Attention!!!!

  Author's note: i'm not sure exactly how i fucked it up, but i uploaded yesterday's chapter with about 1000 words missing. I've updated it now, so if you read chapter 106 (the previous one) anytime after 18.02.2025 ~08:16pm then it's fine and you've missed nothing.

  If you read it before then, you might be confused. I can only apologise and suggest you go back and read from the moment you remember it ending (Fandar telling everyone to go back to the castle). I know this applies to Sherbini, Chibrow, Blind Librarian and Christos...but probably others too so seriously, go check it out (and sorry again!).

  Anyway, assuming you have, enjoy the chapter!

  “What does that even-” I began, but she interrupted me.

  “I thought he had explained our final gambit to you all at the inn. Fucking typical. I’ll wring his neck for this, you can be sure.”

  “Anyway,” she continued, then seeing my perplexed look hurried to reassure me; “Oh don’t fret, Lamb. I’m not that mysterious old git, I’ll explain properly,” she said, and I had never been more relieved to hear it, for even as she spoke, I felt the tide rising. The air shivered in time with my heart, and something echoed through the world.

  An army began to emerge from the treeline, what must have been a hundred gleaming horses, armoured and topped with shining knights. Banners snapped in the steadily rising breeze above their heads, and I could see the complex filigree on their armour detailed in the orange glow of early morning.

  The cavalry arrayed themselves in a long line of bristling lances and painted shields, each baring a unique pattern but all coloured in gold and red. They spread out across the field, meters apart, and while the line looked thin from here, my stone-sense told me of their weight. Withers shivered in anticipation, and great hooves stamped and pawed at the earth.

  I could feel each blow with my skill-granted sense, and they felt like hammers against the churned earth. Shod in iron, the horses were all tall and broad, their riders looking almost diminutive atop them despite the polished suits of interlocking armour they wore. A charge from this group might break against the walls of the castle, but the gate and the barbican were gone. Legs may be broken, riders may be thrown, but they would surge through our paltry defences like a hot knife through butter were we to meet their charge.

  Vera turned to address us all. Something about seeing her turn her back on the enemy assembling before us felt significant to me, though I was too feverish with energy to focus on it long enough to unravel. “I can’t say we expected things to go like this, but neither Jorge or I thought we’d have as easy a time with the duke and his guardsmen as we did, either.”

  “The plan was always to take out the duke and replace him in a rapid strike. Cement ourselves as the power in the Marchlands before any of the other kingdoms in the Sunsets could muster a retaliation. By the time anyone was in position to oust us, it would be too costly and leave them too weak to protect their own lands from their neighbours.”

  I looked at the army massing before us and sighed. A fine plan that clearly had a shaky relationship with reality.

  “We didn’t expect the Sultan here so quickly, obviously, but we always knew somebody would march here to oust us eventually. ‘No plan survives contact with the enemy’, as Jorge is fond of saying, so we planned for a situation like this,” she said as she cast an arm casually at the gleaming cavalry patiently arrayed behind her.

  Behind the knights followed three carriages and a chariot; I had been correct in my earlier guess. They were drawn by smaller ponies, shaggy and barrel-chested, no doubt chosen for their placid nature rather than battle-hardened as the cavalry’s mounts were. The lone chariot was pulled by two massive lizards though, their long bodies close to the ground with arrow-shaped heads swaying back and forth, and they kept pace with their companions in a zig-zag pattern of rapid steps.

  This retinue clearly transported the leaders of the army, and based on what little I knew of the Sunset Court, I expected it to be the heads of the various polities that made it up, perhaps with the addition of a few mercenary captains of note.

  “We don’t need to fight them,” she said, holding each of our gazes. “I’ve already briefed Fandar about this. It would be easier with a fully standing castle, more soldiers and more of a plan, but things are as they are. We need to hold the fort, and they will flee soon enough.”

  The carriages were soon overshadowed by the soldiers that marched into view behind them. A tide of men and women, 5 abreast as they tramped down the cobbled road in a seemingly endless column. They transitioned from forest to open field to catch the rising sun, red and gold lighting up their faces as they left the path.

  In total there must have been at least half a thousand, though exact numbers were hard to confirm from this distance. I could make out the uniforms of various kingdoms and mercenary companies with ease though, since the groups of soldiers, or more likely their commanders, seemed unwilling to mix. A small part of my mind that still held out hope began analysing the different groups, looking for any sign of rivalry or exploitable fractures within the various companies.

  The thought was pushed to the back of my mind though as I found myself dwelling on one odd detail; the golden dawn hitting their armour.

  I felt like I’d been fighting for bells already, though my body was relatively fresh from Jorge’s potion and the copious levels I’d gained in all the chaos. But still, my mind was fuzzy, as if overloaded by constant dumps of adrenaline and fear. Despite all of that though, I knew it couldn’t have been more than a few bells since it all began. The duke had fled the ruins before dusk had arrived, and it had been far less than a bell since then. How was the sun rising already?

  I swept my gaze up over the cobbled path upon which trundled the army’s leaders, over the stamping horses and their proud knights, above the ranks of men and women arrayed in their neat companies, and further still over the trees that still waved to an unknown tune.

  My stone-sense had told me that something was coming, and I’d thought that the siren song I felt with my whole being was simply the result of this army marching our way. But now they stood unmoving, and still my body reacted. Still the earth and trees shook. Still, the song continued to rise.

  The sky was lightening, it was undeniable. Gold and red stained the horizon, creeping ever upwards with sure inevitability. It was happening fast, too. I looked to one side, past Nathlan to the crumbling wall and the shadow it cast on the broken cobbles behind.

  It was growing even as I watched, the shadow spilling across the ground inch by inch in real time.

  I looked back to the sky, the deep black of night giving way to a vibrant, blood red that dripped upwards. ‘A false dawn’, Vera had said only moments ago. She continued speaking now, no doubt explaining her and Jorge’s plan as I’d asked but I lost track of the words, unable to focus on the explanation that I had craved so recently.

  “Gods, I’ve never seen you lot so distracted…” Vera began, clearly having noticed our combined lack of interest, before she trailed off, seemingly caught by a thought.

  Vera looked at each of us in turn. “You feel it, don’t you?” she said quietly. “All of you?”

  She received no answer, our eyes all locked on the horizon and hearts beating in unison to a song not our own. That was answer enough.

  “Son of a bitch, he was right,” she said to herself.

  “Something is coming,” Nathlan half-whispered, and I felt myself nodding even as my body continued to respond to the rising tide of pressure it could feel all around.

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  Vera glanced down at us and smiled grimly. “Yes, it is.”

  I wanted to ask what it was, wanted answers from Vera that she clearly had, but my imagination was captured by the sky in front. I couldn’t look away; like a crackling fireplace, it drew me in. The subtle changes in tone and colour as a million hues of orange and gold and deep vermillion rose into the sky, obscuring the horizon like a cloak of colour around the world.

  I thought back to the image of the red-cloaked archer crouched atop the barbican wall that seemed seared into my memory, and I knew that this view would likewise stay with me. A forest of red and gold lights beat back the night, and every hair on my body stood on end. My blood rushed through my veins, pulsing in my head in time with the strange rhythm that seemed to reverberate through the world.

  “You let me do the talking,” Vera said as she turned back to the retinue trundling its way towards the castle. “Just stand there and look menacing. Let them feel your hatred, and tremble at your bloodlust.”

  It was a very Vera thing to say, but I couldn’t spare the space to acknowledge the words, as my world narrowed to a thin line above the horizon. Something was coming.

  *Vera*

  She sighed to herself as she turned back to face the army. Her charges stared dumbly at the empty horizon, and she shrugged to herself. It was hard to trust in the canny old fucker sometimes, but she couldn’t argue with his track record. Clearly, something was happening.

  If she hadn’t spent so much time with Jorge, she might doubt his timing. If she hadn’t spent so much time around Lamb, Nathlan, Sadrianna and Jacyntha, she might doubt their senses. But even she could see their bodies reacting to something.

  The carriages bearing the Sunset Court’s representatives trundled through the night up the cobbled road, and Vera rolled her shoulders, drawing her sword once more and stabbing it into the earth before her. She double-checked their defences and grimaced. Not the best look.

  Personally, Vera had never had an eye for the dramatic, but Jorge had impressed upon her the importance of melodrama over the years. As such, she’d gained an understanding of framing, and while their position was perhaps weak to a seasoned commander’s viewpoint, she had to admit that they did cut quite a sight.

  The castle was gutted and stone littered the ground, but the walls to either side of the remains of the gate were manned by black-clad rebels, their weapons visible and faces grim. Most were in the low 2nd tier, but there were a fair few powerhouses speckled about that had been shaped by war – combat classes and ample experience from hit and run raids sharpening them into warriors that could hold their own against even the elite at the peak of the 2nd tier in roughly even numbers.

  Fandar had positioned them tactically so that it would be hard to tell exactly how many lurked within the walls. Perhaps two dozen, perhaps twice that number. Either way, they would present a difficult problem to crack with their superior positioning and experience.

  Below them, standing firm in the remains of the gate and blocking the entrance to the castle stood her companions. Each was a powerful 2nd tier warrior and presented a difficult problem to any who would challenge them for access to the castle. Jacyntha was likely the weakest, still early in the 2nd tier, but as a combined force, they were still lethal. She would back them against any force of even experienced veterans at twice their number.

  And that was just the strength that she knew to be there. Their auras all fluctuated wildly, catching and reflecting some unseen current that stirred the aether and turning early 2nd tiers into something much deeper and more inscrutable.

  And before them all stood Vera herself. She stood straight backed and firm, her aura dominating the environment. Together, her force proclaimed its might to those that would approach. We took this castle with ease from the iron grip of one of your own, they seemed to be saying with their very presence.

  The duke’s head was left in the mud, his body a few feet away lying in a shallow divot that he had carved through the ground as she had thrown him from his own castle. This is what awaits you, his corpse seemed to say.

  It was a potent message, posing before the gutted remains of a previously unassailable structure, but would it be enough? She knew enough to guess at who would be in the retinue that approached, and she knew that they likely had the strength to challenge them even without their army.

  Perhaps they would.

  The wheels didn’t stop as they crossed the hundred-meter mark, and she began to worry. An assault here would do them no good, and while she had faith in Jorge and his timing, she knew that things were not yet ready. They needed longer.

  She sighed to herself, knowing that this would cost her in the long run, but equally knowing she had no choice. Not all of her statements had been made, after all.

  She had spent a decade mastering her 3rd tier class, harnessing her berserking powers and subverting and twisting the skills until they bent to her will. Such was her success that she had been able to stare into the eyes of her most hated enemy and feel nothing but calm as she took his head. She was ready, as much as she did not wish to take the step just yet.

  Still, things were as they are.

  Vera took another deep breath as the Sunset Court’s most powerful members rode directly towards her, and accepted her place within the world. She may not be ready, but the world would not wait for her to be so. As Lamb had struggled so hard to impress upon her – needlessly, of course, though his earnest pleas were moving all the same – people depended upon her. The world was not fair, and those she loved and owed responsibility to would not be saved by patience and hope alone.

  They needed her now, not as she could be in another decade. Her people needed her as the duke had seen her, as the Sunset Kingdoms still saw her. They needed an iron wall and a blade so sharp it would cut all that came for them. They needed The Butcher of Sternsbridge, the burning bitch that made a company of veterans flee in panic.

  Vera knew what was needed of her, knew the costs that would result, and accepted her new role as guardian even so. Her aura billowed outwards, a ripple of power expanding in every direction. Her skills twisted and changed, strengthening and upgrading as the duke’s own aether nourished them.

  The aura of a newly born 4th tier echoed through the castle, Fandar turning her way with wide eyes and the rebels around him straightening, grim lines giving way to more confident expressions as they felt her new power. It travelled further, towards the rumbling wheels of the retinue ahead, and the powers of the Sunset Court beheld their new adversary for the first time.

  The Iron Wall stood between them and their goal, and their carriages came to a halt.

  Four figures were disgorged from within, the chariot holding two more who also stepped down gracefully. The group of six approached on foot as Vera grappled with her new power, but a decade of battle against instincts not her own allowed her to wrestle down the burgeoning power into something she could control.

  She held in a sigh of relief, knowing that her gambit had paid off. The figures that approached may still have been able to prevail against them, but she understood them in a way few others did. Feudal lords were prone to viewing everything through the lens of the actions of great men and women.

  They would take in the destruction and attribute it to the most significant person they could find. In this case; her. They would see all that she had wrought while a 3rd tier, sense her new power as she ascended, and they would hesitate. Like wolves circling a tiger, they had the numbers and power collectively to defeat her, but nobody wanted to be the poor bastard she tore apart before she died.

  The lord of Escribar walked beside the twin keepers of the Lillyflower consortium. On his opposite side strode The Fractal Edge – captain of the Crimson Company and all-around smug son of a bitch as far as she was concerned, though powerful in his own right, and beside him walked the last two members of the retinue.

  Jarl Ensal and most dangerous of all, High Inquisitor Telanin. She, in particular, was a peak power within the Sunsets, and her white robes seemed to dance above the ground as she walked. All together, they cast an equally imposing sight when standing opposite Vera’s force, and the silence stretched for long moments.

  “An impressive showing,” commented the white-robed inquisitor, a single gloved hand waving casually at the castle. Her words were conversational and underplayed the threat of the army at her back. Vera bristled in response.

  “An auspicious night for a battle,” her companion agreed. The Jarl was as expected – a mass of scar tissue crowned by scraggly black hair bound in tribal fashion. Furs and axes hung from his ursine frame, and his yellow teeth shone as he smiled. “My bone-seers tell me we will be graced by a meteor-shower soon.”

  Again, the silence stretched, until Vera spoke. “You will not live to see it if you come. I have slain the duke. The Marchlands are off-limits. Turn back now-”

  “Pah!”

  The lord of Escribar brushed away her threat with a casual air. “Come off it, love. You know we’re not leaving, and you aren’t enough to stand against us alone.”

  “I am not alone,” she said, and her conviction was iron, as befitting her new epithet.

  “These louts?” the Jarl asked with a laugh. None of his fellows joined in, but his humour didn’t seem dampened by it one bit. “Pups yet to be weaned from their mother’s teat,” he said, spitting at the floor.

  “They might surprise you, Jarl,” the white-robed woman counselled, surprising Vera somewhat. “Still, their eyes are on the horizon, and you are correct; they pose no challenge for us. What is to stop us from simply strolling through your broken gates now, Lord Vera?”

  It was gratifying to hear the title, suggesting they did consider her a peer at least. That didn’t necessarily imply safety though; the various kingdoms within the Sunsets were notorious for changing hands, after all.

  Vera sighed loudly, pulling the sword from the earth and letting them see its red staining. She drew a shallow line in the earth before her.

  She grimaced, knowing things were coming to a head too soon. She didn’t dare look aside, but she could tell that her companions were feeling the ripples of what was to come. That they ignored the threat before them told her it was not far off, but it was still too soon.

  “I am. The first who steps foot past that line dies by my hand.”

  The Jarl smirked, pulled an axe into each hand, and stepped forwards.