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THE FIGHT HAD RAGED for two full spans with no sign of abating. Rowle wondered in the brief hiatus while each side regrouped, how long fighting needed to continue before it was called a war. Enemy reinforcements seemed to pour from everywhere.
Rowle sat on the edge of the pond in the garden at the center of the hub. The makeshift camp they’d made busied themselves with setting guards and preparing weapons. She gave up trying to lick her arm clean; it was just too slick with blood. Rowle was at the forefront of her fighting as ever and though she’d acquired many new wounds in the past span, none were bleeding quite like this one. She draped it in the water until she was cool to her shoulder. She used the claws on her other hand to scrub the fur.
An adjutant arrived. “Bureaucrat. Reinforcements seem to pour from everywhere. The White Dukes’ troops have stayed loyal to us and half of your guards. The Grey Dukes’ troops now fight with the Red-Duchy army against you, but the ascetics of the Grey-Duchy have never made the best soldiers. So, it is just the generals of the Red to face.”
“I think we can run them off,” said Rowle brightly. “Form me a crack team of guards. Ruthless. Six only. I have a task for them. Quickly now.”
The underling retreated into the mass of troops. Rowle chuckled to herself and returned to the task of washing. In the end, she decided that washing one limb at a time was too slow and so climbed in. She hated being immersed in water, but she hated to be dirty more. The water wasn’t all that deep at the edges of the pond, so she soon got used to it. In the throes of washing, she stubbed her toe.
“Damn! What the hells... ?” She felt down into the water. By her ankles was something, hard yet not sharp. She put a hand down to touch. It was roughly cube-shaped, it’s surface was plastic, but loose, bagged maybe? What the hells was it? She went to fish it up. But withdrew her hand sharply: there was a tremor coming from it. She stood for a frozen moment, then curiosity got the better of her. She snatched the vibrating thing from the bottom and brought it dripping, up to her face. Now she had pulled it out fully, the damn thing was singing. A nasal squeaking tune. Damn the stupid piece of junk. Her anger nearly blunted her spotting something else. A familiar scent. It smelled of jasmine. Those stinking... Who were they? Rebels certainly. How dare they? Under her very nose. Scum. She would have them found and have every last one of them tortured and executed.
She shook the box like she could get answers from the tune if she shook it hard enough when the adjutant returned.
“Your Eminence,” he said cautiously.
She shook the box some more before she noticed his presence.
“What? What do you want?” she said.
“Your Eminence, I have assembled your team. What would you have them do?”
“A moment,” Rowle said.
She plunged her claws into the small box and lifted it up, still wheezing out its tune. She stepped out of the water and over the decorative stone edge of the pond. She shook herself briefly and then turned toward the edge of the water. She reached her free hand out to the stone edging and gently stroked it, smiling. She nodded slowly, raised her claws and the box, and smashed it on the edge. And smashed it and smashed it. It squeaked and stopped making noise. She smashed it again and again until it fell from her claws in fragments and fizzed back into the pond. She smashed twice more on the pond’s edge and then slowed. She leaned back and clasped her hands together.
“You were saying?” she asked the adjutant.
“Commands for your unit, Your Eminence?”
“Yes, good,” Rowle said. She turned, inhaled slowly, and let the breath out slowly through her teeth. “Wait until sleep-span. Send them to The Grey-Duchy. Capture me some generals or wise-folk or whatever the hells they call their leaders and bring them back to me at the Bureau for interrogation.”
“What are your rules of engagement? If we should come up against resistance?”
“Kill anyone preventing you bringing them back. I want some hostages. If you cannot find generals then bring pups. Soldiers would be of no use as they do not seem to care for them. Folk of value.”
“I understand.”
“Good. If you need more troops to create a diversionary attack in order to gain access, then make that happen.”
“Very good, Your Eminence.”
“Do we have enough resources to do this and keep this camp here?”
“If we perform some temporary fortifications, yes, Your Eminence.”
“Make it happen. Make sure the prisoners are brought to me in the Bureau,” Rowle said.
She turned on her heel and stormed off, trying her hardest not to investigate the one, two—no three new junk pillars on her way back to her office.
