Hit and Run (Part 3)

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Flying high and really pushing ourselves, we made it to Blackbend City before dawn. Blackbend was a sprawling city built on trade from Darv and Elenoir, but most importantly it was home to a huge number of adventurers. This meant the Adventurers Guild had a strong presence within the city.
According to our prisoner, efforts were being made to pressure the Adventurers Guild leadership into publicly supporting the Vritra. Adventuring was a lucrative, if risky, occupation in Sapin, and the large number of well-trained, independent, powerful mages spread throughout the country was a problem for continued Alacryan rule.
Unfortunately, if Lyra Dreide was telling the truth, the Alacryans had been pretty successful in swaying the guild leaders. Who could have guessed that professional dungeon delvers and monster slayers weren't particularly loyal?
The head of this effort was a Vritra-blooded mage named Haleigh Leech. She was a powerful ascender, whatever that was, who turned politician and crony for the Vritra. Apparently she was pretty good at influencing big dumb men, which I respected, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to kill her.
We stayed high enough to avoid being seen or detected until we were hovering over the Adventurers Guild Hall. It was in a densely populated section of the city, so we would have to be careful about throwing around any really big spells; it wouldn't help anything if we wiped out a bunch of Dicathians taking down one Alacryan.
"Ready?" Varay asked, mana already condensing around her. Aya nodded. I gave her two thumbs up.
Varay's mana swelled as a rough ball of ice condensed in front of her. A moment later, she sent it plummeting like a comet toward the building's roof. We followed in the cold rush of air left in its wake.

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 The comet crashed through the roof, blasted through two floors, and then exploded on the ground level releasing a burst of steaming water that rolled out like a tidal wave, knocking a dozen men out of their bunks. When Varay splashed into the water a second later, she let out a pulse of cold that froze the still rolling wave solid, trapping the men where they lay.
Dicathians, I noted. But all alive.
A group of three unarmored Alacryan mages peaked tentatively over the rim of the broken floorboards. The floorboards beneath them creaked before giving way as I increased the soldiers' weight, causing them to plummet through like they were cast out of iron. The force of the fall was enough to incapacitate them, but they weren't alone.
Mana signatures were moving all over the Guild Hall. Four were coming down the hallway toward us. I prepared to attack as soon as they appeared in the doorway, but the woman who led them wasn't wearing Alacryan clothes.
I held up my hand to stop them. "Go, get out of here!"
When she hesitated, her companions all stacked up in the hallway behind her, I let my intent settle on them. "You don't fight for these people, understand? Especially not against us." That was all it took, and the adventurers broke and fled.
"They seem to be congregating near a strong mana signature in the northeast of the building," Aya noted as she sent out a sweeping blade of wind that sheered through three Alacryan soldiers who had just burst into the room from the other end.
"That must be her," I said.

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Without waiting for confirmation, I shot off in that direction, smashing straight through the walls instead of navigating the winding corridors of the huge building. When I burst suddenly into a brightly lit office, I found myself facing a wall of magical shields.
Swirling wind, blazing flame, solid ice and stone, and translucent, shimmering panels separated me from about twenty soldiers. They were arranged around a muscular blonde woman. Even though it was the early hours of the morning, she was adorned in heavy plate armor that gleamed golden in the bright light. The sides of her head had been shaved to highlight the two jet black horns that grew from her skull.
Wow, she looks like a total badass.
"Hi there," I said, giving the crowd of Alacryan soldiers a little wave. "Haleigh, right?"
"Hold her here," the woman boomed before slipping through a hidden alcove and vanishing.

 A dome of solid stone a foot thick formed over me to deflect the storm of incoming spells, then exploded outward in hundreds of sharp slivers. A few slipped through gaps between the shields to hit the mages behind them, but I didn't need to waste time on swatting individual soldiers.
Dashing sideways, I shouldered through the wall into a narrow hallway before hammering through another and finding myself outside in the street. The big Alacryan woman was sprinting in the other direction, her armored boots clanging off the cobblestones like a forge hammer.
Feeling a little creative, I conjured a simulacrum to guard the hole I'd smashed in the wall—just a rough stone golem about the size of a dwarf, like a giant version of one of my dolls—to keep those mages from pouring out behind me, then raced down the street after Haleigh Leech.

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I wondered what was taking the others so long, but knew that, unless they had run into a Scythe—which they hadn't, because I would have felt it immediately—they weren't in immediate danger.
Taking up my mace, I hurled it at the retreating Alacryan's back. A shadow seemed to step out of her body and grab the weapon out of the air before it could reach her. The shadow spun the mace, clearly preparing to throw it back at me.
"Hey, that's mine!" I shouted.
Manipulating gravity around the mace, I made it so heavy it ripped free of the shadow's grip and crashed to the ground, breaking the stones and sinking a few inches into the road. The shadow popped like a bubble and vanished just as my target turned onto another street and I lost sight of her.
I took flight, moving low over the road and snagging my weapon as I shot past. When I banked sharply around the corner, I was once again face to face with a wall of shields protecting rows of Alacryan soldiers, with Haleigh Leech standing behind them.
"Déjà vu," I said as I floated to a stop. "Are you just pulling these guys out of your pockets or what?"
"We're more than ready to deal with a few rebels," she boomed, her deep voice resounding from the nearest buildings. "The war is over, general. You've already lost."
A door opened to my right and a man dressed like an adventurer stepped out. He had his weapon in hand and was staring angrily at the Alacryans. Door after door opened and several more Dicathians followed.

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Haleigh Leech glared around at them. "Return to your homes, civilians! Anyone who resists will be executed immediately."

 Seeing the people willing to stand up to the Alacryans was exactly what we were doing this for. The Lances were formed to be a symbol of strength to the Dicathian people, and that's what we intended to be.
But after this woman was dead, we'd be back on the run. Anyone who raised weapons against the Alacryans would probably be killed, and instead of hope there would be despair, anger, and lingering resentment. It wasn't time for them to fight back, just to know that the Lances were still out there, fighting for them.
"You heard the demon lady," I shouted. "Back into your homes, if you please. Let the Lances do the fighting today."
There was some hesitation, a few confused looks, but no one disobeyed, and slowly they retreated back to their homes, though I could still see plenty of faces peering out at us from behind windows or between shutters.
"Where were we?" I asked, turning my focus back to the Alacryans. "Oh, right, I was about to kill you all."
 

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