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Okay, long chapter here, but I couldn't find a good way to section it up.

Enjoy! Comments welcome.

Chapter XVI - Sparks

Van looked up towards the grey sky, and frowned. A long breath through his sensitive snout told the fox snow was coming; the crispness of the air, the dropping temperature, and just as the first snow signaled trouble for the harvest, it also signaled trouble for the city. Rain would create mud, slowing the dead by tearing up their feet. Snow would be far simpler for them, so long as the weather stayed cold.

"So are we going down there or not?"

Tomasj had doffed his tall, floppy-brimmed hat to brush it across his face. Despite the chill, the wolf was sweating from their run across the rooftops, and coughing wetly as they rested. They were within sight of the great stone bridge to Castle Amarthane, close enough Van could see the heraldry of knights down amongst the forty common soldiers, sprinkled about like sugar on a pastry.

"In a minute. How are your eyes, wolf?"

Tomasj sneered at him, exposing his yellowing fangs, and used his hat to waft the river's fetid stink towards Van, leading the fox to glare at him in annoyance and rub at his now-burning snout.

"Better than your nose! Heh."

"I hate your Svalich sense of humor. Corrupt waters aren't funny. They're sad."

Tomasj snorted, snickering, and wiped at a trickle of blood that bubbled over his lip, as if it were merely snot from a kit's snout.

"You are asking about the Hanging Coffins?"

Van didn't answer, shaking his head in annoyance that his eyes couldn't make out their occupants. The Hanging Coffins had long hung from the great bridge at its highest span, used as a long, torturous execution for the most serious criminals, who were put inside the cages and left to die of exposure and animal bites.

"Your family aren't in them," the wolf said, leaning off the stone warehouse they'd perched upon, paw above his eyes despite the lack of glare. "Two are too overweight to be forest wardens. Other one is a child. The rest of the Coffins are empty."

Van nodded, grimly, and headed for the roof's edge, grabbing its lip and swinging himself down before dropping the last few feet to the cobbles. Tomasj followed, repeating the deft movements, though less gracefully in his hard-bottomed boots. Guards at the bridge were noticing them now, calling to each other and nervously shifting about looking for more newcomers.

"Best you get up there before they start putting bolts into us, fox. Fighting our way to Casso seems like it might offend him, maybe."

Van didn't bother looking. He knew the wolf was grinning in anticipation. The sickly creature's death-wish colored his sense of japery, and Van knew better than to let it bother him. A dozen paces had them within shouting range in any case, and the forest warden lifted his badge of office high, the carved stone leaf-and-sword talisman paired with his yell of identification.

"Hail from the forest wardens, watch commander! Messages for your lord, in the name of law!"

The words spilled from his lips as they had a hundred other times, the most traditional and formal of Forest Warden hailing calls, drilled into his head since he was but a kit in the woods, playing hunting games with his father and uncles. This time, they were backed by a sense of dread. Never before had he seen so many royal soldiers on the bridge to Castle Amarthane. Worse yet, there was not a City Warden among them his eyes could spot, nor a City Guard, many of whom he knew and called friend.

The bridge commander, or what he presumed to be such, stood atop a new-made wooden palisade that cut across the entry to the bridge. The young tiger couldn't have been more than fifteen summers old, by Van's eye, and looked nervous of his new post, his voice reedy as he called back.

"Ah...Hail to the forest wardens, from the...Uh..." The young tiger paused, looking down to someone beyond the palisade's archery balcony. Distance and wall-garbled words came up from below, unidentifiable to Van as he stopped twenty paces from the hastily-constructed gateway. Behind him, Tomasj smirked and chuckled wetly.

"Hail to the forest wardens, from His Majesty's First Infantry. With the law, what um...What word do you bring?"

The forest warden glanced back to Tomasj, and fixed him with a pointed glare, silently admonishing him to behave. Tomasj the witch-hunter merely shrugged, his black leather and black-studded bronze creaking softly. Van turned back, and bent his knees till one touched the hard cobbles and the other stuck out in front, so he could bow his head nearly to touching it.

"I request audience with his majesty, my sworn lord and king, glorious Hakken Casso, so that I may fulfill my duties. There is word from the road of bandits and...Darker tidings yet."

No response immediately came, as soldiers shifted about in discomfort. Somewhere in the distance, Van realized his sensitive vulpine ears could pick up the sounds of unrest. Muttering, grumbling peasantry, at least a hundred voices' worth, a large crowd somewhere no more than a few blocks away, approaching from a different direction than he and Tomasj had.

"Please, commander of the bridge. I also request audience on behalf of Lord Tomasj Witchslayer of Svalich, a visiting noble-wolf."

Tomasj's sudden barking laugh would have ruined the charade, if it had been anything but truth. Though Svalich nobility was entirely different in character from lowland aristocracy, he was no less a noble for it - His possession of an ancestral sword and the means to procure such fine armoring was proof enough of it that even the rural forester knew.

The mention of visiting nobles seemed to spur the young tiger, and he began yelling orders down to his troops, rapidly answered by the scraping-crunching sounds of a punky wooden door being yanked open by main force on the hastily-constructed fortification.

"You may enter, forest warden! You as well, noble Lord Witchslayer. I can't promise his majesty will see you, but we can at least extend hospitality and protection to our noble Svalich uh..." Van heard the awkwardness in the boy's voice. "...Cousin?"

"Cousin indeed," muttered Tomasj, his voice filled with laughter and sarcasm. "My family is pure-blood wolf at least twenty generations."

Van was fighting to swallow his apprehensiveness. Once they were past the palisade, escape would be near-impossible if his suspicions towards his uncle's fate bore imprisoned fruit. Still, he mused, his oaths were what his wife had sent him here to fulfill, at least in part. He would not disappoint her, or his ancestors, or himself for that matter. He stood, and walked quickly towards the gate.

"Commander," he spoke, and reached out a gloved paw to clasp with the tiger, who had climbed down a ladder just before they reached him. The boy was even younger-looking, up close. Not near old enough to command anything, his armor fit all the same, marking him as the young son of some noble or another. The fox had to remind himself that cities operated differently. Birth meant something here.

The boy grasped his paw, and nervously twitched his eyes away after but a moment of contact, looking past Van to the 'noble' wolf. Van squeezed his paw lightly, then released it and stepped aside, so Tomasj could step in and grab the young tiger's paw more forcefully, smirking in a way so sharkish and disquieting that the commander's jaw went rigid and he started to sweat.

"Honored, commander. I am Tomasj Witchkiller."

"Ah...Y-yes, m'lord. I'll have a messenger sent to his majesty. Uh...I-I am at your service. I'm Cern Tellain, son of Lord Arvan Tellain."

"My compliments to your father on your promotion, boy. Now get us inside, before the snow starts. My companion has a message for your king."

Van couldn't help but stare at Tomasj, who had straightened and spoken with grace, for once, entirely acting outside what the fox had even guessed was possible for the mad creature. His eyes, however, were no less intense and blood-shot than they had been since Van met him those days ago in the lonely Gallows Tower.

Intimidated beyond the ability to conceal it, the hunched-up tiger bowed his head and spoke quickly, while leading them towards the towering citadel.

"Y-yes, m'lord!"

Toryen moaned out, claws digging deep into a newly much-savaged wooden head board, as his spined shaft jerked, twitched, and blew a torrent of creamy seed to the sheets, the pistoning of his tail-hole going unabated as the wolf behind him held his tail to the side and kept pummeling the young lord.

To their side, the city's mayor sat, uncomfortably fidgeting his chubby bejeweled fingers as Royval Casso stood next to him, an iron-firm paw clenched hard enough into his shoulder that the flabby old bovine was too terrified to speak out against what he was being forced to watch.

The wolf roughly fucking the slender, terrifying mad-fur had the puffy-eyed look of a male trying not to lose his composure and cry from violation. In the back of the mayor's expansive and lavish office, the impassive, intimidating presence of the lion Jaux, Toryen's personal bodyguard and favorite brute, loomed in silent vicious promise over the male's wife and three daughters. The woman and three girls stared wide-eyed and tear-streaked as their husband and father was forced to furiously fuck a noble lord's ass, while that same lord was laughing and yelling for more in a shrieking, grating voice.

"You see, lord mayor? All one must do to control the commoners is put a knife to their little girls' throats! It's not so hard, now is it?"

The mayor stammered and sweated, feeling the wetness trailing down his back beneath his sumptuous velvets. He doffed the hat from his head, careful not to disturb Royval Casso's punishing grip. The old bull couldn't pull his eyes away, as the wolf tirelessly pounded into Toryen, drawing cries of passion and giggling laughter from the psychopath.

"M-my lord...The peasants are foolish and will f-forget soon enough...We must keep order, that is all...!"

He squealed out in most un-manly terror as Royval snarled and simultaneously grabbed onto his neck, hurling the bull from his chair as if he were a light sack of grain, not a nearly fifteen-stone obese adult bovine. Sprawling on the floor, the lord mayor ended his tumble just beneath and to the side of where the younger Casso brother was being fucked noisily on the mayor's beautiful carven bed.

"My lord! Please! I'll open the coffers to you as you ask, just...Please stop this!"

Royval's smirk was of victory, and he put his foot up on the mayor's ceremonial throne, using the precious scarlet velvet and silk there to wipe his mucked boot.

"You warned the Captain of the Watch, didn't you?"

"Wh-what? No! No, I did just as you said...Sent a message to you as soon as I heard from him! I suspected he was going to the Gallow Tower, and just as you said, sent word to you!"

Royval snorted and bared his teeth, sharp and white as they were, and the bull cowered, whimpering as the two above him continued to grunt, call, and slap together with lewd squishing sounds.

"You'd best hope he found nothing there, mayor. He's spouting some nonsense sedition, and that's all well and fine. If he opens his muzzle to anything real...You will answer for it just as he has. Toryen, finish up, we're leaving."

The smaller tiger yowled and whined, and turned his head to glare at his brother.

"I'm not...Ungh! D-done!"

The mayor's bodyguard grunted, tear-filled eyes meeting his wife's as he shoved all his weight against the tiger, grinding into him much to Toryen's moaned glee, until his knot popped home. With a howl, blunt claw tips digging into the tiger's girlish hips, he emptied his balls in powerful, heated blasts into the giggling noble's depths.

He wriggled languidly, glorying in the wet, full, pressure-releasing feeling that squashed, for a time, the voices that seemed to be crying out more and more lately, demanding more and more blood and sacrifice. His tip drooled his third orgasm in an hour, growing watery as his cock gave him the sore throbs that told him he was doing well.

"Mmngh...Give me...Ten minutes, brother...Then we can leave..."

Behind him, the wolf panted, emotions exhausted as he stared blankly down at the stripey back beneath his paws. A wriggle of those hips and a squeeze made him yelp, and jet another weaker blast of seed, just enough that the tight lock of his scarlet shaft wasn't enough to stop a small dribble escaping to drip down the Casso boy's balls.

"Mm...Jaux, if he's not out of me in ten minutes...Slit his knot so I can go?"

The wolf sucked in a horrified breath, as his wife whimpered and began to beg the massive lion to spare their lives, knowing full well what such a bleeding would do.

Deadly, silent, armored and armed as always, Jaux simply nodded his head, terribly intense eyes staring into the side of the wolf's head.

"What is happening, brother? The voices...They won't stop!"

Toryen hissed his words, knowing that to speak louder than a whisper would lead to angry words from Father, the mighty god who reigned over his every thought. The thing he rebelled against with his carnal acts and senseless murders. He scrubbed his paws through his hair, hard enough that strands pulled loose and left his scalp aching, pinpricks of blood hidden by the thick fur.

Royval marched next to his younger brother, one paw on his shoulder, holding him as tight as he had the Mayor, though not for the sake of intimidation. Such a thing would be meaningless, as Toryen had no fear whatever of his older larger brother, and had never betrayed him besides.

"Father's angry because the mother of your babe is missing, along with a whole damn garrison. If we fail to find her, his legitimacy might be challenged in a few years, when he's ready to force the other dukes to heel. Ignore your voices, they are just in your mind. Focus now on helping me keep this city from revolting."

He roughly pulled the shaking, furious and terrified tiger in against his chest, embracing his brother as Jaux stared past the both of them, watching all approaches on the street they walked. Royval would have commented that it was needless, given they were within the most secure of noble districts and far away from the restive mobs on the other side of the river. He would have, except that he knew there were dangers from the foolish nobles as well, so stupid as they were to endlessly plot against the mighty Casso family.

"The only bitch I ever fucked...And didn't kill..."

Royval sighed and put his face to his younger brother's headfur, kissing him there with a mix of love, frustration, and sympathy. His brother was mad, but no less his brother, and they'd been through much together in their nearly thirty years.

"Tory, you've fucked three males already today. Doesn't that usually make the voices stop?"

He felt Toryen shaking his head, and felt the dampness of tears at the throat of his jerkin where the shorter tiger's face met him.

"Y-yes...A-always unt...until now...Now they're just getting...Getting louder, whenever I'm not...Whenever someone's not..."

In faint exasperation, mixed with worry and stress, Royval asked something he'd never thought to before.

"What are they saying?"

Toryen turned his face up, blinking at his brother, the one he knew in his own private world as his true protector from Father. The only fur he felt any sense of attachment to, beyond hate or terror or a faint sense of amusement.

"A...L-lot of things...They tell me what a worthless son I am...They tell me to impress father by killing a-and...And eating other furs...Th-they tell me to whisper words...Weird words..."

"Words? What sort of words?"

"I...I don't know. They come to me in dreams, and I...I speak them there, and they're gone..."

Royval nodded, and brushed his free paw through his brother's headfur, tousling it before kissing his forehead with a sharp-toothed grin.

"I'll make you a deal. You help me scare the nobles into staying out of these damnable riots father expects, and I'll help you write down your dreams. I'll stay with you in your chambers, and when you talk in your sleep as you always have, I'll write it all down, yeah?"

Toryen nodded again, and sniffled back his tears.

"How will that help?"

"Trust me. Just do as I say and all will be fine."

Toryen nodded one more time, before resting his face against Royval's chest.

"O-okay...But you need to find me more males...Or females I can be rid of when I'm done..."

"Don't worry, little brother, there will be plenty of that. Riots make every rioter criminal, and no one will miss a criminal, right?"

Thistle's world faded like sun-bleached cloth, losing color and blurring, then began to regain form, though he could not remember what the colors and shapes were. For some time, he lay in a dim place, cool wetness on his eyes and face, and counted his breaths. It took what felt like an eon for him to realize the only thing he'd been thinking about for a long time was counting.

With a soft groan, he weakly reached for the cloth on his eyes, and found his paw grabbed gently and held away from him. A soft, feminine voice he could swear he recognized spoke.

"Lie still, Thistle. Your snout and muzzle were broken in the fall, but my father carried you away before the fighting started. You did a brave thing, my love."

He heard cloth shush as she bent down and kissed his forehead so lightly that the bruises there didn't explode in pain. More like throbbed for attention. His hazy mind remembered her name, Cassia, and flooded his chest with relief and joy that she was all right, and he had found his betrothed again.

Reaching out with his paw again once she'd released it, his fingers brushed feebly against the soft linen of her dress, feeling the plush fur of her flat belly beneath, before trailing upward only to be gently grabbed again and kissed. He tried to whisper words, but his jaw didn't seem willing to cooperate, merely drooling a bit and making burbling sounds.

"Shh, shh. Broken jaw, remember? Papa's out meeting with one of your guard officers. Something to do with a plan to get the gates closed. Papa says you proved the dead really were walking."

She laughed softly, and kissed his throbbing forehead again, which made his bruised and broken face hurt when he tried to smile.

"You are so brave, my little thorn. Papa says you've saved us all. Get some sleep, all right? I will be here with you, my love."

Thistle didn't want to sleep. He wanted to get up and kiss her, hold her paws, hug her close and swear to protect her from what was coming. Instead, his treacherous body found the warmth and comfort acceptable, and drifted his mind away on a bed of silken clouds.

Summer's tower cell was more luxurious than his own home, and the fact moderately annoyed him. Plush woolen rugs adorned the floors and walls, dyed scarlet and covered in images of noble combat, preening royals making fantastical poses amidst the mounds of their slain foes, with nary a drop of blood upon them. The bed was large enough for him, his wife, their three dogs, and likely the neighbors who lived the floor below them as well, and he'd made a point of pulling the blankets off and making his own sleeping spot in a corner. Best not to sleep too comfortably, he figured.

They had even supplied him clothes, as befitted a 'noble hostage', though he'd refused in disgust to wear the purple velvet doublet and fine sky-blue silk tunic and breeches that were left in his closet. He had, however, taken the long silk undergarments from their place in a finely-carved drawer and sliced them up with his claws, binding the still-seeping wounds on his forehead after packing them with spider webs from beneath the bed. He frowned, hoping the burning itch from his wound was just a first sign of healing, not of infection.

Once dressing the wound was done, and instead of bothering with all the luxuries afforded a noble prisoner, he found himself ceaselessly drawn to the slender arrow slit windows on his tower cell, spanning the entire south and western walls every five paces.

He was sitting at one such, on a finely upholstered chair he'd dragged unceremoniously across the chamber, as the sun finally set behind the all-clouded sky. The city was already lit with lanterns by then, but as darkness truly set in, rolling onto the city like a funeral shroud, he could see thousands of pinpricks of light scattered like fireflies on a black lagoon throughout great Amarthane, and it made him purse his lips and brood.

His plan, if it worked, would see the gates sealed at least long enough that the soldiery could see for themselves what was truly happening. At that point, he hoped, the nobility would either lose its authority to command or else see the threat for what it was. Summer just hoped he lived long enough. Trial and execution under Duke Casso were not prolonged things, generally speaking.

A knock at his heavy prison door caught the old veteran's attention, and he turned sidelong to the door before calling out.

"Enter."

With a thud of heavy locks being opened, a black-robed cleric was let through the door by a mail-armored tower guard, and the lupine cleric was followed by two larger wolves wearing ornamental breastplates and all-too-real swords. Behind them, as Summer lounged back in the chair feigning nonchalance, a tall, muscular tiger wearing the white belt and fine sword of a knight followed, the self-satisfied smirk on his muzzle causing the old captain's muscles to develop that ready tension he so easily concealed with a relaxed posture.

When the guard didn't enter with them, Summer knew something was amiss. The cleric approached, and stopped some five feet away, unfurling a scroll. The captain abandoned his mocking, uncaring posture, rocking the chair forward back onto its four legs to stand, paws hanging relaxed at his sides as the priest puffed up to proclaim.

"Captain Summer of the City Guard, you stand accused of sedition before the king, and thus treason against his crown. You also stand accused of unlawfully deploying your force, drawing them away from their sworn duties, in order to pursue your own unauthorized military gains."

Summer felt a burning in his chest. Such words were the start of a trial, and noble trials were always supposed to occur before the noblefur's lord and a court of his peers. He gave the two bruiser wolves in their ornamented armor the once-over, recognizing neither. The captain knew the other tiger's name all too well. Sir Joren Taller had such a passion for torture that, in exceeding his station as Casso's master torturer, he often went out into the streets to abduct whores and low-born poor furs upon whom to 'practice his arts.'

The priest continued, as the two wolves came up on either side of him, and Sir Joren pulled a dagger to start picking at his claws, with a very amused smirk to his lips.

"His majesty, our great and glorious king, has reviewed the matter and found your guilt certain."

"What, without hearing me first? Am I a noble or aren't I? His majesty needs to make up his bloody mind."

The priest puffed, his lupine ears twitching and reddening in rage as he glowered, sputtered to a stop, then strode forward till he was nearly snout-to-snout with Summer.

"How DARE you! Seize him! Sir Joren, if you would!"

Summer's paws twitched, as the two armored wolves came towards him, reaching for his arms, and met their eyes one after the other, shaking his head to warn them away. He had no interest in hurting furs just following orders. The stern looks in their faces, and the prurient scanning glance of the other told him he wasn't going to get what he wanted.

"Don't do it, boys, and you'll go home alive tonight."

Sir Joren had reached to his belt, and was now pulling up an object that made the hardened Captain's heart begin to race. It was perhaps twelve inches long, and shaped like a bulbous-headed phallus, though with a dulled spike on the end. At its base, a twistable handle would activate the mechanism once it was inside an orifice, and spread until the torturer was satisfied or the victim dead. Meanwhile, the two guards continued to advance, ignoring his warning entirely.

"Strip him and tie him face-down to the bed. We'll see how much disrespect he can muster with his arse torn open."

Summer's reflexes hadn't dulled the way his vision had. He sprang forward, surprising both guards so utterly that they failed to even recoil, as he grabbed the priest, raked him across the face with a brutal punch, and wrapped his paw around the ceremonial dagger in the black-robe's belt. He planted a footpaw in the center of the reeling wolf's chest and smashed him away, spinning, into a startled Sir Joren.

To his sides, the guards recovered, one yelling a curse as he backed up to draw his sword. The other lunged at Summer, roaring. The captain ducked under the outflung arms, planted his footpaw behind the armored warrior's ankle, and straightened from his crouch to smash his shoulder into the wolf's center, knocking him backwards hard enough that he shattered the wooden window bench with his head as he fell.

Spinning, Summer leapt at the other guard, a battle roar ripping from his chest as the wolf tried to bring its heavy blade, more suited to battlefields than tight indoor fights, across Summer's middle. The tiger was too swift, inside his guard before the swordswolf could get the blade across, catching him in the middle with his crosspiece rather than the eviscerating blade.

Sir Joren slapped the screaming priest aside, and drew a long, broad-crosspiece'd arming dagger just as Summer jammed the cleric's ceremonial blade up into the wolf guard's soft chin, through his mouth, and into his brain, then grabbed and drew the corpse's arming dagger before letting it slide to the floor as he turned to face the king's torturer.

The two warriors were crouched, blades held in close guard positions, the older graying tiger's face a stoic mask of calculation and readiness, the younger's a snort-nostril, eyes-wide face of anger and shattered amusement. For a long moment, they merely stared into one another's eyes.

"What, no warning for me, traitor?"

"No. You I'll be happy to gut like a fish."

The younger tiger laughed, though his eyes showed neither mirth nor distraction, and raised the arming dagger with its full-size sword crosspiece, pointing towards Summer's throat.

"Come on then, grey-fur. More guards will be here presently. No time to waste, ey? I look forward to fucking you raw when we're done. I like them bloody and crying."

Summer's eyes didn't shift one iota, as the images of this monster's victims flashed through his mind. Before the images even stopped, he was lunging forward, making a testing slice towards his foe's middle. Sir Joren slid smoothly backward, avoiding the strike, then lunged in for a grab, hoping to finish the fight fast.

The captain was not to be fooled by the retreat, and snatched the grabbing wrist with his left paw, folding his opponent's thumb in and twisting the wrist joint as he danced to the side to avoid an awkward knife slash. Roaring in pain from his paw, Sir Joren lowered his shoulder and slammed the older fur into the solid stone wall, driving breath from him in an exclamation of wordless sound. Summer's dagger slammed into Joren's shoulder, skittering off the steel pauldron to knick the side of the big tiger's neck, while the captain got a footpaw between them and shoved, throwing the other warrior back.

Released from the pin, he crouched, gasping for air as they began to circle again. Sir Joren was panting, blood dribbling down to mat the fur on his throat from the shallow slice Summer had scored, ignored by the torturer with a grin.

"That all you got, old man? Your reputation said better!"

He said nothing in response, circling, pacing, crouched low like a predator stalking prey, fingers wrapped around the dagger in the way of a long-time lover; just enough force to have the desired grip, not enough to tire himself. He would have been more than content to let the taunting knight grow angry at the lack of response, or maneuver himself into trouble.

Except that he was running out of time.

Joren realized what was happening when Summer's back finally moved past the edge of the wall, and his bare footpaw kicked the door open hard enough to knock the guard outside it senseless and pitch him off the landing to crash down the spiraling stone tower stair with a clatter and screech of bending armor. The sniveling, terrified black-robed priest cowered just inside the doorway.

Summer lunged for the door, and Sir Joren followed, charging, refusing to be locked in his own damn tower cell.

As he passed the weeping black-robed priest, the wolf suddenly lunged, wrapping arms far burlier than he'd expect of the pampered Royal Blacks around his legs. His armored charging momentum far too great to arrest, he spilled forward, eyes wide as his mind spun, unable to reconcile what was happening. He pitched over the edge of the balcony, gut rising into his throat instantly as the spiral stone stair whizzed past him, until he smashed into a balcony several floors below.

Summer peeked out from behind the door and over the ledge, to see the two armored opponents sprawled, limbs at broken angles, three floors and forty feet below. Without time to waste, he stalked around the door and offered the cleric a paw up, who gladly accepted it.

"Sorry, Captain, but we found out about Casso's verdict and had to act sooner than planned."

Summer shook his head, grim eyes trailing over the slain warrior in his cell as he stalked in to grab its sword from a nerveless dead paw, testing its edge with a thumb and nodding his approval.

"Father Tanner, this isn't about Casso and Callian's war. Thank you for your help, but..."

The priest shook his head, all trace of his well-feigned horror gone, though he brushed at the wetness of his habit at the crotch.

"I hate pissing myself...Necessary for the illusion though."

Summer peered over his shoulder at the cleric, raising a brow, as he rifled the dead guard entirely by touch. The cleric merely shrugged and gave an innocent smile.

"I was Callian's spymaster, Summer, you know that. Your report was far-fetched, but I believe it anyway. If you say the dead are marching, they bloody well are, and 'his majesty' can go stuff himself."

Summer nodded his understanding, his thanks, and stood, wrapping the warrior's sword belt over his shoulder at one end and around his hip at the other so the blade's hilt would sit just over his shoulder, ready to be drawn into a high guard from a crouch.

"Fine. Open every door here. The more that try to escape, the better our chances of getting past Casso's guards when they finally figure out what's going on."

The cleric smirked, and raised his paw to show the brass key ring, bristling with freedom, that he'd pilfered from the door guard.

"As you command, sir."

The Singing Child cavorted amongst his decaying friends, frolicking in his walking garden of rot and sorrow as he plucked loose bits of flesh from his massed warrior-dead and peasant-dead and flung the putrefied flesh about as if he were bearing flowers at a wedding.

All along, he sang. It was a song of darkling glee and feral hunger, and where his ominous yet angelic voice passed, all life fled or was consumed by its power, driven to feed until dead of a burst belly or of being eaten by its fellows.

That which fell dead near him rose again to join the ravening swarm, though the lesser animals never seemed to last long, a thing that brought him a gleeful sense of sardonic dismay, and led him to often gather up and dance with the tiny corpses, before hurling them like a child tossing marbles, to tumble unto rest.

After a long frolic, days of dancing in the pouring rain under the thundering sky, at last the song he heard within had led him near to the best playground a Singing Child could find. A place of many sounds, all discordant, all dissonant, all ready to be forced into the great harmonious melody he crooned to the walking dead.

Inside that great cacophony that hurt his ears yet spurred him to wild glee in anticipation, he could hear the song, the same song his dead echoed back to him. Somewhere within, he smiled to think, another of his peers was already at work, it's song leading others just as he did.

He sensed its hunger for flesh, and something within the Singing Child recognized its Name. Devouring One would be joining him for the Game. He giggled and pranced, and clapped his little feline paws together, then danced on, twirling and skipping as he approached the last rise between him and being able to see the great discordant city.

"Wake up, you shit!"

Timid gasped and gagged, as a bucket of clammy water soaked his face and went up his snout, and shook his head as hard as he could while trying to shield his face with his arms only to find them bound.

Under his back, he could feel strange ridges that made his body ache from his skinny rear to his shoulder blades, and knew before he opened his eyes that his paws were lashed to four different spars of wood. A cruel jolting forced him fully to wakefulness, screaming out in pain as someone spun a crank, pulling his arms and legs in opposite directions and stretching him till his spine gave a warning crackle.

Father Timid's eyes shot open. Over him, a fur wearing a pointed black cloth hood glared down at him with hate-filled bloodshot eyes. By its snout, he guessed it was a wolf or hound of some kind, and its breath was hot and foul with garlic and rancidness.

Timid's glare was hot, filled with fury and pain, his eyes showing none of the bewildered terror the torturer was used to, and it seemed to lose its certainty for a moment, glancing over its shoulder at someone else sitting in the darkened chamber. Tim followed his eyes, and felt his mind go blank with shock and outrage.

Prim as a pin, an elderly mouse with elegantly groomed long white fur sat upright and chest-forward on an upholstered and padded bench, long-fingered wrinkled paws laced around a wooden lap desk. Upon it, he saw the Finder's Star, sparkling in its three hues of precious metals, a pot of polish and a rag lying next to the old pontiff. Beside him on the bench sat the tall ceremonial silvery hat of the Cardinal and a crosier not unlike the one that had seen Timid through so much, only drizzled with scarlet gemstones and silver filigree.

The Temple Cardinal, who Timid had met once years ago as a junior acolyte, gestured with a calm, sad expression to the torturer, and Timid yelped out and bit down upon his lip as the rack was cranked again, stretching his body to what felt like the point where he would tear in half across his waist, though he knew in some distant clinical part of his mind that they would never end it so quickly as that.

Cardinal Dorshen held up the Finder's Star, threaded on a new, shining golden chain strewn with precious stones, and favored Timid with the loving sort of smile he had always taken to be that of a good, godly fur, showing love to his followers. Now, through the pain wreathing his vision, for the first time he noticed the smile never reached his chilly iron-grey eyes.

His voice was strong, smooth, a speaker's voice that had dashed the will of thousands in his quest to become the most potent priest of all the clergies. It bore amusement, and a sort of calculation that made Timid's stomach roil in disgust.

"You bring us a great gift, then commit sedition virtually upon my very steps. You are a country preacher, and yet carrying a lost item of the Many Faiths greater than any other relic. You travel in the company of a woman who clearly cares for you, yet are unmarried. A passel of contradictions, priest. I am uncertain what to do with you."

The torturer locked his wheel in place with a clink of metal, leaving Timid stretched yet stretching no further. As he gasped for breath, struggling to pull in air past the tension in his muscles, Timid tried not to let tears come to his eyes. He realized, suddenly, that he was unable to see those lights of life and energy, and knew in his heart that it had never been his own ability; just that of the Star manifesting through his will.

Cardinal Dorshen waited patiently, continuing to scrub at the Star's patina of hard-won grime with a horse-hair brush, scraping away the muck of the road and repeatedly raising it to gaze in wonderment upon its beauty.

Finally, Timid managed to gather himself, and speak.

"What...Have you done with...Her?"

The Cardinal quirked a brow, still gazing at the Star, and twirled it over his fingers while responding.

"I give you the opportunity to explain yourself, and instead you inquire as to your woman companion. How...Quaint? Yes, quaint is the word. To answer your question, I have sent a messenger to his majesty's court, to see if there are any bounties on her. If not, we will likely give her whatever fate we give you."

Timid closed his eyes, finding that it helped him concentrate, helped him forget the lights he had unknowingly begun to see as a glorious gift.

"And as for me?"

"If we find you guilty of sedition, we will torture you to death and deliver your body to his majesty as a sign of our faith in his leadership."

Timid growled, reedily, and beetled his brow in anger.

"The Temples are supposed to be independent! We minister to the people and avoid politics! You've no right to hold trial except on matters of heresy!"

The Cardinal chuckled, and the scrape-scrape of his scrubbing began anew, along with a low toneless whistling that paused only when he spoke again.

"How naïve, you country priests. Times have changed, young one."

"I am from the Free City, and no country bumpkin...Your eminence..." He tacked the honorific at the end of his statement as an afterthought, dripping with anger and sarcasm.

The grand cleric paused a moment, glancing over at Timid and studying him with those cold iron eyes.

"You are from the Free City? Perhaps you could tell me why the temples there haven't sent their autumn tributes"

Timid growled, the noise emanating from his chest in a furious rumble, his yell filled with desperation and anger, and a hint of pleading.

"They're all dead! That's what we came here to tell you! The Free City is dead along with everyone in it, and all those dead are on their way here! Right this moment! They're not more than a day away!"

Somewhere to his left, Timid heard the torturer shift about with a clinking of metal, as if nervous or perhaps in anticipation. The Cardinal, for his part, changed not at all, neither surprised by the exclamation nor affected by it.

"Your insistence on sedition will not help your case, young one."

"Timid. My name is Timid."

The Cardinal laughed, throwing his head back to do it, and the Finder's Star wriggled as his elderly paws shifted it on his lap.

"Timid! What a wonderful name, for a junior priest who would shout at a Cardinal! Haha!"

Timid lifted his head, insofar as the stretching of his limbs would easily allow, and glared at the laughing pontiff. He felt betrayed, a torn sense in his chest that had nothing to do with his straining tendons, as if all his journey thus far had been for nothing. All because this arrogant hierophant refused to listen.

He blinked, then, and saw for just a moment, gone so fast he thought it might have been just his imagination, as a flicker of ethereal shadow wisped through the cleric's heart, wrapping about it like a wreath of concealing smoke, and then gone as if the same had been blown on an invisible wind.

"Brother Penance will take your care from here on, I think. Thank you for bringing us the Finder's Star, brother Timid." The elderly mouse stood, and slipped the Star around his neck on its chain, smiling as it rested on the breast of his voluminous and luxurious robes. He patted it, stroking his finger across the gold and silver relic with amusement written all over his face.

Timid's voice came out quiet, as he felt his heart sink, and a deep sorrow swirled at the edge of his mind.

"You don't even care for them, do you?"

"For whom?"

"You have to ask? That answers my question."

Timid closed his eyes, and prayed that Cel and the others were all right. The Cardinal left with no further comment. Brother Penance approached, and Tim felt the chill of subterranean air as the torturer began to cut away the filthy habit that had seen him through so much, just to arrive here and be betrayed.

Van's eyes shifted slowly about the grandiose chambers and passages of Castle Amarthane, memorizing its every contour and hall as they were escorted through. He breathed slowly, clearing his mind of distractions, in full knowledge that they were most likely walking into the proverbial dragons' lair. As his father once taught him, long ago, he recited an ancient mantra.

I am the wind, silent and unbound. I am the water, clear and calm.

To his left and slightly behind, Tomasj strode along, smirk frozen on his face like a cruel bit of statuary. Their escort seemed nervous, restive, all six feline and all six showing unusual signs of fear for their kind. Something in the air wasn't right, and Van thought it might be on account of the coming horde. The canaries sensed the coming death wind, he suspected, knowing in their bones something was wrong but not necessarily what.

Then he realized they were nervous about him, by the way their eyes kept surreptitiously darting to his weapons, which he'd been allowed to carry in only after Tomasj snidely asked them why lowlander nobles were so terrified of their underlings that they felt need to disarm them.

I am the earth, strong and gently waiting.

Finally, after what had seemed like hours of walking through the tapestried halls of the grand citadel, their escort stopped outside a steel banded double-door covered in the painted engravings of trees, each branch carved out in intricate detail. Hanging like fruit from each, the carved and painted faces of long-dead kings and some more recent stared out from the lifeless wood.

Van glanced to Tomasj, who seemed utterly fixated on a point approximately head-height in the room beyond, then turned away to the window, as the guards knocked and awaited a herald to announce them or tell them to wait.

Wind howled along the outer face of the great keep's walls, a mournful and ominous sound that seemed all too fitting when he spotted the six-gibbet gallows set up in the courtyard below. His meditations helped to prevent his stomach clenching, or an angry explosion at the guards. The temptation to ask after his cousin and uncle was near-overwhelming.

Cel's words, however, restrained him. She'd talked of worrying about the people first, and that was something he could agree with. On the other paw, the revolt growing in Amarthane's streets was a direct threat to the king, to whom he was sworn, and he had no idea which side to take.

With a heavy, resounding boom, the grand doors to Amarthane's throne room swung open, perfectly hinged to provide a most ominous and impressive sound for a visiting foreign courtier. Purely by reflex, Van went to a knee, prevented by tradition from even entering the chamber without his lord's permission. Beyond, a tall weasel crowed out their names, to announce them to the king.

"Vanyal Forest's Son, of the Forest Wardens. Lord Tomasj Witchkiller, of Svalich."

Tomasj's hard-gloved paw slapped down on Van's shoulder and squeezed, which made Van's gut clench despite his suddenly-derailed mantras. As he looked up, his eyes failed to take in the great golden grandeur of the hall, the ornamentation and beautiful tapestries, the beautifully coiffeure'd courtiers, or the splendidly-robed and powerfully muscular middle-aged tiger with his new-minted golden crown upon the carven Stone Throne.

His eyes took in the dead, the corpses that dangled from second-floor balconies, most bloated and rotting, their stink fought off only by the heavy braziers of perfume that burned in all corners of the chamber, filling the air with an aromatic haze. There were more than twenty, by his quick count, tongues bloated and hanging out, some covered in flies, others being slowly spun by the wind blowing through high arrow slits in the great keep wall.

On the nobles' faces, barely-concealed horror skittered beneath the squirrelly surfaces of their terror-jaded eyes. They huddled together like feral sheep in a storm, obsequious with fear, not one of them armed with more than an eating knife.

King Casso spoke, from his great stone throne, his voice a grave baritone that rumbled like earthquakes and thunder.

"Lord Witchkiller, welcome to my court. Please allow me to apologize for the unpleasantness outside. I take it your journey was pleasant?"

"Other than my country being wiped out by the undead to the last peasant baby, why yes. However, I think it time to leave. Your decorations disagree with my companion."

Van's paw flew to his cleaver. Hanging just behind Casso's throne, two floors above, a pair of bloated faces twisted in the wind like rotten fruit from a dying tree. They were clad in forest leathers, shit-stained and bloody, their footpaws bare and blackened from hot iron grills often used to torture traitors.

Casso's guards, with their better view of the newcomers, were still going for their swords when Vanyal's lips curled back to issue a shriek of rage. His paw drew the cleaver, slashing left to expertly hamstring the guard nearest to him, then snapped forward, flinging the blade end-over-end across the throne room and towards Casso as his eyes went wide with surprised rage.

"You BASTARD!"