The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]
Chapter 346 – Standing Alone

The Dwarves have never perturbed me emotionally, however likewise I have never felt like I have known them to the same degree I know humanity. I simply do not see the lines of logic that dwarves have made, unlike in the surface races. Lubska and Rancais are rather famous for their cavalry. Both countries have plenty of plains and fields and farmland, Rancais is famous for specialist breeds such as the Percheron whereas Lubska is a furnace that mixes every breed of animal and self-selects the best traits through constant warfare. There is no question raised in these lands, of course they are famed for their cavalry. Upper Rilia is famous for its crossbow, the region has always been at the forefront of technological and civilizational advancement, the region is rich from trade, the region has excess money and craftsmen. It is only natural that Upper Rilia become famous for the crossbow. This logical train can be done for every troop on the surface. The Allians are not famous for their desert warriors because they have no deserts in their country. The Rancais are not famous for winter troops. Lubskans do not have a tradition of jungle fighting, so on, so on. All of this simply makes sense.

What does not make sense to me is the fact that it is I who had to show the dwarves the shieldwall and the phalanx. They are short, stunty little creatures that are strong for their size and with a low centre of mass whilst remaining surprisingly heavy. They naturally lend themselves to such tactics. A dwarf pikeman is far better impaling a charging knight than a human pikeman is.

Yet this is the issue. Why did I have to show the dwarves the spear and the pike? They do not lend themselves to sword fighting, much less to the axe. Their arms are short, they lack the natural finesse and grace to swing effectively and they have horribly short temperaments when it comes to using anything that requires dexterity. These weapons require momentum to strike, a creature with short arms is simply worse at handling them over a creature with long arms. It is not as if the dwarves are an entirely united race either, they are much like humans and elves in that they have their own kingdoms which wage wars against each other. Simply by pure chance, some dwarven commander should have realised that the spear is a better weapon for his troops than the axe.

Stupidity is one answer, but I attribute nothing to stupidity which I can attribute to anything else. I am even less generous when that stupidity can be replaced by malice.

Are the dwarves malicious? Maybe. I would not call dishonesty malicious though. We all have our secrets.

Are they honest? Most people would say yes wholeheartedly and mean it.

Yet then how did the dwarves dig the Underempire?

People laugh and people dismiss my point, yet I mean it with total seriousness. The amount of dirt that the dwarves have moved should be enough to craft a new landmass. We should have mountain ranges fashioned entirely out of stone deposited by the dwarves. And then, we have one thing that almost everyone takes for granted. Yet I simply will not. Dwarves live in a land where they have to dig and where wood is more precious than gold simply by its scarcity. A lumberjack with trade-rights to any hold will quickly become wealthy enough to start his own estates. The most common tool in the kingdom underneath is the pick, yet I have one issue.

Old dwarven runes do not feature the pick. They feature the axe.

- Excerpt from “The Empire Underneath”, written by Goddess Kassandora, of War.

“Don’t let it get to your head.” Iliyal stood alone in Doschia’s court. In his dark uniform, he was surrounded by gaudy Doschian nobility, he looked up to a table that had Paida, Olonia and Saksma. The three Goddesses in ceremonial uniforms had just been discussing a strike against Anarchia. The elf had somehow caught wind of their talk and he had crashed the meeting. And so he stood, against three Divines, against all the Doschian nobility, against the entire government of a nation. And he did not flinch once. The elf stared them all down, one hand resting gently on the butt of his blade, the other hanging loosely by his side. As those blue eyes of the elf passed over Olonia, the Goddess flinched back.

And in that moment, when she looked into a gaze so strong it could make a Divine cower, Olonia realised what she was missing. It wasn’t determination or belief or some grander ideal. It was certainty. She may be Divine, she may be stronger than the elf, she may be able to effortlessly defeat him in combat, but she knew she wasn’t certain. And he was. “Excuse me?” Saksma said.

“Don’t let it get to your head.” Iliyal repeated himself.

“You are in my court!” Saksma said. The elf did not take a step back. He did not even do so much as look about to take in the situation and the company he was in. Olonia, honestly, had no damn clue how that was possible.

“We are not here to bicker.” Iliyal said calmly. “This court, I care not for whose it is. My allegiance, everyone knows, lies to Goddess Kassandora and to God Arascus. You have seen how I talk to Kavaa and Helenna and Fer. You wish to be treated at the level of the former yet you are not even at the level of the latter. I have come to tell you about the situation. I am taking command of containing the Rancais issue. No one else is.”

“It is my country Iliyal.” Saksma said coldly. Her anger had simmered away to a deadly boil. “Not yours.”

“It is because I have respect for you that I have come to warn you in the first place. Anyone else, I would have simply sidestepped your administration because it would have not been worth my time.”

“Are you saying I’m not worth your time Iliyal?” Saksma asked. Olonia didn’t know why, but as she stood there, in that terrible court. With Saksma by her side, with the table in front of her, with all the Doschians close by. As she watched Iliyal stand alone… Was this admiration? It was worse than when she had fought against Fer. At least against the Goddess of Beasthood, they were simply unequal. With the elf, they were unequal too, but unequal because the Divines held all the cards and the mortal elf none.

“I have just said that I have come here because I respect you.” Iliyal said.

“You mean because I am stronger than you.” Saksma said flatly and Olonia saw Paida’s expression. Saksma had just made a mistake. How, Olonia didn’t know, but the Goddess of Rancais was usually far better at these things than Olonia was.

“I am Iliyal Tremali but Iliyal Tremali does not come to represent himself.” Iliyal responded coldly and Olonia saw Saksma’s posture drop as the Goddess of Doschia hunched down over the table. So Saksma too must have released why she had just made a mistake. Iliyal found the opening in the armour and he drove his blade straight into it. “Iliyal Tremali comes on behalf of Arascus, God of Pride. You do not terrify me because the Empire holds in its sway the Goddess of Magic, the Goddess of Chaos, of Death, of Sorcery, of War, of Health and of Nature. This is in addition to the might of all Kirinyaa, and Allia too will declare allegiance soon. Doschia is an independent state, but to pretend that your fate is not tied to the fate of the Empire or that you’re truly an independent land is farce Saksma. You are not independent, you will never be independent. Whether the Empire exists or not, you will still have to kowtow to the Divines I jut mentioned at the least. You do not have your own deities on their level, so you are fundamentally incapable of fighting back!”

Iliyal finished his point with a raising of his voice. Olonia saw the horror appear on the faces of the Doschian mortals around her. The moustached men and the pretty woman. The lords, the landowners and the businessmen that Saksma was managing her nation with. Saksma and Paida both said nothing, they simply shared a cold look together.

Paida’s purple eyes met Olonia’s blue and the two Goddesses both saw their own emotion painted on the other’s face. It was not horror or anger or some need to fight back. It was simply acceptance. Iliyal Tremali may not be some master diplomat, he certainly wasn’t polite but then… Well, Olonia would call the elf rude, but only because she had nothing to argue back with. The elf was rude, but the elf was not wrong either. She wondered for a moment if the words he just spoke were just as much for her to hear as they were for Saksma. Maybe… She hoped that Iliyal liked her enough to spare her from such an onslaught. “That is a threat fair and square.” Saksma said coldly. Olonia wondered if she should step in between the two. Paida caught her arm and Olonia managed to change the motion of herself standing up into an innocuous scratching of her back.

“It’s not a threat.” Iliyal declared. “I will not threaten you because we are on the same side. I have simply come to remind you of the fact that the war is my area of expertise. You will not be sending troops into Rancais and you will not be launching your own offensives. I will do that. That is my job.”

“Paida has come to me for help.” Saksma said, although it was obvious to Olonia that the Goddess of Doschia was losing her will to argue. Her tone was weaker, her words were no longer declarative as they once were.

“Paida, like I have said, the reconquest of your nation will have to wait.”

“That is easy for you to say Iliyal.” Paida said coldly. “But I do have a people underneath me. I understand your situation, but I expect you to understand mine. I am the Goddess of a nation. You are not.” And Olonia wandered what had gotten into Paida, because the woman had a better atmosphere and energy about her than Doschia and all her court.

Even Iliyal must have noticed it, because the elf took a deep breath and, although he still spoke loudly enough for everyone in the court to hear, his voice no longer bounced about the pillars as if it was trying to echo on purpose. “Paida, you are correct. I will not say that the loyalty I hold to my men is anything like the loyalty you hold to your citizens. It is simply not my place to comment on.” Paida smiled and Olonia saw the trap. The elf always talked like this, he could give leeway where leeway could be given, yet he rarely gave any concession that actually meant something. Olonia waited for the ‘but’. She did not have to wait long, the elf continued immediately. “But, just as I will not overstep and tell you how to manage your own land, I do not expect you to overstep into my area of expertise either. I am not Divine but I have said this before to you, there are four people who are better commanders than me that currently walk the land.”

The elf lifted up his hand, four fingers extended. “Fortia of Peace. Goddess Kassandora of War. God Arascus of Pride and Maisara of Order. The last is dead now. There are only three people I will incline my head to when it comes to warfare.”

“I understand Iliyal.” Paida said. Saksma had tried to simply bully the man into giving up his position but he had stood still. Now, Olonia saw Paida adopt a different tactic entirely. The woman spoke in a soft tone, yet it gave absolutely no room for any sort of counterargument. The words were steel wrapped in velvet. “But we are not talking about the pros and cons of what needs to be done and so on. I am the Goddess of Rancais, I must save my nation.”

“I have never said that won’t happen.” Iliyal said.

“We agree on everything but timescale. You have your timescale, which is until you gather forces or figure out a way to kill Anarchia, I have my timescale, which is now. You will not convince me to wait but even if you did, you will not convince the Rancais divisions that are in Lubska now from starting a new front at home when they return. They held out because there was a war ongoing, but they will not bother to hold out for much longer.”

Olonia had thought that the elf was going to argue back. She almost wanted Iliyal to come back with some retort, simply because those words were an unassailable blockade that Olonia wished someone would show her an opening to. Yet Iliyal did nothing of the sort. He made ono motion of being defeated, his tone was still that low rumble. If Olonia had not heard the words Iliyal said, then she would simply believe the elf had just ignored what Paida had said.

“Very well.” Iliyal said. “But a charge into Rancais without learning the intricacies of Anarchia’s powers will be suicidal. And until we learn how to revert them, you will stay away from her. I don’t care if she about to exterminate everyone in your entire nation. I will not make the issue we have with her worse by drip-feeding the woman more power. And I will lead and manage all the high-level strategy. We push when I push, we take the cities I say to take. Those are my demands.”

“My demand is that you do not trick me and you do push into Rancais. I am not talking about recovering Aris. But I will not be satisfied with just a few villages and towns taken every few months.”

“We will advance slowly then.” Iliyal said.

Olonia sat there, terribly impressed at both her friend and her mentor. She realised what she had been missing, and she realised that both Paida and Iliyal had just demonstrated to her how she should be maundering around in Lubska. It was obvious neither of them were happy, but that didn’t matter. What the elf said was correct, what Paida said was correct. And so, they had somehow managed to find a compromise that even though they hated, everyone around them would appreciate. “Is it a deal? Slow and steady? Until we figure out a way to kill Anarchia and then kill her?”

Paida smiled and stood up from her chair as she waved the elf over. “You should have said earlier about your fear that she would absorb more power. I didn’t think about that.”

“My mistake then.” Iliyal said.

And Olonia wished she could be more like both of them. Allasaria had given her lessons on rulership, but it was another thing to see it in action. And to see it from Paida? She wanted to pick at the woman’s brain. Why could Paida do it so naturally? When all Olonia wanted was to bicker and force her way even if she knew she was wrong. Iliyal walked towards the table and shook Paida’s hand. It was done.

Iliyal sighed as he shook and immediately made an excuse to leave. “I will go now, to inspect the troops.” It was a terrible excuse, but he knew it was in character for him. Even Divines would expect him to act this way, so he got a certain amount of leeway in his actions.

He had wanted to test the new weaponry coming out of Arika and Alash’s workshops in the underground first.