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Chapter XVIII - In the Firelight

Royval plowed into an unwary fur from behind, ducking low to hit him in the middle of the back and smash him away from the alley entrance with hardly a sound, as his sword had run through the unwary feline and destroyed its ability to yell out. As it lay dying, he continued his headlong rush, hacking a second peasant rebel from hip to shoulder with a brutal upward slice that sent the dying creature spinning to the blood-splattered cobbles.

To his left, down the main thoroughfare, a massive riot was oncoming, roaring like a wall of fire in a windstorm, the night picked out in shades of flame by a thousand torches and the reflective eyes of the furs carrying them. Before him, the Royal Guard were engaged in a furious pitched melee with the black-cloaked City Watch, a brutal fight with dozens already dead and no sign of lines or a clear victor.

Royval roared with all the power of his life-long obsession with physical perfection, and plunged into the fight, swiping his longsword across a rabbit's throat, then running it through the back of a stag so hard it scraped the shield of the Royal Guard that had been facing the creature.

He twisted the sword and ripped it free, sending the dead creature flopping bonelessly to the pavers as he wheeled right and intercepted a brutal overhead chop with a two-pawed sword, directing it away from his body into the stones. On its other side, a roaring cougar heaved, its unbelievable strength allowing it to yank the sword up again before Royval could run him through, parrying the tiger's thrust and bringing the butt of his great sword up, forcing the tiger lord to backpedal and avoid having his jaw smashed apart.

From his left, a mace roared through the air, and Royval fast-stepped to the right, disappointed the fur wielding it didn't stumble forward to die. Instead, the heavyset wolf advanced only a pace, his heavy shield up to guard against a riposte. Royval frowned and swung a hard back-paw strike to his right, cleaving a third fur planning to help encircle him through the forehead, spilling his brains through the air.

This was no fight for an unarmored warrior, no matter how skilled, and he knew it. Nonetheless, victory, he was certain, would be his only chance to survive. He snarled out in challenge, and hurled himself against the greatsword-wielding, roaring mountain lion, ducking a two-pawed swipe that would have cut him in half at the chest before managing only a shallow slice across the hip as the burly cat twisted from his own swing.

The mace-swinging wolf came in fast on his heels, trying to give his compatriot a chance to recover, and Royval twisted awkwardly to intercept, unable to properly maneuver in the pitched melee and not armored enough to use his normal tactics. The mace came down, and he parried it with his sword, a dissonant clanking greeting him as his blade chipped, a sliver of metal flipping away from it into the mob.

Royval snarled and grabbed the haft of the mace with his free left paw as it reached the end of its arc, and yanked the heavyset wolf forward as he smashed the pommel of his sword sideways over the mace-fur's shield and bashed him hard just above the eye. As the wolf sagged unconscious to the stones, the tiger lord kicked him away, and ducked aside of a potent sword-swing from the mountain lion that left him backpedaling to avoid the inevitable up-swipe second part of such a combination.

The fugue of battle had overtaken him a moment, and Royval realized it when he noticed the stone walls on either side of him, and the arch above his head. He stood in the wide-open gateway, both paws on his longsword, and five paces in front of him stood the raging great cat, huffing and panting, covered in gore and blood, his great sword and dirty armor slick with the viscera of his slain foes. Royval smirked at him, and let go of his pommel to wave mockingly for his foe to approach. Finally, there was nobody to his rear, and he could maneuver.

The cougar shook his head, thick headfur blustering in a sudden gust of wind, and for a moment Royval stared in confusion at his opponent's refusal. Then the lion swung his greatsword at something behind the wall's edge, and Royval roared in rage, rushing forward at an all-out run as from the stone overhead issued a furious torrent of clanks as the spiked iron portcullis plummeted.

The big cat smirked, bloody-mawed, and took a swipe with his blade that had Royval dancing backward, preventing his planned dive and roll. The portcullis slammed shut with all the finality the king of closing doors possessed. He roared in all-consuming red fury, and slammed his chipped sword into the inches-thick iron bars once, then again, screaming in impotent rage at the lion as it backed up several paces, grinning, cut a mocking bow, then turned to continue the fight. From the other side of the skirling melee, Royval saw as the peasant mob arrived, streaming in to overwhelm the Royal Guard like the incoming tide swamping stones.

Left without further options, the tiger strode back and forth before the walls, snarling in spitting fury and slashing his blade around at nothing.

"Cowards! Bastards!"

As the last of the Royal Guard fell, the city watch's remaining soldiers began trying to corral the rioters, guiding them, yelling, a chaos of movement and shouting mixed with the clean-up of remaining Royal Guard. Until a strange noise drew their attention, staring in his direction with looks of terror on their faces. Royval smirked, seeing their fear of him, though something about their sudden silence and staring struck a confusing chord deep in his mind. Then he realized it wasn't him they were looking at.

A prickling dread slid up his spine, ruffling his fur, and Royval turned away from the traitors behind the gate. Before him, the forest began not sixty steps from the base of the walls, a looming ancientness long left alone in favor of the younger, safer, easier to cut forests to the city's north. Yet his eyes didn't spend time looking at the trees. What was emerging from them in shambling clusters were what made him raise his brows and sword, as his heart lurched in his breast.

The first creature was a tiger, still wearing the remains of a shorn breastplate. Its eyes were cloudy, milky-white like a blind fur, and its paws were outstretched, the flesh stripped away in rotting green ribbons to expose the clawed bones beneath. Its maw gaped wide, snaggle-teeth exposed as it moaned out a terrible, carrying wail of the dead. Others, all around, raised their arms as if in unholy unison, their voices coming together in a horrible melody, a choir of the rotting dead.

Royval felt a pinching in his crotch, as he nearly pissed himself and his still-healing cock revolted against the possibility with a shot of pain. As the towns folk and City Watch behind him began to move, shout, suddenly fearful but with purpose, Royval Casso raised his sword and pointed it at the rotting soldier that approached.

"Traitor! Seditioner! DIE!"

His sword arced forward with all his strength, and clove straight through the tiger's upraised right arm, sending the limb flying away, elbow and all. Undeterred, the thing lunged, and Royval backpedaled, shocked that his foe hadn't fallen, wailed in fear or simply died from the sudden trauma. Screaming out something halfway between a battle cry and a squeal of terror, he grabbed the blade with both paws and swung again, this time cutting the thing in half at the waist, its rotting gore flying into the air as a dozen more surged forward to take its place.

Royval Casso was a master of combat, a true warrior despite his flaws, and the wall of flesh that came at him had none of his skill, grace, or prowess. He hacked down another, cleaving off its leg at the hip, then whirled and slashed another across the gut, spilling its rotting maggot-infested intestines. Still they came on, undeterred, the legless one crawling on the ground, the gutted one ignoring its gruesome wound entirely and making a sudden lunge Royval avoided by fast-stepping backward.

His nostrils flared, his heart pounding, as he realized the foes weren't dying, their numbers reinforced and rapidly growing as the horde began to emerge from the ancient woods. Slit eyes flicked back and forth, sensitive tigrish vision picking out hundreds, perhaps thousands, before his attention was stolen by another creature rushing at him, it's head lowered and gap-toothed maw open in a wordless groan that spoke of hunger and hatred.

Royval shifted his footpaws and brought his sword up and forward in a brutal swipe that slashed his foe's head from crown to molars, exiting its neck heralded by a spray of grey-green gore as the fiend flopped to the ground like a marionette with cut strings. The tiger blinked, looking down at the creature as its rotting brains slipped loose of the cloven skull, then turned and sliced at another, spilling its head open and sending it crashing to the ground, never to move again.

Behind him, inside the gate, someone yelled out, and broke the silence like a stone piercing a placid pond. Voices were calling, hollering, yelling for him to climb the portcullis, for someone to get him back inside. Royval couldn't comprehend it, the idea that they thought him so stupid to be fooled into surrendering himself was just insulting. Then, his eyes widened as he saw the coming press.

Swarming, a wall of grasping, claw-tipped, rotting arms, they came at him in a wave, clustered far too tightly for his swordsmanship to keep them at bay. Royval roared, refusing to be sent running to the paws of his enemies, and charged, mighty swings of his corded muscles cleaving his blade through one, two, a third, as clawing paws scrabbled at him, tearing his clothes, biting into his flesh as he screamed his rage to keep away the horror that threatened to overwhelm his mind as the dead overwhelmed his body.

The mountain lion who had trapped him outside watched from within the walls, chewing his lip as was his habit and leaning on his sword. All around him, the mob shivered like a single living being, as hundreds of eyes watched their foe slam into the greater enemy. The cougar watched him striking, smashing, smiting with his longsword, and frowned as he saw the enemy hemming him in, grabbing hold, dozens of clumsy but powerful paws clamping on and dragging the tiger beneath their flailing mass.

A final scream echoed from below the roiling mob of the undead. It ululated, hitting high pitches that made the lion flinch and cover one ear with his paw. Then the scream turned to a screech, before being cut off entirely, as a sucking tearing sound preceded a spray of blood from somewhere in the enemy's midst, and a burly tiger-striped arm hurtling end over end as two ghouls fought over it and both lost, one's head tearing free from its neck with the force of their tug of war, the other's teeth not strong enough to handle the momentum.

Others turned away, the crowd whimpering and growling. The lion watched with an impassive stare, as his deadly foe was simply torn apart by the ravening swarm. He studied their rotting faces, the patchy fur that flaked off of them as they moved, the terrible wounds that must have ended their once-lives.

He shook his head, and sighed. The tiger had been mad, and a deadly foe offering no quarter, but to watch any fur torn apart in such a way was truly terrible, and he knew by his own emotionless reaction that he'd be dreaming of this later and waking in cold sweats. If he lived through the day, he amended.

Then he noticed, with a start, that Royval's sword had killed some and not others. The ones whose heads he'd caved were dead, unmoving, ignored by their snarling, moaning companions.

"Sergeant Tully."

An aging ox shouldered his way through the quieted mob, grimacing his gap-toothed glower through the gates.

"Aye, mercenary?"

"The heads. The ones whose heads he cut. Those ones have died."

The ox squinted through the gates, and nodded, rubbing a paw over the short stubble on his chin.

"Might be you're right, mercenary. Cold. But right."

Sergeant Tully spat hard, and made a face as if his muzzle were full of a truly foul taste.

"I'm putting you in charge here at the main gate. See nobody's close enough for those things to reach in and grab, I want no casualties. I'm off to see the other gates are shut."

"Aye, sergeant. And my name's Thieren."

Brother Penitence shuffled in the dark, and Timid squeezed his eyes shut, loosening his muscles and taking a deep breath to help lessen the pain that surged from every part of his body. Most of all his joints, he mused, and managed a smirk at his own detachment. The torture hurt, and severely, as he was stretched and re-stretched, toe-claws wrenched out with pliers, given small yet painful cuts to the sensitive skin between his fingers, snout tip burnt with that damnable candle till all he could smell was char, but it was nothing he could not bear. Not when he thought of what Cel had gone through. Her skinned scalp, amputated tail, crippled knee, her sliced-up face, the cuts and bites on her breasts. The rape.

He wasn't sure how long had passed, but he was certain of at least one thing: the Cardinal wanted him alive, though for what purpose he was uncertain. What was more, the Cardinal wanted him alive and able to walk, likely to improve the show at an execution. The questions posed to him had been simple, allowing him the straightforward answers that had kept his torturer confused, uncertainty growing in the man's breast like a tumor.

"Brother Timid," the torturer's scratchy voice began again. They'd had a break, likely for the torturer to go relieve himself. "You know no one has any idea you're here. You won't be rescued. So tell us what we wish to know."

Timid shifted his hips a bit, and sighed in what came across as disappointment. At least, so he hoped. Angering the torturer might make him sloppy with his words, and give Father Tim a chance to wheedle. Or it might make him sloppy with his tools, and lead to more permanent injuries.

"I've answered every question honestly, Brother Penitence. With none of the fear that comes with lies made to save one from pain."

He heard the torturer shift back and forth from footpaw to footpaw, and one of his ears twitched at the sound of a creaking hinge and a box being opened. Trepidation chewed at Timid's chest, hoping this wasn't a sign of new torments to come. He turned his head, craning his neck to attempt spotting what was going on.

Something swooped over his vision and down, and he sucked in a breath hard just before the hard twine cinched tight, cutting off his air and sending a rush of pressure into his head that felt as if his skull would explode. Calm at first, Tim knew he was being strangled, and hoped it was just another tactic to win confessions from the innocent.

Seconds passed, and Timid forced himself to stay calm as his ears filled with rushing, and hot stinking breath as the torturer spoke to him in a whisper, as if in confidence.

"The Cardinal says he wants you to recant, publicly...I don't think you're going to, Timid. I think you enjoy being a troublemaker."

Timid started to attempt gasping, his chest spasming as his body tried to find a way around the blocking rope. He tried to kick his feet next, forgetting they were bound down, helpless, as blackness started to swirl in his vision. A strange heavy, tingling sensation was building in his limbs and groin, as he struggled, wriggling, thrashing, trying to get free for a moment of air.

The torturer smirked down at him, as Timid's vision started to narrow, brightening in the center and darkening at the outer edges, until the fur loosed something, and suddenly Tim was sucking in breath like a drowning fur, gasping at sweet air in utter terrified ignorance of the fetid moldiness he'd smelled earlier.

His urge to scream was terrible, to let vent the horrible thudding terror in his heart as he remembered being held underwater by the dead. He remembered being nearly bitten, being crushed underfoot, and the images were so strong they eclipsed his vision for a while as the torturer stood with head tilted and watched in curiosity.

Timid struggled up from the hallucinated images, clawing against them in his mind as he'd clawed at the water, until divine providence now departed had saved him. This time, it was his own will and refusal to surrender to terror that had him lifting his tired head and glaring daggers into the torturer that dared to call himself a brother monk.

Penitence grinned right back at him, with gapped teeth, and made Timid jerk as he wrapped a paw around the cat's red-purple exposed cock, giving it a squeeze as the priest stared on in shocked silence at his dripping, quivering shaft.

"The choking. It makes most males hard as a rock. Some blow their seed when they're hung. A good torturer knows how to make it happen, to amuse the crowd." The black-hooded creature spoke with relish, and a soft laughter in his throat. Timid cursed inwardly, seeing the uncertainty disappear so quickly in it.

Outwardly, he merely grit his teeth, clenched his jaw, and spat pain and revulsion-tightened words.

"And you call yourself a brother...Truly the gods have abandoned us if such as you are our shepherds!"

Timid's scorched snout blazed with hot pain as he was struck, a hard backhand flat across the face that sent pinwheels of light across his vision. The paw on his cock had stopped, and as he re-gathered himself, he felt something slip around its base, hearing a stretching of twine as it was tied tight.

He stared down at his twitching, shivering prick, and couldn't help but flush despite it all. Sex wasn't prohibited by the Finder's priesthood, but it was certainly an uncomfortable topic for the clergy, and Timid wriggled uncomfortably in his bindings at the fact he was dripping-hard in front of this rotten bastard of a priest.

As the torturer fiddled with something behind his head, Timid's eyes watched a dribble of clear liquid slip from his cock and dribble down the side, and closed his eyes in resignation. He knew what would likely come next, and wasn't about to give the torturer the satisfaction of seeing how terrified he was. As a trained chirurgeon, Timid knew that many torture victims died of blood loss when they were neutered, and tying off the organ in question first was one of the few ways to reduce the chance.

He was shaking, he realized numbly, terrified and small in the dark beneath what had been his great hope. He prayed, then, silently, that the Finder would forgive the people for the clergy's misdeeds, and see the living away from this place before the dead could take them all.

Then, with his eyes shut, he noticed something he'd not seen since the Star had been taken from him. Even through his lids, he saw a glimmer of blue light, and for a moment forced himself to push the thought away, to think it a hallucination from pain and deprivation. He wasn't certain he could handle having hope and seeing it dashed, and tears began to slide from the corners of his eyes as he heard the soft pinging of metal being heated somewhere behind him.

The light refused to leave him alone. It bobbed and danced, climbing and descending in the infinite darkness behind his eyelids, at moments flaring bright as an exploding star, then dying down to its calm, cool radiance once again. Behind it, he noticed, as it started to grow slowly larger, a dimmer grey light trailed along, full of fear and doubt. The sky-colored light reminded him of something, though he could not place what it was. It did speak to him of hope and passion, power and honor, and with a jerk of his chest he realized something.

It was Cel's heart fire. Her 'Sarellas' - as she'd called it when he had first told her of seeing them - was brilliant, and it sang to him in a voice without sound, spoke to him in a tongue with no words. As a paw gripped Timid's delicate balls and began to tie them off as well, he realized the lights were growing rapidly close, and that he could see the terrible creatures pursuing her, fighting her, dying like chaff under the farmer's scythe as the peerless Slaughtered Knight lived up to her omen-given title.

The Dead, he realized, were what she was fighting, and he cried out in sudden sorrow at the realization. For them to be here, in the Cathedral, terrified him into the realization the whole city might have fallen. Somehow, the presence of the torturer calmed him, made him realize the city could not have disappeared so swiftly. Besides, he thought, torturers are mostly cowards - He would have fled the city if he knew it was doomed.

Penitence chuckled, and pet Timid's face with a mock-soothing paw, before forcing a gasp of pain from him as burning iron came so close to his skin that it charred his fur and raised near-instant blisters just above where his thicker pubic fur started, just under his navel.

"Say good-bye to your maleness, cat. Cardinal said to try this, if you'd not confess!"

Timid's face split in a smirk, blood trickling down his lip as it cracked from dehydration and hours of earlier yelling. The torturer paused, and quirked an eyebrow, as Timid opened his eyes and whispered.

"Best put that down, fiend. You'll regret it otherwise."

The creature sneered, and raised the iron high, the fire poker an angry cherry red as he prepared to give Timid a scarring lesson.

"You DARE threaten m~"

Timid was laughing as the door exploded off its hinges. With a rush of air, it hurtled across the stone chamber, smashing to a million flinders of iron and wood as the Slaughtered Knight's terrifying strength ushered off its once-solid coil with an ill-fitting booted footpaw.

So stunned was Penitence that he didn't think to realize how outmatched he was. The bandage-wrapped warrioress was a terrible visage in spite of her rumpled clothes and feminine build, if for no other reason than the fiery raging violence in her eyes, that filled Timid's head with a roar like unto a feral leopard's battle cry.

She saw him, their eyes meeting, his brown and full of tears, hers bright flashing blue-green and filled with furious wrath and a strange touch of softness that fueled it. Then Penitence swung at her, the hissing iron arching towards her head with a mighty two-pawed swipe.

Cel twisted, and brought her strange blade down, using it's side to tap the iron and redirect it to spang off the floor, hissing and screeching as frost spread up the over-heated blade. She wasted no movement, no time, and brought the sorcerous frost-blade up under Penitence's over-hard swing, cleaving him open from navel to throat with a spray of gore and a squealing gurgle of agony as he twisted away and fell to the floor.

The iron poker shattered like glass as the creeping frost met the cherry-red.

Cel ignored it utterly, dropping her blade with a dull thud as she ran to Timid and made to embrace him, pulling up short with a look of shock and horror as she saw his injuries. He smiled back at her, licking cracked lips with a dry tongue.

"It's not so bad...Nothing a few hours' rest won't fix!"

Even he knew his voice sounded weak, hoarse, and pathetic. Despite it, Cel's eyes shifted from sympathetic pain to tearing laughter, and the Slaughtered Knight leaned down to kiss his brow, one of the un-injured spots he'd once kissed on her for comfort.

"I'll have you out of this in an instant. The dead are here in the Cathedral of Many. Brother Quiet tells me they came from the infirmary...Probably spread off the wounded."

Timid nodded weakly, though he regretted the necessity of letting her lips off his forehead. He felt great gratitude to her, and great admiration. Knowing she'd been through worse had saved him, in the hours or days he'd been in this unchanging darkness full of agony.

"J-just...Be careful, all right?"

She nodded, and looked him over, then spoke to the monk in an embarrassed sotto voce.

"Quiet, are you a medic?"

"Y...Yes. I'll tend the s-serious wounds and bind his toes...You um...You'll need to untie him."

Cel went quiet a moment, and coughed. Timid realized she was staring at his bound and turgid, purpling cock and testicles, and turned scarlet himself, nearly passing out from the sudden movement of blood.

"Ungh..."

She grimaced, interpreting the sound as pain, and steeled herself against the revulsion of touching those parts again, her only memory of them so far a harsh thing from a far harsher cat than Timid. Reminding herself that this male was her friend, and would do her no harm, she wrapped her paw with great care around his shaft, knowing her own strength could pulp him permanently, and unwound the string there, getting a gasp from him as blood flowed back into the suddenly-dripping flesh.

"C-cel...I..."

She shushed him, patting his chest with a paw, and wrapped her paw around his bulged testicles, snipping the tight-tied twine there with a deft claw tip.

"Huk!"

Timid gasped and made a choking sound, and Cel whipped her head about to look at him in alarm as the cat panted and jerked. Suddenly her paw was splattered with warmth, and she looked down as the sudden release of pressure to his choked groin set off an explosive ejaculation from the little cat. Too surprised to pull away, she watched as he coated her palm and fingers with his seed, thick and slimy, his purpled cock twitching and shivering and shooting until his pulled-tight balls had nothing left to release. When his tail-tip stopped flopping like a dying fish, he finally managed to re-open dazed eyes.

"Oh...S-sorry...Not sure what happened..."

Cel stared at him for a second, then down at her paw as it dripped pearly cat seed to the floor with soft splats. Then she shook her head once, sharply, and reminded herself of the work yet to do, before wiping the musky stuff off on the side of the rack and proceeding to help untie the naked priest.

"Quiet, you'll need to help him walk while guiding us. These things are all over, and you can't fight, so I need my paws free."

The monk nodded, while using medicines out of the torturer's equipment box to dab burns on Timid's snout, before quickly trotting over to bandage up his torn footpaws. Timid spoke before the monk could respond, voice tight with pain as his footpaws were bound tightly.

"We need to get the Star back from Cardinal Dorshen. The vision told me I would need it to end this."

Cel frowned, and looked out the gaping doorway, past the splintered remnants of the door that still clung to its hinges. Somewhere off in the sprawling undercroft, someone screamed, and was cut off with a distant gurgling. She didn't like the idea of staying in here, trapped in an enclosed space with so many enemies and a pair of non-combatants to protect.

"If you are certain we will need it, so be it. Which way, Quiet?"

The monk grunted as he helped Timid up, wrapping an arm around the nude, bloodied cat, and pointed back the way they had come.

"His Eminence lives on the main floor, near the gardens. That's...My best guess."

"Then it shall have to do."

As the two discussed routes, Timid stared off into the hallway, feeling dazed and unwell. The lights were stronger now, more visible, and he squinted at them, identifying awful brown splotches of grizzly glimmerings as the dead, and lighter-colored, pulsing Sarellas he thought might be the living. He grimaced, and tried to count and judge distance as they began to move, still rather dazzled by the panoply of colors.

"Over a hundred of the undead...Moving quickly up from underground...Spreading towards the edges of the building...They look...Coordinated..."

Cel didn't look back at him, and simply nodded. She believed him, instantly, though the temple monk shook his head in what Timid presumed was pity at his 'delirious' state. He frowned slightly at the realization that just a scant few weeks ago, he'd have thought the same.

The monk under his arm pointed left, and Timid squinted in that direction as Cel peeked around the corner before turning it.

"Be careful. There's a few of them in the hall to our right."

As she rounded the corner, the terrible black-skinned creature lunged at her, and Timid jerked, nearly falling in his instinctive attempt to assist her. She didn't need it.

Cel twisted nimbly to the side and guided the creature past her to slam into the wall with the flat of her misty weapon. Then she stepped forward, whirled, and sliced its head clean in half with her terrible frosty blade, the corpse riming rapidly in crackling ice. Not missing a beat in her silent song of slaughter, she twisted the blade up and over her head, stepping forward twice as she brought the blade down, up, and down again on the second one that had moved to assault her.

Leaving no time for them to gawk at her graceful slaughter of their foes, she beckoned quickly with a paw and turned the corner. Quiet followed, supporting the limping Timid as he spoke in whispered tones, as if worried the very walls would hear them.

"How did this happen? What in the hells is wrong with the Cardinal?"

Summer debarked the boat as soon as they reached the shore, accepting a sword and baldric from the waiting Guard lieutenant and sliding them on over the shirt he'd been given after a rough drying with towels on their boat. Snow was falling swiftly now, beginning to accumulate on the street's cobbled surface as smoke filled the darkening sky and dirtied snow before it even hit ground.

Despite the toweling, he was still damp, and would soon freeze if the weather kept worsening. Captain Summer took a moment to stare up at the sky, watching white motes fall in a silent graceful dance through a sky torn with a torment of wind, smoke, and fire.

"Situation report, Lieutenant," he stated, still gazing towards the sky.

The lieutenant snapped a quick salute, and spoke in rapid, clipped tones.

"We hold the western, southern, and eastern gates. Most royal forces are withdrawing towards Castle Amarthane or the northern noble district, which has managed to hold us back with their house guards. We have fifteen hundred City Guard and auxiliaries still able to fight, along with an unknown but large number of civilians with varying degrees of arms and armament. Royal Army numbers about two thousand, with another six hundred royalist household troops."

"Have they closed the northern gate?"

"Unknown sir, but Sergant Tully is leading scouts around from the western gate to check. If we have to, we'll burn the bridges across the river and set guards to protect the banks. The Chief Engineer tells me the bottom of those channels are sheer, and should stop even things that can walk without breath on the bottom."

The Captain frowned, but nodded, as he finally turned his head down from the sky and met the lieutenant's eyes. The wolf was bedraggled but standing straight and prideful, his face showing fear but readiness. Summer nodded, and put a paw on the fur's shoulder.

"You and the Guard performed to all my expectations. Good work. It isn't done yet, though. What about the Mayor and other city officials?"

The lieutenant, whose name the Captain recalled as being Gennry, shook his head.

"Mayor's dead sir. We tried to arrest him like you said, but he slit his own throat. All the other city officials are under our control. The guildsmasters have locked themselves up tight in their homes. Seems they want to stay neutral."

Summer snorted in derision.

"Idiots. Those monsters won't care about white fucking flags. What about the nobles?"

Lieutenant Gennry paused, and cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable as Summer stared at him waiting for a response. Behind, Summer could hear as the last of the convicts were let off the boat, two of them helping to carry the unconscious wolf he'd nearly fought on the castle rampart.

"Royval Casso was in the fight at the south gate. In the course of fighting he ended up outside when that big mercenary, Thieren, brought the portcullis down. We er...We watched them tear him apart."

"Thieren? The mercenary cougar I let into the city?"

"Just the one, sir."

The captain simply nodded, no emotion showing in his face. So far as he was concerned, it served the rotten bastard Royval right. He was also pleased that he'd been right in sparing Thieren and his crew of misfits. Summer chose to ignore the Lieutenant's failure to complete his orders of capturing the brothers alive. They would have been hung eventually anyway.

"And the younger brother? The older sister? What of them?"

"Sister is inside the castle somewhere, sir. As for the younger brother...The ambush happened, but it was bloody as hell. Toryen Casso is in custody, unconscious but mostly unhurt. The bodyguard...He killed eight of ours before escaping into the city. Only reason we got Toryen was the riots showed up and ran the bodyguard off before he could finish our boys."

"That'd be Jaux. He'll be a problem. Make sure Toryen's someplace hidden and heavily guarded till this is over. What about the Cathedral?"

"No word, sir. We sent guards there to keep it contained until we could send someone with decent words to talk the Cardinal down from his stupidity. The paladins have locked it up tight and barred all the windows. Not a peep from it in hours."

Summer frowned, and looked back towards the boat. The black wolf had lost its hat, and without the thing's concealment, looked like a dying fur, sallow and shrunken. His forest warden companion was pushing the wolf up to a sit, then lowering him back down, causing the wolf to spit up river water. The pathetic, sodden thing's paw was still clenched tight about the butt of a worn pistol.

"What about you two? What's your story?"

The fox looked up only a moment, then shrugged and turned his eyes away, continuing to pump the wolf's lungs.

"Would take too long to explain, sir. We ran into the undead out in the woods days ago. We came here to warn everyone, only to find this shit." His voice was raspy, thick with deferred grief. "Casso murdered my cousin and uncle."

Summer nodded again, taking that in with a stoic old soldier's quiet sympathy. Gennry shook his head and spoke.

"Sorry to hear, friend. Speaking of which, Captain. Jano's boys helped us at every stage. Seems the City Wardens are on our side. Not sure their numbers, which is why I didn't include them in the count."

"Figured as much. Without their archery support, this would've been a far worse mess."

As the black wolf started to cough and sputter, eyes fluttering, his vulpine companion spoke again, while rubbing the wolf's back.

"I'm Vanyal, this is Tomasj. We came to the city with two...Friends...They were headed to the Cathedral, with important information on how to stop these bastard monsters. We'll need them back."

"What information?" Summer's brow perked, and he waved a few paw-signs to his furs, sending most of them trotting off to join others down the road, taking the convicts along to re-arm them.

"Not sure. Our little priest friend...Our leader for lack of better terms...He's the one who understands it best I think."

The old tiger brought a paw up to his face and rubbed at the growing headache, his old and familiar friend.

"Lieutenant, I'm going to the Cathedral. It's near the town center, so it's as good a spot for command as any. I want at least two lieutenants or sergeants at all three wall gates at all times, and our main forces split between those three and the two river bridges. Bring those things down, we can't wait on noble prats to realize the threat.

"Meantime, ask Jano to meet me at the Cathedral, and have Thieren and his mercenaries talk to the guildsmasters. They're fairly neutral in our city's politics. Might have some more bloody luck than we will.

"As for you, Vanyal. I'll see what I can do to help get your priest, but I'm not expecting he knows much more than we do, eh? Can't run an army on hearsay."

Vanyal nodded once in understanding, and began helping the black wolf into a cart as it was rolled up. The wolf growled weakly, coughing up a few more drips of pinkish water, and tried futilely to ward off the help.

As the captain marched away from the wagon and towards his marshalling troops, Gennry moved to keep pace, speaking under his breath so others wouldn't hear.

"Captain, the real problem as I see it is that all the farms and fields are outside the walls. Going to be a bloodbath out there. And then what do we do? Not enough food in the stores for more'n a month or two with this many inside the walls."

Summer's scowl hadn't vanished, and wasn't about to.

"Nothing we can do about that yet. One step at a time, Lieutenant."

Tanner, wearing a tunic far oversized for his slight frame, tagged along just behind them, looking somber and pensive.

"Captain, I've got to see my agents. See if any of them know something about this and didn't report it. I'll meet you later?"

Summer juts nodded, and waved the priest off, his thoughts gone to something else already. He knew the officers weren't going to like his plan. He knew it didn't matter. They'd obey it or they were all doomed.