The Foolhardies 16 Enemy at the Gates

Edo, however, declined this boon despite having been part of the Azuma suppression team. I wasn't sure why, but I got the impression he didn't want his fairy powers to grow any stronger.

The rest of my unit's surviving thirty-eight members were also rewarded for their service with a hefty bonus of fifty gold leprechaun coins each. In human terms that would be somewhere around two thousand US dollars. Yep, it paid well to be soldiers in the Trickster Pavilion.

If you asked me, I'd say it wasn't enough. After all, out of the original hundred-man unit, with two nights' worth of intense battles, less than half had survived. From my point of view, these soldiers were now elites.

There were a few other special rewards. Qwipps Daggerby received a new pair of steel-ranked shadowblade short-swords and Varda Coldstone got a new chain-mail shirt courtesy of the fine dwarven smiths of Fort Darah.

This same night, a week after the battle to defend the hilltop, Great General Darah announced to the soldiers of Roselle's former unit that I would officially become their new Hundred-Man Commander. There was quite a lot of cheering after this announcement that left me blushing like a kid with a schoolboy crush. Even the Fort Darah knights joined in the clapping. Then Darah revealed the name she'd picked for our unit and the enthusiasm died down almost immediately.

Commander Vardoom laughed out loud at hearing this and pronounced the name stupid in an equally booming voice. Then he teased his niece about wanting to stick with the unit that had such a dumb name, and it wasn't until Commander Thors pointed out that it was Great General Darah who thought it up that Commander Vardoom finally shut his lid.

It was entertaining to watch a Five-Thousand-Man Commander get trounced by the general with a single punch.

After the entertainment ended and no one else questioned Darah's unique naming sense, she announced something else that caught me off guard. Apparently, as my unit was rebuilding, she gave the veteran soldiers the option to leave it and join a different unit under her command.

"I'd rather you rebuild your unit from the ground up than have soldiers under you who won't listen to your orders," she said this to me right before I could protest her decision to take away my warriors.

True enough, there was a sizable chunk of fairies, mostly elves, who chose to switch teams. They had nothing against me, they insisted. I was a great guy, funny kid, noble warrior, or some other platitude. However, they just didn't think a human could lead them well enough. Last week was a one-time thing.

Aura gave me an apologetic look after the mass exodus of fifteen elves meant my unit was down to twenty-three.

Thankfully—or maybe not, I couldn't really tell—both Qwipps and Varda stayed on for two completely different yet similar sounding reasons.

"Is there another desperate sucker who will name me an officer in their unit?" Qwipps asked, sighing like he didn't think he had to explain this.

Varda's reason was just as hilariously selfish, but at least she had the decency to look happy when she said, "Who else will let me try all the crazy arcane experiments I want to do? Besides, your base understanding of how things work means you can help me plan new experiments!"

And so, I was able to keep two experienced officers to go along with my three new officers. Luca and Aura who would be my lieutenants, and Edo who would take up the role of a drill sergeant, besides being Aura's bodyguard.

Pike and the rest of Qwipps' men also stayed on. And while the other five were obviously friends with Qwipps, the side glances Pike sent Luca told me she might have had a different reason for wanting to stay.

Three nights after our unit finished its restructure, Great General Darah sent me and my officers on our very first official mission while in command. This was to find new recruits to fill our roster, and there was only one place to do that if you wanted your own men and not those provided by the clan—that place was Broken Sellsword's Canyon deep in the neutral territory of Westersand Desert under the control of the powerful, impartial clan of Lover's Embrace.

It was just before midnight when we arrived at the canyon entrance. A little ways ahead of us stood two sixty-foot-tall iron front gates wedged between unscalable hundred-foot cliffs the color of red sandstone. These cliffs stretched out for a good three miles on either side, giving off the impression of an impregnable earthen fortress growing out of the craggy barren plains that marked the beginning of Westersand Desert which was directly south of the Calmlands.

"And aunt Lena really said that the doctors think mom was getting better?" Luca asked me for the umpteenth time as we walked the famous sandy road leading into the gates.

There were five of us, Edo, Varda, Luca, Aura, and myself wearing nondescript brown cloaks and hoods over our heads while we joined the line to get into Broken Sellsword's Canyon, the second-largest city in Westersand Desert. It was a long queue that gave Luca enough time to pester me about Mudgard, making me wish I'd left him with Qwipps who I'd given the unenviable task of staying behind to take care of the unit at Fort Darah. I hadn't forgotten that he'd sold me out to Commander Vardoom.

"Yes, that's what she said," I answered for the nth time. "The doctors think mom's starting to come around."

I glanced sideways at Luca and saw the furrowed brow that was way too serious to be on a fourteen-year-old's face. Luca blamed himself for mom's deep dive into mental illness, not that it was really his fault. But the kid felt responsible despite me saying so.

I patted him on the back reassuringly. "She'll be up and joking about wanting to cut your long hair by the time you get to go home."

I turned my gaze on Aura who also had a frown on her beautiful face while she listened to Luca's brooding. Her mask was hidden in the satchel she carried. It wouldn't do to wear a golden mask in a city like Sellsword's as it would only attract the wrong crowd.

Aura didn't think my mom was getting better at all. She even admitted to me that she believed mom was getting worse, and she didn't know why.

Even though it wasn't part of our agreement, Aura sent some of the clan healers to help mom recover but all their attempts were nothing more than temporary measures. Mom always devolved back to the catatonic state I'd found her in, and no one, not the human doctors or the fairy healers, could tell us why.

Between the two of them brooding away like that, this side quest wasn't turning out to be the fun field trip I envisioned it would be. The only ones who seemed to enjoy themselves were Varda and Edo who were both enjoying a game of fairy-watching.

Basically, they picked random people in the long line to the city gates and made up stories about them. These stories started out fairly tame, like when Varda pointed at a gruff-looking troll with a wooden cart's ropes hoisted onto his back harness like he was his own pack-horse and said the troll was a trader looking to sell exotic products from the Gemsea. These tall tales eventually got taller and taller, turning into fantastic tales of dragon-slaying errant knights on secret quests or fairy princesses running away from their cruel clan patriarchs who wanted to marry them off to a rival clan's heir.

I had just about rolled my eyes on that last one when Edo pointed to a group of black-hooded people who had just left the city's great iron gates and said they were thieves.

At this point, we were near enough now in the line that we could see the intricate designs pounded on the thirty-foot-tall iron front gates, as well as the stone-cut carvings on the surface of the two canyon walls on either side of the gate. These giant carvings were depictions of human slaves carrying heavy loads under the scrutiny of their fairy masters.

It was certifiably disturbing and an all too familiar sight for me and Luca.

Four people dressed all in black cloaks and hoods were making their way quickly through the exiting crowd and didn't really care that they were roughly pushing the people in line out of their way. Meanwhile, several gongs boomed from inside the gates that sounded suspiciously like they were an alarm of some kind.

"Told you," Edo said smugly.

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Varda shook her head. "You're supposed to make their backgrounds up, Edo! Not actually guess who they are..."

I didn't think that was the problem she needed to point out as these four black hooded figures were very close to us now, and a little ways behind them were a small group of armed fairies wearing the orange tabards of the city guard. They were obviously giving chase to the four hooded figures before us.

Edo raised his glaive's steel pole and planted it down hard in front of Aura in a thou-shall-not-pass sort of vibe.

Seeing this giant obstruction, the four hooded figures gave the bare-chested half-ogre a wide birth. And it seemed like they were about to pass us without causing trouble when, with no prompting, Luca jumped in their way with his broadsword raised.

I slapped my forehead in annoyance because I'd forgotten that Luca was such a goody-goody-two-shoes. I may be the one with short hair like Captain America, but Luca lived by the same code as the superhero he idolized.

This meant that I, being the big brother, was always getting into fights to help my saint of a little brother out of whatever trouble he got himself into in the name of fair play. It was exactly the same case now as I drew my falchion from its sheathe and charged forward.

Chapter end