Novel Full Chapter 1500 Sassy Elf
Chapter 1500 Sassy Elf
The tomboy elf, always so selfless and shy, was in full sass mode right now.
“Your guilds lobbied for the crafting exclusivity laws. Your merchant lords pressured the Elvardian crown to ban elven smithing. Every elf who’s been punished for picking up a hammer has your people’s fingerprints on their sentence.”
Murmuring rippled through the dwarven ranks. Hands tightened on weapons. A sergeant near the front spat on the ground.
Kaelira looked him dead in the eye.
“Björn, the Father of Stone, forged for anyone with the will to learn.”
She then looked over the whole dwarven line, spending long seconds staring into their eyes before declaring, “He would find your insecurity laughable.”
The murmuring became a roar.
“Seize her!” A dwarven captain surged forward. “She’s a deserter and a traitor! She invokes the Father’s name to insult us?!”
“String her up!” another voice bellowed. “Elvardian military law is clear!”
Kaelira hadn’t moved. Behind the dwarven lines, quiet laughter rippled through the elven ranger contingent. An elf leaning on her longbow covered her mouth with one hand, shoulders shaking. Two more exchanged glances and smirked openly. A third didn’t bother hiding it at all, grinning with her arms crossed as she watched a former conscript say everything they’d been thinking for centuries.
The dwarves heard the laughter. Several turned. The looks they exchanged with the elven rangers were not friendly.
Then, Thorga raised a fist.
“Everyone, shut your mouths and stop!”
She waited until the silence was complete.
“Are you finished?” she asked Kaelira.
“That depends,” Kaelira shrugged. “Are you going to arrest me, or can I say what I came here to say?”
Thorga’s eyes narrowed. This elf just vented all her grievances and had the galls to claim she hadn’t even started with the real reason yet?
A certain someone’s attitude was clearly rubbing off on a certain elf in heavy armor.
“No one is arresting anyone.” Thorga lowered her fist at last. “Whatever your personal grievances with Elvardia are, they’re not my concern right now.”
She stepped forward. “So. What does Quinlan Elysiar want, Team Captain Kaelira?”
Kaelira’s smile returned, wider than before.
She’d been waiting for that question.
She clasped her hands behind her back. The posture was military, but the delivery was anything but. There was a looseness to her, a casualness that reminded Thorga, uncomfortably, of Quinlan Elysiar himself.
“As you witnessed, it was Quinlan who brought down Whisperfield’s barrier. Alone, without Elvardian support, without dwarven artillery, without Covenant tunneling.”
“Now hold on, lass,” Borek cut in. “Elvardia released a full bombardment on that barrier, and the Covenant tunneled beneath the city.”
“A full bombardment that the barrier absorbed without failing,” Kaelira said. “How many more volleys would your crews have needed, Commander? How many hours? How many tons of ammunition? How many days of supply chain logistics to keep the guns fed? How many soldiers would you lose to secure the city?” She ticked each question off on a finger. “Quinlan brought down the barrier and is fighting using only his resources for our common goal. Every resource you didn’t spend today is a resource you have for the next siege.”
Kaelira scoffed. “As for the undead… They were flushed out by a single spell. They accomplished nothing.”
Borek’s face went dark.
“Given all of that,” Kaelira said, her tone shifting back to diplomatic, “Quinlan Elysiar is invoking his right to first spoils.”
Borek’s eyes widened. “First spoils.”
“Standard wartime precedent. The one who breaches the wall claims first pick of the conquest.” She smiled. There was no warmth in that smile of hers. “And before you argue chain of command, let me remind you that Quinlan Elysiar is not a soldier in the Elvardian army. He is an independent party who negotiated terms directly with King Ragnar and Queen Myrasyn. He fights ‘with’ Elvardia, not ‘under’ it.”
She let that land.
“He intends to pacify the city himself. There will be no Elvardian casualties, no drawn-out street fighting, no dwarven and elven soldiers dying in house-to-house clearing operations that could take long weeks after days of expensive sieging. He will hand you the city intact. Walls, forges, granaries, garrison. All of it, ready for Elvardian occupation.”
She smiled. “Isn’t he a dreamlike ally? I bet King Alexios would kill for him to be on Vraven’s side.”
Borek said nothing.
His jaw worked behind his beard. The implication sat between them like a drawn blade. Quinlan Elysiar had no oath to Elvardia. No ancestral loyalty. No blood ties, no patriotic duty, no reason to stay on their side of this war beyond the terms of a deal that could be renegotiated at any time. He was here because it benefited him to be here. The moment it stopped benefiting him, he would be somewhere else.
He was a mercenary, through and through.
And the mercenary who had just shattered a county capital’s barrier with one finger was not someone you wanted fighting for the other side.
This was a business transaction. Quinlan had delivered something of extraordinary value. Now he expected to be paid.
“All he asks is that you give him the time to work toward our shared goal with the Alliance of Elvardia,” Kaelira continued, reading Borek’s silence correctly. “Wait here. Let us work. When we’re finished, you walk into a conquered city without losing a single soldier.”
Thorga studied the elf.
The pitch was clean. Zero Elvardian casualties, an intact city, and all they had to do was stand in a field for some time.
“Commander Borek,” Thorga said. “Your call.”
Borek stared at the dome. He stared at Kaelira. He stared at the dome again.
Tens of thousands of soldiers stood behind him, armed and ready to assault a city they couldn’t see.
“How long?” he asked.
“Hours. You’ll have your city before nightfall.”
Borek exhaled through his nose. The sound was like a bellows closing.
“We wait,” he decreed. “For now. But if that dome isn’t down by sundown, we’re bringing it down ourselves. And you can tell your lover that Borek Ironvault doesn’t appreciate being made to stand in a field while someone else fights his war.”
Kaelira’s smile widened.
“I’ll pass that along.”
She turned and walked back through the archway.
Thorga and Borek stood in silence for a long moment.
“I don’t like this,” Thorga said.
“Neither do I,” Borek grumbled. “But if Queen Myrasyn hears that I rejected a zero-casualty offer and threw thousands of her highly trained soldiers into a meat grinder because my pride got scratched, she’ll have me hanged by the balls.”
Thorga looked at her commander dryly.
Behind them, the scattered giggling from the elven ranger contingent stopped. Several elves growled toward Borek with expressions that had gone from amused to hostile in the span of a single sentence. Thorga cleared her throat.
“Commander. Queen Myrasyn is a graceful lady with no equal. I would advise you to choose your words with more care when referencing her person.”
Borek glanced at the elven rangers. Then back at Thorga.
“Fine,” he said. “She will chop my head off. Better?”
Thorga sighed. “Marginally. We should report to the war council. There may be new directives.”
Borek nodded heavily. “I’ll leave that to you.”
…
Soon enough, the fury bled out of the dwarven ranks.
It was hard to stay angry when the alternative to standing in a field was dying in a street fight, and harder still when the supply wagons cracked open the ale barrels early. Within the hour, the dwarven infantry had settled into the grass with tankards in hand, singing songs that grew increasingly vulgar and increasingly complimentary toward the madman inside the ice dome. By the second barrel, half the regiment was chanting “One Finger” and “Many Lasses” as a drinking chorus, and by the third, someone had composed a verse about Quinlan Elysiar that would have made a succubus blush.
The elves were less amused.
Perimeter duty fell to the ranger corps, because of course it did. Dwarves had all the subtlety of a landslide and twice the noise. So while the stout folk treated the ceasefire as a mandatory ale emergency, the elven rangers fanned out across the tree lines and ridges surrounding Whisperfield, securing every approach, watching every shadow, doing the actual work of maintaining a siege.
And yet, a quiet smile sat on every elven lip.
Word of Kaelira’s performance had spread through the ranger corps faster than wildfire through dry brush. The details grew with each retelling. By the time the story reached the southern perimeter, she had apparently made Borek cry. By the time it circled back north, she had challenged the entire dwarven officer corps to single combat and they had declined.
The truth was impressive enough. A former conscript, one of their own, had looked the dwarven command in the eye and told them that Björn himself would find their craft monopoly embarrassing. And she had walked away untouched.
“Kindred spirit,” one ranger murmured to another as they took position on the eastern ridge.
“Heroine,” the other corrected.
They both grinned and went back to work.
…
But while the Elvardian army drank and patrolled and gossiped, things inside the ice dome were vastly more hectic.
…
Author: Chapter 1500! Thanks for all the amazing support!