Sexy Steampunk Babes: Chapter Seventy

Elanor Blackstone watched the territory of William Redwater burn.

A bucket brigade had already formed before her people had even touched the ground and it was now supplemented by her own marines and mage-knights as they sought to fighting the last remnants of the flames.

Whatever feelings the locals might have had about being aided by ‘invaders’ had quickly been placed on the backburner in the face of the ‘disaster’. Then again, that was pretty standard in Elanor’s experience. Most peasants didn’t truly care which flag flew over the nearby manse. And even if they did, there was precious little they could do about it when an airship flew overhead.

Of course, those feelings might change when we begin rounding up the more problematic parts of the population, but for the moment there’s not been too much fighting, she thought.

Which was convenient because whatever had been used to start the blazes here had been nasty stuff. The smoke it unleashed was thick and oily, biting at the lungs and refusing to go out even when doused with water. Certainly, it was no natural flame.

Then again, given the territory was once home to an alchemist’s guild, that is perhaps to be expected, she thought as a cindering ember floated past her.

The warhound at her side didn’t react at all to the small bit of flaming debris. The well-trained beast remained as silent and stoic as he’d been from the moment she stepped off her ship. Others of his kin formed a loose ring around her along with their handlers. Also silent. The beasts would bark for one thing and one thing only – prior to being let off their leashes to tear it to shreds.

And it seemed that beyond this final act of defiance, Yelena hadn’t left any other ‘surprises’ behind.

Then again, she supposed it was to be expected. The numbers of her personal guard would have been severely depleted by the most recent Lunite attack.

“Except, was this Yelena?” the duchess murmured.

Other fires had been set in the capital itself and had already been extinguished prior to her visiting them. Albeit, not before doing their job, that being destroying the critical infrastructure and workshops Elanor might have used to repair and then maybe expand her fleet.

Those blazes had not been quite so… intense as this.

Nor as widespread. Yelena’s sabotage had targeted the workshops in their entirety, but when it came to other things like warehouses that had supplied those workshops, the buildings themselves had been spared. Emptied, certainly, their contents dragged out and set ablaze, but the workshops themselves had been left untouched.

That was in line with Elanore’s expection of Yelena.

Admittedly, perhaps the sabotage seemed so light because the capital had already been attacked – and as such – many of the facilities that would need to have been broken were already in disrepair. Specifically the sky-docks and ship manufactories which were still little more than rubble, but Elanore thought otherwise.

Because food store houses remained intact. Hospitals untouched. Town halls continued to function. Even the sea-docks continued to function, though the warehouses that supplied them were now empty. The academy still stood, nearly untouched. Yes, the mithril-core that once ran the simulators, the hangar shards and the communication orbs that once overlooked the arena had all been removed – but the structure yet remained.

Likewise, the palace – for all the damage it had already taken – still stood. The throne room more or less intact, barring some holes in the ceiling.

Even the throne yet remained.

The only things that had been touched were related to shard or airship production.

Again, that was all in line with Elanore’s understanding of Yelena. She fought cleanly. Not because she was some kind of bleating heart, but because she, like most elves, tended to take a long view of things.

Her absurd plan to end orcish slavery was a result of that. The notion that rather than spend generations fighting the beasts, it was easier to make peace with them and in turn draw on their strength.

Elanore could even see the logic in it. After all, if the conflict ended that meant there were less mages lost fighting in the North and more mages she could recruit from. Because for all their many issues, their was no denying that orcs could produce just as many mages as humans did on average.

It was a win-win.

And utter horseshit, Elanore thought.

It was the typical arrogance of an elf to assume that just because other races weren’t elven that they were all alike.

Orcs were little more than brother-fucking beasts barely a step above the wyverns they rode. Sure, they were possessed of a certain low cunning, but the fact that they lived in mud huts and skulked about in the mountains while every other race developed proper cities should have been proof of that. They were a backwards people who could do little more than steal from their betters rather than go through the effort of making things of their own.

The world would be better off without them.

She shook her head, dismissing the reason she’d been forced to go down the path of rebellion. The point was than as an elf, Yelena clearly didn’t want the city to fall into anarchy in her absence, lest she be stuck dealing with the after-effects of that kind of carnage years down the line once the war was over. The slums and organized criminal enterprises that tended to form in times of crisis could be difficult to dislodge even once the cause of their development was addressed.

Again, all of this assumed she won this conflict, but that was just typical elven arrogance. Which was why she’d chosen to sabotage only things related to the immediate conflict – and had done so in a measured and controlled manner.

Here though? The sabotage had been anything but.

Her eyes flitted to the distance, where the lord’s mansion had once sat. She said once because it had been burnt down to the cinders.

As had the nearby alchemist’s workshop.

Along with every warehouse, every hangar, every guard post, every storehouse, and every grain silo.

Anything and everything that might allow for a smooth transition of power was gone. Destroyed by enchanted incendiaries on a delay.

The whole territory looked like a warzone now, because many of those warehouses were in the town itself, and more than a few nearby houses had been caught up as the blaze spread on the wind.

And House Blackstone beyond just stopping the flames now, would be forced to intervene going forward – lest the whole area go to shit as starvation and lawlessness set in.

For much the same reason Yelena chose to avoid doing exactly this.

Starving and desperate people did not allow for smooth governance. And Elanore would need smooth governance here if she planned to prosecute her war in the South.

Unfortunately, doing all that would tie up manpower that she could have used elsewhere – specifically in solidifying her current gains by seizing the keeps of ‘loyalist’ houses she’d skipped over in her drive towards Lindholm’s capital.

Elanore Blackstone watched a human family weeping in front of the burnt out husk of what had likely once been their store.

No, Yelena Lindholm wouldn’t have done this. Nor would Elanore Blackstone. Hell, she couldn’t. Her own people would have rebelled against her. At least, if she asked them to do it to any of her own territory given they were her soldier’s homes.

…She might get less push back if she gave such orders here in the South. She’d certainly done worse when dealing with orcish infestations.

No, this was likely the work of William Redwater, she thought.

Given he had a number of alchemists on retainer – and they were always pyromaniacs to a woman and not recruited locally – she had a feeling they’d been the ones given this order. Without informing any of his more local troops.

She supposed it would have been easy enough to do. With the chaos of the evacuation, no one would have noticed them skulking about in places they needn’t have otherwise been.

“Tala?”

The girl jumped at her mother’s sudden words.

“Tell me everything you know about William Redwater,” the duchess of House Blackstone continued.

Elanore knew Yelena. She knew what she was and what she was capable of.

Destroying one of her own ships to destroy two of House Blackstone, cripple three others and damage two dozen more wasn’t something the Queen would do.

No, this spoke of another actor.

Young. Brash.

Foolish and brilliant.

Driven.

…Petty.

The kind of person who’d burn their own territory and forever garner a black mark against his name merely to inconvenience an opponent. Because however this war ended, William Redwater would never be able to lord over these lands again. The people would tear him limb from limb the moment he descended from his airship.

Elanore had dismissed her daughter’s words on William Redwater once before. Perhaps unfairly. She’d thought the girl’s view of him warped by personal grievance. Elanore knew herself well enough to admit she likely wouldn’t have been entirely objective about a former fiancé who’d both broken off said engagement and publicly humiliated her in the process.

As such, Elanore had attributed most of the boy’s actions to him being Yelena’s puppet – and Tala’s insistence that he was the driving force behind both the innovations and the plan to discredit her merely as wounded pride.

She’d been blindsided twice now because she’d dismissed that possibility as improbable.

As improbable as an airship that exploded with the force of an erupting volcano despite not having nearly a large enough magical presence to allow for it, she thought. Because it should have shone like the sun to any of our mages if had possessed an enchanted payload large enough to create that explosion.

Never mind the cost of such an endeavour. That amount of enchanted munitions would have emptied the generational stockpiles of three or more noble houses.

No, Elanor Blackstone had a feeling she’d just experienced firsthand the Queen’s mysterious ‘Kraken Slayer’.

A non-magical way of generating explosive force.

She’d gotten rumours of such before she’d attacked, but she’d dismissed and downplayed them. Void, even if she’d believed them, she’d never have even conceived of someone sacrificing an entire airship as delivery system for an attack.

But someone had thought of it.

Likely the same someone who’d burnt down half of his own territory just to inconvenience her occupation of it.

William Redwater.

——————————-

The Duchess of New Haven reclined on a plush divan in the upstairs grand salon of an abandoned noble’s manor.

It was passable, she supposed.

Still, after weeks confined aboard her flagship, she’d have settled far something far less grandiose if it meant gaining access to solid ground and a decent bed. For all that New Haven preferred to think itself more cultured than their brutish eastern neighbour, House Blackstone, they were still a marcher house. And that was reflected in the relative lack of amenities aboard their warships.

No, the airships of House New Haven were no floating palaces like those of the South – and Faline’s personal ship was no exception.

The elven woman smiled as one of her attendants andpoured herself a cup of the pilfered tea from the manor’s stores, allowing her shoulders to relax for the first time in what felt like an eternity as she inhaled the subtle scent of the beverage.

For all that the noble was lacking as an interior decorator, Faline would still congratulate them on their choice in tea.

Glancing out one of the nearby expansive windows, she watched as her marines patrolled the grounds of her temporary home, securing the perimeter against any lingering loyalists that might still be skulking about in the city beyond.

There’d be a few. There always were. Those too dim or too stubborn to shift with the changing times.

For now, though, the duchess savoured the quiet, her fingers tracing idle patterns on the rim of her cup. Relaxation would no doubt be a rare indulgence in wartime in the months to come, so she seized it here, letting the tension of command ebb away.