Erdro Karekale’s army arrived at the gates of Rackvidd in the middle of the night. While Oscar and Aisha gave chase to Medorosa, the men outside the walls waylaid the small folk. Farms burned. The roadside stables became riots and menageries of bloodied beasts. While horns trumpeted of the arrivals at the gates, the mountain men swept along the foot of the walls to find doors and pedestrian passages. They assaulted the tiny doors with hammers and rams. One they broke through and a bloody slaughter from room to room, corner to corner, ensued before the defenders cut off the intrusion by means of burning oil and belatedly shutting the internal portcullis.

The lord of the Black Keep had taken a gambit to break through upon his first arrival, and failed.

By first morning’s light, the Cynizia footsoldiers had arrayed themselves into an armed camp facing the city. The men moved like ants, crawling over crude fortifications they put up with wood and stone beyond the reach of arrows. The cannons could have been brought over, if not for the seaward threat, but for the day they worked without fear.

Lieutenant Tyrion had no inkling of Erdro’s plan, and could see no further than the backside of the Cynizia footsoldiers before him. Visions of glory filled his fevered mind. Melodic musings of musicians and bards stuffed his ears with their praises. Blind and deaf, he ordered a charge against the Cynizia.

It went as well as one might expect.

Sieges are very strange things, and entirely dependent on one’s ability to throw rocks further than the enemy. That is, if the attackers mean to storm the place rather than wait it out. The Cynizia had no cannons to break down the walls of Rackvidd, but there were other solutions to the problem. Their nighttime raid was merely the first option available to them. When that failed, they moved to their second plan and happened to be quite prepared for an attack, even if it did come from behind.

Surprise or no, flanked or not, Erdro Karekale still had the numerical superiority, and to Lieutenant Tyrion’s despair, Lord Raymi did not come storming from the gates to trap the Giordanans and envelop them.

But that is not to say no aid came to him at all.

Lucius had been chasing him ever since his betrayal, and caught up as the morning’s battle unfolded.

Arrows were first. Lobbed from the shallow hills around the city before he and his scant crew of ten drew closer. The remaining troops had lagged the night behind, unable to keep pace no matter his urging. They would not arrive till the afternoon, but Lucius brought the strongest ten warriors with him and joined the fray.

As he saw it, there was a great press of bodies. The blue cloaks of the voluntaries looked like trees in a forest, getting tossed by the winds of a storm. Against them, the brown and black of the mountain men, as though they had clad their steel with the very stone they came from. Tyrion had crashed his men upon them, and his valorous wave had broken upon the stone.

The froth sprayed red.

In my experience, and Lucius’, there is no easier man to flank than one who believes himself flanking another. Provided they don’t expect it. As the men of the Black Keep fanned out like an enveloping mouth, their edges thinned and thinned. They wrapped around the shield formation of the Vassish, but whereas the voluntaries stood three men deep, with spears over one another’s shoulders, the Cynizia had no support to their backs whatsoever.

With no warcry to announce his presence, Lucius charged the seaward flank. Just one more man to the mix, but a man in the right spot. He sank his sword through one Giordanan’s guts. His shoulder bulled over another, letting the spearmen fell the surprised fighter. With a flourish and spin of steel, he slit the throat of a third.

A shout went up. The men cried out, “Solhart! It’s commander Solhart!” From one voice to many, the entire melee lurched towards his flank. Like grain to a flock of birds, both masses slid and counter-shifted. They pushed one another’s determination all the while extending once more to gain the enveloping flank.

Lucius did not join the voluntaries, he fought to their side. He danced between swords and spears, daring any to step within his reach. The combat wrapped around him like skin covering an infection. The pus the blood of the dead.

The mountain men extended, like anchoring rope in a storm. The line held but every fiber threatened to snap. The tension only needed to rise while the Vassish held on. But alas, the fool Tyrion would not stomach it. The tide had turned with Lucius’ arrival, and nothing to do with his prowess. It was the ten auxiliaries loosing arrows into the edges of the Cynizia that tore and frayed, not him.

“Solhart, what are you doing?”

Tyrion barged into the melee, one shield strapped to his maimed arm to give the impression of defense like painting over rot. The raw force of his stigmata alone held the man together. In his other hand, blood dripped from his sword. It was mud that caked his uniform. More than the effect of their martial prowess, their status struck the men away and made them wary. The churned slop of carnage beneath Lucius’ feet cleared of assailants.

“Sound the retreat,” Lucius snapped, spinning to face the host of mountain men.

“You know nothing of war, boy. All you know is the art of running away. And you know what, there’s no fucking way you’re Solhart.”

Lucius had no choice but to turn on Tyrion, to put his back to the Cynizia. “Hold your tongue before I take it from you like I took your arm.”

Erdro Karekale made his appearance on the stage. “Well if it isn’t the crux of the battle,” he bellowed, striding through the ranks of soldiers with arms raised up. Fully armored, he moved like a giant. He wore a curious, gaudy armor comprised of chain hidden beneath his silks, along with metal bracelets and accessories strapped about his arms, legs, his belt and beard. Even his helm had rings of gold riveted on, ascending the peak to a feathered plume nearly a head again higher than his skull.

And so, the whole conflict had come to ahead, those three men whom their legions looked to for direction. This was often the way of battles in those days, and a prime reason I had staked my bets onto Lucius. For when the leader dies, the men break and rout. Who better to lead than a man who can’t die?

Had he been magnanimous, Lucius would have squared off against Erdro himself. He had used up his magnanimity during his duel with Tyrion. When the lord of the Black Keep put himself before them, Lucius spat on the ground and stepped aside. He gave Tyrion the glory he so desperately wanted.

I do not mean to besmirch the fool’s combat prowess. He had won a great many battles back in Vassermark, and made himself acquainted with the savages in the wastelands. But Erdro was another matter entirely. Perhaps if Tyrion had been of Skaldish make, like the Tolzi brothers, he would have stood a chance. As it was, Tyrion was thirty pounds lighter, and one arm short of the Giordanan. The years of martial training beneath his belt meant little when put up against Erdro’s own prowess, even drummed up into a berserker frenzy with his waning stigmata.

The mountain man stepped into the fray, letting the lines of soldiers surround them and watch. He took it as a point of honor and so he brandished his sword. It was a heavy thing, long enough to be used from horseback and with a flared blade that made it chop through the air. Countless Vassish soldiers had lost arms and heads from the hacking swing of his steel.

Tyrion braced himself and gritted his teeth, eyes burning as he let the Giordanan approach. “Vassermark!” He bolted forward, stabbing and thrusting. Erdro took the blows on his banding, twisting his sword to force Tyrion’s attacks away as he fell back. Then the lieutenant lunged. The tip shot out like an arrow.

Sparks flew, edge from edge. Spectators jumped. The subdued pushing of shields and probing of weapons halted. Eyes were sucked to the exchange. Up came Erdro’s sword, where he clasped it in both hands. Down it cleaved.

Tyrion, fettered by flagging fatigue, slid his shield up over his face. The metal rim split. The wood cracked. He screamed. Down to one knee he fell. Erdro’s boot planted on his shield and shoved him back, extracting his weapon from it and sending the voluntary sprawling in the mud.

Lucius, who had been occupied sending a handful more Giordanan’s to the Shepherd’s embrace, started to jump in, to put himself between them. “Don’t you dare,” Tyrion growled. Blood poured down his face and blinded him in one eye. “You will not usurp me here!”

Erdro laughed. “Hopeless, but I like it. Give me your name, northerner.”

“Tyrion Reed. Tell it to your Goddess,” he said, and stomped his feet into the mud. He took the stance of the royal sword arts, the official martial art of Vassermark. Shield thrust forward, sword arm up and back, elbow to fist to tip a line at the enemy. Erdro whistled and grinned. Tyrion blasted forward with a thrust, a drawing slash, a pivot of the feet and a hack. He chained one cut to the next with the grace of a dancer. His sword clashed against bracelets, against mail, against sword, and against Erdro’s flesh.

The mountain man retaliated.

His sword cut up and took off Tyrion’s last arm. It cut down and chopped through to his spine. The lieutenant’s blade twirled through the air and stuck in the ground as he fell to his knees. Tyrion’s grasp at glory ended.

Lucius vaulted over the dying Lieutenant, using the man’s back as a springboard. He had ditched his shield to grab his sword with both hands. From high in the air, he hacked down, faster than Karekale could raise his cleaver of a blade. He struck the Giordanan leader square across the shoulders. The impact rocked through his body. His sword shattered, cracked across the iron banding protecting Erdro.

But he did not go unscathed.

The broken half of blade still in Lucius’ grasp continued on ripping into his chain shirt and through to the man’s flesh. Erdro’s mouth gaped. His blood squirted out. He staggered back, a tremble of weakness through his arm. For a moment, fear paralyzed him. He stood betwixt the armies, wounded and facing a man with a broken weapon.

“Sound the fucking retreat!” Lucius screamed. A pocket horn blared out the simple code. The Vassish closed ranks with one another, locking shields as one and falling away. They trampled over corpses.

As the two forces pulled apart, the window of support from Raymi ended. Rather than so much as a volley of arrows, smoke began to trickle up from within Rackvidd. It stank of the same chaos that destroyed Puerto Faro.

The stunned Erdro Karekale hefted his blade out to the side and shouted, “Hold. This was our victory.” The Giordanan’s stumbled and lurched, their formation dissolving into the mud. Plenty wished to chase and continue the fight, to press the advantage. Those were the ones that stepped forward, inviting arrows from the auxiliaries, only to retreat to the protection of their comrades.

Erdro and Lucius locked eyes with one another. “So, you’re Solhart?” the mountain man shouted, his voice nearly as bellowing as Lord Raymi’s. “You exceed your reputation. I savor the thought of killing you.” The lord of the Black Keep grinned and stomped his foot on Lucius’ corpse, pressing it into the mud like he stood upon a bog.

“Savor it while you can,” Lucius shouted back. “None of you will survive the day.”