I claim no ownership rights to any of the works of Rumiko Takahashi, or anything I've borrowed and modified from the Banestorm setting published by Steve Jackson Games.

The mega-map of Yrth can be found at www. sjgames [.com] /gurps/books/banestorm/img/banestorm_world. jpg (remove spaces and brackets).

I know, it's been too long. I've been insanely busy, this chapter fought me every step of the way, and of course Christmas. And the fact that what I wrote first I realized was out of order so it'll be showing up next chapter (at least that chapter is half-written), and also realizing that I'd dropped one of my plot elements so having to go back and edit previous chapters (very minor in last chapter, not so minor in chapter 26), which I almost never do ... Anyway, I'm not happy with this chapter at all, but I have to move on. Maybe I'll come back and rewrite it later.

Lukkai: Don't worry, I have plans for Cabble. In fact, the half-a-chapter I've already written deals with him. :-D

BigDeal: Yes, Jehanne d'Arc was a major point of inspiration for Miyo. Of course, King Conall is a much better king (and person, I think) than Charles VII, and while history may rhyme it doesn't repeat, so maybe Miyo will end up the same way as Jehanne and maybe she won't. But either way the legacy she leaves behind will be even more substantial.

vorwoz: Yeah, in a way the nobles and knights of Caithness have gotten spoiled. From the West they've only had to worry about Lizardmen raiding out of the Great Desert and Orcs across it, and not even the latter once Caithness had colonized the west side of the desert at Castle Defiant. (Though some of those Orc raids had been huge, and of course Castle Defiant has fallen to the Orcs again...) Neither Lizardmen nor Orcs use much, if any, magic. Megalos to the east does use magic, extensively, but in Caithness's case that actually works against them. The Imperial Legions are the best infantry in the world, much better trained than Caithness's levies of commoners, but those Legions are accustomed to working with cavalry provided by the empire's noble Houses and their attached corps of wizards-and Caithness's knights might be a bunch of uncultured hayseeds, but they're tougher than anything the Megalan nobles can field; and with how shallow magic flows in Caithness, the mage corps's efforts are as likely to fizzle as not, where they don't actually backfire! If I write sequels to this things won't be so easy for Caithness, thanks to the political/cultural situation in the Orc Lands and because while Megalos might be as corrupt as hell, the men that command the Legions are far from stupid and will have forewarning thanks to the rebels that escape across the border. Now if they could just deal with the Dark Elves in Blackwood...

skywiseskychan: Will their compassion come back to bite them or actually work for them this time? Flip a coin! (Actually, it's already written. ;-) )

Ralph sighed, looking down at his farmer's hands clutched together on his table, tanned skin and scars vague in the flickering candle-light. "Yes, as I told Aila, it's true. Lord Brance has not only announced the executions tomorrow, but he's commanded that everyone living a day's walk away attend."

Armstan, hands clenched into fists that he was struggling not to hammer on the table he and Ralph were seated at, fought to keep from grinding his teeth together—he'd been doing that a lot, lately, and it couldn't be good for them—but Konatsu straightened up, away from the wall of the the freeholder's home he'd been leaning against. "Will he be attending himself?"

"I ... I don't know," the farmer stammered. "I think so?"

"As much as he hates Halflings, he'll be there," Armstan ground out, turning to look up at Konatsu. "Why?"

"Because if he does he's a fool." Konatsu stepped over to stand by the table. "It's the perfect opportunity to deal with him as well as rescue the captives."

For a split second Armstan felt his heart leap at the suggestion, but then his mind catching up with his heart had him shaking his head. "No. I mean, yes, we could kill him and keep our people from execution, but who can tell what condition they will be in? They will not be able to move fast—if we don't need to carry them—and we are too few to protect them when the men-at-arms and knights not there catch up with us. And they will catch up with us, the foresters that still survive will have our trail."

"So we need more men." Konatsu turned his head to gaze at Ralph.

Ralph gazed back, and after a moment his eyes widened. "Wait, you want me to join you? Revolt against m'lord?"

"Not against your lord, but for the king that he has revolted against." Konatsu paused for a moment, then continued when Ralph just stared at him. "And not just you, whoever else you can get to join. It's not just Halflings due to be executed, after all, there's a couple of your friends, neighbors ... family. Are you going to stand aside and do nothing?"

"I ..."

Ralph hesitated, and Armstan murmured something he'd once heard in the Sunday sermon: "As you have not done it for the least of these ..."

Apparently Ralph remembered it as well, from the way he grimaced. "We're part of 'the least of these', too. If we rebel there's no way we can face soldiers in the open field, what do you think happens to our families when they get over the shock?"

"That'll take awhile," Armstan replied with a shrug. "Once we knock them back into the castle, pack up the families and your stored food and send them to the Church lands like we did, then find some places to hit 'em and run away if they try to catch you before the families can get there." Leaning forward, he planted his arms on the table and hissed, "Are ya really gonna let your bastard of a lord get away with doing this ta women and children?"

After a long moment, Ralph straightened in his seat and shook his head. "No, I won't stand aside. And neither will the others."

Armstan gusted out a sigh of relief—Ralph might be less than happy putting himself forward, but his word carried a lot of weight in this village. Unfortunately they didn't have time to try to rally other villages, not with the executions tomorrow, they'd just have to hope at least some of them would follow their lead. "So, here's what we do..."

/oOo\

Konatsu carefully did not look around the open field whose edge he stood at, at least not in any way that implied a sense of urgency. The plans were made, the opening phase going on for hours with the Men and Halflings joining the crowd around the field a few at a time. They weren't ignoring each other the way Konatsu was, but then, they were supposed to be locals whereas Konatsu had the appearance of a wandering tinker, thanks to the gear that the peasants of Ralph's village had managed to scrape together.

On the other hand, the fact he was a stranger didn't mean he couldn't do some looking around, he just couldn't focus on any particular individual—though one peasant's motley clothing was worth a second look (along with some ribbing from his friends), and Konatsu used the opportunity to discreetly pick out some of the people he'd met before nonchalantly shifting his gaze elsewhere. It looked like everyone he could recognize was in position, so he reluctantly shifted his gaze back to the center of the field, and the new additions there—several upright poles with wood piled around, and a platform with two upright frames obviously designed to hold someone spread-eagled, one Man-sized and the other for a Halfling. The poles were where the captured Hobbit women were to be burned, and the frames where the captured men—Hobbit and Man—were to be emasculated and disemboweled. Apparently Lord Brance had decided to skip hanging the men until almost dead first.

And the lord had spread the word to the villages within half a day's travel that attendance was mandatory.

Konatsu glanced around at those gathered about the clearing again, allowing himself to look a little nervous ... the crowd gathered was not a happy one, and the few people that had tried to provide some entertainment for a few copper farthings had quickly given up because the few people that had paid them any attention had been angry, even threatening. Lord Brance was definitely a fool, so buried in his prejudice and sense of privilege that he couldn't imagine the explosive situation he'd created. But his minions could—the closest of the soldiers standing at intervals around the execution site to keep the crowd away were sweating, and Konatsu didn't think it was just because of the lack of shade from the sun beaming down in a cloudless sky, not the way their eyes were darting about.

And then a murmur swept the crowd, one that had an undertone of bared teeth, and Konatsu glanced out of the corner of his eye toward the lowered drawbridge into Lord Brance's's castle ... yes, there was a new group crossing it now. And the man in the lead was dressed in embroidered robes whose bright colors and shine equaled wealth in this world, especially this backwater—some kind of silk that would not be cheap this far from its place of origin. I wonder if Sahud has silk, and if they have a trade route through Zarak's Dwarven tunnels? Maybe it actually costs less here than farther east toward the coast.

But that was a distraction, the important thing was that that man had to be Lord Brance, Konatsu couldn't see someone with the ego the stories he had heard said the new lord had tolerating anyone dressed more finely than himself. If I was him, I'd be wearing my finest armor. The soldiers and handful of knights certainly were, their attention much more on the crowd they were approaching than the bloodied prisoners in torn and bloodstained clothes stumbling along—a few even being dragged along, for all intents and purposes, only occasionally able to stagger along a few feet on their own. And one pair of Halflings had several terrified children clutching their clothes as well.

A rumble like a predator growling swept through the crowd and the soldiers flinched or clutched at the hilts of their swords, some of them unconsciously shifting closer together as their eyes darted around from one possible threat to another. Konatsu took the opportunity to shift a hand closer to the knives at the small of his back without drawing attention, careful to keep his borrowed cloak over his left arm. Others weren't so careful, and here and there he caught a flash of blue strip tied around an upper arm.

Lord Brance mounted the platform, the male prisoners hauled up behind him along with the Halfling children torn from their parents and dragged up by one of the soldiers, while the women were pushed over to the poles. Konatsu decided there was no point in waiting—it would just get the amateurs more wound up (or scared), and the women tied to the stakes. He grasped the first of his knives, and a moment later it was protruding from Lord Brance's throat.

Even as the lord staggered back, the hands clutching his throat red with spurting blood, Konatsu's second knife found the throat of the soldier gripping the hands of the screaming children, all along the front of the crowd people—both Man and Halfling—threw off their own cloaks to reveal weapon-filled hands (even if many improvised) and upper arms bound with blue, and charged at the stunned men-at-arms shouting, "The King! The King!"

Konatsu charged forward with the rest, careful not to trip over the pack at his feet as his hands filled with two more knives—daggers really, this time—a Halfling female and another male Man joining him on either side. He almost might not have bothered, one farmer that had been expected to bring a cart for the castle's night soil had brought the Halflings' crossbows with it, and now soldiers were falling as quarrels flashed through the air. (For some reason, Armstan's order to aim for the head to avoid any armor had had his Halfling followers laughing.) But Konatsu leaped up onto the platform anyway, to find it empty of soldiers and—he breathed a sigh of relief—two children with their arms wrapped around their still-bound father. If they had tried to run away instead, into the middle of that chaos ...

He whirled to sweep his gaze across that chaos, leaving releasing the prisoners to the other two to look out for any soldiers that hadn't been swamped, that might decide they weren't getting away and to get revenge by killing the prisoners ... there weren't any, the last of them were dropping, tackled by both Men and Halflings—most with the blue cloth strips tied around their arms but some without, and all shouting the name of the king—thrusting daggers making sure the soldiers wouldn't be getting up again. And from the castle he heard the rumbling crash of the portcullis dropping. Just as Armstan had hoped.

And then Armstan himself pulled himself up onto the platform. His shirt had a long slice in it and a corresponding cut along his side bleeding freely, his knife and the hand holding it were covered with blood that wasn't his and his eyes blazed. But his voice was steady as his gaze swept the chaos—though a chaos that was rapidly diminishing as most of the crowd fled from the field, leaving only a few Men and Halflings behind, and the bodies of soldiers and a handful Halflings and Men in peasant clothes scattered about. "The men-at-arms are down, and so is the castle portcullis. That was less bloody than I expected."

"It always is, when an ambush works."

"I know, I just didn't think we could pull it off, not like this." Armstan looked down at the Halfling woman comforting the wailing children as the Man cut free the prisoners. "Bungwina, the kids all right?" The woman nodded without looking up from the clinging children in her arms, and Armstan sighed with relief. "Good. Get them to their mother, we need to get the families on the move, and get ready to convince anyone coming out of the castle that it's a bad idea ... try to figure out where the knights on their fiefs will gather when they hear about this, see if we can set up another ambush ..." He walked over to the body of the first man Konatsu had killed without care for the blood pooling about it now coating the soles of his bare feet, stared down at the unblinking eyes staring up at the cloudless sky, then spit in the corpse's face and turned back to Konatsu. "You'd better get on your way."

Konatsu bowed to the Halfling, then without a word turned to jump down from the platform and hurry back to the pack he'd abandoned. Armstan and Ralph knew the ground and their people, and while Armstan's band of Halflings might not be as skilled in the arts of stealth and subterfuge as Konatsu, he knew of no one that was and they were better than anyone else he'd encountered. There was little he could do to add to their efforts, so it was his duty to take word of the revolt to the king's army. Surely by now King Conall was on the march, and the Keldara/Japanese 'mercenaries' ... and his friends ... with him? Maybe Ukyo-sama will have rejoined them! This mission had turned out to be much longer than he had expected and he missed the woman he loved, as hopeless as that love might be.