Chapter 36 - CHAPTER XXXVI: The Siege of San Vilgraek

Apart from having two walls, Trovizan and Trozzard, San Vilgraek's south walls were also thicker and taller than its other sides. The west wall, on which was found the Felicity Gate, was guarded by artificially diverted waters that could be drained and refilled with a dam, accessible only by means of the long pier separating Felicity from the land. The north had the safe harbor, while the eastern wall, facing the waters of the closed lake too, had no gates at all, and only had a single wall rather than two since wall Trovizan could not have been built in the lake.

But the city's defenders, looking down at the multitude of Gamaliel's armies, were not concerned with the question of how they were there within just a few hours of the Scovian ambush in the Goitan Rift. The more pressing matter was what they were dragging along with them.

'What are those?' the Emperor, was present on the walls along with his men, including the outlander, wanted to know. This question startled K'rar, but upon studying the faces of all those on the wall, including hundreds of San Vilgraek's civilians, he realized they actually did not know what they were looking at.

'Siege engines,' said K'rar, 'they're trebuchets. What were they using the last time they tried to fell the wall?'

'Well they had siege engines alright. But not those ones,' Verdan said to him, 'they had common catapults.'

K'rar raised his brows. Once more, this strange land, for all its size and beauty and large population, was still dragging its feet in technology, especially war technology. But then he had only been to San Vilgraek, as a modern civilization. There were bound to be other cities, mightier or equal to San Vilgraek, on this continental giant of a land.

The coalition forces remained hundreds of meters away from the wall, making no preparations at all to attack it. More conspicuously, the defenders quickly noticed that the new trebuchets were the only siege engines they had with them.

'No siege towers, and no battering ram?' someone remarked.

'They don't need them,' replied K'rar, 'they've got eight trebuchets. They realize they will lose many men attempting to scale the wall and over. So now they will smash through it, and from a distance too.'

'We can't get close to them at that distance,' said the Emperor, 'now we're supposed to watch and pray that the wall is not breached?'

'No, Emperor. But we need to find a way to somehow disable those trebuchets. I have a way, but it needs darkness, and discretion.'

'As soon as you can, do it,' the Emperor was issuing him a command.

As the light in the sky began to transform into blackness, the two sides faced each other without activity. Gamaliel's armies were yet to set up camp fully, and were still closing off all exit points of the city to the south and west. The defenders looked back into time, knowing that San Vilgraek had never been taken. Not by siege towers, by battering rams, nor by catapults. But nevertheless, the sight of the besiegers did not invite confidence.

An hour passed, and still no side had launched an assault. The darkness was now over the ambience. Spectators in the city along the inner wall's ramparts had become bored and departed the scene, but the defenders along wall Trozzard had stayed put, watching with heavy hearts, and trying to decipher the enemy's plan, seeing as they had launched no attack for close to an hour.

'What are they doing? Trying to entice us to get men outside the wall?' General Aurien was not alone in asking this.

'No. This has to be something else,' Verdan opined, 'they know these antics will not make us do that.'

Before anyone had made a response to this, the events of the last hour suddenly became clear. It was heralded by a single soldier, shouting into the darkness from the east side of the wall,

'They're getting into the lake! They're getting into the lake!'

'What are you screaming bout soldier?' the General called Lioza, closest to the soldier, impeded him by his shoulders, 'what do you mean they're getting into the lake?'

'They have ships in the east lake, my lord!'

'Ships in the east lake? How?' someone else yelled, but K'rar and Verdan, who were now almost inseparable, were already racing each other across the ramparts as fast as they could to see for themselves.

'Son of a bitch!' was Verdan's first impression of the situation. But K'rar thought it was ingenious.

They were Takahean vessels. The enemy soldiers had dragged old-fashioned rowing ships overland, over the strip separating the lake from the sea, using logs and oil to roll the ships. And now, San Vilgraek was faced with the disastrous, and ironic, prospect of being invaded from the east. There was a very thin beach between the all and the waterline that until now was of no use. The Takaheans were already in the process of preparing siege towers to launch on that land, whereas the defenders were still watching them, dragging more boats and more men into the water.

'I want men on this wall now!' one of the army leaders was shouting himself hoarse, 'archers, now! Bring those stones over here, now!'

The signal that Gamaliel's forces along the south had been waiting for. He and his men stood near the center of their vanguard, watching for any agitation, which they were now seeing. Hundreds of men were restlessly scrambling, being recommissioned to the east to counter the big surprise waiting for them there. Gamaliel, smirking and snickering, said under his breath to himself,

'And now it's time to return the surprise, Emperor.' He then raised his voice to give an order, 'I want those trebuchets launching on that wall all night long. Let's take this city, men of the Pridelands!'

And the war was off to a flying start. The Scovian army, in spite of having prepared to defend, were on the defensive more than they wanted, having to concentrate their dwindling numbers on the east wall. Having been unprepared for any kind of assault on the east wall, they had to watch as the Takaheans set up their towers along the wall with some level of impunity. To make matters worse, the first defensive plan that the Scovians conjured up, which K'rar thought was the only one they could have done, was to send men outside the wall from the north, who were to go round the wall to the east to launch a ground counteroffensive along the narrow strip of beach. This required an entirely new plan, as well as the recommissioning of men from the south wall.

K'rar and Verdan and three of the generals remained on the ramparts of the east wall, beating back successful Takahean climbers down the wall, while the Emperor was frisked away from the very real action now in spite of his ability to wield a sword himself.

'So I take it we have abandoned south Wall Trozzard,' K'rar said between heavy breaths to Verdan when they salvaged a moment to breathe.

'Well there is no plan for it now,' Verdan returned the reply in the same manner, 'they've got us boxed in.'

'This seaward assault is a surprise, but it can be handled. They cannot set up towers on two and a quarter miles of wall. But if they breach Trozzard to the south, you might as well hand them the keys to the gates.'

'The trebuchets,' said Verdan, 'you have a plan?'

'Armored divisions. Eight companies in tortoise formation, one for each trebuchet. Set them on fire, fell them, break them…anything will do, but those trebuchets need to be removed by hook or crook.'

'Men will still die, outlander!' Aurien was also present and had just heard the last part of K'rar's plan.

'And tens of thousands more if they breach that wall. How much do you want that wall to remain standing?'

So far wall Trozzard was still standing, but even from the interior, the damage to it was beginning to become conspicuous. It was enduring a severe battering with no men there to defend it, and no men outside the wall to attack the invaders. K'rar's plan was laid out in front of the War Council later that night, when the armies momentarily lay down their arms and camped to wait for the morning. The eastern assault had been contained, but only just, and the Takaheans were increasing their presence on it as a response to the spirited defense. The Generals all endorsed K'rar's plan, but wanted to take time to discuss it more to make it foolproof. This took them the best part of three hours, at the end of which General Lioza was standing over the map in the war room, detailing the specifics of the tactical plan. K'rar, though, was absent from this meeting, having told them that he would go out to study the feasibility of yet another plan he was thinking about.

'Ser K'rar's tortoises by themselves are suicidal,' he was saying. They had only recently been introduced to the term "tortoise" to refer to a shielded formation of soldiers. Lioza went on, 'but that's not saying that the modifications we are making are any better. However, they might just deliver better. Eight tortoises of 150 men, headed directly for the siege engines,' he was indicating these particulars on the map, 'but since they have to take a beating and not fight back, they need wings to do it for them. A normal battle line ahead of them to keep the Herphemians busy should do it. We will lose many men, as we're terribly outnumbered, but if we can take out at least half of those trebuchets, we would have bought ourselves some good number of days as we wait for K'rar's backup.'

The Emperor's fight hand was on his chin as usual while he contemplated this plan, nodding as he did so. He said,

'Why not shoot flaming arrows at the damn things once we're close enough?'

'That is part of the wing's job. But according to our newest member, flaming arrows are not very precise, and the siege weapons are too big. The tortoises need to reach them.'

'When do we do this?'

'Prepare the men now,' K'rar now bungled into the room unannounced, 'we can't wait for daybreak. Too dangerous. The night is our friend. What changes have you made?'

They explained their plan to him. He, too, thought it was good enough.

'And what about you?' the Emperor queried, 'you're back from a night stroll?'

'The damage to the walls needs to be repaired. Overnight as well. The stones that have been dislodged, must be put back into their places. Now.'

The soldiers, as they had done many times before since their first episode with him, exchanged odd looks. K'rar, on the other hand, just raised his eyebrows at them all, and left as fast as he had appeared. The Emperor then turned his idea into a directive and placed its execution in charge of Aurien and Verdan, and then left off to sleep too.

K'rar desired to pay the woman Amren a visit. He had a basket of goods with him when he did, according to the custom of the Scovians. She was the one that opened the door, and immediately wore an apprehensive countenance. Looking both sides of her door, she said,

'Come in. What are you doing here? Your fighting pit team came here looking for you.'

'Aren't you going to take the basket?' he lifted it before her.

'Of course. Thank you,' she took it, and as she took it to keeping, added, 'where the hell have you been?'

The boy, Ollinz, came rushing from a back room, yelling "King Nine-Nine! King Nine-Nine!" and putting his knuckles up to meet K'rar's own fist. He said to Amren, while ruffling the young ruffian's hair,

'Me? Out on the wall, fighting for your city.'

Amren's face was just reappearing from the window sill under which she had kept the gift basket. She was trying to make out whether K'rar's last remark had been made to her or her son. She said,

'What?'

'Yeah. I made myself useful to your Emperor.'

'Ser K'rar, what is this? Tis not a courtesy visit is it?'

'Are your ships still coming?' Ollinz asked out of the blue, still standing with K'rar.

'Yes, Olly, that's right. And I'm here to invite your mother to return with me.'

'Olly, go to your room,' said Amren. The boy scuttled away and vanished, and Amren raised her brows at K'rar, 'so what brings you here? It's a bit late.'

The woman was still viewing K'rar's talk as mere jest, causing him some consternation. He heaved a sigh and drew closer to her,

'Okay, pay attention Amren. I wasn't joking about fighting for your Emperor. And I wasn't telling tales to Ollinz about me or my ships. It is all real. When they come here, I intend to return with more than just them.'

'What? Hold on, hold on. Are you saying you are actually a king, or that you have ships? Which one is which?'

'Both, Amren. Both. You're the first person I'm telling this in this strange place.'

'Okay,' her gaze was fixed on his face. There was no hint of flippancy on it. She added, 'and you want me and Olly to come with you?'

K'rar nodded, 'That's right.'

'You want to explain why? Why should I leave everything I know behind to follow a stranger into the unknown, with my son? I don't even know if I believe what you say.'

'It's just a proposal. Now when my warships do show up in the lake, you will see them, and you'll have your proof. And, why do I want you to come? I'll tell you when you know the unknown is true.'

'I have an idea. You certainly have no amorous interest in me, so this must be about my son, isn't it?'

K'rar wanted to laugh, but he managed to reduce it into a smile.

'You'll have plenty of time to think on it, as soon as you see the ships. Then I will be back to hear your answer.'

She watched him quietly as he made his way out, and then raced after him outside,

'Wait!'

K'rar stopped. She said,

'Are we safe?'

'Safe?'

'The war, K'rar. I hope the rumors aren't true. You've been on the wall, as you say. I heard they have a hundred thousand men. They're going to take the city aren't they?'

'No, Amren. No one is taking San Vilgraek.'

'Wow. Why are you so sure?'

'Because I won't let them, Amren.'

K'rar and his new military acquaintances were all unhappy about the shoddy job done in executing his plan to reinstate the chunks of wall knocked out by the trebuchets. But this was only for a brief moment, for it was time to execute the other plan: to take out the offensive items undermining their wall with impunity. Once more, K'rar was on the ramparts of wall Trozzard with Verdan when 22,000 Scovian defenders marched out of the New District into the open ground at first light of day. The Herphemian camp was caught aback by this mobilization, but they had three men for every one of the Scovians, and had no trouble responding in kind in the blink of an eye. Lord Gamaliel, however, had to be brusquely awaken from his slumber, and dressed up in heavy armor before coming out on his horse to see the whole landscape teeming with all manner of soldier.

'What are they playing at?' was what he asked those nearest to him.

'Suicide, my lord. Good for us,' came the reply, from Volland, who was also on horseback next to the Grand Vizier. The marquis of Nassau Mara was also present, of course on horseback.

'The ones in blue,' said he, 'they are not regular soldiers are they?'

'Hassendrale,' said the Grand Vizier, 'that's their best division, but it has less than 200 men.'

'The Hassendrale are not to be underestimated, Grand Vizier,' a curt remark from Gamaliel came back, 'you know that as well as I do. This is no mere frontal attack. There's something else going on here.'

There was indeed something going on, which could be discerned not just from the presence of blue uniforms on the battlefield. The Scovians were not conforming to the conventional manner of war. This was only a fraction of their army, and were standing in very unorthodox battle formations. Rather than one gargantuan horde of fighters, they were now organized in what looked like legions. But what startled the Herphemians most was that the Scovians all bore shields. Every single one of them.

Yet the Herphemians were only seeing what was directly in front of them. And they liked their odds, against a really sorry attempt of an attack formation. It was Lord Gamaliel himself who first yelled a chant, animating his men once more,

'Do you see this, Brothers?! The City will be ours by nightfall today! They come after us with a hundred men, so let's oblige them!'

On the other side of the landscape, General Lioza drew his sword, as if in response to the racket the Herphemian horde was now making. Pointing it skyward, he, too, launched his pep talk,

'Men of the Empire! Do you hear that? Do you hear what I hear?' he began to run along a corridor between two lines near the center of the troops, 'I hear the chant of the charlatans! But I also hear the screams of your wives and your children, if you let them breach this wall. You men are not merely fighting for your Emperor, huh, curse the man who thinks such a fallacy! You are fighting, because you have something to return to. You are the difference between those we are fighting for, and them! So remember your role here, and do not step out of line even once, because if you do, this city is theirs. Now, whose city is this?!'

'Ours!'

'I said, whose walls are these you are defending?!'

'Ours!'

'Tortoises, now!'

Now thousands of men drifted forward and filled up the spaces left by those in the vanguard, so that a more traditional, single file of soldiers was visible to the Herphemians athwart. But behind that line, the "tortoises" formed up in eight divisions, in direct line of sight of the eight siege engines. Everyone in between was assigned to defend the tortoises by all means necessary. The tortoises also had one more trick up their sleeve. They carried tightly knit shields over their heads and on their flanks, in imitation of the animal after which they were named.

'Remember, our mission is to destroy the trebuchets. Your brother is hit, you stay in line! Your brother falls down, you stay in line! You want to shit, you still stay in line! Here they come. March!'

The Herphemian advance was led by the enigmatic Nassau Mara on their horses, screaming like chimpanzees. But behind them, the more organized Herphemian units were shooting arrows over them. Not one of them caught a Scovian soldier, but this, they could not see. The arrows landed on the roof of the tortoises. Before the division commander ordered another wave, the Scovian formation stopped, and General Lioza yelled,

'Archers, prepare to return fire!' the line of archers did so, 'I want half of those horsemen dead before we make contact! Aim, ready…release!'

As soon as they did release their arrows, they immediately ducked back under the safety of the shield canopies of their legions, and resumed the slow, steady march.

The Nassau horsemen were excellent raiders, but within just minutes of their contact with K'rar's tortoises, they were effectively sidelined. The Scovians were ordered to lean forward a few degrees to brace the impact of the horses, while their colleagues under the canopy pulled out long spears and stuck them out front to hurt as many animals as they could. However, they did not have to endure as much of the cavalry as their vanguard, part of which comprised the fierce Hassendrale, 200 of them. The presence of the Hassendrale reinforced the Scovian will so profoundly that Gamaliel and his men, only a few minutes into the bloodshed, were already stunned into silence. Herphemian ground troops, even in their large numbers, were having a very bad day.

'What the hell is this? Your men cannot fight?' the marquis was saying to the Supreme Lord, being intentionally disdainful. His own horsemen were not doing any better, though, but were safer from the defenders because they rode horses, and were largely ignored, because they also could not open up the tortoise shells. It was not long before the Herphemians realized that the Scovian advance had not even been stalled for more than a few moments and began falling back haphazardly. But it was long before they suddenly spotted the real motive. It was the marquis who did so first. He suddenly spat out the stem of long grass in his mouth and was about to point it out, when Gamaliel furiously ordered,

'Send the bashi-bazouks!' the bashi-bazouks were the Herphemian equivalent of the Hassendrale, old, experienced men who had honed their skills fighting many battles. Many of them knew San Vilgraek, having fought on its behalf before.

'No, no, don't do that!' the marquis vetoed, and the Grand Vizier refrained from issuing the king's command to send them. The king shot the marquis a curt look, demanding an explanation. The marquis said, 'look, look at that, Lord Gamaliel. This was not an attack!' he moved his finger to point at the eight concentrations of Scovian armored divisions.

'Son of a bitch, they're going after the trebuchets!' General Gavril screamed his heart out, not because of that realization, but because of how extremely close the Scovians had got from the siege weapons.

In fact, it was too late. K'rar, Verdan, Aurien and the Emperor all knew it. They were all jaunty as they stared down at the landscape at the Herphemians scrambling to get between the tortoises and the trebuchets, or trying to move them back into the safety of the rest of their multitudinous crowd. Their Generals were racing across this way and that yelling inaudible commands. K'rar knew this was bound to hamper the efforts to keep the trebuchets safe, and was right. The Herphemians were now getting a taste of their own medicine, caught cold by such an unorthodox method in the same manner as the Scovians had scrambled on the east wall of San Vilgraek.

But the Scovians had handled the assault on the east wall, even though it would not be the last. In the same manner, the Herphemians, knowing their chances would be tremendously bloodied without the siege weapons, threw everything but the kitchen sink in their protection, throwing thousands of men in front of the Scovian tortoises, who had closed the gap enough to launch resinous material and flaming arrows. Before Herphem could even consider recovering, four trebuchets were ablaze on the landscape like giant bonfires, so that the men standing close to them had to retreat. One more fire was extinguished, but not before the trebuchet was thrown down under the fire, injuring a handful of men. At long last the Herphemians got some respite when they managed to douse the fires on the remnants and also drag them back while finally managing to halt the tortoises. Satisfied that their mission had been executed to near-perfection, the Scovians began to reform their tortoises again, and prepare to march back.

'Now for the hard part,' said Verdan on the ramparts of wall Trozzard. The sun was now out over the eastern sky, illuminating not only the battlefield but also the disaster the Herphemians had just been dealt. But that was contingent on the tortoises making it back to the safety of the city, hence the hard part Verdan referred to. He issued an order to deploy the second battalion of soldiers outside the wall, assigned to assist their comrades in getting back safely inside the walls, because as expected, the Herphemians were now concentrating all their efforts in ensuring that they slaughtered as many Scovians as possible. However, K'rar had strongly insisted that the men do not simply flee back to the wall. They had to return to it in their tortoises, tight and intact. Nonetheless, the Herphemian bashi-bazouks were able to inflict heavy casualties among those who were not on the tortoise units before the second wave made contact.

'The one with a pale face,' a red-faced General Gavril was saying, in the aftermath of the disaster, 'I am certain it was his doing. Where the hell did he come from?' the Herphemians had been reduced by only a few hundred men, but their four incapacitated trebuchets counted for thousands of men. As if that was not enough, this did not mean they still had four functioning ones. Long after the battle, it had been discovered that one other weapon had been rendered dysfunctional, for at least some time, because it had been manhandled during the operation to safeguard it from the Scovians. Only three engines were usable, yet even when they had used all eight of them for a whole day, the wall was still staring right back at them with very minor damage.

The Supreme Lord was apoplectic for his part, or had been. Presently he was in the cover of his tent with his council of sorts as they tried to save face by offering up excuses of atonement. But the inanimate objects of the tent evidenced a brief moment of blazing rage in which the Supreme Lord of the Pridelands had upset most everything in the tent, and had snapped at the servant who had come in to restore their order.

'You're still talking about that chap?' Grand Vizier Aitor spat back.

'You think it's a coincidence that they brought the war outside the walls? It does not make sense, but in two days, the Scovians came out to raid us in the Goitan Rift, and then came out to disable our trebuchets. Not just that, but the tactics they used, so we did not even know what they were doing until it was too late.'

'That all holds water, you know,' said the marquis in concurrence, 'but if he were a mercenary, he would have, you know, an army. But he's alone, and the lake only has Scovian ships.'

'Alone or not, he is the one responsible for all this, I'm certain of it,' Gavril was insistent, 'he is not Scovian. He's a foreign man, and he knows exactly what he is doing. We need to deal with him.'

'Deal with him how?'

'That's what I need to know. With the king's permission, I'll reach out to some contacts inside and get an audience with him.'

'And then what?' asked Gamaliel, speaking for the first time.

'A mercenary's interest is with his money, not those walls. And my lord, you have more than the Scovians can offer him.'

'You're saying that my chances of taking this city dwells on one white-faced man whose identity no one knows?'

'No, my lord, but it would do us good to find out if indeed he is a mercenary, before it is too late. If we can't turn him, we can still take the city. This is just a contingency.'

Gamaliel shook his head and gritted his teeth in contemplation, and said,

'Do it. But if your contacts can eliminate him instead of making me pay for him, let them do it.'

The General's contact, only one not many, was just a forty year old southern woman, incapable of bringing any harm to K'rar, but Gavril had made no mention of this to his master. To reach out to this woman, Gavril had one of the king's maidservants masquerade as a Scovian woman who had managed to evade Takahean scouts ensuring that no soul came in or out of the city. Conniving with some Takaheans, he then planted her behind the small Takahean blockade of the Barren Sea so that she appeared to have come from the Scovian islands based a few miles northeast. They then put her on the eastern peninsula on the Banderak Canal, which was a bit out of place because no one usually passed through the North Gate on land. Yet the surly Scovians guarding the entrance did let her in without a hassle.

She knew where to find the contact she had been sent to. The woman was the owner of one of many popular cottages where fishermen spent most of the time they were not fishing, and they were not fishing because of the war. When she located the cottage, she was reluctant to enter it because of the large male population there, even at the verandah outside. It was not until one of the men there spoke first to her that she finally asked whether a southern woman owned the inn.

'A southern woman?' the man said, 'what's her name?'

'I…I don't know.'

The man stood up with a brief laugh, and spat some cud out of his mouth onto the earth, approaching the maidservant. She cringed from him a bit, causing him to laugh again, saying,

'Hey, hey, don't run now, eh?' he was ogling at her, 'you see, young lady, there's a whole lot of southern women within these mighty walls, you know what I'm saying?'

'Well, uh…'

'For fuck's sake, Revlen, haven't you slept with enough women for one night?' a stern female voice emanated from the entrance of the cottage. It was the woman the maidservant was looking for. She said, 'come in girl, don't mind the less than good-natured intentions of Scovian men.'

As soon as they were alone in back room full of wine gourds, the young one said,

'Scovian men?'

'Come on, girl,' said the senior one, 'I know you've been sent here from outside the wall. Is it my old friend Gavril sent you?'

'Y-yeah, how do you know that?'

'I'm a southern woman, remember?' came the reply, along with a wry smile, 'I know another southern woman who is lost in the city when I see one.'

'I'm Scovian,' the young lady said quickly.

'Uh-huh. So what is it?'

'The General wants to speak with the pale-faced mercenary,' said she, repeating the words of the General word-for-word without knowing at all what it meant. The cottage owner knew who she was referring to. By that time, everyone inside the city who was updated about the war knew him too. The maidservant added, 'he said he will ride to the wall with a white flag just after midday. The man should be on the ramparts waiting for him.'

'The pale-faced man? Why does your General want to speak with a member of the Emperor's war council?' she said. The maidservant could only stare blankly into her face.

K'rar was harder to get ahold of than she wanted, because he was inside the Grand Palace. The cottage owner had to wait until someone from the interior came out, in the form of a group of maids, before slipping one of them a sealed scroll for K'rar, and threatening bad things if she opened it.

K'rar was alone somewhere on the grounds when the maid found him. She dropped the scroll on him without a word, and left him quickly.

Just as promised, a man on a black horse came galloping towards the wall with a white flag in his hand, and K'rar was on the wall waiting for him by himself. There was a brief impasse of sorts between the belligerents following the morning's conflict, even on the east wall. The Scovians were waiting for the Herphemians to start packing, whereas the Herphemians were busy ensuring that no such thing was even in the mind of any of their men. The man on the ground was yelling,

'Where is the pale-faced Mercenary?! I bring word from the Supreme Lord himself!'

'Open the gate,' K'rar said to the men standing there. They all stared at him incredulously, so he had to repeat himself, 'open it.'

'Sir, are you authorized by the Emperor to do this?'

'The man asked for me. Open it!'

K'rar was not even halfway there before six members of the war council, including the Emperor, also rushed to the wall, having been bunkering in an aristocrat's estate in the New District, their de facto base of operations as it was closer to Wall Trozzard than the palace. General Bommel was furious. He was one of a couple who still did not see eye to eye with K'rar.

'The sell-out! You did not authorize this, emperor, did you?'

Whereas the emperor was less animated than the General, he, like everyone else, was also very agitated. But it was K'rar on the ground who was even more surprised, because the man standing before him was not the General, even though he could not properly identify the General's face, having only seen him from a distance.

'You're the Supreme Lord Gamaliel,' K'rar said after a brief scrutiny of the man's face and ornaments. He was indeed Gamaliel himself, not his Vizier or his General.

'And you're the pale-faced mercenary,' Gamaliel replied.

'I've been called worse,' said K'rar, just as the very dry smile on Gamaliel's face vanished, replaced with a less than cordial complexion.

'Who are you? Where did the Scovians find you?'

'Actually, my lord, I kind of found them. And it occurred to me that they needed my help.'

Lord Gamaliel drew closer to him.

'You haven't answered the other question.'

'K'rar von Caspar. And no, I am not from here before you ask. I came from the west, as a captive, and then put myself to good use.'

'K'rar von Caspar, hmm. And you were a captive? From the west?'

K'rar nodded, and Gamaliel contorted his countenance even more,

'There are no people of your color anywhere west of here. Shemian peoples dwell there. I'm not playing games, boy.'

'Neither am I. I'm being truthful. I am not a Shemian tribesman, no. But I was captured from there. Me and my friends were exploring this land, having arrived on my ship from further west across the sea.'

Though this story would have landed on incredulous ears, it made sense to the Supreme Lord immediately. But it also bore two new questions.

'Your friends? Where are they?'

'I was captured alone, sir.'

'Well, that's good to hear, but the thing is, K'rar, you alone a problem for me. I know it is you that has been helping the Scovians. This is not your war.'

'Are you asking me to leave?'

'I'm issuing a warning. I will take this city, young man. And God help you if you're still here defending it.'

'Oh, but you did not have to worry about that. I'm leaving. My friends must be close, sailing east to San Vilgraek to fetch me. And I have already pledged them to help the ruler inside the walls.'

The last statement blew up Gamaliel's imagination. For all intents and purposes these "friends" of his were mercenaries.

'So you are a mercenary, then?' he asked.

K'rar chuckled,

'It appears that word is traded around very easily around here,' he said, 'everyone thinks I'm a mercenary.'

'Are you a mercenary or not?'

'I am not, my lord. My army are not mercenaries. But they are coming, so the warning you just issued applies to you to. When they come here, they will defend this city.'

'I can pay you a lot more than he is paying you. But I won't beg. I expect your answer by nightfall.'

And he returned to his horse and galloped away. As soon as Verdan saw him turn, he himself shoved the bodies next to him to go down and accost him at the gate.

'You have some nerve, mercenary!' he could have breathed fire as he lunged at K'rar, and took him by the scruff of the neck, 'I should kill you right now!'

'I haven't done anything wrong, have I? The man asked for me, specifically.'

'That doesn't matter! You spoke to the enemy without authorization!'

The rest of the council who were present on the wall except the Emperor came down the steps to join in this protest, but K'rar knew that at this juncture, they would not bring him any harm, only a few sharp words here and there.

Samolla was alone in her chambers when one of her Hassendrale detail knocked on her door in the dead of night the same day. The knocker had to do so more than once to arouse her. Agitatedly, she snapped, still reclining on her left side on the round bed,

'It is pitch black, Kaniel, what is it? Have the Herphemians breached the wall?' this was a valid question, because the assault on Wall Trozzard and the eastern Wall Trovizan had resumed many hours earlier. Gamaliel had intensified his assault, as a direct result of K'rar's little talk with him. Now, the Scovians were particularly going after the eastern wall. They had not only rolled even more narrow ships overland, but also executed another engineering feat: they joined pairs of ships together, and from them launched archaic, but better than nothing, catapults. It was clear that the east wall was thinner and therefore weaker, possibly vulnerable to old catapults.

'No, my lady,' said the guard named Kaniel from outside, 'but you said to wake you if news came back from the scouts.'

Now she sprung out of bed with vicious energy, pulled on something quickly, and went to open the door.

'Are you saying there is news?'

'Yes, my lady,' he was holding the scroll in his hand, handing it to her. She snatched it, returned to the interior to use a lantern and read the message.

'THE SHIPS ARE REAL. INCREDIBLE. SPOTTED NEAR THE BAT VALLEY HEADED FOR THE CITY.'

'Kaniel, go and wake my sisters now. And you get ready too. We're going to meet them.'

Kaniel knew about what she was talking about, but he had no idea she wanted to ride out and meet the ships. He expressed this concern,

'My lady, I did not know you were planning to go out in the dead of night.'

'Well, I am. Go and do as I've said. Get eunuch Haidara to pack for us a day and a half's supplies.'

'My lady, your mother will…'

'Kaniel, please stop stalling. Go now!'

The guard stomped away, and Samolla returned to her bedchamber. She opened one of the many cabinets therein, rummaging through them to disinter another scroll. It was one K'rar had given her to deliver to the "Brigadiers" of the Kaffrarian Knights if she did go out and find them. This she stuffed into her frocks, and then opened her wardrobe to find a less conspicuous dress, a black robe with a hood.

The rest of the excursion's members, four of them including her two sisters and one other guard, Devkolen, also had similar clothing. They could not use one of the main entrances to the palace without the Empress knowing about it within a few moments of their exit, so in jeopardy to himself, Devkolen had revealed that he knew an old underground exit on the wall, but it required them to wade through a few feet of cold lake water. Their horses would be somewhere outside the palace. As soon as they were standing before them, Samolla revealed the contents of the scroll she had received, saying,

'They saw the ships near the Bat Valley. How far out is that?'

'That's pretty close,' said Devkolen, 'about a day and a half, two days at most with steady winds.'

'Sangorak help us that the city has not already fallen by that time,' Toniele said, mounting her mare.

'But they are currently sailing. They should have covered much of the distance by the time we meet them,' said Kaniel.

'Well let's make haste. No unnecessary stops.'

The north strip of coastline west of San Vilgraek was barren wilderness for as far away as anyone could travel. For this reason, there was no siege presence there, because no one was about to escape into nothingness and volcanoes and valleys to escape from Gamaliel's armies. The five-person party was galloping over it, skirting the coastline without trouble all through the remainder of the night. They did not stop until many hours after sunrise when the horses needed to rest and their riders to eat. Samolla's scouts were still out here, following the ships too in the opposite direction. Her party was to meet them precisely at the same time as the ships. Once they had their fill, they waited a couple more hours for their animals to recoup their strength, and then split fast again. There was nothing for many, many hours on their journey, except having to cross a delta, evade a pride of Zenji black-maned lions, and negotiate about three precarious ridges in the Krotone Volcano range. Once they came to a cave system in the same range, they decided to take another break there, and to weather an incoming storm under the cover of a cave. Devkolen found one cavernous one strategically placed in the face of a crag looking to sea. It was large enough even to accommodate their horses. While they set up shop there, Devkolen was scanning the surface, and being an expert tracker, quickly noticed that it had been recently occupied.

'They were here,' he said. Everyone turned around.

'Who was?' asked Toniele.

'The scouts. They were here. Not very long ago.'

'On their return journey?' said Kaniel.

'But we would have seen them.'

The impending storm started to fall in gallons, and the ambience outside became almost dark for the entire duration of the storm. Kaniel stood in the mouth of the cave for most of the time though, and when the rain subsided more than an hour later, and the evening light returned, was still standing there.

And then he saw them.

'My goodness,' he stood up straight from a slouching posture, leaning against the cave wall, 'it's…it's the ships! The ships!' he sounded unsure, but the others soon discovered why when they came out themselves and saw the midrib of a magnificent flotilla of Stingers. They had no sails, no rigging. But they were moving across the water anyway.

'Well, what are you staring at?' Samolla almost screamed, 'prepare the signals, let's go!'

An Orca named Uche was on lookout duty in the tower of the Stargazer, having stayed there during the heavy storm. Apart from the helmsman and a few others under the roof of the bridge, there was no one on deck, so he alone first saw the five horsemen on the beach, violently waving white and green flags together. Uche was at first very startled by this, so he said nothing before first squinting into the distance to make sure he was seeing real objects, not apparitions.

'Signal to starboard! Signal to starboard!' he yelled at the roof of the bridge, knowing that the current helmsman was underneath and would hear him. He yelled once more, 'green and white signal on the beach, inform the captain!'

The helmsman did not have to come out from under the bridge to acknowledge these words. He, too, could see for himself what Uche was proclaiming. Moments later, three bodies did come out of the bridge, taking a closer look. It was the helmsman, Captain Zarkis and his first officer or first mate, Reunger.

'That's a knights' signal,' the captain expressed either his surprise or disbelief or both. This was the very first sign of life since they had left Tshekaland, but that point was moot because of the signal they were waving.

'He's alive,' declared the helmsman, Nanji. His sister, also called Nanji, served on the same ship. She and many others started to appear from below deck, first one by one, then couples, then three, and within seconds the Stargazer's deck was full.

'The Commandant is alive!' was the proclamation that was resonating on the ship. It was not long before the Stargazer and its neighbors were shooting a series of smoke signals to alert the rest of the armada to halt.

'Lifeboats, now,' the captain of the Stargazer was saying, even while his men were already readying the lifeboats. But another signal went up from up ahead, just as the entire fleet came to a grinding halt, dead in the water. It was from the Behemoth Wild Beast, K'rar's ship, the one carrying the Brigadiers of the regiment. The signal was to the effect that the Wild Beast's lifeboats would fetch the people on the beach. The captain of the Wild Beast, Sorcatan, had already achieved his promotion to Grand Admiral, the equivalent of a brigadier. He was standing in the side of his ship with all of his other equals, including Bartle Frere, sharing their ecstasy at the prospect of K'rar being alive. Shaniz was even more enthusiastic. She had already jumped, fallen to her knees, punched the air, and now was holding her face in her hands with Bekka's arms around her to prevent her from embarrassing herself. The Stingers carrying most Iscalans, the Constellation and the Iscalan, were also in more ebullient mood than the rest.

And so were the ladies and gentlemen on the beach when the single lifeboat, rowed by two knights in civvies, reached them. Both sides immediately launched questions. The knights asked after the welfare of their Commandant, while the ladies wanted to know why the ships had no sails and why they had names, emblazoned in massive characters in the sides of the ships. Neither side heard each other, until those on the beach quietened, heard the other side's query, and responded that K'rar was alive and well.

'This is a message from him for the Deputy Commandant.'

The knights, struggling to conceal their joy, were shoving the party toward the boat. The taller one said,

'You'll give it to him yourself, come on, get in.'

They left the horses on the beach, as they could by themselves return to San Vilgraek, or be found by the scouts, whom Devkolen figured were following the fleet from deeper inland to avoid detection.

'Man these ships are very large,' Devkolen was saying as he scanned the water, reading the names of all the ships he could see.

'And metallic! How do they stay afloat?' Miako added. Only Samolla knew the detail of the ships being metallic, though she was just as agape as the rest of them about all the other things she did not know.

'The Commandant and his engineers are revolutionary,' was the response they got. By the time the lifeboat reached the rope ladders being cast down from the starboard side of the Wild Beast, all those who could were on that side of their own ships trying to catch a glimpse. On deck, the first minute was spent quietly, as the Scovians skimmed over the deck of the ship with their eyes, having a multitude of questions. But the foremost of those questions, when Samolla asked it, was not about the technology of the ship, but its occupants.

'Why are there so many women on board?' she asked. Until then they had not made out the female knights, even those that had been looking down at them from their ships.

Bartle Frere said,

'Everyone you're seeing on deck is a knight, my lady. Besides, you're not only a lady yourself, but you brought two others.'

'These women are also soldiers? For real?' Toniele was speaking on all their behalf, 'man, how many surprises have you got for us?'

There was no answer to that, but Bartle Frere said,

'I'm Deputy Commandant Bartle Frere, and these are the Brigadiers of the Kaffrarian Knights. Why don't we go over there to the bridge and catch up on all those things?' he was ushering them in that direction.

'Such as how you were waving our signal,' said Bekka, 'is the Commandant alive?'

'He is,' said Samolla, 'he's alive. This correspondence is for you, Deputy Commandant,' she handed the scroll to him, and as they walked to the bridge, he was perusing through it. At the entrance to the bridge he stopped, wearing a frown. And said,

'Admiral, get the fleet moving full steam ahead. It appears we have a job awaiting us in San Vilgraek. These ladies are royalty.' He handed the scroll to Shaniz, who would hand it to the rest of the leadership who hadn't seen it.

'The Commandant's got us some real action, eh?' was Daena Milshkin's reaction after reading the letter.

'That's right,' Bekka was saying excitedly.

'And we must be very close now,' Bekka was saying, 'are we not, your majesties?' she directed the last question to the Scovian women, who were sat on the long benches inside the bridge. It was more than large enough to accommodate them altogether.

'Yes, we are. We've been riding for only a day and a half,' Samolla replied, 'we set off early at night yesterday on horseback, and only stopped twice.'

'In that case…' Bartle Frere was looking Admiral Sorcatan in the eye. The stern faced Admiral said,

'You got it, boss.' He then delegated to the appropriate knight, who went out to deck with a large horn, and blew into it. It was a call to ready themselves. For war. The horn was repeated on about three other ships so that the message reached all the ships, sparking off frantic activity from their occupants in mobilizing themselves. Land-based units prepped their equipment, Orcas readied the guns on their ships, and all went for their elegant Regiment uniforms, including all but three of the Brigadiers. Shaniz, Bekka and Sorcatan remained on the bridge with Bartle Frere and their new companions. These remnant then introduced themselves formally again, and then Samolla launched the inquisition.

'Just how can men and women in such large numbers serve in the same army?'

'Because these aren't regular men and women, Samolla. They're Kaffrarian Knights,' said Bartle Frere quickly.

'Right,' said Devkolen, 'but female fighters? That is insane, but then you have metal ships that run on steam, so I'm not going to ask a whole lot of questions.'

'Now, K'rar was taken captive from Tshekaland. How did he go from there to defending your city?' Sorcatan asked, 'because as I understand it, not everyone gets an audience with your Emperor.' The knights were travelling with their own pseudo captives, taken from Tshekaland and Konkomba, who knew the way and lay of the land, albeit not from the sea.

'He made his own audience,' Samolla returned, 'he invaded the Imperial Palace, invaded my private chambers.'

The brigadiers exchanged looks, but most of them were directed at Shaniz. The sisters all caught on to this. Shaniz, with crossed arms, posed the next question in line,

'We know K'rar offered of his own sanction to help your father with his crisis, hence his invasion of the palace. But he invaded your bedchamber, why?'

Samolla was smiling, and nodding to herself.

'You know, I was the one who induced him to have me come out here, because I saw he was despondent. Missing someone. I figured he couldn't be missing a mere bunch of sell-swords. He said I would find out why you bunch aren't just mercenaries. It was you he was missing, wasn't it?'

Once more they exchanged looks, and Bekka said,

'Astute observation, princess. You're right. My cousin is engaged to him. Now just to clear the air, did you and K'rar…'

'What? No! No, we did nothing. I mean, he is good looking, and fun, but no.'

'Were you planning on it?' Shaniz asked very frankly it sounded awkward.

'Wh-what sort of a question is that?' Samolla was increasingly feeling the heat. Her sisters on the other hand were holding back their giggles.

'Listen, princess, you and I seem to get along already,' Shaniz said in the same tone, 'this is in the interest of full disclosure.'

'I'm engaged too, okay? I had no secondary intentions. Goodness if I had known I was going to be in an inquisition…'

Shaniz had started smiling, and then giggling, and then all her compadres were laughing. She said,

'Relax, princess. I'm not going to impale you. Still, though, why your room?'

'His captors sold him to the klodiat…the fighting pits, and my future husband wanted to eliminate him illegally, so I sent him a warning. And to prove he could protect himself, he invaded the palace. My chambers. But he had the penultimate goal of, well, all this.'

'Okay, okay, now for the questions everyone is avoiding,' Devkolen cut in, 'where are you people from? You even look different from your Commandant.'

'The Commandant is from another land too,' said Shaniz, 'he crash-landed on Xaxanika almost eleven years ago, and at the end of it had already made friends in high places…'

'And found love there too,' Bekka intentionally interrupted her.

'…yeah. Well, let's just say, he is a great visionary, and he needs to be a visionary to take back his throne. So he created us, the Kaffrarian Knights. We are his army, and we will be returning to his land with him to restore his kingship.'

'His…his throne? His kingship?' Samolla asked, 'K'rar is a king?'

'No, no, no way!' Devkolen was even holding his head, 'that's why he was so confident, so composed before the Imperial Majesties!'

'Yeah, I thought so too. He wasn't, er, groveling or anything. Much better than the suitors I'd been set up with,' said Shaniz.

'Wait, wait,' Miako spoke for the first time, 'you're a blueblood too. Is that what I'm hearing?'

'Yes, I am. And Bekka too, my cousin. We were the first recruits of this regiment. Then there were others like us, whom K'rar trained himself. K'rar helped my father out of a major crisis, and along with some other reasons, the country did not stop its girls from wielding swords and crossing the sea to fight other wars.' Shaniz was strategically avoiding any mention of the prophecies of which K'rar was part.

'So, have you learned why we are not just an army?'

'You're his family,' Samolla concluded the matter.

'Precisely. We are not mercenaries. K'rar wants us to help you with your issue, for a price which we will use in the ultimate mission of his throne. And once that is concluded, you can bet, we will be back. To set up relations with your country.'

'In a nutshell, K'rar von Caspar is bringing all of our worlds out of isolation,' said Bartle Frere, 'fantastic, eh?'

'Yeah, it's incredible.'

'Okay, now you can tour the ship if you like,' Bartle Frere said, 'I need the bridge with my brigadiers. Sorcatan will assign you a guide.'

Sorcatan went with them, but returned with the rest of the Brigadiers, who were now dressed in their elegant uniforms, to discuss the rest of the information in K'rar's correspondence that was not for the ears of the outsiders.

If Samolla and her associates were dumbstruck before, they were now rendered just moving statues. Though only the two Hassendrale had ever seen the interior of a ship, the whole group was overcome by the interior of the giant ship. Apart from its spaciousness, the ship's interior was designed for its occupants' comfort, even luxury. The knights shared large chambers in pairs, sleeping on double-deckers fixed into the wall. This dormitory arrangement spanned four of six floors, but also only covered an area near the center of the ship's layout. The peripheral of the ship was then designed for the ship's primary use, for war. Each dorm room had two exits, one leading further inside toward a large common room, and one toward the peripheral areas, which would be used to access duty stations, including the deck. As the knights accessed the hallways for that purpose, they also accessed their war equipment in the designated areas there, because apart from a single weapon, a sword, the knights never kept their gear in the areas meant for accommodation. As the visitors approached the stern of the ship, they saw a very active, bustling engine room, full of bare-chested noncombatant individuals hired for the exclusive purpose of keeping the engines running. The very large kitchen, also occupied by a large contingent of noncombatants, was also situated close after this area. Then they were taken to the starboard peripheral of the Behemoth, where they met the multitude of knights already stationing themselves there to make battle. There, they saw an entirely alien vicinity, full of devices none of them had ever seen. First, they saw what their guide referred to as the "Canine Keep", which needed no explanation. There were hundreds of northern Xaxanikan Alsatian dogs kept there, including what the guide said was the Commandant's dog, Targa, a six year old black-coated hybrid. Samolla was especially fascinated with the four-five meter massive guns fitted into gunsights, and expressed a desire to remain on the ship when it fought, so she could see the bullguns in action.

But none of the visitors could have prepped themselves for what they saw last. They were taken by their guide to the stern of the ship, which was designed somewhat detached from the rest of the ship because it did not even have an access door from the interior, only a ladder that went up to a small door.

'What do you keep here that you had to design it this way?' Devkolen was the first one to ask, already standing in a narrow space at the culmination of the climb. Once at last Toniele joined them last, the guide, named Sanctis, said with a queer smirk that curled up only on one side of his face,

'Well, you're yet to see.' He led the party to a door, finally, on which he knocked loudly and announced that he was coming in.

Samolla's shock was so profound that her scream either drowned out the other screams, or caused them. The first thing her eyes had met was a very large face and broad shoulders staring right back at her. It was the face of Estoril the giantess, and the party were standing near the roof of her chamber, which she shared with her male counterpart, Asthenes.

'Say hi to Estoril Praha, and her husband Asthenes Praha of the Nephilim, the Eleventh Tribe.'

'We are not married, knight,' came a very feminine, albeit far from smooth, response.

'Yet you know as well as I do that it is only a matter of time,' said Sanctis, 'meet the Commandant's new friends, from the land of the Scovians. Highnesses Samolla, Toniele and Miako, and their guards Devkolen and Kaniel.' The named individuals were still terrified beyond words, although Devkolen had mustered the courage to look down from the platform into what was a room of the same design as the other human dormitories, but almost seven times as large. The male giant Asthenes soon came to the balcony himself, even taller than the female.

'Do not be afraid, ladies,' the giantess reassured her very apprehensive onlookers, 'we are just giants.'

'Just giants?' Sanctis said, 'man what a way to describe yourself. Tell them you eat people too.'

'Is the young master in good health as we have been told?' Asthenes ignored the knight's jesting.

'Do you? Do you eat people?' Miako asked. She was diligently keeping a safe distance between herself and the giants.

'No, Lady Miako,' said Estoril. She was more inclined to be conversational than her companion, 'the knight was merely jesting, as he will many times again.'

'Giants are supposed to be in fairy tales.'

'And yet here we are.'

'Oh these are just two. There's 22 more,' said Sanctis, 'the Commandant's appearance in Xaxanika resurrected them from their centuries-long hibernation of some sort. Now they go to his continent with him to live out the rest of their long lives.'

'That's quite right,' said Asthenes.

'Hey, this one's dressed in war gear,' said Samolla in reference to Asthenes, who was indeed dressed in very heavy stuff.

Deputy Commandant Bartle Frere was using the same map of the whole continent, most of it at least, that he had obtained from Tshekaland to aid in this voyage. Because of this, San Vilgraek was just one of many places and not very detailed, so he had their newest visitors returned to him on the bridge, needing especially the two men of the Hassendrale.

'What are your names again, soldiers?' he asked the two of them. The majesties were dismissed with Sanctis, who would now take them around the deck.

The Herphemians had not let up in their assault of San Vilgraek's walls since dawn, and the fighting had gone on all day long. Once more, the Takaheans had pulled off another genius tactic to challenge K'rar: having insufficient space between the water and the east wall, they had overnight loaded their vessels in the lake with heavy rocks and boulders, rowed them into the shallows close to the wall, and jettisoned them there to create solid ground. This way, they had been able to launch more men, create platforms from which to launch siege towers without as much resistance from the defenders as would have been endured close to the wall. Meanwhile, Gamaliel had changed tactics, having lost half of his trebuchets. The Herphemians were now launching wave after wave of men to attack Wall Trozzard directly, using K'rar's own tortoise tactic against him. Because it was highly disadvantageous to remain within the wall's safety, the Scovians had had no choice but to counter the frontal assaults by setting the Hassendrale and others out to try and beat back the Herphemian advance.

Now, as the evening fast approached, the Herphemians were still no closer to breaching the Hassendrale than they had been in the morning, but were in the ascendancy nonetheless, having reduced Scovian defenders by the thousands. Another brief lapse had ensued, but whenever this happened, they would resume the bombardment of the same spot on the wall using all three remaining trebuchets, stationed close together this time rather than far apart. This was another brand new problem for the Scovians. Not only was the wall's integrity in even more jeopardy than before, but the Herphemians were undermining it with impunity too. The Scovians' consternation was growing by the minute, and their numbers dwindling. To the east, the Takaheans were registering massive strides in their genius tactics, and if they and their Herphemian comrades had been in a competition to invade the New District, they won the contest. K'rar and Verdan were right in the middle of the action when it happened.

Using the same tactic as the Herphemians by concentrating their efforts to beat down the wall to the same area on the wall, the Takaheans achieved their goal just as the blue sky started to show signs of orange. K'rar and Verdan had known that this was only a matter of time, and had forced the redeployment of some of the best men from the south wall to the east wall to brace for impact. In the same vein, the Takaheans that had been attempting to get over the wall had ceased this operation, returned to the ground to help row more rocks for a causeway directly in front of the breach, and also readied themselves.

On K'rar's side of the wall, the breach was in an area occupied by three houses and a storehouse of hay run by a man who was also a soldier, present in K'rar's formation to defend his property. The Takaheans would have to advance within a closed space, which K'rar had already exploited by stationing archers on the narrow rampart above, the rooftops of the houses, and on the ground. He had also heaped stacks of hay either side of the impending breach to be set ablaze when the wall tumbled down.

'No man goes through that hole and lives!' K'rar yelled just as the wall started to puff dust from between the bricks, 'prepare for breach.'

The breach happened just as the words came out of his mouth, and even as they did, a loud horn was blown into just outside the breach, and nobody needed an explanation as to its significance. It was a signal to the Herphemian forces. Gamaliel's ears had been tuned to hear it, so that he did not need anyone to appraise him that the east wall had been breached. When three of his council members who had not already been with him in his tent came rushing from their own tents, he was waiting for them outside.

'The east wall,' he said, 'I'll be damned. The accursed Takaheans have outdone themselves.'

'My lord, this changes everything now,' Grand Vizier Aitor pointed out, 'the city is now yours for the taking.'

'Send 60 legions that way immediately. The rest will keep at the trebuchets on this side.'

'You got it, my lord,' said the Grand Vizier, 'Gavril, marquis, you're coming with me.'

He and Gavril started yelling fresh orders to the men. The Herphemian camp was in ebullient mood after the horn, and thousands of them were already readying themselves to execute the new commands. They awaited Gavril's final order, given on the back of his mare,

'To the lake, now!'

The Scovian defenders on Wall Trozzard watched with their hearts out as the Herphemians drifted like one large, human wave eastward toward the water. One of them was the Emperor himself. He grumbled hysterically to General Bommel,

'Where the hell are the mercenary's fucking ships!? Where are they?!'

'They've left only a few men near their trebuchets,' General Lioza was more optimistic, 'I'll take two centuries out for them.'

'Do it,' came the approval, from General Aurien, not the Emperor. The latter as already on his way toward the east breach both to watch on and to continue his protestations to K'rar. He found the outlander in no position to speak. He and Verdan were leading the defense of the breach, throwing everything at the hole, and from just the first look, they were winning. K'rar was especially a joy to watch. The Emperor and Aurien and Bommel first stood still to watch him. He was fighting with two weapons, very close to the breach, cutting one man after another as if they weren't there. He was quick, decisive and agile.

'Take them outside' Verdan was bawling at his men, 'they cannot get inside these walls!'

It was at that moment that Bommel and Aurien drew their swords and stopped being onlookers, buoyed by the fact that K'rar, who had no reason to be fighting for them any longer, had dropped more men dead than themselves.

The Takaheans had scored a big win by breaching the wall, but were now paying a very hefty price for it in blood. It felt like they had stamped their feet in a wasps' nest. The Scovians flooded the hole like those offensive insects, almost repairing it with their own bodies. After about fifteen minutes of ferocious fighting, the Takahean in charge of the assault had no choice but to order a retreat from the safety of the causeway they had made.

'Yeah, you do that!' Bommel yelled in response to the Takahean's call, 'retreat, you swine!' Slash! Slash! His sword resonated. The Takahean units obeyed, and slowly returned to the water, where the Scovians did not follow them.

'Why are we retreating? We've breached the wall, and the Herphemians are coming to buffer us up!' the man called Uruk, the Takahean commander's second deputy, was asking him.

'There's too many of them. They'll die in that hole before they let us through,' came the reply, 'and Gamaliel's army cannot all cross the causeway. It's too narrow for that many men, and might get dislodged into the drink.'

He was right. The Takaheans were already having to wobble more than walk across it with their feet slightly submerged. Once the Herphemian army arrived and came to the same realization, another temporary truce ensued, and both sides started to draw new plans. Gavril of Herphem made the first suggestion that was immediately endorsed. To fill the lake with more rock, which was luckily in plenty, and widen the causeway for larger numbers to use. This would take one concerted effort involving tens of thousands of men, who got to work immediately.

Inside the walls, away from the breach and back inside the noble's house, K'rar was in the hot seat because his promised army was yet to come.

'The deal was if you managed to keep them away from the wall. Which as you noticed, I was doing for you instead!' K'rar was saying to Bommel.

'Men!' the Emperor yelled, even though he had started the tirade, 'stop this. Stop it now! We cannot be…'

The door to the large hall was kicked open with an almighty bang, and in walked the Empress and a two man entourage. This was no place for her, hence the many bewildered looks as she approached the men of import with a very angry countenance.

'My lord, Samolla, Miako and Toniele are gone from the palace,' she said even before she reached, 'and I would like ser K'rar to explain their whereabouts.'

'Empress,' said her husband, 'surely you can handle a matter…'

'I tried, all day long. They set off into darkness early in the morning, and have been gone all day. The only one to whom the fingers are pointing is this young man.'

But K'rar was instead beaming with delight.

'The knights. They went out to intercept my knights!'

All those in the hall except the empress shifted the larger part of their thoughts toward the knights rather than the missing princesses.

'What do you mean?'

'If they've been gone all day that means only one thing,' said K'rar, 'the Kaffrarian fleet could be here any second now. I'm going to the harbor.' He lifted himself off the canvas and proceeded to do this. Of course, all of the other men went straight after him.

They reached the harbor in near perfect synchronization with the arrival of the Kaffrarian fleet. Two Stingers sailing side to side in the Banderak canal sailed in first, preceding the BH Wild Beast. The lookouts in the towers blew long horns that resonated throughout half the city, but were alerting denizens that were already saturating the harbor in massive droves. Others who could already see the fleet from the comfort of their balconies had their houses invaded by their neighbors. One of these was Amren, who had to be alerted by her son. The look of shock on her face was mixed up with one of excitement, the result being an indescribable countenance.

K'rar threw off the heavy Scovian armor he was wearing right then and there, saying to Verdan,

'Verdan, I need to commandeer a boat. There is no time for greetings. The Herphemians are not resting.'

'Absolutely,' said Verdan. He moved to do just as K'rar had said, commandeer the nearest boat with its steward in it, 'hey, you! I need this boat, now.'

The staggered fisherman responded by moving out of the boat, but Verdan said,

'No, you stay in it. You're its steward are you not?'

K'rar now turned his attention to Aurien and his friends standing on the pier, half surrounded by thousands of Zenji city dwellers on the landings behind them.

'Emperor. Your daughters are on the Behemoth,' he pointed it out to him. The ship was still a bit far away, and even though the daughters were in the bow of the ship, watching for their parents, they could not see them, 'now, my land divisions already have orders that your daughter would have given them. They just need these wharfs empty. I will take the rest of the navy to the east wall. I have a surprise for our friends.'

While he got onto the boat with Verdan and Aurien, the Emperor, whose spirits had been given a major boost, went about clearing the 34 quays along the length of the harbor. When the boat was alone on the water with only nine men including its stewards, K'rar's Brigadiers could now see him. He made a hand signal to the leading Stingers, the Frostbite and the Peregrine, to stick to the original plan and head for the quays, and another hand signal to his deputy on the Wild Beast to steer to port. His boat went between the two Stingers, and while it did the knights on the deck all came out to salute him, which he returned. K'rar had the boat steered ahead of the Wild Beast, such that when it caught up, rope ladders had already been lowered along the starboard side for K'rar and Verdan to climb onto. As he did so, he yelled to anyone to bring him his uniform, but it was already prepared for him on the bridge, and as he completed his climb, was told so. Shaniz almost threw him right back into the water by jumping on him and heaving a great sigh of relief. But she knew the situation ruled out any long hugs and kisses, and was soon quickly back in high war gear, as were the rest of the Brigadiers.

'They've breached the east wall, but we've kept them out so far,' K'rar was saying as the party followed him to the bridge where he would throw on the Commandant's uniform. Verdan was on the other hand studying especially the uniformed women, unable to digest what he was seeing. K'rar was saying, 'Signal all the Behemoths to sail with us there. There's a lot of boats there to sink.'

'What about the majesties, Commandant?' a knight asked regarding the ladies who weren't soldiers on the ship.

'They're coming with us,' came Bartle Frere's, not K'rar's, response. A mixed naval signal went up into the sky, and all those who saw it on the other ships knew what the command was.

K'rar went down into the chambers under the bridge with Shaniz, and returned a minute later, dressed in elegant black and navy blue and copper and gold. He was also wearing his Nephilim collar.

'Are those women?' was a question not only the Emperor asked, but also everyone else on the land in the harbor. As all the Brigadiers were on the Wild Beast, the command of the forces landing in the harbor had shifted to the Division captains, one of them being Chio, who deputized the captain of Bekka's Cavalry.

It would require at least two hours for the knights and all their equipment to walk through the city and into the New District, along with their artillery in the vanguard. The Navy, on the other hand, would get involved almost immediately. Twenty four ships including all 13 Behemoths sailed thick and fast into the eastern waters of the lake, with all of their starboard guns locked and hot. The Herphemians had been busy, having not let up a second in building a ramshackle, but very ingenious, causeway. Like the rest of the commoners, they also initially just stood there and watched as the giant ships pulled in closer to them. Only two of their number, General Gavril and the Grand Vizier, would have identified the new arrivals. The Grand Vizier, even though he was here with his forces in building the causeway, was supervising the operation inland, where thousands of men were transferring boulders with the aid of the oxen that had dragged their siege engines. General Gavril was closer, but would not see the incoming ships until it was too late. The Behemoths Wild Beast and the Sentinel sailed very close to the causeway with their starboard guns locked and hot, within range of the wall itself. The Herphemian and Takahean spectators, though knowing that the ships were not there for a courtesy call, could not have prepared for what happened next. K'rar, watching from the Wild Beast, laughed at them between his teeth, and gave the order,

'Okay, light them up!'

Sorcatan then relayed the command to the gunnery sergeants below deck, who could hear him from their concealed positions below deck. 21 guns slid into their gunsights, and before the Takaheans in the water knew what was happening, 21 almost simultaneous blasts arrested the ambience, but not before hundreds of men ceased to exist. The Wild Beast still had enough space to fire another round of fire before Gavril came rushing toward the front to see for himself the cause of the thunderous racket. His men were being blown to smithereens, along with the rowing ships dead in the water. As the Wild Beast slid past the flash point, turning to port, the Sentinel came in its place and also opened fire on the causeway, just as the Wild Beast launched a third round against the men stationed on the beach. All 24 ships followed the same sequence, and by the time they were finished, the causeway had been submerged under the water, and more than a thousand men on the beach were dead or dying or scrambling in a stampede. So, when the 24 ships purred their engines to a stop for the knights to jump off, the besiegers were not ready to face them.

And they were not ready to face the Nephilim. All 24 of them came down from the Behemoths, wielding very heavy weapons ranging from battle axes to maces to clubs. Tahwan, the most junior giant, was the only one wielding a bow, whose arrows were even longer than human spears. The giants fell right into the mix, slashing men like mere blades of grass. Disembodied parts or whole bodies were flying about in all directions. Others were stamped underfoot, and still many others, having nowhere to flee, chose to dive into the water just to get away from the Nephilim as quickly as possible. Within only a few minutes, hundreds of men were falling, and within half an hour, the Herphemian army had been clipped by tens of thousands of men. The Kaffrarian Knights were having a mere training session, even without the factor of the giants. This was their first real rodeo, but even then, they were still exponentially ahead of their opponents, not enemies.

Gamaliel did not need to be told that his army were retreating with their tails between their legs. He was outside overseeing the bombardment of wall Trozzard when he saw for himself the large wave of fleeing soldiers. And when he saw the towering figures chasing after them and throwing them off their feet, his jaw dropped, just as his vizier Emi Volland rushed to him to say that they had to go. If the king had been intransigent earlier, he knew now that San Vilgraek would not fall to him this time. He knew these were the mercenaries under K'rar's command, but had not expected them to arrive this early at San Vilgraek.

'My lord, we have to go now, please! We can't take the city now!'

But Gamaliel was quiet, statuesque, staring straight at the carnage his legions were receiving. He was oblivious to all the sounds around him as an overwhelming feeling of defeat overtook him. Images of his own father's previous try to breach Wall Trozzard returned to his psyche, as well as his promise to him that he, Gamaliel II, was the one destined to take San Vilgraek. How close he had come! By a giant fluke, the breach in the wall to the east would not be overran by his men, but by defenders who had no business defending San Vilgraek, defenders from far, far away. While his world fell apart by his side, he was overwhelmed by a feeling of loss and defeat. Images of his young version returned to him when he had assured his father that he, Gamaliel II, as the one destined to breach the walls of San Vilgraek. And images of his future self, returning home to ignominy, followed after that. The political spectrum of the Pridelands was such that in the event of his failure here, he would be unable to keep his place on the throne as the leader of the Pridelands.

It was another thunderous blast that shook Gamaliel back to the present, but also threw him off his feet. He had been standing close to the three trebuchets on the field, yet when he turned his head around, rolling on the earth, all three of them had been blown into nothingness. His eyes scanned the landscape again, but there was nothing anywhere near that could have destroyed the siege engines. But another blast tore through the air, and landed among another company of men. The result was a small glade that was once full of men, but was now empty as a desert.

The Kaffrarian infantry had joined the fray. The two blasts were from the muzzles of two bullguns. One had been fired from the rampart of Wall Trozzard to announce to the Herphemians that their trebuchets were not even the deadliest weapon on the battlefield. The other had been fired directly at the camp, more to disorient the troops there than to kill them. If any of them had any second thoughts about retreating, they now did so off the cuff. Some of Gamaliel's men had no choice but to carry him off the battle field and shove him in his carriage to flee.

'We have 23 injuries, no casualties,' said Bartle Frere to K'rar later that night at the Imperial Palace. Once K'rar's knights had repelled Gamaliel's belligerents and struck down close to half their men, he had called off any further action, and returned the war to the hands of those who were supposed to fight in in the first place. The knights were now already back on their ships, ready to sail off as soon as possible. Bartle Frere added, 'they are all receiving treatment.'

'Fantastic.'

K'rar, Bartle Frere, Shaniz, Bekka, Chio and Hazel were the only knights still on the land in San Vilgraek to secure their payment in gold and silver, amounting to an unspecified, but colossal, equivalent in Xaxanikan peckles. The Scovian Emperor had fallen victim to K'rar's extortion due to the fact that Gamaliel had come to within minutes of laying waste too the city. Now, he had agreed to part with even more money. K'rar and his party were on their way to the treasury, located inside the Imperial Palace, to receive the payment.

The Emperor, his wife, his finance minister and many of his other men were waiting for them in the first hall of the building, which apart from a very long queue of wooden chests full of gold, was completely empty. The Emperor could not let K'rar see the real coffers, at the advice of his wife, who had brought to light new information regarding K'rar's identity. The Emperor immediately launched an inquisition as soon as K'rar walked in.

'So, when were you going to tell me you were a royal?'

K'rar cast a glance at the Empress, scanned the chests on the ground, and said while still looking at them,

'I didn't need to. Your daughter would have eventually told you. Or told the Empress, who would then tell you. Besides, everyone here was convinced I was a mercenary.'

'But you are not.'

'You would never have believed me. And you would be right,' said K'rar, 'is this it?'

'It is,' said the Emperor, 'it is ready to be loaded onto your ship.' He nodded to the team of men there, who got to work in moving the gold to the carts waiting outside. K'rar also nodded to Hazel and Bekka, who left with them.

'Well, king of Korazin, now that I've been enlightened to your true identity, I want to insist you stay for a feast. There's no reason for you to leave immediately.'

'I'm afraid I have to decline, Your Imperial Majesties. We are way behind schedule on our next mission. But I do have one other request to make.'

'You mean apart from the payments? That was your due.'

K'rar was nodding as he said, 'Emperor, I need to go with some of your subjects. They'll be the first Zenji to leave the continent. Let them be the symbol of our kingdoms' good relations starting from today.'

The Emperor liked the idea immediately,

'That is a wonderful thought, why didn't I think of it?' he said, paused for a moment and added, 'but that would indicate that you'll leave some of your own people here?'

'Well, no, Emperor,' said K'rar, 'but I assure you, that is only a matter of time. As soon as I return to my kingdom, I will send over emissaries to initiate official relations.'

'Fine by me. How many can you take? I will have them selected overnight.'

'You may select alright, but I need them for a specific purpose,' he looked up at the chandelier overhead, made of eight glass lanterns. Pointing to it, he said, 'Where I come from, that material, glass, does not exist. This is the first reason I need a hundred of your subjects. Glass smiths.'

'You'll have them by morning before you leave.'

'Thank you, your Imperial Majesty. I'll say goodnight now.'

K'rar would spend the night on Wild Beast under the guise of catching up with his men, and women, for the lost time.