“Solhart has arrived outside the gates!”

A rush of surprise and relief. A burst of hope like spring’s first buds.

“Solhart has been pushed back! The mountain men hold.”

A grip of fear like a fist around the throat.

Everyone who heard the twin lines of news felt much the same, but Aisha found herself largely robbed of life, enervated to the extreme. The barking orders of soldiers pounded in her ears. Chaos drifted through the streets, pulling men to the harbor, to the walls, back to the palace, to fires, to riots, and whenever they arrived in one place they were desired in another.

The group hunting Medorosa passed through it all, looked over by lieutenants hungry for accolades. The turbulence of troops dragged eddies of attention through the city though, which Medorosa found like a fish in a stream. From one district to the next he and his accomplice fled with Sister Mori fast behind.

“This is exactly what he wants,” Aisha said when the old priestess finally demanded a brief rest.

Oscar offered her a bit of biscuit ration.(1) “How so? Petty disturbance? We’ll have his head on a spike soon enough.”

“It’s not petty,” she said, and attempted to crack part of the ration off. It took her two attempts, and one of Oscar’s subordinates grimaced. The man vanished to find the lady something proper to eat, but she paid him no mind. “He’s tying up resources. Scattering the chain of command… he must be trying to get to something when the chance comes.”

The Vassish soldier planted his hands on his hips. “Well, he’s your brother. You know him best. What would he be trying to do?”

She shrugged. “Win it all.”

Sister Mori arched her back, pressing on her side with a scowl. “How would one man sway a siege?”

Aisha, turned her gaze to the flagstone beneath her. “Could he open the gates?”

“Lord Raymi is personally protecting the gates before their army.”

“What about the harbor then?”

Oscar narrowed his gaze. “What about the artillery? Where that strange man calling himself an engineer went.” A most unpleasant description of myself, but accurate.

Aisha shook her head. “You don’t have to worry about him.” Though in truth, she still had her reservations about me. She was, afterall, privy to my true desire in the moment and that had nothing to do with the safety of Rackvidd. Not directly anyways.

“But, that may well be his aim, no? Your brother’s?” he pressed.

She chewed on her lip and turned her gaze southward, to the sea. Her head ached and the biscuit did little to help her growing dehydration. “I’ve never seen weapons like those before. Is that why you Vassish went to the wastelands south of the sea?”

The soldier dutifully puffed his chest. “Indeed. A marvel born of Vassermark’s might at the bequest of King Arandall.”

“Were any of them brought south? Would Medorosa have ever seen them?”

“No, we have precious few for the defense of our cities. None to risk losing in a sunk ship.” Nothing to say of the lives lost from a sunk ship. “I suspect your brother is as shocked by them as you must be; but, we’ve been firing(2) upon them for an entire day now.”

“Take me there. I can’t think of any better way for him to cause mayhem than to kill the men working those stone beasts and turn them upon the city. Sister Mori, do you think you could watch from afar?”

“From sitting on my bony rear end? Certainly,” she said. She had produced from a pocket a rather coquettish paper fan, the stylized kind of toy that daring women would use to draw the eye. The puff of her cheeks while she tried to take the heat off her couldn’t have been further away.

The group of them set off before the conscientious soldier could so much as hand Aisha the popina snack he had spent his precious pay on. Hopes of her favor were found dashed upon the ground.

By my own recollection of this, and referencing maps of old Rackvidd, I was in fact the strangest thing at the bulwark at this time. Much to the ire of the artillery squadron. The sergeant in charge, I think, wanted to kill me. He and I were taking bets regarding the accuracy of my calculations. After a brief argument over whether or not the shot-stocks, which propel the sphere, could be re-used, I had set about to prove my calculations. Suffice to say, I was correct, and one particular ship from Medorosoa’s fleet which became lodged on rocks was reduced to splinters.

At this time, Medorosa Canta revealed his most underhanded of uses for his stigmata.

The guard at the base of the steps to the cannon platform did not slacken their watch. Lord Raymi had sent word from the northern gates to be wary of anyone approaching injured. In this, they did not fail. And yet, they spoke freely with the locals. With the porters that bring fresh tar and oil for night time illumination, and for the messenger boys, and the young women working sales for the bakers and food merchants. Regular people they encountered near every day.

And so, one of the guards who was rather taken with the young daughter of the nearest baker, waved her over with a smile. He talked large about how there would be no threat from some rabble of Giordanans. He boasted of the defenses they had. He never once questioned why she had a scarf on that didn’t match her blouse.

He should have. There are a great many ways to kill someone without shedding blood. Strangulation leaves only bruises on the throat.

She too had one of those paper fans, which pained the guard all the more. They made excellent gifts, and I suspect he was the one who bought it for her off a wandering peddler. It concealed the knife all too well, before she pushed it through his trachea and drowned him in his own blood.

The other guard, there’s always another, started and swung his spear down, but the baker’s daughter– the corpse puppet I should say– swept in. He raised the alarm with a cry. The spearhead sliced through her ear and cut some of her hair. She thrust the knife into the other guard’s gut. It tangled with the chain, barely cutting through the man’s belly fat. His hands closed on hers. The stigmata could do nothing to strengthen her body. The guard wrestled her back, overpowering her and driving the knife back out of his gut.

She went limp and near collapsed. For the briefest moment, the guard stared. Then, out from her chest bloomed the bloody steel of the first guard’s spearhead. Shoved through her chest and into the other guard’s gaping mouth.

The first defenses thus broken, Medorosa, with the blood soaked body of the first guard, charged up the steps of the seaward wall. Aisha and Oscar found the two corpses pinned to one another’s embrace, and understood at once. Bells rang across the district, up and down the patrol routes, and further soldiers began their charge to aid the cannoneers, but not before Medorosa burst into the tent.

When Aisha arrived in turn, the canvas walls had been torn down. A barrel of ley rods had been kicked over the side, and the corpse puppet stood across from myself as the hostage artillerymen turned the nearest cannon down to the harbor : to the chain protecting the docks from incursion.

“Brother!”

The sergeant had been cut down by Medorosa, and as the only man present with a sword, the situation appeared grim. He scowled and inched closer to the weapon. “Sister. I’ve never seen you quite so persistent. Is chasing after me your goal in life or something? Betraying the people of Giordana.”

“You have to stop this,” she said, marching to him. “You’re killing innocent people! Destroying everything.”

“All in the name of liberation from the Vassish! These people? These people are collaborators. They’re complicit with the occupation. A foreign occupation for the prosperity of foreigners and the insult to our own heritage.”

“Oh you don’t know the first thing about your heritage! You know what you've dreamt up in taverns and bars and goaded your friends into believing! I know for a fact that you skipped every temple lecture you could and I doubt you have more than two prayers stored between your ears.”

His nostrils flared. “I know about honor! I know about keeping your word. And they don’t. That’s what matters, Sister. And now, that purity will come back to Giordana, by my hand.” He hefted the sledge hammer up in one hand and spun. It slammed upon the firing pin and the reaction within lurched.

The cannon shot, however, merely rolled from the barrel and bounced off the ground. The ley rod within had been exhausted by my earlier play, and shattered.(3)

Oscar, the pinnacle image of a proper footsoldier, had not spared the thoughts for what Medorosa was trying to do. While the Canta boy had been occupied with his scheme, Oscar had sprinted towards him. In Medorosa’s confusion, Oscar cleaved his sword through the corpse puppet’s back. He shattered the spine and dropped it there.

“Too bad,” I mused, grinning and stroking my chin.

“This isn’t… the end,” Medorosa croaked out “Karekale is coming.”

“Perhaps,” I said.

Aisha’s eyes glistened, and she pointed a finger down to the bakery below. A dozen soldiers surrounded it at the orders of Sister Mori. “It’s over, Medo. We’ve caught you. Just surrender.”

The city lurched. To the north, dust and smoke plumed to the sky as a din of crashing stone swept across the rooftops. The walls of Rackvidd collapsed on themselves in a landslide of granite. The defenses of the city broke open.

The Vassermark army had a superstition about their field rations. The objective reason for them (note : imagine an entire loaf of bread rushed into a brick the size of one’s palm and salted so greatly as to purge any rot) was to simplify the logistics of feeding an army. They were sized such that a man could survive on two a day if the need be, and could supplement any local requisitions. The taste would never have been tolerated however, if not for the mystique given them by ancient warrior traditions. These rations were used by great swordsmen as their food during extended training of months or even years. Rubbish of course, but the lie made the food go down easier. Common soldiers eating the food of great warriors. At this time, no fire was actually involved in the projectile process. By my recollection, most cannoneers referred to it as “throwing shot”. However, the term is used to fit the modern jargon, as other such technologies have been developed to capture the public imagination. I had of course foreseen Medorosa’s attack, though I had assumed the soldiers of Vassermark would put up a better fight. Gambling with the sergeant had been an insurance plan I wished not to use. But alas. I do hope his family made use of the coin purse I left upon his corpse. In the end, he won the bet.