Let's Play: Cataphrak's Dragoon Saga

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [ISOBEL] "If it has gained us the advantage, then I suppose I cannot speak against it."

In truth, it isn't the sort of thing that can sit comfortably with you, especially at a time like this. It's one thing to rely upon secrecy and suspicion when dealing with Cortes votes and sitting-room intrigues, but in a time of war, in the midst of battle, information regarding the movements of one's own side may be just as important as knowing the actions of the enemy, and the lack of such intelligence may kill just as readily.

But you're not in the midst of any sort of war which you recognise. There are no battle-lines, no fixed loyalties. It's a conflict wherein betrayal and deception are as deadly as cannon and muskets. Perhaps in such a state of affairs, such unseemly paranoia is desirable, even necessary—the Queen has certainly made it seem so, and given the results of her actions so far, you find it difficult to disagree with her assessment—no matter how badly you might wish to.

And you're not the only one. For an instant, Lefebvre seems about to say something, but evidently, he quickly thinks better of it.

If Her Majesty notices either of your states of discomfiture, she makes no sign of it. Instead, she only nods her approval. "Then let us waste no more time. Pray, Reddingfield, I must oblige you to establish picquets to give us advance warning, and move the wounded and the dead somewhere out of the way so the sight of them does not dishearten our reinforcements when they arrive. I shall also need you to send out patrols to fetch the Grenadiers—and a chair for Colonel Lefebvre…"

The next few minutes pass in a rapidly escalating crescendo of activity as the Queen's supporters rally before the gates of the Northern Keep in greater and greater numbers. The Grenadiers are first to return, those not still keeping their positions at the Wulframites' heels. They swagger with the air of victory, despite their wounds and obvious exhaustion, and when their officers report to Colonel Lefebvre, now propped up in the centre of a makeshift headquarters atop a chair taken from a nearby townhouse, they seem more than eager to return to the fray.

And they won't be doing so alone.

The forces rallied by the Reform Club aren't far behind, as Cazarosta had promised. Most of them are ill-organised and poorly equipped, no better than the Wulframite street militias you have faced so far—but the same cannot be said by the group of men at their head, lean, hard-faced men with keen eyes and long hunting guns, led by a familiar figure still wearing the uniform of a Royal Intendant.

Intendant Victor d'al Reyes had been a major of infantry in Antar, commanding a special force of rifle skirmishers. You suspect that the men he leads now are veterans of that force, crack shots capable of striking down men far beyond the range of an ordinary musket. The long reach of their rifles may no doubt prove a great advantage in the fighting ahead.

And not a few minutes later, a new force arrives, bearing a cargo of weapons which may prove to have even more of an effect. Most of Palliser's force may have dispersed after the storming of the Takaran Embassy, but enough evidently stayed behind to recover the vast arsenal of elven-made guns stashed in the basement, weapons which were intended to arm Wulfram and his supporters. Weapons which will prove deadly, even in half-trained hands.

By the time your wounds are bound up the square is full of people: professional fighting men, enthusiastic amateurs, day labourers, and Lords of the Cortes, all prepared to commit themselves to the Queen's cause.

When Her Majesty reconvenes a council of war in their midst, the mood is confident, perhaps even jubilant.

"Well, gentlemen, it seems the day has gone well for us," she declares before the gathered leaders of the makeshift army now formed around her—and no small number of spectators from that army, as well. "Thanks to the exertions of our loyal subjects, we have seized the initiative from the traitor Wulfram. Now, we have the strength at our disposal to put paid to his uprising altogether." The Queen's voice seems to fill the open space, piercing even the grey powder-fog with its confident tone. "The traitor's cause stands over an abyss, we need only but push him in."

An impromptu round of cheers follows, not from the men of rank and command around you, but from the common people behind you, a demonstration of publick affection—or perhaps merely publick confidence—which you don't think the Queen has ever really elicited before. It seems that the extremity of the current moment has done much to turn the quiet loyalty of many of her subjects into open support.

But whatever the reason, the cheering doesn't last longer than a moment. Whatever affection they may bear the Queen now, it's clear that there's likely still to be hard fighting ahead—a fact which isn't lost on Her Majesty, either.

"As things are, we may yet restore peace to Aetoria before sunset," she continues. "But if such an end is to be achieved, we must move swiftly and forcefully, and with a unified plan of attack." She looks to each of you gathered around her, one by one. "If any of you have questions regarding our current dispositions or those of the enemy, if there are matters to discuss, do it quickly. We shall have little time for such discussion soon enough."

[X] "What do we know of Wulfram's strength and dispositions?"

"As far as my men can tell, Wulfram has recalled all of his men to the docks," Lefebvre answers. "Whether to regroup and renew their attack or to prepare to evacuate to sea, we cannot yet know."

The Queen's eyebrow raises. "Evacuate? Does he truly mean to give up this fight so soon?" For an instant, her eyes flick beyond the council of war, to the gathered faces beyond. "I had imagined that after all of his bluster, he would have more stomach for fighting than that?"

"It may not necessarily be his decision to make, Majesty," Captain Garret interjects from where she's standing beside you. "His support in the city is widespread but precarious—and largely predicated upon his ability to win a swift victory. When he looked like he was winning, the street militias were with him. Now that it looks like we have the upper hand, I suspect many of his supporters believe he isn't worth the risk."

"You put the cart before the horse, Captain," Lefebvre replies. "Whatever his intentions in future, and however that may affect his prospects in the long run, the fact remains that at the moment, Wulfram still retains command over the better part of a regiment of heavy cavalry and several battalions of Marines—not to mention possession of the shore batteries, which not only allow him free traffick betwixt the city and Crittenden's fleet, but provide him with a most formidable defensive position."

The Queen's eyes narrow. "The shore batteries are pointed towards the sea. Surely he couldn't have turned them about so quickly?"

"I would doubt it, Majesty, but even without the guns, the battery platforms themselves make for fortresses in their own right," the Grenadier Colonel explains grimly. "There are firing steps and loopholes facing the city, and any attempt to assault them from the landward side would mean funnelling men up narrow staircases whilst exposed to fire from such positions. It will be hard, bloody going."

The Queen closes her eyes and nods in an almost theatrical expression of sorrow. "Too much Tierran blood has been spilt today already. I would enjoin you to find some other way, if possible."

"And if one cannot be found?"

"Then we do what we must."

[X] "Would it not be best for Her Majesty to withdraw to the safety of the Northern Keep?"

Colonel Lefebvre doesn't hesitate to offer his agreement. "Lord Reddingfield is right. The Privy Council chamber, I think, would be best suited for the ro—"

"Absolutely not," the Queen says, in a tone clearly meant to silence any objection. "I remain here, in the open. I have hidden myself away long enough."

But the Grenadier is undeterred. "Majesty! I must protest, in the strongest terms! Your safety must be our paramount concern, especially when—"

He doesn't quite say it. It seems that not even a man with the physickal courage of Sir Daniel d'al Lefebvre can manage to utter the simple truth which every single one of you knows, that the Queen is without an heir of the body or an acknowledged successor of any sort. That her death here could well end the House of Rendower, along with the Unified Kingdom it has built.

Yet the Queen only shakes her head. "I am no soldier, I know I am no soldier, so I will not vex you by accompanying you into battle. Yet…" She stops for a moment. When she begins again, her voice is pitched to fill the air. "Yet even so, it is a poor sovereign who does not gain an appreciation for the suffering of her subjects. I have obliged you all to fight for me, perhaps to die for me. If I cannot in turn take on even a little of the risk which I have called all of you to sustain, then how might I justify myself as any better than one such as Wulfram, who allows himself to be whisked away to safety at the slightest hint of danger?"

She shakes her head again, slowly, dramatically, as if she were playing to a stage. "No. If I cannot lead you in body, then I would at least lead you in spirit. It's the least one might to do to earn the loyalty of so brave a people." It's a noble sentiment, even if it is one without real substance. In reality, the Queen will hardly be less safe in the square before the Northern Keep than deep within its bowels. Yet the crowd gathered around you doesn't seem to notice. They answer the Queen's words with a great cheer, far greater than the last.

"The matter is settled," she concludes as the voices of those around her at last die down. "If I cannot go forward with the troops, I will at least be here to see them off. Will there be any further objections?"

There are none.

[X] "How do we fare elsewhere in the city?"

Lefebvre frowns. "We've had precious little news, save what our new arrivals brought us. However, what little news we have had is encouraging. Wulfram has sent out messengers calling his supporters to rally to the docks, no doubt to augment his forces now holding the shore batteries."

"I fail to see how that's reassuring," you reply. "The more men Wulfram can bring to the shore batteries, the more men he will have defending them when we must attack them."

The Grenadier officer gives you a look of no small exasperation, as if you missed an obvious point. "If Wulfram is pulling his men back from the rest of the city, then he must believe his forces too weak to contest it. We have the upper hand—or at least, he assumes we do. That can only be to our advantage."

"What about our forces scattered throughout the city?" the Queen asks. "Have they held out?"

"We believe the Southern Keep is still in our hands, the University as well," the Grenadier replies. "And Grenadier Square?"

"Unknown. Some have reported smoke rising from that quarter, but we have few reliable reports, and no one has gotten close enough to confirm matters one way or the other."

The Queen frowns. "Then our position in the city remains precarious."

Lefebvre nods. "Yes, Majesty, and it won't get any stronger until we push Wulfram out of the shore batteries."

Her Majesty nods slowly, with a careful and obvious certainty. "Then we must see it done."

[X] "No more questions, Majesty."

The Queen nods. "Will there be anything else, gentlemen?"

The moment of silence that results is the permission she needs to press on.

"Now that we have seized the initiative, it's clear that we must take advantage of it," she continues. "Colonel Lefebvre, you have thoughts?"

The Grenadier officer nods. "The key to Wulfram's position is his control of the docks. So long as they are in his hands, he has an open means of coordinating with his fleet. That gives him the option of landing supplies and reinforcements—or likewise, evacuating the city. So long as Wulfram remains in free contact with his ships, he may choose to strengthen his position to renew his attack or escape the city with his forces to raise rebellion elsewhere. The obvious course of action here would be to take the shore batteries."

The Queen's eyebrow raises. "I suspect you have a plan for such a course of action?"

Lefebvre nods. "I have the beginnings of one."

"Then let us hear it."

"Wulfram is as aware of the importance of the shore batteries as we are," the Grenadier officer begins. "If he isn't, then surely the men around him do. We must expect them to be heavily defended. This means we shall have to strike them with the largest available force possible. We have the elements of a strong force here: Lord Reddingfield's Dragoons, Intendant Reyes' Skirmishers, what's left of my Grenadiers. I suggest we assemble such a force and seize the Shipping Exchange."

"How does seizing the Shipping Exchange advance our aim of taking the shore batteries?"

"It will offer clear lines of vision over much of the docks, Majesty," Lefebvre replies. "Once we have the Shipping Exchange, the commander of the attacking force will have the means to determine Wulfram's positions and plan his attack accordingly."

The Queen's eyes narrow. "And who is to command this force?"

The Grenadier looks up with an expression of some confusion. "I was under the impression that I would, Majesty."

"You are wounded, sir."

"I may still fight, Majesty."

But Lefebvre's own appearance belies the truth: his head swaddled with bandages, his face almost as pale as a Takaran's. You rather doubt he has the ability to stand on his own feet, let alone fight a battle upon them.

And he sees it too, though he refuses to concede it at first. For a defiant moment, he only looks back, eyes intent. With a grunt of effort, he levers himself up out of his chair—but only for a moment before falling back into it again, dejected.

"Very well," he admits betwixt laboured breaths. "Palliser is next senior. He should command."

But Viscount Palliser shakes his head too. "Were this a mounted pursuit or a battle on an open field, I'd be delighted for th' opportunity, but I've no experience in assaulting fortified positions." He shakes his head again. "Someone else, surely."

But as you look around the ring of officers surrounding the Queen, you can see that there's no one else. All the others are too junior, or too heavily wounded, or unsuitable for other purposes: Reyes for his half-pay status, Cazarosta for his birth. Indeed, you quickly come to the realisation that there's only one suitable candidate.

And as the others rest their eyes upon you, so do they.

[ ] [COMMAND] This is the opportunity I have long awaited! A chance to make a real mark on history!
[ ] [COMMAND] I suppose it must be me, if there's no one else.
[ ] [COMMAND] They're making a mistake. I will only fail them in the end.

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [COMMAND] This is the opportunity I have long awaited! A chance to make a real mark on history!

When the war in Antar ended and you returned home on half-pay, you had thought—no, you had feared—that your time in the sun was over. That all which awaited you was the comfortable and obscure life of a conventional country baron with its conventional obligations and conventional diversions—or else a pitiable position on the Cortes as one feeble voice in a throng of hundreds.

When the King died and you were called back to active service, some terrible part of you took it as a rare opportunity, a second chance to seize the glory and renown which you found yourself still harbouring a thirst for during your time at peace. Some part of you hoped that with the country in crisis and in need of help, you might once again ride forth to do some great deed which might carve your name into memory, to satisfy the heroic instinct which you had only half-slaked during your former years at war.

But you could have never imagined this: to be made the man on the spot in a time of unutterable crisis. To be the one in command of what might be the most consequential action in the country's history.

To be the shoulders upon which the fate of the Unified Kingdom may well rest.

It's more than you could have possibly hoped for, in those grey days of peace, more than you've ever imagined—perhaps more than what you think yourself capable of.

But if that's the case, then you will rise to the occasion. You've been given a chance for an immortal breed of glory. Now all you must do is seize it.

So, you draw yourself upright and step forward, towards the sovereign who has given you so perfect a chance.

"I will do all I can, Majesty," you declare. "I shall see this turmoil ended, with all means practicable."

They are words meant for posterity, words which you may well be remembered by. Yet you can barely hear them over the roaring of your own thoughts, over the high-flying beat of your own heart.

But the Queen does, and when she hears them, she lifts her chin, gazing upon you with the stateliest, most solemn of smiles. "Very good, my lord. You have my permission to set yourself to work."

-​

The council ends quickly after that, with the Queen off to inspect the troops she has ordered assembled, and all her officers returning to their commands to prepare themselves for what is to come.

Or at least, almost all of them.

Colonel Lefebvre remains where he is—not that he has much of a choice. But before you can return to your own regiment, he beckons you over to where he's sitting, attended by a tall, earnest-looking Grenadier officer perhaps almost of an age with you, his burnt-orange coat showing clear evidence of fighting, but nothing of wounds.

"My lord, this is Captain Riley of First Battalion, the most senior of my officers still fit for action," he begins, motioning to the officer beside him. He turns. "Captain Riley, Lieutenant-colonel the Lord Reddingfield."

The Captain steps forward, a surprisingly guileless look of enthusiasm upon his features. "It is an honour, sir."

Introductions pass briskly. With speed of importance, there's hardly room for anything else. It's nothing more than an exchange of nods, enough to ensure that all is in order.

It is also not the real reason Lefebvre called you over.

"My lord," he begins, his voice low, a moment after dismissing Riley back to his command. "We have harboured much enmity for each other over the years, and I suspect you consider it as justified as I do. Yet you are still a soldier and an officer of the Queen, and it is by virtue of that similarity betwixt us that I would make a request of you."

Your eyes cannot help but narrow in suspicion. "Go on."

The Grenadier officer leans in towards you, his voice dropping to just above a whisper, as if disclosing some shameful secret. "I understand that it is the height of foolishness to ask that my men be kept from peril. We are soldiers, and more than that, we are Queen's Grenadiers—being thrust into peril is our prerogative and our profession. It is merely that…" His voice falters for a moment. He takes a breath, seeming more distraught in facing what he's about to say now than you've ever seen him in the midst of the enemy. "I have led these men for a long, long time, and I have already lost a great number of them today. I would ask that you do what you can to preserve those who remain."

[ ] [LEFEBVRE] "I will do my utmost, sir."
[ ] [LEFEBVRE] "I can offer no assurances, but I will try."
[ ] [LEFEBVRE] "The lives of your men are subject to the requirements of the service; no more, no less."
[ ] [LEFEBVRE] "I haven't seen such concern for life before from you, sir."

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [LEFEBVRE] "The lives of your men are subject to the requirements of the service; no more, no less."

For an instant, a look of complete fury flashes across Lefebvre's face, then comprehension, then understanding. "Yes, you are right. My Grenadiers are fine infantry, the finest this country has ever put into the field, but they are still soldiers of the Queen, and if they must be…expended to preserve this country and the Crown which safeguards it, then I could not ask you to do otherwise."

The Grenadier officer's words come out like the pliers of a trained surgeon removing a musket ball from his own wound, sure and certain but pained all the same. When he looks over to where those of his men still on their feet are assembling in a column of companies, it is with both a fondness and a look of profound regret.

"I've always led them in, ever since I took command," he says. "This will be the first time they'll go into battle without me. I would implore you to preserve them, for the sake of the country, if not for my own. The Queen will have need of such men in the days to come, and—"

He shakes his head. "No, no, no," he mutters, addressing himself with a self-loathing condemnation as he looks away. "I cannot ask you for that."

For a moment, he's silent, but when he turns to you again, his eyes are sharp and clear. "Do what you must to secure victory," he finally says, his words filled with equal parts resignation and resolution. "I can ask no more of you."

-​

The core of your force assembles with all the speed and efficiency of veteran soldiers—which you suppose they all are. Between the Grenadiers and your own Dragoons, you have under you a considerable portion of the army's peacetime strength; and for all of their broadcloth and civilian coats, Reyes' sharpshooters also form up into groups with all the practised motion of men who have long since gotten used to the idea of moving in step with the beat of a drum.

But there are others gathering in the wake of your force as well, hundreds of them: those who form into no companies, and follow no officers, for all that some of them might have been soldiers once. They are, for the most part, those who were rallied by members of the Reform Club, who showed up before the Northern Keep after the fighting had ended. They'd been spared the bitter taste of that action, and by the enthusiasm in their eyes and the brightness of their chatter, it's clear that they mean to remedy the lack by accompanying your own attack on the shore batteries.

They're hungry for action and glory. Perhaps you'll give them the opportunity to have their fill.

Your force sees nothing of Wulfram's men as it begins its advance past the empty windows of the Kian Embassy and down the wide roads of the Castle Quarter. At the head of your regiment, behind a screen of Reyes' Skirmishers, you and your Dragoons keep a close watch on the deserted streets ahead, as well as the dark cavities of doorways and windows which peer down from each side. You know some of the townhouses you're riding past belong to prominent members of the Wulframite faction, men who even now might be leading militia against the Queen's supporters—or waiting for you and your Dragoons to ride into their prepared ambush.

Yet no shots echo from the windows, no armed men pour out of the walled gardens. If there's anyone at all watching your force pass them by, they're little more than that.

It's enough to make your soldier's instincts verge into the realm of paranoia.

Surely, Wulfram must know that the Queen intends to come for him. Even if he hasn't guessed her intentions, then he must have seen something of the pursuit which dogged him after his reverse before the Northern Keep. Why has he not thrown out picquets? Why has he not posted a rear guard?

Perhaps he means to surrender already? But even then, surely, he would have sent out envoys under a flag of parley.

And yet, even as a light, seaward breeze picks up and begins to lift the powder-fog from the streets, you see nothing that might be construed as outposts or picquets, only a fugitive figure here or there, who quickly make themselves invisible the instant they're spotted.

Saints be damned! Where are they?

In the end, it isn't until you're within sight of the great bulk of the Shipping Exchange itself that you first see the enemy in arms; or rather, before they spot you.

It's only due to a stroke of good fortune that you see the flash of light reflecting off the panes of an opening window along the top gallery of the Shipping Exchange, only good fortune that your eyes are drawn to it long enough to see the barrel of a musket poke out and point itself towards you.

The warning is already halfway to your lips as you rein your horse in, but you know it won't be fast enough.

Thankfully, Reyes' men are faster. They see the threat too. In an instant, two dozen of them are on their knees, rifles up and ready. The thunder of musketry fills the street, accompanied by the dull impact of lead on stoke and the shattering of glass. An orange-coated figure tumbles out of one of the high, open windows, to land with a wet crunch on the cobbles below.

Under normal circumstances, to open fire without orders would have been a flagrant breach of discipline, enough to get a man flogged. However, you suspect that you would be a touch ungracious if you were to punish such initiative this time.

In any case, you have more immediate concerns: the fallen Marine is quickly replaced by another, and a dozen more besides. Soon the whole face of the Shipping Exchange is bristling with musket barrels, firing off one by one as you order a withdrawal.

It's clear enough now that the Exchange building is firmly in the hands of the Wulframites—and it will take quite some doing to prise it out of them.

You do not fall back far, perhaps only one or two hundred paces, enough to keep you well out of range of the enemy's fire—whilst keeping the object of your immediate plans in view as you consider your options.

It seems your fellow club members have proven rather overconfident in the estimation of their ability to resist professional soldiery. Either that, or they came to some accommodation with Wulfram and his rebels. Whatever the case, you doubt the Queen will be much pleased with them once this is over.

There's no question that you shall need to seize the Shipping Exchange now. You cannot afford to allow the Wulframites to hold so strong a point to your rear whilst you attack the shore batteries. However, it's just as clear that the enemy are quite well-established within the building, and are no doubt well aware of the importance of their position. No amount of persuasion or subterfuge is likely to eject them from it—which means it will have to be taken by force.

The only question is, who will you send in?

It won't be an easy affair, that's for certain. Even once the heavy doors are broken down, any assaulting force would have to move through the yard, subjected to fire from all directions. Then, upon fighting their way into the building itself, they would be obliged to advance room to room, hallway to hallway, against a determined and well-disciplined foe. Hard fighting is certain. Heavy losses for the attackers, inevitable.

Under ideal circumstances, the Grenadiers would be perfect for the job. Indeed, fighting amongst buildings and fortified positions is supposed to be their specialty—as their defence of the Northern Keep already demonstrated. However, the Grenadiers have already suffered their share of losses, and you have little doubt that they're neither as fresh nor as prepared for so difficult an engagement as they might have been otherwise. If you send them in, they'll almost certainly succeed, but whether they'll be in a state fit to fight after that is another question entirely.

For a moment, you consider your own regiment—but only for a moment. The task of storming the Shipping Exchange is one which might well almost intentionally be contrived to place your Dragoons at the greatest possible disadvantage: your men hardly have any of the necessary equipment to break into the building, and once they're inside, the tight confines of the corridors and galleries would almost certainly make your Dragoon sabres more hindrance than help, especially against men armed with muskets and bayonets.

Then there's the mob, the thousands of Royalist militia who followed Cazarosta from the Reform Club, and now you to the Shipping Exchange. They'll be even more poorly equipped for the job than your Dragoons, but they're fresh, and perhaps even more importantly, they're numerous. Send in the mob, and they'll be slaughtered, but they will overwhelm the Marines in the end—provided that you're able to convince them to press the attack with sufficient vigour.

Of course, there may be another option, one which would certainly avoid the heavy losses of a direct assault. Despite the enemy's strong position, you have one advantage which they lack: possession of a force which may strike at them whilst themselves remaining proof from retaliation. If you were to employ Reyes and his Skirmishers against the Marines holding the Shipping Exchange, you could very well slowly whittle away their numbers and their will to fight, without subjecting any portion of your force to risk. It would be a slow process—perhaps too slow—but it would work, eventually.

But is that time you can afford to lose?

[ ] [ATTACK] I would rather lose time than men: send Reyes and his sharpshooters in.
[ ] [ATTACK] We have no time for delays: send in the Grenadiers!
[ ] [ATTACK] I'll not sacrifice professionals to this slaughterhouse. Send in the militias!

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [ATTACK] We have no time for delays: send in the Grenadiers!

Captain Riley cannot help but glance warily at the bulk of the Shipping Exchange as you give him his orders. Still, he doesn't voice any objections. He knows that you have neither the time nor the resources to entertain objectives. Either the Grenadiers will take the Shipping Exchange, or they will die trying.

"—up until you breach the yard, Intendant Reyes and his men will be able to provide cover, but once you're in, you shall be on your own," you explain. "There are staircases into the galleries at each corner of the yard, each gated off by a wrought-iron gate at the bottom and a heavy door at the top. You'll need to breach those. The first corridor beyond that door is narrow, but they all open out into wider rooms, so you must beware of an ambush there, as well as from the stairwells themselves, as they extend to the very top floors."

The Grenadier Captain listens attentively to your advice, then nods firmly. "It will be done, sir. I cannot answer to my losses, but it will be done. Saints be willing, it will be done quickly."

You nod back. "Then set yourself to work, sir. And Saints go with you."

The Grenadiers waste little time getting themselves into action. Under cover of a constant patter of fire from Reyes' sharpshooters, Captain Riley leads an advance party which quickly moves up to the rear gate of the Exchange with bayonets fixed. There's a great rattling of iron, then the sound of splintering wood.

Then the doors swing open.

"Saints guard the Queen! Tierra and Victory!"

The moment the advance party is through, the rest of the assembled Grenadiers go in after them, closing the three hundred paces to the opened gates with such good order that they even manage to keep their company formations as they run, full-tilt, for the opening. One by one, the companies charge through, shouting at the top of their lungs until the last disappears into the cavernous entryway to the great stone building.

Then, you can see nothing.

There are, of course, ways to chart the passage of the fighting: the sound of splintering and musketry coming out of the windows, the dull thumps of hand grenades going off, of windows shattering from stray pistol balls, the wisps of powder smoke which seep out from higher and higher along the building as the Grenadiers fight their way up.

Yet beyond such vague indications, you have no idea how the assault is going, how many enemy there are within, how many losses your own force has taken. You can only guess as to whether your assault is on the verge of victory or the edge of collapse. You can only sit in your saddle and wonder, as the minutes seem to stretch out into an eternity.

Then, at long last, a figure appears at the open entranceway again, one of Captain Riley's ensigns. You need only to see the elation on his exhausted face to know what he means to tell you: the enemy has surrendered, the Exchange is yours.

The Exchange is yours, but not without cost.

You suspect that your fellow Shipowners must be looking upon the day they admitted you into their number with chagrin now, given the complete ruin your command has made of their headquarters. Crittenden's Marines fought hard, and Captain Riley's Grenadiers hadn't acted daintily in dislodging them. Even the prisoners now gathered in the courtyard are testament to the stiffness of the enemy's resistance, for there are perhaps only a few dozen of them in all, and you don't think you see a single one of their number unwounded.

As for the rest, you see what's left of them as well. The galleries above the yard are saturated with the stink of death and the stench of powder. There isn't a room without bodies, not a wall or a piece of furniture not pierced with bullet holes and sword cuts. Some of the carpets are so soaked with blood that it wells up in your boot prints as you walk over them. You cannot help but shake your head at the waste. At such brave and gallant men cut down in defence of an indefensible cause.

Especially since they did not die alone.

"I am very obliged to you for your instructions, sir. We lost thirty or so killed and at least that number wounded, but had we not known where we were going, we may have surely lost more." Captain Riley reports as he bandages a fresh wound of his own along his forearm. "I believe that we have at least a few companies which may be of sufficient strength to sustain another assault, but I am rather ashamed to say that I do not know how they are to perform against a determined foe."

It isn't the news you would have liked to hear, but it is perhaps what you were expecting. The Grenadiers may be able to face another engagement, but you cannot think they'll be in any condition to fight after that. You suppose you shall have to answer to Colonel Lefebvre too, for the losses you've made his beloved regiment sustain.

But that, at least, is a matter for later. For the moment, you must attend to other matters, for you yet have a building to secure, a battle to plan.

And a city to retake.

-​

"Well then," Captain Garret remarks as she peers through her field glass. "I suppose that makes the Duke of Wulfram's intentions clear enough."

You nod in agreement as you look through your own telescope, your eyesight probing through the thinning powder-smoke as it's pushed away by the seaward breeze, towards the emerging outlines of Crittenden's fleet…

…and the vast flotilla of boats laden with people as they row from the docks to the waiting ships.

"They must must have started as soon as they retreated to the shore batteries," Cazarosta notes as he stands impassively next to you. "The Marines at the Shipping Exchange were less intended to inflict losses or serve as an earnest point of defence than to simply delay us, to win them time to evacuate."

"Damn me, if that's the case, why do we not ride out and stop them?" Blaylock growls as he too watches the ongoing evacuation, his knuckles clenched white around the brass tube of his own field glass. "Every minute we waste up here will mean another minute for those traitor bastards to get away! And every one of them that gets away will be able to raise rebellion somewhere else!"

"Because not all of them are evacuating." Sandoral replies, his own field glass directed not at the distant spectacle of Wulfram's evacuation, but at a far closer object. "Look at the shore batteries."

Sure enough, the low stone fortifications of Aetoria's shore batteries are still swarming with armed men: Marines, dismounted Cuirassiers, even great swarms of Wulframite militia, all of them piling up makeshift barricades, cleaning weapons, and passing out ammunition.

In other words, preparing for an assault.

"So long as Wulfram holds some portion of the shore batteries, he may cover the majority of the docks with fire and prevent us from moving troops freely into the docks," Reyes adds, a sour look on his features. "They were designed that way by Edmund II's engineers, specifically to prevent an opposed landing. I suppose the principle works just as well for an opposed embarkation, too."

"Then we must assault each one of the shore batteries in succession to stop Wulfram's evacuation, something which Wulfram and his advisors must know as well," Sandoral concludes. "No wonder he seems so intent upon defending them."

You suppose there's nothing for it then. If you're to stand any chance of stopping Wulfram here, then you'll need to take the shore batteries as quickly as possible.

Which only leaves the question of how…

[X] "If we assault each shore battery simultaneously, we could end this much quicker."

As it stands, the assumption has been that you would assault each of the shore batteries in sequence, one after the other. It would be a hard, grinding affair, doubly so because Wulfram would be able to concentrate his forces on the battery then being assaulted, rather than being forced to cover every approach. However, if you were to assault every part of the shore batteries at once, you would not only be able to move more quickly, but you would also pin down the enemy at every angle.

There's a risk involved, of course, but given the current situation, surely it would be a lesser hazard to try and end Wulfram's evacuation quickly and destroy as much of his strength now, rather than commit to a slow approach which would almost surely allow the enemy to escape with no small portion of their fighting men and materiel?

Some of your officers nod; they're evidently thinking the same thing. Others…

"We don't have the numbers," Garret points out. "If we assault the batteries in sequence, we may concentrate our own forces and use the relatively confined approaches to our advantage. Assault them all at once, and we will be spread thin—"

"And vulnerable to being flanked," Reyes interjects grimly. "We don't know how many of Wulfram's men are still in the city. If we extend ourselves to assault every battery at once from the landward side, we will be showing our backs to them. If we are surprised from the rear, we will be too spread out to regroup."

"Or do anything else, for that matter," Captain Riley adds. "On an open field, we could communicate with flags or rockets. Here, with so many buildings in the way? We would have to communicate by galloper, and one finds that hard enough without having to navigate through the sort of maze the lower docks are like."

You nod. You cannot help but frown, but you nod nonetheless. Under normal circumstances, any one of those reasons would be enough to make a sensible officer put paid to such an approach. With all three, not even a madman would countenance such a plan.

One at a time, then; you suppose you have no better options.

[X] "Once we take the shore battery guns, could we not use them to drive off Crittenden's fleet?"

"Why not?" Blaylock asks. "There'd be no need to take the whole line of batteries when we could reduce the whole fleet to kindling with just one of those monster guns, and they're already pointed the right way, ain't they? Can hardly evacuate an army without any ships, can they?"

Sandoral nods. "The guns in the northern and southern sections wouldn't have the angle, so we'd still have to capture the centre section, but that's still better than being obliged to take the whole lot, surely?"

But Riley and Reyes are both shaking their heads. "That presumes we're able to take a gun in any condition to be fired," the Intendant replies. "If the batteries are in danger of falling, then Wulfram's men will surely spike them—any officer with the presence of mind would give instructions to that effect—Castermaine certainly would, if Brockenburg doesn't."

Garret frowns. "I don't suppose there's any easy way to un-spike them, is there?"

"If it were easy, it wouldn't be so regularly resorted to," the Grenadier answers with a somewhat apologetic look. "As far as I understand, un-spiking a gun would require a cannon foundry's tools, and the larger the cannon, the more involved the task. For the shore guns, it would take a week, if not more."

A shame, then. Too much to hope for, perhaps. Part of you imagined that there might be some half-secret artillerist's trick which could un-spike the guns, but you suppose there are no such simple solutions in reality.

It seems that if you're to stop Wulfram's evacuation, you shall have to do it the hard way.

[X] "Intendant, how much covering fire could your Skirmishers give us from here?"

Reyes looks one way, then the other as he rubs his chin with his off hand. "Quite a great deal, I could imagine. From here, we could have clear fields of fire which put us within range of half, if not two-thirds of the length of the shore batteries."

An encouraging answer. Assaulting the shore batteries will be difficult regardless of your advantages, but it would certainly be made easier if a force of rifle-armed Skirmishers were able to cut down the enemy from above while you sent the main thrust of your force up from the street. Indeed, with the sort of accuracy Reyes' sharpshooters possess, you suspect that they might even be able to pick off individual targets—say, officers and sergeants—at ranges which would be considered impossible for muskets. The thought of the enemy's defense collapsing as its commanders are cut down from three hundred paces cannot help but fill you with a rather terrible, dreadful excitement.

But Reyes shakes his head. "There's only one problem, sir." He motions you closer and drops his voice low enough so that only you can hear. "The men won't do it."

"Saints above, why not?"

"If you leave us here while the main force assaults the shore batteries, we'll be anchoring your extreme flank," the Intendant explains. "They will be isolated from support, exposed; if any remaining Wulframites in the city should attempt an attack, they will come here first, and—" He takes a shaky, shuddering breath. "My men will not allow themselves to be exposed in such a matter, not after what happened on the River Kharan."

Of course. You remember what had happened then; you were there, holding the Dragoons in reserve as Cunaris commanded the right-most brigade of the Duke of Havenport's army. Reyes and his Experimental Corps of Riflemen were supposed to screen the extreme right flank, out of any immediate danger. But Prince Khorobirit and the Antari knew of a river crossing which had evidently been missing from any of Havenport's maps. They sent four hundred Church Hussars against Reyes and his Rifles and had almost wiped them out. No wonder Reyes and his men are so hesitant to place themselves in a position they might see as similar. The spectre of annihilation haunts them, and will continue to do so until it is dispelled.

"This is not Antar, and I am not the Duke of Havenport," you reply, as firmly as you can. "You will have protected positions, the advantage of height, and a means by which to signal us quickly."

"Any position might be isolated and stormed with sufficient numbers," the Intendant protests. "If they do—"

You don't let the man finish. Instead, you put your hand on Reyes shoulder. "Do you trust me?"

"I…" He lets out a sigh. "Yes. You've been honest enough in all your dealings with me. Yes, I trust you."

"Then trust me now. Your. Men. Will. Be. Safe. Here." You look into his eyes. "And if there's even the slightest sign of danger, I will ensure that your position is made secure at soonest possibility."

The Intendant looks down, then back up. Then he nods, slowly. "Then I take you at your word, sir. If you give the order, I will do all I can to see that my men follow it."

You give one last nod before turning back to the rest of your assembled officers. That is all you can ask of him.

[X] "Have we any word from Lord Palliser, regarding the guns he took from the Takaran Embassy?"

"We have," Captain Garret replies. "The last galloper from the Northern Keep reported that they've recovered some of the weapons in the Takaran Embassy."

"Only some?"

Garret shrugs. "Evidently, most were stored under lock and ward, and it is to take several hours to remove them, at least. Much of the rest was taken as trophies by the force that stormed the Embassy. Some of them might still be retrieved, but that will take time we do not have, and there's no telling where the rest might be."

You frown. You were expecting some loss to confusion or plunder here and there, but not anything quite like this. "How many are left accounted for?"

"Reports claim about eight hundred muskets, five hundred pistols, all dragonlocks."

Some of your other officers nod with appreciative looks. True, such a haul might only be a fraction of what was initially seized, but over a thousand dragonlocks—with enchanted locks that don't require priming—is no haul to scoff at. You daresay if you were to hand them out to the militias with you, such an armament would not only increase their fighting power immensely, but it would provide a great boost to their spirits, as well; an indication from the professional soldiers in their midst that they're worth taking seriously.

Some of your other officers are evidently of the same line of thinking, as they mutter and nod to each other with approving looks. But Garret herself seems less than entirely enthusiastic about the idea.

"It will take time, however," she adds with the apologetic tone of a farrier informing a child of the necessity of putting down a well-loved pony. "It will be no small thing to move up nearly fifteen hundred firelocks and the ammunition we would need for them. It will also take time to distribute them. Perhaps…"

She hardly has to elaborate. For all that such weapons might augment the fighting power of your force, the time needed to put them to use is time the enemy will be using to complete his evacuation. As commander in the field, it's your responsibility to seek out every practicable advantage you can before battle is joined, but if doing so here means leaving Wulfram's forces stronger in the long run…

That is a sobering dilemma, not just for you, but for your other officers as well—and one you'll have to address, sooner or later.

[X] "Very well, let us see to the disposition of our forces."

It is customary, you think, to have a map for occasions like this, where the outlines of a battle are set and the great movements of its participants are planned, but however detailed, no chart could compare to the view which already greets you from atop the roof of the Shipping Exchange. With the smoke blowing out ever further to sea, you can make out almost every detail of the nearest set of shore batteries, even without the benefit of your telescope.

You can see the makeshift barricades set up by the defenders of the first set of batteries, blocking off the narrow staircases leading up to the gun platforms from the street. You can see the glimmering steel of the dismounted Cuirassiers lined up behind them, their horses already being led to the docks, where they're waiting to be embarked.

And you can already see the boats pulling back from the waiting ships of Crittenden's fleet, coming to whisk away yet another portion of Wulfram's strength to safety, to carry them far from your reach, where they may regroup, recover, and raise fresh rebellion against the Crown.

At least, unless you're able to put a stop to the evacuation, and soon.

Your forces are already formed up in the wide boulevards below. The Grenadiers, standing by company in their ordered ranks of burnt orange. Your own Dragoons, arranged by troop and by squadron. The street militias, still fractious and unruly, but formed up by their leaders into something which might have passed for quiet and order before the eyes of anyone but a seasoned soldier.

When you say the word, they'll go forward, but before you do that, you have a whole range of obstacles to consider first. Given the narrowness of the approach, only one force will be able to assault the batteries at a time, and once you've committed to the attack, you shall have to press on until every part of the batteries are taken without interruption, lest the Wulframites be given time to prepare fresh defences. That means you'll have to make any last-minute preparations now. Anything that might secure your advantage or weaken the enemy must be done whilst all your senior officers are still assembled on this roof.

Because after that, there will be no stopping until the whole of the shore batteries are taken.

[ ] [TURN] No more delays. It's time to launch the assault!
[ ] [TURN] I'll only take one of the PREP actions listed below.
[ ] [TURN] Two of the PREP options ought to be enough.
[ ] [TURN] We need every advantage we can get. Check all three of the PREP boxes.

[ ] [PREP] It's time to put Reyes' sharpshooters in position to cover the shore batteries.
[ ] [PREP] I'll send for the Takaran guns and arm the militias with them.
[ ] [PREP] If we could organise the militias properly, they may prove more effective.

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [TURN] Two of the PREP options ought to be enough.
[X] [PREP] It's time to put Reyes' sharpshooters in position to cover the shore batteries.
[X] [PREP] I'll send for the Takaran guns and arm the militias with them.

Click to shrink...

[X] [PREP] It's time to put Reyes' sharpshooters in position to cover the shore batteries.

Reyes hesitates when you give him the order. For a moment, you fear the Intendant is about to offer some last-minute objection. For a moment, you suspect he's working up the nerve to deliver one. But in the end, he offers nothing of the sort. He simply salutes and heads down the stairs to tell his men, still assembled in the Exchange courtyard below.

It takes only a few minutes to come to the conclusion that convincing the Intendant had been the easy part. Watching from your high vantage point, you daresay that the men themselves are being far more stubborn about the matter than their commander. But Reyes has their trust, to a far greater extent than you have his, and armed with your promises, he evidently makes some headway. One by one, his Skirmishers nod their assent, and at long last, they head up the stairs.

They come onto the roof in almost complete silence, as if they were already stalking their far-off prey. Some of them fix you with strange looks as they pass by. Perhaps they remember you from the day you rode to their rescue on the banks of the Kharan. Perhaps they're wondering if you mean to hold to your promises, or if you mean to prove their leader a liar for relying upon them.

Whatever their thoughts, they pass without a word as they find positions along the stonework of the Exchange roof. Some place rolled-up blankets and jackets and rest their slim-bodied rifles upon them. Others crouch behind stonework or chimneys, with the stillness of statues. From such positions, they'll be able to cover all but the furthest stretches of the shore batteries with deadly, accurate fire from above.

It's the sort of advantage which most officers in your position could only pray for, but it is one you still have to put into action. With every passing minute you spend in preparation, the Wulframites are free to continue their evacuation unmolested.

How much more time can you afford to allow them?

[X] [PREP] I'll send for the Takaran guns and arm the militias with them.

Though you waste no time in sending off a galloper for the Northern Keep, you know that it will be some time before you receive a reply. Even if your rider moves as quickly as he can and avoids ambush or misadventure, it will take time to load the guns and their ammunition onto carts, for horses to be found to draw them, and drivers to be found to carry them up to the Shipping Exchange—and that's before even considering the time it would take to manoeuvre such heavy conveyances down the streets, if carts can even be found at a time like this.

So it is with some surprise that you hear the sound of galloping horses and clattering wheels, not ten minutes later.

The convoy that approaches does so at a speed which no heavy cart might have managed, but that's because it isn't made up of such vehicles at all. No, this is an assemblage of a different sort: phaetons, calesas, a gracefully built coupé, driven with all the haste and dash of Old Kian war chariots, their precious cargo tied together in bundles and strapped to the seats.

Seats where the Kings and Queens of Tierra once took their ease, for every single one of the newly arriving carriages bears the gilded crest of the royal household.

The coach horses are royal too, as are the men driving them. You cannot credit why the Queen would send them. You suppose they must have simply been the closest and fastest transport at hand.

But you have no time to dwell upon the topic. You have fighting men to arm.

This proves rather more complicated than it sounds.

You have only so many weapons and so much ammunition, and you know full well that to put a loaded firelock in the hands of a man untrained in its use is more likely to cause harm to one's own forces than to the enemy. So, you must pick out those who already possess some experience with musket or pistol—a less common occurrence here in Aetoria than it would have been in the country.

Even then, there's more to be done: the mechanism of a dragonlock isn't so different from that of a flintlock, but the differences that do exist are not minor ones. The men—and women—you've armed must be tutored on the peculiarities of such weapons, on the basic functions of the dragonpearl and the lack of need to prime a pan.

You try to get it all done as quickly as possible, and those of the Reform who had gathered the militias in the first place do their best to assist you—those with some experience in such matters of their own, at least. In the end, you manage to satisfy yourself with the formation of two battalions' worth of men and women armed with the Takaran weapons. They're still ill-disciplined, undrilled, and most unfamiliar with their pieces, but they're now fully armed, and that ought to present you with some advantage, should you feel the need to employ the militias in an assault.

You can only hope such an advantage will be worth the time you've spent in assembling it. You have little doubt that Wulfram and his subordinates have used the time you've given them wisely—by continuing their evacuation and strengthening their defences. You must conclude your own preparations quickly, or else you may well attack only to find the enemy's position entirely impenetrable.

Or the enemy gone entirely.

[X] No more delays. It's time to launch the assault!

The time for preparation is over.

You've exhausted every practickal means of making your force ready for the long, hard fighting that is to come. Your counterpart standing opposite you atop the shore batteries has no doubt done the same. You can see some of the results of his work from your vantage point atop the Shipping Exchange: heightened barricades, carefully guarded approaches, cunningly positioned cross-fires. Every moment you've spent on strengthening your position has been similarly spent by the enemy, and you have little doubt that should you continue to delay, they will only continue to reinforce their position.

At least there aren't so many of them as there were before. That's plain enough to see. Where the whole of the Wolf's Head Cuirassiers had been waiting dismounted behind those barricades not so long ago, only a relative handful remain: a third maybe, perhaps even only a quarter.

But even that is no consolation. If the Cuirassiers are being withdrawn, then it could only mean that Wulfram's evacuation must be well advanced. It's yet another reason to eschew further delays and distractions, yet another reason to set your own plans into motion and begin the assault.

Only one question remains: what part of your force is to open the attack?

The Cuirassiers will be a hard enemy to fight, that's for certain. Outnumbered though they may be, any disadvantage they might derive from being out of the saddle will surely be made up by the strength of their positions. Their discipline, morale, and loyalty to their chief will stand them in good stead either way. They were once the best cavalry in the army, and perhaps still presume such a dignity. You'll certainly need to handle them carefully.

That's why you've reassembled your officers atop the roof of the Shipping Exchange once again, both to maintain a clear view of the situation that you're faced with, and to take stock of your own forces—to determine which one will be best suited to face Wulfram's own personal guard.

The Grenadiers would be the natural choice, of course. Running determined defenders out of fortified positions is practickally their speciality. Yet they've already had a long day of hard fighting. Even after some last-minute reshuffling, their companies are still heavily understrength, and the men within them still almost on the verge of exhaustion. Without conceit or bombast, Captain Riley assures you that they'll be more than capable of beating back the Cuirassiers. However, you receive no such guarantees as to their condition after they do.

Then, there are your own Dragoons—trained to move and fight on foot, they should have an advantage over the Cuirassiers, in theory. Yet they too have been worn down by the day's events, and only those in the regiment who were with you at Kharangia have any experience at all regarding the assault of a fortified position. In the end, your Dragoons may yet be able to overcome the enemy through sheer skill or energy or bloody-mindedness, but there's no question that your men will take heavy losses in doing so.

That only leaves the militias. The least organised, least disciplined, least equipped of your forces—but also the most numerous. From the roof of the Shipping Exchange, they almost seem like an army, standing in their loose ranks, weapons both looted and improvised in hand, ready to try conclusions with the enemy. Yet for all of their enthusiasm, you know that they will fall in windrows when sent against professional soldiers. Indeed, part of you suspects that they won't even survive their first clash with a determined enemy.

They're not ideal forces for a situation such as this, but that's the nature of battle. One is never given precisely the right tools for the job at hand. One can only pick the one he believes is least likely to break.

And hope that he has chosen rightly.

[ ] [COMMIT] "Send in the militias."
[ ] [COMMIT] "Commit the Grenadiers."
[ ] [COMMIT] "Order the Dragoons to dismount and attack."

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [COMMIT] "Send in the militias."

For half a minute, you're not even sure if your order has gotten through. Beneath you, the great mass of disordered militias continues to mill, unresponsive, even as the messengers you sent to convey your orders begin to filter through and make your decision known.

Then, a handful of voices begins to rise, the handful becomes hundreds, then thousands. In fits and starts, the mass begins to shift, like a sandbank washing into the sea, bit by bit, piece by piece, the water around it churning and heaving until it coalesces into a great wave—and roars forward.

The Cuirassiers are ready for them. After such a period of warning, they would have to be blind and deaf not to be. They meet the oncoming tide of armed humanity with cool, steady professionalism, the sort which you would have admired without reservation, had it been from your own side. Some of the militia empty their firelocks at the barricades as they rush forward. One or two of the enemy fall. A great piercing ring cuts through the air, the sound of a pistol ball bouncing off a steel breastplate.

Then, the enemy answer in a single crisp volley, some with carbines, some with pistols held, one in each hand. The barricades disappear under smoke and fire. The leading edge of the militia charge slows, halts, eddies, like a wave which has reached too far. It recoils, leaving the dead littered in its wake.

But only for a moment.

It is only the space of a few moments for the mob to rush forward again, shrugging off the effects of the Cuirassier volley. The enemy may be well-disciplined, but they are few—not enough to hold off a force of thousands, no matter how disordered. This time, their fire barely slows the mob down, as the human tide crests the barricades like a tidal wave over a sand castle. For a moment, the Cuirassiers are able to hold, their discipline and their courage barring the narrow staircases up to the gun platform—but one by one, they're driven back, thrown aside by sheer force of numbers, as the militias pour through the gap.

After that, there's no further question of how things are to end. Some of the Cuirassiers fight on in tight knots, back to back, shrinking rings of steel battered and defiant against an onrushing tide of humanity. The rest withdraw over the makeshift bridges which link this section of the batteries with the next. For an instant, a handful of the enemy linger at the passageway, Brockenburg among them. He shouts something, lost in the sound of battle, his hands beckoning towards the holdouts still trying to fight towards the way out. One of their number shouts back. Your field glass is just powerful enough for you to see the commander of Wulfram's Houseguard look down and shake his head before giving fresh orders.

By the time his men have pulled the last of the bridges away, the whole of the first section of shore batteries is in Royalist hands.

-​

The first section of shore batteries is firmly under Royalist control by the time you're able to get to it. Already, the dead are being cleared away, the wounded—or at least, your wounded—are being tended to. Around them, swarms of men are moving down each gun platform, securing both the massive cannon themselves and the shot lockers, powder magazines, and covered passages that accompany them.

Soon, the report comes that all stores of powder and shot are secure. The guns are also intact, though it comes as perhaps no surprise to learn that their vent holes had been spiked by the retreating Cuirassiers—which means if you're to end Wulfram's evacuation, it will have to be through more direct means.

There's no question as to what those means shall be, and there's no question that the force to do it will be in for a difficult challenge, indeed.

For a moment, you consider taking the next set of shore batteries the way you had the first, with an assault from the street. But the problems with such an approach become obvious almost immediately: to reach the closest of the street approaches, any attacking force would have to expose themselves to enfilading fire from the Wulframite-held batteries on their approach—you doubt that any force you have in your possession would be able to do so and still successfully carry the position.

Which means you only have one real way forward: the same way by which your enemy just made their retreat.

The matter of crossing the gap betwixt your section of the shore batteries and the next is not a complicated one. The makeshift bridges—really little more than improvised gangplanks—which the Cuirassiers had retreated over would only take a few minutes at most to replace, and once you get men across the gap in numbers, the matter may well be settled quickly; the enemy left the barricades along that approach weak, defended only by what seem like street militias. Yet the prospect of getting men over the gap in the first place is the real difficulty. Any crossing bridges would have to be placed in the open, and while the Wulframite militias may be disordered, they're also quite numerous—and you don't doubt that even a poorly drilled, poorly equipped enemy will inflict substantial losses upon any force approaching them in the open, across a set of narrow and uncovered passages.

But it will have to be done.

The only question is, who is to do it?

With your forces now gathered around you, it seems easy enough to make a quick examination of their component pieces:

You have little doubt that the Grenadiers still possess sufficient strength and spirit to take the next set of batteries, despite the heavy action they've sustained so far. Yet you know as well as they that they're no more proof to musketry than any other man—and that to send them on the attack now would expose them to a considerable amount of enemy fire. They may well be able to take the enemy's positions, but they shall surely bleed heavily for it.

Then, there are your Dragoons. Though they lack the specialised training or equipment the Grenadiers possess, and although the day's action hasn't left them in pristine condition, your regiment still retains much of its fighting strength, and even if they lack bayonets and muskets, let alone hand grenades, their discipline and equipment should still give them the upper hand over the enemy ahead—though they'll surely suffer heavy casualties in the approach.

Lastly, there are the street militias, the only force which could possibly match the enemy before you in sheer numbers, if nothing else. Any attempt to employ them in the assault will necessarily be a matter of attrition, two mobs of ill-trained, ill-equipped civilians battering at each other with improvised weapons until one of them gives way. But you have some confidence that your mob will last longer than theirs. Though they're far from professional soldiers, your militias clearly seem better ordered, spirited, and equipped than theirs. It won't stop them from taking horrendous losses on the approach.

But it's clear that if you're to settle this matter, someone will have to bear them…

[ ] [COMMIT] Call the militias forward and send them in.
[ ] [COMMIT] Commit the Grenadiers.
[ ] [COMMIT] Bring up the Dragoons and send them across.

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [COMMIT] Call the militias forward and send them in.

The militias are not your best-drilled or best-equipped force, but they are your most numerous, and against an enemy no better ordered or armed, they may well be the best option. After all, if you must use them, then it would be far better to send them against an enemy of equal quality, rather than the slaughter which they'd be subject to if they were sent against professionals.

With warehouses full of nautical stores in every direction, it doesn't take long for someone to bring up a new set of ship's gangplanks long enough to cover the gap betwixt the Royalist-held and Wulframite-held sections of the shore batteries, and wide enough to allow for the passage of a practicably sized assault force. Indeed, the greater problem seems to be less securing a means of bridging the gap than assembling the force which is to go over it. The militias, for all of their continuing enthusiasm, are no easier to marshal and direct, and it's only with the greatest difficulty that you're able to bring them into position, having them take up the improvised bridgeways which are to give them access to the enemy.

An enemy which now, of course, is well aware of your intentions. One can hardly hide the preparations needed for an enterprise of this magnitude, not when one is putting them into action barely two hundred paces away from their forward picquets. They too have been preparing for your attack.

At long last, all is in readiness, on your side and on theirs. There's nothing for it but to give the order to advance.

The enemy open fire the instant your forces begin moving forward. It's nothing which anyone with any real understanding of the word might call a volley, more a splattering of flame and smoke, a ragged splash of thunder, crackling up and down the great mass of the enemy as they fire off their weapons one by one. It is a ragged, slovenly thing.

But that doesn't mean it's harmless.

Even a badly aimed shot may yet find a target, and with so many in the air, some of them do. Here and there, you can see parts of the leading elements of your attacking force pitch forward or fall, only to be trampled by their advancing fellows behind them. Some of your militias answer in kind, with a slapdash volley of their own—to similar effect.

But the same cannot be said of the volley that follows.

This time, the sound of musketry comes not from in front of you, but to the side, from the roof of the Shipping Exchange—and this time, it comes not as a trickle but as a single thunderclap. At once, dozens of Wulframites fall dead, as if cut down by the blow of a single invisible hammer. At once, the enemy seems to almost recoil, as if the blow had been to their heads as well. A formation of professionals wouldn't have reacted thus, but most of the mass you're facing are but a few hours removed from workshops and market stalls. They're not accustomed to such reversals.

Most, but not all. Almost immediately, voices begin to rise from the confused throng—sharp, commanding voices, rallying those around them, bringing in at least some semblance of order.

The enemy's militias respond, but only for a few moments—for the fire from the Shipping Exchange resumes again, and the enemy leaders fall silent, one by one, having exposed themselves to the deadly aim of Reyes' sharpshooters.

By now, your own militias have begun to cross, and the enemy is in little shape to oppose them. The first shock rattled them, the second has all but hamstrung them. Already, some are beginning to flee, leaving their more stout-hearted fellows behind in besieged, shrinking knots. Your own forces, seeing victory within their grasp, rush forward to overwhelm the last holdouts with a great, bestial roar.

Within moments, it is over. The remaining Wulframite militias are in full flight. The more loyal run for the defences of their final redoubt. The rest disappear into the streets.

Another section of the shore batteries has fallen. Only one more remains.

-​

Only one section of the shore batteries remains in Wulframite hands. Only one small redoubt still shields the Duke of Wulfram's evacuation from your forces. If you can take that last section, then you'll be able to command the whole of the docks from its ramparts. Not even a rowboat would be able to moor or shove off from Aetoria's piers without your say-so. Wulfram and Crittenden would be compelled to end their evacuation. Those of their forces still trapped in the city would be obliged to surrender.

Take that one last section, and the battle is over. Take that one last section, and the Queen will have her victory.

It's a truth which the enemy knows, too. From what you can see of their positions, it's clear that they don't plan to give up without a fight. The approaches are covered with high barricades of timber and stones, overlooked by cross-fires and makeshift towers. It's a position strong enough to make even the most ragged defenders a formidable foe, and the enemy you face is far from that: even from here, you can see the massed orange coats of the Northern fleet's Marines, their bayonets fixed and glittering in the afternoon sun. Around them, the remnants of Wulfram's street militias, evidently still keen to avenge their latest defeat at your hands.

Your depleted, exhausted forces would have to brave every successive layer of defence, all whilst sustaining not the slapdash fire of half-trained militia, but the massed volleys of professional infantry. Worse yet, they would have to do it without the support of Reyes and his sharpshooters, for the enemy's positions are now far beyond the range of even rifled muskets firing from the roof of the Shipping Exchange. Any general assault would necessarily be vicious, terrible work, with an uncertain chance of success. Even if your forces prevail, they would do so only by wading knee-deep through the blood of their comrades.

But that doesn't mean there are no other options.

You cannot imagine that the Wulframite force now trapped in the last remaining section of the shore batteries should wish to be subjected to the bloody eventuality of a general assault, especially given the fact that you know from long experience that men who have just fought their way into a fortified position at great cost are rarely inclined to take prisoners—or treat the captives they do take particularly well. If you're able to make contact with the Wulframite commander, perhaps you'd be able to persuade him that it would be far better for all involved if he and his forces were to surrender without a fight.

It would be a difficult task, of course. Wulfram and his allies would know that you might consider such a course of action, and you hardly have any doubt that they would have left behind an officer specifically inclined to resist such an approach. Yet if you're unable to negotiate such a surrender, then you would have no choice but to order a general assault, with forces you suspect to be far too weak for the task—or with forces which may well be insufficient for the task—or else simply dig in and allow Wulfram to evacuate the remainder of his forces unmolested.

[X] I must confer with my officers.

No sooner do you put the question to your officers, you receive an answer.

"With respect, sir, the correct course of action ought to be obvious," Blaylock declares. "We should prepare for a general assault at soonest possibility."

"Might we not at least entertain the possibility that we could compel the enemy to surrender first?" Garret asks. "I think enough of the Queen's subjects have died messily today, traitor or otherwise."

"Traitor or otherwise?" Blaylock replies, voice on the very edge of outrage. "The men in there have made their decision, and they know they're likely as not to hang for it. If you think they might be compelled to play the lamb and lay down their arms, then you're welcome to that delusion, but the fact is that every moment we spend debating this matter is another moment the Duke of Wulfram and his traitor friends can use to shuffle away more of their traitor soldiers!"

"The regiment will fight if the order is given, sir," Sandoral adds. "However, "Although I must wonder if such a course of action is wise, given our current state. However, if we are to attack such a position, it will have to be with the whole of our forces, not just the Dragoons."

"My Grenadiers will go up, if you require them to," Captain Riley replies, with an air of confidence as insistent as it is forced. "We've taken worse losses before and won the day despite of it."

"My men will offer what support they can," Reyes adds. "I fear that will not be a great deal. There are no buildings tall enough to overlook the enemy position from here. We will be shooting up at them."

"What about the militias?" you ask.

"They'll still fight," the Intendant replies. "They know we may well be on the cusp of a famous victory. If you order them forward, they will go—though I cannot speak for how well they'll fare against trained infantry behind good barricades."

You nod, turning your officers' reports over in your head. It's clear that you still possess quite a formidable force, one which may well be able to carry the enemy's last position by storm. But such an attempt would surely lead to a considerable effusion of blood, not only from those men under your command, but those whom you're facing as well, who—you can hardly forget—are Tierran subjects also. Surely, there must be a better course of action than one which would inevitably lead to a bloodbath. Surely, negotiation would be a better path…

Right?

[ ] [FINALE] Let us try to negotiate their surrender.
[ ] [FINALE] Only a general assault will end this quickly.
[ ] [FINALE] We have no choice but to dig in and wait the enemy out.

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [FINALE] Only a general assault will end this quickly.

Not all of your officers approve when you make your decision known to them, but none of them argue the point. You all know time is of the essence, and if you're to end matters quickly, then you have none to spare for debating how such an end is to be achieved. So, you dismiss your subordinates to your commands and turn your attention to the final preparations to be made before the assault.

Only to find that very few are necessary.

In truth, you realise that the factors which created the circumstances for the assault you just ordered are ones which have been set already—some years in the making, some cemented only a few minutes ago. Some of those circumstances have been affected by your past actions, as far back perhaps as your time in Antar. Others had progressed in trajectories far beyond your influence.

Well, you suppose they're all beyond your influence now, for the circumstances of the impending action are much like the trajectory of a cannonball. Having already been cast and loaded and aimed, you can only go through the final mechanical steps of putting the linstock to the touch-hole and waiting for the result.

No matter of tactical skill, this, or inspired leadership; merely common sense and a basic understanding of the forces under your control:

Supported by Reyes' sharpshooters, your Dragoons and the street militias will attack head-on, pinning the enemy so that the Grenadiers may move along the street to attack the enemy position in the flank, so that they might hopefully take advantage of their specialty to overcome a distracted foe long enough to break into their rear and render their position untenable.

It isn't a plan without risk, and it will certainly cost you significant losses, but it's the best plan you might allow given the forces at your disposal; it will have to do.

Soon, your assaulting forces are in position. There's no time left for further introspection, no time for some clever ruse or space for an inspired manoeuvre. Now, it's all up to those you've led and preserved until this point. Now, all you can do is step forward.

And give the order to advance.

-​

It cannot help but remain a surreal experience to see so climactic a scene set in motion by your orders, only to observe the course of its execution as a passive observer. It isn't the first time your decisions have determined the outcome of an action; indeed, you had in some ways gotten used to the idea of your decisions having some great effect on others, first as a fighting officer, then as a Lord of the Cortes.

But in those cases, you'd always been there in the midst of it all, sharing the peril and bearing the consequences of your own actions. Here, it occurs to you that little harm could come to you from so seemingly distant a position, for although you cannot be more than three or four hundred paces from the enemy, your advancing forces might well be on the other side of the city for how little you're able to perceive them, for how they quickly they seem to diminish from individuals with expressions on their faces and light in their eyes to almost abstract symbols—little more than counters on a map.

Then there's a great roar of musketry. The enemy have opened fire. Your own forces answer with a thundering volley of their own, your assaulting party's distant firelocks drowned out by the sharp crack of Reyes' Skirmishers much closer at hand. Even what little you can see before seems to be gone, as the battle which you've ordered now slips out of not only your control, but your perception. Leaving only the powder-fog, the clash of steel on steel, and the sound of a thousand voices fighting, killing.

And dying.

For a moment, you consider intervening directly, the sound of battle drawing you in as it carries on, concealed behind the smoke and the shadow of the barricades. The knowledge that men are fighting and dying on your order before you draws you forward like a lodestone, possessed of a force which seems to grow stronger with every single moment.

You are a Queen's Officer, and a Knight of the Red besides, surely your place ought to be in the midst of the action, alongside the men you command, especially now that there's no need for a high command to coordinate a subsequent action. The day will be decided here, and although your personal involvement may yet serve to improve the outcome, your survival is no longer a necessity.

Yet before you take for first step forward, the sounds of fighting die. The smoke begins to dissipate. A voice cries out, a cheer. Then another, and another. You barely need to wait for the powder fog to clear to realise what has happened. While you were lost in thought, your command was fighting the battle you ordered them into—fighting and winning, for you can pick out now the sight of Crittenden's Marines laying down their arms in surrender.

In the end, it seems, despite your second-guessing, your forces were enough to carry the day. Your personal intervention wasn't required, after all.

Thank the Saints for that.

Part of you wasn't expecting your assault to succeed so thoroughly. After all the fighting that your command has been through, it was all too easy to imagine that it had taken too many losses, that its energies were fully spent, and that the final assault you ordered them into would be doomed to failure if you did not personally intervene.

And yet, as you watch your men take Wulfram's forces prisoner, you realise that your forces weren't the only ones worn down by the day's fighting. After hours of waiting, after the reversal at the Northern Keep and then the repeated withdrawals in the face of your counter-attack, as well as the tales spread by the fugitives fleeing from those actions, you suppose the enemy must have lost the heart to fight on. In the end, it took surprisingly little time to drive them from their barricades, and little more to convince them to surrender.

Of course, that doesn't mean the victory came cheaply. Quick the final engagement might have been, but it was surely sharp, as well. The bodies of the dead and wounded are scattered everywhere, along the stone floor of the gun platforms, splayed out on the streets below, draped over barricades and cannon like obscene, leaking draperies. No, Crittenden's Marines may have surrendered in the end, but they exacted a price for their submission, and paid a price in turn.

And there will be more prices to pay in the days to come, that's for sure. You may have captured a significant portion of Wulfram's forces, but not all. The man himself has escaped, and with him, his strongest allies, his fleet, and much of his professional soldiery. You've deprived the arch-traitor of a great part of his power, but he has more than enough remaining to spread rebellion and tumult until it engulfs the whole of the Unified Kingdom in civil war.

Or at least, almost the whole of it, for despite Wulfram's escape, you've driven his forces from the capital. Tierra may be doomed to the sort of bloodletting which it hasn't seen since the Wars of Unification, but here and now, at the very least, there is a semblance of peace.

-​

It is sunset before an accurate tally of your prisoners can be reported: the final reckoning of a dubious victory.

Yet it is a victory nonetheless, by any reasonable measure. You've driven the enemy back and taken possession of the field of battle. Your men rest with the exhausted relief of a victorious force, not the grim and despairing mien of a defeated one.

And there is the more material evidence, of course: a battalion colour, taken from one of Crittenden's Marine companies, its survivors now sitting prisoner with a considerable number of the street militias who had remained loyal to Wulfram's banner when the rest fled into the city. Together, they make for a compelling argument in your favour, being a substantial portion of the forces which the enemy meant to evacuate—forces now weakened substantially by your actions today.

But Wulfram himself has eluded capture, along with his close advisors, almost all of his Cortes allies, and the vast majority of his forces. Defeated he may be, but he still commands a powerful fleet, a sizeable body of armed men, and the means to raise a great many more, once he's able to retrench himself in some more secure headquarters. Then there will be nothing stopping him from raising turmoil and revolt, from spreading the flames of rebellion until they engulf the Unified Kingdom entirely.

You've have won a hard victory here today, but it's only the first action of what is sure to be a long and bitter war, one whose outcome is very much still in doubt. One fought on Tierran soil, against your own countrymen.

One which has already claimed its first instalment of blood.

The dead and wounded are littered along the whole length of the shore batteries and beyond. Already, the stink of decay has begun to overpower the smell of powder. The drying blood is sticky and rotting under the tread of your feet. Flies and carrion birds have already begun to descend, along with the first knots of looters—for some evidently aren't so shocked by the visitation of open war upon their home streets to seek some profit amongst the bodies of those now lying in them.

You set some of your men to driving off the human scavengers, and perhaps some of the birds too. Others, you set to finding and seeing to the wounded. A last group, you set to tallying and identifying the dead. It is this last detail who you shall expect to have the greatest difficulty. In the dimming light of the early evening, it's difficult to match a severed limb to its owner, or to tell the difference betwixt the body of an orange-coated Marine and an orange-coated Grenadier. The dead of the street militias, you suspect, may well never be sorted properly.

Some of the dead are far easier to identify: those in the grey-green and red of your own regiment, their broken bodies standing out amidst the carnage like welts on a flogged back. You can see a dozen or more from where you're standing, some wounded and some dead. You have little doubt that there are more elsewhere. Your regiment has suffered badly in the day's fighting, though not as badly as some: the majority of the men you started the day with are still on their feet—including a great number of your officers.

Yet for all of that, you cannot bring yourself to feel thankful for it. The better part of your regiment may have survived this day, but there's always the next, and the one after, and the one after that.

For men who are preserved in one battle may yet be slaughtered in the next—and there are many battles yet to come.

-​

My Lord,

Some time ago, when I previously approached you regarding the necessity of taking precautions to forestall an attack upon the estate, you declared that such things were not common in Tierra, and that it would be a waste of time and resources to make preparations for an armed defence of your house and lands. 'We are not in Antar,' I believe were your exact words.

While I understand that it is not always politic to offer open contradiction to one's own lord, I feel that recent events have obliged me to conclude that your past assessment of such a risk might have been a little over-optimistic.

I am not well-versed in the politics of your land, but I cannot say I am much surprised to learn that you have declared for the Queen, after having fought so bravely and for so long for her brother. However, this leaves us in a very dangerous situation. Your lands are surrounded on all sides by the supporters of the Duke of Wulfram, and are not so very far from Wulfram's own seat of power. We must expect an attack from one or more of your neighbours, likely with some support from the main enemy force.

Against such cases, we are almost as well-prepared as we might be. I have taken the liberty of raising barricades across the approaches to the village and drilling the Houseguard you have embodied whenever possible. They are, many of them, insolent men who do not answer well to discipline, but I suspect they will stand if the situation requires it. I have also ordered the house prepared for a siege. In the worst case, we may withdraw behind the outer wall, which should be proof against anything short of artillery. There, we may hope to shelter until relieved.

I could not have ever envisioned writing such a letter when I first came to your country, but since then you have shown me many kindnesses, and I will admit that I have grown something of a fondness for your lands and those who live upon them. To think that such places and such people may soon be subject to the same destruction as that visited upon my own country is now very distressing to me. I will defend them until it is no longer needed, or I no longer have breath in my body. In this, you have my word of honour.

Karol, Armsman of House Reddingfield

 

[Rogue Attican]

EPILOGUE
In which the LORD OF THE CORTES receives DUE RECOMPENSE—and a warning of WHAT IS TO COME.​

"Sir Caius tells me that we shall have shot and powder enough to make up for our expenditures," Captain Sandoral reports as you and your senior officers pick over the remains of a working breakfast in the officers' mess. "The Northern Keep's magazines evidently had carbine ammunition to spare; though it is rather smaller in bore than what we are accustomed to, I suspect it will serve, at least for our immediate needs."

From the other end of the table, Blaylock answers with a look of withering sarcasm. "Why, that is excellent news Sandoral, save for the fact that ammunition is the least of our concerns, especially given…" He needs only wave his hand to encompass the room to prove his point, for aside from your table, the mess is almost entirely empty.

You may have managed to keep most of your regiment's officers on their feet through that first bloody day of Wulfram's coup, but many of those who suffered wounds are still out of action. Even after six weeks, those of the city's Banehealers who hadn't gone over to Wulfram are still overwhelmed by the vast influx of casualties. Your wounded are left with little assistance in healing, save clean dressings and bedrest.

As for the rest, they're stretched thin now. Between patrolling the streets, guarding the Southern Keep, and hunting down the last pockets of resistance, they're running almost on the verge of exhaustion. You need reinforcements, and you all know it.

"Only His Grace can release replacements to us," Sandoral points out for what feels like the hundredth time. "Until he sets his seal to the order, we can only make do with what we have in the capital."

"Assuming he ever does," Garret drawls out as she idly sips from a cup of coffee. "It's been weeks, and we've had naught but silence from Fernandescourt." She gives the entire table a look of flat but clear frustration. "If His Grace intends to abdicate his duties as commander of this regiment entirely, the least he could have done was tell us about it."

You almost hasten to leap to Cunaris' defence. While his present actions must be subject to some criticism, he's still your superior officer and your friend. Yet before you can speak, you're interrupted by the creak of the door opening.

The head of the corporal standing guard leans in.

"Sirs? A lady of the blood is here. She says that—"

"They know who I am," interjects a very familiar voice. Its owner steps through the doorway without an instant of further delay, leaving the Corporal stumbling away with a look of no small surprise.

"My Lord Reddingfield," Katarina d'al Cazarosta, Countess Leoniscourt declares, sweeping into the room with an earnest expression and that familiar scent of vanilla. "I am very pleased to see you well, and on the right side."

[ ] [KATARINA] "And I am very pleased to see you as well, my lady."
[ ] [KATARINA] "I trust you didn't come all this way for me?"
[ ] [KATARINA] "Saints above, what fresh calamity do you bring word of this time?"

 

[Rogue Attican]

[X] [KATARINA] "And I am very pleased to see you as well, my lady."

A pained look passes over the Countess' features, but only for an instant, to be replaced by that same impish grin. "I fear we shall not see much of each other quite yet, my lord. I am merely a messenger today. The Queen demands your presence at the Northern Keep, and I have been sent to fetch you."

"Now?" You spare a glance at the table before you. While your business is not immediately pressing, it cannot be put off indefinitely.

But the Countess' orders seem to have left little room for ambiguity. "Now, my lord. A coach is waiting for you at the gate. Best not to keep Her Majesty waiting."

-​

Outside the walls of the Southern Keep, it's easy enough to see the scars which the Wulframite uprising has torn through the city. Even now, the streets are still filled with rubble, and there are places where the air is still thick with the stench of rotting blood. Even your own townhouse is still all but uninhabitable after the damage which was done to it in the chaos.

Your view from the coach as it rattles towards the Northern Keep is a grim procession of burned-out townhouses, smashed shopfronts, and the black smears which mark the last remnants of the great pyres which had burned day and night for a week after the fighting ended. Not even the city's great monuments are untouched: Victory Square is still strewn with debris, Saint Octavia's Park is all over with the remnants of looting and skirmishing, and Grenadier Square—with all of its valuable records and archives and trophies of battles past—is all but burned to the ground.

Aetoria—and the Royalist cause—is a wounded beast.

But it is a beast with its strength undimmed, for the streets may be choked with rubble, but they are choked also with new arrivals from the countryside. Wulfram might have professed his cause to be that of the Cortes, but no small number of your peers remain loyal to the Crown. Their Houseguards now join your Dragoons, the Grenadiers, and the street militias still under arms in the city—the foundation stones of a new army to restore peace to the realm.

The Countess, sitting at the other end of the coach, watches them go past with a grim satisfaction. "My sources tell me Wulfram is doing much the same in Tannersburg. He's gathering volunteers and men from his allies' Houseguards, as well as those of his men he was able to get out of Aetoria. They say he's getting support from the Takarans too, though those reports are yet to be confirmed. Yet we still have the advantage, at least for now."

She offers you a little sidelong grin. "Of course, we partly have you and Lord Palliser to thank for that, for seizing all of those Takaran arms right under Wulfram's nose."

Her smile fades. "But perhaps I ought not to congratulate you so readily. One ought not to court Takara's enmity lightly, and there's little doubt that your actions have brought you to their attention. I would take care, if I were you."

"I shall endeavour to be careful."

"I pray that you do, for your sake," the Countess replies with a grim and total earnestness. "Your actions have made you an obstacle to the objectives of the Takaran secret service, and they're not an institution to suffer slights easily, especially under the government that now commands them. Their retribution may come from any quarter, at any time."

Your eyes narrow. "Are they really so powerful?"

The Countess' gaze doesn't waver. "They are, and their power increases now that their former chief sits as Chancellor. That you have placed yourself in danger is not in question. All that remains to be known is the degree and the consequence."

What a comforting thought.

You continue in silence for a little while after, as your coach continues to make its way up towards the square before the gates of the Northern Keep where Wulfram's coup had come to grief—and to the sight of the now-familiar construction which presides over it.

Two years ago, when the Old City had rioted, the King had answered with an act of singular severity. He had taken two dozen of those among the baneless rioters which the Intendancy declared to be the ringleaders of the disorder, and had them hanged in a single gallows before the gates, then left them to rot for weeks after.

Now, once again, the Crown has raised a gallows before the Northern Keep, only this time, it isn't the bodies of former clerks and tradesmen who hang from its crossbeams. In the days after Wulfram's flight from the city, the Queen was almost gracious in her treatment of the commoners who had taken up arms against her: she proclaimed a general pardon and amnesty in a spirit of forgiveness and conciliation.

Instead, it was those of your own class which have bourne the brunt of the Queen's ire. You've heard rumours that some of your fellows within the Shipowners, who had allowed Wulfram's troops to occupy the Shipping Exchange so easily, have been brought in for rather severe questioning. Towards those gentlemen and ladies of the blood who perjured their oaths of fealty and yet foolishly remained in the city, the Crown has acted harsher still: those without title even now occupy some of the deepest and darkest cells in the Northern Keep.

And the remains of those with titles or fortune who acted against her now dangle from the gallows as your coach rattles past, their bodies half-rotten now—perhaps mercifully so. You knew some of those men, none of them well, but well enough for their dead faces to make for uneasy scenery.

As if the nature of the whole affair were not cause for unease enough.

Under normal circumstances, such a mass execution of the Cortes nobility would have been all but unthinkable. Only the approval of the Cortes can condemn one of its own number to death—yet with so many of the Crown's traditional enemies fled or arrested or themselves on trial, and those few remaining all too eager to prove their loyalty, the vote had only been a formality. So Wulfram's allies had hanged, and the commoners of the city—who had starved and shivered as those of your own class continued to feast and scheme and bicker—even came out to cheer, as for once in their lives, they saw the positions of the invulnerable lords and the much-suffering commons reversed.

You can see some of them are cheering still, even weeks later.

But the Countess' thoughts are clearly elsewhere.

Indeed, she barely spares a glance out the window at all, though you suspect that the grisly sight before the gates is more of a novelty to her than it is to you. If anything, she seems distracted; no, more than that, anxious, as if she were contemplating some great crisis in secret.

"Are you feeling quite all right?"

She answers with the briefest flash of a smile, so false that you would have thought it suspicious, even from an untrained dissembler. "I am quite well, I assure you. I am merely worried. My position provides me with a great deal of information regarding the current state of the realm, and you may be assured that such intelligence provides much cause for concern, and—" She pauses for a moment. "And I suppose there is Leoniscourt, as well. I suppose I worry about that too, now that my father isn't there to worry about it for me."

The top two questions selected below will be asked.

Click to shrink...

[ ] [QUESTION] "Has Leoniscourt declared for Wulfram?"
[ ] [QUESTION] "And how fares the rest of the realm?"
[ ] [QUESTION] "Have you any intelligence as to Wulfram's intentions?"
[ ] [QUESTION] "How have the Takarans and the Kian responded to Wulfram's uprising?"