Chp.36: Situation at the fairies' capital

"... we continued to observe them until late at night, but seeing that they continued to celebrate we left. Knowing the ogre customs they will have continued all night, but now that the sun has risen they will set off again"

Queen Tytania listened to the fairy's words in front of her. She was one of the very few ninjas who survived the battle with the ogres. After she'd recovered, she and two of her companions had gone back and used their invisibility to spy on the ogres. That was how they had been able to witness Sarpa's coronation as king of the ogres. "How long will it take them to reach us?"

The ninja seemed to think about it. "If they travel in the same formation they attacked the camp with, they'll be here by tonight"

The queen sighed deeply, and her fingers tightened on the arms of her throne. "Thank you. You can go now"

The ninja bowed and quickly exited the hall. Tytania leaned her head against the back of the throne, as if she didn't have the strength to sit without a support.

Up until the day before, the situation on the war front had been difficult, but still positive. The fairy army had stopped the ogres, who could no longer enter their territory, and had fought numerous battles always taking few losses against many of the ogres. Even though reports had been coming over the past week of a profound change taking place in the ogre army, the queen had been confident that her officers would have been able to handle the situation.

Instead, in just one day that certainty of hers had collapsed. The previous evening several wounded and frightened soldiers had hurried back to the capital, and they told how the entire army had been defeated and slaughtered. Tytania had welcomed the survivors into the city and given them all possible cures, but she could not bring their dead comrades back to life. The queen had seen with dismay that at least three quarters of the entire army had been wiped out. After the arrival of the soldiers unable to fight, some still able to do so had returned; among them was general Fridya, who had explained to her in detail what had happened.

Tytania turned her gaze to the only other person left in the throne room. "How do you think they got the nullification rune? Do you think that there is a traitor among us?"

The other person was obviously Fridya. She had stayed with the queen all night in an attempt to come up with a plan to protect the city. Even though she had lost a large part of the army, she was in fact still the general with the highest rank, as well as the one most expert in war strategies. At the moment, Tytania didn't have time to get angry with her or blame her for that defeat: the situation was too critical for the queen to deprive herself of her best officer.

All the while Fridya had been avoiding eye contact with Tytania, looking in every direction, even at the ground, rather than look at her face. She didn't seem to have the courage to look her queen in the eye. "It's possible" she replied. "But that's not necessarily the case. Whoever revealed the nullification rune to the ogres could have obtained it simply by capturing a ninja... although I don't understand how they could have done it"

From the fairy's perspective, capturing a ninja was impossible unless someone did so while they weren't using their invisibility power. However during the war the ninjas had never left the camp without using invisibility, so there was no way anyone could have captured one. Of course, the fairies hadn't considered the possibility that the one that had captured a ninja could be a creature with superior senses, like a dragon.

Tytania sighed. "How many chances do we have to push the enemy back?"

"Less than zero" Fridya answered. "We don't have strong defenses and we have too few soldiers left, who are still recovering. I've spent all night examining every possibility, and I've concluded that we have only two choices. The first is to abandon the city and flee"

Tytania narrowed her eyes. Evacuating the capital in such a short time would have been almost impossible. Not to mention they had nowhere to go and the ogres would have came after them. "I guess I know what the second choice is" she murmured.

Fridya nodded. "The only other solution is to use the relic"

Tytania sighed. Indeed, there was no other way for the fairy people to survive. She had to do it.

According to ancient stories, the fairies had lived in various parts of the world for a very long time and they had often been victims of abuse by other races. But then their two major gods, Shamar and Foramis, chose one of them to gather their people and lead them to a beautiful land where they could live in peace. That person was Hoberas, the first fairy queen. To make her task easier, the gods turned Hoberas into a legendary level and they bestowed upon her light magic.

Light magic wasn't like elemental magic, which all living beings could use. Light magic was a gift that the gods gave only to a few chosen ones. Just like dark magic, death magic and life magic, it couldn't exist without the benevolence of the gods.

With her newfound power, Hoberas had led the fairies down a rough path that had finally led them to the Karbraland Great Forest. To face the many enemies she'd encountered along the way, Hoberas had taught a select few some of the light magic the gods had provided; it was thanks to those teachings that the invisibility rune and the nullification rune and many other magical items were born. Of course, Hoberas had taught only a small fraction of the light magic the gods had bestowed upon her, but it was thanks to that knowledge that magic of the fairies was so extraordinarily superior to any other, and so many races yearned to know their secrets.

Before dying, Hoberas had given one last gift to her people: her spear, imbued with her light magic. That spear was called 'the relic' and was the most powerful weapon of the fairies. It couldn't be reproduced in any way: Hoberas hadn't taught anyone how to create such a powerful object. The spear wasn't just a magical tool, it was infused with the very power bestowed by the gods. It was impossible that anyone could replicate it.

The power of the relic was extraordinary: with a single blow, the spear could wipe out entire armies. However, that power wasn't infinite: the more it was used, the more the light magic that fueled it was depleted. Furthermore, the relic had a dark side: it drained energy from its user very rapidly, but due to the spear's power they would always have felt energized, unaware of the alarming loss of their life force. If not careful, its user could have died while using it. Therefore, the royal family had sealed the relic in the more supervised chamber of the royal palace and sworn an oath to use it only in extreme cases.

Well, that was an extreme case. The ogres were coming and the fairies had no way to resist them. Tytania was ready to use the relic, even if it might cost her her life. "I'll wait until the ogres are close enough, then use it once and put it right back" she reflected at loud voice. "That won't be enough to destroy the entire ogre army, but when they see what we can unleash upon them they'll think twice before attacking again. Their new king, Sarpa, seemed to be a reasonable ogre that care about his soldiers' life; I'm sure it will be possible to talk to him after he will see the power of the relic"

"I'm not so sure" Fridya said. "Remember what I told you about my suspicions?"

The queen nodded. Fridya had told her that she believed that a third party was involved in that conflict, and indeed it seemed to her a plausible hypothesis. Maybe that whole conflict was directly caused by this third party. This would have explained many oddities. And if Sarpa was indeed allied with this third party, or he was their puppet, then he would hardly have agreed to a negotiation. "Maybe he won't give up, but at least he'll try to stall for some time. He won't be stupid enough to keep attacking knowing that he can't win. That will give us time to think about something else. And if we don't succeed… I'll use the relic again"

Tytania was nervous about using the relic. It had only been used twice in the history of her people, and in both cases the users had died from the enormous effort the relic demanded. But Tytania didn't fear her death: what worried her was that the relic would have lost more power. The royal family had always been educated to preserve the relic's power as much as possible, because it couldn't be recharged and if it went to waste the spear could no longer function when needed in the future. Even though it wasn't her fault, she felt responsible for let that situation escalate to the point where she would have been forced to use it.

But while she was thinking about this, something unexpected happened. The throne room windows cracked and some seconds later they broke. A cascade of glass fragments was thrown in all directions with incredible speed, so hard that many of them stuck in the walls. Fridya immediately used her mana to harden her skin and stepped between the glass and the queen, letting them shatter on her. Fortunately, with her mana protection none of them were able to hurt her.

"Your Majesty! Are you all right!?" the guards shouted, throwing open the doors and rushing into the throne room. Through the entrance Fridya was able to notice that the windows of the other rooms were also broken.

"I'm fine" Tytania replied. "What happens?"

The guards shook their heads: "We don't know, my queen! Suddenly the windows..."

The guard didn't have time to say anything else: a gust of wind of continental proportions penetrated through the broken windows, so strong that many objects flew away and even the fairies were dragged back a few meters before they managed to stop. Then, as fast as it had come, the wind stopped. A few moments later, another gust came, and then another, and another, getting stronger and stronger every time.

Fridya flew up and braving the strong wind reached the window and looked out. The whole city was in turmoil: the flying fairies struggled to keep themselves stable and many of them were trapped in the whirlwinds. The wind was so strong that the leaves and branches of the trees snapped and flew off, and soon even some trees began to snap and collapse to the ground with thunderous crashes. It was as if a hurricane was hitting the forest, but it was doing it on and off.

Even with all her mana-manipulating prowess, Fridya struggled to summon protection strong enough not to be blown away by the wind. She tried to figure out which direction it was coming from and finally singled out a point in the distance, where there was a red spot suspended in the sky that grew bigger by the second. She channeled her mana into her eyes to enhance vision, and then she froze. Her entire body became motionless and it was only the survival instinct that warned her that she was falling that made her regain her senses, flap her wings again and immediately fly back into the royal palace with all the speed she could muster.

When she returned, Tytania and the guards saw that her face had become whiter than a sheet. She looked like she just saw a ghost. "Take the queen to safety immediately!" she scream. "Warn all who can fight! Grab every weapon you find and prepare for the worst!"

"What is happening!?" Tytania exclaimed. She couldn't remember ever seeing the general so frightened.

"There is... there is a dragon!" Fridya stammered.

The eyes of Tytania and all the fairies in the room widened. "Sorry, what did you say!?"

"A DRAGON!" Fridya screamed, but her words were covered by a roar so loud that it made their limbs tremble. Soon after that the city went dark: the wings of a dragon had covered the sun.