Chapter XVII: Tiberius

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(General POV)

"Second squad head off the western assault!" An imposingly tall Imperial wearing an opulent red and gold combination of a mage's robe and a legionary officer's armor orders a unit of equally imposing heavy legionaries, all of them larger than the average orc.

The soldiers, or at least what the rebel rangers believe them to be, immediately follow the Imperial's orders and smash into the group of Stormcloaks trying to set fire to the valuable supply train their enemy was guarding.

A stray arrow ricochets off the Imperial's helm, making him flinch back violently. The young man grunts in annoyance before reaffirming his faux confidence and giving his next order "Squad one, dispose of the archers!"

A unit of suspiciously short legionaries with even more suspiciously red ears let out a series of gleeful cackles as they start bombarding the patch of forest housing the rangers with firebolts and in some cases even fireballs.

The cackles intensify as the screams of their targets reach their crooked ears.

Much to the young man's chagrin the fiery bombardment only serves to embolden the rebels as more and more arrows start pelting his 'glorious army' from every direction, the legionary engineers he was tasked with protecting remaining blessedly out of the line of fire while his own units took the damage head on.

He had six 'squads' at his disposal, four infantry and two mage but it was seemingly not enough as his soldiers started to fall one by one to either arrow fire or a surprise assault by light cavalry.

How the rebels managed to maneuver cavalry in the thick forest baffled the mind but he had other things to worry about at the moment as they had seemingly grown impatient with simply trying to shoot him down and sent out their infantry contingent.

His soldiers fought valiantly, taking two rebels for each of them that fell yet it was a losing battle, a fact growing more evident with each passing moment. His favored aide, a rather pretty thing he had near him at all times due to no hormonal reason whatsoever, had fallen taking an arrow for him when the rebels finally realized that their enemies were disappearing the moment they were killed and were evidently summons and not mortals.

He had hoped against hope that the dumb Nord stereotype would save him, but it turned out that Nords were in fact not idiots as evidenced by the barrage of arrows he was barely avoiding.

He spent every moment not occupied with avoiding a swift and painful death lamenting his constant refusal to practice defensive magic when he was still at the college. Truly, if one of his colleagues saw him now they would probably wring his neck for his slothfulness.

A cold shiver went down his spine the moment the thought entered his mind.

One by one all thirty of his glorious soldiers finally fell, the young man surviving by the skin of his teeth and via copious usage of combat scrolls. A lesson taught to him by his father, if a problem could not be solved by skill it could be solved by throwing money at it.

Something many a rebel learned to the point of fatality when they were burned by a sudden fireball.

Yet for all his fortune, fate had seemingly caught up with him when a furious rebel slammed his metal shield into his armored head, knocking him on the ground and lifting his axe with a snarl, intending to end the young man for all of his slain comrades.

Many things happened within the blink of an eye.

Human-shaped shadows started emerging from behind the rebels, cutting them down like grass or cooking them in their armor with lightning. The least lucky among the Stormcloaks screamed in abject agony as they were devoured alive by a swarm of minuscule frostbite spiders.

Before Tiberius Gracchus could even understand what was happening the rebel in front of him was engulfed by a blast of bright crimson and was gone, only his boots standing as evidence he even existed in the first place.

Sound returned to Tiberius' ears as he finally left his blunt force trauma induced daze and he heard magical explosions happening all around him, and before he could further contemplate his situation he felt someone kick him in the leg, drawing his attention.

Bright red eyes met his own as the armored figure called out to him "Wake the fuck up legionnaire, we have rebels to burn."

Now that, he could do.

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(Reyvin's POV)

"P-pleas-" An annoying rasp reaches my ears, drawing my attention to a fallen enemy ranger lacking many of his limbs trying his best to survive by crawling away.

"No." I snap my fingers and one red flash later there is no ranger crawling anywhere.

A moment later Scorch lands on my shoulder and chirps "That is the last of them pops."

One mental check later and I nod "Yup, poor fuckers didn't even have a proper retreat path."

The glorious bird boi shrugs "Eh, what did you expect?"

"My faith in humanity shall forever be the source of infinite disappointment, I know." I falsely lament as I approach the legionary supply train, and Tiberius' slowly replenishing ranks of Dremora.

Said tall Imperial mage notices me as soon as I near him and poisons my eyes with a flamboyant bow "My many thanks for your timely assistance good sir, I am glad that another loyal subje-"

"Oh for fucks sake Tiberius can you not stop preaching for one fucking second?" I cut him off with an eyeroll, unsummoning my helm in the process.

He blinks dumbly for a moment before muttering "Reyvin?" The moment the words leave his mouth he reflexively salutes me but I stop him with a raised hand.

"No need for that when not on official business." I chuckle at his never ending enthusiasm "You lot heading to the siege camp?"

"Indeed." He nods "The siege engines were damaged due to the constant raiding and this caravan was tasked with bringing in replacement parts."

"See if you studied alteration properly you'd just be able to replace all that." I immediately start to lambast his laziness, an old college tradition from when we were still weak little apprentices "And why am I seeing no other legionaries present?"

He scratches his cheek while trying desperately to look at anywhere else but at me "Well, I... Uhm... I kind of volunteered to do the guarding on my own?"

No words were needed as I looked at him with sheer unfiltered disappointment.

"I am not stupid, I had my own soldiers with me!" He justifies weakly.

I simply raise an eyebrow at his reasoning, we both knew that Dremora could be banished with specialized weapons or scrolls, even spells of a certain level.

His shoulders slump "We were losing dozens of men to the constant ambushes and I wanted to stop any more from dying."

My disappointment disappears as if it was never there "Finally a hint of truth."

He removes his helmet and lets out a chuckle "I forgot how uncaring you are for the feelings of others."

"Only when they are as fragile as your own." I quip back.

He shakes his head and starts resummoning his minions one by one, most of them were as I expected them to be, scamps and Dremora humoring their contractor by wearing legion armor.

Though the last one he summons makes me do a double take "Tiberius, please don't tell me you are using a Handmaiden of Azura in your little toy soldier project."

He looks away and whistles innocently.

"Ufufufu." Said handmaiden giggles into her hand "Do not worry, my lord. Dear Tiberius is most chivalrous in the way he treats us." The man looks away with a light blush at this comment.

I deadpan at her "Are all female looking Daedra like this?"

She tilts her head "Whatever could you mean by that, my lord?" She sounds confused but her entire body language is as seductive as can be without being outright whorish.

I scratch my chin thoughtfully "Honestly that is pretty embarrassing."

She flinches as if struck "...What?"

"Oh, nothing." I raise a placating hand "I've just had Mephala try and get into my pants so many times at this point that your attempts were the same as those of a child." My voice is kind but my eyes radiate mockery.

The handmaiden's eye twitches and she almost yells out in frustration "Yes? Well she tries to get into everyone's pants so there!"

My patron's amused giggle resounds in the back of my head and I hear her say 'Oh, I like her.' causing a vicious smirk to spread on my face.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" She asks with narrowed eyes.

"Oh nothing, it is just that if I were you I'd do my best to remain summoned for as long as possible." I tell her with a lazy wave.

Seemingly understanding what just happened she pales and tries to hide behind Tiberius while shivering.

"Do I even want to know?" Tiberius asks cautiously.

I raise an eyebrow "I don't know, do you?"

Apparently even he has a sense of self preservation as he resolutely shakes his head.

We continue helping out the rattled and grumbling engineers for a while longer and after we were finally joined by Serana who had been hunting escaping rebels (Read: Drinking the poor fuckers I allowed to escape for this exact purpose) we headed toward the siege camp.

Naturally I couldn't stop myself from asking the tall man "So Tiberius, care to tell me why you were not using proper defensive alteration in that battle?"

His gulp and sudden paleness told me far more than I needed to lambast him the entire walk toward the camp, much to the entertainment of the engineers following us.

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We arrived at the siege camp and by extension Falkreath itself by the day's evening without any further incident. My appearance caused something of a commotion but all doubts were swiftly gone as the engineers arrived behind us, a round of loud cheers breaking out amongst battle weary legionaries.

The siege camp was built to the usual legion standard but scaled up for maximum effectiveness. A trio of palisades surrounded the center of the camp, with each wall being slightly taller the further in they were placed, a series of trenches surrounded the camp and were progressively dug outward as if to surround the city itself.

Actually surrounding the damn place would probably take months and would not be worth the trouble as the trenches were mostly used to counter raids and the actual encirclement of the city was done by cavalry and light infantry tasked with delaying any sortie while reinforcements were dispatched from the legionary base southwest of Falkreath.

Speaking of the city it was as things usually were in this world, far larger than I remembered. Large longhouses surrounding the tall stone and wood keep in the city's center and the vast marketplace surrounding it. The walls were mostly made of stone but there was a spot or three where they were rapidly patched up using hardwood of some kind due to the constant bombardment by siege weapons.

Speaking of woods, the treeline was far closer to the city walls than I remember it being at Riften, with only the closest trees cut down as to not make the walls completely and utterly useless.

I do hope the place wasn't infested with some kind of tree-hugger cult or I swear to Dagoth I will throw a fit!

And then there was the graveyard, a rather dreary thing for a city to be known for but Falkreath was most assuredly not known for its hospitality so a graveyard it is! The whole thing stretched out south of the city taking up almost as much space as the city itself with everything from dirt graves to mausoleums dotted around almost haphazardly yet still somehow looking peaceful and reverent, all of it surrounding a vast church of Arkay.

I absently noticed a trio of priests going on about their business without a single care directed toward the siege. No one was stupid enough to offend half the province by targeting the graveyard after all.

I was forced to cease with my observations as we finally reached the walled command tent, an entire century of legionary elites dutifully guarding their General's position.

"Serana." I speak up as Tiberius goes through the tedium of identifying us to the guards.

"Yes?" She tilts her head.

"You might wish to sit this one out." I say lightly as the guards finally start eyeing me with a mix of suspicion and awe "That is unless you wish to be entangled with current day politics."

"Call me when you need me." She says with surprising swiftness and moves to rest in the nearby shade.

With a light chuckle I walk on toward a somewhat confused Tiberius "Your lady friend not a fan of big meetings?" He asks conversationally.

"She just doesn't need to get involved more than she already has." I wave off his question and start walking toward the General's tent, the guards parting before us without any complaint.

The first thought that enters my mind as we walk into the tent is 'Damn that is as spartan as can be without looking poor' the second is 'Didn't know Rikke was involved in all this...'

"General." Tiberius offers the middle aged Imperial a crisp salute.

"General Tullius, Rikke." I offer them both a nod of greeting.

The Legate simply nods back but Tullius gives me a deeply scrutinizing once over before finally speaking "Court Mage, we were not expecting you during this campaign..."

Deciding to, for once, not dance around the question I offer my signature smirk "And I wasn't going to join, until I got my hands on some very interesting news about an attack on Helgen's pass."

All weariness disappears from the Imperial General as he straightens up and barely holds himself back from commanding me and instead asks "Would you kindly give us your report?"

"But of course General, I wouldn't be wasting my time here otherwise." And so began the meeting that would lead to Falkreath's fall into the hands of the Empire.

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Halt!

If thou wishes to pass by me

I demand a toll of powerstones three!

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