Penitent-Chapter 235 Book 4 Ch 16: The Messenger

Gabriel walked the streets of the Cantalian Capital with a light escort of ten men. It was a unique city, with just as many canals weaving their way through as there were streets. The buildings were primarily single story though a few were built into and on the trees themselves. They'd learned the building techniques for them from aelves that had lived alongside them in the ages before the calamity. You could see a lot of the aelves in Cantalia, including the occasionally inhuman eyes or slightly pointed ears that came from a mixed heritage. None of the full-blooded remained though.

He'd set a few scribes to make copies of a number of the historical texts he'd found in the castle after he'd moved in. He had a library full of old history back in Burndan. Old works that had never been shared between neighboring countries had been copied and collected back in that library. He hoped someday to be able to sit and read them. He'd loved history back on Earth, and that hadn't even had magic, dragons, aelves, and dwarves. Of course, he was fairly certain he'd never be able to go through them.

"Sir, I must ask again that we return to the Castle. There are known loyalist elements here," said the armored man to his right.

"I appreciate your concern Lieutenant Darien, but that's why I'm walking the streets openly." He did a quick mental check on the barriers he'd summoned around himself as well as feeling the weight of the antivenom and antidotes hidden within his light coat. Even the most powerful poison wouldn't kill him quickly with his durability as high as it was, but they could still kill him if given enough time, and he wanted to be prepared.

"Either I walk the streets like this, absorb some of the danger, and flush them out, or you and the other men will be the targets for dozens of attacks, and while I know you're very capable, there will be losses. I want to avoid those."

"Sir, we are all willing to make that sacrifice."

"Well I'm not," he responded, eyeing the corner of a roof where he thought he'd seen the briefest flash of movement. He needed to begin moving his troops through Cantalia to the Swandian border, but before he did so he wanted to reduce the risk to them as much as he could. The majority of the resistance had been isolated to the swamps, but it only took one effective raid with their powerful poisons for even a small group to do tremendous damage.

"Focus up," he said just low enough for Darien to hear.

The lieutenant returned to where he'd been at the King's side and began scanning, giving the others a subtle gesture to be ready as well.

As they reached the building where Gabriel had seen the movement a man leapt out with a gun, and screamed, "For Canta-"

He was cut off as Gabriel sprinted forward, crossing twenty feet in less than a second, and grabbed him by the throat with one hand, holding the barrel of his rifle with the other, and spun holding him in front of him as shooters on the other side of the road fired on him, killing their friend.

Gabriel threw the bullet-riddled body at them, and it crushed one of them against the building wall. He then sprinted at the other shooters, drawing his sword and cutting them down before they could even begin to think of whether or not they should reload or draw the daggers at their waists.

Once they were dead he heard the sound of something being thrown from above. He saw four large orbs that seemed to be filled with swirling orange liquid. Easy for him to avoid, but not for his men that had only just begun to catch up with him. He ran toward the vials, managing to catch one, two, three, but the fourth hit the ground before he could stop it. Carefully cradling the other three glass orbs in his hand, he summoned an airtight barrier spell over the broken vial just as orange mist began to rise from it.

He looked up to see a half-dozen men aiming rifles in his direction from the nearby roof. He considered throwing the vials back at them, but he wanted to capture at least one alive, and couldn't be certain of how the mist would travel. He had no desire for his men to die, or regular civilians that might be nearby.

The rifles fired, bullets scattering across the barrier he had in front of himself. He raised his sword and aimed it, gathering his magicka and focusing it into a condensed point at its tip. Once it was the size of a golfball he released it, shooting a heavily concentrated pencil sized beam. He moved the sword, directing the beam to cut all but one of the attempted assassins down. His blade was a unique Burndan artifact, the Blade of the Magus, that allowed one to fire beams of concentrated magicka. It had inspired a spell he'd taught many of his mages, though it was much more difficult without the sword. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

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His men were already in the building or scaling the wall.

"Take the last one alive!" he yelled as he returned his attention to the poison mist he'd managed to seal away with a barrier spell. He thought for a moment about how best to approach it, then formed a small bubble around it which cut through the road beneath it. Once this was done he carefully lifted the bubble of poison and brought it toward himself before aiming it at the nearby canal. He sunk the poison bubble to the bottom of it, then released his spell. He wouldn't say he'd made it harmless as perhaps a few fish might die. With that done he burnt the blood and viscera off his blade with some concentrated magicka and sheathed it.

A number of peacekeeping soldiers arrived from deeper within the city.

"Sire, are you alright?" asked one of them as he approached with his spear at the ready.

He nodded. "Just an assassination attempt. I'm unharmed. Please block off this street on both sides and have someone gather these bodies and remove them. I want them identified and their family homes searched. If there's no sign of their family being a part of this then give them the bodies along with enough silver to have them buried."

The soldier saluted.

Gabriel nodded at him and began walking into the building where the last remaining attacker was. It had been a dye shop, and colorful fabrics hung everywhere to show the quality of dye they sold. He ran his fingers along a particularly fine purple shawl as he walked toward the stairs in the back, climbing them and arriving at the roof.

His men stood ready for him and their prisoner had already been tied up, with a soldier on either side of him. He had not been abused in any way. Gabriel had been clear on the pointlessness of that in the past. The man was young, younger than Gabriel's physical age, with a light tan and sandy blonde hair along with golden eyes that indicated some aelven heritage.

Gabriel looked at the corpses to the side, all of them bisected by his magic and sighed.

"Sorry about your friends."

The man stared at him angrily.

"I'm going to lay this out in simple terms for you. Tell me of everyone you know involved in resistance against me and I will spare you. Once what you say is confirmed I will not even hold you in jail. You will be free."

The man spat at him, but it landed on a barrier in front of Gabriel's face.

Gabriel frowned and walked over to one of the bodies, grabbing it by the hair and dragging it roughly along the ground until he was in front of the prisoner again. He lifted the body and held it, its entrails spilling more onto the ground between them.

"This is a result of your resistance. This man would not be dead if he did not resist. His family would not mourn him. His blood would not be spilling out onto your boots."

Gabriel pushed the corpse forward, and the prisoner tried to back away, but was unable to as his allies' dead face nearly touched his own. Gabriel tossed the body to the side.

"If you resist and attempt to harm me or my men or even your own people that aren't resisting, then you will die. The cost of not resisting though? There isn't one. Your people and their lives will remain largely unchanged. In fact, many of you will benefit from easier access to food, medicine, and fewer taxes." He turned to Darien.

"Darien. Tell him where you're from."

"Vyndar."

"And what was life like in Vyndar before it was made part of Burndun?"

"I farmed dirt sir, and almost everything I managed to grow was given to the baron. My younger siblings were skinny and short, and my mother was frequently ill. If I ran, I would be killed."

"And what is it like now?"

"My siblings are fed, my mother well taken care of by my salary, and the baron is the one that was killed."

"My king was not like that. Life here was not like that. And you killed him anyway."

Gabriel shook his head. "I did not kill him. If I had, his titles would've gone to his son. No, I simply spoke with him, much like I am speaking with you now. I gave him choices, and he picked the one that meant he'd live in safety with his family and favored servants in a small country estate in return for an easy transfer of his titles."

The man's eyes widened.

"And now I'm offering you a choice as well."

The man swallowed.

…

Gabriel walked into the Cantalian castle, nodding at his men as he entered and made his way to his temporary office where he found his secretary waiting for him.

"Sir," said the man, bowing.

"Good afternoon Thran. Any new messages from the Queen?"

"There was a letter from her, sir. It's unopened on your desk."

He smiled as he went to his desk and lifted it, noticing the faint smell of roses that she always scented them with.

"And none from the Dowager Queen?"

"No, Sir."

It was a good day then.

"Anything else?"

"Yes, actually."

Gabriel sat and gave the man his full attention, placing his wife's letter to the side.

"We received a messenger from Old Hume sir. It seems that they wish to mediate between us and Swandia before war breaks out. They're even offering a titled item from their vaults to each party if they agree to at least attempt the mediation."

Gabriel raised an eyebrow. Old Hume was a nonentity as far as he was concerned, already promised to the monsters from beyond the rifts. They also had never before involved themselves in his or any other nations' affairs up until this point. Still, it was going to take some time for him to move his troops anyway, and a titled item in his arsenal could be a tremendous boon in the right hands. There was also… He thought back to the taker he'd had as a prisoner, the Russian. He'd said the healer that fixed his brand was in Old Hume, hadn't he?

"Bring me the messenger."