23

Every Light in the Night

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It came down like a headsman's axe, the blade glinting as it caught the light from the torches that lined the walls.

There was a moment, a single moment, where everything seemed to slow to a halt.

I could see the edge of the blade turning white with whatever band of metal that lined the outside, as it was tugged downwards by Ralf's sheer force. I could see the muscles on his arm as they tensed and bunched up, the veins throbbing and bulging against his bicep. I could see Hicks standing there, still smiling that somber smile.

For that one horrific moment, I thought I was going to watch Hicks die.

Then, time resumed, and Hicks sprung into action. He stepped forward into the blow, ducking just below the sword, and rammed his shoulder into Ralf's torso. Ralf stumbled back with a grunt, and as soon as his sword left the line of fire, Hicks reached out, snatching a dagger that hung from Ralf's belt. With a flick of the wrist, Hicks drove the knife deep between the man's ribs.

Ralf's mouth opened into a breathless "Uhh!" as the air was forced from his lungs, and he stared wide-eyed at the knife handle jutting from his chest. Then, Hicks pulled it out, and thrust it back in, again, and again, and again, without pause, until the man's torso was a blood-drenched mess.

Ralf crumpled to the ground, dead long before he could reach it.

Hicks stood there, staring at the corpse that now lay at his feet, his hands trembling, still holding on to that blood-slicked knife.

Everyone else, myself included, simply looked on in stunned silence. I'm not sure who it was that broke out of that stupor first, but when they did, everyone suddenly came back to action.

And then we began to die.

With a roar, an ogre sprinted forward from its position by the wall, and bowled into a group of men, sending them flying aside with swipes of its massive fists. They landed in tangles of limbs, and the ogre stomped on them, grinding them into the ground as it howled. At the other end of the chamber, men huddled into small squadrons, and tore into groups of Hounds seemingly at random, hacking them down with wild abandon.

“It’s time!” someone’s voice tore through the air. “Attack! Attack! Kill them all!”

Violence and confusion reigned absolute as the Black Hounds abruptly turned on each other, comrade killing comrade, friend killing friend. The horrific din of metal striking flesh, wood clattering on stone, and the roars, growls and howls of both man and aberrant echoed off the walls of the chamber, shaking it to its core.

I only managed to snap back to my senses when I caught sight of Burlin, charging towards Hicks with sword in hand.

I burst into movement, tearing my own sword free from its sheath as I ran, and stood between the two of them. I slapped away a swinging blow aimed towards my side, and the impact of our blades resulted in a shower of brilliant sparks. I dropped into a half crouch to avoid a jab aimed at my face, then staggered sideways to avoid a wide swipe that would've taken off my legs.

"What the hell are you doing?!" I shouted at him, forcing the words through clenched teeth. "Stand down, dammit! Stand down!"

"What’s it look like?" he shouted back, "I'm killing you, you Shielder fuck!" With that, Burlin drew back then went for another swing. Sparks flew as iron struck iron again with powerful contact. He was good, strong of arm, and knew to keep to my blind side. But, his attacks were sloppy and predictable, making it easy to anticipate his movements, even with half my vision gone.

I ducked, then lashed out with a kick, catching him in the stomach. He stumbled back, breathless, but still holding up his defense—

And an elbow smashed against his cheek, knocking him down onto the ground. With a wordless shout, Edwin strode forward, hefting a chair over his head, then brought it down onto Burlin. Both the chair and Burlin's body were pulverized on impact, the cracking noise of splintering wood and snapping bones filling the air. With his head reduced into a pulsing red mass, the man's body twitched once, twice, and was still.

I whirled around immediately, looking at Edwin as he stepped back, panting, and wiped his brow.

"Edd?" I called out to him, stunned.

He looked up at me and nodded, giving me a smile that was part sheepish, part relieved. His left cheek was red where Hicks had slapped him, the skin already beginning to turn purple. "Yeah, it's me."

The Hounds—Or, rather, those of us who'd been betrayed—had taken severe losses. Unaware and nearly all drunk, we'd been completely disorganized. Most of the men hadn't even had the presence of mind to fight back as the treachery unfolded, and the betrayers fell upon them. Already, hundreds of us lay dead, smearing the floors and furniture with blood. Still, there were more of us than there were of the betrayers, and we began to slowly push back. Tables were flipped over into makeshift barricades, and the men armed themselves with whatever odd weapons they'd brought with them. Those who'd been unarmed took hold of bottles, tankards, chairs, and even cutlery as improvised weapons.

"We gotta get the fuck outta here," Hicks said, prying Ralf's sword from the man's hands. Ryam did the same with Burlin's sword, his lips pursed in a thin line. The rest of our small group armed themselves with whatever we could find.

"What the hell is this?" Ryam all but screamed. "What the fuck is going on? Why are they attacking us?"

Gods, I wished I had an answer for that. I myself was still trying to wrap my head around everything that had happened. I had nothing, though, just the same questions that were probably going through everyone else's heads.

"Doesn't matter," Hicks said, his voice shaking even as he began to approach the double doors. "We gotta... We gotta get as far from here as we can. Vault is—"

Abruptly, Edwin stopped him, grabbing him by the arm and stilling his advance. "No," Edwin said. For a moment, his eyes went wide and glassy, before focusing again. "...No. Not that way!" With that, he pointed towards one of the smaller doors along the chamber's corners. "We gotta use the side exits!"

Hicks pulled his arm away and glared, looking like he was about to argue, but relented with a nod. "...Right. Let's go!"

The multitude of traitors had, by now, come almost to a stalemate with our side, and the chamber became divided into two halves, each trying to wipe out the other. In some ways, it was somewhat of a reprieve—in others, not so much. The... loyalists, for lack of a better word, still had the numbers advantage. And though the traitors were still better armed and in better fighting condition, they'd completely lost the initiative of their surprise attack. I frowned as I realized this.

"Why'd they attack us in the first place?" Oleg Vargas repeated the question no one in particular. "This doesn't make any fucking sense."

Hicks sucked his teeth. "Quit asking stupid shit. They wanna kill us! That's all that matters!"

"Why couldn't they have just fucking told us something? Give us a chance to talk this out or some shit? What's the point of this?" The short barking laugh that left Vargas's lips sent a cold chill up my spine. The look in his eyes... Gods, the man looked near death already.

“Side doors!” Edwin shouted. “Run for the sides!” Despite brief moments of hesitation, the men obeyed his command. Soon, dozens put distance between themselves and the attackers, rushing for the many doors lining the chamber’s sides with all haste.

Our own group had already run through one of the doors, up a staircase, and onto a gallery overlooking the entirety of the chamber. I had the morbid realization, then, that it would have been the perfect vantage point for men with crossbows to fire onto unsuspecting victims.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Edwin snap his head around, towards the main set of doors. There, some of the loyalists had begun to approach them, intending to exit that way.

And... the traitors made no move to stop them. They moved away, in fact, turning more tables over, and hunkering down behind them.

I drew in a sharp breath as I made the connection, and at the same time as Edwin, I shouted, "NO!"

The men ignored us, and opened the doors. More of the Black Hounds stood on the other side, fully armored, and armed to the teeth, as if they were going to a battle. They all paused for a moment, as if they hadn't expected to see the scene before them.

Kieran stepped forward from among the crowd of the newcomers, his lips pressed into a thin frown as he inspected the room. "What the shit is this?" he asked.

Immediately, one of the loyalists approached him, hands raised up in a non-aggressive gesture. "Zell’s oath, Kieran! Thank the gods!" he cried out. "These fuckers've gone insane! They started attacking us out of nowhere! They've already killed Orin and Ragnor, and—!"

"Whoa, stop, stop, stop," Kieran said, cutting him off. He approached the man, and grabbed him by the front of his shirt, looking him up and down. "...So, they just attacked you guys, huh?"

"Yes!" the man said with a vigorous nod. He turned and pointed to the traitors, even as they remained behind their cover. "You hear that, you whoresons?!" he cried. "You're gonna get what's coming to you! You fucked with the Black Hounds, and now we'll fuck you right back!"

If he was going to say anything further, he didn't get the chance to do so.

With a casual, almost lazy motion, Kieran drew his sword, grasped the man's chin from behind, and ran it across his throat. Blood spurted out in thick streams, spattering the already bloodstained floor. His hands flailed up uselessly to his throat as he fell to his knees, gargling horribly.

Kieran walked past him, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "Gods, this is a mess and a half. You guys really fucked up on your end, didn't you?" He sighed, voice dripping with weariness. "So much for the element of surprise." Then with a shake of his head, he gestured forward, across the entire chamber, and said, “End this."

At his command, hundreds of bolts were loosed in a thunderous barrage, spilling from the crossbows of the Hounds kneeling, aiming, firing, and reloading.

Men screamed the as quarrels tore through them, cutting down all who failed to duck for cover en masse. Though many of the bolts found a mark, even more simply shot forward harmlessly, embedding themselves into the walls and tables used as barricades.

Then, the aberrants came in to finish off those who remained. Like a tide of black water, hundreds of beastmen—wolfmen—poured forth from the ante hall. They leapt over tables and bodies, their fangs bared and their claws shining. The men did not break, surprisingly enough.

Even though they were significantly outnumbered, both loyalists and traitors stood their ground with the grim determination of the desperate.

The wolfmen moved amongst the ranks, tearing into anyone they could reach, ripping them apart as they went. Unstoppable, the living wave swept all before them, leaving only the dead in its wake.

"Gods preserve me..." I heard Vargas mutter as we stood at the doorway, watching the massacre unfold.

Hicks was the one to speak up next. "We... We need to go. Now."

No one argued against that.

We made our way up the spiraling stairs, step by step, and as we climbed higher, the screams and howls gradually grew distant. When we finally reached the top of the stairwell, we exited into a long corridor. And yet another skirmish.

I... Up until that moment, I'd been trying to convince myself that all of this was a mistake, somehow. That there was something we missed, or some factor that drove half of us to attack each other or something. That maybe, peace could be salvaged if we could gather up enough sane man, and find Vault.

But when we piled into that hallway, only to find yet more of the Black Hounds killing each other, that last delusion was shattered. All the way down the corridor, Hound fought Hound, shoving swords through backs, clashing into each other without a semblance of mercy. There was no mistake. There was no misunderstanding.

We were betrayed.

Once both groups caught sight of us, the fighting halted, if only for a moment. They stared at us, and we stared at them. I knew that the same question passed through every man's mind as we stood at that impasse:

Friend or foe?

Both groups in front of us looked haggard and bloodied to a man. Faces lined with exhaustion, bearing wounds, wearing casual clothing or odd armor pieces stained with sweat and gore. We must've looked the same to them. I saw their eyes glance over all of us, looking to see which side we belonged to. We did likewise.

None of us looked like very willing enemies, just standing there. No jeers or taunts were traded, nor any threats or challenges. There was just no way to tell who was or wasn't going to try and kill us.

The answer came when one of the men, a tall, lean fellow with long hair going gray looked at me and nodded. "That's him," he said. “That’s Red.” And, as if that statement had explained everything, his people shifted, weapons raised towards us.

At another time, under different circumstances, I might've balked at the immediate way they decided that they were going to kill us. But maybe because of the utter absurdity and tragedy of it all, I just brought up my sword, and met their charge.

I couldn't say exactly how much time passed between the start of the fight and the end of it. It felt like hours, but most likely, it couldn't have taken more than thirty seconds altogether.

My friends and I collided against the traitors, some passing by us to fight the third group, and others focusing their attention on us entirely. The man who'd pointed me out came towards me first. His eyes were intent and focused, his teeth gritted as if he was about to let loose a curse. He kept his longsword in one hand, and a dagger in the other, using both in tandem.

He feinted low with the sword, then came in high with the dagger, aiming to plunge it into my neck. I knocked his wrist away with the flat of my blade, and then he was defenseless. Arms wide open, jaw agape. I could follow through. All it would take was a thrust into his unarmored chest, piercing his heart, and it would be the end of him.

And yet, I hesitated.

He stumbled back and regained his footing, then stopped as well for just a brief moment.

"Surrender," I told him. "It's not too late!"

He laughed suddenly, a single bark emerging from his throat. Then he shook his head, lips curled into a sneer. "Like hell." And with that, he came at me once more, dropping the dagger to hold his sword in both hands.

This time, instinct took over. I didn’t get the chance to hesitate again.

I sidestepped, bringing up my blade as he tried to cleave my head in half. My sword raked across his ribs, tearing right through his shirt, and drawing a red line of blood that welled up along the gash. Painspren, like small orange hands with long fingers, erupted into being around him. He tried to keep moving with his momentum, going for another, clumsy swing. I ducked under it, then thrust, plunging my sword into one armpit, and right out the other.

His eyes went blank, and he dropped to the floor without another word.

Before I even had a chance to breathe, another one of them was already on me, slamming his sword hilt-first into my temple. I stumbled back, vision doubling for a moment, just in time to see him swing his blade one more time. I parried the blow, knocking him off-balance, then stepped forward and thrust into his stomach. He fell with a scream.

Two more came at me together, then. I stepped back into Ochs—sword held beside my head, pointed straight at them—and waited for them to come.

Parry, duck, thrust. Swing, move, swing, block. Reality became a blur of steel and sweat and blood, half-conscious actions, as I let my body move. Just actions and reactions, flowing from one to the other with every heartbeat. There was nothing else. No thoughts, no sensation. Not even a split second for me to consider the horrible irony of this.

And then it was over. Reality came back from that mindless blur, and I stood alongside my friends, surrounded by dead men. We looked at each other, breathing hard. My clothes stuck to me with sweat and blood.

The third group of men stood at the far end of the hallway, having finished off those who had attacked them. Now, they looked at us with cautious eyes, weapons tentatively raised, as if half expecting us to attack them next.

I looked down, and saw the corpses of the traitors we'd killed strewn about the hall. Their faces were slack, mouths open, eyes staring.

"...Gods."

All this time, I'd trained to fight against the Legion. And yet, here I was, killing other people as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

I became aware of my sword, which had broken at some point during the fight. The heavy hilt weighing down my hand. I looked at it—mirror-bright steel, sticky with blood.

I felt tired. I felt heavy. I felt sick.

Somehow, I managed to lift my eye from the bodies, and met the gaze of the man who stood at the forefront of the remaining group. Their apparent leader. His eyes were narrowed, his hands tightly gripping a shield and a mace, even as they shook furiously.

"...Stand down," a shaky voice said. It took me a moment to realize it was my own.

The man started at that, backing up a step, before he regained his composure. "Who the hell are you?" he demanded. "Friend or foe?"

"Stand. Down," I repeated. I kept my voice steady that time.

The man stared at me warily, as if trying to judge our intent. Then, his eyes widened, and he let out a weak, humorless laugh that sounded as if he were choking. "You're the fucking ginger," he said, as he relaxed his stance and lowered his weapons. The other survivors of his team did the same. They looked exhausted, broken.

I'm not sure how I managed not to collapse then.

"I've seen you around," I told the man, as I dropped my sword's hilt, and approached him with slow steps."You are... Your name is Marco, right?"

I'd only actually seen him once, about a week ago, when he and another man wandered these same halls, singing in a drunken stupor.

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Marco nodded, a thin smile playing across his lips. "That'll be me," he said, coming forward as well.

We met in the middle of the hallway, and slowly, tentatively, extended our hands. He had a strong grip.

As soon as we clasped each other’s forearm, his men finally stood down. They loosened their weapons in their sheaths, and slumped against the walls. Some sat down on the ground. Behind me, Hicks, Edwin, and the rest all did the same.

"Gods, you're a sight for sore eyes, Red," Marco told me.

"Yeah. You too," I said honestly. "Do you have any idea what's going on, what caused all this?"

"Nah, can't say I do. To tell the truth, I was hoping you'd know. We was just standin' around earlier, playing dice, when some fuckers tried to jump us, just outta nowhere. Next thing I know, we're just going at it, killing each other for no reason at all."

Marco let out a sigh, and leaned against the wall. "Afterwards, we held up here. We lost Smiley and Mart, and... Fuck, man," he trailed off, glancing down to one of the bodies.

I followed his gaze, and recognized the man—The friend I'd seen him singing with lied on the ground, eyes half-lidded and staring up at us. A knife was stuck through his temple, hilt-deep.

Before I could offer any condolences, Marco shook his head. "Jost tried to take a stab at me. Jost, of all fucking people..." he said, one fist clenched tight. He looked up at me, his eyes blood-shot and tired. "I just don't understand it. None of it."

I don't think I could ever find the words to respond to that. Maybe, there wasn’t a single one of us that could.

After a period of silence, I took in a deep breath, then spoke up again. “This… This isn’t just an isolated thing,” I said to Marco. “We were attacked, too, at the meeting downstairs."

He frowned at that. "Meeting? What meeting?"

"...The meeting we were all called over to? You know, the one where Vault was going to announce something to us?" At that point, I saw genuine confusion on his face.

"Nah, Red," Marco said, shaking his head. "No one told us about any meeting. Like I said, every one of us was here upstairs."

"So... What, then, were those guys just trying to get you all while you were alone?" Edwin cut in. "Seems like they went through a lot of trouble to try and get the jump on us."

Marco pushed himself off the wall, grunting in agreement, and folded his arms. "What about you lot, then? What did that whole meeting thing look like?"

"Shady as all shit, now that I think back on it," Edwin said. "We were all drinking and eating, and shooting the shit. But the whole time, there was a bunch of guys standing at the sides, glaring everyone down, all creepy-like." He sighed. "Never would have imagined they were there to cut us down, though."

"Ah. So, they tried to get you guys all wined and dined before going ahead and slaughtering you all. That's downright polite of them."

“...Hold on,” one of the men in our squad spoke up. “That didn’t make any sense, though, did it?”

We all turned to look at him, curious, as he furrowed his brow even further, bringing a thumb up to his chin. “I mean, think about it,” he said. “There were hundreds of us down there. Definitely much more than the traitors. Even if every last one of us was drunk of our asses—which we weren’t—why the hell would they attack us if they were so outnumbered? That’s one shite ambush, if I’ve ever seen one.”

All of us fell silent: He had a point. Even putting aside the question of why they were betraying us in the first place, the method of it had been sloppy.

Except...

"We forced their hand," I said. Slowly, I turned around, and looked to Hicks.

He nodded back to me, but didn't quite meet my eye. "...Yeah. Took me a minute, but I managed to see right through their bullshit. Soon as they realized that, they ended up panicking, and just went for it."

I knew then, by the way he hesitated, that there was more to it that he didn’t mention.

He paused for a moment, then looked past me. "But in the end, that sorta loops back around to another question we didn't get to—Just how the hell did you know what they were up to, big lad?"

Edwin stared back at Hicks, a look of pure, honest confusion on his face. "I didn't know anything about nobody's plans," he said. "I just listened to her."

"Her?" I cocked a brow at that. "You kept saying something about a 'her,' but... Who are you even talking about, Edd?"

“You… didn’t see her? None of you? Really?” Edwin looked back at me. Then to all the others present, eyebrows shooting up, his expression incredulous, as if we'd all managed to miss something incredibly obvious. “There was a girl,” he said. “A child, really. She even looked—”

"Gods! Oh shit, oh son of a bitch!" An abrupt cry from one of the men was like a crack of thunder, startling all of us, and tearing our attention away from the current conversation. The Hound stumbled away from a nearby window, almost falling over in his haste, his face draining of all color.

Marco walked past me, and went to kneel by the man. "The hell are you howling about, Wallace? What's going on?"

In response, the man, Wallace, wordlessly raised a shaky hand, and pointed out the window. As one, several of us gathered there to look outside. And there, I was met with the most horrific sight I could ever have imagined.

The sun had set a while ago, leaving the whole landscape covered in darkness.

I saw them, then. Hundreds—No. Thousands of tiny red lights gleamed, like dim stars in the night. For a brief, naive moment, I almost convinced myself that those were candles that had been set and lit up out there at some point for some unknowable reason. Then, that moment passed, and I understood.

"Motherfucker," Hicks gasped. "Leihn's tits…! That's gotta be the entire godsdamned Legion out there!"

They were everywhere. I couldn't begin to count the number of glowing red eyes visible in the blackness, staring back up at us. Hicks might not have been exaggerating at all: This was more than just the contingent we’d encountered here a month ago or even those who invaded southwards. Gods, it was as if every last aberrant in Serenus was out there.

Marco chuckled, not sounding the least bit amused, and brought a hand up to his forehead. "Oh, great, doesn't get any better! Every light in the night is our enemy now, eh?"

There was a dull thud somewhere in the distant dark. Then, seconds after, the ground beneath our feet trembled. Another thud. Another small quake. The pattern repeated itself, again, and again, like a heartbeat, as a single aberrant strode forward from the ranks of the horde.

In the moonlight, its gray skin took on a blue tinge. Huge and hulking, it dwarfed the tallest of its fellow aberrants, even as it stood hunched forward, its single glowing eye roaming over the walls, taking in the scene. Its thick, trunk-like arms ended in massive hands, hefting a boulder high over its head. More thuds came as it approached, punching divots out of the ground with every footfall.

Finally, when it was well ahead from the rest of the aberrants, it reared back, hefting the boulder above one shoulder. And then, the cyclops released its projectile. The great stone hurtled through the air with a shrill whistling noise, faster than anything that size had any right to be.

"Get down!" I screamed, even as I tackled two of the men beside me to the ground.

A massive, deafening crash came as the boulder punched into the Citadel's wall, thoroughly obliterating a large section of it. As the impact echoed throughout, a cloud of debris rose high into the air. When the dust settled, I rose to my knees, coughing, the others doing the same.

"You guys okay?" I called out. "Did anybody get hit?"

The Hounds slowly parted as they all checked on each other. After a brief moment, it became clear that, thankfully, nobody had been hit by the projectile.

"Gods," someone said, breathless. "What the hell? Did... did it miss?"

As soon as I managed to take a breath, I glanced back out the window. We were three stories up, and the boulder had struck at the Citadel's ground level. And yet, the enormous hole left in its wake told me everything I needed to know. It wasn’t meant to hit anyone: It was meant to create yet another entrance for the Legion.

As if on cue, a chorus of howls, roars, and brays arose from the aberrants below, and the horde began to rush forward en masse.

"Shit! No way we can fight that!" Hicks cried out. "Retreat. Retreat! We need to go further upstairs!”

No further motivation was needed. Already, several of us were sprinting for the stairs, ascending to the next story, then the next, and the next. Even as our breaths grew ragged and painful from the exertion, we kept on climbing.

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I let myself slump down onto the ground, my body practically slamming back against a wooden crate. Still, I was far too exhausted to care about the dull ache it caused, nor did I care about the sweat pouring down my face.

As I lay, panting heavily, I could only watch as the Hounds around me did their damndest to secure the room we were in.

"It won't hold for long," said one of the men, slamming the butt of his spear into the doorframe in an attempt to jam the gate in place. The large wooden bar started to slide out of place even as he nudged it into place, slowly inching its way out of the opening by its own recoil.

"It has to hold," countered another, two of them jamming a heavy crate in front of the door. "It had better hold. So long as we're in here, we've got a chance."

Some of the others shared a look at that, before shaking their heads and chuckling in tandem. The rest of us soon joined in on the laughter, though, not a single one of us did so with mirth. The reality of the situation was just so grim that laughing was pretty much the only viable thing we could do.

"...Head count," I managed to rasp out, my voice sounding like the notes of a dying man. "Did we lose anyone?"

There were several responses in the negative, and the men slowly began to count amongst themselves. Amazingly, we hadn't lost a single man—In fact, our numbers had grown. As we had fled upstairs, we'd run into several more groups of Hounds who'd had the same idea. After several close calls and false starts, they'd all turned out to be loyalists as well, bolting for the higher ground when they'd encountered us.

The traitors, it seemed, had remained in the lower floors, or were maybe outside the Citadel altogether. I had no way of telling. All told, we were just over a hundred strong now. A hundred-and-odd half-drunk, scared, confused, betrayed men, all crammed together into this room, preparing for the worst.

Gods, weren't we a promising bunch?

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Marco rooting through one of the many crates throughout the room. He pulled out a bottle of clear something, uncorked it, and sniffed at the liquid within. Then, he brought the bottle to his lips, tilted his head back, and took several deep gulps.

"Jenever," he said, his eyes almost welling with tears. "Gods be praised, at least we'll not die thirsty!" Smiling, he offered the bottle to one of the men next to him, who took it with a muted nod.

I hauled myself up, glimpsing at the faces of the men around me, all of them donning a mask of forced tranquility. All of them dying one breath at a time.

"Fuck, man... this is how it's all going to end for us, isn't it?"

Nobody answered Wallace's rhetorical question at first, instead opting to go back to fortifying our defenses. It... it was hard to disagree with him. In pretty much one fell stroke, we'd been put into the exact same situation as during our assault here—Surrounded on all sides, stranded deep in the Legion's territory, and without any way of making an escape.

It wouldn't be long now until the hammer fell. Probably hours, at the very best. I took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as I closed my eye. The odds were impossible, the situation dire with no end in sight, but...

Somewhere, a few stories below us, a series of roars and screams cut through the air. The traitors had found another group of loyalists. The sounds were muffled, though I could somewhat hear the sharp clangs of steel on steel.

I picked up a sword and began to move, pushing my legs forth and already wincing as my head throbbed with pain.

A hand latched on to my arm, yanking me back and preventing me from moving.

"We're not doing this again," I said, meeting Hicks' stare with my lone eye.

I tried to twist out of his grip—only for him to dig his nails into my skin and hold on tighter. "Oh, we're doin' this, alright," he said. "What are you even planning to do?"

I shrugged, and forced my arm away. "Intervene."

Hicks let out a laugh at that, forced and almost manic. "Intervene, he says! If we could fly and piss fire, we still wouldn't be able to do a damn thing!" He put both hands on my shoulders, and with a shove, forced me back against the wall and held me in place. The others stood up, alerted, but didn't step in yet. "Just shut up for five seconds and listen, Ansel—Listen!"

Short of striking him, there wasn’t much I could do, pinned against the wall as I was. So, all I could really do was as he asked; listen.

The sounds of the battle were growing quieter now. No, rather, they were being drowned out by the bestial howls of the traitors’ aberrants. Closing my eye, I could almost imagine the sight, men desperately putting on a final stand against the traitors, not willing to give up even a single step. It wasn't much longer after that when the sounds of the combat ceased entirely.

"We could have done something..."

Hicks let out a sigh, shaking his head slightly. "Gods... Do you even hear yourself? Grow up, Ansel!" His voice rose to a shout as he pressed me back further. "You're not just gonna swoop in and save the day! You're not a god! You're not some damn hero from the old tales! Don't you get it?! It's useless. We can't escape!"

Something swelled up in my gut. I tried to press down on that feeling, to keep myself steady despite the heat rising up within me. But I lost that internal battle almost as soon as it started.

"So just die?" I barked back. I stepped forward, and Hicks nearly stumbled backwards, releasing me. "You wanna wait here 'till they break down the doors and kill every one of us?" I shook my head, feeling my hands clench into fists. "No way, Hicks. Like hell!"

"Gods..." Hicks said as he stepped away, running a hand through his hair. "Dammit, Ansel... You're definitely more pigheaded than he ever was..."

I marched past him and turned to the others, who shifted as I caught their eyes.

"We've beaten the odds before," I told them. "Made the impossible possible. I know things look grim, but we're still alive—And that means we can fight back. We can survive this."

We would survive this.

Looking at their faces, I could see the doubt they had. Even as they heard my words of encouragement, they couldn't help but be overwhelmed by fear. Fear which was perfectly natural. But there was something else there, too. Maybe it was the sheer weight of all we had experienced combining together against us, or maybe... Just maybe...

Vargas was the first to speak up. "I've been thinking," he began. "Maybe if we try to split up, sneak down to the Citadel's lower floors, we might be able to get out. There are other exits, right? Ones that aren't guarded."

Edwin's brow wrinkled. "Won't work. They'll spot us the moment we go down those stairs."

"But we could pretend to be on the traitors' side, couldn't we? It's not like they'll be able to tell that we're not with them."

"Oh, they'll be able to tell. Remember how they spotted Ansel? They'll likely already know who is and isn't in on their conspiracy." Edwin smiled then, grimly. "And even if they don't, we're still a pretty sizable bunch, even if we split up. I'm sure they'll be wondering what a couple dozens of men are up to, sneaking about all casual-like."

"We could lie low, then," someone else suggested. "Just hole up here in the upper floors, keep fortifying. They've got thousands of men and aberrants, and we're all the way north in Garan. If we’ve got booze up here, that likely means we have food, too. If we can find that and ration it properly, we can wait for them to starve themselves out."

"Yeah, well, that's not going to happen," said Hicks. "For starters, that's even assuming they'll be dumb enough not to set up a supply line. And besides, even if they're traitors, they're still Black Hounds like us. Since when have we ever done proper sieges, like proper, well-mannered gentlemen?" He shook his head. "Nah, I betcha that first thing at dawn, they'll start sending every bastard they have to crush us."

"Then what do you suggest, longshanks?" There was annoyance in the man’s voice. "We're not exactly drowning in options here."

"The horses." The next one to speak was Marco. He was still standing by the door, leaning against the wall. "They're our best bet. Forget about sneaking, fighting, or anything else. The only way we're getting out of this shitshow is on horseback."

Wallace frowned. "Makes sense, but... They ain't stupid, neither. Surely, they already know that we could make a push for the horses, right? If that's the case, wouldn't they be better off killing them all so we can’t get at them?"

"No," I said. "Any way you look at it, horses are just too valuable of a resource to throw away like that. Having no horses means they'll be stranded here just like us. If anything, the traitors will be trying to protect them with their lives. Ryam, mind if I borrow your knife?”

Once he handed it over, I knelt down. The others loomed over me, watching over my shoulder as I scratched a barely visible sketch onto a crate's lid. They were simple, ugly maps, one representing a side-view of the Black Citadel, and the other representing an overhead view.

"We're about ten stories up right now," I began. "At the ground level, we set up a stable by the southern end of the bailey. The horses were still there earlier in the evening. And with all those aberrants around, I'm willing to bet they didn't dare to move them at all."

"That's all well and good, Red," said Wallace, nodding to the maps. "But there's still all the traitorous whoresons downstairs, and the entire damned Legion surrounding us outside. I'm not thinking either of them are gonna make it easy to stroll over to the stables and steal away some horses."

I paused and took a deep breath. An idea slowly formulated in my head. Like pretty much all of the ideas I came up with, this was stupid. It was reckless, and it was desperate.

It just might work.

Standing up, I walked over to the crate Marco had opened, and looked inside. There were more bottles in there—More jenever, vodkas, and other liquors and spirits I couldn’t begin to name. It seemed that the Legion had used this as an improvised stash for alcohol they’d looted in their raids. I pulled out a bottle, uncorked the top, and took a whiff. The strong scent of alcohol poured out of the bottle, stinging my nostrils and causing me to recoil slightly.

"...Just what are you thinking?" asked Hicks.

I turned to him, and smiled. "Maybe we can't fly," I said. "But we can definitely piss fire on them."