Chapter 168 - Hope for Peace

I had three siege towers rolling my way, backed by something like nine hundred orcs. That was a rough guess, mind. I felt sure he’d left some of the army back at Carver’s fortress to keep folks in line there. But he’d brought most of his fighting force to my Farm. Between Plum, Sue, and the pit traps, I’d already killed maybe a hundred of them during the initial engagement.

But I’d burned a good chunk of my surprises. I was running low on ways to keep the enemy at bay, and it was five in the evening, according to my watch. I needed to hold them off longer.

Fortunately, the towers were slow even at the best of times, and they were doubly so given that the fields were overgrown and riddled with pit traps. One tower after another stalled out as they hit some obstacle or another. The one on the far left almost tipped onto its side after it hit a pit.

“Sue, finish that one off, would you?” I called out.

A Fireball blazed through the air a moment later, smacking into the front of the tower. Already overbalanced and at risk of falling, the explosion did the rest of the job. The siege tower didn’t catch fire, interestingly enough. They’d covered it with soaked hides or something, from the looks of it, to prevent just that. But the impact sent it tilting even further to the side, and that was too much. Like a tree slowly toppling, gradually picking up speed, the tower fell over. The crash when it hit ground sent up a big cloud of dust.

That worked for the off-balance one, but those hides meant Sue wasn’t going to be able to take out the other two unless we got lucky. Since they were wet and tall, odds were good I could hit one with a Lightning Bolt, but then I’d have a twenty second timer before I could cast it again. That gave Peter an opening to engage with his dragon. Even if it was a brief opening, that could be enough for him to take out Sue, Plum or even both of them. I couldn’t risk it.

I watched the other two towers slowly roll their way forward. The orcs weren’t bad at engineering. The towers weren’t pretty, but they handled the bumps in the field well enough. The orcs had figured out how to handle the trenches I’d dug, too. They just lay wooden beams across the trenches so the towers could roll over them without falling in.

The bottom line was they were definitely going to make it to the wall unless I did something about it. Once they did, they’d overwhelm us quickly, because I didn’t have many troops strong enough to handle even one orc, and we were outnumbered besides.

I scanned the battlefield, looking for options. The orcs had most of their troops in reserve still. By my count, maybe three hundred troops accompanied the towers. It had been about a hundred per tower, but the orcs hauling the third tower had abandoned it in favor of helping their friends.

They were still too far away for Drain Life to work, and I couldn’t cast Lightning Bolt… But I wasn’t without ranged options. I ordered Sue to launch Fireballs as rapidly as possible. Likewise, all twelve of my fire skeletons were on the north wall facing the enemy, and their flame bolts streaked out as well.

The carnage was impressive! Sue’s Fireballs did a lot of damage all on their own. These orcs were made of tough stuff, so they often survived anything but a direct hit. Even so, each blast sent warriors flying and injured them. The fire skeletons didn’t hit as hard, but each of their spells added up the damage, and there was only so much each orc could take. They took cover behind the siege towers as best they could, but there were far too many orcs for that to work well. One after another, orcs kept going down.

As the towers rolled their way over one of my trenches—now covered with timber—the quartet of zombies I’d hidden inside climbed their way out, attacking the orcs. They died fast, but each of them managed to get in at least one bite before they fell. As soon as those orcs died, they’d become more zombie obstacles for the enemy.

Still, the towers kept rolling forward. In spite of everything I was doing to slow them down, they kept coming steadily on. I needed some way to stall for more time. But how?

Hope came running up to me with the answer. My skeleton pup had been with me a long time now, and I was glad to have her by my side for this fight, too. I figured there were about even odds that this was going to be my last stand. I had every intention of getting away, but with the forces arrayed against me, the odds weren’t in my favor.

Having Hope there to remind me to, well, hope, was worth a lot. What she brought to me was even better.

“What’s in your mouth, girl?” I asked as she came running down the rampart toward me. She wagged her tail, then dropped her gift.

It was an old white undershirt. I had no idea who it belonged to or where Hope had gotten it. I picked it up gingerly. At least it was clean? That was something.

“What’s going on, girl? Why’d you bring me this?”

Hope barked, wagging her tail, then looked out over the battlements onto the field below. Then she ran back over and snatched the t-shirt in her teeth. I let go, and she swung the shirt back and forth. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what she was miming.

“Oh, you clever pup,” I told her. Right away, I ordered my undead to cease fire. Sue and the skeletons stopped their spellcasting right away.

Then I took the undershirt back from her and looked around for something long. There wasn’t much here, but I borrowed a spear from one of the zombies on the wall and tied the shirt to the top of the spear.

Once the shirt was firmly fixed to the weapon, I raised it high, waving it back and forth across the sky like a banner. It wasn’t much, but I figured the white piece of cloth waving in the breeze might get the message across. It worked fine. Peter spotted the white flag right away and called out to his orcs. The siege towers slowed, then stopped their advance. The troops waited in place.

Peter flew his dragon in closer. He had her skim the ground, barely above the top of the tall grasses. I suppose I couldn’t blame him for being in ‘trust but verify’ mode. He knew that my Lightning Bolts could have a devastating effect if he was airborne, so he was hedging his bets. Once he was just ahead of the siege towers, he landed, then dismounted and stood in front of his dragon.

“Here goes nothing,” I told Hope. “You stay here, though.”

Her shoulders sank and her tail went down.

“I mean it, Hope. I can’t get you back safe if this goes badly. Stay.”

Her tail thumped twice. She’d stay, but she clearly wasn’t happy about it.

I handed the spear back to the zombie and took to the air, using my Flight to soar nearer to Peter. As I flew, I wondered about Hope. It was hard to remember those early days when things had been so wild and crazy, right after the Event, but I was pretty sure she hadn’t been this smart when I first cast Control Undead on her. She’d been growing, getting smarter as time went on ever since. Now she was helping me figure out battle strategies?

Where had she even heard about a white flag and what it meant to humans? Hope was always around, listening to our conversations. She often sat in on strategy sessions among the Farm’s leadership. Maybe she’d heard it there? I didn’t know, but I was proud of my pup. She just might have saved my bacon with that plan. I didn’t need to beat these guys. That was just about impossible, although I definitely wanted to punch them in the nose as hard as possible.

All I needed was to stall them some more. Another two hours would be fine, and three would be ideal. Every minute I gained by getting Peter to agree to a parlay was a victory.

I flew past Sue and landed about twenty feet away from Peter. That was as close as I wanted to get to his dragon. She was capable of breathing fire for a long distance, and while I was pretty fast on my feet, I wanted some warning if she decided I would look better as a barbecue.

Peter spoke first. His voice sounded harsh, even bitter. Oh, I’d clearly pissed him off. “You’ve come to your senses, then? You’ll surrender and join me?”

“I’m here to discuss that, yes.”

“There’s not much to discuss, Selena. You burned the engagement ring, after I went out of my way to be as kind as possible. I set up this romantic gesture, and you literally blew it up in my face!”

“Peter, it’s not terribly romantic when you have an army of orcs along to threaten the girl you’re asking to marry you,” I said. I needed to keep him talking as long as possible, not piss him off early—but what I wanted to do was throw all of this back in his face. Deep down, I was still furious at everything he’d done.

He shrugged. “I guess I can see that. I thought you’d be impressed. You do seem to be impressed by power. There’s no one here more powerful than you, individually. Not even me. But with this army? Well, I figured that would be enough to impress even you.”

Holy shit, was the guy actually that infatuated? I couldn’t tell for sure how much of this was ‘he thinks I’m cute’ and how much was ‘I want her for her tier ten spell.’

“Well, I’m impressed,” I told him. “I’m even afraid. You’ve got an army that I could maybe handle, and a dragon that I could maybe handle. But put them both together, and I’m outmatched. I can’t beat what you’ve got.”

“You don’t have to beat me, Selena.” Peter extended a hand toward me. “Join me, instead.”

“And what would that look like?”

He blinked. “Well, are we still talking marriage? Or just alliance?”

“Let’s stick to the latter for now, at least.” There was a zero percent chance I was ever going to marry this guy. My intuition said I would almost certainly be better off dead. But he didn’t need to know that.

“Then you’ll have the same deal as the other alliance leaders. Nothing really changes,” Peter replied. “You’ll become my vassal. I’ll gain insights into your Domain, just like the others. I will know if you’re attacked, for example, which will let me send help right away. None of my vassals will ever have to worry about being overrun again.”

“That sounds like a real plus. Better coordination is a good idea.”

“Your vassalage will tip me over into a tier four Domain, too,” Peter said. “It turns out each vassal ranks the Domain as well. I had two control stones. Now I also have five vassals. With you as my sixth, it’ll be the equivalent of eight control stones, making my Domain tier four. I don’t know what happens at that point, but it can’t be a bad thing.”

“What sort of obligations are you looking for from your vassals?” I asked. The sun was getting close to the horizon now. Just needed to keep him talking a little longer.

“Mutual defense, same as before,” Peter said. “But I’ll also insist on being able to call up your troops as needed. What was happening to Colonel Turner and his people was unacceptable. The avians needed to go down, either by conquest or by eradication. The orcs, too, needed to be stopped. Now they’re part of my kingdom, and they won’t be a danger to anyone anymore.”

“We’d opened the first rounds of peace talks with the avians,” I told him. “You knew that. It was discussed at the meeting you came to. It was early days, yeah, but we might have made them allies, with enough time.”

Peter just shrugged again. “Maybe, but Turner wanted them gone, so I helped him remove them.”

“That was his price,” I said.

He nodded.

“So when you find someone else you want to conquer or eradicate, you’re gonna, what? Call up our levies, and march us all off to battle against someone?” I shook my head. “That isn’t the end of the world, if I thought you had one iota of restraint. But the past week has shown me you clearly don’t.”

“That’s my offer, Selena. I can be a very good friend if you join me. Turner’s already gotten help. Jefferson doesn’t have to worry about orcs at his northern border anymore.”

“And Carver?”

“He hasn’t told me what he wants from me, yet. Once he does, I’ll make sure he gets that as well. What do you want, Selena? What’s your endgame? Who do you want to become in this new world?”

Shit, there it was.

That was the question I’d been asking myself almost since the beginning. Who was I? Who was I becoming? What sort of role would I play in this world? I’d been tossed into a leadership position over and over, in spite of not really wanting it. I’d taken the role, simply because there were things that needed doing, and someone had to do them. There were people who needed protecting, and someone needed to be the shield warding them from harm.

Who was I? Who did I want to be?

I still didn’t know. Hell, I was twenty-four. I shouldn’t be expected to know what I wanted to do with the rest of my life at this age. I definitely shouldn’t be leading a kingdom in battle against an army of orcs. But here we were.

What I did know was that I couldn’t stand by and watch others be hurt. I couldn’t stand by and watch a tyrant take over and slaughter whomever he wanted. I’d seen Peter’s home. It was riddled with deep flaws. He used his people, he didn’t lead them. They were tools to aid in his conquests, nothing more. If I joined, then I and all my people would be more assets for him to expend striking our neighbors.

I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t.

Something of that must have shown in my face, because when I looked at him again, Peter was shaking his head.

“You’re never going to agree to this, are you?” he asked. “You’d really rather die than join me?”

“Yeah. Pretty sure I would.”