"Minions do so love to loot. You wouldn't want to leave those dear little faces looking unhappy, would you? No? Then pillage, plunder and pilfer! For your own benefit, of course."

Gnarl



The red moonlight streamed in down through the narrow hole cut in the roof. There was the squeaking of a wheel, and the light was momentarily blotted out as something small and remarkably pungent was lowered down. Muttered voices and the momentary flash of a dark lantern were lost under the noise from the streets below.

"Lower," the whisper came. "Come ons, you slackers."

The wheel squeaked again. "You can see it, Fettid?" one of the cranking figures asked.

Lantern light revealed itself from the hole, dancing over the inside of the solid stone building. "Yes," the explorer hissed back up. The light shone upon gold bars and solid crates. "Shinies are there."

"Right," the largest shadowy figure at the crank said, "we do what the Overlady said the plan was. Fettid, you grabs one bar at a time, and we crank you up. Igni?"

"Yep?" another figure said, standing by a collection of tubes. There was a small pop, as it lit a flame on the end of one of its fingers.

"Make sky-boom happens and mistress know we find gold for her."

"Oh yay," the other figure said gleefully, lowering its burning finger towards the end of the tubes.

There was a crackle, and a whoosh, as four rockets shot up into the sky, their exhausts coincidentally setting their igniter on fire. That did not seem to phase him, however, as he "oooh'd" and "aaah'd" at the explosions in the sky.

Which was only matched by the thunderous detonation elsewhere in the town. In the general consensus of the now-very-drunk townfolk, it was pretty, although all the alarm bells and running guards was a bit of a party pooper.

But this is actually an example of the narrative device known as in media res, where the tale begins mid-way through the story. No one knows exactly why authors choose to do this. Perhaps the profession has some form of collective snit which leads them to loathe giving full information about a sequence of events when they could be needlessly obtuse. It is certainly known for a fact that authors to a man laugh maniacally when they do it, and then twirl their moustache, retreat to their drawing rooms, and then get drunk on expensive absinthe. Or when they have no absinthe left, there's always rum.

Wait, no, that's poets. Authors are the hard-working, under-appreciated ones, who work long and hard to create an interesting set up. Completely different, and not at all like those tricksy poets who have the kenning of the arcane ways of rigid meter and rhyme. And so, now that the bait has been laid, our story leads up back two days earlier…



"Stand and deliver!" the highwayman announced, flourishing his pistol at the mail coach. "Your money or your life!" His cravat was finely set and his cloak was midnight black. Behind him three other somewhat-less-stylish, but certainly well-coifed highwaymen looked suitably sleek. They cast long shadows down onto the road, lit melodramatically by the setting sun behind them.

The driver froze, one hand slowly going behind him.

The highwayman gestured with his pistol again. "No, sir, do not think of such things. Else I would have to shoot you, and I'm sure you have a wife and children back home; sir, please think of them. Just get off the coach and lie down on the ground, and no one has to get hurt."

"I wasn't getting my blunderbuss for you, you daft bugger," the driver hissed. "I've been robbed before; I know how this goes. Look behind you!"

With a growing edge of unease, the man turned to look, and found that he and his men had been surrounded by a cluster of smelly green-skinned goblins. From the treeline, other creatures were emerging, holding a motley assortment of weaponry. This included a fair few pistols, held with concerning accuracy and proficiency. Their savage cries set birds fleeing.

"Your money an' your life!"

"For the Overlady!"

"Yarrrr!"

"You stoopid! 'Yarrr' for pirates, not highwayminions!"

And behind them was a figure. Against the blood-red light of the setting sun, they were a shrouded menace. Steel glinted in the dying day, but all that could be seen of their hooded features were a pair of terrible burning eyes.

There was a distinct air about the whole scenario which suggested that the walking nightmare should have been some towering titan, not barely over a metre-and-a-half tall.

"Get off your horses," the figure commanded, the voice clearly feminine, "and lie down on the ground. Drop your weapons, and take off your cloaks. As long as you do exactly as I say, no one need be... um, hurt."

"What? Bugger off, short-arse," the highwayman said. "I'm not stripping for no one, even if you are a woman under all that clank." He heard a click, and his eyes flicked to see a little goblin playing with the flint on its flintlock pistol. The firearm was unwavering held at his head, and he swallowed.

"Ha!" the stranger retorted, most of the menace leaving her voice. "That means you are stripping for someone!"

"What?" the man asked. "I just said... look..."

"Look, get off your horse or I'll set you on fire," she said, a ball of pink flame appearing above her left hand.

That was language he could understand, even if it was said in a decidedly noble accent. And now he had positive proof that it wasn't just some ponce in fancy armour, he might as well do what she said. Even if he managed to stop the goblin from shooting him, he'd just be set on fire. And if he tried to run away, he'd be set on fire. And if he tried to hide behind the mail coach... well, assuming he fought off the goblins surrounding it, he would be, yes, probably set on fire.

Bloody nobles, oppressing the common man like that. Wasn't fair at all. Couldn't a highwayman try to rob a bloody coach in peace and quiet without some magic-using twit busting up his hold-up?

By the end of the day, he wasn't quite sure what the worst bit was. Maybe it was the fact that the stinking goblins had stolen his tricorn hat. Maybe it was that they'd also stolen everything he'd been wearing, apart from his breeches. Maybe it was that they'd left him nearly-naked on a road at night with a similarly unclad coach driver and the angry bandits he'd recruited for this job. Maybe it was that they'd stolen his horse. Or even that the goblins had picked up the coach, and run away with it.

There had been so many bad things this day that he wasn't sure which one was the worst.

A wolf howled in the depths of the woods. Followed by another one.

Oh. Well.

Damn.



Almost two kilometres away down the road and then off into a clearing, the minions dropped the coach and the unconscious horses they were carrying. The animals had objected to being stolen, so had been rendered unconscious with only moderate amounts of enthusiastically unnecessary violence.

Breathing out, Louise took off her helmet and shook out her hair. She mopped her brow on the short robe, and then carefully put the helmet back on. "And that's how you carry out highway robbery," she declared to the world, giggling. "I... I robbed the robbers and stole the coach too! And we now have horses, too. And by 'we', I mean 'I'."

"And new hats!" a blue minion wearing a long black cloak and a tricorn hat said, bobbing his head sagely. Louise suspected it was deliberate imitation of Gnarl, which was only confirmed when the creature went to stroke a goatee it did not have. "And treasure for you, mistress!"

"Well done, my lady," Gnarl said cheerfully. "Normally I would have said that it's best to set the coach on fire, because even in summer it gets chilly in the evenings, but I suppose your own coach is something to plunder."

The girl smirked. "That's not just why," she said smugly. "It's got the royal seal on the side, which means it's a royal mail coach, and that means that not only is it likely to have taxes onboard... which are illegitimately being collected by the Council under false pretences," and so she could legitimately take them went unsaid, "... but it's likely to be carrying messages and the like!"

"And you have taken hostages, too! We will be able to use some of the rooms that disgusting vampire kept his 'brides' in until we have a proper jail set up."

Oops. Louise blushed under the helmet. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Of course there would be someone inside the coach! Even if they were locked when moving, there was a guard or a messenger inside just in case. And... drat, drat, drat! She should have thought about that! She should... no. But what if they were the... argh! "I will see if there is indeed someone in there," she said, as regally as she could manage, "and if there is someone, I will see if they are loyal to the Council. If they are, then I will take them captive. If they are not, I will release them to spread news that the Council are unjust traitors."

"Oooh! Divide and conquer, and subversion! Sneaky!" Gnarl said approvingly.

Louise stared at the coach. Almost idly, she created another ball of pink fire, more for the light than for anything. The minions looked rather strange when lit by that, she noted idly – something not helped by the few reds she had also flaring their own fires to life. Well, she better get this over and done with quickly before the reds set this area on fire, which they would inevitably do if she did not act.

"Minions," she commanded, "surround that coach! If there is a person inside and they try to flee, seize them and hold them down! Um. Don't kill them unless I tell you to. Not even by accident," she added, because in the months she had known them she already had acquired a fairly good grasp of the minion mindset.

"We right behind you, mistress," Maggat said, his trusty sack at the ready. Louise had retained his services even after acquiring the gauntlet, because it took time and remembering how to waggle her fingers just right to absorb money, and frankly it was much easier to have someone collect it all before she had to do her thing to it. "Just give the word."

Louise nodded. She opened her mouth to tell the minions to break down the door to the coach to get to the treasure inside, and paused. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. She had this mental image of them breaking rather more than just the doors off. So instead she turned to Maggat and said, "Open the door, without breaking anything else. This is going to be my coach, and I will be angry if it is damaged."

Maggat stepped up to the door, rapped on it twice, and said, "It safe to come out now! Monsters all dead!"

The girl worked her jaw in surprise, but said nothing. That... had she just been outwitted by a minion?The fact that Maggat was winking heavily at the other minions and grinning like... like the illegitimate offspring of a wolf, a cat and some kind of monkey just made things worse.

"It's safe?" came a quavering female voice from within.

"Yes yes," Maggat said, mugging heavily for his grinning audience. "Safe as house!"

"It funny because house not at all safe when we..." began a brown, before being clubbed unconscious by other, slightly-faster-on-the-uptake minions.

"Okay! I'm opening the door," came the words. The carriage's door was opened. A fraction of a second later, a series of burning air-blades made their egress and scythed their way through the minions who had been clustered around it.

Oh, wait, whoever was in there hadn't fallen for it. Everything was better. Worse, of course, because now there was a mage firing spells around and Maggat and some of the others were dead and so needed some medical attention, but still. At least the world was making sense. Louise jammed her staff into the door before it could close, levered it open, and thrust her burning hand inside.

"You're in a wooden carriage!" Louise shouted harshly, raising her voice. "And I have fire! Surrender and you will be treated fittingly!"

... was she threatening to set people on fire too much? No, probably not. In fact, not at all! No one complained about Kirche von Zerbst being a fire mage whose entire personality seemed to be literally and metaphorically based around fire, did they? And everyone knew that fire mages set people on fire! That woman in the coach just had! So it would be hypocritical for her to protest at Louise's actions.

Safe in her logic, the overlady paid attention to the carriage and its occupant, who had sensibly lowered her wand in the knowledge that Louise could use the fireball before she could get a word of her chant out. The woman within looked to be a few years older than her, her mid-brown hair tied back into two split pigtails by expensive-looking scarlet ties. Her dress was coordinated to match that, gold-trimmed red brocade cut high in the neck, with white sleeves and trimming. To Louise's high nobility eyes it was typical of the upper-middle nobility, and more than a little gauche.

"So," she said, her accent providing all the further proof Louise had needed on her well-off status, "I'm your prisoner, then? And you clearly want me alive, or you would just burn me now... please don't. Please please please don't burn me. I'll do whatever you want. I'll… whatever! Just don't kill me!"

... on the other hand, the woman did not seem to be all that much taller than she was, and had a similar build. So at least there was some small degree of empathy there. And... wait a moment, why did the woman seem to be unfastening her dress? What on earth was going on?

Some of her confusion must have shown in her manner, because the woman paused. "Or would you rather wait until later, my lord? Do you wish to take me back to show off your dark tower? I'm sure it is… uh, very tall."

Louise de la Vallière, whose tower was not really a tower and was much more of a dungeon hidden within the dark places of the earth said the first thing which came to mind. And that was, "Excuse me? 'My lord'? What are you, stupid? Or just blind?"

There was a moment of mutual confusion.

"You're a girl?" the auburn-haired woman said, eyes bulging. Her hand hovered around the neck of her dress.

Louise glared at the woman, eyes flaring, and jabbed her finger at her chest. "What do you think these are?" she hissed. "Of course I'm a girl!"

The woman puffed out her cheeks. "Look, honestly, you're dressed like a man."

"I'm not!"

"You are too!" she pouted. "Evil women do not dress like that! You're exposing nothing but your mouth. And... and I would like to add, it was an easy mistake to make!"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Louise shouted, the ball of fire in her hand flaring brighter.

"Look, if you're going to dress like a man, you could at least give people a clue that you're female! Like… in the armour? Or in the colour scheme?"

"Wasn't my voice enough of a clue? And the armour curves out in the chest! And I have heels! And steel and red looks good!"

The woman paused, and her eyes lit up as she suddenly 'realised' something. "I see," she said, languidly, leaning back inside the coach. "Oh, I see. Yes."

Louise did not see what she saw, but did use the chance to scoop the wand out of the coach with the end of her staff. It rattled down onto the ground, where it was swiftly picked up by one of the blues who were seeing to the burned and mutilated minions. Several of them were having to be pieced back together before they could be resurrected, and inevitably minion japes and jokes were occurring with severed heads.

"I am Rebecca de Ghent, second child of the marquis, on the service of the Crown, and I surrender myself to your custody in the expectation that I will be treated with the full honour and respect due to my station," the woman added, raising her hands to her neck to continue unfastening her dress. "I do so hope you won't indulge in all kinds of sinful and... dreadfully wicked ways with me." She paused, licking her lips. "I am a good daughter of the Church, after all, and to be drawn into sins of passion and lust would be just terrible."

Louise nodded. "It would be. You need not fear for your virtue." Now that she had surrendered, the other woman's honour bound her, so she let the fire go out. Simple enough.

That did not seem to be the answer the lady de Ghent was looking for. "I said," she said, peeling back her outer dress as she unfastened the rest of it, "I do not want some terrible force of darkness and evil taking advantage of my purity. Oh, to feel the hands of another woman on me against my will, ravaging me until I am forced to indulge in her dark pleasures."

"As I said, you are safe," Louise repeated, irritation seeping into her voice. "I'm not like some man... in fact, I took you away from those scoundrels who were the ones who tried to rob the coach in the first place.

"Oh, the horrors, the dark horrors of being ravished by a dark queen of the night!"

"Yes. You. Are. Safe."

The girl received a flat stare from the older woman. "You're a dark lady, who parades around dressed as a man, with a boyish physique, and you're trying to persuade me that you don't take decadent pleasure in other women? Am... am I just not attractive or something?"

"You want me to do what?" Louise yelped in horrified realisation. "That's... that's disgusting! I... I'm a girl! I think you must be disturbed from the shock!"

She was certainly not taking this woman prisoner, Louise decided. She might take being locked up in a cell as some kind of encouragement. This was certainly not a rational response to being held captive by a dark armoured figure and her smelly goblins. And even if she didn't... no, it was simply safer to get her as far away from her as possible. Preferably as fast as possible.



"... and she wanted me t-to take advantage of her!" Louise ranted, jabbing the meat on her plate with a fork. With a twist, she worked it in deeper. "Me! A girl! What kind of perverse decadent ways d-do some of the n-nobility have? I... I could j-just about understand why some handsome dark lord might t-turn the head of a silly young girl, but another girl?"

With a loud slurp she finished her wine, and slammed the cup back down on the table. The cup rocked on the ancient wood, and made the candle light dance. Founder, she couldn't wait until she got a dining place with windows, or failing that some proper magelights. The torches were too smelly to tolerate when eating – God only knew what the minions made them from – and candles were too dim.

"See! That is something which has to change! That there are p-people here who are worse than Kirche von Zerbst! At l-least she restrained her... d-depravity to boys! How... how dare she make me feel uncomfortable when I was the one who was holding her prisoner and she... she should have been feeling worried, and then relieved that I was not some m-monster! She actually took her dress off! Well, of course I took it, because there was a pistol hidden in it, but she… argh! It was horrible! I was completely right to tie her up and leave her by the coaching house in a sack with a note attached, because there was no way I would be spending any more time near her ever again! Ever!"

"Oh, indeed, my lady," Gnarl said blandly, eating cockroaches one by one from his bowl. Louise tried to ignore the crunches coming from his direction.

"And another thing! The assumption that just because... because I want to be warm and protected and so wear proper armour, I must be some kind of woman who wants... who wants to do things like a man! And not things like conquest and terror and other things l-like that, no! Not the things you'd expect someone wearing full armour to do! No, it's all about the things that y-you'd have to take your armour off to do!"

"You were the one who commissioned the armour in such a classically masculine design, my lady," Gnarl said, with more crunches. "I think you would be mistaken for a man if you covered up your hair and walked around your capital dressed as a man. It's just how things are done." He coughed. "And I do believe it is traditional to leave the helmet on."

"I did not want to know that!" Louise shrieked. That outburst seemed to take most of the fury she had been running off out of her, and she slumped down in her seat, sulking.

With perfect equanimity, Gnarl finished off his bowl of cockroaches and sautéed rat, and then had a wig-wearing minion refill his own glass. Lifting a folder of paperwork off the floor, he carefully went through a few sheets with an expression of what was probably mild contentment on his face. He made a few careful notes, and passed the finished documents to another minion, before pulling out a small leather-bound notebook.

"My lady," he said, after Louise had been stewing in her own anger for a good quarter of an hour, "do you wish to know of the things we found in the carriage?"

"… fine," Louise said sulkily. She straightened up slightly, the shift in her posture showing that the change of subject was a welcome relief.

"Well, firstly," Gnarl said, flicking through the notebook, "the carriage was carrying in magically sealed chests a collection of tax revenue. The dear little minions managed to break into the chests with no more than the usual amount of casualties, and almost all of the ones who were maimed, mangled, mutilated, or chopped into little pieces by golems have been bought back to life safe and sound. The treasury is looking a little more healthy, to the tune of just over a hundred of your golden coins?"

"A hundred ecú?" Louise asked, sucking in a breath. "That's a fair amount."

"Certainly a tolerable payment for an Evil day's work," Gnarl agreed. "Tolerable, if barely so."

"And I suppose since you're Evil, you'll start forging coins to pay people with and mixing some kind of… some kind of secret alchemical mix which weighs the same as gold in," the girl added, with only slight disapproval. "That way, it can go even further."

"Oh, no no no," Gnarl said, in a dreadfully shocked voice. "I may be blackest Evil, but there are some places even I won't go, and adulterating the currency is one of them. It only hurts you in the long run, because once you rule everything a loss of faith in your own currency is dreadful. And it also means that people carry less value because the currency is worth less, and so there is less per person for the little darlings to steal!"

"Uh," Louise began, and paused. "All right. Well, still."

"But the best bit came in that woman's dress, which you so cunningly stole," Gnarl continued.

Louise, who had taken it because she thought it would fit her and she really needed something to wear which wasn't made of steel said nothing. Anyway, it wasn't like it was theft if the person removed it themselves. It was more like… a present, yes. Or even an attempted bribe. And since she hadn't done what the briber wanted, that was good of her, wasn't it?

"You see, in the pockets, was this notebook, encoded in a cipher," Gnarl said. "Not a very clever one, I should add; pah! A substitution cipher is worth less than a green's personal hygiene when it comes to concealing meaning! Especially when you're stupid enough to begin each entry with the date! Why, that makes it simple to find out the substation being used; it might stop a casual reader from scanning over it, but it falls against even the slightest attempt from someone with dark and malign intentions – like me!"

"Will you get to the point?" Louise snapped.

"Yes, my lady. As I was saying," Gnarl said, flicking through the notebook, "enciphered within this notebook are a series of secret instructions from the Comte de Mott. She is on the service of the Crown – and thus the Council – a royal messenger, if you will. It also notes that she shouldn't be writing this down and it was given to her to memorise, but, oh well, such are the self-defeating ways of the disgusting Light and Good. The book notes that they have been collecting tax revenues from all across this province in the town of Loven, in a secret building separate from the normal vaults. Which, oh look, that ever-so helpful friend you made has noted down."

"She's not my friend," Louise objected reflexively, tilting her head as she thought. "So we know where that is… does it say how many guards there are?"

"No, my lady, but if it is secret… there will certainly be less defences than the normal treasury vaults. And…" Gnarl flipped a few pages, "why, I do believe that the Comte de Mott himself is scheduled to attend that place in a few days, during the festival he has arranged for Loven to get them to see the benefits of the Council."

Louise squared her jaw. "Go in, get the gold, leave him empty handed and humiliated," she said. "Or dead. Either works. Although he is meant to be a triangle-class mage… well, it may depend on how many men he has with him."

"Excellent plan, your dark ladyship," Gnarl said, slipping down off his chair. "I will go prepare for our assault on the town."

"No." The words were flat. "No, Gnarl, not yet."

The elderly minion paused, the light on the pole above him bobbing in surprise. "Excuse me?" he asked.

Louise gripped her hands around the edge of her chair, feeling the stone cold under her grip. "I will go in first, tomorrow," she said. "In disguise, in the black robe again. Use the chance to see the place, get to know it. See where the hidden treasury is. And also buy some food. And some fresh fruit and vegetables. And also to start some rumours about me where it is made entirely clear that I don't like women like that!"

The elderly minion sighed. "As you wish, my lady," he said, hobbling off.


...