash all along the docks. I watched the smoke billow from the craters, and the dust rise overhead. The sea-winds propelled the toxic cloud inland and into the city, revealing the full destruction they’d left in their wake. There were no docks anymore. The tiered walls were so pocked with puncture holes that they were nothing but jagged columns holding up crumbling battlements. Where there wasn’t rubble, there were bodies. Hundreds of them were splayed out and mangled, and hundreds more were writhing. Even from so high up, I could see the red. My eyes searched the ruined docks for Faltia’s black helm. I scanned the waterline five times before I finally found it. Thankfully, it was still atop her head, and better yet, her head was still attached.

She raced down the line, helping the wounded and ordering soldiers into position, constantly reinforcing the many gaps in the wall. The front wall had taken the brunt of the assault, and the thousands of orcs in the secondary and tertiary complexes were mostly alive. And though almost all of our ballistae had been destroyed in the first salvo, the enemy couldn’t see the damage they’d caused, for Zander Fredeon stood just behind the last wall, weaving his perception spells to show towering trebuchets and catapults were there were none, enticing the enemy’s amphibious assault.

Hundreds of boats were rowing toward the docks, each of them filled to the brim with the silver and sapphire helms of the Lowland marines. An Ardeni mage could be seen at the stern of each boat, robed and ominous. All the swords, spears and axes on those boats were just window dressing for the real threat that sat broodingly in the back.

“Aim for the mages,” I said to my troops, and drew back my bow, “shoot high and to the south; the wind will carry it.”

The sound of a thousand bows being pulled taut carried down my line. I set my eye on my target, exhaled through my nose, and waited for the space between heartbeats. I loosed. The arrow gleamed for a moment in the dull sunlight, then disappeared to a dot. It reached the peak of its arc, and became a descending line that moved down, down, down toward its target seventy yards away. It was a perfect shot, and it bounced off the mage’s arcane shield like I’d merely thrown a pebble.

“Shit!” I growled, “Just fucking kill the others then!”

A great whoosh sounded from our line, and the sky was filled with lethal hafts. For a moment, it almost looked like an elven skirmishing salvo, but the continuity fell to pieces at the precipice of the arc, and arrows rained into the bay without any sense of aim. Some lucky shots struck the boats, and even fewer struck flesh, but the vast majority splashed uselessly into the water.

“Hold!” I yelled, flinging up my hand, “Wait until they begin to land! Concentrate on those in front! Make them trip over their own dead!”

Another salvo from the man-o-wars was loosed. Another plane of pure velocity formed between the ships and the docks, and another explosion of dust and rubble came from the front lines. Another great shower of meteors was sent from the decks of the ships to bombard the defenders, and this time, the tiers above were not spared. Massive holes were punched into the packed-in divisions of orcs, sending limbs and heads toppling backward into the streets below. Great bursts of flame engulfed whole sections of the wall, turning the defenders there into crisped silhouettes. Their screams carried from the walls in a discordant chorus, and their black figures flailed and danced in their infernal prisons, unable to escape the scalding heat. I watched them drop one by one, not yet dead, just unable to carry on, doomed to spend their last minutes in helpless blind agony.

I tore my gaze away from the burning men, and searched for Faltia once more. She was easy to spot now; she was one of the few people on the front wall who still moved. She collected the remaining defenders as fast as she could, and positioned them into clustered squads behind what little cover still remained. Then she shouted orders to the commanders on the upper walls, and the orders were carried down the lines. A disordered surge of soldiers pressed themselves to the battlements, and began loading their crossbows. The boats were nearly here.

“Get ready!” I yelled down my line, “Aim higher than you think you should! On my command…” I watched the first wave of boats approach the docks, only twenty yards from landing, “ready…” the first boats smacked into the dock, and the men inside grappled onto wooden structures, “…nock…” twenty boats docked, then thirty, then forty. They lashed themselves in, and the first men jumped to shore, “loose!” I roared, and a great twang of release shot from my line. This time, our salvo was not wasted. The arrows descended in a straight path to the docks below, and laid waste to the invaders. Scores of men fell at once, spinning and splashing into the water, screaming and writhing on the docks. I aimed quickly, and put one arrow through a man’s eye, sending him careening into the bay. The defenders on the walls below aimed their hundreds of crossbows over the battlements, and loosed at once. The humans were shot backward in droves, not even getting a chance to get out of their boats before they were sent tumbling back into them.

“Keep shooting! Don’t stop until your quivers are empty!” I shouted, and a spirited cheer rose up from our ranks. A constant stream of arrows were shot from the cliffside, raining ceaselessly upon the breaching marines. When the Lowlanders began putting their shields up, the crossbows on the wall shot beneath them, sticking the poor bastards in a quagmire of death from every angle. Half of them were killed before they got off their boats, and of the half that did survive, only one in five made it across the docks. The long piers offered no cover at all, and so they died in rows, falling like crashing waves until only a trickle made it to the wall. There, they met their ends. The battered and vengeful troops atop the front wall poured hot tar onto the shiny bastards below, prompting pure shrieks of agony. All the while, the mages remained on the boats, watching their comrades die by the hundreds, hiding behind their arcane shields, not daring to get up. By the time the last boat emptied onto the docks, the piers were surfaced with more bodies than wood. The second invasion wave stalled in the surf, and then the boats turned around. The lone mages in their boats unlashed the ropes on the docks, and magically propelled their vessels back out to sea, leaving their dying and wounded to writhe upon the docks.

A cheer swelled from the ranks of beasts, and I cheered with them.

“Run, you fuckers!” I laughed, and shot a defiant arrow at the retreating boats. The mage didn’t have his shield up. It struck him between the shoulders, and his arms flailed outward comically. We all laughed as he fell off the side of his boat, and we cheered when his unmanned vessel steered itself into another retreating boat, cause them to splinter like cordwood. The mage in the other boat leapt off the side, and began to frantically swim towards his navy. Everyone was laughing, except Faltia. Faltia was running down the ranks of soldiers, screaming and gesticulating like a madwoman. My laughter faltered. I looked from her, to what she was pointing at. It took me a moment to see it. There were rows upon rows of dead bodies on the docks, but one row was fading. Twenty corpses became as transparent as silk, then disappeared. I looked out at the mage swimming towards his navy, then back at the empty space where the bodies had been. But there had never been any bodies. There had never been any soldiers at all. There had only been empty boats piloted by mages. The only casualty the Lowlands had suffered was the poor fool who I’d shot in the back. Even as the realization dawned on me, all the other bodies began to disappear. One by one, the retreating mages disengaged their perception spells, and our great victory at the docks literally vanished into smoke, leaving only thousands of spent arrows and bolts.

I looked down at Faltia. Faltia looked up at me. We turned our gazes south toward the beach, where the fog had never cleared.

EVA

I’d chewed my nails down to the pink watching the assault on the docks. Salvo after salvo battered the walls with deadly accuracy, destroying most of our ballistae turrets in one fell swoop. I could hardly see anything through the fog that blanketed the beach, but half a mile across the peninsula, I could make out the shapes of hundreds of boats being rowed under the cover of the siege. It was then that I ordered my entire force into a flanking position. We ran out from cover, and charged across the beach toward the docks. Our journey was bogged down by the snow and sand, making every step excruciatingly long. There was no way we’d make it in time. Faltia’s defense would shatter, the castle would be taken, and all would be lost. We were only halfway there when the boats arrived at the docks. A hundred steps later, and the assault was already over. It was a massacre. Despite having the full weight of the Lowland navy behind them, the marines decided to charge the wall without the cover of a salvo. I couldn’t believe our luck. All the intellectual and magical might of the Lowland academy was here, and the invasion had been defeated by mistiming and stupidity.

As the boats retreated from the docks, a great cheer rose up from the battered defenders, and our voice joined them on the beach.

“Goodbye, you dumb fuckers!” I yelled gleefully, waving at the retreating boats, “It was a real fun time! Next time let’s do this at your place, m’kay?”

“Commander!” one of my generals yelled.

I looked back at her with a smile on my face. “Wha… oh.”

From across the expanse of water, the low groan of a hundred thousand tons of timber being moved reached my ears. The man-o-wars pivoted on their anchors, and turned ten degrees southward. I blinked. The full broadside of the Lowland navy was staring right at me, and I was in the middle of a fucking beach.

“RUN!” I screamed, and the thousands of ballistae loosed at once. For a moment, a line of iron was drawn horizontally across the world. Then it arrived. Fffft! That was the sound it made when a missile shot past me. Fffft! The woman next to me was blown in half. Fffft! The ogre beside me had his front blown out of his back. Fffft! The dawn-elf to my right was kabobbed to three orcs behind her. Fffft! My general was split cleanly in two. Fffft! An orc’s head was shot right off. Fffft! A teenage girl exploded into mist. Fffft! I blasted backward.

The air was ripped from my chest, I was sent spinning into the air, and I crashed into the wet snow. A moment later, someone’s severed left arm landed next to my face. My severed left arm. The bone below the shoulder was blown to splinters, the bicep and triceps had been ruptured, and the sinew hung in strings. Strangely, I didn’t feel the pain; only a dull ache, and a numbness where there should’ve been feeling. I was succumbing to shock. Realizing that, I dumbly picked up my arm, and began crawling up the beach. I had to keep moving. Lying still meant death.

I stumbled over bodies and body parts, crawling through fields of shrieking wounded clutching at their opened flesh. They called for me like I could save them, reaching out with blood-stained hands, begging me with bulging eyes. A foot struck me in the back, and I was flattened. Another foot struck my wounded shoulder, and a spear of pain twisted into me. I screamed into the snow as foot after foot came down atop me and around me, the stampede of my own soldiers trying to escape the onslaught. The wounded around me were trampled, crushed into the sand and snow, their mangled bodies compacted. An iron sole smashed the bones of my severed hand. A hoof crushed my right heel. A foot landed squarely in my back, snapping two of my ribs. I coughed blood into the snow. The feet pounded around me, thundering dully, crunching through ice and bones. It was endless. It was a river of panic, and I was trapped in the undercurrent. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. The freezing ground pressed into my face, enveloping me in darkness, filling my mouth and nostrils with freezing sand and ice. The sounds were duller. The world was muted. There was only the impacts on my back that drove me further into the frozen earth beneath me, down, down, down, down… Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! Bodies dropped all around me. Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! Arms and legs were sent flailing to the air. Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! A hole opened in the stampede. The second salvo cut the herd down by the hundreds, giving me a path, but I couldn’t move. I stared helplessly at the city wall above me. It was only fifty yards away, but it might as well have been a million miles. I couldn’t even lift myself out of the imprint my body made in the snow.

Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! The bolts struck the ground around me, spearing through the wounded that littered the beach. A woman’s belly burst, and her awful sprayed my face. She screeched, clutching the wrought-iron haft that pinned her to the earth. With a bellow of immense agony, she ripped the haft from her exploded midsection, and threw it into the snow. She collected her intestines as best she could, and began to kick her way up the beach. Her ripped abdominal muscles flexed under the strain she put them under, and though she wailed with distress, she continued her plodding course up the beach, leaving a red trail in her wake.

I am such a fucking pussy. I thought grimly to myself, and with a grunt, I got onto my knees, and began to crawl. Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! The herd had thinned quite a bit by the third salvo, but those ballistae commanders were deadly accurate. A man was split cleanly in half as he ran off the beach. A woman was pierced in the middle of the back, and taken for a ride until she was impaled against the wall. A centaur was shot right through the rear end, and his back half ripped away like a piñata to reveal the wobbling innards within. He roared, and began to drag himself up by his front legs, spilling out his horse organs behind him. I crawled past them all, keeping myself as low as I could, gritting my teeth against the growing pain in my back. God, my fucking ribs! My arm was chopped clean off, my heel was crushed, but my goddamn ribs were giving me such hell! I buried my numb hand into the cold snow, vaguely aware of the dull ache of frostbite, and I dragged my body inch-by-inch up the gore-festooned beach.

Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! The missiles came down around me, killing less people this time. There weren’t many left to kill. The mortally wounded around me were gored, and their screams were much more dispirited this time. The dying could only suffer so much horror before it became boring, I imagined grimly, but I wasn’t there yet, and the closer I got to the wall, the keener the terror was. I was only ten feet away! Now nine, now eight, now seven, six, five—Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! The missiles punched into the wall before me, the black-iron haft singing with energy. Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! They came down all around me, pounding the earth, thudding dully into the frozen sands, blasting debris onto me. I was only four feet away. Three feet. Two feet. One! Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! The missiles pounded into the stones above my head; one, two three in a diagonal line up the side of the wall. A ladder. Serendipity. I put my severed arm into my teeth, reached up, and grabbed one of the hafts. I screamed as I pulled myself up, every torn ligament stretching with me, the sinew tugging on the rent muscles, the tendons peeling from the bones! I pulled myself up the first bar, planted my knee into the ground, and reached for the second bar. I grabbed it, bit into my arm until I drew dead blood, and hauled myself to my feet. It was then that the pain in my ribs was overtaken by the searing agony in my crushed heel. I sobbed against the excruciating pulses that wracked my leg, and reached upward. The third bar was just a few inches past my fingertips. I would have to jump. With a mouth full of blood, and eyes full of tears, I pivoted my weight on my heels, crouched, and shot upward. Fffft! Fffft! Fffft! I grabbed the bar, and let out a long breath. I let go of the bar, but I did not fall. There was a dull ache in my right thigh, my lower back, and my chest. I rested my burning head against the cold stone wall, and looked down.

I was pinned. Three rifled bars had pierced me, shot through my flesh and bones, and punctured the wall.

“Well… darn.” I whispered hoarsely to myself. Somehow, swearing didn’t seem right anymore. Fouling these last moments I had with profanity would be a shame. I tried to look up, but I no longer had the strength to lift my neck. I could only stare down. Half my vision was filled with the wall, and the other half was filled with the snow beneath me. It made an interesting symmetry of grey and white before the red blots tarnished it. My blood slowly pooled from the holes in my body, ran along the hafts that pinned me, and dripped down to the snow below. Drip, drip, drip; it was strangely fascinating to watch. That was me down there in the snow. Soon, there would be more of me in the snow than in this body.

Drip, drip, drip. I thought of my mom and dad. By now, they likely knew that I hadn’t died with the rest of the rangers; that I was in fact, one of Alkandra’s infamous hybrids. I wonder if they were surprised? I’d only joined the rangers because my parents had kicked me out for being such a slut. I smiled at the thought of them reading the newspaper one day and seeing my name in the headline. Eva Alecia: Former Ranger, Now the Sadistic Outreach Director of Alkandra! I hoped the neighbors gave them dirty looks for months. I hoped they would forgive me.

Drip, drip, drip. My mind wandered inevitably to the ones I loved. To my unborn child, who had given me hope, and to Alexa, for showing me how people could change. I would see them both very soon. Drip, drip, drip. To Faltia, for showing me how to lead. Drip, drip, drip. To Brianna, for giving me laughter. To Kiera, for giving me friendship. Drip, drip, drip. To Furia, for showing me humility when I needed it so greatly. Drip, drip, drip. To Adrianna… for… for… forgiveness… Drip… Drip… Drip… To… to Soraya, for… for… for being… the missing half of me… my love… my…

Drip, drip, drip.

SORAYA

“Run! Run! Run!” I screamed, urging my troops forward. The teenage orcs of Alkandra charged out from the streets, and flooded the boulevard. The remnants of Eva’s battlegroup trickled over the wall from the beach. There were so few.

“Get out of the way! Get the fuck out of the way!” I shrieked, and sprinted for the wall. Someone objected and tried to grab me, but I was already scaling the stones and throwing myself over the top.

The pieces of thousands of orcs were about the strewn beach, hundreds of them still groaning with the remnants of life. No one was standing. Three-hundred yards away, the Lowland marines were marshalling on the cleared beachhead from hundreds of watercrafts, and were beginning their slow ascent toward the city. Out in the bay, the man-o-wars were lighting pitch to boulders, and loading their catapults.

“Eva!” I screamed, “Eva?! EVA?!” I twirled this way and that, heedless of the coming army, uncaring for the thousands of ballistae that might’ve been trained on me. I raced down the beach, turned over corpse after corpse, assuring myself each time that she would be beneath one of them, whole and hale. “Eva?!” I screamed. Fffft! A missile pierced the ground five feet from me, spraying blood and snow into the air. I could hear the marching footsteps of the Lowlanders; I could feel the eyes of their mages following me. “Eva?!” I stumbled over a body, and nearly fell onto a sword. I righted myself against the wall, and smacked by head against the rifled haft of a missile. Growling, I clutched my bleeding forehead and—no. No. No, no, no, no…

A woman in black armor was splayed out against the wall. Her arm was missing below the shoulder. Her platinum hair was stained red.

“Eva?” I whispered. She didn’t answer. “Eva?” I whispered again, touching her shoulder. Her flesh was so cold. The snow below her was melted and stained red. I took her gingerly by the waist, and tried to pull her backwards.

“We need to get you to Zander quickly.” I whispered, “He’ll have you patched up in no time at all. Your tattoos will be ruined, but you said you regretted some of them.” I planted my hand on her chest, and delicately slid her down the bar that pierced her lung and heart. “Hell, I might want to start mine over too; we can get them together!” Blood poured freely from the holes inside her, gushing onto the snow. “Or-or-or-or you can give me the tattoos instead! Just like you said you wanted to, right?! I’ll be your canvas!” The sound of marching became louder in my ears. “You can draw whatever you want on me!” I squeaked as I pulled back with all my might, “You can even put it on my face; I won’t mind!” I could hear the Lowlanders yelling. “Just hold on a little bit longer!” I lurched backward, and fell into the snow with Eva atop me. She was so light. Scrambling upright, I shouldered her, and scaled the bars up the wall. I slipped on her blood, and pitched forward. She fell off my shoulders, and wilted into the snow below. I saw her face. Her mouth was agape and smeared with blood, and her eyes were rolled back and vacant. I was a rational woman. I knew what I was looking at. I knew it the moment I saw her, but all the truth in the world wasn’t worth a fucking thing compared to the tiny glimmer of fool’s hope I still had in me.

“Get up, Eva.” I whispered, and reached down for her, “Please get up.”

She just lay there, blood trickling from her lips. The footsteps became louder.

“Eva, please.”

She stared into the sky, unblinking in the glaring sunlight. The soldiers were only fifty feet away.

“Eva…”

A strong hand gripped me by the hair, and pulled me over the wall.

“Soraya, we can’t defend this wall!” Yavara yelled at me, “Move your troops back; I’ll buy you time!”

I just blinked at her.

“Soraya?”

“Eva!” I screamed, my hope surging to the forefront, “Eva!” I could only point at the wall, “EVA!”

She grabbed my arm. “Soraya, you need to—”

I ripped my arm away. “Eva! Eva! Eva! Eva!”

A flaming boulder crashed into our ranks, obliterated twenty souls, and blasted great chunks of molten rock in all directions. The shrapnel tore through flesh and bone like butter, sending dozens more to their ends, but I didn’t care. I just needed to communicate to this damnable woman that Eva was there, that there was still a tiny chance, and that chance was all I needed! “Eva!” I screamed, and jabbed my finger frantically over the wall. “Eva, EVA, EVA!”

Realization dawned on Yavara’s face, and she leapt over the wall. Men shouted alarms, and the footsteps suddenly ceased. A second later, she leapt back over with Eva’s limp body dangled in her arms. She was now paler than the high-elf who held her. Yavara rested Eva on the ground, and held her thumb against Eva’s throat. She closed her eyes, and let out a long slow breath. Some of the color returned to Eva’s body. A flush came across her pallid cheeks. One of her feet twitched. Sweat formed on Yavara’s brow, and she trembled until her entire body was palsying. Then she stopped, and dropped her head. The color left my beloved’s body, and the flush faded from her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Soraya,” Yavara muttered.

“Don’t tell me you’re fucking sorry! Try!”

“Trying will kill me, and it won’t save her.”

“Please!” I blubbered.

Yavara shook her head, stood up, and laid Eva in my arms.

“Take her back!” I screamed.

“She is dead!” She yelled, “If you don’t order your troops to retreat, they will all die with her!” She turned toward the breach in the wall, “Fall back to the arena. I will hold them off for as long as I can!”

YAVARA

The flaming boulders arced overhead and cascaded into the city behind me. Each deafening impact was accompanied by the crash of a leveled building, and a terrible chorus of screams. I tried to block the sound out. I’d been in numerous battles now, but I’d never felt them like this one before. Every shock resounded in my chest, every shriek cut through my mind, and every clash of steel rang in my skull. It was sensory overload, and I was nearly paralyzed by it. Still, I stepped in front of the breach in the wall, and stared out at the vast beachhead.

Twenty-thousand Lowland marines were crunching through the snow, each company led by a robed figure. Behind them, the man-o-wars launched volley after volley of catapults, each timed perfectly so that the air was never empty of flaming boulders.

The mage leading the army raised his hand, and halted the advance. He took three steps forward, and cast a spell at me. I didn’t attempt to block it; it was only a perception incantation.

“What is this?” First Mage Robert Usich asked me, “Some trick of the flesh?”

“Don’t you trust your own magic, Robert?”

He tilted his head, then drew his gaze to Castle Alkandra, where Leveria was displayed proudly atop the castle. He drew his gaze back to me. “If you wish to explain this turn of events to the king, you must surrender yourself.”

“He and I can speak plainly through you.”

“This is no time for talk.”

“I am the rightful queen of the Highlands. If I am to surrender, a formal declaration of war against the Highlands is required to—”

And Robert Usich shot a lighting spell right at my chest. I collected the attack in my telekinetic mitts, and hurled it back at him. He blocked it with his staff, charged an infernal spell, then promptly turned around, and set fire to the men behind him. I turned the Lowland’s best mage into my personal flame-thrower, and cooked a good portion of the Lowland’s vanguard before the other mages rushed to the front, and rescued their leader from himself. The men in the vanguard rolled in the snow, screaming as they clutched at the armor that had been fused to their skin. I eased their agony with a healing spell; not one that would reverse the damage, but would take away the pain.

“Robert,” I said, “now is the perfect time to talk. We can undo everything that’s been done if we just take a moment to understand each other!”

Robert Usich pushed away his underlings, and squared his shoulders at me. “My king made his ultimatum very clear. There will be no mercy for Alkandra!”

The rest of the Lowland Academy’s five-hundred mages filtered from the ranks of the army, and stepped in a long row behind their leader. Before they could organize, I launched a telekinetic strike at their center. The mages raised their hands as one, intercepted the attack, and sent it firing back at me. I put my shield up, and braced my feet into the earth. It was stupid; I was nowhere near as powerful as I’d been. My shield exploded, and I was sent hurtling backward. I caught myself in the air, and spun behind the wall just before an immense white blast shot through the gap. The great column of energy exploded the house behind me, blasted through the barn behind it, created a perfect burning circle in the silo behind that, and streamed into the sky. The attack would’ve leveled a city block if it had been aimed properly. They’d been practicing it just for me.

“Fuck me.” I gasped. I peeked around the corner of the breach, careful not to touch the stones that were glowing white with heat. The mages were all noticeably spent, but not incapacitated. They probably had two more tries with that spell before they’d sap themselves completely. I doubted they’d miss a second time. “You’re wasting your energy, Robert,” I yelled, “I’m not even the Dark Queen anymore. If you have a problem, I suggest you take it up with Leveria!”

“Then come out and surrender! It would be a shame for the rightful queen of the Highlands to become collateral damage.”

“For my own safety, I’m afraid I must decline. Keep your men back; it would be a shame for them to become collateral damage in your crossfire… again.”

Robert might’ve sneered, though the old mage was so expressionless that it could’ve just been a twitch. “Your Highness,” he said, “King Arthur Dreus has decided to speak with you.” He opened his mouth, and Arthur Dreus’s voice came out. “Good morning, Your Highness.”

“And to you, Your Highness.” I answered.

Arthur paused for a moment, assessing the situation behind Robert Usich’s eyes. “Do you remember the conversation you and I had when you were last in Ardeni Dreus?”

“I certainly remember the fun we had afterwards.”

“You joked about pressing your claim to the Highlands, then assured my father and I that you had no claim. As a head of state, that proclamation was formalized. The Lowlands has not recognized any monarch of the Highlands since the coronation of Queen Leveria Tiadoa, who now stands as the ruler of Alkandra. Therefore, until Alkandra is destroyed, the Highland kingdom is a vassal state of Alkandra, and an enemy to the Lowlands. Surrender yourself now.”

“I can’t let your soldiers into this city, Arthur.”

“Fine. Kill her, Usich.”

Robert Usich’s eyes fluttered, then focused on me. The mages around him began to glow. Their luminance intensified until their auras consumed them. Robert extended his hands to his sides with his palms outturned, and received their energy. I launched an infernal attack, and it ricocheted into the sky. I shot a telekinetic blast, and it caromed into the wall, blasting a carriage-sized hole through it. I tried to penetrate his mind, but there was nothing. All the while, the mages around Robert fed him their energy until he was radiating with it. I ran away. Ducking beneath the cover of the wall, I focused all the energy of my shield against my left side, and propelled myself as fast as I could alongside the wall. There was a flash, and the world was nothing but blinding white heat. I was lifted off my feet, and then… nothing.

KIERA

The ground shook all around me, and I stared up at the floorboards above, waiting for it to stop. The Lowlanders had launched ten catapult salvos into the city, and the thunder had been continuous for minutes. Dust floated from the ceiling, dulling the lantern-lit basement, mingling with the smoke spewing from my cigarette as I enjoyed the sweet nicotine poison in my lungs. I wasn’t in the basement to protect myself from falling rocks, but to protect my flesh from the sun.

…most of the watchmen were wiped out after the first ballistae salvo, Faltia said to my vampiric mind, most of what I have now are day laborers.

They’re the best we’ve got. I answered.

I’ll rendezvous with Brianna at the arena. Zander will hold the docks by himself. Yavara’s supporting Soraya’s retreat, and Brianna’s advancing to cover yours. We’ll all meet at the arena to organize a counterattack. A street fight plays to our advantage anyway.

Where’s Leveria?

No one knows.

And Eva?

I haven’t been able to contact her. She could just be in the sunlight.

I can’t feel her connection anymore, Faltia.

That doesn’t mean anything. The Lowland mages are likely blocking telepathic communication within their range.

Did you see what happened?

She got caught in the open.

How bad was it?

Not good.

How bad, Faltia?

There was a pregnant pause, then Faltia said, She’s a survivor, Kiera. She made it out. The Lowlanders landing was uncontested. It looks like twenty-thousand marines are headed your way.

Yay for me.

You’re a survivor too, remember that. Now’s not the time for stupid self-sacrifice.

Not yet.

I mean it. I’ve got to go now. I’ll see you at the arena.

See you there, Captain.

I transformed back into my elven body, and walked up the stairs, and into the pandemonium above. Flaming boulders fell like meteors into the city, their booming impacts sounding in cadence with the clanging of the bells. Distant screams cut through the air, shouted orders came from every direction, and from the south, an ominous silence was brooding. As the last of Soraya’s battlegroup raced past my checkpoint, I reached into my pouch, pulled out a vial of cocaine, and did a bump off my finger. How anyone went into battle without being hyped out of their fucking minds was a mystery to me. If there was ever a time for dangerous overuse of stimulants, it was now.

A flaming boulder cratered the shop across the street, expelling a mushroom-shaped gout of smoke and dust into the cold air. Five of my troops were shredded by the shrapnel, and I caught a searing ember to the hip.

“Ow.” I muttered, and brushed away the fire that had started on my armor.

“You alright, Commander?” the orc beside me asked nervously.

“Good as I’ll ever be, Oriok.” I said, and glanced down the street. The river of retreating orcs was thinning, and I reckoned it wouldn’t be much longer before the torrent of Lowlanders came rushing after. My battlegroup held a series of six lines along the ten main boulevards that led to the heart of Alkandra. Each line was divided into ten checkpoints for each boulevard; fifty men per checkpoint made five-hundred men per line. Five-hundred soldiers guarded checkpoints one through ten, which constituted the first line. Five-hundred more troops guarded the second line, which were fallback positions of this line, and these checkpoints were labeled eleven through twenty. Five-hundred more troops guarded the third line, which were the fallback positions of the second line, and these checkpoints were labeled twenty-one through thirty. There were three more lines and thirty more checkpoints, each one being the fallback position of the checkpoints preceding it until we got to the rendezvous point, which was the arena. The entire purpose of my battlegroup was to buy time for the other battlegroups to marshal and launch a counteroffensive. In other words, the entire point of my battlegroup was to be regimentally ass-fucked for six city blocks.

As I pondered my eminent ass-fucking, the sky to the south suddenly illuminated. For a moment, it was like a second sun had appeared on earth, and then it vanished just as quickly.

“What in the blue fuck was that?” Oriok gasped.

I took another bump up my nose. “Yavara’s having a chat with the Lowland mages.”

“Did she do that, or did they?”

“Yavara can’t do anything like that anymore.” I muttered, and carefully shook out another bump of booger sugar. A second great illumination lit up the horizon, then disappeared. I held the dollop of coke against my nostril, waiting for an excruciatingly long time for something else to happen. When nothing did, I just shrugged, and snorted.

“Welp, she’s dead.”

“Shit.” Oriok muttered.

“If I wasn’t so fucked up right now, I imagine I’d feel bad.” I blinked rapidly as the narcotic mule kicked me right in the cerebellum, “Holy shit, I can’t even feel my face.”

Another flaming boulder crashed near us, exploding through my third-favorite strip-club, showering the men around it with debris. As they screamed and struggled on the ground, the last of Soraya’s battle group ran past us. Of Soraya herself, there was no sign. I muttered a silent prayer for both her and Eva, and watched the streets ahead. For a moment, there was nothing. The wide boulevards were empty, and the cacophony of the siege had shifted to the north. Looking upwards, I could see the contrails of smoke from where the boulders had arced overhead, but now they only fell behind us. The thunder was distant and dull, but the screams still carried. I looked back at my company. It had started out as fifty men, but the boulders had thinned it to thirty-one. Assuming an even distribution of attackers among the ten boulevards, we’d be facing around two-thousand men.

“Drop the load, Oriok.” I said. The orc drove his axe onto a piece of rope, and the pile of rubble it had been holding was set free. Urban debris flooded the street before us, piled up ten feet high at the center and rising to the buildings on either side. I put my fingers into my mouth and blew a sharp whistle, and was answered in kind. Nine more ropes were cut, and nine more loads were released into the street, forming a barricade all across the first line.

“Crossbows and slings, and stay low.” I muttered, unshouldering my bow, “Once they start climbing, we fucking run. If anyone wants to start a meth habit, I’ll be your enabler.”

“You holding?” a woman behind me whispered fearfully.

“Did you need to ask?” I chuckled, and threw her a bag, “Pass it down the line, now, don’t be greedy. I brought enough for everyone.”

As the bag was passed around, I turned my gaze back to the street, and waited. The low rumble of the falling boulders resonated behind me, but in front of me, I different kind of thunder was slowly growing louder. The regimented boom of twenty-thousand marching feet echoed along the corridors of shops and houses, and grew louder with every passing second. My soldiers sniffed around me, trying to get as much powdered insanity into their sinuses as possible before their courage fractured.

“Get ready, boys and girls.” I grinned back at them, and nocked an arrow, “The fun’s about to start.”

I watched the top edge of the street keenly. There was only the dusty brown of the cobblestones. Then, there was a line of silver. The tops of their helms showed first, then their armored shoulders, breastplates, leathered skirts and steel chaps. Even their hands were gauntleted, leaving no piece of flesh exposed. Armor usually reserved for knights was given to the lowest of infantrymen. This was an expensive army, but I supposed the Lowlands could afford the best.

“How are we supposed to get through that?!” Oriok hissed at me.

“Aim for the gut. No one ever armors the gut properly.” I said, and drew back my bow, “Oh, and the balls too.” I loosed. My arrow flew down the street, and struck a man right in the groin. He doubled over with a shriek, and dropped before his men. There was a moment where all of them just stood there, and looked at the poor writhing bastard. Then they looked at me, let out a unified roar, and charged.

The streets were filled with a new kind of thunder as the metallic symphony clanged its way down the wide boulevard, raising their spears and swords overhead. I pissed myself a little, then yelled, “Loose!”

My men shot their bolts, and hit every target. It was impossible to miss. A score of the enemy toppled, tripping many of those behind them. I swiftly pulled out another arrow, and sent it through one man’s eye. A third arrow punctured a boy’s throat, a fourth went into a man’s mouth, and a fifth went into a man’s crotch just to bookend my archery. As I loosed my five arrows, my men managed two more rounds, felling about thirty Lowlanders in total before it was time to flee. I shouldered my bow, unsheathed my sword, and cut the rope next to me.

Ten tons of bricks avalanched from the sides of the boulevard, and buried the first hundred men. The soldiers behind them slammed to a halt, smashing into one another and stalling the entire charge. My men and I took the opportunity to turn around, and run for our lives.

As we raced away from the enemy, the second-story windows of the shops and houses at our sides opened, and succubus archers aimed their crossbows down the street. I heard a series of twangs, and a series of screams answered. After each archer loosed, they joined us in our flight to the next checkpoint, though they took the rooftops. The sinuous and athletic predators had no trouble leaping over alleyways and clotheslines, and the dozens of them that covered our retreat got to the checkpoint before we did.

“Drop the load!” I yelled to the checkpoint commander as we raced through the gate. The old ogre struck the rope, and the houses on either side of the gate collapsed behind us. Catching my breath, I turned around, drew my bow, and ran up the rubble. I loosed two nocked arrows at once, and felled two enemies, but the river of silver men didn’t slow a bit. They’d closed the distance much sooner than I’d thought. The forty men of checkpoint eleven only managed to loose one round of crossbows before we struck the second ropes, and sent another brick avalanche down on the Lowlander. The enemy stalled before this trap, and only a few ambitious bastards got buried. The rest charged up the obstruction with startling speed.

“Run!” I yelled, and once again, we sprinted for our lives. The distance to checkpoint twenty-one was painfully long. It was at least a quarter-mile, and the boulevard was cratered in a dozen places. The succubi and I would make it, but the others wouldn’t. Even if by some miracle the enemy didn’t catch them on the way to the checkpoint, the checkpoint commander would have ordered the barriers dropped long before they got there. Now’s not the time for stupid self-sacrifice, Faltia’s voice echoed in my head. Faltia could eat my fat dick.

“In here!” I yelled, and rammed my shoulder against a warehouse door. I bounced off it like a fucking tennis ball, and sprawled out onto the concrete. The ogre barreled past me, and blew the door open, and Oriok picked me up and carried me into the dank room. The rest of the two companies flooded in after, and the ogre shoved a pallet of mason blocks before the doorframe.

“No one’s getting past that,” he boomed proudly.

“They got mages that will turn that to dust.” I coughed, and pulled myself upright. “Checkpoint eleven, cover the back door; we’ll cover this one. If we make too much trouble for the fuckers, they’ll just run past us.”

“Not with you in here!” one of the succubi yelled, pointing at me, “They’re not going to just ignore you! We’re trapped!”

I looked up at the rafters. “You and the rest of the sluts can probably get up there, but the heavies won’t be able to. There’s a hole in the roof if you want to scuttle out, but I’m staying down here.”

The succubi looked up at the ceiling, then back at me. “We’ll cover you for as long as we can.”

“Very noble of you.” I grunted, and positioned myself in front of the door.

“Commander!” Oriok yelled.

“What?”

He pressed my sword into my hand. “You dropped this when you fell.”

I smiled at him as my fangs grew out. “I won’t need that.”

BRIANNA

The last of Soraya’s mostly-intact battlegroup poured into the pavilion before the arena. My battlegroup was huddled under the immense arches of the arena’s entrance, which protected us from the boulders that rained continuously down on us. There wasn’t a part of the city that wasn’t on fire anymore. The downtown towers had infernal gouts bursting from every window, the residential divisions were turned to tinder, and the long boulevards of shops that spoked the arena were blazing. I’d ordered bucket brigades to mitigate the damage, but it seemed a hopeless endeavor. Whatever the course this battle took, most of Alkandra would be burnt to ash. It was likely that the only structures left standing would be the castle, and the arena.

I heard the warning bells of Kiera’s fifth line sound out. The enemy was only one checkpoint away, and Faltia’s reinforcements still hadn’t arrived. Likely they’d been slowed by the infernal labyrinth. We needed those heavies if we were to have any hope of a counterattack. Without them, our only option was a tactical retreat back to the castle, conceding the entire city to the enemy. I wondered if it was an option worth taking. After witnessing those two blasts of energy shot from the Lowland front, I doubted Castle Alkandra would be anything more than a furnace to those inside. We were already down one Dark Queen, and the other was nowhere to be found. With Zander stuck defending the outer walls against nobody, we had no defense against those mages.

I felt a tug on my vampiric connection, and stepped into the shadows to transform.

What-up, bro? I said to Kiera.

Don’t be mad.

My heart dropped. What did you do?

I had to stay behind.

Tell me where you are.

You’re not coming after me.

Eat shit.

I mean it, bitch. Don’t come after me.

Fucking stop me.

Nobody knows where Soraya is. Someone has to command her battlegroup. The people need you.