Chapter 9: DD2 Chapter 003 – Charity

He had been handsome once, the kind of man whose face you would expect to see on statues, or coins displaying more heroic looking interpretations of royalty. Someone whose mere presence in a room would be enough to turn heads and cause the fainthearted to swoon regardless of their charisma score. Despite his near perfect jaw, cheekbones, and thick head of glorious hair, Arilla found her eyes drawn to the bulbous mass of cartilage that was his nose, the presumably once regal bridge having healed horribly wrong. The almost concave knot of lumpy tissue circuitously drew her focus to his eyes that were dull and unfocused beneath his strong, robust brow. A feature that only seemed to highlight how he moved about almost mechanically, with the mannerisms of someone whose hopes and dreams were simply absent. 

Like so many others before him, the former soldier slowly stepped forwards to take his place at the front of the queue where he waited with his empty bowl held protectively against his chest in his one remaining hand. 

His one hand. 

He was scarcely older than her, and already he had lost so much. His status as a low pewter warrior meant less than nothing without his sword arm, Rhelea having few uses for yet another crippled soldier. 

A fresh wave of guilt washed over Arilla as she stared transfixed at him, her mouth dry as she held the copper ladle loosely in her hand. With a herculean effort she was able to slowly spoon the watery stew into his bowl without spilling a drop, she received a muttered word of thanks and then he was gone. Replaced by another unfortunate soul, another face she didn’t recognise, another maimed soldier that she was responsible for.

She had only been half-serious when she first suggested the ratlings attack the Traylan’s estate instead of Rhelea. Thinking that the men and women who had voluntarily sworn their allegiance to a noble dynasty had it coming far more than the desperate poor who lived outside of Rhelea’s fortified walls. And then when she had come back to them with Typhoeus to lead the charge, she had been ...unstable. Her anger, her pain, both physical and emotional, had made her want to lash out. To make someone else suffer as if that would somehow excise the wound left first by her torture and then Typhoeus’s betrayal. 

Galen had deserved to die. Even now she didn’t regret ramming her sword through his chest, but the soldiers manning the walls of the Traylan castle were another thing entirely. Hundreds of men and women had died needlessly for her vendetta, many more suffering lifelong injuries that would realistically never be healed, and she couldn’t escape the bitter truth, that it was all her fault. By confiding in her, Typh or Typhoeus had made her a traitor to her species before the attack, but after she willingly bathed her sword in human blood, she had become something else entirely, something worse. 

For a brief time she had fully become The Dragonrider. Even now she could remember the thrill of it, the feel of a dragon between her thighs as she soared high above the clouds. An army of ratlings at her beck and call. The unrivalled sense of power as she vanquished a foe who should have been untouchable to someone like her, all without even breaking a sweat.

There were consequences of course, but only because she was weak, unwilling to commit to abandoning her humanity. When that thing in the vault spooked Typhoeus enough into running, Arilla had refused to go with him, instead she had chosen to remain in Rhelea. A decision she still didn’t know if she regretted.

In time the battle lust had faded, and as the wounded made their way to the streets of her city, the horror of what she had done began to set in, and the temple's kitchen had been her refuge ever since.

Arilla was now the most wanted person in all of Terythia, maybe even Astresia. Not just for the crime of killing her own kind, but for the mistaken belief that she had managed to tame a dragon. A misunderstanding that she would never be able to clarify. How could she ever explain her relationship with Typhoeus when she wasn’t even sure what to call him? The authorities' mystifying insistence that dragons were sub-sapient, along with all other monsters, did not help matters. She would be blamed solely for the attack and tortured into revealing secrets she didn’t possess should she ever give in to her guilt and confess. An experience she had no desire of repeating.

She spooned another ladle of stew into a bowl, another grateful face looked up across the counter at her. The look of earnest thanks in the woman's eyes made her want to scratch the offending organs out.

Looking back, it had all been so easy. Easy to convince Typh, or Typhoeus, that Galen had to die, easier still to get the ratlings on board and then in the blink of an eye she was riding on Typhoeus’s back as human soldiers died by the hundreds all around her. 

Because of her. 

She had leveled so fast. The System awarding her with massive amounts of experience as the air swelled with mana from the recently dead. Her laughing as she sat atop Typhoeus’s back as together they killed on a scale that she still couldn’t quite comprehend. Her one afternoon of treasonous battle eclipsing weeks of gruelling training in the pit, each of her levels from 20 through to 37 gained by committing murder.

The line continued to shuffle forwards, and Arilla did her best to try and memorise the faces of the veterans that passed before her, as if indulging in her guilt would somehow help to alleviate their pain. The injured survivors of the attack had all been unceremoniously tossed out by the returning Traylan patriarch without a second thought or even a soldier’s pension, Galen’s death and perhaps the nature of their defeat somehow invalidating their years of service to their lord. For a time the streets of Rhelea had been flooded with wounded soldiers, who promptly turned to begging and mind-numbing substances, until the church—in part funded with the coin she had stolen from the vault—set about providing shelter for the newly homeless masses. 

Arilla continued to dole out stew with her ladle until finally, the queue was gone, the temple having finished giving away all the food that had been allocated for the day's charity. Any stragglers would simply have to turn elsewhere to fill their bellies, not that the church's stew would satisfy those lucky enough to imbibe it for long. Something Arilla knew from personal experience.

“Hey, are you okay?” 

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why? Is something wrong?” Arilla asked, turning around to see Maneos looking at her curiously, his usually friendly expression marred by his apparent concern.

“No reason, you just looked like you zoned out there for a minute," he said, flashing her a perfect white smile. The young man's teeth were unnaturally straight for someone so low-levelled, and if she didn’t know any better then she would have suspected he had paid a mage to fix them for him.

“Maybe I did a bit, but I wouldn’t worry about it. I was just thinking about something.”

“Oh, well I hope it’s nothing too heavy, we did good work here today. A lot of people will go to bed with a full stomach because of us,” he said cheerfully.

“Bed? You realise most of these people sleep on the streets.”

“Uhh Right...” he said, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to go get dinner later today?” he asked almost casually, his words causing Arilla’s stomach to twist uncomfortably and not from hunger. “I know this nice little Padian place that does the best braised lamb—”

“I can’t,” Arilla replied a little too quickly. “I have to go see my sword teacher, but maybe another night?”

“Oh, right," he said, sounding disheartened. 

This wasn’t the first time that Arilla had avoided spending time with him or the others who volunteered at the kitchen, but it was by far the most direct request for a date that she had as yet received. It wasn’t that she wasn’t tempted, Maneos was pretty, if not quite handsome, but she also knew that she categorically wasn’t in the right headspace to date. She could barely get through the day without a drink in her hand and the idea of adding romance back into her life when she couldn’t stop thinking about her ex, was not something that appealed to her.

“Listen I—”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. I understand,” he said, waving away her attempt to further soften the blow.

“You do?”

“Yeah, I get it. What would a mid-pewter warrior like yourself want with a clay rank tradesman like me? I shouldn’t have asked,” he said scornfully. A sharp edge of anger in his voice that disappointed her more than anything else.

She would have appreciated it if Maneos had handled her rejection better. While a date was out of the question she still had needs and if he hadn’t gotten angry then he might have been in the running to help her take care of them. The thought still held some appeal, but she knew that was just her self-destructive instincts kicking in, her need to punish herself for her guilt making the obviously terrible idea all the more appealing. A small part of her wondered that if she hadn’t made her promise to prioritise her wellbeing to Typh, that she might have already have done something monumentally stupid.

Arilla watched in silence as Maneos walked away from her, earning himself a conciliatory pat on the back from one of the other volunteers, a group of which moved to gather around him and shoot scathing glances her way. She sighed as she went to collect her things, wondering how many bridges she had just burned and if she even cared.

The walk from the temple’s kitchen to her sword school wasn’t a long one, but with the snowy weather outside she had to hurry to avoid being late. The presence of her massive sword on her back ensured that even in her thick winter furs that she received a wide berth from the common folk traversing the city. The streets of Rhelea had taken an abrupt change for the worse since the city was turned over to the Traylan dynasty. Violence in all its varied flavours was up. The stark increase in taxes coinciding with the loss of opportunities that winter tended to bring had driven countless people to take desperate measures to try and feed themselves. Added to that was the recent influx of injured soldiers and suddenly the numbers of the desperate poor were higher than ever.

Another reason to be glad, not just for her sword and her wealth, but also for her prominently displayed level that implied she knew how to use it. Of course, the members of her sword school knew better. It was not the fanciest institution—the paint was peeling, the plaster on the walls cracked and the straw matts reeked of old sweat—but they didn’t ask any questions when she, a level 37 warrior, came along with virtually no experience with a sword. Something that was supposed to be impossible, the rigours of adventuring simply required proficient skill with your chosen weapon to survive past a certain point. Still, they took her coin and had put her in the beginner classes, pairing her with unclassed teenagers and wood ranked warriors. 

The fights were hard, not because they were difficult but because her stats made her so much faster, stronger and more enduring than her contemporaries that she was constantly holding herself back. She had to check every blow and intentionally let herself be hit when weaknesses in her style left her open. The only people who could match her in terms of raw attributes completely eclipsed her when it came down to their expertise with a blade. 

Despite seeing it coming, the edge of the sword just clipped her on the chin. The impact from the blunted blade threatening to bruise her jaw as it rattled her teeth in what would have been a debilitating blow that left her forever mutilated had it been a real blade. She staggered slightly, the eyes of her opponent widening in surprise as she effectively shrugged off the worst of the blow, her overlapping skills effectively muting both the pain and the damage from the attack. 

“The match goes to Richye!" Instructor Hoarst declared, his blue eyes narrowed in frustration as his loud voice boomed out across the training room floor in his thick Steinian accent.

“Good match," Arilla said, holding out her hand to the warrior across from her, the wood ranked adventurer limply shaking hers as he cast his eyes downwards.

“Yeah. Good match. Would be nice to beat you without you letting me win though," Richye replied, his words causing her genuine smile to falter into a frown. 

She would have prefered it as well, Richye was good with a sword. The young man had a natural talent for it that far surpassed her own, but the weight of his weapon slowed him down while hers felt lighter than a feather. Three of her four skills gave her an edge with a blade that he simply couldn’t overcome regardless of his expertise. It was brutal and unfair but it was also the way of the world.

“Can you go again, Arilla?” Hoarst asked as he limped over to her. The large drill instructor leaned to one side on his wooden peg-leg as he awaited her response with a disparaging frown on his face.

 

Name: Arilla Foundling

Species: Human

Age: 18

HP 1038/1040

SP 1026/1040

MP 760/760

Strength 30

Dexterity 10

Vitality 30

Intelligence 1

Willpower 2

Charisma 15

Class: Dragon Guard - Level 37

Dragon’s Blade - Level 37

Dragon’s Compact - Level 37

Dragon’s Mettle - Level 37

Dragon’s Resilience - Level 37

 

Dragon’s Blade level 37 - While wielding a sword and acting in good standing with your patron dragon, you may spend stamina to temporarily increase your effective strength score. The increase to strength is determined by (stamina spent * 3) + this skill’s level, with the maximum stamina spent per second capped by this skill’s level.

 

Dragon’s Compact level 37 - While in good standing with your patron dragon you may add this skill’s level to your attributes’ effective scores, providing that the bonus does not exceed your charisma score * 3. Additionally, you may treat this bonus as doubled for the purpose of determining the size and regeneration rates for your health, stamina, and mana pools.

 

Dragon’s Mettle level 37 - While in good standing with your patron dragon you may add this skill’s level to your effective strength score and gain damage mitigation to match. Additionally, your body will gradually incorporate metals to reinforce itself. All numeric bonuses provided by this skill are further limited by the weight and composition of metals carried in pounds.

 

Dragon’s Resilience level 37 - While in good standing with your patron dragon you may add twice this skill’s level to your effective vitality and willpower scores for determining your resistance to bleeding, curses, diseases, hostile magical effects, pain, and trauma shock. 

You are reading story Dragon’s Dilemma at novel35.com

 

Arilla quickly checked her status, not so much to see if she had the reserves for another fight—she knew she did—but more out of curiosity to see how much of her HP Richye’s strike had taken off of her.

“Good, because after that atrocious showing you are in dire need of another humbling,” Hoarst yelled, whilst glaring at her with something approaching joy in his eyes. A look that she had learnt to fear in the long months she had been his pupil, as it only ever meant one thing.

“Master Hoarst, are you sure? I didn’t even win,” she asked.

“Exactly. You need to stop fucking around! This is not a game. While I am not insensitive to how hard it must be to reign in your abilities, I will not tolerate you letting Richye win.”

“Master Hoarst, I didn’t l—”

“Richye overextends himself every time he lunges. it is an opening that you should have seen, especially after all of your hard work. Now either you’re stupid, lazy or you aren’t taking this seriously! Now which is it?!”

“Master I—I was distracted, I have a lot on my mind presently.“

“And you think that is an excuse? If we could all only fight when we had perfectly clear heads then it would all be so much easier, but you need to be ready when you wake up in the middle of the night to find that your friends are lying dead around you. To fight when failure means not just your death, but the deaths of everyone you love. You need to do better!” he berated, for a moment echoing Typhoeus’s words even if the delivery was considerably different.

“Master, I understand,” she said, trying to excise the dragon from her thoughts, something that was easier said than done. 

Arilla could always feel her class pulling her in one direction. Its visceral need to go and guard her patron had been growing increasingly insistent the past few weeks, ever since Typhoeus had stopped heading north and started getting closer to her. The influence that her class had on her had become so much more pronounced since she had ascended to pewter. The once whispering voice in the back of her head urging her to fight now murmured, occasionally even yelled, usually that she needed to go, that she was failing in her duties, her dragon undefended.

Her dragon. She wondered if he still thought of her as his human. 

Typhoeus had been gone for months without so much as a word and now that he was finally getting closer she didn’t know what to think. After she had refused to go with him, Typhoeus had given her more gold than what she knew what to do with before disappearing without a trace along with the ratlings he commanded. Only her class let her know that he was alive and on the move and while Arilla didn’t want him back, a large, vocal part of her yearned for Typhoeus’s comforting presence if not his touch. 

She couldn't deny that her life had gotten a lot simpler now that the dragon had left it. She was rich, young and had a powerful class. Already she was swimming in invitations to join various adventuring parties despite doing everything in her power to lay low. She was tempted to take up one of the many offers, to keep on levelling and to forget about the strange mage who made her question everything, but she couldn’t stop thinking about how scared he had looked in the vault. The abject terror in his eyes when that magical manifestation almost appeared, his earnest warning ‘The wards are failing and we are all going to die,’ and then the instruction to learn the sword.

She wanted to bury her head in the sand and forget about it all, but whatever could scare a peak iron dragon like that was certainly something that should scare her. In retrospect, having her ass handed to her by Hoarst’s favourite student was not something she should worry about.

“Good, because you will face Thearda, with skills!” the Steinian instructor said, grinning. “Everyone clear back to the edge of the ring. We don’t have any mages here and the runework was old when I bought this place," Hoarst warned, his audience of trainees swiftly complying. “First to three-quarters HP loses!”

Thearda was a large, handsome woman with one level and fourteen years on Arilla. The stoic warrior seemed to take it as a personal insult that Arilla was so close to her in level despite the massive gulf between them in terms of skill. An insult she took great pains to rectify by enthusiastically pounding her blunted sword into Arilla’s skull whenever she was granted the opportunity to do so.

She stood opposite Arilla in the ring, the tall woman easily pushing past six-feet with an even longer training zweihander than Arilla’s to match her increased height. Thearda was incredibly well-muscled, deceptively so, as Arilla knew from experience that she hadn’t neglected her flexibility or her dexterity score. Put simply, Arilla was going to lose. Thearda knew it, Hoarst knew it, everyone did. The only question was how badly Arilla was about to be beaten.

Thearda darted forwards, the large woman moving blindingly fast. Arilla had to hurry to try and match her, not wanting the disadvantage of facing the taller warrior against the edge of the ring. 

She activated [Dragon’s Blade] as their weapons clashed for the first time. Arilla felt the give in Thearda’s sword arm and she had to force herself not to push, knowing the result of that trap all too well. Thearda stepped back and to the side, her sword flickering out experimentally, testing Arilla’s guard as if the big woman didn’t already know what she would find. Arilla didn’t even try to defend herself, content to let the almost soft strikes glance off of her body as she instead barreled through her opponent's position with a mighty two-handed sweep of her zweihander. Her large sword ripping through the air where Thearda was about to step. Frustratingly, she caught Arilla’s sword with her zweihander’s hooks and pulled Arilla’s blade down and to the side. The fast moving woman stepped forwards as she brought her sword up for a finishing blow, her training-blade pulsing with mana in what Arilla knew was about to be a very painful skill-infused strike.

If it landed it would be a loss in four moves. Her worst performance in the ring yet.

Arilla had been learning though and with her prodigiously enhanced strength, she reversed her stymied strike, unbalancing Thearda who aborted her own blow to dodge Arilla’s sword. The older warrior took a step to the side, granting Arilla the opening to lunge forwards. She took a hand off of her sword and used it to punch the woman hard in the chest. Arilla’s skill-infused fist hit like a hammer and knocked the warrior back several feet as her boots skidded over the straw matts that covered the floor.

“You punched me in the tit!” Thearda spat out, more scandalised than winded, her eyes narrowed as she looked at Arilla with naked contempt.

“It worked, didn’t it," Arilla said, grinning for finally being able to land a decent hit against her vastly superior opponent.

“Only because I expected more of you. This is a sword school, maybe you should go join the pugilists down the road if you like punching things so much.”

“Fuck you too, Thearda," Arilla replied, well aware that there were few people derided more by the admittedly small greatsword community than the idiosyncratic adventurers who insisted on trying to punch monsters to death when they had the entire plethora of modern weapons to choose from.

Without another word Thearda came at her in a blur, her weighted training sword flashing through the air so fast that Arilla could barely track it with her eyes. She defended herself as best she could, but her muscle memory was new and incomplete by comparison to Thearda’s much more experienced blend of greatsword styles. She recognised the Steinian moves and stances that Hoarst had been doing his best to impart to her, but in the mix of flurried strikes that headed her way, she also saw hints of Aberian longsword fighting, moves more suited to a Thesian hookblade and even some Saysarian spear moves that had been altered to fit the unique style and shape of Thearda’s oversized zweihander. In a word, it was beautiful. The woman facing her was well on the path of mastering the sword, but in all too real a sense it didn’t matter.

It felt cheap to say, but Thearda had dedicated her adventuring career to mastering the sword and her skills reflected that, but Arilla had been chosen by a dragon and in doing so earned something greater than its favour. Her class skills were a step above her contemporaries as they came with heavy restrictions that, so long as she didn’t think about them, bothered her not in the slightest. 

Thearda’s training sword slapped Arilla across the face. The skill-enhanced strike might have been lethal, had it come from a real weapon, but with training blades like these it barely made its way through her damage mitigation. She had been struck countless times and while each one had whittled away a little bit of her HP, Arilla had well over a thousand health, which was almost unheard of for someone in mid-pewter and this was a fight that would last until she was down to three-quarters.

As much as the fight was to remind Arilla how far she had to go in terms of expertise, it was also there to remind Thearda that regardless of her talent and dedication, she could only grow so powerful with her cautious approach and diligent training. The risks that Arilla had taken earlier on had granted her a better class and she would one day surpass Thearda. They both knew it, and Thearda hated her for it.

The fight dragged on, Arilla eventually winning on a technicality even if no one would ever call it a victory, as she was simply able to outlast Thearda. The much more dangerous warrior had landed more ‘lethal’ hits than Arilla could count, in stark contrast to Arilla’s one cheap punch. Thearda’s skills burnt through her much more limited stamina pool far faster than Arilla, who used her [Dragon’s Blade] skill sparingly as she knew from experience that she could rarely hit the much faster woman. When they were done, Thearda was exhausted and pissed from losing a fight she could have easily won several times over if she was allowed an edged blade, but then if they were fighting to kill, Arilla had a fair few tricks up her sleeves that would have admittedly destroyed Hoarst’s studio had she tried them.

“Good fight," Arilla offered placatingly, her opponent merely offering her a glare and a grunt before moving back to her favoured place on the opposite side of the room with the older trainees.

“That was only barely offensive to watch. Thearda, good work as always. Arilla, you are finally learning to use your stats properly. You’ll never be a talent with the sword like Thearda is, as I suspect that mastering even one sword style will likely be too much for you, but if you can continue with leveraging your strength and your durability you will go far," he said, giving her the closest thing to praise that she had heard from the gruff old man.

“Thanks," she said, unsure how she felt by his casual dismissal of her talents.

The rest of the afternoon passed relatively quickly inside the school. Arilla fought a few more bouts and lost all but one of them, her ability to ‘win’ highly dependent on battles of attrition. When it finally came time for her to leave for her home, the sun was already low in the sky, the days naturally growing shorter to go along with the plunging temperatures and winter snows.

She passed a priest she didn’t recognise standing atop a rickety crate. He was practically foaming at the mouth as he preached the need to repent and for Terythia to rejoin ‘Mother Epheria,’ which was borderline treasonous and when coupled with the poor weather made sure that no crowd dared to congregate around him. The new Traylan soldiers who kept the peace in Rhelea, whilst new, had already earned a reputation for brutality when it came to keeping order and punishing dissent, a vague term that could apply to just about any kind of behaviour provided one didn’t keep a heavy purse full of drachma at the ready for just such an occasion.

When Arilla was closer to home, she couldn’t help but notice how the streets seemed to be clear of the usual beggars and footpads. While she had seen priests out in force providing aid for the homeless, it was unlikely that they had been that successful. The missing people likely had been press ganged into serving in Lord Traylan’s growing army. Rhelea’s new governor was noticeably authoritarian when it came to replenishing his much depleted forces.

She was so caught up in her musings that she almost tripped over a young man passed out face-down in the snow. She wanted to keep on walking, but against her better judgement she found herself kneeling down to check if the warrior-tagged man was still breathing. He smelt like a brewery, and upon looking around she noticed a bar so dingy that she initially passed it by without realising. It was an absolute dive, and already she could hear raised voices emanating from within, but it didn’t matter.

She was thirsty and her hand itched for the bottle. 

Arilla had suffered through a rough day that topped off an even rougher few months and one drink to take the edge off her pain wouldn’t hurt anybody. If anything it was a just reward for maybe saving the passed out drunk’s life. At least, that was what she told herself as she plucked the larger man up by his armpits and effortlessly slung him over her shoulder before walking over to the rickety looking door. 

A door which then promptly exploded outwards as two women came flying through it and out into the street amidst a shower of shattered wood.

When Arilla lowered the arm she had raised instinctively to protect her eyes from the fast-moving splinters, she saw a thoroughly unexpected sight. Two women were rolling around in the snow for an embarrassingly long time, especially considering that they both appeared to be fully grown adults. After a lot of punching, hair pulling and at least one notable instance of biting the two separated, the mage and the bard facing off against one another while Arilla stood watching slack-jawed from afar.

“I am going to fucking kill you for that!" Eliza yelled angrily, wincing as she clutched at the bite wound on her arm.

“Try it, you old hag!” Typhoeus retorted, almost smugly as he licked the blood from his lips with exaggerated slowness.

“Bitch tits!”

“Harem-wench!”

“Dragonslut!”

“Oh no, don't you even dare!” Typhoeus warned, shaking his head from side to side as if in disbelief.

Eliza only grinned evilly in response and Arilla felt the woman's skill blossom out around them as instead of standing in a freezing cold street she felt the familiar atmosphere of a much loved tavern wash over her while the bard began to sing.

 

“Ohhhh Typh the dragon's wife,

Ohhhh Typh the dragons w—”

 

Typhoeus leapt through the air with a pulse of golden mana at his back. His small brown fist collided with Eliza’s teeth with an audible clack which caused the older woman to stagger to the side drunkenly.

Arilla watched with her heart in her chest as her former lover and current patron failed to land on his feet, instead tumbling head over heels in the snow. The disguised dragon slowly stood back up, reeking so strongly of cheap whisky that Arilla felt her need for a drink evaporate just by breathing in. Typhoeus stood there triumphant, swaying slightly as he looked on in satisfaction at Eliza who slurred the words ‘bitch tits’ once more before finally crumpling to the ground. 

“Typh, you’re back," Arilla found herself saying, their much imagined reunion nothing like what she had imagined.

“Shit,” Typhoeus said, finally registering Arilla’s presence, his gold-flecked eyes dilated and unfocused.

“That’s what you have to say?" she asked incredulously.

“How about... Hello beautiful?" the dragon said to her, a perfect smile on his all too beautiful face before he noisily vomited on his own shoes and keeled over, promptly passing out in the snow.

Arilla groaned loudly with frustration as the conflicting mixture of feelings that she had been trying her best to bottle up since Typhoeus’s departure began bubbling to the surface. 

If that wasn’t enough, the sound of regimented boots crunching through the snow filled the street, heralding the approach of Rhelea’s new guardsmen. Arilla turned to face the half dozen low-pewter warriors in Traylan colours marching towards her, her mind belatedly noticing how anti-Traylan posters were plastered all along the length of the road. 

“Shit," she said.

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