Chapter 1143: Seventh Iron Order

    The castle of the Seventh Iron Order was an imposing thing that loomed over the landscape around it. It was an enormous construction made primarily of dull black stone, its largest tower reaching up into the lowest cloud layer. Long bands of blackened steel ran lengthwise up the towers like buttresses, and surrounding the castle was a triple-layered curtain wall, each layer more than twenty feet thick and sporting no less than a hundred Lance-capped towers.

    Around the castle’s hill were open plains, with many rain-fed rivers cutting the region into long, narrow strips. These rivers emptied into the Serpent’s Neck Bay, which the castle oversaw from tall cliffs of black stone. Down upon the bay was a sizable port and town, cut into halves by the river, and numerous farming villages could be seen in the castle’s hinterland, growing the food that supported the castle and its local city.

    By Leon’s estimation, at least ten million people were living in the shadow of the castle, though mostly out in the countryside. The castle itself was large enough to house tens of thousands of people, while the town that lay just below it on the coast appeared to have a population of around fifty thousand or so.

    Hardly a huge number by the standards he was used to, but the Seventh Iron Order dwarfed his currently available manpower.

    Leon took all of this in as he led his people closer to the castle with every passing second. Much of the castle he couldn’t inspect given its heavy warding, but he was more than a little interested in the large number of empty arkpads located outside of its walls. From the air, he could see that there were plenty of open baileys in the castle, hinting at the possibility of additional arkpads behind the curtain walls.

    Despite this relatively large number of arkpads, the city below the castle appeared to lack any true arkyards, however. There was at least a fairly large shipyard, however, and from what Leon could see, they were producing some fairly heavily armed warships within from both steel and timber.

    Out in the Serpent’s Neck Bay, he could see several fleets of these ships plying the waters, keeping tight patrols and protecting the fishing vessels closer to the castle. These fleets, however, were much smaller than the fleets the Bull Kingdom had access to, even if the average ship was much more heavily armed and armored.

    On a more personal note, he found the area’s climate to be gorgeous. The sky was largely overcast, wind constantly blew from the land out to sea, and though it wasn’t raining as his party came into their final approach, lightning constantly flashed not only in the distance, but frequently struck the castle itself—contributing, and perhaps even causing, the black coloring of its stone and steel.

    As his party approached, Leon not only made no attempt to mask their presence, but he let his aura spill forth, causing lightning to follow them closely, heralding their arrival with bright flashes and rumbling thunder that rolled across the flat plains. It didn’t at all surprise him that as they drew to within ten miles of the castle, three arks—appearing about equal in size at least to two of his frigates and one of his destroyers—took off from one of the castle’s more open areas and moved to intercept him. These arks bristled with as many weapons as seemed possible to cram into them and appeared to be made of the same black steel that buttressed the castle.

    Leon projected an air of confidence as these arks drew closer, but he didn’t truly feel so confident until, with about a mile separating them, the arks slowed and allowed a fairly large party of fifty mages of high average tier to spill out into the sky. They came ready for violence, dressed in armor of black iron and weapons that lacked much fancy adornment. These were warriors, not nobles or politicians, and their kit made that clear from appearance alone.

    The leader of this party was a tenth-tier mage, clad from head-to-toe in the same black armor as his fellows, the only difference between him and them being his visor was up, revealing some of his pale bearded face. As Leon and his party drew close, moving slowly enough to not seem like a threat, yet quickly enough to not give the impression they had been intimidated by these warriors, the tenth-tier mage shouted in a voice almost as loud as Leon’s lightning, “Travelers! You approach the castle of the Seventh Iron Order! What is your business here?”

    “All business here, aren’t they?” Alix muttered under her breath, audible only to Leon and his party as he led them to a stop a comfortable speaking distance from this tenth-tier mage.

    “I am Leon Raime!” Leon shouted, not having the patience for more formal introductions—it had taken almost two days to come this far from Lancefoot, reducing the time he had to return to Artorion to not much more than a week. No matter how his meeting with the Seventh Iron Order went, this would be his last stop before returning to his city. “I have come to discuss matters of importance with your order!”

    The tenth-tier mage considered his words for a long moment, though his face remained stoic and impassive, before responding, “I am Carver, Second Warden of the Seventh Iron Order! If you have only come for discussion, then consider yourselves welcome within my order’s castle! Follow me, I shall escort you back to the castle!”

    The tone of his voice indicated no tolerance for deviation from their assigned route, though Leon had some slight temptation to push the boundaries a little bit to assert his power and independence. But since he was here to ask for their aid, he decided to simply fall in behind Carver, who led them over the castle town and the curtain walls.

    As they passed over the walls, Leon could feel a rather terrifying number of wards wash over them. He’d gotten past such magical fortifications before, but these were powerful, and he estimated that he’d need days and quite a lot of firepower to get through these wards, should he ever have the need.

    While he doubted he’d have the need for this particular order, he couldn’t help but wonder if the other Iron Orders had similar defenses...

    Once past the wards, he was able to get a better picture of the castle as a whole. Most of the taller towers and the imposing keep still scattered his magic senses, but he could now see no less than a dozen arkpads within the curtain walls, though all were empty—it seemed the order had sent out all of the arks it had available to intercept his party.

    Carver led them down to what seemed to be the castle’s main bailey—a huge courtyard paved in black stone, the only piece of decoration being a large statue in the center of the courtyard depicting a warrior wearing the order’s armor contending with some many-tentacled sea monster with his bare hands.

    The courtyard was filled with many more members of the Iron Order, all armored and looking ready for a fight. Leon estimated their numbers in the courtyard alone to approach a thousand, and he had to admit that he was impressed with their average power, which lay around the eighth-tier. Whether or not that was representative of the order as a whole, he couldn’t yet say.

    Leading up to the keep’s main entrance were long, wide stairs, bisected by a wide rostrum large enough for a few hundred people to stand upon. Only two dozen stood there as Leon’s party came in to land, two more of whom emanated tenth-tier auras.

    Though there was space down in the courtyard proper, including an area where it seemed they wanted him to land, Leon instead closely followed Carver to the rostrum, drawing quite a few looks of ire from the order members. No one said a word, however, and his party quietly landed in front of the three tenth-tier members of the Seventh Iron Order.

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    Silence again passed as the three wardens spoke to each other quietly. When they turned their attention back to Leon, much of the tension of the previous few minutes had relaxed.

    “Be welcome in our castle, Leon Raime,” Carver said. “The three of us have some deliberation. We are willing to continue negotiations in a more official capacity in a few hours, if you have the time to indulge us.”

    “Time is something I don’t have in great abundance,” Leon replied, “but your offer of hospitality is welcome. Very well, a few hours of rest will do us all some good.”

    Carver nodded, and with a wave of his hand and a quick burst of power, the assembled ranks of order members began to disperse while several eighth-tier members stepped forward to escort Leon to a tower adjacent to the keep, connected to the keep by both a covered walkway and a sky bridge on the fourth floor.

    Leon spared the three wardens one quick, evaluating look before taking his party with their escort to the tower. He watched the wardens closely the entire journey, noting how they stood on the rostrum for long minutes even after he’d left, and how none of them let anything they were clearly discussing pass their lips.

    Only after Leon’s party was led into the simple, if comfortable tower did the wardens finally turn around and head into the keep.

    ---

    The tower was quite comfortable on the inside, if lacking in much de?cor. There were plenty of rooms and furniture for everyone to get comfortable, leading Leon to think this was the primary guest residence for the castle, but he was forced to make that assumption since the tower didn’t seem to have any staff—his party was practically thrown into the tower’s upper floors and left alone, all but locked in with several guards on each landing of the tower’s main stairs the only order members he could see.

    After making sure there weren’t any eavesdropping enchantments in their rooms, Leon gave most of his party some time to rest and relax, while calling his friends and family to meet and decide on their strategy now that they’d met the leaders of this Iron Order.

    “I hate them,” Alix bluntly said. “They’re arrogant and judgy. They’re not going to help us.”

    “There are ways to get them to cooperate,” Valeria ambiguously stated.

    “Not all of those would be pleasant,” Gaius replied. “I think we shouldn’t wait long on this. We don’t have time for a long negotiation process—either they help us, or they don’t. I recommend we wait a day, and if they still equivocate, we leave.”

    [Fools,] Maia scowled as her lake-blue eyes glared out of the nearest window. [For all their talk, they hesitate when the enemy slithers out from beneath its rock. What use have we of such weak-willed cowards? Only prey have such attitudes.]

    “They have warm bodies, and many of those bodies have no small amount of magic power,” Leon stated. “They also have arks. I won’t turn down any help in this time, no matter how frosty an introduction we have.”

    Maia clicked her tongue in displeasure, but said, [You have a knack for making something out of poor allies.] She leaned into one of Leon’s arms and said no more.

    “I think that was all an act,” Anna said as she went over to one of the windows and leaned against it. “They kind of gave off the impression that they were nervous, yeah? Way too many swords out in that crowd when we showed up.”

    “Could’ve been a show of strength,” Gaius pointed out. “A post-Apotheosis mage was visiting their castle, wouldn’t they want to show that they weren’t going to lay down and die, should violence break out?”

    “Sure,” Anna conceded, “but I don’t think that’s what it was. I think they’re more amenable to our cause than they gave off.”

    “They weren’t,” Anzu darkly responded. “They won’t help us. For all their talk, they don’t trust us. They’d rather we all die and stop making trouble.”

    “As agreeable an opinion as any I’ve heard,” Gaius said in support. “I’m not confident negotiation will get us anywhere, if I am to be honest.”

    “They’ll agree,” Anna argued. “They just need to be properly assured and incentivized.”

    “Either way,” Leon said, “we’ll find out soon. I’m not going to just leave after we’ve come all this way without at least hearing out their concerns in a more private setting—where they don’t have to posture as much. But yes, we won’t remain here long. We’ll be back in Artorion before the shield goes down, of that I’m sure. Hopefully, we’ll bring back allies as well as the lance...”

    Leon glanced out of the window himself, wondering just how to deal with the wardens. He wanted to get this right, as he didn’t think their negotiations would last longer than a single meeting. For as much as he needed allies, he just didn’t have the time to spend in negotiations. He needed to get back to Artorion, and the sooner, the better.