Mibbet stared at the empty tent for a moment before cottoning on. Kicking over a brazier as she made her way out. “The rotten bastard stirred up all this trouble and then hid out like a yellow bellied sn..... coward. (Mibbet had decided that given the sheer number of humanoid fusion species she had met lately that causing a diplomatic incident over a poorly chosen way of cussing somebody out was not worth it, and when you remove animal related putdowns it is amazing how much it limits your repertoire.)

Well they clearly hadn’t let their allies know they wouldn’t be attending, (when one is running a sneaky attack that may be exhausting to the people you use it is seldom a good idea to inform them that you will not be attending personally.) So Mibbet let out all her annoyance on the poor tent, then on leaving poured lamp oil on the brazier from a safe distance. If their allies didn’t know they weren’t there then they wouldn’t know he wasn’t dead, at least she could knock that link out of the chain of command. As the enemy desperately worked together to put out the flames and save a person who wasn’t even there Mibbet and her crew slipped off , determined to find him and shove his false flag where the sun did not shine.

A quick signal on the whistle made sure word got back to Mawri, (Pip was helpful enough to provide the appropriate code from the smelly rag that was their code book. They had figured out that the enemy probably did not have the benefit of a canine olfactory setup, so would never crack the peenigma of this particular code, a system that would truly leave it’s mark on history.)

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Back at base Mawri’s ears pricked up as she listened in on the signal, her blood boiling at the realisation the scumbag who stirred all this up hadn’t even had the basic decency to show up in person. What were they a manager? Supervising conspirator? Well it didn’t matter, there was now no point in holding the field. She raised her own whistle and signalled to fall back.

After some fuss they managed to get in via the side gates, The enemy quickly realising that despite what they had been assured the front gate was not opening. They tried following the Garuw in via the side entrances, only to discover that there was an improvised maze of pointy stuff beyond the gate, and sneaking in single file was not beneficial to their health.

Eventually some bright spark took command, after the previous commander went missing, and ordered the grapnels be brought up. They really did not expect the outcome, the hook went into the stone and gripped solid, the top layer of stone did not. Something about gigantic construction blocks tumbling from the top of the wall acted as a great deterrent. Rascal of course was running along the battlements, doing what cats do best, and batting anything that popped up back over the edge, and as soon as anybody balanced anything there batting it over in a manner that would cause optimum destruction. They were having fun. Mawri and her squad meanwhile were crack shots with a sling, and only hoped they could hold out long enough.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

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Mibbet and the others were rapidly sneaking up on Hawayden, the Ter yur having brought out the special equipment for stealth missions (see also the gear to keep them from yapping, a Ter yur’s first instinct in battle. Werrerd had wrapped the boom tube in a heavy layer of cloth to muffle the sound, and even Sir Leeroy was trying to be as quiet as they could be. (Not easy for a guy whose standard apparel would keep an ironmonger or scrap yard in business for decades whose go to tactic was to rush in and hit things hard, but he knew The Princess was counting on him this time so he made the effort.)

Alba of course only needed some encouragement to not screech, it’s easy to not realise bears and owl’s didn’t make it to the tippy top of their local food chains by not knowing how to be sneaky. (A loud bear tends to be a hungry bear, and if you can overcome their tendency to shriek like somebody just stole their blankie owls are remarkably sneaky. After all most species don’t expect a large mass of feathery death, at least they don’t for very long as by the time they figure out what’s happening they’re usually already in grabbing range.)

Now things were about to get tricky, the team weren’t exactly built to look human (except Mibbet, and debatably Sir Leeroy,) and this town was not built to be friendly to non humans. So they had to use whatever back alleys and side streets they could find. On the plus side it wasn’t hard given the enemies personality thus far to figure out where they would be, the biggest fanciest building in town. Mibbet had little doubt they would also be stuffing their face while gloating. They felt like a gloater, and Mibbet was fine with that, gloaters usually thought they’d already won, and as such did less planning for failure. She could use that, and frequently in the past Rosalind had. (One did not get to remain a Princess while acting bratty by not knowing how to play to the ego of the enemy, and Rosalind’s opponents usually had a lot of ego back then. So this was practically an expert assessment.

It seemed a fair few people around town had regular dogs, this gave a huge advantage on the information front, as dogs gossip like fishwives. (Well not exactly like fishwives, canine gossip tended to involve less tongue wagging and more leg lifting, but the basic principle is the same.) Soon they were positioned outside the mayors office, and it was almost time to lay this matter, (and the bastard responsible for it) to rest.