7:10 A.M., November 12. After a night of ransacking, most isolated residents of Sia City were dragged into the light like fish from a net. Some fell where they stood; some slipped past the blade like startled deer. The men, grim as stone, went with less screaming.
The girls were the ones the storm broke upon; the allied force was mostly Mountain Bandits, wolves in human skins. This raid was a harvest, effortless like plucking ripe fruit compared to their last siege.
“Sir… please… don’t kill me… I don’t want to die…” A ragged girl curled like a leaf in a corner. The black reaper showed no feeling; her heart was pierced, the silence like a candle snuffed.
The guards of Segireneto scythed through Sia City’s streets like harvesters, as if a sea of blood bound their hatred.
On the outer wards, chaos foamed like storm tide—crying, raging, terrified throats tore the rain like ragged banners.
A soldier breathed first, regret heavy as fog. “Once, they were everything I swore to protect.”
Another guard, voice cold as iron, slid his blade into a man. “He chose this. He earned it. What, are you wavering?”
“No, I just—” His helmet rang like a bell. Clang! Hummm, hummm… A broken cleaver whirled in the wet air, then dropped, a ghastly, hollow spin.
The guard turned, calm as a winter pond, to see a man glaring. Eyes red as embers, body carved with wounds, rage twisting his face—those crimson hate-pupils could make hell shiver.
The guard dropped him with a hammering fist, then planted a boot on his chest like a stone.
Breath ragged as torn cloth, the man spat, “Why? Why do this to us? We had no grudge! Even in war, why butcher the innocent? Do you know what the Mountain Bandits did to my wife? Do you? You devil, Satan’s own!”
A flicker of pity crossed the guard’s gaze like a passing cloud, then burned away to scorn. “Losers don’t get to speak. You lost. That’s all.”
Laughter ripped out of him like a broken storm. “We lost? No! You don’t know! The Ironblood War Deity, Medith, set sail days ago for our city—maybe she’s already here. Lord Medith will slaughter you devils. I’ll wait for you in hell. Ha… gurgle…”
The guard pulled his blade free, face knotted like wet bark, and left with his comrades into the rain.
In a short alley, almost twenty lay dead, bodies strewn like fallen leaves. To their last breath, they never grasped why these black-and-white reapers treated them so. If it were mere Mountain Bandits, lust and coin would explain the blade, and death would at least make sense.
But these men spoke no words; they swung their death-tools in silent arcs, erasing whatever they saw, like walking weapons without souls.
Their unclosing eyes stared into the gray-black sky, searching for answers like lost birds. Only the whispering rain and a few slithering thunder-snakes replied.
“Is this all?” Erig looked over the kneeling crowd. In the pounding rain, they shivered like reeds, from cold—or fear.
Skaro chewed an apple snatched from some house, juice running like sap. “Most of them. Plenty of rats still hiding. Pitiful…”
His legs quivered like bowstrings as he spoke; the night’s grinding battle had gnawed him raw.
A trace of disgust slid through Erig’s eyes like a shadow, then vanished. “If so, let him handle it. I’m curious how they’ll react.”
With that, a bearded middle-aged man stepped into view, hefting a soft belly like a sack, maybe past fifty.
Faces flashed from shock to joy like lightning changing color. “Marquis Powell!”
“Lord Powell! Save us!” Their voices surged like a breaking wave.
“Help, my lord!” Another cry tore the downpour.
“Wait—why is the Marquis with the bandits?” Doubt pricked like needles.
Someone pointed—Powell had pushed from the crowd behind Erig, like a fish slipping through reeds.
“The lord must be coerced,” they guessed, hope thin as paper.
“My lord?” Voices trembled like candle flames.
Powell closed his eyes and let the rain beat his face like nails. He knew he had to do this.
“Everyone, I’m sorry it came to this; I didn’t wish rivers of blood.” His voice rang like a bell under rain. “Swear fealty to the King of Segireneto—the king of the army before you. You’ve seen their prowess, sharp as lightning. Serve His Majesty, and your lives will brim with wealth like overflowing granaries, servants like flocks. No more false creeds or hollow kings. The King will walk among you, close as breath, no longer some distant star. Ogathas is filthier than you imagine; he doesn’t deserve your loyalty. Pledge yourselves to Segireneto!”
Powell raised his arm and called out, earnest as a priest beneath the storm.
The crowd stared wide-eyed, stunned like deer, then a mountain of fury broke. “Swear to a king? Which king—their tyrant? Never!”
“Riches? Hasn’t His Majesty Ogathas given us enough?” Voices hammered like drums.
“Powell! We revered you all our lives—this is how you repay us?” The words were arrows in rain.
“Powell, you damned traitor! You opened the gates, didn’t you?” Accusations hissed like snakes.
“What? No wonder the unbreakable gates fell in under an hour—they were opened!” The realization cracked like ice.
“Guard by day, guard by night—yet the household thief slips through. The gatekeeper turned besieger—what a joke!” Their laughter was bitter like ash.
“Traitor!” The word beat like hail.
“Traitor!”
“Traitor!”
The crowd surged, wanting to rush and devour Powell like wolves. The watching guards stabbed anyone who crossed the line, blades flicking like rain. Passion flared, but fear of death dropped a hush like a curtain.
Silence held, yet eyes burned like furnaces, nailed on Powell. If looks could take form, he’d be sliced to ribbons.
In under five minutes, over a hundred who charged first lay skewered. Their blood turned the rainwater into a red river.
Powell had expected it; he looked to Erig, shaking his head like a tired ox.
Erig took up his long spear and strode before the helpless like a storm. “Swear fealty, or die. Which will you choose?”
They kept silent, eyes fixed on Erig like hunting dogs, wishing to eat him alive.
Erig’s spear danced like a cold wind, slicing throats in clean lines. “Swear fealty, or die.”
They stayed mute. Erig spun a mad dance of death like a cyclone. “Swear fealty, or die.”
This time, a few stood, hesitant as saplings in wind.
“We swear.” Their voices were flat stones dropped in water.
Where there is a first, a second follows; soon, another group rose like a slow-growing wave.
“We swear.” The words spread like fire in dry grass.
“We swear.” A chorus built under the falling rain.
At last, the twenty thousand present bowed to submission like wheat under wind.
But Erig knew it wouldn’t last; the thought slid off him like water. Did it matter?
After all, when Sia City’s people clash with Delaia’s army, what a spectacle it will be. He didn’t know it yet, but he was hungry for it like a hawk.
So he handed out the prepared gear, metal gleaming like wet fish.
“Don’t even think about turning these on us. I’m warning you—you’ll die miserably, miserably.” Erig said it like low thunder, then twirled his pheasant plume and headed up to the battlements.
The crowd took their “gear” without a word, hands shaking like leaves. Passing Powell, many wanted to strike him down on the spot; reason bridled them like reins—they wouldn’t throw away their lives and drag others into the pit.
Spit snapped like a pebble. An old crone, leaning on her cane, spat at Powell.
“Ptoo!” A young wife copied her, venting hate like smoke.
“Ptoo!” The sound popped across the crowd like rain on tin.
“Ptoo!” Spit fell like sleet.
More and more followed, and the spittle of tens of thousands rose like a flood to drown Powell. He didn’t dodge. The guards and Mountain Bandits watched like spectators at an opera. Powell closed his eyes, cold as stone, and accepted it. The rain and spit became one on his skin, as if none of it belonged to him.
