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"-. July 7, Year 580 of the King's Calendar .-"

~ Richard Angevin, Duke of Hillsbrad ~

If he ever had to dress up and pussyfoot around his true feelings towards every last one of the attendees of King's Perenolde's summer ball, he might just pull his sword on someone. If he ever found which of them were in on the 'tragic' downfall of his 'misguided' family, there would be a reckoning. If he found out that all of them were involved or somehow partisan, there would be blood. And if he found out the King himself had confected it…

"Brother, are all balls going to be like that?"

Richard veered away from his treasonous thoughts and… didn't smile at his young sister who was looking at him from the carriage window. He wouldn't dissemble here, not with the only family he had left. "You didn't enjoy yourself either then?" Richard wasn't surprised. She'd not said anything all morning, and barely anything during the entire previous day of travel. Even though she charmed a wild raven into being her playmate, the girl who'd talked his ear off and nagged – entreated – the druids back in Kul Tiras to 'teach her how to be a fairy tale princess' was well and truly gone.

Richard thanked the Light every day that their parents saw the writing on the wall and shipped her off to visit him when they did. Four siblings, both their parents, even their only surviving grandfather had been hung in the city square less than a month later. They'd been seized right as they came out of Silver Cathedral after Noblegarden day service. If Annari had been here for the king's 'justice', she'd be gone like the rest of them. Or worse, seeing as she was a comely maiden flowered for three years.

"Becoming a jaded senile old man already, husband?"

Richard glanced to where his newly-wed wife had opened the other window. "Don't pretend you're not vexed. This is the farthest thing from what you wanted your honeymoon to be."

"True," Lady Valeria Angevin nee Stormsong admitted easily. "Doesn't change the fact that you still haven't answered your sister's question though."

"I could nag him into it," mused Annari aloud.

"Would you?" Richard didn't even have to put effort into sounding hopeful. "Go ahead then, give me your best."

"Aw, but that's no fun if you like it," Annari pouted.

Their laughter was brief, but it was the most honest thing they'd indulged in all month.

Richard soon sobered again though. "I'm afraid that Alterac social occasions are indeed all like that, sister. Don't worry though, Kul Tiras won't be nearly so bad."

"I'll say," huffed Valeria. "I thought the Waycrest court was bad, but this was a completely different level of oily."

"… What if I don't want to go?"

Richard closed his eyes briefly, then looked at Annari soberly. "You can't tell me you enjoyed any of it."

"I didn't, but… I don't want to leave if you don't come too. I-I want to stay with you."

"Oh sister…" He wouldn't pretend he didn't see this coming, he was all she had left, but… "You know it's too dangerous to stay here."

"And be honest," Valeria tucked a loose strand of Anna's hair behind her ear. "Do you think you'll have a better time next time your many suitors descend on you like vultures?"

"Well no, but…"

If Dolos Vardus tries to smarm his way into my family one more time, I might just reconsider Sir Orman's suit. That would throw the court into a tizzy, seeing as the man was not just a mere knight but one from Stromgarde. But with how quickly things are breaking down, I don't expect her plight to be much improved there, even if Sir Orman is good to her. With the 'banditry' along the border, especially the mess in Durn, it would be a wonder if they saw winter without war breaking out. He'd not make his sister a hostage. No, the only option is to send her back to Kul Tiras. Lady Stormsong will find a good match, whatever happens.

King Perenolde would no doubt suspect treason even without the warmongering poison wafting in all the air he breathed, but at this point the man suspected treason of everyone. Richard reluctantly admitted Aiden Perenolde's paranoia wasn't entirely groundless, the man was a king at twenty-five years of age only because his father died 'unexpectedly,' an Alteraci euphemism for poison. But considering what the man did to him and his when Richard was barely eighteen himself, that was as far as his sympathy went. You don't get to complain about the bed you make, especially when you go and slaughter the only high noble house in the nation that isn't just paying lip service to virtue.

All to appease the nobles he didn't hang. To show them that he wasn't pursuing a vendetta, you see, not all the ones who hung were their friends. He didn't even have the courtesy of conducting a proper smear campaign, Richard thought contemptuously. Not only is he a weak and evil king, he's also cheap.

At least all the warmongering meant he could raise troops without drawing suspicion. Well, no more suspicion than everyone else.

The guilds would need to be very careful about who they hired to play Greatfather Winter this year. If they landed another drunk and he said something the king took the wrong way, it might be an entirely different class of bodies lining up for a short drop and a sudden stop.

Alterac was the worst.

At least there isn't any slavery.

His standards had gone to hell.

That was when lightning struck.

Crack-CRACK-BOOM.

"What the devil!?" Richard Angevin barely kept control of his spooked horse, watching open-mouthed as lightning came down from a clear sky and struck the clifftop high ahead with a thunderous roar. Dust and smoke billowed up in the air amidst a long, rumbling groan-

"ROCKSLIDE!"

The cry from ahead snapped Richard out of his shock. "AMBUSH!" He roared even louder, lightning on a clear day, it could only be magic! "Ware, magic is afoot!"

"Halt!" The shouts of his Guard Captain erupted over the din as a wave of boulders began rolling down the side of the cliff up ahead. "Halt the convoy, halt, HALT, stop NOW or we'll all be buried!"

"No," Richard quietly said to himself as he watched the earthfall. "No, there's too few rocks."

"Brother, what's happening?!"

"We might be under attack." Despite his force of men-at-arms 200-strong. "Valeria, keep her inside, don't come out until I say so."

"Right!" His wife, Light bless her, immediately pulled his sister inside and closed the windows, locking them tight and pulling the curtains shut.

A horse's gallop heralded the sight of his Guard Captain skidding to a halt before him. "My Lord, did you see it? Lightning from the blue!"

"Mercad." Richard wrestled with the impulse to relegate the giant Kul Tiran to be his wife and sister's human shield. "Report!"

"Our scouts are overdue, there isn't another way down and the path is too narrow to turn the carriage train around, we're sitting ducks. If we'd been five minutes quicker, we'd have been caught right under it."

"You don't say."

Zap-Screech-BOOM.

A second bolt of lightning came down, this time in the forest on the opposite side of their path. Cries of shock and pain came on the wind. They were faint, but they came from below and they were… "More than two."

"Not ours," Mercad realized the same moment. "More than one group?"

"And each with different orders. Mercad, I have the defence, you take two men and check left of the path as well as you can both ahead and behind us, and not just the top. Look for hooks and ropes."

If anything good came from living in Alterac, it was that guards knew how to turn carriages into roadblocks and improvise barricades very quickly. He'd barely finished assigning the men defensive positions when Mercad ran back to him. "It took some doing, but we found over a dozen thick ropes fastened with iron spikes in the side of the rock just under the path, the ends trail down into the underbrush. We cut the ropes, but the spikes are no simple grapple hooks, it took real sledgehammers to ram those things in, this could only have been prepared beforehand."

"Rockslides take a while to set up as well," Richard said with a grim frown as the cries from around and above changed from panicked to angry. He dismounted. "Corral the horses, we really don't want them lost or stolen." There goes their greatest advantage.

"Yes, Lord."

"See to the crossbowmen while you're at it, reverse-w tactic two, be discreet about it."

"But that's for use against wildkin, not…" Mercad trailed off as the angry shouts of a less-than-controlled charge finally reached them both. There was just barely sufficient tree cover that they couldn't see anything but brief blurs of motion. He could spot boiled leather and even mail, but those weren't the sounds of an orderly attack.

"Just a gut feeling." Richard and grabbed a halberd. "Get to it."

"As you will." Mercad took the reins of his horse and went to do as ordered.

Richard pulled down his helm. "SHIELD WALL!"

He expected his large stature to make him the most attractive target, and he was right. He expected his full plate armor to protect him from the worst of it, and he was proven correct there as well. But he expected the charging mass to be as disorganized as the shouting suggested, and he was wrong. This was Alterac, where everyone from conscripts to mercenaries had elevated the 'pretend to be a bandit' strategy to an art form.

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The first charge stalled on their shields, but the 'bandits' neither broke nor ran. The second push was weaker, but it made sure all their effort went into pushing back, which left them open to the arcane barrage,

"They have mages!" cried footman Wilhelm before the arcane missiles blasted his face in. "Aaargh!"

Three more fell in the same moment, and the second mage was charging an even bigger spell. Richard's instinct screamed at him even before the cloaked figure tossed the glittering blue orb up instead of forward. "HEDGEHOG FORMATION!"

Another man fell when he couldn't disengage quickly enough, but Richard managed to lock his shield in a dome with those who remained, just in time for the massive blizzard spikes to come down once, twice, thrice, the halberds started snapping on the fourth wave, the frost bit his arm on the fifth, his shield cracked on the seventh, and the ninth and final onslaught passed with his pavise just barely holding together. The shield finally shattered when a mace smashed into it. Richard used the leftovers to bash his attacker in the face, dropped the snapped halberd pole, grabbed the second attacker and let himself fall down to the ground along with him. "CROSSBOWS!"

His crossbowmen emerged from where they'd hunkered down behind cover and unleashed a full volley right over their crouched forms into the enemy scrum.

The attackers fell in a drove, choking or yelling. Richard heard curses. He thought he heard the lightning a third time, but it seemed weak and far behind him. There was dust billowing in the air all around the battle as he drove his knife into the man's eye and pushed back to stand. The enemies still came, but where was their counter-fire? "Reform the line!"

"Egrediuntur tela arcanis!"

Richard barely got the pavise of one of his fallen men up in time. It shattered a moment later, possibly along with his arm, the pain that erupted-agh-!

"Procidens jubar sideru-"

BANG

Blood and brain burst from the mage's head. The arcane missile storm misfired like a whirlwind in the midst of a typhoon. Assailants fell. More faltered. The assault stalled for a critical moment.

Richard pulled his throwing knife and hurled it at the other mage's face.

"Fuck!" The woman cursed, an arcane shield springing up at the last second before she promptly teleported away.

The line finally reformed over their fallen brethren. "Your ambush has failed!" Richard shouted, hoping to at least buy time for the crossbows to finish reloading. "We found your ropes, there will be no reinforcements, this distraction has no purpose! Stand down!"

The attackers hesitated while Richard strained to survey what he could from the corner of his eye without giving himself away, where's their counter-fire?!

Mercad's horn sounded near the rear, conveying Send Reinforcements, True Objective.

Richard froze where he stood. Annari! Valeria!

To his surprise, the enemies in front of him faltered and broke at the sound.

Deciding not to question his good fortune, Richard passed leadership to the nearest lieutenant and ran to the rear with what reinforcements he could gather on the way. But why did they break? His mind whirled as he looked around. They were obviously no bandits, they were enlisted troops or mercenaries that clearly knew tactical signals, they should have- Richard's mind skipped a thought when his eyes registered the unnatural amount of dust in the air, around and above them, atop the ridge! We use Kul Tiras signals, his thought resolved itself even as his focus shifted. They must have thought the horn call meant something else. Even more dust was – there was wind blowing against the wind!

When he could barely see ten feet in front of him, Richard stopped behind the next to last carriage and blew his own horn in Maurice pattern. Incoming Friendlies!

After a tense few seconds, Mercad's horn responded. Flank right.

The scum must have him against the edge of the ravine. Richard thought as he quickly relayed orders, trying not to cough. They must have come from even farther back and attacked from the rear, and maybe above as well. The enemy was well prepared and not stupid, even had contingencies and these ones wore plate, not leather or mail like the others. But Richard was in position now. He signalled his men to change to warhammers. At the same time, the wind seemed to miraculously whirl around and in front of him, just enough to clear his line of sight up to where his foes waited for him. Without doing the same for them. "Whoever or whatever you are, thank you," Richard murmured under his breath, even if it probably wouldn't-

The wind brushed against his face, scalding hot in his eyes, but then it blew away and he blinked hard and wide, suddenly feeling alert and clean and no longer about to cough his lungs out. "… Alright."

With a hand signal, he launched his counter-ambush. "CHAAARGE!" He yelled just a moment too late for the scum to react properly.

The rear-most attackers barely had time to turn, and so they were caught in the worst possible position.

Flesh tore. Bones crunched. Men screamed. Richard gave no quarter nor mercy. The Battle of the High Pass was decided in a bloody skirmish around the ladies' wheelhouse. Until, finally, Richard was standing amidst the silence of corpses broken only by the faint gasps of deep weariness and – no. There was something else. A flash of light at the edge of vision made him turn to look up at the high rise where the dust cloud, now that he had time to notice, was the thickest.

"Mercad!"

"Here!" The large man had four crossbow bolts sticking out of his coat of armor, but he did not seem bothered. "Orders?"

"Take what men you can and find a way up there." Lightning struck from nothing a third time, though it was followed by no thunder now. "Quickly! That must be their ranged support!"

"You, you and you lot, go back and see if there's a path up that way. You lot, with me! We're going to find whatever trail the bastards used to climb up and take out whatever of them are left."

Richard watched them leave and was going to set about tallying his losses when something tugged at his awareness. That same instinct that led his tactics and sword arm through thick and thin. Following it, he found his sight casting forth and above where the dust cloud still billowed. A shrouded a figure standing on the ledge. A man-shaped shadow staring straight at him from inside the dust devil. Richard opened his mouth to call the attention of his men, but the air seized in his throat, his face felt like it had just been scalded all over again, and suddenly it was as if he was face-to-face with whoever it was, two blue eyes flashing gold just as they met his.

Richard saw the darkest swamp he'd ever seen surrounding a blasted land scorched red, a simple table in the middle with a jenga tower rising up into infinity. In front of it a knight was fighting some sort of green-skinned brute, skill and will matching slavering savagery as dwarves, gnomes, several kinds of elves, and even some manner of man-goat thing were trampled underfoot. Above them a being of crystals and light matched Light against the Fel darkness of two great, horned demons while fiends and walking dead covered the earth, and dragons swarmed the sky from horizon to horizon. The Black ate the Blue. The Bronze ate their own tail. The Red languished in misery. The Blue hated the rest. Fleshy tentacles and tendrils of blood seeped up from the bedrock. Two burning eyes glared down from amidst the corpses of gods littering the Great Dark. The Fire burned. The Air screamed. The Water stank. The Earth shook. Each and every time the chaos churned, block upon blocks of the trembling tower fell down from heaven.

And right there in the middle, cross-legged on the table at the base of the jenga spire of time, sat a young man with blond hair and blue eyes who was taking blocks out of the tower's base, coating them in glue, then putting them back in place, one by one by one until a wholly new, unyielding foundation grew taller than his hands could reach. So he used the falling blocks to make a club instead.

Then he got up, bashed the greenskin over the head with all the force of wasted time, took the knight's sword and swung it hard at the tower, smashing everything upwards from his hard work apart.

The boy's eyes met his own as the future fell to pieces around them. The eyes were gone. There was only Light shining forth. Then the axe came down and smashed to bits even the table.

Richard Angevin reeled back from the vision with a gasp, one final image burned into his mind, of a new foundation planting itself deep into the fabric of the world, heedless of all the things fighting over it. His skin was clammy. His brain felt like it was alight. His mind drifted. His exhaustion caught up with him and muddled his blank thoughts. He cast about for the figure but he was gone, not even an afterimage in the fading dust cloud to mark his passing.

Light, what was that?

But Richard knew the answer even before the thought finished. The vision and all its bits and pieces were wrapped in knowledge and tenacity locked in a pledge. He knew what that felt like, once. It wasn't even so long ago that he thought he measured up to that same devotion. When was the last time he knelt to pray?

Light, how much greater than me and mine is the plight of the future?

Surrounded by battle-worn rattle and footfalls, Richard Angevin stood alone.

Then he went to his medic to have his broken arm bound, went to his dead, knelt at their side and prayed to the Light for their righteous reward in the afterlife.