In less than a minute, the street was swarming with the Chosen's forces. City peacekeepers, urks, and even a pair of elites all converged at the site of the battle, shouting orders to each other and the citizenry that hadn't already fled.
List was stuck in the best sitting position she could manage with a broken leg. Kaleb still hadn't moved from his prone position on the street, and Valerie was unconscious in Arden's arms.
All around them, the street and nearby buildings had been ravaged by the battle. There were holes where Arden had blasted through walls and crossbolts embedded in places where Valerie's shots had gone wide or been deflected. A stream of blood ran through the streets from Gorpmorp's body, and the motionless forms of over a dozen Pavers were still sprawled on the street.
It was a mess, and from the clear confusion and fear on the faces of the peacekeepers, Arden suspected that it was a mess that had all the potential to get worse if it wasn't handled carefully.
That impression only grew when an impatient, arrogant voice called out, "What is the meaning of this?!"
From behind the lines of forces, escorted by another elite, was a tall man with yellow-green skin and long, slicked back dark hair. He had a wide face, strong jaw, and crooked nose. That, coupled with his tall, thickly built physique, gave him a brutish appearance that contrasted against the resplendently fine red and gold robes he dressed in. Pinned to those robes was a golden badge, shaped like a dragon's head..
His physique spoke of orcish ancestry, his clothes of wealth, but Arden was most concerned with the way every soldier turned to him as he arrived.
"Chosen Emir Zaman, I presume?" Arden greeted, gently setting Valerie down so that he could stand.
The man's gaze locked on Arden immediately, confirming his suspicion. He pointed at Arden, the badge on his robes flashed with a silvery white light.
"You. Tell me who you are and what you have to do with all of this," he ordered.
"Of course, sir," Arden said. "My name is Dr. Arden Lee Siren, and I am traveler on my way to the city of Trandore. I and my companions were targeted by—"
"Stop," the Chosen interrupted, staring at Arden with confusion. After taking a moment to inspect Arden, he ordered, "Kneel."
Arden hesitated, confused, before moving to obey. "My apologies, if I've offended. I wasn't aware of the proper customs when speaking with someone of your station."
Zaman's face went sour. "You're an outsider."
Arden realized the order to kneel had not been a matter of decorum, but a test. And he'd failed. He remained kneeling, hoping to win some degree of favor from the show of deference. As outsiders, he and his students were inherently distrusted. They'd won over the people in the town of Shadefall, but they weren't in Shadefall anymore. He needed to play this carefully.
"Is that against the law?" Arden asked, knowing it wasn't.
"Watch your tone," Zaman spat. "And explain to me what you have done to my city."
"We have done nothing but defend ourselves," Arden said. "My companions and I were targeted by both a rampaging monster and members of a malicious guild of thieves and criminals."
"You assaulted members of the Pavers Guild?" Zaman demanded.
Arden didn't like the way that was phrased. "They cornered and attacked me."
"And where did this monster come from then? This is a city with walls, not some country village," Zaman said. "Who brought it here?"
"I assure you, I do not know who did, only that we did not."
"My men will be the ones to determine that," Zaman said. "As for you—"
He was interrupted by a clang of steel on steel as his elite escort lunged forward and drew their weapon just in time to knock aside a dagger flying straight for Zaman's throat. Before anyone could even process what had happened, urks were swarming on the one who'd thrown the dagger.
Arden stared in shock. "List?"
The hellborn was thrashing in the grip of three urks, red lightning blazing across her body and her tattoos glowing bright. Unmistakably, there was one spot in the scrawl of the tattoo that was glowing even brighter than all the others.
Arden hadn't gotten a good look at every name in List's tattoos, and from his current distance it was impossible to tell what text exactly was being highlighted. But at that moment, he had a theory.
"You know her?" the Chosen demanded.
"She's one of my apprentices," Arden said. "There must be some misunderstanding."
"Confirmed it, sergeant!" A peacekeeper kneeling near Kaleb waved to one of his superiors. "Matches the description of the one who assaulted the tower."
Arden didn't know what the peacekeeper was talking about, but it sounded like something incriminating. Zaman glared at him, his mind already made up.
"Citizens, on your knees!" Zaman shouted. Instantly, every civilian still present in the streets did as instructed. Only the urks, elites, and peacekeepers remained standing. The Chosen turned to his gathered forces. "Arrest everyone here. Let the peacekeepers sort out the innocent, and send the rest to stone."
Arden was forced back down to his knees before he could finish standing, the firm grip and weight of urks pinning him down. He took stock of how many soldiers were present, as well as his own remaining strength after battling Gorpmorp. With an ember of frustration in his chest, he submitted to the arrest.
His resolve was tested when another urk scooped up the unconscious Valerie, and again when he caught sight of List, still thrashing and struggling. He'd known. He'd known from the very beginning the hellborn would be trouble. He just didn't think she would try to murder an agent of King Digax in broad daylight surrounded by dozens of his men.
"One more for you, boys!"
From a nearby rooftop, a man threw down a wriggling blue and silver snake. It struck a streetlamp on the way down before slapping to ground like a limp noodle and transforming into a naked, bleeding Xigbar. The thief gave grunt, and rolled onto his side before slipping into unconsciousness.
The peacekeepers scooped him up almost as an afterthought.
They all spent a week in the tower jail while the peacekeepers constructed a narrative of what had happened. In that time, the charges against them piled up.
Vandalism. Destruction of property. Endangering the public. Negligent containment of a deadly creature. Assault and murder of public servants. Escaping and aiding in the escape of lawful custody. Conspiracy to subvert the laws of the province. Resisting arrest. And of course, the crown jewel, attempted assasination of the King's Chosen.
Some of it, Valerie had to concede was fair. Arden had, in fact, blasted multiple holes in the side of the King's Dream, and she easily imagined that List had kicked, punched and bitten all the way to her cell. But others felt more malicious. The vandalism charge came specifically from some of them bleeding on the uniforms of the men arresting them.
And then some were just outright fabricated. The peacekeepers had come to the conclusion that all five of them—Arden, Valerie, List, Kaleb, and Xigbar—were working together, which had neatly transferred several of Kaleb and Xigbar's previously standing crimes onto the other three, and made all of them complicit in List's attempt to kill Zaman.
Valerie still couldn't wrap her head around it. Why had List tried to kill the King's Chosen? When had she even gotten the chance? How much had she missed while she'd been unconscious?
What had happened to her?
She could still remember how she'd felt in the moments before she'd collapsed. Drained. Dried out. Ravenous. It was like the black fire had wrung her out, body and soul, to fuel itself, and it terrified her now more than ever.
Especially because, in the back of her mind, there was something in her telling her that she'd need to use it again someday. Her weapons and training hadn't been enough. She hadn't been fast, strong, or precise enough to fight the giant bugbear. But the black fire had closed the gap.
That kind of power was useful. Temptingly, dangerously useful.
She wished she could talk to Arden, but none of them shared a floor in the jail, much less a cell, and she'd received no mental communication from him either.
She hoped he and List were both okay. She even found herself worried about Kaleb, who'd thrown himself into the fight against Gorpmorp without a thought and gotten pounded into the dirt for his troubles. And Xigbar . . . had also been present.
With the aid of an elite using the King's Authority, the peacekeepers questioned all of the people who had been arrested in the streets the day of the battle. While the citizens of the city were compelled to speak the truth by the Authority, and thus exonerate themselves, the five outsiders had no such luck, and in short order, it became clear to Valerie that they didn't want to exonerate them.
The city was in turmoil. Something involving the dead had left the populace restless and afraid, and public panic was spreading. Putting more soldiers in the streets evidently hadn't calmed things down, so the Chosen was looking for something to blame, something to solve, to declare a public victory and restore a measure of public confidence. And they were that something.
When the week had gone by, the routine Valerie had started to fall into was broken when two peacekeepers came to her cell with a set of chains. Once she was in them, they put a hood over her head and half led, half dragged her out.
She saw nothing but burlap until a door opened and sunlight hit her hood. A flood of noise rose up to meet her, hundreds of voices speaking over each other in an indiscernible cacophony. The guards escorting her pushed her along when she tried to stop to adjust, and she ended up tripping when she hit a set of stairs. They dragged her up them, banging her shins and ankles on every step.
When they finally came to stop, they stood her up, secured her chains to the floor, and removed her hood.
She had to blink several times to adjust to the light, which was painfully blinding after the dark of the jail and hood.
She was standing at the top of a large wooden platform set up in front of the jail, overlooking a sea of people gathered at its base. Urks were positioned everywhere—behind her, at the top and bottom of the steps she'd climbed, at the edges of the crwod—all standing at resolute attention. A woman in billowing clothes and a single black armored elite were on the platform, helmet on, positioned at the front and facing the crowd with their backs to Valerie.
And not just Valerie.
In a line to her right were her fellow outsiders, each bound in chains similar to hers and anchored to the floor of the platform. Xigbar, Kaleb, Arden, and at the very end of the line, List, who had actually been muzzled as well as chained. She was glaring murder at everyone besides her fellow prisoners, but there was a sag to her shoulders, and a collection of bruises all across her skin. She wasn't pulling at her chains at the moment, but her wrists were raw from previous struggles.
She hadn't looked this bad since Valerie had first found her, and seeing List like that again broke Valerie's heart.
The others didn't look nearly as bad, though all of them had grim expressions. For a moment, Valerie dared to hope this was a trial, and not what her intuition told her it really was. That faint hope was shattered as the elite spoke.
"Silence!" A flash of lighting from the elite's helmet accompanied the words, and the crowd obeyed. No one made so much as a single sound. They hardly moved. All stood, a still ocean of faces, waiting for release, or the elite's next command.
The woman stepped forward, projecting her voice out across the whole of the gathered crowd.
"People of Lochmire!" she said. "Our city has faced great struggles in recent days. But today, by the strength of King Digax and his Chosen, we take our first steps to returning order and safety to our streets!"
No cheers. No sound. Hundreds of people, and not a peep.
Valerie wondered, had they come here of their own volition? Or had they been told to bear witness to this? She hadn't sensed any hostility from the crowd, like she had when she'd faced execution in Darshan's village. The crowd had been loud, certainly, but she hadn't picked out any cries for her blood. Just the noise of so many people gathered.
Looking over the faces, she didn't see hate, but fear. Uncertainty. Some looked to each other. Others, to the urks standing watch around them. An entire city, holding its breath, waiting for danger to pass.
"These five outsiders infiltrated our city, brought a monster into our walls, and sought to kill our King's Chosen," the woman said, gesturing to five of them. "They meant to sow terror and chaos. But they failed. The beast is dead, the Chosen lives, and we are not afraid!"
Heavy footsteps made their way up the stairs of the platform. An urk, bringing a leashed creature of some kind with a hood over its head. It was roughly the size of a wolf, but reptilian, with six legs, a thick tail, and rows of what looked like crystals growing out of its back.
"By order of Chosen Emir Zaman, and in the name of King Digax, these outsiders shall be put to stone for their crimes, and join our land's most despicable in the House of Bells," the woman declared.
The elite stepped forward once again. "Cheers for King Digax! Cheers for the Chosen, Emir Zaman!"
A familiarity that had been buzzing in the back of Valerie's mind finally clicked as the crowd erupted into compelled cheering. Valerie knew the woman who had been giving the speech. She was a spy for the Chosen, who had come to Shadefall along with the Army on King's Dawn. Who'd been suspicious of Valerie, List, and Arden.
Had she had something to do with fabricating the narrative surrounding them? Was she the one who'd convinced the Chosen to turn them into public scapegoats? It seemed like a lot of trouble to go through when the Chosen and his elites could simply order the populace however they wanted.
When the elite called for silence once again, the woman called the urk and its leashed creature forward. Someone else came up behind them. A thin figure, slightly hunched with age, and hobbling along in ragged robes. An old man wearing a blindfold.
Further down the platform, List's eyes went wide.
"Priest, you may read the guilty their last rites," the woman announced.
Gidus stepped forward, approaching Valerie first and giving her a warm smile. "Greetings, wayward soul. In the name of the Light of the Seven, I come to give your immortal soul its last rites, that you may have an unobstructed journey to the beyond."
He leaned in slightly closer, and tilted his head. His face scrunched slightly on one side as he did, and he gave Valerie a conspiratorial grin.
"Do not worry, brave hero," he whispered. "All shall be well soon."
Valerie couldn't remember the last time she'd been this confused. Gidus rested a hand on Valerie's forehead, spoke a prayer in the language of the gods that Valerie couldn't understand, and then moved on, repeating the process down the line.
A look of confusion on Arden's face was replaced with one of cautious acknowledgement as Gidus performed the rites on him, and when Gidus reached List, a flurry of muffled curses met him, all of which were ignored.
The old priest turned to the woman leading the execution. "They are prepared."
"Executioner," the woman prompted.
The urk bent down, removing the hood on his leashed basilisk. Before Valerie could even think to look away, her entire body turned to stone.
