Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

"That was a mighty stupid thing you just did," said the rugged man with the spear. He was long of limb, with hollows beneath his cheekbones as if he had been working hard beneath the sun for years without an honest meal. "If I had a pair of horses like that, I'd be long gone."

"Are you the chief of this village?" River asked, dismounting.

The man shrugged. "They call me Sheriff. I suppose I am in charge now, on account of being the only one of us with any warfighting experience."

Now on the inside of the stone-walled village and the flimsy wooden gate, River saw how the villagers had made use of the brief respite her distraction had granted them and had piled tons of stone before the gate. Even as the next horde of feral creatures slammed into the rickety wall, the villagers completed the crude reinforcements, effectively sealing themselves in.

"What now?" asked the young miner called Saltlick, panting over the last large stone they had wedged just beneath the arch of the gate.

Sheriff pointed upward and whistled. River had to admit that it was actually pretty impressive how a single gesture paired with a sound effectively said all of, "now that the gate is no longer a threat of giving way, take your their makeshift spears up to the top of the wall and start stabbing down at the horde, or throwing rocks at heads."

Saltlick and the other villagers quickly complied.

"I don't suppose that 'warfighting' experience came with a Mandate," said River, wondering at how well prepared this man seemed to be for this strange attack. Dozens if not hundreds of monsters at their gate in the middle of the night? Something didn't add up. This Sheriff must be Mandated.

"Nothing useful," Sheriff responded. "Old Man Nightsky called it 'Crystal Clarity.' I can choose not to feel a thing if I don't want to. Grief. Anger. Even pain. Turns out you get a pretty good look at the world when you don't have to sort through a cloud of that stuff."

"Someone warned you then. About the creatures."

"Was wondering when you'd get to that. He's in the government building. Looks to be one of yours." Sheriff gestured to River's white and silver armor. "Now if you'll excuse me… I have some work to do. Oh, and welcome to Black Altar, ma'am."

He hefted his spear, with the perhaps-yellow banner on the tip and strode off to start mounting the wall.

River turned toward the interior of the village. Most of the houses were cut right into the rock around them, forming, essentially a wide circle. Some had rickety porches or awnings of old wood. All were simple and humble as stone.

All except for one.

In the center of the village four great walls of black marble, all of a single piece, were surmounted by expensive blue tile. It was a low building, simple in design, perhaps only of a single room, like a shrine to the Great Ancestor. In fact, the only reason River could think of that the poor villagers wouldn't have broken off pieces of tile or marble to sell was if they had been superstitious about it. Only reverence or fear could have outweighed their need. This central building of black marble inspired both.

River led her two horses to the entryway of the strangely opulent building, here in the center of a dirt-poor town. The 'government building,' Sheriff had called it, and it probably served as courthouse, wedding chapel, and funeral hall, all at once. Inside, once her eyes adjusted to the deeper gloom, River could, indeed see that the only thing within was a slab of un-quarried stone, still rooted the earth beneath it. This must be the black altar from which the town derived its name. And laying atop it, was a figure in bloody, silvery white.

"Sparrow!"

The horses forgotten at the door, River ran to him.

He was as pale as his painted armor, and his sword was clutched across his chest as if he were about to be buried with it. But when she drew close, she could see that his chest was still moving, and when she placed a kiss on his lips, she could feel his breath on her own.

His eyelids fluttered as she pulled away.

"Are we dead?" he groaned.

"If we are, this is not how I envisioned the afterlife," said River, brushing aside the stray hairs that had come loose from his topknot in the no doubt long struggle he had faced since River had last seen him.

Her fingers came away bloody.

"You fell?" she asked.

"I was thrown." Sparrow grimaced and began to rise.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

River shot a dark look at Windshear who knickered nervously outside.

"He wasn't even there," said Sparrow, throwing his legs over the side of the altar and taking deep breaths to steady himself. He looked as if he might be sick to his stomach. "The loot cart was just bait."

"I figured as much when I found that it was gone. He had to be nearby to reclaim it. Dreadwolf has far to much pride to abandon his standard for long."

"I saw him though. I saw that bastard watching us from the distance. He threw his best fighters at us in the bowl just so we would have to fully commit ourselves, then he unleashed this calamity on the world right when we were at our weakest. He won't get away with it. One way or another he'll…"

Sparrow tipped drunkenly on the altar as he tried to stand and it was all River could do to guide him back to the black marble altar. She passed him what was left of her waterskin and he took small sips before passing it back.

"I read somewhere," said Sparrow, eyes screwed shut against the pain as River tore the fringe from her own padded armor and began to bind his head wound, "That the pretender to the throne renamed this place during the Dark Interregnum. Why he'd be so interested in such an accursed place…"

"Why you care of such things when you teeter on the brink…" River chastised, finished binding the head wound, and began unwrapping Sparrow's improvised bandage on his arm. "Still. This village did save your life."

"We saved each other," said Sparrow, wincing. "They'd never have stood a chance if I hadn't warned them."

"I figured as much. But this Sheriff is performing admirably out there."

"Is he? Good. We'll need him if we're to get out of here."

"Out of here?" River paused in her ministrations. "They just finished sealing us in."

"Well they'll have to unseal us. Two villages I found before this one. The first was completely abandoned. A few feral creatures told me all I needed to about what happened there. The second was in the process of eating itself alive." Sparrow began to rise again, moving more slowly this time. He looked River in the eye.

"Whatever this Rabid Dog Mandate is, it will consume everything until it runs into a solid front. It's a good thing Lion will have the passes plugged up. The hordes shouldn't make their way past him. But everything up until then is lost. No food. No supplies. No salvation."

"So we outride it," said River, picking up the thread. "We have our horses. We break through the gate and run. I assume you know which way we should go."

Sparrow nodded but slowly his nod transformed into a shake of his head.

River scowled as she realized Sparrow's conundrum. "You're not seriously thinking we try to save these people? They'd only slow us down."

Sparrow looked up at her, the pain clouding his eyes. It was likely physical pain, but it might have also been something else.

Again River seemed to know what he would say before he said it. "You don't want to save them for altruistic purposes."

"We lost our army, River. We can get away from this horde on horseback but what about the next horde. And the next. Eleven counties in Western Alley commandery. Two hundred thousand people. If we follow roads – and we have to follow roads on horseback in this terrain – we'll run into more of these things."

River snorted. "All that without your ivory tablet."

Sparrow smirked, more of a grimace in his state.

"But you think we can fight our way through?" she asked. "With so few?"

"One fight. Maybe two before we can get back to whatever line in the sand Noble Lion has drawn. I don't know what these people can do but our odds are better with twenty eight untested infantry than with only two horse."

"Forty-five," came a voice from the door. "If we put a spear in the hands of the women. The women-folk'll fight as well as any soldier with their little ones behind them."

River spun around to find Sheriff, spear propped against his shoulder, leaning against the door. How much had he heard? Surely it had been enough to know what Sparrow planned to do with them? Surely he had worked out that they were only fodder for the horde, a protective layer of bodies so that their two horses could push through.

And he's proposing adding women and children to that grim equation??

"You…" She began with as much authority as she could muster, not sure if she was about to condemn the man or laud him for the proposal.

Sheriff held up a finger before she could get going, then tapped it to his temple.

"Crystal Clarity, remember? I don't have to like the plan. Hell, I could hate the two of you for coming up with it. And I could hate myself for buyin' in. But it's the only chance these people have. That part at least is clear. And if I tell them to move… they'll move."

Sparrow gained his feet and stood there for a moment, wobbling. River wanted to reach for him, but now that they were no longer alone, she didn't dare make him look weak. Eventually Sparrow steadied and looked Sheriff in the eye. "Forty-five infantry, then?"

Sheriff nodded. "Only question is… can you keep up?"

Sparrow snorted with a cockiness that River didn't share. But River tried looking at Sparrow through Sheriff's eyes. Sparrow was a noble, true enough, a member of a different society now that he had risen enough in rank. It was a society that used people like Sheriff and the village of Black Altar as a resource, to be propped up when they were essential, and then discarded, or even thrown to the dogs when they had outlived their usefulness. Perhaps Sparrow, by virtue of his father, had always been part of that world, just as River always had been. And for that Sheriff could hate them as soon as look at them.

And yet Sparrow was also an armored officer, with a horse, a good blade, and more battlefield experience than the entire village of Black Altar combined. And when Sparrow replied, he said exactly what Sheriff needed to hear.

"I'll do you one better," said Sparrow, looking every bit the armored officer, and future head of a clan. "I have a plan. And it might just get some of us out of here alive."