Chapter 18: Upwelling

“You said you would talk to me,” the Sunset Knight said. Her swords were at her side, and her arms were crossed against her armor. “So talk.”

The man in front of her, called Parish, gave a noncommittal shrug. “It is customary, I think for you to ask some questions first.”

Lito ground her teeth together. “By this point, I’m sure the Carpenter will know that we’ve sent down some forces to try to hold Invercard. Not nearly enough men as I would like, but hopefully, enough to hold him back. So. When is the Carpenter going to attack?”

Parish considered this, rubbing the manacles on his wrist. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “And torture would only convince me to lie. I know that it’s going to happen sometime this week… but I imagine that’s the timeline you would have predicted anyway.”

“Tell me all that you can about his plans,” Lito said. “Or we’ll move this conversation to somewhere a little more… remote.”

Parish shook his head. “You might need to call your guards, then, Laeth. I’m not some scoundrel. I had a legitimate life before this, working in Glen-Deoch. I have resolve. I have commitment.”

“That only means you’ll be more talkative when you do finally break.”

Parish nodded. “Or I’ll be dead before I break. Or that I’ll lie under duress. How much time and effort do you want to put into this, Sunset Knight? I can guarantee I’ll be able to make it a waste of resources.”

“I'll take my chances.”

* * * * * * * *

The Sunset Knight was as good as her word. Lito Laeth organized more patrols and sent up some messengers in the case of an emergency. Following that, she had her guards move Parish to a a different location in Raven's Run. She brought her Wasps, and prepared for a long session.

As her guards tied Parish down to the stone table, sharpened her butterfly swords. She caught Parish looking at them.

“Nice, aren't they?”

“I've never seen swords like that,” he said.

“They were specially made,” Lito replied. “Sharp in some place, blunt in others-- it's an all purpose tool.”

She stepped closer.

“Are you married, Parish? With children?”

“Are you?” he replied, a feral grin on his face.

She slammed the blade in her right hand onto the table, hilt first, onto his right arm. She didn't hear anything crack, but it must have hurt.

“I'm asking the questions,” she said.

“Drown in hell,” he said.

“How many man does the Carpenter have?”

“Six,” Parish said. Lito sliced open his arm, letting blood spill onto the table.

“Tell me again, and I'll stop the bleeding.”

“Seven,” he said. Lito brought the hilt down onto the open wound, and Parish howled in pain.

“I'm quite patient,” the Sunset Knight said. “We can do this for hours.”

“I have no idea,” Parish said. “Truthfully. I'm not in charge of personnel, I only knew who I interacted with.”

Lito sighed. It was unlikely that the man would open up with obvious lies first and then move on to truth second, not unless he was a masochist.

Making her waste time and resources indeed.

A earth shaking roar echoed through out Raven's Run. Pieces of earth fell to the floor and shattered, and Lito braced herself against the stone table for support.

“What in the sunken hells was that?” she asked.

Parish grimaced under his bonds. “That was the Carpenter,” he said. There was a maddening grin on his face. “He's making his move now. Did you leave your men with good orders? How long will it take you to get to the fighting?”

Parish tossed his head, clearing the hair out of his eyes. “I think you'll find yourself well ruined, Sunset Knight. The Carpenter won't hold back at all. I'm..” His eyes closed in pain, and he started to shake on the table. “I'm not there to hold him back,” he said, teeth bared. “He'll kill everyone. Oh, gods...”

Lito grabbed her helmet from where it lay on the floor and took off running down the corridor, Wasps in hand.

* * * * * * * *

When she arrived at the main hall in Raven's Run, she stopped, shocked.

There was a hole in the middle of it. Rubble lined the sides, and there were ladders propped up against the hole. The Carpenter had been burrowing underneath the city? Sunken hells.

The Sunset Knight cursed how long it had taken her to get out. She had gotten lost in the cavernous twists and turns of the complex. How long had it been? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? That could be a lifetime in fighting.

She ran out into the open light. Corpses littered the bridge. She could see smoke coming from the Wall.

Gods. The Wall.

The Sunset Knight ran as fast as she could towards the checkpoint. There were two men standing there, apparently standing guard. They weren't any of hers.

They saw her approach, and she put her head down slightly, the Wasps in both hands stretching out. At the last minute, she dropped to her knees and slid the rest of the way-- their swords swung ineffectually over her head, and she sliced to her left with both her blades. The Wasps tore into the back of the man's knees, breaking bone and spraying blood over the white stone.

The Sunset Knight let her momentum carry her into a roll, and came up behind the second guard. He ran at her, and brought his sword down in a cleaving motion. She pivoted the blade in her left hand, and caught the sword in the hook of her guard. As her left side was brought down, she whipped her right blade up towards the guard's helm. The Wasp bore through helm and bone alike, and the man collapsed, dead.

She unstuck the blade, wiping blood and brain from it on her gauntlet. Breathing heavily, she ran up towards the stairs on the Wall.

As she ran, she could see no major structural damage-- although a chunk had been torn out of the Raven's Run side. Men were moving swiftly from the hole onto the river bank, running towards the bridge. They weren't armored-- a support team, perhaps? It was clear that the Carpenter's military forces had passed by some time ago. None of her guards were still alive, except those that were presumably fighting on the Cael Proper side.

The Carpenter had been underneath the city, then, hiding in the storage spaces beneath and within the Wall. The Wall, it seemed was vulnerable to explosives. She was immensely thankful that the bulk of the Wall had held, or things would be quite bad for the island.

The Carpenter must have broken through using explosives, both in Raven's Run and at the Wall, and swarmed out, taking her forces from behind.

Gods.

She dropped off the beginning of the stairs, and ran along the gravel down towards the men who were carrying supplies out of the hole. A few had weapons, but the majority were unarmed.

The first few braced themselves, and readied the swords that they had, but she sidestepped the first swing and punched the Wasps through the man's stomach. She wrenched her blades sideways out, and let them slice the man standing next to him. His sword came down on her shoulder, hard, but it didn't break through the armor.

Lito Laeth was a whirlwind, a swarm of cuts and blows amidst the group of men. There was yelling and screaming and blood, and she was taking strikes and attacks from all sides. Someone grabbed her around the waist, and she jumped, driving her feet backwards into the man's legs. He fell backwards, bringing her down with him, and she snapped her head towards the back, driving the hard metal helm into his unprotected face.

She rolled off him, but others were grabbing her now, trying to wrench the Wasps from her hand, hammering her armor with rocks. Someone broke the chin strap of her helmet, and now she was battered around the skull. Red mist rose in her eyes, and she lost all consciousness.

* * * * * * * *

When Lito awoke, she was in chains.

She wasn't terribly surprised.

One of the guards noticed her movement, and strode out of the cell. Lito closed her eyes, grimacing against the pain. It felt like her head was getting constricted in a vice, and her eyes felt like they were going to burst. She spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground.

Footsteps brought her out of her thoughts.

She looked up, and a thin, sandy haired man entered the room. He was idly twisting a wooden ring on one hand, and smiling, sadly. The guards accompanying him held a sack, slick with what looked like blood.

“Lito Laeth,” the man said. He was well spoken, his words elegantly formed. “The Sunset Knight. What a pleasure to see you at last.”

“Carpenter,” she gasped.

“In the flesh.” He nodded to one of the guards. They pulled a head out of the bag-- Altor Caeton's head, sawed off at the neck, and gruesomely cut and mangled. She stared at it, resolute.

“My men were a little hasty,” he said. “I gave strict orders not to kill the king, that I had a special plan for him... but, you see how things go.”

Lito tried to control her breathing.

“It was quick, I assure you. Quicker than your death will be. But before we get to that, I have some questions for you. Where is Paene Umber?”

“I don't know him,” she said.

He kicked her hard in the stomach where she lay. She doubled over, as much as she could with her hands chained to the wall.

“Parish, then. We've searched Raven's Run, but it's a maze up here, and we haven't been able to find him. Where is he?”

Bleeding out on a stone table.

“I don't know,” she repeated. “Nobody knows this place. A guard brought me to the interrogation room, blindfolded. I'm sure you killed him by now. I couldn't find my way back there if I wanted.”

The Carpenter scratched his chin. “Keep looking,” he told his guard, who walked out of the room.

“I am sorry about all this,” the Carpenter said, grinning ear to ear. “But I imagine you're going to be sorrier, soon enough. We'll keep you well fed, and heal those nasty lacerations around your skull.”

He knelt down next to her. “We were going to have something public and spectacular with your king,” he said. “Something with flair, imagination, and subtly. Something to remind the people what happens when you systematically deny freedom in people's lives. Something to cement the city under my control.”

The Carpenter straightened up. “But one of my men was hasty, and took his head off. Ah, well. You learn to work with these things. That means you're next, Lito. The most well-known champion for his reign. We have things planned for you, my dear. I pray that you will live to see it.”

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