To The Citadel and Back, Part 2 (Closed)

[EarlStevens]

Our man is rushing up a narrow, windowless spiral staircase, following the furiously stomping legs of Witherspoon directly in front of him. The stairs are so sharp and tall, the tube they rotate within so cramped, that he can barely see the man as he continually moves up and around, almost disappearing with each heavy step. Somewhere ahead are the priest and the viscount, their voices senselessly echoing off the stone, creating a vibrant cascade of noise that did nothing for understanding. Between them scuttled the birds these strange men carried along with them, flapping and cooing to each other. He couldn’t imagine how penguins and chickens could move this fast up such a dizzying height, but apparently they can. Behind him glides his manservant, but he dares not look back to see its progress. It’s enough seeing that unchanging face glare back at you without also risking a nasty fall.

The stairwell is dry and dusty, clouds leaping into the air with each footstep. There is no light source that our man can see, but so far up the exhausting climb it has been as light as a midsummer afternoon, and unfortunately enough just as warm. Wet patches are growing under his arms and on his chest, but he keeps moving. It isn’t as if he could get lost here – only two directions to go – but without the mildly reassuring sight of a man’s heels in front of him, he doubts he would have the willingness to keep the interminable dash upwards. With heaving lungs and moistened brow, he wonders how much longer they can continue upwards, and what exactly their destination is. They had ascended several wide flights of stairs, carrying them up a few stories from the ground, before reaching the empty eyehole of an entranceway to this stairway to infinity. He hopes that whatever the end to this mad climb is, it is half as rewarding as the priest seems to think it will be. A gust of cool, moist air brushes his cheek, and our man realizes with a rising heart that the end is indeed within his grasp.

Leaping up the final step, slapping his shoe soles on the stone threshold of the door at the top of the stairs, our man heaves a sigh of relief and feels his ears pop. He steps off the threshold and down onto an expansive stone platform, spreading out before him toward a high stone balustrade that wraps around whatever rooftop they have emerged onto. Above them, and really to all sides, hangs the sky, a huge upturned sieve from which clouds droop, brushing the top of his hat as they sail past. Our man spends several pregnant seconds staring up at that sky, his mouth slightly open, his eyes watering at the sheer scope of it. It has been months since he’s seen a sky like this. His brief breath of open air during the battle on the frozen lake had been nothing as impressive. The sky had hung low and cold, and he had still felt in the pit of his stomach that he had remained underground, among the moles and worms. An indescribable freedom fills him up, raining down from the free range clouds and fenceless blue ceiling.

“Birdwatching?” he hears the viscount’s voice and turns back to more worldly matters. Darby is stroking his moustache, cocking an eyebrow. Slightly embarrassed, our man simply nods once and steps forward toward the men and birds. The priest and Witherspoon seem to be ignoring him, which is all the better. They are looking out at the city spread around them. It was like being at the center of the world, a massive lodestone pulling the cities and peoples of the continents inward. From this gallery, there is an almost unmolested view of the expansive fairie city growing around them. It is a patchwork of brown and grey, as mismatched and incomprehensible as scattered small farms in winter, but the possibility of sense slowly appears in the mess as our man walks toward the balustrade. This holy fortress they stand upon, the towers and spires of which slope away from them in all directions, dominates a wide rectangle of crushed gravel, beaten down sand and sapling trees. It is narrower at the east and west sides of the building, only a street’s width, but the north and south sides it expands for several blocks, flat and motionless as a cricket field at midnight. Stone and wood buildings expand from there, bound in by wide boulevards and narrow alleyways that connect them. The arteries of the city. Our man can make out several heavy buildings lurking among them: A palace, a rotunda, a temple, an ornate monument archway. Small indents in the surface of roofs mark parks or public meeting spaces. A huge, wide boulevard with a shantytown sprouting within it sits nearly half a mile away, pushed up against a high wall. Following its periodic towers and gates, our man sees that wall encircles the interior of the city, hemming it in, sequestering the Old from the New. Beyond it stretches suburbs and neighborhoods, that meander off along invisible paths until they find their own place to disappear, fading into green plains. Several smudges, with black tendrils rising above them, smear the lush horizon.

“Half the Entente,” the priest says, motioning out to them. “There was no time to tell you until now, Sir Anthony, and frankly I wish I had told Lord Leopold before he left. But there they are, several thousand of them, in four camps around the city. They followed us here when we arrived last night, close on your heels. We had feared Aesphestos might have an army waiting within the city. Thank Ai’Bron we overestimated him.” His voice trails off as he stroked his chin, grimacing out at the horizon. The viscount chews his lip for a few seconds, digesting this information.

“I’m surprised Ribbentrophen let you fellows just walk out,” he replies, dropping an unfamiliar name. “A general is hardly worth the name if he lets half his army take off, especially if his own countrymen are among them.” The priest nods, sighing.

“Ah, well,” he said, nodding deferentially, “Very true. Sadly, Sir Anthony, few Ozternbergers came with us. They do have their Messiah to prostrate before. And you are right, I expected Nar’oth Ribbentrophen to prevent our leave, so some distraction was required.” He does nothing to elaborate, and our man feels uncomfortable broaching the subject, so he allows silence to descend over them as he watches the clouds. “However,” the priest continued, “That is not why I brought you all here. I brought you here for that,” he points down at the edge of the open expanse surrounding the Citadel. Our man follows the line from his finger, and frowns at the sight of several green-clad men pushing a huge wooden contraption, like a giant bow, into place with the aid of a few mules. It rolled into position, facing their gallery, and the tiny figures hopped to place blocks on either side of its wheels. Looking around the edges of the square, he sees dozens, if not hundreds, more of the little green figures, pushing more of the huge bows, stacking barrels and poles into makeshift barricades, trotting horses back and forth, herding groups of other people away from the public space and back up the streets.

“Scorpions,” Viscount Darby mutters, taking in the same scene “Roadblocks. Are those men pitching tents? Jesus Christ, Peter, this is a siege!” Our man, jolted, looks from the viscount to the priest, seeing the same mixture of shock and grimness fixing their faces into frowning masks.

“What is this,” he speaks up, causing both of them to turn to him, “Some sort of bloody war?” The viscount snorts a laugh and turns away, looking back over the city, searching for more green figures in the street. The priest nods.

“It does appear so,” he responds impassively.

[LordLeopold]

Pode slipped quietly across the stone floor, ignoring the groveling guards who bowed and muttered "my lady's" in her wake. These buffoons were as pathetic as the palace they guarded: Barely adorned, scrawny, and insufficient in every way. Not only that, but they were impossibly crude. Sometimes she felt their eyes resting on her and barely withstood the urge to disembowel them and scorch their entire mud-strewn city to ash. Her slippered feet slid across the stone floor, occasionally meeting a dusty rug or the sticky remains of some dropped goblet, guiding her across the top floor of the mansion to her own private quarters. It seemed like it had been a year since she had spent an entire night in her own bed. She shivered, disgusted, and swallowed her bile. Turning the corner, dodging a sputtering lamp and glancing needles at the adolescent guards who leapt to attention as she approached, the ancient sorceress pushed the door to her room open and slammed it closed.

An odd sensation, like passing through cotton, rippled across her skin as she stepped over the threshold. Without thinking, she pulled the Tap forth, snapped it together into half a dozen soul-destroying filaments, and lashed them throughout the room. They didn't touch anything material in her chamber, but if they touched the soul of the fool who had snuck into her room, he'd quickly find himself dead as a stone. A few seconds passed as she scoured the room, and a puzzled look spread over her face as no cold body fell out from behind a curtain or piece of furniture. The room was too small for her to avoid seeing a dead body; she doubted anyone could even hide behind the tattered curtains at the tiny window, or on the other side of her worm-bitten table or tiny armoire. Could her magical alarms have backfired? They wouldn't have alerted her unless someone was here.

"Sloppy," Aesphestos' voice echoed, as if through a metal pipe, and her hold of the Tap shattered, her destructive filaments fading out like a dying match. Pode felt her arms and legs stiffening, her black eyes freezing in mid-blink, her brown hair catching in air, strand by strand unmoving around her. She could not see him, feel his presence, or tell from where these magical binds were flowing. She could only stand, scarecrow still, waiting for him to tire of his game. "Sloppy protections around your room, sloppy attack, no defenses prepared, nothing." Unable to move her eyes, she could not turn to look at the spot from which his voice was beginning to project, but she had looked furtively around this room so many times, trying to make sense of her captivity here, that she knew immediately. The mirror. A full-length, bubbled and distorted mirror stood in the corner of the room, leaning drunkenly due to a loose fixture somewhere in its wooden frame. He used a mirror protection, she thought. Obvious!

"And yet so obvious you didn't prepare for it," Aesphestos walked out of the corner of her vision, changing from a blur to a distinct, tall, silver and red dressed man, a cape billowing behind him, thick riding boots on his feet. The Tap flowed around her, tying a protective bubble around the room, keeping any sounds from penetrating the cracks around the door. Her eyes were burning and watering, but she focused on his face, slightly creased at the eyes, hiding her discomfort away in a corner of her mind. "Tell me," he said, taking a step closer to her, smiling grimly, electricity coursing in the air between them. "What good is knowing someone's in your room if you can't deal with them?" Her muscles went loose again, the iron bands on her bones releasing, and she stumbled sideways, nearly collapsing with the sudden freedom, her eyes blinking, her lips quivering.

"I didn't expect someone as talented as you, Aesphestos," she said, straightening her dresses with sweaty palms. "I only expected some pimply peeping Tom, not the Lord of the Dark." Aesphestos' smile faded, the corners of his lips stretched thin, his face unreadable. He took another step forward, reached out with a gloved hand, and took her delicate chin between his gloved thumb and forefinger, lifting her face up to look at his.

"Let me look at you," he added, perfunctorily, and she didn't object. His eyes danced across her soft, pink features, moving from jaw line to hairline, from ear to ear, and then locked his eyes with hers for the briefest of seconds. Her heart raced, even as he released her and turned to walk to the nearest chair and easing himself into it, crossing his legs. "You've kept up well," he stated simply. She nodded, still standing, and matched his own inspection of her with a once-over of her own. Two silver embroidered badgers, raised on their hind legs, pawed at each other across his crimson chest. A ruby and emerald pin kept his cape about his shoulders, and a series of silver cufflinks strapped his sleeves close to his wrists, at the base of his drake hide gloves. Seeing them, she thought black thoughts of Denebriel, but pushed them away. From the wiry grin on his face, it was clear she hadn't done so quickly enough. A thin chain was visible at the sides of his neck, and his belt buckle was a heavy loop of spangles and intricate carving. All these jewels were more than mere baubles tugged up from the mud. They were adamantine, and all bore his specific imprint.

"You can make adamantine again," she stated, folding her hands at her waist. He did not reply, only looked back at her, observing her like a trainer observes a dog. His eyes bore a pressure down on her that she hadn't felt in a very long time. Trying to meet them for too long was difficult, and she felt a surge upward in her chest every time she did. Glancing at his boot's adamantine toe, she managed to continue the thought. "No one in Althanas can do that, now. And yet you were repulsed last night, anyway." Aesphestos' self-satisfied smile disappeared, and he rose to his feet, crossing his arms heavily. It was Pode's turn to smile.

"Even though the Scarlet Witch has become a scarlet woman," he replied, a blade slicing in his words, "She still speaks scorn to the Lord of Death." Pode, her cheeks flushing, clenched her teeth, but couldn't help raising her hands to the side of her head, mussing her hair and sighing. She quickly lowered them, surprised at herself, but let her fury continue bubbling.

"Enough!" She cried, "Why have you sent me here? Do you have any idea what it's like spending every night in his bed?" Her voice, although raised, remained firm and polished as steel, no shrill scream cracking its surface. "Why is it so necessary for me to be part of this inane scheme of yours?" Aesphestos shook his head, clicking his tongue on the back of his teeth, and sighed condescendingly.

"Pode, my dear," he replied, tilting his head sideways and giving her a look that showed he gave her outburst a poor appraisal. "To be fair, it is as much your scheme as mine." She widened her eyes, but kept silent. "And you know as well as I do that you are the only one I can truly trust with this mission. It requires a blend of intelligence and beauty with which I can only credit you." Her eyes narrowed this time, recognizing flattery from Aesphestos for what it was, but she stayed silent. "And in any event," he continued, again sitting down. "Your time of salvation is nigh. Our mission has come to fruition." Pode could not help herself this time. She rushed forward, lowering herself to her knees, her pink gown nearly ripping against her shins, and grasped one of his hands with her own, a light flaming in her eyes.

"That is why Stevens was here, isn't it?" she gushed, her eagerness spilling out in a torrent. "It's finally over!" Aesphestos smiled back at her, genuine now, and raised his other hand, placing it on top of hers.

"You've done well," he said. "Like I knew you would."

******

Aesphestos appeared at the roof of the tower, stepping through a portal through which the interior of a bedchamber could be briefly seen before he snapped it shut with a crack like a whip. He stood still for a few seconds, looking out across the flat marbled circle that was the tip of the tower, rubbing his gloves together and squinting out across the vista that spread in all directions to an interminable horizon of craggy peaks. This stone spire appeared to have risen in the middle of a giant bowl, a crater miles across, empty and lifeless except for a few brown birds that floated and flapped between the magician and the ground, thousands of feet below. After a few minutes of glancing around his surroundings, the undying wind tugging his cape, Aesphestos finally cleared his throat and said one word.

"Nyvengaal," he stated in an implicit command. Immediately, with a sound like a melon cracking open, a stumpy man, swathed in a black cloak and continually stooped, rubbing his hands together, appeared at his side. His face was hidden behind his cowl, and a continual babble of chuckles and giggles poured out from it. Aesphestos sighed, rolling his eyes, and clasped his hands behind his back, pinning his cloak down, staring out over the bland environment.

"Why in Haidia's flames did you build this thing?" Aesphestos asked, disdainfully glancing around the crater. "Oh, I see now. It's beautiful and inconspicuous." Nyvengaal didn't reply, only continued his cackling. "Alright," Aesphestos said after another few seconds. "I should have known when you asked me here how useless it would be to come. You're as insane as you were the last time, and the time before that." Aesphestos reached out for the Tap, preparing to rip another hole in the air.

"You smell like Pode," Nyvengaal retorted, his laughter ceasing, his voice as serious as death. Aesphestos paused, his eyes narrowing infinitesimally. "You tied her down this time. You're learning from Denebriel." Aesphestos turned slowly towards Nyvengaal, the man's black cloaks rippling outward in the wind like a storm cloud across a prairie.

"Your voyeurism is as disgusting as your insanity," he said, reached for the Tap, and disappeared in a blossom of fire. The moment the bright explosion faded, Nyvengaal began laughing again.

"The bells know," he muttered. "The bells know his fear. The bells know."

[EarlStevens]

Our man plunges out of the stairwell back into a hall of the holy fortress, shivering at the shock of damp air against his skin. It is wide and tall, like several dining halls pressed together, and seems to exist only to showcase a strange series of suits of armor that are propped up on either side of the room, in between doorways. The priest, the viscount and their entourage have already spilled out, and are moving towards a hesitant monk, shifting from one foot to the other like a small child sent to deliver bad news. And all around them bustles a hurrying mob that screams "bad news." Platoons of monks like the ones who have been rooting out their recalcitrant brothers in the labyrinth below are now marching in every direction, the priests and magicians at their heads leading them on with a stream of caustic orders. One of the living trees that appeared last night is treading slowly and heavily across the room, stooping so as not to break through the ceiling, humming a deep, vibrant tune to itself. Our hero watches the spindly oak walk past and duck below a very tall doorframe, leaves and twigs showering down from its body atop a group of Arabesque tribesmen who are rustling toward the front of the building. Feeling a cold breeze at his elbow, our man turns to his servant and shrugs.

"I suppose this is what war is like," he mutters, "I'd expected something bloodier." His manservant does not reply. Sighing at himself for futilely expecting a response for the thousandth hopeless time, our man turns back to face the viscount and bishop, who are approaching him, glancing back and forth to each other warily. Our man first looks to the viscount, whose face is a frowning blot of worry behind his moustache, and then to the priest, who has a resigned expression that masks a churning mind. "Let me guess," our man cuts in before either can speak. "In an ironic twist, the same buggers who've imprisoned me for so long, now need my help in some way." Both men are visibly taken aback, their eyebrows leaping up their scalps, but either speaks for a few seconds.

"I think I'd be best if he just followed us, Peter" the viscount says. "You're better at explaining things like this, so I'll leave that part of it to you." The bishop nods in agreement, reaches out with one hand, and steers our man to follow them. The viscount ticks his head at Witherspoon, who snaps to attention and follows, the dragon on his shoulder and the chicken and penguins on his heels. Breaking a pathway through the flitting crowds of people as they pass, the odd menagerie makes it way towards an invisible goal as the bishop leans in towards our man, his eyes cool but his voice kindly.

"I don't believe I've introduced myself, first of all," he begins as they make a leisurely pace through the room. "Although I know a fair amount about you, I doubt there is much you know about me. My name is Peter O'Mally, and I am the High Priest of this Citadel. For some time I have been part of the Entente of the Light, a coalition of armies meant to defend our world, Althanas, against the forces of evil." He smiles at the incredulous look on our man's face. "That's really beside the point, though, and I don't want to confuse you, so I'll let that be for now. It is important that you know, however, that we're fighting a war, but one without chivalry or pity. Our enemies don't wish merely to win over us, but to conquer and destroy us, as well. Their spies are everywhere, and we cannot be too cautious when dealing with possible threats." The group passes under a heavy doorframe and moves down a hall, three carriages wide but stuffed with people of every description and type, moving in every direction, yelling at each other indistinguishably.

"Eustace!" Roars O'Mally over the heads of the bobbing crowd, breaking off from our man. Another man, dressed in white and blue ecclesiastical robes, lifts his head over the sea, several paces ahead. "Move all the combatants to the center keep!" The other priest nods, and our man has O'Mally's full attention once again as the ford the human mass. "I believe you've met Lord Leopold," he continues, "Who bears a striking resemblance to you. Or vice versa. Either way, when you appeared on our doorstep so many months ago, you can imagine my surprise when I heard of two Leopold Stevenses running around. It was difficult to convince myself that you might not be a spy of our enemies, and so I ordered you imprisoned." Memories of months in a stone cell, unable to run or walk, cramped and smelly at night, constantly brushing up against the shadows of his manservant, eating disgusting food from a half-clean bowl, wash back over our hero. His fists clench and his mouth goes dry.

"Hell's bells," he replies, "Do you know what it's like in those cells?" O'Mally pauses for a second, gauging the anger simmering in our man's words, and then continues without missing a note.

"Yes," he replies, "All monks spend a year of their lives in such conditions to humble themselves before Ai'Bron." Our man moves his mouth to object, but finds no words. O'Mally continues as they burst through the end of the crowd and move down the hallway towards an open space that is barely visible at its end. "I'm not entirely sure you should be running around like this," O'Mally says, "But Lord Leopold has vouched for you." Admiration glows in his tone, but our man ignores it, blanking out memories of himself, looming up before him, slicing into his very being with his voice, his face, his eyes.

"I'm helping you in your fratricidal crusade," our man hisses, "Name a better fealty oath." O'Mally raises a man, bidding peace, and nods reverentially.

"I can't fault you for that," he replies, "And I thank you. Aesphestos' men are still among us. If you were his agent, I would be shocked if you helped us root them out." His voice is too bland and practiced to make him sound convinced, but our man choses to take him at face value, looking down the hallway, over the viscount's head, at the space expanding at the passage's end. It is the grand hallway he had been herded into last night during the monks' great battle, and it is once again filled with people, figures clumped together in small groups and towering trees swaying above the rest. The same air of war hovers about them, palpable even from this distance. Our man can feel the group about him steeling themselves for entry into the battle camp, ready to pierce the cordon that has been thrown up around the fortress.

"High Priest!" A reedy voice calls out behind them, and the whole party stops as O'Mally wheels around, swinging his staff and crosier dangerously. A man dressed in resplendant robes, heavy furs at his shoulders and on his boots, sweat slippery on his face even in this cool hallway, is marching behind them. His body is vibrating with a power that our man can sense at the very edge of his mind, a tugging, pushing, burning, freezing sensation, almost sensual and orgasmic in its confusion of feeling. It is obvious that this strange man is a sorcerer. As he approaches, the sensation spreads, pricking at him from the priest standing beside him. So this High Priest O'Mally is a magician, too? Our man thinks to himself. Odd, but interesting. The magician gives a cool glance at the tower of shadow hovering at our hero's side, but it is only a brief look, and he quickly turns back to O'Mally.

"A small pig broke through the city guards' lines," he says, simply, as if reporting the price of corn. "He claims that Generalissimo Lord Leopold has been arrested by the baron, on charges of treason. No doubt this will interest you, my lord," the magician turns to our hero, who opens his mouth slightly, and glances around the hall, searching for something to say. The viscount comes to his rescue, setting around him, slinging an arm over his shoulder.

"My brother is safe and sound with us, old bean," he replies, smiling lopsidedly. "Baron or no baron, your generalissimo is safe in the Citadel." The magician nods, smiling joylessly in return, and spins on his heel, marching back down the hall, his robes billowing. "Salvarian," the viscount mutters. "Hasn't gotten over the invasion yet." Winking as if this explained everything, he lowers his arm and turns to face O'Mally. "Well, I suppose there's nothing funny about saying pigs will talk when they can fly, eh?" He quips. O'Mally doesn't respond, only chews his lip and looks up toward the ceiling, momentarily deep in thought.

"I know that pig," he says after half a minute. "He's an irrepressible liar, but he wouldn't put himself in danger like that just to con us." After another half minute, O'Mally's eyes turn down and focus on our hero. "The fact that our sorcerer friend mistook you for Lord Leopold could be very important in the next hour. If anyone else thinks you're someone you're not, don't correct them."

[EarlStevens]

Our man has little time to reply as Peter O'Mally swirls around and marches toward the end of the hallway. The band follows, steeling themselves against the increasing noise and heat pushing in from the grand entrance hall. As they emerge, a thousand babbling noises, echoing off the ceiling and walls, slowly die down to a few scattered murmurs, the miter atop O'Mally's head drawing their attention and muting the room. Their surroundings are a crowd of soldiers, arranged in armored squares and rectangles, bunched around the feet of the towering, living trees and individual mages whose bodies shimmer with magic. At the far end of the hall, the doors are shut, but not barred, nervous guardsmen clustered at their base. Our man turns as his group makes it way down the hall, monks bowing and magicians nodding as they brush past, and focuses briefly on the heap of slag and scorched stone at the terminus of the room, the remains of a huge statue destroyed the night before. He shivers at the sight of it.

"One hell of a mess," he mutters, looking at his manservant's motionless face as he turns around. "Tragic," A voice responds, and our man jumps, eyes bugging, turning back toward the ghoul before realizing it was only the viscount's clipped response. Hoping that no one has noticed his jumpiness, he focuses on the feet of Witherspoon skipping along in front of him, his head tilted down. Staring down, he considers his position. In a cathedral built like a prison, besieged like a fortress, surrounded by those who didn't fully trust him, and who he could never trust, himself. And with a manservant who looked like he had just risen from a restless graveyard! He shivers again.

"a'Tol," O'Mally says as they reach the doorway after the long march down the entranceway. The group peeters to a halt and our man looks up, scrutinizing the man the bishop had just addressed. He is tall, with dark skin and hair, growing a narrowed beard, thin with youth. He is all in white, loose robes hung about his body, a band of silk tied around his head. His eyes, blue and narrowed, pierce our man, peeling back his skin and glaring into his heart. Our man swallows as surreptitiously as possible. Here is a man who has seen battle.

"You look odd, Leopold," he says in a rolling, purring accent, a heavy eyebrow raised, sarcasm tainting his voice. "The illness of traveling, perhaps?" O'Mally draws closer to a'Tol, frowning, and moves between our man and the white-clad stranger. "That might be good for a laugh later," he says, his voice lowered almost to whispering, "But mum's the word now. Only a few of us know about him," he gestures toward our man, "And it needs to stay that way for now." a'Tol looks down his small, sloping nose at our man over O'Mally's shoulder, and doesn't respond.

"Alright, men," O'Mally cries, stepping around a'Tol and motioning to the guards leaning against the door. "Open up!" With this brisk order, the guards hop to action, running away behind pillars, slipping behind ribbed columns and disappearing into hidden nooks and passageways. Our man looks around, puzzled, frowning at the men's disappearance, trying to make sense of the confusion of shadows surrounding the doors. A guillotine of blinding sunlight slices into his face, and our man realizes as the crack between the two doors widens that, where-ever those guards disappeared to, they are now flinging open the doors to the outside world. The doors swing silently to a shoulder's width, and our man stifles the urge to rush out, escaping this benighted prison forever. It would feel so relieving, so liberating to finally run out into the sun.

The foolishness of his desires becomes obvious as the doors open wider and his eyes adjust to the scoring light. The wide city square opens up before the doorway, empty of people, its puddles shrinking in the rising heat. Ringed around the streets and alleyways that open out onto the common are hundreds of little green and silver splashes, plumes and helmets and swords decorating the hundreds of guards. Tiny toys though they had been from atop the Citadel, on the ground they are a fearsome sight, men sulking as the midday approaches, thumbing their blades and hovering about the wooden wheels of their weapons of war. Our man can feel a collective swallow go down in the men around him as the entire scene descends into their consciousness.

In the middle of the square stand three men, indistinct at this distance, but obviously of some importance. The light catches on spangles and pieces of gold that didn't shine on any other green plume's shoulders. O'Mally looks at them, then to a'Tol, then to the viscount, and finally to our man, and then nods. Without further instruction, the group steps out the door and marches slowly and methodically towards the three men outside. They pass through sheets of dark and light as they walk, the sun streaming through the columns that line the front of the building, but soon are subject only to the sky's brutal dry rain. As if on cue, as the group steps down the steps leading to the entrance, a heaving, creaking noise fills the air, and a black, heavy tower creaks into view, rising up in the middle of a street off of one of the corners of the square. Ropes swing down from its straight, flat top and sides, hanging limply, as if around a discarded marionette. Our man's mouth goes even drier, and he stares quizzically at the sight. O'Mally mutters "Seige tower," under his breath, but makes no other sign of recognition. The viscount makes a groaning noise deep in his throat, but all else are quiet.

The three men expand as our heroic band approaches, and become distinct personalities. One is a broad, old man with a grey beard and a scar across his forehead, wearing a uniform similar to the green-garbed men surrounding the Citadel. He thumbs a pipe casually with one hand while ostentatiously brushing dust off his gold and silver epaulettes. To his right is an old, withered soul of a man, shrinking away from the sun, clutching a baton in his right hand. Although his body is lumpy and fat like an old pear, his arms and legs are thin and sinewy, looking like they are about to snap. He is dressed as a noble, although a sword hangs uselessly at his side and a sash covered in glazed medals is wrapped around his torso. Standing at his right is, from the waist up, a bare-chested man with long ears and burly arms, sweat beading on his smooth skin. From the waist down, he is supported by the body of a horse, its flesh twitching, one hoof pawing the ground. Our man looks at the centaur's lower body uneasily, and quickly turns his eyes elsewhere.

"I once tangled with a centaur on Malta," he mutters to Witherspoon, who has retreated slightly to walk next to our hero. "Let's just say he left a gelding." Witherspoon tittered politely, and the viscount glances over his shoulder, looking surprised at Witherspoon's relocation, but quickly turns back around. The small dragon perched on Witherspoon's seersucker shoulder gives a squeaking imitation of the laugh, as a parrot might, but all else is silent, except for the crunch of gravel beneath their shoes. As they approached, another groaning wail of wood and rope announces the raising of another siege tower, which swings into place three blocks over from the first, wobbling and flailing its rope ties.

Our hero feels panic clutching his stomach, as he realizes how out of his depth he is. Why is he here? What possible purpose could he serve? Was he even supposed to be here? No one had objected as he followed them, and it certainly seemed like the natural thing to do, if anything could be considered natural in these circumstances. The priest O'Mally had made it sound like he was supposed to tag along, but perhaps he had misunderstood something. Fairie worlds could be dashed misleading; he remembers the story of Erasmus and the fairie who tricked him into admitting the fallibility of God, and then added insult to injury by dropping a plate of apple tarts on his head. It had amused him as a child, but now the thought of being on the wrong side of a pastry strikes him as terrifying. As they approach the two men and centaur, he feels another layer of sweat running up over that which has already spread across his shoulders and forehead. All hangment, why did I ever go in that basement in Wight? I could have watched a cricket match instead!

[EarlStevens]

Our hero and the surrounding band come within twenty feet of the men and the centaur and stop, their eyes glancing back and forth, briefly locking with each other before moving to the next. He looks from the centaur's black orbs to the old man, whose eyes are too rheumy to give away any emotion, to the man with the pipe. The man's jaw clenches as their eyes lock, and our man swallows. The fellow pulls another bit of tobacco from the pouch at his belt and shoves it into the bowl fiercely, but seems to have no intention of lighting it. They stand, silent, the sound of shouts and wood slapping against wood echoing somewhere down a side street, the square dead except for their uneven breaths.

"The Baron of Radasanth," the old man wheezes out after half a minute, senility muting for him the tension in the air. "Has called upon us to offer you parley terms for the surrender of the Citadel." The words fall from the air onto their ears like a ton of bricks. Witherspoon swoons slightly, and the penguins clustered at Darby's feet shuffle their fat little feet uneasily. Our man can feel from here O'Mally's shoulders and neck pulling tight, his teeth grinding. He seems to have expected something like this - no man walks as certainly from a fortress in sight of his enemy without knowing what he's facing - but actually coming to grips with it is a different matter.

"Surely we all want to avoid bloodshed," he bites off acidly. "I speak for the Pontiff when I say the Monks are peace-loving, and would like nothing better than to see your weapons unused when the sun sets." Our man begins chewing at the corner of his mouth as he hears O'Mally mention the Pontiff. Even he knows that there is no more Pontiff. Their pope had disappeared in a shower of fire, emerging as a dark and powerful wizard. The scene had been so frightening that hundreds of monks had exploded into a fearful riot, running each other down in terror. But no one else as much as blinks. Apparently these folk are used to lying.

"Then you will accept our terms gladly," the pipe-wielding man, his eyes flickering rapidly from our man to O'Mally, replies. "We wish, as you do, only for an end to conflict in our city. For too long, armies have camped outside Radasanth, dipping their hands in our bowls and pricking our necks with their daggers. How can we have peace with armies prowling across our lands, taking our people's farms, disregarding..."

"Colonel," O'Mally raises a hand, frowning. "The force that entered Radasanth last night and the encampments outside the city are no threat to you. Do not let them concern the baron. We have lived for many years together, and I expect we'll manage a few more, at least. In only a few days, they will have left, and this unnecessary imposition of martial law can be suspended." The colonel snarls and turns to the old man, who hacks wetly, not bothering to cover his mouth, and then replies.

"As Marshal of the Barony of Radasanth, I shall act in Baron Marion's stead. Allow me to present our formal terms," Obviously irate at his words being ignored, O'Mally leans against his staff as if already wearied by the marshal's recitation. "First, we request that all armed men currently residing in the Citadel leave the city under armed guard. Second, that all armies within Radasanth not commissioned by the baron immediately depart his jurisdiction. Third, that the Citadel becomes a City Fortress under the jurisdiction of the City Guard. Fourth, that a pig who is now seeking refuge in the Citadel be released into my custody, on charges of aiding and abetting treason." Another dead silence falls over the small crowd. Darby looks at O'Mally coolly, his own mind obviously churning behind his sweat-smeared forehead. Witherspoon moves his lips silently, running through some sort of prayer. Our man looks over his shoulder at his manservant, whose eerie stoniness seems almost surly. The birds and dragon, he chooses to ignore. O'Mally lowers his eyelids and leans back slightly.

"In exchange, you won't besiege the Citadel?" he asks. Punctuating his question, a rasping roar fills the air as another siege tower lifts into place, a man-made sequoia forty feet tall. The colonel looks at the centaur from the corner of his eye and nods. Bending back an arm as thick as a man's chest, he pulls a bag off a strange sort of belt latched across his back and sides, and tosses it on the ground. The side bursts open, and a silver handle falls out of the burlap, slapping the half-dried mud. Darby gasps and Witherspoon makes a small yelp. The chicken runs forward, feathers mussed, clucking mournfully, tapping at the handle with her beak. Its owner is obvious. Leopold Stevens.

"We'll return the owner of those things," the colonel says, giving our man a frigid, yet smug, look. "And spare you a battle."

[LordLeopold]

Stevens interlocked and then released his fingers slowly, repeating the gesture over and over. As his hands pulled slightly apart, they pulled the robes binding his wrists taut almost immediately. He stared at the cords, watching their tough fibres tighten and loosen in a pointless cycle. It was impossible for him to watch his wrists move and not think of himself. Normally, he would stand up and walk toward the nearest window, stare outside and lose himself in the thoughts buzzing around in his head, but he didn't feel like doing any more moving than he was, already. His mind was as loose and heavy as his body, and moving either would be too much pain and effort. Sighing deeply, the duke slumped a little lower in his chair. But for these ropes, and the cough of a guard outside the door, he didn't feel much like a prisoner. This room was normally some sort of meeting place, perhaps for an advisory council or the notables of Radasanth. Tapestries, the finest he'd seen in the place, depicting an obscure moment in the city's history involving a cavalry charge, scattered by a naked noblewoman, her arms raised pitifully, hung off the walls. The floor was covered by an odiferous carpet, and a thick, worn circular table took up most of the space in the room. It was far wider than the door or the windows; the room must have been built up around it at some point in the past. A dozen chairs, scattered slightly, ringed the table.

Stevens sighed again and wondered what time it was. He had been awake more than twenty-four hours, and time was becoming a bewildering series of crawls and spurts. The sunlight coming through the windows was diffuse enough that he couldn't tell the direction of the sun, and even if he could, he had lost track of which direction the room faced. He slumped a little lower as darkness crept up at the edges of his vision and his head began tilting towards his chest.

Voice outside the room jolted him upright again. They were indistinct at first, but quickly became clearer, more defined, as if from men who were rushing down the hallway. They were also regrettably recognizable. Baron Marion and the pipe-wielding colonel. The hum of their voices formed into words and snatches of sentences: "monk trickery" and "impossible," "increase the guard" and "within the hour" were the clearest among them. With a quick grate of a key in a lock, the door was flung open, and four guards rushed in behind the colonel and Marion's waddling form. Stevens opened his mouth, but a guard rushed forward, lifting something between his hands. The shadow of a bag descended over the duke's face, covering his eyes and pressing against his mouth and nose. Yanked from his chair, Stevens stumbled forward, his path unclear, everything destroyed by a hot cloister around his head.

[EarlStevens]

Our man stands at the ramparts, peering through a slat in a hastily thrown up wooden barrier. Between the nubs of sawn-off table legs is a darkening sky, red and gold fleeing toward the horizon. Spots of fire are burning down in the square, a constellation of war drawing its strength as the sunlight fades. Tents and barricades of wood have been thrown up in gaps in the swarm of scorpions and onagers, hiding whatever dark designs are being unfurled for the coming battle. Wooden seige towers sprout up amid them, a spindly hand groping toward the Citadel, closing in with iron-tipped fingertips. Although it is silent along the roof of the castle, the hundreds of monks too nervous to speak or look into each other's faces, voices call out below in the fractured way that men cry to each other in the night. A ghost of a moon hangs in the sky, bitten in half. Squinting up at it, our hero thinks he sees a smaller, round outline, pink and glowing, edging out from behind the more familiar orb. He bares his teeth. Damned strange place.

He stands along the stone crenulations along the top of the Citadel, the sky open above him, granite and wood boxing him in against the cooling air and tense men out in the night. A few towers and spires are stretched out behind him, but beyond that he is at the peak of Radasanth. His manservant hovers somewhere in the growing shadows, peering over his master’s fedora to the city below. Monks are posted along the line, crouching behind the tables and chairs they have piled up, filling in the gaps in the stone until there are slits only wide enough for a longbowman’s needs. Helmeted monks peer through the slits, their shadows frozen in the tiny slices of sky showing through the shattered furniture. At some stations, scarecrows and piles of sandbags serve similar purposes. Now there seems to be one false soldier for every live one. A crow caws in the distance. Dozens of monks are still inside the Citadel, expunging the last of the rebellion from their midst. That war had seemed enclosed, a domesticated battle. It had, after all, taken place in rooms where bloodshed was the norm, even if monks were not typically those doing the kill. Out here the war is misplaced, the battle more fearsome by the novelty of its surroundings.

"Our ruse didn't work too well," he snarls at no one in particular, spilling out his barbed unease. Beside him, Darby clicks his teeth irritably and readjusts the heavy belt around his waist.

"If there's blame to be had, it's my lot," the viscount replies. "If I hadn't reacted like that when Leo's cane fell out in front of us..." he trails off, rubbing at his mouth with the palm of his hand. Our hero adjusts his hat and sneers behind his arm in a self-satisfied way. At least he hadn't been at fault. "It would have been splendid if seeing you had made them so confused that they called the whole thing off. Pity they saw you for a decoy. Although I doubt it made much of a difference," the viscount continues, more forcefully. "All these preparations and what have you. They undoubtedly didn't want to get dressed up with no place to go, eh?" The smile disappears from our man's face. It was true. No one went to this much trouble just to go home after being befuddled by a parlor trick.

"All hangment," he mutters, "You're right." He lets the words linger in the air. No one here wants a battle. No one ever really does, when dew is clinging to their boots and they're holding a piece of steel just like a thousand others pointed at their throats. When it came down to the wire, him being here was pure lunacy. At least these fools were at war because their religion was under assault. He, on the other hand, had volunteered to join in. They were fighting for their very way of life: He was fighting to learn bloodlust and a sense of how to push back against this world’s violence, to tame these fairies with their own whip. The caprice of his decision is frightening, even without the promise of a battle. I wish I knew some poetry about the paradox of war...

"I say old boy," Darby mutters, leaning in. "If you want to live in Althanas, battle isn't the only way." His prescience gives our man pause, but he turns to the viscount, trying to force his face blank. Darby’s is just as cool, but for a flicker in his eyes, a worried softening. He was another who hadn’t volunteered, but had none of the conviction of the others. The unnecessary excuses he had given while following our man here made it clear enough, and Witherspoon was nowhere to be seen. The penguins, however, are still clustered at the viscount’s back, brandishing their freshly polished miniature pikes. They have the same somewhat pleading look as their charge. Someone has assigned them to au pair duty. O’Mally.

“What was it that Diderot said about strangling the last priest?” he says with a half grin. Darby snorts incredulously.

“It was the king that got strangled,” he replies, leaning back to an erect position, almost grumpily, but with a secret smile curling the edge of his mouth. “Fair point nonetheless.” He lifts the weapon at his side to the top of an overturned chair, placing it at about sternum level, his feet planted more firmly than before. Our man notes it is the same cane tossed in the mud by the colonel earlier in the day. His brother’s. This isn’t the fight he wants either, our man realizes. There are other men he wants to run through, the men shackling his brother somewhere out in that city which has thrown up arms against them. And yet here he is, squaring his jaw, a war leering at him, stroking a silver cane handle absently and trying to figure out whether the permission of someone who looks like his brother outweighs a High Priest’s order.

“Take cover!” A strangled voice calls out from down the walkway, beginning a cascade of other cries and a scramble to duck behind the largest nearby slab of wood. Our man finds himself cringing down, cursing himself for shrinking like a child having a boil lanced. He forces himself to jump back to attention, noting angrily that the viscount has not budged. A meteor is burning through the air, smoke drifting behind it as it makes an oddly slow, sparking arc. Dreadful howling fills the air, a hollow wail that makes our man lift his hands to his ears and shirk back again. He draws back, but Darby reaches out and grabs his shirt by the elbow.

“Arbarians!” he cries over the wail. Our man looks back into his face, frenzied with confusion, and Darby points wordlessly behind him, a hint of condescension in the winkles of the corners of his mouth. He turns, his face paling as he follows the viscount’s finger. A thin, willowy figure is swinging out from behind one of the gothic towers of the Citadel, a sliver of silhouette against the purpling sky. It is one of the walking trees, its body waving nearly to toppling, its dangling arms nearly scraping the ground as it stomped out, perching at the edge of the walkway. Its head stretches out, its cave of a mouth pulling wide like a caricature of an opera singer. The ethereal moan is not coming from the approaching fireball, but from this towering man of a tree. Another loud roar joins the cry, and another figure heaves out further down the line. As the shock of the horrible song wears off, our man begins to feel the vicious strength of magic flowing around him, weaving in and out of his body, a thrilling burst of power resonating with the soul of the earth.

He turns back to the fiery bolt approaching from the square. It is not longer moving, but instead hangs in the sky, a bolt the size of a tree trunk with a burning spike at its end. It twitches, spins its point toward the ground, and falls straight down, the flames at its tip snuffing out before it hits the wet gravel below. As it burrows into the ground, a sharp splintering noise that can even be heard four stories above erupts from the wood as sprigs and branches begin sprouting from it. Green leaves, bright emeralds at dusk, begin springing up toward the sky.

“Not a mustard seed, but damned impressive,” our man mutters, taking a step forward and leaning over the top of the wood and stone barrier. A tree has blossomed, already whispering in the light wind. “Arbarians, eh?” he asks Darby, who nods.

“I can’t say much for their singing, but I’ll be blasted if they aren’t good gardeners,” he grins back. Our man can’t help but chuckle. A rousing cheer lifts up from the monks, and flickers of movement on the ground below belie the shock of the surrounding forces. Pricks of light begin dancing across the square as torches are lit or move toward the tips of missiles pointed at the Citadel. Hundreds of men are racing among the tents, diving behind the canvas, or fumbling with the equipment at the base of their wooden war machines. The rumble of wooden wheels and spokes begins to fill the air, and the tents below start shifting, as if in the wind.

"They're moving," Darby mutters. Our man nods slowly, watching the tents spread and grow like amoebae. Tendrils expand from the smaller ones, grasping toward the fortress. With screeches and bangs, the seige towers begin to wobble forward in a sick imitation of the arbarians moaning down at them. Men at the catapults begin drawing behind them, readying a full-forced blow. The battle has begun.

[EarlStevens]

"Prepare for bombardment!" an gravely voice rumbles along the castle top, magically projected, clapping down on our man's ears from every direction. He can feel the warm flow of magic around him, a web connecting the arbarians to magicians lurking among the lesser monks, and is thankful for it. His weapon is only a flimsy twig against the encroaching wooden monoliths, much less the flaming missiles below, a hairtrigger away from being flung into his face. Running his tongue over his teeth, he realizes his mouth is dry. His excitement is already being tempered by the cold realization of what approaches, not only from the front by from every side of this now-vulnerable castle.

And indeed, the bombardment comes. The scorpions launch their grotesque bolts, points dripping with flame, and the mangonels vomit up balls of ember and smoke. As they wail through the air, the magic weaving around him grows to a rushing fever, and the songs of the arbarians explode into a chorus of baritones. Balls of flame explode in mid-air with sharp pops that rattle his skull, and the scorpion bolts quiver like stringless kites before falling to the ground, springing into a green grove as they hit the ground. Some lances of flame, however, continue on their wicked paths, cicatrising the sky with tails of smoke. Monks yell to each other frantically, trying to project their paths, and leap out of the way as flaming leather and wood thuds against the stone, skidding across the roof, banging against stone spires, eventually smashing still against the raised center of the roof, which reaches up for another floor or two, the slowly dying flames licking to death against it. Directly below our man is a stained glass window the size of a door, and a hot orb slams against it, bouncing off with a noisy crunch. Fragments of colored glass fall along with the projectile to the ground below, seemingly taking hours in their slow descent. Our man watches them fall and shivers, imaging his body tumbling alongside.

Looking up from the remains of the failed assault, our man watches the tendrils of canvas continually spread out from the war tents. He can see small, flashing feet at the bottom of the tendrils, each pair corresponding to a slight lump in the roof of the man's height leg of tent. He points at them without speaking just as Darby is raising his own hand. The viscount looks at him.

"Indeed," he lowers his hand, resting it back on the handle of his brother's swordcane. "Some sort of siege tactic. Probably some sort of softening attack before those towers get here. Ladders, perhaps?" Our man nods sagaciously, hiding his confusion. He feels the urge to ask some question, keep Darby talking, fill the air with more than the various yells of monks warning each other about the likelihood of a coming strike, but not words come to mind.

"Ready your bows!" the same ethereal voice cries, and the monks up and down the ramparts reach as a unit for the quivers at their backs, notching arrows and focusing on the approaching lines of tent immediately. They are no more than a hundred paces from the front steps of the castle at this point, marching forward with a strange precision. Our man follows their tips to the parts of the Citadel wall he can see, and notes with a satisfying comprehension that narrow windows, just wide enough for a man to scramble through, are notched into the stone twenty feet from the ground. Guilt rises to mix with the satisfaction, and he quickly pushes both back, scrambling to pull back to his fading excitement.

"Fire!" It races back as he watches monks let their arrows fly with twangs and war hoots. The flurry of fletching swoops down on the closest of the attacking sprigs, pricking them like needles in a pincushion. Tinny cries reply to the assault as the tents collapse, legs and pools of blood spreading out from underneath the tarps. The end of a narrow ladder can be briefly seen as one of the man-sized lumps below crashes to the ground, but is quickly withdrawn. Darby nods to himself.

"Cover!" the eerie voice cries as a distracted man might. Our man blinks rapidly, confused, and then screams in terror as a sticky ball of fire slams into the chairs at his side, shooting splinters of wood and coating the ground with a burning, stinking goop. The leather boulder rolls away, spitting sparks, but the flames remain. Stumbling backward, our hero feels Darby's hand clenched on his shoulder. He moans and turns to viscount, stumbling slightly. "Good mercy!" the viscount gives a muted cry and snatches off his jacket, nearly ripping the seams, and slaps it around our hero's arm, clapping the cloth down. Our hero looks down at the acrid, smoldering place on his arm and moans again. He hadn't even realized he was on fire. With squawks and screeches, the penguins take up positions around the duo. Glancing around through hazy eyes, our man takes in the scene around him, blinking as smoke curls into his face. Up and down the line, monks are either scrambling back into position drunkenly or rolling across the ground, flames and smoke being snuffed out between their scalded flesh and the stone. Puddles of flame are smoldering along the roof, some catching on the wood piled up on the ramparts, most quickly dying.

"Not much harm, I'm sure," the viscount mutters to himself. "I've seen worse. You may feel dizzy for a bit. Don't try to take your coat off until a monk's seen to you, though." Our hero looks to him quizzically. "Oh, the cloth might have adhered to your skin, old crumb." Darby replies almost lazily. "Don't want to unpeel your whole arm, eh?" He already loses interest as he puts his jacket back on, frowning at the damage done to its black wool. Our man looks down at his arm, red, black and white, and grimaces. Noticing he has dropped his cane, he stoops down and snatches it back up with his good arm. Standing up straight again, he looks at his valet, who has inclined its mask slightly to peer down at him. Our man frowns. I do feel lightheaded...

More of the tent tendrils have made headway in the meantime, and several of the decimated attackers have regrouped, weaving back and forth as they approach the walls. One has even gotten to the stone itself, and a long wooden proboscis extends from its tip. Our man thinks of the raising of a Maypole as it swings to the slit, hitting the stone, some metal clamps swinging down to latch it to the cathedral. The monks seem to have lost their earlier order, and the haunting voice commanding them has silenced. Screaming to each other in a somewhat confused relay, they begin leaning out, taking a bead on the first green plumes appearing on the ladder and letting their arrows fly. A guard who has made it already halfway up the rungs falls, two shafts in his sides, and knocks another man down as he crashes to the gravel. A third appears, this one with a crossbow, and points upward, launching a bolt into the air that takes the top of a monk's head off. His brain is a clear pink splatter across the night sky, two scarecrows down, and our hero suppresses a bile-tinged scream. As he forces his last meal - it has been so long ago - back down, sense creeps back into his brain, and he wonders at the accuracy of these men in the darkening night. Only it's not so dark. He looks up above his head and gapes at a white, glowing orb hovering in the air. Half a dozen of the things are floating up and down the Citadel ramparts, lighting the front of the castle with a phosphorescent bath.

"Ingenious," he mutters. The arbarian song starts again, and he instinctively ducks, his lesson learned. No flames make it to the ramparts this time. Yes, the battle has certainly begun.

[EarlStevens]

Another round of fiery missiles has exploded in mid-air, flicking ash across the front of the Citadel. More green guards have reached the bottom of the wall, their canvas coverings apparently serving some purpose, bolts and arrows swarming back and forth up the stone, puncturing men and skittering along the stone. Their ladders swing up to the nearest windows, from which monks’ arms and swords reach out and bash down the guards that make it up the wobbling rungs. Trundling siege towers are rolling ever closer, ghastly under the light, ineffective longbow shots glancing off their heavy frames. Huge trains of oxen and bulls are grunting behind the rolling giants, pushing them slowly closer. Although monks have begun taking shots at the bovine slaves, few have fallen, and lively foam blows from their mouths as they close the trap.

“Ah, the Earl Stevens,” a voice mutters and our man turns around hazily at the noise. Hands reach out, clamping aside his head, and the glow of magic atop the cathedral leaps into his body. Euphoria briefly falls over him, and he imagines a slender, white neck and brown hair. Then razor blades draw across his arm.

“Good mercy!” he cries, clutching at his clawed burn. Feeling nothing but smooth skin through the holes seared in his coat, our hero looks up at the smiling face of High Priest O’Mally. He takes a few steps back, bumping against a smoldering chair leg. The priest inclines his head, looking down his nose at our newly-healed protagonist.

“It does often hurt,” he says, “Holding up well, Anthony?” the priest asks without turning his head. The viscount gives an indistinct reply, waving nonchalantly while nudging away a penguin with his toe. “Silas, Petunia and Icarus are missing the fighting,” O’Mally continues, still looking at our man. “Although I can’t say I see why.” Now he does turn his head, shuddering at the bodies and blood along the roof. Clusters of unarmored monks who seem to have accompanied the priest are scurrying down the line, grabbing at bodies and jerking them to life. Watching a corpse jump to its feel, teeth clenched and eyes flashing, makes our man feel like his stomach has dropped to the bottom of his shoes. He swallows, dry and hard.

“It’d be nice if one of you blokes could knock down those abominations,” Anthony speaks up, distinctly this time, dodging a ricocheting crossbow bolt, pointing at the siege towers, now barely a minute of rumbling away. O’Mally sighs and nods, tapping his staff on the stone.

“I think that centaur was a magician. He’s cast some bewildering hexes on us, and the arbarians refuse to directly attack living humans. Sadly, all we can do is tell you when another barrage is coming. I suppose he figured that wasn’t worth blocking. Although they do seem to have let up,” the priest looks up and sniffs, as if checking the wind for the smell of rain. “Well, I’m off to boost more morale.” He says, almost jovially, rustling off down the roof, half-hearted cheers following in his wake. Our man, eyes wide, looks after him, then turns to his manservant, which smiles back. Darby gives a sort of bitter laugh.

“What the bloody Hell?” he asks, shaking his head. Our man shrugs, still trying to untangle the jumble of the past minute, thankful that the noise of battle has temporarily fled from his mind.

“Seemed about as casual as a golfer,” our man notes, and Darby snorts again.

“Where I’m from,” he replies, “Golfers take themselves more seriously.” Both men chortle, and then catch each others’ eyes. Their faces go blank, and our man turns out to the approaching siege tower, red at the ears. The approaching spire quickly reminds our man of the wrenching feeling battle inspires. It wobbles slightly, no more than ten feet away from the edge of the roof. Narrow chinks, widening and closing slightly as the contraption rolls to a stop, show the shifting legs and plumes of guards packed into the boxy craft. Barked orders and murmurs of discontent can be heard within. Arrows burrow ineffectively into the beams, their thuds causing little hiccups in the warriors’ chatter. A sort of strange, fearful calm descends onto the roof as the last wobble from the tower’s stop shakes itself out, and the wooden monolith stands before our man, the punctuation of war. The men within in are quiet, the monks to either side draw back their bowstrings with a noiseless resolve. Darby and his penguins draw back, crouching toward the ground, and our man follows suit, gripping his spiked cane with a still-tingling arm. At that second, the whole battlefield crawls into a motionless second as a dozen of the towers pull into place, guards and monks glaring at each other sightlessly through splintered wood and stone.

With a roar and a squeak, the front of the towers unpeel, a mighty wooden drawbridge falling down, slapping onto the edge of the roof with a series of sickening crashes. Metal spikes latch down, burying among the wooden furniture thrown up against the crenulations, loosely penetrating the pile. Flurries of missiles whistle through the air, longbows and crossbows spitting at each other, men screaming and falling. Dozens of green plumes rush out, more bolts vomiting out, cutting down monks who are not fast enough to drop to the ground or notch another arrow. Our man watches the guards hop across the wooden bridge. One stumbles, falls, bangs his head against the edge of the platform as he tumbles over the side, and has no time to scream. Darby and his penguins, as yet unseen, jump forward as the last of the crossbowmen loosen their bolts, crashing with the first few swordsmen stumbling out, swordcanes and pikes flashing. Our hero feels their courage dragging him forward, and he leaps up, striking at a sweating man hurriedly cranking a crossbow. The guard drops the weapon and raises a hand, reaching for a dagger at his side, moaning a weak curse. His throat gives little resistance to the canepoint, and with a splatter of blood he stumbles back, gargling his own life in his throat, and collapses over the edge.

Our man stops, his sweat frigid. He knows most of the wetness on his face isn’t his sweat anymore – it smells coppery. A green plume swings at him, but falls back, two purple penguins shoving pikes into his stomach. The smell of vomit and feces wafts into his face, two monks rush around him, heaving maces, and someone screams. It all fades away into a rushing, sucking noise in his ears. His heartbeat. Our man steps back, his thoughts rushing back to this morning. The ice. The blood. A last sigh.

“Hey!” A cry in his face shakes him to life. He’s sitting on top of his leg, which has already done numb. Darby’s face hovers in front of his nose. Blood drips from the edge of his moustache, and his hat has been shorn partially from his head like a discarded anchovy tin. His eyes are wide and watering, and his tongue flickers in and out of his mouth, but he’s standing, a bloody weapon in one hand. “Hey!” he smacks our man lightly. Grunting, our hero pushes Anthony Stevens away and moves his wooden legs, a stringless marionette trying to rise.

“A spot of luck!” Darby cries, grabbing his shoulder and yanking him straight. “The Jerries’ sergeant fell off the platform, looks like, and they had no damn idea what way was up after that. Typical.” He pushes forward, tugging our man along, penguins scurrying at his feet. There are more screams and smells in the air now, but the buzzing in our man’s ears swooshes it all into confusion, a slowly receding sea of white noise.

“They’re Germans?” he asks, realizing he’s still clutching his bloody cane as it nicks his calf. Men are rushing ahead of them toward a boiling mass of steel and flesh tumbling out of a siege tower.

“Er, what?” Darby quizzically responds. “Oh, did I call them that? No matter.” A penguin caws beside him, and the viscount shakes his head. “Can’t go any slower, waddle faster.” He grins feverishly. “Oh yes, this is a good day.”

[LordLeopold]

Stevens felt a slight jabbing in his ribs, a sting from a steel wasp, and jerked straight, exhaling heavily. His eyelids had slid back down across his sightless eyes again, nearly toppling to his demise. He could sense the two rapiers hovering in the air to either side and feel the warmth of their wielders’ breath. There was a dark titter of laughter and then the pall of silence returned, the quiet of caves and the deep ocean. The quiet of a dungeon. Even with a dank sack over his head, the smell of wool and urine filling his nose and mouth, he could still feel himself burrowed deep in the city’s belly. How long he had been entrapped he couldn’t say. Aside from the crushing tiredness weighing down on his head and shoulders, pushing him down into a slippery pit of sleep, he felt nothing stirring across his consciousness. Worry, anger, sadness, fear, all the things that he felt when the bag first bit down over his head were now subsumed by the dark block of exhaustion. It seemed like weeks since he had climbed out of his cot in the Entente camp and faced the rising sun.

Cruel practice, Stevens thought thickly to himself. A torture that leaves no scars. He was sure that if he toppled over the men flanking him wouldn’t fulfill their promise to run him through, but the regular prick of the blade shook that certainty enough to keep him on his feet. Wrists and legs bound, teetering on what felt like an old stool, a cowl of shadow about him, he had only his slowly wandering mind to give him any comfort, but he had a feeling that soon he would have lost all direction over it. Colors and shapes flitted at the edge of his vision: A dog’s leg, a fleeting shuttlecock, a corner-of-your-eye glimpse of a woman’s face. The little energy he had was feeding into a fruitless battle against sleep and its eternal brother, Death.

A voice, muffled by the bag and distance, spoke somewhere behind and to his right. It seemed to be a young boy’s, but other than that the duke could not divine a thing. Words slurred together into a gurgle, growing softer and louder like a broken gramophone. The voice faded away entirely for a moment, and then spoke again, this time becoming slowly more distinct, coming closer and closer, the fast chatter of an excited lad filling his ears. At first Stevens had strained with what little concentration he could muster to make out the words, but as the voice grew louder, its squawking surrounding him, he began trying to shut it out, clenching his jaw and squeezing shut his drooping eyes.

“This one’s for the knacker, the knacker indeed,” the boy giggled, “We can cut him down from the collarbone and scoop out his guts for a brass farthing. A tisket, a tasket!” Sweat already slicked Stevens’s skin, but another wet layer oozed out under the grime smeared across his body. “La la la, we can make a vest from his skin, it would fit me just fine. Sweet doggy, what are you doing?” Stevens felt a snuffling against his leg and grunted, shuffling as best he could to the side without toppling. Someone made a surprised sound, clicking a tongue against a palate, and the child laughed. “Doggy doggy, foggy foggy,” it rhymed.

It was then that Stevens realized he was staring into the child’s face. He had blue eyes and a pale white face, black hair and was dressed in a ill-fitting pinstripe suit. “I took off your hood!” he exclaimed, and Stevens nodded, remembering it. He couldn’t speak, though, because his mouth had been sewn shut. “The crow did that,” the boy said, pointing to a bloody gash across his abdomen. “But I told him to stop. My dog likes you I think, your father told me that.” The duke frowned as his father walked into his field of vision, rubbing his hands, a cigar clenched in his mouth, a severed finger peeking over the top of his vest pocket.

“You again,” his father said, and without so much as a pause began walking backwards from whence he came, disappearing. “I’d hoped you’d stop writing letters.” Stevens turned his head, trying to keep his eyes on his father’s grimacing visage, but the feeling of wool brushing over his face, scratching his eyes, made him stop with a jolt. He moaned slightly, and felt another blade poke him in the ribs.

Hallucinations Stevens thought, though he couldn’t conjure up the word, only a dull sense of what a hallucination was, and that he was having one.

******

Pode smiled. She stood, with her arms crossed, her legs planted widely below a red gown, at the open door of Leopold Stevens’s narrow, dripping cell. Two guards stood at either side, a benign facsimile of the two armed men jabbing at the duke. He wobbled back and forth, hooded and shackled, atop a rotting wooden box, in the same position he’d been forced to hold all day. The Scarlet Witch narrowed her eyes, turning her smile cold and cruel, imaging what conjurations his tired mind was thrusting upon him. She had felt the magical wards clutching his body that the monks had woven, knew they could ward off his exhaustion for only so long. Those magical binds told her that the aging duke hadn’t had much sleep during the night, and his weary body and mind could only stay alert for so long. She shivered at the thought of his death. That was a punishment for the Lord of Death to mete out, when the time came. No, Stevens would not die tonight. Only feel how easily he could, from sword or starvation. An abashment that would teach him to truly fear those forces he could not control that slowly edged him toward destruction.

“My lady,” one of the baron’s guards bowed at her side, and she only slightly turned her head to see him better, keeping her focus on Stevens’s back. “Radasanth is under attack. The Baron wishes for you to move back to his palace.” Pode sneered openly, forgetting her obsequious façade for a moment, and shook her head.

“I’m not afraid of the battle at the Citadel getting out of the Colonel’s hands.” She replied, waving him off. “Tell his lordship that I shall stay where I please.” The guard made a strangled sound in his throat as he retreated a few steps, glancing from her to the stairway behind him that led to the armory above, and the open skies of Radasanth. He shifted from foot to foot, wringing his hands, until Pode finally tore her eyes from Stevens and turned to look straight on at the hesitant man. “Yes?” she coolly intoned.

“Ah,” he stuttered, raising a gloved hand as if to protect himself from an oncoming assault. “Yes. The Entente has entered Radasanth. They are about to breach the Inner Wall.” He stepped back, loosing an internal battle to keep his face calm, his lips trembling. “Please, my lady, the palace.”