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Tanya's Third Life as a Barbarian Queen, Chapter XII
🕑 Added 2024-12-27 12:32:01 +0000 UTCI will have the chapter as links to download at the bottom of the post. As well as a link to the Google Document page.
Augustine Wall Legionary Fort Alpa
Ser Paetus Rosianus
Dolabella landed harshly and let out a shuddering snort as I slapped her back comfortably and pulled off the chains that had tied us together. After days of constant flight with any rest being taken upon the back of Dola. I staggered, legs unsteady, as I slipped off of her back and onto the ground. Dola herself lay on her front with her wings outstretched. Here and there across her magnificent wingspan were fist sized holes from the raid against the Tanaoi baggage train.
I staggered, bow legged, over to Dola’s snout and rubbed her face as she whined softly. After whispering soothing words to my mount I turned about and marched towards the order chapter house on unsteady legs. As Dolabella made her way to an alcove made from cut stone that bore the scars of many generations of Wyverns before her..
The chapter house was a four story structure dedicated mostly to housing Wyverns passing from the west to the east. It featured a large central Wyvernpit with an estate built around the nest for our mounts. Adorned with statues brilliantly painted and larger than life and many carefully maintained gardens. The grounds were maintained by hosts of Draconian slaves who themselves lived in resplendent abodes at the edge of the estate with their families.
They were humanoid, mostly, with heavy wings on their back and scales of brilliant colours instead of skin. They were a race given a place of honour as servants of the Wyvern Knights, elevated above the rest of the non-human beings that resided in the Empire by their common lineage with dragons. There was no greater demonstration of the inheritance of mankind than the subordination of the draconic creatures of the world to the High Human culture.
The chapter house boasted incredible wealth and prestige, but adjoining the chapter house was a military camp to the north and the high Augustine wall to the east. This was the character of the Wyvern Knights. Gilded and militant, wealthy and practical. I did not spare a glance at the Draconian slaves who bowed their heads as I approached and greeted me with a tone of reverence. The interior of the estate was quiet, with few candles lit and carpets removed from the floors.
The chapter house obviously did not host many of my fellows. I cursed my poor luck and turned about to an elderly Draconian who lent slightly on a fine, hip length walking stick. What must have been once a resplendent emerald was now a dulled pale green coat of scales but the man still commanded bright sapphire slitted eyes that bore into my own.
“Gather what Knights are here, I bring grim tidings.” I commanded, my voice sounding tired and old to my ears. The man regarded me for a moment before bowing his head.
“As you say Sir Knight. But might I be informed on this matter to better inform your peers?” I glanced away as he spoke and shook my head, a great fatigue weighing upon my shoulders.
“You may not. Tell them only that I shall be in the great hall and they are to come alone. This is not for your kind to know.” With that I made way to the grand staircase that dominated the atrium of the chapter house.
“As you wish, Sir Knight.” The Draconian slave spoke at my back.
The order must know of the danger the Tanaoi Witch posed. I thought back to the battle, to the thunder that sounded out and how my brothers had fallen from the sky.
Cold dread grasped my stomach and I steaded myself upon a wall possessed of a great mosaic depicting some great act of Wyvern Knights long past. I swallowed heavily to command the bile that threatened my throat to return to its place.
The order must know, before lies and slander was whispered across the continent. The order must correct the wrong that had been committed by the monsters of the Steppe. I cast myself off the veneration of past glory and resolved that my order would not suffer a humiliation measured out by barbarians.
What they had done, it would be corrected. The wrong would be righted.
Honour, or Death.
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Seventy Miles north of Kontia
Godasen Graci, Imperial Senator, General and Master Mage
The winds howled as I looked across the field speckled with burning fires as the demoralized mass of Imperial men fought off hunger, cold and shame of defeat. Many had rode aimlessly into the steppe, others pushed north to rejoin the Imperial foot on their slow march south. The men before me numbered just three thousand.
I looked about at what remained of my command staff, men of good character and breeding who hugged cold hands to their chests and stared into the fire with wide, disbelieving eyes. I could hardly guess what my own expression was, I felt a terrible hollowness, as if the magic that had rent the world asunder had also cast itself into my heart to inflict yet more invisible damage.
The Lepus mage... Tanya of the Tanaoi, it had to be. She was abusing powers not meant for mortal hands, I pressed my palms into my knees and cleared my throat but could not find the words to speak.
It was folly, I realised. Not mine but the arrogant boy, an adventure to the north for slaves and treasure and what had we gotten from it? Unruly barbarians who had scarcely more than copper bangles as riches. It was a farce, yet these savages of the steppe lived in endless war, they had committed blood sacrifices and unspeakable evils for longer than the Empire had claimed dominion over the world.
It was easy to believe that they had uncovered some dark thing forgotten by time. Dwarves spoke of the creatures of the deep, forced underground by the gods that had destroyed the great western holds of that storied race. Elves too had legends of ancient criminals who cavorted with demons and wrought horrors upon the many peoples of the earth.
Yes, this was but another terrible cataclysm that would be written about in forbidden tomes and carried in painful generational memories. Zorzal, the arrogant, had set in motion events that had led to a foolish and desperate Lepus Queen to offer herself as a vessel for some... something that would command such power for the rending apart of civilisation.
“South.” I said at last, my voice faint but even the slight violation of the quiet misery of my present company caught the rapt attention of my peers. “We go south, to Kontia, and beyond, back to Sadera, back to Ronal. We have to prepare.”
“What do you mean?” Spoke Lysious, he was young enough that grey had just begun to colour his hair. “Prepare for what? We cannot abandon Zor-.”
“He is lost!” I snapped. “Get a hold of yourself man and think! We do not have the power to challenge a mage with the power of an Apostle!”
“An Apostle?” The man said dumbfounded as I groaned in frustration.
“Did you not see how she could cast dozens to the arms of Emroy with a single spell? How she struck-” I ran my hands through my thinning hair. “We need to prepare a defence of Sadera itself. There is nothing that can be done here at the borderlands. At Rondal we can...” I looked about at my fellows as they stared at me with stone faced expressions.
“We go to Kontia to resupply before we make way to Sadera, I will brook no debate on this matter.” Before any of them could speak I marched over to my saddlebags, removed from my mount so she could rest and produced a quill and book.
Thunder, It had been thunder that had sounded out on the battlefield as my men were slain. But the spell that had slain the Wyverns had been different. So this witch could command two deadly spells, one that would cut down a line of men and horse without pause given to potent defensive runes and another spell that would be cast out before the caster before exploding, perhaps at a set distance?
I grit my teeth and wrote every thought down, every feeling, every sense I could of that terrible battle. Her magic was potent enough that it had burned itself into my sense of spellcraft. There was no subtlety, she was possessed of such power that she cared not to obscure her weave of the thread of magic.
Not that it did me much good. As I looked at the approximation of what I sensed of the spell I saw nothing approaching sanity. No mortal mind could comprehend a spell such as this. Frustrated, I cast my blunted quill aside and made to drink from my wineskin only for the harsh light of day to burn at my tired eyes.
I felt my age press upon me but cast such weakness aside. We had to press on day and night to reach Kontia or we would grow tired and weak from starvation. I ordered the men to prepare to ride and found that only a few hundred had deserted during the night leaving me with twenty six hundred men.
If we rode hard we would be at Kontia before the Lepus could reorganise and follow us to the city and gods willing we would begone from Kontia with supplies enough to reach the great wall before their demonic host arrived to sack the city. Any man whose horse failed him would be left behind and would have to fade into the steppe to avoid the wrath of the Tanaoi. A cruel fate but sacrifices must be made for Sadera, for Humanity.
Despite my age, the distance of sleep and the approaching cataclysm. I felt only invigoration. The strength of Humanity, of the Empire driving me forward. I glanced back at the rolling hills of the endless plains and swore that one day I would return and put an end to this chapter of Imperial History.
With a shouted command my host began to ride.
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Kontia
Enya, Brigadier of the Tanaoi
Kontia did not quite look real. Its long, squat and dirty red brick walls stood out from the muddy greens and yellows of the area around the city. The fortress city was situated on a flat plane as far as the eye could see with only a colossal and fast moving river to break up the landscape, even the mountains to the far east were simply too far away to be seen from Kontia. The river itself shimmered in the sunlight and almost resembled an ocean with its vast and insurmountable width. The far bank of the river was distant and cast in fog while being utterly unsettled.
The banks of the river were gentle sloping things and were given a wide berth by the Saderan settlers with the only structures anywhere close to the roaring river being the Imperial road leading to a bridge of an impossible magnitude.
It was a colossal thing. Wide enough for forty women to walk across shoulder to shoulder, thick stone arches that stick into the river with fat round bases high above the waterline. On both banks earth and rock had been built up to allow the bridge to terminate far inland, hinting at a truly vast floodplain.
I could not imagine how the Saderans had constructed such a bridge, the sheer amount of manpower or magic required. It hardly mattered I suppose, the bridge simply was, the casual creation of an Empire that ruled all the world save for our endless steppe. I sighed, and considered that the Empire had designs for that too, our homeland had been surrendered and we fled to places only our Queen knew about.
I turned away from the bridge and towards the city again. Taking the western gate of Kontia had resulted in a constant slow battle in the streets of the city, a battle I did not have the women to win. I did not know how many people could reside in a city of this size, thirty thousand at least, perhaps as many as fifty thousand people with more in the settlements dotted around the city.
It was from one of the settlements that I rested in now with a small host of bodyguards. A settlement situated on the road leading towards the rather oversized Imperial bridge. Despite the fact that my Queen was meant to be here already I still had to maintain a blockade of the city to prevent an evacuation or for merchants to enter the city with supplies. I had managed only a slapdash blockade with the few people at my disposal and I had been required to use rebellious Lepus slaves to supplement my forces.
I am sure Tanya would understand. When I had taken the gatehouse I could hardly believe my luck, it was remarkable how quickly things could spiral out of control.
“We will leave enough for you to eat. I can assure you that you will be rewarded handsomely when the body of our host arrives.” I offered a grin to the grim looking Felis farmers as I politely robbed them. The head of the household held his ears flat to his head as he looked at the scrap of velum with a ‘requisition’ note and my signature on it.
I waited a moment in awkward silence before I sighed and nodded for the women with me to search the house as two young Felis girls began to sob pointlessly. I got to my feet and bounced in place to ease up my joints.
“Brigadier!” came a shout from outside of the house. I glanced at the man I was robbing before giving him a shrug and stalking out of the building finding a Lepus girl gasping for breath as several of my bodyguards looked her over. I recognised her but did not remember her name, she was a runner but I could not tell what company made use of her.
“Brigadier.” She gasped again. “Horsemen, from the west, hundreds of them. They must have, ugh, they must have gotten around the camp somehow.” I felt a flash of frustration and cursed before calling out.
“We are moving back to Kontia, drop anything you cannot run with!” I commanded the dozens of people I had taken on this little excursion. With my forces scattered about they were very vulnerable to horsemen. I now risked being stuck in one section of Kontia, from the basiger to the besieged. I dared not abandon my gains in the city or my capabilities as a leader would come into question.
I looked to the north and clenched my fists.
“Tanya, where are you?”
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https://docs.google.com/document/d/155qC802L6FVcMaPShxlhXg0_Z5NKHMUko_RMtTAEC9c/edit?tab=t.0
Comments
Guerinology
Looking back at the previous chapters it now seems painfully obvious that this was going to happen. Tanya just humiliated the fantasy equivalent of a space marine chapter with what is essentially an illegal weapon spawned in with cheat codes. Of course they were going to take it personally.
Tony
And the comedy or errors keeps going... I shouldn't write reviews half asleep like yesterday, I saw a couple spelling errors in the story, I'll mark them in the Document later if they haven't been marked yet. I really like that you don't shy from showing others perspective, not Just Tanya's one. Looks like they will be creating a punishing force to stomp the Lepus before they become even more dangerous, getting Tanya to escalate things and getting things even worse for everyone. The main issue as I see it is that the Empire has lots of bodies to overwhelm the Tanoi and Tanya doesn't, she really needs to find allies and/or some other types of equalizer, something to make her people fearsome enough to be allowed to grow and become stable again.
Old Hammer
Oh man what a fantastic chapter, I can’t wait to see what happens next the second battle on Kontia is sure to be wild!
Dwayne Parker
Kontia looking to be a grade A cluster f-
Emdee Kay
Oh boy, those are probably Tanya's reinforcements but with Godasen making the accidental blunder of the century, we will never know.
