FIC: REPOST: Militat omnis amans (Every lover is a warrior) Part 7c/?

["Beckett, Kevin" <kevin.beckett@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Militat omnis amans (Every lover is a warrior) Part 7c/?
K. Beckett (c) 2000 

Disclaimers:
Buffy, Willow and all of the other characters and places from the show
belong to Joss Whedon, WB and Mutant Enemy etal. Everyone and everything
else is mine. None of my characters are meant to resemble anyone living,
dead or un-dead, if you see yourself you are looking way too hard.

This story contains sexual acts between consenting adult women, and was
written in a jurisdiction where it was legal to do so. If this offends you,
don't read.

Rating: 
R

Other: 
The Latin and Gaelic are mine; I take the responsibility for any
translations of them. In addition, the descriptions of the rituals, spells
and other craft work come from my traditions, so please don't take offence
if something described here does not match your traditions or what you think
it should.

Archiving etc.: 
Ask and I will say yes.

Spoilers and other ramblings:
Everything up to the middle of season four - I diverge then.

Please note that things perceived by characters other than by the five
acknowledge senses have been enclosed in < >.

mailto:kevin.beckett@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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The party immediately began a hard gallop to the town, reaching it as
expected just as dusk was falling. They rode up into the stable yard of a
small two-story inn named the Boar's Feast and quickly dismounted, passing
their horses over to the stable boys. The inn was a hundred year old timber
framed structure with a slate roof. It could accommodate twenty or so
travellers and had facilities for their horses, equipment and other items.

Daithi and Frankel proceeded into the inn in order to arrange for their stay
while the others gathered what baggage they would need for the night. The
remaining items would be left in the stables, under the care of the stable
master. Just as they were approaching the inn's door Daithi came out into
the yard with a worried look on his face.

"Problems," asked Willow.
"They are full," he replied, "absolutely no room in the inn, so to speak."
"What are our options?"
"Well we have three choices," Daithi said ticking them off on his fingers,
"first we can ride on and hope for another inn."
"That's out."
"Second, we can bed down in the stables."
"Benefits," asked the arch-mage.
"Easy to secure," he replied, "and easy to defend."
"Detriments?"
"No privacy."
"What's our third option?"
"Third, we can bunk down in the common room," replied Daithi, "it has the
same privacy problem as the stables, it is as easy to secure, probably more
comfortable, but."
"But?"
"But, we will be sharing with a number of other travellers."

<Buff, what do you think?>
<Stables, at least we will be with only our group.>
<Ok, love stables it is,> "Ok Daithi, lets go with the stables. Will they
at least feed us, and is there somewhere we can clean-up?"
"Basic country cooking," he replied, "but lots of it, they also have baths
around the other side of the inn."

Willow turned to the others and said, "Ok folks, here's the deal. They have
no room for us tonight, so we are going to takeover the stables. Grael,
Amana, Bridie, get everything in one place and set wards so that only the
eleven of us can pass. Then join the rest of us for dinner." Within the
quarter hour Willow's strike force were all sitting to dinner, discussing
the days events.

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Deep within a darkened fortress, not all that far from where Willow and her
party were enjoying their dinner, a demon master sat in his operation centre
reviewing the progress of his various demon offences. He was pleased with
the progress of the last two days, and knew that within a day or so he would
have the capital city of Maldorstat surrounded in siege. While few of his
armies had met their objectives, most were at least progressing against the
humans.

"Human scum," he thought to himself, "soon we will have all of you to heel.
Then we can begin our true work here."
He paced about the room thinking about the operational plans that he had
been given by his masters, and how to use his forces to accomplish those
objectives. He hoped that they could subdue Maldorstat quickly; he had
additional work for those troops. 

He knew that he was out on a limb. He had accelerated his attack plans,
well ahead of the general demon offensive, due to the information that he
had received from his slaves in the human capital. It gave him complete
surprise over the hated humans, however, it also left him short of reserves,
since they would not be available through the transfer portals for two or
more weeks. Every one of his troops was needed urgently, for several
different objectives. "Oh well," he thought, "I'll just have to keep
juggling the forces and hope that I don't lose too many of them."

His reverie was interrupted by the arrival of two of his slaves, one of them
the quasi-human Hugh d'Torville and the other, one of his company
commanders. He acknowledged their respectful bows with a nod of his massive
head and granted them leave to speak, "yes, what is it you have to report?"
"Grave news dreaded master," began Hugh, "Junulak here, our Northern
approaches commander has returned with information on those two strangers
that the mages in Maldorstat were working with."
"Yes," replied the red-skinned demon master, "must I wait forever for the
information?"
"No lord," replied Junulak. He was a two-meter high, blue-green skinned
demon with yellow eyes, no hair and two spiral horns jutting out from his
brow. "As you know, my company was advancing on Maldorstat from the
North-East."
"Was?"
"Yes, my lord," replied the company commander, just beginning to sweat,
"was. As we were moving through a small valley, burning out the farmsteads,
I noticed two mounted humans ahead on the road. I ordered a platoon to give
chase and then gathered up the rest of the company to follow."
"The point, get to the point," demanded the demon master said impatiently.
"When we caught up to the platoon, I noticed that they had been eliminated
by a small band of humans, soldiers and mages. There was only ten or so of
them, so given that I outnumbered them ten to one I attacked."
"AND?"
"And they had created a force shield of some type so that only ten or so of
my troops could attack at once, and then, just as we were beginning to make
headway and wear down their dammed soldiers, this woman went berserk and
leaped into our ranks and began to attack us. Nothing we did could stop
her. She killed or maimed over half my forces, along with those cursed
mages. Finally the troops could take no more, broke off the attack, and
ran."
"Casualties," asked the demon master.
"Of my one hundred and fifty soldiers, one hundred and ten dead, thirty
wounded and only ten functional."
"Good Gods of Chaos," said the demon master stunned, "one woman?"

"From Junulak's description," continued Hugh, "it was one of the strangers I
reported earlier. As I said earlier," he continued, "these two are
dangerous."
"That is why I accelerated the attack, and increased the attacking forces
dedicated to the capital assault. It appears, however, that the reasons for
that attack slipped out of the capital where they were relatively safe and
are heading north into dangerous country, why?"
"My lord," said Junulak, "I left eight of my company to trail them. Just as
I was preparing to head here to report to you they informed me that the
humans were heading towards this small village," Junulak pointed out the
town of Peters Forge on the situation map that dominated one wall of the
room. "It is the only human habitat of any size within a day's travel of
where we attacked them."

"What forces do we have in the area," asked the master demon as he studied
the map carefully.
"None, now," replied Hugh.
"Pull back half of the troops from the southern command which have been
dedicated to the siege of the castle and send them after those impertinent
humans," the master demon ordered, staring at the situation map with intense
concentration, and sudden realization of the danger he and his forces might
be in.

"Master, that is over five hundred troops. Why so many for a mere ten
humans."
"Fools, do I have to spell out everything to you," he replied pointing at
the map, "they are after the hell-mouth. They must know what we use them
for, and they might think that they can do something about it. When are we
due to start transferring personnel through it?"
"Not till next week, lord," replied Junulak, stunned at the possibility that
the inter-world transport network which they had used for millennia could be
tampered with, "with the acceleration in our attack plans, none of the other
battle groups were ready, nor were the reinforcements from home."
"Send messages to the other commanders and ask if they can speed up their
plans," the demon lord answered, "in addition, I want to send a messenger
back through our transfer portal, to inform the commanders back home.
Third, Hugh, I want you to take personal charge of capturing and disposing
of these pests. I do not have to tell you the price of failure. Now go
make your plans, I expect you to be ready to leave in the next three days
and I will want to review them before you leave."

Hugh d'Torville and the demon Junulak immediately left their master's
presence to carry out his orders. Meanwhile their master returned to his
contemplations. He now had a significant unforeseen problem to deal with,
and reduced resources to use against it.

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