The Lords Aldrimar and their attendants had been filing into the city since before dawn, each with blaring trumpets and streaming banners. Four times that morning the gates had opened, and four times Henric had sat waiting in the courtyard to receive each of the counts in their turn. Henric was glad for the warm, clear morning which let him wear his most comfortable summer formal wear a little ahead of season. He wasn’t sure he could have endured another day of pomp and ceremony overdressed for the cold mornings and sweating by midday.

Most of the nobility of the castle assembled outside to welcome their guests. Henric’s mother and sisters, his uncles and their mother, Marek and his children, along with the household knights.

First to arrive that morning were Count Markan and his younger brother Gelden of Marche, along with sixteen armed men and two attendants for each of the young lords. Their lands were north of Zaksburg, along the border with Barethil. Count Markan was six years older than Henric, and stood a full head taller than he did. He strode right up to Henric and embraced him.

“Good to see you again my lord cos!” said Markan. He had a warm tenor voice and an easy smile.

“And you,” said Henric. “You too Gelden. I’m glad you both could make it.”

The younger brother was a bit younger than Henric, and still looked like a little boy next to his brother. His blonde hair was longer and curlier than his brothers, which did little to help how young he seemed. In spite of their close ages, Henric hadn’t ever spent much time with Gelden. “Thank you,” was all he said.

Markan had already moved down the line, shaking hands and hugging his distant relations, but stopped when he got to Zak. “Zak! I missed you at my tournament last fall, what happened cos?”

“What happened? It was in Marche!” said Zak. “I don’t fight for country crowds!”

Markan laughed. “Oh, but the fighters were magnificent! I hurt all over for a week afterwards!”

Zak was laughing too. “So who won that one then? I never did hear.”

“You didn’t?” Markan looked surprised. “DuErden took home twenty pounds of my gold.”

Those two continued on like that for a few minutes. Henric could the hushed whispers among Alix and Beth’s ladies in waiting. Though his brother had moved on, Gelden was still hanging nervously about near Henric.

“Feel free to head inside Geld,” said Henric. “There is a meal being prepared in the great hall to welcome you all.”

“Oh, thanks.” And the boy went inside the castle.

Within the hour, the gates opened again to usher in the grey haired Arnult, lord of the western county of Limos. More than three decades Henric’s senior, Arnult was still a fierce warrior and veteran of the Rebellions, and quite possibly the only man alive who had actually known Henric the second, from whom they all claimed descent. In that time, Arnult’s one proud, thick golden mane had faded to grey.

When Arnult dismounted from his horse, he bowed low before Henric, his fine black cloak scraping the dirt. “My lord Henric, thank you for your hospitality.” He turned and looked Henric’s mother and sisters in the eyes, “My condolences to you for the loss of Gareth. He was a wise man and a good lord.”

“Sank you, Lord A’nult,” said Lady Kris.

“Indeed, your kindness is much appreciated my lord. I hope I can live up to my father’s memory.”

The old man seemed to approve of Henric’s formality, nodded, and then continued his way down the line to make his greetings. Unlike Count Markan, Count Arnult let himself inside the castle, preferring to find a comfortable place to sit.

As they waited for their last arrival, the Count of Uxerre, Zak had found an old ball in one of the storage rooms off the courtyard, and was kicking it back and forth with Count Markan. Soon, Henric and Mathev, and even Beth, Megan, and Adelin had joined into their makeshift game of kicking the ball back and forth between each other without using their hands, while Samael sat in the dirt reading some old book with a red cloth binding. They had finally worked up a good sweat when Count Phillip arrived.

His lands were the southernmost of all Aldrimar possessions, and were the most connected to the rest of the Erazi kingdom. Because of this connection, Lord Uxerre had been able to collect substantial taxes on the merchants that traveled the kingdom, making him incredibly wealthy.

This wealth reflected itself in the way he dressed and in the menagerie of attendants who followed him. Phillip was tall and strongly built, his brown eyes and his short cut brown hair gave him hard look. He was bristly and ambitious, and Henric recalled at least a few occasions of his father complaining about the pretensions of the Count of Uxerre.

“Welcome, Lord Phillip, it is good to see you again,” said Henric.

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“Indeed.” He wiped the sweat from Henric’s palm off on his cloak, and bowed low to Henric’s mother and kissed her hand. Watching it made him bristle a bit.

Henric looked around to assess who was still in the yard. He had noticed that Count Arnult had brought a chair out from the hall and had set it at the top of the steps. Gelden sat beside him, listening intently as Arnult spoke.

“I’m glad you could join us Count Phillip,” said Henric. “We must be on our way.”

“Excuse me?” the Count was surprised. “On our way where?”

“There is a ceremony in town for the unveiling of a commemorative statue of my father. It would only be right for all of us to attend.”

And soon, all of those assembled were on their way down the bluff into the city below. They were met by Mayor Thomias in the Lord’s Square, where Henric still remembered the sight of that sea of people crashing about. He took a deep breath and steeled himself, he was in no danger.

He had made sure of that, assigning his knights to assist the Watch in securing the city around the procession. Lucan had even positioned men on the rooftops to watch for any sign of a threat. And even if he hadn’t had the Watch to guard him, Henric had the sword on his belt. Just feeling the weight of it gave him some assurance.

Thomias led them through the city to the market square where a large white cloth covered something about nine feet tall in the center. As everyone filed into the square, surrounding the covered statue, Henric noticed there were no civilians around.

“My lords and ladies!” began Thomias, in his most theatrical voice. “I introduce to you, Halad, the sculptor of this fine work!” The assembled crowd clapped graciously for the small, wooly man who stepped forward and waved to them all. There were three young men, his apprentices, standing dutifully behind Halad.

“My lord Henric, would you like the honors?”

“No, thank you mayor Thomias,” said Henric. “The honors are all yours.”

Gleefully, Thomias ripped the covering off the statue, and the crowd cheered as a white marble carving of Gareth Aldrimar dressed for battle was revealed. It was a good likeness, but the small plaque at Henric’s father’s feet did not seem to be properly set into the stone. Henric heard muffled swears coming from the sculptor, who rushed one of his apprentices, a tall, dark skinned man, up to fix the small mistake. The apprentice fidgeted with the plaque for a long moment, and Halad shooed him away from the square in shame once he was done.

“Is it not a perfect likeness my lord?” asked Thomias proudly, as though he himself had carved the statue. “It is only fit to commemorate your father for all...”

Thomias was cut off by something like a thunderclap. Before he knew what was happening, Henric was on the ground, winded. It took a moment or two for his vision to come back to him, and he saw people and rubble everywhere, smoke and dust hanging in the air. Henric felt the back of his head, which came away red and wet. He tried to get his feet beneath him, and drew his sword.

He could see his mother laying on the cobblestones a few feet from where he had been, and he rushed to her side, shaking her. When he didn’t hear his own voice, he noticed he couldn’t hear anything except a high pitched ringing. He shook her again, shouted “MOTHER!” but it hardly sounded louder than a whisper.

Lady Kris’ eyes blinked open, and let out a cry of pain. Looking her over, she didn’t seem to be injured, only bruised. Helping his mother to her feet, he searched for his sisters, and for Mathev, and Megan. Adelin was easy to find, sitting on the ground, curled up in her knees crying. He found Zak helping Alix and one of her handmaids, a girl with fiery red hair called Clare back up and making sure they were alright.

“What is happening?” Henric shouted again. He wasn’t sure if Zak had heard him, as focused as he was on helping the handmaid with her twisted ankle. “Zak! What is going on?”

He looked up. “Hell if I know!”

As the ringing in his hears faded, the world came back into focus. All around him people were crying out in confused pain. Nobody knew what was going on. He looked down at his feet and saw a chunk of his father’s face staring back up at him. Picking it up, he looked to where the statue had once been, and saw only broken rubble. Not everyone had been as lucky as Henric had been.

The charred, broken body of the stonecutter’s apprentice had been thrown ten feet back from the statue with bits of marble forced into him. Others around had hit by shards of the broken stone, cutting or sticking into them. Some were worse than others, but nobody had escaped without at least a few bruises. Besides the stonecutter’s boy, Count Arnult was injured worst, with a large sharp chunk of stone sticking out from his shoulder.

Henric knew he had to do something. Taking a deep breath, he tried to ignore the subtle creeping stench of Death. He looked at the carving of his father’s eye and wondered what he would do. “Everyone! Please try to stay calm. The Watch will be here any moment to help the injured. If you stand and walk, help someone who can’t.” It was as though his father was speaking through him, and people listened.

Rua grinned when he heard the blast from more than a mile away. It had only been the night before that he had managed to finish the etchings for heat on the back side of the plate. The mixture of charcoal and loamsalt had been stashed into a cavity in the statue’s base behind the plate, but bereft of brimstone to catalyze it, it was little more than dirt. And so Rua had made due with an etching that would ignite the mixture quickly, and when Halad sent him to fix the plate, he activated it at the expense of a small amount of his living breath.

He watched as the guardsmen at the gate in Lord’s Square marched out into the city after the blast, leaving behind a token garrison of four men. Those men were so focused on the commotion in the city that they didn’t notice Rua slip over the wall just behind the gate, and make his way up through the castle.

From the castle, Rua would learn first hand of the duke’s grandson’s demise, and if the bomb hadn’t worked... He ran his finger along the knife in his cloak. He almost drew it out of reflex when he was stopped at the second gate. “You there,” said the guard. “What’s going on out there?”

“I’m not sure,” said Rua. “I’m supposed to get up to the castle and have the steward prepare for injured.”

“Davra,” swore the guard. “Better get on then.”

The third gate was open to him and unmanned. He just slipped right in. So they call this a castle? The Aldrimars’ castle was little more than a hodge-podge network of buildings and towers centered around a central, boxy keep. It was a mess of different styles and construction techniques, nothing like the ornate monolithic fortresses of his homeland. For all the time it took him to get there, Rua was simply not impressed.

No, Henric Aldrimar. Not impressed at all. I shall tell you as much should you still breathe.