Meeting with the maids on the path towards Fermont, the Lieutenant hopped them up aboard the already crowded truck. There was a makeshift table at the middle, out of crates. On it was a map, paper, and inks. "Tell us what happened." The lieutenant probed them.
"Sir, it was an ambush."
---
Multiple gunshots have fired in the span of a minute, "How many are they!?" Exclaimed one of the maids.
"Impossible to know, but they sure aren't going down with our rounds!"
"What!?" They turned left to a hall, "A- shit!" A horde of knights came rushing to them from the other end of the lit hall.
"We need to go to ma'am Jeane!"
"Can we!?" They huddled up together, shooting at the knights coming to them. Closer, and closer still, the horde couldn't be stopped. Their eyes darted the right hall and the left hall, hordes of knights came barreling down to them.
A click!
Their guns were out of ammo!
"We have to jump through the window!"
Immidiately, the maid smashed the window to her immidiate left. The hallways were closing, they were running out of time. With the inkling of hesitation, the first maid went down. A thud! The solid ground made her groan in pain. "Hop down! Now!"
Soon, the other two came down. Fleeing the scene, they looked back. The knights weren't jumping down to catch them. And soon, they ran, ran far away.
---
"And you went to the temporary base for the radio in?" The lieutenant asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Shit, it's been most about fifteen minutes, what has happened to ma'am Jeane!?" He screamed internally, knowing how much of a disaster has taken place. "How much nearer!?" He yelled at the driver.
"We're about here, sir!"
The vehicle came to a swift halt.
"Men, I want this swift and fluid." The lieutenant slammed the table. "If ma'am's still in the manor she'll most probably be hidden in a cellar? The attic maybe? Whatever may be the case, we check both places. Since we don't have any idea what the inside of the manor is like, the maids'll be part of the vanguard to navigating it."
"Yes, sir."
"Now, we go." He hopped down.
The Venit Ille black soldiers were preparing, checking their guns, then a simple light warm-up.
They stopped at a forest near the manor, it was perfectly obscure under the light of the moon and the shades of the trees. The other trucks let down their soldiers, raring to go already. "Everyone! You'll be auxillary, so will surround the perimeter of the manor seeing if any movement's broken through and also make sure these trucks stay defended while the Venit-Ille black units do their job inside. Medics! Prepare the tents, and if things go the other way, we will storm and destroy that manor."
"But, sir? Wouldn't that cause a war to breakout? We'll be the harbinger of doom!"
"And that's because ma'am Jeane's been captured." He retorted. "We'll be starting war anyway, and if we're starting war, we won't be doing it without the ma'am!"
Silence.
"Alright! No questions? Didn't think so. Get ready soldiers!"
( * )
Creeping, slowly so. The grass blades that hit their soles; crushed under their weight. Shining down below was the whole of the city. Crackles and laughter heard even from up at the manor.
A silent gesture, two fingers pointing to a door. Locked? Maybe so. They slowly made their way to it, clearing the path, aiming at any crevice that a blade could creep out inside of.
Three soldiers to the right of the door and three to the left. The others were scouting for other potential entrances. One of them reached for the door handle. Slowly; he turned the knob. A stop. His head swayed 'no.' He retracted his hand. The squad leader raised his hand then swiftly down.
Strapped on one of the soldier's bags was large, heavy iron rod. The man unbuckled it, making his way to the door. Hup! Aiming for the handle,
A slam!
The soldiers rushed in, sighting in there, to that. Nothing, dark. They didn't hear any other movement happening in the manor. But the inhabitants of the manor should have heard it nonetheless. "High alert men." The squad leader said; "now that we've announced ourselves, they'll be preparing dinner."
"Yes, sir."
There was this eerie silence, beneficial for the soldiers yet ominous still. They could just about hear every thing happening in the house from their position. Every creak and thud. This too was beneficial for the enemy.
They were approaching a corner, the soldiers hugged the wall. Closer; now at the edge. In a simple three second countdown, four men jumped out immidiately aiming at the new hallway, two standing and two crouched.
There was nothing at the end of the hall.
A loud pound erupted throughout the manor, no doubt it was the second group making their way in. "They went through at the second floor. Let's be fast." Indeed they did; they rushed forth further into the hallway; one door to the left.
A slam! The whole door was ripped off from it's hinges, "Clear!" the men whom entered in the room said. Then another door to the right, another bust; "Clear!"
Strange, no people, entirely deserted, where were the maids of the manor? Where did the cooks sleep and where were the knights Jeane's maid-soldiers saw? Questions piled up as they made corner to corner, hallway to hallway, room to room. Nothing.
The two groups met up at the manor's stairway. "Anyone? Ma'am Jeane up there?"
"No, sir."
The soldiers were visibly distressed, frustrated. "We haven't checked the cellar, if there is one anyway. I bet you my left foot Ma'am Jeane's there."
But where? Was the question, the squad leader didn't know, and neither did the maids. "Ma'am Jeane went to the manor's dining room with the scumbag lord. We don't know what happened afterwards, but we sure as hell didn't hear any gunshots."
"Then you're saying ma'am was poisoned?"
"That, or magic, two things." The maid proposed.
The soldiers let out a sigh. "Everyone, search the bottom rooms, and you two;" -the squad leader refered to his subordinates- "go back outside and notify them of the situation, tell them also that they need to help in finding a basement or celler outside."
"Yes, sir!"
Soon, the manor was lit up with electrical lights, flashlights, and lanterns. The place seemed like it was abandoned, no acitivity whatsoever, of course someone obviously had lived there, if not there would've been dust piling up till the peak of the skies. It had been thirty minutes since their infiltration, nothing. The soldiers were getting anxious.
A thud! Then a blast! There was uproar, a gun shot? No, the soldiers went to the scene of the noise.
"Ah! God! Help me outta here!" A soldier caught his foot on a wood panel, cracked open.
Soon the squad leaders came, "What happened?" They asked the abundance of soldiers that was currently there.
"We were just walking, then, the floor beneath him just cracked and he fell-"
"Which!" The squad leader interupted; "means that we have found our basement,"
"Yes, sir." The soldier smiled, knowing too the meaning of their discovery.
The soldier slowly crawled his foot out of the hole after a long while of shimmying about. Which had undoubtfully made the hole on the floor bigger. One soldier was tasked to investigate.
He peered down into the hole, darkness. Nothingness, what else? Emptiness. There was absolutely nothing, but it felt like this darkness opened to a deeper, darker expanse. When his nose touched the opening, it felt moist. "It's like a cave's down there, sir."
"Here," -the squad leader gave him a flashlight- "throw it down and measure the distance."
"Yes, sir." He grabbed the flashlight, hovered it over the hole.
He dropped it.
A long fall, he commented to himself. Falling, falling still, it felt like forever until it had actually hit a bottom. A metalic slam; "Sir, it's hit the bottom, give or take; ten meters?"
"Hmm." The squad leader stood there, rubbing his chin thinking of something. "You;" -his eyes darted towards an empty-handed soldier- "get a rope, long, longer than your mother."
A few snickers went across the corridor.
"A-hah, yes; sir!" The soldier made his way out of the crowd of soldiers at the hallway.
Inclined by his own curiosity, the soldier at the hole looked down still at the light. When, "A silhouete!" He yelled.
"What? Is it ma'am Jeane?"
A dark hand pulled itself out from the darkness of the pit, hovering above the light; the light giving justice to the hand's features. Red. Fleshy red, swiftly! The hand dropped itself onto the light, a crush.
"Sir." The soldier stood up slowly, his hands shivered in fear. "I believe we're dealing with a monster, twice the size of us. A dragoon."
"A dragoon!?" There was a steady murmur of questions arising about the soldiers.
Irritated; "Can you all go back to your stations!? Scout out for possibles intruders or what not!"
"Y-yes sir!" The men scrambled out the hallway in great uniform patches. With the room being a bit more peaceful than before, the squad leader cleared his throat.
"Dragoon." He wanted clarification.
"Dragoon, sir."
"How can you be so sure?"
"The unmistakable red hand sir, what discounts it from a normal dragoon is that it looks like it's scales were peeled, judging from the hand I had saw, sir." The soldier sat down defeated.
"That makes our job difficult." A sigh of frustration. "We haven't found ma'am Jeane, and if I have to bet my life on it; our boss'll probably be down there or somewhere else inside the city."
The room was silent for a couple of moments with the squad leader thinking still of methods to defeat the creature or supposed dragoon.
"Sir, let's just shoot the thing with the MG42."
"Ah, right!" The light bulb lit inside the squad leader; "Get the heavy gunner's MG42."
"Yes sir."
---
They punched the hole wider with the iron rod the soldier from before had. Under the lights, they saw clear as day the dragoon. It was indeed fleshy, as it was actually skinned. A cruel sight. The dragoon simply stared at them, the harsh flash of their lights would surely have alerted him already.
"Yet he doesn't fire." Interjected the squad leader, "kill it, go down, then raid."
"Yes, sir."
The heavy machine gunner held the MG42, he struggled a bit as it was heavier than the usual STG-44. He rocked the bolt, the belt-fed round going inside the barrel.
Not even a second after he pulled the trigger, a barrage of rounds rushed, shredding the already skinned dragoon into pieces. The gunner slowly aimed at every major part, the stomach, the neck, the head. Making sure it was really dead.
A click!
"It's safe to say the dragoon's not alive anymore." The gunner tossed his gun aside, letting the soldier with the rope toss their ladder down.
With a hammer, the man secured the rope down with three nails on two different wooden boards. With a light, then hard tug. "We're good to go, sir!"
"Clip your flashlights on your pouches, we're going down."
"Yes sir!"
One, two, then three! The soldiers went down fast and faster. With their gloves, gliding down wasn't painful as would without gloves. Landing, the soldiers aimed at the four corners of the room, immediately, one door to their immediate front, and the dead dragoon left of them.
"Clear."
The door had light twinkling at the bottom door slit. The soldiers went ahead, towards the door.
Before some soldier could open it, the squad leader pushed his hand away. In a whisper; "someone's behind the door, they're waiting for us to open it."
The soldiers nodded, quietly stepping away from the door.
Another fusillade of gunfire blasted the wooden door to bits, there came from behind the vanishing door a hail of men screaming and swords clanging. Their ears were being deafened, but the soldiers had ear protection on.
The bullets stopped when the cries ceased.
What little remained of the wooden door, fell down onto the other side of the now doorway; they stepped inside. A hallway, lit with torches, with the amount of gunfire they had just unloaded, there was no way anyone inside this... Dungeon? Would not have heard it.
They looked at the men they had just shot, since it was rather hot, with a hint of moist in the air of this dungeon, they wore no light to little armor. Cheap looking cotton blouses, and chain mail covering only their torso.
Also; short swords, some had daggers, others had slightly longer daggers. Befitting of the narrow passage of the hallway. "No grenades." The squad leader said; "We'd end up caving ourselves and ma'am Jeane in here."
"Yes, sir."
They rushed forward, the end a T-section exposing itself to two more hallways. "We split! I want this done pronto, search every room, and leave no-one alive."
"Yes, sir!"
And off the two went, branching pathways inside larger hallways, rooms and corridors with grim designs, chains, research equipment and all. This was a facility, they just didn't know what for.
Encountering multiple sword-wielding foes along the way; shot down, all of them, of course. They found much evidence of Jeane's presence being down here. With one being; "Her Luger." The squad leader clicked his tongue.
"She's disarmed, they probably don't know how our technology works, that's why they left it here." The soldier commented.
"Then let's get going, ma'am's waiting for us."
Rushing out of the room they went inside of; his squad's radioman contacted the other squad. "Advance forward fast. We found Ma'am Jeane's Luger."
It took a second before a response came back. "And we found Ma'am Jeane's dress. We're advancing."
( * )
Converging, the two squads found themselves staring at each other and staring at the two of them was a large wooden door. "This has to be it." Was the sentence in everyone's minds. But the eeriness of the room, with it being bigger than any other hallway, any other room. Was too much to not let down it's warnings.
"Call for reinforcements." The squad leader said.
"We're on it, sir." Said the radiomen of the both of the squads.
Standing right next to the wooden door, the captain could almost hear a maniacal laugh. "We're going in, everyone!" Yelled the squad leader; "Ready your machine guns and rifles, we might be facing something."
-3-
-2-
-1-
The wooden door blasted open!
The whole room roared awake in noise, a cloud of smoke and dust covered the door's entrance, a scream, no; a shout! Raised itself from within the smoke. "Where is Ma'am Jeane!"
"Ma'am Jeane?" A voice blurted from far outside the smoke.
Clearing, light passing through the dark-gray smoke, the soldiers saw an altar, a man, and a sleeping woman draped in white.
"Then it was true! Jeane was a woman of Germany! The country that invades Krimvald and takes refuge in the south! Have you no shame exposing my operations!?"
A force field; a bullet flew straight into man's hair, the soldiers suffered no time shooting him in the face, yet; they missed by mere millimeter of distance.
"And you too wish to shame me by ridding me of hair!? I shall have you gone in an instant!"
Instinct. It was instinct that made the soldiers fly the other direction. What came barreling straight towards the door was this immense power, an unbreakable sound barrier.
What remained of the door's sides blew off entirely the other way, it's metal hinges clinging for dear life yet not being able to. And all that, from a finger cracking.
Their hearts raced, the soldiers had not a single moment, nigh a single second to spare, they must shoot before that man cracks his finger once more
The staccato fire of both machine gun and assault rifle fire filled the auditorium-like room, with the round altar set on it's very middle, the soldiers; avoiding aiming at that spot.
Still firing the squad leader asked; "Who is that? Do you know?" To the maid firing behind cover.
"That's the lord of this manor, George, sir!"
"Well damned to this ass!"
Hiding in the blasts of gunfire, George cracked his finger.
There was a yell at other side of the room. "Damned! We can't hear that ass's flicks cause of the firing! We should've gotten him already!"
"Sir, we need to move!"
"Towards the altar!"
"Yes, sir!"
They left their cover, running forward towards the stone altar, the silhouette of a man rising just behind it. George's face was furious. "Not now man in black!"
A crack!
The squad leader evaded the shock-wave it caused, yet the soldiers behind him was not so lucky; getting hit, they flung across the room hitting the stone walls and exalting blood as what felt like a hundred bones were expelled out their bodies.
He aimed at George with his STG-44;
A click!
A noise you wouldn't ever want to hear in battle. George looked to be charging up for another attack; was it draining to keep cracking his finger? He is using powerful wind magic; so that would be the case; but, the squad leader didn't have time for questions.
He loaded in another magazine in the quickest way he could at that very moment.
A crack!
He dove headfirst onto the stone stairs, busting up his lip and nose in the process. He crawled up, groaning in pain; he struggled to stand up.
"Shit!" The squad leader rocked his STG-44's bolt. "Now there's no more second chances."
And lunged at George!
Atop of the monster, George's arms were restrained, yet not his fingers. Before he could even think of flicking his fingers to a crack; the squad leader shot both his arms in quick succession.
"Aghh!" A scream of pain filled the room louder than any bullet could've had. "My arms! My hands! My fingers! You. You! You monster!"
"That wouldn't have been the case if you hadn't attacked ma'am Jeane." He smirked saying that.
"Get off me-"
A bullet into his mouth. Then into his forehead.
Dead.
The threat, now gone; the room was at peace. And before long the dust had settled and the reinforcements arrived.
The squad leader leapt up, "took you long enough!"
The lieutenant came running to the altar; "at least we came, we're having the medics prep the injured. And- is that? Ma'am Jeane?"
Draped in white cloth, it was as if God had an angel fall from heaven as one, powerful, singular light. The one light that illuminated the whole of the auditorium, made her face shine with this, royal excellence.
They stared at her face.
The lieutenant put his finger onto her neck; feeling for a pulse. "She's alive, but by the looks of it; pale skin and all; Ma'am Jeane was poisoned."
"What now?" The squad leader turned to the lieutenant.
"We report to Lord Hierd."