Heir of Iron

"Ahe ahm 'bouh tah bruh ye teef wih a hannful ah mud," she grumbled at him, pulling her red scarf down and arranging it around her nose. "Bihg, stoopihd, shiny metal...." she grumbled as she climbed back onto her horse, the cloth and distance muting her protestations.

Bart and Gram exchanged a glance again, Bart shrugging. Gram's shoulders rocked with a silent chuckle.

"Something you'll have to get used to I suppose. Go easy on the perfumes." Bart said, and Gram grinned a little.

"I suppose I'll have to keep that in..." he trailed off, eyes wide as the pair met the rest of the troop, who had all paused at the top of the hill, Bart turned to see what had taken his comrade's attention, eyes narrowed in concern... and then once more wide.

Lachheim.

The hillock gave them a view of the sweeping farmland they'd slowly climbed out of on their initial trip and the whole of the city. Columns of smoke rose from walls shattered; massive gouges cut into the defenses by main force. The smoldering, charred ground extended half a league beyond the walls themselves, and even from here, Bart could see bodies in the road, fallen in their escape, never to rise again.

The fires had mostly died down, in three months even a city eventually lowered to a smolder — yet there still climbed many pillars of ash from still-burning manors, warehouses, and businesses. The plumes of white smoke — the hottest fires that carried that carrion stench, were centered in the very middle of the upper district, which put an uncomfortable worry in Bart's guts, one he was not yet ready to give voice to. Not a single building stood untouched from this distance, crumbled turrets and homes, savaged manors and burned-out businesses. It was a scene from Hell. Smaller forms swung here and there from parts of parapets, the gates, and a host of other spots. Any place a rope could be secured. Bart didn't need to be close enough to make out details of what they were. The city was ravaged, in some places as his eyes scanned, it looked as if whole buildings had simply been swept aside, crushed, and flattened by physical force more than the hunger of flame.

A guttural, primal scream of agony erupted from the line of staring men; Lidia again, as her eyes laid upon her city — the only home she'd known for years — her face was a contorted, tortured mask of unknowable grief, wordless pain poured out of her until her lungs gave out. She swayed in the saddle, covering her head and shaking it two and fro, babbling incoherent denials until it just came out in another, wrenching cry of anguish. Gram was at her side like a shot, hurdling his own saddle with alarming agility, his spear dashed point-first into the soil as the cool-hearted soldier all but sprinted, grasping his love and dragging her from the saddle. She wailed and clung to him, beating her hands on his breastplate as tears poured from her eyes. All around them, the soldiers, the group — stopped. There was no sound but the wind and Lidia's heart as it tore apart in front of them. Gram was silent, holding her, gripping her tightly as she hurled her pain out in wordless sound.

"Perhaps now, then?" Naima reiterated, looking down at the little changeling, her own face contorted in almost motherly worry and trepidation, her golden eyes looking back to Bart's with anguish he could not fathom.

"... Yes, I think you are right. Rest would do us well," Bart agreed, turning his head to several men and murmuring orders to make camp, getting stony-faced nods in return. These men were veterans of these conflicts, the atrocity was sharp — but they were hard.

As the men dispersed from the road to make their camps downhill, blocking their line of sight of the horrors, hard they may be — no man wanted to look at that overlong — Cithara was left alone, at the head of the column, standing at the peak of the hillock, her eyes wet with tears.

"Beloved... come away," Bart said, dismounting and walking to her side. She shook her head, her mane catching the wind, bringing a fresh scent of the burned and the dead to them, making her shudder visibly.

"No Bart, no," she whispered, staring. "I... must see this. Must see it all," she said, her voice wan and thin.

"This is not your weight to bear, beloved," Bart argued, and she once more simply shook her head. Staring into the ruins.

"It is my dear one. All of this to lure me to an obvious trap. So many." she shook her head, shuddering as a sob wracked her. "She's killing my babies, Bart. My babies."

The sight of his friend wracked with near-insane levels of grief had shaken him, but to see Cithara, the Lady in White, the Unicorn of Love, crumbling and weeping like a mother over the bodies of her children?

It broke him.

Bart sank to his knees, wrapping his arms around her neck, and dragging her gaze away from the horrors, she gave a soft cry and leaned her face into his armored chest, tears pattering to the plates as he held her, his own joining them. He had no words to offer, no solace to immortal grief like this, nothing his young, mortal heart could conjure could soothe this pain she felt... and so he merely gave himself to her, shored up his courage, and let her press to him, suddenly bawling her eyes out, her legs shaking and giving out as she collapsed into his lap.

"HARK!" came a bellow from one of the men, a dark-haired man with a severe nose, he peered forward through a spyglass. His armor and kit painted him as one of their scouts.

"Our banner still flies!" he shouted again. Cithara's head snapped up, as did Bart's.

"The Order Militant fortress! It stands!" he shouted again, turning his head to his fellows. "Our brothers stand!"

Bart reached up and took the spyglass, the soldier willfully handing it to him as he trained it on the city, grimacing as he saw a closer view of the carnage as well... and yet it was true, the fort was intact. Drawbridges raised, banner flying high. Walls scorched and damaged — but unbroken.

"By God," Bart breathed, turning it so Cithara could peer through — awkwardly as her alien skull allowed, but her breath caught.

"There are men on the walls, good, untainted men," she breathed.

"Then there is hope!" Someone said in the crowd of men. A cheer went up, a rousing cry of courage.

"Viconia, you steely bitch!" Someone cackled nearby, getting a brief cheer of her name from the men. Bart and Cithara looked around, she sniffled a bit but smiled.

"Courage... this is why I love you all so," she breathed to him; her voice lapsing into the tones of ancient ritual, "Thou art courageous."

Bart held her close, she knew his heart better than he did... she saw in them clear as day what even great philosophers groped for with words and theories — the Unicorn glimpsed their hearts, and in it, she found something worth loving. That was enough for him.

"I will make it right," Bart promised her, stroking her face and pulling her close as the cheering men set about their work, renewed energy in their motions. "I will punish the men responsible, mercy is beyond such creatures."

"Good, my love. Good." she agreed, a touch of fire in her voice. "This time I am wholly complicit," she said, raising her eyes to his, gold-on-gold glimmering with tears, grief, and love — and a glint of deep-seated rage.

"Wield me, my power. Carve a bloody swath through these monsters. Show no remorse, let none survive your fury." she almost snarled.

"My fury."

Bart felt that ignite something in his soul. Perhaps it was the Ember, the mantle... or just good old-fashioned masculine aggression — but her desires, her command rang him like a great, glorious bell. Sang in his blood and muscles with an atavistic desire to protect. To visit upon transgressors retribution. She stared into his eyes intensely, seeing that change. Feeling that fire building inside of him.

"This is why I chose you. This is what we were made for, darling. Love is jealous and it is powerful, it is what drives the mother and father to fight for their child, the brother to shield the brother. Sister to sister. You were chosen because that love burns in you like wildfire, searing all away so new life may grow."

As she spoke, he felt it. There was no magic here... merely the magic of truth, spoken earnestly. She Knew him, deep in the fiber of his being, and in this — she acknowledged him, his quality. His soul.

"Thou art courageous."

The words rang him head to toe. Filled him. Defined him. He had never before truly understood what she meant when she said those three, old-fashioned words. This time it rang true. It meant something. Everything. It was who he was, what he was. What his ancestors were. The defining concept of humanity in a single, ancient phrase.

Courage.

The two looked out across the river valley once more. They looked over the devastation. The waiting trap yet to be sprung, the hopeful snap and flutter of the Eye and Horn pennant now unmistakable even with the naked eye atop the fortress.

"I love you, Cithara," Bart said softly. Raising his hand to her. "I... never asked you properly, it seemed just to happen, yet I will here. Now. In our last moments of peace." he said, shifting himself down to one knee, Cithara's eyes blinking rapidly as it dawned on her.

"Oh, Bart..."

"Will you be mine, forever — as long as that may be?" he asked her, the eyes of the men around them turning to the pair. Silence ruled as she looked to his empty hand; "Wed me, properly before God and Men alike?"

She laughed, it was a sound full of gaiety and a bit of incredulity. She pressed her mouth to his in a passionate, needy kiss... and laid one of her glimmering golden hooves in his hand.

"Yes, my love. Forever is a very long time... and I wish this time, to see all of it at your side. A thousand times, yes!" she said, and around them another cheer went up. Each of the men thrust their spears to the sky, giving cries of enthusiastic joy. For them, a miracle had occurred — they'd witnessed the promise of an Immortal and her Champion, no greater blessing could be had on their campaign — and they were exultant in their cheers, their joy for this creature that they loved above all else but God, and her chosen.

"Can we... go away from others for a while? I must needs..." she closed her eyes. "Gather myself. My strength. We are far from my throne. My power stretches thin from it and we will need every glimmer of hope I can muster."

Bart nodded, and quite to the surprise of Cithara and the others — swept her up into his arms. She gave a soft cry and was wild-eyed a moment, and then sighed and nestled herself into his neck. Her slight, doe-like frame weighed as nothing in the brawny paladin's arms, and he took her downhill, towards the river.

"Bart..." it was a quavering voice, he glanced down as he passed. Lidia looked up at him from Gram's arms, the tall Darrowmite having taken her to a fallen log on the side of the road, and had simply held her as she wept and cried.

"I made him promise, so ahm' makin' ye too," she said, raising her scarred, calloused hand.

"Promise me. Ye'll kill the bastard responsible. I know I cannae harm these... things. I need ye to do it. Kill them." she spat, eyes hollow and full of fury. "Make it hurt."

Bart shifted Cithara in his arm, and reached out his hand, grasping hers tightly in its mailed embrace. His face resolute.

"I promise. No matter the cost. I promise." he rumbled, his voice like a distant rockslide.

"Ye cannae break this one, Bart." she pleaded with that hollow gaze. "Dinnae break ye promise, ye almost broke the last one." her eyes welled up again.

"They took me home, big brother. They took me home again," she said and began to weep anew, curling herself into Gram's shoulder once more, her own wracked with new sobs of grief filling her. Bart felt sadness war with rage through him as he brushed his hands over her hair, Gram meeting his gaze.

"Together," was all he said, a stoic nod accompanying it.

"Together," Bart agreed. Cithara smiled and slipped free of Bart's grip, alighting on the ground with grace, she stepped forward to Lidia.

"Little One," she breathed softly, the changeling looking up at her with misery in her gaze, Cithara's own eyes softening. "So much pain... you are so strong for such a young thing," she said and leaned down and gently kissed Lidia on the brow, nuzzling her hair softly.

"You are strong enough. Weep your tears, I wept mine... weep them and know all will be well again. The sun always must shine once more." she said, smiling even as a fresh tear ran down her glistening white cheek.

"I promise you."

Lidia's eyes flowed with fresh grief, but she smiled and reached a hand up, touching Cithara's mane, the Unicorn did not say another word, simply looking into the young changeling's eyes.

"I'll hold ye to that, Lady," she replied, voice barely more than a whisper.

"As is proper," the Unicorn replied. "You have not strayed all these years in the dark, the sun will shine again. Have faith."

Lidia bit her lip, and with a nod she simply laid her face against Gram's pauldron once more, eyes closing in a fresh stream of tears. Cithara drew away, catching Bart with her tail and pulling him along, the man's eyes clinging to his... sister, his sister's grieving form.

"Come, beloved. We must prepare. The endgame is upon us." Bart looked back towards the smoke, the barest tip of the parapets visible over the hill. The beginning of his journey, and its end. In it all, the journey's slings and arrows of fortune, the agony, pain, and fear... he'd only had one thing to cling to. Here at the end, as in the beginning, he grasped that quality firmly and would not let go.

Courage.

END OF VOLUME TWO

The adventure reaches its thrilling climax in Volume Three of Chasing the Unicorn, TRAGEDY OF GOLD.