Stormwind Paradigm

V

The first two weeks of the examination process were mind-numbingly boring, as Denton was prone to ranting on once the day's work had been called to an end and they had retired to the warded seclusion and safety of their granted dormitory. The main exception was the time they spent observing the classes: many of the Professors were exceptional at their particular field of study and often Karish found herself entranced by the lesson being taught rather than observing the students as she was supposed to. Though most of the actual classes in magic were far over her head, discussing concepts she was years away from understanding due to lack of the most basic arcane schooling, they were still intriguing to watch as the students weaved the Art into masterful shapes and sounds and glorious effects. Even more entrancing were the actual educational classes, where alongside their magical training the students received full schooling in mathematics, sciences, religion, politics, and history. History was Sydney's field, after all, and the obvious zest she had for it, for learning herself as well as teaching others, only made the class all that much better. No wonder she had become a teacher, after coming here as a student; this was her passion, the driving obsession of her life thus far.

There were patterns to be found and after the first few days it was obvious. Certain subjects were taboo, regardless of situation or reason; no rule was written and no official declaration made but there were simply some things that seemed to be universally accepted as remaining unsaid. The main one was the subject of the war: it seemed impossible by any means to bring discussion on the subject beyond a simple acknowledgment that it existed and continued in a place somewhere distant. Another seemed to be the royal family. The Chancellor was an oft-discussed figure, they even attended a debate at the end of their first week regarding student opinions on the status of his reign, but the late monarchs or the young princess were rarely even mentioned and never discussed in depth, at least while the examiners were present. Karish was confident word had gotten out among the student body regarding their presence somehow, and many were likely watching their words a bit more carefully while she and Denton were around. Hopefully Sydney still knew which ones she could trust, as for now Karish and Denton weren't seeing much of anyone who looked at all willing to step out of line.

Interestingly, Sydney herself was the exception. In the confines of her hall, no subject seemed to be barred from discussion. She encouraged open discourse on the progress of warfare, and regularly compared the current engagements with similar conflicts of the past; though nothing so large-scale as this had occurred at any time in the past that she had access to records of, there were still equivalencies to be had with smaller conflicts and skirmishes. She often and sometimes drastically compared and contrasted Ghirard's reign with not only that of King Alexander but with other famed kings and queens of Galadae and even foreign monarchs of the past. She held herself back enough from outright proving him sub-par in comparison, which would have been a simpler task in many ways, while still managing to present him as far from a perfect leader. Furthermore, she regularly brought up the subject of Princess Alenn in her classes, and prompted discussion on how things might change when the throne once more changed hands in two to four years. Debates among her students and often between them and herself were always entertaining, and for the most part were kept only mildly heated.

Norgard came to their dormitory every three days or so to check on their progress, ask how things were going, offer further assistance, and otherwise "snoop around" as Denton was prone to putting it. Sometimes he accompanied them to classes; Denton dreaded those days because it required him to "act like he was paying attention" to whatever lesson was being taught; Karish had less trouble with it as she was almost always paying attention and fairly regularly taking notes on several extra pages of parchment she'd added to the faculty roster. If the students were tight-lipped in general when they were around, having Norgard present made them almost completely silent, and many of the teachers - Sydney even included - expressed complaints to the Headmaster that his presence at such an already stressful time was more distraction than help. After the first few attempts Norgard agreed to stop accompanying them and secluded himself back in his office, and things seemed to return to normal as far as the students and Professors were concerned.

Denton mostly busied himself with gauging the capabilities of the students. There were approximately two hundred students in total, all of them skilled at least in the third circle of the Art. Of those, at least half could cast from the fourth circle, and of those at least twenty could cast from the fifth circle or higher. On top of those were the Professors, all of which could cast significantly more powerful magic as well as whatever their personal specialties might be; counting both Sydney and Norgard there were fifteen in all. Forty-five people who could cast above the fifth circle, of which five - maybe ten - would not be considered immediate enemies in the ensuing attack. The Spell-sword Squadron would have to be prepared to engage, without them the Brigade would stand little chance against that much arcane power.

The third week. It would have to happen then. Any earlier would have given them too little preparation time, and that was past anyway. Any later and they risked not only the arrival of new student applicants interfering but also the appearance of Ghirard's actual examiners for the new students and an investigation why the orders sent by owl had not yet been completed. The second day of that week Denton sent a message by hawk to Patrick to notify the Brigade: such had been their main method of communication since arrival, and when Norgard had seen and questioned it Denton easily explained it as hawks and falcons being swifter, stronger, and more reliable than owls for message transport, especially when well trained and under the hand of an equally well-trained ranger. Norgard seemed to accept that with a thoughtful little scowl and wandered back to his office muttering about replacing Ghirard's owl with a good osprey if he could have one caught and trained. Denton happily let him muse on that for a few days.

On the fourth day of that week he notified Sydney to begin extracting her chosen students, sending them north to the main road then west on various errands and giving them markers to signify their position as allies of the Brigade; he also advised her to do likewise for any other Professors she trusted, as well as to give different marks to particularly troublesome students she thought she could persuade into leaving so that the Brigade could take them away from the battle without harm and prevent them from tipping the scales too much in Norgard's favor. Sydney proved herself surprisingly adept over the next few days, informing all her students of a special "investigative task" to be performed over the next few days, and for the most part all the students accepted the instruction without complaint. A few opted to pass on the exercise and to avoid blowing their cover only a few days too soon Sydney did not press the issue. Thankfully Norgard had fully secluded himself back to his office and his dwelling by then and he never got around to questioning her about it, or a few days later why none of the students had returned. She managed to cut down the student body by a third that way, all in a matter of three days; Denton was suitably impressed.

It was now or never: Norgard would notice those students missing before too long, Ghirard's real examiners would be here any day, new students would start arriving soon. The tower needed to be theirs before that happened.

On the first day of the fourth week Denton, Karish, and Sydney exited the College grounds at the break of dawn and strode south into the fields. It was a good half-hour's walk before they reached the edge of the woods beyond the low hills where Patrick and Mason, now fully recovered from his escapade with the Troll, were waiting for them. After the scouts gave the three of them a quick look over, they escorted them deeper into the woods; after another half-mile or so of winding trails they at last escaped into a wide clearing in the depths of the forest. The Brigade camp took up all of the bare space and sprawled in some places out into the wooded forest where space could be found, and at least a quarter of the participants present were ex-College students who had been sent away but a day before, now garbed in Brigade recruit tabards and placed under Andrew's command. The old archivist and his squadrons, both new and old, stood alongside Denton's Spell-swords, who all flew immediately to attention upon the arrival of their Captain. Sydney, however, bothered with no such formalities and threw herself headlong into Andrew's waiting arms.

"And how is my favorite student?" the old man barked through laughter as he returned the loving embrace of the much younger girl. To both Denton and Karish he seemed to be making a point of being exceptionally gentle with her when doing so, as if he feared harming her somehow; not only was Andrew not an exceptionally strong man by any means but Sydney had shown no signs of being at all fragile, so the best they could do was exchange a perplexed glance.

"Too long without her favorite teacher," she replied brightly, finally letting up from her gleeful tackle. "So this is it, huh? The end of the College of Fornaeus. I never thought it would go out with such a bang."

"Oh bah," Andrew snorted, grinning. "Do you think I'd let my school die so easily? Not so my dear, not so! 'Tis but a momentary setback. This is a necessity, for the good of the Brigade and the good of Galadae and perhaps eventually for the good of all Wachara... and maybe even all of Atlas itself. Once the war is over and there's no need for the Brigade anymore, much less a headquarters for such, I fully intend to return the College to its former purpose, its rightful purpose as a house of learning. And I fully expect you to be the first one there when its doors open to accept no longer soldiers but students and professors again." Sydney only nodded happily and hugged him again, and Andrew turned his attention back to Denton, Karish, and Patrick, who had moved over to the group and saluted the scholar until acknowledged. "Are we prepared, Master O'Donnan?"

"We are," Patrick replied, lowering his salute. "All squadrons are in place and prepared to march. We are standing by for your orders, sir."

Andrew released Syndey and took a step forward, brushing out his robes and picking up an ornate bleached-white wooden staff topped with a clear blue crystal of some sort that was leaning against a small shrub to his right. His free hand stroked thoughtfully through his beard before a determined expression filled his face and his eyes with purpose. "Very well then, give the order. We march on the College of Fornaeus. They will surrender, or they will be taken."

VI

Norgard was wandering the halls looking for Professor Lindermann when he saw them. Like ants, he could think of no better comparison despite the horrid cliche, swarming across the low rolling hills and plain to the south between the College grounds and the forest. Too many to count, though for an army it looked small, but that's what it was he was absolutely sure - an army, knights and soldiers and mages in armor and tabards, marching directly towards the tower. Still too far away to see any detail, but too close to do anything to stop their advance. Where had they come from? How had they gotten so close without anyone noticing? He'd been so distracted by the examinations going on the past few weeks that he had....

Where were the examiners? That Murdoch knight, and the Xavier woman with the empty voice. Where were they? He needed them to get a message to Chancellor Ghirard immediately, maybe send one of those hawks with an emergency message. If they were truly that much better than owls it might get to Galadae in a day and a half rather than two or three, reinforcements could be here by next week... the week the examinations were supposed to be happening.

"Oh ye gods," he muttered as all the puzzle pieces at last finally fell into place. "Oh ye dreadful gods above and below." The bony old Headmaster scrambled for the nearest flight of stairs, arms waving and mouth blazing out the incantations for the spell he needed more than anything right now.

They had taken him for a fool and he'd fallen into it hook line and sinker. Had the letter been forged? Possibly, that could explain so much, but he couldn't be sure. It was Ghirard's handwriting, or very close to it, and the tone was what he had come to expect from the Chancellor. Spies, or infiltrators, or something, they had to be; had they intercepted something along the way, there was no way of knowing to be honest but it did not matter now, it was too late, the enemy was at the gates.

"ALL STUDENTS AND FACULTY REPORT TO THE CENTER CHAMBERS!!" Norgard's voice screamed, screeching at the top of his lungs and amplified by the spell as he sprawled and scrambled down the myriad levels of the tower. "THIS IS HEADMASTER NORGARD! I REPEAT, ALL STUDENTS AND FACULTY REPORT TO THE CENTER CHAMBERS! THIS IS NOT A JOKE OR PRANK! THE TOWER IS UNDER ATTACK! FORTIFY ALL EXITS AND WARD ALL ACCESSES AND REPORT TO THE CENTER CHAMBERS IMMEDIATELY!!" Almost immediately the sound of rushing feet and murmuring crowds answered his call as students and professors alike filled the halls, milling in from the courtyard or out of their classes and moving towards the tower's core as ordered.

Norgard, however, did not go to the center chambers. On the third level there was a balcony directly above the entrance, used for such situations as this - for when the tower had to be sealed against attack, be it enemies or monsters or the simple wrath of nature, where someone could step out and address the enemy forces or get a look at the situation without going down to the ground level where they were likely to be attacked. One could still be shot with an arrow or spell, but Norgard was prepared for that. As he reached the third level he began casting again, fortifying his personal wards and stopping just long enough to prepare a more complicated, longer conjuration that he was surely confident would catch even the most learned rebels off-guard. Every great mage had his secrets, and Norgard was no exception. Once confident he was fully prepared for any attack he could face as best as he could be, he swept open the single barred and chained door on the third level and stepped out on to the balcony.

The courtyard and grounds were full of them. Soldiers, warriors, scouts, archers, militia men and women, and mages. Some of the mages wearing the robes of Fornaeus. Students, standing among the enemy, wearing their tabard over the robes of the College. The bony old man's heart filled with hatred and rage at the sight, and that sensation only intensified when he saw who stood at the front of the crowd: none other than Andrew Iratio himself, the exiled and deposed traitor removed from the College for his unwillingness to submit to Chancellor Ghirard's regulations. Professor Lartessian stood at his side with a longbow clutched in her gloved hands and a quiver hanging at an odd position at her belt rather than slung onto her back as it was normally worn. The knight, Murdoch, stood on his other side, but his tabard with the mark of Astraea had been replaced with one matching the rest of these rebels; the woman Xavier stood slightly behind him, and... wait, was that her? The woman standing behind Murdoch that he thought was Xavier looked like she'd suddenly turned into a demon, red skin and black eyes, black-clawed fingers clutching the halberd as it rested on her shoulder. She wore no cloak or tabard at all now. Was she a mercenary? And what was she? A doppelganger, or a demon, to shift her appearance so? No, wait. Those scars, those eyes, that face.... It had seemed all too familiar when she was disguised before... could she be...?

Norgard forced the thoughts from his mind and turned his attention directly to Andrew. "So! At long last the prodigal father returns. And at the head of an invasion force no less! All pretenses of hiding your betrayal under a cloak of superior morals cast aside now, Iratio? At last the demon shows his face. And you, Lartessian... I should have guessed you would never truly leave his side. Spying for him all these years I assume? I suppose all those pretty words about loving knowledge for its own sake and living for the purpose of educating the growing youth of Galadae were nothing more than words after all. I guess that makes me a gullible old fool, then!" The Headmaster barked out a vicious laugh and swept his glare over the crowd.

"Save your speeches, Norgard, for they're nothing we've not heard before and we came not to banter or to bargain," Andrew retorted, stepping forward and lifting his staff towards the Professor. "In the name of the Baronic Brigade I Andrew Iratio hereby order you to surrender this tower and the land upon which it stands into our hands. Refusal will result in us taking this land by force, which will inevitably lead to loss of life on both sides, but we will take this tower in the end. Don't be an arrogant fool Mikhael! You are outclassed and outnumbered and many of your own have already turned against you."

"Traitors to the crown and Chancellor shall die!" Norgard shouted, his voice screeching all the more the louder he became, before breaking off into a sudden hacking fit of coughs. It took him a few moments to recover before he stood upright again and glared down at the rebel army. "Lay down your arms and bind your casters' hands behind their backs and you will be escorted into the lower levels for keeping until the REAL knights of Galadae arrive! Else the blood of you and your precious Brigade will water the grounds for the next week!"

"No surrender!" Andrew shouted back, though his voice remained full and unwavering, his face twisted in a determined scowl. "So be it then!" He slammed his staff to the ground, and a shock wave of energy burst from its base and swept up the tower; the crackling of magic filled the air around it as the invading evocation wrestled with the College's many protective wards. "Every man a pauper! Every man a baron! For Galadae! For Wachara! For Atlas! For the Crown of Astraea! ATTACK!!"

The first wave of troops moved forward, armored knights swarming around the old mage and his three compatriots to stand in front of the door with blades drawn. Denton raised a hand to the air, three fingers pointed up. "Spell-swords, on my mark! Break these wards and smash this door! Kiyae!" Raised swords hummed to life with the thrum of magic energy as the noise already filling the air was intensified by the rhythmic chanting of Spell-swords invoking the Art through the medium of steel. "Hayae!" Blades swung forward, crashing into invisible walls and unleashing the force of their enchantments; sonic explosions and the crackling of magic against magic deafened anyone within the area. "Jayae!" Bursts of energy erupted from within the empowered weapons, carving gaping holes in the weave of the wards surrounding the tower. With a groaning shudder the entire matrix of protective energies struggled to repair the breaches made but the damage had been too much too quickly; the wards gave a final howl of protest before collapsing completely with the sound of an invisible avalanche.

Panicking, Norgard swept his way back into the tower before the wards could fall completely; getting caught in a magical mishap like that was suicide. "ATTENTION ALL FACULTY! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK!" he screamed, reactivating the amplification enchantment he had cast earlier. "ENEMY FORCES HAVE BREACHED THE OUTER WARDS! REBEL SOLDIERS AND MAGES ARE ATTACKING THE TOWER! ALL CAPABLE CASTERS TO DEFENSIBLE LOCATIONS! PREPARE FOR COUNTER ASSAULTS!" The Headmaster fled through the halls, his bony frame springing with speed he on most days would have doubted he had; today however he had an aid for this sort of thing that he would not have invoked otherwise. He needed to engage the enemy directly, but before he could dare do that he needed to make sure the tower was defended against invasion. The sound of movement from the center of the tower ensured him that reinforcements were on their way; that was in the hands of the other faculty now, leaving him to attend to his task alone. Not perfect, not even excellent, but it would have to do. It was the only way they could find victory.

The wards down, the Spell-swords had stepped back to allow normal troops equipped with battering rams to take care of the mundane barricades, saving their arcane energies for the battle to come. It didn't take long to breach the entry gate, as Andrew had spoken true when he said the tower had not been built with extensive fortification in mind, but the sight that awaited on the other side was not what the soldiers had been expecting: a line of College mages both students and professors, arcane energies crackling from their fingers and a wave of summoned elemental servants of all kinds standing between them and their invading enemies. "Attack!!" Professor Van Gault bellowed with all his strength before bounding forward, fists clenched and magic crackling in his grip. The row of students released their spells all at once, carving a blazing swath of carnage through the first ranks of the battering ram troops; amazingly Van Gault avoided the entirety of the blast through sheer nimble reflex and launched into the thick of the Brigade forces, lashing out at armored troops with fist and forces alike. Their masters' spells unleashed the miniature elemental army was quick to follow in Van Gault's example, and living towers of water and flame, mobile statues, and intelligent whirlwinds assaulted the invaders en masse.

"Now Karish!" Andrew shouted, waving a hand with a sudden shout towards a fire elemental that had drifted in his direction; a blast of frigid water issued from the old man's fingertips and reduced the attacking flame to a quickly-dissipating cloud of steam.

"Spell-swords, stop those elementals!" Denton roared as loud as he could, trying to shout commands above the general chaos of the battle. "Archers stop trying to shoot in the middle of the crowd! And someone stop that damned monk!!"

"On it," Karish spoke behind him, and Denton turned to see her sitting astride a ghostly warhorse that hadn't been there a moment before; now with her back turned slightly towards him he could see a pair of grey-plumed bird-like wings had somehow grown from her back and draped down like a feather cloak. She was wielding her halberd almost as if it was a lance, rested in her hip and pointed past the horse's head as she rotated in place looking around for Van Gault. The monk, with a few students not far behind him, had waded into the center of the Brigade forces and was thrashing anyone he could get within arms' reach. Karish charged, weaving through the crowd and managing to only trample one enemy mage before she rode up alongside the pair assisting Van Gault and stretched out a hand in their direction. The air around her arm rippled as a burst of transparent magic speared towards the two mages, catching them in the heads but appearing to do no harm. "You two," she shouted in a voice as commanding as she could as if doing her best to imitate Denton, "attack him!" She pointed at Van Gault with her halberd.

Perhaps unexpectedly, the compulsion worked: both began casting and lashed out at Van Gault with the best spells the had available. He evaded the first, apparently simply out of reflex, but when he looked to see where it had come from the second caught him off guard and sent him sprawling back, out of the crowd. Karish saw her chance and spurred her mount forward, leaping a few members of the Brigade who wandered into her path as they moved to spread away from the downed monk, and swept in an arc to meet him head on as Van Gault made his way back to his feet. Just as the monk turned towards the sound of approaching hooves Karish lunged, impaling him through the chest with her halberd with all the force she could muster, magic crackling in visible glowing golden streams from the bladed head as it found its target.

Denton didn't have a chance to watch her triumph; moments after she bolted off on her phantom steed he found himself under assault from not one but three elementals attempting to surround him. He dispersed the first, a frost fiend, with ease without relying on magic; his sword was already possessed of an enchanted edge and cleaved through the icy beast with little difficulty. The second and third he did not spare the extra aid, slashing deftly through a creature of stone with a blade empowered with electric energy and scattering a water elemental by using frost magic to freeze it solid before sundering it as he had the first.

By this time the Brigade soldiers had recovered some semblance of order and reorganized into rank and file. Spell-swords and normal soldiers stood on the front line, blocking the elementals restricted to foot travel from reaching the more poorly defended soldiers in the rear ranks. Most of the casters occupied themselves with countering and balancing the assaults by the mages defending the tower, while the rest did what they could to neutralize the flying elementals and the earth creatures that could burrow or glide through the ground by their own means to bypass the defenders. A few even summoned creatures of their own, which engaged and attempted to destroy their counterparts leaving the humans uninvolved as much as possible. In the center of the group stood Sydney, Denton, Patrick, and Andrew along with some of the other commanders; Karish, minus her horse and halberd, returned moments later. "We won't have the tower until we have Norgard," Andrew was explaining. "He disappeared back inside so either he's retreated to a safe place to command or he's moving out of sight to attack from an unexpected direction. Either way we don't know what he's doing."

"We're barely breaking even here," Denton commented, looking back at the field of engagement between the tower entrance and the Brigade's front lines. The area in question was strewn with the bodies of the dead from both sides, along with some tell-tale signs of magical combat; the elementals, however, left nothing behind when they were destroyed but rather simply discorporated back to their plane of origin. Only a small handful of Professors had fallen; the rest, as dreaded and expected, had been students.

"I have a way," Sydney suddenly spoke up. "A way to turn the tides a bit, and a way to flush Norgard out. But it'll take some time, and I'm not going to be able to defend myself until I'm done, so I need you guys to keep me safe."

"Got it," Patrick said gruffly, checking the tension on his bow momentarily before stringing an arrow and taking a shot, spearing a hole straight through an earth elemental's head. Somehow that managed to do the trick, and the creature collapsed into a pile of stones.

Sydney closed her eyes and folded her hands together in front of her chest, and suddenly began to sing. There were no words to this strange song, whatever it might be, simply an odd but beautiful melody of vocalized notes. For a short moment, it was as if the entire battlefield had come to a standstill, everyone on both sides of the conflict stopping to listen to the unusual music before a shot was fired or a spell cast and the conflict resumed with vigor; however as the fighting went on around her Sydney did not even pause save for when she needed a breath. It was only a little less than a minute into the unexplained performance that Karish realized she was singing words, but not in the words of the Common tongue nor were they the words of the other language she knew, the one Patrick and Andrew and Denton called Tanaric. This new language was somehow both beautiful and melancholy, sorrowful and glorious, empowering and heartbreaking all at once, and though she couldn't be singing all that loudly - could she? - Sydney's voice still rang out over the chaotic ruckus of the ongoing battle, clear and audible above the clash of blades and armor, the chanting of incantation, the roar of magic in its countless different voices.

"Balder's blood," Victor swore; the dark-skinned man had apparently moved up behind Karish sometime during the performance and she jumped slightly at his whispered words. "A skald. A real-as-you-bleed, true-as-taxes skald. Gods above."

"What is a skald?" Karish asked, picking up a sword from a dead soldier's hand and testing its weight. Until she could pry her halberd free of Van Gault's body, this would have to do.

"A skald," Andrew answered, his face plastered with a proud grin and his eyes glittering, "also known as a bard, is a special kind of user of the Art, much like yourself Karish. But rather than operate through incantations like a wizard, through divine empowerment like a priest, or through symbols and seals like a soulbinder, a skald casts their magic through music. Be it instrument," he paused, gesturing at Sydney, "or simply through their own voice."

"What is she doing?" Denton asked.

"A song of empowerment," the sage explained. "To rally and strengthen our men. But there is another enchantment involved, the words she's speaking... not a language I know. It's as if she's casting a spell in words like a wizard, while singing and using magic through music like a bard...."

The ground beneath their feet suddenly buckled, shifting and cracking as if an earthquake had suddenly struck the College grounds. Several troops on both sides of the battle were thrown to the ground, and Sydney shrieked as she fell, bringing her magical music to a sudden halt. Several of the students screamed and fled deeper into the tower as soon as they regained their footing, as if fleeing from whatever had caused the attack. "Who cast that?" Denton demanded, waving his sword over his head; he was one of the few who had managed to retain his footing. "What was that? Who cast that spell?"

"Not one of ours," one of the mage commanders shouted back.

"No," Sydney echoed, "not one of ours. Though I guess I'm partially to blame."

"Why?" Denton, Karish, and Victor asked in unison.

"Because I called him here," she answered, struggling to get back on her feet.

"Who?" Andrew demanded.

"Norgard."

A massive fissure split open the ground, swallowing the first handful of soldiers who couldn't move away quickly enough. The creature that emerged moments later from the depths of that pit, in Karish's eyes at least, could have competed with Aym for the position of most horrifying thing to crawl out of the deeper darkness of the Void. A gargantuan reptile of some sort, carved of solid stone and yet moving as fluidly as a serpent, with a face completely devoid of eyes and nostrils and too many legs to count; from within its mouth three tongues writhed like stone tentacles, barbed with hook-like claws or clamps on their forward ends. Somehow both standing on top of its head and merged with the top of its skull was another stone creature, a birdlike entity carved of black rock. This creature was covered all over its wings and chest with eyes, and completely lacked a head. And riding on this monstrosity's back, coughing every few moments as he did, was Headmaster Norgard.

"I've been waiting for you to do that," he announced with a gritty cackle as he fought to stand upright while his body shook from the wracking cough. "The Words of Creation, such strange and beautiful magic, don't you think? And so easily blended with the bardic arts. Well, you've done splendidly... you spoke of my name and here I stand before you, exactly as you desired."

"What IS that!?" Denton shouted, though the question was more directed at the people around him than at Norgard.

"Agares," Karish and Andrew replied in unison.

"What?" Mason echoed.

"A Void soul," Andrew explained, "like the ones Karish communes with. Agares, Truth Betrayed; a general of stone overthrown by his own loyal troops under the gaze of his greatest enemy. But for Norgard to command him...."

Norgard himself was grinning wildly, eyes alight with something just short of madness, between his fits of coughing. "You are impressed by my servant I see... then allow me to give you a demonstration!!" The creature lunged forward, far faster than its size indicated it should move, and in its first charge caught four soldiers up in its maw and one more with each of its tentacles; with a rumbling crash the great mouth snapped shut and when it opened again all seven were simply gone, vanished somewhere into the creature's deep stone gullet. As it passed a great three-pronged tail followed it out of the crevasse and proceeded to lash out into the rebel army, throwing soldiers or flattening them to the ground before they could even think to break rank and flee. Agares swung around on the far end of the grounds and looked prepared to charge again as the soldiers scrambled to prepare for the incoming attack.

"Mages, archers, target Norgard!" Andrew shouted, waving his staff overhead. After three rotations he pointed the crystal towards his foe, and a spear of lightning burst from somewhere within the gem and crashed into Agares's bird-eyes-face and grazed over Norgard standing just behind it. The troops took slightly longer to regain their composure and by the time they took aim and fired Agares was moving again.

"I think you need to SIT DOWN!!" Norgard howled madly, cackling and coughing as loud as he could in his screeching voice as Agares barreled through the ranks, quaking the ground and throwing soldiers and Spell-swords from their feet with each step. Spells and arrows soon began to find their mark but either withered or simply bounced away, deflected by the many empowered wards the Headmaster had surrounded himself with before leaving the tower. The tails lashed out again, scattering the next line of soldiers and throwing many of the armored men back into the mages behind, sending most of them sprawling. And again he was charging, this time directly toward Andrew and his company. "You're a fool old man! And now I'll...!"

A second giant crocodile beast only slightly smaller than Norgard's mount suddenly burst from the ground directly in front of Andrew, melting out of the stone as if lunging out of water to catch Agares by the throat, hurling him off-course; this second creature was identical in appearance to the first save its size and Karish clinging for dear life to the bird-like figure on its head with one hand and her claimed sword in the other. The two Agares crashed to the ground near the base of the tower and Karish's mount scrambled to put some distance between her and Norgard before the shocked Headmaster could recover. "Who was...?"

"You are not the only one with one foot in the Void," Karish announced, standing upright on her mount's back now that it was no longer burrowing or flying through the air.

"A soulbinder, intriguing," the bony old Professor mused aloud as his Agares righted itself and turned to face towards Karish. He raised both hands over his head and broke into a manic grin. "The problem is, that's all you are, isn't it? Just a soul-speaker, nothing more. Nothing to compliment your skill, nothing to be empowered by it."

Karish paused, leaning forward slightly. "What do you mean?"

Norgard grinned ever wider. "You, young... whatever you are, all you have is the powers the Void deems fit to grant you. While I," he waved his arms suddenly downward and a burst of magic shot from his hands down into the earth, "can draw their power into the Art!" As if in answer to his proclamation the ground beneath Karish and her mount speared upwards, forming into jagged stalagmites and stabbing through the mount's many limbs and tail, eliciting a bellow of agony and a shriek of surprise from the rider.

"Now!" Andrew's voice shouted behind him, and Norgard only had time to partially turn himself in place before the flurry of spells and ammunition crashed into him, buffeting relentlessly against his personal wards. He was not harmed directly, his protections still stayed the assault from actually wounding him, but the sheer force of the simultaneous attack coupled with the surprise of its ferocity almost sent him toppling from atop his beast. The archivist himself was moving towards him, raising columns of earth from the ground to reach Agares's back, Denton and Sydney close behind him continuing to throw spells and fire arrows respectively along with the rest of their remaining force.

"Impudent gnats!" the Headmaster roared, waving a hand in their direction; a sudden gust of wind hurled Sydney back off the column and pushed Denton to his knees to avoid the same fate, but Andrew seemed unphased. The elderly mage simply continued raising his columns and taking a step at a time closer to Norgard's mount. "So that's the way you want it then, fine, have this!" A snap of his fingers and the mount swung its three tails towards the base of the columns, and though they struck solidly the stone upon which Andrew walked was neither moved nor broken, and the wizened sage neither stumbled nor fell. "What are you...!?"

"A distraction," Andrew replied with a smile.

Karish's mount crashed into Norgard's again, but this time the beasts were locked jaw to jaw, tentacles and teeth lashing at each other in a desperate struggle to claim dominance; in the conflict Karish darted up her monster's nose and leaped the distance to Norgard's, then continued the rest of the way towards the Headmaster's position on its back. Flailing, the wizard waved his hands and began chanting in a desperate attempt to cast again, but as Karish drew close she leaped and landed directly in front of him, her landing shaking the entire creature in a similar way to how its stomping had rocked the earth beneath the soldiers before, and Norgard was thrown from his feet before the incantation could be completed. When he opened his eyes, Karish stood over him with a sword to his throat and Andrew stood next to her with a foot on his chest.

"I... I surrender," the bony old man choked, and coughed again, spewing a mouthful of pebbles off to the side. "The College is yours."

VII

Gods below but the girl was becoming more annoying by the day. Every single bloody hour since the night of the Baptism she'd grown more and more grating on his nerves. She wanted a hand in everything now. Politics, military, commerce, even the College. The College was the first bastion of his loyalty, he couldn't risk giving it over to her influence, but she was just short of demanding it and he could think of no good reason why he could not allow her that she would not refute immediately. When did she become so stubborn? And so crafty!? It was as if in the space of a single night she'd been granted some sort of divine insight.... Could they have done that? The church of Athena? Would they have done that? It was impossible to tell, and that just made it all the more frustrating. And frankly, Ghirard had more than enough things on his plate that were frustrating.

So when the horns announcing something was attacking the city went off, he was all too happy for the temporary reprieve. Ghirard weaved his way through the crowds of servants and soldiers in the castle and bolted for the quickest subterranean passageway to the city wall. Castle Galadae was full of them, constructed by kings of the past who were as paranoid or perhaps even more so than he himself, and frankly by his estimation that was an exceptional feat. It only took him a span of two minutes to make the ten-minute walk by street from the castle to the gate wall; it helped that he ran most of the way.

Four soldiers stood sentinel, one blasting on the horn every thirty seconds or so while another stared through a spyglass out into the full moon night. The other two saluted as soon as Ghirard stepped out of the passageway door and remained at attention until he waved them and the horn man down. "What do we have?"

"Some kind of large creature or structure, might be a summoned creature or a construct," the superior officer explained. "It's approaching the city at a very high speed; only appeared about twenty minutes ago and it's already moved from the horizon to there. It'll be here in less than an hour."

"Give me the spyglass," the Chancellor ordered, and the soldier complied without hesitation or question. The thing he saw when he lifted it to his eyes looked like some escaped denizen of hell: a bestial chunk of stone carved in the shape of a giant lizard or a dragon without wings, with some kind of eye-covered pedestal sticking out of its head and three clawed tentacles trailing out of its mouth as it charged through the plains, barreling directly towards Galadae on a maddening collision course. A humanoid figure, stick-thin and pale as death, clutched madly to the pedestal and seemed to be screaming at the night, occasionally flailing its arms about or shaking a fist at the heavens in some kind of mad rage. "Norgard," he muttered, spitting the name like it was a curse. "Is that Norgard? It looks like Norgard."

"I'm not sure, sir," the commander replied.

But Ghirard was. Grumbling and scowling and cursing under his breath, he waved a hand at one of the gate men to raise the portcullis and strode out of the castle city beyond the gates, stepping out into the howling night and waiting for the creature to come to him. Forty minutes later the stone monstrosity rose hulking in front of the walls and came to a grinding, cracking halt mere yards away from Ghirard's position, pitching Norgard violently up against the pedestal thing, which turned out to actually be a carved headless bird jutting out of the crocodile-like creature's head and covered in glowing eyes.

The Headmaster had certainly seen better days. His skin was paler and tighter even than usual, he was exceptionally gaunt even for himself, and his normally well-kept few remaining strands of hair were ragged and even a large patch had fallen out. He was shaking and trembling all over, and actually fell off the creature into a painful heap with a strained yelp when he tried to climb down; Ghirard did not move from his position to aid him in any way, and the soldiers didn't dare interfere while the Chancellor was present unless the Professor attempted to harm him. He lumbered over in his bow-kneed bony way to fall ungracefully at Ghirard's feet, gasping for air.

"You didn't need to come here to do it, you know," Ghirard intoned.

"Do what!?" Norgard screeched.

"The mission I gave you," the Chancellor replied simply, as if that should answer everything.

"I never got a mission!"

Ghirard scowled. "Then why are you here?"

"To deliver a message," Norgard paused to swallow hard before continuing, "from the... from the Baronic Brigade."

One of Ghirard's eyebrows twitched. "The... what?"

"The... Baronic Brigade. They have... taken Fornaeus. They sent me here... to send you a message."

Now the Chancellor's whole face was on the edge of spasming. "What message." He was no longer phrasing it as a question.

Norgard choked for a few breaths, broke into a coughing fit, and struggled to start talking again. "They said... to tell you... that the College is free of your unrighteous hold. And that... that next... will be the Castle. Unless...."

"Unless what."

"Unless... you... you...."

"Unless WHAT."

"Unless you surrender the throne and crown immediately to Princess Alenn Astraea!" Norgard threw himself at Ghirard's feet, trembling and sobbing into the dirt. "And present yourself to the College unaccompanied and unarmed for keeping as a prisoner of war!"

Ghirard sighed, rubbing the twitching muscles of his face until they fell still again. So the Brigade had finally engaged, managed to win its first battle - against a bunch of students, no less - and now thought they meant something in the scheme of things. Still, they were a thorn in his side and such things were always better if removed and removed quickly if at all possible. "Norgard, dismiss the thing." The Headmaster nodded, rubbing his forehead on the ground in the process, and the lizard-statue-beast fell into a massive pile of broken rubble in the middle of the road. "No, I meant the whole thing."

Norgard raised his head and blinked, then coughed and spit up a pile of pebbles at Ghirard's feet. "Y-yes sir," he stammered, and closed his eyes. There was a wrenching sound from somewhere in the sky above them and in the earth beneath, which quickly faded into the windy night; when Norgard looked up again his cough seemed to have completely abated.

"Excellent," Ghirard said, but he did not sound very pleased. He turned back to the soldiers standing just outside the gate. "Arrest him."

"What!?" Norgard flailed wildly but the soldiers took rough hold of his arms and forcibly contorted them around his back before he could even start to cast. "What are you doing!?"

"You failed me, Norgard," the Chancellor said simply. "Failure necessitates punishment."

"No! No, please, my liege!"

Ghirard strode back into the city at a much more leisurely pace, ignoring his messenger's flailing and pleading. He stopped only long enough to speak to the commanding soldier just inside the walls. "Have him taken to the Devouring Chamber. We need to keep the Entity fed."

"Understood, my lord," the soldier replied with a salute. He and the troops with him began marching the overland path towards the castle, dragging Norgard's screaming form through the streets in the dead of night. Ghirard took a moment to consider following then decided to go back by the underground route. It was quicker even if he didn't run, and more so it was quieter.