Chapter 9 (Part IV): Rattle and Roll

Sometimes, victory simply requires one to impose an indefinite delay upon defeat. Procrastination comes easily, and death is one task most of us would do well to put off for tomorrow.

-        An observation made by Queen Azraea I during a state dinner, which is often quoted at the Caelian Military Academy, and is the basis for the 4^th Caelian Ranger Division’s motto, “Tomorrow We Die.”

Azraea had realized that any Firebrands moving along the city’s west side might end up marching into the quickly emptying neighborhoods north of Old Town. Given they needed to buy the people there as much time as possible, she suggested to Marcus that he take the best, or at least most intimidating of the remaining fighters to the North End to harass any enemies that approached. They would try to convince the attackers that they were in for a much nastier fight than they really were, and once that bluff inevitably failed, they’d head southeast back through Old Town and help the men at Schroeder’s checkpoints to fall back to the gate, one by one.

 Azraea took her own small force and led them down into the sewer system, the workers guiding them to one of the tombs. It was as the dwarf had described – bones had been packed into sacks and tossed into the room unceremoniously. If you were from a culture with any reverence for the dead, it was appalling.

“So what now?” Vinny asked, “You sing a little song and summon an army? Take them out like you did Tharkrada and his men?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Azraea said as she examined the bones, “Everyone, start finding skulls. Don’t worry about being gentle with the other bones; they really can’t be any more desecrated than they have been.” She returned to Vinny’s question, but perhaps because of the years she spent as a graduate student teacher at the college, she automatically turned it into a lesson for the whole room, “The victims of Tharkrada’s violence were treated no better than this. Their bodies had been left to rot, and their bones to scatter on the hillside where they were killed. But they were all victims of unjust, horrible deaths, so their spirits were easier to call back, and it was easy to persuade them to fight, because they wanted to – some wanted to get revenge on the men who’d killed them, others wanted to prevent any more travelers from sharing their fate. Charles and Michael, likewise, only needed my help to come back and finish the job they wanted to do. Even Tharkrada himself, when it came down to it, was easy to call back and send against his own troops because he really hated the men he had been commanding – he just didn’t really accept that until he died.

“But these are just random people,” she held up a skull, “Most have probably passed on after a good life, or good enough anyway, and have nothing to tether them here. Calling them back from the other side will be difficult, and convincing them to rise up and intervene in a complicated political situation – more difficult.”

One of the Arbarii men spoke up, “My grandfather told me that, in the old country, every man or woman that died did so with the resolution that he or she would return if called.”

“Exactly,” Lily nodded, filled with ancestral pride, “They were raised their entire life knowing that was part of their duty as citizens of their kingdom.”

“And I’m betting their bodies were treated a hell of a lot better than this,” one of the halflings said as he pulled a skull out of a heap.

“Definitely,” Azraea and Lily said simultaneously.

“Any chance your grandfather taught you some necromancy?” Azraea asked the Arbarii man hopefully.

“Only some novelty tricks,” he said, “If I try, I can maybe get some impressions about these people? How they died?”

“Oh, right now an impression is far better than nothing,” Azraea pointed to two piles she’d started, “If you get any sense that the person might still have some tie to this place, put them over there. If all you get is, ‘it’s a skull’, put it over there. I’ll see if I can refine things down more.”

She was looking for people who might still have strong ties to those being persecuted in the streets above, or people who were devoted to the city or to the kingdom itself, enough so that they would still be invested in its welfare after death. To Vinny it seemed like an impossible task in such a short time, but Azraea was willing to settle for making snap judgments based on first impressions, and Lily helped her teach their new friends an old Arbarii dirge. The syllables were nonsense to Vinny, but it made a good work song. Azraea quickly had more than four dozen skulls tidily lined up in front of her. 
Most of the people in their little band of rebels had never seen necromancy performed in person, and none had seen a master at work. The events that followed became one of the most enduring stories from this time, in part due to the faithful and repeated telling of it by those present, and in part due to the grandiose adaptations of those who weren't.

Azraea sang for a bit to her audience of heads, and then when their eye sockets glowed green she went to an almost comically straightforward conversation. It sounded one sided to Vinny and the other members of their party, but the skulls chattered and sort of… hopped… as if trying to talk. To Azraea they were apparently succeeding in that endeavor.

“I know, I know. But I just need you to startle them. Make some noise, wave your arms, and maybe try to grab someone to really give them a good scare.”

One of the skulls chattered anxiously.

“Yes, it is possible that one of these people is your grandson. But if so, isn’t that all the more reason to try and cut this short? Are you okay with him killing someone? Or being killed? Because the longer this draws out, the more likely that is.”

The skull paused for a moment, and then hopped one more time as if to nod.

“Thank you. Now, obviously, I can’t sort out your own bodies, so this is going to get complicated, and I’m going to need everyone’s help.”

She motioned the others over, “We weren’t teaching you that song for fun,” she explained, “Our ancestors here are willing to help, but we need to make them temporary bodies out of what’s available, and that’s going to take more energy and will than I alone can summon. I’ll take the lead, but when I give you the cue, I need you all to join in with the song we taught you.”

The song she sang now sounded much like the one she’d sung the night Kaira killed Tharkrada. The words were unintelligible, so Vinny didn’t know if they were the same, but the tune was memorable, even as she transitioned it to match the one she’d taught the others and cued them to join in.

The bones in the room rattled. First it was just a few small ones jittering about, but it built, gradually, until they were all shaking and rolling, knocking against each other and tapping on the stone. Finally, they began to move towards the skulls lined up at the tomb’s entrance. It was as if the whole room had tilted and the bones were sliding out. As they poured across the floor, many more skulls, eyes glowing, popped out of the heap and bounced along.

Azraea smiled, pleased at the unexpected skulls rolling out. She briefly interrupted her song, “Thank you for joining us!” she said to the chattering volunteers. Out in the main tunnel, the bones built up around and under the skulls, raising them into the air. The bones rattled together loudly, but eventually Vinny realized there was a rhythm – they were moving to the music. The bone constructs rose to human height and began to walk, but they were in no way anatomically correct. It was as if they’d been assembled by someone either totally ignorant of biology or with a bizarre sense of art. They were just plugged together any which way that 'worked'.

To see it, though, was less humorous and more terrifying. Some of the shambling skeletons had multiple arms, or fingers made out of long curving ribs. One skull had replaced its missing lower jaw with an array of finger bones, and all of them had worked broken bones into themselves to make a chaotic mess of spikes sticking out at strange angles. Vinny couldn’t understand at first why any being visiting from the other side would want to assemble itself so hideously, but then he remembered what Azraea had said – she wanted to scare their enemies. The spirits she’d summoned were not just doing as she'd asked; they seemed to be having some fun with it. Dead people were not at all the way Vinny had imagined them.

Just as he was thinking that, a small skeleton ran past him and offered a salute – it was a long dead halfling, scampering after the rest to join them. Vinny remembered something one of his mentors in the Dexter Legion had said to him when teaching him the necessary virtues of leadership, “When all else fails, just be scary as hell and the rest will fall into place.”

Chapter 9 (Part III): Rallying Cry

{Happy Independence Day!}

"Oh Caelia, land were't cratered so, we sons of man willt ne'er be struck low."
- from the Caelian National Anthem

Schroeder had rolled up his map, hefted his shield, and jogged off into the night, down his secured route. He wasn’t a young man – Azraea couldn’t imagine how he was holding up under this much stress and exertion, and from what Kaira had told her, he had his own family to be worried about, too.

Azraea did a quick scan of the area. Her colorful friend, Samantha, and Vinny’s very cooperative business acquaintance, Joey, had helped them roust many of the remaining people from the North End, but there really hadn’t been that many left, not compared to Old town. They were in a large commons area – a wide street that had been converted into a market on the southern edge of Old Town. Azraea had been here before, many, many times – if you wanted really good food, good music, or just about anything in Kingstown that didn’t conform to the same repetitive cultural norms that shaped the rest of the city, this is where you came. Sadly, she already knew it wouldn’t last.

Right now, it had become the natural place for Schroeder to organize the evacuation from, and while Azraea was certain there were still hundreds of people, if not more, in the neighborhoods north of here, she had to accept that they were what Ochsner would call “No Priority” – it was realistically impossible to go door to door in the crowded neighborhoods, as Schroeder’s men had already done, and try to convince those people to leave before the Firebrands arrived. The large crowd of people present was what she had to work with. All of them though were consumed by their own arguments or anxieties, and she needed a way to focus them.

There was a large statue nearby set on a marble base that formed the backbone of the fortifications on this street, so she clambered up the makeshift barricade onto the marble stand. Pressed for time, she fell back on an old game that she and Ochsner used to play as roommates and years-long study buddies. It would practice their wit, their foreign language skills, and their bardic skills. The game was to translate a popular song, so that each verse was sung in a different language, but still sounded reasonable. Eventually they’d gotten Kaira to play too, because she could manage the elvish and orcish parts. Then they’d all have to learn the song with the combined lyrics. Last year, in an act of excessive ambition, they’d diligently completed one very difficult song – what passed for Caelia’s national anthem.

She started out by just humming to warm up since she knew no one would be able to hear the words. She already had the attention of Lily, who was eager to see her previously unmentioned predictions fulfilled, and also had the attention of many of Lily’s Arbarii neighbors, thanks to her face paint. Others began to filter over to hear the crazy woman on the statue stopping in the middle of a crisis to sing. As corny as it was, a couple of people actually put their hands over their hearts and began to quietly sing along as she started the first verse in the kingdom’s primary language, a derivative of Old Facian. Vinny’s argument with his kinsmen stopped when she began singing the second verse in Gnoman. The few remaining dwarves looked shocked when she sang the third verse in Ochsner’s native language, and the elves and orcs even more so when she moved onto what Kaira had taught her. She stumbled over both, but the elves seem impressed she’d tried, and the remaining orcs jumped in and finished the song loudly and proudly, stomping their feet and beating their chests.

“I know this is a hard night for you,” Azraea said loudly, “For some of you, maybe the worst night of your lives. But I want you to remember, whatever happens tonight, or tomorrow, or any time after that, no matter where you are, and what people call you, you are my people.This kingdom is your kingdom. This city is your city. These streets are your streets. The water that flows through our aqueducts, the crops that grow in our fields, the fish that swim in our rivers, you have as much right to the fruits of our labors as anyone else. You have as much right to the safety, security, and comfort this kingdom can offer, as anyone else.” She paused for a moment to quickly, mentally compose the rest of her speech.

“But with those rights come two responsibilities. You have the responsibility to survive, because without its people, a kingdom is not a kingdom. Without you, Caelia is not Caelia. Without you, it’s whatever nightmarish place the dragon’s worshippers would make it, and I don’t intend to let that happen. And that’s the second responsibility – fight. Fight with fists, fight with swords, or fight with words. Fight tonight or fight tomorrow, but fight to win. Don’t martyr yourself in the face of a regime that would erase this night from its history.”

People were nodding in agreement, some were cheering. The orcs that had been on the fence about helping the cityguard now hefted work tools and banged them together to fill the momentary silence.

Azraea held up her hands to be heard again, “I know not everyone can shed blood. Maybe you don’t know how, maybe you physically or morally can’t. For those people, I say this – leave the city. Leave the city, and tell the people outside what’s going on. Spread the truth of what you’ve seen and heard. Write it down, tell stories, ask people to come to our aid. Leave the city, and know that when this is over you will be welcomed back. While those of us who can fight, will fight, we do so only with the belief that we can rebuild what is lost tonight, and for that to happen, you need to live.” Many more people now cheered, and some left – at first Azraea thought she was losing them, but then she realized they were spreading out into the surrounding neighborhoods to roust stubborn friends and families and get them moving.

A handsome white-haired elvish man walked up to the foot of the statue, “Well spoken,” he said simply, “I am Marcus. And you are…?”

“Azraea,” she answered, “Azraea Thanel.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you Ms. Thanel. Do you mind if I share your soapbox for a moment?”

Azraea was uncertain, but she didn’t have any right to refuse, so she simply nodded and he hopped gracefully onto the other side of the statue. With a sharp whistle he got everyone’s attention.

“You all know who I am,” he said, “so I’ll keep this simple. The White Rose has heard Lady Thanel’s words, and agrees wholeheartedly. We stand with her tonight, and agree that the people of this place should be our greatest priority.”

He continued, “To that end, we will be arranging shelter for refugees at the docks across the lake. We can provide food and water for at least three days while we work out other arrangements, and since we cannot guarantee the safety of the homes you have, for so long, trusted us to protect, we will without cost guarantee the security and safety not only of your persons, but of any personal belongings sheltered in our warehouses. We have also called in some favors from our Star Born kin in the east, so if this idiotic madness spreads beyond these walls, I guarantee you nothing except the dragon herself will be able to reach you.”

He turned to Azraea as the crowd clearly separated into fighters and fliers, “Words will make people listen, but the promise of food, water, shelter, and the protection of armed men will make them move.”

She smiled, “Provided you have those things to promise,” Azraea said, “I’m not so fortunate.”

“Hm,” the man answered, “Fortunes change, don’t they? Especially for those willing to put themselves in front of a panicked mob and take responsibility for them. And of course, keeping the favor and company of elves never hurts, does it, Lady Thanel?”

“Brass tacks,” Azraea said, “Your men were the ones giving reports to Schroeder right?”

“I have associates serving as observers and couriers, yes.”

“Do we know if the gate is still secure?”

Marcus spoke a bit more quietly, “It’s under siege but the cityguard are holding it open. Or at least, they were as of about ten minutes ago. Whether it is now, or will be in another ten minutes when my next associate returns…”

“No reward without risk,” Azraea quoted Kaira’s family motto, “But we need to move these people fast.”

“Indeed,” Marcus said, seeming amused by something Azraea had said.

Azraea looked down to see that two dozen or so men and women had gathered at the foot of the statue, apparently ready to fight. Among them were a couple of dwarves, a few halflings (Vinny among them), many orcs, and several elves, some fully armed and armored and wearing white clothing that matched Marcus’s. The rest were humans of various backgrounds, though Azraea was surprised to find that while she’d been distracted they’d broken into one of the shops and found paint to adorn their own faces with crude white skulls. They were all ready to fight, but they weren’t all young or fit. Plunging into an enemy head first, or waiting here for some sort of last stand were both suicide and would do nothing to help their family and friends to flee the city.

“We can’t go head to head with our enemies,” Azraea said, “So we have to come at them sideways. Blindside them…” She thought as quickly as possible, but the only thing that came to her mind was the story she told Vinny earlier, “We need a distraction to ease the pressure on our friends. Something showy, that’ll make us look more formidable than we are. Does anyone here work under the streets?”

One halfling, one dwarf, and two humans raised their hands, and said ‘aye’.

“Is it true there’re old catacombs down there?”

The dwarf spoke up loud, “Technically they’re all catacombs. A lot of the skeletons were moved because they used the existing tunnels to expand and ‘modernize’ the sewer system about a hundred years ago. They didn’t move them far though – just consolidated them into the tunnels they didn’t use. Heaped them all together. I heard tell it wasn’t a popular decision.”

“I guarantee you it wasn’t,” Marcus said through gritted teeth. Evidently there was some personal history there.  

“Do you know where these mass graves are?” Azraea asked.

“Sure, but I don’t know how that’s going to…”

“She’s a necromancer!” Lily shouted, beaming behind her own garishly painted skull and waving her meat cleaver like a war axe.

At that there were many nods and expressions of approval, and some excitement from the other Arbarii, but there was still a little skepticism.

“I can’t make an army out of strewn bones of random people,” Azraea explained honestly, “But I can make a hell of a distraction.”

Chapter 9 (Part II): Resistance

"I was born thousands of miles from where I stand now, and for every mile I have traveled, I have seen a thousand men die. I have warred with nations studied by archaeologists, I have fought in battles studied by mythologists, and survived battle with races that no longer exist. When I took this land from the dwarves, I decided I was done, like a boulder fallen from a mountainside, I had come to rest, and no earthly force has been able to move me since. But now the dragon sends her worshippers to uproot us, to drive us out. So be it. Let me rise from my rest, abandon my stillness, and meet the storm. Bring me Akaibara and bring me my armor, and let me show these specs in time what their ancestors feared."  

-          Marcus Hoaetorosu

The situation in the streets of Kingstown after Syliva's coronation was confused to say the least. Syliva’s mercenaries and her Firebrands continued the task they’d already begun that morning, hunting down anyone and everyone associated with the king’s family. Cousins, second cousins, in-laws, staff, servants, administrators – the list of undesirables seemed to increase by the hour. Basically the Firebrands were looting, raping, and murdering, and they didn’t want to stop, so the list broadened as necessary to sustain their terror campaign. Since the Firebrands were almost exclusively pulled from the ranks of the Nationalists, the list predictably focused on non-whites, non-humans, immigrants, scholars, and anyone who fell within a certain economic range.

The formal guard, Caelia’s actual military and law enforcement forces, were a mess. Many of their best men had been members of the king’s personal guard, and had been killed the night prior by Syliva herself. Those among the Kingsguard who hadn’t been on duty were rounded up the next morning convicted of crimes against the state, with guilt evident by association, and promptly and unceremoniously executed. Some survived, but not by being foolish enough to run out into the street and play hero.

The cityguard, which handled law enforcement within Kingstown, was divided. Having already been enforcing Syliva’s dictates as chief counselor to the king, many among the guard, including Captain Medes, the man who’d started the riot on College Street weeks ago, assumed they would continue to defer to her authority despite the fact that she’d murdered the man who’d given her the authority to issue them commands, along with many of their fellow officers.

Most of the guard had hated serving at her behest, and now that the legitimate source of her authority was gone, they refused to do so. For many, that meant going home and locking themselves in with their families, or leaving the city altogether, but for some that meant trying to continue to do their duty – to protect and serve the public trust. They even ousted Medes and his supporters and appointed a new captain, Kaira’s former mentor, Retger Schroeder. The man had only been a guard since he was laid off from the school, but he’d trained about twenty years’ worth of the best men in the cityguard and, as some of the men had pointed out when he hesitated to accept the position, no one had the experience necessary to prepare them for what was happening now.

Unfortunately, the actively violent Firebrands outnumbered Captain Schroeder’s men by at least a two to one margin, and the Firebrands had the backing of Syliva’s mercenaries. Some of the mercenaries were little more than hired thugs, but the ones she’d brought in to participate in her investigations as Chief Counsel were former veterans, professional solders that had been organized into her new “Blackguard”. The men of the Blackguard were quite simply better armed, better armored, and far more ruthless than Schroeder’s law enforcement officers.

It was physically impossible for the cityguard to restore order in the streets, so the best they could do was take up positions around certain locations. The cityguard barracks and armory, of course, were fortified and defended as their headquarters, and many among the cityguard brought their families there for shelter, since they knew that it wouldn’t take the Firebrands long to declare them traitors and start raiding their homes. By design, the barracks sat right on the entrance of one of the major aqueducts, so the guard were prepared for a siege, and to fight fires – though none were sure they could stand up to a dragon if Syliva decided to resume active participation in the violence.

Schroeder also ordered the public library defended. He knew he couldn’t afford the men necessary to stop a mob from destroying it, but he hated to think of the damage two or three idiots could do with a torch while everyone was distracted by more important things. He soon had to allocate more troops, though, because the presence of even a few guards unexpectedly made the library an impromptu refuge for people fearing persecution. Among those sheltering there were the inhabitants of an orphanage that had caught fire – every one of the children had escaped safely, but they’d been thrust out onto streets littered with dead bodies. Although filled with very burnable books, the old library itself was built of the same stone as the castle and walls of the city. The orphans’ caretakers had known even Syliva couldn’t set flame to it easily, so they’d herded the panicking children there as quickly as possible.

Schroeder was a pragmatist, though, and besides teaching a number of martial arts, he’d taught military history for decades. As shocking as it was to see the violence in Kingstown actually happening, in a detached, rational portion of his mind, he knew he’d seen it all before, many times. It had happened in Caelia (before it was given that name) and it had happened in many other countries in many other eras. It was never exactly the same, but there were patterns he was willing to bet on.

Among those patterns would be burning the ethnic ghettos of Kingstown. It was remarkable it hadn’t happened already. Besides rooting out everything associated with the previous regime, the Firebrands had been focusing on exacting revenge on people they knew, ‘cleaning up’ the parts of the city they personally interacted with. That had been lucky for the city – no one wants to set fire to the apartment building next to their own. But eventually they’d turn toward the ghettos, where most of the city’s non-white or non-human residents had been concentrated over the centuries.

Not receiving even a portion of the public funds that were funneled into the other parts of the city, Old Town was, architecturally speaking, rubbish. Many of the wells no longer accessed full cisterns due to building projects further south having mucked with the waterways under the city. The ancient stone buildings were beautiful but they weren’t up to code, and they were surrounded by wooden structures that had never been given the attention they should have been by safety inspectors, except when they’d been paid to evict someone.

That the people in the Kingstown ghettos had been able to keep their own city within a city standing without the support afforded to everyone else was a testament to the inhabitants’ devotion to their homes. Unfortunately, if a fire started, all the love and care they had to give couldn’t make up for a lack of professional architectural engineering or consistent access to water. To make matters worse, the neighborhoods north of Old Town shared an ambiguous border with the poorest part of Kingstown, which in all regards was even more of a deathtrap.  The people most reviled by the Nationalists were all packed into a tinderbox, with angry Firebrands on one side and extremely flammable tenement housing on the other.

And Schroeder couldn’t defend Old Town or the homes north of it. Even if his men weren’t outmatched, they couldn’t fight rioters and fires at the same time. Barricades and patrols could only hold off the Firebrands for a while. As soon as their enemies started throwing torches, fireballs, or burning bottles of liquor, his men would be just as trapped as the ghettos’ inhabitants.

So he’d decided to try something he’d never read about in any history book – he decided to get ahead of the problem. Rather than surround the ghettos with barricades and armed men, and try to defend them against a siege, he’d very carefully laid out a path from the ghettos to the city gate. It hadn’t occurred to the Firebrands that the passage in and out of the city should be a concern to them at all, and if they noticed Schroeder’s men establishing fortified checkpoints in strange places – blocking off certain streets, boarding up certain buildings – they apparently hadn’t caught onto a pattern. It was Schroeder’s hope that the ghetto’s occupants could be safely evacuated out to the countryside. They would be homeless, and the countryside wasn’t incredibly friendly right now either, but they’d have a better chance out there than in the city.

There was, however, one massive obstacle to executing this plan – convincing the people to leave. Most of the poorest residents north of Old Town had gone out the gate some time ago; many didn’t have actual homes to defend, and even those that did weren’t invested enough in their rented shacks to stay. Old Town was a different matter, though. Many of the residents had ties to the place going back decades if not centuries, and though not prosperous on the grand scale of things, their businesses and homes were filled with far more accumulated property than they could pick up and carry. Of course, some Old Town residents had beaten a path to the gate when the opportunity presented itself. The Dwarves, in particular, did as Schroeder asked. They had kin living in underground cities that ringed the kingdom, and they had strong faith they would be welcome and safe there. Most had already been packed and waiting for an opportunity to make a run for it, and while they waited, had been beseeching the others to follow them, promising them refuge with their people. Many of the people, especially the humans, were even swayed by their stout friends, and followed them out of the city.

But many others stayed because they couldn’t take everything with them, and so they refused to leave their home to have it looted by the Nationalists. Or they stayed because they were too old or had too much invested in Kingstown to start over somewhere else, and would rather see it through to the end. Schroeder and his men struggled to convince them that they didn’t have the resources to fight a fire if it started, but many people were intractable, and eventually Schroeder realized that some had simply resigned themselves to their fates. They wanted to die where they’d lived.  
Still others thought that Schroeder’s plan was a trick. The ethnic Gnomans, in particular, were very aware of what happened during a regime change, were very aware that they’d been singled out as enemies of the state, and were very interested in getting the hell out of the city. Thanks to certain stereotypes about Gnomans, though, the guard had never treated them especially well, and so the halflings thought this apparent free pass out of the city would have them walking straight into an ambush, to be wiped out by the guard in one volley of arrows. A few knew Schroeder wasn’t a career guardsman but rather a former teacher; that gained him some credibility but not enough to roust everyone.

And finally, there were the orcs and the elves, gods bless them.

Some left of course, but many of the orcs felt that, after years working menial labor jobs in the poorer parts of the city, this was finally an opportunity to make their ancestors proud. They had never gone to war, but now war had come to them. They wanted to fight. Schroeder had given up arguing, told them to grab their family weapons, or whatever they could, and escort the other groups to the gates. Once that task was done, they’d fall in with the guards at the checkpoints, and eventually fall back to the cityguard’s barracks, where they’d be getting a crash course in drill and command, and become formally deputized members of the cityguard. Provided they fell in line, Schroeder would be glad for the help.

The elves, of course, were much the same as their orc cousins, although they’d never admit it. They wanted to stay and fight like the orcs, though their perspective on the whole thing was quite different. Many of the elves were quite young, Schroeder’s age or younger, but a few were greatfathers and greatmothers who’d been in this city since before the ghettos were ghettos, before Old Town was old. It was around them, around the protection they offered and the resources they shared, that the other minorities had gathered. Truth be told, these especially old elves had had the money and means to up and move to a better maintained part of the city once the kingdom started punishing the ethnic neighborhoods, but there were two forces that had kept them where they were.

The first reason the old elves stayed was pride – elvish tradition valued autonomy and self-command. It was anathema to be coerced or compelled, especially by anyone or anything that was not another, older elf. Essentially, they had stayed where they were because their culture was one of contrariness.

The second reason was that, given their very long lifespans, elves could become very, very good at many things, and some of the things these elves had become good at were not legal. Although racketeering cases against Caelia's elf families had never gone anywhere, it was common knowledge that most businesses within and around Old Town, the North Side, and even on the waterfront outside the city, paid protection money to the "White Rose," Kingstown's largest elf family. Kingstown’s most influential organized crime family was both racially and ethnically elvish, devoted to millennia old traditions and principles. Schroeder knew that, right now that might be the city's saving grace. Besides being contrary and headstrong against anything that would challenge them, elvish culture generally demanded that if you promised something, you would sure as hell make good on that promise.

A human gang extracting extortion money from a ma and pa business might turn their backs on the owners while another gang did the same, but not the White Rose. If you paid them protection money, you were not only protected from them but from everything else, and almost every business north of Downtown paid dues to the White Rose. With the Firebrands inevitably on a collision course with the White Rose’s dominion, half of Old Town’s elves were preparing water brigades and defensive plans, and the other half had disappeared to the south end of the city intending to slow down the Firebrands and distract them away from the ghettos.

What that distraction would consist of Schroeder was not told, and Schroeder did not ask, but after vigorous negotiation, Schroeder did get one concession from the head of the White Rose – if the ghettos became unsavable, the elves would make the choice to withdraw and join their little resistance at the cityguard barracks, rather than burn to death in their own homes just to spite the Firebrands.

That still left a number of undecided individuals though, mostly halflings and humans who wanted to evacuate the city but didn’t trust the cityguard to get them out safely. While Schroeder had been racking his mind over how to get them moving, White Rose runners (who apparently moved by the roof tops) brought word that the various Firebrand hunting parties were now moving north despite the elves’ harassment, and were – bit by bit – coming together into a larger group. By the time they made it to the ghettos, there’d be hundreds of them, armed with clubs, chains, and torches, and behind them were a sizable number of Syliva’s mercenaries. To make matters worse, they’d certainly hit Schroeder’s evacuation checkpoints before they reached the ghetto. Schroeder was hoping the angry mob would function like a fluid, and take the path of least resistance, following side streets around the evacuation route, rather than plowing through it, but he wasn’t confident that would be the case. If they attacked the checkpoints, and cut off the evacuation, they’d not only beat, perhaps kill, many of his men, they’d cut Old Town off from the gate.

And that’s when his most unlikely reinforcements of the night showed up: an Arbarii woman, the same one who’d come to town with Kaira, and a shady halfling. The Gnoman, a foreign businessman Schroeder had encountered once or twice before, had ostensibly just been out for a stroll, but when he found out that his kinsmen were being a pain in his ass, he took it upon himself to resolve that situation. Schroeder didn’t know what cultural insight the Gnoman had for people who’d likely been born in this city, but apparently he was more persuasive than Schroeder, because it was quickly evident that he was winning the negotiation.

Meanwhile, the woman, Azraea, was eager to know what she could do to help. According to one of the White Rose scouts, she’d already taken down some firebrands harassing people north of Old Town, and with her Gnoman friend she had persuaded many of the remaining people there to get moving. Another of the scouts said he’d personally seen her take down several men earlier in the day, at a coffee shop near the burned down mansion. The Arbarii men and women still present seemed to be excited by the dramatic war paint she was wearing, though one old woman kept calling her Salmon Roll.

“I feel I should be clear, Captain Schroeder,” Azraea said, “that I’ve not been exercising restraint. I understand if as a law enforcement officer, that’s a problem for you.”

“It’s not,” Schroeder said straightforwardly, “We’re past the point of making arrests and subduing suspects. This turned into a war twenty four hours ago when the king and all of his heirs were assassinated. It’s kill or be killed. I wish Kaira were here, though… No offense.”

“None taken,” Azraea said, genuinely, “I wish she was too.”

“I don’t have time to give you a run down on our strategy, or how to fight with a guard unit,” Schroeder said, “But right now, I desperately need someone to get the rest of the people here to either fight or move, and it sounds like you’ve already had some luck north of Old Town. I’ve been trying, but I need to haul ass to the gate to make sure we don’t lose it.” He showed her the route traced on his map, “Any part of this gets broken, these people are screwed, but if the gate falls, we’re not only trapped, we have no hope of getting reinforcements.”

“Do you expect any?” There was no reason to expect the county guards to abandon their stations to help the people in Kingstown, and as far as Azraea knew, the highway guard were about as likely to sit by and place bets as do anything to help.

“I have a friend,” Schroeder said, “I haven’t talked to him for months, but I know him; if he knows what’s going on here, he’ll turn up. Gods willing, he won’t come alone. So, get these people moving if you can, and then… well, I don’t have time to think about that, so make shit up. If Kaira hangs out with you, I figure you’re smart enough.”

Chapter 9 (Part I): Revolution

Officers of the Law face a difficult situation when a regime changes hands violently. During the interregnum there is no clear or binding law. There are only the values and morals that brought the man to the service of the public to begin with. A man who donned the guard’s uniform to bully others will find the opportunity to indulge his abusive nature unfettered, but a man who took the oath to protect and serve with sincerity in his heart will find no greater opportunity to prove his valor.

-        Kingstown Guard Captain Retger Schroeder addressing the city’s remaining guardsmen the day after the death of King Hylas.

With the king’s death, Syliva had declared herself queen and even held a rather awkward coronation ceremony for herself the next evening at the amphitheater outside of the city. She spoke at great length about the inadequacy of the previous ruler, her nebulous plans for the future of their kingdom, her intentions regarding neighboring countries, and generally praised the good fortune of the people for being blessed with her leadership. Once Syliva’s speech was finished, she returned to Kingstown and immediately began making numerous appointments to bureaucratic offices and military posts in order to promote her “Firebrands” into key positions.

Most of the Firebrands were Nationalist extremists who’d distinguished themselves for their participation in the ongoing street violence, particularly the night of the king’s death. However, some moderate Nationalists practically trampled each other to join the Firebrands when they thought they saw a ground-floor opportunity for success under the auspices of a new regime, and some of Syliva’s closer, more reliable business partners were given public offices. They took them gladly, like wolves being offered the job of shepherd.

Contrary to Baryd's promises, though, most of the people, even among the Nationalists, had not taken Syliva’s succession well. Many were disturbed when they heard what had happened. The casual, even gleeful way with which the dragon had dispatched the king, his children, his servants, and the city guards assigned to the mansion terrified them. Sylvia had known she couldn’t count on the support from the moderate Nationalists for very long, but she had, in fact, lost most of it on day one.

Some extreme Monarchists celebrated the end of what they saw as a corrupt bloodline but for the most part they also were frightened by the dragon’s sudden, aggressive move to seize control of the kingdom. The Neo-Monarchists, though, were not frightened - they were outraged. They’d had no love for the king but they also felt the dragon had no business involving itself in the politics of Caelia’s people. They shouted that only a person could rule over people, and that Syliva was not a person. She arranged for a court ruling to legally declare that dragons are people (for certain legal purposes, anyway) but that didn’t seem to assuage them. Not only did the Neo-Monarchists vilify Syliva, they now posthumously declared King Hylas a tragic hero, spreading the story of how he had confronted the dragon and demanded that his guards should be spared. 

Of course, now that Syliva had declared herself queen she felt comfortable officially declaring threats to her life or sovereignty to be acts of treason and had basically declared all Neo-Monarchists to be enemies of the state. She attempted to deploy the guard against them, but found that much of the guard had deserted their posts after what she did to the men stationed at the king’s mansion. She still had her personal security forces though, and her Firebrands, so she unleashed them onto the streets of the city, tasking them to hunt down the Neo-Monarchists and arrest them.

The Firebrands, though, were difficult to manage, and Syliva wasn’t especially motivated to do so, so that had gotten out of her claws fairly quickly. She felt reasonably comfortable though lounging upon one of the castle’s parapets and watching the violence roil below. 

Whoever died, it was fairly entertaining either way.
While Syliva basked in chaos, on the far side of the city Vinny fretted over Azraea’s intentions, “This would be considerably less subtle than my normal approach…”

“Yes,” Azraea said as she put the finishing touches on her makeup, “and after giving it some thought, I realize it doesn’t really promote the interests of your people, so it was wrong of me to ask you to participate in this.”

“Well…” Vinny sighed, “There are plenty of ethnic Gnomans out there who are citizens of this kingdom, so while helping you get involved this way might not serve the Gnoman Empire… some of ‘my people’ are still in danger out there.”

“If that’s how you feel, then perhaps the best thing would be for you to follow at a distance and ‘observe’. I’ll leave it to your judgment whether and when you should get involved.”

“Fair enough,” he agreed and began gathering up his own things, “What’s with the get up?”

Azraea wore the same black outfit Vinny had gotten for her the night they snuck onto campus, but now wore her fatigued leather jacket over it. The jacket offered more emotional protection than physical protection, but she also thought the ensemble just looked, well… rebellious. She figured he was probably referring to the garish makeup she’d stopped to apply, though. She’d painted her face coal black, and then over that she’d quickly painted on a bright white skull.

“Do you know why I chose to study necromancy?” she asked.

“No, actually.”

“The Arbarii were once supposed to have been masters of it. Supposedly, before they became the nomadic traders they are today, they had a sizable kingdom on the other side of the ice fields that lie north of here.”

Vinny whistled, “That’s gotta be a long way away. I didn’t even know there was anything north of the ice.”

“There isn’t,” Azraea said, “The Arbarii kingdom was on the other side of the world. And it was unassailable. It wasn’t an aggressive kingdom, but it couldn’t be felled because the people were masters of necromancy – it was learning about my cultural heritage that first got me so interested in the art. I experienced a sort of paradox growing up in this kingdom; almost everybody wanted me to act ‘white’, but no one ever let me forget I wasn’t. I think because of that it became very important for me to feel I had some sort of connection to my ancestors. I’m Caelian, first and foremost. I was born here, I was raised here, and I will probably die here. But it’s always helped me to remember that I’m not a Caelian whose skin is the wrong color; I’m a Caelian whose people came from the other side of the world, and the color of my skin, as much as it makes me standout in this place, honors the people who lived and died bringing me to this place and time.”

“So how did necromancy make the Arbarii unbeatable?”

Azraea smiled. Vinny was much like Kaira; the important part of the conversation for him was the part that pertained to armed conflict. “Every citizen laid to rest was given spectacular attention, preserved carefully, because in the event that the kingdom was attacked, they could be raised to fight in its defense. Not forever, of course, but long enough to overwhelm their attackers with sheer numbers, and then return to their tombs.”

“So anyone who attacked your ancestor’s kingdom had to fight every Arbarii that ever lived?”

“That might be an exaggeration, but that was certainly the idea. Of course, it went against their necromantic philosophies to summon the dead to do things for them, as opposed to with them, so the living people of the kingdom always accompanied them into battle. I don’t know if it was a strategic decision or just an aesthetic matter, but in order to make it difficult for enemies to differentiate the living soldiers from the dead ones, every soldier decorated himself with the same face paint that was applied to the dead when they were interred. Over time the paints became very ornate, a real art, but I didn’t want to spend all afternoon doing this so I’m afraid it’s a bit slapdash.”

“I suppose it’s appropriate now,” Vinny nodded.

“I thought so,” Azraea nodded, “Also I think it looks a little scary.”

“What happened to your ancestors, though?” Vinny asked, “How were they beaten?”

“Oh, plague,” Azraea said flatly, “Nasty thing carried by insects. The infected basically turned into living corpses, who just staggered around spreading it further. For a kingdom that had mastered the realm of the undead, being confronted with the unalive was mind-boggling, and the civilization partly collapsed just from the panic and philosophical schisms that followed. The northernmost Arbarii, those who made their living trading across the ice fields with this side of the world, were able to move beyond the range of the insects that spread the disease. Unfortunately, they had to move so far north that they could never permanently settle in any one place – the resources simply weren’t there to sustain a new, stationary civilization.”

“And that’s why the Arbarii are nomadic traders, now,” Vinny nodded.

“When the plague cleared away in the old kingdom, the Arbarii's rivals swept in eagerly and occupied the territory, destroying all of the crypts and mausoleums, and burning every corpse they could find. Art, literature, everything of cultural importance was either destroyed or, I hope, shipped off to other places as trophies. Worst of all, any Arbarii who’d survived the plague were taken as slaves. Those who were eking out a living on the ice escaped that fate, but they had no means of retaking their lands. In the end, they even had to swallow their pride and do business with the people who’d taken away their homes and enslaved their brothers. The Arbarii in the north couldn’t farm much, so their livelihood came primarily from trading between the two sides of the world that sustained them.”

“I didn’t think of Caelia as being an especially strong trader,” Vinny said, “I certainly didn’t know it did business with the other side of the world.”

“It did, for centuries, but after the dragon took over Caelia’s surpluses quickly dwindled until there wasn’t enough to export. No exports from Caelia, and no gold to purchase imports from across the ice, meant less and less trade. Many Arbarii traders made one final trip to this side of the world, and just stayed here.”

“Your family?”

“Yes. I imagine the fact that we immigrated to this country at the beginning of a two hundred year recession may have contributed to our being unwelcome, though Arbarii immigrants certainly weren’t the cause of this kingdom’s problems. That said, it doesn’t mean the descendant of an Arbarii immigrant can’t help solve this kingdom’s problems.”