*Nathlan*

  Nathlan hardened his heart against the choking cough of the first man he slew. Blade through the lungs, and from behind too, was a cowardly way to kill somebody, but as far as Nathlan could tell, there wasn’t a good way to do it. Death was death, and while there were certainly bad ways to go – he was responsible for some of them currently – there weren’t necessarily any good ones.

  There were a dozen men and women on this small section of the wall around the north tower, excluding the commander and the messenger Nathlan had sent running to the duke a moment before.

  His first strike turned that dozen into eleven, and as the man fell gasping to the ground, the woman next to him, who had been covering him with a large shield while he fired his bow into the rebels below, turned towards Nathlan in confusion.

  That wasn’t a danger, but it gave him time to see her final emotions plain on her face; confusion, rage, and ultimately desperation, as he slid his blade into and out through the back of her throat. A flick of his wrist and her neck became a red smile, and she too fell to the ground, soon to be dead.

  Quick steps brought him before another two men, both holding shields and long hafted axes – great for swinging from walls and knocking away siege ladders. Not so great for close quarters fighting along the cramped walls, but he gave them no time to reach for their daggers.

  Truth Is A Knife – the 2nd tier upgrade of Veracity’s Edge – sheathed his weapon in a shimmering golden light, and he swept it forward, a powerful crack! of pressure washing over the defenders behind as the magic discharged with the impact of his sword on armour. Both men were sent flying, and one hurtled off the edge of the wall with a scream to land somewhere on the field outside among the rebels.

  Nathlan grimaced at that. He had come up with a profoundly reckless plan, one that Lamb would no doubt love, but it required the bodies of the defenders to be accessible at the end of this, hopefully brief, battle. He rushed forwards, hoping to capitalise on the confusion his skill had caused, but while the two women before him had been knocked to the ground, he found himself having to dive backwards to survive.

  While powerful, Truth Is A Knife had a profound drawback. It was flashy, and it was loud. In fact, it seemed to Nathlan that it was designed to draw the eye. And not for some deceptive reason such as to act as a distraction. No, this skill of his was a statement of intent. It embodied the side of his class that he had not yet managed to live up to. The side that demanded truth be proclaimed to the world, loudly and with conviction.

  That conviction had nearly cost him his head, for the commander had turned to see his betrayal, and she had decided to handle the matter personally. A scything whip of water had sliced through the air where he had stood, and as it missed and cracked into the wall to one side, he saw the deep indent it had left in the stone, near an inch deep.

  She came barrelling through the swirl of soldiers and guards who were busy either fighting off leaping black-clad rebels, or pulling themselves to their feet after being blown backwards by Nathlan signature skill. The same water whip she had nearly bisected him with a moment ago was clutched in one hand, and her other held a short-sword that quested out with deadly intent towards him as he rose to his feet once more.

  Golden light met clear water in a spray of violence, and he found himself outmatched when it came to speed, small cuts opening along his forearms and legs as the commander drove him back, getting the best of each exchange with her short sword. He only managed to avoid serious injury due to his reach and footwork, and he knew that relying on footwork while backing up on a body-strewn parapet was a recipe for disaster.

  Abruptly, the golden light fled and was replaced with a dark blade that seemed to blend into the night. He stopped backing up, and instead stepped forwards and into the commander’s oncoming attack. His dark blade cut through the whip near the commander’s hand, and it simply dissolved into nothing more than fast moving water as soon as the blade passed through.

  She grunted in shock as he stepped through the attack that she had expected would force him back, and then grunted again in pain as his dagger took her in the stomach. She snarled in pain and anger, and he grunted himself as he wrenched the knife further up, seeking her heart. Steel scraped against her ribcage, and he had to drop the hilt to catch her wrist as she tried to retaliate with her short sword.

  He kicked her knee out from under her and looked up quickly to check the situation. He was met with a scene of strange calm. Vera withdrew her heavy broadsword from the helmet of one dead man with a revolting sucking noise, and he cringed as he saw the viscera coating its surface. Jorge was leaning over the wall to give a hand up to Fandar, and Nathlan saw the trail of bodies in his wake.

  He looked back down to the commander as she panted, eyes staring past his legs and clearly seeing something else than the charnel house the parapet had become. He stepped past her carefully, and left her to die. She had had a faint smile on her face, and while his empathy told him she must have been in immense pain at that moment, she didn’t look it. Better to leave her to reach out to whoever she was seeing. Let her die with dignity – it’s what he would have wanted for himself, after all.

  Jorge looked up as he walked over. “Good work, lad. I take it you took out the wards?” he asked.

  Nathlan nodded, then shook his head. “Yes. No. I took out the retributive wards specifically for this section of wall. The rest are functional throughout the castle.”

  Jorge looked surprised. “I sometimes forget just how talented you are, Nathlan.” And Nathlan had to suppress a smile at the praise. Now, what the fuck is going on? Where are the others?” he asked.

  Nathlan abruptly realised the urgency of the situation again – strange how fighting for one’s life could narrow one’s perspective.

  “Listen. We posed as mercenaries for the duke to get access to the walls. Jacyntha and Sadrianna are near the duke by the gate, holding off the Sultan’s men. Their disguises aren’t broken yet, but they will be if anyone notices what has happened back here.”

  Jorge cursed, and Vera looked poise to run over to the gate right at this moment. “No, wait!” Nathlan said emphatically. “I have a plan. Get a half dozen of the rebels up here. Dress them in the armour of the duke’s men and have them ‘fight’,” he used air quotes as he said it, “the rest of the rebels on the wall.”

  “There’s no time for that!” Vera cried. “Do you have any idea how long it takes to put on armour, Nathlan? Besides, that won’t hold up if a runner comes to check in. And there’s no commander at this section any longer.”

  Jorge shook his head though. “No, the lad’s on to something, that could work. Fandar – get a half dozen of your men up here, keep the rest outside and have them fake attacks.”

  “What!?” the tall rebel leader asked in utter confusion.

  “Have ‘em run back and forth, shout, wave their weapons around and then try and jump up every now and then. We’re putting on a show for the others until the duke and Sultan have tired themselves out,” Jorge patiently explained.

  Fandar – to his credit – caught on quick and grinned at the absurdity of it. “Fuck it! What’s the worst that could happen?” he said cheerily, leaping off the wall to begin giving orders.

  “Are you sure, Jorge?” Vera asked in concern, and he waved her off.

  “Aye. Listen, those people over there,” he explained, gesturing at the front gate some hundred meters distant. “Have absolutely no clue what is happening back here. It’s dark, there’s blood and screaming everywhere, magic flying every which way and everyone looks just like any other. Any guard is shitting themselves right now after seeing friends die and thinking they might be next, so when they see a couple of people shouting and waving at them, they’ll listen to whatever they’re told as long as it’s good news.”

  As he spoke, he started ripping helmets from heads and fiddling with the clasps on the armour of the guardsmen. “Get their helmets and cloaks on and that’s 90% of the disguise. Won’t fool the duke or anyone who stands in front of you, but it doesn’t need to, right lad?” he said towards Nathlan. “You’re known and recognised by these soldiers, aye?”

  Nathlan hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. They should believe me if I call over to them, so long as they see the cloaks and helmets and don’t look too closely at the bodies on the wall.”

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  Jorge nodded. “My advice would be to keep everyone moving. Keep an eye out, and if you see a runner, hoof it over there and intercept them. Give them whatever message you fancy, but keep their eyes away from the wall. Got it?”

  He hesitated then. “Where’s Lamb?” and Nathlan cursed.

  “He and the duke went into the keep a while back, then Decker – not important – sent a runner down when the Sultan appeared. The duke reappeared about a bell ago, just before dusk. Then the siege started and I’ve not seen him since. I-”

  Nathlan looked about, distraught and Jorge clapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, lad, I’ll pop down and fetch him now. No doubt he’s playing hide and seek and leading them on a merry old chase right at this moment, aye? He’s an irascible lad – no chance they’ve kept him down there.”

  He then turned to Vera, and simply said “You’re in command here, lass. Patience, aye?”

  After a long stretch of hard eye contact, Vera nodded and pushed him away, and then Jorge was off, vaulting over the inner wall and scurrying off. Vera started pulling corpses away from the wall to hide them from view, and dissembling armour – notably cloaks and helmets – while Nathlan watched Jorge steal across the inner courtyard.

  Just before he reached the iron-banded door, he paused at the crumpled body of a guard propped against the keep. Nathlan didn’t know when that man had been killed, but the body certainly wasn’t there moments before when he had castigated the guards in charge of the retributive wards.

  Jorge leaned forwards to examine the body, seeming to sniff heavily for a few breaths. Nathlan frowned, unable to see the details clearly through the gloom, but still confused as to why he was wasting time.

  The very moment he had the thought, he saw Jorge stiffen and shoot to his feet. An instant later and he had disappeared, the heavy door clanging against the keep wall from where it had been thrown open in haste. Nathlan had never seen him move so fast, and felt a faint tingle of worry curdle in his gut at what that implied.

  Still, if there was danger, there was nobody he trusted more to deal with it than the older man. Jorge had earned his trust a hundred times over in their travels, and Nathlan would not doubt him now. He turned back to help Vera in her task as the first of the rebels hopped nimbly over the wall and began to don the armour of Castle Ryonic guards.

  He recognised Brixby and Jassine – the rat-like poisoner and the muscular swordsman, respectively, that they had met in the Misted Marshes. Tamil, the quiet girl with the hand-scythe and strange demeanour was there as well, and the final rebel to leap atop the crenelated walls was Benson’s girl. He’d still not managed to catch the name of the archer, but she was clearly the leader of the small group, taking charge quickly as they all passed around armour and took up positions for the mock battle that would be waged over the fate of the north tower of Castle Ryonic.

  All seemed well for perhaps a quarter of a bell, Nathlan managing to fend off a single messenger who had returned to relay orders and get an update. He had initially been adamant in reporting directly to the Commander, but when Nathlan had grabbed him by the back of the head and showed him the red blade of his sword and screamed; “Do you know who’s blood this is!? Me-fucking-neither! Give me your report, or fuck off!”, it had seemed to do the trick.

  He honestly had no idea whether it had worked, but nobody came for them afterwards, so he assumed it had been a success. It turned out that simply shouting and swearing was enough to convince most people that one was serious. Or the man had been killed on the way back to the duke. Such was war.

  Just when Nathlan was beginning to think they had things under control and could wait out the night with relatively few new catastrophes appearing, all hell broke loose. A tide of red-cloaked warriors breached the wall at one point, and behind them appeared an old man, a scimitar in each hand and a cloak of blazing starlight around his person.

  The duke shot towards him without hesitation, and both figures were soon gone from the parapet above the gate, no doubt fighting on the plains below with frenzied intensity. In their place however, was a group of almost thirty Crimson Lions.

  Nathlan swore, knowing the defenders would be completely overwhelmed within moments without the duke to back them up. Considering the Al’Alaksir were still present, though their numbers had been thinned in the intervening bell of fighting, and the defenders were tired already, it would be a massacre.

  He looked to Vera, who was gritting her teeth and looked to be considering charging over herself to balance the battle, despite how strange it would be to see the Butcher of Sternsbridge fighting alongside Ryonic guardsmen to defend Castle Ryonic. But Nathlan looked again, and realised there was not one single group of Lions. Instead, there were two groups of roughly a dozen or so mercenaries, and they appeared to be fighting one another. He wasn’t sure how or why, but it looked like some – less than half, though it was hard to be sure in the chaos and from such a distance – had decided to side with the duke and attacked their own members. They were clearly the smaller group, but with the element of surprise they soon made up the difference, and the wall above the gate descended into a chaotic melee where Nathlan was convinced nobody truly knew who they were fighting.

  In many ways it didn’t seem to matter though. Men and women fought and died, and above it all the sky looked on in silence, it’s star-studded mien unimpressed by the bloodshed below.

  *Lamb*

  When I came to a few moments later, Varice was stepping out of a lilac-limned hole in the world, her raven once more perched on my shoulder. My head pounded, and I felt as if each muscle in my body was shredded, a soreness that was red-raw encompassing every inch of me.

  “That was incredibly stupid,” she said simply. Her hair was plastered to her face from the sweat of the frantic battle, a faint smear of dirt smudging one cheek. I could only imagine I looked much worse, and I rolled my head over to meet her gaze from where it lolled limply on top of my strangely wobbly neck.

  “I almost feel I should thank you for killing Estan– he was a vile and pitiful little man. Still, the duke will take vengeance on you for that, I am sure of it. I will no doubt likely suffer reprimand too for failing to save his life, but the brunt of his ire will be borne by you, thankfully.

  “And trust me, Lamb,” she said, meeting my eye with a fiery glare. “Duke Ryonic is capable of a great deal of ire.”

  I grunted. “Can’t kill me though. You still-” I subsided into a coughing fit, my lungs spasming with the after-effects of her skill shooting its way through my body. “…need me” I finished.

  “Yes, you’re quite right. We need your mind, your eyes and your tongue. But I won’t risk a repeat of this,” she gestured around at the blood and two corpses.

  The barracks were partially collapsed too – wooden planks splintered and held up only by the iron cages below them. I didn’t know if there was anyone in them, though Varice and the duke had definitely referenced ‘other God-Touched’, so I assumed there were. I hoped they hadn’t been hurt by the fighting.

  She grabbed me by the back of the robe I wore and dragged me bodily towards the damaged building. I could only hang limply as I was pulled along, my hands scraping along the ground beneath me and a string of bloody drool dangling from my lips. She dropped me unceremoniously, and stalked off.

  I tried to roll over, to twitch or do anything of consequence, but it was as if I inhabited somebody else’s body. My limbs would no more obey my commands than the sky would turn green because I willed it. I felt a boot in my stomach and was rolled onto my back, arms spread to either side. Varice’s expression looked weary, as if she had resigned herself to an unpleasant task and intended to see it through.

  “I’m sorry about this, Lamb,” she said. “I’m not sure why, but you seem like a decent man. But this might even help in the long run. As I said, I can’t risk a repeat of this ridiculous performance, and you don’t need both hands for this job.”

  She nudged my right arm out with her boot, moving it a little further from my body so that it rested, palm towards the ceiling, and then knelt beside me, my axe in one delicate fist.

  “With any luck, this might even make the duke take it easy on you. He likes a warrior, and perhaps he’ll take more pity on a crippled one than a defiant one.”

  My eyes widened with creeping horror as I realised what was coming, and I felt a shout bubbling up from my chest.

  “I suppose we shall see soon enough,” she said, and then she swung.

  My scream echoed around the empty cavern, bouncing off the strangely uniform slabs of black glass and seeming to scatter about the pyramid like light through a wave. I screamed again as she wrenched the blade free from the wound, but it turned quickly into choked gasping.

  In response to the noise, a presence bloomed above us, but I was too wrapped up in the all-encompassing pain of my torture to take any notice. Varice looked perplexed as she inspected the axe. Her raven familiar cocked its head to one side and croaked something that sounded like “danger”, but she seemed enraptured.

  She looked once more down to my arm and then back at the axe, before whistling softly. “Now that is a surprise.”

  I raised my head slightly and focused eyes rolling with delirium and pain on her, and she held up my hatchet to me. “Look at that, you bent it.”

  The only response I could make was a low moan of pain, but she seemed not to notice. “It actually bent. And look at your arm! I don’t know what you’ve done to yourself, Lamb, but I have to say that I’m impressed,” she mumbled.

  “Danger,” the raven croaked again, hopping to her other shoulder as she once more raised the handaxe.

  “If at first you don’t succeed,” she started, “simply try again.” And then she swung once more.

  I flinched and braced myself for another agonising impact, but none came. I opened my eyes again to see Varice staring above at something I couldn’t make out, an expression of confusion swiftly giving way to trepidation. And then fear.

  I felt it then. A presence. An aura, venerable and heavy with significance. Vera felt like a bonfire, and the duke had felt like a glacier, but this aura felt like a weary old soldier; ancient, tired, but with an iron-hard will that spoke of inevitability.

  I’d never felt this exact aura before, and from the way Varice was stumbling to her feet, I gathered she had never felt its like either. But even so, my lips split into a ghastly grin, red teeth bared to the world.

  “What’s the matter, spymaster?” I croaked between broken breaths. “Did you not realise I’d brought friends?”

  “Who goes there?” Varice shouted into the gloom, and I heard a heavy thud as if somebody landed from a great height.

  “I’ll tell you a secret,” I whispered, though I wasn’t sure she could hear me any longer.

  Varice had taken a couple of steps away and was gesturing and muttering to herself even as I felt the power of the unfamiliar aura roll over me. It eclipsed even Vera’s, unlike any I had ever felt before, but there was a hint of something within that I recognised. It brought to mind great trees, ancient and unfathomable, tinged with a sadness and regret I couldn’t quite comprehend.

  As the aura of a 4th tier washed over the cavern, I finished the thought. “I’m one of the weakest.”