Legon Restoration (6 page)

She picked up the thread of his thoughts. "We might be able to figure out how they were constructed, right? Am I allowed to go ashore?" she asked.

He was a little surprised, Sasha didn't really ask for permission to do anything. "Of course, you are a class six after all; but that being said bring all of your guard and only go to places that have been cleared," he said.

She smiled, "Deal." She turned and left, leaving Legon the task of confirming the meeting with all of the other Great Houses.

Chapter Four

Road Maps

"Tales of the past outline great battles and strategies; we hear of death defying acts of heroes and heroines of the conflict, but of the packman in supply routes we hear nothing. I suspect that is because he is busy working."

-The Exiled Captain (Author Unknown)

Keither fought back a yawn.
It's only mid-afternoon
he thought. Reading his mind Sara added, "And you have only slept a few hours every night for the last two weeks." She patted his shoulder.

They were sitting at a table strewn with papers in one of the harbor warehouses of Noris. Arkin's funeral, while sad, had made for a nice break for Keither to rest. Now he was back to work. Noris posed problems that while not unforeseen, still proved to be irksome. It was his job to manage supplies and take care of getting the general population of Noris' daily needs, such as food, clean water, shelter, etc. While Noris was a hub and had warehouses and keeps full of supplies, most of those where either burning to the ground, booby trapped and therefore about to be burning to the ground, or had yet to be cleared by security, who would likely set off booby traps and cause said buildings to burn to the ground.
 

Sara squeezed his shoulders. "Hey, just talk it through with me, you can figure this out," she said encouragingly.

She was right; he needed to just talk everything out. "OK, so here is the situation; our military is fine for the most part; we brought in plenty of supplies for them. The issue is the townspeople of Noris, our people have to finish taking a lot of the town’s strong holds. In most cases those strong holds have been set on fire as enemy units lose control of them. That's not to say that some warehouses were left unguarded when we took the town, the issue is that some of those houses have tainted goods, grain with poison in it and so on. This means that Venefica have to check the contents of each warehouse before supplies can be distributed."

"OK. What of the supplies that we brought with us?" Sara asked.

"Yes those, well most ships with food were for military use, after all if we can't keep our people fed they won’t be able to fight. Also, those supplies are packed for the purpose of easy travel as we push up the Kayloose, so I can't use any of them. We have a small fleet of relief ships that are waiting to dock, once they off load things here will get better; BUT we don't know when that will happen or what order ships will dock and unload." Keither closed his eyes, "It's a nightmare. We did everything we could to minimize civilian casualties and injuries. We knew there was a chance that the empire would destroy food and medical stocks but hoped that it wouldn't, I mean, after all Noris and its inhabitants are still citizens of the Cona Empire, why would you kill your own?"
 

* * * * *

Legon took his place with Sydin around a large table with representatives of each of the Great Houses and Enrich from the Cona Republic. As Legon was the only Head of House in attendance, he started the meeting presiding over it.
 

He stood and addressed the room. "Thank you all for coming, there is a lot that we need to cover today, so I am going to get right to it. So far our campaign into the Cona Empire has met with relative success. That said, we will have set backs sooner or later. Why don't we all give updates on our various duties," his mind flicked out to the ship and a large map of Noris hovered over the table. Legon sat back down as Sydin rose.

"Noris has, for the most part, fallen; there are still pockets of resistance but that is to be expected. Human and Elf forces will be spending the next few weeks and maybe even months removing these threats. While the town and its limits seem to be under our control, the towns to the east and north are not. Our troops have not moved on these areas with any degree of seriousness yet. As for Ascended, we have had sporadic attacks on all sides of the town; thus far neither side has taken any casualties in those fights. We think that the Iumenta are looking more to contain them than anything else. Enrich would you mind updating us on your progress?" Sydin asked sitting.

Enrich stood, not seeming the least bit bothered to be in a room full of Elves. "We consider the invasion of Noris to be a success; we took fewer casualties then estimated and have held our ground. The only issues that we have encountered, other than the expected, is resistance from some parts of town. When Cona soldiers left the area they burned and set traps in most of the buildings with medical and food supplies, we could handle this had they not also destroyed most of their harbor. As it is, we cannot get supplies into the city with any degree of speed. Also, when leaving the Iumenta set many houses and shelters on fire; this has left us with a large amount of homeless and wounded people. We have made ships with medical supplies a priority for landing and off load, but I would be lying if I said that wasn't going to put a hold on advancing up the Kayloose. It's a double edge sword, if we can push our forces up the river we will be able to off load more ships, but if we don't offload supplies now...."

"There will be high losses of civilians," Hydra, a bronze haired Elf from House Floren said. Her green eyes were thoughtful for a moment, "I will send teams to help rebuild the harbor so you can bring in more ships and also task three destroyers to securing more of the Kayloose." Legon had a great deal of respect for Hydra, she was the admiral of House Floren's fleet and therefore the Head in Command of all Naval activities in the war.
 

"Thank you," Enrich said.

Legon had a thought. "Hydra?" he asked.

"Yes Un Prosa," Hydra said.

"I know that it would be impractical to use the small boats that landing parties came in on, but would it be possible to lash them together and create, oh I don't know, maybe a floating bridge that could extend out into the harbor?"
 

Hydra's eyebrows rose. "What a novel idea Un Prosa. With the movement of the water I don't think just tying the boats together would be stable, nor could they take the weight; but if we maybe took one boat and put it upside down on another and sealed them so water could not leak in we would have a set of floats to make the base of our bridge, or I should say pier." She thought more, "It's not ideal but it should help until we get the rest of the harbor up and running. I will have people start right away." Her eyes unfocussed for a moment and then she was back with them. "Our report is a positive one to say the least; while the human fleet looked impressive it posed little threat to our own. As we suspected, most of the Impa fleet have moved in along coastal cities to keep their waters clear. We have a team of strategists that have been trying to figure out why the Impa let Noris's water fall with so little Iumenta back up. The reason we suspect is that they knew that Noris was going to fall, or at least at sea it would. We believe that their goal is not to try and beat our navy, they know they can't; however, they can stop landing parties. We think they will focus on trying to keep coast lines clear enough to move supplies and repel landing parties."

Legon listened as she outlined her plans for how she was going to deal with the Impa Navy. After she was done other Houses gave updates on all of their activities, most either being on schedule with their plans or further ahead than expected. Legon was shocked to hear that the Precipice was being attacked. Tuneal of House Paldin had chosen not to meeting Cona forces at the sentinels but instead to force them to fight in the narrow canyons leading into the valley where the dome was. The representative from House Coreen reported that the land invasion from Pawdin lands had met little resistance in the open plains area south in the empire. His report detailed that in many cases small villages and co-ops welcomed Elvin forces with open arms.
 

"That goes to show that Arkin's work was effective; however, I do not think all of the war will go this easy," Sydin said.

"No. I do not either," the representative from House Coreen said. "We suspect that the further north we go the more resistance we will face, but more than that even after a town is cleared we expect that in the northern areas we will have more insurgency from those loyal to the Cona Empire. Un Prosa Legon, may I ask what reports we have from House Evindass' spy network?"

"Yes I have been receiving reports. Thankfully Arkin made plans in the event that he was killed." There was a collective sigh of relief from the room at Legon's pronouncement. "We are still getting information from each city in his network. From what we can tell most of the Cona lands don't even know there is a war on, only high ranking officials seem to know anything. In the southern areas there is more awareness, but the closer to the Capital a city is the less they know. Some of our cells have attempted to start rumors of the war but have had efforts blocked by Iumenta Ascended influencing people heavily," Legon said.

"This makes you happy Un Prosa?" Hydra asked looking him over.

"Yes it does, as you are all aware when someone’s mind is influenced too strongly they become aware of it. From all accounts the Iumenta have had to divert their more skilled Ascended to handle the threat we posed. As a result, many novice Ascended are influencing people and in some cases people are starting to become aware."

This seemed to please most of the Elves in the room and Legon went on. "However, while Arkin's network is giving us information it still needs a new Head, for that I am planning on assigning Stacy, Arkin's right hand in Salez and significant other."
 

"How much do you trust her?" Hydra asked.

"Arkin had one hundred percent trust in her, they were connected mentally almost the entire time he was in Salez. She has the drive, though that does concern me. I don't want her to make mistakes as she looks for revenge, but that aside I think she is our best option. She knows more about Arkin's operation and plans then anyone, she is even responsible for many of the things his network did."

None of the house representatives pushed the subject, Legon knew that their questions were more driven out of curiosity than anything else.

A raven haired Elf representing House Neephom spoke to Sydin. "Sydin what are your plans with the Venefica?" Then, turning and gesturing proudly to Legon, "And the newest class eight Ascended in the Pawdin Empire, and also Un Prose Sasha."
 

Sydin beamed, "We are going to secure the air space over the land and use Ascended to take out as many targets as possible. As for Legon and Sasha, Opes will be taking them back to Seeon for training; we hope to have Legon and Sasha ready in a few months at best."

Legon smiled warmly, five years ago he would have been insulted by being forced back to Seeon to train, but not anymore; he saw it as an opportunity and planned on working as hard has he could to be ready to fight.

* * * * *

It was evening by the time Sara left Keither's side. She was off to help with some of the medical supplies. The air was cool when she left the warehouse that was Keither's headquarters, the sun almost set. She made her way to the docks, passing ravaged buildings as she went. She heard a bell toll in the harbor indicating that residents needed to make their way home. Martial Law was in effect in Noris, a curfew of nightfall restricted all but resistance forces.
 

The docks came into view and she focused on her task for the evening. As she approached a ship she heard the sound of rumbling thunder as if in the distance. She looked at the horizon, seeing color flashing in the sky.
Ascended
she said to herself. As she looked back at the harbor she watched as three Elvin destroyers made their way up the slow waters of the Kayloose. Bolts from the decks launched into the hill side on the other side of the river bursting into fire. She looked up the river, the horizon glowing orange.

"They are trying to take some more land east of here, I think to clear more of the docks," the rough voice of a guard said. "Don't worry, Noris is still secure." There was a boom in the distance and fire bloomed in the air above Noris, the guard seemed to reconsider his previous statement. "Well, it's mostly secure..."

She laughed, "Thank you, I am here to help with the off load of medical supplies."

"Oh, OK, then see that ship down there?" he said pointing west, "That's the one you want."

"Thank you," she said making her way to the ship.

Sara stepped on the rough deck of the ship. It was an older merchant ship that had been loaned out for the war. Her crew members were either too old to fight or too young to be allowed to fight.
 

A middle age man with several days’ worth of stubble walked up to her. "Good Evenin, the name's Captain Rich. How may I be of service?" he said kindly.

"My name is Sara. I am here to help off load the medical supplies."

He cocked a half smile, "You’re gonna unload cargo?"

She smirked, "OK, I am here to direct and tell the dock crews where to send cargo." She smiled.

Captain Rich chuckled and showed her below deck. "There isn't much here for ya, we only got lots of odds and ends."

Sara looked the cargo over. She would have liked to have seen more in the way of supplies, but anything was better than nothing. "Thank you, when can you have it on the docks?"

Rich rubbed his chin, "Seein’ how there is medicine and the likes, and there ain’t much of um, I would say I can get them off for ya in less than an hour; if’n I can get clearance from the port master."