ONE MONTH LATER

Baron Sarda Kahlim had only been Lord of the Star Bastion for a month and a half before the Duke's army arrived. A month and a half of enjoying the solitary lordship over the land's most impregnable and isolated fortress. Accessible only by a series of bascule and swirling bridges, the Bastion was mountain-built and fortified by ages of cold ice and stubborn resolve. Thousands of knights could assault the mountains in which it was built. Carve their way up the unbeaten paths with siege weapons and arcaenomancers, if any still existed. And every time, they would be whittled down to a mere dozen to be sent home in blood. Without question, the Lords of the Star Bastion could do it to anyone, any force, any royal.

Not good old Ircott, though.

He entertained the thoughts as he stared out from the balcony of his room, subconsciously devouring the details of the new environment. Over the battlements of the eastern wall just feet away from him, the wind whipped through the air. Screaming in icy voices as the perpetual winter of the mountain’s peak roared with frozen life. Ice and snow fell and formed in quantities of worrying degrees. Yet, none of it bothered the baron or those within the impossible walls of the Bastion. In fact, some would say that it was warm inside that rugged construct. It was considered hot rather than freezing, even in roofless courtyards built on sheer cliffs. No one could explain why though some did suggest severe cases of hypothermia in the first days. Of course, this was proven false when none fell after the expected timeframes.

Sarda considered the places below the mountain range and whether the denizens of those places would feel the same. Surrounding the mountains, miles upon miles of grasslands and forests galloped and grew, untouched by industry. Green and verdant for as far as the horizon, ripe for the Star Bastion’s cultivation of agricultural advancements. Preservative farms and ranching, each designed to take and give in equal measures to ensure that the landscape never tarnished like those within the boundaries of the cities.

Why had the Ircotts not done this already? Such a vast place. Such territory...gone to waste over the ages for what?

Of course, they would have to avoid the parts of it that were swimming with arcaeno. The purest form of it, according to his scholars. At night, when the world was taking a breath from this madness between royalty, the blue lights would glimmer through the gaps in the trees. Illuminated by stars and the moon which loomed over the world. Strands would dash over the blades of grass with whistling tunes. They would mingle and dance like lovers before vanishing back into the darkness of the night.

He called them sprites because of how lively they moved. It was a naming that made him imagine what other beautiful critters rested in the woods and trotted the lands unseen by his naked eyes. Nestled in the dark creeks and photophobic glens where sunlight had nary touched a speck of dirt in eons. Deer, wolves, bears, elk, moose, maybe a lost kindred of the Dragons. These were expected. But what of creatures like the Drayheller? Beasts so unlike humanity that they defied reason and origin. Maybe cat-like beauties trekked on their hindlegs from edge to edge of the fields, stalking landed nocturnal flyers shaped like a fish with raven wings.

Sarda frowned as his eyes were caught on a glinting ray erupting from the treeline. A barely beaten dirt path parted the thickest of the visible trees, and things were moving on it. Whatever roamed the untouched nature had undoubtedly been scared off by the arrival of trudging sabatons and the manhandled.

His eyes soaked in the details of that encroaching mass so far below the mountain construct that it appeared as little more than moving black worms. Number by number, they came from the northeast, from the bloodied Field of Vucan, out of that green with a clear path toward the lowest of the bridges. The Praktan. Their songs, chants, and cries were lost to the cold mountain current save for the floating notes of the loudest. Soon, he would hear them in full. An appalling thought, and he maybe entertained an idea of ordering his men to move the bridges like the masters of old would. They could not riddle his walls with their blasted noise if they could not reach the Star Bastion.

"My Lord Kahlim," said a frail voice that crackled like rough cello chords. "A rider has appeared at the Praktan Gates. They wish to speak to you to settle the living arrangements for the army."

Sarda turned around with a fling of his gold-embroidered red coat that hung to the bottom of his thighs. The flaps were tied at his waist with a simple iron buckle painted gold. His eyes narrowed scrutinizingly on the man at the entrance to his room. Balding with white hair and a long white beard that hung down to his thighs. Dressed in gray robes with numerous baubles and pins and chains decorating its lengths. Garen Alducade, Priest of God Almighty, and Brother Ordained of the Bastion.

Sarda never wanted such a man in his contingent, for he was not particularly Godly like the rest of his kin. That is not to say he did not necessarily believe, but he did not find a reason to let it dominate a man's actions. Still, he had to resign to the fact that it was with the most pious of all the people that he could have safely bet his life for a rebellion. Besides, the previous Lord’s priest was a dour man with as much inspiration to his voice as a skeleton in a rotted crypt. That, and he had an undying loyalty to the corrupted king.

Duke Oudet. The paragon of Godly Virtues. What a title.

"My Lord?" Garen's face had frowned with concern for his master's silence. "Are you well?"

Sarda clapped his hands suddenly, jolting the energy in the room. He marched forward towards the old man and nodded slowly. "Yes, yes. Send for the rider and tell them I will meet them in the Great Hall."

Garen bowed his head. "My Lord. I will also inform the army that they may begin moving up the bridges to ease their habitation process.”

Sarda stopped in front of his priest. The fortress was a massive construction, the surface stronghold being a red herring for the full scope of its foundations. In truth, it spread throughout the entire range beneath the stone, with various outposts scattered across the peaks. To have over one thousand men and women suddenly fill it without a definitively settled location would be a logistics nightmare. "No. Have the Messenger send a raven to Mille. Tell her to hold the army until I ascertain where everyone will go. No one is coming up that bridge until this rider and I come to an agreement."

Garen licked his lips nervously. "My Lord, would it not be prudent to have them begin their transfer? By God’s grace, we have the supplies to care for them. Food, drink, medicine. They have just come from a grievous battle, and I can only imagine-"

Sarda shook his head. "No. Wounded or not, I will not have a thousand of people sent to a level they might not even stay on and risk getting lost in the labyrinth. What could currently be a hundred wounded could turn into a thousand dead by starvation or infection because they could not be found and treated."

Garen began to protest again, thought wiser of it, and lowered his head. "Yes, my Lord."

The Baron of the Star Bastion offered a warm smile. He placed a hand on the priest's shoulder. “I understand your worries for their health, Brother Garen. It is difficult to ignore the wounded and the dying as a Man of God, a healer no less. But, we must wait to mitigate the damages upon them.”

Garen gave a solemn but understanding expression and then turned to leave the room. Sarda followed him for much of the way, descending the spiraling tower of the Lord's Keep, and through winding hallways that the Ircotts had renovated for their gaudy desires. Though their banners and coats-of-arms had been replaced with Sarda Kahlim’s own, much had been ruined in the name of ego. Paintings of their false legends, portraits of their paragons, and other lavish decorations better suited for a whorehouse than a place of myths. It was all horrid and reeked of insensibility. He would have already removed them had they only been a few in number, but they were beyond counting and promised only a headache for the time being.

Sarda mourned for the Bastion that was. “It is damnable that the Ircotts desecrated the history of this place. Too much lay unused and forgotten, replaced by greed. Hopefully, after the army arrives, we can begin the full scope of our restoration projects. I would see this place returned to its former glory.”

“A tremendous undertaking that would extend beyond our lifetimes,” Garen stated before the last silence between the two. This remained until they reached the fork in their road. “I shall send word at once, my Lord,” Garen rasped as he hobbled to the right, headed for the keep’s aviary.

Sarda moved to the left, heading for the closed double doors of ironwood and engravings. Some past lord prior to the Ircotts had crafted these doors and carved into the wood so they would know of their accomplishments. The guards on either side of the doors, their personal allegiance to the baron marked by their bronze scale armor and shields painted with his coat-of-arms. A great bronze octopus reaching up to sink a golden ship, set on a quartered field of black and blue. One opened the door, revealing the Great Hall's interior.

It was rectangular, easily taking up the most significant space in the keep, with a second-floor light reading library supported by ridged stone pillars. Lit sconces and braziers dotted the room, giving it an orange glow. Long tables dressed with fanciable tablecloths, along with ornate dining chairs, server stools, decorated end tables, and a river of dishware served as the austere decor. More banners, flags, and artwork hung from the stone walls as well as the table-facing sides of the pillars.

At the far end of the room, placed on a semi-raised platform, sat the lord’s table. Made of red oak and stretched long for the food of a glutton. An Ircott table. Sterling dishes, silverware, and a crown bejeweled with rubies, amethysts, and quartz lay on it. An entertaining memory of the former idiot Lord. Sarda went around the table and pulled out the exquisite mahogany chair cushioned with a plush purple. He sat down and sighed at the exceptional comfort he felt in its embrace.

For nearly ninety minutes, he waited in that chair, cursing that he did not at least go to the kitchens to find something to snack on. He closed his eyes at points to daydream about the future and what his position as Lord of the Star Bastion would bring him. Agriculture was his primary hope. However, he also considered future excavations of the Bastion’s lowest levels. Vaults of weapons, armor, and knowledge could be waiting for rediscovery. Perhaps relics of the days when arcaeno was more than just sprites on a field. Why the things he could do-

The sound of marching feet and the doors closing with dreadful age drew his attention from the fantasies to who had entered his hall. She was outfitted in thick plate armor enameled indigo with vertical stripes of deep crimson on the chest. The spurs on her sabatons clinked with each thudding step. A longsword was sheathed on her hip and her left hand clutched the beaked helmet of the Duke’s best warriors. Her scarred diamond-shaped face furrowed with exhaustion and the inkling to draw her weapon with her free hand. Four guards flanked her, hands gripping their swords tightly. Their faces read apprehension towards this beast of a woman. She stopped at the base of the platform.

“You must be the rider?” Sarda inquired, regaining his composure silently by leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. “Come to discuss living arrangements for your army?”

The woman turned her gaze from the baron and surveyed the room in its encompassing entirety. “That is correct, Lord Kahlim. My name is Leondra Ranev, squire to Commander Mille of House Osibri,” she replied with a bow of her head. Her hair was thin and ink-black, stringy with glistening sweat that had not frozen in the mountain wind. She did not seem to notice.

Sarda grinned, remembering the import of the woman’s family name. “Ranev. I remember your house well. I served alongside them when King Aslofidor took us to war against the Dekunians. You must be Karof’s youngest girl.”

Leondra had the awkwardness of a blushing lady-in-waiting at the identification but nodded in ascent all the same. “Yes, my Lord. My father figured it would be best for me to keep up the family legacy after we joined Duke Oudet. My siblings are-”

“Serving the King, I know,” Sarda completed for her. “Give them time to see the wisdom in our cause. They will come around.”

Leondra remained stoically motionless. “You seem to have many places we could house our people in the outer bailey alone,” she returned to the issue, her voice taking on a hint of awe at what she had seen in that expanse. “Even this hall could house a few hundred. We have orders from the Duke to take residence here as our headquarters and seek proper accommoda-”

“Yes. Orders from the Duke that I shall agree to,” Sarda said. “But we both know that a single bailey, immense though it may be, and the royal hall is no place to grow an army. And I can assume you’ve heard the tale of how the Star Bastion is far more than this keep and the bridges.”

Leondra nodded, “Yes, my Lord. The great passageways span the entire range, it is said. With fortresses buried deep in the stone and the caverns.”

Now wouldn’t that be a sight? Sarda leaned back in his chair and sighed. “That might be true, but I have not managed to stage a full excavation of the Bastion. However, the Ircotts discovered places that could serve your army well.”

“How many could we muster by your estimations?”

Sarda considered the images of the massive antechambers, which more resembled the folk stories of dwarven holds in E'aura. Each was different in scale and arranged in somewhat organized manner, which he figured would be good to separate the various rank and files of the force. “At most, one thousand in the largest. Five hundred in the smallest,” he answered finally. “Six chambers capable of holding one thousand; two chambers capable of holding five hundred; one chamber capable of holding six hundred; three chambers capable of holding eight hundred. That covers twelve chambers. A total of ten thousand that you could muster without the further discovery of other rooms. Anything else will have to make camp on the fields below.”

“Ten thousand?” Leondra muttered. “A great force, but-

Sarda raised his arms from the table and clapped his hands together. “Excellent. Now, do the available accommodations satisfy your current need?”

“...They do,” Leondra said.

Mille the Wolf was a woman unlike any other that he had seen. For one, she had belonged to no known guild in any army since she completed her training. Instead, she was heavily focused on the individual perfection of her skills and strengthening her personal beliefs, absent the mutable natures of others. She had honed her swordsmanship to such a degree that a duel lasting more than ten seconds was considered a lengthy affair. Her ideals of warfare and the leadership of this kingdom became as iron-willed as the very soul that operated her body. Perhaps this is why so many within the forces of Duke Oudet could not believe their eyes when they beheld the Wolf herself joining the rebellion. Even more so when she was the one to sue for peace before the Battle of Vucan.

Secondly, she was a short woman, no taller than five feet and five inches, but was remarkably built. Outside her armor and wearing only the modest clothing of a knight waiting to put that armor back on immediately, she boasted a fuller than expected physique. The hard edges of muscles most never knew existed in their body pressed against the fabric of her soot-black shirt and trousers. Her hair was cut to a shoulder-length wave of strawberry that framed a hardened squarish face prominent with rounded features. But it was her eyes, truthfully, that froze most who faced her. Dark circled and deep-set with irises so brown they appeared black.

She sat on the opposite side of the lord’s table, having pulled a chair up the platform to set it in front of Sarda. She stared at him, as did her squire, who stood no more than six paces off to the side with arms tucked behind her back. Sarda stared back with a neutral expression, though the Wolf’s was not and was, in fact, quite aggravated.

“I do not appreciate being told to wait after a month’s journey in the wrong direction,” she finally said after the near five minutes of tense silence. “I have men barely hanging on after such a time, and my healers were out of options lest they turn to the forbidden methods. This place being built in Heaven itself didn’t help matters either.”

Sarda swallowed hard. Where it took ninety minutes for Leondra Ranev to complete the ascent to the keep on horseback, it took the army proper nearly three hours at their slower and far more exasperated pace. Many had collapsed in the outer bailey when they finally made it, only to be told that more journey was necessary before they could rest. He clasped his hands together on the table’s surface. “I apologize, Lady Osibri-”

The Wolf held up a hand. “Fuck your apologies, Sarda. They don’t do shit for the dead, and they mean nothing to the dying without action. Giving us access to your priest’s medicine stock will work wonders on fixing that viewpoint.”

“That is Lord Kahlim, Lady Osibri,” Sarda corrected immediately with a stern glare. “I have already told Brother Garen to treat your wounded, along with his healers and your healers. I am sure they are being taken care of right now as we speak in the church. Your soldiers will also be fed once they are settled into the chambers below.”

“Your verbal assurances also mean fuck all to me until I see everyone healthy again, Lord Kahlim,” the Wolf said before clenching her eyes shut. She groaned with a heave of breath. “How are your storages? Food, water. Weapons?”

“The previous Lord had a great many grains, vegetables, fruits, and meats. Duke Oudet was also wise enough to send me with a great host of supplies when I took control of the Bastion. Enough for your men, and mine, for two years and six months. Weapons and armor are also in large number, though not enough to outfit thousands of men just yet. By the time the army grows to its fullest capacity, I assume - or, rather, hope - we will have even more filling our holds.”

The Wolf sniffed and curled her lip. “It is good that Lord Ircott already possessed such quantities. How did the wise Duke come upon his stockpiles?”

Sarda smirked. “Laundered from the fellow duchies he knew would stay loyal to the King. His own lands were also blessed enough to be filled with numerous agricultural shires.”

The Wolf nodded slowly. “And where are we in relation?”

“We are the bulwark of the Duke’s most vulnerable parts of his territory, with a clear path to the King’s own in the north through Vucan or the River Raech to our northwest. Our location, isolated as it is by the dense forests, gives us some reprieve from others possibly considering laying siege. I imagine we will be assailed at some point, given that the King will surely come to know that I now control the Bastion.”

The Wolf said nothing and looked to her squire. Their faces were both impartial, unreadable for any hint of emotion until the Wolf looked back with a hint of a smile. No…a sneer. “Such a glorious place to rule, Sarda. 'Reprieve from a siege.' But not from up jumped cutthroats killing the unsuspecting when the tides became rough?”

Sarda’s face darkened. Leondra’s back stiffened.

The Wolf turned her sneer into a snicker. “Don't worry, Sarda. I am not here to judge you for your acts of valor to aid our beloved Duke Oudet. The war has been fought through such means for two years now, and all that blood got stoved up. I suppose it is only natural that something had to break the dam.”

Sarda frowned. “It was not I who caused the bloodshed at Vucan, Lady Osibri. I was here, serving.”

The Wolf leaned back in her chair, clicked her tongue, and then rose to her feet with a knife-sharp motion. “Nor I. I know you were not there, being the loyal agent in hiding that you were, but in case you forgot, I tried to prevent that battle. I was the only one. The others were frothing for it.”

“I did not forget,” the baron said.

The Wolf leaned forward to rest her hands on the table, glaring hard into the eyes of the Lord of the Star Bastion. His jaw clenched, and his brows furrowed with concern, doubly so when he briefly gazed upon her squire and saw that she had not moved an inch. “Good,” the Wolf rumbled. “Then you should not forget this either, Lord Kahlim: you played the hand that will cause the rest of it all. The wise Duke has the fabled, impervious Star Bastion now because of you. Aslofidor will go mad when he discovers your betrayal on top of losing the battle at Vucan. The armies will bloat and swell with numbers beyond a mere five thousand. Beyond a mere ten thousand. One with zealots and traitors. The other with patriots and madmen.”

“And which one are you, Mille?” Sarda inquired, his voice dropping to an accusatory but breathless hiss.

The Wolf backed away from the table, her dark lips curved into a savage knowing grin that revealed prominent, sharp canines. Sarda shivered and caught his breath. “I’m the only one with any damned sense to see that Vucan is going to be an afterthought at the end of all this,” the Wolf said. “And the thousands I lost on that field are going to be a statistic in the history books rather than boys and girls who should have had their names read in peaceful times.”

“Then why do you fight? If you oppose this war so much, why did you take up arms and join the fray?” Sarda asked, rising up to his feet as well with hands flattened on the tabletop. His face had become a mask of irritation.

The Wolf turned away and walked down the length of the Hall with her squire, calling out as she did: “What else can a shepherd do when their herd goes mad?”