Chapter Sixteen

The Pile of Bones

My head was pounding as Vaelora dragged me out of The Metal Bear. I kept my hand pressed on my head right atop my ear, trying to keep pressure on the steady flow of my own blood. They had taught us many things in the War College of Engineering, but not even the most rudimentary of first aid.

Perhaps some knowledge of such would have saved my eye, or perhaps even Delmar after his fall.

“I’m not…I’m not feeling so great,” I managed to say, as I struggled to hobble along and keep pace with Vaelora.

“Who was that man?” she asked as she stopped to comb through my hair, trying to get a clear view of my wound. “He didn’t look like he was from here.”

“He was a knight. Or well, is a knight. I don’t know,” I managed to say before groaning in pain. “Your fingers! Get them off, you’re splitting my head in two.”

“I’m keeping them there for a reason, drell, you’ll leak like a teapot without it,” she explained. I winced. The imagery didn’t exactly shore up my constitution. “Grab a sock from your rucksack. We can use it to stuff the opening.”

“Must it be a sock?”

“I left Oberwinter from a cell with nothing but my lyre, Scipio, you’re the one who chose to head off on a hike without packing a bandage.” She had a point. I handed her a sock, and I groaned as she crudely pressed down on it, stemming the wound. “Here, hold onto this. It should clot in just a bit…I think.”

The Metal Bear’s double doors swung open, and out came a tall, lanky man with graying hair and ornate half-plate armour.

“Ser Quixada!” I called after him, drawing his attention, and he came to Vaelora and myself.

“That was a nasty hit you took to the dome right there, lad. Still yourself now, wounds to the head always bleed more than the rest. Let’s move slowly now, off to the Square. You can rest easier there,” he advised me. He looked to Vaelora. “You must be his traveling companion, then?”

“No,” I answered.

“Yes, exactly,” she corrected me. “The gash to his head is open, but I think the bandage is clotting the flow nicely.”

“It’s a sock,” I said.

“It’s a bandage,” she corrected me again. “Anything can be a bandage as long as the situation is desperate enough.”

“That it was, lass. You two shouldn’t have tangled with those men. They saw your cloak, Scip, and they didn’t take kindly to the sight of you. The Heimats and Stolzes aren’t exactly on the best of terms at the moment.”

The throbbing in my head lent itself well to the pounding of my ears, and I had to strain my focus to hear him. Or, perhaps, some portion of me didn’t quite believe what he had just said. “Apologies, the Heimats and which house?”

“House Stolz of Kreuzhain.”

Kazador’s house.

“What sort of quarrel do they have with one another?” Vaelora asked. “Which house can keep more Lainians out of the walls? Which house can fell more trees, perhaps? If the houses here can’t even get in line, how are the Free Cities going to?”

Quixada pursed his lips. It was obvious that he agreed with Vaelora’s sentiment. “It’s a difficult situation here in the Iron City, lass, that much, anyone would agree on. I don’t know how long it is the two of you have been within the walls, but every single soul here is on edge. Especially the houses.”

“What happened?” I asked, with my hand still pressing a sock down my head.

“From what I’ve heard and how I understand it, House Heimat is…more proactive than the other Royal Houses. More impatient, some would say, or more eager. They prefer bold moves a fair bit more than the other houses, and so they brought in help. A magick-wielder. A powerful sorceress,” Ser Quixada said, letting the words stew. “But then, some days after that sorceress had arrived in the city, a terrible attack happened. A patriarch of House Stolz was killed, murdered in his sleep.”

“And they assume it was House Heimat, then?” Vaelora asked. “Not Sevisk? How does that make sense?”

“I don’t quite know myself, lass, all I know is what’s been told to me,” Quixada conceded. “I do know that there has been quite some history between the two houses. More to this feud than meets the eye. But that’s not the end to it.”

“More than an assassination and a dead patriarch?” I asked.

“These are difficult times, yes. You see, House Stolz gathered all their housemen, and all their banners’ housemen, and they surrounded the Heimats, baying for justice. Baying for their sorceress to be tried and put to justice,” Quixada paused, considering his next words. “Do you know how I know that sorceress was a great woman, and not just a powerful magick-wielder?”

“Did she defeat them all?” Vaelora asked. “Pull a giant comet from the sky, just like in the stories?”

“No,” Quixada answered. “She offered herself to the Stolzes. No blood was shed that day. Not a single wet sword nor even a scratch on a single houseman. And that’s also how I know that the assassination was not hers. Why stay in the city and offer yourself to your target’s house once you’ve done your job?”

We reached the main city square. A large iron sign with raised lettering proclaimed its name - The Kreuzplatz. The center of the square was dominated by a large marble fountain with a towering brass obelisk, and behind it was the parliament building, standing directly across the Holy Temple of the Forgelord. This square alone, I reckoned, was built with more steel, brass, and iron than what passed through the War College of Engineering in ten or more years.

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The cobblestones were worn with footfall and gear oil, and wagons, people, and beasts of burden darted about the pathways, weaving in and out of each other’s way. Small market stalls were propped up selling various forms of equipment, and each of them displayed their permit to sell goods in the square proudly, front and center.

Right by the fountain, a town crier stood atop a small parapet and rattled off news and propaganda about the war effort. It was difficult to tell which was which, and a crowd of Kreuzhainers had gathered around him in the futile attempt to tell them apart.

Somehow, the air here felt even more toxic and constricting than it did in the rest of the city, though the smog seemed no thicker than anywhere else.

“This sorceress,” Vaelora started, “does she have a name? There are very few magick-wielders alive outside of Sevisk that would be powerful enough to draw such attention. Enough so that it seems that half of Kreuzhain seems to be warring with itself over her.”

“Those who I asked gave me many names,” answered Quixada. “Some were more dramatic than the others. The composer Jeanne Rimbaud, from Fleur d’Lain, are you familiar with her?”

“Of course!” Vaelora answered enthusiastically.

“Some said this sorceress was the manifestation of her seventh symphony. That this sorceress was she who inspired her to compose The Nocturne’s Veil. Others called her other names - names like The Mistweaver, or Eclipsebinder. They made her sound like a Named Seviskian Praetor, even.”

“Is that why the Stolzes were suspicious of her, then? The names that she brought along with her?” I asked.

“Maybe. Perhaps. If what they say is true, then she could easily be as powerful as a praetor, if not stronger.”

“So what name do you call her?” Vaelora asked.

“There was only one name, one actual name that was consistent from each Kreuzhainer I asked.”

“What was it?” Vaelora and I asked Quixada at the same time.

“Nyx. The elf witch Nyx.”

Nyx!

My mind raced back to that night in Avengard as the dragon Ignisclaw led Sevisk’s first raid over the walled city, the night that my mother had died, and the night that Lady of Loss had first made herself felt to me. That night that as I raced to the tents to meet my mother and sister, I saw the only point of force that posed any threat to Sevisk’s scaled beast.

“I am Nyx, and I have loved these lands that you now ravage.”

The sorceress Nyx had fought back against Ignisclaw with no support, with no expectation of help nor reward. And she had fought well.

“We need to go rescue her,” Vaelora said, before I could form the words myself. “What they all say is true, and more. I studied her, in the College of Bards. We all did. Those are no mere legends, but accolades. She was the tip of the spear that saved Fleur d’Lain and bound the Starless King. She could help us fight back. She could turn even a Praetor away.”

“I saw her in Avengard,” I said, and immediately, Vaelora and Quixada turned their attention to me. “She was there the night that Sevisk ran their first raid on the city. The dragon Ignisclaw flew overhead, and she loosed a bolt of magick so potent that it felled the beast to the earth.”

“The legends are true,” Vaelora whispered again, more to herself as a means of reassurance rather than a statement directed towards Quixada or myself.

“So they are,” Quixada mumbled. “But I am no knight anymore, young lad and young lass. I am much too old, and even that scuffle at the bar has taken more than its fair toll of me. This is a star that the two of you will need to follow yourselves.”

“But you need to go with us, Ser Knight!” Vaelora argued. “We know nobody in this city, and we’ll get nowhere as a Lainian and this scruffy boy with a Heimat cloak.”

“You two will get the hang of it out there yourselves. Adding this pile of bones wrapped in a tin suit won’t bring you any further.”

“Please, Ser Quixada, we need you. Vaelora and I, everything we know’s been born out of a book or lecture. Schools of thought and nothing more. This city will chew us up and spit us out, just as it did in the tavern,” I pleaded.

“How did you even find us there?” Vaelora asked.

“Intuition,” he answered shiftily, eyes darting to the floor. Quixada too, it seemed, was not a good liar. “I was just in the area.”

“If there’s one thing they taught us in the College of Bards, it’s how to spin a good lie, and that was not one of them,” Vaelora quipped.

“Fine,” he conceded. “It was the Blessing I placed on the young lad here. I didn’t think it would come of any use when I had cast it on him, but today, I suppose my caution came to bear fruit.”

“That was a Blessing?” I asked, and he nodded.

“Then you are no mere knight!” Vaelora concluded confidently. “You draw sacred power. A conduit of divine intervention. You’re a paladin!”

Quixada raised his hand, attempting to calm Vaelora and lower her voice. He did not want any more unwanted attention from the masses, it seems, especially after having had explained his understanding of the conflict between the Heimats and the Stolzes.

Before we could press the issue further, a large crowd had gathered around the town crier stood by the fountain, and their murmuring and chatter drew our attention. They all seemed to listen intently to the town crier, which meant that news about the war must have been coming into the city.

The three of us shared a look, and we allowed the issue on the table to pass for now. News of the world at large, after all, was precious and scarce. I wanted to know about Isidora and what challenges she may have been facing alone to the east. I could tell that Vaelora was eager to hear of the state of the City of Roses, or at least Fleur d’Lain as well.

The town crier was a male littling. Instead of being stood on just one wooden box, he stood on three. I was immediately reminded of Ceecee, and how she would need to stand on something similar just to reach the surface of her workbench. I hoped that she was still well in the War College.

The crier’s voice was loud and clear, and he was flanked by two dwarves of the Iron Watch. He must have been protected so well because of the amulet he wore on his neck. It was glowing, an Enchanted artifact of some sort that I presumed to work so as to amplify his voice.

The crier spoke of policy and proclamations. It was a stark difference as compared to the criers in Avengard, who preferred to speak of specific, individual people, and their stories of the war. Rather than heroics, the crier there in Kreuzhain focused on the bigger picture.

He spoke of the ports in far-off places and how much blackpowder and mortar they had imported, and how Kreuzhain was continuing its discussion of lowering the age wherein they would draft spearmen, smiths, and students of war. He went on about how the logistics for eastern offensives were straining the production needed from mining towns such as Oberwinter.

It felt impersonal, but at the same time, it was the first time that I felt I well and truly understood the scale of the Seviskian invasion outside my family’s own flight away from home.

And then, suddenly, both my own struggles and that of the world seemed to collide.

Avengard.

“…Further movements from Seviskian detachments have been tracked further and further to the west as well, far beyond the influence of Kreuzhain’s own legions and ironworks. Notably, the Black Forest of Avengard, once purported to be a constricted area impassable to men and beast, has been declared as an active skirmish zone. The Seviskian Praetor, Soulbreaker, has taken his army and stationed them there as a camp, most likely a launching point for further offensives into Avengard.”

Soulbreaker. Quixada had spoken of him. One of the Named Seviskian Praetors, loyal and bound to the Emir himself.

Quixada’s eyes widened, and he held his hand slowly to his mouth.

I asked him, “Does this change things for the pile of bones in the tin suit, then?”

His eyes met mine, and I saw the same sadness that I harbored the day Isidora and I said goodbye to our mother. “This pile of bones is a paladin-knight, lad, and you can address him as Ser.”