Henry had geared up for round two, and three, and four, and so on, but nothing ever happened. Lucan, to his credit, had wisely opted to stay away from Sera and Alpha Team, doing their own thing while waiting for the intel. Henry reciprocated, limiting his interactions with Sir Dickhead until it came time to divulge the fruits of Armstrong’s ISR efforts with the Guildmaster’s board.
And that was a whole other can of worms. Hell, where could he even start?
That weird-ass structure the dwarves had flagged, for one. The fact that it didn’t match the original architecture was suspicious enough on its own, but now Armstrong had given him numbers to back up that odd vibe.
Armstrong’s thermal scans had shown the building running fifteen to twenty degrees hotter than anything around it, which would’ve made sense if there was a forge inside – but the lack of proper ventilation suggested there wasn’t. And in four hours of surveillance, not a single person had gone in or out, which ruled out any normal industrial explanation. The mana reading was the clincher: over fifteen thousand milligauss. Background levels in these mountains ran high, but that kind of output meant active magic, Tier 9 minimum.
Someone was doing something serious in there, and they were doing it without any visible human traffic.
What else could it be but a Rune System? Nothing else fit the energy signature – nothing they knew of thus far, but still. And if the Nobians had figured out how to run a full C2 node, that explained a lot about why the goblins had gotten their act together so fast.
The upside was that C2 nodes were inherently fragile. Kill the building, and the whole system might collapse with it. The problem was that the building sat inside Velkrath, and Velkrath was off-limits. The Council wanted their mithrite and their forges back intact, which meant they weren’t going to sign off on a bombing run just because Henry had a theory about Nobian mind control. Even then – especially then – they’d want to preserve the structure. Hard to sell a casus belli without the evidence that the Nobians had sicced monsters on Ovinnegard.
That left Korth Varren and the supply convoy. Both were viable, both actually hittable. The observation post had to go first, of course; any ground approach was blown the moment someone on that ridge spotted movement. The finer details, though, could wait for the briefing.
The real question was who was actually going to execute any of this. Ground ops meant Hedrin would be reaching for assets in Kharvûk, which meant Henry would have a high risk of running into Lucan’s Chosen. Or worse, working with them.
The recon phase had been tolerable enough; everyone sat around, stayed out of each other’s way, and let Armstrong do the work. But a real mission meant actual coordination, and Henry wasn’t thrilled about relying on a guy whose approach to tactics boiled down to ‘run at it and see what happens.’
The obvious move was to push for separate objectives – split the forces, keep everyone in their own lane. But Henry had studied enough coalition clusterfucks to know how that looked from the outside.
ANA, ISF, half the proxy bullshit in Syria; Americans always caught the blame when the allies couldn’t get along. For the sake of cohesion, he’d have to be careful about how he framed things. He certainly didn’t want to be known as the complainer; the guy who soured relations just because he couldn’t stand one asshole.
The only saving grace was that Armstrong had just shuffled in four new F-15s – EXs, no less. Part of him had been hoping for a B-2 and a MOAB, but he’d take what he could get. Four EXs meant roughly a hundred thousand pounds of ordnance, which was more than enough to turn Korth Varren into rubble, probably to the chagrined bitching of the dwarves.
No point sitting on it, though. The intel wasn’t going to change, and the longer he waited, the more time everyone had to come up with their own theories. Better to just lay it out and deal with the reactions in real time.
Henry grabbed his team after breakfast and headed for the Guild. The hall had a different energy this time around. Last briefing, there’d been a kind of restless optimism. Everyone knew there was a problem, but nobody knew how big. Now they knew a far more comprehensive report was on the way, and that had them bracing for impact.
Henry found the same faces from before: Hedrin at the head of the table, Drunn to his right looking like he hadn’t slept well, Tormund composed as ever, Elara keeping her own counsel. Jurgon was there too, probably to handle any technical questions about the terrain.
Lucan’s Chosen had taken up position near the far wall – close enough to hear, far enough to signal they weren’t really part of the proceedings. Sera caught his eye from across the room, already sighing. It was obvious that she didn’t want to be here a second longer than she had to be. Henry couldn’t blame her.
Hedrin called the room to order with a rumble that passed for a cleared throat. “Captain Donnager, what account have ye to lay before us?”
Henry pulled out his tablet and set it on the table. A few taps brought up the first image – an aerial shot of Korth Varren, sharp enough to count individual goblins in the courtyard.
As expected, everyone crowded in, jostling for a better angle like kids around a phone screen.
Henry had pretty much gotten used to it by now, but there was still something satisfying about watching a room full of hardened veterans lose their composure over a glowing rectangle. Historically, maps had been half-guesswork and half-prayer. Despite being terribly unreliable by modern standards, they were technically crucial – valuable enough that kings hoarded them.
He wondered what it did to their heads, seeing terrain rendered in this kind of detail. It’d probably have them shitting their pants for a week.
Tormund, on the other hand, would probably be shitting his pants for a month, if the expression on his face were any indication. The man hovered over the device, eyes glued to it. “This… How was this wrought?”
“You’ve got scrying magic, right? Something that lets you see past your line of sight?” Henry waited for the nod. “Yeah, similar idea here.”
He pulled up the map view, giving them a few seconds to take in the northern range before pointing out the relevant markers.
“Anyway, all it does is give us a better map.” Henry knew that was a hell of a downplay, but he needed them to move on. He pushed ahead. “Here’s us. Here’s Velkrath. And Korth Varren. A few monster dens and other points of interest that we’ve discovered. And the convoy we’ve been tracking.”
He zoomed in on Korth Varren. “So, first order of business: your old fortress has some unwanted guests squatting around.”
The goblins had really made themselves at home. They’d buried half the outer wall under snowy-earthy sludge and turned the parade ground into a crystallon stable. Whatever the fortress had looked like before, it was defiled beyond recognition now.
“Our current estimate puts the garrison’s strength at twelve to fifteen hundred goblins, at least two hundred hobgoblins, and over two hundred crystallons. There’s probably more in the covered structures we couldn’t see into.”
He glanced around the room. Nobody liked the numbers – Drunn most of all.
Henry leaned into it. “Taking that on foot would be a slugfest.”
Drunn reached the right conclusion. “Aye, best we steer clear o’ such a clash. I took the matter to the Council after our last meetin’, an’ they’ve granted us leave to hammer whatever base we fancy – save Velkrath. That one they keep close, damn their caution.”
That made things a lot easier. Four F-15EXs could saturate Korth Varren without breaking a sweat. One problem off the board.
“Perfect.” Henry pulled back to the map view. “That leaves us with three more objectives: the outpost, the convoy, and Velkrath itself.”
He’d been turning over the strike allocation in his head since Armstrong’s report came in. If all the EXs went to Korth Varren, that left a pair of F-35s to hammer a second target – Henry just had to pick.
The convoy was a moving target on a mountain trail – no GPS guidance, unpredictable timing, plus terrain that would make visual acquisition a nightmare. On the other hand, the outpost was fixed. If he had to choose where to spend limited air assets, the outpost was a no-brainer.
He tapped the convoy route. “Supply line runs between Korth Varren and Velkrath. Sixteen to twenty sledges per run, escorted by approximately a hundred goblins and twenty hobgoblins – mounted on either fenwyrms or crystallons. Timing’s erratic, and it’s always on the move, which means we’re not going to catch it sitting in either location. The good news is there are several exposed stretches where it passes through forest and valley terrain. Perfect for an ambush.”
He shifted to the outpost. “Checkpoint, positioned about halfway between Velkrath and Korth Varren. Similar force composition to the convoy – hundred-plus goblins, twenty or so hobgoblins. Except they’re dug in a lot deeper than that convoy will ever be.”
A few nods came up around the room.
“Now, Velkrath.”
He pulled up the fortress-city. Even in a still image, the scale was something else – a sprawling complex carved directly into the mountainside, impenetrable by medieval standards.
“Goblin numbers are roughly in line with Guild estimates. Eighteen to twenty-two thousand.” He paused. “But we found something else.”
He zoomed in on the cliffs, where the old mine shafts had been converted into roosts. “Previous scouting reports counted around a hundred fenwyrms. We found roosts for at least fifty Fenwyrm Lords, previously unaccounted for – and that’s just what’s visible from the outside. There could be more nested deeper in the mountain that we couldn’t see.”
The room seemed ready to erupt, but Henry stopped that before it could happen. “This isn’t the worst news, either.”
He pulled up an image of the anomalous, smooth structure. “Same building your scouts flagged as unusual. We got a better read of it.”
He tapped the thermal overlay. “The temperature’s running fifteen to twenty degrees Celsius hotter than anything around it. Basically, it’s throwing off as much heat as an active forge, but there’s no ventilation. No smoke, no exhaust, nothing. And in four hours of surveillance, we didn’t see a single person go in or out.”
Not to mention the mana readings, which had been off the charts – over fifteen thousand milligauss. It was consistent with what they’d encountered at Site GB-2, with the Sentinel Lindwyrm.
Henry translated into terms the dwarves could understand, “The mana level corresponds to something in the range of Tier Nine magic. Sustained. Constant. Either there’s some legendary monster holed up in that structure, or something inside is casting a Tier Nine spell around the clock without stopping.”
Tormund’s eyes narrowed. “A Rune System.”
Henry had been waiting for someone to say it. “Yeah. And it’s sitting in a region where goblins are suddenly organizing like a professional army.” He met Tormund’s gaze. “Unless there’s another group out there working on large-scale monster control, this has Nobian fingerprints all over it.”
Tormund straightened in his seat. “If Captain Donnager’s supposition be borne out, then Velkrath must be seized as a matter of first principle; for in so doing, we both ascertain the extent of Nobian machination and unmake the order by which their goblins are governed.”
He steepled his fingers. “Our choice must be set against both season and ground. Velkrath lies nearest, and might be carried before its garrison grows or its works are strengthened; yet to strike at it at once leaves Korth Varren unmastered, where reinforcements might rally against us. The contrary course carries us into the mountains first, to put Korth Varren in hand and spare us the trouble of fresh companies joining those at Velkrath. It is the longer road, with cold and distance wearing on the men before the final battle.”
The calculus was a lot simpler for Henry. “That’s assuming we need boots on the ground at Korth Varren in the first place.”
Tormund raised an eyebrow. “What do you propose?”
“I propose to flatten it. My people can bombard it pretty thoroughly. Complete annihilation – no ground assault, no clean-up unit necessary.” He caught himself. “Aside from cleaning up the rubble, I suppose.”
He gave the room a second to process that. The idea of erasing a fortified position without ever setting foot near it clearly wasn’t something they were used to. But hey, they’d seen the tablet, hadn’t they? They could extrapolate that it involved some manner of technological fuckery, and that was good enough.
Hedrin leaned forward. “And the outpost?”
“Same treatment. We’ll hit them simultaneously. By the time Velkrath sees smoke on the horizon, both sides are already gone.”
“An’ I reckon ye’ll do the same with the convoy?” Drunn asked.
“Ah, no. The convoy we’ll have to take on foot. We’ll pick a spot, set up in advance, and execute a good ol’ ambush.”
Hedrin nodded, but slow enough to suggest that he was still deliberating. “A sound approach, aye. Yet the matter of command remains. Perhaps—”
Tormund placed a hand on Hedrin’s shoulder, interrupting him before he could even propose options. “Guildmaster, a word in private, if you please?”
They left the room and talked outside, voices nothing more than incomprehensible garbles through the door. But the timing wasn’t hard to read. If the discussion was about leadership, then it was between Alpha Team and Lucan’s Chosen; between professionalism and… well, whatever Lucan’s sycophantic harem was all about.
The two returned after a minute of discussion.
“Captain Donnager.” Hedrin’s tone shifted – still authoritative as any Guildmaster ought to be, but now with the slight intonation of a messenger trying not to get shot. “A word on the matter o’ command… For this interdiction, Lucan’s Chosen will ride wi’ yer party. Joint command, aye, though each company keeps its own reins. Ye’ll coordinate as the ground requires. I’ll leave the plannin’ to ye.”
Joint leadership. Fuck. It was the classic compromise: nobody in command, everybody responsible.
Tormund probably would’ve given Alpha Team the reins if he could, but doing that would’ve been a public humiliation for the technically higher-ranking Lucan’s Chosen. And giving Lucan’s Chosen the conn would’ve been a recipe for disaster. The Guild needed their Tier Nines happy, or at least, not actively resentful, before the Velkrath assault.
Henry understood the politics well enough, but it didn’t make the choice any less annoying on his end.
“Understood,” was all he said.
Lucan himself seemed indifferent – at least on the surface. He rose and walked up to Henry. “Captain. Consider yourself fortunate! Not all have the privilege to stand with us. Do try to keep pace… or at the very least, keep the fuck out of our way.”
Henry held Superprick’s gaze. “Likewise.”