General Venka marched with quite an impressive staff, Collin had to admit. He’d gathered his own best men, of course, a dozen of the finest Rangers in Kaltan. Two of which were even at his side, rather than perched in buildings primed and ready to start taking heads off with near-sonic arrows. Even still, he’d half expected to be outdone, and he found he was not surprised.

Venka moved with a procession of orcs and undead, which very much mirrored the general makeup of his own army. These ones, however, were all something past elite. A pair of liches came first, hovering slightly above the ground, their desiccated flesh neatly wrapped in linens and empty sockets somehow filled by intelligence rather than ocular tissue. The magic from them was felt at fifty paces, and overwhelming at ten. Collin found himself wondering whether he and his pair of bodyguards would have matched even a single one.

They would not, he decided.

After the liches came Venka himself, his march framed on either side by a giant, armoured reanimate that Collin could only guess to be one of Galukar’s sons. There were only two of them present, but two was two more than he’d have liked. Even weighed down by all that plate they moved like cats, lighter than air on their feet, and seemingly primed to lunge one way or the other in an instant. Venka himself was more graceful by far. A Hero.

Collin always hated that term, Hero. There was nothing Heroic about power and strength, his father used to say. The great Finlay Baird claimed to have seen at least one real hero die in every battle, the magic-filled cunts who always lived? They were just human siege engines.

Venka had his back covered too, probably he’d heard that Kaltans were dirty, cheating cutthroats who’d sooner stick a knife in it than meet for peace talks. Bastard. It was a lucky guess, at best. Collin wouldn’t have had to do such things if he weren’t so bloody outnumbered, breaking parleys was a great way to ensure you were never parlayed with again.

“Governor Baird.” Venka said, speaking calmly as his little group came to stop just a few paces from Collin’s. Oh, that was strange. Rage. Pure, molten rage unlike any Collin had ever felt, coursing through his veins, animating his muscles, urging him to come flying at the Hero and start biting chunks out. He’d thought he had a handle on his fury, thought he’d calmed himself with the bigger picture, but here it was, waiting for him. Springing its ambush and bowling his wits over with a storm of animal hate and soldier’s savagery.

“General Venka.” Collin replied, surprising himself with how coherent and calm his voice was. Was he calm? Would he be a calm man today? He didn’t know.

Could be he’d lose his wits and start sticking steel in things any moment. It felt like he was watching the conversation from the outside, looking in on some scene he had no part in, and no ability to influence. He was actually curious to see how it ended.

“I will be brief.” The General replied. “You are grossly outnumbered, and more grossly outmatched. Surrender and we shall spare your city.”

“I’ll be brief too.” Collin replied. “Fuck yourself with a pike, you shit-eating twat.”

Apparently he would not be very diplomatic today, interesting. Gyvain snorted with laughter. General Venka did not seem particularly surprised by his response, but he was certainly annoyed. Brow creasing, face suddenly lined in all the ways his uniform wasn’t.

“I had expected you to conduct yourself with a bit more dignity.” He noted.

“I had expected you to not throw a few thousand idiots at my wall and watch them burst like grapes.” Collin shot back. “Seems neither of us is living up to our reputation.”

Venka’s eye twitched a moment, his lip curling, cheeks thinning. The man’s fury was well hidden, but rather too great in volume to be fully missed.

“You know, I had nothing but admiration for your father.” He answered, speaking with the forced calm of a man resisting the urge to draw steel and start hacking away. “Nothing but admiration. He was a man after my own heart, I should think. A man of iron, of intelligence, of drive. One who understood the need for a strong leader in hard times, who…”

Collin didn’t stop listening, but by God did he want to.

He’d read Venka’s books, of course, and his half-thought philosophies had always been good for a laugh, but hearing them in person was an exercise in tedium. Every good thing that had ever happened, the man seemed to think, was because of some individual, great man seizing power and initiative, while every single bad thing was the fault of some vague weak men growing soft in times of peace.

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It was laughable to hear him try to reconcile that with the existence of King Galukar, pathetic to hear him try and explain Elrai the Cruel’s coming up from his almost-as-incompetent father, and downright infuriating to hear his own dad used as further evidence of the fact.

But Collin listened, because that was what a lad in his place had to do. He wasn’t a noble, really, and though he had wealth, most would call it stolen. When the whole world considered you a rowdy, violent thug sitting on a throne you didn’t own, you learned to take what advantages you could get.

The younger, brasher and stupider Venka thought he was, the less he’d try to keep himself from giving away whatever subtle hints Collin could catch, and the less he’d notice them being caught.

You had to take whatever advantages you could, particularly when you were dealing with a General twice your age and a hundred times your experience.

“Am I boring you?” Venka asked, irritably.

“Hm?” Collin blinked, making a show of having let his focus slip. “Oh, no, not at all, please go on.”

It seemed Venka bought the performance, for his lip curled with disgust.

“Nothing like your father at all.” He scowled. “Very well then, if you have any counter-offers to make then I will hear them now. If not…This is your last chance to surrender.”

“Or what?” Collin asked.

Venka seemed stunned, almost disbelieving.

“I…I beg your pardon?”

“Or what? What will you do if we don’t surrender?” Collin pressed.

“We’ll attack your city, breach the walls…Seize it by force, and punish its populace for resisting.”

“If you manage to get past the walls.” Collin replied, making a show of confidence. Pure, unbroken confidence, of the kind that only an absolute fucking moron could possibly humour. For a moment he feared he’d overdone it, but Venka seemed to swallow the performance well enough.

“We will get past your walls.” Venka explained. “Our forces are a power not sent to field on this continent for centuries, even more. Whatever modifications you’ve seen made to Kaltan’s outer defences, they will not withstand us. Not our siege towers, and, at worst, not our sheer numbers. Your father, no doubt, knew as much, and it surprises me that he apparently did not think to inform you.” His lip curled, disgusted. “Such a waste for this to be his legacy. In any case, you have heard my warning, if you wish to ignore it then that is your mistake to make.”

“Oh I’m not ignoring anything,” Collin snarled, letting his rage seep through- a shade- and letting Venka mistake it for mere pricked ego. “If you want to test your men against mine so badly, you can be welcome to it. We’ll be waiting for you, us Rangers, by the front gate. Send your best and we’ll see how they fare. I should warn you though, my boys plan on getting a thousand of you fuckers each before they drop, and I reckon that’s without counting the other help they’ll get.”

Venka’s face was unreadable, but even that told Collin that his words had hit home. The General had not hidden his expressions before, that he did now…It implied he considered them something worth hiding. Something that might tip his hand.

He’d believed him. Had he? He couldn’t be sure.

Venka was staring, scrutinising, studying Collin. That was bad, his mask wouldn’t hold up long under as practised an eye as his. He had to do something, and do it fast. His sole advantage would be surprise and secrecy, he’d hold onto them even if it killed him.

“You might want to think twice before your bombardments, by the way.” Collin added. “We have your Necromancer, Sphera, in our city. Tied up, bound, powerless. Very much at risk of being killed by a stray catapult shot.”

The General didn’t wince, or flinch, or even hesitate. He only smiled.

“I see.” He answered, voice slick like oil on water. “Excellent, then with luck she will perish in the siege and allow me the chance to further rise in status unimpeded by her emotional idiocy.” The man turned, moving away without so much as pausing, and relieving Collin by leaving his eyes off from his face.

“Good day, Collin Baird.” Venka replied, frostily. “And good luck in your pointless last stand.”

Collin watched Venka leave, and tried to work out whether he’d won the exchange or not. He’d find out, he supposed, by either dying or living the next day.

Venka was long gone when Gyvain next spoke, his voice a tight growl.

“Good work on not skewering the smarmy bastard.” He grunted. “Barely avoided it myself.”

Collin just nodded, finding his mouth suddenly dry. He’d expected more rage, or to feel it more harshly, but he hadn’t gone hot and blind when Venka arrived. Just cold and jagged. Like his father always talked about.

“Think he bought it?” Collin asked, his voice made a strangled whisper by sheer nerves. Gyvain laughed and slapped him on the shoulder.

“I nearly fucking bought it myself for a second there, you magnificent little bastard!” He chuckled. “Now come on, sir, we have more preparation to do.”

Collin was escorted back to the inner fort, and felt the sour taste return to his mouth. The Governor’s quarter, the military quarter, the centre of the city. Their last stand. He’d neglected it for a good few days, kept himself focused on everything except it, and then he’d finally run out of other things to do. Finally run out of excuses not to start fortifying their last stand.

It was a sickening task to work on. Hard to feel it had any relevance, not out of scepticism but simply because to seriously consider it meant humouring a scenario in which the city was lost, its citizens rendered the playthings of their enemies. It was a scenario where Venka would have all of Kaltan’s supplies to salvage and sustain his army, where he would control the territory around using the outer walls as his own refuge. Where he could camp indefinitely until starvation displaced the remaining defenders from their remaining defence.

But Collin put himself to work quickly, all the same. For no other reason than the simple, immutable fact that he was Governor. Governor, General, leader. And if that meant the most he could manage was buying his people a few months more, then that was what he’d do.

He started setting up the ranged defences, calling on wood and twine to assemble catapults, ballista and trebuchets.

If the most he could do was buy a few more months, then he would. But Collin rather wanted to make that fucker Venka bleed a few more troops in any case.