Xiatoktok trotted up to the gates of his bank. The courtyard was in equal measure on fire and covered in human remains, all floating on a pond of caltrops and hedgehogs. It looked like a particularly sadistic hell, and cheered him up a bit.

“We have prisoners. How nice. ‘Mbeki, round up the healthiest of them, and stow them somewhere quiet. As many as practicable. Do so discreetly.”

“Yes, President!”

“Oh, ‘Mbeki? No officers. We won’t be expecting answers from these prisoners.”

“Yes, President.”

Xiatoktok waved over the captain of the Gray Feathers mercenary company. One of ’Mia’s kids, if he recalled correctly.

“Coordinate with the guards in the bank. I want this area secure, and once it is, I want to start clearing routes between clan holdings and creating a secured perimeter. We have apartments just over there,” he pointed across the street, “so this isn’t exactly a long march.”

“Respectfully, President, we don’t have the soldiers for it.”

“I know. We’ll be drafting the Clan to create and man barricades. Even civilians can jab a spear and shoot a crossbow. Once we have a perimeter, the Gray Feathers will be our fast reaction force.”

The captain considered the unreasonable order, considered arguing that his contract only required defending the bank, remembered who was paying the contract, and sighed.

“It’s outside the terms of the contract. You understand there will be additional fees?”

“Keep it reasonable, Captain, and you will be pleasantly surprised.”

“I will see it done at once, President!”

Xiatoktok sat quietly on his cheve and watched his orders being carried out. He would secure this area, then start working with the Clan and the militia to expand outwards. They would have to organize the volunteer firefighters, get the pump wagons out, form bucket brigades, all that. Then, of course, there would be providing warmth and shelter for the refugees. Blankets. Food. Medicine. Latrines. Everyone remembered food and water in an emergency, and somehow forgot that what goes in must come out. If it wasn’t properly managed, there would be a plague of cholera.

Emergency stuff at first, but long term solutions would need to be found, and fast. The Clan, of course, would be only too ready to help. This would all cost a fortune, a fortune the City likely didn’t have. They did, however, understand sovereign debt, and the Bank would be ready to help with that too. Xiatoktok sat quietly on his cheve, looking like an aloof god of war, as a dozen plans formed in his mind. As they fell into place, one errant, foolish thought rose again and again.

“You better be safe, Gentian. You damn well better be safe.”

Gentian discreetly leaned on her spear, trying not to look bone-shatteringly exhausted. Her surviving guards had drawn themselves up around her, determined to be professional. They were charred, bloody, sweating, and looked murderous. It would pass for professional, this terrible night. Despite her diplomatic experience being slim, and her military experience being nil, she had become the focal point of the negotiations between the Xia Clan (and their heavily armed guards) in the large apartments off Salbor Square, and the City Militia that had formed up in Salbor Square.

“I’m not saying I don’t want to, Constantin, I’m saying I can’t. They ain’t my guards! Look, we are happy to volunteer looking after refugees, fighting fires, building barricades, we’ll set up a damn soup kitchen! But I cannot order the guards to fight!” The building supervisor glared at the Militia Captain.

“Those are all good things to do, Xialo, and I’ll hold you to that. But right now, the raiders are out there setting fires and killing people! You have twenty of the best armed, best trained soldiers anywhere near here. I’m not asking them to enlist, I’m asking them to clear a fucking street for three blocks!”

“And I’m telling you-”

“I’m telling both of you that you are going around in circles.” Gentian cut in firmly. “Constantin, he’s right. He cannot order those guards to move. It might cost him his life if he tried. I, on the other hand,” She glared at Xialo “Can take the heat. Tell the guards, from me, that their new duty post is three blocks east of Salbor Square, along Maple Avenue. And they are to coordinate with the militia to make sure no bastards cut in behind them.”

She drew a deep breath. “Constantin, don’t be a prick. You are getting them in combat- detail soldiers to guard the alleys. Xialo, coordinate the Clan to start building mobile barricades we can use to block up the streets. Somebody around here has wagons. Let’s use em.” Her brain was fuzzy. How the hell was any of this her responsibility? She just wanted to be a pampered princess and raise more little princes and princesses, damn it all! She rapped her spear twice on the ground.

“The policy of the Xia in Cold Garden has, for generations, been to provide utmost support to the City. My Master’s actions these last few months should demonstrate that beyond question. And if you didn’t know, both of you, I can tell you that his sacrifices have met with approval at the very. Highest. Levels. So do not fuck around while the City is burning, and jump to it.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

They nodded to her, snorted at each other, and got to work. Gentian’s guards didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to say anything. The words slipped out anyway.

“I’ve been their concubine for only a few months now. Haven’t even given them a child. Not even sure I’m pregnant yet, though not for lack of trying. But here I am, ordering everyone around like I was a senior of the main line.”

“Doesn't matter. Or, I guess it does matter that you are doing it.” One of her guards, she never got his name, muttered back. He could speak without moving his lips. “Your Master and Mistress will back you to the bloody hilt, and you are absolutely right. This exact scene is going on all over the city, I guarantee it. Having someone both sides will listen to makes everything easier. So… just keep doing what you are doing, Concubine Xia Gentian. You are doing amazing.”

Gentian just nodded. She stood in the middle of the square, lit by the light cores hanging from the guards belts. Spear firmly in hand. She raised her head, as did almost everyone else in the square. The bells were ringing again. No longer frantic. Angry. Vengeful. The bells of Cold Garden called the Throng to rise. To come out and kill.

The Militia wasn’t much, but they had good helmets of brass plates sewn into felt, and quilted jerkins. The dozens of layers of glued linen did a remarkably good job of stopping a cut or an arrow, though they weren’t nearly as good as chain or plate armor. Not that any of them could have afforded so much steel. They also had twenty foot long pikes, slings, and a holy fury burning through their veins. They lowered their pikes, five layers deep, and advanced through the streets.

The raiders laughed, at first. They were good shots, and their little recurve bows were devastatingly effective at close range. But the wounded militia were pulled out of line, a healthy volunteer took their place… and then the sling stones came. Tens, or even hundreds, of heavy bullets whipping through the air with bone crushing force. Armor? Sling stones didn’t give a damn if you wore armor. When they hit, they would either bounce off or break something. The raiders couldn’t afford steel armor either. Nobody was about to try and charge a wall of pikes. So they decided to use mobility, get around behind the pikes and attack from the rear.

This was a perfectly logical and sensible decision, except that they were fighting in the middle of a city. A city on fire. The Chanticleers had finally gotten their neighborhoods together and bashed the refugees into some semblance of order. When the raiders tried to get around the militia, they found the alleys and cross streets had been filled in with the burning rubble of the city. Homes and businesses had been torn down, forming firebreaks and barricades. The bandits had two choices- run out of the city, or face the hungry pikes of the Throng. Most tried to run.

A band of raiders, twenty strong, cantered up a street. Loot and captives slung across the backs of their cheves, it was time to retreat and enjoy the spoils. The riders in the front suddenly went down, then everyone's cheves collapsed into screaming heaps. A thick hemp rope had been tied knee high across the street, and it took out the cheve’s legs.

A grandmother fell screaming on a downed bandit, hacking away with the knife that had cooked her grandson dinner hours before. She hadn’t been able to pull him out of the fire before the roof collapsed. She stabbed that knife into the bandit’s neck over and over until the blade broke.

A brother, who had watched his sister get carried away, paralyzed with fear, helpless. Desperate to find some measure of pride, of strength. He rushed in with Dad’s carpentry hammer and started flailing away. He hadn’t the faintest idea how to fight. He was a great tenor in the neighborhood choir. His throat had gone raw, screaming his hate as he tried to smash apart every skull he could reach. A swipe from a saber gutted him, a worn boot kicked him back into the rubble. He had killed two- a bloody profit.

Somebody's mom, and she prayed with every scrap of her being that she was still somebody’s mom, came out with her hoe. She used it to clear snow off roofs. But her husband, bless his memory, had splurged and gotten her one made with ironwood. None of these murderous fucks were allowed to stand. She couldn’t explain why she knew that, she just did. Any who tried had their legs hooked out from under them, then her long hoe smashed apart bones. Broke legs. Shattered collarbones and arms and ankles. She didn’t think she killed anyone. But they weren’t allowed to stand. They weren’t allowed to hold weapons. So she broke things and more things and tried to stop the screaming in her mind as she wondered where her kids were.

Some raiders did make it through the city gates, giving their cheve their spurs when they saw the open country in front of them. Raiding was fun. Enjoying the prizes afterward was even more fun.

Xiatamrou quite agreed. He also knew that you always give a rat a way out. They’ll always take it. Makes it easy to know where to set your ambush. Raiders would come scrambling around a bend, and crossbows would sweep across the road. Any who managed to keep their seats would be cleared off by pikes or billhooks. The bodies, loot and cheves were hauled off to the side, and neatly stowed in a field. The former captives were set to work looking after the cheves. Waste not, want not, all that.

The mercenaries of Drake company reaped a bloody harvest. This wasn’t a battle. It wasn’t even a fight. It was a one sided slaughter. Xiatamrou found a dying bandit and leaned right over him.

“I could save you, you know. Beg me.” His face was pitch black in the moonless night. The raider tried to gurgle something, waving his hands in a feeble plea for mercy. In that last, desperate moment, Xiatamrou ripped away as much of the raider’s time as he could grab. The bandit died a few seconds later. Xiatamrou hoped that final second, suspended in an agony of pain, fear and hope, felt like an eternity. Not because he gave a shit about Cold Garden. He was just working on his timing, is all. And GODS did it taste good!

The whole City was mobilized now. The fires had stopped their westward spread. Firebreaks had been made, the volunteer firefighters called out. Bucket brigades stretched as far as needed, moving water to fire. Pump wagons, pulled by hand or by cheve and manned by volunteers, raced to do what they could. It felt like it was never enough. Out of Xia warehouses and apartment storage rooms came melon sized glass balls filled with, the firefighters were warned, terrible poison. But if you threw the balls at the base of a fire, they would shatter and the fumes would extinguish any fires around them. Just don’t breathe anywhere near it for a while. Slowly, horribly slowly, the fires were contained. It would be hours before they burnt themselves out.

In the Cathedral of Joy, the City Councilors stood behind the strategos as he began consolidating command over the various militia companies. The mercenaries who had made their home in the city had officers standing by, as did the Xia. Painfully slowly, the strength of Cold Garden was gathered, and forcefully crushed the bandits. An hour before dawn, a messenger raced over to the Xia representative, and handed him a report. The Xia rep quickly read it, and as his eyebrows climbed for his hairline, read it a second and third time.

“Strategos, we have new information. Our interrogators have learned this from multiple prisoners, though it is too early to say the information is completely verified. We think we know who the raiders are.” The room got quiet.

“The raiders are mostly displaced tribes and people from the great plains region, pushed west by the Two Souled Tribe and the war in the east. They were recruited, supplied and trained by “The International Fellowship Committee.”” The Xia grimaced. “Which is also known as the Fifth Directorate of the Central Planning Committee of the Leoinidas Collective.”