"Have at it, dearest friends," encouraged Mecnoarv Snooteliicore as the companions stared at the torchlit cavewall.

Ma’teus scratched the rock with her knife. "Are you certain this leads to the Apocanian jail?" the Baroness asked. "You have shown no fondness for directions…"

"Here it is!" Porcie scraped away a layer of dust to reveal a groove.

An hour later they had opened a hole large enough for Tarl-Cabot and Ma’teus to get through with their longbows. "This is where we part, then." Mecnoarv cocked his head at Val’ha and frowned.

"Travel in safety." Mecnoarv, Lord Frippe and the merchants took to the horses as the journeymates gathered their belongings and said their goodbyes. Slinging her mirror-shield over her shoulder, Val’ha put her arm around Dragonslayer and kissed his head. "Take care of them, dear friend." She watched until her beloved horse was out of sight before climbing through the hole.

Porcie was last through, but as his left boot came through, the companions heard the clip-clop of returning hooves. "Sir Porcie! Sir Porcie!" The merchant Ruth handed him a yellow sapphire the size of a pinecone. "It is, we believe, the Oomarouge Gem. While we were held in the turret, we searched about and found this stone under the floorboards." Ruth and Firedancer left.

Ma’teus used her torch to burn away the sand-burdened webs that draped the passageway, Quigley following with his swords pulled. Eventually, the tunnel became so narrow that the companions were forced to go one by one. "Tell me," said Ma’teus a half-hour later, "did Master Mecnoarv inform anyone of the actual distance to the jail?"

"Is there anything you can tell us, Porcie?" Tarl-Cabot asked

"Not a thing, fellow knight." They reached an incline that went at least twenty yards to end at the tunnel roof. Ma’teus and Quigley ascended the grade until they were on their knees, inspecting. "What do you see?"

"The material is not like that of the main causeway," said Ma’teus, unable to extract even the smallest wedge of stone with her knife.

Quigley and she returned to their fellows. "The seal is beyond any normal rock plaster. It is Reiglo clay and cannot be cut through by any blade I know."

"Step back," Tarl-Cabot, Sword in hand, instructed the others. He began to mouth Crundin’s charm, peered over his shoulder and stopped. Lowering his weapon, he raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips. "Much, much further back!" His flame spidered against the walls and incline, but the main force struck the ceiling forcefully and true; however, when the crackling explosion, dust and flying and rolling stones were over, not much of a dent had been made. "Hm."

"We could end up here all day, or we could sally forth through the main road of the city," said the Baroness most unhelpfully.

Tarl-Cabot rubbed his chin. "Bylikania Pass will not…" He snapped his fingers. "Val’ha! I am aware of the strength of Reiglo clay, for it was used to build Castle Reiglo. Alone, it is obvious that Crundin’s light will not work, but if there were two such energies…"

"Tarl-Cabot, I know what you are about to say, but never before have I used my green-light for such purposes and I am not sure I can consciously invoke it. It comes when we are in need of it."

"Think of saving Trisahn," suggested Porcie. "He may be just above you, Lady Val’ha."

She did just that; it was extremely difficult at first, and her brow hurt from the intensity of her concentration. Come to me, she encouraged her blood, imagining as vividly as she could herself casting the green-light. She envisioned Trisahn; she thought of Thoryn, his last words, the touch of his hands against hers as he slid to his death, the look in his eyes…and she began to cry.

"Do pull yourself together, young Elf!" Baroness Val Tress rattled her sword just as the familiar tingling sensation formed in Val’ha’s upper arms. Her expression silenced the Baroness, who waved toward the incline.

Tarl-Cabot was ready for Val’ha and sent his flame once more splaying toward the end of the tunnel. She realized it would not do to fire alongside him and as the prickly glow increased and traveled down to her fingertips, she formed a ball with her hands, pulling them apart and moving them closer together several times, reducing and enlarging the beautiful emerald sphere she had molded. Quickly she lobbed it through the dust to the point of Tarl-Cabot’s flame, grabbing Heinghold’s mirror with her free hand. The twin lights crossed streams in a light-green explosion that pounded their senses. Val’ha pulled Tarl-Cabot behind her; rocks struck their shins, their arms, but most hurtled by or dinged against the brass mirror. "Ouch!" "Aah!" Their friends cried out behind them while proceeding through the thinning dust. The journeymates scurried up the incline, through the hole and into the Apocanian mayoral structure’s jail.

Every one of the iron-barred cells in the large jail hall matched: a small, barred window and walls, floor and ceiling made from Reiglo clay bricks. There was a closed sheriff’s entry at the far end and…that was it. No benches. No beds. No belongings. No guards or locked doors or even prisoners, certainly no Trisahn; there were, however, two covered bodies in one cell. Through the pattering rain the companions heard louder knocks against the outside walls. "They are firing arrows against the building." Tarl-Cabot put away Crundin for his bow and led the others into the jail hallway just as the sheriff’s door burst open and two burly Women with readied bows of their own aimed at him.

"Halt!" one of them ordered. "Lower your weapons or be slain!"

Another, weaponless Woman stepped through them; she was thin, around the Baroness’ age and had brown eyes. The companions lowered their arms. "We come in support," Val’ha said. "We are here seeking Trisahn of Denlineil! He is a friend…"

"What? What say…?" The smaller Woman blinked slowly, then waved her underlings’ weaponry down while Val’ha explained the how and why of their explosive entry through the jail floor. The Woman approached Val’ha and said her name. "You are she, whom he has never stopped speaking of."

Then there he was – Trisahn, Val’ha’s dearest ally, the first she had ever met outside her family. Her heart leapt into her throat and she choked and forgot everyone else in the jail, the battle outside…Trisahn himself seemed to move dreamily as if through water, running his eyes over her and the others – shock, more shock, surprise. His brow lowered and a smile spread to his ears. "VAL’HA!" He pushed past the sheriffs and threw himself against her, kissing her many times.

She felt like a child in her delight, and returned his embrace. "You still wear my father’s tunic!" she laughed when they parted.

"It has become my favorite possession in all this world, lady Elf. Sir Porcie!" He embraced the knight and a surprised Baroness, who kept her arms stiff as he hugged her. To Tarl-Cabot Trisahn bowed slightly, their formality little disguising their shared antagonism. After meeting Quigley and Ma’teus and introducing Apocania’s Mayor Alyson, Trisahn said, "It is fortunate the jail was well-armed – since last night the Black Dogs have surrounded us."

"How many are there on our side?" asked Porcie.

"Less than sixty, including convicts and mercenaries. We prepared for this days ago and are using everything we have to barricade the building – chairs, doors, wagons… It is difficult to defend all four sides of the mayoral structure, but since last night we have lost only two to the Prince. They would have burned us down if not for the rain, bless the goddess Domino..."

"What are we waiting for, then?" Tarl-Cabot asked Ma’teus and the Baroness; the three of them scurried through the sheriff’s door, followed by Alyson’s guard. The Mayor led the others into her office – it too had been emptied of furniture, though there were possessions, food and water next to which the journeymates dropped their own items, including a pair of unused bows which Quigley and Porcie scooped up to join the others.

"Have you become a marksman?" Val’ha asked Trisahn.

"I would not even consider myself a novitiate," he laughed; Mayor Alyson excused herself and Trisahn gazed after her fondly. "A great Woman…er, shall we, go out? My own bow awaits me."

"Yes, yes of course." The whizzing and rap-tapping of arrows grew louder as the fresh energy of Val’ha’s companions was added to the battle. "You will find," Trisahn said, stepping into the late-afternoon rainfall, "that our enemy is quite mercenary in providing us with their arrows to shoot back at them. I think I can muster you a shortbow…"

"I must ask you one thing, dear friend, before we engage ourselves."

"What is that?"

"I have been a bit confused as to the particulars of why the Mayor rallied so to your protection. I mean, the stand on taxation…your safety is just as worthy…oh, bother."

Her words stopped Trisahn. "If I did not love you so, I could find offense in your statement, Val’ha. You yourself were with me when I was pardoned by who-him of Denlineil – have you forgotten?"

"I…I did not mean…"

"Mayor Alyson has seen the decree herself and it is safely stashed away with Apocania’s own documents. Beyond that, she has no accord for the lawlessness of Prince Joel, particularly since he placed my name alongside yours in the pestilent posters everywhere. You must understand that when the crown becomes the adversary, Apocania – like many, I am hopeful – will not succumb gladly to its false rule. The ultimate value of King Joel’s legacy is not the evil that has come to this land, but that there has been a response to it."

"Of course!"

"That Lady Alyson is also my mother has its merits as well." They joined their allies against the siege of Apocania.

**

The Apocanian mayoral structure was aptly named Center Apocania, like Center Denlineil, situated on a median surrounded by the main street, apart from the merchantries and inns. With the downpour, the space between the building and its barricades – wagons, tables, wheels, logs and barrels upon which the archers stood behind chairs, pedestals and sawhorses that completed the sixteen-foot wall – had turned into a muddy trench. A sheriff strode by Val’ha and Trisahn, scooping up arrows that had hit the claybrick and clattered to Terra. "You do not want to step on these," he smiled at them.

Trisahn brought Val’ha to his battle platform, picking up his bow, plus an arrow from a stack leaning against a spinning-wheel. He peered over the barricade. "They have taken to the rooftops of nearby establishments," he said down to her. "I am unsure what to do with you. As it was, there were by my count only enough extra bows to arm Porcie and Sir Quigley. I shudder to think what we will do when the Baroness runs low on her crossbow arrows, for which we have no replacement."

"She will probably craft her own out of the spokes of this wheel," Val’ha laughed. "Perhaps there is another way I can assist. You remember Om’s blood?"

"Yes! He converted your curing-light."

"What became of your horn?" Val’ha took Trisahn’s hand and boarded the overturned wagon. "Does it not work on ‘bone and stone’ as you used to say?"

"Come, think – and see the city." Trisahn directed Val’ha’s attention over the wall. The sodden, rutted streets were empty, but just beyond corners and tops of buildings, barriers built-on and temporary, and broken second-story windows, Black Dogs – how many she could not tell – engaged in a constant repetition of shoot, draw, shoot and draw. Val’ha ducked when an arrow whizzed through the rain past her left ear. "Are you hurt?"

"No, thank you." She held her head down.

"You begin to see that the horn would hurt not just Prince Joel’s army – members of the town’s finest families are behind some of those unbroken windows, cowering in their homes above their shops."

"You said that your city had received ample warning of the advance, did they not flee?"

"That is true, Apocania sent forth a spy what with all of the happenings in Castle Moncrovia since the royal murders and so we knew they were coming. But even with the evacuation, there were those who would not abandon their livelihoods, their own castles…understand that the business of Apocania is business (though they have not cobbled their streets, for all their glory as the City of Merchants)." Trisahn put his hand on Val’ha’s arm. "It is so good to see you – and Porcie, and the others – again, but what has become of dear Thoryn?" Val’ha gave him a brief summary of his death in the Fields of Claraudice. "By Inez’ hand, after all that…what regret, what sadness. It will take a bit of time for your words to find my heart – I cannot believe he is gone from us." His eyes narrowed and he stood straight, aimed his arrow at the Black Dogs and let fly.

Val’ha used the same method to summon forth her green-light as she had in The Tunnels, it had proven enormously difficult to do and left her drained for some time. She had seen a pack of at least six Black Dogs and their mounts around a shop called Bynagor’s Merchantry and when her green-light crested at her fingertips, she stood and shot a bolt at them. It ripped a wedge of the merchantry, but from the painful cries and the dying scream of a horse, she knew it had done its damage, though she had to sit down on the wagon from her faintness. "Well done!" several of the sheriffs around them complimented.

"Take your time with the craft," Trisahn said. "There is a pitcher of water over there."

Val’ha licked the rain on her cheeks. "This is enough, dear friend."

His eyebrows raised until she gently punched his shoulder. "You jest, my lady! You may weave merriment, but let me know if I can get you anything. We have stocked the Mayor’s office with provisions enough to last a week." Trisahn shot another arrow; one of the Black Dogs shouted and fell to the street. "By the way, I think you killed four of them, two horses."

The battle dragged on. By late afternoon Val’ha was weary beyond measure. She had only used her green-light twice more, and in the meantime traded the bow with Trisahn. She had never used such weaponry before and her upper arms, though used to cutting trees, tired under the rigidity of the bow’s tension.

One of the sheriffs next to them, just as what little Terr’Sol there was began to fade, was hit by an arrow and dropped backward into the mud. Others quickly removed the body. Val’ha was startled when those moving the body through the entrance of the Mayor’s office almost ran into Lord Frippe and Mecnoarv, who tipped his stocking cap at them and, seeing her, smiled, glanced down, made the most unpleasant scowl and tried to avoid the mud as he tiptoed toward her and smiled again. "Lady Val’ha!" he cried, his head barely above the wagon’s height. "We have come to fight!"

She was touched by his sentiment; Trisahn turned around. "Good day to you, Master Mecnoarv. And you, my lord, I saw you once…the King’s banquet hall."

"Yes, Master Trisahn, the celebration of A’crasti’s rescue. I am Lord Frippe, troth to the late Lady Frippe."

"I cannot even imagine what could have brought the two of you together." Trisahn threw his legs over the side of the wagon and gave Val’ha the bow. "Though it is, as usual, not unrelated to your doing, my lovely dark-haired Elf. Lord Frippe, I am indeed sorry for the loss of your beloved – she was a fine diplomat and representative of wizard and crown." He bowed.

"Thank you, friend. My lady’s injustice is why I decided, what with our rescue of the merchants..."

"What do you mean? Val’ha, what does he mean?"

"Oh, Trisahn!" During the course of their reunion, Val’ha had forgotten almost everything else. After she hurriedly told Trisahn about the Oomarouge Mansion, he clicked his tongue at her and jumped off the wagon to report to his mother. "Here, Lord Frippe." Val’ha pulled him onto the barricade and gave him the bow, then hoisted the short merchant alongside him. "May Ariadne guide your arrows, gentle Men." She chased after Trisahn, passing Porcie and Ma’teus amidst the sheriffs, mercenaries and a sprinkling of townspeople along the way.

"…their bargaining tool! It is lost – they are saved by Lady Val’ha’s party!" Trisahn was exhorting Mayor Alyson and several of the high-ranking sheriffs when she caught up to him.

"Mayor Alyson." Zini’s voice amplified tenfold over the battlements, bringing everyone to cease their firing. "Mayor Alyson. Mayor Alyson, are you in there? Can you hear me? It is Zini, High Advisor to Prince Joel V of Castle Moncrovia. Mayor Alyson, can you hear me?" His voice was so flat, Val’ha imagined it was what Xorus’ corpses might sound like if they could speak.

One of the senior sheriffs whispered in Alyson’s ear and she closed her eyes for a moment and nodded, then cupped her hands to her mouth. "I am here!"

"Mayor Alyson, this is not what any of us desire. I beseech you to consider again our conditions."

Alyson looked as if she had swallowed worms. "High Advisor! If you think that the legitimacy of a regency so reckless and power-thirsty will go unchallenged in its current form, then you must be sniffing Xorus’ dark powder! Believe us – there will be no horsetrading with such malcraft and misguided rule! There will be no increase in taxes! There will be no illegal tax collectors, no Black Dog fortifications!"

There was a pause. "Give us at least the thief, Trisahn. He is wanted by Prince Joel, for questioning in the matter of the castle killers."

"Ha! Ha! That will not happen – go tell your regent that Apocania will not bow to his illegal rule! Who is his High Wizarder? Where is his approval by the Order of Sages? Tell me that, Lord Zini! No! As long as blood runs through my veins, I will not countenance the subjugation of my city, nor the looting of our lives, nor the snatching like vultures of our citizenry off the streets! You hurry back to your Prince and tell him to pack his pipe with that!"

The arrows resumed for awhile before Zini halted the Black Dogs and spoke again. "The rain will not go on forever, Lady Mayor. We know that your most prominent residents dwell still behind walls and windows – need we remind you on our side of your barricades. As it stands, my Men have begun to conduct a door-by-door search starting at the end-blocks of the city to find any who support your renegade stance against the Prince. If your prized citizenry claims allegiance to you, they will be held for questioning."

"That spoiled demon!" Alyson said the words so that only those near her could hear, but she ground her teeth so hard Val’ha was afraid they might break. "So enthusiastic about war he is on his own people. He shrieks like a hawk with the backbone of a chicken!"

"Additionally," Zini intoned, "we have blockaded both ends of the city and are intercepting all food and supplies. Please think about your position." The archers resumed firing.

"From what you have told me, son," Alyson said to Trisahn, "it is fortunate our guildleaders escaped, but now the time has moved beyond any one person. You, Lady Val’ha, attend me in my office and tell me all you know." Inside, Val’ha related the path and impact of her travels: the deaths of King Percivale and his advisors, the migration of the combined Black Dog army across Northern Conschala, the statues of Denlineil, the massacre at Val Tress Pass, the fog over Moncrovia, the loss of Dop-splythe at the Holy Convent and the secession of Bylikaegra. During her discourse, she also spoke of Cagliostra’s undead navy, the invasion of North Mibwaze and the fortification of coastal cities and the Straits of Flooher’ty.

Porcie and several sheriffs brought two more bodies in; Mayor Alyson gave pause, then proclaimed, "This I will give the Prince – he has covered every corner of Asch’endra-Conschala and more. There are at least five hundred Black Dogs besieging our city, as you say. The conjurer Feukpi, however? I am obviously aware from my son of his treachery, but we have seen neither him nor his magickal Sword. Where do you guess he would be?" Val’ha had no answer.

Porcie reentered the room. "There are six dead, Lady Mayor…Mayor Aly…" He squinted at her. "Excuse my impoliteness, Lady Alyson, but if my eyes do not deceive me and your hair was brown and now white, I would swear you were my old friend Trisahn here’s mother."

Alyson stood and embraced the knight. "I am – or rather, was – Lady Catherine, and I am indeed his mother. How is your own, dear boy? It has been many years, though she visited Apocania several years ago."

"Lady Catherine! She is not, I can attest, in Moncrovia – my father was a hero in the Battle of Imsko, and there are many statues honoring him, many who remember that time. I think she would go there." Porcie returned to the fight, leaving Val’ha with many questions for Trisahn.

**

The companions slept alongside one another and eighty other fighters in the darkness of the jail, Val’ha between her sister and Trisahn on the hard floor, while a skeleton force of twenty kept watch during the night. Through the bars Val’ha could see the distorted moon fight its way through the thinning cloud cover. She had chosen not to use Heinghold’s mirror as her headrest, for she was too unable to bear any more revelations.

She had many dreams that night and forgot them all by next morning but one. In it, she played with Thoryn, Pivrax and the dweemtweezles in her yard. The door of her birth-hut was slightly ajar and she went to it and peered within. Her mother was moaning and feverish; her father was retrieving vials of green healing liquid from a shelf where the golden libra sat. "Val’ha." The tone in his voice made her shy away from the crack in the door, but she stayed close, sitting cross-legged on the grass; Pivrax and Thoryn had vanished.

"It is time," Chext’a said, and over the course of the next hour she screamed, threatened and swore at Ma’hadrin, at her father and his, at Xorus and his wraiths, at the demon-goddess Dimatox…and was silent. Then there were five biers upon which she could see everyone in her dream but one.

During breakfast Val’ha told Trisahn of her remembrance. "Your visions and recollections still encumber you?" Suddenly there were shouts and much ruckus from outside: Several Black Dogs had sneaked up to the back, west side of the barricades and tried to break through while two other groups on the north and south walls approached with torches and ladders.

Val’ha and Trisahn joined Mecnoarv on the wagon. The din of siege rose into the air, and she realized it no longer rained, though the wood was still too wet to catch fire. That did not keep the Black Dogs from trying, as a group of ten – two raising ladders, three with spitting torches – pushed up to the barricade. From somewhere down the line, Val’ha heard the Baroness’ victorious cry at the same time a small arrow struck one of the Black Dogs in the neck and he fell. The ladders were well-placed enough for two of the Prince’s men to reach the top and draw their swords, killing two Apocanians. Just as swiftly, sheriffs swept away the casualties and others took their place, pushing the first ladder back and sending an arrow through the forehead of the Man at the top of the second one, which also toppled over. The torchbearers found wood dry enough to kindle and smolder by tossing their flame into the buttress cracks, setting a wagon to smoke and smolder and forcing the sheriffs to throw mud and pails of rainwater on it. Such was the course of the third day of what everyone called the Siege of Apocania. And still yet, Feukpi had not appeared.

At one point, the Black Dogs seemed to be trying to find a way to cross the distance from the tops of the other buildings a thousand feet away, to the roof of the jail. There were five more arson attempts, and twice the Black Dogs broke over the tops of the barricades, several reaching the inside with their swords, but the ladders were toppled and the fires doused, though not without cost: Along with four Black Dogs fallen behind the wall, eight sheriffs and mercenaries died. By the close of the day, Alyson’s demeanor had veered from steely hope to panic-touched disquiet. Though the Mayor kept her jaw firm, Val’ha could see that she was considering other options. When she could, Val’ha used her green-light, while on the other side of the building she periodically heard the crackling of Crundin as Tarl-Cabot exacted a heavy toll on Prince Joel’s force, and hazardously the Apocanians.

Dusk came, the clouds became long and thin, stretched against the pink sky. Mecnoarv and Frippe assumed the bows of Black Dogs and both sides kept a solid volley into the night, when one of the sheriffs came around to alert them that it was time for their rest. Val’ha, Trisahn and Mecnoarv jumped down. "Dear love, respite will do just perfectly," said Snooteliicore. "My feet…" Lord Frippe turned to join them and Val’ha offered him her hand. He stepped toward the edge of the wagon and stiffened – an arrow had found the back of his head. He slumped forward, falling off the barricade into her arms. "Lord Frippe!" cried Mecnoarv. Trisahn caught the nobleman’s legs, Val’ha pulled the arrow out of his skull and they rushed him inside.

Ma’teus was pulling a sheet over one of the mercenaries’ bodies, her tears clearing a path down her muddy face. "Not one have I been able to save, not one! Why have the gods abandoned us here?" she was saying to herself. Only when Val’ha set Lord Frippe down in front of her did she shake from her disconsolation. "Lord…" It was too late, and Ma’teus fled when she failed to save him.

"Rest in peace, my lord, with your lady." Val’ha stretched a blanket over his body.

**

"Bear witness to their savagery, Lady Val’ha," said Mecnoarv the next morning, throwing rocks and chunks of clay from The Tunnel after struggling with a bow taller than he. "They leave their dead to cover the streets."

Val’ha put her hand over her eyes to peer into the cotton-cloud sky. "It is more the living that concern me." An arrow whisked by her head and she crouched down as the Baroness walked by with a longbow. "Good morning, Baroness Val Tress."

"Good day, fair Woman. We have lost several more of our people on the north side – I do not know how much longer we can hold out against the Prince’s tide." Alyson approached. "By Tarl-Cabot’s estimate, their casualties might be something more than fifty, but not by much."

"With our own losses come to nineteen," said the Mayor, "we will have to do much better than that. I welcome whatever ideas you might have."

"I do not suppose that flight through The Tunnels is an option, Lady Mayor."

Alyson laughed disapprovingly. "No, Master Mecnoarv – it is a mark of Zini’s restraint, as it is, that they have not yet brought their full force to bear upon us."

"That position, you understand, will not be sustained much longer, Lady Alyson."

"No, that much the Prince’s advisor has made abundantly clear, Baroness."

"Excuse me, if you will, ladies." Mecnoarv hopped off his perch. "I must fetch more projectiles."

"As it stands, I am very aware that the blockades on Bylikania Pass and the road to Andovil’age – not that there has been much commerce since the siege began – will choke our city before too much longer." Mayor Alyson, as she sought for her next words, seemed to age before Val’ha’s eyes. She shook and bowed her head when a shout from the western side of the mayoral structure grabbed her attention and she left.

The Baroness watched her depart. "She is a powerful, resolute Woman and has marshaled her intelligence and resources as well as my family ever did, yet I am not certain we will have more than two days before this is over, one way or another. You there." She addressed Trisahn, several sheriffs over. He relaxed his bow. "It may be time to consider the horn that you employed on my island, Master Trisahn." He raised his brow toward Val’ha before returning to engagement.

"Have you noticed the blue sky?" Val’ha asked.

"I paled at this morning’s twin rainbows, yes. Even if the Dark God drained all of his energies for the malcraft at Insipirility Pass, and I do not think that so, he is by now recovered enough to produce another tornado storm, or who knows what else. However, we cannot allow that to rule our judgment in the current crisis until he strikes."

"What do you mean? If he comes, he comes? Are we to do nothing?"

"What, young lady, do you propose?" Val’ha realized in frustration that the Baroness was right, other than wishing for more rain, and said nothing. Baroness Val Tress started back for the north wall, running into poor Mecnoarv who had dashed from the Mayor’s office waving his hands. His face hit her weapon belt and he splayed backward. Val’ha had to stifle a chuckle as the halfling flailed about, throwing mud everywhere. "What a dunderhead," the Baroness muttered, assisting him to his feet. "What is troubling you, master Dwarf?"

"The Tunnel!" He pointed breathlessly toward Center Apocania. "The Tunnel! Warriors…" He scurried back into the building. Alarm stiffened Val’ha’s body, for one of their only advantages in the siege had been the Black Dogs’ ignorance of the thieves tunnels; indeed, Mayor Alyson had counted on that fact. Val’ha, the Baroness and Trisahn raced after Mecnoarv into the jail hall, to the locked cell with the hole.

Led by a Man and Woman, both in light Blue Rose armor, a stream of ready fighters, all clad in the vestments and metal of King Joel IV’s army, poured through the aperture that Val’ha and Tarl-Cabot had created, while behind her the Mayor, Sir Porcie and several Apocanians entered. At Val’ha’s side – to her astonishment – the Baroness resheathed her sword and shook her finger at the Woman. "It is well beyond nigh that we meet again, my daughter!"

**

Countess Val Tress went off with her mother after both sides gave their intentions and a quick update of the siege. Alyson and Mecnoarv led the hundred-plus nobles of the shadow Conschalan force to join the battle outside, leaving Val’ha and Porcie with Sir Preston-Altraine, son of King Joel’s murdered counselor, Arpon-Altraine. The knights embraced heartily. "How many weeks I have longed to see, to talk to another Blue Rose insipirile! The Conschalans have been worthy and true allies, but there is nothing like an old friend."

"But that there was anything left to speak of, my dear Preston-Altraine. My deepest sympathy to you for your father’s passing."

"I wake up and see his face. I fight the rage that boils in my blood, but I cannot do in the darkness of my bed but to think that it fires my quest anyway. I see you keep such company as the beautiful Lady Val’ha here, and the Baroness. Everyone said you deserted King Joel!"

Porcie was aghast. "Sir! How can that be said?" He told Preston-Altraine what had happened to him and Sir Quigley on the night of King Joel and Queen A’gren’s murders; when they were returning from Denlineil after searching the coastal highway for signs of Oromasus and met the three accused in their flight from Prince Joel. "Quigley and I knew we would be rounded up alongside others associated with Val’ha, Tarl-Cabot and the Baroness, Sir Preston-Altraine – the Baron, Sir Thoryn…"

"How is he? Good Thoryn!"

"He was killed by Feukpi’s witch daughter some weeks ago. The only other with us is Lady Val’ha’s sister."

"I too am sorry for your loss," said Val’ha, "and add my voice to Mayor Alyson’s – you could not have arrived at a more urgent hour."

"I only wish we were more. As it is, with two hundred Conschalans on the north side and three hundred more making their way around the end-blocks to Bylikania Pass to subvert the road blockades, this was as many as we could spare."

"I am very curious," said Porcie.

"Yes, my lord?"

"I know that you told us you heard of the Apocanian siege at the juncture of the Three Roads, but who alerted you?"

"A cleric – he spoke mostly with the Countess, actually, for she knew him from her childhood. Brother…hm, it is at the tip…"

"Ziegler?"

"Ziegler! Yes, Ziegler." Preston-Altraine slapped his chest. "And his daughter, very strange, her eyes were unreal, like daffodils – Zoar. They were fleeing up Apocania Road at the Baroness’ behest. I believe the Baroness and Brother Ziegler – hm, knew each other at some time."

The two Men stared at each other a full minute before both of them broke into grins and hugged once more. "Val’ha, I should tell you some stories about this knight here that would set your hair on fire!"

"Lies! All lies!"

"Do you deny that night at the Merry Scroll Tavern?"

Preston-Altraine pondered for a moment. "Oh! Tha-at night!" They rattled the jail hall with their merriment.

"I have answered all of your queries, Preston, now you may answer mine."

Without hesitation, Preston-Altraine said, "There are many I am sure, but that which is most notorious, I have no doubt, is the matter of my father." Val’ha told him of Lord Frippe’s testimony and the knight grieved at word of his death. "The day following the betrothal of Igri and Tarl-Cabot, you recall I too was involved in the hunt for the High Wizarder, commanding the contingent that searched along Magickal Road. We returned in the late afternoon and I readied myself for supper with my father, as was our tradition. But that day, Sir Arpon-Altraine could not dine with me – he told me he had been asked to a private toast in the King’s antechamber."

"Did he say with whom?"

"No, but that others close to the King would be there."

"If they were using the King’s meeting room…oh, jy’go!" Porcie swore in Dwarven. "All paths lead through the same wall – with the King’s council all dead themselves, his family…"

"Excuse me, Sir Porcie," said Val’ha, "but many others – gentry, guests held over from the betrothal, including the Val Tresses – were there as well, if you recall." She reported what Aeysla had told her about the discovery of Arpon-Altraine and Lady Frippe’s bodies, and the four goblets of sweet amber liquid.

Val’ha noticed Porcie’s brow knitting as he held his fist to his chin and closed his eyes. "Sir Thoryn," he finally said. "Lady Val’ha, the day Thoryn returned from the Island of Dragons he had a single flask of Cagliostra’s witches brew left after your battle with the walking-wheels. Of course, in the short time he was back, all of Castle Moncrovia found out the details of your quest – almost everyone knew about the poison, which is notable because the night before Igri’s banns, just as we were preparing for sleep, Thoryn tore up our quarters looking for the flask. I told him he had probably just misplaced it and we went to bed."

Another body was being brought into the jail as arrows continued to pummel the outside wall. "We know why your father and Lady Frippe were killed, where, how and when," said Val’ha, "but we are still left with the matter of who and why, really, King Joel and Queen A’gren were murdered."

"Prince Joel wanted to assure his ascension to the throne, my lady – why else target the Queen?"

"That is the conventional wisdom around the commonwealth," Porcie nodded at Preston-Altraine, "but even with the Prince’s guilt, if that is true and not hearsay, he is only one. His son, Lord Joel, wields the birth-rock of Xorus…"

"Like father, like son, you say?" teased Preston. "Well, my wise friends, if it comes that you bring yourselves within even a mile of the palace – if you can sneak past Carias or Magickal roads, for the Prince has posted many Black Dogs in the fog there – then if there is anything at all left to Castle Moncrovia, you can turn up every stone to find your clues."

"That might even do, but in our search for Oromasus less than a day before the royal murders, we did just that. I saw nothing amiss. Now, Lady Val’ha and Sir Preston, I should think we are needed on the barricades."