The Sixth City of Rue Shalla is destroyed!
The shocking news arrived at the Third City of Bay Grand, carried not by the intelligence agents of the Wolfpack, but rather by a handful of soldiers fleeing together with the mistress of the Sixth City—Luciana Hartley herself.
Lion’s Workroom at Rizen Castle
“—and that is what has brought us to you. I am the lady of the Sixth City, but even I...even I was helpless...” Luciana had not once touched the cup in front of her. Tears poured down her cheeks and soaked into her dress, turning the purple fabric black.
Lion took a handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her, but Luciana only thanked him and did not move to take it. He glanced at Julius, who stood beside him, and the other man saluted before leaving the room.
According to the gate guard who had first spoken with Luciana, her face had been smeared with mud, her clothes so filthy as to make it impossible to know their original color. If the others had not been dressed in the distinctive cassocks of Rue Shalla’s army, the guard had said, they would have been turned away as beggars.
“Now, those ghouls—” At the word “ghouls,” Luciana shrank back in terror. Cursing his lack of tact, Lion cleared his throat to try and mask the blunder. “That, ah, force, has halted, then?”
Her lips remained set in a tight line and her eyes were downcast, but Luciana nodded. Lion contemplated her in silence, suppressing a heavy sigh.
I certainly wasn’t expecting this just when we’re on the eve of war with the empire. The Sixth City of Rue Shalla was situated to the north of the Third City of Bay Grand. In other words, chances were high that if the army of ghouls were to march again, Bay Grand stood right in the line of fire. As they were not human, he could not guess at why they had stopped, and the amount of information he had been able to obtain was vanishingly small compared to the vast scale of the destruction that wretched force had left in its wake.
What they knew now was that the first eyewitness reports had come from soldiers from a fort on the northern edge of Rue Shalla, and that the ghouls went after the living. Lion, hearing that Luciana didn’t want to wait to tell what had befallen her, had set up the meeting with all haste, but now he decided that her mental state could not take much more of this.
Softening his expression, he said, “At any rate, I am glad to see you safe, Lady Luciana. A room has been prepared for you. Won’t you rest a little?”
“I thank you for your kindness. I...” She hesitated. “I know not whether I now have the right to ask this of you, but if any of my people or my soldiers should flee here...”
“Rest assured, Bay Grand will welcome them all.”
“Thank you. Truly, thank you.” With a faint hint of relief in her eyes, Luciana rose and left the room.
At once, Julius returned to take her place. Lion moved from the sofa to his desk, where he sat back in his chair and let out a long breath. On the other side of the window, the sun hung low in the western sky. In less than an hour, the room would fill with the vermilion light of sunset.
“You sent off the Wolfpack?”
“Yes, my lord. With orders to capture a ghoul.”
“Excellent work, as always.”
“It sounds, from what Lady Luciana said, that they are effectively mindless. I believe it should be possible for the Wolfpack to catch one, with their experience.”
“A good call. We can’t begin to deal with an opponent we know nothing about.”
“Indeed. I also gave word that all our forces are to move to alert level one.”
Lion gave a small nod, then looked properly at Julius again. “And? What do you think?”
“Lady Luciana is not lying, of that I feel certain. Her tale is difficult to believe, yes, but such are the facts.”
“Agreed. You’d never expect anyone to buy a story about an attack by a horde of people who ought to be dead. It just makes me all the more sure that it’s true.”
For better or for worse, Luciana was known as a gentle soul. Out of the thirteen lords and ladies of Sutherland, she was the least inclined toward violence and ambition, another thing that gave credence to her tale.
“I did not anticipate that before fighting the empire, we would find ourselves fighting off inhuman creatures.”
“What’s that, Julius? Are you thinking of fighting those things? I’ll beg off, myself.”
“When you don’t even believe they will stay in Rue Shalla,” Julius said pointedly.
“Ah, well,” Lion sighed. “If the situation calls for it, I can always use that. Even I had mixed feelings about using it on humans, but if we’re calling them former humans, I can act without scruples.”
“Are you sure that is the right move?”
“It isn’t right,” Lion replied with a note of indignation. “It is the means, as I live and breathe, by which I am going to unite not only Sutherland, but the entire continent.”
Julius chuckled. “That there, Lord Lion, is why I would follow you to the end of everything.” He gazed at Lion with a look in his eyes that said, I know everything. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable, Lion spun his chair to turn his back on the other man. The city on the other side of the window was as full of life as ever.
“I’ll be going to see her next.”
“You think there is mage involvement with the ghouls?”
“You really have to ask?” Walking corpses were an abnormality; the way these creatures attacked and fed on humans was a gross departure from the natural order of things. And in Lion’s opinion, the majority of unnatural occurrences involved mages—mages, those folk who had transcended the boundaries of what it meant to be human.
“Then may I accompany you?”
“Suit yourself.” Swiveling his chair back, Lion rose, then he and Julius set off down into the bowels of the castle.
Beneath Rizen Castle
“What is this?”
“Who can say...” Julius smiled nervously. Lion turned to the door, to which was affixed a paper sign that read DO NOT OPEN. DANGER, and unceremoniously shoved it open. There, sitting before a gigantic contraption, her hands a blur of motion, was a woman. Before Lion could call out to her, her hands stopped moving and her shoulders began to shake with laughter.
“People can never resist opening something when they’re told not to,” she chuckled. “And boys who laugh in the face of danger like you, Leo baby, are the worst of all.” The woman turned to face them. She wore enormous, black-framed glasses that dwarfed her small face, and a white coat that was similarly ill-fitting, its sleeves flopping about over her hands. The woman’s name was Heaven Mercury, and, to the best of Lion’s knowledge, she was the United City-States of Sutherland’s only mage.
“You’re as incomprehensible as ever, I see,” Lion said.
“And you’re as drool-worthy as ever, Leo baby. Mm-mmm.” Heaven ran her eyes slowly over him, then pretended to wipe her mouth with a dirty chuckle. Lion was sure she wasn’t actually drooling until he saw a patch of her sleeve that was a decidedly darker color. He shuddered.
“But what brings you here?” she asked. “I told Lord Julius just today that I’m not finished yet.”
“I got your report, of course. Today I’m here on another matter. Before I come to that, though, why’s he ‘Lord’ while I get ‘Leo baby’? How does that figure?”
He knew Heaven was too much of a nut to have a solid reason, so he didn’t expect a straight answer. Still, he asked, holding on to a pinprick of hope.
“Why, because you’re Leo baby, and Lord Julius is Lord Julius. You ask the oddest questions.” Heaven blinked at him as though he’d utterly mystified her. As much as he wanted to ask who she was calling odd, he knew all too well how much good it would do him; that was to say, none at all.