A Wizards Misadventures

~~Level Seven~~

AN: Stiiiill in writer's block. I got a few thousand words, though! Progress… just not much of it. I really need to just find a few hours to sit down and stare at my computer until something comes of it. I could even do it tonight! … Or I could procrastinate - yeah you know what let's do that.

[|||| =LEVEL 7= ||||]

The north bled. I felt a little bad as I gazed down at the destruction below, Esdeath's professional soldiers rampaging through the capital of the north, but I hadn't helped her much in conquering the city. She'd had a few small groups of soldiers, including one of her three beasts, pierce through enemy lines and sow chaos. Daidara I think the beast's name was? It didn't matter. The soldiers tore through the north's defenses like a boot through a child's sandcastle. Esdeath took out some of the best battlements herself with her teigu, but she didn't need to help much.

It angered me to see a group of laughing soldiers down far below dragging a woman out of a house kicking and screaming. Judging by their pawing at her clothes it was clear what they were going to do to her. I sent a tendril of mind affinity all the way from the top of the castle where I oversaw the city to the woman's mind and dulled her sense of perception as well as weaving a small enchantment to make the effect last for a few days and weaken the memories so she could repress or forget them more easily. She'd be basically drugged so she didn't suffer what the soldiers were going to do to her. Hopefully she'd heal in time.

I repeated the spell over four thousand times before the conquest ended. Esdeath's army numbered about twenty thousand strong, though only twelve were at the capital, the rest sent out to begin assaulting the forts and remaining towns in the north. About four thousand would remain in the north after Esdeath left to maintain order and defend against danger beasts since the northerners army would be destroyed.

Thankfully rape would be outlawed after a few days, when order was restored. An army couldn't antagonize the locals it had conquered too much or they would rebel, no matter how hopeless a rebellion would be. I couldn't solve every problem and I wasn't about to try. I just hoped my presence at the conquest made everything slightly less terrible for the north. At least I didn't have to cast the spell for every man in the army. Some of them didn't care to rape, having wives of their own, and some just didn't care to do so.

It was as the flames over the city burned bright, though not for long with Esdeath around, that the prince retreated with his guard into the castle, ironically in the same throne room Esdeath had been in earlier. I teleported far above the prince and made a tiny ledge of clear ice for me to crouch on as I looked down on him trying to rally his troops into a decent fighting force. With a mirror made of hard light I could even see down the entrance hall to the castle gate.

"Arsan, can you bandage the injuries well enough to get everyone in fighting shape?" A man with golden hair and a white toolbelt shook his head as he bandaged the severed stump of an arm of one of the warriors. The prince sighed and looked towards the door of the castle, beyond which Esdeath was organizing her forces and probably delighting in that she had taken the city.

"Warriors of the north," the prince said ominously. There was a tone of command in his voice as he turned to address the warriors behind him, many of which were wounded and all of which were tired. "We have fallen. The northern clansmen will have our legends ended here." His words cast a darker mood on his speech.

"But do not despair," the Prince said firmly, standing as tall as he could despite a hollowness to his gaze. His ornate spear's butt thudded heavily against the tiled floor of the castle. "For while we will fall, we will not simply lie down and perish. We are warriors each. We stood up against a superior foe and lost, as so many have, but our history has been a long and honorable one. Our future will not be a footnote. It will be an imprint of honor and valor even in the face of defeat. In this single moment we shall burn the brightest of our lives against the dark army of the Empire, for we have little need of our brightness in the worlds beyond. Fight well, my friends, my kinsmen, my family, and rest knowing that you gave all you could."