webcrawl/APGTE/Book-6/tex/Ch-087.md.tex

\hypertarget{interlude-theism}{%
\section{Interlude: Theism}\label{interlude-theism}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``Seventy-four: if your lover does not have martial training have
a rescue plan ready and waiting, as the eventual abduction by your
nemesis is essentially inevitable.''}

-- `Two Hundred Heroic Axioms', author unknown
\end{quote}

Klaus breathed out, quashing all hesitation, and struck.

The axe-blade bit deep into the skull, killing Ratbiter before the horse
realized what was happening. The Bremen \emph{stampfen} dropped,
mercifully, but the spray of blood still went high and hot. Messy thing
killing a horse, even when done right. Some would have said that the
Prince of Hannoven should have ceded the duty to another, that the arm
he'd lost in the fall of Hainaut would make a clean kill harder, but
he'd refused. Klaus Papenheim had ridden that horse through death and
doom too long to let someone else swing the axe. Wiping the bloodspray
off his cheek, the prince knelt by his old friend's corpse and laid a
hand on the unmoving flank.

``Rest, old friend,'' the Prince of Hannoven murmured in Reitz. ``And if
there is a place for you on the other side, I will find you there.''

Klaus Papenheim was, in the end, Lycaonese. He'd miss Ratbiter, but he
would not burden the army with a lame horse. His people knew well that
hesitation in the face of the dead only deepened the losses, and the
virtues of pragmatism had been ground deep into their common soul.
Sentiment was of no use from the grave, or from the uglier end of
walking death. The old general forced himself up, feeling his knees
groan under the weight. Behind him, two bodyguards and a pack of army
cooks were waiting.

``Butcher and skin him,'' the Prince of Hannoven ordered. ``Throw the
bones and offal in the disposal pit.''

Pitch and magefire would make sure the Dead King found nothing there to
use. Klaus passed the axe's handle to one of his bodyguard -- Dieter,
whose scarred scalp had turned white as he became just another boy aged
too soon by this infernal war -- and strode away. His steps took him
down the slope, towards the heart of the beleaguered army's camp as his
bodyguards followed in his wake. His parents would have disapproved of
it, his leaving. If they'd thought they glimpsed squeamishness they
would have made him watch, if not take up a skinning knife himself.
\emph{A Papenheim cannot hesitate}, Father had always said. \emph{A
crown is a cage of hard choices}, Mother had whispered, tucking him in a
child.

Both had set out to burn weakness out of him so that Hannoven would not
perish under his watch.

The white-haired prince almost smiled. It'd been many years since he had
last thought of Ludwig and Sieglinde Papenheim, neither of which were
remembered fondly by many of their kin. Klaus had come to understand, as
a ruler in his own right, that much of what had seemed cruelty as a
child had in truth been cold pragmatism of the breed necessary to
survive at Keter's gate. He'd even come to be grateful for the hard
lessons, in time. Yet the passing of the years had not made him love the
imperious and high-handed pair any more than he had whilst they still
lived. Ironically enough, he figured neither would have minded: what did
his aversion matter to them, when their ways had become his just as they
had wished? Some legacies were insidious, he'd learned, and all the
harder to shake for their quiet creep.

There were songs, among Klaus' people, about the love he'd borne for his
late wife. How even as a man in his prime he'd never considered
remarrying. The truth was not as clean as that. Part of why Klaus had
never remarried after Suse's death had been his many failings as a
father. He had, without even noticing, become his parents come again. No
wonder Wilfried had pressed that charge too far against the ratlings:
when had he ever smiled at his eldest save when the boy came back
bloodied and victorious? And Gregor, his sweet secondborn he'd tried to
harden for the days ahead, had hidden the sickness until it'd been much
too late for even the priests.

Would he have, if he'd not been convinced his own father saw him as a
weakling?

And so Klaus had decided he would not fail any more children, that
legacy would die with him. Margaret had been the one to draw him out of
the darkness of those days, after she gave birth to her own little
daughter. His sister had been a hesitant mother, and sometimes distant,
but rarely unkind: in this she had fared the best of the House of
Hasenbach. All it'd taken was for Klaus to hold that bundle named
Cordelia in his arms once and he'd been lost, besotted with the little
blonde curls and at the laughing eyes. She'd been a merry child, his
niece. Prone to gurgling at strangers and trying to eat her uncle's
beard.

More than once Klaus had found his hand reaching for ink and quill,
after the talk that had buried their closeness. Where the First Prince
of Procer had sent him to fight and die and Hainaut, ordered him to
abandon the principality -- the people! -- he'd sworn to defend. Always
he'd drawn back at the last moment, and only official reports had left
for Salia. Yet he often found himself writing that letter in his mind,
when he had a spare moment. Bits and pieces of it. \emph{Sometimes,
niece, you remind me of your grandfather}, Klaus would write if he took
the quill today. \emph{When I was a boy of nine,} \emph{Prince Ludwig
Papenheim ordered the town of Ebelburg burned when he heard ratling
warbands were two hours away.}

\emph{If he hadn't, the townsfolk would have insisted on fighting and
standing their ground}, the white-haired prince wrote in his mind.
\emph{They would have said the children could not run quick enough, that
the elderly would not survive the trip. Instead he had torches thrown,
and four hundred people were saved. They did not thank him for it,
Cordelia.}

Klaus still remembered the soldiers talking when they returned to
Hannoven, the way they'd described his father. Carved in iron, they'd
said, and it had been as much invective as praise. Yet they had
respected him for it, he remembered. Even the townsfolk he'd burned out
of their own homes and brought back to his capital even as a larger
force assembled to drive back the ratlings. \emph{So I understand it,
the decision}, Klaus Papenheim silently penned. \emph{It's in our blood.
But I am the townsfolk of my childhood, niece. I cannot thank you for
having ordered the torches thrown at Hannoven.} The old prince knew his
home would have fallen even if he'd ridden out to defend it. He'd read
the maps, counted the days. Hannoven had been doomed the moment this war
began.

And yet Klaus Papenheim had not been there to fight for it, and this he
could not forgive himself -- or anybody else.

The old general found his tent nestled near the bottom of the hill,
surrounded by sworn swords from Hannoven. There the rest of their
makeshift war council still held session, sifting through heap of
troubles that the last bloody push to take the town of Juvelun from the
dead had brought down on them. His second, Princess Mathilda Greensteel
of Neustria, was sharing the table with Captain Nabila of Alava -- a
short, stout woman with a heavily painted face -- as the Dominion's man
and Prince Arsene of Bayeux held down his own corner as the voice for
the Alamans and the fantassins.

The last two men stood for smaller forces, but in their own way crucial
ones: freshly back from healing the White Knight sat with a pleasant
smile as he methodically ate his way through an apple, commander of all
Named with the army. For the Damned it was the Barrow Sword that had
been elected to stand. Klaus counted the man a rogue and a vicious
specimen of the breed, but he was also solid in a fight and a devil
against Revenants -- the Prince of Hannoven was willing to forgive much
in favour of that. The Dominion villain often clashed with Captain
Nabila, but it seemed more like sparring than the venom Catherine
Foundling had warned him might ensue.

The Gods only knew where General Rumena had gotten to, for it came and
went as it pleased, but in its absence it had left behind a dark-skinned
drow that spoke perfect Chantant and called itself Mighty Sagasbord. It
was both habitually sardonic and eerily knowing, which usually made for
good advice unpleasant to hear.

``- then we should split our forces and strike now, else the enemy will
delay us further,'' Captain Nabila insisted.

``We're still uncertain how many escaped into the valley,'' Prince
Arsene skeptically replied. ``We could be headed into-``

``She's right,'' Klaus cut in, striding into the tent.

The splatter of blood on him got a few surprised looks as he lowered
himself into a seat at the table, but nothing more. Everyone here had
gotten their hands bloody taking Juvelun, and if they were to survive
this trap it wouldn't be the last time.

``Dare we hope for an elaboration, Prince Klaus?'' the Prince of Bayeux
testily asked.

``We took the town but the dead retreated in good order,'' the Prince of
Hannoven replied. ``It could be ten thousand made it out, it could be
thirty thousand. Either way, every drifting warband in the central
valley of Hainaut will be headed that way now. If we don't strike before
the enemy musters up properly, we'll lose the battle ahead of us.''

It'd taken three days and night of brutal fighting before Juvelun fell,
the ditches and walls dug by the dead stormed at all too high a cost.
Yet there'd been no final keep to assail, no last redoubt: instead the
undead had retreated under cover of night, leaving behind a token force
for the drow under General Rumena to annihilate. Though their scouts had
insisted that a hundred thousand undead had been holed up in Juvelun, in
practice the Prince of Hannoven suspected they'd fought around seventy
thousand at most. The rest had been kept back, and most likely were down
in the valley preparing to prevent Klaus' army from linking up with the
Black Queen's. Should the enemy succeed in that design, no one in this
tent would still be drawing breath by the moon's turn. They'd make a
fight of it, the Prince of Hannoven knew, but it'd be a defeat engraved
in stone.

``Strike hard, then keep moving,'' the Barrow Sword approvingly said.
``A sound notion.''

Dominion officers always thought like raiders, the old general deplored.
It wasn't always a weakness, as there were similarities between the
glorified raids that the Levantines called `honour wars' and an
offensive into enemy territory. But the distances and numbers involved
meant a lot of their instincts pulled them the wrong way. It'd been too
long since the Dominion of Levant had been in a real war, one that
didn't end with a summer's fighting and a few promises traded between
Blood.

\emph{They lost the learning}, Klaus thought. The Army of Callow had
gone through a bevy of rough campaigns and sharpened the skills with war
schools while Procer had been given a refresher in the art by the Great
War and the latest round of the Uncivil Wars, but the Dominion had
nothing of the sort. All their learning was done on the field, with
bloody costs for every mistake.

``We're not in fighting fit for a pitched battle,'' Princess Mathilda of
Neustria bluntly said. ``It's been a day since we took the town and the
priests are still overwhelmed with wounded. We lost a dozen soldiers to
\emph{infections} this morning because the healers would have died if
they kept drawing on Light.''

``I forced the Stalwart Apostle to drink a concoction that'd make her
sleep,'' the White Knight admitted. ``She'd still be in the tents
otherwise, and burned out permanently.''

She was a good kid that one, Klaus thought. A little soft and with too
much faith the Heavens would swoop down and fix everything, but prayer
had never gone amiss when things got dark.

``Exactly,'' Prince Arsene said. ``Are we to send forces into a battle
without priests and mages, Your Grace, or consign wounded to death so
that our hasty vanguard is not bare of protection?''

\emph{This is why your people lost the Great War}, Prince Klaus
Papenheim thought. \emph{Why none of you were able to win it, beyond the
Tower's manipulations.} \emph{None of you were willing to pay what it
would have cost you.}

``We will consign wounded to die,'' the Iron Prince flatly said. ``If
the Enemy still has swarms to spare, we would be facing a potential wipe
without priests and mages to compensate.''

``The Witch of the Woods-``

``- will do what she can, but cannot be relied on,'' Mathilda Greensteel
interrupted the White Knight, nodding at Klaus. ``If Revenants come
after her, the protections she has to offer will not be enough.''

``This is \emph{madness},'' Prince Arsene insisted. ``We are to leave
our own to die and risk it all on battle with a force we know little
about?''

``Would you prefer to be besieged in this lovely ruin of a town?'' the
Barrow Sword drily asked.

``\emph{Yes},'' Prince Arsene emphatically replied. ``We still have
supplies for a few days -- more, perhaps, considering our losses -- and
if we dig in the Black Queen can come relieve us as soon as she has
secured the Cigelin Sisters.''

``What impressive eagerness to die,'' Mighty Sagasbord noted, laying its
chin on its palm. ``Your confidence surprises, Prince of Man. We took
this Juvelun from a numerically superior force, yet you now believe that
should we be besieged by an enemy many times our greater we will
prevail?''

``Our men are worth easily three of the dead,'' Prince Arsene harshly
said, pride clearly stung. ``\emph{Ours} anyway, dark elf.''

``No Firstborn will ever take your life, Prince of Man,'' Mighty
Sagasbord smiled, without a single speck of friendliness to it.

The Alamans prince looked surprised and confused, but those more
familiar with the ways of the Firstborn winced at the bald insult. The
drow ate the skills and knowledge of those they slew, Klaus knew, so the
Mighty had been implying that there was nothing worth taking from Arsene
of Bayeux. Best to step in before this went further astray, the Prince
of Hannoven thought.

``We might be able to hold the down, if we can put up defences before
the dead arrive,'' Klaus admitted. ``For a few days. But they won't
fight us, Prince Arsene. They will surround us and wait us out instead.
The Hidden Horror is patient, he will starve us into the grave.''

The army that'd come out of Malmedit like devils pouring out of a
Hellgate was not far behind them. Three, four days at most. If Klaus'
army stayed in Juvelun, it risked annihilation: the enemy in the valley
would pen it in from the west, the great host of Malmedit from the east.
If that happened, even using a pharos device to escape wouldn't be
enough. The dead would strike in force the moment the gates opened, on
both flanks, and the more of Klaus' soldiers made it into the Twilight
Ways the higher the risk of those staying in Creation being overwhelmed
by sheer numbers and horrors.

They'd ran the games, him and the Marshal of Callow. Any army trying to
evacuate through the Twilight Ways while giving battle was facing at
least half its number in losses, and more frequently up to two thirds.
There came a tipping point early in the process that made it impossible
to maintain cohesion in the ranks, and the moment panic set in a
massacre was inevitable. No, Klaus Papenheim would not allow the enemy
to slip that noose around his neck. Better the wounded perish today that
a hundred times their number tomorrow.

``The Black Queen's column will relieve us,'' Prince Arsene pointed out.
``With her numbers-``

``She does not have the supplies to feed us, Your Grace,'' the White
Knight calmly said. ``Her force is even larger than ours, and stretched
the Grand Alliance's capacity to supply. Even if she empties all her
stores, all she can accomplish is join us in our starvation after a few
more days.''

The Prince of Bayeux's face soured, but he argued no further. The man
was overly cautious, but not a fool. He understood what a combined army
of over a hundred thousand, surrounded and far behind enemy lines
without any supply lines, meant in practice. The Prince of Hannoven's
insistence to take Juvelun had not been, contrary to what some wagging
fantassin tongues insinuated, out of desire for a victory to gild his
name. The other choices had all been worse: either turning back to the
defensive line, and so tossing the Black Queen's army to the wolves, or
allowing a massive army of two hundred thousand to march down on
threadbare defensive lines.

By taking Juvelun and smashing the army holding it, Klaus had forced the
Malmedit army to pursue him west into the valley. He'd bled his army
achieving this, but it was better than the disaster that would be the
destruction of Catherine Foundling's army or the end of Procer that the
defensive lines breaking would represent.

``I have voiced my thoughts on what must be done,'' Captain Nabila said.
``And I do not take back these words. Yet I add this: if there is no
appetite for the fight, we must withdraw. Take to the Twilight Ways and
leave. I will not swear the warriors of Alava to a desperate end in
Juvelun.''

Prince Klaus kept his face calm. That had been, however delicately put,
a threat that if the army stayed in Juvelun the Levantines would take to
the Twilight Ways and leave them all behind. His control over the
coalition was slipping, the old general realized. Eyes turned to Prince
Arsene of Bayeux, whose face had grown conflicted. The man, Klaus knew,
did not enjoy being at odds with most of the table when it came to
making war plans. But he saw it as his duty to speak not only for the
soldiers of Bayeux and Brabant but also for the fantassins companies,
which meant espousing their causes even when they were unpopular with
other commanders.

``I'm not certain if an order to march towards another battle would be
followed,'' the fair-haired prince admitted. ``My men will follow me,
but the Brabant conscripts have been unruly since Prince Etienne died
and half the fantassins are mutinous. They were hard used with the
breaches on the second day, and have not forgot it.''

``Alava led the charge on the first, and the Lycaonese on the third,''
Captain Nabila harshly said. ``What sets them apart from us, I wonder?''

The appearance of cowardice was like throwing red meat at a starving
dog, for Levantines. They couldn't resist sinking their teeth in it, and
they were especially quick to point those fingers when it came to
Alamans.

``The hardest defences to assail were the second day's,'' the Iron
Prince acknowledged. ``And their losses were significant. I have not
forgotten that.''

The other prince looked relieved.

``It is not mutiny, Your Grace,'' Prince Arsene said. ``Your command is
not contested. They have simply reached their limits.''

It \emph{was} a mutiny, whether the other man wanted to admit it or not.
It was simply not yet an open one, not that illusion would survive his
giving an order. The rank and file did not understand why they were here
fighting and dying, could not grasp the broader theatre of war. That was
why trust between soldiers and generals was so important: they had to
trust in the person commanding them to steer them right even if they
could not understand what was being done and why. It now seemed like
trust in Klaus Papenheim was running out. What was it that'd done him
in, he wondered -- the darkly comical march to and away from Malmedit,
or the brutal fighting taking a heavily defended town seemingly in the
middle of nowhere? Either way, the horse had grown lame from the hard
riding.

``They must be made to understand what is at stake,'' the Iron Prince
said. ``Gather the officers for me, Prince Arsene. I will address them
personally.''

The other man looked unconvinced. Klaus did not have a reputation as
much of an orator, it was true. The only vote he'd ever personally cast
in the Chamber of Assembly instead of letting an \emph{assermenté} do it
for him had been the one that'd put his niece on the high throne. Still,
Prince Arsene nodded in assent. Likely he figured that after the old
general failed to sway the vacillating captains discussion of a
compromise could begin in earnest.

``Let us part ways until then,'' Klaus said. ``There is no need for
further discussion.''

The Prince of Bayeux took his leave, and after a lingering look Captain
Nabila did the same. Mathilde slowed as she passed by his seat.

``Veitland?'' the Princess of Neustria asked.

``Hauptberg,'' the Prince of Hannoven replied.

She nodded, and strode away without another word. Nothing more needed to
be said. Klaus found that the Barrow Sword was looking at them, eyes
considering.

``Nabila is young to the Lord of Alava's service, did you know,'' the
bearded Damned casually said. ``Only a decade as one of his captains,
most of them spent far from Yannu Marave himself. She rose to her
position on merit, not closeness or years.''

``She has proved a fine officer,'' Klaus replied, for it was true.

``There's a reason she held borders, back home, and did not stay at her
lord's side,'' the Barrow Sword smiled. ``In Levant, authority flows
from either Blood or blood.''

The Prince of Hannoven met the other man's gaze, unblinking. It would
take more than cryptic talk from a mouthy grave robber to impress him.

``I do wonder how you'd do there, Iron Prince,'' the Damned chuckled.

Someone, Klaus thought, ought to have beaten the smugness out of that
mean by now. He gave no reply to the villain, who seemed to take it as a
victory and left the tent. Behind stayed only the White Knight, whose
look of unruffled patience had not changed a whit.

``You have something to say?'' Klaus asked.

``The Enemy breathes down our necks,'' the White Knight said. ``I do not
understand its great designs, for I am no general, but the jaws of the
trap are closing on us. That much I can sense.''

``We reach the turning point soon,'' Klaus quietly agreed. ``One way or
another. There is a battle taking shape in Hainaut that will decide the
fate of the Principate.''

``Not here in Juvelun,'' the White Knight mused. ``It has not come
together properly. And you might be surprised, Prince Klaus, by the roar
of this army should it allow itself to be surrounded here. There is
a\ldots{} power behind such stands. Even more so when there is salvation
on the way, awaiting the darkest hour to deliver dawn.''

``There are not many things I would not trust the swords of the
Lycaonese to prevail over, White Knight,'' the Iron Prince replied,
``but steel cannot triumph over hunger. There can be no victory over an
empty belly.''

``So I've gathered,'' the dark-skinned Chosen amiably replied. ``And so
now we must prepare for the storms on the horizon and pray that the most
terrible of our allies will come to our aid.''

The old general stared at the other man, wondering at the tone used when
speaking of the hero's equal and opposite under the Terms. He'd never
put any stock in the rumours about the Black Queen and the White Knight,
but like many he'd always been unsettled by the cordiality between the
two of them. Often the warmth in the voices when they spoke of each
other had startled him, but now he heard no hint of it in the White
Knight's words. There had been a distancing there, he thought. Not
enmity, but a cooling of relations. Merciful Gods, what was it that'd
really happened in the Arsenal?

The rumours spread by the dozen, each wilder and more fanciful than the
last, but truth was in short supply.

``We will have order,'' Klaus Papenheim simply said. ``And we will march
west, as we must.''

``I expect we will,'' the White Knight tiredly said. ``I will ready my
Named for the march, Iron Prince.''

The white-haired prince looked askance at the other man, almost
surprise.

``That is all?'' he said.

``I do not judge,'' Hanno of Arwad said, rising to his feet. ``This has
not changed, and never will.''

The Chosen left the tent after offering a small bow, not speaking
another word, and Klaus dragged himself upright once more. His day was
far from over. The old prince attended to the army of Hannoven, speaking
to his captains and preparing them for what was to come, and awaited the
word of the Prince of Bayeux. Yet it was not another Proceran who came
for him first but something altogether more eldritch. General Rumena,
the only drow in all of the army come south to bear such the title, was
stooped and old in a way that Firstborn never were. It was ancient,
Klaus knew, in a way that it was hard to truly understand.

The fucker was also a bastard soldier of the old breed, so Klaus
Papenheim had never found him difficult to deal with. He'd yet to manage
to talk the other general into no longer invading his tent whenever it
felt like it, but aside from that their relationship had been rather
amiable from the start.

``You have something for me?'' the Prince of Hannoven asked.

Complaining about the habitual intrusion would be wasted time in a day
that already had too few hours.

``We went down to have a look in the valley,'' General Rumena agreed.
``The dead gather, Hannoven Prince. The valley had been stripped bare of
warbands -- Losara Queen's work, I wager -- but the dead salvaged a host
from the fall of Juvelun. Perhaps thirty thousand, though they are not
yet properly mustered for battle.''

Klaus grimaced at the news. He'd hoped for closer to twenty thousand,
fool's hope as it had been. That much could have been handled without
leaning too heavily on the Alamans to supply soldiers for the force that
would sally out.

``How long do we have?''

The wrinkled and grey-skinned creature considered that a moment.

``The dusk of tomorrow,'' the drow finally said. ``They will be ready
for war then, and waiting for you. The disarray from the fall of Juvelun
will last no longer than that.''

Klaus stiffly nodded.

``My thanks,'' he said. ``Will your sigils be in fighting fit tonight?''

``We always are,'' General Rumena smiled unpleasantly. ``Chno Sve Noc.''

``So your lot keep telling me,'' the Iron Prince grunted back. ``Get
ready for a strike after dark. We can't afford to linger here much
longer.''

``Do your people not have a saying about the weakest link?'' General
Rumena mused.

``A curse,'' Klaus corrected. ``May you be the weakest link in the Chain
of Hunger.''

``Yes,'' the old drow nodded. ``That is not us, Hannoven Prince. See to
your own sigils, before speaking of dragging feet.''

And just as boldly as it'd slipping into his tent, the Firstborn
strolled out after seizing the last word. Klaus could have fought it,
but what would be the point? Better to let it keep its prize and remain
pacified. His pride was not so overgrown as to be unable to tolerate the
occasional pointed quip from a peer. It still took half a bell after
that for the Prince of Bayeux to send a messenger to him, giving word
that the other royal had at last gathered the captains in need of
swaying. The reason for the delay became clear when the Prince of
Hannoven headed to the pavilion mention by the messenger.

That it was a \emph{pavilion} and not a simple tent where the talks were
to be had said much about the numbers involved.

Twenty handpicked Hannoven armsmen followed him inside, his bodyguard,
but there must have been almost a hundred men and women already packed
tight within. Fantassins captains, mostly, but many peasant officers
from the Brabant conscripts as well. Prince Arsene himself stood to the
side with a handful of bodyguards, as if to make it clear he was not one
of the wavering souls. From the start Klaus found that the mood within
was mutinous. He spoke clearly and concisely, avoiding frills and japes
out of respect for the grim deeds he was asking for, but twice he was
interrupted by a challenge from a captain and more often than that by
jeers.

``To stay in Juvelun is death,'' the Prince of Hannoven told them. ``We
will be surrounded and destroyed.''

``And where would we go instead, bloody \emph{Keter}?'' a woman called
out.

``Retreat,'' another voice called out. ``We must \emph{retreat}.''

``We must go west,'' Klaus roared, his voice rising above the din.
``General Rumena has reported to me that the remnants from the defenders
of Juvelun are gathering in the valley, and we must strike west to
disperse them before they can mount a true threat.''

The shouts of dismay were deafening, interwoven with jeers and calls for
retreat or holing up in the town. There would be no convincing them, the
Prince of Hannoven thought. It was Prince Arsene who called the crowd to
order, in the end.

``Hauptberg,'' the Iron Prince spoke into the silence, ``is the name of
a town two days away from the Morgentor by horse.''

His bodyguards had closed ranks around him when the crowd had grown wild
and stayed in formation since.

``My people,'' Klaus Papenheim said, ``know it as where the first of the
Iron Kings, Alrich Fenne, was crowned ruler of all Lycaonese before
smashing the ratling hordes in Twilight's Pass.''

There had been seven kingdoms back then, though in time they became the
four modern principalities of the north. But the first of the Iron Kings
had not used to sweet words to convince the other royals to kneel to
him, on that day. The truth was altogether bloodier. On the last day of
the talks held at Hauptberg, none of the kings had been willing to swear
to another and stand as a single force against the implacable foe coming
their way.

And so Alrich Fenne had, in the dark of night, killed them all.

``Sometimes,'' the old general said, ``someone has to order the torches
thrown.''

He curtly brought his hand down and the head of his bodyguards screamed
out the order. Like a tide of steel, soldiers of Hannoven and Neustria
began pouring into the pavilion.

``Arrest those who kneel,'' the Iron Prince ordered. ``Kill the rest.''