*** Before…

High King Boen warns me that there are reports of monsters out there on the land and that beasts such as Goblins and Wargs ride the middle kingdoms though nothing leads back to Auron Kingsland.

The second eagle was just as surprising with scrolls of instructions from High King Boen and parts.

Parts for our radio machine.

It’s two days, two days before we get power running through it.

And then it’s tuning it?

Seeking for something?

It’s mostly this hiss called static.

A few times a tone like a whine.

Once we heard voices a bit muffled and in a language we have never heard. We spoke back and they, despite the language barrier, were excited too.
They said Makeen over and over.

I’ve looked for it on maps to no avail.

Then after five minutes perhaps we lost the signal or they lost us.

We haven’t gotten them back.

It was still very thrilling.

Danielle thinks Maia might know or the elves in general as they are much longer lived and much better traveled.

Between that we are getting things ready, our ports in place with Vanner’s captains two of which I had to pardon of outstanding writs and sign them to service.

Pike’s folks were met and we kept to our word and we have smuggled shipments of pigs, hogs, casks of lard and salted porc gathering to our shipping zones and I’m securing our own supplies here along with grape molasses and raisins, prunes, dried fruit that isn’t fine nor fancy enough for Riverland markets.

But the radio I must admit has captured me.
Old tomes I have spoken of some of the radio lore and that these could be on boats that could have portable power sources and be moved?

Oh how that would change the world!

I even ventured into Rosetta under guard for these books and buying other things as I did. Materials for my school, my commoner school.

I check prices while over there of the markets and seeing how they trended.

We went in a large group, in our finery and my men in their armors, even some of the others.

I took my Stewards and my Head cook over to shop as we need. My presence and rank make it harder to deny my people services.

No one stops me from looking in the back.

As much as I love my radio I still keep to my other tasks and needs so I try it in the mornings as I train in Whitespire or rather underneath it.

I try it in the evenings checking in with my knights there who have kept trying all day.

It was night time when it happened, there was a whine and the sound went clear and crisp. The electric light even glowed a little brighter too.

I wasn’t expecting this girl’s voice over the machine.

“Lizzy, Lizzy...Elizabetha Lyonnes this is Christiana Blackhand of Lyonnes please, please hear this, please, raise to arms, raise to arms you’re under attack!”

The radio pops and burns with a power surge and we all jump back and then, then the lights blow out.

I can hear something, I can hear something beneath us.

Scratching and squeal like sounds unlike anything I’ve ever heard…

***And Now…..

I have no idea who she is but she’s warning us and I ran over that terrifying floor and grabbed the talker thing.

“Blackhand, Blackhand repeat!?”
Nothing, we lost power.

Then I heard the floor cracking.

Dani had a lantern going and she grabbed my wrist towing me.

I yelled at the staff and the guards as we ran and just behind us the door exploded and these things surged out with red glowing eyes.

Rats.

Hyena rats.

I read of them in a book once. They're not from this climate, they're from the deep southern lands and are a rat the size of a rabbit armed with not just gnawing teeth but bone fracking jaws used to crunch bones of scavenged kills or hard shelled bugs.

I’m very sure they don’t naturally come with glowing red eyes.

Or move like they’re one living thing, they flow as a solid mass chasing us as we ran and we run downstairs, screaming, swinging our daggers.

Heavy bodies, snapping jaws, blood and guts and near misses shredding my clothes as Danielle killed whatever’s gotten too close.

We couldn’t make a stand so we’re still running and I’m grabbing what lanterns I can and hurling them hoping that they break and catch fire as we hit the scaffolding heading to the rig.

Sir Tuttle and Sir Derek come from the offices to see the demonic rush of these things and are soon fighting them yelling “To arms!” I have never seen them in action and they are older men and despite the horror of these things they don’t falter. They lean into the fight and give it their all and are faster with their blades than I thought they could be.

And the squires and pages get armed, daggers but their swords too and they fought as well.

Boys and young men, that should be terrified at this happening. It’s insane, this was light duty, a guard post, an honored one but still nothing trained them for this and they fought.

No doubt about this happening on purpose.

They're after me since they first saw me.

They’re not attacking my people as their focus but trying to get through and get past all of them to me.

They gave us seconds, as they fight just there’s so many and they’re climbing over themselves and the sides on the walls to get past.

Dani tossed me the key to The Vanguard and I opened it up.

She was killing them using the scaffolding as a bottleneck and I searched around for anything cursing that I’m too blasted small to fit in the harness for the Vanguard.

Wait, wait…!

I had an idea.

I climbed into the harness and wedge myself in and while I can’t operate the rig if I get my arm in one sleeve and use my other arm to pull as well.

It hurt, it hurt, I screamed with the effort just to get it to move but I lifted the left arm on the Vanguard and I swung it through the scaffolding section in between them and Danielle cutting them off.

She hung on as her section half dropped and then she turned and she ran as fast as she could to me. She jumps in and pulls the chest hatch shut and I get out of her way as she strapped in.

The hyena rats are already trying to swarm down below us climbing over the rig, trying to get inside, trying to get through the joints.

There’s this nightmarish sick stomach churning time that is full of their squeak, squeal, screams and the sound of claws and teeth on the armor before Danielle is in the rig.

Then she was stomping, stepping, squashing them with the feet and hands slapping them off like they were mosquitoes.

“Commander, what do we do?”

I think, think, they came underground at me and they came to me but came from underneath us.

There’s too many of them to be brought here by hand or carts or boats...anything. So they had to use magic. A portal or a gate is the only thing that I would use.

“Take us in closer, head towards the rats.”

She looks at me. “Towards the rats…?”

“They’re spelled after me, but there’s so many they need to be coming from somewhere and they’re not from here… these are southern animals. They have to be using magic right? A portal or a gate?”

She thought for a moment concentrating on swatting more hyena rats.

“I think you’re right.”

I looked at her. “And if you were going to make a portal?”

“As close as possible to it.”

I nod. “Right, how I don’t understand, but the only thing I can think of is under us.”

“How, they’d have to know?”

“I……”

How? How, how………?

The ocean.

Our sewers release outside the Lighthouse.

They’re big but have grates and gates but if you could be there to see them, see past the gates you could make a portal inside right?

I mentally measured the distances, what might go where and it could have been right under us.

If we tried outside we might lose time, walking underwater to the sewer entrance if we can, if we could even walk us out there and to clear the shore.

But that’d only get us away, not stop them from the attack.

“Go in as close to the radio chamber as we can get.”

We started moving, squashing the Hyena rats and crashing through scaffolding as we’re going where we’re not supposed to take this and Danielle reaches out pulling the sixteen foot long knight's blade from its resting rack as we go.

We didn’t have to go far but we paused to use the Valiant's hands and fists to save the knights and Squires by smashing and crushing them. I yelled out. “Get clear we’re going to tear through the radio room!”

“And get someone to the damned shoreline! There’s a spy at the sewer grates!”

Some of the guards ran yelling to spread the word to get it done.

The rest of my people moved and Danielle reaches out and pulls at the door frame ripping out sections of wall and dust and mortar flies and things fall down and I’m wincing at the radio machine and the parts and Danielle looks at me and pulls the things out to salvage as best we can and sets them aside.

There’s a chest, an amored chest built into the wall behind the radio gear.

The rats freaked out, went for it as much as they could.

“Dani grab that! They’re after that!”

We smash and crush and brush off more rats as we’re right on top of them and they go into an absolute frenzy once we get the chest in our free hand of the battleknight.

Once that’s secured in our fist she bashed through the floor opening a hole to the sewers then started making the hole as wide as possible and opens it up too and more and more until we see this red swirling gate they’re streaming through.

It gives off the same light as their eyes and it feels wrong, and there’s a horrible smell coming through that’s more than our sewers.

Sulfur, tar…. Worse? Not rot but something.

I gasped as they came through the gate in a rush.

Hunched yet not bald, yellow based but tinted green skin and inhuman red eyes and long pointed ears and noses with mouths that jutted a little like they’re more of an angled jaw than rounded like a human. They’re monsters from most wondertales I had ever read.

I screamed to everyone. “Goblins!”

They’re my size between four and five feet and lean all muscle and hatred. wearing hide armors and weapons like knives all over and these ones are carrying bows.

And are shooting at us as they come through but panicking too as coming face to face with a battleknight underground was the last thing they expected.

Danielle slammed a fist down over and over fast like a hammer detonating goblin bodies into limb shrapnel and goo and she adjusted her grip on her sword and she screamed and shoves the sixteen foot long sword in through the gate and most of the forearm.

We feel resistance and give.

She pulls it out quickly covered in blood and gore and again shifting the angle the sword goes through the gate.

Again and again, shifting the directions of the stabbing.

That last thrust, she let go of the sword super fast and caught it in a reverse grip. Like she was going to stab with it….And she does at a downward angle and we hit solid something like stone and she did it again and again there’s a few vibrations shifting through the sword a few times like hitting something softer like flesh and then that hard impact gave way like we broke through something there.

There’s this keening scream… and she pulls the blade free of the gate fast as it closes the blade covered in gore and parts of things and we get the sword out just in time before the gate closed.

The hyena rats go crazy as the glowing eyes just stopped and they’re gone wild and panicked now and there are still goblins here.

They tried to run, they tried to fight us, the knights, the squires and pages too don’t let them. It gets really dangerous since they have bows and are shooting at my people who are taking cover and throwing daggers.

Sir Tuttle’s two pages had risked getting backshot as they ran to get the training bows and crossbows I had been training with firing as they came back and passing them to others.

The Goblins have no cover with us smashing any that try to run down the tunnels only to get cut off and trapped.

There might have been twenty of them but the fighting only lasted ten minutes?

Loads of hyena rats got away.

And we collapsed once we were clear.

And clear was walking The Vanguard out of the secret housing and out into the air and the Fortress proper.

One of Sir Derek’s squires ran to fetch help and as people came I had to step into being commander.

“First get guards on our perimeter, then tell the people to look for these damned hyena rats. I'll pay out 3 coppers per corpse of one.”

Next was getting the clerics in and under oath of secrecy.

Yes Secrecy, The last thing that I needed is panic right now and…oh, Oh I hurt and I was looking at the remains of everything and I’m….I’m confused.

I was exhausted as I burned off so much energy and I felt the shakes starting.

We were warned, a woman warned us, she knew who I was too.

Lizzy, only my family called me Lizzy.

And Blackhand, Christiana Blackhand.

I have a crazed idea and suspicion and it’s logic defying and utterly mad but.

Something might have happened to Christian.

Something definitely mystical.

There’s others arriving knights and officers and troops and I get them clearing things and locking things down and I talk to Vanner.

“Find me experts, legal, illegal, it doesn’t matter, find me people to get my radio repaired and anything on or about that technology. We need this up and running. We got saved and I think from The Capital, From the High King.”

He actually hugged me first and then he bowed and took off as one of the clerics of the Maid came over and she started tending my hurts.

Torn and blistered hands and fingers, bruises everywhere and torn and shredded clothes and bites that I don’t remember getting and I was dozing tired, just exhausted as the post fight battle adrenaline and pain and everything hurt and I shake and shiver as they treat my wounds and I tried and look strong and together for my people and for my troops.

There is going to be so much to do.

I’m not sure when I fell asleep but I was in a corner and cloaks around me and sort of propped up against one of the walls. The clerics were still here healing those involved and the men had the place locked down very much, my knights closest and outside of the clerics of The Merrow, The Maid and The White Lady.

Danielle has the Vanguard placed were people looking can see it and no one can get near it but it’ll draw eyes. It’s guarded of course and Danielle was cleaning and washing it off when one of the pages nudged her and pointed towards me and she slid down and came over and grabbed two leather jacks of Hot Sully for us both and a covered bowl.

“The healers said you were exhausted.”

“I was, still am honestly but what about you and the others?”

“We’re soldiers, knights, we’ll manage.”

I drank my Hot Sully and there’s a good drop of rum in there too, not enough for fun but it helps with the warming and the soreness. The bowl has dark rye bread and bacon on it as a sandwich and there’s molasses cake with the bacon fat onit as butter and I ate it all ravenously asking questions in between.

“Did we lose anyone?”

“No, some lads got some deep scars and did nearly die from the fighting with those goblins, and some are sick from the arrows, the clerics did magic and curatives but they took some poisoning from the arrows. The clerics said that they will be off for a few days, hurting from it in their system but none will die.”

“Good, good, we need to do some accounts and send word to the High King as soon as we can.”

“What are we going to tell the locals?”

“The truth, now that we’re getting a hold on here we tell them we repelled another attack her and that we repelled it and we kept them from destroying the Vanguard.”

“What do we do about that?”

“When we get the goblin carcasses sorted we’ll transport them to the parade grounds in the city and we’ll burn and sanctify the bastards and let people see it and them and us in force doing the job.”

She nodded. “I can do that. The chest is inside the main hall and it looks like your grandfather’s signet ring is needed to open it. I’ve never seen the metal it’s crafted from.”

“Okay, I’ll look, then we survey the Lighthouse and below and we see to the damages and what it’s going to take to fit it or better.”

“Or better?”

“Might as well renovate and improve while it’s damaged. The chest has guards?”

“Yes Commander.”

“Okay good, let’s make sure it’s not going to fall in on us and then make plans.”

I got another mug to go after I use the Jakes and get what masons and carpenters we have in house to come with me and Danielle and Sir Henry as we talk about the attack, got things moved out and to the storehouse and the goblins counted and piled and their gear and the hyena rats well we salvage the pelts that we can, they have decent spotted fur and are the size of rabbits.

Waste not, want not.

We can do basic repairs to shore things up, and seal it as well with wood until we can do more. The actual lighthouse is still shining and we take everything else out and store it.

The radio parts and anything that looks like it gets taken down and I sketch it all first as best as I can.

The sewers were the worst and they’re catacombs and sea caves under the island as we discover. I ordered the access to that sealed, guards in the hole and sea tunnel and in the building.

I’m not ready for that yet, we’re not.

Going back I wrote a statement for the city governor and the same for criers of the city so my version of events is out on the streets and I sent runners out to guilds and public posts asking for tinkerers, inventors, scholars of ancient relics and historians of ancient relics to come with a ten silver payment to just come interview with me.

Then is the chest.

It’s large and exactly like a barrel or a metal keg so I assume it could float. The metal is pale like steel but you can tell it’s not.

There is the oddest lock I have ever seen. And there is a space for grandfathers ring and it’s an exact match. I have to take it off to insert it and there’s a pushing in required, then a click sound. Then after it didn’t open I tried turning the ring like an inserted handle and heard mechanisms inside of it open.

It opened and inside was a smaller chest of sigils and lead and there were books there and some letters.

I sat with the others and started reading.

The Chest has a combination Lock and holds a “Key” a magical key that Blackhand used to open gates here from other worlds. A key that mages can use to make gates themselves on the planet.

Like what we just faced.

There’s history about how the strongest rulers and most honest people after the war safeguarded the keys. And that the keys could not be destroyed as they were nigh on indestructible but if one could it would create an explosion that could vaporize a nation and harm the planet for ages.

I took a break after that to drink deep brewed stimleaf and rub my face and use the jakes and swear.

We didn’t need this but whoever, whatever is behind Auron Kingsland it made gates for him to hit Lyonnes.

Obviously.

I read the rest and it’s the combination for the chest, the fact it shields it enough to keep it from activating and being grabbed by magic.

There’s books inside that I can’t even open and they look arcane and there is other books with things I can’t read. But there are a few that are there with back-up copies of things for The Vanguard, The Lighthouse and The Raydeeoh.

There’s enough that I might be able to puzzle out repairs.

And there’s a book there and another ring. A ring made of dwarven mithril and a round black star flecked opal with runes?

The book said that it cancels the weight of something you touched on the ring hand up to three hundred pounds or inflicts that weight on a word that you chanted in your head while focusing on the ring.

I slipped it on and felt it wasn’t normal… just felt it like touching some odd vibration.

It took a few tries and I nullified the weight of the book.

I made it float.

I made me float.

I had to explain the relic to the others as they were bewildered and once I was ready to drop I canceled the magic.

I was tired but I called a senior staff and knight’s meeting as well as the Maid and Merrow clerics and sent for the high priestess of The Lady of Peace.

I went over what we had in the chest, “The Key” entrusted to The Marshall and what it means. What it meant home and what it might mean if the wrong people get ahold of it.

There’s a stunned silence which I was expecting and then Sir Henry asked. “What do we do?”

I look at him and everyone else. “We keep to our charge and we guard it until the High King says otherwise.”

“Guard it, they made a gate here.”

“They made a gate under us and they needed line of sight to land it, they needed to see where they were going.”

Danielle said. “And they go both ways as far as we know, I was able to kill and wound some and badly with The Vanguard’s sword.”

We started planning, putting out ideas and writing them down and I asked all three clerics if they could invoke protections and we kept at it until we got together a functioning plan.

Then there was one final check of the guards and me leaving orders for the goblins and all of that. Those of us that were involved in everything went to bed and we slept. I only dreamed the last hour before I woke up and the rest was barely enough.

I relieved myself and I got more stimleaf tea into me and hot sully with coffee and toast and jam and fried fish with clam stew for breaking my fast and then getting everything ready for the procession.

I get dressed in leathers and what chainmail I have that will fit me and look like I’m not a joke and I wear The Marshal Tabard and cloak and get my warhorse ready and my knights and everyone that fought with me and I have purses and letters of note of service for all of them.

I don’t hide our attack.

I let some of my knights lead and I had everyone that fought mounted and pulling a cart that held as best as we could count each person’s kills in the fight.

So the people see me with my seven goblins I killed and the pages with their kills and the knights with over a dozen each and in the middle is Danielle in The Vanguard marching and a double hitched set of wagons with the remains of the goblins that she killed with the battleknight.

We don’t have a bridge here just the ferries so we load those wagons and Danielle stuns all of them by walking the Valiant on the stepping stones underneath and there were shouts and exclamations as went under.

People with us are at the edges of the ferries watching seeing her white shape under us and there’s people yelling telling those on the docks and the piers what is happening and there is stunned then screaming cheers as The Vanguard comes walking out of the waters and up an open dockside ramp.

She raised the gleaming sixteen foot longsword crossways for all to see.

Very public, and stunningly coming out to a city that didn’t know we had a battleknight of our own.

We’re giving that back to our peoples.
We waited until she rejoined us and then matched and rolled on.

We had clerics marching with us, some of the soldiers and we had drummers and horns and with every five steps Dani raised her battleknight sword.

And we went slowly through Rosetta and headed to the parade square and all on the main trade road so people can see our Battleknight and the kills and rich, poor in between hear the story, see the monsters and their weapons, smell their bodies and it gets ingrained.

All of it done without a word, we just did this and we marched and held our heads high and left people scrambling to get to The Parade grounds and there was no raised seating for the wealthy, there was no pomp and nobles to catch some of this. As it is the nobles the people concerned with the appearances were late because they had to get ready.

I read off what had happened.

“People of Rosetta and those of City Island, we have come under attack again. This time we were beset by the foulest of forces that entered through the sea sewers and tunnels with dark magics and sought our great treasure The Vanguard and looked to murder me and destroy it taking a key and critical defense from us.”

“They failed, through the will of the gods and our training and the bravery of our people we won, we Coastlanders we stopped the fall of The City.”

“And to be plain they messed up, they thought they could use monsters to attack us, they thought that a night raide would be unheard of. They did not think that we would defeat them and drag their monsters in the cold light of day.”

“Now we’re going to burn the bastards right here and I will name off the works and deeds of those that stepped up and proved that coastland blood still births heroes and heroines.”

The crowd is even and mixed of all kinds, there are people definitely shook and outraged at seeing the real monsters instead of in tomes.

I called out each warrior and read off their scrolls of merit and The awards of each of those that fought. I have witnesses that swear to their deeds.

I used my loudest and clearest voice so they got to hear of older knights holding the line and getting us to safety and of pages and squires braving arrows and back shots to get to other weapons for us and I cried, I cried with pride as I talked and shouted so all could hear me and I tried my damned best to get across how much this means.

And I had to take a breath a few times as I described everything that Lady Dame Hollander OUR Battleknighter had done in that entire encounter and that she stopped them, she closed the hole they made and stopped them.

Her sword work, her defense of me and then her work in the Vanguard.

Sir Henry and Tully as well as Danielle recount my deeds and the way that I fought and commanded and I try to not feel as embarrassed at the praise but it’s needed.

I keep winning, I keep surviving.

Lord Governor Randal Dunwater and his entourage were late, too late to get close enough to me to share in my staging. He and his little entourage looked very displeased.

The nobles were a mix between cheering and miffed at being made equals with the rest of the crowd.

I wash some of that all away as the goblins are piled and soaked in oil and evergreen boughs to mask the smell and my people give out torches to the crowd so they can light the monsters on fire all together.

We beat the drums, horns blew and we sang.

A young minstrel boy started it, threadbare and poor; he climbed up halfway on a calvary statue that bordered the parade grounds and he started singing.

“Liberty…”
“Oh…Sweet Liberty that.”
“Belongs to all.”

“Take that stand.”
“With your fellow man.”
“Show them the kindness and bravery”
“Of those within these lands.”

“Take a Knee, Take a Sword.”
“Carry Shield, Carry the Torch.”
“Show them we will never falter…”
“Show them our shining hearts.”

“Evil Begone.”
“We cast you from these lands.”
“We are the Mighty Vanguards.”
“We are the Mighty Vanguards!”

He sang, he sang and he pointed at us and he sang again and again until the fourth time people started getting the words and they started singing it too.

Danielled climbed into the Battleknight and knelt it and raised up its sword facing the crowd and I climbed up there as she popped open the rigger cage and I made sure of my footing and I sang along with them from my perch.

It gave me a good height as well to see the ones that looked afraid or upset or angry at all of this.

I pointed to him in the middle of the cheering and chanting and Yelled as hard as I could. “YOU! COME WORK FOR ME!”

He smiled and he grinned and gave me a reasonable Olivelander sweeping players bow.

Olivelanders are southerners but from this side of the ocean and are a Confederacy of lords that run steadings and lands and the like nestled between the mountains and hills and the ocean. Their official name is The Southholds.

Horses, copper, grains, fruits and olives and of course olive oil and wines. There is very little farmland for varied crops instead for vineyards or the orchards and they have a large population as well and very little ownership of land or homes.

But with that many people there is art and innovations and more with things that came from them like. Stained glass, frescos, much fashion and things like ribbons and lace but many other things.

We used to see them sometimes and one of our spice merchants was from there and sold saffron and pepperic and cheese that was so hard and dried it needed a file.

I send a few men over to escort him over and as he comes over we hear other horns.

Other loud, loud brass horns of royalty and we all hush as we hear the heavy footfalls of Battleknights and hooves and we see fifty Kings Lancers riding in with full regallia and with Squires, Pages, Grooms and Staff and behind them are five massive shining and gleaming Kingsguard Battleknights with their own house flags on poles off of their backs and their units so two rear shoulder flags and they carried battleknight sized pikes that flew the flag of The Allied Kingdoms and of The High King.

Behind them were their wagon trains of supplies and parts and gear and other things including Thrones for the battleknights and there were some other wagons and some people as well including The Elves.

We are on the same coast as the ocean where the elven islands are and as far as I know we barely meet or see them.

Their horses looked fine bred and glossy, Their wagons were large with six wheels and what looked like some sort of suspension and they were roofed with carved massive wooden plates that were shaped like leaves and carved like leaves and the sides of the wagons were elegant stained wood.

There were three wagons or rather carriages of them all laden with things two Elven knights in carved hardwood looking plate mail that gleamed with polish rode with bows and flanking an elven woman in robes that looked very elegant and the woman looked to be in her later teens.

The crowd parted as they made their way over to me and my people and Danielle stood the Vanguard up and I stayed where I was hanging on and watched them arrive.

They stopped and The lead battleknight of The Five opened up and a large middle aged man in a riggers pants and a tunic came out and knelt within the door frame of his rigging cage.

He has deep red hair kissed by a little blonde and just the starting of a grey streak.

“Princess Elizabetha of Lyonnes and petrel and Marshal of theEast I am Lord Commander Galen Shanden of Shanden Mountain at your service and command until I am recalled.”

I smiled and returned the bow as best I could given where I was perched and said loudly.

“I’ll be glad for the help, we’ve had problems of late with the kingdom’s enemies making moves here since Lyonnes fell and my grandfather's passing.”

“Princess, have you the mark?”

I take off my gloves and hold my hand out and let everyone see it.

All the locals know how we get this and swear to it.

And for a lot of them, here in Rosetta it’s the first time seeing it.

I was literally branded by choice, took vows, fought assassins, killed them, goblins, survived Lyonnes.

It’s starting to sink into a few people here that this is real, that it’s happening, that I’m happening.

Commander Shanden nods and looks to the fires burning.

“Looks like it’s been a day!”

“I knew you were coming Commander Shanden and lit a welcoming fire Coastlaner style!”

That got laughs from him, his men, and lots of the crowd.”

“Permission to board Commander Lyonnes?!”

“Granted!”

He turn his head and his Squire was off his horse and up the battleknight hand holds in a flash and into the harness and he guided the giant arm to guide Commander Shanden from his rig to the valiant and on the open palm.

And did it steady enough Shanden didn’t need to hold onto something, it looked practiced.

I made room on the Rig cage opening and he joined me only standing on it like halfway inside a doorway.

He looked at me over a few moments half studying me and half amused. “You’re shorter than I imagined but that Lyonnes fire is there.”

“You knew my mother or brother?”

“No, not at all but I have seen your sister in action and Gracia is like you.”

I honestly was a mix of shocked and offended. “Me, like her?”

“Yes, a force of nature.”

“Really?”

“They’re calling her the Lioness for a reason both in the courts and at the lists, she’s actually scary on a horse and with a lance.”

“Gracia…?”

“Yes, her, right now that only one’s besting your sister are already the best in the capital.”

“I…well… She was less forthcoming than that with her letters and messages. Really, her, with a lance was surprising but hearing she has a name is shocking.”

“And a sword, and a spear or a quarterstaff and even her fists and even in court.”

The physical stuff I could believe more than the court stuff she was an uninterested student but she liked sporting and she would play kickball with the villagers and try hunting or fishing or other things like running, racing, tag or tag ball.

In short, most of the things that I hated.

And Angeline too, Angel hated getting dirty or chaos in general. It was just the way she was, organized like she had to be. Quiet because sometimes life, royal life could just be too much.

I’ve read about it a little, things I could find from Tedrics scrolls and books and my eldest sister had some sort of affliction. She seems to be with kind people now, though things with her scare and concern me and then there is her hand.

I look to the knight commander.

“She’s in court as well she told me.”

“She is, it’s not orating or anything but she has the ears and votes of many of the women that have those court votes and she is very often objecting to the policies of people that would see more of what happened at Lyonnes for the same fearmongering reasons.”

I wave to some of the people and nod.

“Good, good but this goes deeper than Auron Kingsland, he’s the hired hand and smokescreen to the bigger plot.”

He looked at me and he stared.

“At the Clocktower then?”

“No, we’ll stop there and we’ll get your people settled or started but you and your most trusted will come with me to The Fortress.”

“That bad.”

“On a scale I might need Maia to explain to us.”

“Pardon my sword words but…Fuck.”

“No commander we are firmly, in the realm of double fuck, we didn’t know we were in a fight and their lance with all of this just took our helmet.”

He stared at me. “You, you sound like your father he had that flippant sense of humor.”

“I recruited convicts and pirates and have employed both bully boys, knife men and the breakers guild.”

“Oh…so you don’t bow to class.”

“Every man and woman has circumstances, life changes on a dice roll and a fishwife breaking her hands and back freezing since before dawn to the last net of the night is braver and worth more respect than some rich brats that complain about the cost of the spices in their sweet rolls. I’m more aware than ever that this kingdom runs on people and not lace.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“I’m tired of pretending, people aren’t worth what they’re actually worth.”

He is staring at me and nods.

“And no you really sound like your father, and The King.”

“Those who rise by merit and not privilege are a merit to others and the realms.”

He looks at me. “So say we all.”

He’s Meritocracy.

“So say we all.”

We stayed watching until the fires were done. Outlasting Dunwater who looked very angry. He was smart in not voicing it and acted like this was “Our” Victory but it was killing him it started without him and that it still excluded him.

It wasn’t like he could force his way through the crowds with important guildsmen and merchants there and the other wealthy and middle rich people and he didn’t dare approach looking desperate to be included.

“He’s a problem?”

“On the surface a mild one, he uses his position to gather the rich looking for advantages and such. He’s more a merchant politician than part of the trouble faction.”

“Is he going to be a problem?”

“Likely, he ran most of this and was the center of attention until I showed up. If I had the good graces to be murdered out in the West then in my grandfather’s passing he’d even out weight the Marshal office.”

“So he’ll retaliate?”

“Maybe but most likely his master will if they haven’t already.”

“You think a man like him isn’t puckering someone elses asshole in secret to get more?”

“We do have to talk.”

“We do, now we will go to the clocktower then to the fortress. I’ll be talking to the elves along the way.”

I look to Danielle in the harness. “Will my Elvish be okay?”

She smiled. “They will understand, they know all of our languages without magic, they’ll let us know when we’re good enough and compliment us.”

I took a breath. “Alright let us do this. Knight commander if you would.”

He signals his squire and returns to his Battleknight and then Dani walks us over to the elves where they waited out of the way but had a decent view of things as they had wagons.

Elven wagons are works of art, designed like a boat or a very fancy half barrel they float. Secondly they have a strange set of mechanisms in this cradle that is the rolling part. They come in two parts basically.

The top or the wagon is large and it has 4 corner posts and a roof. The roof is made of wooden panels like giant leaves. They’re carved to look amazing and real and apparently they have an elven guild, or trading family meanings.

The wagon sides are a lattice that has dried ivy vines there and grown there apparently. A basic look explains why with all the hangers and hooks and nets, all interchangeable. They have this backed on the inside with tapestries over canvas. The rest is goods inside and other things.

The elves here aren’t many but along with their wagons they have animals and pack animals and it’s all impressive as it should be for a species that is that old but live that long to master anything they put the time into.

They brought human retainers as well.

I’m greeted by Lady Maia as Dani sets me down and she is stunning and alien.

She was wearing pants and flat soled very nice looking leather boots and a top I couldn’t see as she wears a hooded tunic dress over that belted with an ornate leather belt and she carries a staff that is elegantly carved and a sword on her hip in that long bladed saber style they use.

Her hair is long, thick, lustrous and her skin is perfect and clear, clear with no cosmetics and long lashes, large eyes that are slightly bigger than a human’s would be offset by a partial shape like a partblood silk islander might have. And of course pointed ears, those are accented by her wearing earrings that are cuffs that sheath the shape there and are gold and bright jade, which accents her vividly green eyes.

Pointed chin, high cheekbones, thing, long limbed and pert body she looks like a mythical princess gone adventuring.

But then again they all do.

I try Elvish first, being calm and clear and not rushing my speech.

“Welcome, people of The Green, I am Princess Elizabetha Lyonnes, the newly godsworn marshal of Whitespire.”

She smiled and gave me a heart tap to her chest gesture and a silklander bow.

“I am Maia of Whitecedar here on orders of a second embassy from Lady Aliantha and am here to advise and help.”

“My sister speaks well of you.”

“I am fond of Gracia as well. She is a food trainee.”

We shake hands and she offers me a seat up on the wagon and she and Danielle exchange greeting fast and there’s only some I could catch as she notes The Vanguard as it says a lot there just being public and the parts I do catch were about Goblins and the Hyena rats.

Then we head on our way and The Kingsguard is more than just fighters as their company players are doing pipes, drums and the horsemen give as much show as the five battle knights and from their wagon train of supplies and army men there are little simple hand flags and pennants of the Allied kingdoms tossed to the crowds with woolen made pullover caps and there are a few knights passing out wrapped candies and passing out silvers here and there.

We rode in back of the hubbub and I’m gifted a leather jack of mixed nuts and broken up shortbread cookies and an elven version of Stimleaf tea.

We talked along the way.

The Capital is following the same issues here but more in court, more Whitefists in the streets, The Middlekingdoms are at war and Kingsland is winning, it’s slow but he’s winning and he’s has people on the major roads and travelers that don’t have enough protections are in danger of their subjectivisms.

There are monsters and those kinds of raiders on the plains and even hints they seen in tracks in the mountains and foothills at our borders.

Whitefists and those nobles the Lord of Light temple and clerics her people are being seen as outsiders, evil fairies, casting spells, tempting people and anything they can invent.

She offers first even though I have connections to trust her with Dani and Gracia and the use we’ve had of Messenger Eagles. She is showing trust and I return it quietly as I tell her of the attacks, things here going on in Rosetta and on City Island and the attacks. Especially this latest one and the gate and the key.

We’re speaking elven the whole way and things about The Keys is disturbing to say the least.

We will have to take council on all of this together.

We both get down to look around at Highwatch and on the way while we were talking the Knight commander hired cleaner women and lads. I watched as as there was some sort of dwarven crank box called a Behir was used and was a portable generator. It couldn’t store the electric but it could be used for things like the heating of these irons that were dropped into the water and the water boiled.

And mixed with herb draughts and antifungals and distilled vinegar and we went with the Knight commander from the top and the roof hatches at the highest point in the city. Where the Allied Kingdom’s flag went up and a large flag went up at that and once it was well secured we examined and seen to the cleaning of the place with full healer dedicated scrubbing and cleaning and drying.

Lots of instant work for the locals he hired.

He brought engineers to the clock tower and cleaned it, and painted the outside faces and lighting those faces which is a new thing but being done in the capital.

Lady Maia used her elven magic called the ways to seek out bad mold, pests, and anything growing, nesting or anything else as we went down.

It’s not a big fortress either. Underground stables and storerooms all were bigger than I thought, Then command quarters and command offices in the clocktower and there was a kitchen and dining hall where the barracks were on top of and the baths back onto the kitchen and doubled as the laundry. The clock tower is twelve stories high and the fortress has three story walls with insides to the stone work for stairs and all four corners have guard towers and there is a large forge area for battleknights and all the military grade works.

We tour it and they set to cleaning it and they hire locals to do the work largely he hired the poor and women and children that need it and payed well in silvers.

Well the High King has the matching coffers.

And sitting on it isn’t going to stop this war.

Thankfully he seems to know that.

After things are started there He joins us with some of his calvary knights and his battleknighter King’s Guard leaving his rigs there. We take the ferry and Danielle walks the bottom again stunning everyone all over again with the impossible.

Maia is even impressed. “Mystic Battleknights are rare many people would limit the powers of a battleknight and of magic. This might be one of a hand of them on the main two continents.”

I nod, the books say this too. “This isn’t that the Vanguard is a clerical relic by and for this Island and by the Church of the waves.”

She looks impressed. “That is unheard of for them.”

We leave the touring City Island for another time instead we send messengers for the lords and knights of my council and the Matron, Maid and Merrow join us and we do a tour of things in the fortress as we wait.

Once everyone is gathered that I trust we take oaths before the clerics and the gods and I tell them everything and Maia and The knight commander on the rest.

There is an unknown magic capable dark power or power seeking The Keys.

Blackhand was the last one to have the keys and he wanted to open a gate to us being invaded by the dimension of his demonic teachers.

This unknown enemy has a Key already and we believe two at least after Lyonnes fell.

We have one here.

I revealed it at that point.

We know that Auron’s greed and his allies is real and that he is either ignorant of the real danger of his alliances or he doesn’t care.

His war is to cover both the tracks of gathering The Keys and the attacks by the monsters that are killing any that might rise to stop them.

Maia admits when asked she cannot use the key as her magic is far different than it’s. And answers her people are safeguarding horrible things from the other dark times that The Key would be a danger if brought close to.

The rest of the night was talking of what we should do given what we know and not guessing, and not getting mired in paranoia.

We make not just ideas up on the boards again but plans and actions of who is doing what.

The first orders go out.

The Elves are given one of my warehouse lots and they start building an actual embassy there.

Dwarven mortar is being made in mass batches as well as molds.

We have The Key Guarded and Maia and the Clerics are drawing power from it and soaking it into baked clay tablets that are cursed by the gods to soak up the power of The Key.

No it can’t actually drain the power or tap that power but it’s like were making bait bags like in fishing traps, we’re getting the scent of that power all over those tablets.

I and others sleep.

Those of us that have been going non-stop are ordered to bed.

Maia and her folk make elixirs of vitamins and other things that are for good health and other medicines and massages and she is allowed to and sets up an apothecary in one of my grandmother’s sun rooms with the matron of the White Lady.

I sign off on a few things but sleep and eat and rest for three days before I’m recovered enough for the likes of Maia and my advisors.

I spent the first day back doing paperwork and meeting my new hires.

Koryn the bard boy was first. A singer that was a ship’s hand until a wreck he was hired as a look out and a singer for his boat. He’s been on our streets ever since.

He has no real name and his family is poor and from a place called Zesk a small hot fishing village with olives and not much else in the Olivelands.

He knows a bunch of languages and is half literate in all of them and he can scrap after a few rounds with my men at arms and he can sing and play several things and write songs as well.

I offer him a cot and meals and clothes as well as coin and instruments if he will do more songs like that and tour the city and island, find others, carry messages and sing songs for our people, loyal songs, coastlander songs.

He takes the offer and I wear him with gods oaths into service and get him started.

The rest is for Tinkers, Inventors, The trades people I wanted and I keep all of them. While not all can work electric or things related to radios I do get a gearmaker, a clockmaker, a woman skilled in glassworks and pottery and her daughter Lynn is the real treasure. And inventor she invented a pounded mash brick of wheat chaff, used straw and milling husk and sawdust to make a firebrick that burns cleanly and if the labor can be done right like with a windmill it will be cheap, far cheaper than coal.

And if just for heating we could make coal infused bricks with coal dust sweepings.

And about five hundred other ideas.

I settle her with a shop and a hire of her own after asking the Maid and Merrow of this being able to be dried and cured by clerical powers.

They say yes and they agree to doing it, and we get started on them using their magic to make sea salt as well and drying goods for us like fish, shell fish, sea weeds and other things we will need.

I grant permission to bring in more clerics from other branches as well to recruit.

Once these things are dealt with I gather with my knights, squires, Danielle, Maia and Knight Commander Shanden and we go under the Island and into the catacombs.

We leave guards behind us but we go and we explore, we hunt and we clear the underground.

I’m in armor and mail and have my sword and a buckler and a small but powerful crossbow with me and we move in stages, mapping, marking, making notes to use things if we can.

There are rats and serpent rats that look like if an eel crossed a rat and then there were escaped hyena rats and there are Slimes in there in places blobby creatures that are colonies of micro-things altered by magics or alchemy ages past. Some are fine, some eat only certain things and others are aggressive.

Then there are the crabs down here.

Spider crabs mostly, they can crawl and climb walls really well but are… huge or can get huge like the size of a black bear. They kill anything they can and will hurt my locals if they had the chance or got out. We hunt them out and send the bodies to the surface and the kitchens.

Then there was the main problem under here.

Goblins.

Goblins that scattered under us as we shut down the gates, feral rat eating, desperate and evil they fight with the strength of insane hate towards us and desperation.

There were several hobgoblins too leading packs.

Hobgoblins are human sized goblins, bigger and smarter they wear better armor, use distance weapons better and things like traps.

Those are arrow and crossbow fights in the underground with poison and barbs and then doing all of those things before the fight gets physical and hand to hand.

They serve their own interests a lot it seems as well as other dark powers with Hobs having copper and bronze and brass items, jewelry, as well as some varying coins and some even had stones and even silver and gold teeth of people.

I fought.

I fought alongside my people but I didn't get in the way. I have a crossbow and I use it as do the others and I follow the orders of those more experienced than I was and I watched, listened, learned how to move in hostile ground, cover each other, hand sign for the Kings army and use of mirrors, spyglassing, looking for traps, smelling for things like spilled oil.

We did things in stages day by day and going underground in the evenings and nights.

We cleared the Island and we secured our sewers and catacombs and we then brought workers in to clean parts of it and we shore up things that need fixing, empty and clear debris and clogs and build it stronger.

And while we are doing that we are rebuilding Whitespire lighthouse and in doing that we fix the boiler, the electric generator and we pipe the heat from there into parts of the fortress itself so we can radiate the heat outwards.

We used and made Pourstone walls or Concrete as some call it. We make a Thronehouse and Stable above ground for The Vanguard with an adjoining shop.

The old rooms for it we turned into a training hall and the workshops for the inventors and the Radio and other things we are trying.

Our first ships to Roan set sail with our goods and as much salt as we could load in there as they are headed into harvest. Their ships came with Lairdson Hunter Hollen the middle son to build the offered Embassy and there were furs and wools and oils and oats as well as dried fish we don’t get here and goose rice and he brought his wife and household and we learned of herring and of cod.

Elven ships came as well dropping off supplies for their embassy as well as people and other things like medicine and new cheap and stable goods like yams or sweet potatoes some trade started there as well.

Just starting.

Messages came and went and winter was on its way and so was Angeline’s wedding.

We sent out the decoy Keys.

We sent them with guards and workmen to varying Temples and defended holy places of The White Lady and off to other Kings Army Fortresses by Messenger knights and King’s Cavalry and some by boats.

Some we dumped in the ocean even.

By the time we were done there were thirty cursed tablets sent out all over the Countryside and the real one we made a vault for in our castle’s temple.

Locked in its box again and in the cask again we put it in a crypt box and wrapped in blessed and scripture cloth over and over and then we poured holy water in the box and holy oil over that and put a scripture engraved lid on the whole thing on consecrated grounds.

We sent those out as we held services for the rise of The Church of Waves here and their expansion and new people and transferred people, holy knights even.

Messages come and go from the King and Grace and more parts.

Then it’s Angeline’s Wedding and Danielle and Maia and I along with Vanner and Koryn left on Hunter Hollen’s ship and we will sail north then up their rivers and head to Braithehold through their lands.

We left on the morning tide with their longboats and rowers and with other boats laden with more of our trade with them.

I’ll see my sisters soon… and maybe even meet Christiana? Christian?