Chapter 4:

"So how are the battles outside of the walls?" Hugo asked Riou.

"Who knows. Do you think we should check on it?" Riou replied.

Hugo nodded, "It's been hours. If the Grasslands have been defeated then who knows what the Harmonian Army is prepping to do."

"We don't need to all go, we'll send just a few people," Riou added.

Riou turned around and asked, "So who feels like going to check up on the Grassland Army?"

"I definitely am," Hugo immediately said.

"I'll go as well," Freyjadour offered.

"I will also," Sasarai added.

"That's really all we'll need. So you three go check up on the Grassland Army and come back here as soon as possible," Riou instructed.

Hugo stood up from the wooden floor, brushed himself off, and walked to the door. He turned the door knob and pushed the door open, peering into the street to see if the coast was clear. Not a soul in sight. Sasarai and Freyjadour followed closely behind him. The jogged through the streets, darting into alleyways, trying to stay out of sight.

Eventually they came to the city walls where they heard the roars of thousands outside of them. Hugo looked around for a way to see the action. Freyjadour ran over to a door that seemed to lead to a stairwell to the top of the walls. The three Rune bearers quickly hopped up the stairs, and once at the top they saw that there were thousands of archers along the tower walls hailing arrows down to the soldiers below.

"We can't look from up here, there's too many soldiers around," Sasarai whispered. Freyjadour nodded in agreement.

"Wait, we can't get as good of a view anywhere else though. We need to be able to see the entire landscape," Hugo whispered back. "Wait, Sasarai, they still think you're a bishop here right?"

Sasarai smirked and replied, "Yes, I forgot about that. So the three of us will walk up, I'll call the soldiers off from attacking you two, and we'll analyze the situation."

The three young men walked up the rest of the stairs and came to the top of the outer wall. Some soldiers looked at them, but were clearly too occupied with what they were shooting at As Hugo, Freyjadour, and Sasarai neared the edge of the wall, they certainly saw why.

The battlefield was a sea of screaming soldiers. And more than when Hugo had gotten there.

"Soldier," Sasarai spoke to a nearby archer, "What is the situation out here?""Bishop Sasarai!" The soldier cried in a panicked voice. "The Grassland Army had attacked first, and we held them off, but it appears that reinforcement armies from the Toran Republic, Dunan Republic, Island Nations, and Falenan Queendom have all united and are commencing an onslaught of the city.

Freyjadour's eyes went wide with the mention of his home country. Sasarai turned around and started walking back to the stairs, Hugo and Freyjadour followed.

"Well, that's certainly a surprise," Freyjadour said. "Who called the armies to come and fight?"

"Who is in charge of your country now that you left it?" Sasarai asked.

"I gave power to a trusted General, Shula Vayla. Do you think he sent the order? But how would he know about the siege? And how would Dunan and Toran know to come as well?"

Sasarai shook his head. "If we had a a tactician, maybe we could analyze the situation better. I don't have any clue though."

"C'mon," Hugo interjected, "Let's go back the headquarters and tell everybody the news."

The group raced back through the streets, rushing with adrenaline, and they were back to the temple in no time. They barged right through the front door.

"Seems like Harmonia will be sieged," Sasarai spoke to everybody. "Somehow, the armies of Falena, Toran, Dunan, and the Island Nations were called here. They're all outside fighting right now, and it seems Harmonia is losing."

"That doesn't make any sense," Jowy spoke up. "How would they know to come?"

"We don't have a clue. But do you think it's worth looking into?" Sasarai asked.

"Most definitely," Geddoe replied. "That's really fishy. Nobody knew about the Grassland's plan to attack Harmonia, and for the rest of the countries to band together and help us fight without any of us personally asking them to sounds a little odd to me."

"Well, here's what we'll do then," Riou started, "Some of us will go to the One Temple right now. We'll find books on Harmonia, hopefully we can find something about city plans. There could be an alternate entrances to the city. If we can find one, and let our soldiers inside, the Harmonian siege will go much quicker. I'll definitely go this time."

"I'll go too," Freyjadour said. "I want to know why my country is here fighting."

"I'm going again," Hugo spoke.

"Me too," Tir said.

"Alright, let's move out then," Riou commanded.

Riou, Hugo, Freyjadour, and Tir all left the temple, and hastily made their way to The One Temple library. They sped down streets and alleys, occasionally asking for directions to the temple from the townspeople. In about twenty minutes they were there standing in front of the enormous library. They flew up the marble stairs and into the Library Main Hall.

They heard talking in the chamber adjacent to them.

"Who would be here?" Hugo asked.

"Harmonian bishops? Who knows," Tir replied. "Get your weapons ready, we're going to make sure that they don't bother us."

The four soldiers readied their weapons and charged through the wooden door into the large meeting hall. In the center of the room was a long table, with many people sitting there, talking quietly. They all looked up startled when the four rune bearers charged in.

"What in the world?" Riou said calmly, slowing down. "Leon?"

Sitting around the table were all familiar faces to the rune bearers. Leon Silverberg, Lucretia Merces, Shu, Apple, and Caesear Silverberg. And sitting next to the tacticians were other familiar faces.

"Georg!" Freyjadour said happily.

Georg Prime, Sonya Shulen, Kasim Hazil, Kwanda Rossman, Kai, Valeria, Camille, and Milich Oppenheimer all sat at the table as well. They were all former Generals of King Barbarosa.

"What are you all doing here?" Riou asked excitedly.

"Well, we heard about the siege, all the armies came here, and we thought to come offer our help," Lucretia replied. "We needed to make sure that there was some sort of order to the attack. As careless and brutal as it might have been."

"This is perfect, we needed tacticians to help us!" Hugo said, looking over at Caesar happily.

"Help you?" Leon said gravely. "Who exactly is 'you'?"

"Oh boy, it's all the True Rune bearers. We were called here by Leknaat to assassinate Hikusaak," Hugo said bluntly.

Riou nudged Hugo, "Come on Hugo, a little more discreet okay?"

"You're here to do what?" Georg spoke up. "That's a little much isn't it? Sieging Harmonia isn't enough?"

"No, you don't understand Georg," Freyjadour replied. "There's a terrible fate for the universe if Hikusaak gets all the True Runes. So Leknaat told us to band together, and attack him to prevent the Ashen Future.

"Exactly. And so I brought the Grassland Army here with us originally, but now it appears that there are four more armies attacking with us. And none of us gave the command to," Hugo added.

"Sounds odd," Leon spoke slowly.

"Yes, especially because the Falenans were the first to offer help. I already spoke to some of the commanders outside of the walls," Lucretia said. "It sounded like Falena knew about this attack, and started to travel northward. The Island Nations heard that Lazlo had gone to Harmonia, so they banded with Falena. As they traveled northward, it seems like they convinced Toran to come, and when Lepant heard that Tir was here, he agreed readily. Once they passed Dunan, they convinced Borus Ridley to come, and the other city-states as well. The only one that didn't come was Tinto. But it sounds like a trickle-down effect to me. They all banded together once they saw everybody coming together anyways."

"I don't like that," Tir said. "I didn't tell anybody where I was going. How would Falena know about it to tell Lepant?"

"Something doesn't fit," Shu spoke. "There's no way that the siege of Harmonia should be Falena's concern. I don't know how word would have traveled that fast either. There are five armies here now attacking Harmonia. Let me just make a point, what armies are defending the homelands?"

Leon nodded. "Sounds dangerous and hasty to me. Focusing all the armies at one point. Leaves the original homelands exposed."

"I don't like this at all, we didn't need the armies here at all," Hugo said. "This was originally just supposed to be the True Runes. And now all these tacticians and generals and armies and countries are involved."

There was a knock at the door, and another familiar face poked their head in.

"Come in Klaus," Leon spoke.

"Well, there's definitely news. And not good news either. I just got back from outside the city walls trying to find out anything new. And it seems we have an awful problem on our hands," Klaus Windameir said.

"I wonder what's going to happen now?" Jowy asked to nobody in particular.

"Well, it seems like once the armies siege Harmonia, we'll have easy access to finding Hikusaak. It wasn't the original plan, but it sounds good enough," Nash replied.

"So when should we go find Hikusaak?" Sierra questioned.

"I would tend to say after the siege is complete. There is no doubt in my mind that the five armies can overcome Harmonia," Lazlo replied. "Hikusaak is probably hiding somewhere right now anyways, it would be impossible to find him."

"Do you think he would flee the city?" Jowy asked. "That's what I would have done."

"No. He is here," Zerase spoke up. "I can still see his star within the city somewhere."

"Wait, you know where he is?" Lazlo asked.

"Not exactly, but I can feel the presence of stars and Runes. I know if they're relatively present, but I cannot see them clearly, no," Zerase replied.

"Do you think Hugo and the others are alright?" Geddoe asked.

"They're fine, I still see all their stars together," Zerase replied. "Wait. This is awkward. They're congregated with other brightly shining stars."

"Wait, what?" Geddoe said nervously. "They're not fighting in a battle, are they?"

"No. I see several very familiar stars. Lucretia Merces and Georg Prime to mention," Zerase said.

"Lucretia Merces the tactician?" Jowy asked. "We definitely could use one of those right now."

"Wait, they seem to be moving. I think they might be coming back," Zerase said.

Hugo, the rune bearers, former Great Generals, and tacticians all traveled through the city to the temple. They couldn't run this time because there were so many of them, but soon enough they got back, and unseen as well.

Hugo opened the door and let everybody come in. There was an uproar of surprise from everybody in the room, meeting familiar faces and unfamiliar faces.

"Everybody! Calm down!" Leon shouted. "There is a crisis on our hands!"

"What's wrong?" Geddoe asked.

"Klaus went outside of the walls, and apparently it's true that all five armies are here. And it's true that Harmonia is almost sieged. But, there is one critical problem right now. It appears that New Armes has taken control of Falena and the Island Nations. A group called Nether Gate apparently regrouped and went inside Toran and killed all the officials and people commanding the city. Armes moved in and took the Toran Republic. There's also been word that Howling Voice Guild members are inside the Jowstone city states assassinating people and that Armes is in the process of sieging them as well. There's also word that the Tinto Republic has moved on the Grasslands and the Grasslands is nearly completel under Tinto control."

Everbody in the room was completely silent. This news was shocking and upsetting.

"Well what the hell do we do now?" Lazlo said angrily. "We have to go reclaim our homelands."

"What about our goal to kill Hikusaak?" Hugo asked. "We need to do that or else this is all for waste."

"That's not all," Leon interjected. "It appears that Windy and Barbarosa have returned. Windy went and is apparently leading Highland on attacks on Jowstone. Barbarosa has also claimed to be the leader of Toran."

"This is awful," Nash said sadly.

"Right now, we find Hikusaak," Riou commanded. "Right now. We need to all leave right now, the Rune Bearers I mean, kill Hikusaak, get out of here, and go reclaim our homelands. Zerase, please, try to find the location of his Star."

"Achoo!" A strange voice echoed throughout the room. In a bright flash there was a girl in a white robe standing there. "Oh no, not again." She said angrily.

"Viki!" Everybody in the room said. They all knew her throughout history.

"Oh? Hello everybody, so nice to see many of you again. Erm. Where excactly are we?"

"Viki, god damnit, you just love to show up at the best times don't you?" Geddoe laughed. "Zerase, please tell me you can find his star. With Viki here we can definitely all transport there together, it'll be a sinch."

"I think I can see it faintly. I see something more though. He's not alone. There's a much brighter star with him, blindingly bright in fact, I didn't pay attention to it earlier. He is with Yuber."

"What in the world?" Chris thought aloud. "Who is behind all this? Are we missing something bigger than us?"
"Evidentally," Shu added. "It even has me stumped. Whoever planned this war and all these meetings is clearly a mastermind of some sort."

"Viki, you can transport us there right?" Hugo pleaded.

Viki nodded and smiled. Zerase told her the place, and in a flash, the Rune Bearers were gone, telling the tacticians and generals to stay put till they got back.