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The storm tunnels wended and wound for a while, the entire time Bart found himself feeling more and more concerned about the space. They were mostly dry, with but a few puddles here and there in the middle of the channels - Lidia assured him that the rains were long past, and it was safe to traverse so long as he followed her and was careful. Caution didn't make the big man feel much better about the narrow confines, however - not when his only line of defense required a fair arc to swing.

The tunnels were black as pitch, the lantern the only light - and one Lidia demanded he keep mostly hooded so it was naught more than a wan glow, 'tae not ruin my sight' she'd claimed as they'd first entered the tunnels proper, which themselves were narrow and short. He rarely could stand fully upright, and in many places the width between the walls and his shoulders was measured in a span or less, straddling the culvert that ran the entire length with each step. It was a grueling, back-stiffening, damp ordeal - and he could feel the moisture creeping into his armor. It was made all the worse, as frequently they'd see the walls cast in the low light of the lantern, and on their surfaces were more of the deep five-pronged claw marks - like territorial markers.

The pair came to an interchange, and she waved him close off to one side. There was a small niche in the bricks, and on it, he spied a different sort of gouge - a small circle with a squiggle of sigils inside it scratched into the bricks as if with a small, sharp blade. She squeezed through it, and with some effort so did he, where he found himself inside of a small bolt-hole. A squat cupboard covered in water-proofing beeswax occupied one corner, and a shelf that clearly was meant to hold a small form for sleeping filled the back wall.

"Kull sent us out tae put up ah lot o' these. Hidey-holes in case a wee one gets rumbled in the tunnels. Here." she said, tapping his armored shoulder once. "Show me how tae get this off, we need tae get sommat better than a wad o' ol' dress on that wound," she said. It took a minute or two to show her where the laces and buckles went, but she managed to remove his pauldron and unbuckle the brigandine well enough to get at the wound.

"Ach, ugly." she hissed as she exposed his chest to the lantern's light, the cubby shielding its glow well enough. The wound was maybe a finger-length across and narrow, and it oozed and seeped as she probed it, getting a hiss of displeasure out of him in response.

"I ain't much o' a nursemaid, but it don't seem TOO deep. Ye can move it," she said and fumbled around in the cupboard. She pulled out some earthenware pots heavily sealed with wax as well, and inside were poultices, and bandages - a functional if basic healer's kit.

"Kull is very forward-thinking." He said through grit teeth as she cleaned the wound roughly and smeared the sharp-smelling cream on it.

"Aye, he makes quite tae show o' being cold and menacin' but... he's warm once ye earn his trust. He was a street rat too one 'pon a time. He wants us tae be well as we can be." she said, carefully making a pad for the wound and winding the bandages around his chest and shoulder, pausing as her hand laid on his hairy, muscular chest.

"Something the matter?" Bart asked, his eyes on the gap in the cubby, keeping a careful watch. Lidia shook her head.

"Nay, ye're just... well, I cannae say I ever been this close tae a man the size o' ye and had it be friendly in a long while." she mused quietly. Her eyes looked him over as she worked. Clinical, questioning. Her brow knit in thought.

"But?" he said, letting the unsaid question hang in the air.

"But nothin'." she said, shrugging as she tugged the bandage tight, causing him to grunt at the pressure. "Ye churchman types are usually soft an' pampered, ye ain't. Ye're built like me dad was, none o' that pretty-boy frippery." she said, smiling softly.

"Ye just reminded me o' him a moment, that's all. C'mon, help me with this great ironworks ye pretend is clothin'."

It took less time to re-assemble his armor over his blood-stained gambeson, the feel of the sticky cloth unpleasant but the wound itself pained him less. Lidia wasn't gentle, but she knew how to wrap a bandage.

"Thank you, Lidia." he said honestly as he assisted her in the last buckles, his armor once again the bulwark he needed it to be, she smiled at him reflexively and then went back to the cupboard, rifling around in it she swore.

"Ach, rot got tae the spare clothes. Looks like I'm bare-legged til we get out o' this fookin' hole." she said, shaking mildewed fibers of what was once a pair of trousers off her hands. She carefully re-sealed the urns and replaced everything as Bart strapped his helmet back on, and the two of them set back out into the darkness.

"I wager this place wasn't in this state when your runners set up that bolt-hole." he said as they dimmed the lantern once more, moving through the passageway.

"Iffin' it was we'd have marked this place off as a no-go, like the bits around ye citadel, near th' main canal - or th' church." she answered, eyes flicking to and fro in the forward gloom.

"That's curious, Kull said he had little use for the church." Bart inquired.

"Aye, but he respects th' holiness o' the place. Even a thief has tae meet God someday."

Silence resumed as they continued forward, it felt like forever despite both of the would-be infiltrators knowing it had been at best, an hour, no more since the battle in the hallway. Lidia grew visibly more agitated, her face a mask of hard-bitten focus as she lead him through the narrow passageway, the pair following what looked like a common footpath for the creatures - and the god-awful reek in the wake of things. Lidia's eyes watered and she had coated her improvised mask with some of the healing poultice to filter out some of the smell - but it was clear that in the tight confines, it was getting to her.

"We don't spend a lot o' time in the sewers proper." she said as she wiped her eyes; "Ye'll choke on the fumes o' all the cesspools, but th' storm drains usually ain't much o' a problem, this is vile."

"God yes." Bart agreed hurriedly, shaking his head as if to clear the miasma from it manually. "It is getting stronger again," he said as they turned a corner... and found something.

"What in God's name..." Bart said, raising the lantern. They'd arrived at another interchange, and straight through a once-impassable wall was a massive, bored-out tunnel, much like the other forcibly-widened passages. It had been torn open, flagstone for flagstone, and then tunneled straight into the earth by what looked like over-massive claws and grotesquely inhuman hands. Lidia turned away, retching violently and Bart was forced to cover his mouth as they approached the portal - the stink was practically visible at that range, and nearly overpowering.

"Oh, Lady's White Teats!" Lidia swore, dry-heaving in a corner, Bart's eyes tracked to her and she glared; "Shove it Hayseed, I'm... guh... heavin' my guts up 'ere, I'll swear... hunnh... whatever oaths I like!" she hissed, and Bart let his protest die in his throat, spitting to the side and grimacing as he swallowed a mouthful of bile.

The lantern's light fell across the opening, it lead into what looked like... warrens, dug out partially by hand, partially natural formation. There'd been old forester's tales of caves in the surrounding hills, portals to the Fae Lands, barrows, and warrens, but in his lifetime they'd only ever found old root caverns and barrow mounds... seemed that the old stories had merit.

"Let's go," he said, steadying himself against the stench. "Look," his hand pointing down at the softer earth and filth in the mouth of the ragged passage, she turned, wiping her mouth to follow his mailed hand with her gaze.

In with the rest of the bestial footprints and spoor, was a single, cleanly-pressed print: fresh and sharp-edged, of a high-heeled noble's riding boot. Both of them looked at each other and nodded their understanding. The Magistrate's flight had taken him this way, into these caverns.

"Remember," she said as she shook off the funk's effects with a new surge of will and purpose. "Five pieces, tae the far corners o' the kingdom."

Bart nodded grimly, hefting his axe with purpose as they strode forward into the unknown, yawning darkness.

~ ~ ~

The atmosphere changed almost immediately.

The darkness became palpable, no longer just an obstacle - it was a looming presence that concealed terrors unknown - that pressed in and hissed paranoia into the mind directly. Even Lidia, who was brave and comfortable in the dark, and could see well beyond the light of the torch stood closer to Bart in the oppressive gloom. It was unnatural, unholy.

"Gods, do ye hear that?" Lidia asked, and Bart nodded. A faint, animalistic warbling noise, strident and harsh, accompanied by the clatter of claws on stone. It sounded distant and close all at once - the bouncing echoes and the distortion of dripping water blending together with the din of their own breathing, with the tumultuous pounding of their own, thunderously beating hearts. They were not alone, yet he could see nothing nor could Lidia's fae-given darksight - he could but listen, and fear.

The lantern's light fell upon a twisting, winding cavern after a few minutes walk, stalactites loomed overhead like a thousand hungry maws, moisture dripping from them like slaver. The walls pressed in and vanished in undulating curves around the ring of light, showing the irregular shape of the cavern they'd entered. Bart felt exposed - the lantern's glow made them a target, and he felt the pain of his wound and the creeping weariness in his bones acutely as the intense pressure of the unknown bore down upon them as the shadows deepened. The two of them walked forward slowly, cautiously until Bart felt something crunch beneath his feet with an audible snap. They both paused, staring at each other in mute shock, then the big man slowly looked down, raising his heavy hobnailed boot...

"Oh no. Nononononono...." Lidia gasped, her hands covering her mouth as her voice became a desperate mewling, Bart's voice choked back a sob of rage.

It was a skull. Sticky and covered in bits of flesh and sinew among visible signs of worrying teeth. A child's skull, small and caved in now where his heel had trod upon it. Strewn about it were other remains, gore-soaked and gnawed, split and chewed - bits of clothing and jewelry mounded nearby. Bart flipped the shutter of the lantern wide, letting the luminescence blaze... the entire area beneath their feet was mounded with the dead, bones, and discarded effects of animals and man alike, stripped and sucked clean.

The sudden flare of light also illuminated the cause. Bart drew back with a shout as the inhuman outlines recoiled from the light, Lidia crying out herself in surprise.

The shape of the thing was almost impossible. It towered above even Bart by at least a head and was easily half again as wide, even in the brief flashing glimpse they got as it recoiled. It was a hideous thing of extremes: its too-long limbs rife with gangling, ropy muscle that stood out hideously through a tough, leathery hide. It was pale and sallow, bleached by the dark - its ghastly complexion stippled with odd dappling colors towards the joints and thick quill-like hairs that gathered in thorny shocks at knees and elbows. It had a hunched posture and a great, cavernous chest with grotesquely defined ribs that stood out like armor in contrast to a too-small waist and hideously thick muscles in the chest and neck. A crusted and filthy loincloth of rough hide dangled mercifully over whatever genitalia it might have, situated between massive thighs ending in clawed digitigrade feet wrapped in strips of similar uncured fur - caked in old gore and filth. Its misshapen... paws, for lack of a better term, covered its head in the glimpse they were given - huge, thickly-knuckled digits with overlong, horrific claws. More like meathooks or the talons of some bird of prey than any humanoid creature. Instantly Bart recognized what had carved apart the bricks and scored the stones: the hands lacked anything resembling a thumb, instead having what looked like a fifth overlarge dewclaw - as if the creature still could run on all fours.

It was the face that was the true horror, ignoring its impossible too-long arms, waspish proportions, and bony, ossified hide and flesh - it was the face. It had no eyes, merely a gnarled, blank sheet of bone and hide where any sort of sight organs should be. Armored thusly, its face was an elongated maw - looking like a horrific mix between a hyena's skull and the expressive face of a primate. Indeed its mouth was a revoltingly overdeveloped monstrosity, the enormous jaw muscles from its almost saurian neck pressed up and around the base of its skull, bulging grotesquely and suggesting hideous power - power focused into that slavering maw. Lined with a mix of jagged canines, knife-edged incisors, and grinding molars, it was a disgustingly savage parody of the human mouth - worst of all was its lips. Overdeveloped and massive, they curled away from its teeth in a pained snarl - the expression horrifically human.

"Lady protect us." Bart hissed, as the beast retreated back from the light, its skull ending in a high ridged spine and raised mohawk of that same coarse qull-like hair. It opened its jaws in a derisive snap, giving a strange, ululating call - the same one they'd heard in the distance behind them.

"What the blood 'ell is that fookin' thing?!" Lidia shrieked, her dagger in one hand as she flicked her eyes wildly about as the creature's hooting cry was returned with a similar warbling response; "Oh ye fookin' cannae be serious, there's more o' them!" she snarled, whirling to put her back to Bart's "They're all 'round us, they blend right in wit' th' stones!"

Bart clapped his visor down and planted the lantern firmly at their feet. With it's shutters wide, it blazed the purifying light in a radius maybe twenty spans long - hardly a wide arena in which to fight, but it was what they had. The shapes of the monsters milled around them, far enough beyond the ring of light to avoid its radiance, but close enough that their shadowed forms began to stand out in the gloom. Bart counted at least a dozen individuals, their distorted forms moving with an unnatural, jerky sort of grace, transitioning between all fours and two-legged gait seamlessly as they paced the edge of the radiance.

The first probing strike was swift, so swift that it took them both by surprise. A lurching lunge came from Bart's left, the creature pouncing forward from the darkness on all fours, lashing out with its horrid hooked claws like a hunting cat. Its frenzied lunge led with that grinning, overdeveloped mouth - snapping messily at the knight-brother, slaver, and foam flying as he danced back from the attack. The big man retaliated instantly, swinging his axe down at its face with a yell of surprise and rage. He felt the blade bite into flesh and dense bone, the creature yelped piteously and flailed backward as Bart's axe blade stuck fast in the sheet of bone where its eyes should be. Bart felt the beast's immense strength threatening to rip his weapon from his hands, but he held fast - adrenaline and pure rage surging with his blood into his muscles as he twisted the blade back and forth. Pain lit in the beast, causing the creature to squeal like a mix between a wounded deer and swine before it retreated back from the circle of light. Bart gagged a bit, the sickly black ichor staining his axe reeked like the stench of the tunnels.

"They do not like the light!" he hissed back to her, noting the blood on his axe blade - if he could call the black tarry substance truly blood - had started to lightly bubble and sizzle in direct exposure to the radiance from the lantern. "It burns them!"

They had no time to savor the knowledge as a second creature's strike bowled Lidia over, she screamed as the towering beast shoved her to the ground and opened its gaping mouth wide, so terribly wide - wide enough to snap down at her head, to engulf her skull in its too-wide maw whole. Screaming in fear and rage, the cutpurse responded without thinking, ramming her drawn dagger up into the soft palate of the creature's mouth with a sickening crunch that caused it to scream hideously as she rolled back away from it - jamming her heel up under its jaw to shove the blade further up into its brain as it writhed, somehow still alive.

Bart crossed over with a roar of defiance and his heavy-bladed axe arced down again in a massive double-handed swing more akin to splitting a stubborn piece of cordwood than combat - aimed directly at the creature's knotted, muscular neck. The blade struck true, cutting a massive gouge in the beast's neck and causing it to scream again, dropping to its belly and writhing as Bart tore the axe free and slammed it down again - twice and a third time before it chopped cleanly through and severed the monster's head from its body in a welter of ichor. The cadaver flopped heavily - then flailed and writhed with unholy vigor, pawing about the gore-spewing stump of its neck for its missing head, which itself lay on the floor, snapping and gagging on its own blood before finally, mercifully going still - the stump of its neck still heaving a final series of gushing emissions of sickly black slurry.

Lidia and Bart stared at the spectacle with wide eyes, the girl standing back up slowly. Bart's eyes flicked to the edges of the lit arena, slowly he reached down, gaze not leaving the pacing creatures, and drew his own wide-bladed dirk from its scabbard. Turning it over in his hand he silently passed it to Lidia, who took it wordlessly, twirling it in her fingers, a feral gleam in her luminous sidhe eyes.

"One down, a... fookin' load tae go." she said, chuckling nervously back-to-back with Bart again.

"I will not die here," Bart said in a cold voice, locking his gaze on the largest of the individuals he saw, it was not only bigger, but seemed to wear some kind of rudimentary armor of bone and hide - its head topped with a crude, thorny crown made of antlers and teeth, yet still carried no weapons... he didn't think they could, he realized. They had no thumbs.

"I WILL NOT DIE HERE," he repeated louder, directly at the alpha creature, who turned its head towards the sound. It moved forward through the crowd in a sudden press, spreading its jaws wide and thrusting its face towards the pair in a strident, ululating roar - spittle and slaver spattering them, a horrific wash of the rot-stink of the creatures washing over them. Fear boiled up in Bart's guts - and with it, anger. Rage. The Knight-Brother stomped his hobnailed boot down onto the stones, bones, and viscera crunching beneath it with a sharp report so loud the nearby creatures flinched back as he leaned forward towards the Alpha beast - and screamed back a countering roar. Pouring all of his righteous indignation, all of his pain, the sting of his wounds, the burning of his muscles, the fear, the hatred - all of it into the sound. It felt like his lungs would split, his teeth shake free from his jaw, and his throat would rend apart under the raw, unhinged ferocity he'd found.

The effect was immediate, the creatures recoiled from him, the very air shook with his challenging shout, and he spat his defiance at them with wordless fury. The Alpha tilted its head at him, raising up on its hind legs, lips peeling back from teeth so large they had become more like tusks, its paw-like talons flexing in anticipation... and before it, the other creatures of its pack melted away from its path.

"LAVA QUOD EST SORDIUM!" Bart roared like a beast, once again he found the tongue of the angels spurred him on, he clashed his fist against his armor, making even more noise, adding to the din that seemed to discourage the creatures and infuriate their leader, like it could understand him "IN NOMINE DEI, MONSTRUM."

The divine words struck the monster like blows, every word made it flinch and grow more enraged - its body tensing, muscles gnarling and winding tight with menace, it definitely understood him. It was no animal, it was angry, it was offended.

"Fight me you whoreson bastard, see what a Soldier of God tastes like instead of children!" he challenged it, Lidia's eyes whipping towards him.

"Why th' FOOK are ye antagonizin' it?!" she hissed, and Bart grinned behind his helmet, the ugly black rage boiled in his guts, and he felt the hunger the Magistrate mentioned roiling in him like a furnace fire - he wanted to kill this creature, hurt it, break it before the others and make them kneel. Make them supplicate themselves before his might... no. He drew himself up and began chanting out loud in the tongue of angels, a soldier's mantra. He did not want it to kneel before his might, nay he was merely the vessel. He continued the chant, raising his voice in the verses as the creature had closed to the edge of the light, pacing it - every word inflaming its temper further, making it twitch and snap.

"Kneel before the Might of God, abomination." Bart spat in finality, grasping his axe in both hands.

That tore it, the creature slammed its paws in a furious rage and roared at the pair of them in complete apoplectic fury, veins and sinew standing out against its hide-like flesh as it literally shook with uncontrolled hatred.

And then it charged.

Even prepared, Bart nearly was overwhelmed by the creature's preternatural swiftness. Not so much rushing him as it was a leaping pounce, the monstrosity's immense bulk transitioning smoothly to all fours, its meathook claws raking down in a vicious scything arc, snatching at him with brutal aplomb. Preparation gave him the headstart he needed to keep his - he ducked his head and rolled his shoulders and hips to the side, pivoting so cleanly that Bowen would have been proud. The abomination answered in kind however, pivoting hard on its own - its grisly wasplike waist twisting in an unnaturally fluid manner - swinging its massive, bony forearms at Bart like a club, fast - too fast.

The big man caught the blow full in the chest, his armor absorbing a great deal of the force, yet with a cry of pain the knight-brother was sent flying head over heels by the sheer mass behind the strike. Lidia cried out for him as he landed heavily, bouncing once before skidding through the gore-crusted ground into the milling crowd of unnatural bodies beyond the light. Pain lanced through his arm as he felt the spear wound tear anew, his surcoat now a rusty crimson stain as he struggled desperately for his feet. Maws snapped at him from all sides in the gloom and reflexively he lashed out with fists, knees, and axe - finding purchase on sensitive noses and faces as he scrabbled away, regaining his feet. The alpha gave another harsh hooting cry, and the creatures spread away from him, fear evident in their cowed postures and ineffectual hissing. Bart twisted his head to the Alpha, who lolled its grotesquely overlong tongue across its tusks.

"Personal, is it?" he grunted as he strode back into the circle of light.

The black rage screamed inside of him, the proximity of the creatures, their cries, their smell seemed to inflame it. It roiled and thrashed, filled him with its terrible might. He could practically taste their flesh, the blood in the air made his mouth water. His blood sang, his heart pounded a merciless staccato against his chest - here was his rival, his perfect partner. He grinned under his helmet as he gripped his axe anew, blood surged through his muscles, filling his body with adrenaline and the sweet euphoria of the battle-high. The Alpha, he felt it too as the big knight approached it rose to its hind legs, spreading its arms in an unholy parody of a beatific welcome. In that moment, for just a second - he loved that monster, they were perfectly in unison, one of mind and purpose: to kill or be killed.

Yet as the light played across his blade, its gore-soaked steel shining like sidhe silver, it pulled his attention just a moment from the beasts around him. His eyes flicked down, across the weapon and everything it stood for. Strong, unassuming, made for a single purpose. Purpose. The frenzy inside of him recoiled from that stoic monolith within him. Purpose. Duty. An Oath made in iron and steel. Made in gold. The tarry black hatred roared in his ears, roared in his blood - but at that moment Bart moved forward with another sudden burst of violence, stomping his heel down with a thunderous CRACK of his hobnailed heels against bone, stone, and gore beneath him. The black hunger howled at him - and with a great, lung-rending scream, literal steam erupting from his slatted visor - Bartholomus Mueller, Knight-Brother of the Lady In White, Soldier of The White God - howled back.

To whit, the twisted atavistic hunger recoiled within him.

"I AM A SOLDIER OF GOD," he bellowed, raising his axe in high port arms, its shining finish like a beacon in the darkness, the Alpha snarled back as Bart's eyes locked on its ugly, sightless face.

"IN HIS NAME," Bart roared in continuance, the sudden burst of violent movement caught the creature off guard - in truth it caught him off guard as well, the black rage roared and struggled, but it was bound inside in a bridle of Gold, twisted and driven by Reins of Faith. He took the strength it offered. He gave nothing back in return.

The Alpha howled in counterpoint and attempted to meet Bart's rush, the light causing its skin to pink and blister as the two juggernauts met in the middle. Bart's rush ended in a mighty leap, clearing another lunging double swipe of the abomination's catching claws, its lips twisted back from its mouth in surprise as it twisted to bring its teeth to bear - it was too late. Bart's blood-spattered lips split in another stentorious declaration:

"I COMMAND THEE, KNEEL!"

The axe descended like a meteor, its terminal arc cutting the air as Bart crashed down on the creature, driving his boots into its neck - his blade down upon its crown of antlers. The axe screamed as it sheared tru, splitting and ruining the primitive helmet and driving the beast's face down into the stone with such unmitigated violence that its rear and legs popped up beneath the counter-leverage. A disgusting cloud of bone and filth erupted beneath its misshapen skull as Bart's full body weight and every fiber of muscle drove it down, down into the muck, blood, and unyielding, uncaring stone. Teeth cracked, and a tusk shattered as its jaws smashed closed under the assault.

The creature did not stay down for long, one did not rise to prominence in a den of darklings by being easily cowed. It rolled away, its paw-like talons hooked Bart's leg as he raised his weapon to deliver another punishing blow, yanking him prone with a snarl - and whipping him across the arena again. Bart landed rough, bouncing once and feeling his teeth crunch together as a dozen new bruises lit up across his body. Yet and still, he rose gamely, shaking a welter of gore and filth from his shoulders where he landed and bounded madly back into the fray. The monstrous duelists clashed again in a flurry of blows beyond human reckoning - hooked claws swung and raked, battered away by parries and armor. The axe's blade sang, carving and chipping at primordial armor and gouging ancient flesh. Around them, the pack of gangling horrors watched, hooting and hissing like some hideous audience. The flame's radiance took a greater toll on the beast, and it refused unless pressed to cross the center of the blazing star's circle, giving Bart firm territory to control.

The Alpha monstrosity howled an ululating sound of frustration and seemed to go completely berserk - flailing at Bart, the ground, and anything too close around it after his axe scored another stinging cut on its now exposed face. The massive limbs swept across hither and yon in a frenzy, even striking a few of its own pack that had wandered too close to the fray with their leering grins. Bart had no choice but to back away from the flurry of crushing blows and frothing, snapping jaws.

Lidia however, did not.

The lithe rogue had not been idle as the abominations had been too occupied to pay her notice, and as the monster flailed and snapped, in darted the whip-quick cutpurse, in her hand a blazing star.

"'AVE A TASTE O' THIS YE GODS-BLIGHTED FOOK!"

Bart saw in a single, crystallized moment, the familiar shape of an oil flask. His mind raced back nearly an hour earlier to the entrance to the undercroft, the crate of lamp oil. By God...

The flask struck full-on square to the monster's face in a spectacular fashion - shattering in a sudden blazing sheet of flame. The sound not only the Alpha made, but the milling gallery of monsters as well was beyond comprehension, a wall of screaming noise that nearly made Bart's ears bleed as the entire cavern was lit by a near-blinding flash. The alpha rolled about in a pain-mad panic, its entire upper body immolated in purifying flame.

"What took you?!" Bart practically crowed as Lidia danced back to where he stood, whipping around - she grinned at him with wicked glee.

"Ye 'ave ANY idea how hard it is tae get a flint to strike in all this damp?!" she cackled, pulling her extra dagger out, Bart's own loaner dirk in her dominant hand; "Let's kill this fookin' thing!"

A laugh escaped Bart, the battle-high making him almost giddy as he and Lidia flanked the beast. The burning oil still seethed, making a living pyre of the preternatural horror, yet it was not dead, gruesomely wounded yes - but still quite alive.

And now - quite mad.

The Alpha turned on them as they approached, howling an insane warbling snarl of rage and flailing towards Lidia in a bloody-minded frenzy. The lithe girl danced back, but it was for naught as the moment the monster turned its attention from Bart to give chase to his scurrying, smaller prey - the man's axe flashed and with a ringing clang of steel on stone, three of the creature's clawed digits spun off into the darkness, neatly severed. Bart's stroke had swatted its scything swing at Lidia from the air in a brutally direct parry - and it howled in renewed agony and hatred. Madly, it instead reared up towards the Knight-Brother - jaws yawning wider than seemed possible, its very gullet agape to crunch down on him in a pain-induced, carnivorous fury.

Lidia again, relished the chance to punish it for such over-commitment. Darting in beneath the rearing creature, she sliced her borrowed dirk in a brutal swath across its swollen, waspish guts - and opened its belly in a gush of innards and ghastly vital fluids. The girl was showered in ichor, tucking and rolling back from the beast's bulk as the sudden pain of the gash in its belly caused it to stumble mid-lunge and collapse violently in a heap. Its pain-mad attention snapped back to Lidia, off balance and literally frothing, scrabbling after her - jaws snapping wildly - only for Bart to come sailing in with a roar of defiance. His axe chopped down, blade inverted, back-hammer leading - striking the thing's hind leg. The sickening crunch of the joint simply exploding was loud as a thunderclap as the sheer force of his blow inverted the creature's knee, driving it to the ground. The ruined limb could no longer support its massive weight, its lunging snap coming up short with a piteous yelp - dropping the titanic beast at the little thief's feet.

"Die screamin', ye bastard." Lidia hissed, reversing her grip on the dagger, she drove it down at the soft patch of flesh between its armored skull and its thick, ridged neck - the entire area still ablaze with burning oil, threatening to sear her fair flesh as well as the foul beast's. Yet down still she plunged the blade, and scream the beast did - clawing towards her again to try to wrest her into its jaws. Again Bart's axe drew attention from the smaller woman, the blade bit down into the same place she'd thrust, widening the gash into a massive rent in the beast's hide that poured a steady flow of inky black gore onto the floor beneath it. It wailed in agony - and now, fear, flailing and scrabbling as the flowing, flaming liquid seeped into its open wounds and brought its agony to a new, screaming visit. It was completely mindless now, totally berserk - simply trying to escape the pain as it blazed as if its skin were dry tinder.

Nevertheless, it was still a beast of great mass and strength, and it lunged in a rabid flurry at both of them - battering Bart with a bloody limb, and snapping after Lidia, scrabbling madly towards any source of movement, any scent of blood, tongue lolling as its primal hungers warred with themselves. It needed to eat, to heal, to run - flee the purifying flame and accursed light - the ancient monster unknowingly fell to the same tactics that once drove its kind from the surface back when man fought with flint, stone, and Absolute Iron. Unable to learn, unable to adapt it had been bested, it was dead already and just too simple to understand. It scrabbled towards the smell of meat, gruesomely finding its own severed fingers, lapping them into its mouth as it rolled on its back, writhing and trying in vain to extinguish the flames that even now burned it, consumed it - flesh, sinew, and bone.

A cry of anguished rage split the air, and out of the smoke - Lidia launched herself at the supine monstrosity, landing on its split open belly, stabbing her too-short blade ineffectually at its armored rib cage as the beast writhed and mewled in a growing pool of its own life's blood. Bart stepped up behind her slowly - suddenly feeling every bruise, cut, and stab wound he'd suffered acutely - but there was work yet to be done. He stopped close behind her, his chest bumping her back as he brought his axe to bear, lining it up with the monster's sternum. He took Lidia's hands in his carefully, positioning them on the haft.

"Here, like this," he said, Armsmaster Bowen's instructive tone echoing in his voice and his memory. "Move with the weight, don't fight it."

Lidia's eyes snapped up to his, full of tears of rage and grief - this monster had killed her friends, eaten them. Like mere animals it had hunted them, it was only right she do this. She nodded, sniffing loudly and following his directions, the two of them mirroring each other as Bart's greater strength guided the heavy weapon. Up the blade rose and Bart's voice touched her ear again, gentle and steady.

"Swing down smoothly, let the momentum do the work."

The axe descended in a textbook chop, the sound it made as it split the creature's breastbone was like a thunderclap, it arched up in agony, screaming and writhing and clawing at the ground, trying to escape the new trauma.

"Twist slightly at the end, it prevents it from sticking." Bart guided her again, and the hard-eyed woman nodded, the two of them moved as one, wrenching the blade to the side and raising it again. Two more blows fell and on the fourth and final the creature's chest cavity blossomed open like a gruesome flower of meat and bone, its organs frantically pulsing, its hideous black heart pounding its last frantic beats before Lidia guided the axe into one final swing, cleaving down into that ebony core with a great fountain of blood and gore that painted her and Bart both in the creature's life's blood. It screamed one last hoarse cry of absolute, hopeless agony, reaching for the sky in piteous begging before it shuddered, and fell limp - stone-cold dead.

As its death rattle faded - it was suddenly, conspicuously silent, save for the crackle of flames and drip of water. Bart and Lidia looked around, the beasts were staring, in whatever fashion that they could as the two of them stood over the mauled and dead corpse of their leader. The flames licked up the carcass hungrily, forcing the two to step away from it as it was consumed in a smoldering conflagration. The two drew back up to each other, Bart's chest heaving in particular as he felt the fatigue of the battle hit him like a tangible wall, he looked over at the little thief. She smiled at him in a wan sort of way. Nothing needed to be said as they braced for the inevitable, unstoppable rush.

They did not expect the sound of applause.

A slow clapping came and the milling cries of the unholy beasts lessened as they shrank away from the glare of their burning primarch. From the rear of the cavern, it came, and with it a familiar figure.

"Oh my, well done. Well done." the Magistrate purred as he stepped into the ring of light, looking down at the smoldering corpse. He'd done away with his torn finery, and instead wore nothing upon his upper torso, naked from the waist up, his body covered in ritual scarification that his conservative dress had hidden. A long, ugly obsidian knife lay tucked into a sash across his belly - simple, snug-fitting trousers and boots were his only other accessory.

"Dagan-Baal was a champion." he mused, idly regarding the dead 'Alpha'; "Touched by the Mother herself, a victor of a thousand, thousand battles. To think you could kill one such as he, such as you are." he turned to them both, his eyes glinting like blades. Sharp. Attentive. Dangerous.

"Truly, your potential is grand indeed."

Bart raised his axe, looking for all the world like some grisly automaton of gore and steel - and the Magistrate rolled his eyes skyward, spreading his arms as if to implore some personal god, for sure not Bart's.

"Please Ser Knight, spare me the theater. You are impressive yes, beyond that of many great human heroes even but we have done this already - you cannot harm me in any reasonable way, and your only threat of merit has you sorely out-numbered," he said as casually as if he was placing an order for bread and tarts. "Look at how much it cost you to fell this one champion. Dagan-Baal was a chosen yes but unlike your petty god - the Mother is generous with her affection, she holds few favorites - all feel her caress," he said, as he spoke the monsters around them had... begun kneeling. More than simple kneeling, it was genuflection: their eyeless plate-brows pressed to the floor and their paw-like hands pressed together and raised high in some gruesome approximation of prayer.

"What then? You will not convince me, I swear here before God and Lady that I will resist you to the dying," he said, and the Magistrate nodded, eyes lidded with lazy confidence.

"Naturally," he agreed, his voice conversational. "You see Ser Knight I carry some degree of respect for you. I had thought you another typical brute of the Church, but you showed me different," he said, walking forward to the smoldering corpse of Dagan-Baal, this would-be champion.

"You sang with us, your song was discordant and ugly, but you sang." he said, his eyes still lidded, his manner still unnaturally calm. "For that, I suppose I feel a distant kinship with you, there but for the Grace of the Mother goes I." he said, standing and regarding Bart anew - this time well within the sweep of his axe or even Lidia's flashing knives.

"I find I rather like you now, Ser Knight. There is a certain... quality, to having met worthy prey." he said, sucking his teeth a moment and regarding him; "The one of us who brings you down will be given a great glory and nobody, not the Mother or your White God can say anything about that. its nature, I can tell you felt it. I felt you."

Bart shuddered at that, for instantly he knew of what he spoke. He remembered the moment, the scant scattering of heartbeats where he and the dead monster seemed to reach attunement, that moment of crystalline understanding. The Magistrate's eyes flashed and he made a soft 'ah' sound with a parting of those lips.

"Yes. The battle-high is only the surface, but the mortal struggle - the knowledge that forever that moment is yours between predator and prey, that precise moment you know one of you must die," he said, drawing himself up, Bart saw that the lithe man's body actually quivered, his lean frame was piled with whip-like muscle to the point of seeming unnatural next to his posh face and dress - and perhaps it was.

"I felt it when you and Dagan-Baal sang together, I felt you give yourself to him, and he to you. It was a glory of glories, and sometime soon, very very soon - it will belong to us," he said, laughing and spreading his arms wide.

"It is in reverence of that gift that I will allow you to live, you cannot stop what is to come... and look I have even provided you a prize," he said, gesturing quite politely to his left. Around his side, one of the beasts came, something clenched in its teeth as it lowered its head reverently to the man. At his feet, it deposited a sodden wad of sackcloth and meat, which tumbled to reveal itself to be a little girl, bruised and battered but seemingly whole. A little girl with jet black hair, pale skin... and a familiar bow in her hair.

"Elly!" Lidia barked, heedless of the danger she darted forward and scooped the child up as the beast carrying her retreated. Elly moaned pitifully as Lidia gently shook her, the girl's eyes fluttering in pain and grogginess. She was pale from cold and loss of blood, an ugly gash in her brow, just above her temple the source of much of it.

"She is nominally unharmed, ghouls are able trackers but they are... less than gentle." the Magistrate mused with an apparent lack of interest. "I stated she return whole and that is what they gave me, so I am content," he said as Lidia uncorked one of the two remaining potions - she was better at keeping them intact than he was - and put it to the girl's lips. The sharp smell of almonds and honey ghosted to the nose as the girl swallowed the draught and suddenly gave a little gasp, Bart watched with wide eyes as the ugly gash over her scalp closed while he was looking, the girl shaking off her trauma-induced fatigue with some magical burst of energy.

"Lidia? LIDIA!" She squealed, throwing her arms around the cutpurse's neck - eyes wide with horror, sobbing piteously as the Magistrate looked on.

"Why let us live?" Bart demanded and he turned his gaze back from the bitter reunion.

"Simple, really. I was asked to by my Mother," he replied, a completely friendly expression on his face - as if this was just a business negotiation. "I am a good son, so I did as she heeded. I will offer you no harm if you conduct yourself with some degree of restraint, and see you safely from these holy grounds."

"What do you mean, asked by your 'Mother?'" The knight-brother spat and the Magistrate gave him an incredulous look.

"Well the Empty Queen of course, an ugly title - she is quite far from empty, she is full of boundless, infinite love." he explained, snorting a little as he touched his scarified chest; "She loves everyone, even those things your god would discard like ash and soot." he smiled and then continued with his instructional tone; "I communed with her on another of her sons, my brothers and how our purposes crossed - I personally sought your end, as well I should. You invaded my house, challenged my rule. It was my right to assign my champions and see your measure - and indeed you could not have triumphed if I committed full measure of my means." he said, spreading his arms. Bart saw that more 'Ghouls' as he'd called them had swollen the ranks, there had to be twenty or more of them around him now... and just killing a handful had taken much of him even with help.

"So she told you not to?" Bart demanded.

"Indeed." the tall man answered, steepling his fingers before him again; "It seems my brother has her interest in his personal endeavors and for that... you must be allowed from this place, intact and whole." he said, falling silent and watching them again.

"Jus' like that?" Lidia asked, holding Elly to her chest; "Ye'll let us go wit' a kiss and a slap on th' arse?" she hissed, and the Magistrate rolled his eyes.

"Yes, just 'like that'. I will convey you to the surface myself, but once you are there you may find things are... less than you left them, and you will need be on guard again - my reach is long but, well. You'll see." he said and peered over Bart's armored frame clinically.

"You should drink that second infusion your friend is carrying, Ser Knight. You will need its strength for the Mother's plans." he said laconically, turning away as the pair communed.

"its gotta be a trap, innit?" Lidia said and Bart shook his head, raising his visor and squatting down as Lidia produced the other small flask of healing draught, the knight-brother slugging it back in a greedy gulp. It was slightly syrupy and tasted of almonds and a strange berry-like chemical tartness. It made his whole mouth warm and tingle as it passed, a pleasant pain-suppressing flow of warmth that flowed down his throat and out from his belly to suffuse his entire body. Just like that it went, he winced and felt his wounds tingle, throb, and sting, then suddenly... he felt better, a second wind of sorts and he blinked and flexed his shoulder - the pain had gone from the sharpness of an open wound to the dull throb of a wound well on the mend!

"Marvelous," he murmured then back to Lidia's expectant gaze, he shook his head once more for emphasis. "We have no real choice except death," he said, looking around at the assembled, still milling mass of monsters and then back at the girl Lidia held in her arms, she gripped her tighter as she realized.

"Ye, no choice at'all." she agreed grimly, the two standing up to find the Magistrate casually examining the edge of his obsidian blade, one sharp eyebrow raising as they turned to him.

"Decided then? Good." he said, sheathing the blade anew. "Come along then, while there is no expiration on the Mother's offer, I daresay you and I would like to part company as soon as possible, yes?" he said laconically, to which Bart found himself nodding in agreement in spite of himself.

They walked in silence for a while, the Magistrate silent but otherwise genial, even taking a moment to tell them how much to adjust their lantern to not harm their blind guides, these 'ghouls'.

"No, 'Ghul'. Not 'Ghoul'." the Magistrate corrected as Bart broke the silence with a question, the man's pronunciation stronger on the 'U' sound.

"Anyroad. What are they?" Bart grated acidly, eyeing the milling, shifting creatures and their unnatural, too-long limbs and savagely expressive mouths.

"Us, but for the Grace of the Mother." the Magistrate continued, spreading his arms; "Another species, another attempt at mankind from a different tack, sails into nature's wind instead of against it," he said, shrugging a bit. "A forgotten brethren race, strangled in the womb by our tool-using ancestors."

"They are nightmares," Bart said hoarsely, Elly's still-dazed form clinging closely to Lidia as the thief stayed even more alert than the knight, her luminescent eyes flicking to and fro. If she had a tail, it'd be out behind her straight like a plank.

"Are they?" the Magistrate asked, seeming to actually consider it. "I suppose from your point of view yes, yes they are quite monstrous. Savage. Primitive." he agreed readily, reaching out to one just beyond the light and resting his hand on its bone-plated muzzle. It responded to the gesture in a curious mix of ritual and instinct, as if it were both primitively happy to be petted and aware that such a gesture was in fact - a gesture. It put a chill in the knight-brother.

"They are also, pure. Uncomplicated." the man concluded as they proceeded into another larger cavern. Bart's axe was still at hand, and his grip tightened as he saw more shapes beyond the edges of the light, newer, larger... more impossible silhouettes. Ghuls were the least of Bart's sudden concerns as the light briefly played over another form, a massive, grossly fat... thing, he saw hands with large, knobby digits grip a crude, hand-craft cleaver and beady eyes lume with feral intelligence deep in the shadows as their owner shifted - and what he'd assumed was a large part of the wall shifted with it.

"Many are the Mother's children." The magistrate said in quiet reverence. The silence returned with the darkness, Bart and Lidia huddling together near the lantern, Elly cognizant enough now that she occasionally gave a faint whimper when a horror of one or another got close enough to the lantern light to glimpse.

The darkness turned to an inky gray, a faint increase in the ambient light that made the milling creatures around them visibly uneasy - the kind of tiresome roll of the limbs that was all too human in its familiarity - the memory of necessary discomfort. Like workmen ready to shoulder a heavy burden, so too did this array of monsters move towards this faint reduction of the blackness. The Magistrate as well seemed to respond to it with a sort of weary resignation, but where the beasts looked as if they were loathe to merely start, the tiredness in the face of the madman was that of a farmer watching his crops bear their yield - it was satisfied. He caught Bart's eye a moment, and smiled, spreading his arms.

"Throw wide your shutters, Ser Knight. Let your light shine upon this place. Let your eyes see and understand." he crooned gamely, conversationally - as if they were playing a game of dice over their cups. Bart saw literally no downside to having more light at this point, the trio of human survivors all having had their mutual fill of half-seen shapes in the gloom, and the knight-brother threw wide the shutters just as he was bid, raising the lantern aloft so that its light might travel that much further.

It illuminated the very mouth of hell.

The room they were in was at one point a great interchange in the storm sewer, a huge fork far in the depths, far enough that only just now had Kull's more adventurous tunnel rats found it and become prey of these creatures. The back half of the fork, the southern half Bart would later realize, was gone: in its place was a yawning, wide chasm of darkness. A great passageway hewn out of the rock and earth by patient, implacable inhuman hands. The passage was hideously organic in shape, rolling with the natural ebb and flow of the land, it had braces erected now and again, haphazard things made of unidentifiable woods and more unidentifiable bones - massive tusks from some far-away, forgotten creature matching femurs and ulna too thick and too large to be real. But they were, and they served to shore up the ghastly gallery, which carried the light along, bouncing it merrily into the far, far distance.

"God's mercy upon us." Bart breathed. The Magistrate's smile only widened.

It was a tunnel, a massive, impossibly wide tunnel stretching far beneath the ground, and before him stood a milling, massing army. More of those fat things, large and implacable with their girth were scattered through the shadowy masses, along with other miscreations too foul in shape for his mind to readily assess in the still dim light. It was not just a tunnel - it was an invasion corridor. A shortcut past every single defense Northsea had erected and maintained in the uncountable years since their first clashes, since the erection of the Ossuary of Man.

"It is the great, quiet work of my father, and my father's father - for generations have we tired of the winnowing petulance of humanity's false primacy over the earth, and by my hand do my forefather's quiet prayers finally come to truth." he spread his hands before the milling horde, enough to crush Lachheim, to rout the surrounding countryside in fire and blood.

"Forefathers, one and all - BEAR WITNESS!" he crowed, exultant before the crowd of monsters, who felt the religious fervor in his words more than any rational understanding and fell before him in a strange variation of the genuflection from before.

"Witness my Glory!" he cried, and Bart could not tear his eyes from the spectacle - each of the myriad monstrosities moved with purpose - their arms and rough-made carts even were full of earth, packed into... grain sacks by the sides. He nudged Lidia and her eyes widened.

"So that's what ol' Kull's caught on tae." she breathed as the sacks were tied off and stacked on wagons leading off towards the surface. "its not tae wee ones inna sacks, its tae earth from this side o' th' tunnel."

"Faster to move it out here than back down the line." Bart agreed, knowing earthworks academically at the least. The Magistrate's wild eyes turned back upon him.

"Yes, sacks of soil not anything so tawdry as such." he said, tilting his head at Lidia with a shrewd expression; "Ah... was that my mistake?" he said, and pausing the maniac seemed to genuinely think it over, hands folded across his chest in a contemplative gesture.

"Yes... yes I see it now, it was the weight wasn't it?" he said and Lidia, gob-smacked at the sheer... civility this lunatic treated her with, simply nodded and he frowned.

"Yes, clever. Quite clever, I fear my father would be smug. I was never good at maths, figures, and the like. He said my lazy command of arithmetic would be the death of me." he mused, running a finger across the now almost entirely faded pink line where Bart himself had very nearly bisected him earlier.

"'Suppose he was correct, in a fashion."

That harrowing reveal aside, the Magistrate returned to his own council. The silence was no more or less comforting as the bare-chested man continued leading them down more stone-worked tunnels, it was simply a different kind of discomfort. Up they went into parts of the city proper, but older, far, far older than anything they'd seen coming in, Bart had completely lost his bearings, and from the looks of things Lidia and Elly's eyes were both frantically looking for any familiar road markings on the bricks - the fervor in their gaze told him their progress was not good.

"Why?" Bart asked. It was the obvious question, and he knew that no satisfactory answer would be forthcoming, but the bare-chested madman's gaze tracked back to him as they exited the natural tunnels entirely, now fully within the Old City storm sewers, their milling inhuman escort melting away into a multitude of side tunnels and passages.

"Oh." The magistrate said after a long silence as they were again alone, though Bart could still smell the ghul's presence, he knew any violence at this point would be met by only a delayed overwhelming assault, rather than an immediate one. It kept him calm. Focused.

"I suppose in this, I am your nemesis, am I not?" the madman continued in an inquiring, pleasant tone. Folding his hands before him as they walked, one dark eyebrow raised.

"You are most definitely what my schooling refers to as a 'priority engagement', yes," Bart admitted tersely, getting a faint laugh from the Magistrate.

"I have always enjoyed you military sorts. I delight in your dependability." he crooned, and gestured as if waving his ideas forward; "However that is the answer to why: I am your Nemesis, and you are mine. It's really that simple. Written language is complicated, it gives power to fools and prophets alike... here with the Mother, it is so much simpler; deeds and history are one." he said.

"You don't have a written language?" Bart challenged him, and he smiled wide and gestured at his eyes, still all-black with the Mother's power.

"With what eyes would they use to read it?" he asked directly, and Bart ceded that with a slow blink of realization.

"No, you are already a growing star in our collective history, Ser Knight." He continued; "To slay Dagan-Baal alone." he paused and turned to Lidia, eyebrow raised again.

"Among my people, such a death happens only once in a great while - and even your name will be remembered when we slay and consume you. Far more widely than you will ever be known for your petty larcenies of the moment. Imagine that." he said, grinning at her widely.

"For it is your Glory, you have danced with us, sang with us in the great primordial opera that is nature, the deepest, most primal conflicts to which all others are a mere stand in. You provide us Challenge and Purpose, to be slain by you is to add to your Glory, and the glory of those who will eventually feast on your bones." he crowed in a shiver of religious ecstasy, he gathered himself with a faint cough, renewing his steady gaze.

"You asked me why, Ser Knight?" asked the madman, and Bart, jaw straight and firm, mind steadied against the torrent of madness nodded.

"It's simple Ser Knight." he continued and took on a serene expression. "Someone should be here, to see the end."

"The end of the war?" Bart said, though his hollow voice bespoke his lack of faith in his offer.

"The end of Man." the Magistrate clarified in a dulcet purr.

"I hope you are ready for a long wait." Bart responded without hesitation, he and the black-eyed maniac's gaze meeting for a long, unbroken moment through his raised visor. The challenge that passed between the two of them needed no words, the hard-eyed stare they exchanged said it all: I will kill you. The Magistrate only smiled in response, a too-wide, too-eager smile.

"It is here, we part." The Magistrate said after a long while in silence, Bart recognized another entry to an undercroft at the end of the interchange he'd brought them up to. "Be on your guard, dear guests - for my forbearance only lasts as far as that doorframe. Once you are out into the city proper and its current state... well, I suppose we both have gods to give faith to, don't we?" he mused, tenting his fingers beneath his smiling mouth.

"I bid thee farewell then Ser Bartholomus Mueller and Lidia Shaw." the man purred, saying not only their full names but saying them exactly right. The hairs stood up on the back of Bart's neck as he heard the unholy thing speak his name in the way they had at his anointment, and Lidia as well seemed to suffer from a similar shock. "Your names will be remembered here, sang as the last of Dagan-Baal's song... or perhaps he yet will be sung instead as part of yours?" he asked and laughed, melting back into the darkness, his teeth the last thing to vanish in the gloom, too-white, grinning teeth.

"I deeply, ahn with fullness o' heart. Hate that man." Lidia said into the silence that resolved afterward, to which Bart quickly replied:

"Your lips to God's ears. Come on, let's get out of here."

They entered another, smaller and much more lived-in undercroft. This one was closer to the surface and full of ship service supplies, meaning they were near the waterfront - likely in the stores of one of the larger guild halls there. It had tiny, heavily-barred windows that let in alarmingly orange light for the evening, and distant rumbles came to the ears as they left the heavier, insulting weight of underground. A moment's seeking provided them a door that lead straight to the wharf, which both tired adventurers looked upon with plaintive eyes. There was heat on the night air as they pushed out of the external access door, Bart's heavy boot simply kicking the lock off it with a murmured apology to the owner - he and Lidia both simply too eager to be out from beneath oppressive rock and stone. The sight struck them both as soon as they were outside, drawing a gasp from Bart, and a quiet, breathless oath from Lidia.

Lachheim was burning.

The rumbling sounds resolved as crashing boulders and the crush of bodies at the gates, Bart's axe snapped up to his hands as screams and roars both human and not carried on the wind, and on the river itself - the ships burned.

"By the Lady... no wonder he was so open with his plans."

"O' all th' luck you showed up today o' all days." Lidia mused, holding Elly tight to her chest - her eyes full of worry, fear, and woe, "We gotta find the Redcaps, an' Kull." she urged, Bart nodded - eyes fixed on the horizon, and the trajectory of the wall's defenses. They were fighting from all sides. How was that possible?

"Yes. The children, Kull, and our friends from the south." he agreed, the pain in his wounds had dulled to a throb he was having an easy enough time ignoring thanks to the concoction from Naima. He fully intended to pay that debt in both spirit and letter. It took him a moment to find his bearings, but after a fashion, both Lidia and Bart were wise to where they were, and dashing down the streets.

"We should meet up with Commander Viconia first!" Bart shouted as they came to a jog, the avenues were alarmingly empty - there were stragglers here and there dashing about, but it seemed as if nearly everyone had just picked up and ran... somewhere. Lidia shook her head furiously.

"What are ye barmy? She's gonna be where it's fookin' nuttiest." she said, waving her free arm towards the walls, Bart came up short, hedging on his options, casting about with his weapon across his shoulder, considering.

"That's... that's where The Knight t-told us to go, if things got bad." Elly said in a tiny, rattled voice as she bounced in Lidia's arms, Bart and the older woman blinked at one another.

"That, we did..." Bart agreed, and Lidia sighed. Nodding. That gave them a direction.

Behind them, there came a shattering of crockery and a scream, and behind him, he heard the familiar hooting cries of the ghuls. He whirled around to see one leading a pair of men wearing... bizarre costumes, that had seemingly crawled from the very darkness of an alleyway, accosting a group of stragglers with crude axes of sharpened stone. Bart clapped his visor down and heard the quiet oath from Lidia as he charged the monsters.

The fight was short, ugly, and hideously violent. Bart's boiling anger at the mere idea of attacking innocents alone drove him to proper heights of brutality, but neither he nor Lidia had mercy left for the creatures. It took less than a minute, and in the end, the beast lay butchered on the floor, decapitated and belly laid open - Just like their mighty champion had down below. Both of the man-like creatures and their strange, esoteric clothing lay some lengths shorter nearby. Bart was set upon by the survivors before he'd even shaken the blood of the second dead man-thing from his blade.

"Oh, praise be to the Lady." one of the refugees said, kissing his gauntleted hands; "We were leavin' the fields when they struck, jus' popped out o' the ground they did, like groundhogs or sommat." Bart looked back and forth between them, alarmed as he raised his visor.

"Like these?" he said, and they nodded.

"Yes, like these an' more besides, big fat things, and other things I...." the man trailed off, pulling at his beard as if it grounded him; "Ser I cannae say in the company of God alone what some of the other things I saw were," he said, face pale. Bart understood, gripping the man's shoulder comfortingly.

"You did well, Goodman." Bart said thankfully, one of the others, a woman chirped; "We were heading for the Keep, that's where everyone else went - but these creatures, they're springing up out o' holes in the earth in packs, pickin' us off." she wailed, holding tightly to a blood-stained doll. Bart's heart sank at that, and Lidia's eyes met his through the crowd, silently ceding the previous argument to him with gusto. They were absolutely going to see the Commander now.

"Alright then cats an' kittens, er'ryone together, we'll see ye there," she said, ushering Elly's gangling form from her arms into the small group of people, the tiny sneak thief's bright blue eyes somber and wide, but he saw a hardness already growing there beneath that angry pink scar. She was tough, she'd come through this. She looked up at him as he watched, and her eyes met his without flinching, a familiar fierceness there as she looked him over... aye, she'd come through this - he'd be seeing her in Abbey colors before too long.

"Don't lag behind, only what you can easily carry," Bart said and took his place at the head of the impromptu column, his gore-soaked armor and surcoat making him look like a vision of hell, but somehow beneath the crusted detritus and filth, the Lidless Gaze and Golden Horn device of his Order still stood out through the grime - and he became a living banner at the front of the group.

More people flocked to them as they saw the group gathering, stragglers, and those who'd chosen to hide instead of run. A few men joined him, wielding weapons either pulled from mantles or fashioned from tools - many pitchforks and wood axes joined old arming swords and hunting spears. He marshaled them together and continued forward, he regretted the slow speed they moved, going only as slow as the most elderly and wounded among their group - but he felt his heart ache as he looked around. Burning buildings, the dead lay in the street more as they got closer to more populated areas - literally torn apart in most cases, the brutal gore looking unreal with its sheer violence. Loose limbs and hellish chunks of people lying about like scattered toys.

They were of course, attacked on their way through. Roving bands of the same not-men and Ghuls, using the ghuls almost like scenthounds - the monsters snuffling and hooting cries to each other driving and herding people into killing grounds. Finding Bart and his haphazard band of fighters turned this around on the would-be hunters once more - the ensuing fights chaotic, messy affairs that were equal parts gore-caked melees and actual dog piles: the commoner's favorite tactic was to swarm the largest target with spears and pitchforks and messily stab it to death, which - proved fairly practical in these circumstances.

"What th' 'ell are these things?" Lidia hissed as they recovered from yet another skirmish, kicking one of the not-men in their odd hide and scale armor. It was antique on better examination, not just in age but design. Their hauberks were long and skirt-like, made of bronze scales - and their helmets were molded and fit like masks with eerily detailed visages. Their weapons were made out of a strange black glass that was brittle - but sharper than his razor on it's edge.

"Not a clue," Bart answered, reaching down and pulling the mask-like helmet from the creature's face, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked into the dead thing's face - rather, the dead man's face.

"I... think it was human. Once." Bart said, peering close, it had odd, broken fangs and shrunken, hollow skin - almost like a living corpse, but it was living, its - his, he could tell now - his remaining flesh was a tapestry of scarification, sinewy muscles showing through its leathery thinness. Lidia made a revolted face.

"Look's like someone hoisted 'im over a smokin' spit for a tenday." she said, spitting to the side. Bart stood up, frowning a little.

"They look a bit like the bandits that attacked me on the road but... worse." He said, hefting his weapon and waving the small column of civilians forward, Lidia perked at that.

"So ye said, a shared crazy right? Wendigit or whatever," she said and Bart nodded, in the travel to the fort he'd updated her on the situation as it stood, if only in broad strokes. She rubbed her chin.

"Maybe whatever was wrong wit' 'em is like a sickness, an' this is what happens later on?" she suggested and he perked up, looking back over at her with an impressed expression. Several things clicked into place at once.

"You know, I believe that may just be it. A 'sickness' of sorts." he said, nodding to her as he scanned the horizon again, and the girl couldn't help but grin at the praise in spite of herself. He grinned back, it'd been that kind of night. Take the small victories.

They managed to make their way to the keep's fortified walls toward the center of the city, gathering more stragglers on their way until Bart practically had a small army of his own at his back. The growing troop of armed men formed a messy reinforced square around the women, children, elderly, and infirm - forever with Bart at the head of it, his stained surcoat the people's banner. Lidia and the few other thieves' guild members she'd found ranged out ahead, scouting and drawing larger packs of creatures away - and for all the world they had a real, honest-to-god military advance. The order felt good to Bart after the chaos below the streets, and he could see its impact on the morale of the men around him, feeling the strength of their neighbors around them, he saw fear and hopelessness drain away from their eyes, replaced by grit and determination.

They were met by pickets and scouts well ahead of the keep's grounds, the stoic faces of the Church's men-at-arms greeted them among the remains of their own fighting - painted on the cobblestones and walls in sheets of gore and twisted bodies. They formed around them, sending runners ahead of the column of survivors and funneling his charges into the keep itself. The drawbridge lowered over a literal carpet of the dead, man and horror alike - the Church Soldiers had held their own and then some, though losses were obvious. Not a man among them stood unhurt or free of streaks of gore and dirt - yet whatever force had attempted to take the keep had found themselves roundly turned aside and then smashed apart.

"I need to speak to Commander Viconia!" Bart barked at the nearest ranking member of the Church Soldier's guard, a tall man in sergeant's dress. The man's thick eyebrows bristled under the rim of his helmet, taking in the bloody mess of armor and grime that was Bart and Lidia at that moment. It took a beat before he managed to make out the device on Bart's surcoat, his eyes going wide he nodded and made a circling motion with his hand, blowing a harsh whistle through his teeth.

"Oy, men. Form up, honor guard for the Ser and his Lady. We found 'em!" he barked, and men with pikes pushed in and formed around them defensively, the Sergeant turned to them with a stiff military salute. "Apologies, Ser Knight. The Commander has had us eyes-out for ye since this bedlam broke out." Bart blinked at that.

"Mighty kind of you and her, Neighbor," he said, and the Sergeant's expression turned wry.

"Don't thank me just yet, Ser Knight. The Commander's in a right state," he said dryly, and the honor guard of men pushed through.

"No, no don't worry. Ye'' be safe 'ere. Remember what th' Knight said, and he made it right? Promise." Lidia was saying to Elly, who'd filtered back through the crush of bodies to stay close to Lidia, wide-eyed and clearly still in shock despite her inner fire.

"But the monsters're here!" the girl protested, and Lidia pointed away at the entrance to the keep, littered with the bodies of the dead.

"Look, th' Churchmen routed 'em but good, just like Bart said, ye? Go with 'em for now, stick near Bachi, he'll watch out for ye." she said, pointing her chin at the knife-thin man they'd found run up the side of a house fleeing from some of the Plagued-stricken men, another thief. He glanced back at that, nodding as if he heard. He was a narrow man with slick black hair and a beard that ended in a severe point, for once Bart mused - one of the cutpurses actually looked like a thief. The little girl seemed dubious, but nodded bravely after a moment, scurrying over to the knife-like man who rustled her hair fondly, it seemed the love and care of the kids was a fairly universal trait among the members of the criminal underground.

"Imagine that," Bart murmured to no one but himself as Lidia caught up to him and they were escorted post-haste through the grounds. The signs of battle readiness were everywhere, barrels of weapons, pitch, and naphtha had been rolled and stacked near entryways and muster points, rolling barricades festooned with massive steel stakes had been placed at key choke points - some already stained with black, tarry blood of abominations. All and all the already intimidating fortress was positively hostile now, the walls bristled with men-at-arms, siege weapons, and signalmen relaying orders to the far walls. Inside the main defenses, Bart found where most of the population had gone to.

The inner walls of the fortress were fairly extensive, the island it occupied in the middle of the river was quite easily the size of some of the smaller wheat fields back home, Most of the walls were flush with the river's edge, meaning that every inch of space inside had been used. For the peasants and merchantfolk, this meant the sprawling green in the middle of the castle and surrounding the main citadel was a makeshift refuge, upper-crust aristocrats stood cheek-to-jowl with the common laborer, and the pall of fear made everyone equal. Bart briefly scanned the crowd for familiar faces, but they were whisked upstairs - and not to the Commander's chambers, as he'd expected. Instead, the sergeant's troop lead them to the walls, the northernmost facing parapet.

"Commander, I have located Ser Bartholomus as ye requested!" The sergeant said, saluting crisply. At the wall, a spyglass in hand was Commander Viconia, her own armor and surcoat spattered in gore - sword at her hip and a poleaxe near at hand. Her stern face was streaked with blood, a stained bandage was wrapped tightly about her head - her lip visibly split to boot, all worn without complaint. She was no rear echelon commander. Bart by reflex, Saluted her as well.

"Still outrank me, Ser." Viconia said dryly, turning her head to him with a flat look, nodding to her troops. "At ease, get back downstairs and make the reinforcements ready, we're going to push for the northern gate." Bart lowered his hand from his chest as Lidia snickered at him, the Commander's gaze back through the eyepiece before she turned again.

"Been in my city less than a day and it's burning down and full to the tits with horrors and monsters," she said stiffly, tapping the spyglass across her palm, her face in a thoughtful frown. To Bart's surprise, Lidia of all people rose to his defense with a little hiss of displeasure;

"Now ye listen here ye great big steel-plated cow, iffin' ye're about to suggest Hayseed cause any o' this..." she spat, getting between Bart and the Commander. Yet her venomous barb only caused the scarred, blonde soldier to raise her one intact eyebrow at Bart, who blushed behind his raised visor.

"I believe we're friends now, Commander," Bart explained awkwardly, gently placing his hand on Lidia's shoulder and guiding her to the side, the little thief looked up at him, fuming.

"Ye cannae just let her hang you ou-" she started but Bart silenced her with a shake of his head, the commander's tapping growing more impatient.

"Colorful friends you make, Ser Knight," Viconia said in a clipped tone. "I do not think Ser Bartholomus is involved on purpose, however, he is a Knight-brother on Pilgrimage," she said, her tone now astute and knowing. "Pilgrims go looking for problems." Bart's broken nose wrinkled with disdain - she absolutely was correct and he felt a little childish about it for some reason.

"Yes Commander, I was involved in some capacity," he said, still a bit too stiffly formal, his training and good sense made him see the seasoned soldier as a superior regardless of rank or privileges within the order. She looked pointedly at his gore-caked weapon and blood-crusted armor, his surcoat so stained the white was now a deep rusty hue.

"In some capacity, he says. Well out with it. I'll have your report if you will, Ser Knight." she said, turning the spyglass back on the northern section of the city; "Be brief if you can, I have monsters to kill." All business, it was actually deeply refreshing after the last several hours of lurid teasing words from Kull and the Magistrate. To business then. Bart launched into a much-truncated version of events, leaving off any details of the battles, merely listing the essentials of what he saw and who. He felt no need to boast of his prowess, there were more important things at hand. The commander's one good eye grew harder and her bow-shaped mouth flattened into a stern, pale line as he concluded.

"The Magistrate?" she hissed, seeming actually hurt by that. "Mihai you bastard..." her voice trailed off, had they been friends? Comrades? More than Lord and Subject? Bart wasn't given any chances to continue that thought as she nodded her head curtly; "Right, the situation is dire. Here's where we stand." she said and drew him over to a small table with a map of the city and its surroundings spread on it.

"Your knowledge of this tunnel makes their movements make more sense, a few hours ago they simply sprang up out of the dirt like ugly daises, ripping out of the ground outside of the walls, and coming up through cellars and storm drains in the city proper. Thankfully the bigger ones appear to be mightily stupid and we had a fairly direct job securing the keep and much of the city, but it's a delaying action at best," she explained grimly, raising her eyes to his. "Between us? The city's already fallen. My men at the walls say they're easily two to one our numbers, and what you've added says that's likely to grow, and with a direct route into the city walls." she said, setting her teeth.

"I'm surprised you held the keep so easily, with them climbing the privies and cellars," Bart added, looking at the red flags on the map grimly, The commander snorted softly.

"Sheer bloody luck on that. Radiant Keep is separate from the old sewers, it's older than the rest of the city, so it simply pulls and empties directly into the river," she said, pointing to a section of map showing the keep's layout on the far edge of the table. "No underground connections for them to exploit due to the river island, not unless they hand-carve their own." she said, grimly penning new orders and handing them roughly off to another runner, who sprinted downstairs.

"What is your plan then, Commander?" Bart asked, she blew out a breath.

"Ultimately, retreat. Pull the common folk back south towards the Abbey, leave a strong force here to secure the Keep for an external and internal siege until Abbey forces can relieve it," she said, her face somehow becoming more stony at that. Bart realized then that she fully intended to stay behind. He thought about her husband, did they have children? Were they safe here?

"What can I do?" Bart asked without hesitation, Viconia looking up at him with open gratitude in her eyes, Lidia's gaze seemed incredulous but she stayed silent as the commander spoke; "Well, since we have a bona fide Holy Warrior here with us, I've just the thing for you." she said, offering him the spyglass as he blushed at her gentle mockery - he liked the Commander, he decided it then. She was tough and had a tongue like a war sword, but he felt that familiar guarded warmth he'd grown up with in the Abbey. He took the spyglass.

"What am I looking at?" he asked, and she pointed out to the north.

"Northern gates, I think there's something you might want to see there," she said, Bart raised the glass to his eye. The fisheye effect took a moment to adjust to, but soon he was scanning the carnage near the gatehouse - the men-at-arms there were forted up in what looked like an unloading paddock for pack animals - the open space and narrow entries made it a good choke point, they were holding well. He nearly asked what she meant for him to see when suddenly a familiar flash of steel caught his eye. Turning the glass, he peered down and saw the unmistakable curve of Rashid's tulwar flash in the air, scything down into the bodies of Plagued Men and Ghuls pressing the group. There among the soldiers and smattering of common workmen was Naima's Caravan. Rashid led from the front with a group of Church Soldiers, pressing back their lines and harrying any breakthroughs. Naima and her hired crew seemed to have set up some kind of triage for the walking wounded, Nazir was beside her, and even at the distances they were - he saw the blood and gore staining the dandy's fine silks. Glinting conspicuously, a short, wickedly curved dagger gleamed in one of the lithe man's hands as he appeared to help his sister with a wounded soldier. He thought for a moment how uncanny the smiling dandy looked with a bloodied weapon at hand. It did not suit him.

"Your friends, no?" she asked after a moment; "They checked into the gates the same time as you so my scouts figured. They tried to make for the northern gate when the fighting broke out, but were cut off when the outside... creatures came up out of the ground and blocked the gates off."

"They're surrounded, I have to get to them," Bart said urgently, his fatigue bleeding away again as his heart started to pound, Viconia raised a hand as if to calm him.

"Easy, Ser Knight. It just so happens I have a plan that your friends are instrumental in," she said, taking her spyglass back and gesturing to the map.

"The Abbey is going to send forces from the south, and I've already managed to get messenger hawks and a few riders going that way successfully, at great cost," she said, and Bart already knew what that cost was counted in. "The scouts and wall sentries tell me the bulk of these... monsters are centered at the northern gate, but surround us equally. They appear to be massing to march north after taking Lachheim." she stated coldly, her eyes meeting his as the realization struck him.

"The Lady's woods." he breathed.

"Just so," she said, drawing out a larger map of Northsea. "Order teachings say that only those invited can find their way through her wood, but this is the Empty Queen we are dealing with, who knows what fell magicks she has on hand. This force will find itself without much in way of resistance until it reaches Fort Ivory." Bart's eyes scanned the map, following her fingers, his mind already coming to her request as she made it.

"Someone needs to warn them, and the goodfolk along the way - as well as warn the Lady herself so she can marshal herself against them," she said, meeting his gaze as he nodded.

"And you just so happen to have a Pilgrim with a standing invitation to her grove who can do just that," he finished for her, and she nodded crisply.

"Just so, Ser Knight. Tell me, do you feel up to being a hero?"

Bart's only response was a determined grin. She gave her own in return.

~ ~ ~

The Church soldiers tended their wounds, and Bart was even given a chance to change into one of his fresh surcoats as the assault group formed at the front gates of Radiant Keep. Lidia had actually received a veritable collection of minor cuts and gashes during the combat and dungeoneering beneath the streets thanks to her spare garb, and after a few minutes with the chirurgeons both of them were heavily wrapped in bandages and salves.

"I feel like a leper." Lidia grumbled as she looked at her festival of wrappings. Bart grinned at her, adjusting his gorget over his clean surcoat before going about securing the various buckles and straps of his horse's tack and barding - they'd be riding out to meet them in order to break the lines, and he'd be at the front. His eyes tracked back to her as she waited.

"Could be worse, the leader of our Order is a leper." Bart continued absently, pulling at a strap here, settling the saddle to his preferences. She looked up sharply.

"Ye're fookin' with me." she said, and one of the nearby men-at-arms looked up from where he was doing much the same as Bart.

"Oh no, Lord Protector Baratus, the Golden Wolf of Northsea is indeed a leper." the younger warrior said with reverence; "He is among the mightiest warriors in the land, they say he's over a hundred years old, kept alive with the Lady's Power and prayer." he touched his holy symbol and fell silent again. Lidia looked at Bart incredulously.

"He is correct. My grandfather used to tell tales of The Lord Protector, and I have met and trained with him personally. His faith has granted him an extended life in spite of the pain." he said quietly, pulling the last strap tight. "If only we could all be so lucky."

"Ye're a colorful bunch, ye Paladins." Lidia mused - she'd also changed clothes, no longer bare-legged in a torn homespun dress, she'd been provided some soft boots and breeches, and opted into a sleeveless padded gambeson and sturdy manchettes for her hands. Lacking her usual hood, her coppery red hair shone like fire and her lean, toned build made her stand out even among the career soldiers.

"Can you ride?" Bart asked, and she shook her head, causing the big man to frown, but she held up her hands.

"Ah cannae ride proper, but I can ride along with one o' the back line boys. Don't ye worry. I'll find my way around once we get there, ye just worry about being a great, big batterin' ram." she said, knocking hard on his breastplate before smirking at him and pausing a moment, she reached up and grabbed him by the gorget and pulled - off balance, Bart went half-bent, staggering to keep his balance as... Lidia leaned up and pecked him gently on the cheek.

"Thanks, for savin' Elly. For all o' it. I was wrong about ye. Ye're a good man, Bart." she said, patting his cheek and turning to stalk away, her voice carrying; "WHO DO AH 'AVE TO POKE TAE GET A BLADE 'ROUND HERE?!"

Bart touched his cheek, a stupid grin on his face for a moment, the other men in the stable looking at him with raised eyebrows, laughter springing up here and there as the soldiers went back to work.

All and all, it took them perhaps a quarter-hour to make ready. Lidia and Bart both took a moment to eat and drink on the road - simple sausage and small beer, but it tasted like ambrosia even as they squatted in the saddle to do so. Bart thrust his axe into its sheathe on the saddle as he wiped his mouth of his rushed meal, pausing as it caught his eye, running along the haft, he found his eyes drawn to the braid secured there - it had been spattered in blood and grime, but Lucian's white streak through its woven fibers still stood out pale and proud. He touched it and a surge of memories of his best friend filled him with warmth - a hundred moments of his friend's reassuring smile and doughty presence - he drew in a shuddering breath. He was not alone. God be with them all. The moment's reprieve let him truly examine himself as well, clean tabard aside - his armor was a veritable map of dents and gouges but was still sound for battle. Seated near the front, tall and imposing - he looked like some great war-torn golem, made ready for one last battle. It was there he turned in attention to a shout from the fore:

"Alright men, form up!" came a commanding voice - Viconia's voice.

"No speeches today, we're heading into the maw of evil. We've trained for this, you're the best I have - that's why I am leading the charge personally. I need the best." she said, a squire bringing her a horse, which she ably swung herself into the saddle in, taking her reins and lance as they were handed to her - her visor still open as she wheeled around, pennant flapping from the tip of the lance. "If we lose the north gates, we will be overwhelmed before we can be reinforced. We are charged with the protection of these people, and for that, we have to take that gate. Ride hard men, and aim your lances true." she said, clapping her visor closed and thrusting her lance to the sky - as she'd spoken a small squad of squires had distributed the same lances to the rest of the heavy cavalry soldiers, Bart taking his own and weighing it in his hands - he was decent with a lance, did well enough in the lists during training.

"FORWARD!" Viconia's voice rang out like a clarion call, the drawbridge dropped and she spurred her horse, the rest of the regiment falling in behind her with the clatter of plate and hooves - a sound of thunder and fury.

~ ~ ~

The streets were eerily silent as the troops moved along at a distance-eating canter, Viconia's pennant guiding them as the two squads of twelve cavalry followed her. Behind them, another dozen or so footmen and support soldiers on pack horses and mules to help with the evacuation of the wounded, but the primary thrust of their attack -- literally and figuratively -- would be the cavalry charge. The two rows of men on horses each as heavy and massive as his own, each wearing plate armor and heavy barding. These men were all his equals, either men-at-arms who'd risen in the ranks, or nobles who had devoted themselves to the martial order of the church. He glanced around him, all of them were scarred, tough, seasoned men. Bart felt both comforted and out of place, shifting in his saddle. He did not have time to doubt himself, he had to focus -- there would be time to fall apart afterward.

They had left through the northern drawbridge, the other side of the Keep from where he and Lidia had entered. The way forward was littered with the gutted bodies of man and monster -- moreso on the side of the monsters the closer they got to the keep. This put them directly in the market district across the bridge from where he'd first encountered Lidia earlier the day before -- in fact, he turned his head as they cantered quickly through the ruins of Miller's Street, and saw the barge he'd swung from listing hard in the water, flames smoldering low as it slowly sank against the bottom of the channel. Lidia's eyes met his from the back lines and she shrugged with a wry smirk. Full circle already.

The sound of battle came loud and sudden to the ears, and Bart snapped his head up, the rest of the Men-at-arms also straightened -- everyone's weapons at the ready. Bart cast about warily for a source and realized where the sound was coming from -- the clash of steel echoed pointedly through the streets, its source at the far-end, near the wharves. He whipped his head back towards the tiny thief and Lidia's eyes were wide already with the same realization as she bleated out suddenly; "The Counthouse!"

"There's no way we can get the horses down there!" Bart barked back at her across the ranks, and she curled her fingers into frustrated claws; teeth gnashing.

"They're my family, Hayseed! C'mon, cannae ye mighty tinmen do something?" she cried back, Command Viconia's eyes coming up as she rode back to sit next to Bart's horse.

"What's this then? What Counthouse?" she asked, eyes stern behind her closed visor.

"It's... " he looked back to Lidia hopelessly, who growled impatiently and hopped up from her place on a pack mule, and with her now signature preternatural agility -- hopped and danced from horse to horse. So she went down the column at the protests and grunts of several men-at-arms until she landed on the rump of Bart's horse -- making the massive stallion dance a bit, turning its head to snort at her.

"It's tae fookin' thieves' guildhall. Buried deep at the end o' the trade streets between all o' the warehouses."

Viconia clearly was doing the calculations in her head, which she then shook; "Ser Bart is correct. We cannot forsake our mission for a doomed run. I know the area, it's too narrow for cavalry and we have limited time, or did you forget your friends are fighting for their lives at the northern gates?" the latter words seemed to sting Lidia, but she clenched her fists in earnest.

"Please. Just... look, they're all I have," she said, her face wan with stress and tears that refused to fall. Viconia eyed her hard, the impassive visor only making the already pointed stare as sharp as the lance she carried, but she wheeled and raised her pennant.

"FORM UP." she bellowed, wheeling down the same avenue Lidia had taken him earlier that previous day; "ON ME!"

Bart clapped his visor down, and Lidia smiled and gave him another kiss on the top of his helmet; "Thank ye, again." she said, and hopped away, springing with cat-like grace back between the mounts again to her own, the ripple of armored soldiers suggesting her passage hadn't been much more well-received.

The canter picked up speed to a light gallop as they formed into two ranks, each twelve wide plus the commander, smashing through and trampling several wrecked carts and stalls. Bart saw the remains of a cabbage cart dashed to splinters down the lane as they passed, and a sense of regret touched him, but he had no time now. They rose the crest of the hill to the wide plaza that they'd split off of back when she'd taken him to Kull, and the sight they saw was a strange one.

Kull stood there, with at least two-dozen haggard looking women, men, and children, plus half as many hard-looking cutthroats -- including the two massive neckless brutes who'd served his office in the Counthouse. They'd all formed up into an effective infantry file in front of the unarmed commoners, their backs to one of the Plaza's sturdy warehouse walls -- and they were surrounded by a hooting mass of ghuls.

"Well, let's have it then!" Kull roared, his voice like a foghorn, in his hands was no longer his cane, but a heavy wooden maul. His stained doublet cast away, wearing naught but his shirtsleeves -- the grossly fat thief was less obese than Bart had thought - his gut was pronounced, but the thickness of his chest and neck was raw, fatty muscle, and his bare arms rippled with the thick, slab-like build of brute, working-man strength. Indeed even as the men-at-arms came and began to level their lances, Bart was given an excellent vantage point of a howling ghul lunging at the group of thieves, and Kull swinging that mallet with a roar, striking the beast with such power that its skull simply collapsed. Too massive to pulp, it simply became concave as its brains were smashed down into its freakishly thick neck. Several more howled and gathered themselves to rush the clearly bloodied pack of thieves, Kull and his men braced themselves for the onslaught.

The charge came then, the mounted knights wheeling around the final twist in the road to thunder towards the plaza, Viconia's war cry leading their thunderous advance. The cavaliers lowered their lances as once as they closed the critical distance, Bart's as well, his training automatically moving him into place without thinking; years of practice becoming practical in an instant as the two groups of twelve armored warriors thundered in on their massive horses. The ghuls howled and hooted, and like the atavistic beasts they truly were -- they had gathered into a tight knot of snapping maws and grotesque bodies in an attempt to swarm the smaller force. Bart's eyes counted over thirty of the creatures, plus some dead scattered around, slain by Kull's street toughs, the beasts had only a moment to whirl and see the charge of hoof and steel before it was on them.

The sheer noise of the impact shook Bart's teeth in his head, let alone the jolt as he picked his target and drove his lance hard into the body of one ghul, spearing it with such force that the shaft ripped clean of its body left its torn form to be trampled beneath his mount's steel-shod hooves. The first line struck their lances and wheeled, snapping them off in bodies or driving them firm and retreating -- only to make way for the second line to repeat the maneuver, smashing into the divot they'd made in the monster's line and then peeling off themselves. This repeated until all of the mounted warriors had snapped their lances off and wheeled back again, forming their tight lines -- not a single horseman had so much as been scuffed, the ghuls completely disorganized by the presence of mounted combatants, an alien concept to the neolithic monsters.

"ARMS!" Viconia called, drawing her heavy longsword and holding it aloft, around him all of the cavaliers drew their personal weapons -- a great number of war hammers and picks gleaming in the light of distant fires, but a few swords and battle axes as well. Bart raised his own axe from its loop.

"CHARGE!" The commander roared anew, and the lines drove forward, this time in a tight wedge formation, Viconia at the front. Her battle cry rang out as they made contact, and her blade whipped down with ferocity, chopping one ghul's head clean of its body in a single stroke, two others being brutally stomped to death beneath her charger's hooves.

It was not a long fight. The cavaliers brutalized the ghuls, slaying them one and all in a savage melee of stamping hooves and chopping strokes, the beast's odd hunched posture made attacking and even craning their necks up to where the soldiers were on the horses difficult. Bart himself felled two of the beasts with roaring, savage blows of his axe, his experience teaching him to chop at the soft undersides of their jaws and the softer juncture at the base of their skulls. The butcher's bill done, Kull walked up, his gore-smeared mallet resting on his shoulder as he picked Bart out of the crowd.

"Well, well, Ser Bart! I see I my trust was well placed." he paused and looked around at the burning city, much of the warehouses themselves slowly catching flame; "... such as it can be."

"Master Kull," Bart greeted him tersely, nodding from behind his visor. Commander Viconia reigned up between them, meeting Kull's eyes.

"So you're this Kull I hear tell of," she said, and the fat thief grinned and bowed with a flourish.

"I am indeed Kull. Businessman and citizen of this fair city," he said with a booming laugh at the end in response to Viconia openly snorting at his description of himself.

"I do not have time to tend to your people, we must make haste to the north gate." she said, and Kull made a soft 'ah' shape with his mouth and raised a finger.

"You're following Bart's Rezarian friends then, yes? My associates mentioned they'd made a press for the northern gate, I can guide you there quicker, even with your great beasts," he said and slapped the gore-smeared head of the maul across his palm.

"I have a burning desire to remind certain creatures whose city this is." he growled, and then put on a sly expression; "That is if you'll have me, Commander Viconia."

If the thief knowing her rank and name even through her closed visor phased the stone-tough woman, it didn't show. She merely stared at him a moment and then nodded; "Fine. Keep up with the support troops, don't dawdle." she turned and raised her voice; "You there, take a squad and cover these civilians, keep them out of the fighting." she said and rounded back on Kull; "You. Take a horse from a square, ride at the front with me, and get your fighting men in line with the rest of the backline troops."

Kull grinned and gave another florid bow before moving off -- not before pausing to cast a sly wink at Bart. Kull was even now, playing his own game.

"These civilians are going to slow us down," Viconia said, her voice only for Bart's ears, turning her eyes to his under her visor; her body the very image of poise. He took a moment to absorb it, in the ash, blood, and fire, the way she sat her horse -- back straight, head high, weapon easy at hand. He was sure most men must feel lust for such a sight: a maiden of battle pure and strong... yet he was simply compelled to listen, he felt stronger, more capable in her presence. She radiated might and it was clear her men felt it.

"Ser Bart." she continued, still unmoving as she returned her gaze to the line of civilians; "Take the first squad, I want you to range ahead on horse. Move in and break their back, we'll follow as fast as we can," she said

"I'm comin' with ye." Lidia's voice came, she'd hopped from her horse again, her eyes agate-hard as she thrust her chin out at Viconia, daring the iron lady to defy her.

"As will I, and my associates." It was Bart's turn to look surprised, Kull stood there with the two thick-necked toughs, all of them holding some kind of brutal crushing weapon -- Kull his maul, each of the other burly men a long, ugly club that ended in four heavy, straight spikes. "Lidia is numbered among them, and I have a bit of a bone to pick with these scabrous throwbacks who would dare to burn my city." Kull's voice had the timbre of a man barely controlling his rage, and those beady eyes were afire beneath his heavy, thick brows.

"Patriotism, Master Thief?" Viconia asked as she wheeled her horse, the fat thief laughed, slapping his paunch with a free hand as he did.

"Dear Commander, I am the very soul of patriotism. Lachheim is my home, and I am a jealous tenant," he said, eyes afire as the wide grin showed his even rows of alarmingly straight, square teeth. "I don't share well with others. It's a personal failing."

"One of many, I am sure." Viconia said gruffly, signaling for the backline to bring up horses, Lidia rode double with Kull and the two toughs each mounted as well. To Kull's credit, he took the barb with additional laughter, turning to Bart and saluting him with his mallet.

"Come now, Hero! We have legends to write!"

~ ~ ~

The squad formed up around the new horses after quickly resupplying with fresh lances -- the backline support troops had braces of them for this exact purpose. Points gleaming in the firelight the first squad of cavalry set off, the big knight-brother at its head, Kull grinning and all but kicking his heels in the stirrups, seemingly eager for more mayhem. His laughter as they set out rang off the walls -- their canter rapidly turning into a distance-eating gallop.

Bart did not remember much of the thundering rush, he saw burning buildings and many corpses of monsters and commoners alike, this close to the warehouses and market district, many of the dead were more numbered among the innocent than any fell beast. Bile rose in his throat as he saw more than a few extremely small, extremely still bodies -- or worse, parts of bodies. The further they grew from the keep, the worse the slaughter became.

Soon the massive walls loomed above even the roofs of the taller buildings, those not yet aflame at least -- and he saw the turrets that outlined the Northern Gates. The sounds of battle came to their ears, and Bart drew in a breath, he drew upon his training -- it was now or never. Into the fire, will he be steel or dross?

"FORM UP. ON ME." he barked, raising his lance and clapping down his visor, the other five horsemen drew in close, forming the familiar heavy cavalry wall as they bore down the road; their current path was a straight shot to the gate, a main artery of the city's trade. The road was wide and well-traveled.. and that meant strewn with bodies from the initial assault. Bart tried to put it from his mind as he saw ahead the flash of steel and heard the cries of the wounded. He attempted, in fact, did his damnedest to focus on that, not the heaped bodies of families, children, and the weak and slow at the edges, piled up like grain... like meat. He tried... and he could not. The ugly tar-like anger began to boil in him, he felt the influence of it keenly, like a beast rasping hot breath across the back of his neck... it'd be easy to give in. He'd done so in the catacombs, grabbed that unholy fury by the throat, and forced it to be his might... could he do it again? Should he? A shudder coursed through him and he clenched his teeth. No... that way lay madness.

The charging cavaliers broke onto the scene, the paddock itself was a wide space, flanked by stables on both sides with counting houses on the far end, and a heavy series of arches separating it from the main road the cavaliers charged down -- arches that helped funnel the incoming traffic into manageable streams, and in this case had served to narrow the avenues at which the abominations could harry the defenders. Bart's men bore down on the rear of a massed force of ghuls and plagued men, who pressed and clambered on and over each other at one of the wide arches, where the defenders were holding the line. The other arches were piled high with improvised blockades -- carts and crates shoved in hurriedly, the corpses of a few horses serving as horrific sandbags to reinforce the make-shift fortifications. Yet the atavistic monstrosities would not be stopped -- they'd forced a breach that Rashid and his men were sorely pressed defending, Bart saw many fresh corpses wearing the white and gold tabards of Church Soldiers lying ripped and torn apart in the path leading up to the arches, and with them were almost as many of the Empty Queen's foul creatures. Even as they closed and spurred their horses to charge, Bart and his comrades saw one soldier's shield falter, saw him grasped -- snatched really, and dragged from the shield wall screaming as he was pulled bodily into the mass of plague men and ghuls -- and then pulled apart like a cruel child would an insect. His screams cut into Bart like a sword in the gut, and he saw in pure, crystalline slowness as they tore him apart, arms and legs going two separate directions -- ripping his mail open and tearing him in half like a sack of grain. Unable to look away, Bart instead screamed a hoarse battle cry: one echoed by the other twelve men-at-arms beside him, and at once they set their lances in perfect unison, the snapping sound of each man couching their weapon dragging many of the monster's attention from their gruesome work.

"RUN THEM DOWN!" Bart howled as they closed the distance in a world-shattering din, Bart once again drove his lance with savage fury into the body of one of the rampaging monsters, his blow so mighty and carrying so much weight of man, horse, and armor that it punched through the creature's back and rammed home into a second beast's sternum with such force he snapped the lance off immediately and wheeled, his compatriots doing much the same. He could not count the seething monsters and their formerly human allies in the mass, twenty, thirty, perhaps more? The men-at-arms split in the middle, three by three they wheeled to opposite sides of the walk, leaving a multitude of bodies in their wake as they all cast off their lances and drew steel.

"LET NONE SURVIVE!" Bart roared as his axe came to hand, as they spurred for their second charge, he caught Kull and his toughs wheeling into a side alley, ordinarily he'd assume cowardice but Kull caught his eye as they charged, a wide-mouthed laughing smile on his lips as they disappeared from sight. He was up to something. Regardless of thieves and their contrivances, Bart's men crashed into the howling beasts once more -- however, they did not have the numbers they did before. Hooves trampled, axes and hammers swung and chopped, and indeed -- the monstrosities fell beneath honest men's steel, but they were outnumbered and this time. The beasts reacted far, far more swiftly, Bart swung his axe in heavy, hewing strikes: standing up in his stirrups to deliver chopping blows with terrible force, he'd lost count of how many he'd killed, as if they were scrabbling up from a crack in hell hidden in the teeming mass. Beside him, there was a cry, as one of the men-at-arms was dragged from his saddle. Bart yelled and wheeled his horse, abandoning his retreat as a Ghul champed its teeth down on his shoulder, the man screamed and to his credit flipped his hammer and struck the Ghul worrying at his mailed limb squarely with the vicious back-spike in a blow that was loud even above the din of battle. Bart bullied his way through the melee, his horsemanship skills were average at best but enough here as the warhorse he'd been given rose gamely to the challenge, biting and stamping in a fury borne of primal, animal hatred. His axe descended in a whistling arc and chopped into the creature's back, Bart purely by savage instinct, twisted his shoulders and with them the axe head, catching it up in the beast's ribs. It howled in agony as Bart wrenched hard, bowing the creature's back at a hideous angle, forcing it to release the man-at-arms, who added his own pained screams to the monster's -- and then proceeded to savagely beat its head into a mush of brains and shattered teeth in three quick, savage blows, his shield-arm hanging limp by his side. Bart wasted no time, tearing his axe free and reaching his free hand down to grasp the wounded man's unbroken hand -- hauling him up into the saddle.

"Praise be to God." the soldier choked as Bart spurred them away, the wounded Man's horse galloping down the road, vanishing around the corner, clearly mad with blood and fear.

"In his name, brother," Bart reassured him as he spurred away, the cavaliers regrouping. Visibly bloodied, the twelve men had not suffered any casualties: their heavy armor and horses had provided enough of an advantage to secure that. However, nearly all of them were wounded, favoring limbs or sides as they regained their line, eyes and faces behind visors grim and determined.

"Let me down, Ser Knight." The man-at-arms said painfully; "I am useless here, let me die on my feet." Bart turned in his saddle, his eyes incredulous behind his visor.

"I will not. We face this horror together."

The Cavaliers regained their lines, Bart adjusting his saddle so his new passenger could sit more securely, the doughty soldier gritting his teeth as he pulled his swordbelt free, using it to lash himself to the saddle by its support straps. Above the smokey sky, thunder rumbled. It began to rain. The beasts and their plagued men gathered themselves from the savaging they'd been given, behind them Bart could see Rashid's men pulling their wounded back, the ghul's single-minded tenacity focusing on what had hurt them so. Bart could not easily count them still, the sudden drizzle threatening to turn into a downpour obscuring vision beyond a point -- at least twenty, possibly more. The monsters hissed and hooted, giving unsettling calls that oscillated in unnatural ways as they snapped their teeth, prowling forward slowly. The plagued men bore weapons made of bone and black glass, cruelly serrated and hooked things, some carried crude weapons of metal or poorly-maintained swords and axes; relics of who they were before no doubt. The cavaliers stood at the ends of of the road, they'd done as they'd been asked -- break the back of the forces, and that they had. The ghuls were not routed but had been bloodied well. Each man looked to one another, determination in their eyes. They would sell their lives dearly here to hold out for the commander's forces.

"Let it be done then," Bart murmured, the man behind him gritting his teeth and murmuring quiet prayers, before raising his voice instead -- a chant of the angels, their tongue rolling out slowly. Each church soldier took it up, finding their place in the stanzas until Bart's own baritone joined in. His grip on his axe tightened, and his passenger hefted his war hammer in one hand. The creatures snarled and grew agitated, the tongue of the angels incensing them, driving them towards the armored soldiers and away from Rashid and his haggard line of men-at-arms. The line of cavaliers tightened for a charge.

"THIS IS MY CITY." came a familiar, bellowing voice and Bart's gaze snapped up. Atop the arches stood Kull and his toughs, Lidia with them... and alongside them were several barrels... barrels with red-painted lids. Bart's eyes widened as one of the toughs chopped open each, thin, oddly clear liquid leaking out from its insides -- a familiar rainbow sheen across its surface as it pooled below.

"I HEREBY EVICT YOU FROM ITS PREMESIS, FILTH!" Kull roared and kicked his barrel over the side, Lidia and the toughs following suit. The casks smashed in among the milling beasts, shattering and spraying their contents all over the pile. The strong peat smell hit Bart and the others moments before Kull's hand raised, a blazing lamp from a nearby post in one hand.

"BURN!"

His meaty arm hurled the blazing star into the mass of sodden monsters, and as he bid -- so did they. The effect was instantaneous and unbelievable -- the lamp landed among the barrels and beasts, casks of naphtha so denoted by their red paint, and rapidly did they ignite. Yet they did not merely burn, nay the result was beyond anyone's expectation -- they exploded -- but to call it merely an 'explosion' did not do it true justice, it was a conflagration. The detonation blew a pressure wave across the cavaliers like a solid wall, spooking horses and jostling armor, the ensuing fireball lighting the night sky in a great wash of white. The ghuls and plagued men within flailed, mere black silhouettes within the white-hot flames before the final casks caught. The secondary detonation was as violent as the first, if not more so. Bart flinched as something impacted his chest and bounced wetly off -- a brief glance showed a still-twitched, charred arm of a ghul. Similar meaty shrapnel fell from the sky, and a literal crater lay in the cobblestones where the barrels had caught. Bart and his men shielded their eyes, struggling to control their spooked horses -- they were trained for battle, not wanton pyromaniac destruction. Coughing and waving away smoke, wiping rain from his eyes. Bart turned ready to do battle... and found nothing to do battle with.

A smoldering pile of meat and bone was all that was left, a few ragged monsters dragged their ruined bodies across the cobbles, missing chunks of flesh, whole limbs, and in a few cases -- entire pieces of their torso, howling piteously, all but truly dead. Kull and his toughs shimmied down a rope Bart hadn't seen in the dark and set about giving each half-dead monster the coup-de-grace with their cudgels, smashing skulls to pulp in the muddy, scorched earth and stones.

"By God." Bart breathed, reining his horse forward to where Kull stood, wet down to his underclothes but grinning ear to ear and hefting his mallet.

"I told you, Ser Bart. This is my city," he said, spreading his fat hands wide, brawny arms rippling with slabs of muscle. "No grotty monster with a jumped-up sense of its own importance will change that. Come then, that blast surely startled your friends as much as the horses!" he said, laughing loud and raucously as he turned on his heel, swaggering away as Lidia passed him, hands on her hips as she looked up to Bart and his passenger.

"I tol' Kull about how well the fooks burned, and he o' course -- took it ten steps further, an' just as many deep," she said, shrugging with her own grin. "Worked though."

"From your lip's to God's ears -- if they aren't ringing as well." Bart agreed in a rueful yet thankful tone, raising his visor and trotting forwards with Lidia skipping along beside him.

The carnage was worse the closer he got to the crater, his horse shied away from the smell of it as they rode through the arch to where his friends had made their stand, bodies were mounded on the inside, mostly the plagued men, who the enemy seemed to use like chaff, fodder to lead and focus the much more durable and dangerous ghuls -- were they so simple that they could not function without a handler? Is that what the Magistrate, this 'Mihai' is truly here for? A grand organizer for the fell, out-of-time creatures at the Queen's call? He was not given much time to ponder as a soft cry took his attention outward.

"BROTHER!" Nazir's voice crowed, and the scrabbling of limbs as he swung down from his saddle was loud. Louder still the clattering impact as the blood-stained dandy collided with him in a fierce hug, tears making his kohl-lined eyes streak as the lean man crushed around his brigandine with surprising strength for such a lean man. "You're alive! We thought you lost, slain, or worse when these wretched things started climbing up from the canals!"

"No, though it was a near thing," he said, a smile coming to his face despite the grim circumstances, he carefully detached himself from the bloodied merchant, reaching up an arm to aid the wounded cavalier down from their shared saddle, the hurt man nodding his thanks.

"Nazir! Are any of them wounded?" came Naima's voice, her attire was bloody from neck to navel, spatters across her face, but her hands surreptitiously clean as she moved between patients, a small basin of water and spirits nearby to cleanse her hands in. Nazir turned back to her, his eyes flicking over the cavalier who winced.

"Big bastard bit me, armor stopped most of it, pretty sure my collarbone's broke though," he grunted through the pain with a clinical familiarity only the most hardened veterans developed, displaying the light dent in his armor where the monster's teeth had gotten hold of him -- even for a small dent, it gave the three men pause. They knew what kind of strength it took to bend steel, it need not be said.

"One, broken collarbone!" Nazir barked back with practiced ease, it made it clear to Bart immediately that the siblings worked together like this often. Naima glanced up and frowned.

"Low priority, get him to sit somewhere and put some poppy juice in him. Hello Bart." she said, bustling over to glance at the hurt soldier, checking his eyes through his raised visor and nodding curtly at him as he shambled away, she looked around at the rest of the soldiers incredulously; "Is this it? All you could muster?"

"N-no." Bart stammered, taken off guard by her brusque tone, Naima truly was carved from stone; "We came ahead to relieve you, there's a reinforcing squad behind us here to extract you and escort you to the keep." he said, and relief showed on her face, she nodded and looked Bart up and down.

"You seem whole. Good." she said and gave him a glowing smile before she went back to work, Bart watched her go, stricken a bit by the sheer determination he saw in her eyes.

"Your sister is a fearful woman." Bart said without moving his gaze, Nazir nodded solemnly and a heavy hand clapped down on Bart's shoulder.

"Of course she is, it is why I married her." Rashid smiled grimly from behind him, the massive man was scoured with a hundred minor abrasions on his exposed arms, his mailcoat showing broken links and his armored turban fresh dents. Bart looked him over with wide eyes, many of the cuts and gouges were open and ragged and... not bleeding.

"Dear God man, you've been savaged!" Bart sputtered, yet Rashid looked down at his arms and mail and shrugged; "Ah it is nothing. They will close up soon." he said and Bart's incredulous expression only deepened, jaw slack. Nazir chuckled.

"Rashid is a... ah what is the word in your tongue, a 'Sword Saint'. He is empowered by God and the Great Teacher's concoctions." Nazir explained, and Rashid laughed a little.

"Sword Saint, how pompous. I am simply a warrior." the big Southerner said, turning back to his men as they gathered themselves, each of them was haggard-looking but had iron in their visages. Church Soldiers lived up to the legends it seemed, even the common men-at-arms.

"A warrior who has supped of the ichor of the divine!" Nazir crowed with his usual flair, Rashid laughed again.

"Tinctures and Potions." Rashid said, meeting Bart's gaze; "I was trained as a child, much like you. We are strengthened with infusions made by the High Alchemists of Khorrit. They made me stronger, bigger, and as you can see." he extended his arm, showing a ragged cut, already seeming to close and bore little blood loss; "I am quite durable and difficult to bleed."

"Marvelous." Bart breathed with a shake of his head.

"God is great." Rashid agreed.

"Tell me, what held you here? Why did you not just press through?" Bart continued, following as Rashid and his men moved to once again blockade the entrance to the arches. He looked around, there were perhaps a dozen and a half warriors standing, many others wounded or lying covered in their cloaks towards the cart, those he assumed that were whole enough to be lain to rest as such. He grimaced as Rashid spoke, the thought of such a death grisly.

"Look beyond the main gates, you will see what halted us before the beasts fell upon us," Rashid said, clapping his shoulder and drawing that great curved blade once more, his curious round shield still strapped to his left arm. Bart halted, the men continuing past him as he turned and strode towards the gatehouse.

It was much like the gate south, massive and flanked by two heavy turrets that each held a gatehouse where guards would normally be stationed, a pair of nested portcullis, both closed tightly to seal access to this part of the city, he grimly observed the windlass for the mechanism -- locked closed, and a gruesome, severed arm still gripping the handles to shut it. The rest of the guardsman's body was nowhere to be found.

"God keep you, brother," he murmured, drawing the blessing of the Lidless Eye in the air before turning his eyes to the closed gates and beyond.

The sight he beheld dropped his heart into his stomach, teeth clenched against the sudden wash of chill through his blood and bones.

A great... thing stood on the other side, it was massive, even at the distance it was clearly double Bart's height at least and more than four of that wide. It took his brain a moment to realize exactly what he was looking at, it had the shape of a man but the proportions were entirely wrong; its legs ended in weird almost-paws, a horrific middle-ground between the dog-like feet of the ghuls and the heavy nailed soles of a man, walking slightly on its thick, knobby toes with a raised heel. They were short and powerfully muscled... what he could see of them, for over most of its haunches hung a massive, grossly fat gut that swayed and moved on its own despite the creature's fairly steady posture... as if something writhed within the swollen, scarred bulge.

Bart was forced to step back to crane his neck around the mesh of steel bars, the... thing tracked his movement. It was massively built past the swaying gut, its shoulders alone were wide as an oxcart, each knotted ball of muscle like a boulder of fatty, ropey flesh, skin the color of river clay stretched over huge tracts of flab and blubber that hung from its arms over muscles so enormous they were more on par with a great bull or bear than anything that hailed from the kingdoms of humanity. Each hand ended in hard nails filed into brutal talons, clenched around the hafts of gruesome, rough-hammered weapons that he could only realistically call over-sized butchering knives, stained so heavily with gore that it distorted the outline of the blade. But truly, the most horrifying thing was the... thing's face. It was human. Too human in many ways. Large, bulging eyes stared at him with morbid intensity and a horrifying flicker of sinister intellect, massive beetling brows, and thick brow ridges failing to contain their seemingly too-large orbs. A hugely thick beard hung to its chest, roughly combed out with the visual texture of thick wire, a matching mustache curled away, wild and fierce around a mouth full of knives -- indeed the mouth was the focal point. Too wide, running far up its cheeks and jowls, overdeveloped and enormous, lined with razor-edged teeth and thick, tusk-like fangs looking more at home in the maw of a lion than something so horribly close to human and yet so very, very far.

"Lady Protect us..." Bart hissed, all of that together was a nightmare, but the true twist of the knife was its attire... primitive and terrible, but far from the skins and hides the ghuls covered themselves with. Ancient armor made of rough-hammered scales laid across its torso, a large circular plate lashed across that ponderous, writhing gut like a huge girdle. It wore crude jewelry, rings of bone pierced its nose and pointed ears, and torcs of rough-hammered bronze and copper encircled its arms and wrists, cutting grotesquely into the fatty tissue. All of it as a whole was topped by a tall, multi-tiered hat that looked for all the world like a mix of an open-faced helmet and a royal crown. It stood motionless but for heavy breathing and the movement of its head. It waited with complete, absolute patience of something to which time had no meaning, and that alone frightened Bart.

"I see you've met our friend." came Naima's voice from Bart's rear, the big knight-brother turning and pointedly placing himself between her and the beast, a subconscious motion that drew a brief smile from the woman, wiping her yet again freshly-washed hands on a bloodied rag.

"He's hard to miss," Bart responded, and Naima nodded, looking up at it, fearlessly meeting its eyes -- to whit the creature tilted its gaze to stare at her.

"It killed the guardsmen here in minutes, there must have been a score of them and it shrugged off what they did to it like rain." She shuddered, the first time Bart had ever seen the iron woman's composure shake; "It ate them. In huge, single bites. Many of them weren't even dead." she said, and Bart's gaze whipped back to the thing's writhing guts and a cold, primal terror griped his bowls: the animal fear of being eaten alive. Naima nodded, her face bleak before continuing "After they dropped the portcullis, it beat on them for a few minutes as if it was testing the metal for weak points and then stopped and held stock-still like that. Watching us." she shook her head.

"It's conserving its energy," Bart said incredulously. "The fat monster is resting up."

"Indeed, and it's why we are halted here." the alchemist concluded, folding her arms over her bloodied apron, her expression terse. "We watched the thing mutilate the defenders, and it was only by the Grace of God that the poor souls there shut the gates before it made it inside, but the strange man-beasts had already swarmed in -- Rashid was chest-deep in the things in moments." she shuddered again, the second break in her mask. "Had he not been as he was, strengthened by my -- by our learned ways and the Mantle..." she shook her head violently; "No, I cannot bear to think of it."

Bart reached out to her, squeezing her shoulder as he turned his gaze beyond the monster, seeing shapes milling and... feasting as indiscernible shadows beyond the range of the torches and lanterns that lit the square, struggling and guttering against the rain. It was a siege army now, by happenstance or intent.

"The commander is coming, she brings with her fresh troops and supplies to evacuate the wounded." he said, Naima nodding clinically; "You should return with her to the keep, I must needs find a way past this gross abomination." Naima's expression turned outright severe, snapping her gaze from the stare of the monster to the knight-brother.

"I will not." she snapped with actual vitriol; "That is just suicide, look beyond those gates Bart." she continued, waving her arms; "It is the shores of Hell out there."

"I can see that," Bart agreed, feeling his guts quaver but setting his jaw. "It has been some time since someone assaulted Hell. It will be a novel experience." he said with a blithe tone that did little to hide his uncertainty. Naima stared at him with open disbelief.

"You... you..." she seethed a moment, taking a breath and smoothing back her hair from her face; "You damnable Church Knight, all of you are the same -- every one a piece!" she snapped, eyes closed tightly as she took another breath and then let it out slowly. "Rashid, the men-at-arms, and now you -- all so eager to die!"

"What more can I do but try?" Bart asked her, and she glared at him.

"Perhaps think? Does that-" she snapped, jerking her finger at the waiting titan; "Look like something you can fight?"

"I have killed one titanic abomination tonight." Bart said with a grim sort of confidence, Naima faltered.

"What?"

"Below, in the sewers. One of those 'ghuls', the eyeless things. It was the size of your wagon and mad with bloodlust." Bart explained, feeling oddly distant from the still-recent events. Naima blinked again, her face screwing up into a mask of ferocious curiosity.

"Come, tell me everything. Tell Rashid too, everything you know may help us survive."

Bart did just that, leaving the gates and meeting again with Rashid and Nazir by the archways, Lidia and Kull as well found their way to the circle beneath the arch, shielded from the rain as Bart regaled them with the events of the evening.

"Learned One's feathers, what horrors." Nazir breathed as Bart finished, taking an offered waterskin and drinking greedily, he rarely spoke so long or so often and found himself parched.

"So this is what has been harrying my dear children." Kull mused into his raucous beard, Lidia nearby nodding along; "Had I even the slightest inkling, I would have put the Magistrate's entire holdings to the torch. Blamed something minor, a kitchen mishap, a neglected lamp." he said grimly, fingers raking through his facial hair slowly, clearly an annoyed tic.

"Such terrors have been seen before, in the Verdant Crusades dating back to the First Paladin and Learned One's arrival." Rashid rumbled, the others turning to face him. He nodded, continuing; "Al-Reza is a land of merchants and learned men, we keep extensive records both monetary and historical, more than a few descriptions Bart gave match the writings of the Empty Queen's hordes." he said, turning and jerking his chin towards the thing by the gate.

"Even that?" Bart asked at his indication, and the burly Southerner nodded.

"We call it a Raksasha, or at least did in ancient times. A fierce demon with an endless appetite that only can be sated with the flesh of men. Your kin know them best as-"

"Ogres." Bart interjected grimly, the various images lining up in his mind; "Dear Lady in White, it's an accursed Ogre." Rashid tapped the side of his nose sagely.

"A simple word for such a great horror, no?" he said, continuing, his eyes still on the road leading away towards the keep; "They were generals, leaders, and siege-breakers in the old texts. Nearly invincible, and functionally immortal -- so long as they have a near constant, ready supply of food," he said and glanced around at the various corpses, both ally and abomination that lay piled or lined up neatly, his face grim. "Something it will not find lacking." his head turned up at a clatter down the road, the other's eyes following it.

"Hail, the Commander's pennant." one of the men-at-arms called, and the group breathed a sigh of relief as up from the mists rose the rest of the relief soldiers, pulling their carts and cavalry behind her stern-eyed gaze up the cobblestone road to the archway. She gave clear pause at the crater and its blasted, charred bodies in occupancy, before meeting Kull's grinning, madcap gaze.

"I assume this is your work, thief," she said, raising her lance and pennant in a salute to the men, who returned it. "I daresay the good Ser has better sense than to blow holes in my city."

"I wouldn't bet on eet, missy." Lidia said under her breath in a coarse whisper.

"Commander, we suffered no casualties retaking the paddock." Bart said, clashing his fist against his breastplate, the woman reining in her mount and raising her visor with a rueful look to her piercing eyes.

"Still outrank me, Ser." she said, saluting him with pointed aggression. Bart's comrades looked at him, a sheepish expression on his face.

"She's correct, technically. I am a Knight-Brother," he said, shifting to make room in the gap as Viconia dismounted, handing her lance off to a helpful man-at-arms.

"Which is above a Commander-At-Arms, Ser," she said, seemingly nonplussed. "Your candor is refreshing, Ser," she said, a faint chuckle meeting Bart's ears, Naima was openly grinning at the interaction, which only served to color Bart's cheeks with further embarrassment. Viconia went ahead, unflappable.

"Ser, I've collected additional troops, we've secured the path back to the keep for now. I apologize for the delay." she said, looking around and seeing only the one injured Cavalier, who saluted her with his good arm, she nodded crisply; "You seem to have things well in hand."

"Well o' course. Bart's a fookin' juggernaut." Lidia broke in, completely lacking the professional tone of the other two soldiers, her rain-slicked face a mask of impish challenge, one that Nazir took up with his usual glee.

"My Brother Bartholomus indeed is a man of singular ability, skill, and dedication, never have I seen the like in a warrior outside of my homeland. He is a single, clarion note in the discord of battle and it is _inspiring. _Praise be to God for such champions!" he said, hands raised to the sky in exultation. Bart coughed quietly as Viconia raised an eyebrow.

"It seems your legend grows, Ser," she said flatly, and he nodded, seeking refuge in her cool candor, a familiar military order.

"Yes, well Commander. Many others will not if we do not make haste, there is a horror outside the gates and our wounded must needs be evacuated before it can be dealt with." Naima chimed in, bringing in her own cool rationality, and in that moment Bart could kiss her. He would never grow accustomed to such... exaggeration. Viconia nodded.

"Quite so, Goodwoman. Alright men, bring in the wagons, double time it or you're doing rearguard on the way back!" she barked, turning and swirling her hand above her head, falling right back into command despite the amusing distribution of rank.

The wagons moved in and Bart, Rashid, and Nazir immediately pitched in to help carry the men too wounded to walk to them, thanks and fervent prayers in equal amounts given as they carefully laid them down. Naima conscripted Lidia almost immediately, the cutpurse's keen eye for details something the older woman had noted, and put to use dosing the wounded for travel. Even Kull and his men helped out, the fat thief's unexpected strength lending itself well to the endeavor, he even caught a kind word from the gangster;

"That's it. One in front of the other lad. Do not worry, lean on me. You will have a duke's ransom for your defense of my city, you and all your brothers in arms. I swear it." came to Bart's ears as he carried a barely conscious soldier's weight -- the man's entire arm gone just below the shoulder, a grisly wound that would have been immediately mortal had Naima and her mystical concoctions not been here. Bart met Kull's gaze as they passed, and for once there was no smugness, no challenge, or glint of mayhem in his eyes, he was sober and stern. He nodded once and continued on, encouraging the soldier with every step.

"God is indeed, good my friends," Bart murmured.

The relative peace in the aftermath was shattered by... laughter. Low, thunderous, discordant laughter. The collective heads of the party whipped around, following it to the Northern Gate... to the thing past it.

It was laughing.

"What is that abomination chortling about?" Kull hissed acidly, Bart and Rashid turning to face it, its shadowed form outlined by the firelight behind it -- the fields were burning, even in the wet, they'd been put to the torch. Burn it all, salt the earth. Total war. God have mercy.

"Ho, ho, ho... courrrteous maaanlings." it rumbled at them from behind that great beard, flickers of embers making its bulging red eyes seem to glow. "Toooo so neatly arrrrange my meeeeal." its cadence of speech was an odd, guttural rumble that lingered on the throaty sounds of words as if rolling them about its tongue, a constant exhalation as it spoke so deep and bass that as it spoke Bart could feel it vibrate his inner ear.

"We do not feed you, Shunned One." Rashid spoke, his voice calm and reserved, drawing Bart's attention; "May you languish a thousand years knowing such a feast escaped you. God denies you this bounty."

The creature laughed again, a low, mocking sound and it spread its arms.

"Dooo not presummme so hastily, Bluecloooth." it rumbled, pressing close to the bars of the portcullis, the creak of the steel alarming Bart as it spread its unholy, impossible mouth in a razor-edged grin of too many teeth, at too wide angles. "I haavve supped and diiined on manyyyy as yoooou." it continued in that strangely horn-like voice as if it had to continually force air across its tongue to speak like some great pipe, Bart's brows going up as Rashid's own creased.

"Bluecloth?" Bart murmured quietly, and Rashid nodded grimly, tapping the electric blue and yellow attire.

"My brother warriors and I wear this in devotion, it is our colors alone. 'Bluecloth'." he said with some derision, Bart put two and two together.

"So that means you are not the first Sword Saint it has seen," Bart concluded.

"Nor killed, for otherwise it would lie quite dead and trouble us not, yes," Rashid confirmed with a set of his jaw, looking at Bart. "Friend Bart, tell them to hurry. You need to take the wounded and flee this place, I do not believe that gate has stopped this creature at all... I believe it is playing games."

That low, mocking laughter renewed, deep resonant bellows as the thing pressed its too-human face against the bars, bugged eyes peering between the gaps, fixated hungrily on Rashid now. The portcullis visibly deformed beneath the weight and pressure, with loud pops of the retaining lugs snapping free as it did so. Bart clenched his teeth and spun on his heel, snatching his axe from his belt, furiously waving at the others.

"QUICKLY, GET THE CARTS TURNED AROUND!" he bellowed as the behemoth's laughter peaked and it drew in a great, sucking breath, glancing over his shoulder -- Bart saw Rashid take something from inside of his sash, a long, narrow skin of sorts, taking a deep draw from it and then tucking it away, drawing his great curved sword again, it danced through his fingers in a sinuous swirl before snapping straight out, his posture suddenly ramrod straight. Spine stiff, legs set -- posture as rigid as if he were made of stone. He too, sucked in a sharp intake of breath through his nose, bringing two fingers rigidly up before his face in a meditative posture as he did so -- eyes as hard as granite.

It was then, the beast exhaled. Bart felt the heat before he saw the effect and by pure, atavistic reflex, dove to the ground.

The behemoth's breath came out in a great gout of orange flame -- the fires consuming the city all suddenly made sense, Bart's panic dive rolled him beneath the hungry tongues of fire, blackening his surcoat at the edges, sweat beading all over him from the intense heat as he rolled on his back, throat hoarse with his screaming.

"RASHID!"

Eyes wide, he heard Naima scream somewhere as the onrushing wall of flame engulfed her husband, Bart was forced back again, the intense heat far too much, having to squint against the glare.

Then deep within the conflagration, he heard what sounded like a great exhalation, as if a giant had blown its breath out through its nose, and without warning the knight-brother was blasted again by a buffet of air so brief, and yet so focused and powerful he hissed against the sting of windburn across his exposed cheeks.

The flames blew apart, forced outward, and then snuffed by the impossible gust. There in the center, immaculate but for soot and sweat, was Rashid. Blowing the rest of his massive lungful of air out through clenched teeth beneath his prodigious mustache, he stood still the firm, fingers raised, blade poised. Unmoved.

"Blood of God!" Bart cried in hoarse wonder, gaining his feet. Unable to tear his eyes from the spectacle.

The monster laughed again, clashing its gore-caked blades together in horrific applause.

"Ho, ho ho, yeeesss Bluecloth. The elementaaals annnswer us boooth." it boomed, the portcullis bars now glowing white-orange, peeling away from the frame as the monster simply... walked through them. Its immense bulk filled out the entire entryway, shoulder to fat, powerful shoulder it blotted out the far light, pushing through the molten metal as Bart would have a curtain of beads, swatting its remnants to one side casually in a shower of sparks and molten steel that fell around Rashid like rain, and he remained still unmoving.

"No, an abomination. They answer me, they writhe against you. Efreeti howls its anger through your gullet, even the deaf can hear it." Rashid snapped back, his tone harsh. Strict. Unyielding. The behemoth laughed again, spreading its arms in a hideous mockery of camaraderie.

"Brotheeerrr mine, we arrre kin of soooul and purrrpossse. Join with meee as family, and we will togetherrr devourrr these pettyyy morrrtals annnd ascennnd!" it raised its arms, clashing its blades above its head in exultation, showering itself in the caked-on gore and viscera as it did. Rashid raised one foot with absolute purpose and set it down, shifting his stance from the resolute, meditative posture to one of readiness, shield between his body, blade raised at high guard above his head.

"I deny you, abomination. I deny you in the Name of God. I deny you in the Name of Love. I deny you in the name of Justice." he said, raising his voice, spitting the words with blistering intent and it was again, resolute and powerful, a thunderstroke of sound. "Three times I deny you, monster! Three times and done!"

The monster tilted its head, its focus still locked to Rashid, behind him Bart heard the whinny of horses and the clatter of carts, as he'd stood transfixed, half-ready to charge, Viconia's men had wrangled the wagons and started taking off at a sprint, the grotesque monster raising its head to watch, displeasure evident on its face.

"Yoouuu deny meee, Humbaba the Everrr-Livinnng? God-Generrral of the Motherrr of Aaalll?!" it roared in what felt like genuine outrage, stepping forward, its mass so great its footsteps quaked the earth beneath it. "My mooouuuth is death, my breath is fiiirre, those whooo staaand against meee are meat annnd booone for the Grrreaaat Taaaable." it hissed and spread its arms wide again, this time pointing a blade behind it to the gates beyond.

"Eeeven nowww yourrr kin accept myyy grrrace." it rumbled, and behind him, Bart saw a new horror; amongst the hooting forms of the ghuls and their emaciated plague-stricken masters, were new, vital shapes -- the clothing of nobles and commoners alike cavorted and exulted, their eyes wide and staring, full of madness, gobbets of fresh flesh and gore smearing their faces. Bart's blood went cold, god above -- the townsfolk weren't all being killed, they were being dragged away, enthralled, converted...

"You taint the innocent with your mere presence, monster," Rashid shouted, his voice a clarion of purity. He set his jaw, extending his shield hand; "Yet more sins you will answer for."

"Ho, ho, ho... I will saaaavor your booones, Bluecloth." the beast named Humbaba rumbled, drawing itself up, brutal weapons at the ready as it began to lumber forward, the shuddering impacts of its feet like a living landslide; "Youuur kind alllways has the sweeetest crunnnch...."

The swing came down with such force that its blade did not whistle through the air as much as roar, the massive blade so thick and heavy that it was more a slab of iron with an edge than anything he could call a proper weapon. Bart cried out wordlessly, clapping down his helmet's visor and taking his axe in both hands, he cared not for the danger, cared not for his life -- his friend was in peril -- he had to act. But he... could not. His feet felt like lead, he felt... slow, heavy, like he was pumping his feet through thick, sucking mud. Why? Why couldn't he cover the distance? Hopelessness crushed him down, and cold fear crept into his heart as he looked upon the monster's grinning face -- sucking the strength from his limbs. He wasn't fast enough, wasn't strong enough -- he couldn't save him, couldn't save anyone. The blade fell, and Bart screamed in outrage, fear, and anguish as Rashid did not move to evade the behemoth's crushing stroke.

There was another sharp intake of breath, and Rashid instead raised one foot, blade raised high and leading -- he stamped down with superhuman force, a blast of air buffeting Bart's surcoat as he struggled to push through the preternaturally thick air, and with a great, throaty war cry -- he instead met the monster's blade with his own, reinforced with the leverage of his shield.

The sound itself was a physical force, the clash of rotting iron on steel like someone ringing a great misshapen bell with one's own head. Bart blinked away tears, his vision stinging with blown air and dust, expecting to see Rashid a crumpled, broken figure, another messy victim of this horror.

Rashid instead, stood firm. Blade out, crosspiece locked firmly against the monster's assault, Humbaba's already bulging eyes perfectly round with outrage, shock, and disbelief. Rashid's entire body was a single, taut edifice of power -- his skin seemed hard as stone, muscles as unyielding as steel -- the ground itself had actually given beneath him absorbing the sheer force of that blow. And yet he stood, teeth set, eyes two blazing points of impossible golden radiance.

"Foul Monster, your stolen strength will avail you not." He thundered, not a roar, not a yell -- his voice merely cut the air with presence, authority, and outrageous strength he did not just endure the assault, but pushed the great monster back, advancing a step still holding that shuddering blade above him.

"Immmposssible!" Humbaba roared, and brought his blades to bear again, and again came the draw of air, the stamping force, and the clash of steel. Rashid met the monster blow for blow as if he were carved from stone. Unyielding and unshakable. The feat beggared belief and even the other men behind him could not stay silent: cries of disbelief and fear coming from the remaining soldiers, the wounded rapidly tracking out under the cavalier's guard, Viconia herself staying beyond, one good eye wide with complete shock at the display.

"No reason, conviction, nor rationale!" Rashid bellowed, increasing the pace of the exchange, the din of their blades was nigh painful to the ears, and the great monster moved with an impossible speed, its fatty limbs whipping through the air with the power and alacrity of a great hunting cat or raging bull rather than a lumbering slab of lard -- and yet Rashid pressed it, hammering at it with increasing ferocity until finally, the advantage was fully his and the blade darted forwards. A shower of sparks rained from its edge as he scoured a hit across the beast's crude mail. "You were defeated before you even drew steel, monster -- for the Power of God shall not be denied!"

Bart found himself suddenly lighter, Rashid's voice was like a beacon, he held onto it and found the crippling pall lifting, his limbs felt lighter, and his feet no long stayed their steps. Around him he saw that similar weight had stayed his allies, Lidia and Kull both shaking themselves, pale with the exertions, steel returning to their eyes. He caught their gazes, lifting his axe and the two nodded, grinning.

Rashid's prowess was without equal, yet the beast called Humbaba would not be denied its say; another inner ear shaking bellow emerged from it, its maw gaping open wide, too wide, revealing the cavernous passage to its gullet -- and the sight was a horror unto itself. Beyond the too-wide jaw, beyond the knife-like teeth and tusks, as its maw yawned open -- embedded throughout the meat of its throat were screaming, moaning, distorted faces, pressing put through the flesh as if they tried to escape, tiny misshapen arms reaching up piteously, jealously, to claw at the air. The monster renewed its assault, its body seeming to swell and surge -- literal steam rising from it where the rain pattered on its exposed skin as it clapped its blades together with a resounding clang and began swinging them with great double-fisted blows, and even Rashid's immaculate poise was forced to give ground, deflecting and rolling his body with preternatural fluidity -- each strike causing the monster's blows to land astray and dig massive furrows along the cobblestones, or casually obliterate a section of wall with the sheer mass being thrown forwards.

"Littllle Bluuuuecloth dances wellll!" It bellowed, laughter echoing off the stones as their impromptu duel continued. Humbaba drew in another great breath, Bart and the others exchanged sudden panicked glances, and everyone dove for cover as the monster gave another searing vomit of flame. The beast swept it across the paddock, chasing Rashid with it as the warrior danced to the side with a speed and nimbleness that belied the burly man's great size, pushing under the arc of fire and pressing his counter-attack with a blistering combination of slashes that scoured and gouged at the beast's armor -- Rashid's aim was pinpoint, worrying at the same places over and over again, digging and chopping at the crude, heavy scale armor.

Humbaba roared its defiance, raising a massive heel and slamming down a stomp mere inches from where Rashid had been moments before, the Warrior of God evading the crushing impact by scant seconds. The follow-up double chop of the massive cleavers rained down to either side of him -- Rashid impossibly threading the needle between the two blows by standing straight and true, blade held vertical and shield close to his body before springing forward in another lunge, Hooking the curved tip of his talwar beneath the patch of scales he'd been harrying, shifting his grip and dropping his weight in a graceful motion -- the sheer leverage applied sent a single hand-sized scale flying off the monster's hauberk with a tinny PING of ringing metal.

Bart took his moment, that singing of steel as good as a clarion horn of the angels themselves, demanding he pay attention. Snatching up a discarded lance, he stormed forwards; his muscles screamed with fatigue and his joints ached but he pressed on, the bare patch in the creature's armor the only thing he could see. He called out wordlessly to Rashid, who seemed to understand immediately; those golden-glowing eyes alight with purpose. Bart leapt, lance held high, halfway there Rashid met him, half crouched, offering his back as Bart's massive weight landed on it -- that sucking of breath again and his body was once more, as if it were granite, up he thrust himself -- catapulting Bart forward. With a roar of defiance, the big knight-brother heaved his arm forwards.

The sound of the lance's broad leaf-bladed tip punching through the gap in the monster's armor was loud as the explosion earlier had been, a tinny crack of new, modern steel defeating ancient iron, leather and the flesh beneath, driving deep into the behemoth's chest, seeking a vital organ. Humbaba bellowed again, in pain and surprise -- but more in outrage than agony, staggering back and falling half to one knee at the sheer weight of the thrust, the spear vibrating to and fro where it lay buried in its chest, Bart falling gracelessly to the ground, rolling heavily with the impact.

Another roar caught the ears, and this time Kull surprised everyone with his speed, lumbering forward with an unexpected burst of alacrity, in an adrenaline-fueled rush the rain-soaked thief charged ahead. His great mallet held low, skidding to a half-stop near Rashid, the fat thief's meaty arms swung -- not at the monster -- but instead the worker's tool lashed out at full extension overhand, both feet planted, back straight -- at the lance.

The maul's wooden head slammed home, square and true -- and for a moment Bart saw how Kull had developed those muscles, the blow so solid and square that it would have done many a generational quarry worker proud. The butt of the lance shuddered as the shock of the mallet drove it into Humbaba's cavernous torso like a sledge driving a spike, the blow driving the abomination back on its knee again with a sudden bark of agony so loud both Bart and Kull flinched away in pain.

Humbaba regained its feet at a stagger, a gush of gore splattered from its too-wide mouth, flowing down its wiry beard, Kull's hammer strike had clearly driven the lance's point somewhere vital, enough so that the behemoth's bulging eyes turned on the fat guildmaster -- who to his credit grinned with mad-eyed mania and cheekily barked a challenge at the monster:

"Well come on then! You were crowing for all the world a moment ago! Can't kill one fat old man? The Hollow Cunt's gotten soft in her recruiting!" the fat man jeered, even going so far as to raise one hand in an obscene gesture as if to rub a little salt directly into the wound. The behemoth rose to the goading with a sneer that was made of knives and hate, stamping one of its misshapen feet and sucking in another deep breath, at this point the trick was well known, and all three men dove for cover; Kull doing so wide-eyed but laughing raucously all the while -- yet the flame never had a chance to gush forth.

"'AVE A DRINK ON ME YE FOOKIN' FATASS!"

As the horror's mouth gaped wide, its nightmare gullet so full of the faces of the damned glowing orange with the balefire it was about to breathe, another object sailed through the air, a small, round device -- trailing a line of smoke behind it. It thunked firmly into the back of Humbaba's throat, snapping its head back with a sudden choking gag as it smacked its gangling uvula like the dangling target at a carnival game.

Then, quite without warning -- the creature's face exploded.

The detonation rushed out between its jagged teeth and blew smoke and ash through its nostrils, the fire dying in its belly, sending the great gut gurgling and jiggling as the monster howled and moaned, clutching at its scorched face, one of its massive weapons falling to the ground with a gruesome clatter as its mustache and beard singed. Bart, Rashid, and Kull all snapped their head around to the missile's source.

Lidia stood there, wet and smudged in mud and gore, holding a sparking firestick in one hand, and a round, clay urn with a fuse in another; Naima stood nearby with several more of the miniature bombs, her face a mask of feminine fury.

"Get away from my husband you filth!" she shouted, and on cue, Lidia touched the sparking rod to the fuse and wound up another artful pitch. The explosive this time caught the beast across the collarbone, bouncing once and air-bursting directly in its face, shards of pottery and what looked like scraps of steel packed inside of the explosive shredding Humbaba's face with a hundred ragged gashes, dragging more howls from the unstable beast. Bart snapped a look over at Rashid, who still alight with energy, could only grin.

"Alchemists!" he barked by way of explanation, and Kull howled with laughter.

"Innnsolennnnt pesssts..." The abomination rumbled, reaching up a massive paw-like hand and swiping the shrapnel from its face, to Bart's eyes he could see the wounds already closing. He grit his teeth as he watched the monster regain its feet and its weapon, quaking like a great slab of rendered lard in a roaring bellow that shook the air and caused him to recoil in pain from the sheer force of the sound. Ears ringing, the big knight-brother took his axe in both hands.

"I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU MONSTERS!" he roared back, the rain pattering off his armor in a low din, above them thunder rumbled, and lightning crashed. Humbaba's massive face turned, its entire body shifting to face Bart's defiant form.

"Liiitle Manlinggg is bold...." The monster rumbled, dragging its weapons across each other, the edges making a hideous shriek of iron on iron. Bart spared it no more words, his eyes flicking about frantically, quickly taking stock of the paddock around the abomination, his friend's positions -- all at once the years of training coalesced into an almost second sight, instinct and observation crystallized as one -- in that moment he understood a thousand lessons.

_'Keep your eyes open and your blade up.' _Bowen's constant mantra came to his mind unbidden, the smiling swordmaster's easy grace a constant goal to strive to. His eyes were open, he saw his allies moving in concert with each other, he caught a gleam of metal above Humbaba's bulk, his gaze finding the two no-necked toughs had ascended the wall and were on the parapets above... where the catapults were.

_'To lead men is to be an example in all things, to ask of them nothing you would not do yourself.' _ Lord Protector Baratus' teachings this time, he knew what to do, his eyes flicked back to Lidia and at once she met his gaze and nodded -- she understood.

The abomination had turned its ire upon Bart, clearly seeing him as an easier target as it bellowed again, its skin once more turning a horrifically blood-flushed red hue. Steam rose from it as it barreled towards Bart's position with alarming alacrity, the Knight-Brother almost missing his mark as the beast bore down on him with earth-shaking strides. The monstrosity could not truly run -- its legs were too short, its mass too great -- but the force which it drove itself along propelled it with impossible speed. Bart found himself screaming as well -- a deep, throaty war cry from within his guts. His mind rebelled against the cold creeping paralysis that accompanied the creature's bellow, it would not stop him twice. He fought through, body low as he broke into a hard sprint, axe held high as the monster parted its jaws in a savage, cannibal grin. The first strike came so fast that Bart screamed in pure reflex, lunging suddenly to his right as the massive cleaver tore into the ground with such force that the mass of the blade buffeted him with a gust of air and sharp chunks of cobblestone and sheared fragments of the gory blade battered his armor with hammering force -- he missed two steps, going down to one knee and scrabbling hard to maintain his forward momentum, the behemoth's other blade raised.

"ANOTHA' ROUND FOR YE FOOKER." Lidia's voice split the air like a trumpet, and a series of explosions rained on the monster's face again, to Bart's left the lithe thief had run in, an armload of bombs slung in rapid succession -- giving Bart the opening he needed.

"RASHID!" he bellowed and ran straight for Humbaba's gross, overhanging gut -- the golden-eyed Warrior snapped to attention, following his call with preternatural swiftness. Bart brought his axe high, the ground was wet with churned-up earth and rain-slicked mud and gore, The abomination roared at him, its throat glowing orange again as Bart swung down at the monster's ponderous belly -- but skewed the blow to one side. The flames roared past his head as his axe found purchase, not in flesh -- but leather. He hooked the blade into the thick, rotting strap of the girdle plate protecting the writhing bulk, and with a great yell threw himself into a foot-first slide, the gore, mud, and rainwater slickening his passage. His own not-inconsiderable weight dragged the axe's hardened inner curve through the leather strap with a great tearing sound as he slid smoothly between the beast's tree trunk-like legs, coming out the other side in a tumbling heap as the tension of the belt snapped with a loud CRACK.

"Youuu DAAARE?!" Humbaba bellowed as the great plate protecting its rolling gut clanged to the cobbles in a tangle of cable, exposing a great tract of misshapen, scarred too-soft flesh as the beast whirled around in a frothing fury. Rashid was there in an instant, the Mantle he had drawn upon to lend swiftness to his feet as surely as it had might to his arms. His blade flashed like a striking snake, digging deep into the putty-like flesh of the now-exposed belly. The burly warrior gave a great yell as every ounce of his strength and weight went into that cut, dragging in an obtuse, gory crescent along the monstrosity's pelvis. Humbaba roared in surprise and agony, the sound a barking honk of sheer, unfamiliar pain as its insides opened up in a flood of gore and viscera, disgorging its guts into a welter of steaming meat and half-digested, all-too-recognizable parts of men and beasts. The monster was stunned, moaning, howling in confusion and pain it had never known as it uselessly tried to scoop its insides back in. Bart flailed his way to his feet, dragging his axe from the rain-soaked stones, his head snapped up sharply.

"KULL!" he barked, and with a quick two-step to gather momentum, he slammed the blade of his axe into the back of Humbaba's knee, the single-bitted weapon biting deep into the monster's flesh, causing it to belt out another bark of surprise and pain. It wasn't deep enough yet, and out of pure, brutal efficiency instead of swinging again -- Bart raised his heavy hobnailed boot and smashed his heel into the weapon's haft just below the head -- driving the entire blade through the creature's tendons, flesh, and bone, blowing its kneecap out the front of the trunk-like leg. All but severing it at the joint, and causing the monster to list and crumple dangerously as it howled and swung a frantic smash of its weapon at Bart, forcing him to abandon his axe as he threw himself clear of the chopping impact.

"HAVE ANOTHER THEN, CUR!" mad, wide-mouthed laughter accompanied the bellow, on the other side Kull raised his maul, and with the same oft-practiced precision, he swung it at the side of Humbaba's opposite knee. The crunch of bone was loud as a thunderstroke in the downpour as the monster's leg suddenly shuddered, Kull reeling back for another blow as if it were nothing more than a stubborn peg; roaring open-mouthed and wide-eyed with fervor: "DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!"

The mallet crunched home again, and the creature's bulk did the rest, its leg suddenly twisted and folded at a hideous right angle, the monster's weight crushing its ruined leg into a quivering sack of meat and bone as the great General of the Empty Queen's army fell backward, arms flailing for purchase as it landed with an impact so great it threw Kull and Bart to the ground with the sheer shocking force, the collision digging a crater in the cobblestones.

"NOW!" Bart roared from the ground, throwing his fist up at the two toughs on the wall, but he needed not, as the two rogues knew their business well. Down tumbled casks of naphtha and pitch, split and spewing their flammable content as they shattered and fell across the flailing, howling beast; sticky tar and peaty fuel mixing into a glue-like substance that was the bane of sieges worldwide, Bart looked around for Lidia, he needed a flame.

He was given something far, far better.

"SIKHA, I CALL UPON OUR PACT MADE IN BLOOD AND FAITH!" Naima's voice was a bell tolling the end, she stood upon an overturned cart, a small coil of gold in her hands, a serpent-like bracelet he'd seen her wearing, so unassuming he'd never considered it could be more than mere decoration. Into the air she cast it, and a great burst of golden radiance blinded him a moment, spinning out of it in a graceful pirouette was a sinuous form of glittering golden scales and shining white wings. Like a powerful snake beset with four, beautiful feathered wings, its eyes blazed the same aurum hue as its scales -- full of a tremendous intellect, and just as much divine fury. It raised its face to the clouds and gave a cry somewhere between the shriek of a raptorial bird and the call of a heron.

Then, the sky answered.

There was a boiling of the clouds momentarily, and with the great spear still lodged in its chest as a pylon -- a thunderstroke ripped the air apart. Bart felt every hair on his body raise as he was forced to shield his eyes; the bolt arching down, connecting with the lance buried in the Behemoth's chest and blasting the entire paddock with light so bright that the world was nothing but white-blue radiance for a second, the echoing roar of thunder as the air itself boiled and crisped blasting him to momentary deafness. Ears ringing, he watched as the pitch and naphtha worked in concert with heaven's own wrath.

Humbaba quite simply exploded.

The rain ran red as chunks of gore and viscera were thrown so high in the air as to land on nearby rooftops and parapets, Bart, Kull, and Rashid twisting away as they were met with a bow-wave of shredded meat and bone spattering them in a hideous baptism, Bart's axe skittering to a stop beside him, perfectly intact -- if a little blackened around the head. He scooped it up, using it as a lever to stand, around him, the group stared, equally at the eviscerated monster's blasted remains as much as Naima and her glittering guardian, who'd descended to float around her in a neat coil of gold, she smiled fiercely and reached a hand out to it.

"Thank you, my dear Sikha," she said, and its serpentine face twisted in a beatific smile, no words given as it shone with inner radiance again and swirled around her arm, shrinking and coalescing back into the simple, coiled bracelet once more. Everyone stared, and Lidia finally broke the silence.

"Wot th' BLOODY 'ELL was THAT!?" she cried, still sitting flat on her arse on the ground, half her face and body coated in a sheet of red gore. Naima laughed a little and wiped her face, she'd been far enough away that much of the shower of viscera had missed her, giving Lidia a smile full of smug promise.

"Oh, that is my pact nagi, Sikha. His is my link to the Divine Realm, those potions you enjoyed were due to my expertise -- and his energies." She said, and extended her arm to show the golden, no now he knew -- Absolute Gold bracelet; "You may thank him, at your leisure."

Rashid's laughter trailed over, tired as he lay flat on the ground, he blew out a heavy breath and the golden glow faded from his eyes -- his body seemed to relax, no longer bearing the stony resilience it had during the fight. Naima went to him as Bart limped to join her, his body screaming a litany of curses at him about reopened wounds and new hurts.

"How did you do that, Rashid?" Bart asked him, and the burly man grinned tiredly, closing his eyes.

"With great difficulty," he said humbly, and Naima knelt by him, taking a small flash from her robe, tipping it to his lips with a shushing sound, she met Bart's eyes.

"Rashia is an _Akali. _An 'Immortal'. The potions and tinctures strengthen his body and its humors, but his training teaches him to use his Divine Ember as fuel for his strength, his... soul for lack of a better term." she explained, taking the small flask from his lips, the scent of a sharp, medicine tang hitting Bart's nose.

"He burns his soul for strength?" Bart asked incredulously, and the burly man grinned with closed eyes. Reaching up a hand to pat Bart's arm reassuringly.

"We all burn our souls for things, passions and hatreds both. It is not a finite flame, it will burn bright again with fuel and time... so long as you do not let it go out," he said, grinning and letting out a breath, clearly exhausted.

"He will be fine after a fashion." Naima continued; "Rest, food, and good company will speed his recovery... he spent much of himself though, never have I seen you weather such punishment, beloved." she said, her words shifting from Bart to Rashid as she touched his face, he cupped her's in return.

"It must needs been done, so it was." he said, and she gave a faint sob of mixed relief and worry.

"I told you he'd overdo it sister, Brother Bart is a terrible influence." Nazir's voice said, showing up from seemingly nowhere with the two toughs from the wall at his back and a coil of rope over one shoulder. Bart grinned and stood, moving to hug his friend -- who then pointedly stepped back, arms raised in a warding manner.

"Ah, brother mine I appreciate it... but you are a hideous orgy of disgusting viscera I do not wish to touch," he said, sniffing a little, Bart looked down... he was indeed a horror show of spent innards and blood-crusted chips of bone and sinew. Nazir sniffed delicately as Bart grinned ruefully.

"Where did you go, Nazir? I feared you lost in the conflagration." He said, looking the man over. His clothing was rumpled and wet, and tied back or rolled back from his arms and legs, he grinned a little wider.

"Well, I decided to leave the warfare up to the professionals. I am not much of a warrior, however.." he hefted a small grapnel attached to the rope about him, looking back at the two no-necked ruffians with him, both gave him a wide grin. "I am a very accomplished sport climber. Hans and Reinhold here were at a loss for a quick way to the parapets, I lent them my considerable expertise."

Bart's face split in a wide grin that showed all of his teeth, laughing at the sheer serendipity of it all. "Nazir my friend, you are a treasure."

"I am the very gem of the south, and you would do well to remember it!" the dandy crowed, joining the bigger man in laughter, even Hans and Reinhold chuckling along from their usual silent vigil. The laughter faded as Bart's head suddenly swam, and he staggered to one side, his weight going fully on the haft of his axe.

"Bart!" Nazir's voice sounded as if it was coming from the end of a great hallway, He saw more than heard the dandy waving Naima over to him. He clung stubbornly to his weapon, forcing himself erect despite the deep, all-consuming desire to lie down. Lidia's face appeared, white with worry as Naima's hands were on him.

"Blood of God, it's through the plates." Naima's voice was strident as he swayed again, He tried to take a deep breath and found it caught in his throat.

"I'm fine... just... just a little tired, it's been a long day..." he said and sank to one knee. His armor suddenly felt heavy. So very heavy, but he had to bear it. He had to get them all out. Get to safety. Get to the Lady.

"Kull, you two, help him. If he falls over he'll only make it worse!" Naima's voice echoed like he was underwater, everyone looked at him with such palpable fear.

"What is it? I'm just lightheaded that's all...oh." he trailed off as he ran his hands down his blood-soaked front. The rain had washed much of the gore and ichor clean from him... so he paused dully as his hand came up covered in fresh blood. Fresh. Warm. Flowing. Looking down he saw the problem. Sticking out of his breast just beneath his left pectoral was a long, jagged shard of metal. It'd wedged itself through the plates, pushing two apart under the insane force it'd undoubtedly been traveling with. Clearly part of Humbaba's crude weapon... when had that happened? His drunken mind thought back to the fight, to when the ogre had slammed the monstrous weapon down, he'd remembered stumbling, staggering with the force...

"Get him to lay down, I don't care how! He's bleeding out!" Naima hissed, strong hands moved him around, took his axe from him -- he fought back, groping for the weapon, no... no he needed that... he had to protect everyone...

"Damnation! This northern armor!" Naima's voice again, Bart saw the sky. Rain fell into his eyes, and he blinked it away... when had he taken off his helmet? He tried to stand, strong hands held his arms, so he struggled a bit. Lidia's voice this time found its way through the confusion.

"Like this 'ere, he showed me in th' tunnels." He felt the buckles of his armor loosen under small, nimble fingers. Breathing was hard, surely it was just the weight of the armor, it never was comfortable to lie prone in. The weight was gone and suddenly pain lanced through his chest, a flash of a blade alarmed him, and suddenly he felt cold rain on his chest.

"God's Teeth that's nasty." Kull's voice now, above him. He recognized the thick-fingered hands on his arms now, he turned his head seeing his hand out to one side, he tried to move it... why couldn't he lift his fingers? It was just a scratch, he'd taken worse than this... hadn't he? His eyes lost focus, he tried to breathe in again and found his throat full.

"Bart! Bart stay with us! Lady's Light, never a Hospitaller when you need one!" Viconia's voice now... when had she gotten here? Rough, feminine hands shook him gently, he couldn't turn his head anymore, it wouldn't answer his demands. His eyes were cast to one side... and they focused on a chunk of singed gore, no... more than that, it had shape. Form. A head. Humbaba's head. its dead eyes stared back at him... and after a moment, they slowly moved. Meeting his gaze.

"Deeeath." it rumbled... had anyone else heard it? The too-wide jaws hanging slack between words; "Deeeath comes for us togethhhaaa... I diiie. I liiiive foreverrr..." It laughed as it stared into Bart's face, broken teeth crumbling as it forced words through a dead tongue.

"Mighty werrre ye... embrace the giiiffft brotherrr... grow fat frommm its miiight... I await ye... a...non..."

Bart watched the blasted head fall still, jaw going slack, tongue collapsing down into a ravaged throat as hands worked over him... the cold was all-consuming, eating into his bones. Should he be praying? Did.. did the dying remember to pray? He couldn't reach his holy symbol.

"My... sym..." he murmured, finding the strength to clench his fingers; "Lady's... sym.." he couldn't open his eyes anymore. He needed to.

"I don't have anymore, I used them to save the soldiers at the gate!" Naima's voice was hollow as she shouted at someone, a scream of incoherent frustration the only answer. He could hear someone sobbing, he recognized it after a fashion.

"Don't... cry... Lidia... you've got a... reputation..." he murmured, grinning in spite of himself. He'd only just met the little cutpurse, and he realized then he rather liked her. He'd always wanted a little sister...

"Bart, please don't talk." It was Nazir, his voice close to his ear; "Just hold on, hold on a bit longer my brother." Bart nodded or rather bobbled his limp skull weakly and tried to open his eyes again, he couldn't pray correctly without his symbol but... the Lady would understand he hoped. The light faded out and he felt himself suddenly relax... a long exhalation escaped him, it felt good. He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath, the weight of his armor was gone, his muscles relaxed... what peace, such as he'd never felt. He felt the tiredness leech out of him as he let his body go slack. The darkness closed in like a comfortable blanket. Yes, sleep. He deserved a good, long rest.

The blackness suddenly had... presence. He felt a creeping cold clawing around him. Inside of him, he felt the now-familiar boil of black hatred, undirected and mad it gurgled and roiled in him like a trapped animal, pressing at his insides, clawing at his mind -- wordless screaming blotting out anything, disturbing his rest. In the darkness he saw the yawning, too-wide maw of an animal skull, gross, ropy black tendons stretching its horse-like jaws apart in a soundless roar -- and it lunged at his throat. He came awake with a start, a gurgle of blood, and someone gasping, touching his face. An authoritative voice barked things, the sound of sobbing abating suddenly.

"Learned One's pinions I don't give a good GODDAMN what you think is proper he's NOT dying here, not after all he did!" Naima again, and he heard a clink of metal, he couldn't open his eyes all the way but he found them lazily parting. He could see the sky again... the rain landed on his eyelids and he could not be bothered to blink them away. Anger filled him suddenly, his fingers clenched inside his gauntlets slowly, dragging across the rain-soaked ground. How dare... how DARE... how dare who? What? The rage had no outlet, no shape. It roared in his heart like black fire, eating, devouring, consuming.

"SIKHA I NEED YOU!" wailed his friend, and suddenly the world was awash in golden light. He smiled in spite of himself, the glow filled him with an oddly ethereal warmth -- the anger recoiled from the light, the blackness receding like a shadow before the dawn... and with it the strength he'd stolen from rage. His body felt too heavy again, like a nightmare fading, the darkness called him back again with its soothing infinity. He drifted back again.

"Are you sure child?" the voice... he didn't recognize it, it was warm and welcoming, he wanted to meet someone with so beautiful a voice...

"YES, YES, AND YES. THREE TIMES AND DONE!" Naima's voice was frantic, and then suddenly he heard nothing else, the sea of the infinite welcomed him once more. The respite was brief, this time it was not a horror that roused him from the darkness, but a soft voice. A voice he had never heard... but somehow knew deeper than any other.

"Come back, my love... I need you yet still."

Bart's eyes snapped open, he sucked in a breath that filled his burning lungs with the choking acrid smell of burning flesh and the fresh aroma of rainfall. The big man's muscles surged and he threw his arms away from the restraining with a roar of defiance, a sound of tumbling bodies coming from behind him as he clenched his hands into fists, slamming them into the cobblestones. He had to LIVE. The Light, The Voice in it DEMANDED NOTHING LESS.

"Bart, BART! Be at peace!" It was Naima's voice, cutting through the sudden surge of adrenaline like a clear, crystalline bell. His blown pupils focused, and he panted as he fixated on her, her hand laying on his chest. "Peace, my friend... are you returned?" she asked tentatively, the big knight-brother looked around, chest heaving, His friends were in a circle around him, Rashid leaning heavily on his sheathed sword for support -- Lidia's face an ugly, patchy red mess of tears and sorrow, eyes wide with hope. Nazir's khol smeared down his face in thick black lines with his own weeping. Kull, Hans, and Reinhold pulled themselves out of a heap, even the three men's impressive weight seemingly unable to restrain Bart's resurrected might. Viconia even stood nearby, her face grave... but her smile, however slight seemed relieved. She'd doubtlessly seen more than one dead soldier.

"I... I am fine. I am myself." he said, looking down at his hands, then his chest. The gory shard lay on the cobbles nearby, easily long as his forearm, and red with his life's blood fully half its length. His torso was intact, a new, jagged pink scar joining the dozens of minor childhood abrasions just above his solar plexus. He idly touched his crooked, nose... well his middle matched the top now. "But... how?"

His answer wasn't given in so many words, but rather he looked up. Above him, the golden serpent once more hovered, its beatific face creased with both relief and concern, Bart blinked away sudden tears as his mind struggled to encompass the creature's beauty, its glittering golden scales were wrought down to the smallest with seemingly infinitely tiny tracery, forming a greater pattern along its scales and scutes, its underbelly's plates a perfect ivory hue, unstained by reality's meager ability to grasp the concept of 'white'. Its eyes blazed golden, not merely in color -- but end-to-end perfect spheres of gleaming aurum, twin marbles of finest gold that saw him in totality -- he felt naked beneath its gaze. Four wings spread around it, two larger ones, also traced with golden veins along their pinions, every feather perfectly symmetrical, perfectly arranged.

"Your friend gave her time for yours." The beautiful creature said, its voice touched his ears but also his mind... it dawned on him that it wasn't speaking a language he understood; its jaws moved in shapes that did not match the sounds -- it spake the Truth, and thus it was Understood. The serpent turned a concerned gaze on Naima and continued; "She spent part of her life's flame to reignite yours, to heal your body and reclaim your soul. I handled the transaction, but the power was that of sacrifice." Bart shuddered, visibly shaken, he turned his eyes to the woman, his face a mask of questions.

"But... why, I am not worth such sacrifice!" he said, and Naima laughed, tears finally finding their way down her cheeks.

"Bart... I have known you a mere handful of days, and in that time I've seen you do things that put me to shame. To see a man so willing to charge death, heedless of his life, snuffed out because of a... purely random chance?" she gestured at the shard of the behemoth's cleaver. "It was an easy trade to make."

"How long?" he demanded, tears rising unbidden to his own eyes, flowing through the blood and rain spattered his face still.

"Not long... perhaps a decade, the Divine Realm is a place of symmetry, it prefers its trades in even weight. You were not long gone... besides, what is a mere decade between friends?" she said, her smile so genuine it made his heart ache.

"It would have been a hollow ten years without such a good friend in it."

Bart had no words, he'd grown up in a culture of sacrifice. He didn't understand her -- this was just what he was supposed to do. Two decades of training, belief, and devotion had made such choices automatic, he hadn't even considered what would happen to him -- only what would happen if he did not act. The big man leaned forward, wrapping the tiny southern woman in a crushing hug, the two of them breaking down into tears where words failed them, sobbing softly. Lidia threw herself around him, bawling her eyes out as well, and Nazir's arms found what space was left. A firm, calloused hand found his arm, and he knew even as spent as he was, that Rashid echoed the sentiments. There were no words for a long moment until a terse sound of a clearing throat shook the group away, Bart's head looking up to meet Viconia's bi-colored gaze.

"I hate to be a burden in such a moment, truly -- but when the behemoth died, the forces beyond the wall went berserk, if you wish to still make it through their lines, we do not have time to waste," she said. Bart twisted around to peer through the smoke and haze past the shattered gates -- indeed, the monsters beyond were scattered and sparse now, bodies lay rent apart by main force, limbs and torsos scattered like dry twigs in heaps and piles, perhaps Humbaba had somehow kept their bloodlusts in check and his death... no, he knew somehow the monster was not truly dead, rather its removal from the board had sent them into a maddened rage? Bart nodded nonetheless, disengaging from his friends.

"Yes, we have to move." He agreed, the angelic being above him watched a moment longer, staring at him... at his chest, no... his heart. It watched a bit longer, head tilting as if concerned and then it smiled.

"I will take my leave once more, it is an auspicious day -- rarely do I both banish a Cursed One on the same day I coax one back to life. Bear the gift well, Bartholomus." it said in that impossible voice, and it twirled into the sky again, bursting once more into golden streamers, and dropping into Naima's lap; again but a humble golden bracelet.

Bart rose and found his armor somewhat disheveled; his gambeson was ruined; Naima or perhaps Nazir had cut the ties that held it closed rather than the cloth itself, but there was still a blood-soaked rent in it where the metal shard had impaled him. He shuddered as he shortened the strings, thinking of how he'd fought with such an injury, feeling nothing. The armor itself was a larger issue, he had no metalworking experience, and beneath the outer layer two of the overlapping plates had been forced apart, bent out of shape, he managed to mash them semi-flat again with the hilt of his poniard, enough to close the Brigadine coat flush to his body again, but that would be a weak spot until those plates were replaced. Something to be mindful of.

Around him, Viconia and Kull's men had been hard at work, gathering both his horse and much of Naima's caravan, and the men as well; Salim's face met his in the crowd, and he smiled joyously to see Bart on his feet. Bart could only smile in return as a great weariness settled over him, Naima drew him aside.

"You should rest, Bart. There is space in my wagon, the Commander says that the road north is secure for now," she said, and Bart pulled away, protesting.

"Ser, you are expected to give an example." Viconia barked stridently, standing straight and firm behind him. Bart gave a start -- how did she do that, and in plate armor no less?! She continued, nonplussed: "I have assembled cavaliers and scouts to track the horde's movements, they will escort you beyond its grasp as they do -- a man of your rank should be aware of the example he sets with all of his actions." she said, eyes narrowing at him with almost motherly intensity. Bart raised his hands in defeat, the two iron-blooded women before him would not be assuaged with mere words.

"Very well, I know when I am beaten. I will rest in the cart."

"Ah'm comin' wit' you," Lidia said, she wore a small pack over her borrowed clothing and bounced along, the rain had abated and given her short red hair a chance to dry into a raucous coxcomb of fiery tufts on her head, Bart raised an eyebrow at that and she furrowed her own in determination. "No ifs an's or buts, Ye said I owed ye a debt o' service and I intend tae pay it back in full. Kull's already signed off onnit tae boot," she said, thrusting her chin in the air.

"Indeed I have my boy." Kull said, walking over with a slightly limp, leaning on the familiar cane again; the fat thief was scoured with a thousand cuts and abrasions, but his eyes gleamed with the familiar fire nonetheless; "Consider it protection of my interests, I trust your Order to do things righteously and with noble intent -- but you are oft-times quite impractical, Lidia here will be my eyes and ears in this matter." he said, grinning wide with every tooth in his head on display. There was a pause, and Kull reached into his stained doublet -- and withdrew a familiar, red bundle of cloth.

"You'll need this, girl. The rain and all." the fat thief said, pushing it into Lidia's hands. The little thief's eyes grew wide as she pulled her familiar hood to her chest, smiling at the old thief -- and giving him a kiss on the cheek. Kull smiled warmly.

"What of you? Lachheim is still under siege, this is but a brief respite." Bart argued to the portly rogue, who laughed, full-mouthed and slapping his paunch as it jiggled with the chortling.

"My boy I was raised here and God willing I will die here, this is MY city. My place is here, if it burns I will be the last ash on the pile." he said, raising his cane in a military salute; "You can take that to your Lady as truth."

"I never believed I'd agree with a thief, murderer, and smuggler -- however, Kull is right. Lachheim may be lost, but we will fight for it. It is our home." she said, her eyes glancing back towards the keep -- where her husband undoubtedly waited. "I will die for my home, I swore an Oath of Gold, and I will keep it. Body and soul." she clashed her gauntlet on her breastplate at Bart, who returned the gesture... albeit more gently, his wound had healed -- but he found it was still quite tender.

"I will return with all reasonable haste, and we will rout these abominations out, root and branch," he said, reaching out his hand, gauntlets gone -- it was but his bare flesh. Kull looked down at it a moment, seeming surprised, but his grin returned, wider and more fierce than before. He grasped the younger man's hand in a firm clasp.

"Aye lad, we will. Count on it!"

~ ~ ~

"I can't convince you to go back to the Abbey then?" Bart asked, sitting astride the low cot in the wagon, gently rocking back and forth as Naima's workers loaded it. Nazir stood nearby, sleeves still rolled up, sorting and storing the supplies they'd taken in. The lull in the battle had turned into a near accidental armistice, the creatures roamed outside the walls but seemed erratic and scattered, Viconia sending runners and maintaining her lines of intelligence told them that coordinated assaults from her men to the west and east had drawn off much of the horde into the city's walls, leaving only a loose scattered gang of monsters and cursed men seeming to roam listlessly through the burning countryside beyond the Northern Gate. The rain hadn't brought enough to truly douse the dry fields, and still, they smoldered and burned -- it would be a lean year if not outright famine in these parts.

"Not a chance, brother Bart," Nazir said firmly, an uncharacteristic note of steel in his tone -- or perhaps he had it backwards, he'd only really known the slight man in times of joy and excess, perhaps this steely-eyed rapier of a man was the truth of his friend. If anything, he liked him the more for it.

"I can make it myself, Lidia knows how to drive a cart. Naima even said I should be on my feet in a day or two, fighting in three." he ventured, and the dark-skinned man paused, his mustache bristling with indignation at the suggestion.

"First of all, my friend. My brother -- if I were to suggest even the mere hint to my sister that we were to stay behind, she'd box my ears clean through the sides of my head," he responded, his tone still firm. "I like my ears, Brother Bart. They are where I keep my favorite jewelry." Bart couldn't contain his laughter at that, and the dandy continued.

"Furthermore, I would not live with myself. To run and hide? I may not be a warrior but I am a son of Al-Reza! The blood of The Learned One flows in my veins, our history is one of us against the very earth and stones itself. To endure is our lives -- my life, Bart." he said with something approaching religious fervor -- in a way, it was he supposed. The dandy set another small box in place, unloading its contents -- bottles and reagents Naima had requested before the burning of the city. "No Bart, this is greater than I. The Empty Queen has not been so daring in a generation, and I will not sit idly by while you, great hero you may be -- do it all alone."

"You are more friend than I deserve for a few days' company," Bart admitted honestly, and Nazir laughed at him.

"I am at that, but so blessed are those who cross my gilded path." he said with his more customary bravado, he looked around and met Bart's eyes, his amber gaze serious; "In truth Bart, you will not find a one of us who thinks different. Even the workmen volunteered for this journey each to a man -- Young Salim first in line. You are blind to your charisma." it was Bart's turn to laugh, shaking his head as he rested his arms on his knees.

"Dear Nazir, what charisma? I am a lumbering brick of a man, too dense and too stubborn to quit. I can't even die properly." he lamented, truly... if he'd simply ignored one little pickpocket, he'd be here and gone from this place almost a full day before... and every single soul he'd met in this town would be dead, Nazir and his kin as well. Too stubborn by half. Nazir smiled at him.

"It is that which I like about you," he said, clapping his friend on the knee and sorting the last of the bottles. A shout from the side caught Nazir's attention, and he nodded to the big knight-brother before moving off -- work to do. Bart was left alone, the renewed patter of rain on the roof of the wagon lulling his mind inwards, to the fleeting memories of his... death, he supposed. A shiver coursed through him, he touched his chest -- his armor was packed away in a neat satchel by his feet, wearing instead one of Rashid's odd long-hemmed shirts, too wide across the middle, and snug in the shoulders it nonetheless felt comfortable.

Come back, my love... I need you yet still.

He turned the words over in his mind, shaking as another bout of weakness took him, steadying himself on the edge of the cot. The voice was so familiar, as if he'd always known it... but he could not think of where he'd heard it, what had drawn him from the brink? It was not Sikha, the Nagai spirit's voice was heartrendingly beautiful but also undeniably male. He lingered on it a moment, eyes straying to his effects -- seeing the tiny tome peeking out of the mess that was his purse. He plucked it from the tangle, looking down at it idly.

"Hey." came from his side, Lidia sat perched on the edge of the wagon. He hadn't even heard her approach. He met her eyes with a smile that came easier, he did remember her being in his thoughts in those seemingly; final moments.

"Hello, Lidia," he responded, she settled back against the doorway of the wagon, still wearing her borrowed gambeson and boots except she'd added her familiar red hood over it, wrapped around her shoulders and neck in a bright contrast to the military hues, he found the attire worked well for her. She had a warrior's heart, he thought that had things been different -- she would have made an excellent member of the Abbey.

"You doin' ok? I saw... y'know, all o' it," she asked in a small voice, avoiding his eyes, her own's inhuman green gleam had become a sign of comfort for the warrior, no longer were they a sign of otherness -- but a friend in the dark.

"I think so. I'm weak as a newborn kitten, I can't even grip my axe properly." he lamented, looking at his calloused hands; "If I stand too long, my head swims. I can't do much but sit up straight."

"Well, ye were dead," she said laconically, getting a snort from the big man. She spun herself around, crossing her legs in front of her, planting her gloved hands on her knees. "W...what was it like... if... iffin' ye don't mind...?"

Bart felt a shock of cold hit him, but he closed his eyes, running his hand under his breastbone where the new, ropy scar stood out even through the shirt's cloth. "It was peaceful. I remember something... pulling me along into the darkness, I was not afraid. I just remember... warmth. Contentment." he said, shivering at the memory. The young woman nodded, gathering he knees up to her chest, her nervous energy making her unable to sit still. Gleaming green eyes stared at him.

"I'm glad ye made it. Ye're... not what I expected." she said with a naked sort of honesty in her voice, a raw edge that got his attention, his hands closing over his tiny book again. "Ye're... ye're not like the stories, not all big words wit' th' glowin' sword an' the mighty steed. Ye're... a lot like me Dad." she said after a pause, her voice shaky.

"Tell me about him," Bart said without thinking, his attention all on the girl, who at once... seemed so small, tiny, and frail. Not the whip-quick, steely blade of a woman who'd shown her grit in the tunnels beneath. An orphan girl, alone in the world.

"He was... 'is name was Lachlan. He was a woodcutter, big man. Like ye. Quiet, strong. 'Ands like big, gnarled oak roots." she said, eyes distant in long-held memories, her fingers twitching around hands she could not hold anymore. "Those 'ands o' his felt like they were mightier than all o' the knights in the kingdom, big enough tae wrap 'round a sapling in one go but... gentle, he was always so gentle tae me."

"Sounds like my father." Bart mused, looking down at the book in his hands. Memories of the iron-hard old miller flooded through his mind, he hoped he was safe. How far had the Queen's monsters gone?

"What's th' dad o' the great Bartholomus the Arse-Smasher like?" she asked, hiding her moment of vulnerability behind a toothy grin; "A great beefy wall o' man, a retired soldier o' god?"

"No." Bart said with a wistful chuckle; "Just a miller. Always was. Also he's shorter than I am." he said, looking her over; "About your height really." this got a speechless, surprised expression from the young woman, Bart grinning.

"No way, ye're pullin' me chain." she teased, Bart raised his hand over his heart.

"Swear upon the Lady's light." he replied honestly, "He's two of you wide though, shoulders like millstones and a jaw like an anvil... but I remember my father's smile most. He doesn't smile often, but he saves it for mother and I." he mused, watching Lidia's own gaze go distant again.

"Da used tae smile a lot. He 'ahd this deep voice, like thunder way off far away. He would sing a song tae me when I could nae sleep. I ne'er understood it, he didn't either... said mum sang it for me when I was a babe." she said, and he saw the walls go up behind her eyes at that, he didn't press -- if anything he felt blessed that she shared so very much with him already.

"Ye gonna add anything tae th' wee little book?" she asked, shifting away from herself. Bart accepted her redirect, he looked down at the tome.

"I don't know. It seems early yet to put anything in here, what have I done worth recording?" he asked quietly, truthfully... he performed his duty, was that of note? Was it presumptuous to write in this family record so soon in his journey?

"Ah think ye's savin' o' a hunnerd or more people, slayin' two big-arse monsters, an' returnin' from the dead is mighty worth recordin'... but ye're too humble for that," she said, and fished in a far cabinet, pulling out a pen and ink set. He didn't ask how she knew it was there.

"Jus' write what ye are. 'Tis a start, innit?" she said, sitting back and resting her head against the wagon's wall, closing her eyes. Outside there were calls from the cavaliers. The cart shuddered, they were moving out. He heard the charge of hoof and the clash of blades far ahead as the first thundering rush cleared off the stragglers from the monstrosities beyond, putting that outside of his mind -- he looked down at the tome and its blank page. He opened the kit -- it was compact and well cared for. Daubing a bit of ink onto the quill, he considered the page. It struck him that Lidia was right, the cunning viewpoint of an outsider cutting him to the quick. With a firm hand, he reached down and wrote:

My name is Bartholomus Mueller, and I am a soldier.