The tower was an easier fight than the gatehouse. I think it was because word had spread among the soldiers that the Countess had abandoned them. She may have escaped capture, but she must not have a way of communicating with her people once she was hidden in her new dungeon.

  In addition to that, the soldiers in the gatehouse had seen our song and dance with the sleeper agents. Or, as they saw it, innocent civilians. What they saw wasn’t as bad as if we’d cut them down while they fled, but they had managed to draw a variety of conclusions, most of which didn’t paint us in a favourable light.

  At least those impressions could be corrected. I hated to think how it would have gone if we’d tried to explain over the bodies of their fellow townsfolk.

  It turned out that the Watch Sergeant had been hiding, just as it had appeared. He’d been fed all sorts of lies about me, mostly by a lieutenant of hers called Archambault. He’d been told that my social skills were so extreme to defy reason, allowing me to just mind-control whoever went up against me.

  That sounded familiar.

  Knowing that, as the one in charge of the outpost, he’d be targeted with whatever fell powers I supposedly had, he’d hidden in the storeroom in the hope of being overlooked. The other defenders had known this, but they’d been ordered to keep silent.

  The looks on the faces of some of the captured prisoners had not been complimentary. I wondered if he’d have trouble holding the same position when things settled down. Maybe it would turn out that he’d had his memories changed and he could blame everything on that.

  Of course, I did use [Intimidate] to crack him like an egg to spill the details on the Countess's remaining forces. The difference between that and mind control was… a bit thin, I’ll grant you, but it was there.

  Going in, we knew who we were up against. Their big hitters were Arnaud de Vautré, a Level six Knight, Merrik Claybourne, a Level five Earth Mage and Stéphane Archambault who didn’t seem like much, but did constitute a valid excuse for me to be there.

  “Honestly, once I’ve popped a few of his illusions, I doubt he’ll even stick around,” I said. “I’ve run into him a few times, and he flew off every time he looked like losing.”

  Captain Guertin stared stonily at me. “Fine,” he finally said. “In the back line. No shadow stepping this time.”

  Koenig grunted in agreement. “We have our own people to take care of leadership this time.”

  This time, we weren’t quite as worried about enemy casualties. The troops here were mostly the Countess’s men, brought in with her to replace the soldiers that Hector had run off with.

  The person in charge was Sir Arnaud de Vautré, a man with a brutish reputation. As far as we could tell, he was the only one in the tower with [Leadership], so he was a priority. Chances were, though, that he would be leading from the front.

  The tower had been crafted by pre-Empire stonemasons and earth mages. I wasn’t sure if they just had higher skills or if they knew some tricks the modern craftsmen didn’t, but the walls and gates were resistant to hostile [Earth Magic]. The walls were, anyway. This wasn’t the first time the tower had been taken by force, so the gates were of a more modern construction.

  Because of that, they’d been reinforced by the [Earth Mage] inside. The wood and iron had been covered over by granite, leaving no trace of the entrance. Our boys didn’t seem too concerned, though, they had brought a ram.

  In the movies I’d seen, rams were always massive tree trunks. Crudely hewn on site and carried by two dozen men. Things worked a little differently here. The raw material was part of the story, the strength of men’s arms played a role, but the craftsmanship of the ram was a factor that could not be overlooked.

  Here, the ram was smaller, about three metres long. It was made of stone, a long, thick cylinder of granite that must have weighed a literal tonne. It was lifted by steel bars that pierced right through the shaft and it was tipped with a steel wedge.

  It was carried by six men, but any of them could have lifted it on their own. Together, they jogged with it, getting it into position. Normally, they would have had to worry about archer fire but with the walls held by our people, we had plenty of vantage points to suppress anyone who tried to shoot at them.

  The ram hit with a thunderous crash that I felt in my bones. The stone covering shattered, leaving the doors unprotected against the next swing. They held up better, creaking and groaning under the assault, but they were still standing after the second swing. A third saw them burst asunder, and my men charged in.

  Koenig was at the front. He held his main axe close, his hand just behind the head while his other hand held a smaller axe, more useful in close quarters. He was hoping to encounter Sir Arnaud.

  We moved forward too. Close enough to see the action and move up if we were needed but far enough back to not be caught up in the fighting. This was a very natural spot for Felicia to be in, and Kyle was never happier than when he was protecting her, but Cloridan was looking a little antsy at missing out on the fighting.

  “Me?” he protested when I mentioned it. “You’re the one itching to go hammer their backlines.”

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  I denied it, but my heart wasn’t really in it. I did get satisfaction from slipping past defences and attacking… monsters from the safety of invisibility. It gave me a sense of superiority. I guess I got that from human opponents as well, as much as my civilised sensibilities told me it was wrong.

  Ahead of us, spells were flying, swords were swinging, bones were shattering and flesh was failing. Everyone ahead of us, our side and theirs, did not subscribe to the notion that violence against others was wrong.

  Was this my life, now? Wasn’t I supposed to civilise this place, to teach people that there was more to conflict resolution than a bloody knife? Or should I go with the flow and find gold, glory and excitement in the heady press of combat?

  I had no home that wasn’t here. I had memories, but I’d never lived anywhere but here. The gods were just mortals now, they couldn’t try to guide me, or manipulate me or whatever it was I was fighting against. I was free… to do what?

  My introspection was cut off when one of the fallen bodies ahead of us shimmered under my [Dispel Image] spell.

  “Behind you!” I yelled, as the “corpse” came to life. I cast [Improved Blind] on him, just to be on the safe side. One of the adventurers whirled around and cut him down for real this time.

  “Weak sauce, Archambault,” I muttered. “Should have done more than one.”

  Or… was that right? It was a chaotic mess out there, but our people would have been suspicious of a large group of unexplained corpses. Whatever. I kept casting [Dispel Image]. I didn’t limit myself to corpses, though I was careful not to cast it indiscriminately.

  Mostly, I cast it on our guys. Any time I saw them behave in a way that seemed odd. Look, it was a mess out there. It was easy enough for someone to get turned around or confused. I didn’t want to judge, but I didn’t want to take the risk either, so anyone who looked a little bit funny got a [Dispel Image] in the face.

  Not that they noticed, since none of the ones that I’d targeted so far had been disguised assassins waiting to strike. But one of them would be.

  I also targeted the occasional wall, on the ground that it looked too smooth, or I thought there should be a door there. I had been in this place a couple of times. I hit the jackpot on my fifth cast.

  There was a door there, and behind the door was a bunch of troops, looking to get behind us. They did not achieve this ambition. The leader of the bunch that charged out was a broad-shouldered man with a weathered face, wearing a wolf’s-head cloak. That sounded like

  “De Vautré! We found de Vautré!” one of our soldiers yelled. I winced as he was quickly cut down, and acted as fast as I could to give them support.

  [Improved Blind]

  Impressively, he was only slightly slowed down by this. I saw this a lot with the high-end fighters. Even blinded, they were still better than me. He must have clocked me before I cast the spell because he headed my way at speed. One of the adventurers tried to stop him but Arnaud body-checked him out of the way, barrelling right through.

  “I’ve got this,” Cloridan stated, stepping forward. I let him.

  The pair clashed in front of me, sword and dagger vs paired long-knives. Cloridan must have had the edge, what with the other guy being blind and all, but I couldn’t see that he was winning.

  Then Arnaud made a strangled grunt and fell to the floor. I poked my head around Cloridan to see Koenig. His axe was buried in de Vautré’s back.

  “Not an honourable kill, but we’re not fighting for points,” Koenig said, almost philosophically. He pulled his axe out and turned back to the fighting. “Who’s next?” he yelled.

  You could feel the fight go out of the enemy as they lost de Vautré’s [Leadership]. They started surrendering in droves.

  [Y]. I thought.

  [Territory Status]

  It gave me a certain grim satisfaction to bring up the blue box, even if it wasn’t useful right now. Threats were down to just one which was downright reassuring. I guess none of the gods were actively gunning for me, which was great.

  Unless they were subtle enough about it to not trigger on the screen. They knew a lot more about it than I did. The new vassal was a surprise. Seren County was ruled from Anchorbury, so the screen was telling me that Aubert was my vassal.

  That wasn’t how feudalism was supposed to work, but I suppose it wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

  All around me, people were cheering, having got their own notification of our victory. I had to chivvy a few people into holding off the celebration until the enemy troops were all accounted for. Captain Guertin was thankfully on the case, organising prison details and so forth. There was talk of a party that night, but I shut that down. The Countess was still at large, not to mention Archambault.

  It was hardly unexpected, but the illusionist had slipped our net. As I recalled, he had [Air Magic], so he probably flew invisibly off the roof of the building. We’d been watching for it, but invisibility was hard to detect at the best of times and I had better things to do than spam the roof with [Dispel Image] for the entire battle.

  In the end, there was a small celebration, once all the prisoners were tucked away. Everyone needed to be up bright and early to winkle the Countess out of her den.

  And so it was, the next morning, that I stood outside the Ogre Temple with as strong a fighting force as we could muster.

  “Okay, hear me out,” I said to Koenig. “Have we considered just Breaking the dungeon?”

  Characters!

  Captain Guertin - Continues to be the most valued player.

  Martin Koenig - Guild Master, man-mountain.

  Merrik Claybourne – The Earth Mage. No dialogue, but gets a mention

  Stéphane Archambault - Opposing illusionist

  Sir Arnaud de Vautré - When I named Rankin’s lieutenant, I wondered if he’d actually speak to Kandis. Guess not.

  Aubert Duvost - Remember him? Was rather more important in earlier books. He'll be back in book six.

  Hector Rodakis - Untitled noble who was very interested in getting a title through Kandis. At least until he fell into a bad crowd and decided to kill her.