Chapter 152 – Fort Aegrimere

With her hidden remote spy spell, Mirian quickly determined that, once past the walls, Fort Aegrimere didn’t have too much divination to watch for. There were, however, state-of-the-art glyphkey locks on almost every door, even the barracks. The supply depots had two doors and a security checkpoint.

Specter’s notes in hand, Mirian began to look for the names of people Adria knew.

At first, she had little luck. The fort was full of strange faces, or people she vaguely recognized but couldn’t say anything about. Then, she recognized General Hanaran moving across the central courtyard, and had her eye follow her around. That led her to one of the meeting rooms.

Mirian expected a ward alarm to go off, or an arcanist to start looking around suspiciously. Surely they had something to ward against divination in a command room!

Instead, Hanaran’s command staff sat down at the table. She already recognized them. The group she didn’t know was led by Commander Hirte, one of Adria’s old friends. Both of them had attended the Great Cairn Academy, and they’d exchanged several letters to keep in contact. The Baracuel Army had merged from several different allied forces during the Unification War. Hanaran had mentioned that there was a quirk in the command structure that made Hirte her equal while they were both at Fort Aegrimere, so they both sat down across from each other as equals at—per military code—an oval table.

General Hanaran began the meeting. “Any revisions to the agenda? No? Then let us begin. Colonel Marquel, have we received the communications from our garrisons at Urubandar?”

“No, sir.”

The general let out an annoyed grunt. “Makes that item quick.”

A man wearing a navy uniform—probably a liaison—said, “The transport ships are on their way down with heavy escort. Either they put pressure on this upstart warlord to withdraw, or if the situation is dire, we retrieve the garrison and get reinforcements.”

“The latter is a problem. If we withdraw, that leaves the Akanans to garrison the city alone. That steps on one of the treaties. Parliament won’t be happy,” a colonel said.

“The Akanans should be sending us reinforcements soon,” another woman said. Except those reinforcements will be redirected to invade Torrviol in eight days, Mirian knew.

“It’s insufficient,” Commander Hirte said. “All lines of communication to the border have been cut. We have to assume the worst.”

Hanaran scoffed. “Dawn’s Peace was on the verge of annihilation a month ago. It is simply impossible that they defeated the entire Rambalda garrison, took all the border forts, and have an army that size outside of Alkazaria. Ibrahim’s bypassing the larger forces and using our lack of information to exaggerate his forces’ sizes and capabilities. It’s a desperate move looking to draw concessions.”

“You’re sure it’s Ibrahim Kalishah still leading Dawn’s Peace?” Hirte asked.

“The man’s a notorious lamprey. Once his teeth are dug into something—”

“Yes, I understand the metaphor,” Hirte said. “What I meant to ask was do we have actual intelligence on this matter?”

Hanaran shrugged. “Would you trust it?”

“No,” Hirte admitted. “He seized the rail line, General. Got to the city without a single signal flare going off. I don’t care how much the Deeps deny it, we have been infiltrated.”

“There are protocols to unmask traitors and spies,” one of the colonels said.

The secretary taking notes said, “Should the minutes reflect a change of topic, or are we still on the second agenda item?”

Hirte waved a dismissive hand. “Second item. No need to record an idle thought.”

The meeting continued to stray, though. Mirian could tell from the tension in General Hanaran’s shoulders that she was far more worried than she was letting on. She always had put on a brave face.

In the end, they made the decision Mirian assumed was inevitable given the current conditions. Hanaran said, “Let the record show the command staff has decided to confirm General Corrmier’s orders. My division will reinforce Alkazaria.”

“And the last agenda item?” the secretary asked.

The room grew quiet. Hanaran said, voice low, “I don’t like it. Some of them are our soldiers. Morale would plummet. I don’t even want to guess the effect it would have on force cohesion.”

Hirte looked grim. “We have to be prepared. I don’t like it either. But if that’s how our enemy did it—we have to be ready.”

The command team kept talking around the issue, so Mirian brought her hidden remote spy gaze towards the sheet of paper in front of Hirte. Her eyes widened as she read it.

Item 4: Proposal for the mass detainment of all citizens of Persaman origin and deputization of emergency defense militias along the plausible route of enemy advance, per the Law of Emergency and Last Resort

Several things struck Mirian all at once.

One was that there was no official census category for ‘Persaman origin,’ so the implementation of such an order would be a mad heretic hunt. Plenty of people, especially from east Baracuel, had darker complexions that could easily be interpreted as Persaman. Two was that, based on their discussions of contingencies earlier, they were clearly anticipating everything from Cairnmouth to Madinahr as a ‘plausible route of enemy advance.’

The third was that she’d never heard of the Law of Emergency and Last Resort in her civics class. It may not have been my best class, but I did study quite a bit. And that seems like one of those important laws they would have mentioned. A law authorizing the mass imprisonment of citizens without trial?

The command staff decided not to implement item four immediately, but agreed it would go into effect if Alkazaria fell. The meeting came to a close as Hanaran’s staff left to prepare the division to ship out.

With her mana running low from needing to project such a complex spell so far, Mirian stopped channeling.

Hanaran’s division hasn’t been moving south on a consistent day. That’s either Ibrahim’s influence or Troytin’s.

Mirian had been ignoring Ibrahim because he hadn’t been in her way and Troytin was the more aggressive, more proximate threat. However, that was going to have to change. If Alkazaria fell, Baracuel was going to tear itself apart. He wasn’t leaving her much choice. If he continued to push, it would disrupt everything she was trying to do.

She’d stayed away from Alkazaria, but one thing was clear: Ibrahim was iterating on his battles. An introduction of chaos would stymie his efforts to track changes in the timeline just as it had Troytin. On the other hand, maybe he can be reasoned with, she thought. Though, from talking to Rostal, Ibrahim didn’t sound like someone who was moved by anyone but himself.

But perhaps the time loop has changed him. After all, I changed. I used to be…

Mirian shuddered. She had been weak, but she had also been kind. She’d felt for people. Now, she’d built walls in her mind, trenches and fortifications made out of rationalizations and emotional distance.

Once I get through this, once I’ve recovered my position… I can let myself feel again. I’m still me inside. I just need to push through this part of the crisis. Then, maybe I can make Ibrahim see reason, and we can work together to unite Persama and Baracuel, and then we can spread the call for collaboration and research far and wide. Together, we can figure this out. Together…

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

She wanted to believe that all. She just wasn’t sure she did. The weight of it all was crushing her, bit by bit.

Well, nothing for it, she thought.

***

Three days later, she’d procured an army uniform through the Syndicates and used bindings to disguise herself again, making herself look like one of the maintenance artificers she’d seen moving around the fort. She used her camouflage spell to safely levitate herself through her de-warded corridor. Once she was inside Fort Aegrimere, she found an alley behind a building and dropped the spell. Then she headed straight for her prize.

The hangar was impossible to miss. The army had carved one of the inner “star” fortifications up, creating a large sloped structure. She already knew from Troytin that there was a way to authorize launches to pursue dangerous fugitives or for military operations. She needed to figure out how that all worked.

A guard stopped her immediately at the entrance. “Halt,” he said. “You’re not authorized to be in this area.”

“I’m not?” Mirian said, acting confused. “Colonel Marquel said I was to report… except I think I’ve screwed it all up. I was told to go to the Secretary of Personnel, only the office was closed. So I was supposed to pick something up, only I don’t know what, and even if I did, I couldn’t have.”

The guard looked at her like she was stupid, which was a promising reaction. “Personnel isn’t closed.”

“Fourth building from the right of the corner of the north star, right? I tried the door and—”

“Fifth building,” the guard said.

“Oh,” Mirian said. “Oh well that explains it. Sorry, I’m Micael, they rushed me up here from training because of the crisis, wanted the veteran artificers up front since they’re not… it’s a bit over my head. So how does this all work?”

“You go pick up your glyphkey and papers from Personnel and stop bothering me. Go talk to your superior.”

“I wasn’t assigned… or rather, I was assigned, but now they’re being shipped out to Alkazaria…”