[color=goldenrod][i][h2][center]Gerard Segremors[/center][/h2][/i][/color]

Gerard's longsword slid free of its scabbard, the noise of steel against leather befitting the tension in the air. It had been more than enough to see the strewn, mangled bodies scattered about the interior of the walls as they approached the thoroughly destroyed gate opposite their entrance— limbs bent the wrong ways, armor roughly shorn from bodies, the telltale signs of flame that ravaged skin, and enough arrows to pincushion what unlucky soldiers fell prey to them...

Yet no occupation. No sign of the supposed cohort that had clearly stormed through the front, despite the clear carnage that had been inflicted. No cannon to blow the gates open. No occupying archers, littering the walls and fortifications to pluck their lives as they came to investigate. Nothing to cause the burns, no oil or errant flame. It didn’t add up from the perspective of standard military affairs as he knew them. Something different was afoot. Magical, maybe, but nonetheless impossible at this point to place. 

Being off his guard wouldn’t do at all. A split second was all he might have to steal life away from the reaper’s claws in this increasingly treacherous-seeming fortress. To spend it drawing a weapon was suicide compared to spending it fighting with one. Readiness decided everything. For a man who lived by taking the fight to his foes as he, it was the best he could do under the circumstances, much as he hated to admit it. Striking hard and fast was still his modus operandi, but such was impossible when you could not find your target.

So when the small girl with a crimson spear brazenly impaled a man wearing Thaln’s colors moments after they had entered the outer walls, it was only the fact that he had been placed at the rear of the formation that stopped him from lunging forward and ridding her of her head before that almost saccharine voice began to drip out of her irreverent mouth. Pallid, young, and with eyes like fresh blood, she almost reminded him of the First and Youngest that rode alongside their Captain. Hers was a demeanor that wholly disregarded the overbearing force of their small company in spite of her apparent age and stature— one that screamed of either extreme ignorance or danger. Practically mocking them to their faces, defying them to take action for what they had plainly seen in front of them, offering only the most token of defenses for her actions..! Did she really think that anyone would buy—

[i]“Cool your head, Segremors, you impetuous—”[/i]

The third knight he had roughly shouldered past caught him by his collar, momentarily stopping the march in its place as he yanked the building inferno of a swordsman back. Unexpected as it was, the younger man blinked— and saw nothing.

Nothing from his fellows. Despite the girl not having offered much beyond “it’s not what you think” as a defense… None of the other knights were keen on exacting retribution that, to his eyes, had clearly been earned. Not Dame Maritza, who he knew to be viciously protective of the innocent. Nor Sir Fleuri, a man of a paladin’s character, training, and courage. The Knight-Captain, who just moments ago held ice in her veins, had been given enough pause to not yet make good upon her threat when it was clear the spearwoman refused to comply. Even Dame Tyaethe Radistirin, whose battle experience equaled everyone else’s put together at a conservative estimate… She seemed reclined. Even relaxed. A fight wasn’t even near her consideration.

He wouldn’t be getting the orders. 

The mental machine that was Gerard Segremors jammed.

[color=goldenrod]“How are we supposed to believe this, based only on the word of an enemy?”[/color]

His voice was tight, taut, caught between fury and flummoxing. That she had little else beyond the disdain for assumptions as defense was not helping matters. Not for him. It made no sense— But seemed to be the hand he had been dealt. He felt the grip loosen upon his neck after he spent the next second or so in motionless silence, his senior having seemingly been content with halting his advance. So at least he didn’t mind the suspicion.

He stared daggers at the diminutive killer before them, the sounds of his comrades leaking in as he tried to work this out. Her identity and purpose were good lines of questioning, but he wasn’t sure there would be any clarity in her answer after this initial reaction— to say nothing of truth. It was true that the walls were unmanned, and that luring their force into the open killing field would be ideal for an ambush if there was to be one. But what of the keep itself, where the supposed truth of the matter lied? It was about as simple to bar the door from the outside and roast them alive in the interior, or blow them away.

Again, he returned to the bodies they had seen. To the girl’s indifference to their cohort of prestigious cavalry, many of them veterans, bearing down upon her— presumably as a whole. Whatever had reduced an entire garrison of soldiers here to mere wreckage… That was what they faced. Was it her? Or something they’d yet to see?

His grip upon the blade, beneath his armor, turned yet again white-knuckled. None of it was trustworthy. The Knight Serpenta was best fit to lead the questioning— if he and his temper jumped in, things would derail. Sir Jarde was already investigating one of the bodies. Probably to look into the idea their current adversary had put forth. His eyes were usually good— if any proof of deception existed, he’d surely find it.

Gerard was stuck upon a hair trigger, without anything to set himself to. His head swiveled, scanning their flanks and rear. The gruesome scene caught a lot of attention, but even if he assumed the worst, he couldn’t see her being the cause of everything before them. Something else, surely, had to be lurking somewhere in the fortress.

He would keep his vigilance. Act as rear guard. Not break formation...

[color=goldenrod][i]Stay ready.[/i][/color]