All the ordinary business of the city had stopped as the Princess and her army stepped out into the street. How word had spread so quickly they never found out, but more people joined them at every street corner they passed, leaving shops, factories and schools unattended. Men armed with anything they could find as a weapon whether it was a kitchen knife strapped to a broom handle, a crowbar or a hundred year old antique sword. A very few people had firearms, mainly shotguns normally used by farmers and gamekeepers to control wild animals. The Brigadier suspected that the owners of these weapons had originally brought them into the city for criminal purposes, but this wasn't the time to pursue that train of thought.

Every house they passed had faces in the windows. Half raised animals or people left infirm by age or injury. There would also be people too timid to take part in the uprising, of course, but who, in years to come, would entertain anyone who would listen with the tale of how they'd been at the very forefront of the army, marching alongside Princess Ardria and the Brigadier themselves. And, of course, if the uprising should fail, they would swear to the King's men how desperately they had tried to talk their fellows out of their traitorous actions out of love and loyalty to the regime, and had been ignored.

The Brigadier didn't let himself think about such people. Every city had them, even in Helberion. He kept his attention on the windows nonetheless, fearing that there might be a King’s man behind one of them armed with a long gun, taking aim at the Princess. What would the crowd do if Ardria were shot down? he wondered. Would they fly into a fury and attack the palace as a disorganised rabble, or would they mill around in confusion for a while and then quietly all go home?

No shot rang out. They passed through the industrial complex known for some arcane historical reason as The Puddles, then entered ones of the city's residential districts, so similar to the working class districts of Farwell that Malone had described to him that the Brigadier felt a pang of grief for his former batman. Word had reached Edward Blake just the day before that Lord Benjamin Hedley had died when his mansion had burned to the ground, and there was no doubt in the Brigadier's mind that Malone had been responsible. He'd told Ambassador Mornwell that he was going to kill Benjamin, and Benjamin had died just a few days later. The timing was too perfect for it to have been a coincidence. Among the bodies found at the scene, though, not all had died in the fire. One had been viciously torn apart, something that could only be the work of a Radiant, and although the body had been described as fully human, the Brigadier had no doubt that it had been Malone. Why would a Radiant have killed someone in that way, unless it was in retribution for the murder of their human collaborator? No, Malone was dead, the Brigadier was certain of it, but he kept his grief in check for when he had the time to indulge it. Right now, the Princess needed him at the top of his game.

They continued on through the narrow streets of the city, through the merchant district then past a large hospital and orphanage, possibly the only large buildings still functioning normally as doctors and nurses tended to patients who could not be left unattended even for something as monumental as the regime change of an entire kingdom. Finally, they reached the noble districts that ringed the centre of the city. Here, for the first time, they sensed fear emanating from the buildings they were passing. Shutters were closed, those windows that lacked shutters were dark as every light inside had been extinguished. The city's elite would be trembling with fear as they imagined the mob turning on them once the King had been dealt with. The Brigadier knew that the Princess would protect them if she could, not wanting them to get caught up in the killing she had warned might be about to begin, but no matter what she did the Brigadier knew that there would still be isolated murders if a nobleman or a wealthy merchant should ever be careless enough to find himself in the wrong kind of company without his small army of bodyguards to protect him. These people had a right to be scared.

Nowhere during their journey through the city did they see any guards, though. The guard stations they passed stood empty, their doors locked. There was probably a crime wave going on as the city's criminal element took advantage of the situation, the Brigadier mused. Even as the thought passed through his head, the sound of breaking glass came from somewhere nearby, easily audible over the tramping feet and the muttered conversations of the crowd. A moment later it was followed by a man's terrified scream. A toff, as the working classes called them, discovering in the worst possible way that the balance of power in the city was shifting. The Brigadier tensed up as his body instinctively prepared to go to the man's aid, a lifetime of habit that it required an effort to force down. The nobleman was almost certainly a villain, grown rich on the sweat and blood of underpaid, overworked labourers, but to ignore his cries for help still went against the grain and the Brigadier’s jaws clenched with disquiet as be forced himself to remember his most pressing duty. To protect the Princess.

Only when they reached the Grand Concourse did they finally see guards. Dozens of them manning the gates, with doubtless dozens more at each of the other gates in the tall, cast iron fence that surrounded the palace grounds. Warning shots were fired into the air as the crowd emerged from the streets and entered the wide, open space, but Princess Ardria continued on until she was fifty feet in the open, enough for the bulk of the crowd to arrange themselves behind her, visible to the gate guards. She wanted the guards to be able to see the full extent of what faced them, and knew enough about modern weaponry to know how little real danger she was in. No firearm invented since the days of the Hetin folk were accurate over much more than about sixty yards, much less than her current distance from the gate guards. Even if they tried, they wouldn’t hit her except by accident. Military weapons were deliberately inaccurate, something that had astonished her when her self defence tutor had first told her. The black powder they used left soot that coated the inside of the barrel and that would eventually render the weapon incapable of firing until it was cleaned. They used bullets that were smaller than the barrel, therefore, to increase the number of times they could be fired in battle, and that inevitably reduced their accuracy. She remembered the Brigadier telling her once that he used a ‘fowler' whenever possible, a weapon used by gamekeepers that used a bullet that fitted the barrel more tightly and that was therefore far more accurate.

The guards weren't the most immediate problem, therefore. The most immediate problem was the Radiants. There were six of them, floating above the palace like festival balloons, somehow radiating a sense of menace even though there was nothing visibly different about them. There had been Radiants floating above human cities for hundreds of years and they had always seemed benign and harmless, even beautiful. Seeing those six sent a cold shiver up the Princess' spine, though. She beckoned the Brigadier over. “If they attack us, what can we do?” she asked.

“Scatter,” he replied. “A large crowd like this, they could curse us by the hundreds. We drove one off with a fusillade of gunfire, but we don't have anything like the weaponry to drive away six. Our only chance would be to scatter and hope they're not willing to kill non participants while searching for us.”

“But our uprising would suffer a disastrous loss of momentum! Would all these people be willing to rally again after our first assault ended so ignominiously?”

“If those Radiants attack, we’ll be lucky to lose less than half our number to the creatures. This is what I was afraid of. To just run off half cocked like this, it was always doomed to end badly. An undertaking like this takes weeks of planning. We should have built ballistae to hurl flaming bolts at the creatures. That might have been enough to make them hold off, leaving just ourselves and the human defenders to fight it out.”

“These people were coming here whether we wanted them to or not,” the Princess reminded him. “There was no way to stop them. We came with them to keep them under some kind of control, to stop a massacre. What do you advise we do?”

“Leave. With dignity, of our own free will, before those creatures drive us away. We can say that we came to see the palace for ourselves, to see if it was true that they'd withdrawn and barricaded themselves inside it. Now that we’ve seen with our own eyes that it is true, we can withdraw and lay our plans at our leisure. It's a retreat dressed up as a victory. These people will still feel good about themselves, and will, hopefully, come again when we're ready to take the palace in earnest.”

The Princess nodded. “Sounds good,” she said. “Okay.” She turned to face the crowd behind her, but before she could say anything a murmuring broke out and fingers started pointing at something behind her. She turned back to face the palace again. A seventh Radiant had appeared, far to the east. Just a tiny point of light shining like a daytime star. It was moving fast, though. Faster than they'd ever seen a Radiant moving, as if it was being driven by hurricane force winds, and indeed there were some small clouds nearby in the sky that were being torn apart, as if the air on one side of them was moving much faster than the air on the other, causing turbulence and wild eddies that spun wisps of cloud into coils and spirals. The sense of wild, desperate haste was unmistakable, and this new arrival to the ranks of the enemy, which should have thrown the rebels into a new despair, instead had the opposite effect.

“I get the impression it’s bringing bad news,” said Briggs. The gate guards who'd fled with them were arranged around the Princess as if they’d taken upon themselves the role of bodyguards. Ardria suddenly realised, to her shame and dismay, that she'd never managed to learn the names of the others. “Bad to them, I mean. Perhaps it’s bringing news of the destruction of Carrow’s army.”

“Perhaps,” replied the Princess, but she doubted that the fate of a human army would have had the effect she was seeing now. Although it should have been impossible to read emotions in such an inhuman body form, it was impossible to avoid the impression that the newly arriving Radiant was panicked, and that was bad. Very bad. A calm, collected enemy, no matter how evil, could usually be relied upon to act in a restrained manner, even when committing atrocities, but a panicked enemy was capable of anything. Anything at all.

“We need to know what’s going on,” said the Brigadier. “I suggest we go talk to them. With your permission, Your Highness, I'll go over to those gentlemen and suggest a parley.”

“They'll shoot you the moment you’re within range!” said Briggs, sounding genuinely anxious for him. “Let me go instead!”

“They very well might shoot you,” said the Brigadier, “but they won't shoot me. With all due modesty, I'm too famous, too much a celebrity. They'll want to know what I have to say.”

The Princess nodded. “I'll go with you...”

“No!”

Ardria smiled. “I'm even more famous than you, even more of a celebrity. They're not going to shoot the one person who can send this whole crowd home with a single word.”

“They might, Your Highness. You're also the one holding this army together, that gives them a good reason to take you out. It would be madness for you to expose yourself to them.” She stared at him, but he stood his ground. “You know I'm right, Highness. I have to go alone.”

She continued to stare at him for a moment longer, but then she nodded reluctantly. “Very well,“ she said. “We'll need something to use as a white flag. Does anyone have a white handkerchief?”

☆☆☆

A few minutes later, the Brigadier walked towards the gate holding a grimy white shirt, formerly belonging to a street lamp lighter, tied to a pole. His chest itched as he imagined a dozen guns aimed at him, any of which could end his life before he even heard the shot, but he walked steadily and with every outward appearance of confidence as if he was surrounded by a shield of steel that no bullet could penetrate. Sometimes, an uncertain enemy would back down without a shot being fired if faced down firmly and sternly. It wasn't a widely advertised fact, but bluff and bluster was one of the most effective weapons in warfare.

“Stop where you are!” A voice called out, and the Brigadier relaxed. If they were talking, they weren't going to shoot. “Tell your friends to disperse before we come out and disperse them, and we won’t be taking prisoners!”

“I came to offer you the chance to surrender!” replied the Brigadier. “As you can see, the whole city is against you. We're in no hurry. If you don't give yourselves up we’ll just starve you out. Doesn't matter to us how long it takes. Weeks, months. It’s all the same to us.”

The guard laughed. “We've got Radiants!” he said. ”What'll you do If we send them out to get you?”

“Scatter and hide,” replied the Brigadier, “But that won't do you any good. We can watch every gate from hiding. We'll see if you send anyone out, to fetch food or for any other reason, and they’ll be ambushed in the streets. No-one will return to the palace alive. Maybe you can grow crops in the palace grounds. That's the only way you'll avoid a very unpleasant death from starvation.”

“You fool!” The guard laughed. “The Radiants can bring food in, right over your heads! They can also bring in explosives and artillery, anything else we need, and when we're ready we’ll retake the city! Put down this pathetic uprising with blood and fire! Give yourselves up now before you make it worse for yourselves!”

“You think the Radiants will be willing to act as your delivery service?” asked the Brigadier. “You think they've got nothing better to do? Why should they care if you live or die? Why should they go to that much trouble for you? King Nilon's regime is over! His army has been destroyed...”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“That's a lie!” There was an edge in the man's voice that told the Brigadier he was half ready to believe it, though. There must be rumours circulating in the palace. If ordinary citizens could receive news by pigeon from Helberion, then surely the King could as well, and although powerful people usually took precautions to prevent sensitive conversations from being overheard, accidents happened. People were occasionally careless, especially if they were under stress or in the grip of a powerful emotion. The Brigadier was heartened, therefore. He now believed that the palace was full of rumours of a massive defeat in Helberion. Whether the rumours were true, of course, was another matter.

He decided to push his luck, therefore. What mattered wasn’t the truth, so much. It was what people believed the truth to be, and that was where he had the chance to help things along a bit. “It is the truth,” he said therefore. “We are in communication with our agents in Helberion...” Not exactly a lie if a message sent by pigeon carrying third hand news counted as a communication with agents. “...and they are keeping us fully informed with events over there. Carrow's army has been destroyed and King Leothan is sending his own army to carry out a punitive strike on this city. You have nothing to stop him but a few hundred city guards armed only with sidearms. Better for you to surrender now than suffer injury or death when your palace comes under artillery fire.”

That last bit was an outright lie, of course, but lies, or disinformation as military people liked to call it, was another well established weapon in times of war. As the guards knew very well, of course. The Brigadier didn't expect them to believe him, he only wanted to sow a few seeds of doubt and he knew he had succeeded when there was a long pause before the guard spoke again, as if he and his fellows were having a furious discussion in hushed voices as to whether his outrageous claim was to be believed.

The Brigadier just stood there, therefore, radiating calm and confidence, giving the guards time to stew, but while he did so he was also keeping a careful watch on the Radiants. The six original creatures were looking agitated, he thought, although with such alien creatures it was hard to be sure. The ceaseless movement of their tentacles had increased, giving the impression of a man wringing his hands with worry, and one of them was repeatedly gaining height and dropping again, reminding the Brigadier of a man pacing back and forth across a small room. For all he knew, though, this behaviour might indicate excitement, as if they were preparing to attack the crowd, something they would enjoy immensely. There must be a torrent of telepathic communication going on between them, he thought, as they digested whatever news it was that the seventh had just brought, and he wished there were some way he could eavesdrop on it. King Nilon would be able to eavesdrop, of course. If there were some way he could arrange to speak with him, perhaps he could goad him into revealing what was going on.

“You're lying!” The guard eventually shouted back. “Tell your friends to disperse or we’ll open fire on them!” Several of the guards emerged from the guard post, brandishing their weapons, and the Brigadier was uncomfortably aware that he was well within their range of accuracy. He lifted the white flag higher and made sure both his hands were in plain sight and a good distance away from his weapons.

“Go tell your King what I just told you,” he said. “See if he thinks I'm lying. Do you want to risk his anger when he finds out you didn't pass on my message?”

“King Nilon is in constant telegraph contact with Leothan!” the guard replied. “If you were telling the truth, Leothan would tell him personally, not leave it to a rabble of discontented no gooders! Now go away before we shoot you down like a mad dog, flag or no flag!”

The Brigadier knew a serious threat when he heard one and so he backed away, watching the guards carefully as he did so. If one of them was about to shoot him, he was pretty sure he could draw and fire with enough accuracy to kill him before he could do so. That would be the end of him, of course, as the others all fired at him, but if he was going to die here, he wasn't going to die alone. The guards knew this. The Brigadier's reputation was almost legendary, and so they all held their fire, none of them wanting to he the one to shoot first, none of them wanting to be the one that would die.

The Radiants were behind the guard post, from where the Brigadier was standing, and so he was able to keep an eye on them at the same time as he was watching the guardsmen. As he continued to back away, he saw the Radiants rise higher until one of them was hidden by a single small cloud that was floating, all alone, in the blue sky. Were they leaving? he wondered. He didn't dare hope, but as they continued to rise they began to move away, to the east, summoning a stiff breeze to speed them on their way. “Look!” he shouted to the guards, pointing. “The Radiants are leaving!”

The guards laughed, thinking that it must be a rather obvious trick, but one of them looked in the direction the Brigadier was pointing and his shocked cry of alarm made the others look as well. Behind him, the crowd was cheering. The guards stared, aghast, unable to believe what was happening. They began arguing furiously with each other while their captain tried frantically to regain order. In the palace grounds, the Brigadier saw members of the palace staff emerging from the building, along with a couple of members of the royal family, to judge from their dress. They also stared up at the departing Radiants, clearly as astonished as everyone else. Then another figure emerged from the palace, and the Brigadier heard a cry of astonishment coming from Princess Ardria behind him.

“That's King Nilon!” she exclaimed. “The King himself! Looks like he's not happy about losing his allies!”

The Brigadier had never met King Nilon in person, but there was no mistaking the regal bearing of the man, even if the finery of his crimson and gold clothing hadn't been enough. There was also no mistaking his consternation. He was waving up at the Radiants, now nothing more than tiny points of light in the distance. Beckoning gestures, part of the universal language of all human cultures everywhere. The gesture that said come back to me, now! He was also shouting. The words were impossible to make out, but they could hear his tone, his fury and his fear. There fact that he was using spoken words was telling. It meant that the Radiants were ignoring his telepathic demands that they return, and if they hadn't respond to that, mere spoken words would have no effect. The Brigadier remembered hearing debates among scientific men as to whether the Radiants even had a sense of hearing.

The Brigadier cautioned himself that their departure wasn't necessarily a good thing. They were moving east, after all. That was towards the nearest Radiant territory, but it was also towards Helberion. Maybe this meant something bad for his homeland. If it was, there was nothing he could do about it, but he could use it here and now, to help their situation in Carrow. “There is your proof!” he cried triumphantly. “The Radiants know that your King has lost! They have cast him away, discarded him, just as the people of this city have discarded him! Where is your delivery service now? No Radiants to bring you food while we hold you under siege!” The guards were all staring at their Captain, begging him with their eyes to tell them that it wasn't true, but he could only stare at the departing Radiants as if he thought they might suddenly return. They had almost passed out of sight now, though. The tiny points of light were only visible if you knew exactly where to look.

“Look at your King!” continued the Brigadier. “He knows it’s over! See how he begs and pleads for the creatures to return! He knows he's lost without them! You cannot win! We will place you under siege and you will starve. It may take months but eventually you will open the gates and let us in. Why not open the gates to us now and save yourselves a lot of misery?”

“You will not tempt is into treason!” the captain shouted back. “Do you think our loyalty is so weak that a few words from a worn out soldier whose glory days are far behind him can break It? We are loyal to King Nilon and we are with him to the end!”

Some of his men were looking less certain, though, and the Brigadier decided that he'd accomplished as much as he could for the time being. The gate guards needed time to ponder these new developments. They needed to talk it over amongst themselves, away from their Captain, and then he suspected that men would begin slipping away in twos and threes. Eventually, the reality of their predicament would be inescapably obvious to even the staunchest of the King's supporters, and then they would send someone out to negotiate. He turned his back on them, therefore, and returned to the Princess.

☆☆☆

The palace surrendered early the next morning. The Princess' army remained camped outside the fence, where everyone in the palace could see them, making themselves more visible by lighting torches and singing songs of freedom and revolution that carried easily in the still night air. They wanted to make sure that everyone in the palace was constantly reminded of their presence. Constantly reminded that the rest of the city, and probably the rest of the country, had turned against them. The Brigadier doubted that anyone in the palace got any sleep that night. They would have been talking endlessly, everyone from the King himself down to the lowliest servant, with a few strong willed individuals eventually convincing everyone around them that their suggestion was the only sensible possibility.

At around midnight, the sound of gunshots were heard coming from the palace. Evidently there was some disagreement, probably between the royals and their servants. It went on for ten minutes or so, and then an ominous silence fell, leaving the besieging army to guess which side had won. Grim though things must have been in the palace, though, spirits were much higher amongst the besieging crowd where people were celebrating with dances and the copious consumption of alcoholic drinks. The Brigadier had frowned at this, but there was nothing he could do about it. The Princess’ hold over these people was so fragile, so tenuous, that they might well have turned against her if she'd tried to stop their celebrations, and the Brigadier had to simply accept the fact that half of his army was likely to be either passed out drunk or suffering from hangovers just when he needed them most.

At around nine in the morning, a small group of people were seen leaving the palace and heading to the gate in the perimeter fence. The Brigadier went forward to meet them, and this time the Princess went with him. The Brigadier made only a token attempt to stop her. If he was reading the mood of the palace correctly, the danger of violence had passed. This was going to be a negotiation, not a confrontation. They were accompanied by Den Wilks, who had assumed the position of mediator between the Helberians and the people of Charnox, and Briggs, who seemed to regard himself as the head of the Princess’ bodyguard, a position that rightfully belonged to the Brigadier but who was happy to leave the man to his delusions for the sake of a smooth collaboration between them.

Darniss also came, accompanied by a gaslighter called Tomwell whom the Brigadier had assigned to keep an eye on her. Now that King Nilon’s regime seemed to be over, he was concerned that she might try to slip away and escape, but until and unless Leothan pardoned her she was still a convicted traitor and it was the Brigadier’s duty to keep her in custody. Darniss endured it stoically, and treated the man as if he were her personal servant and bodyguard.

As they stood waiting, just out of accurate gunshot range, the small pedestrian gate opened and two men emerged. One wearing the uniform of a senior house servant, the other in the uniform of the palace guard with shoulder pins that signified they he held an honorary rank equivalent to a Colonel of the army. The Brigadier allowed his face to show no sign of what he thought of honorary military ranks.

“I am Colonel Connor Fell,” the guardsmen said. “This is Philip Towen, the Master Butler. We have come to tell you that Nilon Alabaster Bellatrix, former King of Carrow, is dead. George Tiberius Bellatrix, his son, has therefore technically ascended to the throne, although he, the rest of the royal family and some former members of the former King's staff are being held confined to their chambers. They did not wish to surrender, but the majority of us...” He looked at the massed ranks of the crowd arranged behind the Princess and her retinue. “The rest of us see the folly of dragging this situation out any longer than we have to. We all have families. We want to return to them. We are willing to surrender if reasonable terms can be agreed upon.”

“If everyone lays down their weapons and gives themselves up, I give you my assurance that they will not be harmed,” replied the Princess. “Unfortunately, you will need to be kept under confinement for a time until a proper investigation can be carried out, but I suspect that the people you already have under confinement are the only ones who need have any fear.”

“Are you sure you can control that... Your people?” asked the Master Butler doubtfully. “We don't doubt your honour, your Highness, but once we have surrendered our means of defending ourselves, what guarantee do we have that they won't ignore your commands and massacre us all?”

Den Wilks stood forward. “I am a member of the city's militia,” he said, looking the Master Butler straight in the eye, “and I can speak for my people. If Princess Ardria makes a promise on our behalf, we will abide by it.”

The Brigadier also stepped forward, to speak to the Princess. “I would recommend that no members of the, er...” He gave Den Wilks a doubtful look, then returned his attention to the Princess. “The militia, be allowed within the perimeter of the palace grounds,” he said. ”They will man the palace gates and control who enters and leaves, but the people currently staffing the palace should be allowed to remain at their posts, performing their duties, so long as those under confinement remain under confinement.”

The Princess nodded. “That seems reasonable,” she said. “Would that be agreeable to you, Mister Towen?”

The Master Butler looked greatly relieved. “It would,” he replied. He glanced at the palace guardsman, who also nodded. The guard then unbuckled his pistol and sword and handed them to the Brigadier, who took them. Behind them, the watching crowd gave a great sigh of satisfaction and relief.

“I will choose some people to enter the palace to collect up your weapons,” said the Princess. “We will then search the palace, to search for any other weapons that some of your people might have hidden without your knowledge. Please return to the palace and tell your people what we have agreed. I will tell my own people. We will enter at midday. Please be ready for us.” The two men nodded and turned to go.

“There is one other thing first,” said Ardria, though. “Has there been any recent telegraph communication with my father, or with any senior officials in Helberion?”

“Nothing that can be believed,” replied the guardsmen. “Only outrageous claims that we assume are attempts to deceive us and strengthen your position here. King Leothan’s claim to have destroyed our entire army, for instance. It's true that we haven't been able to contact our army for some time, but a simple broken telegraph cable could account for that. The fact that King Leothan is still in control of Paisley Palace’s telegraph machine does suggest that our army has had setbacks in conquering the city, it's true, but to suggest that be has somehow managed to destroy our entire army stretches credulity somewhat.”

“What other outrageous claims did he make?” asked the Princess.

“He claims that, shortly after his miraculous military victory, Marboll was attacked by hundreds of Radiants intent on cursing the entire city.” Both Ardria and the Brigadier tensed up in shock, but the Brigadier was more successful in hiding his feelings than the Princess. “Leothan claims that he was able to repel the attack when his scientists created a machine whose radiations they are, apparently, unable to tolerate. He even sent a series of instructions telling us how to create such a machine.”

“Follow the instructions!” ordered the Princess. “Build the machine!”

The guardsmen stared at her. “Your Highness, there is no need to continue the deception. You have won here, at least until our army returns and we find our positions reversed...”

“I said build the machine!” repeated the Princess. “If your army has indeed been victorious in Helberion and returns to restore King George to the throne of Carrow, then you can destroy it, but in the meantime you will build it! See that it is done!” Both men bowed to her.

“Secondly,” continued Ardria, “have a telegraph machine brought out here, to the guard post, on the end of an extension cable. I want to talk to my father. Whatever he tells me, I know it will be the truth. Then you and I both will know exactly where we stand.”

“With your leave, then, we will go to carry out your commands,” said the Master Butler. The Princess nodded, and the parley ended as both parties returned to inform their respective peoples what had just been decided.