Glass of Revenge

~23~

Lyria groaned to herself in disbelief as the first of Adarlan's lords returned to the capital, their forces with them. She was furious with the amount of time it had taken them to raise their armies so far, absolutely enraged. Not only was she livid about the amount of time it had taken them to raise their soldiers, but she was infuriated about just how few men there were in the lords' armies.

How did they honestly expect her to invade Terrasen – and win a war – with only barely three thousand men? Because if the rate of soldiers pouring into the city held steady, that's what the total number of soldiers would add up to, if you could even call them that. She would have been highly surprised if half of them were even trained.

But after she had a chance to thought about, while waiting for more lords to bring their forces to Rifthold, she decided that any surviving soldiers Adarlan had would have had to be rather hardy indeed in order to have survived that last war with the Valg.

What worried Lyria still was the fact that she literally had no idea what sort of conditions, or the numbers they would facing once they reached Terrasen's borders. Lyria suspected though, that Terrasen would actually have very few soldiers as it hadn't had a standing army since Adarlan had invaded twelve years before.

Lyria smirked at the mere thought. When it came down to it, the last King of Adarlan had done the good and proper thing in conquering Terrasen the way he had. She hated the thought of the fire-breathing bitch winning the kingdom's freedom back during the Valg war. All Lyria was doing was re-conquering Terrasen in the name of the glory of Adarlan.

"When do you foresee us marching north?" one of Adarlan's southern lords enquired of her the day after his return to the capital.

"As soon as the rest of the lords arrive, along with their forces," Lyria replied simply. She didn't know the lord's name. Had never cared to learn it nor bothered to learn it. She certainly wasn't going to stoop to learning it now. What a waste of time that would be.

"I don't believe they'll be arriving any time soon," the lord told, looking unbearably anxious. As he surely had good reason to be nervous, especially after Lyria and Dorian had so callously murdered Lord Westfall.

"Oh? And why not?" Lyria questioned, a deceptively sweetly innocent tone to her voice all of a sudden.

"Because all of us southern lords have been discussing among ourselves whether or not to gather our forces," the lord said quietly, nervous as all. "As you can see, some of us thought that it was worth the risk to not raise our forces, while some of us were too scared of you not to."

"Why on earth would any of you be scared of little old me?" Lyria asked, sounding genuine shocked for the first time.

"Because you are one genuinely terrifying woman," the lord said. By now he was wishing he were anywhere but here. Was wondering why he had even bothered pausing to speak to her.

"Before I have you killed for your insubordinance," Lyria said coldly, "you had better give me one extremely compelling reason not to slaughter you and your forces where you stand."

"Because you need my soldiers and myself," he said firmly, with a confidence that he sure as hell did not feel. "You won't have a single chance of conquering Terrasen without us if you kill us. And you don't have the time to drag our army around the country to wrest the control of the rest of Adarlan's forces from the southern lords."

"That may or may not be true," Lyria said coolly, her magic ready to strike the man down if necessary, but what about Adarlan's northern lords? Would their forces be more useful to me? It would certainly be more convenient for me, as their keeps, their territories, are that much closer to the Adarlanian-Terrasenite border."