[Chapter Size: 2100 Words.]
Third Person POV
Northern kingdoms.
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...
In the royal palace of Cintra, things did not look very positive as Mousesack emerged from a portal in the middle of the castle courtyard carrying Queen Calanthe in his arms, blood dripping from her leg.
He took her inside while everyone there looked on in horror at this scene as some guards came to provide assistance with Mousesack carrying Calanthe to his laboratory.
"Grandma!" Cirilla appeared in the middle of the way and was scared as her grandmother was carried through the castle with an arrow in her leg.
"Cirilla..." Calanthe remarked while trying to remain steady with the pain, clenching her teeth through it.
"We're almost there, my queen..." Mousesack murmured as he walked through the corridors while Cirilla followed them.
"Just get me there and take this arrow out!!" Calanthe growled, not wanting to waste time while there was still an army invading her kingdom.
"You must rest... Queen Calanthe, you cannot fight in this state..." Mousesack pleaded, but she immediately glared at him with fury.
"Do you really think I'm going to rest? Just do what you can so I can walk again, even if it's on a horse. I still have an army to face marching to this city and it will arrive soon, I must lead whatever I can gather from Cintra against those bastards..." Calanthe exclaimed as she turned her gaze back to her granddaughter, who was following quite scared.
She couldn't help but have a glimmer of sadness in her eyes. "Ciri, come with me. We need to talk..." She requested with a calmer tone, Madara staying nearby the entire time with a poker face. Calanthe knew he was just a clone; the original was fighting in the war, probably coming out alive from there and should be coming to the city soon.
Mousesack took the queen to his laboratory while he placed her on his table beginning to remove Calanthe's armor from her leg and starting to remove the arrow. Calanthe clenched her teeth, but avoided screaming. Mousesack finally removed the arrow and began to apply a cloth to prevent hemorrhaging and something to prevent infection.
'She can no longer fight...' Mousesack couldn't help but think as he saw the wound on her leg. "My queen, you are no longer in any condition to fight..." Mousesack tried to insist, but Calanthe immediately cut him off.
"Don't insist on this, Mousesack. This is my decision. I will mount a damn horse and I will lead the last men of Cintra," she growled, while Mousesack just nodded at the end, unable to go against the will of the queen.
As Mousesack finished cleaning the wounds, Ciri approached, taking Calanthe's hand with a look full of distress. "Grandma, you can't die..." She murmured, feeling some tears surfacing in her eyes.
"Listen, my granddaughter," Calanthe interrupted, touching Ciri's face. "It's very likely that Cintra will fall, but I want you to be safe. You'll be in good hands, just stay with Madara and obey everything he says, understood?" She spoke, but Ciri couldn't hold back her tears as they began to fall even more.
"No, you can't die! Grandma, you must flee too if this country falls..." she immediately pleaded with a tone of desperation.
"Sorry, my girl, but if you were queen, you'd understand this too. This kingdom needs me, and I will die fighting. But you, maybe, can reclaim it one day. You were born to do great things, greater things than I and your mother did in life. You are special and will do extraordinary things. If possible, reclaim this kingdom and carry on our family..." Calanthe requested with a sad tone, knowing what she was telling her granddaughter was not something easy for a 12-year-old to hear.
Ciri ended up throwing herself on her neck, crying and begging her grandmother to flee with her in the end as she held her tight, and Calanthe just stayed silent, unable to comply with the girl's demands.
Meanwhile, a feeling of concern began to spread among the people waiting for news of the war in the south. Some rumors began to emerge in the city after many guards and servants witnessed when Mousesack arrived with injured Calanthe, and the rumor that they had lost the war was quickly spread by other cities, causing chaos. Some people were preparing to try to escape, while others, even without hope, were preparing for the inevitable and to fight or commit suicide with their families.
Madara swiftly moved past the city wall unnoticed, leapt over the crowd, and began running across the rooftops, passing over the bustling crowds below as people ran to and fro.
He headed for the castle, swiftly entering through one of the windows. The guards recognized him immediately as he made his way to Mousesack's laboratory, where he saw his clone standing at the entrance. The clone stared at him for a moment before disappearing, transferring all its information and memories.
He simply entered the room, where Calanthe was already seated with her leg bandaged, and Ciri was at her feet, exhausted from crying.
Calanthe immediately recognized it was the original Madara by the dirt he had accumulated from the battlefield and nodded satisfied that he was here, feeling more at ease. "You're finally here." Now she could breathe more relieved, but also a bit sad, knowing the entire army was destroyed. "It seems everyone is dead..." He murmured as he remembered the terror before leaving, his men surrounded, royal guards dying in front of him while Nilfgaard seemed to mock them all.
"Still, we gave a much stronger response than Nilfgaard expected..." Madara responded with a serious tone. "They didn't imagine losing so many soldiers in their first conflict, and they will have difficulty continuing to advance north after this kingdom..." He spoke while the queen nodded.
"But even so, we had a damn traitor! How did the troops get through the mountains and approach us from the east?" She immediately murmured angrily.
"If you're worried about the youngest son of the Hugkil family, who handed the kingdom over to Nilfgaard, I myself went to another territory and killed him with a clone," Madara responded, as Calanthe nodded with some satisfaction amidst all the mess.
"Good to hear that..." He murmured before continuing as he tried to walk with a limp leg. "Anyway, I will summon a group to defend the city. Therefore, I want to make a call," she said, this being the last time she would fight for the sovereignty of Cintra. She would gather everyone available for this in the capital and kill as many Nilfgaardians as possible.
"You must be careful... There are many spies spread throughout the city." Madara warned.
"Can you eliminate them?" She asked while the shinobi nodded.
Calanthe left the room to summon all the possible guards from the castle while Madara went to Ciri's room, where there was an outfit prepared for him.
He dressed and made many clones going out the window as he prepared to hunt the spies looking for people he had already marked and other suspects.
"I want you to prepare to flee with everything you need for us to spend many days on the road." The original Madara spoke to Ciri with a serious tone.
The girl looked at him with a sad expression and wiped her tears as she went to her wardrobe without saying much, picking clothes she deemed necessary for Madara to put in his scroll. "Don't choose the dresses. The last thing we need is that, I have some men's clothes for you to wear, but pick something from your wardrobe too." Madara requested.
He had to stay close to Cintra all the time, due to the number of mages not only from Nilfgaard but other forces that he knew were after the princess.
There was a man in the city calmly observing the situation with a cloak covering his face, as he walked through the streets and entered an alley; the city was much safer after the fall of the gangs long ago, so the alleys were almost all empty.
The man seemed to be heading in a direction with a letter when he was surprised by Madara appearing in front of him, eliminating him while taking a letter that would be sent by someone leaving the city, talking about how things were and mentioning the name of Cirilla.
"Northern kingdoms... Even these bastards are here..." Madara murmured seeing that this was for one of the kings to the north of Cintra.
Madara's clones quickly began to scour the city in the shadows, watching for any suspicious people, eliminating them swiftly. They didn't even know where the attack was coming from.
Meanwhile, on the same day, Calanthe ended up making a summons in one of the largest squares of the city, where all the people gathered to hear their queen. She called on all those who could fight for one last attempt to defend Cintra. With no choices left, many citizens accepted, even without resources or weapons. They grabbed anything they could use as weapons, while the queen gathered all the remaining guards from the palace to protect her granddaughter when the war happened in the south and began preparing them, having a few more days before the enemy army's arrival.
Days passed and news from the south did not help the mood, as thousands of people passed through the city gates that were still open, trying to flee to the coast, but the news of the coasts being conquered also made them head north in search of shelter in other kingdoms.
They received news of Eist's death at sea, and while Calanthe cried for her lover, she spent just one day in mourning while continuing to organize the city for the fight with two armies now coming from the south and west.
Madara stayed with Ciri, as the girl ate nothing and spoke little, looking with immense sadness at the city. This lasted a few days until the black army finally began to appear on the horizon, marching towards the capital. Scouts ran to warn every moment, even some infiltrators tried to enter using the clothes of the scouts they had taken down, but Madara easily caught them.
"Close all the gates!" Calanthe finally gave the order and no one else would leave the city. Fighting in an open field was suicide, so she opted for a siege defense strategy, where the city walls would provide a great advantage.
The first group surrounded the southern gate, while over 40,000 black soldiers prepared for battle and Nilfgaard did not come unprepared, they used war machines, preparing to launch attacks with large stones against the wall and city.
They just watched there, without launching an attack, with the city closing, they did not even try to negotiate, and then a group from the west appeared with more than 6,000 Nilfgaardian soldiers from that side joining with the group.
Calanthe prepared for what was to come. There was not even an initial conversation between the two groups. Just Calanthe organized the defense while placing her men on the walls, using arrows to take down the enemies.
Madara did not participate in this war; after all, he only had to prepare to leave and watch out for the Nilfgaard mages, who would probably enter the capital after the princess.
Then, finally, the siege began a day after the group from the west joined the main one, it seemed that they got another general with Nilfgaard launching stones against the wall and gate, shaking the entire structure around Cintra as it started. Some stones flew over the walls, crushing houses and even citizens, who were not very lucky.
This continued for two whole days, while Nilfgaard's artillery continued to crack the walls. Calanthe knew that soon the walls would yield. And it was on the third day that there was the collapse, when a part of the wall and the gate were brought down.
"Men, with me!" Calanthe shouted from atop a horse, preparing all her available men, the vast majority made up of civilians, for the battle. Despite trembling with fear, they had no other choice. As the Nilfgaard group entered with their cavalry, over the rubble, Calanthe raised her sword and advanced against the first men who appeared in the streets of the capital.
Madara could only watch it in silence from Cirilla's room, as the real fight for the end of Cintra began.