Lord Summoner's Freedom Philosophy: Grimoire of Love-Chapter 511: Morning and Next Phase (End)

The soldiers converged beneath the ruined portcullis like wraiths summoned by a single heartbeat. Leather straps whispered as they pulled packs tight, and the muffled thud of boots on frost-slick flagstones was almost lost in the hush of rolling fog. Lyan stood just inside the broken gatehouse, silhouetted by guttering torch-light. Each man and woman who passed under his gaze touched the shaft of his glaive for luck. Some did it openly, others with a furtive brush of fingers—as if a brief spark of faith from cold metal might carry them the impossible miles ahead.

The last squad filed out, cross-bows slung and helms cinched. Belle drifted to Lyan’s side long enough to murmur, "The west parapet illusion caught its first gullible sparrow—Varzadian scout thought he saw a full mess queue. He nearly wet himself when the cook-fire flared." Her smile carved mischief into tired features, but when she stepped into the mist her shoulders drooped, betraying the weight of glamours that clung like chains.

Lyan waited until only Wilhelmina remained in the archway. She craned her head, checking sight-lines one final time, then knocked her gauntlet twice on stone—an old cavalry blessing—before turning away. At her gesture the brazier inside the gate was doused, plunging the gullet of the fortress into blackness. Illusionary sentries now owned what life remained behind them.

They slipped down the goat-track skirting Eboncliff’s cliff face in a single, serpentine column: Josephine’s cavalry in the van, hooves wrapped in wool to muffle strike; engineers towing light ladders and coils of rope; Wilhelmina’s grizzled spearmen forming a spine of silent shields; archers, surgeons, alchemists—everyone haunted by the knowledge that only emptiness guarded their rear. Eboncliff itself had become a scarecrow; there would be no refuge if pursuit caught up.

Mist swallowed walls, then towers, then the last false torch. Lyan exhaled and felt tension slither from his ribcage. For the next three days no one could afford to stumble.

The valleys woke around them in shades of charcoal. Moisture beaded on moss-slick boulders, and ghostly threads of spiderweb glittered when lamplight brushed past. Ravia and Xena ran point, their silhouettes flitting in and out of the tree-line. Every few hundred strides Xena tossed a hand up—halt, ravine ahead, three breaths—then she and Ravia flowed across like shadows wearing human skins. Only after they signalled clear did the column follow, boots sinking into loam without so much as a squelch.

Lyan kept to the center, storm-gray gaze everywhere at once. He counted how often each soldier licked cracked lips, tracked the droop of shoulders, catalogued bladed silhouettes swaying just a fraction too low. He gave tiny nods or finger flicks—drink, tighten strap, shift weight left—to correct fatigue before it became error. And whenever he sent his eyes forward, they snagged on wistful glimpses: Josephine’s braid rising like a banner in fog; Belle’s cloak swirling as if it still remembered ballroom steps; Wilhelmina’s pristine back, straight as a parade pike even under seventy pounds of plate.

Stop staring, Lilith purred, the words sliding against his mind like warm silk. They’ll think you plotting wicked things.

He clenched his jaw and pushed on.

An hour before dawn a kestrel’s cry split the gloom—Ravia’s whistle. The column froze, every breath held as if lungs feared discovery. Ahead, vague shapes moved: a half-platoon of Varzadian outriders, helmets beaded with dew, horses snorting steam. They chatted idly, unaware of the silent tide creeping toward them.

Wilhelmina’s hand rose—archers notch—but Lyan shook his head. Noise risked the game. He stepped into the gap, glaive sliding from its sling with a hiss of steel that no human ear caught beyond their own line. The runes along the blade’s curve glimmered faint cobalt, hungry for blood.

He advanced alone at first, boots whispering across fern fronds. A horse flicked an ear but its rider only yawned. At ten paces Lyan burst forward, glaive sweeping in a molten arc. The first rider’s torso parted from saddle with barely a thud; the second tried to shout but the backstroke severed windpipe and sound together. Panic rippled through the patrol—too late. Xena and Ravia arrowed in from the flanks, knives kissing throats, arrows punching mail. Within twelve heartbeats nothing living remained but the Astellians.

One horse skittered, eyes rolling; Alicia raised a trembling hand, soothed it with whispered ripples of force, then clenched her fist. A distant wooden tower groaned as her unseen hand wrenched support beams inward. It collapsed with a dull crunch, sending a single roosting raven flapping skyward in outrage. The effort buckled her knees.

Belle was suddenly there, bracing Alicia’s elbow. "Careful, hero," she chided, voice all lilac softness though worry etched her eyes. "Save some tricks for the capital walls. I’ll let you collapse dramatically after we win."

Alicia offered a wan smile. "Deal."

A strangled cry yanked every gaze back: a teenage spearman sprawled against a stump, green trousers dark with blood. A Varzadian dagger jutted from his thigh—one patrolman had crawled just far enough for a last act of spite. Wilhelmina materialised beside the boy, visor flipped up, her battlefield bark traded for a healer’s hush. She snapped the blade out, wrapped the gash with her own scarf, then pressed both palms firm. A surge of warmth bled from her into the lad—Lyan saw it in her softening mouth, the gentleness of her voice as she promised he would walk again. Iron wrapped in velvet, Belle had once joked; tonight the velvet showed.

When Wilhelmina glanced up, Belle waggled brows. "Look at you—mother hen with mail-wings."

"Keep mocking and you’ll be on stew duty," Wilhelmina muttered, but a tiny smile betrayed gratitude. She finished knotting the bandage, patted the boy’s cheek, and rose.

They buried the patrol in a mudslide, disguising every trace. Xena sliced fresh pine boughs to brush the path, Ravia scattered handfuls of dead needles. By the time they moved on, dawn stained the ridge lilac and not a hoof-print remained.

Night returned like a velvet hood. They halted in a hollow where a half-collapsed shepherd’s hut offered windbreak. Fires were banned; even sparks could betray them, so Belle whispered a charm that cloaked tiny braziers with illusions of bare dirt. Heat drifted up but from a distance they looked no brighter than stones. Soldiers huddled close, rubbing hands over invisible flames, cheeks aglow from nothing at all.

Josephine sprawled beside Lyan, armor discarded, tunic laces loose at the throat. Moonlight slicked across the curve of her collarbone. "Commander," she said, voice a feline purr, "you realise every single soul out there follows you, not our banners."

"Banners matter," he insisted, though color warmed his ears. "Discipline matters."

"Yes, yes." She nudged his knee with hers. "But people circle around heat, not fabric. You’re the hearth."

Before he could rebut, Wilhelmina appeared, settling across from him with a sigh that seemed to let twenty years of solitary command leak out. She toyed with a twig, eyes reflecting starlight. "Strange trusting another mind’s blueprints," she admitted. "I spent my life memorising doctrine. Now I revise nothing until after you speak."

Lyan opened his mouth—closed it—opened again. "You make my plans work," he said finally, simple and honest. "Trust goes both ways."

Across the hollow Belle began to sing—an old coastal lullaby about fisherman souls tied to lantern light so they find home through fog. Her voice curled like smoke, mournful yet steady. Alicia, eyes half-shut, caught the tune and hummed in fragile harmony, her breath frosting the air. Ravia sat apart on a splintered beam, drawing a whetstone down her blade, each rasp a heartbeat in the hush. Sparks leapt when steel kissed stone, fading before they could betray.

(Every step burns deeper,) Lilith whispered, a note of almost-concern threading silk.

(Remember why we fight,) Cynthia counseled. (Or the fire will consume more than flesh.)

Lyan stared into Belle’s illusion-fire, seeing no flames, only the faint orange shimmer ghosting across faces he could not lose. He committed them—creases beside Wilhelmina’s eyes, the defiant quirk of Josephine’s grin, the steady calm Ravia poured into steel—to memory sharp enough to cut.

When dawn stained the sky a vicious red, they pushed on. The pass awaited: sheer granite walls funnelling chill wind and enemy blades alike. A supply caravan clattered there under escort of Varzadian elite—tower shields, plate gleaming sable. Josephine led her riders forward, banners fluttering, then feigned shock and retreat. Half the enemy chased, pride pricking feet faster than sense.

The remaining guards tightened ranks—perfect for Xena and Ravia who ghosted up the cliff faces, dropping silent as predators. Xena’s arrows punched through visor slits, Ravia’s curved blade stitched crimson smiles across throats. On the ground Belle conjured duplicate wagons crashing in from the rear, sowing panic; archers whirled to fire at shadows that dissolved into fog. Alicia lifted both arms, and the mountain itself answered—stones cracked loose, thundering down, swallowing the fleeing captain before he could rally. Wilhelmina’s hawk familiars swooped overhead, ribbons tied to ankles bearing chalk-scrawled orders: Shift left. Spear wall two paces in. Reserve archers forward. The men moved like a choir reading from the same hymn.

Victory took minutes; the cleanup, longer. Among twisted armor they found bundles of grain, salt-cured beef—treasure to soldiers chewing dry oats. Yet the mood soured as dusk slid across peaks. One scout failed to report. They found him at the canyon lip, neck broken by a spring-snare wire. No trumpet blast, no hero’s duel—just cruel, unseen efficiency.

They buried him where he fell, stones piled high. Lyan spoke only a sentence, voice raw. "Each step toward the serpent’s head is carved in blood. Let us not waste it." No one answered. Alicia’s eyes shone as she shaped a spiral from canyon rock—simple, elegant. Forward motion. The squad moved on in silence, boots crunching frost.

On the third evening the ridge rose like a black wave. Everyone climbed in staggered breaths, calves trembling, breaths pluming white. At the crest the fog tore open, wind knifed across, and the Varzadian capital revealed itself—spires like claws, walls ridged with obscene battlements, hearth-smoke drifting from countless chimneys. A monster city basking in stolen lamplight.

"There it is," Belle whispered, awe and fear braided in her voice. Her hand slipped into Lyan’s cloak hem, squeezing once.

"The serpent’s den," Ravia murmured, thumb brushing her blade’s spine as if eager to taste its bite.

Wilhelmina raised her slate, then let it fall; no more lines to draw. "No maps now," she said quietly, "just choices."

Lyan stepped to the cliff’s edge. Below, torch-dots marked enemy patrols circling oblivious. Behind him, his people waited, faces half-lit by a dying sun. He felt the weight of every promise, every longing glance, every body that would never rise again—and he let that weight settle into the haft of his weapon until it steadied, warm and sure.

He tightened his grip on his glaive, voice firm and resolute. "We draw no breath that isn’t spent winning this war."

Follow current novℯls on f(r)eewebnov𝒆l