Valerie arrived at the Bastion’s armoury and met a familiar wry, grey haired head.

“Andric, you did not have to come, I am capable of outfitting myself, you know. You should be resting. Sir Christopher and I have got this covered.”

She quickly donned her chainmail and reached for her breastplate. Andric Roseblood, the stronghold’s Master Armourer and Chief Advisor shrugged and looked at Valerie reproachfully.

“I am not so deaf nor inept that I cannot put in extra work when there’s a Greybone Stalker walking the plains at night.” He kneeled behind Valerie, his bones clicking and groaning as he did so and began fastening the straps on her back with great speed and dexterity.

“Besides,” he continued, “no matter how well armed you end up being,” Andric plucked a lofty greatbow and quiver from behind a concealed panel, “you never bloody sign the damn armoury log!”

Andric firmly placed the greatbow into Valerie’s hands and affixed the quiver to her back. Despite his lean, gaunt frame, he possessed significant strength.

“And the day Sir Christopher Eldergrun successfully dispels a single lesser skeleton swarm I will retire on the spot.” spat Andric.

He paused for a moment, and then looked at Valerie wistfully. She stood tall and proud in an archaic breastplate, rusty greaves and recycled chainmail. Only her greatbow, a gift from her father, bore the family crest.

“You should be asleep too Miss Valerie, don’t forget it.” Andric uttered.

Valerie flashed a tacit smile, nodded and marched off to the parapet. Andric remained behind. He plucked a quill from his pocket and began scribbling away in his logbook. There would be many more visits to the armoury tonight. Andric was sure of that.

Sir Christopher slinked towards Valerie as soon as she reached the wall walkway. It was a little more than four feet wide, and the defensive stone battlement barely rose above Valerie’s waist.

The poor cover was thanks to the heavy erosion and damage to the stones over time. Roughly three inches of material had chipped and broken away from the front wall’s battlements since Valerie had arrived. Innumerous bestial encounters, weather events and minor sieges were responsible. The poor mineral integrity accounted for most of the deterioration however. Anything that weather’s the blight for more than a decade begins to rot and degrade over time.

“Ah, you’re here Lieutenant. You need not have come. I’ve gathered the men as you can see,” Sir Christopher gestured back to a couple dozen archers meandering the parapet, they mumbled to themselves as they tuned their bows. In the distance she spotted the young mage students badgering poor Thalia and her apprentices.

Valerie frowned. “This is all? Are you daft Christopher, we need more than this! I only see the conscripts here, where are the swords for hire? We need at least double!”

Sir Christopher groaned, slowly. “They wouldn’t come. They are refusing to do any more nightwork. They say it wasn’t part of their contract.”

Valerie’s eyes widened. “Their contract?! Their contract entitles them to precisely nothing Christopher. They are lucky to be working anywhere in Palir, those traitorous fiends.”

“You tell them that Valerie, they won’t listen to me. Kept spouting off about all the deaths and how they’re not paid for the night shift. That there’s the Night Watch for a reason. And believe me Valerie, they were far less polite and courteous than me.” Chirstopher bowed his head exaggeratedly.

A vein bulged in Valerie’s head, and her face grew crimson. She began to say something, stopped herself and took a deep breath. Christopher looked on blankly.

“Have these mercenaries encountered, or even heard of a Greybone Stalker before?” Asked Valerie.

“Most of them have not. The few veterans who have are up here already. ”

“I see.” Valerie swallowed. “So Barant is here?”

Christopher froze, his eyes danced wildly. Sweat dampened his forehead. “Yes,” squeaked Christopher.

“Then drag Barant down to the barracks with you, and haul them up here now. Be persuasive. If Barant needs to peel the fucking skin of their backs, then so be it.” Issued Valerie.

“I. I don’t think that is necessary, Valerie. Give me a little time. I should be able to persuade them. To bring them all up here.” Stammered Christopher.

“Oh, so you can get them up here after all? I thought you said you couldn’t do it. That they refused. You can’t take that back now Chris. Don’t test my patience.”

Christopher glared back bitterly at Valerie. His arms trembled behind his back. Valerie met his gaze and held it.

“Very well Valerie.” Christopher turned and stormed off, shouting. “It will be done! But do not underestimate the shitstorm this will cause tomorrow!”

Though she hated it, Sir Christopher was hardly wrong. These mercenaries were still new to the Bastion. They acted under the false assumption that they were superior to the conscripts in some way. That they were above the hard labour others took part in.

Little did they know that the bronze and gold scrap used to pay their meagre wages was recycled. No mercenary has survived their twenty four month contract in eleven years. Those wages have remained at Illyrith's Final Bastion for decades, passed from hand to hand.

Valerie rubbed her temples. She abhorred Barant, but he was useful. Though he was cruel, he was a deeply loyal man, for reasons Valerie did not understand.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Ideally, the mercenaries would come of their own volition, before Barant dealt any damage. Regardless, provided things go to plan tonight, Valerie anticipated there’d be no more hesitating after they witness the Greybone Stalker. So long as everyone survives the night.

The Stalker’s distant droning had stopped now, and the troops began babbling to each other nervously.

“Attention!” Bellowed Siddal, Captain of the Day Watch. He stood tall and strong in iron amid the patched leatherwork archers around him. A trusty Thornblood man, Valerie nodded gratefully to him as she headed over to Thalia. They both knew, it seemed, that Sir Christopher would not be capable of running things tonight..

Thalia’s apprentices Olindar and Elora were currently batting away the student mages as Thalia peered through a conjured spyglass. In one hand, she gestured rapidly in succession, flexing her fingers, sweeping her palm up, across and down. The other loosely drifted around the liquid membranes suspended before her.

Glass was a luxury not available in Carrigan’s Blight, and Thalia, the genius she was, had developed her own method of bending light to replicate the effects of tempered glass. Four concentric disks of quivering, razor-thin water floated before Thalia’s face. Combined, the magnification was even greater than that of a genuine spyglass.

Valerie lost herself for a moment as she watched Thalia work. The mage was serene as she conjured. She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose cutely as she looked beyond the water.

Erik and Seraphina’s shouts from over the top of the apprentices’ arms pulled Valerie’s attention away.

“What?” She barked at them.

They stared dumbfounded for a moment. “Oh, ah nothing,” mumbled Erik. He and his peers peeled off poor Olindar and Elora and retreated. They opted to stare out into the night by one of the less grizzled, less murderous looking conscripts.

Valerie noted with mild alarm that the particular conscript they chose to stand beside was Agatha Cain. A sultry, curvaceous woman. She was also a notorious serial killer who specialised in mariticide. Agatha had killed seven previous partners before she was caught and sent here.

Just last year she was found in Sir Christopher’s bedroom with a poisoned needle. It was still a mystery as to how she’d obtained the damned thing.

She lost her tongue for that. Which made her current advances on young, ignorant Erik far less risky. Valerie left the youths to themselves.

“Thalia, tell me what you see.”

Thalia remained focused and didn’t look back from her conjured spyglass. “It seems preoccupied. It hasn't looked our way. There is something trapped in Cracked Hill. The Stalker had been chasing it, but it fled the narrow space. It’s now roaming behind the slope.”

“Something, Thalia? You didn’t see it?”

“No, I was not here in time to catch it. But the Stalker is stalking. That is for certain.”

A ripple of murmurs swept the wall as the beast rounded the slope, and began a gradual ascent to the top. It stopped for a moment and pointed its gnarled, branched head toward them and held it there for a few seconds. The head shook and the Stalker focused back toward the slope.

The soldiers settled down as Sir Christopher walked out onto the parapet leading a dozen and half pale faced mercenaries. Barant brought up the rear. He was a small hollow eyed man. Mostly bald apart from a scarcely visible tuft of wispy hair. His wrinkled, but not so weathered skin gave him an ageless quality.

What was most peculiar about him however, were his aberrancies. His left hand was withered and ossified, but protruding a foot out from his bony fingers were sharp chitinous talons.

His other aberration was less obvious on the outside. Though it could be seen creeping up his left collarbone peeking out from behind his cuirass. There, his flesh was grey, sunken and spotty.

Valerie had seen the rest of it in the stronghold’s infirmary soon after she first took charge. Those spots grew large and soft, spreading down to his chest and stomach. As broad as a fist, these sunken discs were a mystery. They weren’t contagious. Barant swore they were some type of aberration, but he never once confessed what they did. Valerie theorised the discs must provide some defensive quality, as the man never wore a cuirass or any armour.

Barant met Valerie’s eyes from across the wall and grinned. His left eye bulged and his thin lips pulled tight over his blood stained teeth. Fresh blood flecked his chest and a clump of dark hair clung to his crimson talons.

Valerie shivered and then pivoted back to Cracked Hill as the Stalker bellowed out a riotous roar.

Everyone saw the wall collapse. The Stalker surfed the landslide and was soon lost in a thick cloud of dust. A lone archer let an arrow loose in shock. It took a moment for Captain Siddal to regain his composure and yell at the fool who did it.

“What happened, Thalia?” Murmured Valerie.

“I believe it threw itself in, General Valerie. It planted itself right on the cliff face and let loose a sonic pulse. In response, the wall dropped and the Stalker dropped with it. It must really want whatever’s down there,” Thalia said, her voice trailed off towards the end and she leant forward closer into the eyeglass.

Valerie left Thalia’s side and approached Olindar, the apprentice. He bowed his shaved head and patiently awaited Valerie’s orders.

“Give me a shout the moment Thalia sees anything new, understood?”

He nodded. “Yes Lieutenant General, understood.”

“Good.” Valerie marched over to Siddal and Christopher who were standing together in an uncomfortable quiet.

“Attention you two.”

They snapped out of their awkward silence and met Valerie’s eyes.

“Ready everyone. On my mark, I want nine tenths of the archers trained on the Stalker - use the incendiary munitions. Christopher, take the other tenth and set them on whatever the Stalker’s chasing. I don’t want some Razorhead scaling the wall because we were all too focused on the Stalker alright?”

“Understood,” they replied.

“And Chris, tell me you sent some men down to the gate.”

“The pikemen are in position.” He replied. “Captain Trout has taken charge.”

“Very good. Okay gentlemen, best of luck. For Palir.” Valerie saluted the pair.

They returned the gesture by beating the left of their chests with their fists, the traditional Palirian way. There was no more bickering or snide looks from Sir Christopher, or anyone else now. Although Siddal’s scarred, tanned face and dusty hair made for a stark contrast against Sir Christopher’s vampiric dandyness.

The pair separated and began shouting commands at the troops.

Tolvin, a massive, muscular gladiator of a man who first arrived at Illyrith's Final Bastion with Christopher a decade back, hauled over a lofty barrel of incendiary resin and planted it in the middle of the wall. The archers hastily lined up before it on either side and each scooped up as much as they could with small rusty canteens before running off.

They knelt along the battlements under Christopher and Siddals instructions, and began coating their arrowheads with the tar-like resin. The resin dried almost instantaneously, and stunk strongly of sulphur.

Satisfied with their productivity, Valerie planted herself behind a taller, more enduring block of stone. She held her greatbow aloft. It spanned nearly her entire body, but it was as light as a feather. She strung the bow and began tuning it, glancing at Thalia’s distant gaze as she did so.

Fixed and tuned, Valerie pulled the bowstring taut and it snapped back satisfactorily with a crack. She withdrew a single arrow from her quiver, and left it bare. Valerie had no need for the cheap incendiary resin the others used. This particular set of arrows had been engraved with elemental runes by Thalia.

She traced the rune with her finger. It was unchanged since the day it was inscribed. Soft red light glowed from the thin, spindly lines sprawled across the arrowhead. Magic still pulsed through its surface, eager to be unleashed.

It wouldn’t have to wait much longer.