Chapter 13 – The invincible wall

Julia had never thought it could be that bad.  When she was a child she had awoken one day with the certainty that in her lifetime Grebthar would be reborn and the battles with the Dark Overlord would resume.  Little Julia had thought that she would be an epic princess, like the First, saving the world with the Mayor.

What she hadn’t considered was what the world would look like while that happened.  Every small town between Fillidelphia and Windfall had been burned.  There were never many, but the hard scrabble frontier’s people who lived in the provinces had always managed to survive out here. They were gone now.

Grebthar had killed them.

There were advantages to being a vindictive bitch, Julia realized.  Another person would have a complicated suite of emotions for her former god.  She might wonder what she could have done differently, or how he might be redeemed.

Not Julia.

She wanted him dead.  The first time she realized Grebthar was the Dark Overlord was the last day she ever prayed to him.  There was no room in her heart for a betrayer, theoretically.

It was much easier to claim that when the betrayer wasn’t walking in the next column behind you.  There had been a cosmetic healer in the refugees from Filly, and she had repaired HarDragon’s nose, and teeth, and cheek, and eye. His head.  She reattached his face.

The Mayor really had kicked him pretty hard and no one could have predicted he would have slid that long on just his face.

So now HarDragon looked like he had when he was the captain of her father’s bodyguards.  She had forgiven him for his role in her father’s death, but that was mainly so she would have a clear conscience when thinking back on him later. She’d only forgiven him because Julia absolutely knew HarDragon was going to die in about 3 seconds.  Then the Mayor saved him.

Damn him.

Hating HarDragon had gotten Julia through many harsh nights.  Most of her wanted to drive a sawblade through his forehead, but a tiny bit of her was less harsh.  Maybe only an arm.

Then she heard the meow and saw the dragon flying towards her.  When HarDragon handed the dragon to her, Julia hadn’t realized the dragon was going to view her as an additional protector.  That was adding another level of complication to her life.  She, like any good Falconian girl, wanted to protect the dragon so she could feed it to Badgelor, but it was just so cute.

But if Badgelor asked her about it, she’d have to give it over.  The Falconian Royal Family owed that badger so many favors that she was utterly screwed if anyone figured out how badly she treated him.  That discounted the time that Badgelor personally saved her life, because of course he did.

Julia groaned, maybe she would die in the war and not have to deal with how she treated the Mayor.

Beakatrix suddenly buzzed overhead, waving excitedly.

Julia saw it a few minutes later.  They had skirted the great crack and could finally see the Western Gate Fortress.  It was tall and impressive, as it said in the history books.  That was the wall that the Dark Overlord’s army had broken upon in the histories.

She prayed it would be enough.

***

Fenris returned the salute and tried to look certain.  Jim was a master at that when he felt like looking commanding, and Fenris tried his best.  It was a far more difficult task than one might have expected, especially considering his help.

Her help actually.

Margwal growled, moving her cigar to the other cheek as clouds of billowing, snow white smoke surrounded her face, before shouting at all 7 of her assistants to get their proverbial asses in gear.  Well, not proverbially.  She said it quite literally, and with enough vigor to make GloriousRobert jealous.

When Hansa swore, it was always a shock.  She was simply too cute for anyone to ever assume she was going to say something improper.  Margwal didn’t approach that level of adorableness.  She helped build the complicated buildings at the barracks.  She could eloquently inform someone of what they needed to do and how they needed to do it if the need arose.

“You fecking wannabe dwarves better shape up or I personally will kick every one of you to the curb and replace you with someone who knows how to hold a fecking hammer!” she bellowed.

“Yes mistress, they all said in unison.

Margwal scanned her battlefield, marking off objectives as they came.  Wise men ran and hid from those piercing eyes.  Fenris, unfortunately, was stuck looking confident so with a lack of lower ranking targets, the engineer turned towards the big fish.

“So exactly why can’t we fold up this contraption my sister built,” said Margwal.

“It’s broken,” said Fenris.  Her expression of open contempt forced additional words from his lips, “After the last time the portable gateway was used, it warped the frame so badly that it will not retract anymore.”

Margwal bit on her cigar, “Well of course not.  The Mayor had my poor sister using high steel rather than any gold-based alloy so it couldn’t handle an extended magical activation like that.”

“I believe that was all he had,” offered Fenris.

“No excuses, he’s the Mayor.  That feckstick is supposed to be able to Jim this shite up,” said Margwal glaring at the partially melted atrocity that Fenris had hoped would win a war.  Obviously, the first device wasn’t up to the task.  Jim had left it on for an extended period and that had caused so much mana leakage that the entire frame had been hot enough that it had started a small fire in the Dalton girl’s home.

Fortunately, they had a racoon trained in fire suppression techniques or the results would have been dire.

Unfortunately, the damage was done.  The device would never fold up again, and it was dicey that it could even be used at all.  Jim had told him to move it someplace useful before the battle, and so the only spot of worth was here at the western gate fortress so Jim could make a dramatic entrance when they most needed him.

That’s what the books said the Mayor did anyway.  The Mayor would charge in, riding Badgelor, and strike at the Dark Overlord when the chips were down.

“Incoming,” yelled one of the wall guards.

Fenris walked over, the one thing you had at the Western Gate fortress was time.  The wall was so damn tall you could see halfway across creation.  Not literally of course, there was a large forest just west of the fortress.  Even salted, the accursed Fecking Puma forest had regrown in the past weeks as forests tended to do.

Jim always seemed more surprised at how quickly things happened than when he was being attacked by monsters.

“It's THAT Julia,” said another spotter.  The other guards groaned.

That was moderately impressive, even at this distance, thought Fenris until he saw the Progenitor.  That made identifying the woman in all white at the head of the lead column pretty easy to guess.

“That is a lot of refugees.”

Fenris used one of his War Leader talents to start gauging numbers and that was at least half of the population of a city like Fillidelphia.  The thought was so absurd he almost laughed, of course that’s when the Progenitor landed and handed him something.

Fenris read the note and sighed, “That is half the population of Filly.  Julia informs me that Jim expects Windfall to house them.”

The progenitor looked at Fenris for a moment and said something Fenris puzzled over for a moment.

“No, we cannot compress existing families to make room for the new, and I didn’t bring any fish,” said Fenris who straightened his mechanical back and wondered why she wanted to pack some sardines, “I am the Mayor for the moment, I suppose I’ll have to Jim something up myself.”