Chapter 363 The Lord and His Bandits
Chapter 363
The Lord and His Bandits
Clavieras
A pounding at the door tore Farkas from his sleep.
The woman beside him woke as well. She was one of the Black Bandits, and it was no secret among them that she had feelings for him. No words passed between them. In the dim light, Farkas slipped from the bed and began pulling on his clothes.
The woman drew the blanket around her shoulders and went to the door, but did not open it.
“Who asks for the Captain?” she called.
“Apologies,” came the guard’s voice from outside. “Reports are coming in one after another. The city is under attack.”
The woman glanced back at Farkas.
“I’ll be out in a moment,” he said.
“Where is the attack coming from?” she asked.
“From inside the city.”
A brief silence followed.
“Rebellion?” she ventured.
“Fighting has broken out everywhere. The east gate, the south gate, the billets, and—”
The door opened, and Farkas stepped out, already fastening his brigandine.
“Captain,” greeted the guard, the squire, and the lieutenant who had brought the news.
“How serious is the attack?” Farkas asked.
“We already have reports of losses,” the lieutenant answered before the guard could speak, while the squire checked the straps on Farkas’ brigandine. “They are storming the door to the tower as we speak.”
Farkas needed only a moment to decide. “Sound the trumpets. Seal the doors.”
The lieutenant hesitated. “But our allies might still be evacuating.”
“Tell every ally inside the city to withdraw to the Citadel, as planned.”
“At once.” The lieutenant straightened and hurried away.
With his guard and squire beside him, Farkas rushed toward the west gatehouse, where his command post had been established. As they passed the windows, he saw one of the towers beginning to burn, its flames bright against the night.
“This is too coordinated for a rebellion,” Farkas muttered as they ran. The trumpets rang at last, their call taken up by the towers and guardhouses. Yet the sound brought little confidence. Even from the battlements, the clash of fighting on the city reached them.
“This is a large-scale attack,” his squire said, reaching the same conclusion.
Farkas looked to his guards. “Are the gates still holding?”
“We have no report of a breach,” the lead guard answered.
“Then they must have come through the tunnels,” Farkas said bitterly.
“Clan bastards,” the lead guard muttered.
The old miners Antonius had brought in had clearly been mapping in the wrong place, or worse, had missed the true passage entirely.
Around them, more men and night patrols hurried to their posts. Many saluted Farkas as they passed, and he returned each salute without slowing.
“Tend to your duties,” he barked. “They mean to catch us unprepared. Show them we’re fucking ready.”
“For the Blue and Bronze!” the men roared.
Three half-kin stationed at the west gate approached him, bounding forward with the ease of great cats and slipping past the rushing soldiers without slowing.
Before they could reach him, a new commotion rose along the wall. Men pointed toward the Citadel.
Farkas turned and saw flames licking up from several parts of the fortress.
“By the Lord and Lady,” the squire cried, his face paling. The Citadel was their evacuation point. Their allies were supposed to gather there.
“They knew our plan,” Farkas said coldly. “We’ve been infiltrated.”
The half-kin landed nearby. The foremost spoke. “My brethren will fight on your side. Point us where strength is needed.”
Farkas kept his voice steady. “We’ve been infiltrated. Assume they know our strength and our strategy. Don’t roam alone, not even you. They may already have ambushes waiting.”
“Then where do we go?” the half-kin asked.
“With the Citadel burning, we may have five hundred men trapped in the billets with nowhere to withdraw. Take your brethren, march there in force, and hold the place.”
“Understood.”
The half-kin had barely left when Farkas’ guard leaned close and whispered, “Will the billets hold? Even the Citadel is burning.”
“We have the Crimson Knights there,” Farkas replied. “Their stubbornness should buy us time.”
“Captain!” his lieutenant called as he returned with the staff, breathless from running. “We’re being outmaneuvered. The attacks are everywhere. We don’t know where they’re coming from—”
“We don’t need to know,” Farkas said, raising his voice so the men gathering on the battlements could hear. Cold sweat ran down his back, but he forced himself to remember what his mentor had once said of Lord Lansius. Even when the Lord had no plan, he kept calm long enough to make one.
A flawed plan is still better than no decision.
With the men’s eyes on him, Farkas said, “Defend every door and prepare for a long fight.”
Several men swallowed, others exchanged uneasy looks.
"Our enemies must have used the tunnels, just as we did last fall. That means long, cold, treacherous passages, too narrow for many men. They cannot be too many. If we hold this, we win,” Farkas rallied his men.
“Man your posts,” the lieutenant shouted in support. “Bring out the crossbows and bolts. All of them. You're going to need every bolt.”
Another senior officer barked, “Bar the doors. Let no one pass.”
As the men hurried to obey, Farkas gathered his officers. “Gather swords and spears,” he ordered. “We slip out with forty men and reach the nearest quarter. Our allies will need weapons if they’re to fight.”
“Forty men through that chaos?” his guard asked, troubled.
“A small party moves faster in chaos,” Farkas replied, accepting a crossbow from his squire. “Don’t forget, we’re skirmishers.”
Then he started down the passage, rallying the men as he went. “The Lord and Lady are watching!”
...
Streets of Clavieras
The attack spread through the city with terrifying speed. The clan army poured into the streets, numbering close to a thousand. They struck the towers and gatehouses only enough to keep the defenders pinned. Then they divided their strength.
Seven hundred kept pressing the billets, where the Shogunate garrison was quartered. With them came the clan loyalists of the city in rising numbers, armed with axes, knives, clubs, and anything else they could carry.
The rest marched toward the Citadel.
The situation quickly turned dire for the defenders when infiltrators inside the Citadel opened the way for the clan army. They cut down many of the Shogunate’s allies, whom the clans deemed traitors. Men who had stood under different banners now fought shoulder to shoulder and died beside one another.
As the guards and their allies in the Citadel fought to the last, families who had taken refuge there were cut down. The clan army took no prisoners. The survivors barred the inner doors of the Citadel and could only pray for help.
With a tower burning and smoke swallowing the streets, Captain Farkas could not tell where the true attack lay. He dared not strip the gatehouses to save the Citadel, fearing it was only bait.
Through the first and second hours, the defensive perimeter mostly endured despite repeated assaults, green miasma, and fire bottles.
But the defenders were scattered and cut off from one another. The gatehouses and towers had been built to keep enemies out, not to withstand an attack from inside the city. The wounded began to pile up. Doors splintered. Smoke crept through corridors. Men fought in stairwells and narrow passages where crossbows were fired at arm’s length.
No word came from the garrison trapped in the billets. More houses burned. The streets vanished behind smoke and flame. At the eastern gatehouse, after taking the brunt of the attack, only sixteen men remained to hold the inner door.
Rumors spread through the streets. The clans were rising. The whole city was believed to be in rebellion.
“The city is ours again!” a man of Clavieras shouted to the others who had risen that night.
Where the clan army stormed the Shogunate positions, the city’s clanborn ran amok, crying freedom after the Shogunate’s short rule.
Many had once been young militiamen, loyal to radical figures like Roderic, and they had never truly laid down their pride. They were too bitter, too proud, and too full of old anger to kneel to anyone but their own.
Most had only knives, wood axes, and tools, for their weapons and armor had long been confiscated. And not all had their parents’ or wives’ blessings, but more and more came out into the streets. Some came in rage. Some came because their brothers had gone. Some came because they feared being called cowards when morning came. What they lacked in steel, they made up for in fury.
With flaming torches, hundreds went from house to house, burning those they deemed collaborators.
“Traitors!”
“Kill them all!”
The mob marched beneath the shadows of burning buildings, slowing only to loot houses already aflame or drag their victims into the streets. Blood ran between the stones. Bodies lay by the roadside, in doorways, and in alleys.
The clanborn could feel it. They were winning.
Messengers brought word to the mob’s many leaders, most of them former militiamen, that the clan army was already tearing into the Shogunate garrison. Victory seemed certain. Their attacks were too precise to be mere coincidence. Someone had mapped the defenses, counted the guards, and marked the weak points long before the first blow fell.
They grew prouder for it. Their brethren had done this. They had outwitted the occupiers, slipped beneath their walls, and struck where it hurt most.
To them, it proved what they had always believed, that clansmen were smarter, sharper, and born to rule.
“Our shame will be washed away in our conquerors’ blood!”
“Clavieras is ours!” The mob chanted through the streets, wielding swords and spears taken from dead patrols or plundered guard posts.
Their rampage continued deep into the night. With every burning building, their confidence swelled. More and more people joined the mobs in the streets, until their number was nearing a thousand. That was when some of them tried to storm the nearest tower, only to be driven back by a massed crossbow volley.
“We need shields!” one man shouted as they stumbled away, leaving their dead behind.
“Get carts and planks!” another yelled.
The work began at once. Doors were torn from houses, carts overturned, and planks ripped loose to make crude shields. Trained militiamen moved among them, along with former officers. They knew how to do battle.
Yet not all clansmen wanted to bleed against well-defended doors. Many chose an easier target.
A mob of five hundred turned toward the old slave quarter, eager to remind the freedmen who had once been masters in this city. Many wanted revenge for the past riots.
But as they advanced, several dozen figures were already waiting for them behind overturned carts and makeshift barricades.
“Don’t come any closer!” one shouted from behind the cart.
The mob halted, but only for a moment. This was unexpected, but they were too numerous to back down.
“Flank them from both sides!” one urged.
“Let’s teach these mongrels some civility,” one said, and the men around him laughed.
“Careful for bolts," an older clansman warned.
Only scores of clanborn held back. More than four hundred advanced toward the blocked road. Many among them had served in the militia, and to them, resistance only made the coming slaughter more pleasing.
“They’re mine!” one clansman shouted as they drew near.
A hundred men rushed ahead of the mob, each eager to be the first to land a blow.
But the defenders cared nothing for honor. Their answer was the cold hiss of bolts through the night air. Close to a dozen bolts darted toward the mob, punching through flesh and dropping men where they stood.
“Watch out!” one clansman warned amid the screams. “They have Shogunate men among their ranks.”
His warning went ignored. Hundreds still rushed forward, believing crossbows needed time to reload and that there were enough men in front of them to take the next volley.
Their stubbornness was not for nothing. Seeing their resolve, and the flanking parties closing in from both sides, the Shogunate officer ordered a retreat. Not even the overturned carts would be enough to hold them.
The defenders fell back, with the clansmen hard behind them.
“Get them! Get them!” many in the mob chanted.
Before this night ended, each clansman wanted a kill to boast of, whether Shogunate soldier or freedman rioter.
But as the chase drove deeper into the slave quarter, some of those behind began to lag. They turned toward the houses instead, drawn by the thought of plunder, punishment, and easy prey hiding behind barred doors.
“Stay in line!” others shouted at them. “The Shogunate dogs are still ahead.”
“The slaves can wait!”
Grumbling, the laggards returned to the chase. The houses would still be there once the fighting was done. Moreover, they found no slaves inside. The quarter had been emptied.
Deeper and deeper they went.
Far from the main street and its burning buildings, the slave quarter lay dark, lit only by the torches and lanterns they carried. The four hundred continued the chase through narrow lanes and crooked alleys.
Like predators certain their prey had nowhere left to run.
***
Black Bandits
Captain Farkas felt the night wind on his sweaty hair and face, and remembered the time his uncle had taught him to hunt. Be silent. Draw shallow but steady breaths. Let the muscles relax.
He and his forty men had split into three ambush groups. Meanwhile, the freedmen were still largely uncertain among themselves. They debated and argued. Many were eager to fight, but just as many hesitated. Right now, they were little better than a frightened mob. Some hid with their families, hoping this was all only a nightmare.
One Black Bandit glanced toward where the freedmen had gathered and saw that their lanterns and torches had not moved. “These freedmen are going nowhere,” he muttered.
“Give them a little patience,” Farkas replied calmly.
Another remarked, “Not every man can put iron in another’s belly, especially not in the dead of night, while the city burns red around him.”
A low murmur passed among them.
Unlike the Orange Skalds, who were required to pass as minstrels when needed, the Black Bandits were simply fighters. Yet the skalds were still their superiors, and their habits had left a mark.
“Captain,” a young skirmisher near him asked quietly, “why not lead them yourself?”
The question drew the attention of the others.
Farkas answered without looking away from the dark lane. “Because I am not one of them. I can give speeches, but the courage has to come from within.”
Some of his men, dressed in dull black that blended into the night, nodded. Those who had followed Lord Lansius since Korelia recognized the lesson.
After every skirmish and battle, men spoke of what the Lord had done differently from other commanders. He did not merely order men to fight. He gave them reasons to believe the fight was theirs. Before long, it had ceased to be a question, even when he had been only a baron of a few seasons.
“Second,” Farkas added, “they are not formally trained. It would be reckless to lead them as if they were soldiers. They will not fight our way. They will fight like a mob, like men in a riot.”
“I see...” the young skirmisher replied.
“They’ll need a spark,” Farkas said. “And I think it is about to catch.”
What the Captain meant was that the freedmen needed to rouse themselves.
A mob could be stirred by injustice. More surely, as Lord Lansius had done in Korimor, men could be forced to act when cornered. Farkas had chosen the latter. He had not rallied the freedmen to save his surrounded billets. The freedmen knew the knights and garrison mattered, but they would not spill blood for someone else, especially with no guarantee that their own families would be safe.
So Farkas let the enemy come to them. And as expected, the clansmen marched toward the slave quarter, bent on destruction.
Hasty footsteps and moving figures appeared in the dark, alerting his men. Crossbows rose and trained on them. But the figures came along the route Farkas had chosen beforehand.
“Hold,” Farkas said. “They're likely ours.”
From the darkness, his veteran officer ran at the front of the group, breathless. Ten Black Bandits and a dozen freedmen recruits followed close behind. Guided by a faint lantern, they dashed for cover behind a darkened hovel.
Even exhausted, the officer climbed to the roof and reported, “Captain, we’ve abandoned the cart wall. Too risky. They could strike us from both sides.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Farkas said. “Did you get everyone out?”
“Yes. Ten skirmishers and forty-three freedmen.”
Farkas swept his gaze over his men. None seemed eager to object. “How many clansmen did you see?”
“Two hundred. Should be more.”
Farkas glanced toward his men, already arrayed on the nearby rooftops with their crossbows ready. Several had already taken aim, tracking the lines of men marching through the streets by the glow of torches and lanterns.
As he took aim with his metal-prod crossbow, Farkas said, “Remember. Aim a little lower than the torch.”
“Roger,” a few of his men answered, the word already made common by the widespread use of optical telegraph signals.
“Time to spring the trap.” Farkas steadied his breath and squeezed the trigger. With a sharp snap, his steel-tipped bolt flew into the night air.
Two dozen bolts followed his into the dark.
The mob of four hundred clanborn marched through an opening toward the quarter’s center, fierce-eyed and eager to find former slaves on whom to vent their shame and fury. They had come seeking prey.
Bolts came out of the dark.
Men stumbled and fell before they understood what had happened. Some dropped at once. Others staggered, staring down at the shafts buried in their flesh as if unable to believe it. Only a few wore gambesons they had managed to hide from the searches.
Grunts and screams of pain echoed. A few wounded crawled, desperately calling for help.
The crowd behind them halted in confusion. That pause made them easy targets for the second volley.
Men were struck and fell as murderous bolts darted toward them. Torches dropped and rolled across the stones.
“Get to cover!” one shouted amid the screaming and writhing.
Fear gripped the clan mob. Some men threw their torches away and scrambled for the nearest walls. Others crouched behind anything they could find. Many crowded around the corners of mud-brick houses.
“What happened?” one young clanborn asked amid the rising panic and confusion.
“An ambush?” another ventured, hiding behind the wall of a dilapidated mud-brick house.
“Impossible,” a man behind them said sharply.
But as the bolts continued to rain down, it became harder to deny.
On Farkas’ side, the freedmen were now as good as cornered. His ambush had cut off any illusion of negotiation or bloodless surrender to the clans. There would be no more talking their way out of this. The question had become far simpler. Would the freedmen fight, or would they welcome their former masters and endure the shackles again.
The freedmen's numbers were plenty, but their willingness to fight remained hard to read. Many looked ready to spill blood, but others still had doubt in their eyes. Worse, they were being forced into a night battle, under surprise attack, with no clear idea of the enemy’s numbers. Rumors had already spread that the clans had brought thousands into Clavieras.
Farkas and his men could only give them weapons, keep their own calm, make their plans, and execute them.
For now, they could rely only on the willing recruits already armed with crossbows, spears, and shields. These bold freedmen had taken their places for the ambush under the guidance of his officers.
As for the rest of the freedmen, it was up to them. If they failed to act, then the Blue and Bronze would lose this city, their foothold in the Five Peaks, and the entire campaign. The neighboring provinces would be at the mercy of the clans for years to come.
But that would not be Farkas’ problem for long. Should it come to that, he and his men would likely die here, with every line of retreat already cut off. He had little faith that the clans would take him for ransom, and his men knew the same.
Better to die than be captured by the clans.
***
Vindebona, Armouries
Night had come and gone. Sagarius had spent the time resting her eyes. The dim light in her chamber had shifted to faint crimson, marking the time before dawn. When she was alert enough, she rose, slipped into her sandals, and put on her woolen coat.
As she prepared, her gaze went to the table, where she found the bowl Mark had brought the day before. She had eaten only half. It was millet from the stores, taken from a dwarven-designed container that had kept the grain dry and unspoiled for centuries. More than an airtight seal, runes worked into the metal kept the inside cold, dark, and free of moisture, making it suitable for long storage.
After making sure the bandage on her arm was clean and dry, Sagarius headed out for a walk along the dark corridors. She needed no light to guide her.
She spent some time walking through the vast armories, where more places still waited to be cleared of rubble. Yet there was almost nobody down here now. With the snow melted and the houses repaired, there was little reason for the others to keep living underground.
The halls that had once housed dozens of families, with little children running around, playing, singing, and older youths flirting in corners, now lay as quiet as a graveyard.
When she had walked enough, Sagarius quietly returned to her chamber with a fresh jug of water drawn from the cistern.
With little else to do, she returned to her seat.
It had become like a throne to her, comfortable and warm.
The armories and their many chambers were not cold because of winter alone, but because of the runes embedded within them. Even now, they still gave off a measure of cold, enough to keep the things stored inside from growing moldy. Though even that had not preserved every chamber in good condition.
In the silence, her ears began to catch the faint singing of spring. The sound was distant, softened by stone and earth, but it reached her all the same.
Sagarius listened and cherished it, for she rarely heard such things anymore.
"I suppose the land here still welcomes even an outcast like me," she muttered to herself.
She wanted to hear it more clearly, but her fears kept her inside.
How long?
She asked herself that in silence. She could easily spend three years gathering courage, hiding behind patience and calling it wisdom—
Did my father raise a coward?
The thought provoked her more than the fear did. Patience had never been her virtue. Feeling helpless only made it worse.
Sagarius slowly cleared her mind, steadied herself, and dared to look inward. Her body heated as the image of the manticore returned to her mind. Its charge that had flattened ancient trees as if they were nothing. Its deformed face. Its crown of goat horns.
If not for Marc’s sacrifice and Sir Munius losing two horses to save her, she would not be alive.
She had no luxury of sulking. The people needed her. She had brought them here expecting a sanctuary, not another place to hide. Sagarius had survived centuries, wars, betrayals, and the ruin of her own House. She would not let a fell beast make her fear the sky and the woods.
Inhaling deeply, determined not to let fear dictate her any longer, she closed her eyes and opened her inner eye.
All she saw was darkness.
The woods returned.
The forest outside the city stood around her, black and cold, its branches twisting overhead like grasping fingers. Thick branches groaned in the night wind. Dead leaves covered the ground. The air smelled of damp bark, torn earth, and blood.
There, among the ruined trees, the manticore waited. Its long goat-like head turned slowly, crowned with crooked horns. Red eyes found her at once. Its six powerful limbs dug into the forest floor, claws sinking through roots, mud, and dead leaves. Behind it, living serpent-like tails writhed and thrashed in the dark.
Sagarius’ breath caught. Her powerful mind had given the fell beast shape almost completely.
The beast began to move. Roots tore beneath its claws. Trunks cracked under its charge. Branches burst apart. Leaves, splinters, and chunks of earth flew into the air as the manticore tore a path toward her.
Her heart raced. Her head screamed. Then pain flared from her missing wrist.
Sagarius looked down. Her left hand had returned. It hurt like fire, but she was glad to have it back.
The forest shook around her as the massive fell beast charged.
Sagarius clenched her restored hand.
This would be a duel. Her against her fear.
And this time, she would not run.
Such resolve reached deeper than she knew. Without realizing it, her consciousness slipped into her corridor of mind.
There, an unlikely figure, now older and wiser, became aware of her presence. He rose from his rest among the ruined buildings, wearing a thick woolen cloak little better than rags and reeking of the dead. Then he readied his axe.
A claymore rested across his back, and a battered golden scepter was tucked neatly on his belt.
***