From every shred of information that Garner had gathered, Lord Agor seemed to be a perfectly honorable man until the day he started the Purge at his father’s command, leading the murderous campaign against Wizards, as well as any unfortunate mage or practitioner that got in the way. An offer of Parley was a tradition as strong as offering food and drink to someone in your house-stead, people almost never broke it, and were reviled and shunned in those rare cases where they did. So, everything he knew indicated that there wouldn’t be any foul play with the conversation. The white flags signaled a temporary truce and were as universal as gestures could get.

But the wizard was no fool. He knew Manwell, the Lord of Arburgh, and the fortified city. There was only one way that he believed possible for the strong city to have been defeated this quickly - treachery. Reports on the early days of the Purge also talked about Towers and wizards falling because of completely unexpected treason. To top it all off was his strong suspicion that the Fidajin were involved in this campaign and all these acts he had noted as improbable. So, Garner hoped for the best, and expected the worse. His hopes were dashed when he saw that glint on the eye of Lord Agor, and though he noted that there was no satisfaction in those eyes, he didn’t have time to care.

‘Trap!” He warned as he stepped back without turning his back to his foes, his movement mirrored by the other two mages and Lance as they agreed before. The three warriors interposed themselves between the retreating wizards and the Lotharians, shields at the ready. The fast recognition of the trap by Garner and the frantic organized movements threw off the surprise attack. Not far from the tent they were retreating from, suddenly dozen rogues and wizards appeared right and left of their location - Garner would thought it to be a teleportation spell if he didn’t know better. The rogues started pursuing them right away, weapons in hand, while the mages started casting.

Lowa and Tara had already started casting their Barrier and Shield spells, and Garner was responsible for delaying the enemies, throwing a lighting bolt towards Lord Agor. However, the man held out his arm, and the energy seemed to flow into one of his rings even as the noble retreated. The lotharian soldiers released bolts that hit only the warriors’ shields or Lowa’s Shield, and then drew their weapons and charged forward, being joined by Captain Ferrer and Lord Gaius. The situation was getting dire to the wizard’s people as they tried to enact a fighting retreat back to their horses. Their support at the Spire couldn’t launch spells or projectiles in fear of hitting their own.

Spells bombarded Tara’s barrier and the wizard struggled to hold it together, though she had great mana capacity in her favor, besides the attacking mages being somewhat unskilled. Garner fired another lightning, this time towards Vida Ferrer, but the mercenary bashed it aside with her shield, deflecting it towards a soldier by her side, making him fall down, injured, stunned, and out of the fight. This was getting too common for Garner’s liking. Lord Agor’s escorts charged into the shield-line protecting them and weapons flashed forwards, every combatant struggling to break the formation apart.

Vida Ferrer somehow managed to stab one of Chief’s men with her rapier, making the man stumble back, unable to keep his shield up anymore after the hit. She didn’t have the opportunity to explore the gap, though - Lance Eisenwill blew his opponent away with a vicious hammer swing to the chest, caving it in, and opposed her advance. A greatsword hammered Chief’s shield, and the veteran stabbed back blindingly fast for the neck of the swordsman - Lord Gaius. Somehow, the man managed to evade most of the attack at the last second, moving even faster for a second. Still, a gash on the side of his neck, the man’s impetus was considerably slowed, his hesitation clear at facing the dangerous old warrior.

Arrows flew over their frontliners, searching for the practitioners at the back. Lowa’s Shield deflected most of the projectiles, but one of them was enchanted and broke through, speeding towards Garner’s face. At the last second, though, Garner shot lighting out of his mouth, knocking the projectile away in a show of skill. Few practitioners held out through the long and gruesome training to cast spells from new focus point on their bodies. Its versatility couldn’t be overstated, as most people always expected a mage to cast from his dominant hand only.

Garner grimaced at the close call and sent a fireball towards the group of ranged rogues he believed the attack had come from, giving the mages no time to try and shield the archers. The fireball burned and blew them away. Garner believed he had done the right thing to use his lesser Fire affinity, as everyone seemed to be ready for his main Lightning one. Still, the melee rogues started to envelop his people when he decided it was time and threw a fireball upwards, signaling for the contingency plan to be put into action. Looking worriedly from one of the Spire’s balcony, Valena saw the flare and obeyed.

“Rise!” she cried, channeling all the mana she could borrow from the rich air around the Spire to finish the spell she’d been preparing for the whole day.

Skeletons rose from the ground all around Garner and his people, some of beasts, some of men. All of them had been buried in preparation of their enemy’s arrival, though the original plan was to use them to raid the enemy’s camp at night, or to try and disrupt one of their attacks on the Spire. Valena had suffered a great strain in maintaining so many of the creatures at the same time, but she had endured the whole day.

The Skeletons weren’t her most powerful minions by far, but the rogues in particular were ill suited to deal with them, wearing only light armor and wielding mostly cutting weapons. The attackers’ hesitated, and it gave time for the risen creatures to dig themselves out and lock in on them. After a moment, the spell was broken, and the rogues charged the skeletons, who answered in kind. All hell broke loose, and without the cover of spells and projectiles, Ferrer and Gaius retreated instead of trying to face the whole attention of Garner, Lowa and Tara.

The group mounted up and rode hard back to the Spire. Some of the rogues tried to foolishly pursue their quarry, but Maia’s arrows put a quick end to that idea, killing one of them and hurting another. Lord Agor looked at everything in silence, and grimaced - both at what he had been forced to attempt to do, and at the escape of his opponent’s despite it all. It had been wishful thinking that he could have just resolved everything in this opportunity. The heir knew he had to hurry and finish this resistance, the clock was ticking.

*

*

*

Lord Favre, Lothar

“Damnation!” swore Lord Favre, ruler of Lothar, as his son’s message arrived at his richly furnished office. The attempt to decapitate the leadership of the wizards holding out in the Third Spire had failed, which probably meant that capturing the stronghold would take a lot longer. A lot of blood too, but he wasn’t unduly concerned with that - he had a lot of bodies to throw at his enemies.

“I presumed it has failed, milord?” his majordomo and long-time adviser inquired.

“Yes, Vilnius, they escaped,” said the man, his head throbbing with a rising migraine.

“I see… What are the consequences for our plans, milord?” the mustachioed majordomo asked, trying to distract him from his irritation. The man’s startling white hair appearing to make him even more proper than when he’d arrived to serve him, so many decades ago.

“We’ll have to divide the paladins. They will have to keep the communication of the besieged Tower’s locked down with less men.”

“And what of the Wizard’s political pressure, milord?”

“They had a meeting with the King yesterday, but He didn’t show a great hurry to resolve the matter. According to my sources, he said he has more pressing matters, but that He will send me an invitation to discuss the matter sometime next week.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m a foreigner, milord, but why didn’t the King react more harshly?”

“Well, he doesn’t like the wizards, and he doesn’t care much for the West either. It’s a poor land, and he’s been giving us mostly free reins in how to deal with the region,” he explained, trusting in his majordomo to brainstorm with him as once he’d trusted his monstrous wife. His knucles were still hurt from his last visit to the filthy Dungeon where he was keeping her. The woman had the gall to mock him after everything she had done and he had lost control, hitting her until the prison guards managed to snap him out of it. It wouldn’t be that easy to the bitch, he would truly make her suffer before he was done with her.

“Should I prepare for your trip to the capital, milord?”

“Not yet, Vilnius. I’ll stall for as long as I can, claim I was sick.”

“Very intelligent, milord. But what about the wizards in areas free of the Purge, milord?”

“They are slow to react, and have difficulties in organizing and gathering their people. For all their reputation, I’ve already had the worst of their lot taken care of quietly. If they attack Lothar, we’ll prevail. If they try to rescue their comrades, we’ll be the hammer to my son’s anvil and crush them.”

“Very well, milord. But I’m afraid I must look after the youngest, milord,” the majordomo said, bowing as he awaited the permission to leave.

Favre nearly growled at the reminder. The noble still believed that the most merciful thing he could do to the infant was to put an end to it, but he simply couldn’t do it, and he would never order one of his men to do that dark and extremely personal deed. “You may go, Vilnius. Take care of it…”

*

*

*

The Spire

Chief’s wounded man didn’t make it. The damned Vida Ferrer hit the man’s artery, and he kept on his feet just enough to arrive back at the Spire and fall of his horse. None of the wizards or healers could do anything but say their sentiments to Garner and his avowed warriors. In what seemed like a lifetime of service to the wizard, never before had Chief lost one of his warriors in combat. The damned siege barely began, and one of his men already laid lifeless at the small a capel. After everyone who whished had said its farewells or prayed to one’s gods, they would take the body to a cold chamber on the penultimate bottom floor, where he wouldn’t decompose for months, hopefully.

The veteran had agreed at the time that attending the Parley offer was the right choice, but goddamnit, it had been stupid in hindsight. What advantage could they have ever gained from attending it? Lord Agos hadn’t let anything important slip, and they were down a good man to defend the Spire. If they hadn’t been prepared, it could have all ended right then. Chief was mulling on such thoughts on a balcony when he felt a presence behind him, and looked back to see Raj’pul behind him. He scowled at the foreign man, not in the mood to deal with him, who he didn’t trust at all.

“I know you don’t like me much, Chief, but I’ve come to wish you my condolences,” said the man, nodding respectfully.

Chief measured the man’s honesty in his eyes, and his anger subsided a little. “Thanks, Raj’pul, he was a good man.”

The rogue joined him in the balcony then, after he didn’t turn him away. The two stood silently looking at the movement of the lotharians at the distance for a long while as the sun started setting in the horizon and the temperature started lowering.

“How do you deal with it, Chief?” Raj’pul broke the silence, his breath visible in the cold weather.

Chief looked at him speculatively, “It happens, rogue. We’re warriors, it’s a given we will not live forever.”

Still, the warrior didn’t press the man, and let him bring what was eating him at his own time. But he could see it, he had a lifetime of dealing with the aftermath of such situations after all, and he clearly wasn’t the only one grieving at the moment.

“Before I met with the others, Chief,” the man got out, “Don’t ask me where, but I lost everyone…”

Helping the man at least got the warriors out of his own dark thoughts, “How?”. He didn’t ask as the man had requested, but he could put two and two together: the man was clearly a rogue by the way he moved and fought, and he had been found on a road with many empty horses with a death wish…

“We got caught in the middle of it all,” Raj’pul said, gesturing to the Spire and the army before them. “We were good, very good, but our luck ran out. Only I made it out.”

“Survivor’s guilty they call it, rogue. Almost every warrior feels it one time or another. My advice would be to give it time and keep your mind out of it, but I’m sure our friends will help to keep you busy,” he said, grinning deprecatingly at the besiegers.

“You know, I wish they would. I have the urge to stab someone, many someones,” the man said, looking angrily at the people responsible for his current predicaments.

“So do I, Raj’pul, so do I,” answered Chief, patting his sword’s hilt as he thought of the mercenary captain who’d slain his man. “Tomorrow, tomorrow we’ll have ample opportunity, I bet.”

The two continued in companionable silence for a while before they retired and went to sleep, getting ready for the next’s day challenges.