Novel Full Chapter 1509 Holy Text
Chapter 1509 Holy Text
Borek Ironvault sat on an ammunition crate with a tankard the size of a large warhammer’s head cradled in both hands.
“One hour,” he grumbled. “One whole hour sitting in a field doing nothing.” He took a drink. A long one. The kind that required tilting his entire torso backward and letting gravity do half the work. “I was given the glorious duty of bringing Elvardia its golden age. I was supposed to be hearing the choir of my field cannons blasting enemy walls into rubble. Instead, I’m sitting on a box, staring at an ice barrier I don’t have the permission to shoot at.”
When he resurfaced, foam clung to his mustache and his expression hadn’t improved.
He looked into the tankard and frowned.
“Doesn’t even taste the same anymore.” He took another sip. Frowned deeper. “Is it because we’re in the human backwaters?”
Thorga folded her arms. “Commander, should the army’s leader really be drinking right now?”
Borek looked at her as if she’d questioned the rotation of the planet.
“This is a performance booster. Documented, tested, peer-reviewed.” He took another swig.
“Peer-reviewed.”
His scrutiny heightened, unable to believe the words leaving this woman’s lips. “Have you truly not heard of the Holy Text, Captain Thorga?” Thorga blinked. “The Holy Text? Did the Father of Stone decree something about ale that I’m not-”
“Different kind of holy text.”
“…What other holy text is there?”
Borek turned and raised a hand toward the officer cluster behind him. “Grimwick! Get over here and educate this uneducated lass!”
A dwarf emerged from the ranks.
He was thin by dwarven standards, which still made him roughly the width of a small wardrobe. Wire-rimmed spectacles sat perched on a nose that looked like it had been broken at least twice, and he carried a leather folio stuffed with papers, several of which were trying to escape.
Grimwick adjusted his spectacles, opened the folio, and cleared his throat.
“Actually, Commander Borek’s assertion is supported by the data.”
Thorga’s eyes went flat.
“The Ironvault Institute for Dwarven Military Sciences, founded and funded by Commander Borek Ironvault, conducted a longitudinal study spanning four hundred and twelve years across three hundred and seventy-nine engagements led by Commander Borek Ironvault, including campaigns against humans, beastkin, and three distinct monster stampede classifications.”
He flipped a page. “The study, supervised by myself, tracked morale indices, formation cohesion, and post-engagement casualty ratios among units under Commander Borek’s command that consumed moderate ale rations prior to deployment versus control groups under Commander Borek’s command that did not.”
He pushed his spectacles up his nose.
“The findings were conclusive. Units under Commander Borek’s standing ale protocol demonstrated an eleven percent improvement in formation retention during extended engagements, a fourteen percent reduction in premature rout, and a twenty-three percent increase in what the study classified as ‘aggressive enthusiasm.'”
Borek spread his hands as if to say ‘there you go.’
“However,” Grimwick continued, flipping another page, “the study also noted a corresponding nine percent increase in friendly fire incidents, a sixteen percent rise in unauthorized charge behavior, and a statistically significant correlation between pre-battle consumption and what the researchers – myself – termed ‘creative interpretation of retreat orders.'”
Borek’s spread hands lowered slightly.
Grimwick adjusted his spectacles again. “The institute’s final recommendation was, and I quote, ‘The net benefit remains positive provided Commander Borek limits distribution to two tankards per soldier and does not, under any circumstances, open the reserve casks before contact with the enemies.'”
Thorga stared at them both with the expression of a woman who had heard far too much.
“Speaking of the leaf munchers,” Borek said, pivoting with the grace of a man who knew when a study had stopped helping his case. “No one spoke of any elves for the past hour, Commander,” Thorga replied flatly and got ignored.
Borek scratched his beard and glanced toward the dome. “That elf. She reminded me of a foul-mouthed dwarven lass, that one. Had the temper of a forge bellows and twice the heat.”
Thorga looked at him even more dryly.
Then her expression softened by a fraction.
“She did have quite the fiery attitude,” Thorga had to admit.
Borek opened his mouth to elaborate on exactly which dwarven lasses Kaelira reminded him of, namely his daughters. He had opinions on the topic and they were extensive.
But then a horn split the air.
Long, clear, rising. The unmistakable call of an elven signal horn from the eastern ridge, the kind the ranger corps used when their perimeter scouts identified a threat beyond visual range.
A second horn answered from the south.
Then a third.
The tankard hit the grass.
Borek was on his feet before the echo faded, the jovial drunk replaced by a man who had commanded armies for longer than most humans had been alive.
“Thorga, with me.”
They moved fast through the camp, past dwarven infantry who were already dropping tankards and reaching for weapons, past supply wagons whose drivers were cinching straps and turning horses. The ale-soaked singing died in mid-verse. Sergeants bellowed orders. Steel rang as formations began to take shape in the muddy grass.
Borek reached the forward command post at a dead sprint.
A figure was already waiting there.
Serelis Windgrace stood with her longbow resting against her shoulder and her long hair pulled back in a campaigner’s knot. The leader of the elven ranger regiment was tall even by elven standards, her lean frame wrapped in forest-colored leathers that bore the dust and grime of someone who had been running.
Her expression killed any remaining humor in the air.
“Commander Borek.” She didn’t waste a breath. “Foxkin scouts and our outermost ranger teams are reporting a massive force approaching from the northeast sporting Ravenshade banners. The column stretches beyond what our scouts can measure from their current positions, but initial estimates place the numbers in the hundreds of thousands.”
Borek’s jaw tightened beneath his beard.
“How far out?”
“Far enough that we have time to prepare, close enough that we don’t have time to waste.” Serelis’s gaze flicked to the ice dome. “They’re moving fast, Commander.”
Thorga appeared at Borek’s side. She’d heard every word.
“Tharion Ravenshade is finally showing himself… The war will get ugly from here on out,” the dwarf stated without a shred of doubt.
The three of them stood in silence for a single breath, staring at the ice dome that still covered Whisperfield.
Borek turned to Serelis. “Send word to the other army regiments and the central command post. If the entire duchy is marching on us, we need reinforcements. Every unit that can be spared.”
“Already done,” Serelis replied.
Borek nodded grimly, then looked back at the dome. Somewhere behind that wall of ice, Quinlan Elysiar was fighting a war he’d asked them to stay out of.
The war he hadn’t asked for was coming to them instead.
…
“…What?!”
The word cracked off the cathedral walls and echoed through the empty street.
Quinlan raised an eyebrow behind his helmet. “What?”
Velara didn’t hear him. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, staring at a point somewhere past the physical world. Her lips moved without sound, forming words meant for a presence that had already withdrawn.
“No… this can’t be…”
Her knees buckled.