Ado Mortascia was not the sort of person Collin had expected to like. By her background, and by the way she’d spent all their time together glaring at him even before either of them had exchanged a word with the other, he had assumed that their relationship would be about as pleasant as the one found between undead and a bonfire. But, as was so often the case, she had managed to surprise him.

She’d been far worse than he could have possibly imagined.

Beyond snooty, or arrogant, and beyond merely abrasive. Ado Mortascia was less a person and more some grand, larger-than-life congealment of aristocratic values and traditions. It was all Collin could do to keep from strangling her with his bow string.

It wasn’t enough for her to hate Collin, oh no. She had to be justified. Had to prove herself right at every turn, and thus look at every word from his mouth or act from his hands through whatever lens was needed to render it yet more evidence against him.

Collin was the son of Finlay Baird, and thus a murderer. He was from a family only one generation removed from the peasantry, and thus an idiot. He was a soldier, which meant he must be sneaky for having subverted so high a rank in his military, and surely prone to drunkenness.

And of course, he was Kaltan. All Kaltans were known to be an inherently rowdy and uncivilised bunch, ever since they started complaining when made to starve in the street or live in their own open sewage. Fucking nobs.

Their journey was among the slowest Collin had experienced, or at least among the ones he’d experienced at a constant rate of thirty miles per hour. It took them less than three hours to close in on their destination, and yet those three hours felt like three years. There was an ice to the air, a static tension to the space between them, and every passing moment left Collin shifting uneasily as he expected some barb, spell or fist to come flying at him. Motrascia would hardly even have been to blame- she couldn’t help but hurt poor people, it was what she’d been selectively bred to do for hundreds of years.

It was a relief when Ironbane finally poked itself up ahead of them, and Collin found the effect only slightly ruined by the instant, visceral dread of realising just how horrible a bitch it would be to try and attack en masse .

Ironbane was a city of tall buildings and broad foundations, built into shapes he could best have described as three dimensional triangles. They reached high, foundations clinging sturdily to the ground in such a way as to make it clear with only a glance they would not be yielding easily.

There was an outer wall, of some sort, but it seemed a small and insubstantial thing compared to the mountainous peaks ringing the entire valley. Collin could barely imagine himself fitting a thousand men through for a coordinated attack, and the actual fortifications looked the equal of ten or twenty times that number at minimum.

Natural defences, indeed.

“Edmari.” Mortascia muttered. “This architecture, it’s like Castle Edmari. The flying fortress.”

Collin blinked, frowned, then slowly nodded. It was, at that. Not the same- not at all- but similar. A sort of aged, ancient style quite unlike virtually everything around it. He remembered some vague details about a long-gone civilisation, and how they’d spanned a surprising scope of the continent, but no more than that.

“It’d be too much to hope that meant it’s aged and vulnerable.” He muttered, feeling a sudden urge to espout that most classic of philosophical musings among the soldiers of Kaltan. ‘Why was everything always their job?’

“It would be.” Mortascia agreed, coolly. “Which is why it’s vitally important that we succeed in our diplomatic efforts, rather than start an inevitably protracted and difficult conflict.”

Collin wasn’t sure about protracted, there’d certainly be losses but most of Shaiagrazni’s grotesqueries were best measured for body mass in multiples of an elephant.

Hundreds of them storming the place would flatten it, but even just a few dozen would have good odds of breaching it. The only thing he found himself worried by- the thing he kept an eye out for- were those cannons the Dark Lord had unleashed in Kaltan.

He decided not to contradict her though, seeing no reason to drag her into another argument when they had far more productive things to be doing. The two of them set off, Mortascia moving calmly and with a diplomatic poise, Collin trudging along just slightly behind as he scrutinised their surroundings for anyone who might plan on suddenly murdering them from behind.

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“You know of Staliga’s relation with the Dark Lord?” Mortascia prompted, once they were halfway to the entrance ahead. It was a tall, squared opening in the walls affixed with a clearly modern portcullis and a towering gate that was only fractionally less so. Collin wondered whether King Galukar could have brought either down.

“They’re cunts who sided with him.” He shrugged, in answer. The woman’s face was drawn tight in frustration at that.

“If you head into this with an attitude like that, your oversimplification will jeopardise this entire mission.”

“Which is why I have you.” He countered. “To do all the talking while I scope the place out and get ready to do the murderous bastards when it all goes tits up.”

Collin saw a flash of disgust across her face, quite possibly from his language alone, and then the woman inhaled sharply, continuing after a moment later in a tone that seemed carefully measured for speaking with fools and children. Probably, it was her “lower class” voice.

“You have served Shaiagrazni longer than me.” Mortascia continued. “It is important that you be ready to-”

“I am ready.” Collin cut in, biting back his sudden annoyance. “If you think my acknowledging that we’re going to need to kill these fuckers means I’m not then you’re even dumber than they are, I parlayed with the man responsible for killing my father the day after his death, I’m not going to go berserk at this of all things. I’m just being realistic, talking is fine as long as you’re not the last one to stop.”

Mortascia eyed him seeming less convinced than she did…Wary.

“You hate them.” She noted, and he spat.

“Of course I fucking hate them.” Collin had to resist the urge to laugh at hearing so stupid an observation.

“What’s not to hate? They’re cowards, rolling over for the biggest bastard alive just because he has more men. I did read up on this place, you know. They turned to the Dark Lord in a big fucking wave, barely any hesitation at all. He extended his hand, extended his territory farther East, and they were too busy pissing themselves to even consider whether it was right or not. The nobility didn’t even wait a day.”

Her eyes grew frosty and hateful in an instant, but not with the usual, casual contempt he’d grown accustomed to.

“They were scared.” She snapped.

“They were dictators.” Collin snapped back. “You can choose to be scared, or you can choose to unilaterally control the lives of thousands. You don’t get both. Either you have human foibles and weaknesses or you stay in your fucking place and leave the rest of us to make our own decisions too.”

Somewhere along the way, he’d started talking to her, Collin realised, but he didn’t back down and didn’t waver. It all felt right. He’d been towing the line for years, letting people look at him as some fucking rat, remind him with those silent looks that no amount of pomp or privilege would mitigate where his family had been a single generation earlier. He’d swallowed it, because he’d needed support for Kaltan and his father.

And that was over now. The world was changing, things were finally kicking off, and Collin would rather spit his venom every place he could than keep his eyes down and feet shuffling away. If any of the narcissistic babies ruling his world had a problem with that, he might just cut their fucking throats. That’s what a King did when spoken out against, why not a peasant?

Mortascia might have sensed just how eager he was for her to give him such an excuse, because she bit her tongue at that and the remainder of their walk was had in silence. That was fine by him, Collin was getting sick of hearing the words from children of incest.

The space behind Ironbane’s walls was little different to the exterior, save that the ancient architecture was far more expansive in its influence across the area. Collin saw lots more of the curiously stacked shapes, though smaller than the largest, and others in more cuboidal dimensions. The place seemed almost multi-layered, with paths cutting up and throughout the higher levels, adding an entire dimension to its space. It was oddly chilling.

Many more could be contained within than he’d first thought, he realised. Perhaps the diplomacy really was a vital effort. Soon enough they were at the central structure, and quickly ushered in once identifying themselves and their business.

Collin found a chill down his spine as he realised how tight the interior was.

Not a good space for a Ranger to be in, not at all. He seemed to have been doing a lot of close quarters killing these days, and Shaiagrazni’s physical enhancements were not so great a benefit that he felt any more confident in the fact.

“Nervous?” Motascia asked, grinning smugly as Collin glared at her sidelong. How he loathed that, the way aristocrats could waddle around like dumb toddlers, so convinced the world would do nothing to hurt them. He kept his anger to himself and moved on, reaching the place’s throne room within the minute.

It was a more expansive area than the rest of the structure, but not by much. Its ceiling was maybe twenty feet from the ground, its walls perhaps forty feet from each other, and the throne sitting back against the far wall was so big as to almost make the chamber cramped. They weren’t alone, because a score of Knights stood at large pillars lining the place, and a tall, wiry man lay across the damned chair ahead.

He was thin, very thin. With a pot belly, an excess of chest hair and oddly pale skin around his inner thighs. Collin knew all this, because the man chose to receive them wearing nothing but a robe, cock dangling out for all to see as he laid back in his seat and grinned at them. White teeth flashed as a luminous contrast to his raven-black hair, while eyes that were bloodshot with pipe glinted in the warm firelight.

“Welcome!” The King declared, as if he were not presenting his genitals like some posturing ape.