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From the air, I had a much better view of the tactical situation. Tobir the Reladorian archmage and Matthias the sage had set up a magic shield together to protect the carriage and horses, while the other four Reladorians had set up a similar defense for the second carriage. Just before I rose back into the air after dropping off Rod, they had successfully defended against the first incoming bomb. Ryuu was now out ahead of them, preparing to take on the next attacker.
Only the driving teams were still with the carriages. Everyone else had already gotten out. Chiara, who had been on the running board of the second carriage, defended Mireia, while Mireia cast support magic on Ryuu.
The distribution of personnel between the two carriages had been weird. Thanks to the presence of Rod and myself, my house knight and both of Rod’s royal knights had insisted on being with us, while all four Reladorian mages other than Tobir had been on the other carriage with Ryuu and Mireia. I had tried to move Garen to the other carriage but was overruled once again. Thanks to etiquette requiring I and Rod to have our minimum escorts, only Chiara, suspended from the knights and free on my recognizance, could ride on the second carriage’s running board as a guard.
Needless to say, thanks to the spiritual voice I had added to my announcement in order to get the message across, I attracted plenty of attention. But my only actual intent had been to officially announce myself on the battlefield. Now, I needed to actually formulate a plan of what to do. Until this moment, I had let the original Tiana’s well-honed battle instincts take over.
Priorities had made the decision-making simple to this point. I had to stay close and defend, because Rod was behind me, and his safety was my mission. With that settled, I could narrow down my targets. I had used up a lot of my reserve of Light, since I had been channeling truly enormous quantities of it through Durandal to feed the [Light Bullet] spell, so I cast [Fireball] and sent a stream of them into the next incoming hippogriff instead.
Both beast and rider burst into a massive ball of flame. I had seriously overloaded the mana. Sent off-course, their magic lance struck about a hundred paces short, sending up a blast of soil and rock just before their fiery corpses spiraled into the ground.
It was the last straw for the attackers. The rest of the bombers immediately broke off their attack, and pulled back with their escort to circle in the distance. But that indicated that they had not yet abandoned their plans. Our fairy warriors followed, continuing the fight until I sent out my spiritual voice to remind them not to get pulled too far away. They set up their own circle, half-way between us and the enemy.
I had not followed because I needed to stay above the carriages, to protect them. Well, not above, per se. I was wearing a dress, after all. One probably couldn’t see anything past the seven layers of petticoats inflating my skirt, but it was the principle of the matter. My position was behind the carriages and the defenders, so that I had everyone else in the battle zone in my eyesight.
We were in a stalemate. I wanted to do something to break it, but this enormous highlighter that had just colored the entire reason I was here, rather than chasing after Mother and Uncle Owen like I wanted, wouldn’t let me leave my position. My prince, my king’s son, was below, and I had the job of protecting him.
Thanks to the sudden lull, though, I had a chance to communicate a new realization to the ground. I probably could have used spiritual voice, but I might not have been able to hear their replies. Dilorè had a natural inclination toward it due to her fairy mind, but everybody below me was a mortal.
I don’t know the mechanics of the ‘Royal Network’ that was linking the communications means of various people associated with the Royal Family together. I know that crystal balls were involved in Mother’s case, Uncle Owen’s case and Ged’s case, and of course for me the means was Lucy, but I wasn’t sure whether Matthias could deal with an incoming call at the moment, because I had no idea what his means was. But I figured, with the lull, I could give it a shot.
I gave Lucy a spiritual nudge and ordered, “Call Matthias.”
“Call!” she responded.
Fortunately, it turned out he was able to reply.
“I’m here, My Lady.”
“This is a planned ambush, Uncle Matthias,” I said without preamble.
“We aren’t very far from the ongoing attack at Camp Langram, My Lady. They could have simply split off from the attack here.”
“Dilorè didn’t say anything about fairies attacking them. These guys brought fairies to counter our escort, and hid them until we appeared. They could have known about the prince’s fairy escort through spies in Arelia, but they couldn’t know the exact time we would be arriving here unless there’s a leak.”
“You have a point. So the purpose of the attack on the camp is to hide this ambush and prevent the camp from intercepting it. Well-spotted, My Lady.”
Actually, I hadn’t thought my way through it quite to that extent, but it made sense, so I agreed.
“Right. So should we let Rod continue to the camp or not? The leak is almost certainly coming from there.”
“If they had any significant assets to threaten His Highness inside the camp, they would not have launched this attack. They would have waited for us to arrive.”
“Right…”
“So I think our best plan is to proceed toward the camp, My Lady. But it doesn’t look like those fellows have given up.”
He had the same thoughts I did. They were clearly not leaving yet.
I complained, “I could probably drive them away, but I need to stay here and protect you guys.”
After a pause, Matthias responded, “His Highness says you should go.”
“Huh?”
Wasn’t that the guy just telling me not to fly ahead, and to leave things to the people responsible for them?
Rod’s voice came across. “Ti, our defenses are solid here, now. I trust your judgment, so go do what only you can do.”
It was an oddly phrased message, until I remembered his words just a short while ago. This is a case of something only I can do.
I retrieved the Starfire Jade Writing Brush from my sword harness, then replied. “Get the carriages moving toward Langram. I’ll have the air warriors cover you.”
We had bailed out in the first place because we were sitting ducks versus the bombers inside the carriages. I almost ordered them to walk to Langram and let the carriages return to Pendor Estate, but I feared for the safety of the undefended carriage drivers and horses.
I let them work out for themselves whether to keep the horses at a walk and keep the defenders alongside, or let them run while defending the vehicles from onboard. Not all mages can handle casting while being jostled and bounced on the road.
Worse, only the main carriage had an imperial, a hard roof where defenders could ride outside. The second carriage was a landau, basically the horse carriage equivalent of a convertible. Its roof was leather. Defenders could only sit in the box seat in back, or the driver’s box or ride the running boards.
Flying forward, I sent my spiritual voice to the leader of our fairy warrior allies. I had yet to learn her name, but she seemed to be the only true fairy among them. She was dressed somewhat like a knight instead of a common warrior like the rest. The rest were three very similar-looking osprey-winged half-fairies that I thought might be sisters and one lesser fairy with flying fish wings like my grandmother’s.
Please return and escort His Highness, I told them. I’ll take care of this.
She spun and yelled back to me, “Your Highness, we’re here for your protection as well!”
I say ‘somewhat like a knight’ because she was not wearing armor, but her raiment had the same skimpy quality, as if she were imitating it. And unlike the others, she carried a sword. The redheaded fairy’s dragonfly wings reminded me of Kiki, as did her face. Her boobs sure didn’t, though. Just one of those things was easily double the mass of my little friend in her entirety.
Her companions all carried armaments that the warriors of fairy clans would more typically use. They held spears and a fairy treasure in their off hands that resembled brass knuckles and that I suspected would function as a shield. The uniformity showed they were part of an organized unit, even though they were differing kinds.
I stopped near them and switched to voice. “Ëi onar lâ. Semöan Cenole Tiana ci cyralinëo.”
(Greetings. I am called Tiana of the High Forest.)
The girl blinked, caught off-guard by the sudden formality.
“Ëí… onar lâ, Ö… Öa Enel!” she stammered. “Röan Moile Dian… m… marcorzo!”
(Greetings, Our Princess! I am humbly Dian of the Great River!”)
It was my turn to be caught off-guard, although I managed to hide it. That was the first time any fairy had paid me that level of respect. I wondered for a moment if the poofy dress and tiara fairy princess look I had going on had anything to do with it, then decided a fairy probably wouldn’t care about that.
The way she fumbled, I could tell she wasn’t good at the language, so I switched to Dorian, which I had overheard the fairies speaking to each other earlier.
“Good warrior, my crown prince sent me to protect his younger brother, and to protect all of you as well. I will follow his request. Would you please follow mine? I must entrust my fiancé’s safety to you while I’m away from him.”
I turned toward the enemy and flew again, not waiting for her reply, feeling a little weird about playing the ‘entrusting my fiancé’s safety’ card on her. Well, I was entrusting my big brother’s safety to her, anyway.
Pouring on the speed, I flew at the enemy. A trio of fairy warriors broke away from the escort to intercept me. I expanded my mind and spread out my spiritual sense, suspicious of ambushes. It was only three of them coming at me, after they had seen the strength of my response to the bombers.
My sense took in the full battle zone. Behind me, the carriages were once again moving, with Mireia and Chiara now manning the box seat of the main carriage with Ryuu and one of the mages on the imperial, while Matthias and Lord Tobir were now in the box seat of the second carriage. I didn’t have time to wonder why they had switched carriages, but Rod had Ryuu on top and the two royal knights on the running boards, so it was fine.
The trio spread out, as if they would englobe me, attacking from three directions.
Old Man, I’ll feed you some extra Wind and Earth, I said. Be ready.
Be ready with both [Wall of Eurybia] and [Fortress of Gaia], I meant. My added mana would strengthen them. These fairies clearly had a plan, and I didn’t know what it was.
Use [Purification], My Lady! he warned in response. There’s something strange.
Even with my strengthened spiritual vessel, Durandal can still often sense things I cannot. He’s the creation of my grandmother, so I just accept that he’s extraordinary and don’t question it. I didn’t question it. I poured Holy mana out of my blood core and immediately chanted [Purification].
It was barely a heartbeat before an unreasonable wave of Dark mana mixed with demonic mana poured out, not from the three fairies, but from a spherical surface which had suddenly surrounded me.
