Leopard Errant

By Chris Orsini

Leopard Errant
The sand lines and city states of Mundi were carved out in blood long ago, paid for in the lives of kings, dukes, noble knights and peasants. But on the eastern frontier reputations and fortunes have yet to be earned...
As their impassable forests lay ripe for plunder, there remains the key. The way in. The enduring Fortress of Ancarad, a field’s worth of limestone wall, tower, turret and war engine. And now it has fallen for the first time. And not through the normal means of war.
A strange mystic, returned from the dead cities of the west granted with the arcane and a war machine of unstoppable fury.
Turned freelancer, the enigmatic Leopard Knight leaves the Triple Kingdoms of his birth to quest and find his own fortune. With little more than the bronzed chainmail on his back, a decent warhorse the young nobleman is ready to play the deck fate stacks against him.
...And soon finds himself hired into a small army of desperate knights and other freelancers. Their reluctant leader a young Duke, driven by debt and blood feud and faced with no choice but to lay siege to Ancarad a second time. Their hope, to bring down the stronghold’s new conqueror, a brutal warlord not above the dishonour of sorcery and whose battleaxe has smashed everything in its path.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Orsini
• Release date: Mar 21, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301529438

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

PLATINUM

It started, like all origin legends, in that same way.

Cheating the listener out of a decent truth.

He wasn’t the half mortal son of some solar deity that kept changing names nor some aspect or war personified. It wasn’t anything as nearly heroic as that. He was merely the offspring of those two incompatible halves, man’s higher reasoning and his unfortunate reality.

Most bought his story. A simple novice of the mystery schools and from any of the enlightened states of Mundi East, who, as was sometimes the case grew bored of trying to increase the amount of gold for those who had their fair share. Or sick of inhaling the false brews and promises of the wolfing hours to make those same people from illness. Or important enough for immortality. This, he said was never their intention. The Acquisition and conviction of knowledge was yes, but only to make themselves wealthy, not others. He never denied this though many of his vocation did. For what is knowledge he argued if not just the means of travelling the road to wealth? Why else would so many of his path risk passage to the Dead Cities of the West if madness and death were its only rewards? He had delved so far into the occult that he exited the other side learning the truth. It was coin never conscious that ruled the world.

Others called this a lie. That he was little more than a leper and one who would not have to travel far from the futile villages that make their homes in sandstorms to reach such a destination. They claimed the shining mask he wore was not there to hide the result of fire’s lesson but merely the defect of disease. One that shamed his family enough to confine him to the adobe walls and sulphur smells of dyeing vats. It was days before they noticed him missing, not bothering to investigate the sounds of the two century old kilic, the crescent-shaped blade being pulled free from the wall and smashed against the room’s only mirror with such force that metal and glass could not be puzzled back together. They missed the echoes of the boy turning over the vast dyeing pots, the source of deep indigos, azures and the Tyrellian purples that made his uncle a rich man. Rich enough to afford the youth a scholar who could keep his mouth shut. He was so forgotten that they missed the flaxen veil, the one dyed in cheap rubia, worn to protect the scholar from revulsion and distraction, torn apart by bare hands and still lying in the tracked dirt long after his uncle blamed the destruction on bandits and rivals.

But there was one agreed upon truth. The man that left the dead cities was no longer any of these. Whatever his true features were, blighted by experiment or disease they were now forever hidden under a mask of a metal that none had ever seen before. He claimed it rarer, more valuable than any silver or gold but few saw this in its common grey. The only hint to its worth was the fact that it shone like a polished coin, it tinted the eyes to that certain dark when one looks at a treasure so bright. While it was free of any gilding or placed upon gems it remained peculiar because across the brow and lip were two smaller strips of that same metal. And these could be worked like machines, the brow could be raised or lowered to form a scowl or surprise, its lips could do the same, raise to a smile or lower to a frown. It did this by hidden coins that had been turned into gears, cut with notches and teeth. A mask should hide disfigurement even identity he was heard saying but never the honesty of expression. He entered the wastes in the robes of the novice, the plain white with the red and yellow lotus across the shoulder. He left wearing the hooded cloth of the adept master, the purple and greens of the northern skies, the only adornment being the symbol that was literate to most, the crescent moon of silver on the left joined to the circle and dot of gold on the right. He did not have a name for this new metal yet.

When his shadow passed the four broken pillars and shattered tiles he carried nothing. He wasn’t dragging carts overloaded with tanned map cases, scrolls and parchments still sealed with ancient and forbidden lore. He didn’t leave with a line of servants, their backs broken with chests and tributes from every lost kingdom. He did not even carry the cages filled with birds’ of paradise, the feathered and scaled raptors or the blood red mouth’s of gnashing saurians kept at arm’s length and herded like cattle for the circuses of the north. Though only fools would say he left empty handed.

And he did not leave alone. At his back there walked a giant. Covered head to toe in armour made from the scales of the giant salamanders and hellbenders that grew as large as ships. Its colour shifted like an insect wing, the oiled back of a beetle, changing as the light struck different angles. The scales sat as plates upon his body, the helm an imitation of a knight’s with the creature’s dorsal horns cresting its top. He wore no weapons at his side not even a rondel dagger, just the huge gauntlets with its knuckles sharpened to claws. Beneath the wide visor his eyes smiled with thick folds and the iris’ glinted with gold flecks. Resting over one shoulder the beast’s shovel like head, carried across the full distance of the desert.

There was also what appeared at first to be a young woman, though none could be sure. The scalp was shorn clean of all hair, the small frame contained in the exactly counted six thousand wraps of red. The last swathe of fabric covered the eyes that had long ago been removed and now sat with the hundreds of others still impaled on their faceted citrine blades gazing out from a temple that had been carved from one single, giant piece of coral. This was a far-seer and they did not need eyes to see what their gods had to show them. In the left hand rolls of maps, blank sheets of vellum and parchment that had been tied together by the chain of an old necklace or pendulum. In the other, what looked like a toy, a cheap bronze bull with square horns and eight legs that bent out and down like those of a spider.

Brigands were the first to see their shapes framed by the sun at their backs. Most froze unable to speak, one laughed openly while another noted the quality of the mirage as all seemed to be staring at it. They had just begun to share out the loot of the raided wagons, the owners murdered minutes before. Their corpses easily hidden inside the spaces of their failed business were betrayed by the cries of the starved hunting lynxes pawing at them through their wheeled cages. They asked the false merchants for food or water if they had any, making the mistake of showing them what little coin and scratched gems they had left. Their chief shook his head, they had none to spare but would still require payment since their last deal made no profit. After that they were free to leave and join the next convoy spied along as they seemed to match the dancing girls and freaks who made their living by the stares of others. Patience gone by lack of reply the leader of the brigands reached back to grip the looped and spiked handle of his dagger. Then he rushed the easy target of the frail mystic. His blade instead met the scrape of the giant’s armour and he was lifted into the air, his head held locked in the vice grip of the rainbow gauntlets. The giant squeezed and the cries of the starved cats were drowned out by something worse. The bodies of the others were only recognised by their vague shapes, blackened Statues of agony and dread as the wagons, they had just stolen and were now tied to, were consumed by something more than fire.

The hunting lynxes escaped, the heat bursting the locks on their cages but they returned and for days following fought over the scraps of charred flesh.

He travelled north first, performing magic and tricks of illusions in the market places and bazaars. Then he gathered the courage and manner to address nobles with miniature demonstrations and assurances. When the capricious lords of the north grew tired of him he turned south where war was a much more serious business.

CHAPTER TWO

GOLD

Dull bronze and draping black parted through morning fog. The lone rider appeared like a warning sign, the colours of a venomous animal cautioning others to keep their distance.

The knight sat up in the tan saddle scanning the bleak tree line but was only greeted by the skeleton branches pointing their fingers to the approaching winter.

Under the two elliptical and feline visors, green eyes, stoking embers of the worst kind of jealously.

The iron great helm had been coated in bronze for increased strength, its shape rounded to deflect any blow and spartan except for the fanged shaped ventilation cut out near the mouth. Over the body, a long sleeved hauberk, likewise bronzed that went down to the knees where it was met by plate greaves. The rowel spurs that were welded to the ankles made to look like three hooked claws that spun on the wheel. Over each arm, long plates tied to the chainmail by belts and over the furrowed but still polished black gloves two smaller plates stitched into the back and knuckle. The tone continued to the large warhorse, the black caparison over the thick, padded barding and the bronze and horned champron mounted over the animal’s nose.

The surcoat was beginning to fray at the sleeveless edges. Stitched into the chest, the image of the snarling leopard rearguard, standing on its hind legs, its front two outstretched with paws open. Its head turned to watch its own back. To most the meaning was lost. It owed no allegiance to any lord or army and it was far too plain to be heraldry of any decent lineage. But for those who knew the esoteric codes of the south the meaning was obvious. The knight was a bastard. It was his misfortune of a noble character to live up to but no land or title to prove it. Of his past he knew little. His father, an unknown nobleman from the Triple Kingdoms where he was raised, His mother also of undisclosed nobility came from the landlocked heights of Caliburn to the east. So far that was all he had to go on.

But he took solace in the symbol, came to identify with it. Like an insult that would later become a term of pride he took it for himself. Not the majesty or power of the lion or the grace and stalking skill of the tiger. Not the most celebrated cat or the greatest of hunters but ferocious when needed to be, shrewd, intelligent and opportunistic. Surviving and adapting where others cannot. That is what he did best, survive.

A life of martial training from childhood left him with little choice but to barter with those skills in his adult life, from taking the sleepless night of the vigil to the present day. So he became a mercenary, gnawing his way from the bottom of the pile, demanded by every lord and merchant but trusted by none. He became the definition of the name used to describe those just like him. A freelancer.

Though he carried no lance in his spare hand, they were disposable weapons and the last one he used remained imbedded in the split timbers of a beached Taguir longboat. And the shattered spine of a corsair trying to board it.

At his side he did not carry the traditional arming or knightly sword but something more reliable and one of the very few things that had earned his trust so far in his relatively short life. A venerable looking mace with four long and evenly spaced flanges at its head. Made with great expense and patience to secret steel, purified with charcoal and sand it was further balanced and perfectly weighted end to end. More durable than any blade, better at breaking bones and armour and unbeatable at taking ransoms. Down its span were etched the words VESUS EFFEGUS or in the scholar language of the old south BLADE-BREAKER. By now it had broken quite a few. It sat extending from the right of his belt, sheathed in a squat leather cylinder.

On the left of his belt for easy reach in an emergency a typical knight’s dagger. A long, narrow but thickened blade it featured extended cross guards for effortless parries. These knives had become quite decorative now, no longer weapons of last resorts but mere customary points to the throat or visor followed by the yield to ransom. But the Leopard Knight’s own version remained utilitarian, plain.

Over his left arm rested a red heater shield shaped like a squat triangle. A defensive fighter first and foremost he always led with the shield. Constructed of several layers with its grains in opposing directions to better bear the brunt of impact. In between each, heavy knitted fabric, similar to the thick gambeson he wore under his chainmail, making it more effective at stopping missiles. The face of the shield was wrapped drum tight in a hide that came from the waterhorse of Ouda. Its red paint was strong but matte, perfect for attracting blows and bolts at close ranges. Over the red field, the face of a yellow paw shaped like a hand blocking the way. At his back, inside the stitched in caparison pocket over the horse’s right hind, there extended the handles of two spare weapons. There was a more compact version of the typical knightly sword, a scratched and silvery-iron cross guard with a brown leather wrapped handle. Basic but decently forged it still nonetheless remained sparsely used. To the side and extending further by its pale lumber a more recent acquisition, a short handled poleaxe that stood almost two thirds his own height. It combined a flat spearhead, a straight bladed axe with a chisel-like crushing edge and a pulverizing hammer on the other side. A brutal but efficient weapon in case he had to melee on foot. Deeper in the caparison, wrapped in a leather satchel a variety of spear heads, some leaf bladed, others winged. Easily attached to any found or hacked off branch made straight with fire and used for light spears and javelots. Not just for combat but winning favour with other nobles in hunting or for the small and sometimes necessary pittances from border town peasants in culling the same dangerous beasts.

On the other side of the horse and in the caparison pocket that was hidden under the loops of a short lasso, everything else. Two string pouches with a handful of gold coin and twice that in silver, earned in the employ of Barbred, Duke of Varadin, with a handful of other freelancers, for ridding his coast of the Taguir corsairs that returned every year like a new season. The corsairs followed their usual tactic starting just beyond the reaches of Outremer’s bloated defences and then raiding every light, fire or beached vessel they deemed easy enough on the southern shore. By the time the leopard knight was involved in the shock raid on their camps and their overladen moored vessels, the spoils had given him the answer as to why Barbred was always so pleasantly tempered. Behind these stashed inside a secret pocket, a smaller velvet pouch containing some precious gems and stones. There were fire diamonds from Erfid, mostly Sapphires and emeralds from Istuary and even a single opallette from Corsion. He admired these things more for their ability to bribe information, their hold on the eye, than their beauty. There were some rolled up letters of credit which could be exchanged for coin. Three small wineskins, one of ale and emptied long ago, a spare of spring water filled from a river a few miles back and the last a sickly saccharine wine that was common to the north, untouched. The last time it was in his hand was when Barbred threw it to him as he mounted his horse to leave. Wrapped in a string were the last of his travelling rations, some rough bread of which he had had a thick slice, a few scraps left of a crumbling blue cheese and tough salted ham.

He had cleared Varadin a week ago, stopping only for a night in Liberec. He was now two or three days out from his most recent home of Ostro. He favoured the quiet of the small Hamlet, away from the noise and crowds of Prahastan and only a day’s ride from the trading capital with its news and offers.

In Liberec he heard rumour that Brumed had suddenly and without warning fallen to its neighbour and supposed ally on its right. And with no good reason. Now its landless knights were hunting down their own militia believing they had cost them the battle. The latter turning to banditry not only because they were marked men but because they were rarely reimbursed for their service in the first place, seeing the lords of those three towns were perpetually broke or in debt.

It was even believed, the innkeeper had told him as he refilled his ale that the paranoid defences of Bretagne had pushed them even further west and they were now targeting the unpatrolled roads just outside Prahastan. Though it was hard to tell these days as the real bandits operating from the canyons north had become more brazen. It was bad times indeed the innkeeper suggested when regular folk have to fight for a share in a market place as crowded as theft.

The road narrowed up ahead and the burnt looking husks of trees thickened out into rows. It sounded like the breeze at first, a light strumming that travelled between the leaves. Then he saw the outline leaning against one of the trunks. A livery green brigandine doublet smeared in mud, a sallow yellow tunic underneath. His fingers played over a hooked necked lute, tucked under one shoulder. He stared down at the road not meeting the knight’s gaze as he rode past. The grimy fingers picked at the stringers the simple melody dropping in pitch.

When the knight turned back to face the road he almost missed the silver glint that stood out on the pattern of stone. He hauled back on the reins before dismounting in a single movement. Gloves scrapped the road as he scooped up the four sided spike, the caltrop that was meant for less cautious riders.

The other man ducked behind the tree appearing again his lute exchanged for a plain but very functional looking crossbow. Then in front of the knight an older man now walked in from his right. Across his stout build, he wore the taut leather of a lamellar breastplate the belt underneath in its last loop mounted an awkwardly fitting dagger, pommel sticking into his gut. He stamped the base of a butcher bladed glaive down onto the pebbles. Just behind him another man materialized huddling under a thin, gray and torn cloak, holding a short infantry sword. He kept closer to the trees not sure whether to commit to the robbery or needing the space to run if the situation turned on its head.

The leopard knight turned around to offer the caltrop to the first man with the crossbow and then held it out to the assumed leader using the glaive for balance and now clearing his throat to speak.

Well that was meant to knock you off your horse but seeing that didn’t pan out, it yours, keep it ... The answer lacked any humour. ...in fair exchange for everything else you carry.

The stubbled chin nodded towards the knight’s horse.

And that sturdy looking rouncy you got there.

The steed twisted its neck in protest, taking a step back. The black caparison twisted around its legs revealing a ghostly dapple grey.

The knight’s answer was silence.

Then he spun around coiling his arm and flinging the caltrop at the green doublet and crossbow. It punched into the youth’s shoulder just as fingers curled around the long trigger. The bolt flew wide soaring almost along the same path as the glaive that now hurried forward. He raised his shield, not catching the butcher blade straight on but easily deflecting it past his left. The strike from the polearm was rapid but desperate, built up from days of anxiety and hunger. The knight’s hand shot down to the sheath, drawing BLADE-BREAKER even quicker. The dark argent mace blurred through the air and before the glaive could be pulled back the mace connected with the leading hand wrapped around it. The brittle sound of broken bones was followed by the empty quiet of shock. The useless hand dropped the heavy end of the pole weapon. The mace swung again appearing behind the other man’s legs and sending him to his back.

The youth struggling to reload the crossbow had fallen to one knee, the shoulder of his tunic stained in red as he dropped the quarrel into its hollow groove. But just like his heraldry the knight was already leaping towards him. The mace came in from the side, knocking the unstrung weapon down the length of the road, snapping its prod arm away from the stock. It skittered along the mud outlined pebbles, a hollow sound echoing down the uneven surface.

The young militiamen raised his hands in surrender. A calm moment until and without turning around the knight swung the mace backhanded. Instead of clear air it found lamellar breast plate with a muted thud. The other militiaman stumbled forward first then back, the short dagger dropping from his only working hand. On the ground he crawled towards the base of the nearest tree while the knight stepped over him to face the third. The gray cloak shrunk into the distance, darting between the narrow trees to avoid pursuit by horseback.

The two waited in anguish, expecting the hawk swift mace to land on their skulls next. When they looked up, the weapon had been put away the tall knight was already walking back to his horse.

Just before he slotted his foot into the left stirrup he turned to face them. The voice that escaped the great helm sounded like glacial metal.

Footpads chose easier targets. What happened?

You broke my hand.

A fair lesson. Ask next time, not all of us are devoid of charity. I mean what caused you to flee as fast as the rumours?

The stocky man nodded just as he recovered the breath that had been smashed from his body. He towed himself towards the tree trunk, pushed his back against it. He found his voice again.

Flee....we did not run from anything. Your kin...our knights were nowhere to be seen when the attack came. Gone. What could we do? Before we knew it a sea of god damn halberds had pushed us outside our own gates. When we rallied the next thing we saw were our knights trying to run us down.

The urgency of his voice was not that of a liar and as the Knight took in the information he continued.

That new Baron of theirs, no one can stop him. He’s shaken more up in a week than any Duke in the east has for years. They’ll say he plans to march on Ancarad next. He’ll win it! I would gamble on that!

But the almost inaudible huff under the great helm made clear the knight’s disbelief. The knight pushed his foot into the left stirrup, wrapping one hand around the saddle horn to lift himself up. He reached back into the caparison pocket and from one of the string pouches pulled free a single gold coin. He flipped it through the air and it landed, rolling away until it was stopped by the younger man’s trembling hands.

For the effort, The knight gently dug the claw shaped spurs into his horse’s side. The animal moved, timed to a slow stride.

Then the knight reached back again this time his hand filled with a bulging piebald black and white wineskin. He threw it at to the stocky militiaman.

And the pain, He was not without mercy, least of all to the peasants and yeomen who lived yoked under the machinations of his peers. One thing he did not like was seeing one depend on another. Freedom he had learnt was really just another word for independence.

The man stuck out his good hand to grab the wineskin and then held it close to his stomach. A nervous smile clumsily formed across his features.

You’ll see, He took a swig. Not just men you know. Help from other places...other things beside idiots with swords and crossbows. More than what we got.

The knight almost laughed but instead produced a guttural snort, It will take more than magic and deception to bring that place down.

The hooves started to click as the horse steadied to a walk and as he rode past he offered some last bit of advice.

Lose the eastern colours and the weapons, ones you can’t hide anyway and at least you won’t end up on the gallows around here for desertion.

The knight rode on and the morning sun didn’t arrive until his profile disappeared over the horizon.

CHAPTER THREE

IRON

The horizon was overcast in grey slate as the thunder of hooves echoed across the open steppes. The blur of three riders, three lords from the north galloped across the open spaces, each step churning up rich clods of soil that flew, spiralling into the horse’s wake.

The ground scrolled past quickly under their speed, the earth rolling to reveal at the distance a huge wall of yellow tinged stone, a lone structure as immense as the landscape and just as unconquerable. It was their destination and their destiny and it was also their curse.

The edifice stood as nothing but a defiant sentinel on the rain drenched savannahs of the south east. The castle of Anacarad. To the Intavans who hauled the stone there it still went by its original translation, the Tyrant’s hand. Built from nothing more than spite, assembled to block Tollande’s spine of expansion south that had began with Urthanol and then Barava, to kill their birthright of connecting rule over the northern shores of Mundi East with a mirror on the southern coast. It had cost Intavan any hopes of an empire for themselves but at least it could guard its own territory. It could also jealousy watch the landstrast the only viable entry into the forests of the Aparthia. This was Tollande’s second birthright that they would deny. But the price had come too high. It had emptied their coffers and that bought without cost a civil war for Intavan. The nations around them only strengthened, their thriving populaces encroaching ever closer. The hand belonged not just to a tyrant but a fool who waded into a rising ocean with an armoured fist commanding it to stop.

Taking advantage three successive sons rode south from the city state of Barava and began to erect smaller bastions of their own just at the castle’s visible edge. Not once did they attack the Tyrant’s Hand, nor were any plans drawn up for a lengthy siege. Like most things the belief was already there and that was enough. Tollande’s expansion south was so inevitable that they could count the single generations until Anacarad would eventually give in. And if it helped to encircle the fort with bastions of their own then they would gladly oblige. The result was the three neighbouring strongholds of Bretagne, Brumed and Brogdul built on the northern rises and looking down on Ancarad as vultures looked down on cattle turning into carrion.

And now three more Lords from the north rode to Ancarad waiting for the offer to yield.

Even the most challenged Bard could give a description of the place. It did not feature the deep layered walls and killing zones of Outremer or the elaborate mutually covering system of towers common to Acria or Modul. It was nothing more than a simple stone keep. Four curtain walls with a single building, a great hall, at the southern end. Its scale however required the skill to invoke disbelief. The simple piles of limestone ran for the length of an entire field, one hundred yards on all sides. As thick as three wagons end to end at their base, the walls were also talus, heavily sloped from the bedrock ground to the saw tooth ramparts. They could not be breached by any catapult, scaling ladders had no chance of reaching the top and the gangplanks of any siege tower would fall well short. The wall’s thickness provided solid enough foundation for the mangonels and ballista rowed across its wide parapet walkways. At each corner and twice along each wall, turreted towers extending the range of the archers picking off the poor souls sent out to remove the white range finding stones that littered the open ground making the machines even more deadly accurate. The distance of the open plains were as much its defence as anything else.

But its most distinct feature, also its most foolhardy was where the flanking towers of its northern face met. No basic portcullis or timbers but two massive doors each cast from a single piece of black iron.

And now the three riders nursed at their reins aiming their steeds as the iron barriers creaked open. Overhead blank faces watched them from the spaces between the ramparts while the war engines remained silent.

The iron doors pointed exactly compass north to Tollande and were engraved with the names, oaths and potential curses of its builders, patrons and nobility, tinged with the red rage of age and oxidization. It had taken dozens of men and oxen days to raise and fix them into place. The nails that secured the door’s hinges to the stone were the length of sword and spear. The four bolts that secured the two doors shut the full sized trunks of oak trees. They required four levels of scaffolding and machinery to operate and disappeared into chiselled holes in the stone when the door remained open.

The three north man didn’t bother to look anymore, their horses even their forefathers who had ridden in here before them had seen the impressive workmanship many times now.

The doors were also the fort’s only means of entry and exit. If all of its defences were breached then it was the responsibility of those inside to fix that mistake. Or pay for it.

The three riders stopped at the hitching post, slowly dismounting and securing their reins to the simple wooden stands. They left their weapons with their saddles, on one, a simple long knightly sword with its cross guards elegantly curving up, on the other horse a sizeable crossbow and another knightly sword, on the last a huge double-handed axe with a single beared blade that beaked over like a fang. The first belonged to the old Hellam, Duke of Brumed, his colours a dark green, the pouncing yellow civet mongoose on the chest. The second, to his young cousin Fellitin, Duke of Bretagne, whose heraldry was an emerald green with the white albino stag pointing with one foreleg. With no more sons to spare the axe belonged to the new chieftain of Brogdul, Demot a man of much newer and unproven blood and only still Baron by way of being Knight, rising to leadership purely because he the best of worse choices, his own colours, a crimson red with the profile of a boar’s head in pale blue.

They headed towards the long building that served as the main hall where the last of the castle’s Intavan Dukes, Alaxand, just like all the others had willed himself to age old, surviving on purpose to see the three lords one final time. He sat at the marble throne his chainmail polished, his surcoat fawn brown with the red baton of authority broken into halves, all kept in better condition than him. They had come with the ritual offer of surrender, to cede rule today to avoid the certainty of bloodshed in the future. They had no need to speak. The offer had been repeated enough.

As had Alaxand’s reply.

Unlock those doors by your own hand and it is yours to take. His last words.

And his last action was gripping the downward handle of his family’s arming sword ASHLAR as those present could see the last pulses of his life flashing through the veins of his hands. The pommel of the sword, a polished and perfectly round cut stone taken from the same quarry that made the castle fell back to rest on his mouth. He had no heir, no chosen regent and the only choices left in Intavan had little endurance to ride from one recoiling kingdom to another. Instead his knights all agreed to take regency in unison and promised to keep their oaths until a new Duke could be chosen. Alaxand’s body was left in the throne, his skin petrifying to the same shade of stone that had walled him in for his entire life.

The argument began as they left the hall to return to their horses, untying the reins from the hitching posts.

We should plan for siege immediately! Demot demanded. How long should we defer? protesting. How long should we continue to waste our shrinking tolls and tributes to build more watchtowers for just another view of this place? The knights may still keep their oath but they are leaderless! This we can exploit!

Those knights... Replied Hellam. "...a small detail next to the unsolvable problem of those walls they will choose to remain behind.

Demot’s voice lowered, What if I knew a way around that, an arcanist from beyond our shores who comes with great repute. One who could answer that very problem.

Not only will delving into such sorcery come with a private cost, Hellam began to reprimand to him. But taking the fortress in such a way will stain Tollande’s martial pride to no end. Ancarad will fall one day but not like this. Never like this. Isn’t that the definition of sorcery huh Baron? It always costs you in the end. This way will end up much cheaper and not damn our souls in the meantime.

Demot spat then hurled the obvious insults of cowardice and fear to Hellam. Under his breath. The argument was finally settled when the older duke made evident the fact that Demot’s blood flowed from very different and far more common rivers than that of Hellam and his cousin.

In simple words, Baron, the fort was never meant to be yours for the taking. The question of where your blood comes from is answered by the suggestion that we conquer this place with the help of foreigners.

And it was at the end of the very next day that Brumed had new owners.

Without the use of deeply embedded spies or even scouts many had wondered how the small stronghold had fallen so quickly. It was just assumed that it was sheer fortune that Brumed’s knight had patrolled north on investigation less than an hour before Demot began his assault. Without warning, the two watchtowers that served best they could as Hellam’s castle were taken in minutes. And when Hellam exited their archway to answer Demot’s challenge it was equally quick for his head to be booted to the side of the road just outside the cities gates. His glass eye the one that swirled like a swarm of quick silver was pecked out by a raven and framed lodged in its beak when Brumed’s knights returned to see it. The knights circled the city heading northwest first to take out their own failures on the militiamen they saw fleeing. Then the returned to hover across the roads just north of their former home, pushing the bandits out of their rocks and passes to take them for themselves. Then they waited.

At the end of the week Demot had marched on Ancarad.

He found himself standing on the northern rises. His ample frame easily stood out even against the gathering clouds as did the blood colour of his surcoat, the twin tusks that jutted from the jaw of his great helm. The squire held the reins of his horse. The vicious hook of his bearded axe THUNDER-STONE rested over his right shoulder. With a raise of the axe he halted his forces just outside the range of Anacrad’s defences. He led, like he fought on foot preferring the solid ground under his feet.

He didn’t bother sending any heralds to formally open the hostilities.

From the high ramparts the defenders couldn’t believe the Baron would dash the mere thousand something troops he could muster against their stones. That he would finally react to generations of tension and rancour with such obvious defeat. But the crews of the northern walls, the rows of ballista and mangonels forgot their mercies as they heard the screaming orders to charge their machines.

The baron lurched forward peering down the ranks of his forces. His half-century of mounted knights divided into two columns, their hooves already stamping with impatience. The three war machines that he brought, two ballista scratched and dented and still attached to the four horses that dragged them. Close to them another machine. Past them, the majority of his force, soldiers on foot. Four squares of elite heavy infantry, ten men wide and deep and wielding halberds. His chosen strike force and a transparent extension of the Baron’s