048 – Decide What You Are Going To Do

Roxanne heard a sound she had not heard before. She stopped her sweeping of the dining room and went out to the guards who stood at the doors to the wing. She got to the doors as they pulled the first closed.

“What is happening?”

The guards who stood here were never the same ones twice. As such Rox had never learned their names, having only seen a handful a second time. Nor could she remember the exact names of the ranks. After having them described, Rox thought of them as a corporal and a sergeant; the pair was never coed, though the men and women traded days they stood guard. The corporal was unlocking the door from its clip that held it open and starting to pull it as the sergeant stopped to deal with Rox.

“A battle alert. We are to close and lock the doors and report to our superiors. Either stay in or get out, but the doors are closing.” The sergeant then gave the corporal a hand pulling the door closed.

Rox stepped out into the hall and thought quickly whether there was anything she would need, and decided there was not. The sergeant closed the door with a boom and then turned a handle locking it, and the two took their pole arms and dashed off. Rox saw that she was alone for a moment, when several bass thuds echoed through the structure, rattling the windows.

“That was not normal.” Rox had been through a few mild earth tremors here and knew that this was different. She knew that under normal circumstances The Sorceress was in the throne room at this time, so Rox started in that direction. Rox walked quickly, thinking both how to get to the throne room, and what she would do once she got there, her mind racing ahead of her feet. Into the closest hub of the structure, down two levels, along to the business wing where the winged statues were. Keep going forward, and there was a party of guards at the bottom of the stairs in a fight. With a handful of guys in dark outfits.

The bright blue and polished steel of the guards was easy to tell from the black of the interlopers. Rox’s train of thought derailed and then turned to fight or flight. Never one to flee, Rox looked the situation over deciding how she might help. The groups were currently one on one. Rox crept down the stairs as a guard backed a man in her direction, the guard’s pole arm against the attacker’s long sword and buckler.

Rox wished she had a stick. Then the guard caused the attacker to dodge against the stairs, right beside Rox. She grabbed the man by his tunic, and pulled him over the railing and palm-struck him under his ear, knocking him senseless. She let him go to tumble down two stairs. The guard held his pole arm at ready, pointing at Rox.

Rox pointed past the guard. “Behind you.”

The guard struck with a sweep of his pole arm, and turned to rejoin the fight.

Rox looked the man at her knees over, and saw he had a length of cord on his belt. Rox pushed his sword away, and then pulled his arms behind him, and quickly looped the cord around them, and then added one leg at the ankle as an after thought. She stepped over the bound man and down to the floor at this level.

This was the floor she wanted to be on. So she started toward the hall she wanted, skirting around the melee finishing on the middle of the area. The guards were busy cleaning up the last two attackers, as four more guards showed up to help, beginning with getting the wounded bluecoats out of the way. One of the guards challenged Rox with his pole arm at the ready as she started to the hall to the business wing.

“Where are you going?” The female guard did not waver in her challenge.

Rox stopped. “I am looking for My Lady, The Sorceress, to offer her my assistance.”

The woman guard stood her ground, looking Rox over, then yielded, and stood aside. “She is down that way.”

Rox nodded. “Thank you.” She strode off quickly, rubbing her hand where she had hit the man.

Half way down the hall to this wings courtyard entrance a group of guards stood at the main doors to the throne room. Rox doubted that The King or Queen was here as the place was not well enough defended. The Sorceress stood among the group, talking, idly holding her magic stick that she and Rox had previous experience with.

Roxanne went to the Sorceress, “My Lady I can help. Give me a weapon and let me fight.”

One of the guards scoffed. “A slave fight? Preposterous.”

Roxanne countered. “I have only been a slave the last several weeks. Before then I was able to take care of myself. Give me a weapon; you need all the help you can get.”

The Sorceress considered for a moment, then handed Roxanne the staff she held. “Twist here and here and the ends energize, tripling the effective length.” She demonstrated and held the staff out.

Roxanne took the staff sensing its magic extensions, twirled it, stood to ready with it. “The balance will take some getting used to, but this will work.” The staff had assorted carved creatures and scenes on it. It was just under 4 feet long. Enough to be a cane, but not enough to be a full staff without the magic active.

Sorceress suddenly came at her with a borrowed pole arm, and they sparred a bit. Then Sorceress backed away satisfied. “She will do.”

The Sorceress handed the pole arm back to the sergeant she had taken it from. “Where were you thinking?”

Rox pointed the way she had come. “There was already a patrol of eight that got in from somewhere, and was stopped at the hub. I figured to go help at the front doors.”

Rox turned and went as The Sorceress motioned her on her way.

Rox went back to the hub. As she went, one of The Sorceress’s personal guards stayed with her. As opposed to the Palace Guard, this group wore a green sash over the belt line of their breast plates, which sash only showed up on formal occasions. Rox had met these women rarely enough that she did not know their names. They went down another flight of stairs, and out a different direction. This level had one hallway with rooms with windows. The other rooms were store rooms. Rox went in the direction of the windows and the front doors of the palace.

Rox arrived at the main doors foyer. Beyond was a courtyard that opened to a plaza on the first level of the city. The palace sat far enough off the plain that the natural terrain was this much higher already, though this was not really very far.

An arc of guards stood back from the door, as some one banged on it from the other side. The windows here were covered with closed curtains. A boom came from the doors. Rox knew that the floor directly above had a common outer wall with this floor, with casemates looking over the courtyard, above that was a barbican, with a crenellated top to the wall. Those positions should be manned, though a skilled planner should account for those. The doors boomed again. Rox guessed, correctly that it was a bettering ram, probably with some kind of defensive shield around it. She noted that half of the guards here had short bows ready, and aimed at the doors; these men and women stood along the walls, on the statue bases.

Four guards were standing at the doors, and seemed to be timing the booms. Another boom was followed by those four pausing then moving very quickly to unbar the doors, and pull them open as the battering ram nose came flying though, carrying the forward ranks of men with it to crash to the floor spilling the men holding it. The archers all let fly, and three of the men would not get up on their own ever again. Several more men were hit as they tried to let go of the ram when it unexpectedly went into the hall.

Rox compared the eighteen guards and herself and tag along to the number she saw, and decided there was a deficit on the side of the locals. But the archers got off another shot filling the hall with more wounded as two dozen men swarmed over each other into the entry.

Rox stood at the back as the front guards held the gate, and then a push through the lines brought the skirmish within the guards on the second line. The skirmish quickly devolved into man-to-man. Rox found herself facing a black-shirt with her staff, against a sword and buckler. She knocked the sword aside and almost bashed the bluecoat next to her, switched to paired sticks, waded in, and quickly bashed the sword to the floor and knocked him out. As he fell Rox acted on reflex and smashed the throat of another standing right next to her, after that black-shirt ran a bluecoat through.

The archers on the sides kept the doors blockaded as best they could.

Then the melee here was over, with black-shirts and a few bluecoats on the floor, the battering ram in the doorway, and most of the bluecoats and Rox standing ready to take on more comers. With none forth coming, the wounded bluecoats were separated; the walking ones supporting each other, the ones who could not walk were pulled aside and tended to. The black-shirts were sorted between dead and dying, and merely wounded. The wounded were lined up in a side hallway and restrained, while their wounds were treated. The dead black-shirts were dragged outside and piled aside. The captured weapons were piled aside.

Rox reassembled the staff, and was pulled/escorted away by The Sorceress’ Bodyguard, and taken up to the roof of this part of the structure. A white smoke drifted across this area obscuring the view of the north part of the city. Rox could see the courtyard walls lined by more bluecoats than she had considered would be here. The leader conferred with The Bodyguard, and then the Bodyguard scooped up Rox and took her back into the palace, and off to find someone to report to.

They entered the structure and trotted down the halls, through a hub and into a wing that Rox had only traveled through with the pages. They came to a hub that Rox recognized, and went through it to the business wing and the Throne Room. Here the Bodyguard reported to a senior bluecoat, and was told that The Sorceress was out to the roof of this part of the palace.

The Bodyguard again took Rox and went in a direction that Rox had never been. They entered a side corridor, and went up a narrow flight of stairs that switched back twice and came out in a cupola on the outer wall of this wing. The Bodyguard turned to her right and went out onto the walkway that ringed the crenellated top of the outer wall. Rox followed as they trotted to the front of the wing, overlooking another of the palace courtyards. They entered another larger cupola that overlooked the courtyard and here found The Sorceress and a few senior guards.

“My lady.” The Bodyguard spoke as she was noticed.

“Report.” The Sorceress replied.

“Two platoons tried to enter the front doors. They were repulsed, at some cost.” The Bodyguard reported.

“Very good.” The Sorceress and the other guards turned to a map of the palace and moved a few little blocks.

As Rox listened, the discussion focused on learning what going on beyond the palace. All the reports of the palace were that the entrances were all covered and that the Palace Guard force was at full strength.

The apparent senior guard turned to one of his aids, and instructed him to go find a person by name, and find out what was happening among the City Guard, and Constables.

In a quiet moment after the aid turned and left, Rox looked out the windows and asked, “What about doing something about the smoke?”

The Sorceress replied negatively. “There might be a mage among them, and I don’t want to tip my hand about my capacities yet. I have not felt much magic in use. I have sensed some magic off to the south west, but it is not directed against the palace. I can only presume some local is using magic to make a fuss.”

The senior guard added to her point. “That is why we need to contact the City Guard, and Constables. They were warned of this group’s coming, and to quietly organize the militia. That these five platoons that have got into the palace are a sign that the militia and constables were not covering everything. Just as well we were mustered enough to stand to.”

Rox felt out of her depth, but not out of comprehension as she listened. “You knew this group of… black-shirts were coming?”

“The Queen warned us of them when she got home. Some of her contacts down south told her. As did our boarder guards when they crossed. We were initially concerned that you might be involved. But you have proven not to be. Now the best thing you can do is stay out of the way.” The senior guard said this as matter-of-factly as if reciting the recipe for a sandwich.