Eloquin smiled coldly, his powerful voice carrying effortlessly. “Duke Arbingion, I presume.”

The man hissed and spat. “General Eloquin. Butcher of the Southern Plains, wanted for war crimes across half the continent!” He sneered down at Jess and her peers. “Is this your latest band of cutthroat killers? Children? Lads and lasses only come to their majority this past year? You are beneath me, sirrah, and you may rest assured that the king will have no choice but to allow for your deportation, once he hears of your latest outrage!”

Eloquin's icy smile shifted not an iota. "And why would a duke who fawns over the Crown like a dog his kennel master be so far from warm, safe Krona? What possible reason could you have for breaking the oldest of accords, older even than the bans upon raiding and slavery, allowing your men to mow down ancient redwoods in the heart of primeval forest? Even as you molt within as grand a fortress of wood as any general would have erected on campaign, such a structure in clear violation of edicts only a handful of years old?"

The duke's laughter echoed across the clearing. “Lumber? You dare to use lumber as your pretext for invading my lands, butchering my associates, some two score of my men dead to your savages? You fool! The king himself approves of my work here. It is his gold that pays for my lumber, his shipwrights that are determined to make the sturdiest, sleekest boats ever to sail the northern seas!"

Eloquin speared Jess with his gaze. She shivered and kept focus. Knowing what he wanted. What he needed from her. Trusting her to do what must be done by her own unhesitating nod, even as they decided upon this very gambit, her trembling hand pressed against the massive hardwood gate before them, the screams of ancient redwoods echoing through the air.

How they cried to be avenged.

Vengeance which Jess promised, fervently, heart and soul, trembling with exhaustion that bordered upon delirium, Malek's firm grip holding her strong and sure. Her familiar's constant counsel she did without, her Twilight scouting that which presently remained unseen.

"Yes, Duke Arbingion. I am here about lumber. And flesh peddling, so quaintly referred to as spoils of conquest; women and children gathered in bondage from any nation not Velheim's own, honoring any contract for indentured victims, for all that they would be thrown out of any other court on the continent!"

Eloquin roared the last, and Arbingion paled, holding tightly to fury still. “You arrogant fool! There are no slaves here, I assure you of that! Only lumber, per the king's will!”

"And Velheim troops, scores of them, set up and alerted for ambush, by none other than a Velheim spy."

“How dare you speak to me of spies, you who would pimp out children as your assassins and whores!” the duke roared.

Jess shuddered, desperately tuning out those insidious words as she focused on the one thing that mattered. The ancient spirits of wood and vine, trembling with a plea for vengeance Jess alone could hear.

“How many fight under your banner now, Eloquin? Do they truly have any idea of who you are, the things you've done, the blood on your hands?” A chuckle, low and cruel. “I thought not. I have the advantage there, don't I, old friend?”

Eloquin's voice lost not a wit of its iron edge. "Sir Kettil. Blatantly bringing across scores of Velheim crossbowmen, in clear violation of treaties between our nations. Agent Cornelius who has fled to your keep, less than an hour ago. Lady Putrice, your co-conspirator in the flesh trade, but one prong of your connivances, seeking to flood northern Erovering with the scions and bloodlines of Velheim, your shared goal to cement alliances and accords that would serve as the first crack in the foundations of peace that keep our nations from deadliest conflict. All of it threatens the stability of Erovering, and several prongs of your attack are hanging offenses, at that."

Malek chuckled softly. “Honestly, only the crossbows will damn him, Jess. Still, he does look a bit flustered, our dear Duke Arbingion.”

Jess gave a tired smile, floating as much as standing, grateful to take the flask Malek handed her in trembling hands, immediately feeling better after drinking down the flask of cold spring water.

"Jess, guard yourself! A full score of crossbowmen lay in wait just beyond the gate, and Jess, they have loaded bolts of steel-tipped bronze!"

Jess shuddered at this, gazing up at Duke Arbingion in horror.

He knew. Here greatest secret, her greatest weakness suddenly laid bare by an enemy clever enough to know just how to exploit it.

“But then, how...”

Twilight grinned. "Why are bolts normally made of wood, only the tips of hardened steel? As deadly to you as they might be at close range, heavy bronze quarrels will falter to harmlessness by a dozen yards, as like as not unable to hit straight at even a score of feet. Those bolts would have been worthless in the ambush planned, spiraling wildly off target when fired at knights pinned under logs. Most importantly, perhaps, the players here thought you safely neutralized by Lady Putrice."

Jess swallowed and grimaced. "But their trap is sprung, and forty of their men are dead. They know I am here, and so have taken steps."

Twilight nodded as Jess took a shuddering breath, drinking deep from the second flask Neal handed her, exchanging worried looks with Malek, but she was beginning to feel herself once more.

“That is right, my Jess. They realize now that the queen is very much in play. And if they can't control you, they must destroy you for their own sakes.”

Jess nodded, gazing at her mentor, trading sallies with the duke still.

“Sir. A full score of archers ahead. Bodkin arrows. Shafts of copper. Range is poor, but I cannot counter.”

“Then you will smash the damn crossbows out of their hands.”

Jess swallowed and paled at her commander's words. He was serious. Jess blinked. Spoken so fast and harsh that the duke frowned in consternation.

“I suggest you leave now, Eloquin.” The duke's smile turned cold. “And tell the tarts in your party they played poor Cornelius as well as any agent. They were your girls you threw at him, no?”

Arbingion's harsh laughter cut through the air, his hot gaze spearing Jess's own. By the gods, how could he know? “What prizes your blooded little hellions will be to their clans. How proud their mothers must be. No doubt endless noble scions will be eager to marry such filth as bear arms in your name!”

Duke Arbingion shook his head in contempt. "Go back home to your mothers and fathers while you still can! For I promise you this: Your parents will have nothing but scorn and condemnation for how you've all allowed yourselves to be used as pawns in a madman's game. A wanted war criminal, scores of innocent men blooding your blades even now, your only saving grace is that they were of common stock!" He spat. "Go home, wayward children, and be grateful noble blood has yet to be shed, or there will be no forgiveness for you or your clans! If you do not leave at once, you will find yourselves tried along with your master. For even now, writs for Eloquin's arrest have been presented to your dean, with the Crown's seal upon them!"

Eloquin's laughter held not a trace of warmth. "A formal inquisition, then. Fascinating. You are not the first to try such a gambit, Arbingion, and perhaps you won't be the last. But let me ask you this, duke. Do I stand before you, or do the enemies that would have seen me hanged?”

Arbingion paled and swallowed. “You lie. There was never any inquisition. Had there been, I would have brought the men involved all the drinks they could stomach, for as long as they wanted!”

“That would be quite difficult, Arbingion, as the men who sought my execution are themselves exceptionally dead.”

Arbingion blanched and swallowed, before giving the tiniest of nods. "I wouldn't put it past you. You no doubt had them killed. As you have each and every man who has ever crossed you."

Eloquin's deadly smile widened. "Did you know that if a man slips upon ice-slicked stone, his whole body can flip and slam to the ground with such force that his head bursts, much like one kicked by a mule? And drunkenness, though a virtue among the most jaded of lords, can cause some fools to embrace absolute folly. Imagine the madness of braving a cold winter storm, utterly naked, so drunk that alcohol leaks from your pores even as you freeze in cold so profound that your limbs shatter when they are futilely chipped out of ice, days later." Eloquin's laughter sent chills down even Jess's spine. "Let me assure you, Arbingion, the dying expression frozen upon your features would be anything but that of a happy drunken man."

Jess noted any number of Squires exchanging odd stares, Mord chuckling, gazing at Eloquin with darkest admiration.

"Even jousting practice has its risks, Arbingion. Though why a fifty-year-old man would tilt at the rings I cannot say, only that the doddering fool managed to catch his very neck in the loop while his horse raced on, yanking the man right out of his saddle.” Eloquin shook his head. “I hear the poor fool kicked for quite some time. And that, dear Arbingion, is what happened to the puppetmasters behind the last Inquisition out for my head.”

The duke stumbled back from the keep's parapet. “You are a bloodthirsty madman, Eloquin!”

Eloquin smiled. “I know about the crossbows loaded with bronze bolts just beyond, Arbingion.”

A startled gasp.

“My question is this: Does Velheim's king know of the gifts you fear so greatly?”

The duke swallowed, licking dry lips. “She's here, isn't she?”

Eloquin said nothing, only stared at the trembling man.

The duke took a deep, steadying breath. “Cornelius said the message was from Gaines Talbroch. The girls he was with. They were your Squires, were they not? Is... is the boy alive?”

Jess shivered, catching sight of haunted eyes, filled with a father's pain.

Slowly, Eloquin shook her head. “We snapped his neck, and watched him die.”

The man gazed down at them in horror. “No! By all the gods, no! You did no such thing!”

Jess let his tirade wash through her as he began to howl and rail at them, knowing she alone deserved every last shred of his hate.

As he did hers.

It was time.

“Squires, now!”

Acting and moving as one, twenty halberds and a dozen spears shoved forward against the massive wooden gate even as the duke howled his horror and outrage, screamed as any father would who had lost the baby boy he had once cherished. Jess grimaced, having known this awful moment would come the moment the arrogant noble had revealed himself, sickened to see the similarities in face and feature between their nemesis and the boy whose desperate eyes haunted her still.

Now the son was dead, and the father stricken so badly that Jess knew he was in no position to lead anyone.

Exactly the way it had to be.

“Push, damn it!” Jess roared.

With a sharp crack, the massive gate began its ponderous decent downward, as graceful as a fluttering leaf, slowly picking up speed, crashing with horrific force.

What had seemed slow motion had been anything but, and Jess sensed by the sudden surge of death that a fair number of crossbowmen had been caught by the massive gate.

Blood for sap, vengeance begun.

“Move! Jess screamed, shoving her friends to the side as a flood of quarrels streaked by.

Jess felt the fierce echo of her outrage ripple through the heart of this forest, men crying out as masterwork crossbows burst to splintered wood in their hands, fingers mangled, faces perforated by hardwood shrapnel, stumbling back and fleeing as Jess howled and charged, her poleaxe aimed high for devastating blows, and she sensed Malek and Mord but feet behind.

Screams and blood, panicked sobs and furious, desperate cries.

The noise washed over Jess even as her fearsome poleaxe ruptured iron helmets with frightful ease, cleaving heads and desperately raised hands with sweeping blows worthy of any greatsword. Jess quickly shifted her style to half-spear thrusts and tightly controlled chopping cuts as she sensed her peers fighting by her side, timing her strikes to match her shieldbrothers, cleaving into their foes to devastating effect.

Her enemies shouts of panic rung through the courtyard before the keep proper, the air a coppery tinged mist of blood and death. The shorter blades their enemy favored, ideal for striking levies in the thick of melee after rushing past a single row of thrusting spears, were all but worthless against poleaxes. As deadly as Velheim soldiers were with their sophisticated arbalests, cleaved free of their favored weapons, Jess thought her band now had a fighting chance, even embracing the madness of charging a well fortified keep head-on.

The duke was no fool, however. For all that he had no doubt hoped to strike her down with a flood of bronze bolts, the majority of his men were prepared to fight to the death in disciplined ranks. The demoralized route of the surviving crossbowmen did not stop orders from being screamed to the scores of soldiers who had been pouring out of the central keep the instant Eloquin's Squires had broken through the gate. Scores of disciplined infantrymen armed with steel rimmed shields and short thrusting swords now gazed with hardened eyes across the bailey at Jess and her fellow Squires.

Limbs trembling with either exhilaration or exhaustion, Jess felt her lips stretch in darkest glee, sensing that the battle had just begun.