Stev Aras stood over a table upon which had been placed a well-worn, intricately detailed map of Fort Expedition and the surrounding terrain. Locations of Deskren siege equipment, encampments, catapults and trebuchets were marked with flattened metallic chips. In the first days of the siege, the city had felt little, well-supplied as it was, and well-defended by the warding towers which dotted its walls. Every day since, however, saw the Deskren attackers bolstered by troops and materiel trickling up the river from the southern gulf. At the same time, the warding towers needed to be manned, and the mages represented a steady drain on their supply of potions, elixirs, crystals, and other viands necessary to fuel strenuous magical workings. The Deskren commander had opted to play the long game, as opposed to simply charging in with overwhelming numbers. They had surrounded the city and had begun a slow but steady bombardment of stones and intermittent magical artillery. The attackers could rest and resupply at their leisure; the defenders could not.

The food component of the fort’s supply dump was the least of Stev’s worries. Just over two weeks had passed since the Deskren arrived, and both the Magisterium’s Enclave and the Swift Waters Embassy had burned through nearly a third of their reserve stores of crystal and potions. The attack had been timed perfectly to coincide with the Wildlands expedition’s deepest point, and the Swift Waters delegate had nearly had an apoplectic fit when he discovered that someone had forged supply records; even after accounting for the supplies taken by the expedition, their supplies were half what they had thought. Though not a military commander, even Stev could see the writing on the wall: the nearest reinforcements would have to make a nearly two thousand mile trek overland, and they were still eight weeks out. That time could be cut a little, thanks to magic and mass-area skills, but not by a significant amount, and not for the number of bodies it would take to prise the Deskren away from the walls.

The Deskren were arranged in a loose horseshoe-shaped camp that stretched for several leagues, prevented from surrounding the fort on all sides only by its position sealing the south end of the Expedition Pass. At first, the defenders and residents, not to mention Stev himself, had regarded the Deskren with casual contempt, certain that the Wildlands Expedition was soon to return, loaded with all manner of crystal and witchwood, with Terisa leading the way. With her atop the parapet of the fort’s central tower, Althenea in her hand, they thought, the Deskren would fall like wheat before the scythe. The risk of an assassination certainly would have existed, but with Terisa would come Foz, and any would-be assassin who penetrated the fort’s wards would find themselves on the wrong end of an Ursaran berserker’s rage.

Much to Stev’s shame, he had fallen victim to the same hubris of the city, smugly self-assured that the Expedition was in fact soon to return. That attitude lasted nearly a week past the first snows of the high pass, but when an early blizzard roared its way across the peaks overlooking the fort, that hope finally fizzled out. The city was well and truly on its own: the pass would not open up again until spring, barring a Greater Working of spellcraft requiring mages in numbers they simply did not have.

Although the situation seemed dire considering their dwindling supplies, all hope was not yet lost: while it was true that supply shipments couldn’t make it to Expedition, the Deskren suffered no such limitations -- and it had ever been true that materiel held out no loyalty to its original owners. So it was that Stev gazed down at the map, letting his mind and thoughts relax as he considered the lay of the land. The terrain between the fort and the River Swift was dotted with hills and gullies and groves, and Stev knew every one of them like the back of his hand. The same was true for many other residents of the city.

What held his attention in this moment was the yellow-lacquered metal chip placed quite close to not one, but two such gullies, washed-out depressions in the earth bequeathed by the chaotic paths taken by glacial melt on its way to the river below. While a red chip would have indicated the position of a trebuchet or siege tower, and a green chip an officer’s tent or mage’s quarters, yellow was the color his advisors had selected for the position of Deskren supply dumps. Most of them were positioned well in the middle of or behind the Deskren lines, but this one was close -- probably to support a forward push. A mission to take it would be risky, but the risk could be mitigated by the right people, led by the right person, and the city desperately needed the supplies.

A smash-and-grab, Stev thought, tracing a line from the fort to the dump. A quick sally, with a fast group. Sneak through the washouts, past this picket here...then grab what we can, and burn the rest.

He had the people -- and his people had the classes -- he needed for the task at hand. What he didn’t technically have was the ability to hold the gates against the Deskren if he sought to get a group out. However, there were two classers in the city who potentially could hold the gate for the short time needed; unfortunately, both of them had been involved in an altercation the day before the siege proper began, and now languished in the dungeon after levelling a shop and collapsing the street in front of it into the sewers below. Stev had petitioned for their release, but the city council had balked, feeling that their rightful authority was being eroded in a time of crisis.

While the council nominally ran the city, everyone knew its true leader was, and had been for decades, Terisa. As long as the council restricted itself to civil business, such as roads, sewers, and construction projects, she was content to leave them alone. The moment they started encroaching on her domain, though, she typically shot them until they stopped. The Huntress wasn’t here, however, and the city found itself under siege now. Stev was fairly certain there was some profound point of philosophy to be made here about human behavior, and how fear made people less rational -- but he had neither the time nor the patience to indulge it.

The current source of his irritation was a councilman whose name Stev could not even remember, barging into the impromptu command center of Fort Expedition’s hastily-assembled militia. “Absolutely not!” the man nearly screeched, slamming his hands on the table. “They are not to be released until restitution to the shop owner is paid! Not to mention fines for the damage to the street and the collapsed sewer below!”

Stev schooled his expression into neutrality, looking up at the councilman with a chilly calm. Being surrounded by an enemy, especially one who inevitably enslaved any who surrendered, had pushed many of the people of the city to a state of fear bordering on irrational terror. This was especially true for classers, like the councilman, whose skills left them ill-suited for combat and survival in such an environment. Unfortunately for the councilman, Stev was quickly approaching the end of his tether, and didn’t have the time to waste navigating the red tape and ruffled feathers of a few self-important bureaucrats -- not while stones were bouncing off the city’s barrier, shaking dust from the rafters as they spoke.

He finally resigned himself to dealing with the consequences later, resting his hands on the table and massaging his left wrist. The gnomish-engineered, spring-loaded bolt-thrower built into the armored vambrace covering his left arm gave off several soft clicks and a muted whine, before a final click indicated the end of its reloading process. “I suppose that’s that, isn’t it?” Stev asked, rising to his feet.

The firing mechanism itself was silent; the only hints the guard posted outside had that anything was amiss was the sound the bolt made as it slammed into the wall behind the councilman, as well as the sound of his body hitting the stone floor. The guard rushed in, sword half-drawn, and for a moment Stev was worried he’d have two corpses decorating his office in a moment, his vambrace clicking again.

The guard relaxed, rehoming his sword, and chuckled. “I was wondering how long it’d take.” He drew closer to the table, casually kicking the downed councilman in the belly. “The mission’s a go, then? The boys are eager to strike; huddling behind the barrier’s taking a toll on morale.”

“It’s a go,” Stev confirmed. “You get the word sent to make ready to lift the barrier by ten feet. We’ll need a hundred volunteers to mount a charge as a distraction.”

“And you?”

“I,” he replied, swallowing past a sudden nervous lump in his throat, “am going to break my sister out of jail...and hope she doesn’t try to kill me.”

===============

Princess Maréchale Claire Descroix watched the domed barrier protecting the city ripple, the magic emanating from the towers visibly shifting as something changed within. She had held back from an initial assault of the walls, well understanding the futility of charging against the shield while the defenders were well-rested. Such an effort would have merely squeezed her own people into tighter masses for Expedition’s more powerful ranged classers to decimate with impunity. She had withheld her own magical artillery as well: while fireballs and lightning bolts would have exhausted the defenders much more quickly, it would have done the same to her own practitioners as well. Instead, she had let her mages rest and ordered trebuchets constructed. Rocks were, after all, far cheaper than mana potions.

This shift was something she had been waiting for. She had plenty of rocks, and a stable supply chain with more supplies and troops arriving every day. The River Swift was aptly named, and moreover typically remained liquid until the very coldest weeks of winter, and the transports had yet to miss a delivery. Keeping a constant bombardment on the barrier day after day had cost her almost nothing, and the defenders within had no means to resupply. She knew they had to be feeling the strain by now, and so she was ready when the lower edge of the barrier shimmered, rippling and curling up onto itself as a section nearly two hundred paces across lifted away in front of the western gate.

“Looks like that’s the smallest gap they can open, ma’am.” Adjutant Brechallan Turmeyr, her long-time aide-de-camp and one of the few she considered a friend, helped her don her lamellar coat and handed her a burnished steel helm as he spoke. “Just as you predicted. But we are ready.”

“They’ll aim for the trebuchets,” she replied, gathering up her staff and securing her baton to her belt. “Their mages have to be getting exhausted keeping the shield towers active. If they can stop us from dropping rocks on them for even a day to rebuild, it would get them some rest. I did not expect this so quickly, so be ready for anything.”

“They may think it’s better to risk a sortie early, before they’re more worn down,” Turmeyr replied as he secured his own sword.

She felt as much as heard the thumping rattles and clunks as the gate behind the barrier began to rise. “Heavies to the front! Protect the trebuchets!” she snapped, crisp but without shouting. Brechallan did shout as he repeated her orders. “Let them wear themselves out against our Ursaran. I want a squad of mages with me.”

“We’re hitting the gate?” The adjutant’s question came through a grin, eager and expectant.

“Any of their heavy hitters we can take out now, we won’t have to fight later,” she affirmed. Her silent escort of Imperial Guardsmen flanked the princess and her adjutant as they left the clearing near the command tent. The sound of a horn came from somewhere behind the gate, the barrier above muddling the sound so it sounded tinny and more distant than it actually was. A mass of armed fighters charged out, moving faster than mounted cavalry. Skills and enchanted gear in full effect, they crossed the ground in an effortless sprint, slamming into the massed wall of Ursaran heavy infantry with an impact that could be felt even hundreds of paces away. Screams decorated the evening then, a backdrop of blood and terror that, for all its horror, gave Claire thrills of exhilaration. For better or worse, the time for waiting and drudgery was over, and it was time for action.

“There are only two to hold the gate,” Turmeyr reported. With spells flying over and through the scrum so close to her position, she could just make out two figures standing in front of the heavy portcullis at the entrance to the city. “That means they are powerful. Be careful, ma’am.”

He snapped out more orders, but Claire’s attention was focused on the two figures. One, a tall and slender figure, wearing a close-fitting gray tunic and leather breeches. He stood with both hands resting on the hilt of a great sword, tip resting on the ground in front of him. She couldn’t be sure, given the distance, but it looked as though he had a strip of cloth bound over his eyes. The other figure was no less striking: a shorter woman with a wild, curly mane of hair, clad in a loose shirt and a loincloth. She was unarmed, or so it appeared.

“Four squads of Gendarmes, Adjutant,” she said, paying heed to the feeling in her gut that the pair may actually be as dangerous as they looked. “Be prepared to disengage; I’m not throwing away this siege on a fool’s charge if they prove more than we can handle quickly.”

============

Taz Aras bounced on her toes, eager to vent her rage on the approaching enemies. While her brother took after Terisa, with a calm temperament -- save for the moments when it wasn’t -- and a level head, she followed in their father’s footsteps. She had gained the [Aspect of Ferocity] at a young age, and it was that Aspect that nearly drove her mad staying cooped up beneath the barrier, away from the action. Intellectually, she knew the reasons they could not simply charge out and fight against such numbers, but that didn’t make the inaction any easier to bear.

That was how she had ended up arrested by the watch, overreacting to a comment from a total stranger, which had led to a tavern brawl that levelled a local tailor’s shop before dropping her and the stranger into the sewer when the man had used gravity magic and ripped a section of the street right out from under them. It wasn’t until both of them were restrained in suppression cells by the city watch that she had finally calmed down enough to actually listen. How was I supposed to know he sees through a gravity sense when he said I had nice mass? Anyone would have misheard that!

Her brother letting her sit in the cell for four days before getting her out was another issue entirely, and one she would have still been furious over if not for the enemy troops that were now approaching. Nothing would make her feel better than an honest-to-goodness fight, and now one was coming to her! She could even put up with having to partner up with her previous erstwhile opponent, Xerrioth, who was apparently a gravity mage of some sort, even though he used a sword instead of casting grand spells -- most of the time, at least. She certainly hadn’t expected the stones of the street to suddenly fly apart, and she had responded with [Brutal Slam] to try to knock him out. Already caught up in [Berserker’s Fury], she may have overdone it a bit, taking out the already weakened supports holding the street up above the sewer. But really, he shouldn’t have surprised me like that!

“I can sense many approaching,” said Xerrioth, almost too calmly for Taz’s comfort, hands never leaving the pommel of his sword. The blade was mottled black and grey, very roughly forged out of some extremely heavy alloy. He had refused to answer any questions about it, and it had taken a higher levelled Captain of the city watch to pick it up and carry it to the stockades upon their arrest. The weaker guards could barely lift the sword, and none of them could go so far as to pick it up. The Captain, whose name Taz never got, had actually broken a sweat, carrying it across his shoulders like some sort of heavy timber.

“You can sense them, but not see them,” Taz pointed out. “How will you keep from knocking me around with that monster blade the same as them?”

“I told you before, your mass is different,” Xerrioth replied calmly. “I won’t mistake it.”

“We just have to hold them ‘til the others get back from breaking a trebuchet or three,” said Taz, “but maybe I’ll show you why my ‘mass’ is so different. My pa’s half-shifter, and I got some of that in my blood.”

“I look forward to it,” said Xerrioth, raising his head as if listening. The oncoming infantry levelled their spears, and the officer behind them lifted a glowing staff overhead with both hands. Light threaded through the enemy troops, increasing their speed and strength as they closed with a charge, a great roar rising from the onrushing host.

“Showtime,” Taz exulted, as power began to flow outwards from the girl’s body. She hadn’t lied when she mentioned her father, and the truth of the matter became apparent as her callused feet crushed the gravel on which she stood and her body began swelling with power. Her shirt grew tight against her chest and shoulders as they bulged with muscle, and the familiar popping in her jaws as they reshaped and her teeth drew into points was a welcome pain, feeding her burgeoning rage. Her heart began to labor, and her joints felt as if they were tearing apart. Taz couldn’t fully shift, as the Ursaran of ages past could. She couldn’t even get as far as her father -- not yet, at least.

But she could get almost halfway there.

Her roar erupted from her chest, matching the roar of the Deskren decibel for decibel. The Deskren hastened their advance…

...and there, before the gates of the besieged city, met the charge of the [Grizzly Knight].