“It would certainly facilitate movement of equipment and resources around out of the range of our weapons,” Grob observed. “Although I’d have thought they could have built the road a bit closer.”
“Melona,” Dashgar said. “Since you have the Eye of Krinna open near the camps, can we try to do some recon, get troop counts, equipment? I know the tarps are a problem, and may in fact be misleading, but whatever information we can gather will be useful.”
“Certainly.” Melona smiled.
“I trust you are settled into your compartment?” Chancellor Alighieri asked Melissance and her very charming escort as they entered the bridge.
“We are, thank you!” Melissance smiled at him in a truly fetching manner.
“I am so sorry that we did not have two separate rooms available. You are certain your husband will not mind the two of you sharing such close quarters?” the chancellor asked.
Salvatore smiled radiantly. “They are separate bunks, and no offense, but I am sure my lord Hesseforthalus will be most appreciative of my close watch of his beloved soulmate.”
The chancellor nodded. While the woman was incredibly attractive, one would have to be truly insane to even contemplate cuckolding an archdemon. Are angels, or former angels, even able to deflower maidens? Dante suddenly wondered. Are they not purely spiritual beings? Perhaps that was why Hesseforthalus did not object to their close quarters.
“So, you say you have some manner of locating Talarius?” Sir Samwell suddenly interrupted Dante’s thoughts.
Melissance glanced at Sir Samwell and then to the others on the bridge. “Indeed,” she said, smiling beguilingly as she lifted a small velvet pouch in her right hand.
“What is that?” Sir Samwell asked skeptically.
Melissance reached into the pouch and pulled forth a golden locket. “My Gifting locket: the everlasting symbol of Talarius’s love and devotion to me.”
Dante noted that the other Knights Rampant suddenly looked a bit uncomfortable at this. Dante was not familiar with Etonian “gifting,” but he assumed it was some form of promissory collateral.
“I have not attempted to pursue the link upon it which once bound us,” Melissance said. “However, even if severed, I should think a skilled wizard could leverage the Law of Contagion to repair and recreate the linkage. Unfortunately, it is not something that I can do with my limited resources here in the Abyss.”
Dante smiled warmly. Melissance was as intelligent as she was beautiful. “You are absolutely correct, my lady! I should think we shall be able to recreate the linkage within a few days, even if it has been severed!”
“Excellent! I shall eagerly await reports of your success.” Melissance placed the locket back within the pouch and handed it to Dante.
Beragamos Antidellas stood at a window in one of the higher inner towers, peering out at the atunset. He’d had to pull a fair amount of Unnoticing to get here. As one would expect, this location was not open to the general public. He was dressed as a Brother of Tiernon and was carrying a large portfolio of papers, posing as clerk in the bureaucracy. That and surreptitious Unnoticings — an invisibility ritual would have gotten noticed way too easily — had gotten him to a spot from which he could observe the assembled forces.
The drawbridges had only been up about an hour and already the advanced parties of Unlife were entering the outskirts — more a collection of villages — around the Citadel. In the sky, Storm Lords on ice dragons, as well as other riders on an assortment of other Unlife creatures, patrolled over the encroaching army.
Beragamos shook his head. This was a very odd siege. It was extremely orderly, and no one was rushing to attack the other side. The aerial Unlife were not yet seeking to fly over the Citadel with attacks, nor were the forces within the Citadel doing anything to impede the setting up of the Unlife camp. No sorties, no poking at the incoming forces with mad dashes for the drawbridge at the last moment.
Of course, given the seriously unprecedented level of avatar support inside the Citadel, Dashgar and the rest might be purposefully allowing the besieging army time to get set up. Allowing them to become entrenched targets to be blasted in wide swathes of Heavenly Light. Certainly the Unlife could not be expecting that surprise.
He had been rather shocked at how many avatars had shown up. Dashgar and Inethya had clearly outdone themselves in getting support. Sentir Fallon’s reticence at sending in avatars had apparently created quite a bit of frustration among not only among Tiernon’s and Torean’s forces, but the others as well.
Traditionally, one would send in several ground-level saints, not the Attending Archons and prophets. This was an incredible amount of firepower. It should be a major victory for the Light, one that should please Tiernon and all of the Siblings. Yet Beragamos found himself frowning; something did not seem right. He could not say what was wrong, other than everything seemed extremely off.
“That is the last of the land-based beacons,” Ramses told Exador as one of his demons secured the nearest beacon in place.
“Good,” Exador replied, looking at his map under a small ball of Demon Fire. “The ships with beacons should also be in place. I will head out to them and run final tests on the aligning mechanism.”
“I’ll stay with the land beacons in case I need to adjust any settings with the drift compensating mechanisms with the beacons on the shore,” Ramses said.
“Hopefully, the other ships will be able to keep any of Namora’s priests outside the range of the beacon ships. The last thing we need is to have giant waves shoving the beacon ships out of position,” Exador said. “They’ve got every single sorcerer and aquamancer on the ships working to keep them in position.”
“Good. I will also double-check the links to our demon agents guarding the beacons on land, if you will take care of those at sea,” Ramses said.
“I will. I’ve placed some of my brighter demons on the ships. Defending a beacon on a ship is a bit trickier than one on land,” Exador said.
“Fortunately, if things do go badly for our demons, they will be able to simply fly outside the perimeter and return to the Abyss. We have lost so many mortal forces that we can’t afford to lose demonic ones as well,” Ramses said.
“You really are not going to let that incident and Lenamare’s school go, are you?” Exador asked, shaking his head.
Ramses chuckled. “Nope. Not for another few centuries, at least.” He glanced up into the night sky. “Don’t look now, but here comes Daerth Tromlane.”
“I am sure the Thirteen are anxious to begin.” Exador shrugged.
They waited quietly as Daerth Tromlane landed his massive — well, Exador wasn’t quite sure what he was riding. It was some form of dragon; it did not, however, look like a zombie dragon. The best guess he and Ramses had come up with was that it was a lich dragon; however, neither had ever heard of such a thing.
Daerth Tromlane came over to them, the red embers of his eyes smoldering through the openings in his golden helmet. Exador once again noted that all one could see within the inky blackness of the helmet were the glowing eyes; there was no sign of flesh within the helmet.