“He told them thus: though he was maimed, and many of his comrades too, he had been told by Morgan how to invade the realm of Fairy which held the cauldron of life, or the land where the Holy Grail was held, and that any man who would follow him for one last battle would have eternal life.”

Bran the Wise, The Conquest of Anwwn.

Tane Bayder. 29 Sextilis 1582 AAA. Trackford.

The 3rd Horse Guards Grenadier company stood on one of the side streets off South Park, waiting for the protestors to arrive.

“You hear anything?” Tane asked.

“Don’t hear anything, Ma’am.” Sace said from beside her. Her nose was bright red, and Tane knew her own face would look much the same. Her fighting harness, buff coat and cuirass and knee high boots, did a decent enough job of keeping her body and limbs warm, but her face was exposed. A few of the grenadiers had scarves pulled over their faces, but Tane didn’t want to risk muffling her voice if the shooting started and she needed to restore order.

“Morgan?” Tane asked.

“Yes?”

“Signals from Mene?”

Mene was out on foot, watching over the park. At a quarter of a mile out, the maximum reach of her tendrils overlapped with Morgan’s, letting her stay in contact with the company.

“Yes. She’s given us the signal to move. Not urgent.”

“March, at the walk!” Tane yelled out. It took them less than five minutes to reach the gardens. They could have done it in only two minutes, if they’d been moving flat out. They moved quickly and quietly, people hurrying out of the way, avoiding eye contact. Individuals or small groups of soldiers were liable to be harassed. No one wanted to face a full company. As they approached, she could hear chanting, faint and in the distance.

The cavalry spilled into South Park, fanning out into their combat formation, three deep and boot to boot. The park itself was sparse grass, with half dead trees here and there, all covered under a thick layer of snow. Not quite Trarabac’s Venwark gardens, but not as awful as some gardens Tane had seen.

“Heard them coming, before my third eye saw them” someone said. Tane turned in her saddle to see Mene jogging up to them in a bulky coat, concealing her blunderbuss and dagger.

“Blodwen, spare horse!” Tane called out.

Blodwen lead up a horse for Mene, and she awkwardly clambered into the saddle.

The protestors were coming out on the opposite side of the park.

They had an orange flag, with a black three-spoke, without a wheel, in the middle, and Free From Tyrants written across it in white letters, at the head of their march column, and she could see more flags behind them. Sunlight flashed off the snow, and the hilts of cutlasses and rapiers on their belts.

The chanting was turning into words now, “Carfane free from Tyranny”. It had first been a slogan during the ’67, when paranoid fantasies about the Teresian monarchy, descended from pre-Arthurian Fey monarchy, conquering Carfane had spread(1). Since then, it had morphed into a general war cry against all sorts of oppression.

Another chant picked up, “Farmers before Wooses”, a good old whinge about not being allowed to take land at gunpoint.

Of all the problems Carfane had-military occupation, slowing economy, heavy taxation, political representation-lack of farmland wasn’t one of them.

She saw a lone figure stumble before the mob, in a red coat. A dishevelled woman stood behind him.

Someone screamed “Lobster!” and the man shouted something back, inaudible.

She pulled out her spyglass, just in time to see the man struck by a flying stick, then another, then someone running forwards with a drawn rapier. The soldier had his sword out as well.

Shit, shit, shit.

At the rate this was going, they wouldn’t need the witch for it to turn into a bloodbath.

“Prepare to charge, batons!” Tane called out. Charging home without scattering them would give the man-apparently a soldier who’d made some unfortunate decisions last night-time to escape.

The NCOs and Gryff echoed her orders, and the company hefted their batons and singlesticks and axe handles.

“Charge, at the trot! Halt on my mark!”

She spurred her horse forwards. She didn’t need to glance back to know that the rest were following her; she could hear the rumble of eighty warhorses moving up to a good round trot.

As she got closer, she saw that the two men were fighting the way only drunkards who didn’t actually want to kill anyone could, striking at each other’s swords, scrambling back the moment one of them actually close enough to hit.

The mob saw them coming; she saw people turning, yelling out in alarm, a few moving to the back of the march. The swordsman turned to face them; and then the soldier turned and ran, the woman trailing after him.

“Halt, Halt!” Tane reined her horse in, the stallion snorting impatiently.

The cavalry slowed to a walk then stopped. The protestors-this lot seemed a bit more respectable than the Tailor’s street mob-yelled out threats and taunts. Finally, someone amongst the protestors started yelling for calm, and she ordered her Grenadiers to countermarch off to fifty yards back in acknowledgement

The crowds formed into a half-circle surrounding someone who leapt up onto a rock with surprising agility. Tane pulled out her spyglass and focused in on the leader. He was a young, handsome looking man, in a dull green corpscoat. She recognized him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place him.

There was something distinctly energetic about the way his hands moved as he spoke. She couldn’t quite hear what he was saying, but from the loud cheers, the crowd liked it. The cavalry were almost forgotten, the crowd focusing on the man’s speech. Finally, after what seemed like half an hour, he ended his speech with a yell of “Taxation without Representation is tyranny, and what do we do with Tyrants?”

Avon Heveria, she finally remembered.

“Overthrow them!” the crowd yelled back.

“Well, this isn’t good” Sace muttered to her.

“No, no it isn’t.”

Another speaker jumped up onto the rock and continued.

“Tane?” Morgan asked.

“Yes?”

“I’ve picked up the signature of the witch. Teahouse. Right at the edge of my tendrils.”

Tane rode to the rear lances, pulling out her spyglass. “It’s about to heat up. You hear any shots, get ready to move on the shooter. Get braced for witchcraft.”

“Hey, Cap, I see movement!” Gryff called out. Tane turned to face him.

“Yeah?”

“Light glinting, up on the second floor of that tea ho-“

Gryff’s cheek was blown apart in a spray of ripped flesh and shattered teeth even as the noise of the gunshot washed over Tane.

Tane saw everything in slow motion. Gryff lurching sideways in his saddle, blood flowing from his ruined face, another trooper leaning across to grab him. Sace screaming, first in shock, then that she saw the shooter on the south corner of the building block. Morgan twisting in her saddle as she began to bring up the arcane wards that would slow bullets enough to have little chance of piercing armour. The fading burst of smoke on the balcony of a cheap coffee house, a hundred and fifty yards east.

This is our chance. He’s completely exposed, the part of her that was trained as a fighter, first a duellist and then as an officer, said.

Gryff’s hurt real fucking bad thanks to me, the part of her that an empathetic human being said.

“Adaire’s lance, get Gryff the fuck out of here! Sace, take twenty troopers around the rear of those buildings, cut off their line of retreat! Everyone else, on me!”

She wheeled her horse towards the balcony, spurring it up to a gallop. Good order didn’t matter, only speed and shock.

The rest of the company where racing after her, the hoofbeats deafeningly loud. They closed the distance in seconds, going from a hundred and fifty yards out to barely fifty by the time the second shot rang out. She heard the crash of a stallion going down, audible even over the roar of horses going at a full gallop, then a high pitched scream. A pair of figures stood on the balcony, scrambling for cover.

Her company reined in, milling in momentary confusion, some leaping to the ground, others continuing to wave pistols, looking for a target.

“Bydevere! Get the men dismounted and ready to assault! Seryse, get someone back to pick up whoever that was who got shot down! Morgan, Mene, work on pinning them down, especially the witch!”

Mene jogged past, then leapt with unnatural lightness at the balcony. She easily caught onto it and pulled herself up.

Get people onto the balcony then cover all the exits, that’s the right idea.

Tane guided her horse up to the balcony, stood up in the stirrups and grabbed onto the lowest part of the railings.

“Mene! Some help!”

The witch scrambled over and grabbed her, pulling her up onto the balcony one handed, her eyes screwed up in concentration. Tane was baffled at the thin woman’s strength, until she realized she had used witchcraft to alter the natural pull of gravity.

“You got his signature?” Tane asked Mene. At the same time, she scanned the rest of the park and the balcony. The protestors were milling about in confusion. A pair of smoking muskets lay abandoned on the ground.

She turned in towards the door, left open in haste. A musket lay discarded on the ground. “Doorway clear?” Tane asked. “Yeah.” Mene answered. “One above us, two on the ground floor. Witch is on the ground.” As she said it, Mene coolly checked her blunderbuss, checking that the rounds were seated and the priming ready.

She’s done this before.

A town bell was ringing, off in the distance, warning of fire or attack.

“He’s going for the roof” Mene added.

“The roof? Lead the way”

Mene rushed ahead of her, into the building. The shooter's route was marked by a kicked in door. The first room was gloomy and absent of civilians, besides a whimpering maid taking cover behind a desk.

“Which way did he go?”

“Up” yelled Mene, already running into another room that turned out to be a staircase. Tane followed.

A pistol ball blew a chunk out of the wall, showering her with splinters. She looked up and fired one of her pistols after him as he vanished over the bannisters.

Idiot, wasted a shot and I need to take him alive.

“Cook his bloody soul, will you?” Tane muttered.

“I’m trying, he’s putting up resistance and I’ve got a witch running interference” Mene shouted as she moved ahead, blunderbuss shouldered, sweeping the staircase. Having a witch attack the soul, done properly, would put anyone out of a fight, but it could be resisted with the right training-training that was ubiquitous for soldiers and other sorts of serious fighters.

Our shooter knows what he’s doing, then.

They reached the top of the staircase.

“He’s on the other side of this wall, in the attic.”

Tane nodded.

“He’s moving again!” Mene yelled.

Tane charged the doorway, shoving it open with her off-hand. Another gunshot rang out, accompanied by a metallic clang. She felt like she’d been punched, and lurched back, looking for whoever who struck her. She saw a man vanishing out through an open window.

“You alright? You alright?” Mene yelled, her voice faint against the ringing from the gunshot.

“Yeah, cuirass skipped it” Tane said, jogging for the window, dodging past tables and chairs. She didn’t feel anything, though she suspected it would hurt like a bitch later.

She scrambled out through the open window onto the sloped gables of the long strip of teahouses, grunting with annoyance as her riding spurs and scabbard scraped against the window frame.

A lone figure was silhouetted against the tiles of the roof, running down the central ridge, dressed in a cheap black coat.

“Stop! Now!” Tane yelled out.

He didn’t stop, and she scrambled up onto the central ridge of the roof, moving after him as fast as she could without slipping. She pulled her second pistol out and cocked it. “Stop!”. She didn’t fire; she wanted him alive, and there would be no time to reload for a second shot if she missed or it didn’t put him down.

The world wrenched sideways, and she pitched over, rolling, letting go of the pistol as she caught herself barely a foot away from the edge. She heard horses screaming down below, staggering, throwing their riders, and two more people, both in drab coats, running, as gravity righted itself.

Fucking witches.

Someone yelled out “hellhounds loose!”, and then it was echoed again and again, and one of them went down, twitching and jerking, the other one, a woman with brown hair, fleeing into a sidestreet. She saw that the man on the roof had been knocked down as well.

Tane scrambled to her feet, taking point ahead of Mene.

“Hands where I can see them!”

The man shook his head. He was dishevelled, long haired, with ochre smeared on his face as a crude disguise.

He drew a hatchet and a knife.

She shifted to a low guard, leaving herself falsely exposed. She could see movement and red coats and glinting steel in the corner of her eye, but she didn’t dare take her eyes off the shooter.

“I told you, surrender!”

“Try it. Make the old man happy.”

She could see desperation in his eyes, though whether it was the desperation of a fanatic awaiting martyrdom or a desire to surrender or the normal terror of close action she could not tell.

“Yield.”

“Fuck you”

He stepped forwards and swung at her.

Tane whipped her backsword upwards, her sword catching the hatchet on the underside of the blade and wrenching it out of his hands. His knife flashed as he continued to move forwards; she checked his knife-hand with her gauntleted off hand and brought her sword back down, slamming the pommel onto his left shoulder. The knife fell from his grasp even as he stumbled into her, sending her staggering while he almost bounced off. She regained her balance. He didn’t, and he went tumbling down the slopes, only barely stopping himself before he went over the edge.

“Come on, kill me, why don’t you? It’d make the old man very happy” he yelled at her as he stumbled to his feet.

If you say that one more time, I’m going to make the old man very happy indeed.

“You’re unarmed. You’ve got no choice. Yield.”

She was distracted by the crash of half a dozen shots rolling together, straight behind her. She didn’t see what it was, but it was enough.

The man began to run, putting at least a dozen yards between himself and Tane, until he jerked back and fell like a dog whose leash had run out. Tane advanced on him. Her legs felt exhausted and her backsword felt like it was made of lead, and the man was struggling to even stand up. Mene sprinted past her, unnaturally light, and was on him a moment later, twisting one hand behind his back, her knee pinning his, holding the blunderbuss to his back, finger off the trigger.

The park was organized chaos, Cuirassier and Harquebusier companies sweeping in with pike and shot jogging after them. The protestors were running, throwing down their banners, some of them waving rapiers and cutlasses in a useless attempt at intimidation.

“Cap!”

She turned to face Bydevere, out on the roof with sword and dagger drawn, a couple of troopers with pistols behind him. On the other side of the buildings, on the street, Grenadiers were forming up dismounted around a dead body.

“What the fuck happened on the ground?”

He shook his head.

“Their witch tried to break out. Knocked down a bunch of horses with tilting. Morgan’s hellhounds got him, then when he tried to get up we shot him down. The other one ran.”

“Any casualties?” she asked, dreading the answer.

“A few people got nasty bruises or fractures. No one dead or maimed, besides Gryff and that one horse that got shot. Don’t know about the rider. Think it was Blodwen.”

No one dead. Captured the shooter. We fucking won.

She wanted to slump down, as the battle-rush wore off, but there were prisoners and casualties to deal with.

1: This is true, kind of. The ruling house of Teres claims direct descent from the marriage of a fair folk princess and Ewliwod, one of Arthur’s nephews. They can technically draw a direct bloodline back 1500 years, and milk it for all it’s worth as far as the legitimacy of the Sun King goes. This is inspired by the various “Merovingians are descended from Jesus you guys” conspiracy theories.