Tanya's Third Life as a Barbarian Queen, Chapter XXXI

I will have the chapter as links to download at the bottom of the post. As well as a link to the Google Document page.

Wrote this with a broken arm. Witness me!!!

North of Kontia

Major Lucia, Commander of the 4th Tanaoi Battalion.

The Saderans had settled in just shy of the rapidly constructed trench and enfalade defence line that protected Kontia from the north. Close enough that we could look upon each other, but far enough away for some measure of security from a hastily engaged battle. Once they had settled into various encampments they had spread out to strip the land of what little they could find.

Lumber, forage, game, even long grass had been harvested or burnt at Tanya’s command. It had been exhausting how meticulous my Queen was in depriving the Saderans of every possible resource. But even with such careful planning and the many tens of thousands sent to the task much had still escaped us.

It was not the season for fires so our attempt at sabotaging the various small woods that had become far more common as we had migrated south were largely ineffectual. But the attempt had enlightened my battalion as to the location of such valuable sources of lumber and forage.

We stalked in the early morning, several companies declared ‘Regulars’ by Tanya. We had left the safety of the defensive perimeter and made way to a forest that had been just slightly too large to sabotage and would provide a tempting target for the Saderans. The women under my command who had been deployed as scouts had reported that a number of Equitate horsemen had arrived at this wooded area yesterday evening. The men had taken the time to enter the wood before leaving, likely under the misapprehension that the woodland was unoccupied. 

I watched as thousands of men approached, trudging through a dry valley that had once hosted a shallow and meandering river but had been long since passed over by a more fruitful path for the swift and cool water. It was here, as the valley became more shallow that the rolling kneehigh grassland gave way to bushes, shrubs and ancient trees.

All the works of nature that conspired with us to conceal our deadly intent. I felt trepidation as my heart began to quicken its pace, my body anticipating the violence to come. We were just hundreds, but the men approaching were doing so with mostly axes and saws. Just a scant few hundreds approached in armour and with shield and blade. 

I spied a handful of men atop horses scattered about. One riding besides a man carrying a tall banner topped with a golden dragon chatting animatedly. Two more leading the procession, and another close to the rear of the small army of men paying close attention to the men and, it seemed, driving them forwards.

They would have to be dealt with first. While it was of little concern that the Ninth Legion discovered this battle, it would be best if it took some time for them to become aware of what was happening. With the favour of Emroy they would know we had struck as we returned over the wall to rest and recover.

I felt my legs tense, I curled the toes inside my boots. I glanced about and checked the blade at my hip and the edge of the tip of my spear. Hardly any time must have passed at all, but it felt like ages had passed as the Saderans, the humans, slowly made their way to us.

We were not arrayed at the edge of the forest, but well inside save a few scouts and myself. It was almost painful to take a deep and calming breath before I turned about and hurried deeper into the wood. Young runners, their faces adorned in battle paint, but in the strange, abstract style that the Cadets had taken to rather than the intricate and detailed runes of the ancestors, approached me and I gave them hurried and whispered orders.

First came voices, shouting. Unhurried, not the shouting of fear and panic, but men addressing their subordinates in tasks their subordinates well knew. Then footfalls, careless, loud, tired and uncoordinated. Cracks of axes hitting wood, laughing, grumbling, and all manner of noise that would have terrified the birds and animals of this place had they not already sensed our murderous intent and fled long before the humans arrived.

The Humans did not notice, did not see the signs that had been so terrifyingly obvious to me. What had been a silent glade became a cacophony of activity as men moved deeper and deeper to their doom.

There was no cry, no shout, no scream of rage and vengeance. No, I merely stood, slightly hunched over still, and stalked forwards, spear raised. The women around me followed, and the women around them did likewise.

In moments, without a single word, my host began to advance upon the... My Queen would call it the Human ‘Resourcing Operation’. That, I supposed, was a truth stripped bare of any character, but a truth nevertheless. 

The first man saw me as I turned around a tree but could do little more than fumble with his axe as I drove my spear into his neck, pulled it loose and stepped over him. Picking up my pace.

The next man had glanced away from where he was walking and my spearhead found purchase in his temple.

The next stumbled back with a frightened shout but my spear found his brain though his nose as he left this world with an undignified gurgle.

There was a shout, a scream of agony. But the Humans were slow, confused, we were upon them by the time they realised that they were being slaughtered. As they began to scream I felt the pull in my blood to bound forwards, to charge, to shout, to fight and kill and rend asunder. 

It was that part of me that I suppressed, that I kept tightly controlled. I had a task, I had a purpose, I would honour Emroy in war but I would never give myself over fully to the Gods. They had taken enough from us and had given little in return already.

As another man was hacked apart by me, I beheld a man atop a horse shouting at the men, trying to bring order to a disordered slaughter. He saw me in the shadows of the trees and pulled upon the reins. 

I did not let him turn his horse about.

To his credit, he drew his blade and parried my first blow.

------------------------------------------------------

Outside Kontia’s outermost defensive line.

Zorzal El Caesar, Tribune of Sadera and Heir to the Imperial Throne.

I beheld a squat and ugly mud wall stretching to the horizon, east and west. Here and there, diminutive, poorly built shacks interrupted the sorry excuse for a fortification. It stood as a sad mockery of the great Imperial Wall that protected the heartland from the unsettled steppe.

Yet, while I looked upon this wall and felt my spirits lift, the men under my command became as timid as women. They invented problems, or imagined potential ones, despite it being clear that the construction of the mound wall was an act of desperation by the Tanaoi. For if the Tanaoi had truly taken Kontia, they would surely have used the sturdy Saderan walls to defend themselves, not a heap of dirt.

I ordered that we would advance early in the morning. Our arrival would precipitate a desperate attack on the part of the Tanaoi. They would redouble their efforts to take Kontia and use it as a final defensive bastion against me. There was little question of what the beasts would do should Kontia fall, murder the women and children while they would cripple the men and use them.

It was repugnant that none had brought this race to heel before me. They had uses, they had value, but they could be naught but slaves if civilisation was to be preserved.

Forty thousand men were arrayed in neat formation along the flat farmland at the sides of the Imperial road leading to Kontia. One of the Tanaoi ‘forts’ squatting over the fine Imperial Infrastructure with little regard to the insult this posed. 

It was as if we were a grand sea of men set before a child's creation upon a pale singing beach. Just as the inevitability of the tide turning sandy constructs to ruin there was little hope that such an insubstantial construct could repel a Legion. 

I felt a strength that had eluded me upon the long journey to Kontia. Vigor filled me as I drove my horse atop a hill overlooking the Tanaoi fort upon the Imperial road. Men were waiting for me there, waiting for me to have performed my inspection, to have inspired the men for the battle that was to come.

“The Prince arrives, or is it Tribune today? Or perhaps Tribute?” The mad girl had struck her halberd into a rock edifice and was tiptoeing along it as if she was walking across a rope. I did not consider her ramblings overmuch with so much to be done.

“Tanitious.” I addressed the Centurio primus pilus first. He was an older man who had not carried an expression except vague contempt to anyone that I had seen for the last year he had served under my command. “I presume the men are ready?” 

“I would caution you against this course of action, my Tribune.” The man offered in a deadpan way. “The Lepus have no doubt fortified this area beyond any other, there will no doubt be easier breaches to be made in their wall then upon the main road.” I considered his words and found, strangely, that I was not frustrated by them.

“True enough.” I offered, noting that several of the commanders aside from the man in question relaxed at my words. “But what true sons of Sadera would allow the people of Kontia to suffer another moment harried by the malevolent fiends before us? No, we attack here and now, should the women not surrender to us.” 

“As you say, my Tribune. In that case we shall advance upon the walls with men carrying digging equipment. They shall work to quickly bypass the trench and allow the men to climb over the wall.” I smiled for the first time in a long while. It was good when a man understood not to argue with his betters and merely strove to carry out his bidding effectively.

“Very good, now, have the Lepus responded to our request for Parlay?” I glanced at one of my men who quickly nodded.

“They responded to our flags and a small party of them left their walls. We shall send a messenger forward to discuss a meeting.”

“Good! Good, I would speak with their Queen, who is said to hold mastery over magic, perhaps soon she will learn mastery over my dick!” I let out a boisterous laugh only to be met with weak and quiet chuckles. It seemed my men had not a mind for jokes with battle so close.

Rory, the madwoman of Emroy, burst into a fit of giggles. Followed by a little gasp and quickly began to lose her balance atop the shaft of her halberd and tumbled to the ground laughing and grasping at her dismally undefined body.

Her groans became more excited, more deranged, the vessel of Emroy groaning and gasping like a woman possessed, as if she were...

Was... was she mocking me.

“What are you doing?!” I demanded at the writhing nymph on the floor.

“Ohhhh! Huh, hehe, nothing. Nothing at all to worry about.” she grinned and grit her teeth, getting to her feet on shaky legs. “Oh, I will join you, the Queen, she is waiting for you, Prince of Sadera.” She let out a manic little giggle. “She is so excited to meet you. Or perhaps what she thinks is you?”

“So she should.” I affirmed, my good mood shattered by the strange behavior of the short woman. “If you are to join us, I would ask that you do not behave so queerly.” For some reason my rather reasonable request was met with a smug smile. The girl drove her heel into the shaft of the halbard, shattering the stone it was embedded in and bringing it into her hands with a quick twirl that ended with the shaft laid across her shoulders.

“Well, let's go then!” She said with a smile and began to strut forwards, joined reluctantly by a handful of my commanders.

“Let’s see if this Barbarian Queen can be reasonable.” I muttered and drove my horse forwards towards the Tanaoi.

-------------------------------------

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eT0h10uFJD9RCJ9jpS-hHTHHD2oLLf7XyhdnJgBIVG4/edit?usp=sharing

Edited By: Y1