Chapter 170: Chapter 31 – The Laufgraan War 6

The elves in camp now just called Matthew as Far, meaning shield in Elven. They’ve been in camp for 3 days now. Small parties and battalions went and came during those days. Faynn was barely a day in camp. After reporting her findings, she was sent away again.

It was night and Faralynn was dealing with politics. She was to be crowned duchess and declare her uncle a rebel to the rest of the kingdom. While the documents were being redacted to be sent to the king, the army was holding still.

Matthew found himself alone around a fire surrounded by elves who barely knew a word in English, but insisted on drinking with him.

"It’s been a while, kid." He heard a feminine voice saying and looked up.

It took Matthew a while to recognize her. It was the female elf in green that tried to kidnap Fralynn with a group of other elves back in the Tower of the Dead.

"You." Matthew recognized, trying to remember her name.

"Pyrzan." She said with a smile and sat down beside him.

"You lived." Matthew smiled at her.

"Lord Farzan was merciful." She said. "Harlynn as well. The one with the axe, remember? Banalynn didn’t make it."

"Banalynn was one of the archers?" Matthew asked, trying his hardest to remember the face of the elf.

"Yes." Pyrzan confirmed with a sad smirk.

"And Harlynn survived? After that?" Matthew was surprised.

"He’s always been tough." The elf chuckled.

"Is he here?"

"No. Farzan put him under Lord Farynn to spy for him." Pyrzan said.

"And you?" Matthew asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I did some spying myself." She laughed. "But now I’m just serving him as a war mage."

After a moment of awkward silence Pyrzan continued:

"I wanted to say I’m sorry... You know. About what we did."

"You were following orders." Matthew dismissed her.

"Even so. We should’ve refused those orders. Working under Farzan made me realize how mistreated we were. So... Please. I’m sorry." She asked for forgiveness again.

"You did the right thing in the end." Matthew put his hand on her shoulder. "It’s alright."

"Thank you." Pyrzan said with gratitude and a tear in her eye.

The rest of the night, Pyrzan served as an interpreter for Matthew who kept drinking with the elves before going to sleep with Aurfax.

The next few days were hectic. Troops were organized in different battalions, the plains around camp were used to coordinate and train the men to work as a unit. Some squads were sent far away to take small forts and harass the enemy troops. Others were sent to defend their own positions and supply routes.

Pyrzan herself led a troop to infiltrate deep within enemy territory taking advantage of her teleportation skill.

Faralynn and Matthew didn’t have much time for themselves. While she was busy dealing with politics, Matthew was with Firynn refining his sword skills and polishing away some bad behaviors he picked up after 2 years fighting demons.

After 2 weeks, the army finally began its march. Farynn was hiding inside his castle, Hyii ok Far, Shield of the South. It was an impressive fortress situated atop of a hill that ended on a cliff overlooking the southern coast of the kingdom. An important port city simply called Hyii ok Orr, South Harbor, grew by the shadow of the castle walls.

Sieging both the city and the fortress would be impossible without a sea blockade. However, Farzan’s troops were composed of inland nobles who didn’t have a navy of their own. Some nobles from outside the Duchy offered some boats, but, as too little was rallied, they couldn’t win any naval battles. The allied ships stayed in their ports just waiting for Farynn’s navy to make a move.

Farynn, however, didn’t use his navy offensively. Instead, he parked his ships by the coast aiming their cannons at the shore preventing any encampment of being made too close to the castle.

"Siege is impossible." Firynn said in the war council who discussed their strategy in Elven.

"Assaulting the walls without weakening them with siege weapons is suicide." Dalynn added.

"We need to take control of the sea first." Farzan said the obvious.

Meanwhile, Matthew was standing still behind Faralynn not understanding a word of what was being said.

The elf looked back at her shield and smiled.

"How many men do we need to take their ships?" Countess Azan asked.

"With my helicopters and tanks, about 100." Farzan said.

"Don’t be cocky." Azan admonished him. "Human weaponry is impressive, but don’t overestimate it."

"Give me 500 then. And Matthew." Firynn said.

Matthew turned to Firynn upon hearing his name trying to understand what was being said.

"You want to take the shield?" Azan asked, not using his name on purpose.

"Yes. Let him prove himself in battle this time." The swordmaster smiled.

"As you wish." The countess smiled as well.

The army was encamped faraway from the fortress, but close enough to see the lights in its towers.

Matthew was up the improvised walls made with earth magic, looking up the hill where the fortress stood.

"You’ll attack at dawn. Helen will go with you. Mia, Erin and Tina will stay with me." Faralynn said to him sitting by his side.

"It’s finally starting." Matthew said with a sigh.

"Yes. I wanted to go with you." Faralynn said, playing with her sword.

"The future duchess can’t leave the protection of her troops." Matthew joked.

Faralynn punched him lightly in the arm.

"It’s just a formality. Dad will be the one ruling as regent." She explained. "If all goes well." She added somberly.

"It will." Matthew comforted her by caressing her face.

"How do you know?" She asked, leaning her face on his hand.

"I have the Sixth Sense skill." He smiled at her.

"You know that it can’t sense that far into the future." She smiled back.

"I know. But I feel that everything is going to be fine. I mean. I survived hell itself. How much worse can a war be?"

"Just be careful, ok? You don’t need to fight with your life on the line every time." Faralynn caressed his face now. "You can always retreat."

Matthew nodded and kissed her.

Just before dawn troops boarded the helicopters. Matthew, Helen, Ffyr and Firynn boarded one of them.

The plan was simple. The helicopters would attack from the east using the sun to blind their enemies and draw fire. Meanwhile, shielded by the tanks and humvees, the troops would charge the hills up to the cliffside and fire their spells, arrows and cannons down the ships.

There were 8 ships with various sizes there, all were sailboats similar to Earth boats in the 1800s, but with a different architecture. The woodwork was the same as the elven buildings. Two of them, the largest ones, had metal platings reinforcing their hulls.

There were more than 300 cannons aiming atop of the cliff from the ships. They would obliterate any army that got on top of there.

But Farynn’s navy had never faced modern weaponry before.

The sound of the helicopters was alien to them. They took too long to understand they were under attack from the sea and not the coast. Long range missiles enhanced with mana hit the bigger ships making them shake violently.

Fire grew on the deck, but the ships’ magical shielding protected it from the worst of the blast. Soon their cannons awoke and fired several shots on the attacking helicopters that dodged the cannonfire easily in the sky.

At that moment, Farzan’s armed vehicles charged from encampment at full speed managing to arrive at the cliffside unchallenged, since the boats were busy firing at the incoming helicopters.

With their missiles exhausted and only causing minor damage to the wooden vessels, the helicopters got nearer using their machine guns on the upper deck taking the lives of the sailors easily until mages charged in and raided mana walls to protect them.

That’s when the tanks opened fire from the other side. Their shells flew from the coast at high speed, falling with incredible force on the parked navy. One of the smaller ships took in water and started to sink.

The ships returned fire on the tanks, but were unable to harm them significantly.

And then the fortress gates opened and a cavalry battalion came out at full speed to face the tanks on the hill. At the same time, the humvees roared with cavalry behind them to meet Farynn’s reinforcements on the coast.

When the cavalry troops met in the middle, a lightning bolt struck Matthew’s helicopter damaging the controls as the magical barrier around it broke.

"I can’t keep it up!" The pilot screamed.

"Boar the ship!" Firynn ordered.

They quickly opened the side door of the aircraft and jumped out with Ffyr using her wind magic to guide the 14 people inside safely on the deck of the biggest ship.

The helicopter spun uncontrollably in midair and fell on top of another one of the small ships bringing it under as well.

Matthew saw himself surrounded by elven sailors. He took out both his swords, Aym’s red hot blade and Belial’s dark one. He covered himself in unholy mana. And charged.