Chương 62: Chapter Sixty Two

"Well, that isn't ideal," Yelena grunted as she stared down at the bolt jutting out of her abdomen, ignoring the cries of her guards as they too noticed the wound. The damn thing had somehow gone right through her steel cuirass and the enchantments layered over that steel. Kraken-bolts, she thought dimly. Well, that would explain why Meave's invisibility failed during that first engagement.

Sure, the anti-magic field put out by Kraken scales tended to diminish greatly if one powdered it before applying it to a bolt, but it didn't disappear entirely. Even a near miss could still disrupt an enemy's defensive enchantments or their spell casting. Whoever had shot her hadn't missed. Sighing, she slowly allowed herself to slide down the wall she'd been taking cover against, her descent slowed by the hands of one of her guards as they sought to keep her from jostling herself unnecessarily.

The others continued to focus on exchanging fire down the hall with the band of attackers that had cornered them in this collection of rooms.

"I do believe our enemy has rather given up on their plans to take me alive," she hissed as she looked up at the head of her palace guard – the other woman's face twisted into a deep frown.

"That does seems to be the case, your majesty," Meave said as she inspected the wound. Around them, the sounds of combat continued to ring out as her people continued exchanging spells and bolts with the invaders. They'd been forced all the way back to the labs, and as such, just about every shot and spell was accompanied by the sound of glass shattering and the acrid stink of spilled chemicals.

A fairly volatile environment to be fighting in to be sure, she thought idly as she wrinkled her nose, before wincing as a strong hand promptly ripped the bolt from her side while another shoved a flask full of something even more foul smelling in front of her lips. Nonetheless, she drank deeply of the substance, ignoring the foul taste and texture of it as it slid down her throat.

Fortunately, the unpleasantness of the experience was at the very least offset by the sudden absence of pain from her side, as the healing drought did its work. Grunting, she accepted her guard's outstretched arm as she once more clambered to her feet.

"Any chance of a breakout?" she hissed. Her and her palace guard had been in the process of evacuating researchers and destroying documents in the Palace's subterraneans labs when the enemy attacked. Well, that and setting up her surprise. Unfortunately, enemy's invisible troops managed to get the drop on her own – followed immediately after by their kraken bolt wielding companions. How they'd gotten down here so fast, she didn't know, but she assumed they'd likely tunneled in using magic ahead of the main force.

From there it had been a running battle through the palace's sub levels. Corridor after corridor. Room after room. Falling back. All made more difficult by the gaggle of non-combatants we're being forced to shepherd, she thought as she glanced back at the gaggle of enchanters, alchemists and spell-smiths now cowering in the far corner of the room. Non-combatants, that by conventional logic, should have already been evacuated… but for the question of where they might have been evacuated to. This was her palace.

Theoretically this was the most secure location on the continent. At least, until about an hour ago. Now… well, they'd probably be safer out on the streets – even with half the city on fire and ships raining from the skies. Even the command bunker wasn't safe, given the last radio message they'd received had reported that they were under siege. And if those attackers were on the same level as the ones her people were fighting now…

Well, she didn't hold high hopes for the small contingent of her guard she'd left behind holding out long. Void, this really was a shitshow.

"Unlikely," Meave continued, heaping more bad news on her.

"Most everyone is out of spells. I've only got two people with invisibility still intact because of the kraken rounds they're using. Plus, we've got a lot of minor and major wounds adding up. Against a less competent foe, I'd wager our odds, but not these."

"Yes, our enemy is annoyingly competent, aren't they?" Yelena muttered. If nothing else, the Khanate had invested a lot into this attack. Not just in ships, but in personnel. These were veteran troops who'd likely been plucked right off the front line of the elven war. … More than a match for her well trained but ultimately relatively green palace guard. Well, at least now I know who my enemy is, she thought as she regarded a nearby corpse.

The fallen woman was a dark elf, her dark complexion oddly peaceful in death. Which meant that she likely hailed from the Lunite Khanate. … Unless the Solites were being clever by trying to make them think that they were Lunites. After all, both the Lunites and Solites had minority populations of high elves and dark elves respectively. It wasn't as if they couldn't pull off a false-flag using their minority membership – though Yelena considered it unlikely given the scale of this attack.

Ultimately, she supposed it made no difference right now. The racial makeup of her current foe didn't really change the fact that they had her and her people cornered. Well, mostly cornered, she thought as she glanced around the room. While, she'd not had much choice in being cut off from their escape and cornered down here, she'd still had the initiative to choose where that cornering took place as they fell back from the stairs.

And while the testing range was hardly ideal from a defensive point of view, it was built a lot tougher than the rest of the subterraneans labs. More to the point, it had some rather heavy duty metal doors – intended to protect the rest of the labs from any explosions that might occur in the testing area. Or, theoretically, could serve to protect the contents of the testing area from an explosion occurring outside said set of rooms. Theoretically. Because it sure as shit wasn't designed to contain…

however large this explosion is going to be, Yelena thought crassly. After all, she'd had her people churning out as much Kraken Slayer Powder as they conceivably could down here. So there were a lot of barrels strewn about the place. Barrels she'd had her people, knocking over and spreading out as best they could throughout their fighting retreating.

Void, down the hallway, she could see one of an enemy combatant using one such fallen barrel for cover, as she popped out to fire off a series of bolts, heedless of the black powder that was spilling from it. The sight was actually a little comical. How close the woman was to death without knowing it. At any moment, an errant spark could have set it all off, killing them all. Hence her current ban on lightning or fire based spells. A ruling the enemy were unconsciously playing along with.

Likely because they were afraid of unduly damaging any documents that had survived her people's own efforts to deny the enemy information. As Yelena had hoped they would. It had been a little reckless of her, but she'd been desperate. And as a certain madman had proven, sometimes a little recklessness could pay dividends. Still, as she watched another of her personal guard do down, clutching at a bolt in her shoulder, the sovereign sighed.

"I was rather hoping we'd get relieved before I had to resort to this, but I don't think help will be arriving in time," she grunted.

"Meave, get the girls ready to seal the doors." Whatever garrisons had been redirected to the palace had clearly been stymied by their attacker's compatriots upstairs. The other woman winced, but didn't argue as she set about setting up covering fire so that a few of her people could hop out long enough to close the testing area doors. For her part, Yelena started chanting. Timing is going to be pretty critical here, she thought.... She'd really wanted to do this from outside the palace.

"Move. Move!" Cynthia barked, her voice cutting through the din of thudding boots on stone. The dim glow of her shoulder mounted magelight cast flickering shadows along the brass-riveted walls of the lab there initial tunnel had breached into – and were now returning through. Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. Stopping in front of the peculiarly organic looking tunnel leading up to the surface, she turned to allow the Kranka siblings to pass.

The two orcs thundered past, their massive frames barely squeezing into the confined passage. As they did, one of them - Krog, she thought - misjudged her step, jostling the gagged and blindfolded woman slung over her shoulder. The researcher's skull smacked against the tunnel's low stone entracce with a dull thud.

"Careful with that, you ingrate!" Cynthia snapped, eyes flashing. Krog merely grunted as he ducked fully into the tunnel.

"S'not like we won't have spares soon. Queen's cornered." The dark elf hissed. This was why she despised mercenaries. No discipline. No sense of duty. Performing the bare minimum to earn their pay. Unfortunately, even dark elves - superior to all other races in every meaningful way - had their limitations. One of those was when it came to hauling heavy cargo. To that end, if a mission involved a snatch and grab, it paid to have an orc or two on hand.

Their presence would also serve to help obfuscate the task force's true origins.

"We don't know that," Cynthia hissed, her voice echoing up the tunnel the orc had just gone down.

"Anything might happen. Which is why we're taking these ones up in advance." After all, according to her ear-orb, the fleet had already faced an unexpected setback since Cynthia and her fellow commandos had tunneled into the Palace's sub-levels. A swarm of forty shards had seemingly materialized out of thin air to ambush the fleet. An unwelcome surprise after they had already dealt with the capital's primary defenses.

One compounded by said shards packing weapons apparently capable of crippling an undership in a single volley. The academy attack was now a wash, with the commandos there left stranded on the ground after the orcish element of the fleet there chose that moment to stab the remaining ships in the back. No doubt an infuriating state of events for Admiral Korenz, but one that Cynthia was listening to with only half an ear given that it had little do with her own mission.

As a woman who was well used to the more cloak and dagger side of war, the dark elf was used to local elements acting out with… unfortunate timing. Unfortunately, these new shards did affect her mission, given she could hardly evac with the Kraken Slayer's secrets if the fleet elements over the palace suffered a similar fate to those over the academy. To that end, she'd been asking for updates from the team's orb-operator aboard the command ship.

The latest of which told her that the current consensus of the surface fleet was that some nearby noble house had been used as a rallying point for a collection of prototype shards – who were then given access to said house's entire enchanted weapon stockpile. Cynthia suspected otherwise. As one of the commandos involved in the palace assault, she knew the true objective of their mission - and its theoretical capabilities.

Whatever those shards had been armed with, it was likely related to the contents of the barrel her people were now dragging towards the tunnel. How the Black Powder within could be used to destroy a ship in a single volley, she didn't know, but that wasn't her job. Her job was to get it back to the Khanate and into the hands of someone who could figure out that process.

"Move it, people!" Cynthia roared at the barrel-hauling quartet, her patience thinning with every sluggish step.

"Bleh, this slag is heavy," one of the women griped, grunting under the weight.

"Why bring orcs if not for this?" Cynthia opened her mouth to snap a reply - but the words never left her lips. A roar. Not of mortals, nor beasts, but something far worse. The loudest, most guttural detonation she had ever heard tore through the corridor, shaking the very bones of the palace. A fireball raced toward them, its heat distorting the air, its light casting jagged shadows across the tunnel walls. Cynthia didn't hesitate. Didn't think.

Her lips moved faster than conscious thought, barking out the syllables of an earth spell chant as she dove back into the tunnel. The moment she cleared the threshold, she thrust her hands forward - fingers sparking with latent energy - the tunnel collapsed in a roar of pulverized stone and shrieking metal. Her last sight of her team was them desperately running towards her. Barely a second later, the explosive force slammed into the newly formed 'wall' like a hammer.

Dust and heat washed over her, and for a terrible moment, she feared the tunnel would collapse in on her. But the reinforced enchantments held. She coughed, rolling onto her side, ignoring the bruises screaming across her ribs. It seemed the Queen had blown herself up, trying to deny her the prize. Cynthia scowled. Likely using the same means as her team had been here to secure.

Still, if nothing else, she could take solace in the fact that the venomous bitch leading the other side had died alongside her companions. Hopefully, taking any knowledge of the means she'd used to so with her. Because, as she fumbled for her flask, flipping the cap open just enough to check the contents, that would mean the only means of recreating that weapon now lay in the hands of the Lunite Khanate. The black powder within the flask was intact, almost innocuous in its simplicity.

With a sigh of relief, she pressed two fingers to her ear, where her comms orb had jostled loose in the blast. A tinny, static-laced voice crackled through: "Lieutenant? Lieutenant!? What in the void is going on down there? Half the palace is just… gone. Collapsed in on itself."

"This is Sergeant Lamorn. Enemy somehow managed to blow the entire sub-level," Cynthia rasped, forcing herself to sit up.

"Assume the lieutenant and the rest of the strike team is KIA at this time." The woman on the other end of the line paused for a second, before speaking.

"And the objective?"

"The two researchers we snagged were dispatched in advance. The orcs carrying them should be exiting the tunnel shortly. I'll be following with a flask-sized sample of the payload." A pause. Then, the voice returned, sharper now, urgent.

"Confirmed. Hurry. Admiral Kozensky wants to leave now. As of this moment, we have no shard cover and there's every chance a new wave of prototypes may return with more anti-ship armaments. As it is, we're being strafed by the enemy elements that remains." Cynthia frowned. While Bolt-cannon fire wasn't particularly effective against airships, it could still punch holes in exterior aether tanks, piping, propellers or members of the crew.

More to the point, without friendly air cover, the only threat to said attacking shards would come from the ship's deck mounted swivel guns. Which… while better than nothing, were not particularly effective as anti-air weapons. Cynthia exhaled through her teeth, the taste of blood on her tongue from where she'd bitten her lip.

"Confirmed," she grunted.

"Moving now." She staggered upright, she forced herself forward, pain be damned. There was no time to waste.

William stood at the back of the bridge, determined trying not to fidget as the orb operator relayed the latest reports from the capital. Things had been going well right up until their link to the palace command center had been cut off, the last transmission drowned out by a thunderous, bone-rattling explosion. That in itself would have been bad enough, as they'd initially assumed that command bunker had finally been stormed by the attackers.

Unfortunately, the reality was proving to be far worse as the Jellyfish's radio operator relayed the observations of the shards in the area.

"Observing elements of Wave Two report that… some kind of explosion has destroyed large swathes of the palace grounds and structure and that much of the area has collapsed in on itself." The realization of what that meant settled over the bridge like a funeral shroud. The low hum of machinery and the rhythmic ticking of the bridge's chronometers were the only sounds accompanying the heavy silence. William took a breath. Even as the captain spoke firmly.

"Keep trying to raise command," he ordered, forcing his jaw to unclench.

"And send a warning to the Academy. The enemy might have deployed some kind of… superweapon. If they used it on the Palace, it's possible they may attempt the same there." William, his fingers drumming the brass surface of the navigation rail, resisted the urge to shake his head even as the Jellyfish's orb operator moved to obey. He had a different theory altogether. This hadn't been enemy action. At least, likely not intentionally.

If he was right, he had just discovered where she had been developing her own variant of gunpowder. The only question now was whether the detonation had been caused by her or the enemy. His frown deepened as additional reports filtered in through the orb-linked communicators, chronicling the sheer scale of the destruction the palace had just gone through, each one further darkening the storm brewing in his mind.

What was worse was that there was a decent chance he would never get the answer to who, where or why it happened. Because there was a decent chance that anyone capable of answering that question was now dead. Including Yelena herself. The thought sent a strange, hollow sensation through his chest. Indeed, the entire mood of the bridge shifted had, the weight of that realization pressing down on everyone. If Yelena was truly gone, then the civil war had just swung wildly in Blackstone's favor.

Sure, Princess Palmer, at least, was safe. She was far to the South, treating with the Southern Duchies in a vain attempt to mediate the Summerfield succession. But once she returned to claim the throne… The North would be waiting. They would weaponize everything - the attack on the capital, her tenuous legitimacy as a newly crowned monarch, and the fact that the royal vassal fleet had been all but annihilated by what were outwardly little more than pirates with a clever trick. And if the North attacked?

Well, even if the Royal Navy still remained intact, the fact remained that the loyalists had been dealt a devastating blow to their military capability tonight. By just ten ships! He resisted the urge to bite down on his lip. Because given the right political maneuvering, it was not impossible that either Lady Southshore or the regent of Lady Summerfield could be persuaded to turn coat, siding with the North in a vote of no confidence against the new monarch. And there'd be sweet fuck all he could do about that…

William exhaled slowly, forcing his thoughts into order. You better be alive down there Yelena, he thought. I… really can't do this without you. It was an uncharacteristic expression of weakness, even within the confines of his own mind, but it was the truth. He needed Yelena alive! Then, as if the universe had heard him, the orb operator suddenly straightened.

"Report from Lady Yelena herself!" the operator's voice was breathless, fingers pressing tightly to the glassy sphere.

"She's buried under a few tons of rubble… but alive." A ripple of relief surged through the bridge. Some of the tension lifted. A few cheers even broke out. They died just as quickly as the operator continued.

"She reports that the enemy may have escaped the palace grounds with classified intel! Orders are that they must be stopped. At all costs. Repeats - at all costs. That intel must not escape." The moment those words left her lips, William's blood ran cold. They had the Kraken Slayer. Relief was immediately overshadowed by the sheer gravity of the situation. The radio officer stiffened.

"New report from Wave Two Squadron Leader! Enemy airships are changing course - they're splitting up!" William's jaw tightened. Damn it. They were playing a shell game now.

"Did anyone see which ship onloaded troops from the palace?" he snapped, uncaring of the fact that he wasn't supposed to 'interrupt' the operation of the bridge. The response was immediate anyway.

"Negative, Lord Redwater. Too much smoke at low altitude." His fingers curled into a fist. Not that it mattered. Even if they had seen, a mage equipped with a maneuver-suit could have swapped vessels mid-air. And the fleet above the palace had been flying in tight formation to ward against shard strikes. That meant only one thing. None of those ships could be allowed to escape. Not if they had the secret of gunpowder on board.

"Any news from the Royal Fleet?" William asked, voice low, uncaring of the glare the captain was sending him. The second radio officer shook her head.

"Still two hours out. Shard elements may arrive in less than an hour though. Though we have no way of communicating with them as they have not had radios installed." William exhaled sharply through his nose. Too slow.

"Status of Wave One rearmament?"

"Should be combat-ready in under three minutes." Three minutes. That was all the enemy needed to break contact and disappear into the darkness beyond the city. And once they cleared visual range, they would submerge, slipping into the inky depths. Where, by conventional logic, they'd be protected from enemy reprisal as they made the return journey to the continent. …Fortunately for him and unfortunately for them, Willaim had never much cared for conventional logic.

"Belay the launch order." A murmur of confusion swept through the bridge crew. William didn't elaborate. He was already turning on his heel, marching toward the hangars.

"Lord Redwater?" He didn't stop.

"Get us closer to the city now that the enemy is fleeing. We need to shorten the launch and engagement window." Sure, he was taking a bit of a risk if the enemy decided to double back rather than flee, but he could live with that. The Jellyfish might have been a bit lacking in the armament department now that it had been converted into a full carrier rather than a hybrid – but it was still perfectly capable of pulling off a ramming maneuver if need be.

It might not have had the firepower to down one of those underships, but it definitely had the mass.