Part 25
“The warehouse was a huge stone dome half buried in the ground with no windows and only one entrance that wasn’t a tunnel to the lower levels, and that entrance was just a tunnel from the building next door with big double doors at the end. We had more than enough assigned to it to beat the demons inside there, but only a few of us could get through the doors at once, and we couldn’t just bring the warehouse down on them, because it would take too long to dig through it after, and the demons in the tunnels would probably breach the secondary defenses before we did.
“Everyone the Sylvan had sent down the tunnel to the doors so far had been slaughtered by all the demons inside, and that’s when they disobeyed orders to send any more in. They’d formed a perimeter outside the tunnel and they were all trying to shoot arrows and whatnot and cast spells into the door, but the demons had it pretty well Shielded so they weren’t killing many of them.
“I got there and explained that we had to get in there and kill those demons or we were going to lose the whole city and all the civilians in it. I came up with a plan where we’d breach the roof of the warehouse in three places, because that was all I figured we could do without bringing the whole thing down, then we’d rush through all four openings into the warehouse, and I ordered them to get to it.
“Their commander flatly refused, and he asks who the hell I am that he should have to listen to what I said, when I was obviously just a child. He also pointed out that we’d probably lose twenty thousand of his Sylvan before this operation was finished, and I knew he was right.
“And suddenly it struck me, maybe he was right? Was I given command just because of my family and my power, both of which were of little use right then?
“I thought that there must be some of them who realized the necessity of doing what I was saying, and I scanned them to see if there were any who would speak up to support me. There were none. They were all right on the edge of either throwing themselves into the breach in a berserk and suicidal attack with no strategy, or just quitting the battle and running away. They’d taken too much pain over too many hours, they’d all have been dead a dozen times without my Healing spell, and the fact that they knew it was just an exercise wasn’t enough to make the difference.
“We’d been fighting for more than sixteen hours already then, and I was really hungry, and I really had to pee. I was angry and scared and tired, and I knew there were a lot of hours left in the battle yet.
of a battle, while I was supposed to be exerting command, I
your determination to overcome your doubts. You told them rather forcefully that you were Princess Valentia Longstrider of Hilia, that you were duly authorized to command them by the military authorities of The Just Alliance, that you had a combat effectiveness score of over two
and led them in a costly but victorious
her mood back to normal. “And I cast a little funnel of Force inside my underpants with a tiny Gate in the bottom to the ocean just outside this cove,
an incredible little warrior and commander, and we’re very proud of
Mark told her with a chuckle and a gentle caress
something. Like all parents, we are determined, and have been since before you were born, that we were going to do everything in our power to keep you out of danger. But we knew that it might not always be possible, so we decided that we were going to
effort to leave you out completely, so you can float out in the void near the sun where the power is strongest, far from the enemy, and cast millions of automated attack spells to your heart’s content.
had known what today was going to be like, I’d have seriously considered keeping you kids out of it. I probably
like, there’s no way I’d allow you to face it
it. I’ll take part in the exercises for Strike Wizards and the ones with the gods, but not ones like today. As you say, I’m only seven years old, and
Fire nodded as she
Six added with