Night fell quickly, perhaps a little too quickly for the season. With it came an unseasonably frigid breeze flowing steadily from the north, accompanied by a thick cloud cover that blotted out the light of the moon and stars.

Shadows stretched in seemingly countless directions, bandied about by the city’s mana lamps and contorted into strange and unseemly shapes from the damaged buildings.

Rhyme rubbed her paws together, while squeezing closer to Jotuun. The ursine carried her gently in his arms, while a slight flush made its way through the thinner parts of her facial fur. His size also made for a good windbreak for the recovering creature, as well as for an elderly couple just ahead of them.

“What in Genoisia is happening now…” The skeever muttered. Steady puffs of misty breath escaped her mouth as the city bells continued ringing. Soldiers and guardsmen shouted behind them, ushering a growing crowd towards the city center. Many of them were hardly given time to get dressed.

“Hmmm. Will know soon.” Jotuun’s deep voice rumbled matter-of-factly.

“Do you think they’re ok?” Rhyme asked.

“Mmmm.” Jotuun nodded, squeezing her lightly. “Saw Thistle last night. Said was fine.”

“But… its been a whole day! And that was ALL he said, before just… disappearing on us! And now… now this…” Rhyme shuddered, as her eyes darted across crowd.

Around them, many others seemed to be quietly sharing their own concerns. Some would steal a quick glance back at the guards corralling them along, with eyes clouded in concern at the apparent urgency.

“Everyone is required to report to the city center! This is an emergency summons!” The guards shouted each time they reached a new building, followed by loudly beating on the door.

As they neared the edge of the slums, Rhyme’s eyes opened wide as she looked ahead. Thanks to Jotuun’s sheer size, she was carried high enough to just peek over the top of the crowd.

“Diane! You’re alright!” She squeaked joyously, and, with some effort, sat up as best as she could.

The crowd parted ahead of them, and quickly made way for the approaching sabretooth. Only the elderly couple, after having made a complex series of facial expressions towards each other and glancing back at Jotuun, made no move to get out of the way.

Diane rode atop Clover’s back, having retrieved him from the temple on her way home from the airship. The creature limped along carefully; its relatively fresh injuries had already started to heal. Even so, the people still made sure to give the creature a wide berth.

“Auntie! Uncle!” Diane shouted, as she leapt off of the sabretooth and dashed towards Rhyme and Jotuun. The girl flew past the doddering elders and practically tackled Jotuun into a hug, at least as far as her little arms could reach around him.

She beamed up at them, while the ursine carefully freed an arm to scoop up Diane and plopped the giggling girl into Rhyme’s lap, before pulling them both into warm, fuzzy embrace.

Rhyme’s nose scrunched quickly though, sniffing intently despite still being feverish. The pitch of her voice grew concerned, and she gingerly pulled up an arm sleeve on Diane’s dress to reveal the bandages still wrapping her body. “By our lady’s grace! Diane! Are you ok? What happened?”

“Auntie, I’m fine now! I just… hadn’t had a chance to remove the bandages. See?” Diane replied, quickly unwrapping some of them from her arm. She winced a little, and looked at her arm in surprise as the cold air stung her still pinkish skin, as if she expected everything to have completely healed.

Rhyme gasped, before stopping Diane from unwrapping her arm. “Did you get burned? Why… why is your skin like this?”

Diane looked guiltily around, and locked eyes with Thistle as he rode up nonchalantly, having remained on Clover’s back.

“That’s because the potion you drank massively boosts your body’s natural regeneration. So that’s proper new skin, not magically restored skin. New skin is a bit sensitive… probably one of its drawbacks, in that sense.” Thistleman chimed in, before whipping out and tossing a pink vial, which landed neatly right between the skeever and Diane. “On the plus side, though, it seems it really helps your body in trying to fight off infections. Might help your fever.”

The boy then spun around, and leaned back into Clover’s fur, like he was laying upon a large, fluffy bed. The sabertooth carefully turned around, and trotted gingerly ahead of Jotuun, lining up perfectly for Thistle to still face towards the group.

Its larger plumes of breath wafted over to the unfortunate adjacent elderly couple. While they didn’t react as if the breath smelled, they did move farther away to escape the recurring clouds.

Rhyme picked up the potion in her lap, and then stared between the guilt-stricken girl and the nonchalant boy. Her mouth trembled, as if she was debating on whether or not to press the issue, when the crowd quickly turned towards a disturbance breaking out behind them.

“NO! I’m not going! Its dangerous out there! Too dangerou-“ Some unfortunate man shrieked, gathering a rapid turn of countless eyes to his doorway. His door had been partially barricaded from the inside, or rather it was before a sledge smashed through his door and flung his soon-to-be unconscious body like a ragdoll deeper into his home.

Diane cocked her head to the side, focusing her mana on her ears as she tried to listen in.

“Cuff and draft him for the front-line.” One of the sergeants commanded gruffly, before bellowing out to the crowd. “THIS IS AN EMERGENCY SUMMONS. EVERYONE IS REQUIRED TO REPORT TO THE CITY CENTER. REFUSE, AND YOU WILL BE ARRESTED.”

“Why… why haven’t they told us what’s going on?! If they would just tell people…” Rhyme’s eyes widened, as she took in the little girl’s demeanor, before she tugged on Jotuun’s arm, signaling him to turn back around.

Jotuun shook his head as he did, and began to stride quickly along to put some distance between them and the crowded scene. Diane bit her lip and looked towards Thistleman, who met her gaze with a simple shrug. Then she began to guiltily stare at her feet.

“Its…” the girl started slowly, before sticking out her arm again. “Probably related to this.”

“Probably cuz of the demons we killed outside the city. It… it all went crazy after that. So… we think they’re gonna attack.” Diane finished quietly.

Jotuun’s arms tensed up, while Rhyme’s pupil’s contracted with a sharp breath. Diane quickly continued nervously, as she attempted to justify herself. “We- I didn’t even mean to go that far! I just made a new friend, and he had never been outside the city before, and I made sure we didn’t go anywhere dangerous! We were just heading back too, and… and they just showed up out of nowhere!”

Tears began to well up out of Diane’s eyes as she finally began to let her emotions loose. “And I was so scared, I thought… I really thought we were all going to die, I- I was going to lose everyone again and it’s all my fault! I… I… if I just said no and didn’t leave without Thistle… and now, they’re coming back for me… they’re going to… again…” Her voice quickly cracked, as she choked up her words through her snot and tears.

Diane’s eyes dilated, hugging herself tightly while her nails dug into her arms with a death-like grip.

Rhyme grabbed Diane, and smothered the sobbing girls face into her chest. “Shhh, its alright, its ok. You’re safe now, no matter what comes.”

“B-but…” Diane stuttered.

“Shhhh, it’s all going to be fine. The city is strong, you’ll see.” Rhyme cooed gently, as Diane’s tears slowly subsided.

“Idiots, without a single damn clue. It’s all gonna burn.” Thistleman muttered quietly to himself, as he rolled to his side on Clover’s back. Jotuun’s ears twitched, and his arms tensed again.

“Jotuun… what’s wrong dear?” Rhyme looked up at Jotuun, reading through subtle signs in his demeanor.

They had just rounded a corner into a junction with another side street, and had begun to merge with a much larger crowd heading towards the central market at the city’s center.

After a moments silence, he relaxed and simply answered. “Almost there.”

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The market plaza was filled with throngs of people of all different species. Humans, Canians, Orcs, Catkin, and Owlkin were mixed and pressed together tighter and tighter to fill the space.

The purpose was impossible to miss, as everyone was lined up before a large host of poles with dozens of people nailed onto them. All were either nobility or those directly connected to the city’s nobility, including many who had already died in the fighting from the night before.

The centermost poles, however, were covered by a thick canvas, waiting to be revealed.

At the base of each pole was a large pile of wood, with about a dozen soldiers who rushed about to add the last pieces of wood and doused it, and the prisoners, with oil.

D stared at the hastily erected platform in front of the soon-to-be-executed prisoners, which seated the Chief Minister, baron “Halfgaar”, Commander Krom, Captain Brunhilde, Sergeant Dufount, and representatives of each of the city’s churches.

D scowled in particular at the “baron”. Sven’s face was bruised black and blue, and he properly looked the part of a man betrayed and imprisoned.

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Bastard couldn’t even give me an hour…

D scowled even harder, thankful that he was such a light sleeper. He didn’t expect a simple double would be willing to test if his ward was actually real, and the man had seemed such a coward earlier.

At least some timely “convincing” has made a proper believer out of him…

The vampire hunter scanned the flow of people into the main square. As each additional group arrived, the guards and soldiers behind them joined the formation surrounding the area. Neither the platform nor the crowd struck D as a comfortable place to be, and he was thankful enough to be able to take a nice, dark perch in the shadows of the rooftops.

“TRAITORS!”

“MURDERERS!”

“GIVE ME BACK MY SON, YOU MONSTERS!”

People jeered and screamed in rage and loss at the prisoners, as men and women alike wept or hurled whatever they could get their hands on at them. The sheer, simple implication of who was to blame was more than enough for the people to run wild with it.

The anger spread like an emotional wave through the crowd, while the city’s leaders continued to watch silently. Some attempted to speak, but even from his perch, D could see the burns and scarring on many of their mouths.

D grimaced, as he recalled the reason he couldn’t go back to sleep. Ivar had followed through on his threat, and had brought everyone who knew the baron personally to the council hall. From there, they used hot irons to tear out their tongues, and used the searing heat to cauterize the wounds so they wouldn’t die until their public execution.

Their screams… their foul, hysterical shrieks that resonated through every hall and room… even if they deserved it, it was something he couldn’t forget.

Now, they were reduced to incoherent babbling, while those fortunate few who kept their tongues begged for mercy and claimed ignorance, though their desperate pleas were drowned out in the ever-growing chorus demanding retribution. Dozens against tens of thousands; it never had the chance to be a contest.

Was it worse than that Starfire from the night prior?

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, by the end of this… it wouldn’t really be that different. D pulled the tip of his hat lower, scowling deeper than before. Even if the punishment was deserved, the cold satisfaction on Ivar’s face still felt… wrong.

By now, the last of the crowds had poured in. D spotted his marks making their way around the back of the crowd, sticking out like flaming bull in a pasture at night. Even with how packed the market square had become, people still managed to make a decent space between them and the sabretooth. Add in that massive Ursine, as rare as they were, you would have to be blind to miss them.

Diane Culaine… what is your role in all this?

Even from the other side of the huge square, she seemed so… fragile. And yet, she had been at the heart of nearly every major event since she arrived in the city mere months ago. Perhaps the distance made it worse, or it accentuated what he had already seen… that she was such a small, frail girl.

He had asked around about her and Thistle, investigated them, and even seen her in action. Even when facing those stalkers of the night, whose existence and powers taught him more than anyone to never underestimate someone based on their appearance, even they never reached this far.

Had anyone else accomplished what she had done… people might have begun to claim the coming of a new hero of the city. For her… she’s managed to turn it into a strange mix of respect and fear. Knowing the thing behind her… seeing her draw on powers far beyond what any child should ever be capable of, it’s the only part that makes it all make sense.

But why her?

D’s thoughts raced.

That demoness… if she hadn’t intervened, Diane would have died. But… the things she did…

D shook his head, as if trying to clear the thoughts from his head, as he bashed his hand into a clay roof tile, cracking it.

That damn monster… what’s its real objective? What else can it be leading us towards? Its helping us, while also declaring war on us? Its defending her, helping to cleanse the city of the other demon’s influence, while making potions that can save the lives of countless people within the city while still threatening the city? What demon lord has ever been like this?

D clenched his fists tighter, then relaxed them and sighed. He needed a chance for some real rest before thinking about this anymore.

And, it seemed, the execution was soon to begin.

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Ivar glowered across the crowd, but through his imposing expression he couldn’t fully repress a certain… satisfaction.

His main enemies in the city were either dead, or soon to die, and the people… in their fear, their despair, their rage… they needed answers, and they needed a leader.

“My Lord, preparations are completed.” One of the guards reported to Ivar, speaking from behind the stage.

He smiled a cold, calculated smile. “Aye, let’s begin.”

Ivar wheeled himself to front and center of the stage, pulling a scroll out of his thick fur coat once in place. After unraveling it, he raised his right fist in the air while his left channeled mana into the scroll, causing it to glow and then crumble into dust.

Silence soon rippled through the crowd like a wave, as everyone turned their attention to the stage. Then, Ivar’s voice boomed aloud. “Tell me, people of Njord, who spent the night in fear?! Who among you had your loved ones ripped from your homes and slaughtered like pigs in the street?” Ivar bellowed with rage, spittle flinging from aged lips, yet his fury animated his body in spite of its weakness and age.

The people shouted in response, in a chorus that mixed blood-thirst howls and words into a wave of noise followed by silence. “Who here found themselves fighting for their lives in fear, without knowing why? Who here spent the day asking why, while picking up the pieces of a ravaged city?” Ivar waited again, giving the crowd a moment to respond in roar, before continuing.

“Aye, I feel the same as you. That night… these animals tried to seize the city. They came for me, as they came for every true Njord. Animals that betrayed us, betrayed their lord and king, and who stole the baron’s name.” Ivar’s voice turned from a roar to a snakelike whisper that still resonated thanks to the spell that amplified his voice, while his accent deepened.

“I’ll tell ye the truth of that night… betrayed, yes, but a betrayal far crueler and deeper than anything we could have imagined.” Ivar waved his hand, and the canvas concealing the central poles was removed.

The crowd gasped in shock, as whispers quickly snaked their way throughout it.

Mounted in the dead center was the former baron Halfgaar, his severed head mounted unceremoniously above his body, and surrounded by the mangled corpses of the grendels, the charred remains of the imps, the gaunt, and the roughly assembled chunks of the bauther.

The people took only a moment to look between the beaten man on the stage, and the one mounted on the stake, before unleashing a universal, bloodthirsty howl.

“Baron Halfgaar, tell us, what have you seen?” Ivar turned in his chair, and Sven, shakily at first, then with firm determination, stood tall.

“These traitorous bastards, they came to me with an offer to join them and their demon lord. They promised me power and glory, but I refused! I called for my guards, when I discovered they had converted even my guard captain. They threw me into a dungeon, and placed that…”, Sven’s voice began to shake with visceral rage, “that FAKE in my seat and tortured me for fun! They promised my head to their new masters! I CALL ALL MY LOYAL MEN TO PURGE THE DEMONS!”

“CONSORTING WITH DEMONS TO BETRAY US ALL!” Ivar screamed, his veins throbbing in blood-lust, the crowd roaring back once again in kind.

“Our guest from the Empire, who came to investigate the demon threat, tell us, what have you seen?!” Ivar then turned to Sgt Dufount, who stood to attention and slammed his fist into his chest.

He too burned a scroll in hand, and shouted out: “My companions and I found a powerful demon deep within the woods, one that summoned a storm which ravaged your city and called forth a monster from the stone and earth! Those infected by the plague ignored the demon and its minions, and only attacked my companions and I! We had barely escaped with our lives! THE EMPIRE PLEDGES ITS AID!”

“A CRUEL GENOCIDE OF OUR PEOPLE!” Ivar howled, slamming his fist into his chair.

“Captain Brunhilde, tell us what have you seen?!” Ivar asked again, turning to the woman whose armor shone with a near holy light cast by the torches and lamps.

“When our city’s brave adventurers returned from their investigation, terribly wounded and near death, they told us of their brutal fight to survive against these demons you see before you! They brought us, at great cost, terrible news! And when captain Ross heard their report, these vile traitors immediately attempted their coup! BUT THE CITY GUARD STOOD STRONG, FOR NJORD!” Captain Brunhilde brandished her sword, as light reflected off its polished blade and the crowd’s howls reached a fever pitch.

“SAVED BY THE HONOR OF THE TRUE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF NJORD!” Ivar cheered with the crowd, before turning finally to Krom. “And I ask you, Royal Commander of the Njord Garrison, what have you seen?”

The garrison commander stood tall, towering over all the others, and strode forward. The crowd fell silent, and he didn’t pull out a scroll as each of the others before him had. Instead, with the sheer force of his own voice, he bellowed across the square. “I SAW COWARDS, WHO DARED USE THE KINGS NAME TO CUT DOWN OUR PEOPLE! COWARDS WHO FLED WHEN THEY SAW OUR BLADES AND WILL! TRAITORS WHO PLOTTED TO OVERTHROW THE KINGDOM ITSELF! THE KNIGHTS OF LUTHAS STAND WITH NJORD!”

The furor of the crowd had reached a crescendo, and yet Ivar had not finished. Nearly frothing at the mouth, he forced himself to stand up his twisted legs, with a guard rushing forward to steady him. “Nobles and soldiers of Njord, what shall we do with these traitors?!”

“EXECUTE THEM!” They shouted in unison.

“PRIESTS, WHAT WOULD THE GODS HAVE ME DO?!” Ivar cried out.

The priests all stood, with either their holy books or religious icons in hand, and shouted in unison “The gods demand death! Burn them at the stake!”

Then Ivar turned quiet, solemn even, and gazed across the roaring crown, and whispered with thinly veiled fury. “People of Njord, you have heard from us, you have heard what these… vermin have done. They have consorted with the demons to unleash this plague upon us, to weaken us from within, and have called the demons here! We have learned the demons will be here soon, planning to kill us all; men, women and children to be devoured with prejudice. We have learned that we have no time to call for aid. So tell me…” At this point, even with the power of the scroll, Ivar’s voice had dropped to such a quiet, spiteful level that the people hung on to every word with an enraptured focus. “what would you have me do with this filth?”

Silence lingered across the crowd, as a strange energy hovered thickly in the air. The air itself seemed to respond in kind, as a powerful gust of wind roared overhead causing the torches to flicker violently, a wind which shook even the lamp posts in the street. And, as the roar of the crowd soon answered, Ivar saw it… even if only a split second and then it was gone.

He saw Thistleman, sitting on a dark balcony behind Diane, Clover, Rhyme and Jotuun. And he saw a wide-open smile, an utterly inhuman smile, stretching from one ear to the other, skin stretched beyond any human level. And those fangs… with a glare that made his blood run cold. It had mouthed a single word, before it seemed to realize Ivar saw him and disappeared. “Beautiful.”

Then, the crowds roar shook him out of his trance. “BURN THEM! BURN THEM ALL!”

Ivar shook himself, and quickly pulled himself back into character. “THEN BY OUR WILL, IT SHALL BE DONE!” He then pulled another scroll out of his coat, unfurled it and shouted “IGNITE!”

The center-most stake burst into flames, which greedily roared into an inferno as it consumed the oil and dry timber. It raced at incredible speed until it consumed the other stakes, melting skin and bone and calling forth horrific shrieks of agony even before it directly reached its victims. The flames towered high into the sky, and crested above the rooftops.

Guardsmen cast barriers above the roofs to prevent sparks from traveling, and dumped buckets of water to wet them again just in case. The heat from the fire pushed deep into the crowd, who screamed in bloodthirsty pleasure.

With the towering flames at his back casting his shadow long and wide, and his twisted legs distorting the shadow along with the horned helm of the guard supporting him, Ivar had, for that moment, begun to look like a demon of the Njord’s own making. And, the crowd began chanting his name.

Ivar started quiet once more, and then slowly built his voice further and further to crescendo, screaming so loud that his voice itself cracked from the exertion. “Tonight, each of you is a true son and daughter of Njord! Tonight, each of you is a warrior of Njord! All able men and women shall be armed and armored! Those with weapons will be drafted and trained in formations immediately! Those without shall prepare the defenses of the city! ALL SHALL STAND TOGETHER! IN THE THUNDERERS NAME, FOR NJORD!” He then threw his fist in the air, to the frenzied roars of the crowd.

There was no longer any question about what was to come. Only a select few amongst the crowd kept their silence: Ragnar, D, Diane, Jotuun, the Red Sun and the guild leaders.