.
Relador is a loose confederation of cantons dominated by Fairie, the borderless ‘nation’ of fairies and their relatives like Kiki. Each canton has a mortal government, dominated by archmages, many of who are half-fairies themselves rather than true mortals, but the country as a whole has only a council with little power, no military, and only a tiny import tariff for revenue. They rely entirely on canton troops and their fairy residents for defense. The system would never work if it weren’t for the Fairy King backing its existence.
So, having a fairy knight along argued for them being Reladorian, but I was paranoid enough to suggest to Kiki, “Why don’t you use your stealth and fly off a little distance away from me? Come back if I need help.”
Hopefully, she understood she could ambush them if they attacked me, but I mainly wanted her to stay unknown to them until that happened.
Kiki just answered, “Okay!” and took off, so I had to cross my fingers and hope that she understood.
I still had Darkness and Earth circulating. I began summoning and circulating Fire, Wind, and Healing.
Kiki had not been using her stealth, nor had I been using Vampire Cloak. If we used them for such a long flight, she would have already run out of pneuma and I would have run out of mortal mana. Which meant that the fairy Kiki saw may or may not have seen the tiny pixie but had certainly seen me.
As they approached, the line broke into two columns, heading to my left and right. That made it certain that we were their target. It would have been a stupid move, given my speed, because they were too close to turn and intercept, but Kiki’s information that they had a fairy explained it to me.
Said fairy was invisible to me, so she was using stealth, but I could roughly guess she should be directly ahead, and with some concentration, I was able to find her with my fairy sight. Then my eyes grew a bit, as I realized she was charging at me with a spear, holding it like a cavalry lance. Spears aren’t constructed to be gripped as lances, so, not a bright move for a mortal, but with fairy strength and fortification magic, it would work.
I was a little shocked at this fairy’s behavior. She intended to attack me in stealth and kill me on sight, thinking I couldn’t see her coming. I drew Durandal right-handed, fortifying my grip on him with Earth mana while I chanted “[Fireball]” and cast it with my left hand opened palm forward, straight at her.
She braked and dodged to avoid it while I veered, thinking I might be able to just keep flying past her. But I felt an alarmingly large surge of Aether mana behind me. I had to spin around to declare, “[Wind Wall]” against whatever she was doing.
Fortunately, she had no focus in her hand, which would put a limit on what she could do. It was unlikely that her spear could double as a focus like that centaurian spear which I very much wished I was carrying at the moment. She cast [Thunderball], which is sort of like ball lightning, without chanting.
My [Wind Wall] only slowed it down, but as it arrived, I parried it with Durandal, who had coated himself with Wind mana.
Durandal has three elements, Wind, Earth and Aether. He had already fortified himself with Earth, so he probably could have taken the bullet without the Wind coating. With it, he blasted through it and it exploded like a water balloon without causing me any harm.
Let me handle the shields, My Lady, Durandal reminded me.
“Let me handle loading mana on the blade,” I reminded him back.
We were now hovering in place, hundreds of feet above the ground, with counterrotating circles of wyvern riders surrounding us. Now that she had dropped her stealth, I could get a good look at her.
She was blond, with enormous wings that looked exactly like those of a gypsy moth, despite which, she was sporting a handsome white cape. Like Mother, and unlike me, she could project her wings right through the material.
This was the great majority of her attire, because while her cuirass wasn’t the classic metal bra, it was simply a bulging plate strapped across her bosom. She had no vambraces, rerebraces or anything else on her arms save fairy-steel mesh gauntlets similar to mine. The lower half had nothing like faulds or tassets. Frankly, it was a tee-back made of fairy-steel mail– I kind of shuddered at the thought, frankly– and she wore nothing on her legs except skimpy high-heel sabatons.
I was unsurprised to recognize the uniforms of the air cavalrymen. They were neither Reladorian nor Suldorian. They were the troops of Duke Parna. Not the Atianus provincial guard but troops of his home territory.
I raised my sword into salute position and stated, “I am Tiana Pendor of the Royal Knights. Declare yourself and explain your attack!”
Jade green eyes regarded me and declared, “I shall explain nothing to a monster and a fugitive from justice!”
With that, she tossed away her spear and drawing a fairy steel blade.
Needless to say, tossing away a spear at five hundred feet was disconcerting. Not exactly a safe thing to do. But after it fell a dozen feet or so it came to a stop. It was a magic weapon of some kind.
Great. Now I had to keep an eye on it. Sometimes those things can be used by remote control, suddenly attacking after you’ve forgotten about them.
In a low voice, I said, “Durandal, what do think about that spear?”
He’s a millennia-old sword spirit. He’s bound to know a few things I don’t, right?
You need not worry, My Lady. Your little friend is already keeping an eye on it.
I had no idea where Kiki was. Her stealth is impenetrable to me, just like my mother’s and my grandmother’s. Apparently, Durandal could see her, though.
The fairy began advance on me, holding her sword two-handed. It was a curved blade, so she looked a little like a samurai with a katana.
“What proper fairy knight refuses to name herself?” I demanded. Then, before she could answer, I brightened and said, “Oh! I know! Perhaps, a skulking coward who attacks under stealth?”
“You dare!” she retorted. “I owe you no chivalry, monster. You are mere trash, pathetically fleeing the law!”
“Your words have no meaning,” I stated. “I am undertaking a mission of vital importance to the kingdom, with which you are interfering. Stand aside in the name of the King! The accusations of the traitor whom you serve are beneath my attention.”
I mean, it was obvious who hired her.
“Insolence!” she declared, and charged at me.
During the flight, Durandal and I had discussed what to do in case of a fight. We had only met the previous day, so tactical coordination was going to be dicey. He could keep all three elements circulating, so we agreed he would keep his three special attacks ready to fire when I called them out, and he could act on his own with his defensive magic.
I called, “[Holy Rend]!” with a mighty swing of the blade. Durandal blasted forth an enormous upgraded version of [Wind Scythe], like a more refined version of Ryuu’s ‘[Spirit Shot]’. She was forced to halt and parry it. The force of the holy sword’s attack on her blade knocked her backward. I dashed forward directly in its wake, then Cloaked and popped over her head with a tremendous wing beat.
She lost sight of me and slashed at empty air. I came down five paces behind her, uncloaked, held Durandal horizontal in front of me in both hands, like I was going to bunt a baseball pitch, and called, “[Holy Strike]!”
[Lightning] is the first-level Aether attack, sort of a short-range miniature lightning bolt, and the upgrades are second-level [Thunderball] and third-level [Magic Arrow]. I don’t know what level Durandal’s [Holy Strike] attack is, but a magic circle appeared before me, midair, and a massive bolt, like a gargantuan [Magic Arrow] without a bow, shot forth from it.
My opponent was no beginner like Aenëe, though. Probably the instant she lost sight of me, she had summoned an omnidirectional defense. The [Holy Strike] struck an invisible sphere of Wind mana.
But the bolt exploded on contact with that sphere, and the force shoved her away from me even farther. She beat her wings to stop her skid and then spun to face me, but I knew from her hair and the shredded state of her cape that some had penetrated, and she had certainly felt it.
I pulled in more mana, as quickly as I could, because she was doing the same, preparing her next attack. I hit her with another of Durandal’s [Holy Rend] Wind attacks. At that moment, I heard the captain of the air cavalry yell, “Shoot!”
A dozen arrows came at me. I increased my body fortification and prepared to coat myself with Healing, but every arrow struck an invisible wall five paces from me and fell away.
I don’t know exactly what sort of shield Durandal created, but whatever it was, it involved manifesting a thin sheet of Earth mana right in the air, all around me. To my fairy senses, it was an honestly mysterious thing, a bubble made from a contradiction of elements. But it clearly worked.
“Keep shooting!” the captain yelled, as the fairy prepared to charge again, this time loading up her weapon with wind.
