Nothing happened for most of the day. CJ, Alyss, Larl, and Mae, stayed in his room as he adjusted the map occasionally. Their scouts in the city didn’t see much worth reporting. CJ saw people move around, and saw the guards change out occasionally. He didn’t know what he expected to see, and he knew that seeing nothing was also good. He didn’t want this to fall apart, this was just the planning stage after all.
Later that night he was sitting in his room. Larl was sleep on the couch, but Alyss and Mae retired earlier to Mae’s room. CJ kept his normal eye closed, but the golden mysterious eye open. It kept him awake, despite him not really seeing anything. He tracked the different bonds as they moved through the city, and he tried to keep an eye out for Whitetune returning.
“There it is again,” He whispered.
He thought he spotted something by the West tower. He was seeing less movement now, less random people, but more guards. He was sure that the disguised Akahi guards only had one person on a rotating watch. He didn’t know for sure, Byr never told them what he told the Magmaguard members.
Still, CJ thought he saw a flash of red, like an enemy was over by the West tower. He couldn’t investigate, not by himself. He wouldn’t even know what to look for, and he didn’t know who in the building was trustworthy, what guards wouldn’t tell the mayor they were making moves. But if they were red, were they Ash Walkers, or something else? Another flash of red, and CJ sat up in his seat.
The door opened, and CJ leaped to his feet. It was Alyss, holding a bowl of something steaming.
“I could tell you were still awake,” she said as she approached.
CJ wasn’t paying enough attention to notice another one of them was awake. “Yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye out just in case.”
She shook her head. “You’re going to be too tired to do anything tomorrow. You should eat, and then get some sleep.”
He took the bowl. It almost looked like a gumbo, bits of different meats floating in rice and soup. He didn’t recognize the smell, but he wasn’t going to turn it away. He sat back down with the bowl, but Alyss stayed standing.
“I don’t know if I can do that. It isn’t like anyone else can see this crap.”
He took a sip, it was sweeter than he expected. Still some kind of meat soup, but not spicy and really light. He took another sip, and smiled.
“Yeah, and what if you miss something even while you’re awake?” She asked. “You can’t notice a thing if you’re too tired to stay upright.”
CJ sipped at the soup, but didn’t say more. He was sure this was the right call. He was useful here, not on a battlefield. If he could protect them from some kind of ambush, that was more than enough.
Alyss watched him for a moment as he ate. CJ could feel her annoyance toward him, but he didn’t know how to make her give up. She went and grabbed a chair, then pulled it over to his table.
She looked him in the eyes and said, “Do you have a death wish?”
CJ almost choked on his soup. “What? No. Why would you ask that?”
She sat up, but she still looked at him like a pet that broke something, staring down her nose at him. “It is something about the way you act, the way you talk about yourself. It isn’t the actions of someone dedicated, like you’ve led Lady Madaleene to believe. It reminds me of someone I knew years ago, someone who wanted nothing but to end his own life.”
“I’m not suicidal,” CJ said. That was that, he thought it was pretty clear.
“That’s not what I asked,” she said. “This person, they were not suicidal either. They trained day in and day out to give their life in service of their lord. They were always ready to step in when danger presented itself, but they also sought danger where there was none, and made danger when there was only risk. They didn’t just want to die, they wanted to die doing something. They wanted their death to mean something.”
CJ swallowed his soup and waited for Alyss to continue. “That’s pointless. I’ve never understood that meaningful death stuff. You won’t be here to see what people think of you or what you did, what is the point?”
Alyss looked out the window. “A meaningful death implies your life had meaning. It is an easy mistake to make when no one tells you otherwise.”
CJ put the bowl down, then sucked his teeth. “Okay, I get it. I’ll get some sleep.”
“See that you do,” Alyss said as she stood up.
It felt like CJ’s mind was running drills in his sleep. No particular thought, no image, just an exhaustion that overwhelmed him even when he wasn’t awake. That feeling that something was right around the corner, was moving around him, permeated everything.
He sat up in the dark of his room, sweating.
In the mysterious eye he saw a blip of red, and then it was gone just like that. He pulled himself to the edge of the bed and looked around, as if the red blip would manifest itself in his room. But instead he locked eyes with Larl, who was at the door. It seemed someone came to speak to CJ, and Larl answered for him.
“Whitetune is back,” Larl said. “He is coming down to give his report.”
If he was coming down, that spoke well of the situation in the manor. They didn’t need to hide on the roof anymore.
He didn’t have an exact time, but looking at the map gave him a strange estimation. There was a symbol at the top, a ball with flame within it. The flame was almost dead now, compared to the roar it had during the day. It felt obvious, the low flame meant it was night, high flame meant it was day. Now it was past midnight, the flame just embers in the circle, glowing rocks.
“Okay,” CJ said. He was still dressed, so he just pulled himself over to a chair.
Whitetune arrived, but his partner wasn’t with him.
“Larl,” CJ said, “Can you go grab Mae and Alyss?”
Larl nodded and left, closing the door behind him.
The door closing seemed to agitate Whitetune, who looked at the door for a moment in silence before turning back to CJ.
“We looked, they’re coming.” Whitetune said as he swept his wings out and then back in.
CJ blinked at Whitetune, who seemed more than fine standing there without elaborating. “You have any more than that? How far away? How many? Any tips for me Whitetune?”
Whitetune stood taller, and CJ realized that despite being shorter than CJ by a small bit, he was bigger than CJ by a fair bit. He was muscular, his body was lanky, and his wingspan made him seem coiled up as if he could get bigger at any moment.
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“Close, by midday. They don’t rest. Some carry large objects, others make their way here.”
CJ considered that. They were going to be here sooner than he thought, they hadn’t even taken over the city yet. This was a problem.
“They would attack during the day? I thought they wanted to keep this all hidden?” CJ thought out loud. “Did you see any Princedom soldiers?”
Whitetune made a chirping noise, and it was interpreted as a ‘no’ by CJ.
“Darn.”
“They have Skymen,” Whitetune said. “At least one. We left when we saw them.”
Mae and Alyss were awake, Larl was likely filling them in. He didn’t know what to do with this information, besides panic. They were behind, they still didn’t have the city under their control and they had half a day to prepare for a fight. There was no world where he had enough time.
A red blip again, except this time it stuck in his vision longer. He wasn’t losing his mind, there was a red puck moving near the East tower, right in front of his marker for Drei’s Bond.
“There are enemies here in the city,” CJ said out loud. It was more to himself, but it made Whitetune perk up.
“Already?” Whitetune said, “that’s not what we saw.”
CJ shook his head. “Sorry, I have the power to see a map of where I am, and see allies and enemies, I can’t explain all that now. But we have allies near the East tower, and one of them was just looking at someone that my map marked as an enemy.”
“Is it wrong?” Whitetune asked.
It was less weird that Whitetune asked the question, and more weird that no one else wondered the same. He just considered his map perfect knowledge.
“I don’t believe so,” CJ said. “But they don’t know that they were seeing an enemy. They may have been seeing someone in disguise.”
CJ went over to his table, fished out the physical map from his bag, and set it out. Whitetune came over and stood beside him. CJ put out a marker for Drei, and then another for the red marker he saw.
“I’ve seen others, but just brief glimpses.” CJ put markers out for the other places he remembered seeing red. “Around these locations. They could be in hiding, waiting for…”
CJ paused, and Whitetune stood in silence waiting for him to continue.
His mind went back to Byr explaining what happened during the original attack on Akahi. The city’s defenses were lowered sometime before, then they were sabotaged. Supposedly many guards died without ever getting a chance to fight. Explosives, fires, they ripped the city apart before their primary assault. They caused chaos, and they were going to do it again.
“They plan to sabotage the city!” CJ said, flattening the map more. “They did it with Akahi as well. You saw the damage, fires and explosives. They would have snuck people into the city before, planted bombs, set fires.”
Whitetune stepped up and put a hand where the red marker near the East Tower was. “You said here? I can look.”
“You won’t be able to see what I’m seeing,” CJ said, “it would be pointless. They would be hiding, setting traps.”
Whitetune lowered his face toward CJ until they were uncomfortably close. “I’m very sharp. I know what to look for. We will find them.”
He looked up toward the ceiling, but CJ couldn’t tell what he was looking for. Then the bird man shook his head, and started toward the door.
“Wait,” CJ said. “You should know, we plan to take the city from the mayor soon. There might be some chaos soon. Be careful, okay?”
Whitetune chirped a yes, and then headed out of the room.
When Larl returned, he pulled CJ out of his room and into the halls. They walked through the mayor’s manor, through quiet halls of door after door. They passed a Scaleback guard, and they gave him the slightest bow as he passed.
“I was told to bring you downstairs,” Larl said, “to the mayor’s office.”
As they were walking, CJ saw Alyss and Mae up ahead. They were in an animated talk, Mae’s hands moving around as she tried to convince Alyss of something. Then they heard Larl and CJ coming, and turned to see them.
“Oh there you are,” Mae said. She looked to Larl. “We’ve learned more, Byr and Chuck are both in there. It was Byr who wanted to wait for us.”
CJ double checked, and saw that Byr wasn’t in the city like he was before. At some point his unit must have returned. His puck was gone, so it was possible the rest of his group were still out there keeping an eye on the streets.
“Anything about what this is about?” CJ asked.
Alyss shook her head no.
The rest of the trip wasn’t far. They took another turn and there was a bond of four Scaleback guards standing there. Their green tether all led to the man closest to the door who had his helmet off.
“There you are,” the guard said. “They are waiting inside, please hurry. We were told there wasn’t much time to lose.”
The door was opened for the four of them, and CJ led the group in. Inside was well lit compared to the hallway, with several of the strange oil-less lanterns keeping the whole place illuminated. There was a long desk, many chairs, and empty space beyond that so the mayor could have an audience even in his ‘residence’.
There was a thin-haired and portly man bound and gagged kneeling on a carpet in the center of the room. On one side of him was Byr, and on the other was Chuck. Byr and Chuck were talking until a moment after the four entered the room. The man on the carpet was the mayor of scaleback. He didn’t look beaten or harmed, just tied up and angry.
“Will this do?” Chuck mused as the others entered.
“You just tied him up?” CJ asked. “You sure that isn’t going to-”
“Enrage him?” Byr said as he leaned over and removed the man’s gag.
“You fools have no idea what you’ve done! I’ll have your heads for this!” The Mayor shouted. He was visibly shaking as he tried to muster up more to say.
“Mr. Mayor,” CJ shouted over the man. “We believe someone is trying to take over your city, and leave it vulnerable to attack. We just wanted-”
“You will all be clawed to death, and when they are through with you, your bodies will become ash in the great machination!”
CJ rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Oh, yeah nevermind you can just gag him again.”
Byr did so, and then kicked the man onto his stomach. “As soon as we came in to speak to him he started on that rant. We called you down as soon as we had him secure.”
CJ kept a good distance from the mayor, but Alyss came up close, looming over him as he struggled on the floor.
“Okay,” CJ said. “Do we have control of the city then? Can we set up defenses?”
Chuck sighed. “I believe so. I’m going to try to get a message off to the capital, let them know what is happening here. We can start the alarm bells immediately. While we haven’t had a real assault here during my lifetime, the people know what those bells mean. The militia will activate, and the streets will be cleared.”
That sounded positive. CJ felt a flutter in his chest, a hope that all of this was actually going to work. He still needed to tell Byr about the rest though, to make sure the commander understood what they were dealing with.
“I was just speaking with Whitetune,” CJ said.
Byr nodded, “I heard he stopped by. I’m glad he survived.”
CJ looked down at the mayor as he spoke, unsure exactly how much he wanted to reveal. But the man didn’t have any bond. As long as they kept him locked up, it shouldn’t be possible for him to spill any secrets.
“We have until mid-day tomorrow before the Ash Walkers will reach the city, we don’t have long to prepare.”
Chuck stiffened up and took a step back. “Mid-day?”
CJ nodded. “On top of that, I believe they plan to sabotage Scaleback the same way they did Akahi. I keep spotting enemies within the city, but I had no way to communicate that to the people on the streets.”
The mayor struggled on the ground, but Chuck just kicked the mayor in the legs.
Byr’s face went dark, and then he looked at Chuck. “If that is true, we need to scour the city for fire bombs, and be on the lookout for insurgent activity.”
Chuck nodded, and started for the door. “I’m going to get the alarm bells ringing. We need to start preparing immediately!”
When Chuck was gone, CJ turned back to Byr. Byr kept talking. “Will your ability let us check people’s loyalty?”
It felt strange, but it was an easy question to answer. As far as he knew, he could 100% tell the loyalty of someone placed before him. He knew who they swore an oath to with a glance. So he nodded. “I can do that. For some it won’t even be hard, if they are in a bond for instance.”
Byr pointed to the door. “Alyss, have a guard come grab the mayor.”
Alyss nodded and headed for the doors.
“Even if we prepare everything, all we will do is let the enemy know to change their tactics,” Byr said. “Those bombs are part of their strategy. It is the opening to their assault. They would never have taken Akahi if we knew to expect the fires.”
That was true. What happened if the enemy changed tactics, or tried to put them under siege? CJ didn’t know how to deal with that. It would almost be better if they let the enemy get in close, and were able to strike back. But he didn’t know how he could make that happen unless…
CJ stopped walking, and Byr stopped to look at him.
“What?” Byr asked.
CJ grinned. “I think I might have an idea. Hopefully it isn’t as dumb as it sounds in my head.”