Okay, so maybe I made another teaser scene…
The Grand Hall is propped up with scaffolding after your last great exit, the worst of the damage has been cleared away and workers have clearly worked non-stop since your escape to undo the damage.
It all seems like centuries ago now, a wild escape on horseback, chased by a monster out of legend lit by the passing thunder…
You have no time for reminiscing though, as the last of the Lady’s guard are pointing their guns at you.
You count no more than 20, and they look tired…
Their uniforms are caked with ash, blood and brickdust. Their eyes are red and their rifles sway and bob in weary arms. They might well be the last soldiers loyal to the Lady in all the Southern Territories… You whisper softly to Radjack, trying not to give away your position to your would-be ambushers.
“Twenty against two… Not odds I like.”
The right side of his lip curls up into that smirk you’ve come to love and fear, and he does a quick mental tally of their positions.
“Yeah, but twenty against one is a shoe-in.”
Despite the severity of the situation, you cannot help but drop your jaw and stare at him incredulously.
“You are not seriously suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”
He rolls his shoulders, checks his pistols. He’s positively buzzing with excitement.
“You have any of those powder-bombs left?”
You fish the remaining powder-grenades out of your satchel and hand them to Radjack. Their fuses are coloured with the vibrant colours of the powder inside, and some are marked with little slogans by Engel. One has “Be Fierce” written on it in bright red paint and you smile reflexively, hoping that everyone else is alright. You count the bombs off and he fishes out a box of matches, tying some of the fuses together to make cluster bombs.
As he finishes his preparations, he winks conspiratorially to you and gives you his favourite pistol, his Tizona. The cut-down rifle is heavy in your hands, as if you were holding a lead weight. He’s never let anyone lay hands on Tizona… You’d be touched if the implications didn’t terrify you.
“I’ll buy you the time, you just find your way to Calinas, ok?”
He grabs your collar roughly and pulls you in for a deep, long kiss, the soot on his hands smears your cheek, and you feel his heart beating frantically in his chest.
“One last string to cut and we’re free.”
With these last words he grabs one of the rat-king cluster of bombs and twirls it round in his hand like a bolas. With one fluid movement he lights the tied fuses and tosses it violently through the crack in the doors and into the Grand Hall, where it bursts in the spot where once the chandelier hung.
A maelstrom of shocking colour fountains out in all directions, shrouding the entire room in gouts of coloured smoke. Blood red clouds intermix with yellow, green, purple, any colour you might care to mention. Most of the soldiers are blinded instantly and more than half of them fire their rifles prematurely, causing marble and wood shavings to be tossed into the soup of smoke. Radjack kicks the doors open and screams in his best Burned Man voice.
“Come on Lads! Let’s 'ave it then!”
You enter the Hall at a dead sprint, immediately jinking right, throwing your scarf up over your mouth as some small measure of protection. Panicked screams, gunsmoke, the sounds of pain and injury, and at the heart of it dances Radjack. He drifts in and out of sight in the thickening smoke, he lets them believe he is the demon they have always known him to be and they panic. In a few strides you are bounding up the stairs and up to the mezzanine, angrily shoving a blinded guardsman aside.
You burst through the doors at the top, slamming the doors shut behind you. You see a large cabinet full of old trophies and knick-knacks and hurriedly topple it over, blocking the door behind you.
“Hello dear, did you have a nice trip up?”
The calm in that voice chills you to the bone.
You turn around and there she is, the architect of all your suffering. The one who burned the slums, who ordered the army to open fire on unarmed crowds, the signer of death warrants and orchestrator of show trials.
Lady Calinas.
She is unarmed, delicately pouring a glass of wine. The Dining Room table is set for two, an opulent plate of food surrounded by more than a dozen delicate silver cutlery items, each more redundant than the last.
“Is this what you spent the money on? People are dying in the streets down there and you’re keeping the silverware polished?”
If she hears your question, she gives no sign of it.
“Sorry about the poor showing, Darling. I sent the staff home a little early tonight.”
She looks at you with a languid expression on her face, her perfect features showing no sign of fear or uncertainty.
“You probably butchered the last of them on your way through, didn’t you?”
Before you can answer she waves a hand dismissively at you.
“No no, don’t answer that. You should never degrade yourself in offering justification for your actions. Let servants and enemies make justifications for you, you do not need to sink to their level.”
She takes a seat opposite you and beckons for you to join her. The surrealism of this display means that you feel compelled to do just that. You sit at the table and lock eyes with the being that most aptly defines evil for you. She delicately begins to eat and even now she looks perfectly beautiful, making movements so precise that you would be forgiven for thinking that she were the machine.
She takes a measured sip of the dark wine and rests her chin on her fingers.
“Now what was it you were saying? Oh yes the money, of course. People always want to talk about the money. Truthfully Darling I find the subject tedious to a fault, but one can find something distasteful and useful in equal measure, or so I have found in any case.”
Her tone is conversational, as if you were old friends catching up over a light meal.
“Yes I believe you were asking what I was buying with my ‘ill-gotten’ gains.”
She puts ‘ill-gotten’ in mock air-quotes, a playful smile on her face at the supposed absurdity of it.
“They say there are some things that money cannot buy. I disagree.”
She jabs her fork towards you for emphasis.
“Take you for example. You represent a significant expenditure on my part, salvage, patronage, hiring that tattooed thug to wave his hands over everything…”
She rolls her eyes sardonically, swirling her wine glass gently while staring into the claret liquid.
“The thing is that after the disaster that was your birthday, everybody assumed that replicating the feat would be quite impossible.”
She smiles as if seeing something in the wine and fixes her pretty eyes on you, smiling with just a hint of teeth.
“They say there are some things that money cannot buy.”
She reaches for a little servant’s bell and gives it a ring, the delicate chime seems loud in the silence of the Dining Hall.
“I disagree.”
The doors on the other side of the room swing open, and a well-dressed noble strides into the room, a shining rapier gripped tightly in their hand. You look into all-too familiar eyes that make your stomach lurch with apprehension.
“Yes, Mother?”
Is this spoilers? I think it might be spoilers…