Siege State

Tom and Rosa watched the village rings burn until Glass returned. A large structure, perhaps a barn or a hall, collapsed in the distance, sending a plume of sparks swirling into the sky.

“Not the greatest, huh?”

Tom jumped in fright at the sudden interruption. Rosa merely turned and arched an eyebrow.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Tom said, his heart starting to slow down.

“Sorry, moving quickly and quietly is part of the job! I wouldn’t’ve thought I could sneak up on a Hunter,” Glass noted with an impish grin. Val and Dale, and some of the other Hunters wandered over once they noticed her return.

“We should have a portal very shortly,” she explained. “Things are a little hectic in the city at the moment.” As if to underline her statement, a massive roar sounded in the distance. They watched as a huge shape winged into the air over Wayrest, banking and circling above the city. A dragon.

“Goddess,” Val breathed. “He actually did it. He’s insane.”

The dragon wheeled, releasing another titanic roar, before settling on the roof of a tower. It ruffled its wings and became still, and only the slightly unusual outline of the building showed it was there at all.

Glass wore a dour expression now, a counterpoint to her seemingly perpetual gregariousness. “He arrived a day after the orcs swept through the village rings. The Lord General warned the Council. He told them the Hunters were planning a rebellion, but they didn’t take it seriously. Most of them are dead now.” She turned away from the city, and the dragon.

“The Lord General? He’s still alive?” Val asked.

Glass nodded. “He is. He and the Guards declared neutrality, and are holding the walls. They’re the only reason the orcs haven’t ended the siege already.”

“So it’s civil war, then?”

Glass nodded once more. “The Lord of Blood killed most of the Council just after he arrived. He’s ferried the rest of his followers in since then with his dragon. They’ve been hunting down and killing any nobles or clergy they can get their hands on. The nobles and the church are fighting back, but the Inquisition is the only real threat to them.

“The Watch are split. Some of us are just trying to do our jobs, and are reporting to the Lord General. The others have gotten involved in the civil war, and are flitting around the city trying to kill the Lord and his followers. It’s mayhem.” She shook her head.

“Mayhem is right. What is he thinking? A coup, during a siege? It’s madness!” Val said. “He’ll lose the city!”

“We’re managing to hold on for the moment. The Lord has made declarations. He’s spared the people, the Artisans, the merchants. All he wants are the Council, and the nobles and clergy who propped them up. Still, the situation is precarious.”

“Precarious? It sounds like a fucking nightmare! What is he hoping to achieve?” said Rosa.

“Your guess is as good as mine. He’s said he doesn’t want to rule the city, only to ‘restore equilibrium’, but I’ve known a lot of powerful people, and they’ve all got one thing in common: they never voluntarily give up any power.”

“The fool…” Val muttered. “How long will the walls hold? What can we do?”

“We should have a portal soon, Lord General Steel said he’d make the time to pop through. As for the walls, the orcs aren’t pressing them. Yet. They haven’t even set up a proper encirclement yet, though they’ve got a horde at each gate. We’ll have to wait until they test us properly until we know how long we can hold. They could have any number of tricks up their sleeves. A lot depends on the outcome of the situation inside the city, too.”

They mulled that over for a minute, watching fields and houses burn in the distance. Trepidation built within Tom. The entire situation was a mess. A civil war in the middle of a siege? They needed to stand together against the orcs, not squabble like children!

Tom still had a few of Sere’s bodies close by, so he noticed immediately when the portal opened. This one looked like a hemispherical section of night sky, filled with stars and nebulae. The Guards that rushed through it simply materialised in front of it, unlike the uncanny cloth-stretching effect of the steel portal. They fanned out to either side, quickly securing the area. One of them waited by it, and popped back through when the all clear was given. Lord General Steel emerged a moment later.

“Miss Carver, Master Cutter, good to see you both. Officer Dale, I’m glad to see you made it. I wouldn’t have left the walls under the circumstances, but once I heard about the captives, I had to come myself,” he said, taking in the wretched people arrayed about the village square. “Goddess, how did you manage it?”

“Just a bit of determination, and a whole lot of luck,” Val answered. “We saw the opportunity and took it.”

“Goddess, but I’m glad you did. This might be the first bit of good news I’ve had in weeks.”

“Glad to be of assistance,” Val said simply.

“This could be critical!” the Lord General said. “I’ve seen the orcs using Ideals myself...”

He drew closer to them, his massive frame towering, but lowered himself almost conspiratorially. It would have been comical, were the situation not so fraught with tension. “Tell me, have you found any information? Do we know how the orcs were making Idealists?”

Tom spoke up. “We do, sir. The orc leader, the one who calls himself the Great Smith, he …forges them, somehow. Draws up an Ideal from the soul, brings it close to the ‘surface’, so to speak, and copies it over to an orc. Or so we were told. His chieftains, his seconds, can also do this, but they get diminished returns. Only the Smith can copy the Ideals perfectly.”

The Lord General frowned, his thick eyebrows drawing together on his heavy brow. “That is most concerning. “Do we know whether they can copy Ideals from one orc to another? Or is it only from human to orc?”

“Only human to orc, we think. They would have made every single orc an Idealist by now, otherwise.”

“Small blessings.” The Lord General straightened again, gazing out over the village rings towards the city. He sighed.

“Thank you both. Again. We’re not out of the woods yet, but from what you’ve told me, freeing the captives will have crippled their ability to make new Idealists. Now, we just need to see whether we can withstand the storm.”

“Lord General, sir, we were talking to Watchman Glass. She says the Lord of Blood has made his move. That he has attacked the city. Do you have any other news on …the situation?”

It was Rosa that spoke this time, a note of uncertainty in her voice. Her family were based in Wayrest, and were noble too. They would be under threat from the Lord of Blood.

“I’m sorry, lass, what news I have is limited. The only way to ensure the city remained standing was to declare myself and the Guards neutral in the conflict, and stick to keeping the orcs off the walls. The Lord of Blood has killed most of the Council, but many nobles have gone to ground and are fighting back. That’s the extent of my knowledge, I’m afraid.”

Rosa looked stricken for a moment, but her expression quickly firmed again. “With your permission, sir, I would like to stay out here and assist Miss Carver and Master Cutter.”

The Lord General’s bluff face gave nothing away. “Granted,” he said simply. “One more person on the walls won’t make any difference. One more out here just might though.” He turned to address them all.

“I hate to ask you for more, considering all you have given, but you all might make the difference in breaking this siege.”

“Anything we can do, we will,” Val told him. “What do you need of us?”

“At this stage, the orcs have only really just arrived. The siege hasn’t even really gotten underway. The orcs have yet to even test the walls.” He paused, clearly collecting his thoughts.

“They’ll try them sooner or later, but one thing has me worried: I’m not sure how, exactly. There are several ways to cause a breach, in a siege. The first, and most straightforward, is to build siege engines and knock a hole. Orcs aren’t traditionally much for building, and though these seem a bit different, I can’t see any siege engines they put together standing up to concentrated skill use. Still, if they make enough of them, it could mean trouble.

“The second method is to infiltrate the city with Idealists. Sow discord, poison the water supply, spread disease, assassinate leaders, try to open the gates. There’s any number of ways they could harm us.”

Tom broke in then. “I should warn you, sir: the orcs captured an Idealist of Shadow. We’ve already seen several orcs with Shadow skills. I would count on assassination attempts and sabotage as a certainty. They captured several Hunters, too. I know you’re well aware of the …odd Ideals they tend to have.”

“Thank you, son. We’ll double the guard on critical infrastructure, and there’s clear lines of command established if the command structure gets disrupted. There’s only so much we can do with half the city fighting amongst themselves, though.” He shook his head. “Goddess, what I wouldn’t give for another hundred Watchmen…

“Wishes won’t break the siege. Back to the point. I need you all to try and disrupt the orcs, just as they will be trying to disrupt us. How many men do you have?”

“Roughly seventy, give or take. Many of the captives decided to stay and fight,” Val answered.

“Good, good. More than I expected. Alright. We can match the orcs Ideal for Ideal. We should have more of them than them, and ours should be stronger, for the most part, too, if the intelligence we’ve gotten is correct. Your most critical role will be to destroy any siege engines they try to build. After that, disrupt them in any way you see fit. Make them hurt, I don’t care how. Any more information you find will be welcome too.” He turned to Watchman Glass.

“Watchman Glass, can I trust you to keep an eye out for them again?”

She nodded. “Yes, sir. You can. Though this place will be swarming with orcs sooner rather than later. I’ll find you in the Deep. How many of those little sparrows have you got?” she asked Tom.

“Twenty,” he supplied.

“That’s plenty,” she said, nodding to herself. “If you find any information, get within an hour or two of the village rings and send them up in a burst above the canopy. Keep doing it ‘til I get there. I’ll keep an eye out.”

“Gentleman, ladies, we have a plan of attack. Goddess be with you all. Stay safe, and for the love of Goddess, whatever you do, don’t get captured again. Now, I have forty people to find a home for in a city full to bursting with refugees, and an army of orcs to keep off the walls.”

He turned on his heel and barked some orders to the Guards arrayed about the village square, then strode back through the portal. The Guards shepherded the returnees through the portal. Officer Dale and his Guards spent some time giving quick goodbyes, and wishes for good luck, and then they were gone too. In minutes, Tom, Val, Rosa, and the few Hunters that had accompanied them were alone in the square.

They spent a while, just looking over the village rings. At the destruction the orcs had wrought, and at the pristine, abandoned villages and fields yet to be looted and burned.

In the distance, a dragon screamed.