[center][i]His hounds they lie down at his feete
so well they can their master keepe
His haukes they flie so eagerly
there's no fowle dare him come nie
She buried him before the prime
she was dead her selfe ere euen-song time
God send euery gentleman
such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman[/i]
- The Three Ravens, Traditional[/center]

The morning mist mixed with the smoke from the burning city and wreathed the castle grounds in a foul-smelling swirl of ash and corpse-stench. Through the broken remains of the castle gates, left utterly ruined by the invaders' siege weapons, the slow wind carried the sounds of fierce fighting - the din of battle rang loudly in the streets below, accompanied by the screams of the dying, and the choking gurgles as invading soldiers silenced them. From the castle, a victorious cheer could barely be made out amidst the sound of battlecries and clashing blades, and from below, maddened cries of elation mixed with despair, as the denizens of the king's dungeons clamoured to be set free - with such determination that their voices pierced the ground. Pigs squealed and dogs howled in the courtyard, and above it all, the Yellow Raven's patrolling sentries tried to keep some form of communication going with the force that had stormed the castle.

The stained glass window shattered like thin ice under a careless boot, raining pieces of the royal emblem down on the blood-soaked courtyard below. The body of king Erasmus the Indomitable arced limply through the air for a moment, before plummeting into the royal pigsty with a horrifying crash, scattering broken wood and terrified pigs in all directions. There in the mud, stripped of his crown and all his finery, his right arm left behind in the corridors above, the great king Erasmus met his ignoble fate. Perhaps a merciful god would take pity on his soul, but as far as the men, the lineage and the realm of Altranor was concerned, that was it.

The war had been won on the strategic level before it had even begun. When the soldiers of the Yellow Raven and his allies emerged from the midwinter blizzards to take the first village, it was already too late, and no clever tactics could save the kingdom from the armies that poured in across the frozen sea. Before news of the war had even reached king Erasmus, large swathes of land had already been lost, and many of the northern holds had either turned against the realm or been sacked. Messages went out by spell, by horse and by carrier pigeon, by every means available, but by the time they had been received, half the kingdom was already fighting for its life. Erasmus knew he had little hope of winning, but for honour's sake, he could not bring himself to flee - to face a life of exile while all his friends died for the kingdom he had failed to protect. Not everyone loved the late king, and not all his decisions were kind, but he knew loyalty. Perhaps the fact that he fought until the bitter end, rather than die on a betrayer's blade, brought him some small comfort as his life slipped away.

[center]- - -[/center]

Many floors below the tower where they had dragged the king, down in the heart of the castle's central keep, a woman stood over the corpses of her child's murderers. She stared out the large, lavish windows at the commotion on the other side of the courtyard, where Erasmus' corpse had struck the ground. Castle Altranor was not the mightiest keep in the realm, nor the largest. It was an old building, and Erasmus had felt far more threatened by assassins than invading armies. Money had gone toward commerce, culture, the finery in that very room, and not toward higher walls and larger armies. But the down pillows and silk were stained with blood now, and all the gold in the world would not buy back what was lost. Her infant child still warm in her arms, Lin'Lise, wife of the late prince Alfred, no longer had anything to connect her to the blood of the royal house. All she had was herself, and with the sound of approaching boots coming in from above, that might not last. She would have to flee or die, to this wave, or the next, or the one after that. The nursery was a story or two above the ground, and the windows did not open - at least, not by design - but the nearby servant's quarters offered a less demanding escape route, down a rickety stairway and out the back door, if she could fight or sneak her way past any stragglers.

When the castle was stormed, the attackers vastly outnumbered the defenders, and some commanders had taken care to preserve certain parts of the castle for later looting. One such place was a large, brightly lit chamber, away from the regular hustle and bustle of castle life. Large bookcases lined the walls from one end to the next, full of tomes and scrolls both fanciful and factual. It was not the largest library in the city - the mage academy boasted one many times larger, with secret lore and ancient wisdom that dwarfed the king's own collection - but it was important in its own way, containing maps, lineages, knowledge of distant cultures, and other types of learning essential to the ruling caste. Nykerius, court wizard and a man of no small power, had none the less found it prudent to hole himself up in that untouched chamber. He was not the only wizard in this war, and though his spells may be powerful, the sheer weight of the magic bearing down on the city walls had made his hair stand on end. He was only one man against hundreds, and as he watched through the high windows above the bookcases, the king's corpse sailing through the sky confirmed once and for all that the battle was lost. As if on cue, there was a thunderous boom as the business end of a battering ram crashed against one of the library doors. Large but not reinforced, they would not sustain many blows before breaking open. A few soldiers might not be much of a threat, but on the other hand, an escape through the opposite entrance would be faster.

The charge on the keep had been led by an unknown warrior in heavy armour, charging in on a massive warhorse alongside an ogre vanguard. A single sweep of his halberd had swatted away the defenders' first volley of arrows, and the fury with which he carved up the soldiers in the courtyard had demoralized even the king's own guard, where they watched from high in the keep. Some cursed the king's foolish confidence, to send the royal protector away in the middle of a war, but the fact was that her presence would have made no difference. In fact, she was present, struggling to get closer as the enemy commander climb the stairs to where Erasmus would meet his doom. She fought valiantly, but even as the last enemy barring the way slid off her blade, the body of the king fell from the sky. Her mission failed, Riven found herself alone in the open, one foot on the entryway flagstones and one foot in the mud. Scouts in Soven heraldry, men and otherwise, had scaled the walls and kept an eye out for fleeing royalty - an arrow striking the ground at her feet told Riven they had seen her. The open doorway in front of her was dark and empty, and the castle promised many places to hide. On the other hand, she could sprint through the unguarded gates, back the way she'd came, into the city, where the fighting still raged. Either way, she'd be running right into an enemy force.

The secret passages of the old castle Altranor were old and rarely used, covered in cobwebs and pitch black. Many had collapsed altogether, but an agile man with a good memory could make it through if he needed to. The court warlock had been more than careful as he made it through, but he could thank nothing other than instinct as he suddenly shut the panel he was about to enter through, just as the tower door exploded inward and a stream of enemies poured inside and rushed up the stairs. By the time they had passed and Roderick had made it through to the next tower, it was already too late. The sounds from above were a terrible sign to begin with, but as he took his first few steps up the stairway, he caught sight of the body dropping like a rock into the pigsty. The warlock froze in mid-step as the sight triggered another vision - not of the future, but of the present. The royal family was dead, he was forced to realize, as images of their ravaged bodies wedged their way into his mind. The queen and all her sons and daughters, and their children in turn, some hacked apart at random, others blood-eagled or literally ripped to pieces with a brutality unlike anything Roderick had seen in the war. All while the king was alive to see it. It was a safe bet that those soldiers would be on their way down now, however, and other patrols were making their way around the castle. Fortunately, the court warlock had no shortage of escape routes.

Pigs were not the only creatures stirring in the aftermath of the king'd untimely death. The screams and bloody stench as the attacking force tore into the defenders frightened not only servants and maids, but also the animals that made the castle grounds their home. There was plenty of room, and keeping animals for the court was far more convenient than constantly having to purchase food from the city. A few of the stablehands had foolishly raised weapons against the invaders, and the resulting slaughter had damaged a couple of enclosures, set free some panicked animals, and seen more than one lantern knocked over. One spark later, and half the stables were ablaze, although the still-thick snow of the early spring kept it from spreading very far. By the time the main force had broken into the keep, the soldiers had already left the stables behind, its defenders all assumed dead. Alas, they were not. She had been fighting off Ghantian solders when a mace blow from behind sent her reeling, and her opponents managed to back her into a corner, where she had no time to react to the sound of breaking wood above. Taula, master of the hunt, was busy digging herself out of a pile of rubble. The king's body would be the first thing she'd see once she rose, and then the empty courtyard, across which she could flee in any direction. She might even scale the outer walls, if a twenty foot drop toward the frozen moat did not deter her.

Outside the city walls, a set of large tracks snaked their way through the snow, stopping at a cramped little hollow. Inside, a great beast huddled next to a tiny child, whose body had already begun to cool. The child had had the good fortune of passing out some time ago from fear and blood loss, and passed painlessly from one darkness to the next. Sir knew by now that she was gone, and it was not hard to understand that the children he left behind were gone as well. What's worse, that violent crash he'd heard a little while ago had a definite sense of finality to it, though there was no way for him to know why. The cold air was still heavy with smoke and death, but at he had been given a reprieve from the chaos and the fighting. Outside of the den, the keep loomed behind soot-stained walls and a frozen, stagnant moat, on top of a hill on the far side of the city. There had been no gates barring the way when Sir left, but there was still a city's worth of swords and angry men between him and the last place he had seen his master.