[b][u][center] Adjutor Insula[/center][/u][/b]

[b][center]The Hero of Helper's Island[/center][/b]

Marcus Aticus lent back against the stone rim of the large bath. Usually at this time of night, it would be throbbing with decaying bodies of old men; not tonight though, because they had all been put to sleep permanently. Closing his eyes, he tried to instill himself with a sense of calm, but he found the excitement too overwhelming. The steaming waters reddened around his soiled body, but this did not trouble him. Knife work was a bloody business, and business was booming. 

So what now? The Guide was dead. The Capital City was burning down all around him, as five hundred enraged Karkarthians ran through the streets unleashing bloody murder onto the thousands of defenceless innocents. His soldiers lay in wait, listening out for the signal that he would give in short order. A Scorched King sat across the stretch of ocean, painfully oblivious that his little peace-loving neighbour was about to stake a claim for global dominion. 

It was in times such as these, when he thought about where his future would take him, that he liked to recall the Heroes of Old. Lost to the world now, these legendary warriors, they were the very stuff of fantasy - almost. Many of them had lived, Marcus had no doubt, but he often wondered how many of the tales were free from elaboration. Did Hulgar the Red really strangle ten men with his giant hands at the Battle of Highcastle? Did Saint Aquiline really lead his heavy horse across the ocean and smite the Fallen Angels of Nak'radol? Probably not, to all of them. 

"Mine will be so fantastical," he sneered, "that the bards will not have to make up words to fill in the intervals; they will not have to brighten the image as I bring the world crashing down around me." 

 The doors to the bath house suddenly burst open, and in marched a sixty-strong troop of Sword Brothers. All in glittering mail, carrying swords sodden in the blood of their assigned victims. They weren't real Sword Brothers, of course, the Lord Defender knew it was suicide to try and bribe a real soldier of Adjutor Insula. Sure, the odd one or two might be swayed by coin and promise of grandeur, but the third? He'd report you for so much as mentioning the M-word. 

The sixty Sword Brothers were prisoners; all murderers, rapists and mentally insane. The Lord Defender had bought their freedom with kind words, but in secret, he employed them with generous wages. Keeping the arrangement hushed was only a matter of pushing a few old monks down some stairs when no one was looking. 

One of the soldiers lifted his full helm, revealing an ugly scarred face. "The lizard scum will be on us soon, Sire," he said with a grizzled tone. 

"Of course," Marcus replied, taking a moment to appreciate his new title. "Sire, does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it Captain Alworth?" 

Alworth shrugged. "S'pose so, 'Lord." 

"Are my men ready?" Marcus asked, taking a moment to hang his head under a large tap at the edge of the bath.

Alworth shrugged. He was known for shrugging, this one, and it was an irritation not lost on Marcus. "Some are, some lost to their conscience though. They're busy dying out in the courtyard as we speak."

Marcus sighed. "Odd, isn't it? That a sense of duty, such as dying for strangers, would propel the soldiers of the Sighing Hand into suicide." 

Alworth shrugged.

"Righty'o," Marcus said cheerfully; he gripped the edge of the bath, and heaved himself onto the flat. Water ran in rivulets down his chiselled form, and for but a moment, as he caught his reflection in the wavering waters, he swore he saw a God. "Let's go and save the city." 

"Or what's left of it, Sire," Alworth said. With a shrug. 

[b][center]The Courtyard of Progress[/center][/b]

The names given to Adjutor Insula's various settlements and landmarks were enough to make the Lord Defender cringe when ever he thought of them. They were soft, womanly names with pretentious overtones. It was as if the island's long list of Guides had contended with their peers, past and future, over who could bludgeon the populace to death with the most shameless names for things. 

The Draconians, dozens in a ragged line, surged into the Palace's "Courtyard of Progress" as the last of Marcus' wayward soldiers fell in a spiral of blood and vanishing honour; they were good men, they had spurned gold and orders to save who they could. Now they were all dead. 

Marcus' band of criminals however, were very much alive, and most had been waiting for this moment with intense anxiety for weeks. They surged from the Palace entrance, with the Lord Defender at their front. They screamed bloody murder; sung songs of the coming anguish and sorrow. The Draconians replied in kind, and the two forces met in a thunder of arms. 

The Karkarthians had the numbers, but Marcus had surprised them; as his men collided with theirs, he outnumbered their spearhead three to one. It was a matter of minutes before the last of the ragged Draconian line succumbed to an axe. The second and third waves of the Draconians came in short order, but the Lord Defender was ready and broke them in a chaotic melee of ungodly genocide. 

As the last of the lizards dispersed into the network of tightly woven streets, Marcus nodded to Alworth, and the former child-murderer took to setting the front of the Palace ablaze. It was a large building, made mostly of stone, and it would take very long to burn. No matter, Marcus reasoned, it wasn't like anyone would be bringing a river up there any time soon. 

And as the fires cleaned away the evidence of Marcus' betrayal, the first detachment of the Sighing Hand arrived in droves to defeat an enemy that was already beaten.

"Time to be hailed a hero, Alworth," Marcus said to his Captain, flashing a teethy grin. 

Alworth shrugged, when he should have held his guard, for Marcus' longsword pierced him through the stomach half a second later. He slid off the blade, choking and moaning. Marcus turned to the others, who looked on indifferently. 

"Child murderers have no home in my new world," he said, "but that's about all I wont allow. The city is yours gentlemen, have at her." 

The bloodied score or so of his remaining men cheered, and started the long descent into the city proper.