Warning: war crimes.

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Edwin: 26 Eleasias

There were explicit, methodical, and fairly detailed orders to follow. Whether Anchev chose to make a personal appearance or not did not affect him; to begin to think of the man's vulnerabilities (if any) gave him a headache and a sick stomach. These orders were not to be the common property of the men below until the very moment. Brute beasts could continue excitements.

Crimmor was an Amnian—called a city, far smaller than Eltabbar. Obviously. A town. He'd hardly had cause to care for the geography of barbarian lands; he'd not known of its existence previous to this. From strategic discussions overheard, a caravan hub largely protected by humans. Already they had defeated the Amnian forces expected to prevent them from so much as reaching the town. Quite low-walled. Natural defence in the form of a river by its outer defences blocking the way in, the bridge to it updrawn. Attempts would have been made to prepare its food supplies for a siege; that made it useful to seize. The noise of construction outside disturbed him, sawing and subdued commands of haste; trees had been cut down to repair and improvise war-machinery. Edwin shifted uncomfortably in the bedroll on rough ground, in the tent that at least he had for solely himself; it was still dark, and the attack was set for but a few hours hence. His invaluable mind needed a certain amount of rest to properly call upon his powerful magics. Yet again a rock on the ground dug into his back. He moved, his thoughts not fully coherent. The truth was that he was quite tired, and he would hardly be less so once it was over.

There was a soft cough in the air. Suddenly, he opened his eyes: and faint moonlight glittered off a knife's point that shone not far from his throat. Contingencies— he groped; Stoneskin and a scream to summon aid and the assassin would be—unless he killed him first—

"Put your eyes back in your head, Red Wizard," a female voice said. "It wouldn't be clever of you to scream."

In the dark—he'd an infravision spell, uncast—he could make out little of her. On the tall side; perhaps rather scraggly in build; hair down to her shoulders and seeming to be armoured in leather. The knife's point touched the soft skin of his neck.

"Do you remember me, Edwin?"

"(For expediency I temporarily yield—)" he babbled. "Of course not; I can hardly see you—" She'd used his first name rather than his last as he preferred here.

"We met in Nashkel," the woman replied softly. In recent days? Then it is revengeful assassination she seeks— Edwin deduced. Probably slow and painful at that— "In the company of that little girl," she finished. She went on rapidly, and he remembered: the assassins of Nashkel, the gaggle of four females. He couldn't remember doing anything to her specifically, nor whether it was she who had hit him with that vile blood-draining dart.

"Red Wizard," she said. "You went from that girl to the Throne. Your story is not so unknown as you think, Red Wizard of Nashkel." Again he did not ask if she referred to recent events or no; the foolish peasants who hadn't even the sense to run from fireballs and were therefore deserving of an overlord above them. "You aided her and did not kill her. Whatever you may have told Sarevok, he will know that as a betrayal of himself."

That was true; as eminently illustrated by the fate of Philias. At least the uncouth barwhore with the knife didn't seem to know all that could damage him. Hardly a situation alone with a woman in his quarters that he would have asked for. (It could have been worse—the Witch!)

"Then come to the point," Edwin said, with as much cold presence as he could summon to his voice. "(Pun not intended.) What do you want, and what gives you the impression that I could provide it for you?"

"I travelled with Cyricists," the woman said reminiscently, in a way that gave Edwin few hopes for her sanity. Help! I am imprisoned with a dangerous madwoman who will be lying if she says anything before we kill her! Perhaps that would work, though her knife was still too close for him to dare to begin a spell or to scream. "You could say that I am one," she said. "I know what the godling is capable of. I failed him once. Bring me to the leaders here and say that I have true knowledge to defeat Crimmor. For I know it will fall, one way or another; for your preservation from his wrath as well as mine. I am Maneira."

"And do you have such knowledge?" Edwin said, suspicious. (Perhaps an acid arrow in her back when she wasn't looking! —But with the ease she had crept up on him, perhaps she would be unamenable to cooperation in that sort of thing...)

"Where do you think I've come from?" she said, almost sweetly.

—

Crimmor, a battle-plan.

You could go back within the town and spread fear and terror and running away, Edwin would have wanted to say to the filthy blackmailing thief. Even better, you could be conveyed by way of a trebuchet. She knew the location of the water supplies, where the natural river was directed up into Crimmor's main wells, caves and sewers to tramp through. That small group of Anchev's suicidal fanatics took her with them, and would slit her throat if she had lied.

Then archers and mages kept a steady attack against the walls while shielded clerics sought to build across the river; to bring down the bridge once they were across. The defending archers gave a steady fight; Edwin noted they were relatively numerous, aiming through murder-holes and crenellations, men falling as they had done on the Witch's Teat. Most of the arrows were ordinary rather than enchanted, the casualty rate low as if some misaimed on purpose— Not all of the flashes of defenders on the walls he could see were uniformed. His own magic ought to be preserved a little longer. Here in the back he was protected by others' bodies. Battlefields were not alike to ordinary fights of adventuring; one must be cautious, hawk-eyed, ever aware for the tides of fortune. If he repeated that the likes of those who had fallen did so from their own stupidity, it lent confidence.

The bridge grew as if black ants massed together, its materials dark-coloured, forming below the given protections. Lumps of stone were catapulted high, shaking the walls and making small archers scatter. The Flaming Fist managed to be disciplined, regular about it; more so than the defenders.

Any plan of battle must and will go wrong.

There was a signal: Edwin and his backup—five mages left with the main force, counting himself, this made them precious commodities to be given their deserved share of bodyguards—aimed missiles in unison against a group of archers who had been giving trouble. It was difficult to see adequately at this distance; but Edwin thought he saw his bright red flares land upon skin to blister. The bridge was halfway across now. A builder fell flat upon it; they pushed him from it into the waiting waters. He must have been dead already. Ruthless as any Red Wizard's personal armsmen. Their own war machinery and arrows loosed in perfect rhythm. Edwin watched the battle with care. Crimmor was undisciplined and under-defended by men. Then to echo their desperation, mage-arrows began to come. Fires burst down, smoke erupted in the open. Edwin could smell all the horror that resulted: they bore shields, the defenders' aim was flawed, he himself was in a relatively safe position—

A fire arrow burst a bare twenty feet from him, burning soldiers and causing the few healers that remained back to rush to their aid. He stepped further back, still further on edge than before. There was a safe stoneskin around his body.

The bridge-building approached completion, having passed the centre point. By now the defenders on the walls must be quite desperate; they had returned to usual arrows, customary and inferior warfare. Two-thirds, Edwin adjudged it. He wondered what had passed in regard to the other half of the plan. Things will go wrong. He licked dry lips that were still alive and attached to a face.

Anchev chose that dramatic moment to cross. No doubt intimidating to the defenders; some of their arrows sputtered, falling far short. He was flanked by the wizards Perorate and Semaj; a bravely-fired arrow they did not deflect flew from Crimmor's walls into the opening of his spiked helm that shone gold.

Sarevok plucked that out of his face. Edwin would have guessed the arrowhead to be still intact and all skin unbroken. He walked onward across the bridge. The pet wizards wove their spells—simple incantations defended against arrows, but by a man who was not a mage it was something more. The Son of Murder frightened those of Crimmor and the bridge grew more quickly; acolytes gained strength from his presence. Wildly Edwin thought that it would look foolish if he stood and waited at the edge of it; or indeed if he accidentally stepped from the edge. Perorate waved his hands ahead and a line of force grew in the air. The gates of the city shook. Anchev broke through them with his sword.

"Drawbridge down!" came the cry for advancement. They rushed forward; Anchev was the only one for whom mundane arrows meant no threat. Edwin stayed within the crowd of other men. Words of his most powerful spells ricocheted inside his head: I am powerful, I shall live through this one also. I will it! He loathed running. Formations of their own men threatened to flow past him.

Inside the city gates there were screams. Some monkey with a sword saw fit to rush at him, seeing a caster; he conjured an Agannazar's from his hands. Another few heartbeats: another dead by his magic. A sling bullet hit the ground near to him. An armoured figure—less so than Anchev—was perhaps responsible. An acid arrow, to the face, expecting it to cause great pain...

Gold dust flared in the air about Anchev's position, Edwin saw in the air; some godstouch. He must think later of significance. A captain cut through the torso of a peasant woman who had carried a bow. The stench of Crimmor's desperation was thick with blood and still less pleasant reminders of human mortality. In the forefront of the battle Anchev held and rallied others to him. Rising high within the walls Edwin could see now the goal of the Lord's Tower, that where the power in this town rested. Through the streets he could imagine none of what the town must have once been in peacetime. Narrow streets invited ambushes, and the commanding Fist officer barked orders to keep his magic with them. Child, youth, female who dared object to their passage down their streets, any who looked as if they might raise blade— A Thayvian must ever be wary of any who could damage; in slave revolts even the seemingly harmless could inflict some inconvenience to the noble. Another mage's arrow flew unerringly from Edwin's hands to its target; and then a holding spell for rebels to be cut down while they watched.

Perhaps an hour from their entry into the city a cry was raised of victory. At a distance Anchev had charge of the one called Lord Aldon, his very tower turned to a prison by the small group who had come through Crimmor's supply of waters. Regrettably he thought that he saw the thief who had betrayed the town yet living, failing to be executed for treachery, as if she had played some crucial role of the conquest. The town had a gallows, a square for executions; Anchev performed his own conquesting. He was not at all ashamed to get blood on his armour, Edwin thought wildly, adapting the saying. A surrender.

"Orders," Anchev began to his blood-soaked followers; Edwin could not tell if the voice of command was enhanced by magic or a product of the man's own godhood. "All citizens are to be present at the field. There are to be none who deny this. To guard there, the first company, the arcanists; to the north-east of the city to enforce this, the second company; the third—"

Edwin awaited the accountings. There was smoke behind him; some would burn their own dwellings rather than allow them conquered. Some would also betray their town rather than surrender their lives. It was still orderly, here, held in leash by Sarevok Anchev's sheer force of personality. Men of able body offered recruitment as slaves to fill the ranks once more; others lined up and waiting. In peaceful times Crimmor was apparently a trading stop for caravans; sensible travellers had fled already and the wide space was sufficient for guarded civilians. Some tried to flee into the wilderness beyond; some perhaps even escaped. Their guards aimed crossbows after them to kill.

There was still waiting, for Crimmor's traitors to accept service with the Grand Duke. Edwin mopped his brow and found ordinary skin, sweating. The stoneskin had worn off. Beside him a male mage of the Fist sent a small bolt of electricity into the ground before a group of querulous halfling citizens, keeping them in line. A red-haired halfling girl sat on the ground, weeping weakly. Edwin waited.

Semaj had strolled up behind him and he had not even noticed; Edwin jumped slightly. Curse the startlement! Did none care for what he wished? "Greetings again," he mumbled icily, and again the young savant stuttered in his return speech.

"We can w-work together once more," Semaj said, smiling, and apropos as it was for Edwin to be reminded of a sheep by that and the woolly shape of the boy-mage's small beard he still glanced away. He moved his hands, exercising the fingerjoints below his prized gauntlets. It seemed that now there was scarcely a male of fighting age who had not been interrogated amongst the gathering. The herd of peasants was still gathered in their surrender, still surrounded below guard. All the people of Crimmor. Edwin looked across at Anchev's glowing eyes, and looked away again.

"Crimmor was defiant," Sarevok said. "It must serve as a lesson for all of Amn. Let the tale be told by far more than words."

A cheer, in all likelihood carefully orchestrated, rose up for the Lord of Murder. The priest-acolytes took power into their hands. Maneira the traitor stood quietly not far from Anchev's rough dais. Semaj gestured at Edwin, watching him carefully from cold eyes; and so Edwin cast a cloud of unconsciousness across those quick enough to already deduce their fate and foolishly attempt to run. In his own turn the mage cast forth a brown skull that drew moisture from bodies; crossbow bolts were aimed without discrimination.

Any plan of battle will go wrong. Very wrong.

They would say that murder had come to Crimmor.

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