"Do we have intel on any other known associates that might share the Duchess' views? Or perhaps possible safe houses for Sorkana and the like?" Emerson scratches his beard with his free hand as if in thought. "Planning an attack is one thing. Dropping off the face of the earth afterwards, I think is a little harder done than said."
"My wishful thinking would be that they all prune and rot below the Avery Sea with their fey friends. With the help of the likes of an archfey such as Beshela though, they could be brought anywhere in Risur where the Unseen Court has influence."
Deep in thought a moment, he sighs and says, "Shale. No doubt in my mind she'll return to Shale. That's her traditional power base, and those there are very loyal to her. We've already had some reports that something is happening there, though the priority is to get the King back to Slate as soon as possible and solidify his position in the capital."
The badly wounded Chief Inspector leans as much as he dares to weakly speak to Johnathan. ”Jaakkson…you…you must take…take the…”
The Chief’s words are lost under the onslaught of three loud BOOM! sounds echoing off of the barred and secured main double doors, causing all to pause and look at the entranceway. It’s not clear what made the sounds, but the doors do not appear to be suffering any signs of stress or damage as if from a battering ram. A few moments later, a voice rings out from the other side of those doors in the captured courtyard.
”Kingsmen! Surrender yourselves and submit to our Queen! Submit to Queen Ethelyn, and you shall be granted mercy! Resist her orders, and no quarter shall be given to you! You have one minute to…”
Whatever the assailant’s final words were are drowned out by the thunderous voice of Corbin Spears. ”YEAH? YOU GO SURRENDER YOUR #%&! TO YOUR QUEEN AND…” What follows from Corbin Spears is a retort so explicitly crude and unseemly that it makes most soldiers blanch just thinking about it, though a couple of the guards chuckle and jeer in approval. The voice from the other side does not continue their demand for surrender.
”That shut ‘em up right good, eh? ALL RIGHT BOYS, GET READY FOR THE DANCE!” Corbin looks back to Johnathan, knowing what’s likely to come next. Unflinching, he says to him, ”Spiny Jack is gonna make a showing this night! C’mon, I need ya to brace my left and keep an eye on Watkins.” The great orc beams with an eager gleam in his eye to Johnathan, and then looks over to Winston Watkins. ”Ready, Wats? Burn the first wave down and then take out any slinkers in the back ranks that you can spy out, while Jack, me and the boys cut down those hittin’ the barricade.”
Eager in those precious last moments before the viciousness of battle begins, Johnathan almost surges forward to stand next to Corbin and ready his morningstar for the first wave; only something vague and nagging keeps him from doing so. He barely feels a tug at his drenched coat as weak as it is. Yet the nagging feeling distracts him from those pre-battle moments just long enough for Johnathan to realize his Chief is the one tugging at him, his whispers now urgent.
”No! No, Jackson! Your…your duty…to the R-H-C…you must see my next order through, whatever the cost!”
Johnathan is one of the soldiers who cheers Corbin's vulgarity. As the tension mounts, he stands frozen. In one direction his adrenaline, fear and anger drive him to the red haze of battle. On the other, his wisdom and sense of duty hold him back long enough to hear the CI's plea. "Forgive me for being blunt, Sir, but out with it. Speak your order now before it's too late!" He had spoken harsher than he intended, but Spiny Jack had little patience for the incessant muttering of dying men.
While waiting for the Inspector's response, he slips his bluntly spiked morning star from its leather loop. During the war he had more frequently used a long blade, or a bayonet. His civilian life in the RHC frowned on the death of suspects and criminals, so he had adopted the iron bludgeon instead. It was still deadly, there was no doubt about that. Yet, it could just as easily be used to shatter bones in a painful but non-lethal manner. Such tactics were a skill Johnathan had learned well over the past few years. He looks down at the dully gleaming, pitted surface of the weapon's striking head and smiles at the thought of rebel screams. Spiny Jack spares one last look to the dying officer, fire in his gaze. The Yerasol Veteran's glare demands the Chief speak immediately.
Chief Inspector Lucas Lawrence, deeply wounded and looking not too long ago as if he was close to death, now stares up at Johnathan with his one good eye. Anger seems to steady him as he tries to right himself in a manner befitting the head of Shale Branch, though it is clear to anyone that he has lost the use of his legs as well as one side of his face. He summons all the dignity that he can muster to reply to him, his voice weak but coherent.
”Jackson…there was…no time before we were hit. All the codes of R-H-C…all the mission briefings, accounts, rosters, passwords…not just here but other branches as well…Slate…Flint…Danor…others! In my office…they will find my strongbox…the false panels…and…they must not get their filthy hands on any of it!” He looks up at Johnathan, and gives the order clearly. ”I…order you to take me up to my office, bar the door, and destroy for me all of it – I will tell you where and how to get to it, but I cannot use my hands, so you will have to do it. No useful information to the enemy, Jackson. It must be done…while we still have time.”
Johnathan can hardly believe his ears, knowing fully what it means. Focused on the Chief’s words to hear them clearly, he realizes that both Corbin Spears and Winston Watkins have approached to also hear the last orders of their Chief Inspector. For a moment, there is quiet. All three Constables look at each other, but Corbin is the first to nod and reply.
”Damn.” He shrugs his shoulders in resigned acceptance, looking straight on at Johnathan Jackson, his onetime adversary turned friend. ”Well now. Chief’s got a point, doesn’t he? Go on there, Jack. Take the Chief up and see it done right – Winston and the boys and I will hold them off as long as we can to give you a good head start on it.”
”Here, Jack,” says Winston who hands him both a flask and a smaller deep crimson vial. Pointing to the flask first, he offers by way of explanation, ”Alchemist’s fire for the majority of it that’s mundane, but for the codes and keywords use the vial – drink it and your breath becomes like the Dragon Tyrants of old…or a baby one at least. Three breaths at most. Magical fire will ensure they can’t reconstruct the journals and ledgers with simple cantrip magics.”
Corbin Spears slaps Johnathan on the shoulder, giving him an encouraging nod to go. He understands what is about to happen. ”Would’ve been nice to see ya in action, Jack, but the boys and me will make do down here. If we don’t see each other again, well, promise me you’ll raise a glass - or five - of the good Beran fire whiskey and shout my name for all to hear – don’t let ‘em forget the name Corbin Spears, all right? Don’t let ‘em forget what we were about, and what we did here.”
Inspector Delft and the six Constables - Summers, Atherton, Hill, Wilde, Muhnee and Lanvaldan - continue to discuss the possibilities of what may happen next. Though it is now apparent Willem Muhnee may be joining them at Flint Branch, all know that Ifris Lanvaldan will most surely be going back with the King and his party to Slate as soon as they can get to port and onto dry land. The dire and desperate actions they've all been through today - of fighting and nearly dying together - have solidified a familiarity that normally takes a long time to develop. It seems odd that all of it will come to an end so soon.
Even as the six of them come to terms with that reality and the insecurity of what happens next, there is a light knock at the open doors to the aft quarters, and a polite clearing of the throat to signal the arrival of another.
"Inspector. Constables. Pardon the intrusion, but I should like to meet my benefactors first-hand and express my sincerest gratitude to you all. That is, if you are not discussing matters of too great an urgency."
Delft's eyes grow wide and he instantly struggles to stand, fumbling for his cane by the plush armrest. Standing at the doorway, a pleasant yet tired look upon his weathered and wrinkled face, is King Aodhan.
Anneca barely keeps her footing when the king appears. Speaking to the duchess - before her treachery was known - was difficult enough, though her sharp tongue took her farther into the conversation that normal decorum usually dictates. Speaking to the king is an even greater challenge. She struggles a half-bow, half-curtsy, barely able to move her aching body even with Emerson lending a hand to keep her on her feet. "Your Majesty." She isn't about to get herself deep into trouble with a ill-advised remark - but she has to say something. "We're glad you're not dead," she says with an awkward pause.
Willem stands quickly to attention faces the King, and bows low making sure not to run anyone over or knock into the furniture, "Good evenin' your majesty! We're honored by yer visit! He keeps his bow until the King begins to speak.
As soon as King Aodhan enters the room, Gemma immediately gets up and makes a deep bow. "Your Majesty." As she stands at attention, though, she notices something interesting. Rather than being starstruck, which is what she would have expected of herself in this circumstance, something else in her brain clicks. She starts to notice the king's voice, his pacing, the way he moves, then seemingly inconsequential things like height, weight, and eye color. Does he use is left hand first or his right? Any noticeable strengths or weaknesses? The observation only takes a moment and it feel more like reflex than anything else. She smiles to herself at Anneca's comment as she tucks any findings away in the back of her head.
I'm pretty glad we're not all dead... The musing is only to herself but it's well meant.
Occupied as he is with keeping Anneca standing, Emerson is not able to execute a proper formal bow. He does his best bow from the chest up and follows the others "Your Majesty.."
Arthur is still in his chair eyes closed, seemingly lost in thought. There is a slight delay in his actions as his mind starts to engage with the sudden commotion and everyone being all formal like.
He cracks his eyes open and sees Inspector Delft scowling at him. His eyes move back and forth. Everyone at attention.... 'What the feth were they jawing about?' Then he sees the King, mostly obstructed by Emerson and Anneca from his vantage point. "S!@#" He mumbles to himself as he jumps out of his chair and starts to hastily bow.
"Your Majesty".
”Good to see you all…please sit, sit.” King Aodhan smiles and motions with his hands for you all to return to your seats as he enters the room. Behind him in the hallway stand Principal Minister Harkover Lee and Dame Jillian, the Green Knight of Risur – each takes a respectful step forward just inside the room but do not enter in farther, leaving the King to entreat with the constables as he deems fit, blocking the entrance from any others farther down the hall. As for King Aodhan Lesterman, he finds an unoccupied chair and moves it a short distance himself near to where Delft is at, then sits down without any further fanfare after ensuring the others do the same.
The aged monarch of seventy regards each of them for a moment, his eyes bright and sharp and seemingly untouched by the age and worry that he carries upon his face. He seems a somewhat spry man for being so old; a trained observer of battle notes his stride and manner is of a soldier’s bearing, though he has not been in war for forty years. Interestingly, his mantle of greens and gold embroidery is of a very similar hue to what his sister Ethelyn wore tonight when they last saw her, a disturbing reminder of the events of the day.
Aodhan breaks the silence first, a slight hint of a smile upon his face as he senses the others will not talk unless he does so first. ”Inspector Delft, I see you have a fine crew here, though I do not know them…except for Constable Lanvaldan of course.” He inclines his head to her first in acknowledgment, before reviewing the others and nodding to them in turn. ”You all have done well, and have my deep and sincere thanks. Which is small repayment for saving my life…twice?” Aodhan holds up two fingers and looks expectantly at Principal Minister Lee, a slight edge in his voice. ”Twice they saved my life, is that not so Lee? Or was there a third time I was made unaware of by chance, as it seems my Principal Minister has not been forthcoming with news on the unfolding events of the day to me.”
”Twice, your Majesty is quite correct.” For his part, Harkover Lee bows low in acceptance and apology to his liege, though they get the impression the archmage is neither embarrassed nor hurt by the exchange. ”Yet the night is still young, your Majesty, and they may still surprise us yet.”
”Impertinent fool…” growls Dame Jillian, her olive eyes veritable daggers in the look she gives Lee next to her. As if to cover her ire at the archmage, she turns back to review the constables and says coolly, ”I understand that the Principal Minister bade you take an oath to keep the first assassination attempt a secret, so I hold no ill will to any of you, though it is my oath and charge to keep our King safe from harm.”
”Yes, yes,” interrupts Lee, ”and by doing so you would have prevented the speech from taking place and caused a panic amongst all those who matter politically in Risur. Political threats and public displays of weakness can be just as deadly in the times we live in, Jillian.”
”Enough! Enough, you two.” Aodhan slaps his hand on his knee for emphasis, his voice stern and commanding. ”I have already given my expectations that it shall not happen again, and that is the end of it.” It would almost be comical in his admonishment to the pair of them as if unruly children in his household, if not for the dire circumstances of the day’s events and their implications. The King turns back to address the constables in a more reasonable tone. ”Now then. My thanks to each of you, for the saving of my life, and the lives of all those on this ship. Not to mention the prevention of the destruction of our newest and most powerful flagship, a direct symbol of what I have strived for these past four decades since I was made King. Your actions today may have saved your country’s future. You are a credit to the Constabulary and to Risur.”
King Aodhan leans back in his chair and conveys a warm smile. ”Now, Ifris Lanvaldan I do know of. For the rest of you, the Principal Minister conveyed to me your names recently, but for those that I owe my life to I would prefer for a personal introduction. Tell me your name and the place that you call home…” Aodhan pauses a moment, a brief play of fatigue and emotion across his face though it does not creep into his voice, ”…and I should also like to know if you have brothers or sisters that you consider close to you.”
Anneca sits with a touch of reluctance and relief. By happenstance, she sits on the chair that was licked by the flames that claimed Aughtbrook's life. She doesn't have the strength to relocate, nor a chair to move to. She looks around weakly, waiting for one of the others to start. When no one does, she breaks the brief silence. "Anneca Summers, your Majesty. I was born in Flint, but I don't have any family to speak of. Just an orphan given a chance by the RHC. They're all the brothers and sisters I need. Some things are deeper than blood." She leaves unsaid that his own sister betrayed him and the realm.
”Emerson Hill, sire. Born in Slate where my parents still reside. I served with both Constables Muhnee and Lanvaldan in the last war and consider them the siblings I never had. As with Anneca, I feel like my graduating class of Constables are as much of my family as my blood.”
Willem remains seated as requested by the king and waits for his turn, "Constable Willem Muhnee yer majesty. I was born on my family's horse breedin' ranch midway between Flint and Slate which supplies fine war horses to the Kingdom. I have two brothers, three sisters, and along with my parents, we are all very close. As Constable Hill stated, I served with him durin' the last war and through him became friends with Constable Lanvaldan. Actually, more like brothers and sisters with the same ups and downs as my close knit blood family, Sire" He bows his head at the table and waits for him to look to the next person. Then looks at Ifris with concern because there is some misunderstanding that needs to be worked out like brother and sister.
Gemma waits and listens to each of her comrades, learning more about them with each word. But when it comes to her turn, she feels very reluctant to share. She's never really had friends outside of the circle of her sister and never preferred to have anyone be that close...or know that much about her. So it's strange to hear the other constables say that they consider their merry little band like blood.
Seeing as how it is the king who's asking, though, it's probably better to share.
"Gemma Atherton, your majesty." She bows her head slightly in deference to his authority before meeting his eyes again. "I was born and raised on a farm outside of Flint, where my mother and father still reside. I have a younger sister, who is very dear to me. She currently lives with me in town."
Jack looks at Corbin, nods to him solemnly and reaches out to squeeze his shoulder. He accepts the vials from Winston saying, "Thanks!" Hesitating for one last moment, he pushes down the battle storm that had been growing within him. He had more important duties first.
"Give 'em hell boys!" he says, with a grin he doesn't really feel. He picks up the CI unceremoniously and hefts him over one shoulder in a fireman's carry. Without further ado, he climbs up the steps and heads to the inspector's office. "We'll get this done sir, don't worry. Sorry if this is uncomfortable, we're almost there..."
Ifris remains quiet while King Aodahn is introduced to the other members of the team that saved his life. All the while, the dark-haired soldier watches the floor, rather than the king. There is a troubled look on Ifris' face, one that she has been unable to shake ever since Sorkana escaped. Given time to brood on the matter, Ifris has circled back on her strategy in the fight, looking for fault or failure in her technique that could have allowed the terrorist to elude her. That close call keeps coming to mind, the moment when Ifris' blade passed within a hair's breadth of Sorkana's chest — should have been the killing blow — but was narrowly avoided. Her mother wouldn't have missed, Ifris chides herself. Catherine would have split Sorkana from crown to crotch in one swing. Her father—Ifris judges herself by his standard as well—he wouldn't have even allowed the situation to deteriorate to the point it was at by the time she arrived. He'd have figured everything out. They'd have—
Ifris leans away from the wall, moves her hands to her hips and seems unable to stay still. The longer she's here, treading water, the further away Sorkana Dell gets.
”I see…” answers King Aodhan after a moment, smiling and nodding to each of them even though there is something of a sadness in his gaze as he briefly looks off to the window. It does not take a Skyseer for each of them to wonder what he is thinking, though he steers the conversation away from the melancholy of his own sister’s betrayal. ”Good…I am pleased to hear it. That is very good, all of you. It is often too hard a road to travel alone in this world, to live it well without knowing there is at least one whom would stand with you through the thick and thin of it. It has been forty years now since I was but a soldier, but I keenly understand the deep bonds of friendship and brotherhood, born out of battle and hardship that only dire conflict can muster. Of course now, all of my dear fellows that were not slain in the Third have since died from war, mishap or old age, but I can tell you the bonds never did diminish amongst us…” Aodhan sighs but seems to regard his own memories with one who has accepted loss and death throughout his life. ”Not quite like the bonds one shares with a wife or husband that is dearly and truly loved, but neither the loss nor the memories are no less keenly felt when they depart beyond the Gate.”
To some of the constables, the mention of the former Queen Avilanne comes as a surprise to them. Though it was only four years ago that the Queen passed on beyond the Bleak Gate due to age and frailty, she was widely regarded as Aodhan’s great match and true love if the stories and dailies were to be at all believed. It seems to them her passing was much farther ago beyond four years, such as she is rarely spoken of in any current events. One story about Avilanne was that she was a lifelong friend of Ethelyn…perhaps the last moderating influence between brother and sister as their differing views drove a rift between them that led to the traitorous events of tonight.
The King seems inclined to either elaborate or ask them something about Duchess Ethelyn in those last moments they saw her, but they are interrupted by the sounds of rapidly approaching footsteps out in the hall, followed by a polite clearing of the throat and a shifting of attention by both Lee and Jillian. Seated where they all are, they turn to see that both Director Price-Hill and Assistant Director Cyneburg stand in the hallway, apparently with urgent news.
”Yes?” King Aodhan inclines his head curtly, not pleased at being disturbed but knowing those present would not do so without a good reason.
”Your Majesty,” intones Price-Hill smoothly with a practiced air and bow, ”Director Cyneburg has just returned from Slate with news of the uprisings. She…” The Director peers around the room with his monocle at the inspector and constables seated there, apparently uncomfortable with speaking in front of them. ”Perhaps if His Majesty would hear the news in a more private setting?”
King Aodhan raises an aged white eyebrow and waves a hand around at the constables. ”Surely your capable young constables, all of whom have just saved my life twicefold this day, can be trusted with news of the realm for which they have greatly altered the potential outcome for? Out with it, Nigel.”
”Yes…quite right, Your Majesty.” Director Price-Hill bows again smoothly and then proceeds. ”Three separate uprisings in Slate, with two failed attempts to take Torfield Palace and Cloverdelve Circle. Some Skyseers of the Conclave have split and taken up action against us in the Dome and Tower, but most of the resistance is at the garrison and armory houses of Second Auxiliary in the western quarter. The First Army command is all loyal, but for a few lower officers of only two or three companies. Resistance is expected to be stamped out by the morning at the latest.”
”And Shale? What news of Shale?”
”Shale has…Shale has fallen, Your Majesty.” The Director shifts his monocle and clears his throat uncomfortably. ”Reports of the insurrection are mixed and vague, but it appears both fortresses and key buildings were taken just after dusk. The rebels there were very well prepared in their plans it seems. Some reports exist of loyal elements of Second Army making it out of the city to the countryside – perhaps this can be verified first upon landing. The military harbors and seaside fortifications are said to have some resistance – as is our own Shale Branch compound - though doubtful they will hold out to dawn.”
For the dire blow of bad news being received, the constables see that their King takes the news with a grim nod and a businesslike tone of an experienced and capable monarch. ”And my sister…is she there now?”
”Unconfirmed, Your Majesty. Yet more than probable. Cyneburg?” Director Price-Hill turns to his second for her arcane assessment.
Assistant Director Cyneburg had been watching the others, particularly scowling at Anneca Summers as if to say ’fool girl, you should be in bed after your action’, but says nothing openly. At the Director’s question she merely nods to the king and adds, ”Aye, she has the talent and power to return herself to Shale even at this distance, provided she has a static feytouched circle prepared somewhere in the city that she knows.”
”We have but an hour now until we reach shore, my King,” intones the Director respectfully. ”I have prepared a council room amidships and assembled the admirals and army commanders you deemed trustworthy. Those from Flint will mobilize Third Army and the escort fleet throughout the night tonight, and we will bring back to Slate those whom you need immediately.”
”Very well. I shall be along in a moment. Harkover, please accompany Nigel and ensure the wards are to your satisfaction.”
The Principal Minister nods and makes his leave, even as Director Price-Hill bows to him deferentially and then looks into the room to gain Stover Delft’s attention. ”Ahem. Inspector Delft? Lady Saxby has asked that you attend the Council, both to answer any questions regarding tonight, as well as to waste no time with mission assignments once we disembark in Flint.” Delft simply nods and takes his leave of the constables, limping out to join the leaving procession down the hallway. King Aodhan stands up from his chair, with all the others in the room following suit.
For a moment, the constables are left with their monarch in the room, Dame Jillian the Green Knight the only one now remaining in the hallway. ”Well now, my young friends. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, brief as it is. I am afraid what flows from here this night shall keep us all very busy for the remainder of the Spring season, and Risur has need of you to protect her, its institutions and its people.” The King regards Ifris Lanvaldan for a moment, seemingly making up his mind about something. ”After knowing you have some bonds with your fellows here established, Constable Lanvaldan, I am loathe to part you from them. Yet I have need of you in Shale. A small consolation perhaps, but I have come to realize tonight that your talents are much better served on real assignments rather than serving as my cloak-keeper. I shall relay my expectations to the Director on this point once we return to the palace.”
King Aodhan looks directly then to each of the other constables in the eyes, nodding to each one in turn. ”Fortune and skill favor you in the days ahead, young constables. Be well.” With that, he makes his way from the aft chambers down the hallway with Dame Jillian, leaving the constables to contemplate the dramatic changes that have occurred in their lives this single day, and what lies in store for them in the future.
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Johnathan makes it up the winding staircase with CI Lawrence over his shoulder to about the third story when he hears it – an immense groaning sound of wooden boards being stretched and warped from druidic magic, followed by the wood cracking and giving way. ”Winds are up in front of you, so let em’ pass through before releasing your volley!” shouts Winston Watkins from down below, even as the doors must be giving completely away by now. Johnathan feels his pulse quicken with battle being joined, the controlled rage of fighting and taking men’s lives infused through him now. Yet he has his job to do and his head prevails over his heart, longing to run back down and join Corbin and the lads in what amounts to a last stand.
Instead, he double-quickens his pace up the next bend of stairs and to the fourth story level with his newfound battle strength, hauling his boss across the hall and into his office. Setting him down in his desk chair with more roughness than he had intended, he sees Lucas Lawrence wince with great pain, but weakly waves Johnathan that he can manage and orders him to close and bar the door. Down below them the sounds of hand-to-hand fighting can be heard – musket and pistol fire mixed with the ringing sounds of metal upon metal, as well as the battle cries and death-rattles of fighting and dying men. Johnathan shakes it off as he ensures the heavy wooden office door is secured, locked and barred. Lawrence withdraws several leather-bound ledgers from the contents of his desk and throws them to an open space on the floor in front of the desk. ”Not…much time, Jackson, but enough. Two places of concealment, both warded. One there under the floorboards where the sidetable stands behind you, a lead-lined, gold-sealed strongbox. The other is behind the seascape painting…the safe behind it is trapped and false, but the painting frame holds a spidersilk pouch wrapped with golden thread, and is magicked to hold as much as a wardrobe closet. Now then…the command phrases to disarm the wardings are…”
Twelve minutes later by his timepiece and with all the critical secrets of the Constabulary consumed by magical fire in a large bonfire in the middle of the room, the first rebels make it up to their level and start to bang on the office door. Johnathan readies his morningstar and looks to his Chief Inspector, who has a pair of finely engraved silver-handled pistols out, readying one to fire and using the desk to brace his working arm for a better shot. ”It’s been a pleasure, Constable Jackson,” is all he manages to say before the door’s wood bends and warps off of its hinges and gives way.
The fight is short but bloody, with Johnathan braining two stupid men who rushed forward as soon as the door was breached and not seeing him to the side, with his CI killing another in the neck with a well-placed pistol shot. Three more soldiers would be seriously wounded before some traitorous officer of the Gale Riders used Old Faith magic to paralyze his muscles, allowing a host of men to crowd in and pin him to the ground. He could still see, and sees well that a burly sergeant with a great nasty gash across the side of his face and dripping blood everywhere draws forth a serrated dagger and is grabbing at Johnathan’s hair to haul him up and cut out his throat. Regrettably he cannot even spit or shout a dying curse at the man with the magic afflicting him, but just as the man is about to make the final cut a loud shout with authority calls out from the doorway. ”NO KILLIN’ THESE TWO! COMMAND WANTS PRISONERS FOR EXCHANGE – HOLD THAT KNIFE MAN!”
Johnathan can see the traitorous sergeant is taken with rage and bloodlust, but he hesitates from the orders given long enough for two other rebels to step in and pull him off. Another man – a Skystriker by his colors, points down at Johnathan and yells out, ”Capt’n! This here is Spiny Jack he is! I’d know ‘em from the dailies when I was growin’ up! From the Spine-takers!” He looks at Johnathan with a mixture of awe and regret. ”Too bad he’s not with us on the right side…” he mutters mostly to himself, though one of the footmen seems to agree with the statement.
”Fine, fine.” The captain of the assault force who paralyzed him comes forward, a blackthorn wand in his hand as he looks first at Johnathan, then at the injured Lawrence who grunts in pain as he is hauled up to his feet by a pair of men who disarmed him. Finally, the Gale Rider captain looks at the burning remnants on the office floor, seeming to understand what it represents. ”Damn. Still, a good haul with a greyboot leader and a notable if we ever need a prisoner swap. Bannerman, those two silver-handled pistols there are claimed by me – see to it that they make it to my quarters tonight. The rest of you men, find whatever else you can here and then bring that survivor upstairs with these two for the prison.”
As Johnathan, his CI and the badly wounded sniper-soldier from upstairs earlier are taken down to their impending captivity, he sees the final toll from the battle on the ground floor that bought them the precious time they needed. The main doors completely twisted and shattered with the rain blowing in from the courtyard outside, the water mingling with the blood that flows across the stone floor, a steady stream of rebels carrying out their fallen dead out of the room to carts in the courtyard. All the RHC soldiers who mounted the defense are dead; a couple look to be slain by sword or arrow, but most bear a grisly mass of bloody wounds and welts from hundreds of stings and bites from some ghastly swarm of summoned insects which overwhelmed their barriers and could not be countered by musket or blade. So too were the wounded soldiers devoured by the swarms where they lay, bits of bone along exposed arms and faces showing where the skin was eaten away as they died. Here and there are masses of burned bugs in heaps where they were burned by Winston Watkins’ magical fire, but his body now lies in mangled tatters behind his own barrier, rent apart by the claws of some terrible beast or creature he could not escape from. Finally, Johnathan spies out the body of Corbin Spears in the far corner, the lopped-off heads and arms of several hapless rebels still around him that had not been removed yet. Corbin’s dull dead eyes are still open and his face is locked in a sneering visage of death, his body pierced to the stone wall by no less than three great ballistae-like projectiles of black metal – clearly some magic to lay him low where mere men with swords and spears could not manage it.
It is the last thing Johnathan sees clearly as he is hauled outside into the dark and the rain, for he’s bound and put unceremoniously into a cart face-down, the sounds of traitorous soldiers of Risur all around him as they recover from the deadly assault and cheer of their “victory” for Queen Ethelyn, proclaiming to each other that the “old mad” King is dead and his plans for the destruction of Risur have been prevented…
Willem face angers at the sound of civil war but knows better to not say anything especially when things are looking up career wise. He stands up when the kings gets up and bows, "Your majesty!" When the king looks at each of the constables, Wil wants to say something but refrains hoping the King sees his willingness to help and that is good enough for now.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Johnathan jingles his iron manacles slightly, even as he hears the steady sound of cannon fire off in the distance. It has been like that for what seems like hours now, though truth to tell he doesn’t fully know how much time has passed for this “day” in captivity, though he believes it is his third since Shale Branch fell. He sits on the dirty floor of the large cell that he shares with the badly wounded Lucas Lawrence, his Chief Inspector, and one other badly wounded soldier who murmured his name as “Abe” before slipping back into unconsciousness. Amusingly, he jingles his iron manacles again a few times between the distant thundering of the booming cannons, a rhythmic game to pass the time.
His manacles chained to a thick iron rung embedded in the stone floor, allowing him some movement in the cell itself, but preventing him from getting all the way to the cell door. As far as captivity goes by traitorous rebels of Risur goes, they have not been mistreated – at least two meager meals of bread and soup per day with clean water, and a straw mat cot for each of them. Still, none of their wounds have been healed. Though his speech has improved somewhat, the use of his legs are gone as is any fine skill from one of his hands, and he spends much of his time in a sleepy stupor unless roused. The wounded sniper-soldier, Abe, is even worse off, with some makeshift bandages unchanged from his many slash-and-gouge wounds, with his eye socket a grisly mess and some of his wounds starting to smell like rot. He drifts in and out of unconsciousness, needing aid just to drink or eat.
Over the time of their captivity, Johnathan has overheard snippets from their rebel jailers that many of the R.H.C. “non-combatant” staff and even some compound soldiers survived the assault and were taken alive, held prisoner in one or more mass cells in the lower portion of the garrison prison. Though he is less sure, at least upon two occasions he heard the jailers speak of “greyboots” also in the lower cells held separately, possibly survivors of the Unremitting team or other constables of Shale Branch that had been lured out earlier in the day preceding the takeover of the city. It was also possibly a well-planned ruse he had to admit, much like the rebels’ talk of King Aodhan being dead, being blown up on his new flagship outside of Flint’s harbor. It’s not clear why he and Lawrence and the wounded army soldier are being held up here in a lightless tower, while others are held elsewhere. Yet it doesn’t seem to be a plan to gain information from him - over the time since his captivity they had originally received a host of higher-ranking officers of defecting crack companies that had joined the Duchess’ insurrection against her own brother, but since the last three meal periods he has only seen lowly jailor guards and no first-line soldiers. Then the booms of cannons started just before their last meal some hours ago. Could it be that the loyalist army has already come by land or by sea to surround and bombard the city? Johnathan could do little to aid the others with their wounds, other than to make sure they kept eating and drinking when offered, but he would be ready if ever an opportunity presented itself for escape…
Sometime later as Johnathan drifts in and out of sleep with the boom of cannons still faint but persistent, a louder BOOM! echoes in the prison somewhere below him, feeling it shake the floor as well as hearing it. He brings himself fully alert and gives excess to his chains so that he can stand quickly and move if needed, even though he knows he cannot free himself. Outside the thick door to the prison chamber room, he hears men cursing and shouting to each other in confusion and alarm.
”Wha…what’s going on, Jackson?” Lucas Lawrence has roused himself from his pain-induced deep sleep and tries to lean up from his cot on his good shoulder, peering in the darkness to the stout door well beyond their prison cell on the far side of the room.
”So far so good…ready for more then? Once our so-called leaders all have a nice good chat that is. I’ll go mind the door while they go on about it.”
Constable Arthur Wilde smirks cheerfully at Ifris Lanvaldan, even as he drinks some sort of acrid concoction that he quickly mixed together moments earlier from a belt satchel. As she nods he gives her a jaunty salute and moves off into the shadows near the doorway to a guarded platform where stairs lead upwards, his form nearly impossible to discern from the darkness of the shadows. Over across from her, she sees that the mission leaders of the Indefatigable team are wrapping up the brief searches of the slain rebels that were unfortunate enough to be guarding the lower level of Blackwatch Keep’s prison blockhouse. Even now the rescued R&D staff and army compound soldiers of Shale Branch are quietly making their way out of the prison house to the predetermined evacuation route, covered by an elite group of Risuri First Army rangers. The traitorous rebel guards had no chance of resistance really, what with the Resilience team successfully causing a diversion of the Blackwatch Keep garrison a few city blocks away before going on to the “hunt” portion of their mission objective. Ifris knows that Cealena Kirby was assigned to join Resilience for this Sable-Dragon-with-Sword mission, no doubt angling for an opportunity to make a good impression with Senior Constable Sparhawk, their team leader.
Of their own team, the “backup” team cobbled together from a mixture of Flint and Slate volunteers, Ifris watches coolly as Anya Landreth confers with Assistant Chief Inspector Sutton, consulting with him on their next action. As if she didn’t already know what it was. Ifris looks around at the Flint volunteers: Arthur Wilde, Josiah Crux, Gaethan Blackwater, Drake Wellingham, Alastair Rayne. All were solid men and capable in a fight such as this. They were running out of time, however, and good fortune wouldn’t favor them forever.
Finally, the matter is decided – the Unremitting group is moving deeper into Blackwatch Keep itself to assassinate any rebel officers they can find, which will help to prevent a coordinated response of the garrison soldiers once an alarm is sounded. ACI Sutton and Constable Landreth will split the “backup” team into two groups to look for the missing constables and inspectors of Shale Branch, with Sutton’s group taking the second floor and Landreth’s group taking the tower.
”Lanvaldan, you’re with me. You, Wilde and Rayne. Let’s go.” Constable Landreth gives her orders tersely with something of a pompous authority as if she outranks them, causing Alastair Rayne to smile to himself and roll his eyes behind her back, winking to his once-fellow “four-nine-eight” that is Ifris Lanvaldan. Arthur is already at the door of course, a grenade in his hand and ready to throw. Despite her annoyances, Anya readies a musket that Ifris knows she is a deadly shot with. Alastair and Ifris are the close-quarters types, each deadly in their respective ways. Time ticks on as they prepare to search for their missing constable comrades from Shale Branch.
Knock-knock-knock.
Anneca looks across her small, sparse dormitory quarters to the one door that leads out into the shared interior hallway. Her one rickety wooden table is piled with books both old and newly acquired, her R.H.C. uniforms arranged neatly on hanging hooks in a wardrobe closet with no doors that also serves to help separate her “bedroom” from the main living space of the one-room quarters. She looks at the door with concern – though it is not unheard of for the Risuri Army guards who guard the R.H.C. Housing Block to deliver a message to the inhabitants, it is rare they should do so at this time of night. Quite possibly, it means a call to R.H.C. HQ for some matter of urgency, perhaps by Assistant Chief Inspector Delft or even Chief Inspectress Saxby herself. She knows she should answer it, though part of her paranoia warns of danger, of an attempt to corner her in this room where she has no other real egress to. Hopefully, the Risuri honor guards were not so inept as to all be overcome without even a single alarm whistle or shot fired.
As Anneca makes her way cautiously to the door, three knocks sound off again. Her locks and bar on the door are intact, but she uses a glass peephole to see who it is. Of course, once Anneca does so, she is even more confused than before. Standing just outside her door, waiting patiently for her to open it, are Constables Serena Taflis and Kaea Than’dil.
”Ahem…Anneca Summers? May we speak to you?” Serena Taflis has always been something of the motherly sort in terms of demeanor, something Anneca was never quite comfortable with – certainly the woman’s reputation as being one of the most efficient experts with knives and assassinations contradicts greatly with her demeanor. ”My apologies dear, but we have come to speak with you on…important matters. Something that lies outside official business.”
Gemma Atherton makes her way around the corner onto Sheen Street, the street well-lit by gas lamps and still occupied by many citizens at the evening hour. Just a few blocks from Barker’s Way in the Central District, it is no issue to make the short walk here. Yet, Gemma makes her way to Sheen Street because of a mysterious note left to her by her sister Bliss upon her arrival at their shared apartment flat. That she should change from her “tedious” R.H.C. uniform and meet her at the Hare and Hounds Tavern for a change of dinner routine. The whole business seems a bit odd to Gemma, for they were not always eating in the apartment or the bakery downstairs, were they? Was her evening routine as rote and expected as Bliss hinted in her note? Not as if working all day for the Constabulary was an easy task, especially now with the threat of civil war and the constant possibility of being pulled to a dangerous assignment to thwart the rebels of the Duchess. It wasn’t her fault she often came home exhausted, both mentally and physically, and needed to rest and keep her equipment in good working order for the next day!
Gemma considers all this – as well as what Bliss is really up to here – as she finds herself at the sign of the Hare and Hounds Tavern and steps inside. Gemma can instantly tell the place is associated with a somewhat higher-end clientele as soon as she enters, the rich attention to detail on its fixtures and decorations a clear upgrade over the less auspicious and artisan-type settings they usually frequent around Barker’s Way and the streets edging towards Eastside. The common room area is busy with patrons; it is well-lit and the place has a good warmth to it, mixed with the pleasant aromas of dinner that has more bird and meat to it and less that of fish. A pleasant man in livery comes around the corner and with a practiced air says, ”Miss Atherton? Your sister has asked me to convey you to your table. If you would follow me please?”
As Gemma makes her way with the man around the corner of the common room and over to an adjacent room just off of it, she sees Bliss dressed up in a fine skirt-and-blouse combination with an embroidered vest that must be newly acquired, her hair done up and braided. She grins and waves excitedly to her sister, waiting patiently for the liveried serving man to take their requests on drink and leave before she bounces up and gives her a warm hug. ”I’m so glad you made it! I was becoming afraid you came home and went to bed or started right away on polishing your scabbard or something and didn’t see my note!”
Emerson makes his way up the gangplank to the Coaltongue, noticing the late afternoon sun as it begins its decent on the far side of the Upper Flint Bay, with the impressive Governor’s Mansion in the foreground. Emerson cannot help but think that the last time he was on the Coaltongue was but a few days ago, when in some respects it seems like a year ago, and in other respects it only seems like yesterday. So much has happened since the historic events of 1 Spring, and somehow Emerson feels the part that the Coaltongue has to play in all of this isn’t quite over yet.
Still, his arrival at the Royal Shipyard this afternoon has nothing to do with protecting the ship, the king or ferreting out enemies of the realm. Rather, with his duties for the day largely completed, he offered to bring some requested supplies from Quartermaster Babcock to the ship, requested as they were by Talyssa Dane. Perhaps not unexpectedly, Talyssa’s assignment over the past several days was to directly see to the protection and progress of Royal Engineer Geoff Massarde on the repairs to His Majesty’s prized warship. The parcels were to be delivered to Talyssa Dane directly, and Emerson preferred this duty over another set of briefing transcripts with Dima Sorginson. That, and as of late his mind has wandered increasingly to the activities of the awkward-yet-genuinely friendly constable, with her knack for technology and clockwork creations.
A loud metallic squawk heralds Emerson’s arrival upon the main deck of the ship, Skimmer observing him from high above atop the wheelhouse roof. Risuri Naval Marines guard all aspects of the ship now in heavy numbers, as well as the quay and pier nearby all the way to Fleet Square. Emerson, however, had little trouble making past the checkpoints, for even with his R.H.C. badge showing, his name is well connected with the Coaltongue and its Marines. Two guards salute him, and seeing the parcels in his arms they direct him to the forward stairwell that leads down to the gun deck.
Emerson is nearly there when two constables come up from the stairwell, both recognizing him. One is Talyssa Dane, her black hair done up in a serviceable braid but with strands of hair peeking out around her ears and brow, smoked goggles upon her forehead and familiar smudges of grease and dust upon her face and arms. ”Emerson!” she exclaims with a smile, looking up at Skimmer as if to confer with him without speaking. ”I didn’t know you were coming out this way! What with packages…did you lose a wager with Ethan or get onto Nestor Zinjo’s naughty list again?”
Of the other constable, his smile is present but not nearly as genuine. Devinn Lemont is dressed in casual attire befitting a jaunt to a seaside tavern and not on R.H.C. business, smoothing his hair back before nonchalantly withdrawing a coin from a belt pouch and rolling it across the back of his hand as if to practice parlor tricks.
It is at least an hour or more until full sunrise, though Willem is fully awake and aware of his surroundings. Strange to him though, as he still quite cannot believe his good fortune as of late. As he rises out of the soft feather-down bed and takes at gander by the windowsill to listen to the garden sounds of a fountain pool, he sees the hint of moonlight sparkling across the winding traces of the Stray River in the distance, making its way towards the waters of Flint Bay. A hint of flame burning in beautiful hues of blues, greens and yellows marks the famed landmark of the Penny Pyre in the distance, just a few blocks away and across the main district square on this side of the river. Listening closely, Willem can hear the occasional chirping sounds of morning birds that are starting to waken with the approaching dawn.
Willem looks away from the window to where his clothes are piled in a plush chair, along with his belt, holster and other gear that he normally carries. No R.H.C. badge or clothing present, however, for that was one of the stated tenets of their arrangement – both for his sake as well as hers. For that, he needs to head back to his own rented loft that he has made arrangements for with a respected landlady, just across the bridge to the East Bank and up the main road. He hasn’t even unpacked all of his boxes and bags, though he is fairly certain everything has finally arrived now from Slate. He’ll have to spend some time in the next fortnight to get everything properly in order, now that he’s a permanent resident of Flint in the Stray River District.
Looking back behind him, he sees movement under the covers of the bed, the woman he shared it with still mostly asleep. Chrystine Robinson, the Mayor of Stray River District. Willem still cannot believe his good fortune – though to be fair he “bought” the goodwill of his transfer to Flint with nearly being burned to death by that traitorous eladrin handmaiden of the Duchess. Still, his transfer to Flint Branch was met with joy and a certain “zeal” by Chrystine that he did not think was possible. That they had met some years ago and kindled a romance from that point on, and enjoyed their brief trysts together whenever he could make a reasonable excuse to journey to Flint was well enough. Yet Willem had been both encouraged and concerned that his permanent relocation to Flint would be joyously received by her. After all, Chrystine Robinson was a savvy politician and busy mayor of a main district of Flint, with many duties and responsibilities to see to the welfare of the people of her district that left her little time for anything else. Still, any doubts he may have had on her earnestness to see him closer to her were dispelled three nights ago, and he has been “invited” to her residence after dusk every night since then.
Still, there were rules to follow – for both of them – and him being out by dawn before the usual morning business with Stray River citizens could observe him was one of those rules. R.H.C. fraternization with Risuri officials was frowned upon for obvious reasons…and the last thing Willem needed was to run afoul of Lady Inspectress Saxby after getting such a wonderful second chance in his career with the Constabulary. Truth to tell, their visitations at her residence these past few nights was not a stroke of brilliance on his part, but he resolved himself that they would not continue after a “reasonable” period of time. As he watched her stir, however, he was not so certain he could think clearly on the details of how best to proceed.
"Something," Johnathan replies noncommittally. "It sounds like something hit the prison just now. Maybe help is on the way?" He pulls his chains as close to the door as he can get them and then strains his ears to hear further clues as to what's going on below.
A warm glow, evoking the memory of candle flame, blossoms from a series of wall-mounted sconces as Ifris Lanvaldan walks past. The lights are subtle magic—a proximity lantern that stays lit only while living creatures are present, then fades gradually as they move from within range—perfect for lighting spaces such as basement stairwells, where carrying a lantern could be problematic. Ifris pays well for this upscale residence, paid equally well to have the basement refitted from a wine cellar to a training facility. Down past the winding wood and stone staircase there's enough feet of earth and rock to muffle the noises of experimentation.
Walking through the open door at the bottom of the stairs, Ifris enters the spacious single-room basement. Reed mats are layered over the cold, stone floor to provide modest padding for more acrobatic endeavors. Recessed stones in the ceiling warm slowly on Ifris' arrival, shedding torchlight down from above without the danger of smoke and flame. Barefoot, she crosses the reed mats and retrieves a pair of leather knee and elbow pads with quilted interiors. Each pair are strapped on over loose gray clothing fit for the kind of athletics one would expect to be performed in a space such as this. Ifris palms a roll of white tape with a mild alchemical adhesive side from a shelf and begins wrapping her hands and feet, sitting cross-legged on the floor as she does.
The distraction of ritual helps distance Ifris from Sorkana's visage in her mind's eye, helps temper the sensations of rage and frustration that threaten to boil over when she remembers their confrontation. Once prepared, Ifris walks out to the center of the practice floor and holds her arms out at her side, then leans forward into a series of often-practiced stretches. The sound of Divianne Athel's screams ring like the faint hum of tinnitus in her ears, a reminder of her inability to protect those who trusted in her. The screams of crew and comrades much longer removed by time are a more faded memory, though no less painful.
Once her warm-up is complete, Ifris closes her eyes and draws in a slow breath. Holding it, she raises her hands from waist to chest level, then as she exhales pushes her hands forward as a haze of tiny fragments of light form around her wrists, extending outward into two distinct shapes: one a sword, the other a shield. A moment of stillness comes between the formation of her arms and the sudden, sharp movements that define her fighting style: forceful, direct, sharp. There's a mechanical precision to Ifris' strikes, like an automaton running through a series of punch-card instructions. They're functional, but unimaginative. To Ifris, it was this routine style that contributed to Sorkana's escape. Each of Ifris' own personal failings is examined over and over again as she replays strike after strike from the confrontation.
Thirty minutes of repetition has Ifris coated in a thin sheen, though not all of it perspiration. Tiny beads of black fluid coalesce in irregular formations along with sweat, the highest concentration closest to her conjured arsenal. It doesn't wipe off easily, has a tacky tar-like texture. The odd, oily perspiration has baffled Ifris since she first came into her abilities. Frustrated with her lack of progress at refining her technique, Ifris dismisses her shield and focuses on strikes with her conjured blade. That it projects out of her arm like an extension of her fist gives leverage, something she has yet to capatlize on, and developing a style that takes advantage of this leverage is a long process.
For over an hour Ifris performs an exhausting regimen of weapon drills, practicing dismissing and re-summoning her psychic blade over and over again. In some instances she splits the blade into two smaller knives, but fighting with two weapons is a clumbsy affair for her. Likewise is combining her shield and sword into a massive blade too unwieldly. A larger cutting edge could have meant the difference between Sorkana dying and escaping.
Try as she might, Ifris can't manage both the massive sword and her shield at the same time. The perceptual weight of the summoned blade puts too much strain on her elbow and shoulder. During one experimental swing, however, Ifris pushes herself too hard. Her shoulder pops, elbow follows, and a lance of pain shoots both directions towards collar and wrist. As she screams, Ifris drops to one knee with her free hand moving up to clutch at her now dislocated shoulder. Breathing heavily, Ifris refuses to dismiss the massive blade and every moment she tries to support its weight sends hot spears of agony through her. Gripping her wrist with her good hand, Ifris tries to force through the pain, tries to push herself beyond all reason as memory of that near miss to Sorkana's heart replays over and over in her mind.
The tingling sensation in Ifris' arm isn't from the pain, but something slithering down her skin. By the time she notices oily, black rivulets of a sticky substance running from shoulder to wrist its too late. In a sudden burst of fluid, Ifris' arm is engulfed by that black substance. It bubbles and roils down her arm, covering her like liquid rubber, then snakes, slithers, and squirms up her shoulder towards her neck. Panicking, Ifris dismisses her soulknife in a haze of firelight, but the terrifying mass is only growing more bold. As she tries to walk, Ifris finds herself tangled in a stringy mass of tacky slime. It bubbles like tumorous growths, then forms spiderweb veins up the side of her face before flapping over her mouth and nose. Trying to suck in a breath, Ifris' face is shrouded in a suffocating mass of protoplasmic death. She falls onto her back on the floor, hands pawing at her face in futile desperation.
Soon, Ifris' entire body is coccooned in the liquid as it bubbles and churns, tightening like the wrapping on her hands and feet until it snugly conforms to her body. A sudden, jarring pain comes as the fluid tightens around Ifris' shoulder and elbow and twists like a constrictor, snapping her dislocated shoulder back into place. Her scream is a muffled bubble of black against her shrouded face. But at the moment when Ifris feels light-headed and breathless, a hole tears open for her mouth and nose, soon disgorging her entire head and sloughing back down away like a hood. Ifris screams, pulling herself up from the floor as the fluid substance loses its sticky coating and the leftover residue on the floor dissolves with the speed of rubbing alcohol exposed to the air. Soon all of the pain is gone, and the suit takes on a matte, rubbery texture with powerful, corded muscles that nearly doubles Ifris' visible bulk and casts her silhouette less like a gymnast and more like a body-builder.
"What," is all that Ifris can breathlessly mutter, feeling the second skin like an extension of herself. Panic turns to confusion as she realizes that this flesh-like coating has sensory input, that she can feel it as if it were a part of her own body, make it contort, twist, and unsheathe from her in the same way she would control an appendage. With a thought, much like dismissing her conjured arsenal, Ifris causes the skin to dissolve into a greasy haze, leaving her entirely.
For a few, long moments Ifris stands in silence in the training room, staring at her aching arm. As she focuses on the sensation of tingling that preceded the skin's appearance, Ifris can see the beads forming on her fingertips and palm, following the path of her veins atop her skin. Then, fiber-by-fiber, the substance weaves ink-black muscle and tissue until the second skin covers Ifris once more. She feels stronger in its presence, feels the agility and speed it grants her, feels super-human under its influence. Again, the skin—some sort of psycho-active substance—a psychoactive skin, she surmises, disappears with but a thought, only to be reformed with a more focused concentration. Experimentally, Ifris pulls the psychoactive skin over her face like a cowl with a mental image in her head, allowing an opening in the top and sides for her hair to fall free, then pulls it back down to her neck with another thought.
"Holy sh—"
It was going to be a long night.
Anya. In her head Ifris hears it in a chiding tone, the don't get us killed is implied. Outwardly the former marine braces herself against a wall, the coarse fabric of her uniform brushing up against the cool stones. "One sec," Ifris requests, realizing that now that they've come this far a lightly armed and armored group isn't going to fare as well in tightly closed quarters. Her mindblade had been enough to carry the weight up until now, and not being slowed by armor allowed Ifris to close in with her comrades evenly. But now, heavier arms are required.
With a moment of concentration, Ifris calls into being the layered armored plates of goldenrod light around her body. Segmented plates of armor snap into place from the base of her neck up over the top of her head and then claps down across her face with a slatted visor. The wedge-shaped shield of light forms over her free arm, and Ifris' muscles—enhanced by the psychoactive skin worn beneath her uniform—surge with superhuman strength. In that surge, her mindblade flares brightly and widens into a broad blade, then juts outward another foot in length.
"Let's go."
Gemma approaches her sister and returns the warm hug but can't help but be suspicious. Ever since moving to Flint, Bliss Atherton has had a knack for turning the gold coin in her favor. For better or worse, Gemma hasn't ever really pursued the how of it. In truth, she doesn't really want to know. It's clearly not the best course for a constable to take, but if Bliss were taken out of her life for whatever reason, the results would be devastating for Gemma. So, for the most part, she's willing to turn a blind eye. The up side is if there is one, is that her little sister knows things about Flint and it's people. It's almost as if the city itself is in her bones. Gemma saw it in her little sister's big brown eyes from the moment they moved into town. There's no rhyme or reason to it, but it's been very useful.
"So, this is new." Gemma runs her finger along the edge of the embroidered vest before pulling out her chair to sit down. Fancy has always made her uncomfortable. She would much prefer the austerity of her side of their flat or a military barracks. "And I'm not entirely sure if I want to know how this is all getting paid for either. I know I'm moving up in the ranks but I'm still a bit happier with casual tea and crumpets."
Anneca puts the blunderbuss back down in its makeshift holder by the door, trying her best not to drop it so that they might hear. If the quartermaster had let her keep the pistol taken from the terrorists, she might simply keep that in her waistband. The ability to conjure magical flame keeps her from being truly defenseless at any given time, but the feel of a firearm in her hands is simply comforting. Keeping a loaded blunderbuss by the door of a secure building might strike some as odd, but it gives her peace of mind.
The last few days have been remarkable for her. After her body stopped aching, she found that magic was coming easier to her than ever before. Even the simple spells that vexed her so during her time at Mitchell University were within her grasp! She spent the better part of a full day simply tossing things into the air and grabbing them with telekinetic exertion, then repeatedly creating light in darkened rooms. Even her ability to produce flames is stronger than ever before. She went through all of her old notes from her magical education, finding that very little was difficult for her now - even changing one elemental force to another! It is nearly enough to make her giddy. Her time channeling the Brand had apparently unlocked her potential in a way that normal studies never did.
Anneca undoes the latch that came standard with the room, then the two that she installed herself when she moved in, and opens the door. She looks at Serena and Kaea with an expectant expression. "Unoffical business, my favorite kind." Seeing as how she has few hobbies outside the job, it is a comment in jest. "What's going on?"
Emerson smiles warmly at Talyssa. ”Oh, I’m always on Nestor Zinjo’s naughty list. You know, first impressions tend to stick with people.” He notices Lemont and gives him a nod and a smile.
”Actually I must admit, I wanted to ask you to dinner tonight and this was as likely an excuse as anything to bring me this way. I have reservations at Victoria and Albert’s if you’re up for it. I understand the view of the bay is breathtaking in the evening.”
He notices now that Devinn isn’t in RHC attire and his heart sinks slightly. ”That is, if you two already don’t have plans?”
BOOM! BOOM!-CRACK!
Arthur Wilde’s specialized fiery grenade explodes and burns two rebels alive on the upper stairwell, even as Alastair Rayne’s accompanying fuse grenade blows one of those same hapless men off the stairs to the stone floor below with a sickening crunch, and Anya Landreth’s musket shot strikes a third man at the top landing platform in the chest, crimson blooming across the rebel’s leather jerkin as he gasps and collapses. Ifris brings up the rearguard action at the base of the stairwell where they entered below, having just taken out a wounded but tough rebel soldier that hadn’t succumbed to Arthur’s first bomb thrown in, blocking him out so the rest of the team could advance past her to hit the guards up top with all possible speed and violence.
Once past the iron door to take the stairwell to the southeast prison tower, the small team of constables led by Anya Landreth find themselves in a contained but vicious fight upwards to the top. At the top landing platform three stories up stand two doors – one ironbound and reinforced with an appearance of a jailhouse cell door, the other of simpler wooden construction that leads to a guardroom. That second door is now open with four more guards emerging from it, responding to the explosions and screams of their fellows moments earlier to do battle with the constables charging up the stairs.
Ifris Lanvaldan, clad in her translucent golden armor and bearing golden blade and shield in each hand, takes note of the downed rebel soldier with neither satisfaction nor remorse, taking mental stock of the team’s progress upwards and advances with all speed to catch up to them upon the stairwell. Some two stories above her she sees the next lethal battle forming, with two lead guards firing crossbows before drawing longswords and engaging; Alastair Rayne deflects one bolt somehow with nothing but his hands but takes the other in the shoulder, shouting a short curse from the pain and stops short. Anya Landreth surges forward and takes the two guards on initially by herself, deflecting one guard’s overhand blade attack with the thick stock of her unloaded musket even as she draws a cavalry saber and runs the other guard through his midsection with it. Alastair arrives a moment later with a high jump and kick to the surviving guard’s face that simply defies logical explanation, followed-up by a leg sweep that drops the fellow’s head sharply on the edge of a stone step with a critical injury.
The other two guards on the top landing each have pistols, preparing to take aim at Alastair and Anya just a dozen paces in front of them, when Arthur throws another of his spherical bombs at the pair; the bomb takes an odd bounce and rolls past them into the open guardroom next to them, exploding in a fiery blast that rains bits of charred wood upon them and eliciting an agonizing scream from another soldier hidden from view in the guardroom itself. Suddenly, the two surviving guards with pistols drawn retreat from their exposed position atop the landing and open the ironbound jailroom door with surprising speed, withdrawing inside and banging the door shut before Alastair or Anya can reach it.
Back down the lower portion of the stairwell, Ifris quickly notices a large scarred and scowling man with bald head and disheveled leather jerkin, open at the front to show a muscled chest, wielding a ranseur-type polearm at her as he begins to ascend the stairs behind her. He seems to be more of a jailor or executioner rather than a proper soldier, with the stink of liquor permeating his skin and a ring of iron keys in a leather strap at his belt. ”I’ll skewer ya you lit-up harlot!” Thrusting the polearm menacingly at her in emphasis, the jailor apparently expects her to run or stand there to be killed. Instead, Ifris narrows her eyes and with expert precision, throws her golden blade at him before he gets up the stairs to accost her, the blade slicing through his chest and part of his leather jerkin cleanly, causing him to shriek and fall upon the stairs while the ranseur is knocked away to the stone floor in a clatter well below him.
Even as her golden blade begins to reform in her free hand, Ifris looks briefly back up to the top landing, seeing that her team is at the ironbound locked door, with Arthur apparently looking in his satchel for an acid compound that may melt the lock…
Willem takes a step back from the window just to make sure he does not show himself in the window to anyone watching the house for whatever reason. Then looks back at Chrystine and thinks to himself, You don't deserve ... Then Willem shakes his head, Of course you deserve her, that negative nonsense is what that idiot Burton Glix has hammered into yer head. Hopefully you never have to deal with that work of art on anythin' less than a professional level from here on out. He then walks quietly over to her side of the bed to observe his sleeping beauty, "What should I do? I am too much in love with her to let her go even though in the foreseeable future, it is probably the best for both of us? Perhaps, what I or what we need to do is convince everyone that it is OK that we are forming a relationship? What should I do? He continues to watch her, What is today? Oh yes, the weekend? Perhaps I can lay with her a little longer? I do have to get my flat in order and she probably has an engagement today? Willem then sits down next to her and moves her bangs to the side to get a better look at her hoping she will invite him to stay for the rest of the weekend, or this will be his signal telling her it is time for him to get dress and sneak back home.
Johnathan Jackson strains to hear for any other sounds of disruption, only to recoil back slightly as two loud sounds of explosions occur just beyond the heavy iron prison room door across the room from where their cell is, followed by the sound of musket fire and a ricochet sound off of the same iron door. Muffled sounds of screaming and shouting men are heard as well, though the calculation of numbers of combatants or who is winning the fight is unknown to Johnathan. In the large prison chamber is but a single lantern kept in an enclosed iron cage on the far wall, providing a faint but steady amount of light for them to see by, though they have no windows or portals to see by otherwise. Lucas Lawrence struggles to wake himself more fully and struggles to rise himself up to a seated position on his cot, though the badly injured soldier named Abe barely stirs from his unconscious state.
Johnathan finds himself crouched and ready to spring forward, though the manacles and chains keep him from being able to do anything to a rebel guard unless he or she is stupid enough to open their cell bars and enter in unaware. He cocks his head to the side and hears the muffled sounds of battle now outside the prison room door, followed by another loud BOOM! just beyond. Another scream of a dying man follows.
”It’s the Constabulary, Jack…they’re here to find us.” Lucas Lawrence sounds fatigued and his speech is slurring again, but he is propped up and attempting to move his unmoving legs closer to the edge of the cot.
Just then, a sharp light permeates the prison chamber – a familiar occurrence whenever the jailor opens the far door and comes in to bring them their meal…or rebel guards come in to accost and berate them. This time the opening of the heavy iron door brings in two rebel guards they’ve seen before, but unlike before they move with a great rush and hurriedly close and lock the door as soon as they are inside the room, looking desperate to escape the onslaught outside. Once the lock is secured, one man walks over to their cell, followed by the other man. Johnathan notes the lead guard has been particularly caustic and aggressive in his hateful insults to them, though he does not recall the other guard’s behavior towards them. The shadows of the dim light make it hard to see the lead guard’s wounds in full detail, but it appears he is bleeding in the arm and side and his soldier’s coat is tattered.
”Your greyboot friends are killin’ my lads,” says the man with a growling voice, who in the faint light has a full beard and bearing of one several years older than Johnathan. The other guard barely looks two-score years in age, even if that.
”Surrender then, rebel soldier,” replies Chief Inspector Lucas Lawrence before Johnathan can respond. ”They will show mercy if you lay down your arms.”
”Mercy, eh?” Without any warning except for the menacing tone of his reply, the elder guard withdraws his pistol and fires at Lawrence through the cell bars, the shot obliterating the Chief Inspector’s nose and jaw in a spray of blood and bone. Lawrence falls back onto his cot, a single gurgle escaping before he dies and bleeds out just paces away from Johnathan.
”WHATTAYADOIN?!” The younger guard looks shocked and reaches out futilely for the barred cell door, only to have his hand slapped away by the older murderous guard.
”Killin’ these traitors is what!” He grows menacingly at the younger guard and slaps him in his face for good measure, then starts to reload his pistol with another shot from a paper cartridge. ”Now draw yer pistol and shoot one of ‘em while I load up fer the last one.”
”But, but they’re to be ransomed, or traded I thought! Queen Ethelyn said to keep ‘em safe and sound!”
”Queen Ethelyn ain’t here, fool!” The older man finishes reloading his pistol and checks the firegem cap to see if it is still good for a spark. ”Remember? Half the free companies is out with the Queen and the fleet, and we’re not lettin’ greyboot lickspittles take ‘em. If we can’t hold out, they die.”
The younger guard looks behind him at the prison chamber door, his voice growing increasingly desperate. ”But, they’ll see what we’ve done and kill us in turn! We…we can use ‘em as hostages to spare our…”
”COWARD BOY! They’ll kill us anyways, so kill ‘em first I say! NOW DRAW AND FIRE YER WEAPON!”
Even as the younger guard gulps down his bile and draws his pistol out, the lead guard raises his pistol a second time and fires, this time at the helpless Abe in the other cot. The shot erupts in his chest and rends through his heart, killing him near instantly with a final rattled breath. The younger guard aims squarely through the bars at Johnathan’s head just paces away, but his hands shake so violently it’s unclear he could make the shot hit where he wanted even at this distance. Johnathan stares at the rebel whelp who is trying to muster the courage to take his head off.
Yet it is not to be. The guard abruptly lowers his pistol and says to the older guard, ”I can’t! It’s Spiny Jack from the war! He was a hero! I…I can’t just kill ‘em with no trial and no say-so!” He lowers his head in shame, the pistol hanging limply in his hand by his side.
”Gutless boy,” murmurs the older guard in disgust. He begins to reload his own pistol for the third and final shot. ”I say-so, that’s who. I don’t care none who he was before in the war. Right now he’s a greyboot King-loving crown-licker, and our Queen’s enemy.” The man finishes his reload and raises the pistol to end Johnathan’s life. ”So much for the legend of Spiny Jack – say hello to your traitor friends in the Bleak when you get there.”
Light spills into the prison chamber as the door clangs open, causing the murderous guard to hesitate just a moment before he redoubles his efforts to end Johnathan’s life. A shot rings out and then rings in his ears. He wonders why there is no pain and why he still has his senses, when he looks up at his executioner and sees that most of the left side of the man's upper chest has been ripped away by the blast of a large round which took him through the back. The older guard is fatally wounded, but tries in his last few moments to pull the trigger and kill Johnathan before he dies. Yet he cannot, and with an undecipherable mumbled curse he pitches forward and slams against the cell bars with his face before sliding down to meet the cold stone floor. In the violence of his last motions the loaded pistol leaves his grasp and clatters through the cell bars to rest right in front of Johnathan’s feet, appearing to still be intact and unbroken.
In the silhouette of the now opened iron door to the prison chamber, a woman with braided hair in a military-style coat lowers her musket, clearly the one who ended the one guard’s life with a crack shot. Two others move into the room, scanning for enemies and each deadly in their own way: one man is unarmed but moves in a catlike manner that suggests he can injure with his hands or feet alone, while the other is encased in a golden aura from head to toe and bears an edged longblade that is also made of the same shimmering light. Johnathan, however, detects that they both are trying to adjust their eyes to the darkness, and do not fully understand the only enemy left in the room is the young guard in front of the cell across from them.
The young guardsman looks with his mouth agape and horror in his eyes at his fallen superior, then to Johnathan’s face, then to the pistol that now lies next to him. The young man’s pistol hand flexes slightly as he realizes the danger he’s in, but he neither drops the pistol and surrenders nor raises it to kill Johnathan before he can retrieve the other weapon and do the same to him…
What? You want to...umm..." Talyssa suddenly seems both confused and slightly nervous, brushing back strands of black hair from her face and looking at Emerson with confusion on his last question before it dawns on her. "Plans? OH! You mean Devinn and I...why no! Not really, I mean. He was just going to walk me back to my place in Bosum Strand, but I could go to V-and-A's if...I mean I'm not dressed for it of course...well...you wouldn't mind if I have a little dinner with Emerson here, would you Dev?"
Devinn LeMont, who has been staring at Emerson intently the entire time as if to see if he can take him in a duel, finally breaks his stare and smiles grandly to Talyssa, saying, "Of course not, Jet! I was thinking we would go by and see Uncle and his latest clockwork pet he's been wanting you to see, but we can do that on another day. Hill is certainly right that the sunset should be a sight on the bay this evening - if you've got your dress greys onboard the ship that should be good to get you in all proper like."
Talyssa looks both relieved and excited at Devinn's suggestion. "Why yes I do! Just in case we had a V.I.P. tour or some such inspection - I'll go change into my dress uniform and fix my hair a bit, and then we can go from here." She smiles at Emerson and gives Devinn a quick nod and then heads off to the belowdecks.
Once the pair are alone, Devinn returns his stare back to Emerson. Though he's come to know LeMont as filled with his own self-importance and in love with his own wit, never missing an opportunity to practice sarcasm and jests at others expense, he has never known LeMont to be serious. He seems serious now, however. After a long moment, Devinn says something in a cool voice that carries with it an unmistakable undertone of threat in it. "Jet's like a younger sister to me, Hill. She's a favorite of my uncle, and he and I are like family to her in return. So I won't sit by idly if you b*%&*@%s whatever you think you're doing all up and hurt her in the process."
Serena Taflis clearly takes the lead in the communication to Anneca, with Kaea Than'dil trailing on in silent observation. It's something Anneca has noticed often between the pair of women that clearly are close friends, even as they are colleagues in the R.H.C. ranks. Serena is regarded as a Senior Constable with nearly as much clout as Carlao Ven or Dima Sorginson, though Kaea has nearly as many years in the R.H.C. as Serena does. As they ask and are admitted into the tiny dormitory room that is Anneca's home, the younger constable wonders what the issue is that could concern two of the top Flint Branch constables to seek her out in her home setting, when they could easily see each other the following morning at the HQ building.
"Nothing representing ill-favor or ill-tidings to you, my dear," answers Serena smoothly with a disarming smile. "Yet as you say, it is unofficial business of a sort, yet deals with you directly. Kaea and I thought it was best to give you the news directly and outside of daily duties. My my, you have made the most of your arrangements here in the dormitories, haven't you Anneca? May I call you Anneca? You may call me Serena, of course. And Kaea here too - isn't that right, Kaea?"
"Yes, your room is pleasant and good," answers Kaea Than'dil in a tone that suggests it is anything but that. The elven wizardess seems to be one step behind in the conversation, either not quite able to grasp the social nuances or whose mind is lost in thought of other matters and pursuits.
"Well...yes Anneca, Kaea is complimentary of course, but a matter of great delicacy has come to me, which I am honor-bound to deliver and bestow to you." Serena smooths her dress and takes a deep breath, giving Anneca a slight sense of dread. "As you know, Makala's final rites are to be given two days from now, in accordance to her wishes as written down in sealed records to the R.H.C. I happen to be the one she tasked with...well...executing her final requests and wishes, for she and I were dear friends and trusted each other implicitly. That, and Makala had no family by blood, none to speak of anyway."
"We were her sisters, in a way," adds Kaea solemnly.
"Yes, that is correct. Despite all of that and what has happened...well Anneca dear, before she went on her last assignment she asked that I deliver a letter to you, for she felt she would be transferring to Slate Branch and the Resilence team as soon as her mission was completed, and wouldn't have had time to speak to you directly. As it turns out, that premonition proved true, though obviously not in the...well..."
Both Serena and Kaea cannot speak for a long moment, the grief of Makala's passing clearly afflicting them deeply. Serena nods sadly and then produces a wax-sealed letter in flowing script, handing it to Anneca's hand. "Here, dear. She wanted you to have this, and it was important to her that you both read and accept its contents."
Johnathan looks at the young guard with a cold light in his eyes. The imprisoned constable reaches down and picks up the fallen pistol, holding it ready at his side. Spiny Jack keeps his icy glare locked on the guard the whole time he retrieves the weapon. "I'm only going to ask you this once, lad. Who is the rightful ruler of Risur?"
The younger guardsman stares at Johnathan and his raised pistol for what seems like a long moment, his mouth agape but uttering forth no words. He hears the booted steps of his enemies behind him in the prison chamber, and reflexively drops his own loaded pistol to the floor with a clatter. Raising his hands and shaking uncontrollably, the surrendering guardsman answers, ”Y-You are J-J-Jack. I mean s-s-sir!” Suddenly the young rebel realizes he has just answered the question incorrectly and starts to shake even more violently. ”No no! I mean I know you’re not the King, sir! I just got mixed up and I mean to say…”
The lad gets no farther as one of the rescuers – the fighting man with no weapons in his hands - comes up behind him and roughly shoves him down to his knees by the shoulders. ”Silence crab! Else I’ll snap your neck and feed your remains to the dogs!” Even in the dim light, Johnathan recognizes the sash as having an R.H.C. badge pinned to it. He deftly withdraws a set of manacles from a leather satchel and binds the young rebel guardsman, even as he looks into the cell and sees Johnathan staring back at him, claimed pistol in his hand. ”Easy there, friend. Alastair Rayne, constable of Flint Branch. We’re here to rescue you and your…”
The constable calling himself Alastair stops short as he sees the two bodies sprawled out in death on their cots inside the cell, his eyes going wide. ”Anya! One of ours is alive over here, but two more have been badly shot! I can’t tell if they’re still alive or…we need inside this cage door now!”
The woman whom Johnathan recognizes as the one who shot and killed the other guardsman with her musket seems to be the leader of the group. She curses and orders out for one of her own to find keys from those they had already killed or incapacitated. ”Alastair, is one of them Chief Inspector Lawrence or Inspector Grady?”
Bliss Atherton gives Gemma the typical audible sigh and rolling-of-the-eyes look that she’s seen many times before, though her smile and good humor is unaffected. ”Yes, it’s positively lovely on me, isn’t it? I found this wonderful little shop over in Eastside with an elderly woman – quite the seamstress in her youth and serving the finest in North Shore or so she told me, but now she’s old and can’t see the needle very well. Still, her widowed daughter and three grandchildren help her, and the quality is so very good – I ran some extra errands for some deliveries to Stray River in return for it…plus a beautiful scarf.”
With an amused expression, Bliss pauses just long enough for the servingman to bring out a large platter of winter fruits, muffins with honey and butter and two types of cheese, the tray seemingly larger than what conceivably both of them could eat comfortably. Bliss thanks the man, still with a playful smile upon her lips, as she continues her conversation with Gemma after he departs.
”Now stop fretting elder sister, for the crowns and shills are all mine to spend tonight, and all respectably earned.” Bliss leans in closer at the table, as if ready to divulge secrets of a conspiratorial nature. ”I have been doing a mixture of courier message work – mostly in and around Central but sometimes up to the Strand or down to the Stray. As you know, I have a knack for finding the quickest routes that are often less-traveled, and I have a small clientele that values both speed and discretion.” She gives Gemma a wink and then continues. ”That, and upon occasion I act as an afternoon guide to the main landmarks of Central – mostly foreigners and visitors who have business at Pardwight or want to see the Navras Opera House, that sort of thing. Mostly older gentlemen whom don’t mind walking and like to have a tour of landmarks from a pretty girl - it’s a wonder what a smile and a bit of engaged conversation will do to stroke a man’s ego…particularly when one feigns interest and gets them talking about themselves in turn a bit.”
”So, what shall we have to drink? Besides water or tea of course.”
Emerson is somewhat surprised at Devinn’s tone although he doesn’t show it. He does keep his smile on his face though. ”Devinn. Do you think that poorly of me? I thought we were friends? Okay, perhaps not friends but colleagues which share mutual admiration of each other’s abilities and good humor?” Emerson drops his smile and looks back at Devinn with a similar more serious look. ”Look LeMont. I appreciate the speech but I have no intentions of b+*@$&&sing anything up and certainly not hurting her in any way. I will treat her with the utmost respect at all times. Good?” Emerson holds out his hand in an offer of friendship…..
"Aye, Mam. That one is Lawrence," Johnathan reports, pointing to the rapidly cooling body of his former CI. "The boy was just following orders," he continues, nodding his head to indicate the young manacled guard. "He's loyal to the king. We'd better use him than kill him or put him in a cage. My name is Johnathan Jackson, and far as I know I'm the last surviving constable of the Shale Branch RHC."
Johnathan stands by the door, patiently waiting for his cage to be opened. "I've been blind in here. What's going on outside?!"
Chrystine murmurs sleepily as she stirs awake and peers out from the warm featherdown covers at Willem. One of many qualities that they have in common from childhood habits on a farmstead is that she is generally an early-riser and does not require much sleep, something that bodes well for her given her often-hectic political schedule. However, Willem typically rises before she even does – even before when circumstances didn’t require him to leave before sunrise.
”Mmmm? What is the hour…oh so soon again?” She sleepily pouts and outstretches her arm from the bed playfully. ”Not fair…though I should thank the Seers and Stars for this time we now have together, even so brief as it is.” Chrystine sits up in bed, her moderate-length strawberry-blonde hair all disheveled around her – few in public have ever seen it down, as she often keeps it stylishly braided or swept up in a more businesslike bun, depending on the events at hand. These days with the rebellion and potential civil war in Risur, her hair is usually kept tightly pinned back and with hat or bonnet.
She takes a deep breath and stretches in her fine white linen nightgown – something Willem doesn’t mind at all – and regards him with a small smile upon her lips. Her words, however, answer Willem’s unspoken question in his mind as to her intentions. ”I’m sorry, dear Willem, about all of this and you having to leave off in the night like some thief taking the cups and dishes. Perhaps when all of this dreadful business with rebels and threats to our city, the King, a looming civil war…” Her voice trails off as she realizes how silly it sounds that such large and dour events would clear off their schedules as some minor inconvenience. ”It IS terrible, isn’t it? I cannot imagine what the R.H.C. has to face with this awful business and what danger they may put you in – I have expect that terrorist woman Gale to sweep down from the Cloudwood and start all sorts of assassinations and violent acts in the name of her traitorous benefactor, the so-called Duchess. To think she nearly murdered us all on the Coaltongue...if it hadn't been for you and your fine fellows...my dear savior's arrival was well-timed indeed.” Chrystine grabs a stiff brush from a bedside table and begins to brush out her hair as she talks to him. “Oh, we hear about it all the time now in our security meetings with the Stanfield’s people thrice weekly. Sadly, I must make my way to the Governor’s mansion by nine o’ clock this morning for another one…I don’t believe on face value that half of what they “inform” the Mayors on is the full information, though MacBannin from the Nettles tells me they are much to be believed, and I tend to heed his advice on these sorts of matters.”
Anneca takes a deep breath. The loss of her friend has barely left her side, even as she has focused on increasing her magic and dealt with the reality that they are now embroiled in a civil war. She has preferred to throw herself into this work rather than deal with the pain and grief, but Kaea and Serena threaten to bring it to the forefront. She reaches out to take the letter, then hesitates. "Have you read it?" Seal or not, they might have read its contents. It isn't hard to magically re-seal wax. She takes it from Serena, breaking the seal and reading the letter.
"Civil war," comes from the back of the room, from the amber aura shimmering like fire in the dark. Ifris Lanvaldan approaches the cage, a wide blade of glowing light burning in and around one of her hands. She surveys the cell, up and around the stone frame, then step saround Anya and moves towards the bars. "Stow it," she suggests to Anya, then brings her right elbow back, angling the tip of her mindblade at the lock.
"I've got the key."
With a single forward thrust, Ifris punches her mindblade through the lock mechanism. In that motion, the muscles in her right arm bulge and surge, a ripple of corded muscle twisting sinewy in the black body-suit worn beneath her uniform. When the blade punches through the other side of the lock, Jonathan sees the fiery orange weapon as multiple planes of hardened light, radiating that firelight glow from within. Ifris twists the mindblade in the lock, sawing backwards a few times with concerted effort before finally withdrawing the mighty blade with a rattle and crash of falling pieces of the lock mechanism to the floor. With her free hand, Ifris hauls the cell door open.
"Constable," she intones with an incline of her head. "Welcome back to active duty."
_____
”Hmmm…”
Devinn eyes Emerson suspiciously for a moment, looking for any signs of deception or insincerity in his countenance. He even peers downwards a moment to inspect Emerson’s hand, as if suspecting some sort of trick or hidden object held there…though Emerson cannot truly tell if Devinn LeMont is actually being serious on that point or simply playing at another one of his games.
Finally, he takes the proffered hand and returns the gesture, smiling at Emerson with something of a cat-ate-the-mouse sort of smile. ”All right then, friend, I’ll tap my foot to the waltz for now with you. Can’t say that Jet has been one to take a shine to the wrong sort since I’ve known her…and she doesn’t often warm up to many blokes in the first place at that.” Devinn withdraws his hand and taps his finger on his chin as he muses for a moment, adding, ”And you showed your mettle on the Coaltongue, didn’t you? Without my considerable talents, I might add. Saved Jet and Chief and King and the whole lot, didn’t you? No more “pet paper-pusher” jests for you any more there, eh Hill?”
With a noticeable twinkle in his eye, he says, ”Now my friends all have good and reliable nicknames – by me of course – and since we’re friends now that means that you’ll take mine without complaint, right friend Hill?” Devinn seems to relish the thought of it, a new game in a mind that seems to be mostly about games and jests. ”Let’s see…can’t tag you on pushing papers now, and even I think a pun regarding your leg lacks originality and wit…hmmm…naming Heaves and that horrible transplant Frocks was child’s play by comparison…hmmm…well I’ll have to put some time to it.”
"Uh...ok. Can you be more specific?" Johnathan asks. "Who are you and where are you from? Do we have orders? What's the situation nationally?"
”I have not,” answers Serena Taflis hesitantly with a small frown. ”I do know what it is in regards to though – Makala discussed it briefly with me in Winter season, shortly before she left.”
Seemingly reluctant to answer Anneca in any more detail until she reads the letter, Serena sits down in one of only two rickety wooden chairs by a small writing table, and briefly gestures for Kaea to do the same. For her part, Kaea looks increasingly uncomfortable and melancholy, crossing her arms across her chest and sitting down as if to keep from pacing about the room. Both women, however, smooth their respective skirt and dress and wait patiently for Anneca to read the last letter of her former mentor, Makala Fileccia.
I regret having to write you this way as opposed to speaking with you personally, but I am afraid this shall have to do for now. These are wondrous and momentous times we live in, but scarcely afford us the proper time and cadence for “normal” proprieties to commence. I go on assignment tomorrow, and expect it to be my last assignment from Flint Branch before I head off to my recently-approved transfer to Slate Branch and the Resilience team under the renowned and capable Tanya Sparhawk. Oh, I do relish the new challenges and sheer excitement that shall come from such action! Yet I do feel a pang of remorse in it, for I shall truly miss my comrades-in-arms, Serena, Kaea and Bridget most keenly. And you of course, dear Anneca, as we did not have the proper time we should have had to revel in your profound efforts to be chosen as a Constable of the R.H.C..
Anneca Summers, let me tell you what I did not have time to say to you in Fall or Winter as I should have – I am so very proud of you and how far you have come. I always knew you had the “spark” of true talent and gritty determination from the Logan Milsup assignment. That you listened to my counsel and applied to the Constabulary was tremendous. That you were accepted as a prospect and put forth all possible effort on your part to be in the final selection list was exhilarating! Now as I write you this, I must confess that the veteran constables all made wagers of no small means on the prospects (something you will find in time that is as much of a tradition in this new method of selecting talent to the Constabulary), and you were my choice from the very first day, though the superficial odds were against you in the wager. Quite frankly my dear, you made me a fine carriagefull of crowns when you were one of the five finally chosen for constableship – at the expense of several of my colleagues that exercised their typical false-bravado and naysaying which I do love to puncture! I do apologize if you find my wager on your career fortunes to be improper, but I suppose what I am trying to say – poorly perhaps I admit – is that I was applauding for you and never doubted you, your courage and tenacity through hardship. If it was still in the old ways of bringing constables in, I would have put in for you as my apprentice in an instant, brooking no dissent from my purpose. Alas, times change, but you have proven my beliefs on your quality to be correct beyond all possible measure. I salute you, Anneca Summers!
And now to my gift unto you, followed with reasonable words of encouragement and caution that good friends counsel to one another. As I will be off to Slate Branch most urgently after my completion of this last assignment in Flint, I shall not have time to fully set my affairs in order in regards to my beloved domicile, or the curios and momentos I have collected there. Which, in some respects, is good for me, for even one as experienced as I must strive to continue to change and break from old habits as Resilience is often abroad or away from Slate. I have ample means to find a suitable living arrangement in the capital, yet my own townhouse in Central District on Amelia Court is very dear to me, and I cannot part with it to some fat merchant, boorish bureaucrat or disreputable North Shore tycoon type that would rent it out to other cronies for crude visitations or trysts with their mistresses! Therefore, I have signed off the deed to you, my dear Anneca. It is yours to do with as you please, with all its furnishings that I have acquired over the years, with full taxes and associative services paid-in-full through the end of the year. I should very much like to see you move there and live in a means that much better suits your privacy and status as a constable of the realm – though I am not trying to belittle your sparse dormitory existence in the supplied quarters across from Flint Branch compound, it is little better than a barracks for second-rate reserve soldiers in His Majesty’s army! I know your humble beginnings and surmise you may feel you deserve little better, but I know differently. If you do not do this kindness to me, Anneca, I shall stomp my foot and be very put out with you! In return I only ask that you may pack and send parcel to me a curio or treasured knickknack that I may ask for once I become more settled in the capital. I have instructed Serena on all of this, and she has all the documents needed and will see to any arrangements for you upon my behalf. I am afraid the townhouse is nearly beyond causal walking distance to Flint Branch HQ, though hired carriage services with Serena and Kaea I always found enjoyable (particularly over the stink of a horse). Don’t overly fret about your privacy with them, Anneca, for both Serena and Kaea will not smother you should you not wish it – their townhomes are several streets away in a quieter section of Central near the Botanical Gardens, whereas I preferred my own place to be closer to the Navras and other more interesting venues of the social nightlife! As to the nature of security, you shall find that the “formal” presence of armed guardsmen are of the highest quality, not to mention I have added a variety of “informal” measures within the townhome for extra measure. Serena will provide you with all the keyword triggers and passphrases, of course.
And now, Anneca, for a few words of advice that you must suffer through, before I retire this letter and gain a few measures of sleep. I do not know the quality or reliability of your fellows that have gained constableship with you, these other “four-double-nines” that you may have ties to. I can say you may trust the trio of Serena Taflis, Kaea Than’dil and Bridget Sharpton most implicitly – as much as one can trust (or should trust) anyone in this new age and century. You may rely upon them as I have, and they will see to your welfare without direct expectation of gain. In particular, Serena’s understanding of constabulary politics is as keen as mine, and I have often sought her opinion on a matter when my foresight was clouded. I should also think you will find a good mentor in Stover Delft, and I have always found him to be a just and fair man, with ample wit and ability of discernment to see through machinations to the heart of most matters. As for the rest…they are all professionals (particularly Dima), reliable and loyal to the kingdom I am sure. Even Anderson Sperring, though he is insufferable and only sees the others as rivals, out to better his own position without thought or care. Yet most of all, you must be wary of Margaret Saxby, and do not confide in her with inner thoughts or displays of weakness or boasting. One might think with Saxby’s background that she would be an avid proponent of others of her own gender, but this is not the case. Rather, she prefers her cronies from the war or those that can better her social standing, and I daresay finds other women of confidence and talent to be her rivals and not her allies, nor worthy of her mentorship. So be most careful around her, and her loyal pet dog Carlao Ven in particular, as well as those he most associates with. You shall not find allies there, and I am sorry to say that your career rise in the Constabulary is not only derived from merit and competence of your assignments. Be eager, but not too eager, if you take my meaning. Above all, be careful whom you trust, and whom you confide in, and do not make yourself a mark for those whom pride and jealously rules their thoughts and actions.
There it is – I am done and the candle wax is nearly spent as they say. When I am afforded greater opportunity I shall write you again and check up on your happenings on the mission ledgers. Perhaps before the end of this year I shall be able to arrange some time in Flint to come and visit you, and then we shall have a grand time in revisiting some of my old haunts and acquaintances! I have great expectations and belief in you, Anneca Summers, and I know you shall not disappoint!
Your Friend,
Makala
"Ifris Lanvaldan, RHC. We're the backup, I suppose." That last bit sounds a little dismissive, or perhaps jealous of the more prestigious assignments. "As for topside, short version: Not good," is Ifris' explanation to Jackson. "Long version..." She shakes her head, looking down at the floor momentarily before meeting Jackson's eyes again. "We'll fill you in when we're not hip deep in sh*t, deal?" Ifris' stare briefly flicks to the young man who survived this encounter, then up to Anya with furrowed brows added. Then, when she looks back to Jackson she asks, "You good with that?" The pistol, as evidenced by a quick gesture with her blade to the firearm. "We're probably going to need to fight our way out of here, unless..." Ifris' attention shifts to Anya again, one brow raised.
Orders?
"I'm good with most weapons. Used to be an instructor at Battalion School of War, actually. Though I'd prefer a blade or something with more than one shot in it if I had a choice, this will do for now." Johnathan shoves the pistol into his belt.
"Well, if you all have a plan, please lead the way. I'd rather be pretty much anywhere but here," Johnathan says.