Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth

by WeirdRaptor

A novelization of the original game. Follow Lenneth Valkyrie on her mission to gather the souls of the heroic slain in preparation for Ragnarök. Secrets, lies, and conspiracies mire her path. Will she succeed, or will all fall to darkness?

39. Chapter 38: Lucien III

Valkyrie Profile:

Lenneth Novelization AU:

Disclaimer: I do not own Valkyrie Profile or any other tri-Ace properties. Please support the official release.

Chapter Thirty-Eight:

Lucien III:

Flight through Tur Raghnaill

"Geez, it's like the whole damn town's holdin' a damn funeral," Arngrim grunted. "Don't think I've seen a more sorry buncha screwheads."

Neither Lenneth nor the other einherjar could disagree as they looked down on the city from a rooftop near the heart of Gerebellum. They were above the marketplace near the Lord Mayor's office and various other headquarters of the establishment. They were all closed for the evening, but some of the market's stores were still open, particularly the taverns. Even if the Valkyrie had not been able to feel the city's collective unease with her sixth sense, she'd could tell by sight, even from the roof of a tall building.

"Fear," Lenneth knew the feeling well. "In dark times such as this, it afflicts humans as much as any wound or disease. I somehow missed the fear under all the frustration and rage boiling at the top. These people are afraid."

It wasn't hard for her to guess what. While some people were still out going about some nightly routines, the strong presence of the law left a visible unease to their movements. Most of them simply refused to make eye contact with passing Deputies and tried to walk past them as casually as possible to avoid being stopped and questioned. The locals' movements were slower, the chatter wasn't as loud as it would be normally even during the evening hours, almost like the entire town was afraid to speak too loudly. People were hurriedly buying some essentials and then heading straight home. The bars had surprisingly few customers when they should have more than they could handle. Those were just a few things Lenneth noticed.

"Just what is happening here?" the Valkyrie wondered. "These circumstances must relate to how Lucien will be… joining us tonight."

The Sheriff's deputies in their uniforms rode about the town in frequent patrols. Armored guards roamed the streets on foot, all seemingly searching for something. Or perhaps it was a show of intimidation. As of the moment, the Sheriff's Deputies were inspecting a nearby smithy and had dragged its owner and his family out onto the street while it was searched. Not far away, the city guard were questioning a man who sold clay pottery.

Jelanda looked up, towards Arngrim intently.

"What are they doing?" she asked. "Why are they harassing those people? It's like the whole city's under Martial Law."

The adults around her exchanged uneasy looks.

"I think it is, Little One," Arngrim gravely answered.

"But why?" Jelanda exclaimed.

"Hmm…" Belenus stood with his arms crossed low across his stomach as he scanned the area below.

He and Janus noticed men posting up fresh wanted posters on a bulletin to the group's right a block away at the same time. Both men pointed down towards it.

"We may find some answers there," Janus said.

"Shall we?" Lawfer asked Lenneth.

Their goddess simply nodded and stepped off the edge of the roof, falling into the alleyway. In the fall down, Lenneth reabsorbed her einherjar into her being, deciding that a lone woman walking the streets for just a block would be less noticeable than a group of seven. When she landed, she shifted from her armor into something more casual, a blue ankle-length blue skirt with a white long-sleeved blouse with a high collar, tied with a blue bow. Then the goddess left the alleyway and looked around before heading towards the bulletin. Thankfully, no one harassed her in the short walk. When Lenneth came to the bulletin, she was shocked enough that she almost forgot to allow her einherjar read it through her eyes.

"Wanted for a hundred-thousand oth?" Arngrim said, and let out an impressed whistle. "Dang, that's a bigger score than I ever…"

"How rude!" Jelanda interrupted. "That's one of our future allies!"

"What? It's the merc in me! I can't help it!" Arngrim protested.

"So… Lucien and his Cheap-Side Guard are also The Silver Saviors after all," Belenus did not sound surprised.

"What a sorry state of affairs," Lawfer said. "Alas, I know a thing or two about breaking the law to do what is right, myself."

"Wanted for burglary, assault, damage to property, illegal drug use, and murder," Nanami read off the poster. She sounded very uneasy. "…They sound rather violent."

"Heh! He'll fit right in, then!" Arngrim joked.

"The Silver Saviors mostly just raid slave market caravans and free the enslaved," Belenus noted. "Most of these charges would be committed during the ambushes, but that drug abuse charge is strange."

"Either way, I guess we know why he's slated to die tonight," Arngrim noted. "Looks like the blue bloods are out for his."

Their conversation was just noise in Lenneth's head as she reread that notice top-to-bottom again.

"Just what are you getting yourself into, Lucien?" Lenneth had to wonder.

---

Lucien and his team stood at the door into Túr Raghnaill, which was closed and locked. Quint and Joe guarded it from the sides, weapons readied in case the Sheriff's men decided to attack. Lucien, Claire, Bedelia, and Maximillian stood facing the door. Thalia and Taran had taken the torches. The oil lamp rested on the floor, out of fuel. From below, Ingrid and Gloria bore the battered torture table which had served them well in a last, desperate bid for survival. The legs were beginning to break, so they carried it by its body, hoisted over their heads. Ingrid grunted and pouted up at Lucien above her on the top staircase.

"You actually think this is gonna be of anymore use?" she whined. "I'm tired of carryin' this damn thing!"

"No bellyachin'!" Bedelia scolded her. "Just set 'er down on her side facin' the door and ye'll both be almost done bearin' it."

"Yes, Grandmother," was Gloria's strained response.

She and Ingrid sluggishly brought the slab up and set it down none too gently on its side just as Bedelia had ordered. For the moment, the table's legs were still in good enough shape to prop it up. Everyone but Joe and Quint lined up behind the makeshift wooden barrier. Lucien ran his hand along the upturned side of the table, almost smiling.

"A whole fist thick," he noted, tapping the wooden surface. "Yeah, this oughta give us plenty of cover against any archers The Iron Lady's got waiting for us."

"Yeah, but we won't very well be able to just batter our way out like before," Maximillian told him. "The tower'll be a completely different trouble."

"I know," Lucien muttered unhappily as he regarded the door ahead of them again. "Now comes the hard part."

Claire chuckled grimly next to him.

"You call what we just did to get this far 'easy'?" she sardonically asked.

"Easier than it shoulda been," Maximillian answered.

Claire leaned forward to look the archer standing at Lucien's other side. Maximillian shrugged.

"What we just did with that table had no right workin' as well as it did," Maximillian asserted, still disbelieving, himself. "Yet here we are!"

Both half-dwarven girls gave him withering looks.

"What we did?" Ingrid protested.

She straightened up, putting her hands on her hips as she eyed Maximillian gruffly.

"I didn't see you pushin' this heavy ol' thing!" she grumbled.

"Hey, hey, my arrows did their part, too," Maximillian answered with an easy shrug.

"Alright," Lucien loudly butted in, raising both arms to get everyone's attention. "Everyone, focus. We need a plan before Claire picks the lock. Speaking of…"

He motioned for Claire to join Quint and Joe at the door. "Get into position. Look over the lock, search for any traps."

"Ay!" the redhead half-mockingly saluted.

Claire hopped over the overturned table, kneeling beside the lock while Joe and Quint stepped a bit closer to her in case something happened.

Lucien turned to Bedelia next, "Elder. What are we likely to encounter in this next room?"

"The room ahead be a small hall on the other side o' this here door, young ones," Bedelia answered, looking around to ensure everyone was listening. "'Tis a midpoint 'tween the tower's cellar and The Pit. There be three sets o' stairs all goin' up, to the sides and at the other end. The left goes t' criminal registration. 'Tis a dead end. Right heads clear up to the first floor, into the indoor trainin' grounds. Not a dead end, and big enough to house an army."

"And the third?" Lucien asked.

"The straight ahead goes t' the cellar proper," Bedelia answered. "Into the storage rooms and the armory. It be a way out, but it'll be the long way 'round. The little hall ahead'll only fit a small force. The trainin' grounds'll be a different matter. Storage is halls 'n' many rooms. Much narrower. It be our best bet."

"Very well," Lucien said. "We break through Sheriff's welcome wagon in the little entry hall and move onto the storage area, but…"

He paused, tapping his finger against the thick table.

"We'll still be outnumbered," he thoughtfully muttered.

"Well," Bedelia thoughtfully scratched her chin. "In my day, flour was stored in large supply. If it be fine enough, we can give 'e quite a blast by ignitin' the dust. 'Course… we gotta get thar first."

Lucien thought about it and turned to Quint at the door.

"Quint," he addressed the large ax-wielder.

"Ay?"

"Aside from the acid, you said you had potions with you. What kinds?" Lucien asked. "Anything that might be useful for somethin' other than healing?"

Quint smirked back him. "Healing? I only brought one healin' potion!"

In response, Lucien and the rest regarded him with caution and confusion.

"Just one healing potion?" Lucien repeated, to be sure he'd heard correctly. "What about the rest?"

"Right, Boss!" Quint answered and pulled out three potions. "This one be a White Scimitar!"

Bedelia, Ingrid, and Gloria all looked back in alarm.

"You had a bomb in your pocket this whole time?" Gloria hissed disbelievingly.

Claire and Joe each took a step away from the big man, eyes bugged out in fear. Gloria grabbed fistfuls of her hair at the sides of her head.

"Are you mad?" she demanded.

"Wot?" Quint shrugged. "It didn't go off."

Lucien pinched the ridge of his nose, but he contained his own irritation.

"Alright, everyone keep your voices down," he said. "Quint, what else?"

"An Aegis Wave," Quint answered.

Bedelia squeezed her eyes shut as she inhaled a breath through her teeth quite loudly and Ingrid laughed incredulously.

"Ye had a bomb and a tidal wave just sittin' in yer pockets with spears bein' threw at ya?" Ingrid stated.

It didn't take much to imagine the cave-in that would have killed them all if Quint was tripped up and broke any of those small bottles. What did require imagination was Quint's foolhardiness to not only bring those destructive concoctions with him and not inform them.

Lucien calmed himself down and tried to rationalize this new revelation.

"That's what I get for just assuming he brought potions for wounds and poisons and not making him list them all off up front," Lucien thought. He shoved the thought aside. "Whatever, he's brought with him three crowd-controlling potions. We'll have to be wise with how we use them."

Lucien's strategy began to fall into place in his mind.

"First order of business," he said. "Quint, give the healing potion to Claire, the Aegis Wave to Maximillian, and the White Scimitar to Ingrid or Gloria."

"I've managed to hang onto 'em well so far," Quint retorted.

Lucien's eyes narrowed sternly. "That's an order. It'll just be better to have them distributed. Now, here's what we're gonna do…"

---

"Everyone in formation. Those ruffians will come through at any moment," the officer announced.

The soldiers before him prepared. Four armored knights fanned out, carrying spears and tall, shields. Six archers stepped out front of them, all aiming crossbows at the double doors into The Pit. As soon as soon as Lucien's rebels opened it, they'd die. The officer was a mage, a young man dressed in black robes with red trim to reflect the jackets of the Sheriff and her Deputies. He held a plain wooden staff with runes etched into its sides for better casting.

"Be ready," the officer said. He stood with a proper but relaxed stance. "Do not fire until I give the word. Shoot straight and true, men."

"Yes, sir!" the crossbow archers answered.

"Shield-Bearers. Be ready to step in if by chance our enemy survives the first shots," the officer ordered.

"Ay, sir!" the shield-bearers barked back, thumping their spears against their shields once.

Four of the crossbow archers smirked, confident in the new armor-piercing models they had been armed with. They're personally seen how well they worked.

A faint knocking and clicking could be heard coming from the other side. The mage instinctively reached for a diamond-shaped amulet hanging from his neck by a woven, braided cord. It was gold with a white, round gem in its middle. The mage clutched, reminding himself it was there.

"No arrow or spear will reach me as long as I'm wearing this," he told himself as a comfort. "I have nothing to worry about so long as I can cast if it comes to it."

Click.

Claire had unlocked the door.

"They'll have heard that," she quietly told the others. "We won't be taking anyone by surprise, so I hope you're ready."

"We are," Lucien answered.

Beside him, Ingrid and Gloria lifted the table from the ground slightly, gripping the slab by the ends and bottom, as they prepared push their makeshift cover forward. Bedelia, Maximillian, Thalia, and Taran all crouched behind the table as they prepared to move. As soon as the first round of bolts were fired, they'd have maybe a few seconds to prevent a follow-up.

Lucien then nodded to Quint and Joe who still guarded the door. He dropped to a knee behind the wooden barrier as well. Quint and Joe quietly grabbed hold of the drop-rings as Claire moved to the side. Then they pulled the doors open.

"FIRE!" the mage officer hollered.

The crossbow archers pulled the triggers, firing an even spread. The half-dwarves were ready to push forward, but then the first of the armor-piercing bolts punctured through the wood. Its sharp head stopping less than an inch from Gloria's eye, making her scream and drop her end of the table as she fell back. Ingrid just froze as she looked between the boltheads poking through the slab. Shocked curses were uttered from Lucien's team, huddling behind the overturned table.

"Armor piercing!" Bedelia gutturally uttered. "We be in fer it now!"

Hidden around the corners of the opened doorway, Claire, Quint, and Joe were visibly startled, too. In the entryway, the mage officer smirked and pointed forward with his staff.

"Forward, men!" he ordered.

Claire dared a peek around the corner and saw the shield-bearing knights advancing with the crossbow archers following behind while reloading. The mage in the back stayed at a distance.

"Shit, shit! They're coming!" Claire called back at the others.

Lucien shook Gloria's shoulder.

"Coming on! We gotta get the slab through the door!" he said.

Gloria sat back up and grabbed the table, lifting their only cover again, but then time tried to keep her face and body away from it. The cousins pushed forward, running to block the door before the knights and archers reached it first. Lucien and the others followed, hunched to stay behind cover. At the back of the enemy lines, the mage narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his staff as he began to channel magic.

"Halt!" he ordered.

The knights and archers both obeyed. A few glanced at him in confusion as Gloria and Ingrid crossed the threshold into the room, unimpeded.

"Just what is he up to?" Lucien wondered.

"Part ranks!" the mage officer followed up with a second order.

The archers and knights all sharply moved to the sides. The mage officer had already gathered the necessary magics. His staff and the floor under his feet glowed with power. Lucien's party saw him and realized at once what was about to happen, but had no time, except to curse.

"Everyone down!" Maximillian shouted.

"FIRE LANCE!" The enemy leader shouted.

From the rounded crown of his staff shot a half-dozen comet-like fireballs. The knights and crossbow archers flinched the magic missiles sailed past. The half-dwarves dropped the table on its side and held it in place, bracing themselves with eyes squeezed shut. Four of the fireballs hit the overturned table head on. The impact broke it into splinters and sent Ingrid and Gloria flying backwards into the others, slamming them all onto the floor in a tangled pile. Only Thalia and Taran remained upright. They stood up as Quint and Joe dashed around the corner to join them, weapons at the ready, but without any real plan while Lucien and the others were down and exposed.

Quint let go of his ax with one hand, considering grabbing one of their downed comrades and getting them to their feet. Lucien, Maximillian, and Gloria were the first to recover, managing to sit themselves up on their elbows as they looked ahead at their attackers.

The mage officer smirked, and pointed to the rebels, giving them no quarter or time to recover.

"Archers!" he commanded.

Quint, Taran, Joe, and Thalia watched the crossbow archers aim. The four quickly glanced down at their downed comrades. Lucien had managed to roll himself over in top of Claire to cover her while Gloria had done the same to cover Ingrid. Maximillian had flopped over on his side in front of Bedelia. With only a second to decide, the four warriors still standing made a decision. Quint, Joe, Taran, and Thalia all leapt forward, charging their enemy head-on.

Twang! The crossbow archers pulled the triggers.

Quint howled as two bolts hit him, one just below his right collar bone and the other right above his left hip, but he bore the pain, and pressed on. Quint moved with all the speed of an unwounded man with his ax raised. Beside him, Thalia whimpered as she kept in pace with a limp. A bolt stuck out of her left thigh, and blood trickled down her leg, but she did not stop, either. On her other side was Joe, screaming as he rampaged towards their enemy with two bolts in him as well. One shot through his throat and the other through his chest. Behind them, Taran lied dead, felled by a bolt that punched right through his skull.

Lucien and the other recovering team members had watched their friends take the bolts for them. Lucien gritted the teeth, and rolled off Claire to get his footing. As Quint and the others charged the Sheriff's men, the crossbow archers retreated behind the knights. The sight of Joe alone, a man that should be dead that very instant, coming at them as he profusely bled from his wounds was enough to cripple their morale. Even the four knights felt intimidated as closed ranks in front of the ranged units.

Quint met the two of the knights, who thrust their spears at him. His ax flew, angled to meet both their weapons. Quint managed to parry them to the side using the body of his weapon and hooking them with the bottom of the ax's head with an arcing motion, forcing the spearheads to the floor in the downswing. Then he charged, shoulder-first at the nearer knight before they could pull back their weapons again. Quint managed to stumble the knight and used his own forward motion to power his attack against the other. All he managed to do was crack the man's chest-plate.

The knight looked down, and then at Quint before slamming into the injured ax fighter with his shield, knocking him down. Quint hit the floor roughly, groaning in agony as the bolt below his collarbone dug in deeper. He looked up with blurry red-tinted vision as both knights raised their spears to end him. Quint closed his eyes, accepting the inevitable.

Thalia rushed one knight, ignoring the pain in her thigh. She drew her cutlass low to the side in preparation to strike. He held out his shield in front, anticipating her move. The blonde woman privately smirked, recognizing the basic blocking maneuver of an inexperienced recruit. She knew he'd block her first swing and follow that up with a straightforward thrust of his spear and was unlikely to think to push her away with his shield. Thalia struck his shield with everything she had, and just like she expected, he immediately pulled back his shield as he pivoted his body to stab her.

Thalia leapt to the side, getting lightly cut in the side, but it didn't matter. His arm was extended. She brought the butt of her sword hilt's down on his fingers as hard as she could. Even protected by a plated gauntlet, the whack she gave his digits hurt and he dropped his spear. In the same motion, Thalia drew her sword back before pointing it at him. Before he could recover, she plunged it up, stabbing him in the ribs right below his armpit, one of the only exposed spots on his body. The young knight howled and smacked her away with his shield. Thalia grunted, backing away before dropping to her knees. She looked to see her injured and enraged opponent stomp towards her, raising his shield to smash her head in with its pointed bottom edge.

The fourth knight at the end of the line took a long step forward and plunged his spear forwards at Joe, who rushed him screaming like a madman despite his wounds. Joe parried the spear and slashed at him. The knight blocked, but the force of the dying man's blow forced him back. Joe turned into a whirlwind of slashes and stabs, frantically swinging his sword faster than the armored man could keep up with.

"Mich! Mich, get outta the way!' one of the archers shouted at the armored knight.

Mich ineffectually tried to block and parry until both his spear was wrenched from his hand and shield arm was whipped out of the way, leaving him exposed. With the short opening granted, Joe pulled his sword back and thrust it forward with a palm pressed the hilt's pommel. Using the full strength of his arms and all his body weight, Joe's lunge punched through the other man's breastplate, stabbing him through the heart. The knight and Joe stood still a moment, then they both slumped to the floor. With the adrenaline rush over, Joe's strength left him. He and his opponent fell first to their knees and then their sides, dying within seconds of each other.

"Lucien… you have to get them out… run… run away… all of you…" were Joe's final thoughts.

Quint lied on his back with his eyes shut, awaiting the end. His solemn final contemplations were cut short when he heard two pairs of feet patter past him, followed by the clash of metal. He opened his eyes. Ingrid and Gloria had come to his rescue. Ingrid beheaded the knight with the broken chest-plate while Gloria had stabbed the other in the face through the opening in his visor. Then both half-dwarves grabbed the dead men around the middle, holding them up as shields between them and the crossbow archers.

Quint relaxed and flopped flat against the floor. "Oh, thanks the gods."

The two archers looked for a way to shoot the half-dwarves, but the bulky frames of their armored protectors prevented that. Behind their bleeding, dead meat-shields, Ingrid and Gloria shared a smirk. They braced their legs as they lifted the corpses from the floor. Then, the cousins flung the husks into the two archers, slamming them into the floor under the dead man's weight. Gloria and Ingrid then pounced on their downed prey.

Thalia sat on her knees, unable to move as the injured knight bore down on her, intending to cave her skull in with the bottom edge of his shield. His pained grunts and angry snarl merged, becoming an unholy, rasping sound from within his helmet.

"At least, it'll be quick," Thalia told herself to keep the fear bottled.

"Hup!" something red and gray leapt straight over her head, landing in front of her.

"Eh?" Thalia cried, falling onto her uninjured thigh.

She recognized Lucien from his usual gray workpants and red armor once he had landed. With a powerful swing, he sent the knight's shield flying. Then, Lucien jumped in real close to the stunned man and smacked him in the front of the helmet, pushing the knight's head back. Then Lucien plunged his sword into his opponent's exposed neck before tackling him around his body. Lucien drove the dying man backwards, towards the crossbow archers, also using his opponent's body as a shield.

The archers cursed, and shot at Lucien, aiming for his legs, but only managed to hit the back of the dead knight's tendons. The two archers fanned out to avoid being barreled over by Lucien, as they reached to reload. They never got the chance. Claire ran up and pounced at one. He saw her coming and blocked her first attack by clumsily swinging the crossbow around. Claire hopped back a pace and then kicked straight out, punting the weapon from her enemy's hands. Then she withdrew her foot and kicked a second time, hitting the archer hard in his stomach. He grunted, doubling over as he stumbled back.

Claire gave him no quarter and kicked him again, this time in the chest, knocking him flat against the wall. She leapt in and slit his threat. Behind her, Lucien had dropped the dead knight and tackled the other archer to the floor, cracking the man's skull against the flagstones.

"Mich! Mich, get outta the way!' one of the archers shouted while Sir Mich and Joe exchanged blows.

The remaining two crossbow archers stepped back and forth, trying to get a good shot to hopefully fell Joe this time, but both he and their armored protector moved around too much for either one to get a clean opening. Neither were armed for close combat, so they didn't dare step in and interfere.

Then Joe broke through Sir Mich's defenses and punched through his chest-plate with his sword. The archers kept their bows trained on the fight. Joe and Mich both fell to their knees, revealing Maximillian and Bedelia standing behind them. Their own bows had been readied. The two crossbow archers aimed, but Maximillian and Bedelia were quicker to fire. Maximillian downed his right away, hitting him at the base of the throat, cutting off both his air and puncturing his jugular. Bedelia had shot her target in the chest, making the man stumble and fall back against the wall.

The crossbow archer glared down at his chest wound. He found his grit and pushed away from the wall to try again, but not before Maximillian deftly hopped over Joe and Mich's bodies to reach him. He swung his bow like a club, knocking the crossbow archer's weapon away, causing it misfire into one of the wooden beams along the walls. Then Maximillian swung his bow again, clobbering the man in his right temple. The crossbow archer dropped like a full sack of coal.

The mage officer scowled, backing up towards the stairs as he watched his men fall in rapid succession from a two-pronged impromptu counterattack by the gutter rats. Then Lucien's crew turned to him. Thalia had gotten up and broken off the shaft of the bolt sticking out of her leg before limping up to the join the others. She was just shy of having to use her cutlass as a crutch as she stood between Lucien and Maximillian. Quint had also attempted to stand, but the pain of his wounds had caught up to him, robbing him of his strength. Bedelia still stood beside Maximillian. Claire, Ingrid, and Gloria were on Lucien's other side.

As the mage conjured more magic, he backed up a bit more and looked up to the stairs leading to the training area, where an entire battalion of the Sheriff's men waited. There were about fifty crossbow archers up there. Far too many of these Silver Saviors to pull anymore shenanigans to get past.

"I'd never make it. These base peasants can run faster than I, I've seen that just now," he thought. "I'll just have to kill them with one good blast of magic."

The mage knew he had to act quickly as old woman aimed at him. The mage instinctively clutched the protective amulet about his neck again. Bedelia fired, but it splintered off some unseen force protecting him. Bedelia narrowed her eyes, spotting the trinket hanging from the mage's neck and knowing what it was. Maximillian scowled when he noticed it, too, knowing the mage had the advantage.

The mage smiled and slammed the end of his staff against the floor, igniting the magics within. As his staff and the floor around him began to glow, Lucien and the others all took a step back, their instincts telling them to scatter, but the small entry hall confined them. No matter how they fled, there was no way the mage could miss in such tight quarters. In that desperate moment, they looked frantically for some way to stop him. Ingrid remembered the dead knights and dropped into a squat, grabbing one by the ankle.

The mage saw that motion and cast, "Icicle Edge!"

Ice spears materialized in the air above the mage's head. Lucien's body moved on its own, grabbing Claire and moving her behind him. Ingrid gripped the dead man's ankle with both hands. When the mage sent the spears flying, she heaved the corpse into the air. The icicles either stabbed into the body or shattered against the armor. The sixth and final frozen javelin made it through, flying towards Maximillian. Thalia rammed her slender frame sideways into him, intending only to push Maximillian out of the way. She succeeded, knocking Maximillian into the wall, but her leg's injury caused her to stumble right into the spear's path.

"Shit…" she thought.

The ice spear impaling her through the chest and flung the woman against the floor. Everyone looked as she lied on her side, writhing in pain in her final moments. Tears ran from Thalia's eyes as she looked up at Maximillian, as though trying to make sense of the situation before her eyes rolled up and she fell still upon the stones. The mage felt their collective rage. Maximillian and Claire sprang at the man like charging cougars, drawing their knives. The mage officer bolted for the stairs, tripping on his robes in his flight.

"SHERIFF! SHERIFF, HE… GRRRRY-UH!" the mage's plea became a gargling rattle as he was pierced through the back.

The mage plopped onto the steps and rolled down them, forcing Claire to jump over him. She and Maximillian watched him reach the bottom, dead with his men. Claire and Maximillia cautiously looked up to the door, anticipating the Sheriff to answer that last call for help. Lucien and the other surviving members came up to the base of the steps as Claire and Maximillian came down to meet them. Now they just had to head straight to go to storage.

"Alright…" Claire said, sounding relieved. "Now we can…"

She stopped herself when she noticed Lucien, Bedelia, Ingrid, and Gloria supporting the wounded Quint all staring at the way to the storage rooms in near despair.

"What?" Maximillian asked.

He and Claire looked, and their hearts sunk. The stairwell leading up to storage had been bricked up, blocking their only other way out of that little cellar. Lucien looked at Bedelia, almost accusingly.

"You said there was a way to storage, where we'd have a better chance!"

Bedelia glared back.

"Don't ye dare take that tone, boy," she shot back. "There was, last I was here, some twenty years ago. They was farther back than this wall, and may be there yet."

Lucien looked up the steps to the training grounds. With Taran, Joe, and Thalia dead, there was only seven of them now, and Quint could barely walk. Their only chances were to keep to narrower spaces like hallways. Lucien looked at the brick wall, deciding they had nothing to lose by trying it. He glanced to the sides, noting that the base of both stairwells to the sides stuck out from the walls by about four steps apiece, providing a bit of cover.

"There's only one choice to make. Ingrid," Lucien commanded. "Grab a pair of those spears the knights were carrying. Barricade the training grounds door with 'em. It'll buy us a moment."

"On it!" Ingrid grabbed up two of the discarded spears and went up to block the door with them.

"As for the rest of you," Lucien said, motioning behind the two stairwells. "Take cover. One of Quint's potions may just save us yet. Gloria, break the White Scimitar against that wall."

"Ay," the blonde hybrid stepped forward, taking out the small glass bottle containing black powder. She held it tightly. "One explosion coming right up."

---

"SHERIFF! SHERIFF, HE… GRRRRY-UH!" the mage's plea had been heard from above.

"Sheriff?" one of her deputies inquired.

Several of the troops at Agatha's command were waiting a few yards outside the door as the Lady Sheriff raised her hand in a halting motion, silently ordering them to stay put.

"Sheriff…?" one of the knight captains asked.

Agatha repeated the motion, not looking at any of them.

"Remain where you are," she ordered.

"Our comrades perish down right!" the captain protested.

"Tight quarters served us poorly in The Pit," Agatha answered coolly. "Up here we have the advantage, and I will not surrender it. Besides, they must come out through here to escape."

"Yet you still sent a few men off to storage?" the captain pointed out.

"Of course," Agatha replied. "I will not be taken off my guard when we are so close to victory. They have already proven resourceful beyond expectation. I would not put it past them to…"

KABOOM! A blast from downstairs made the whole tower shake. Items could be heard falling off surfaces immediately after. The men shuffled about in panic and even Sheriff Agatha looked a little surprised, who had not quite expected anything that suddenly violent or loud.

"Case in point," she muttered, recovering quickly. Then she sharply motioned to the men on her right. "Units 4 and 7. Down the stairs! The rest of you, to storage! We will block them in, ourselves!"

---

"Oi, Max! Set me down, set me down!" Quint's painfully strained out.

"What, we can't stop now!" Maximillian protested.

They were the last to the old steps, which did in fact still stand behind the brickwork erected to block them off. As soon as the debris was done flying, Lucien's team fled through the new opening as best they could, climbing over hunks of brick lying strewn all over the little entry hall floor with zero visibility and no time to second guess. When Claire reached the bottom step first, her elated confirmation drove them forward to and up those stairs even faster. Bedelia had grabbed a wall-mounted torch from its holder as she ran past.

Maximillian and Quint had just reached the bottom step when they heard footsteps above.

"Come on!" Maximillian urged.

He tried to drag Quint along, but the large ax-fighter simply put his weight down, wrenching himself free of Maximillian's grip. He grimaced in pain as he sat himself down on the bottom steps.

"Quint!" Maximillian reprimanded.

The guards began banging at the blocked door above, making it violently rattle. Quint saw the barricade begin to give already and held out his hand to Maximillian.

"Aegis Wave potion. Now," he ordered. "Then get goin'."

Maximillian obeyed, and dug out the potion from his pocket, but his eyes did not leave Quint's. His look conveyed his uncertainty as he handed the potion over.

"Alright, I'll catch up," Quint said.

Maximillian didn't budge, knowing that was a bald-faced lie. Quint's hip and shoulder wounds robbed him of the strength and speed to avoid being swept up in the tidal wave breaking that potion bottle would summon. If he set the magic free where he sat, he'd share the fate of their enemy. Quint knew that, and also knew he'd just slow his team down when they needed speed more than ever. He just nodded to Maximillian, affirming his understanding of his situation.

"I said, get goin'. I'll catch up," Quint repeated gravely.

Maximillian gulped, and with grief already welling in his heart, he answered, "It was true honor."

"Go," Quint told him again.

Maximillian ran into the darkness up the steps. Not a minute later, the training grounds door was kicked open and the Sheriff's men flooded down the steps into the entryway. Quint sat quietly and watched them filed down. As they approached him, a redheaded and arrogant-looking pimple-faced officer trained his sword on wounded man.

"Oi! You! Drop that thing in your hand!" he ordered.

"Drop it?" Quint jovially said with a wry grin. "Poor choice o' words, mate."

"NO!" the officer cried as Quint flung the Aegis Wave against the floor.

---

"Everyone through! Everyone through!" Agatha ordered.

She stood beside the door, waving men into the entry room. They had to hurry, because only a locked door waited at the other end of the corridor Lucien's team had opened, an obstacle she knew they would circumvent.

"Men, step lively!" Agatha shouted. "Move!"

Then a sudden rumbling sound from below made her stop. She hadn't the chance to move when screams erupted as well. Agatha looked and a current of water burst through the doorway. Agatha screamed as it swept up everyone, surging into the room, filling the large room at least seven feet of water until the pressure against the doors pushed them open. The conjured water rushed through the halls of the tower first floor, taking with it everything it collected. When it spread and shallowed enough, Agatha came to rest on the wet floor. She sat up and leaned against the wall in a hallway… somewhere in Túr Raghnaill. Agatha's graying hairs fell over her face and remaining eye wildly, no longer in a ponytail. She glared, lips twitching in anger. She was sopping wet and shivering in the dark, the torches roused by the rushing water.

"Lucien…" Agatha savagely growled as she clumsily climbed to her feet.

She slicked back the hair from her face, still snarling.

"You will pay."

---

"Captain Mason, look. We appear to have… water leakage?"

Mason turned towards the tower at the behest of his lieutenant. Then he blinked rapidly, finding himself unsure if he could trust his eyes any longer. Even in dark of night with only lamps and torches lighting the exterior of Tur Raghnaill, they could see water flowing out in little waterfalls out of each first-floor window along the front of the building, accompanied by the sound of panicked shouting.

"What in the Realms is going on in there?" Mason voiced his utter mystification.

---

"Is that sound… water rushing?" Lucien asked.

They didn't dare to stop, but the group did slow up when they heard the roar of water behind them in the dark, dusty, moldy hallway. They almost couldn't hear the screams of the sheriff's men.

"Did Maximillian use that water potion?" Ingrid asked.

"Likely," Bedelia answered. "All the more reason to keep movin'. Come, and stay close."

"That means we're outta magic to use against the enemy," Lucien said.

"Just the healing potion, then," Claire said as she jogged with the rest of them.

"Emergencies only," Gloria said.

"Don't worry," Claire said. "I'll only use it if one of us practically on death's door."

They did as Bedelia ordered, staying close to her, since she bore the only torch as they picked up the pace again. The formerly sealed portion of the tower was completely unlit, forcing them to rely on Bedelia on their way through.

"Guys…" Claire glanced back. "I don't see Maximillian, or Quint."

Gloria and Ingrid glanced see if anyone was following them in the dark. They both saw the outline of a single man racing after them.

"There is someone following us," Ingrid observed. Her hand strayed to her ax. "Keep goin', I'll…"

"No, it's me," Maximillian called from the dark behind them. "It's old Max! Just keep goin'."

"Max!" Lucien happily called over his shoulder. "You and Quint okay?"

"There's only one person following us…" Gloria muttered.

Maximillian had fallen silent in the dark behind them. The team knew what must have happened.

"Damn it!" Lucien mentally lamented as more pain rippled through his core. "We just keep losing people! Why did I ever think this was a good idea?"

Lucien forcibly brought himself back to reality.

"Can't lose it now," he told himself. "Not when we're dropping like children to a plague."

Bedelia's torch was limited, but what the humans could make out a passage no one had entered to clean in years. It was cold and dusty, cobwebs were tangled everywhere and frequently hung low enough to get in their faces and the smell of mold was strong enough to induce nausea. Maximillian caught up to them and entered the torch's circle of light. He avoided eye contact when the others glanced at him. No one bothered him, it was obvious he regretted leaving Quint behind.

"I'm sorry," Maximillian said a moment later. "They were already pounding the door in. They'd have come after us all right away if Quint hadn't stayed behind the potion."

"Worry not," Bedelia gruffly him. "He bought us precious moments."

"What can we expect at the end of this hall?" Lucien asked.

With little certainty, Bedelia answered, "There was a thick door with a heavy lock when last I was here. Guess we'll see how keen they was on sealin' this part of the tower and if we've cornered ourselves."

That brought a question on Claire's mind.

"Why would they seal off the way directly to the armory and storage from The Pit, anyway?" she asked.

Bedelia shrugged. "Me best guess would be a prisoner got loose and made their through 'ere. Mighta even had a good last stand in the armory."

Lucien grimaced before sardonically muttering, "Yeah, bet ol' Iron Lady Sheriff Agatha loved that."

"Ay," Bedelia answered. "Chances be the Sheriff wouldn't be lettin' that happen a second time, since they can just take the long ways 'round through the training grounds to bring supplies down to The Pit."

"The locked door's dead ahead now," Ingrid reported.

The group slowed as the torch's circle of light reached an old wooden door. Aged and discolored boards were fastened in place by rusted iron bands and nails. Bedelia lowered the torch to the lock and pull-ring. They were covered in dust and little cobwebs. The old woman had suspected that would be the case.

Claire ran her hands over one of the iron bands and looked at Bedelia. "Think it'll give?"

"With the right convincin'," Bedelia answered, and turned to Gloria and Ingrid. "Girls."

"On it, Granny," Ingrid answered.

She drew her ax from its holster as she and Gloria looked the door the over in their approach. They already knew what to do already as they stared at the door jamb beside the lock. Ingrid grinned, relieved at how easy this was going to be. Gloria then backed up a step to let Ingrid do her part first. The pinkette aimed her ax at the spot next to the lock and drop ring. Then she swung it at an angle with all her might. The blade penetrated deep into the wood, cracking the entire left side of the door, and loosening the lock's hold on the doorframe. Then Ingrid backed off and let Gloria take a running step. She kicked the door and knocked the iron panel of the lock and ring off entirely, sending it clanking into the hallway outside as the door swung open. It wobbled in place, creaking gratingly before it went still. They were at the corner where a corridor split off ahead and to the right.

"Oh, thank the gods!" Claire breathed.

They hadn't trapped themselves, after all. Bedelia and Maximillian both took out arrows and crept up to the sides of the door frame. Maximillian put his back to the right side of the doorframe and peered around the corner towards the right.

"No one," he reported and stepped out.

The others stepped out behind him, weapons in hand. They could vaguely hear shouts from somewhere else in the tower, but at the moment, the way was clear down both halls. They were well lit with plenty of doors along the sides. The way ahead of them turned to the left at the end while the right ended in a T-junction.

"Down that way," Bedelia pointed right. "To storage, unless they've moved things around."

"Storage first?" Claire flatly asked. "We're not grabbin' anything from the armory?"

"The fire we're about to start with the storage flour will be enough," Bedelia said with an ornery air. "We can't take the whole tower, so we'll be needin' 'em to clear out."

Maximillian raised a brow and smirked.

"Yer a cruel old coot sometimes, ye know?" he cracked.

Bedelia grinned back. Claire's brow twitched in agitation and astonishment.

"Wait, just how much flour are we igniting?" Claire sharply protested.

"All of it," Bedelia answered.

Claire felt her stomach turn over.

"That's insane!" she cried. "With the wooden supports, tapestries, furniture, papers, and everything else, there're enough to spread a fire all over this tower even if the flour doesn't just combust!"

"That be a point," Bedelia answered. ""A fire'll force 'em to open the tower to escape."

"Sounds good. Let's go," Lucien ordered.

Claire stumbled, unable to find her words as Lucien took the lead. The others followed and Maximillian took up a spot beside Lucien, bow still ready. Ingrid and Gloria were behind them and Bedelia side-walked at the rear. Claire hesitated, sighed in defeat as she shoulders sagged before she followed them. Truthfully, they all had issues with this plan, but didn't have any better alternatives. They were down to exactly one potion with a whole fortress of soldiers between them and freedom. Nothing short of a disaster or a miracle was getting them outside the curtain wall at that juncture. So, creating a disaster was their play.

"We go right again at the end," Bedelia instructed.

"You hear that?" the distant voice of a guard echoed through the halls.

It sounded it like it was coming from somewhere ahead of them, but they group did not stop.

"Keep movin'," Bedelia whispered from the back. "We might beat 'em if we hurry."

They quickened pace, as ordered.

"Who can hear anything wit' all that screamin' 'n' splashin'?" another guard retorted. "Wot's even goin' 'round here?"

"Where ye off ta? Sheriff said to patrol this part o' the tower," a third protested.

"Ya ain't curious why it sounded like the tower sprouted a bloomin' waterfall?" the second guard cried.

"The only thing I'm curious about is ye leavin' yer post. Get back 'ere! We'll check out what Fritz thinks he heard," the third guard ordered.

"But all the roarin' 'n' screamin'!" the second protested.

"We got Silver Necklaces loose in our tower. That's the cause," the third insisted. "What did ya hear, Fritz?"

"Someone bashin' 'gainst a door, me thinks," Fritz answered. "Sounded like it came from the back o' storage."

"They be comin'," Bedelia quietly muttered to the others.

They were close to the end of the hall, slowing only to let Maximillian peer around the corner before stepping out first with his bow still at the ready. They guards hadn't arrived yet, so they hung right as Bedelia instructed through a short corridor, then into the corner of a large, wide room filled with stacks of crates, lines of barrels, and piles of brown cloth sacks. There were a pair of doors at the other end of the room, both closed.

Bedelia let out a mental "Whew" seeing the supplies hadn't been moved.

"This be it," she announced.

The small crew quickly vanished into the room. Just a few heartbeats later, the guards entered the other end of the T-section. Lucien raised a finger to his lips and motioned around for everyone to get behind something. Claire was quick to crouch behind a row of large barrels. Bedelia and her granddaughters got behind a lone crate set, and Lucien backed up a pillar. There, they silently waited while the sounds of the guards' chatter and footsteps came closer. Maximillian sidled away from the corner, and hid himself behind a pile of bags.

Lucien slowly drew his sword out and then held it upright close against his body as he put his back to the stone pillar. It was wide enough to conceal him, but only if he stood perfectly upright and still. When he was sure the approaching guards were close to the storage area, he raised one foot and planted it against the side the pillar, so he could push off to move quickly. The three men were not far.

"Ye heard it in here, Fritz?" the third guard asked.

"Not the storeroom, I think it was further back…" Fritz muttered. "I think that door's open back there."

"Wait, that one's never supposed to be opened again. What on Midgard?"

Then the three men moved away. The crew had but moments to act. They silently moved from their hiding spots and went straight for a stack of bags against the far wall, near the doors at the other end. Maximillian continued to keep an eye on their rear, frequently making full rotations as he walked.

"Here it be," Bedelia muttered, tapping a nearby sack. "Quick, now. Check the flour's quality."

Claire, sliced a bag open along its top and grabbed a pinch of the white powder from inside, rubbing it between her fingers.

"It's very fine," she reported. "If you want a bang to that last one, this'll do it."

"Good," Bedelia nodded. Then she pointed towards the doors in the back of the room. "Claire, unlock the door on the right over there. We'll need to be leavin' quick."

"Right," Claire answered.

The redhead looked at the fine powder uneasily one more time before moving away

Bedelia patted one of the bags. "Rip 'em up and spread it around. Once Claire's got our way out, we gotta run."

Lucien grabbed the bag Claire opened, pouring out the powder in the middle of the room and filling it with dust. Ingrid and Gloria were quick to follow, each grabbing sacks, ripping them open with their bare hands before hurling them off to the far reaches of the storage area. Maximillian suppressed a cough and then a sneeze as he took out his own knife, and cut open one of the sacks, himself.

---

"No mistake abou' it. They somehow busted out," Fritz said.

The guards inspected the door of the sealed hallway. It had been nearly split near the lock and a chunk was lying on the floor.

"But how could they have…" the incredulous guard muttered. "This was double thick and bricked up on the other side. Oi, wot do ye think… Fritz?"

When he turned to Fritz, he was looking back down the way they had come, towards the storage room.

"Oi, did ye two hear that? Sounds like someone skulking over in the storage area?" Fritz asked.

The other two just looked at him.

"Maybe that's where they gone," Fritz suggested. "A couple o' doors to the south wing in there."

"Right, then. Let's go," one of his comrades said.

He walked in front with Fritz and the other guard following, briskly striding. They all kept quiet, trying to listen for the noises Fritz had heard.

"Good, now this one…" they faintly heard someone say.

The three guards shared looks, grinning at having found the intruders. They abandoned stealth, taking off into a sprint. They heard a door open in the storage room, which made them further pick up the pace. Then, as they turned into the short corridor, they saw flour dust thick in the air, drifting out from the storage room. They hadn't time to even question it before they heard the distinct hissing whoosh of flames ignited. Then storage ignited into fiery light all the flour dust in the air burned in a chain reaction that exploded in their faces.

---

"Holy…" Maximillian cried.

He had to jump back, curling his legs in to avoid being hit by the door when the explosion blew it off its hinges. He nearly slipped and fell, but Gloria grabbed his arm to steady him. The door clattered against the floor, almost hitting Maximillian again, who took a big step back to avoid it.

"Are you okay?" Claire cried.

"Y-yeah…" Maximillian answered without looking away.

The others also looked back through the doorway and shied away as the flames billowed out like a stream blown from a dragon's mouth. Smoke entered the hallway as though to chase down its prey.

"Blast! Run!" Lucien hissed.

He took out a rag he'd brought to use as a handkerchief and covered his nose and mouth with it. The others did the same with whatever they had on them and ran through the passage, with literal flames threatening to catch up to them and nip at their heels like a mad dog. The light of the raging fire from cast wobbling shadows which exaggerated their forms on the walls. There was no door blocking their way, just a stone archway they hurried through into one of the tower's rear hallways with narrow, rectangular windows.

None of them dared to remove the cloths from their faces yet as smoke had almost followed them clear to the end. They could even feel the heat from where they were. There was more shouting and approaching footsteps from deeper in the tower fortress, demanding to know what that noise had been. Muffled curses were muttered throughout the group, knowing all the guards and military personnel would be heading towards the back of the tower's first floor to investigate. Bedelia pointed left from the passage they had just exited. They broke into a moderate sprint without hesitation. They heard more guards enter the back hall behind them.

"Oi! Oo're you? Stop at… smoke?!"

The rebels didn't stop or turn around even as they heard the guards' clanking footsteps. Behind them, a quartet of guards rushed up to the door the rebels exited from, and paused to see why a thick cloud of smoke was filling the tower. Their faces paled when they saw flame spreading out into the storage passage. With a frustrated growl, the lead guard made his decision.

"Don't pursue!" he ordered. "Freya's grace! The maniacs! They must've lit the flour! Sound the alarm!"

---

"But Sheriff, we still don't know what that second blast was," a deputy protested. He hurried along following the incensed Agatha as she led them towards the storage area. "It may be more important than…"

Agatha glared back, silencing him.

"Nothing is more important than finding Lucien's rabble!" she voice raised angrily. "They will have been responsible for that other blast, anyway. It came from storage."

Then she quickened pace further, forcing the rest of her entourage to speed up as well. In truth, her men didn't know what was more impressive. How utterly undeterred she was after the rebels' stunt with the table-come-battering-ram down in The Pit, or their latest bit of shenanigans blowing up walls and flooding half the first floor, or how unaffected Agatha seemed marching around in her damp uniform. When they came to a side passage, Agatha slowed slightly, gesturing toward it.

"2nd Unit!" she ordered. "Take the long way around. We will box them in! Meet us in the back hall of the South Wing!"

"Ay!" the men of the 2nd Unit complied.

With that, fifty men split off from the Sheriff's squad, headed down the other passage. As Agatha and her men then made their way, they began to pick up the faint smell of smoke. Some of the men wrinkled their noses. At the lead, Agatha slowed down again, sniffing the air taking short, loud sniffs. Then she stopped them not far from the south wing.

"…Smoke?" Agatha muttered, looking around. "…What on Midgard? Did Lucien's bloody Saviors start a fire?"

DING, DONG, DING, DONG, DING, DONG.

As though to answer her question, the alarm bell began ringing, causing everyone to tense up. It was faint, but they could hear it all the way from where it had been set on the second-floor roof battlements.

"An alarm," Agatha said with her lip curling up angrily. "The fools did start a fire."

She raised a hand. "Archie, Kline, catch up to the 2nd Unit and have them withdraw. Lieutenant, break off of our unit into groups of six to sweep the premises to be evacuated. Robinson and the rest of you, you're with me. We will handle getting the fire under control."

"Ay, Ma'am!" most of her men complied with a salute.

"But Sheriff," one deputy objected. "What of Lucien's rabble?"

Agatha grimaced, hating what her answer had to be.

"That is an order," she firmly told him. "We've little choice now. That fire will spread and be our collective demise unless it is doused. Now disperse and carry out my orders. Dismissed!"

"Ay!" the 1st Unit responded again.

While half the attachment began breaking off in groups of six, Agatha slowly looked toward the south wing again.

"Well played, Silver Necklaces," she privately admitted sullenly. Then a sinister smirk formed on her lips. "But I am still ahead in this game. I planned for the possibility of your escape from the walls of Tur Raghnaill. That's why Captain Mason and his men are stationed outside. Outside, there will be no more cover or narrow passages for you to take advantage of. Just open ground and the Cavalry-Breakers' hooves and spears."

---

"Empty. Must be our lucky day," Lucien reported.

He opened the door into the servant's foyer at the south wing. Maxmillian slid around the corner into the room, aiming his bow around. Seeing it was indeed empty, the archer thanked the gods as the others filtered in.

"How've we made it this far?" Claire breathlessly asked.

"We've left the whole tower in a state of panic," Gloria answered. "After what we did, I'm sure the army and staff are being run ragged."

Ingrid took in the room, and then looked at Bedelia. "This is the servant's entrance, right? Ye said this was the southwest corner of the tower."

"Ay, it is," Bedelia answered.

Lucien looked around, too. The servant's entrance was a small room in the very back of the tower. Two doorways were on the opposite wall. The exit on the right was a normal wooden door with two more tall, narrow windows on either side looking out into the backyard of Tur Raghnaill. The other was made of cast iron with a sturdy lock, behind which was an interior stairwell leading up to the tower's outer wall.

"No points for guessin' which goes where," Bedelia remarked. "The rear gate is a straight shot from here. It don't look like no one's come this way yet, so they won't have opened it fer us."

"And we can't wait for them to do that," Maximillian muttered.

"Ay, we need to stay ahead if we've come first," Bedelia conferred.

"If we go out into that yard right now, we can't blend in with the fleeing staff. We'll be spotted right away," Gloria piped in.

"Some of us need to get up on the wall and take care of nearby watchers," Lucien said. "The rest will cover Claire when they make a break for that back gate."

Claire knew what that meant.

"More lockpicking?" she asked.

Claire had shut the door behind them and was currently holding a chair to block it.

"Yeah," Lucien said. "Bedelia, Maximillian, go up with Ingrid. Take care of nearby guards. Gloria and I will cover Claire to the gate."

Claire said nothing back. She wedged the chair against the door. Then she went to the iron door. The redhead looked over the lock while the others listened and watched the other doors. Claire peered into the large keyhole, careful to keep her fingers from getting too close to the lock in case it was trapped. She could almost see the locking mechanism, and it was more complex than most. This was a lock the city's authority really did not want being picked. She shook her head, not wanting to risk it.

"This one might be tricky. Getting up to the wall to take out their archers might not be in the cards," Claire said.

"Try it, anyway, girl!" Bedelia ordered.

Claire turned to Lucien, awaiting his order.

"What about getting a key for this door and the back gate?" Ingrid asked.

"Bah!" Bedelia scoffed. "Officers be the ones who carry those. If we see one, they'll be in the company o' their men."

"She's right. Better try it, anyway, Claire," Lucien agreed. "We're all dead anyway if we're spotted by the watchers."

"…Alright," Claire brought out a couple of sets of lockpicks at once, unsure of which one to use.

With little time to waste, she got to work. She figured the Sheriff had to know where they were heading by now, and that alone made their prospects much worse. Once they were outside, all bets were off.

"How do you plan to keep us from getting shot, anyway?" Ingrid asked. "The guards can swarm the wall faster than Granny, Maxi, and I can take 'em out."

Lucien had to think about that.

"Uh…" Lucien articulated his uncertainty.

Gloria glanced at the door they'd come through, with an idea of her own.

"What about the shields that last batch of guards we ran into were carrying?" she asked. "It's just a few rooms back."

Lucien slowly nodded his head. "Yeah… I think that sounds good."

---

One of the patrolling guards noticed the servant's entrance open and stopped. The door was situated in the tower's back right corner directly overlooked by the bridge which connected the tower to the outer wall. He expected to see fleeing staff, but instead a lone man stepped out, dressing in red armor, bearing a shield. The guard knew him on sight.

"'Tis that brigand, Lucien!" he shouted.

More guards came running towards their location.

"Yeah, that's me!" Lucien shouted back to them challengingly. "Any of you man enough to come down and fight me, or ya just gonna cower up on that wall!"

"That son of a…!" the guard snarled.

He threw his spear at the lowborn rebel that had dared insult him. Lucien ducked hiding completely behind the shield when the is spear hit. The guard belted out a roar as his spear bounced harmlessly off the shield. He pointed angrily down at Lucien.

"You stay right there, ruffian!" he shouted. "We'll learn ya when we get down there! Come on, boys!"

Lucien stayed behind the shield, but backed himself toward the servant's entrance as the guards began running towards the door again. Once he was in, Gloria shut the door for him. The guard was joined by three others, converging to cross the small bridge to the tower. The hot-headed guard drew his sword when they reached the door and grabbed for the handles. One of the older guards grasped his shoulder.

"Wait, this could be bait," she protested. "Lucien didn't come alone."

"Shut up, wench!" he shrugged her off.

Then, he threw the doors open, and blinked. Bedelia and Maximillian waited just inside and, opened fire. The guard went down right away with an arrow in his eye while another guard fell to their knees with one in their throat. Then, the two rebel archers parted, allowing Ingrid to run past them, holding up a pair of shields to fully protect herself. The remaining guard's spears banged them. Ingrid lunged forward, barreling into the guards, slamming them back against the stone. Then she dropped the shields and grabbed her ax, rushing the two downed guards. Maximillian meanwhile dashed back down the stairs, skipping every other step.

"GO!" he shouted. "The way's clear for a moment!"

Lucien burst from the servant's entrance again, holding the shield up protectively over both himself and Claire, who was less than a step behind him. Gloria followed Claire just as closely, holding up the fourth shield of the lot they salvaged. Lucien spied the back gate straight ahead, across the large yard. It was made of wood, but bound with reinforcing metal. The iron bands crisscrossed at angles. The twin doors pulled apart with short chains hanging from their handles.

They were about halfway across the tower yard now, out in the open and feeling naked for it.

"Hurry now!" Bedelia called from the battlement. "More be a'comin'!"

"Lucien…" Claire worried uttered.

"Just a little farther," Lucien answered.

---

"Fire! Fire!" the bellringer shouted. "Fire in storage! All non-essential personnel evacuate Tur Raghnaill!"

The clapper banged against the interior of the bell as he and some guards shouted the warning from the second-story battlements. Captain Mason and his lieutenant rode towards the base of the building, galloping past their unit, who remained in formation.

"Hail! Hail!" Mason shouted up to them. "What in blazes in happening inside this night?"

One of the guards looked over the side to answer him.

"Lucien and his lowborn rats 'ave brought magic items!" the guarded answered. "Then they set the storage ablaze!"

"Will you be needing any assistance?" Mason wore his concern openly.

"Nay, Captain!" the guard answered. "Sheriff Agatha's sortin' it, herself, but she's got another task for ye! Lucien's Silver Necklaces was spotted headin' towards the south the wing in the back. Detain 'em 'til she can deal with 'em."

"Very well," Mason obliged.

He turned his horse and whipped the reins, spurring his golden-brown stallion into a moderate gallop, riding back to address his men. They were already climbing onto the saddles.

"Very good, men," Mason said. "I assume you all heard, then."

"Yes, sir!"; "Ay, Cap'n!"

"To the south wing!" Mason thrust his lance forward and snapped the reins again.

His horse tore off faster this time, and the sound of thunder right behind him was all he needed to know his men were with him. Yet, there was a tightness in his chest he could not ignore. He breathed deeply and let it back out, knowing the moment had come.

"Trust me just a little further, men," he silently prayed. "Just a little longer…"

---

"Come on, come on, come on!" Claire frantically muttered.

She worked the lock with increasing desperation, but its internal mechanisms would not budge. Claire bit her tongue as she moved around to the lock's other side, trying to angle herself to better manipulate her picks, but after another moment of struggling with the lock, she hadn't any better luck. She couldn't figure out what she was doing wrong. This wasn't even the most complicated lock she had ever encountered, but it would not yield under her lockpicking skills no matter how hard she tried.

"What's taking you?" Gloria demanded from behind. "We've been out in the open too long. More guards're coming, and I can hear the hooves of horseback riders approaching around the side."

Claire withheld an angry retort and remained laser-focused on her work. But after another failed attempt, she dropped both hands into her lap and rested her forehead against the door. Lucien looked around again before looking up at Maximillian, Bedelia, and Ingrid still up on the wall, who were also growing increasingly frantic.

"Claire," Lucien whispered. "What's the matter?"

"It won't unlock," was Claire's muffled response, as she had not removed her face from the door.

"Won't un… lock…?" Gloria's irritated riposte died halfway as she got another look at the door. "…Wait just a moment."

She reached out and ran her hands over the surface of the iron-bindings. They still retained their gray sheen with not even the smallest dotting of rust. The iron bands had been fused together not by heat, but by manipulation of the metal itself, almost like it had been in separate pieces to begin with. The wood beneath was also perfectly fresh, but not because the door was new. There was a dried amber-like substance coating it. Lucien and Claire watched from the side.

"What is it?" Lucien's inquiry was hurried.

Now the thunderous hooves of Mason and his Cavalry-Breakers were audible even to Lucien and Claire's ears.

"Hey, I hear a buncha horsemen comin'!" Ingrid called from above. "What's takin' ya?!"

"I don't know," Lucien called back.

"I know this method," Gloria murmured as she studied the bands. "This is dwarven craftsmanship."

Lucien and Claire knew what that meant right away. The swordsman looked up again, cupping one of his hands around his mouth as he shouted.

"No good! The door's enchanted! We need a key!" he cried.

"What?" Bedelia couldn't marshal more than a whisper of astonishment.

Both Maximillian and Ingrid slowly turned to her, mouths gaping. Bedelia stared off, running every secret she knew of the tower through her head. She knew the location of every secret the tower held, or thought she had. The back door the servants used to get in and out for their shifts was either something even the old king had made certain to be kept from her, or was something else new the Sheriff had installed since her last time there.

"Granny?" Ingrid asked.

Bedelia didn't hear her. The sheer weight of how dead they were had set in. Bedelia back against the stones of the short waist-high walls along the side of the bridge, letting out a manic, throaty cackle. Maximillian gulped, but held it together and looked over the side down at Lucien's half of the team.

"Just get yer asses back inside! Now!" he hollered.

Then he ran past Bedelia and Ingrid towards the doorway. Ingrid gripped her grandmother by the shoulders to lead her inside as well.

"Won't do no good," Bedelia shook her head, but didn't resist Ingrid in any way.

Down on the ground, Lucien, Gloria, and Claire took off towards the tower again. The long expanse of the back yard of Tur Raghnaill somehow seemed even lengthier now. The horsemen were very near now, but Lucien and his companions were already running at their top speed. They were barely a fifth of the way across the long yard when Mason and his men galloped around the corner. Mason saw the three persons in the distance racing back to the tower, and they saw him.

"Lucien!" Claire's voice was full of fear.

"I see them," Lucien answered. "Don't stop!"

Claire kept running. She didn't know why. They had lost, but if Lucien kept going, so would she. Mason directed his men to turn to ride along the back of the tower, turning their horses sharply at full gallop without incident. Lucien's team would have admired their discipline and skill any other time.

Above, Maximillian saw Mason and his horsemen enter the rear yard. He skidded to a stop about halfway back to the tower and looked down at the other group, only a quarter way across. The horsemen were fast, speeding along the side of the tower faster than they could reach it. Behind him, Ingrid, and Bedelia stopped, too. They understood it was over. Maximillian leaned forward, with his hands hanging over the side of the stones, silently accepting that he was never going to see Betty, ever again. He hung his head, squeezing his eyes shut as the emotion flooded his heart.

"Sorry Betty… guess this is it…" he thought.

---

"There he is," Captain Mason focused on Lucien. "The man, himself. Impressive they should manage to find their way out here."

Lucien, Claire, and Gloria stopped. Mason and his men had cut them off. Lucien looked at Claire with remorse while she looked back with fear. Their momentary despair turned into panic when Mason turned his horse to ride towards them and his men followed, galloping straight at them.

"Shit! Shit, shit!" Gloria reeled back a few steps.

Claire hid behind Lucien. The Scarlet Swordsman stayed put. Where was there to run? They were fully exposed and on foot. So, not knowing what else to do, Lucien dropped the shield and took his sword in both hands. A defiant twig before the wave about to wash him away, but these Cavalrymen wouldn't get the pleasure of having him bend to their will. On the wall above, Bedelia had threaded an arrow and aimed it down at Mason.

"Granny?" Ingrid questioned.

The old woman just shook her head.

"Not without a fight," was all she said. "Never without a fight."

Ingrid looked to Maximillian, who just shrugged as if to say, "Sure, why not?"

Ingrid's grip on her ax tightened and Maximillian drew another arrow from his half-empty quiver. Fine, then. If this was their final hour. They'd take a few to Valhalla or Niflheim with them.

Mason then did something that surprised them all. He raised his right hand, before pulling on the reins of his stallion. His unit slowed to a trot before they fully stopped a few yards from Lucien and his two companions. That was of no comfort, as the Cavalry-Breakers still had their spears and bows on them.

The rebels weren't the only ones surprised. Mason did not expect the three to be so young. They could not have been older than twenty, and Lucien himself was a smooth-skinned youth who had yet to know the pains of a morning shave. Lucien's eyes also got Mason's attention. They fierce and rebellious like a falcon's. The only movement was Lucien instinctively maneuvering himself in front of Claire more.

Mason then spoke, "I address Lucien of the Cheap Side Guard, and The Silver Saviors, I presume?"

"You do," Lucien called back.

"If that be the case," Mason said. "You have been found guilty of multiple charges of sedition, theft, armed robbery, aggravated assault, murder, abduction of a noble, usage of illegal drugs to rob Sir Reginald of his memories, and now trespassing on military property."

Lucien eyes narrowed as the anger boiled within him.

"By the power vested in me by his lordship, King Dunwyn the 2nd, I hereby place you under arrest for your many crimes against Gerebellum," Mason finished.

"Found guilty?" Lucien scoffed. "I thought you had to be put on trial first. I suppose the Lord Mayor's not so big the 'justice' part of the justice system, then."

"Indeed," Mason replied, and trained the blade of his spear squarely at Lucien's heart. "Do you wield?"

"No thanks," Lucien bluntly shot back. "I've seen how your interrogators get their jollies."

Mason's men readied to fire, but then the Captain lightly kicked his horse in the sides with the backs of his boots, getting the animal to move forward at a walking pace right into his men's line of fire. Lucien, Claire, and Gloria all took small steps backwards, uncertain what he was up to.

"Captain?" Mason's lieutenant shouted. "What are you doing?"

Mason ignored his subordinating officer as he proceeded to ride in a circle around Lucien, Claire, and Gloria. The blonde half-dwarf looked at the front line of his men with their spears and their bows, and then at the Captain, riding almost within reach. She was half-tempted to grab him by a leg to drag him from his steed. If nothing else, they'd have a hostage. She recalled Bedelia said officers had the keys to the wall somewhere on their person. Gloria knew she only had a moment to mull over their options before the chance slipped her by.

"You speak of justice," Mason spoke critically to Lucien.

The captain looked up to the tower as smoke billowed from the windows and flames appeared outside wherever there was lumber as people fled into the yards around the structure. By now, people were fleeing out of the tower, small figures some distance away flooding out of the sides of the tower from Mason's vantage.

"Yet you break into the military stronghold of your own city and burn it?" Mason demanded.

"This is NOT my city," Lucien darkly retorted. "You just happen to be the center of the thing I hate the most in the Realms."

"The slave trade," Mason stated. By now, he made most of a rotation around them. "Yes, most figure this battle is something personal to you."

"Golly. Whatever gave you that idea?" Lucien mockingly thought.

"It must have been a woman," Mason matter-of-factly mused.

Claire and Gloria gave each other worried side-eyes before turning to Lucien. Now the Captain was pressing dangerous buttons.

"Yes, someone close, perhaps some pretty filly you fancied," Mason meditatively said. "Few other things could drive a man to the extremes you have taken."

It was here Lucien's patience ended.

"Is it really so hard for you to imagine seeing those poor people rotting in cages like livestock and not being able to stomach it?" Lucien furiously spat. "The slave trade destroys lives, and you don't even care, as long as you get to eat like a pampered fat cat!"

Mason had just completed circling them, and pulled his horse's reins to stop it with his back to his men. Said men were frustrated with the captain for putting himself in the way again, preventing them from doing anything if the young man did anything rash.

"The people hail you as a protector of Gerebellum! A right laugh that is!" Lucien barked at Mason. "You only protect the interests of the nobility!"

By now, several of Mason's men were ready to skewer the boy with the wrath of a thousand needles through his person. But Mason himself kept moving his horse back and forth in front of them, preventing that. Many of them were wondering just what their captain was doing, even beginning to wonder if this was some subtle signal to not kill the boy.

"Humph!" Mason turned up his nose at Lucien's insults. "If that is how you feel, then perhaps we can settle this like men!"

"Gladly," Lucien answered.

"Then we shall!" Mason pronounced.

He halted his horse and faced the stallion towards his opponent.

"Are you insane?" Claire disbelievingly hissed.

"Claire, it's not safe," Lucien glanced back at her. "You need to run."

As Mason's horse began to trot towards them, Claire backed off. Gloria grabbed her and pulled her away more quickly. Then she put herself in front of the redhead in Lucien's place while he dueled the Captain.

Lucien moved away from them to the side. Both women watched tensely as Mason made his move. He rode right at Lucien as fast as his horse could pick up speed at that short distance. Instead trying to trample him, Mason turned slightly aside, lining up his lance up to run his opponent through. Lucien managed to parry it away with a high block as he jumped back. Mason turned his horse in a tight loop to make another attempt. Lucien was still in the process of distancing himself from the girls. The cavalrymen's bows and spears stayed on him, turning away from Claire and Gloria, as he hoped they would.

"Mason has the key," Lucien thought with teeth clasped together. "He's our one chance of getting out here. This fight decides if we've run outta luck..."

Lucien stopped, planting his feet as he raised his sword in a right high attack stance with the blade pointed at his foe.

"…One way or the other," he spoke the final part.

---

"What the Hel is Lucien doing?" Ingrid asked.

Bedelia quietly watched the duel begin. While the gears turned in her head, Maximillian spoke up.

"Think he's going to try getting' the key from Captain Mason?" he asked. "He is an officer."

"What good will that do?" Ingrid demanded. "They'd never make it to the gate before Mason's men ran 'em over."

Bedelia shroked her chin in thought.

"'Tis the Captain's manner I find strange," she said. "Why challenge Lucien when he's got us at 'is mercy with orders to arrest us?"

Ingrid and Maximillian found that odd, too. Guards had run up almost close enough to engage them at arrow range, but stopped to watch the fight as well.

"Why they stayin' back?" Ingrid asked her grandmother.

Bedelia pointed down at Lucien and Mason facing off.

"An officer's entered a duel," she answered.

Down below, Mason's own men were just as baffled.

"Why ain't we helpin'?" one of the Cavalry-Breakers asked the man beside him.

"'Cause the Captain wants to show this Lucien some manners, 'imself."

"Right," the first accepted this answered. Then another thought hit him. "But he ain't declared dis a duel all official-like. Ain't that how ya do things?"

"I…" the second man's response halted when he realized that was correct.

Mason hadn't officially declared a duel, but had made his intent to face Lucien in single combat known. This breach in protocol was throwing Mason's whole unit for a loop, but they all stayed put. After all, who were they to interfere?

Lucien studied the great steed from its legs to its face. This was a golden-brown stallion in its peak with well-muscled legs and a sturdy body bred and trained for war. The young warrior smirked with confidence. This was hardly the first warhorse he'd ever fought, nor was Mason the first cavalrymen he'd ever dragged down to the earth for a fairer fight. He could do this. If he could beat Mason without killing him, the man would be a valuable hostage. Moreover, he'd have the key they needed. He just had to wait for the right moment.

Mason leveled his lance at Lucien as he rode up, too close to pull out now. Lucien crouched and leaned himself forward, launching himself towards his enemy. He ran up alongside the charging the horse, diving head-first to avoid Mason's lance, but stayed close to the charging horse. Lucien turned himself sideways and swung out with his sword to slash the animal's legs, but the stallion hopped over his swing.

"Damn," Lucien rolled into his landing.

He used his momentum throw himself upright, with one knee on the ground and a foot firmly against the grassy earth. Mason turned his horseback around for another pass, but without the benefit of another running start, the stallion came in at only a moderate gallop. Lucien stood, unsure what the Captain's next play would be. Then Mason turned his steed aside, seemingly to ride past his opponent again, but then he pulled the reins, stopping his steed with its back legs facing Lucien.

"Troll shit!" Lucien saw the horse's back legs raise as the beast leaned its weight on its leg fronts to kick him.

Lucien hurled himself backwards to the ground in another roll, narrowly avoiding taking a pair of hooves to his face. He threw himself back onto his feet to see turn Mason his stallion. The horse closed the distance between itself and Lucien in one hop with its head down. Lucien jumped to the left of the stallion and its rider, dodging the headbutt attack and Mason's lance. Lucien aimed at the horse's throat, but it reared up on its hind legs, kicking at the young man with its front hooves. Lucien swung his sword in upward arcs to fend the beast off. He hopped form side to side to avoid Mason's thrusts, scowling.

"It's all I can do just to avoid dying," he desperately thought.

In the corner of his eye, he spied Claire watching the fight.

"I can't lose," Lucien told himself. "I can't afford to!"

Then he leapt back away from the horse's front hooves and Mason's lance, running to the side. The animal dropped back onto all fours again. As soon as it had, Lucien charged back to attack its master.

"I think not!" Mason thrust his lance out again.

Lucien managed to parry it to the side, but the older Captain was quick to disengage it from his sword and sweep it straight across, forcing Lucien to duck. The young swordsman squatted low, angling himself forward. Mason realized Lucien intended to grab him and pull him from the saddle and snapped the reins with his free hand.

"Not so fast, buddy!" Lucien thought.

He barreled in, getting in close faster than Mason's horse could flee. The Captain swung his lance backwards at Lucien to knock him away, but the swordsmen just grabbed hold of the weapon, wrapping his arms around its middle. The extra weight nearly pulled Mason from the saddle, and he was pulled almost straight backwards, with his head thumping the horse's posterior just above its tail. His leg pulled free of the stirrup on the other side, and he began to fall towards Lucien. The only thing that saved Mason was letting go off the lance.

Lucien crashed into the earth and rolled with his arms and legs wrapped around the weapon while Mason's horse sped away with its rider only half-on the saddle. When the rolling stopped, Lucien dizzily flopped onto his back with the lance resting across his body.

"Lucien!" Claire cried.

She had to be restrained from running to his side by Gloria, who grabbed the taller woman around the waist. Claire protested and squirmed as Gloria easily lifted her from the ground with a death grip around the redhead's middle.

"Let me go!" Claire pounded her fists against Gloria's arms, but they would not come loose.

"Lucien, get yourself up, now!" Gloria called.

Lucien waved a hand in the air from where he lied to signal he was alright, and then pushed himself up with his elbows, shaking off the remaining unsteadiness. Mason meanwhile had pulled himself back onto the saddle properly and tugged the reins. The horse whinnied a bit before allowing itself to be stopped. Then Mason turned it around so he could see Lucien again. He was genuinely impressed. Lucien stood back up and took out his sword, facing his horseback opponent again. The lance lied in the grass in front of Lucien where he pitched it. There were nearly twenty yards between the two men. To Mason, it was finally clear why the Sheriff and other local authorities had so much trouble catching Lucien. He was skilled, inventive, and fearless to the point of recklessness.

"I underestimated him," Mason admitted to himself.

"Okay," the young swordsman thought. "I got the lance away from him, but now he's just going to use a sword. He has to get a lot closer to me to use it, but I can get closer to him, but that means having to get real close to a galloping horse."

"Wait, where did I pitch the lance?" he realized. "With it's extra reach…"

Lucien made sure not to move his head when his eyes flicked down and found the lance lying in the grass in front of him. His eyes moved up to Mason, also straight ahead.

"This could work, if he rides straight at me," Lucien thought.

Lucien dug his feet in, lowering his stance, and raised his sword in an upper side guard, indicating he was ready for a final blow. Mason got the full message. He drew his own sword to answer Lucien's challenge.

---

"Granny, look," Ingrid pointed down towards the base of the tower.

"Hrm?" Bedelia and Maximillian had to force themselves look away from the duel.

When they did, someone else was slipping out of the servant's exit. It was the one-eyed Iron Lady of Gerebellum, herself, with an attachment of her Deputies filing out of it. Even from a distance, the trio on the wall would know Agatha on sight from her pale skin, graying hair, and the eyepatch. Agatha stopped when she saw the horse riders lined up in front of them.

"Made it this far, did they?" Agatha unhappily thought. "Is Gerebellum law enforcement and military really this incompetent, or does Lucien's rabble really live up to their stellar reputation?"

The Sheriff and her men marched around the back of the Cavalry-Breakers and came up alongside them. To the horror of the trio on the wall, more and more Deputies filed out, numbering as many as Mason's men. When Agatha reached at the front of the line, she saw Mason stop and turn his horse, now missing his lance while Lucien sat up and pitched the pole weapon a short distance from himself before standing up. Mason's men turned and watched her warily.

One of her Deputies leaned in, whispering, "Shall we call just arrest him?"

"Nah, Fitzgerald, I think I will enjoy watching this," Agatha answered.

"Are you certain?" he asked.

"Of course," Agatha answered, and nodded toward Claire and Gloria. "Once Mason has killed Lucien, you and the rest of my men can enjoy yourselves using his women."

Fitsgerald just smiled back.

Mason spotted Agatha and her men march up alongside his own.

"Blast," Mason thought. "That complicates things."

"Lucien! Lucien!" the rebel leader heard Claire hiss.

He had already noticed how Mason's gaze shifted from him quite intently and followed it back towards the tower. His face darkened when he realized who else to had come to watch this duel.

"By all means, Captain. Continue," Agatha called when she realized they had stopped on her account.

"Ay, Lady Sheriff!" Mason answered, thrusting his sword up to punctuate his response.

Lucien's gaze lingered hatefully on her a moment more before he focused on Mason again.

"Sir Lucien, this blow decides the outcome," Mason called. "Hiya!"

Mason's stallion reared up, whinnying loudly before charging. Lucien threw himself forwards. Mason held his sword out, angling it take Lucien's head. The red swordsman ran at Mason, sword held high and screaming his challenge. Mason crossed two-thirds of the distance between them, closing in quickly, but not so fast Lucien that couldn't reach the lance, but it was close. Lucien threw himself forward into a slide, feet-first, letting go of his sword again and grabbing the lance as he went past. He braced the end against the ground as he aimed the stock at the horse's chest, impaling the animal on its master's lance. The horse's collusion with the lance flipped it and its master into the air in an arch over Lucien's head before it slammed lifelessly on its side. As everyone stared in stock, Lucien shakily rolled over and crawled to his sword, grabbing it with trembling hands before staggering over to Mason.

"Ugh…" Mason was seeing stars as he lied face down on the ground.

Then he was grabbed from behind and his upper body was painfully pulled up, off the ground. The captain let out a strangled yelp as his back arched backwards, dragging him from his daze. He felt something cold pressed his throat and he knew what it was as he tried to blink off the faze in his vision. In Lucien's grip his head swayed from side and side as the world seemed a clouded funnel of colors and shapes.

"On your feet," Lucien rasped into his ear.

"Have a little pity…" Mason groaned only loudly enough for Lucien to hear.

"I'll have pity when my friends are out that back gate," the younger man growled.

"Oi, you!" one of Mason's men shouted.

Lucien looked toward them, seeing any number of the Cavalry-Breakers aiming their spears or bows at him.

"Men, stop him!" Agatha ordered.

"Don't!" The Lieutenant hollered anxiously, looking first at his own army and then the Sheriff's faction. "You might hit the Captain!"

Mason also heard what was happening, and that seemed to spur him into getting his hands and knees under his body. Lucien watched the stocky captain push himself to sit up on his knees, allowing Lucien to crouch behind him for better cover. From across the tower yard, Agatha gritted her teeth.

"Hold!" she reluctantly ordered.

Her men were surprised, and she did not deem it necessary to explain herself. Agath looked at the Cavalry beside them as she weighed the option of just killing Mason. What would his men do?

Up on the wall, Bedelia stepped back from the side, grabbing both Maximillian and Ingrid's shoulders.

"This be our chance! Come!" she urged.

Then she ran for the door, followed closely by the other two.

---

"Up," Lucien repeated.

"I need assistance," Mason shakily answered.

Lucien didn't reply, but allowed the older man to put his weight against him as he got one foot on the ground. Then he pulled Mason up. The dizziness hadn't worn off, and Mason ended up needing the support to avoid falling again. Lucien had a good hold around his chest, securing the tipsy captain. Claire and Gloria came up behind Lucien and the captive Mason as well, still wary of the spears and arrows pointed at them.

"Hands up where we can see them," Lucien ordered.

Mason complied again, holding up both hands.

"Tell you men to lay down their arms," Lucien followed up. "I don't like how tightly they've got that hemp pulled."

"That order may be out of my hands," Mason whispered back.

He pointed towards Sheriff Agatha.

"She can intervene at any time. She's been given full authority for this operation," Mason explained.

"Fine," Lucien said. Then he called out from behind his captive. "Hey, Sheriff!"

"Yes, Mister Lucien," Agatha's hollered back with no small amount of venom.

"Order your soldiers to lower their weapons!" Lucien shouted.

Agatha frowned. A golden opportunity to remove Lucien would be lost if she acquiesced, and remained silent as Lucien began to pulling Mason along towards the rear gate. She knew she needn't be quick about it. Mason was his only hostage. If he dared to the captain, Lucien and his two women would pay dearly by the Cavalry-Breakers' hands.

"She's thinking about it," Lucien muttered. "Claire, dig out his key. We need to be out that gate quick, before the Sheriff decides against us."

Claire slowly slunk up beside the two men and reached for the first pouch attached to Mason's belt she found.

Lucien turned his attention back to his prisoner, "Don't try anything."

Mason gave him a sidelong stare, but kept moving with somewhat unsteady backward strides. Lucien kept his sword's blade tight against Mason's throat in case he struggled.

"Got it!" Claire held up the back gate key triumphantly.

Then she slipped back behind Lucien and Mason. The gate wasn't far now, a mere stone's throw.

Then Lucien caught Mason staring at him, "Got a problem?"

"Nay," Mason whispered with his eyes darting back and forth between the army and rebels. "But you must know what the Sheriff and Lord Mayor have planned."

Lucien wasn't about to spill any of their escape plans, which he hoped had been going smoothly.

"You just let us worry about that," Lucien answered.

"So, you have made preparations," Mason deduced, and then added approvingly, "Good."

Lucien began to sneer, but his face fell in surprise at Mason's last word.

"Good?" Lucien blurted out.

Mason whispered back, "They also intent to search the whole city for supporters to your cause. Poor peasant blood will be shed alongside the shopkeeper, the smithy, and more. No one will be safe if they are suspected. You must be swift to warn them that the Lord Mayor and the Sheriff's intentions are worse than they've let on."

Now, Lucien was torn somewhere between believing him and wondering if this was a trick. This man was their enemy, right?

"So, allow me to give you a bit of extra rope," Mason offered.

Lucien narrowed his eyes, half in suspicion, and half uncertainty.

"What do you even mean?" he asked.

"Observe," Mason answered.

He looked upon his Cavalry-Breakers. It broke his heart what he had to do next, but preserving their honor demanded it.

"You, men, of the Cavalry-Breakers!" Mason called. "Hear me well!"

Lucien considered just shutting Mason up right then. He didn't, seeing how the Captain's call seemed to make the troops lower their arms just a bit.

Mason continued, "I, your Captain, have been taken hostage and none of you did anything while I fought the enemy alone, even though I never officially called for a duel between Sir Lucien and myself, nor parleyed terms with him!"

The blade pressed tighter against his throat.

"What are you doing?" Lucien demanded through gritted teeth.

Mason showed no fear, "Saving your life, boy."

Lucien's head tilted in utter bafflement. Meanwhile, the across the field, the Cavalry-Breakers looked hurt and confused. Agatha's remaining eye was narrowed to a cold slit. She ushered over an archer from among her Deputies with a gesture. He ran up to her, awaiting orders.

"Shoot him the instant he says anything treasonous or foolish," she instructed.

Behind the horsemen and the Sheriff's men, Maximillian, Bedelia, and Ingrid quietly slipped out of the servant's exit and began slinking along the wall to move past them. With any luck, Lucien taking a hostage would keep them at bay long enough for them to get across the yard.

"Therefore," Mason continued his address. He had seen Agatha summon the archer to her side even in unreliable torchlight, but he was undeterred. "Though it pains me to do it, but effectively immediately… by the power vested in me by His Royal Majesty, the king, you are all hereby relieved of your duty."

Collective, audible gasps were heard from among the ranks of Mason's Cavalry-Breakers while others simply lowered their arms as they stared in shock. They did not even notice the three rebels slinking past them in the dark. Lucien, Claire, and Gloria were so collectively dumbfounded to become rooted in place.

Agatha's face twisted with seething rage.

"What?" she uttered in a tone to match.

Of all the things she had expected Mason to do, this one could not have been farther from her mind. Her Deputies murmured.

"He don't actually have the buff to do that, right?" one asked.

"Actually… he does," another bleakly answered.

The archer she had designated to shoot Mason gave her a look in the corner of his eyes, looking for authorization, because he was at a loss, but the Sheriff was too overwhelmed in her own shock and fury to even think of him. At the front of the cavalry, Mason's lieutenant sputtered and struggled to find words.

"Wha-wai-Captain!" he shouted.

Mason breathed deep into his diaphragm and belted out.

"Men, you are free!" his bellow reached far, even over the wall. "You no longer are bound to obey that monstrous command from the Lord Mayor! You must all do what you know is right!"

Looks of a new kind of shock and even realization washed over the Cavalry-Breakers. Suddenly, their Captain's odd behavior clicked into place. Promising them they would retain their honor despite their orders to raze the slums and kill innocents if they just followed his orders to the letter, getting in their way when they had Lucien and his followers cornered, and taking the boy on alone without making the duel official. It had all been leading to the moment when he emancipated them from the corrupt superiors that would have them slaughter the population they had sworn to protect on the Blade of Baldur.

For Agatha, this moment of outrage was joined with a sinking feeling. Then she remembered the archer, and turned to call him off.

"Stop them!" Mason shouted. "Protect the people! Protect…!"

Fweep! Lucien grunted when Mason suddenly fell back against him.

"What…?" Lucien began, and then he saw the arrow lodged in the man's throat.

"G'uwwww!" the Captain gargled, eyes bulging.

Blood spewed from the wound and rolled in little streams from his mouth. Lucien cursed as he lost balance and fell to his knees under Mason's weight. The captain spasmed as he clawed as his throat, which had become clogged with blood which he spit from his mouth in one big spurt, jerking unintentionally from Lucien's arms. He fell over on his side, quickly fading. His body seized once more before he went limp. Lucien had fallen back, propping himself up on his elbows with Claire and Gloria standing over him.

"Captain, no!" one of the cavalrymen shouted.

"That shot came from our side!"

"Look! 'Twas one of the Sheriff's men!" a Cavalryman pointed right at Agatha accusingly.

"Vile wench!" another bellowed.

Agatha's eye was wide as the air began filling the noise of the freshly former Cavalrymen shouting for blood. She had been a breath too late to stop the archer. She still stood beside him with her arm outstretched to pull the weapon down, but he had loosed it, and the Cavalry-Breaker's beloved Captain was now a martyr. Agatha knew she and her men were about to reap the consequences for it.

A short distance from the angered horsemen, Bedelia tugged on Ingrid and Maximillian's arms.

"Fly for it!" she cried.

Maxmillian tore off right away. Ingrid only paused to grab her grandmother around the waist before breaking into a run, carrying the old woman like a sack over her shoulder. Bedelia protested as she was shaken around rather indignantly, but did not try to squirm out of Ingrid's clutches. Lucien watched as the Cavalrymen's aggressions turned away from him, still too stupefied by the rapid and unexpected developments their situation had taken to think.

"H'ulp!" Lucien cried as a pair of small but powerful hands grabbed him by the shoulders and hailed him up. He dumbly looked at Gloria, who scowled back before yanking him along towards the back gate. Claire had already run over and was trying to find the right key.

"Were you always this useless?" Gloria demanded as she pulled Lucien along.

"S-sorry…" Lucien stammered.

He found his stride and began running with her, and she released his arm. He looked up to the battlements, and saw they'd just make it before the archers could get close enough to line up halfway accurate shots at them in the dark. He didn't dare turn around, even to check on Maximillian, Bedelia, and Ingrid.

---

"Stand down! Stand down!" Agatha ordered.

Her voice was drowned out in all the shouting. All around her, her Deputies raised sword, spear, and bow at the cavalrymen, similarly shouting for Mason's men to lay down their arms. The Cavalry-Breakers were about to charge them.

One of her Deputies looked at her worriedly, demanding, "What'd you let him do that for?"

Agatha just snarled back, before raising her sword. A fight was inevitable now.

"I think not, wench!" One of the cavalry archers shouted.

He raised the crossbow, and Agatha saw him. Just as he fired, she grabbed the man who had questioned her and yanked him in close. His surprise turned to gap-mouthed shock as the bolt entered his back and he fell to the grassy ground, dead. With that, the dam broke. Spears and arrows flew the short distant between factions, dropping man and horse to the earth. After the initial barrage, reins were snapped as the battle began. At Agatha's command, her Deputies formed a line of long spears to fend the horse riders off.

The horses reared up, kicking at the long spears with their fronts hooves while the lieutenant directed some riders in the back to go around and attack Agatha's force from the side. Deputies charged between the spearmen in their front ranks to attack the cavalry. A full-scale battle broke out in front of the burning Tur Raghnaill, which glowed like a flaming beacon in the night now.

---

Lucien and Gloria grunted as they strained to push the back gate open. Claire slipped past them as soon as the space was wide enough, running out onto the street ahead of them before they joined her. None of them bothered to wait for Bedelia, Maximillian, and Ingrid. There was no time. Lucien and Gloria sprinted across the street, narrowly avoiding a wagon loaded with straw. The driver yanked the reins, slowing his mules as he shouted angrily at the two maniacs who had run out in front of him. The people on the street to did move, all having stopped to stare at the burning Tur Raghnaill. They seemed not to notice the three teens run down the street before cutting into a nearby alleyway.

"If the Sherrif's under orders to lead the slaughter of the slums, then that little rebellion Mason instigated's not gonna stop it," Lucien thought. "Mason…"

The fresh memory of the man hurt in a way he did not anticipate. For the first time, he felt remorse for crossing blades against a foe, even knowing he had to do it.

"Damn you, Sheriff Agatha," Lucien's fury burned. "Damn you for putting us all in that position."

---

Up on the wall, the guards ran to get closer to the battle to begin putting arrows in the treasonous Cavalry-Breakers. The second trio of rebels had been forgotten in the mayhem. Maximillian and the two women burst out onto the street. They did not see which way Lucien, Claire, and Gloria went, and had no time to ponder it, so they just ran for it, cutting through the frozen crowd as well before to put distance between themselves and the tower. They picked a direction and committed, hoping they would somehow reunite with the other half of the team, somehow.

Bedelia looked over Ingrid's shoulder as they fled, her expression grim.

"Dawn won't be long now," she thought. "We've little time left to get the rest out. And our effort's got nothin' t' show fer it."