Having settled all matters of importance, the bustling crowd which had been gathered within the courtyard of Castle Petrice began to dissipate as the groups from various villages steadily departed back to their homes. It still remained a tiring affair for Niklas, for he had to be prepared to make himself available at any time in case a Mayor or Lord from this or that locale made to take their leave, since his wife was neither enthusiastic about nor well-suited for such social pleasantries and obligations. He would look each departing guest in the eye and shake their hands with as strong a grip as he could muster with his still-recovering health, and in return the various Nobility appeared somewhat relieved to finally have a liege who could engage in the rituals of social formality. Unfortunately, this role meant Niklas was often left staying up until the wee hours of the morning before collapsing into a weary slumber, only to be awoken again much too early to attend another departure.

Finally, after enduring several days of this terrible routine, only the retinue of the Lady Mayor from Stoppridge yet remained in the Castle, along with the gaggle of villagers dedicated to the sorting and storage of the various goods from Niklas’ dowry–in return for a hefty reward of course.

One day, as he crossed the halls of the Castle between one appointment to the next, Niklas came upon Lady Merida, who stood before one of the large portraits of past Petrician Lords, which leered unwelcomingly down at passerby from where they hung all about the walls in this place. Upon the sound of his approaching footsteps the Lady turned, her eyebrows raising ever so slightly when she saw who it was.

“My Lord Count, it is pleasant to see you here this fine morning.” She greeted him with evenly, dropping into a small curtsy as she did so.

Niklas casually raised one hand in a simple return greeting. “You as well, Lady Mayor.”

“Did you have need of me, my Lord? Or were you..?” She trailed off as she looked down at the bundle of papers and parchments he held clutched to his chest.

“Oh! Oh no, I was just… going here to there. You know how it is.”

“Quite.” With that she turned to rest her eyes back upon the portrait which she had been gazing at prior to his entrance.

Curious, Niklas walked over to stand at her side and looked up at the painted image that had caught her attention. Depicted in it was a man standing before a fine wooden desk and a backdrop of fine scarlet drapes. He wore a military dress uniform, not unlike the one Niklas himself had worn to the Moot a few days prior, but the uniform in the painting was black and it's epaulets and other ornaments were silver instead of gold. He stood to the left, while his hand came down to rest upon the shoulder of an older child positioned across from him who was dressed much the same as he. The pair of them were similarly palid and stoic, and while the man’s hairline was long since receded, the child’s hair was a thick and familiar mop of black, and both of them glowered out at the viewer with matching pairs of striking violet eyes.

“My Uncle and brother, you see.” Lady Merida said, gesturing towards the small plaque located at the bottom of the frame. Niklas looked back up at the child, realizing this was the first time he had ever laid eyes on the previous Count, who was now his father-in-law.

“Brother’s adult portrait is somewhere a couple of halls down that way, if you’re interested to see it. You go two to the right and then around the corner, if I recall correctly.” Lady Merida informed him while gesturing to indicate the direction. Then she turned back to the portrait again and sighed heavily.

“Is something wrong?” Niklas asked.

Lady Merida shook her head. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard the story of my poor Uncle? The past week has brought up a few poignant memories from the past for me.”

At Niklas’ shake of his head, she began her tale. “Uncle, being the second son, decided to travel. He left the County to study abroad at an early age, and he only returned after my Father passed, in order to take up the mantle of Count until my brother came of age.”

This portrait must have been made to commemorate his ascension as Count. Niklas now realized. Two Counts of Petrice: one current, one future.

Lady Merida grinned at him just a bit then as she read the realization that bloomed upon his face. “Of course, once my brother came of age, Uncle refused to hand over the Seal and the Title to him, and it came out that he had been involved in my Father’s early demise.” She said rather matter-of-factly, and much to Niklas’ surprise.

“It is said that during his studies at the Academies in Boratan, Uncle was poisoned by foreign influences. For in other lands it is common–and even somewhat expected–for second and third sons to stoop to vile means in order to take up the seat as head of their respective families.” She said, turning now to look at Niklas, who gulped audibly as he listened. “...That is what the more insular Petricians purport, anyways. I believe that he had always been greedy by nature, and his actions had therefore been inevitable. Still, the anti-foreign sentiments that were already quite prevalent exploded after that scandal. I suppose that might be when the steady degradation of the County truly began, up until it became what you see today.”

As she spoke, the Lady turned and began to slowly walk down the hall, passing by many more portraits as she did so. Niklas did his best to follow, though his gait became a bit of a stumbling jog due to the discrepancy in their statures.

“I admit, I never imagined it would get this bad.” The Lady lamented. “A City in rebellion? And their Lord: a criminal holding his own people ransom in order to extract what little food or coin they have to their name, stealing the Seal of Petrice for his own nefarious means? It is another great scandal for the ages!”

She then came to a halt before another portrait. This one appeared much less aged than the first, and the fact that it had been hung in some dark and remote corner hallway far and out of the way, denoted a lack of importance compared to the rest of the portraits they had seen.

“As I’m sure you are aware from our previous correspondence, I’ve never cared for Mayor Borney.” She said, now looking upon the new portrait. “His brother was an unassuming man, average both in looks and ability, but at least he had been dedicated to his position. I suppose I was predisposed to disliking the man who is now the Lord Mayor of Coronton, even before I first met him, since he had been sent over to be the ward of a man like Baron Otkorn in his youth...”

Niklas studied the portrait curiously; it depicted a family of three: the first of which was a most average-looking, clean-shaven man with slightly darker skin and short brunette hair. His wife, a stoic woman with dark hair and a familiar, pale complexion leered down from the portrait with a pair of subtle lavender eyes. And finally, a boy...

“It’s such a shame that the three of them were taken so early in life; first the parents died in a carriage accident, followed by their son soon thereafter to ill health.” Merida continued.

Niklas’ eyes grew wide as he looked back and forth between Lady Merida and the portrait she gazed upon, feeling an uncomfortable wash of a panic coming over him.

“He was a bit too meek for my liking, but I doubt he would have turned out the scoundrel that his uncle has now beco--”

“--My apologies for the interruption, my Lady, truly. But I feel I have to ask: is the position of Mayor... a hereditary title here in Petrice?”

Stolen novel; please report.

After hearing his question Lady Merida blinked down at the young Count in confusion. “Why yes, the position of Lord Mayor is usually passed down from father to son, why do you ask?”

As Niklas’ fears were confirmed, he looked up again at the toddler in the portrait before him. His was a small figure, appearing quite similar to Niklas when he was of the same age. What he found most notable, however, was that his eyes were almost entirely obscured by the fringe of his thick brown mop of hair, which hung low over them.

“...and the boy in the painting would be the heir of the former Mayor of Coronton, am I correct?”

Now Lady Merida looked unsettled as well, but she nodded slightly in acknowledgement. “Yes, the late Alvin Borney.”

Niklas’ blood ran cold as he looked back towards the fateful portrait which depicted that poor and meek servant he had met. This was the very youth who had fed him and freed him from his confinement within the Castle in Coronton, and been captured himself for his efforts, and who he now thought must be dead at Lord Borney’s hands!

“Oh dear…”

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Leading what could only be described as a disorderly gaggle of rough and brutish men rode a man; he was blonde and blue-eyed, with an average build. Despite the fact that he was clad in sturdy armor, at that moment he looked quite unsure of himself as he glanced nervously about at his dreary surroundings. He lacks the familiar tabard of the Barony of Otkorn, for how else could the conspirators of this plot have inserted Sergeant Rochester of Otkorn into a position of leadership in Coronton’s Second Company while keeping their affiliations hidden?

Sergeant Rochester once again found himself in a most unenviable position–and once again it was one granted to him by his Lord–as he was tasked with taking these conscripts of dubious origins from the towns and cities about Otkorn and crossing the Petrician border, all to bolster the military forces of the city of Coronton. He was not told the reasoning behind these orders, for it was not his place to know–or at least, that is what he was told by the Baron himself after he protested.

Three generations of service in the name of Otkorn. Three generations! This is the thanks my family is given? The Sergeant bemoaned to himself, shaking his head slightly. To be sent out to battlefield after battlefield chasing my death, all because I questioned the Baron’s dishonorable methods...

He glanced between the men walking at either side of his horse, but quickly averted his gaze when they sent unfriendly glares back up at him. He tsk’ed quietly and once again returned to surveilling the eerie Petrician countryside which surrounded them. Despite the fact that the surrounding hills had become flatter the further they traveled, which, coupled with the general lack of any trees or tall grasses, meant that any approaching man or beast could be spotted from miles away, it still felt to him as if he was being… watched by some unseen force.

Finally his eyes landed upon the landmark which they had been told about. Before them now was a sizable groove in the land, which looked as if some massive spade had dug straight through the hills and carved a corridor that went on beyond the distance that their eyes could see. This ‘trench’ as it had been described to them, would take them past the nearby towns and villages that might offer some resistance against them, as well as skirt beneath the watchful gaze of that peculiar Fort to the West, all while leading them directly towards Castle Petrice.

Sergeant Rochester huffed in dismay as he thought of Castle Petrice; the place that housed the Countess herself, who had months ago offered him a new opportunity for service, a means to escape the yoke of the Baron of Otkorn. His honor, and that of his father and grandfather before him, had bade him to reject her offer and stay where he was, and oh did he regret that decision more and more with every day he had to spend herding this pack of scoundrels forward.

“It looks like they’ve been here, but continued on.” Said one of the men standing beside the Sergeant, who was busy inspecting the ground, which had clearly been disturbed by hundreds of footprints and was littered with the charred remains of firepits. “Weren’t they supposed to wait ‘fer us?”

“Like I told you’s, it’s ‘cuz you all took too long an’ dragged ‘yer feets!” Grumbled the man stood at the Sergeant’s other side, his words eliciting from the troup some shouts of agreement and just as many outcries in offense.

A third man walked a bit further from the group, also closely inspecting the footprints on the ground. “It’s just as well, lads. It appears they went off and to the right instead of in!” His observation caused a group of hostile and mocking chuckles to break out amongst the men.

“Tisk tisk, ignoring their Lord’s explicit instructions? I suppose that this’ll be the excuse he needs to finally cut loose those goody-two-shoes once-an’-fer-all, like he's been wantin’ to!”

One of the men standing below the mounted Sergeant tapped the man’s leg with his elbow, leering up at him with an unpleasant grin on his face. “This is why you soldier-types never get anywheres in life. Yer always going on about honor an’ such! If this goes tits-up we’re all jus’ sent back to the slums, but ‘yer gonna swing ‘fer it!” He cackled as the Sergeant’s expression and mood sank into even more dour states than they had already been in.

“Enough!” Sergeant Rochester called out as loudly as he could. “We’re setting up camp here, and we’ll continue down the Trench in the morning!”

Nobody moved to obey his command. It was only when one of the large men at his side stepped forward and bellowed, “He means we get to crack open the casks tonight, boys!” That they all cheered in gleeful acknowledgement and went about setting up their own tents, bedrolls and fires.

It was another evening of chaos that the Sergeant could only stoically endure: Slovenly drinking, shouting, lewd songs, brawls and outright fights breaking out amongst the men. He wondered to himself if even this secret path they had discovered would be able to hide this disorganized and rambunctious horde from the locals, at least enough for them to complete their assigned tasks.

If this plan goes tits-up ‘yer gonna swing for it!

Sergeant Rochester puffed out his cheeks and let out a stuttering, anxious exhale, wondering if this would spell his end. Would they be found out due to their loud and drunken evenings, the lot of them surrounded and captured by the locals, all to end in him, as their leader, being executed for his complicity in this... farce?

I suppose it would be what I deserve for not taking the olive branch which was offered to me, by the woman I am about to betray no less...

With that thought sending a pang of regret through him, the Sergeant turned over into his bedroll and attempted to settle in. However, that night it took him a long time to fall asleep, for as the clamors of drunken frivolity turned into a rumbling choir of snores and the lights of the fires slowly faded, there grew an unsettling feeling that something was watching him from just beyond the opening of that Trench, where a peculiar fog had now settled. When he finally did fall into a fitful slumber, he found himself caught up within a most strange dream, wherein he had a hundred eyes with which he stared down at all of the sleeping men in the camp at once... including himself.

As always, once he awoke first the next morning he was forced to wait several hours for the rest of his men to stumble into painful consciousness. Although most of them. predictably, had risen only to suffer the pangs of their inevitable hangovers, he noticed that some symptom beyond the usual dehydration, sensitivity or headaches seemed to be bringing down the usually jovial mood of the camp. However, he soon dismissed his doubts and thought no more about it. Then with the assistance of some of the larger men, who maintained positions of leadership over their slighter fellows, and whom he had bought with the promise of extra rations of drink that evening–they all finally set off down the Trench.

As the final man in the column of almost two hundred disappeared into the cloying fog, Sergeant Rochester felt a horrible and foreboding sensation in his gut, as if an enormous and heavy gate had shut and locked itself behind them, trapping them within the Trench forever. He felt the sudden urge to turn back and flee this unsettling place, but with an effort of will he set his jaw and held firm, kicking his horse to keep her on a steady pace at the front of the group.

And as the Company continued on their way down the Trench, they did not see that, around one of the walls enclosing the entrance of this unearthly groove, something watched them from afar, something which appeared to be some great, unblinking… eye.