In the early watches of the morning, Lynnabel lay in her cot, listening to Alysia’s irritated pacing. Lynnabel was experienced enough to understand what Alysia was going through, though she kept it to herself. If she brought it up to her sister, Alysia would lash out and vehemently deny that she was in any way concerned with Lord Commander Daveth’s well-being. Alysia was cranky with repressed desires she didn’t wholly understand, and Daveth was busy with his responsibilities to his half of the Seventh Seal.
*****
Falki, twin brother to Elenora, Duchess of Nauders huddled in his bed with his betrothed, dreaming of giants in black armor with jagged white fangs scrawled across the breastplate. Their white hair blew in the air like snow; their eyes glowed an eerie electric blue. They marched towards the Spine in cadence, slapping their breastplates with gauntleted fists in a declaration of war against the living.
*****
Elenora Edelweiss, Duchess of Nauders eyed the young woman they’d found curled in a tight leather ball wedged in the scant space between a fireplace hearth and a shadowy corner.
“Will you at least tell me your name?” She asked, and the girl scowled in return.
“Are you of the Seventh Seal?” Elenora prodded, and the girl bit her lip and shook her head. “My brother was.” She admitted.
“What were you doing in the palace?” Elenora asked patiently. “A message from the Lord Commander?”
The girl shook her head, her white-and-blonde hair shifting.
“I cannot help you if you do not tell me what you need.” Elenora began, but the girl cut her off.
“My name is-” She cut herself off, seemed to argue with herself, and eyed the array of weapons they’d taken from her.
There was a row of daggers, a hatchet, and several steel nails. Every time they searched her, she seemed to come up with another handful of weapons.
“Elyane lon Pavlenko.” She finished.
Elenora raised an eyebrow at that. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve heard the name ‘lon Pavlenko.” She offered.
I think I’m the only one left.” Elayne spat.
Elenora circled the young woman, who was securely tied to a chair. She’d been tied to the chair three times, and produced some sliver of metal, or a blade from somewhere, and cut her way through the ropes each time.
“Did you know that the Edelweiss and the lon Pavlenkos have had a long and prosperous history together?” Elenora asked, and Elayne shook her head.
“It’s true.” Elenora assured her. “In fact there’s been a long-standing rumor that we might even have blood ties. Did you know that?”
The woman shook her head again.
“If you promise not to harm me, I’ll take you to our library and show you.” Elenora offered, and the girl gave her a complicated look.
“I wouldn’t.” She replied. “Hurt you, that is.”
“Will you tell me why you are here, before we release you?” Elenora asked curiously.
Elayne eyed the albino woman carefully. “I’m hiding.” She spoke in short, clipped sentences. “From the Anglish.” She paused again, weighed her words carefully, and then added, “Is it all right for me to be here?”
Elenora considered telling her that intruders in the palace weren’t considered appropriate, and again considered calling the guards to have the woman taken to a cell until the veracity of her story could be proven.
On the other hand though, there was a memory from her mother, Sybella Edelweiss, where she’d explained that at one time the lon Pavlenkos and the Edelweiss had held a deep and lasting friendship from before the War of Liberation.
*****
Daveth and Aldric were in the palace, in the bowels of what was known as the Map Room.
The floor was tiled in an oversized map of the Nauders Duchy, and the two of them moved figures around the floor.
“Here’s where we spotted the peasants making for Landeck.” Daveth muttered and slid a block towards the south.
“Just peasants?” Aldric asked.
Daveth shook his head. “There were a few merchants as well. Low on the totem pole.”
Aldric grunted. “The Fangs?”
“Heading the same way.” Daveth indicated on the map.
“If we’re going to stop them, it’d have to be here.” Daveth indicated an area near Ansbach. “The hills will give us some advantage. I’ll set up my files here on the west hills near the manor; you take the east hills. If we’re lucky, we can funnel them into the pipe here, like what you tried with the Orgus in Bel Arib.”
“The manor?” Aldric indicated on the map.
“Abandoned, according to the Duchess.” Daveth reported. “It was supposed to be a waypoint for dignitaries and such as they travelled from Landeck to the capital.”
“You scout it yourself?” Aldric asked sharply. Daveth shrugged. “Didn’t seem relevant.”
“I wonder.” Aldric remarked sarcastically. “Take your files and investigate.”
“That’ll tip our hand to them, Aldric.” Daveth observed crossly.
“No shit. But you should have secured that place earlier.”
“When?” Daveth asked curiously. They’d been scouring towns and cities for insurrectionists, trying to get a handle on who was behind it, they’d been in skirmishes with local bandits, a few altercations between local townsfolk and the Seventh Seal that had to be mediated, and most recently, teasing out the Carrion Crows that’d taken roost in Nauders territory.
Aldric laughed nastily. “Earlier.” He replied, and stroked his beard. “This looks like textbook ass-fuckery.” He muttered, and then gestured. “Have the Fangs of the serpent move a good portion of their forces in an obvious way, which makes us take the advantageous position to intercept. Meanwhile, a smaller force swings down and drives right into us.” he demonstrated on the map. “If we’d’ve had time to secure this area we could have denied it to them.” Aldric finished.
“We’ll have to fight the Fangs of the Serpent in front of us, possibly have to deal with an assault from our flank, and if landeck decides to get involved, from our rear, as well.” Aldric finished. “Our troop deployment is fucked from the start.”
Daveth shifted several rectangles around on the map with his foot.
“How about this deployment?” He asked, and Aldric immediately shook his head. “It’s good if they come straight at us from the north, the west, or the south, but if they instead move north to attack the capital, it’ll be a running battle with us nipping at their heels the entire way. We’d be fucked.”
Daveth squatted down, and idly considered his initial deployment. He shifted some blocks around.
“A wing of cavalry here, we put the cannon here, four files of infantry here...” He mused thoughtfully.
“You put the cannon in the pipe and you open up the entire east side to getting ripped apart.” Aldric noted.
Daveth looked up at Aldric. “What if we want the right flank to crumple?” He asked curiously, and then used his finger to slide the block representing the infantry to the right.
“You’re a goddamn madman.” Aldric breathed. “And that fortified keep?” He gestured at the abandoned manor.
“If it’s occupied already there won’t be much we can do about it except hope that the cavalry screens will be enough. But to make sure... I’ll be there.” Daveth volunteered.
“You’re insane.” Aldric breathed. “You’ll get creamed no matter what happens.”
“Just be there to catch me when I fall, Aldric.” Daveth replied, and rose to his feet and then stretched out his hands in front of him and cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go to war.”
*****
“It’s time, Duchess.” Daveth announced roughly. “It will be war.”
The Duchess placed her hand over her heart in shock. “War?” She whispered, and he nodded. “There’s not much time. Our forces are assembling.”
She rose to her feet. “I understand. Nauders will stand with you.”
He cackled laughter. “You? No.” he retorted. “Your guards are a trifle and your men a joke. They’ll die meaningless deaths on the field of battle.” He mocked, and her eyes widened angrily.
His voice softened. “Leave war to those that know it, Duchess. Keep your men at home.”
*****
The Fangs of the Serpent wasn’t too dissimilar from Aldric’s Seventh Seal. The difference was the press of bodies. Aldric could only afford to feed and care for roughly two hundred men; Captain Alden however could easily field a full thousand.
The disparity was too great; the Fangs seemed to eye the Seventh Seal with a sort of genial contempt as Daveth’s files formed ranks at the call of a whistle and Aldric’s files mounted a short hillock to the right of Daveth’s troops.
Both Daveth and Aldric eyed the troops carefully, trying to pick out Captain Alden’s carroty hair. Kill the commander, end the fight. Simplest strategy in the book.
Daveth waved at Aldric and gave two short blasts on a whistle; Aldric urged his archers forward at the pre-arranged signal.
An arc of arrows rose from Aldric’s troops but fell pitifully short; the Fangs eyed each other and rolled their eyes. One of them raised their voice in contempt; “You think you can stop us with so little?”
“Come on if you’re gonna come.” Daveth shouted back, and the infantry levelled their lances.
The Fangs started marching forward, Aldric let the archers have another shot, this time at full strength, dropping arrows deep behind the front lines.
The first shot had been a feint to draw them in, once they committed to the fight the archers were firing full strength.
As the Fangs realized the trick, they tried to force their way through; a deception was only as useful as the one using it; the Fangs outnumbered the Seventh Seal by a significant margin.
As the Fangs of the Serpent forced themselves into the gap between Daveth and Aldric’s forces, Daveth blasted on his whistle and signaled; the Wolf-blooded sisters waded into the fray, sword swinging, shields knocking spears away. The mages began flinging clods of earth into the air as the lines collided. Dirt went into helmets, grit in the armor, turned to mud in their mouths, blinding others as it got in their eyes.
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Daveth really wanted to join them. The battle lust had fallen on him, sizzling his nerves setting them alight. He wanted to wade into the fray and start slinging bodies around. The fact that he couldn’t frustrated him even more.
The Fangs of the Serpent tried to do exactly what Daveth expected; they tried to press the right flank, which appeared to be weak.
Well, it was weak, but still, even if there were only two hundred people to commit to the fight, they had to force the Fangs to commit to the fight fully.
*****
A piercing whistle split the air, and Alysia shoved her attacker back with all her might. He flew back into his compatriots, but she was twisting her head and didn’t catch his startled curse. Far behind her, Daveth raised his arms over his head in a gesture she didn’t immediately recognize. Then it dawned on her, and she shook her head, mystified. Why would he be demanding they shift right? In this press of bodies, to do so would open their entire flank.
“Right, Alysia!” Lynnabel called, and Alysia ducked a mace and drove her sword through the man’s breastplate with a squeal of rending steel.
Daveth knew what he was about. Well, she hoped so, at least. She called out the orders, and as she guessed, as the entire line shifted to the right, more and more of the enemy forces poured into the gap.
As she struggled to hold the flank, she could hear him cursing at her. What was she expected to do, abandon the left flank entirely?
Lynnabel grabbed her by the back of the neck and hauled her back so suddenly she slipped and fell, much like the man she’d been fighting earlier had done.
Just then, the thunderous crack of cannonfire roared, and the enemy’s rush into their exposed flank blew apart, chunks of armor and flesh splattering everywhere.
*****
A fight between unequal forces was only viable when the forces were unequal. A thousand trained men could walk all over two hundred men, but a cannon was an equalizer. The Fangs fell back; their front line a tattered mess.
Daveth wanted to press the attack but couldn’t; part of the plan depended on getting the majority of the Fangs into the wedge opened up by collapsing the flank. By collapsing one side of the infantry in a shift, it’d reveal their cannon. With a clear fire lane the case shot would have pulped them by the hundreds and handed the victory to the Seal.
He marched down towards the infantry and picked Alysia up by the collar of her breastplate.
“Why did you disobey my order?” Daveth asked angrily. “You jeopardized everything.”
“Your formation call was incorrect.” Alysia frowned even as her feet dangled a full foot and a half off the ground. “You were inviting them to fill in the left flank and overwhelm us.”
“You’re half-right. I wanted them there so that I could blitz them with the cannon.” He replied angrily, gesturing backwards. “You should have moved when I ordered.”
“If I had moved, Lord Commander, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“No shit.” He replied sarcastically. “Their losses would have been greater and they likely wouldn’t be massing for a second attack.” Her eyebrows shot up in shock.
“You’re saying I’ve compromised the battle?” She asked quietly.
He sighed through his nose. “Yes. No. I don’t know yet. But they’re going to try for a second push. I don’t know if we have the manpower to stand for a second push.”
“We’ll manage, Daveth.” Aldric said quietly, behind him. Daveth shook his head. “That remains to be seen. Because Miss Knight here felt it was necessary to disobey my order, I’ve lost at least two files. Twenty men, Aldric. Twenty!” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Half may make it with extensive healing magic, but even if they did, they’re still too exhausted to fight, and it still leaves me with four and a half files.”
Aldric rubbed the bridge of his nose with a finger. “You had to know they wouldn’t line up politely so that you could knock them down.”
Daveth dropped Alysia, and turned back to his captain. “If the line had collapsed like it should have-” Daveth began to explain, but Aldric shook his head.
“Doesn’t matter. Besides, the captain of the Fangs wasn’t with them. You get what that means, Daveth? He was somewhere else. I’m betting he was watching how it played out.”
“We know where they fell back to?” Daveth asked Aldric, and Aldric grinned nastily.
“Right where I expected; they headed straight for the keep.”
“Shit.” Daveth swore, and kicked one of the bodies at his feet in frustration.
“No, no, Daveth, wait for it.”
“Wait for what?” The giant argued, looming over Aldric.
“Listen.”
A rattle of thunder started up with unnatural regularity.
“The fuck is that?” Daveth moved, but Aldric grabbed his arm.
“That my friend is what’s known as a crank-gun. It’s what you borrowed from the Duchess. I put the scouts out in the field between us and the keep. It was too tempting a fallback point.” He paused and rubbed dirt out of his eye, and added, “Which might be the point, in which case we’re fucked, but at least we can thin out their numbers.”
“The fuck is a crank gun?” Daveth gave him a baffled look.
Aldric’s eyes lit up. “Ah, right. You never saw it used. It’s got a crank on it. Turn the crank, the bullets drop into the barrel of the gun and fire. The more you crank it, the faster it fires. You have to be careful of how quick you do it, because the bastards apparently love to jam, but the point is... whatever’s getting inside the keep isn’t going to be pretty and it probably won’t live long.”
Daveth pulled himself into the saddle and trotted towards the keep, whatever happened would happen there.
As he topped the rise, he could see piles of bodies laying every which way. The wounded were screaming as blood jutted from stumps, as they tried to hold their guts in with their hands. Down in the low valley he could see the scouts clustered around the crank gun, and on the far side of the low valley, the rise that led up to the fortified keep. He reached into his saddlebags and produced a looking-glass, and eyed the ramparts.
“They’re in there, all right.” Daveth cursed, and moved to tuck the glass back into his saddlebag.
“Pretty sure that’s mine, Commander.” Aldric warned.
Daveth shrugged and handed it over; Aldric gave Daveth a scowl before scanning the keep himself.
“So how will you take it?” Aldric asked.
“Don’t think we can. Not with our numbers.” Daveth replied. “If we had something besides case shot for the cannon, we could punch through the gate at least, but I don’t think it’d matter too much.”
He turned and looked at Aldric with a stricken look on his face. “You’re-” He began, and then Aldric pointed.
“The doors’re opening up!” He shouted.
A screaming horde of peasants armed with spears, knives, pitchforks and other tools rushed out of the keep.
Aldric gave two short blasts from the whistle hanging around his neck, and the crank gun started up again.
“Get down there, Daveth. Get down there and-” Aldric ordered, but Daveth was moving already.
The farmers, the traders, the smiths, the butchers and bread-bakers never made it more than a few running steps from the keep before the gun cut them down, scything through them like wheat.
“Eirawen! Morden!” Daveth yelled, gesturing with his arms.
He wanted to order the scouts on the gun to stop, but knew he couldn’t. The peasants had been brainwashed via magic into protecting their homeland from the Seventh Seal, the interlopers. Alysia and Lynnabel wouldn’t understand it unless it was explained to them, and he didn’t have the time.
A pointless waste of lives, a sponge to soak up the bullets, to deflect the damage from the real fighters.
*****
The defenders had the high ground, but Daveth forced his troops up the narrow path to the manor house anyway, Eirawen leading the van. Her gigantic blades were a whirling flower of death, blooming and slicing with razor swiftness as she spun and cut. Stronghammer swung his terrible maul with cataclysmic force, whirling like a dervish.
An armsman staggered into Daveth and Alysia was there with her sword, almost surgically forcing her blade under the man’s armpit. He didn’t have a chance to even scream as Alysia whipped her blade out just as quick as it had gone in. Daveth didn’t have the wind to thank her; he gave her a nod that was returned in kind and she dove back into the press of bodies.
Suddenly an older man, brown hair heavily laced with gray was in front of him, a ceremonial breastplate worn over a nobleman’s padded jacket. He saluted Daveth smartly with his sword and died gurgling as Daveth ran him through, jerking his blade out as the man fell. Daveth shook his head. What did the man expect, a duel? He drew up short, then turned back and picked the dying man up by the neck.
He flung the man over his shoulder as Eirawen blasted the closing doors with a shower of hailstones as big as a grown man’s fist. She slipped inside, Daveth a scant step behind her.
A man with oily black hair and an eyepatch appeared in the gloom and started trading blows with Eirawen as a giant of a man with carroty orange hair and beard appeared out of the darkness.
Next to any other man, captain Arden of the Fangs of the Serpent would have been a giant. He was nearly six and a half feet tall, swarthy and muscular.
“You think you have a chance?” The captain yelled, drawing a sword.
“Yeah.” Daveth breathed, a sword of his own coming into his hand. “I think I do.”
*****
While the Seventh Seal flooded into the keep, moving room to room, disposing of the remainder of the Fangs of the Serpent, Alysia caught up to Daveth as he was moving into the lower floors.
“Lord Commander, I would like to raise an official complaint on behalf of myself and my sister.”
Daveth raised a hand to silence her, and peered around the corner. He glanced at Alysia.
“You think the hall is empty?” He asked, and she shrugged. “I don’t think anyone has passed this way in some time. We should be safe.”
Daveth stepped out into the hall, and eyeing the doors to either side, he pared a moment to glance at the Wolf sister next to him.
“And?”
She glanced up at him. “Huh?”
“Your complaint.” Daveth urged, and signaled with his hands an intent to clear each room.
“I- we, that is- my sister and I are ... concerned with how the Seventh Seal addressed the ... situation with the civilians.” She began hesitantly, but as she continued to speak, she grew more confident. “We do not feel it was honorable for them to be slaughtered like that.”
Daveth’s mouth twisted. Of course he felt the same way. He admitted as much. “They didn’t belong on the battlefield. I agree.”
He gestured, and she kicked in the door. The room looked to be a simple kitchen, though deserted.
Daveth unshouldered his pack and began stuffing foodstuffs into it. He had no idea how a magical bag preserved its goods, but apparently anything stored in them would still be fresh as the day they were put in, so he stuffed everything he could find into the sack. Flour, sacks of meal, whole hams, skinned and gutted chickens, canisters of herbs, a sack of salt, a string of garlic bulbs.
“Was there not a better, more honorable solution to dealing with them?” Alysia asked as he stuffed the sack with things, mystified that the bag never seemed to fill up despite the amount of things he was cramming into it.
“We learned that our opponent has a mage in their ranks.” Daveth began, and then after contemplating a cooking pot for a moment, stuffed that into the bag as well. “That mage was manipulating the minds of those civilians, turning them into ... what we saw today.” Daveth replied, and stuffed in a couple of skillets. “If you’d like to register a complaint, take it up with the asshole mage that did that to them.” He finished, and gestured to return to the hall. There were other doors to be kicked in.
“Lord Commander, if the mage still lives, I certainly will vent my spleen against him.” Alysia agreed, her brows drawing down, “but you’ve failed to answer my question satisfactorily. Was there a better solution that we could have employed?”
For a moment Daveth considered fobbing the question off to Aldric. Let the woman argue with him, instead.
“There probably was. I can think of a few scenarios that would have left them mostly unharmed.” He agreed reluctantly, but gestured with his hands. “However, we might not have taken this keep so easily if we had. Aldric made the call, so I think he feels the same. What happened was regrettable, but we needed this keep taken.” He paused. “We don’t even know if our job is done.”
Alysia tapped her ear and pointed to a door. Daveth nodded, and pulled out a sword, cursing as he nicked his finger on the edge. He nodded at Alysia and as she kicked the door in, Daveth stepped in. A man with charcoal-gray robes stood up and flicked his wrist; a syrupty jet of fire roared out at them. Daveth jumped forward in the room and rolled, his leather coat smoking. Alysia dodged back out of the room, and the fire splashed against the door, setting it ablaze.
In his dive, Daveth had dropped his sword, so he reached into his pouch and drew out a crossbow, already loaded. As the man marched around the table he’d been sitting at, daveth fired the crossbow.
The bolt passed clean through the man’s chest; Daveth heard it clatter against the wall behind the mage, who gasped, choked, and summoned fire from his hands again; a last-ditch effort to take the half-giant with him into the Void of Oblivion.
Alysia brained him from behind with her mace, and offered a hand up to Daveth, who took it gratefully. She pointed to an adjoining door, and Daveth sighed, scooped up his dropped blade, and nodded at Alysia.
The woman was nothing if not good at kicking down doors.
Daveth stepped into the room, and glanced around. There was a sofa with a low table, a bed in the corner, and in the other corner a small table with a pair of chairs. Living quarters, albeit small for a keep of this size. Servant’s quarters, perhaps?
An older woman rose from behind the sofa with white, colorless hair and crimson eyes. Her clothes were simple, but she wore them with a gravid dignity that lent the impression to Daveth that this was the true duchess of Nauders, if not their queen. She met Daveth’s gaze with her own, gasped out “Hymir-kin!” in a strangled voice before collapsing in a dead faint.
*****
The sky was whirling madly, the bonfire was huge, giant flames roaring to the lunatic heavens, and the ground lurched and swayed unpredictably underfoot. Everywhere, the faces of his friends and comrades seemed to swirl around him, faces stretching and melting together like taffy.
Where was he? Who was he? He was disoriented, awash with nausea and vertigo. Sounds seemed to fade in and out.
Daveth was drunk. He had gotten drunk initially out of politeness, but as the night had gone on and on he’d dipped further and further into his cups until he was insensate. Something, some inner voice that could not be reasoned with had demanded that it was time he returned to the suite of rooms that had been been graciously offered to him by the young Duchess of Nauders, thanks to the actions of the Seventh Seal. He’d been drinking in celebration of their victory to be certain, but now he wasn't so sure.
He was free-floating in the no-man’s land of obliteration by alcohol, without rhyme or reason to his action. Nothing made sense, and yet everything was equally reasonable.
He successfully took a few lurching steps; he had walked at least twenty miles. He’d kissed Alysia passionately and when he looked again, it wasn’t the steely silver-eyed gaze of the warrior woman, but the bold and strangely alluring red eyes of the albino Duchess.
He was under attack, but was naked and weaponless, Aldric was shouting at him in some incomprehensible language. He roared a challenge; someone struck him from behind and all went dark.