The bottom floor of the Black Citadel's central tower was clear of enemies. I set some men to guard on the front door, lest the Black Legion break into their own tower just as we had, and another set of men guarding on the stairs leading downward. Velwin's dying words had indicated a vast underground complex within the Citadel, some of which may have survived his detonation of the mana core. We had no time to jump down this rabbit hole just now--our goal was to clear the upper floors of the tower and end the threat of their magitech raining down upon our men.

I took a loaded crossbow from among the bodies of the soldiers of the Black Legion and stuck it in my belt. My men did likewise. I then led the rush up the narrow spiral staircase leading to the upper floors. I had my magical sword Swelfalster, and brothers to live on with my earlier memories and my final words upon my death. My men had neither of these, and so I would put my life on the line, and lead from the front.

The first landing was empty. I dispatched the four men behind me to search and clear the floor, then rushed onward. At the second landing my ambushers fired just a fraction of a second too late, and two crossbow bolts bounced off the edge of my shield as I raced in, insufficiently cautious. The soldiers of the Black Legion jumped in front of me and plied their swordcraft, shieldless to my sword and shield, but two swords against one. One brought his sword down upon my helmet like a club, and I raised my sword Swelfalster to intercept it. The other came from the side and swept his sword above my shield in a whistling arc, coming in under my blade to cut at the side of my head. I leapt backward, and thanked the mercies of God that the man behind me had given me sufficient room.

As I leapt my shield pulled back, and left an opening for him. He had been lining up his purloined crossbow, and now let fly at the enemy soldier to the right, the overhead clubber. The bolt went through his eye and he fell. I redoubled my attack on the second soldier, bashing my shield towards the forearm of his sword-wielding hand, then following up with a thrust which he dodged. He attempted a riposte which met my shield with a clang, and with him wide open to my strike I sliced his sword arm open and he dropped his blade. I finished him off.

I suspected from the ambush something of value on this floor. I sent some men to continue up the stairs and took three men with me through the door of the landing, one walking to my side, his shield interlocked with mine, and two in my rear, spears at ready. We rushed in to find four soldiers crossbows cocked and aimed our way, and between them a man I recognized from somewhere. No time to think where--I ducked underneath the line of my shield as their crossbows twanged.

The bolts whizzed past the top of my shield. One clanged off my helmet, another continued to the man behind me and struck him a glancing blow. Now we rushed in, the man behind me injured but fighting, our back row spreading and interlocking shields with me and the man beside me as we charged. The two enemy soldiers at the sides were pierced by spears of our backmen. In the middle the soldiers drew sword and slashed at me and my man, and I broke the shield interlock to thrust my shield in between the soldiers and the man in the middle, the man I had recognized. Now my rear men pulled their spears and began thrusting towards the soldiers in the center, but myself, out of formation, came under attack.

The blade of the enemy soldier to my right whistled at me, a slashing arc towards my exposed side. My man to my right parried it just in time, and I brought my blade to bear on the soldier to the left. As I thrust at him with my sword Swelfalster, my rearman to my left thrust his spear towards the enemy's heart. The enemy soldier dodged, right into my thrust, and my sword took him in the chest.

My man to my right engaged the remaining soldier in a duel of parries and ripostes. I moved between this combat and the man I recognized with my shield, and in the chaotic fight, the rear man to my right threw his spear through the heart of our final enemy. Now, to remember this fellow. I wracked my brains, looked at the magitech in front of him, and realized. In an image accompanying his dying words, Velwin had mentioned this man: an artificer of arrow flamers.

"Like working for the Black Legion?" I asked him.

He shook his head. The arrow flamer in front of him whirred, no longer kept loaded with arrows. "Vel," he said, recognizing me, or rather, recognizing the looks of my dead brother Velwin. "Tarmel still hiring?"

I grinned and took his hand. "Welcome aboard."

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I sent the artificer down the stairs to my main body of troops, took a spear, and rushed on up to join my men ascending. I saw they had gotten bogged down in combat two floors up, where a fierce melee was being fought for control of the landing. From the rear I did as my men had done before: I lined up a crossbow shot and bided my moment. One clear line of sight later, a soldier of the Black Legion was down. More of my men rushed to take the landing, and I poked with my spear at the remaining enemies over the next man's shoulder. My men finally cleared the landing.

This time I did not send up an advance guard to take the tower, but bade some to guard the landing from attack from above as I rushed in with a group of four to clear out this level. Again I found an artificer under guard, but this one with only two men aiming their crossbows at him--the bulk of their force had joined the fight at the landing. They turned to us and did not let fly right away, but aimed carefully towards any gaps in our armor as we ducked behind our shields. The standoff was resolved when my men in the rear threw their spears and hit, and the crossbowmen lay skewered.

This artificer was a maker and controller of windmakers, whose power I had seen demonstrated, though I did not recognize him. He thanked us for taking out his guards, and promised to consider my kingdom's offer of employment.

I took a loaded crossbow from one of the dead guards, sent the artificer down the stairs, and returned to my men in the landing to take the lead in the remaining charge. This time, I would fight from the front, and we would not get bogged down unless I died. Sword and shield in hand, my men with spears and borrowed crossbows behind me, I raced upward.

There were no more random ambushes from the landings. Now we fought upward through the stairs. The next man I fought stood with a crossbowman behind him, aiming for any opening I left. The man in front used his sword like a crowbar, trying to slam it into my helmet from above and the side as I ducked behind my shield to keep my profile low against the crossbow. I guarded my head with my sword, and weathered his attack until a spear from over my shoulder took him out, and one of my men less shy with the crossbow took out the man behind him. We continued to fight up the stairs in this manner, with some enemies more skilled and some less, but all eventually fell.

Now the final staircase to the top of the tower was clear. The end was in sight, and we whooped for joy as we rushed towards the top of the stairs. We ran up the stairs now, eager to see the battle from above, when suddenly I felt the stair under my foot giving way, my feet beginning to slide. I made a leap for the top as I heard my men slide and panic behind me.

I made it out into the bright sunshine, but as I landed on the top of the tower, the floor gave way, and I was falling. My legs hit the ground hard, knees bent, and I rolled as best one can in full armor while carrying a large shield--not well, but enough to not break my legs.

I was in a pit, the sides sheer and smooth stone. I looked upward and beheld a tilted mirror, and in it, upside-down to me, a man in platform shoes, looking at me. Recognition pinged in my mind. His image was one of the last Velwin had showed me in his dying words: the governor of the Black Citadel.

"You!" he spat. "That dumb pup of a husband of that smarmy witch." His words hurt the more for their untruth. I was not Aloree's husband--I was his brother, without the memories of proposing to her, marrying her, and being with her--with nothing more than my brother's dying words and his memories from before his mission. I did not as yet know if I would ever be anything more to Aloree than a living reminder of the death of her husband--my brother.

"I should have killed you when you first arrived, and ripped that witch's true name out of her body myself," he continued. "No matter. All you have, all you hold dear, will soon perish. And perhaps I will yet rip the soul out of the body of your true love, grinning all the while, whelp."

"Look around you," I spat back, looking upwards at the mirror from the bottom of the pit. "Your citadel is in ruins, your so-called Legion dead and fleeing, and soon you too will die. Rip out her soul? You'll be lucky to keep your own in your body five more minutes."

"This? It is but a small exploratory force. The Black Legion does not forget. The Dark Emperor will retake this territory and crush the kingdoms of Talore and Tarmel for your insult. Goodbye for the final time, pup. You shall not live the hour."

With this he turned away. With his back turned from the mirror I made my move. I thrust my sword Swelfalster, blade horizontal, into the wall of the pit. With a jump and a pull on the hilt I was up, feet perched precariously on the blade, and managed to grab the rim of the pit and clamber upward.

Rushing to where he had been standing, I witnessed his escape glider flying off into the distance. I pull out my borrowed crossbow, aimed quickly, and pulled the trigger. At this point I noticed an ominous hum, rising and rising, and turned around.

To my far left and my right, huge mana collectors thrummed. I recognized the circuit configuration, the same my brother Velwin had used when he had detonated this tower's mana core. Their outputs were attached to their positive feedback terminals, and they would in short order explode, releasing all their stored mana in one final blaze.

I ran for the stairwell and jumped in, too late. A crash of thunder sounded and the top of the tower rumbled. The stones fell upon me. One hit my helmeted head. There was a flash of light before my eyes, then all went black.