[City of Andra]
Looking down at the surrounding landscape from atop Andra's towering walls, Reinold watched as the small group of five below paced along the wall. Staying barely over a hundred meters away from it, they showed no signs of worry even after he had a few of the heavy weapons turned at them.
This dismissive attitude quickly achieved what was likely its purpose, with nervousness spreading among the soldiers once they started noticing it. Even Reinold was affected by this, the thought that it might only be a bluff not being enough to fully calm his nerves.
Luckily for his sanity, he knew that the troops operating the ballistas and other stationary weapons were disciplined enough to hold their fire unless he gave the order. This assurance that a mistake that could very well start a war in the current diplomatic climate was unlikely was the only reason why he managed to at least appear calm from the outside.
For dozens of minutes, he kept watch like this, matching his pace with that of his targets as he shadowed them, constantly ready to act the moment one of them attacked.
At the same time, he couldn't help but grow impatient, feeling like this state of affairs couldn't be left to simply continue and already having called for the council the moment the group first drew their suspicion. So when he finally noticed someone approaching whose steps weren't accompanied by the rattling of armor, he didn't hide his bad mood as he turned around.
“Marcus.” He greeted the councilman with a nod, his expression turning noticeably friendlier once he saw who it was.
“I apologize for the delay, I needed to finish some business down by the port, the beast continent is more chaotic than ever right now.” Marcus said in response.
“I know you have much on your plate right now old friend, but this is important.”
Walking up to Reinold with a nod and coming to a stop at the battlements next to him, Marcus took the spyglass the former was giving him and peered through it. Increasing the magnification until he could see the group with as much detail as if they were standing just a meter before him, he took a good look at them.
Frowning at the three undead trailing the two leading individuals but not keeping his attention on them for long, he shifted his gaze to the pale man and the seemingly human woman leading them.
Walking side by side, the two were engrossed in a conversation. Watching for a couple of seconds and trying to read their lips, Marcus felt a sudden shiver running down his back as the man's lips curled up into a smile.
A moment later he abruptly turned toward the wall, meeting Marcus's gaze with his glowing red eyes that starkly contrasted his grayish skin. And for a second, Marcus could only stare back as his body froze up in pure terror.
Acting quickly, Reinold grabbed him by the shoulder as soon as he noticed this and roughly dragged him away from the battlement. At the same time, he let his aura flare to life around himself only to channel most of it into the meter of the wall in front of him to reinforce it.
Waiting a few seconds in a tense silence that was only broken by Marcus's heavy breathing, he slowly pulled his hand away from the wall when the feared attack still didn't come. Cautiously peering over the battlement, he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the group had already turned away from the wall again.
Signaling the surrounding soldiers that everything was alright, he finally turned to Marcus and reached out to help the councilman stand up. Taking his hand with a nod of gratitude, the latter rose from the ground and returned the spyglass.
“Weren't those two also part of the delegation the duke's daughter led?” He questioned with a shaking voice.
“If you mean the one where your new colleagues nearly started a war, then yes.” Reinold replied, making Marcus grimace at the reminder of the incident in question.
“And I think it is time we stop insisting on still calling him duke, he now controls the entire territory that once belonged to the kingdom and even four of the city-states. Only we and Tose still retain our independence and if it continues like this I question for how long.” He added.
Shaking his head with a shrug, Marcus could only offer a helpless expression as an answer.
“You have seen how the elections went, even I was in danger of losing my seat. So forget joining like the four cities did, even working together with him is too unpopular to find a majority in the council.” Marcus said.
“*Sigh*, maybe the merchants had the right idea after all.” Reinold said defeated.
“Watch out what you say, especially in public.” Marcus reprimanded after quickly looking around to make sure no soldier was close enough to overhear them.
After all, the common people of Andra were never particularly fond of the merchants and especially the merchant families. Now, after many of them left the city in favor of the more bountiful opportunities that the new kingdom offered, this dislike turned to hatred.
The reasons for this differed but commonly boiled down to the loss of trade and a sense of betrayal. And while the former was more noticeable, with the only freshly solved foot shortage returning as fewer ships arrived in the harbor, the latter was what seemed to truly anger the people.
The undeniably greatest reasons for this were the privileges that the merchants enjoyed and the expectations that they would consequently stay loyal to the city. Amongst these, the most prominent one was the right to vote without having to pay the fee for it as long as their organization shipped enough trade into the city.
So when they left the city and gave those privileges up, the realization of the severity of their situation started to set in. But instead of trying to change it, the nobles and upper class in general doubled down during the next election.
With that in mind and unwilling to become an easy scapegoat for them to push the blame on to placate the populace once the already dwindling number of those ran out, Reinold took the words to heart.
“I'll try. But let's return to the question of the group pacing along the outside of the wall.”
“Right, there was that.” Marcus said exhausted.
Stepping back toward the battlement, he looked in the direction they had last seen the group walk. Finding them a couple hundred meters further along, his eyes narrowed as he noticed that they were no longer keeping their distance to the base of the wall.
Seeing his confusion, Reinold followed after him. Initially reacting with the same confusion, he quickly realized what was happening as he traced their movement on a mental map of the wall's structure.
“They are heading for the gate.” He stated in shock.
Turning toward Reinold, Marcus looked at him in shock as the former processed his realization. A moment later he abruptly spun around, taking a quick look around before rushing toward the nearest soldier he could find.
Starring after the commander for a second before shaking himself out of his stupor, Marcus quickly jogged after him.
“Sound the alarm, I want every man and woman on their stations within the next five minutes. If anyone tries to breach the wall or attack, fire, but only then and not a second earlier. Whatever happens, we're not going to be the ones to start a war.” Reinold ordered the man.
Saluting, the soldier didn't hesitate and rushed past the approaching Marcus toward the nearest guard tower.
“Well then, ready to walk into the tiger's maw?” Reinold asked as Marcus approached him.
“As ready as I'll ever get even if that doesn't mean much.”
Nodding, Reinold walked ahead just slow enough for Marcus to keep up with. Following behind a moment later, the latter started casting a communication spell even though he could already only barely keep up.
Not having the time to use advanced techniques, he simply broadcast his message to the rest of the council through the basic sending spell without caring for the risk of it being intercepted.
Ignoring the replies when they started trickling about a minute later as he and Reinold had reached the tower flanking the gate from the direction of their approach, the two beastman stepped into the building-like structure towering over the gate.
Immediately they noticed the group of about a dozen archers standing along the crenels, small gaps designed to allow the defenders to rain fire onto attackers, with their bows drawn back. Though surprisingly, a couple were also aiming through the bars of the trapdoor covering an opening in the ground.
Stepping past the barrels intended to be thrown down this hole and onto attackers, Marcus moved into the gap between two of the archers and followed their aim with his eyes until his gaze reached the ground.
Standing there was the woman he and Reinold had assumed was one of the two leaders of the group.
Upon seeing him among the archers momentarily turned to the rest of her group, or at least Marcus assumed so considering it was the direction the other archers were aiming, and gesticulated to them. Engaging in a short back and forth whose content he couldn't discern, she looked back at him once their exchange was finished.
As soon as she did, she rose from the ground and rapidly flew upward. Heading for the chute he, and by then also Reinold, stood around, she didn't leave them even a moment to think before she burst through the metal bars which turned into a shower of dust as she did.
Immediately, multiple of the surrounding archers pulled their aim up and unleashed a volley of arrows at her. But instead of these arrows, the woman was instead peppered with just as many clouds of harmless dust and ash as every projectile disintegrated the moment they were fired.
“If my memory serves me right you hold some power to make decisions, right?” She asked, dispersing a particularly large cloud of particles
with a swipe of her arm.
Still frozen in shock, Marcus only stared at her as she hovered over the destroyed remains of the trapdoor.
“Hold your fire!” Reinold suddenly shouted, causing Marcus to jump back in shock.
Only then did he notice that the archest aiming through the crenels had spun around and were just about to unleash a second volley against the woman. Releasing a breath he didn't know he had held when Reinolds words reached them in time and no shot was fired, he gathered his courage and stepped in front of the woman.
“Yes.” He answered her, trying to sound as calm as he could in the situation.
“Good. Now, before we start, I will say that my colleague out there is far less patient than I am so I'll give you some advice. Reach an agreement with me or I can't promise anything.” The woman said.
“I'll try but if the duke wants the city to surrender to him then I can't make that decision.” Marcus said.
Looking at him with a raised eyebrow in response to his statement, the woman stayed silent for a moment before breaking out in laughter.
“You really think we want to conquer your city? Neither my lady nor the king have any uses for it, he doesn't even know about this specific instance of our presence here. No, we're here because your constant raids on our troops are getting annoying.”
Unsure what she was talking about, he turned to Reinold only to be met with an equally confused look.
“Let me rephrase it. Keep your adventurers in check or we will do it for you.
While it was just a low rank one, creating a lich takes some effort, effort a team from your city wiped away in under an hour. Besides, it will be advantageous for both sides, they lost two of their members in the fight after all.” The woman said.
“Wait, it's about adventurers? Then what do you want us to do, the guild is a multinational organization.” Marcus complained.
“The guild, yes. But the individual adventurers are still citizens of your state and these undead they are killing are part of our army. It's a nearly universal practice that adventurers don't accept missions that involve conflicts with a foreign nation's military, so why should it make a difference if the killed general is a human, beastman, or undead?”
Opening his mouth to answer, Marcus stopped before bringing out a word as he realized the logic behind her statement. Deliberating for a moment, he was just about to answer her when a booming roar from above interrupted him.
A moment later a second, much closer roar echoed out, causing the woman to spin around with furious eyes.
“Nyriod, I've had it under-” Shouting as she rushed to the front wall, she blew open a large hole in the stone only to freeze as soon as she looked through it.
Rushing after her before his mind could tell his body how bad this idea was, Marcus came to an abrupt stop when he spotted the massive form of a gray dragon standing before the gate. Black smoke constantly rose from both small and large wounds across his body where the being's flesh was missing, with some of these going deep enough to reveal its bones.
Just a moment later another massive figure appeared in his view when the even larger, black scaled form of Darganth dropped out of the sky and landed before the other dragon.
“-control.” The woman finished with a sigh, clearly as surprised with the situation as Marcus was.
