Chapter 223

"Attack!" Neia bellowed the word and her advanced guard charged the lightly fortified position. "Remember, take captives! Lots of captives!" She added the instruction to the horde, the orcs and spriggans, she noticed, were the best about that. Less so the bafolk, spiderfolk, nagafolk, and others, however the rock spitters were little tested. They remained behind, forgoing glory for the sake of easy victory. Their stones flew overhead and forced the human archers to remain behind concealment and either fire blind or get hit.

Using her knowledge of Holy Kingdom archery doctrine, her rock spitters now used a system of rotating fire, drilled day after day, they kept up a volley that surpassed the rate of the humans, and because of her time in service, she knew where the archers were likely to be placed at 'most' of the fortifications they encountered. Olasird'arc remained at the back, watching with quiet curiosity as the dragonid in her forest green scale armor hovered over her army and barked orders left and right.

Unable to fire accurately, the human fortification, which should have held out for hours or even days except against exceptional enemies, was instead overrun in minutes by her advanced detachment, her flying column was outnumbered, and yet it didn't matter. 'What could they have done to my country if someone wanted to use them for slaughter…?' She shuddered to even think of it, and then slowly descended to the center of the little fort.

She strode through the bloody dirt where a small cluster of humans died in a last desperate stand, and approached her detachment leader. "My Queen?" Nasrene said and gave a little half bow while her group of elite magelos bound the trembling human captives with spider silk.

"Yes, Nasrene?" Neia asked, pausing in her walk toward a group of wounded humans, she glanced up at the towering demihuman.

"Is it necessary to spare so many? Will this not cause trouble to guard such numbers?" She asked, the question's implicit meaning, though unspoken, was 'should we not execute most of them?'

Neia folded her wings against her body and shook her head, she reached up to scratch at the white bone horn that rose up to a tip at an angle just beyond and above her forehead. "Not really. Are you saying your people can't handle them?"

The white blank faced being shrugged all of her multiple arms at once. "Not at all, My Queen, but so many are a challenge to house, feed, and guard. If we kill half, we can feed the rest the meat of their comrades, or our own forces, and this will all be easier. Unless… your Majesty has some… sentimental reason for not wanting to slaughter humans?"

It wasn't phrased as a criticism, the Magelos Queen's hands opened as if to say 'it is nothing' but it wasn't.

Neia fixed the woman with a long, steady glare. A silent war, the child of the Mad Eyed Archer, bearer of his gaze and augmented by her now dragonid nature, brought down the hammer of fear on the one time ruler of one sixth of the Abelion Hills, until Nasrene looked away.

The smell of human urine at the unspoken threat wasn't lost on anyone, but only after the demihuman leader had turned her face from the quiet threat, did Neia Baraja speak. "The humans will be bound by oaths and hostages to their good behavior to not escape their captivity. Send them back to the Abelion hills and set them to working for us, they will finish our construction projects under the guard of our elders and young, while supervised by dark dwarves. They will be fed from the food they grow for themselves, and when the time comes, we will trade their lives for concessions from either the Holy Queen… or the Holy King."

The white fleshed demihuman felt her heart race as she understood what just happened.

"Never accuse me of sentiment when it comes to humans. They betrayed me. Ruined me. Tried to kill me." Neia approached the white faced female, though she had to look up to meet her eyes, her wings popped out and after a beat or two they were eye to eye. The frost breath wafted over the Magelos of near legendary status, and she whispered, "Undermine me again, Nasrene, I dare you."

"No insult was intended… My Queen… your… generosity to my people is worthy of our loyalty…" She tried to walk back her words, but the Queen of Frost would have none of it.

"See to all the human captives. If you are so worried about their escape, you will be in charge of ensuring that they don't. You will be responsible for defending the wall and establishing the prison work camps beyond it to build up more of our towns. You will not take the easy route, the strong make long roads, the weak make short ones, and the dead make none. Am I understood, Nasrene?"

It wasn't 'technically' a demotion. In theory one of the most powerful Demihumans had just been put in charge of a great fortress and a massive project.

In practice, to a population who built their names on glory and strength, she had been relegated to a rear position to where success would bring glory to her Mistress, and her name would barely be mentioned in stories that spread about the conflict ahead.

"Vijar!" Neia called over her shoulder when she approached the hastily working magelos who were busy binding the wrists of their human captives even faster than before as their Queen's eyes fell on them.

A towering catman swaggered forward, cocky and confident, he had his nose a little turned up when walking past the ruler of the magelos and knelt before the dragonid, waiting for her to turn around to face him. Neia glanced at the mighty demihuman, he was ruthless, but absolutely loyal to the wellbeing of his tribe, her return of the captives she took, 'before' any fighting, won him over almost immediately. 'I'm sure that if I permitted him to consume humans for food, he would think nothing of it, but of the great powers, he is one of the greatest. As good a left hand as To'Raven.' Neia turned to face him.

"Vijar, you will take the lead position in the attack on the next city, exercise caution and seize the outlying villages and towns first, remember, minimize casualties. Captives can work, captives can be bargained away. Take special care to seize their councilors and artisans… but as for their aged, their young children? Those who flee will consume supplies and most of them will be worthless in a fight. We have lessons to teach the Queen, and this Kingdom, am I understood?"

"Yes, My Queen… but why their artisans and councilors?" Vijar asked, his head cocked to one side very much like a confused dog who saw something odd and unaccountable.

Neia however, was prepared for his answer. "Do you think fools built the wall that kept the Abelion Hills at bay for hundreds of years?" She exaggerated a little, but it made her point. "Strength comes in many forms, some ways you are great, others, they are. The humans split their warriors from scholars and scholars from warriors. That makes cowards their thinkers and their fighters, fools. Taking their best and wisest men and women, and making them ours means we can have strength and wisdom both. And I need both to make our Kingdom. Or do you want to be beholden to the dark dwarves for everything we need?"

Had it been a more foolish commander, Neia might have simply barked the order that it be done, or glared in silence until fear brought obedience. 'But I have to get them all to understand me… willing obedience is better than forced obedience, and if they all support my long term plans, they are far more likely to succeed.'

So instead, after explaining herself to Vijar, she simply watched him with dispassionate curiosity as the wheels turned behind the whites of his eyes until she saw understanding dawn. The sight of the castle rising in their new capital was no more lost on him than any, and it was that, she was sure, that reached him.

"It will be as our Queen commands. Prisoners will be taken, the elderly and young allowed to flee. Our Kingdom will have its workforce." Vijar reiterated and rephrased her instructions, and left to tend to her orders.

'Another obstacle overcome…' Neia thought with satisfaction, while not far away, the funeral pyre for the dead began to send smoke up into the air, letting everybody know for many miles around, that the Frost Queen had struck.