In Vultheras, Katrin Wulff waited in a chamber above the war room. The cavalry-commander-turned-general stood in her gray-gold dress uniform with her hands neat behind her back, a slip of paper crushed by her fingers. She remained impassive, her shoulders straight and her chin high. A thin rapier with a delicate, golden hilt was sheathed on her left side. It was a dull replica of her father’s sword, a toothless reminder of his career, and a reflection of her own.
When she felt particularly tense, her hand would be drawn to it. She forced back the urge to thumb its smooth pommel; to frown and pace. The sound of a slammed door seemed to repeat in her ear. She remembered the sweat-damp, pale expression of a page. The note he delivered, and the message it contained, made her want to shout.
She should have been out there, that was her thought. She should have been in the bunker, or a safe room, or behind the sandbags. She would have preferred a horse, if one could be acquired. Wulff wanted to exchange her father’s ceremonial rapier for a longsword, or more preferably, a gun. The Atilonians had begun their attack, and when she should have been preparing, she was instead waiting.
She did not even hear the boom and blast of falling shells. The first sorceress provided a shield so perfect sound could not penetrated its field. War had come to her doorstep and she was deaf to the beat of its knock; pushed away from the heart of High Command to mind the elegant, but unnerving, duchess Wensenset.
Her room was small, no bigger than a typical Bastilhasian study, complete with all the furnishings of an interrogation cell. There was a regal, hardwood chair for the duchess at the end, against the wall, and a sub-standard desk and chair for an attendant page. A pile of notes and a fountain pen were collected on the desk, beside a red-shaded lamp. Otherwise the room was undecorated, with a basic tile floor and paint-less gray walls.
It was duke Eddleston’s instruction to call the duchess to the palace, but the war room had no space for her, and it was chaotic in any case. For her task, a hastily-prepared closet on a floor cleared for renovations had to suffice.
Wulff continued to wait. She set her eyes on the desk, and then the wall, and very briefly at the ceiling. She felt she’d looked everywhere—at everything—that wasn’t Wensenset’s still face. The duchess didn’t move; her slim hands she kept folded over the lap of her glowing white robe. Her chin was tucked down just slightly, and her breath so subtle that it couldn’t be seen or heard. With her eyes closed, the duchess looked like a delicate doll.
The general thought of herself as a professional, but as they waited together in their small room, she couldn’t help but wonder how old Wensenset was. By Wulff’s estimation, they were about the same age, but the duchess had ten children and as many as thirty grandchildren between them. Wensenset’s youth was quite peculiar, then again, she was Echokhet. An idea crossed Wulff’s mind; she discarded it.
Necromancy was a strange magic, but it wasn’t right to speculate.
Wensenset frowned and the general stiffened like a cat.
“It’s coming,” the duchess said.
“My lady?”
“The shield has fallen,” the duchess continued. “It is coming.”
The sound of a low rumble came through the walls. The general turned her head and saw the lamp shade sway side to side. Wulff knew at once that a shell had landed in the city.
“Mathematzen preserve us,” she said. “They’ll reduce the city to rubble if our guns can’t stop them.”
The duchess straightened her head. “Steady yourself, Katrin,” Wensenset said with a note of maternal consideration. “This surge… by the gods—”
“My lady?” Wulff asked, stepped forward. She released the paper, extended her hand to help, or to do something—anything—for the duchess was in distress.
Sweat dripped down Wensenset’s face. Her dark complexion appeared to lose its color; drained of its vigor, like the page who had first delivered his note. The duchess lifted her arms and hugged her shoulders, held herself tightly.
“My lady, they surely won’t target the palace,” Wulff assured, startled eyes open in their concern. “You’re safe in here.”
“Nowhere is safe,” duchess said breathlessly. “This power—”
Wensenset gasped, snapped forward. She cried and fell from her chair. The general ran to her side, caught her fall, and held her upright in her chair. In her large hands, the tall duchess felt small; fragile, as if she were thin as bones beneath her robe.
“My lady!” Wulff shouted. “Do we need a medic? Speak to me, please!”
“Devastation,” the duchess answered. “The Atilonians… so many are dead.”
Wulff squinted. “Atilonians?”
The door opened and a page rushed through in a start, a burlap sack heavy on his shoulder. “The shield has fallen!” he shouted, slammed the door closed.
The general steadied the duchess, who quivered in her grasp. When she was confident the duchess wouldn’t fall, she turned to glare at the page. “You’re in the presence of your lady Wensenset,” she said sharply. “Calm yourself.”
“M-My apologies,” the page answered. “The shield is gone and shells have already landed in the city. The lord general ordered me to move with all haste; he expects answers immediately.”
Wulff scowled. The page was shivering, clearly—rightly—afraid of the artillery. She turned halfback to the duchess and looked at lady Wensenset, who was still disturbed. Her lady was not afraid of the artillery, of that she felt certain.
The page, a young man with a short head of black hair, set his sack down with a thump. He unraveled the knot with his unsteady hands and pulled open the sack, revealed the crystalline salt within. He scooped his hand down and began shoveling, dumped the salt across the floor like a kicking rabbit.
“Is that the device?” Wulff asked.
“Y-Yes,” the page answered. He stuck his hand deep in the bag, then tugged as he appeared to grab hold of something. Salt poured out as he removed the object; it appeared similar to a prisoner’s collar with a break in its loop. Its ends were capped in large, circular diodes of strange metal.
“They said the salt was to keep mana from interfering with its mithril filigree, or something,” the page explained. “That’s why they had me haul that heavy sack up here, anyways.”
Wulff frowned, breathed hard through her nose. “Just get on with it,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he answered. “My nerves are just—”
“You’re training to be an officer, aren’t you?” the general asked.
“After this there might not even be an army to serve,” the page said.
“Enough of that,” Wulff snapped.
The page bowed his head several times as he passed by. “Yes,” he said, “yes, lady general.”
The duchess released herself and raised her hand, took the device in her unsteady grasp. She unlocked the collar’s hinge with a snap and spread it wide, then moved to clamp it around her neck. At the same time the page took his seat and picked up the fountain pen. He wrote a few practice words, but each time his pen touched paper, the lines jittered and blotched with ink.
“I’ll get it right,” he said anxiously, as he knew the general was watching over him.
Wensenset clicked the collar around her neck.
“Will it work?” Wulff asked the duchess.
“Had it not been protected by salt…” Wensenset wondered aloud, but she didn’t finish her thought. “It will work,” she said.
The collar was fit such that the circles of metal pressed around the vertebrae of her spine. The duchess rubbed each one carefully and then settled her hands in her lap. She became quiet again.
“Spirit Link,” she said in the authoritative manner of a spell caster. “Level 10.”
Her eyes fired open, blank with white light.
The general and the page waited patiently. Seconds turned to minutes while the duchess remained motionless, her eyes aglow.
“I’ve made a connection,” the duchess said. “I can feel my grandchildren, they’re with the 27th and 31st.”
General Wulff felt her heart swell with gladness, it was the first good news she’d heard in two months. “What’s their status?” she asked. “Are they nearby? Can they counter attack?”
“They have been preparing,” the duchess continued in a stoic manner. Wulff knew little of how the spirit link worked, but it seemed that it changed Wensenset’s tone. She spoke stiffly, as if she were possessed by a voice that wasn’t quite her own. “My grandchildren anticipated contact. I am… assimilating their thoughts.”
The page began writing as well as he could.
“They are ready for a counter attack,” Wensenset said. “Edwindy has airships in the area, they have promised support.”
The general’s lips parted and she stepped forward “Truly? Edwindy has come?”
“The Mithril Golems are there as well,” she said.
And the general trembled. “But they were trapped in Sedencenco,” she said in breathless shock.
“Most of the army is still at that fort,” the duchess said. “But the mithril battalion broke the encirclement and escaped into the mountains. They’ve linked with 27th and are ready to attack at any time.”
General Wulff blinked, caught herself from her stupor, for she felt she was in a dream. “Who is in command?” she asked.
“Major Shriketalon.”
