The commander did a commendable job of concealing his surprise. "You chose wisely," he said evenly, motioning to two of the guards. More visibly shaken than their leader, the pair hesitated slightly before stepping forward with a pair of shackles. "Phantom Grey, you and your followers are under arrest for acts of sedition against the crown. You will surrender your arms or be met with lethal force. My men are poised to attack at the first sign of resistance."

Kjan was loath to hand over his knives, but there was hardly any room for argument. Further searching ensued, and by the time they had finished violating his personal space, two more daggers had been discovered and confiscated. He would have to reclaim those at a later time, he noted mentally.

One of the younger soldiers made to handcuff Kjan, but after the fifth nervous fumble, Kjan lost patience and snatched the irons from the man. "Here, I'll do it myself," he muttered, clamping the cuffs around his own wrists and turning the key. He was something of a self-proclaimed expert when it came to forms of restraint. Sensing the soldier's uneasiness, he sighed, gave the key back, and shook the chains several times to prove that they were secure. Really, did they have so little faith in his integrity?

"...no trial," the commander was saying. "Your conduct these five years has been more than sufficient grounds."

Kjan only barely stifled a derisive snort. He'd seen enough of the Regent's legal system to know that the outcome would be then same either way. If anything, the lack of a proper trial spared them the ignominy of having to plead for mercy before being sent to their inevitable deaths anyway. He wouldn't have agreed to a trial if it had been offered.

The commander was looking over the gathered rebels, frowning more deeply than usual. At length, he turned back to the Phantom, who was now disarmed and bound. "This is your entire force?" he asked dubiously.

The Phantom had only to glance over his shoulder at the men behind him - encircled from behind by an increasing number of armored troops - to see the dramatic contrast in numbers. He straightened, keeping his expression perfectly neutral as he responded, meeting the commander's gaze, "Did you expect women and children as well?"

In mid-sentence, as though the Phantom's reply was of no interest to him, Sorian coolly turned and strolled past the first line of peasant forces behind their bound leader, gaze raking their garb and makeshift weapons. He stopped once, hands clasped behind his back, in front of a boy whose fingers were wrapped around the hilt of his sword with white-knuckled intensity, and smiled dryly. "You have carried out raids with a force of fierce country folk. Commendable. If it is true."

"Are your prisons not full enough of peasants?" growled the Phantom.

With the same detached coolness, Sorian turned and ambled deliberately back along the front rank. "Search the mountain," he said to a soldier whose crimson cloak marked him a lieutenant. "If any are hiding, kill them."

If this was meant to elicit a response from the Phantom, he gave none.

"Oh, I had forgotten." The commander recalled his order with a gesture. "Our rebel leader has neglected to inform us of the way in which we might get in."

The Phantom had pondered this moment. He straightened, and gave the barest quirk of an eyebrow in Kjan's direction. The iron set of the commander's jaw made him aware that this was a battle they were unlikely to win - but so was the rebellion.

"Do we intend to do that, men?" he inquired casually, speaking to the force behind him but fixing his eye on Sorian. "Step forward if you'd like to give the commander instructions."

_________________

Jate tensed as the soldier searched him, praying that the Heartshard would remain hidden. Whether in answer or by a magic of the jewel itself, the man passed by it without a pause. Jate tried to put on the same self-assured attitude that Kjan and the Phantom had, but was betrayed by his trembling hands. Bloody guard, bloody handcuffs, bloody surrendering! Only by clenching his teeth and squeezing his eyes closed was Jate able to not punch the man.

The handcuffs were cold, tight metal freezing his skin. Jate drew more amazement from the fact that these men had escaped things like this before. His arms had no room to maneuver, though thankfully it seemed they could reach the Heartshard. Listening to the Phantom's question, Jate answered with a snort.

"Oh yeah, sure. As if us surrendering wasn't enough, let's give away everything else too!"

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going on a journey through my old claims

The first response to enter Kjan's mind involved a set of rather graphic instructions that had nothing to do with finding the entrance and probably weren't fit to be uttered in front of the few youths present. He managed to bite his tongue, barely, but none of his subsequent thoughts were any more likely to be received well. It was probably for the better that Jate spoke when he did, before Kjan could decide that it was worth the consequences.

Commander Sorian motioned casually to one of the soldiers near Jate, who promptly cut the young man off with a sharp blow to the gut. "When you surrendered yourself, you likewise surrendered anything in your possession," the commander stated flatly, already facing the Phantom once more. One hand moved not-so-subtly to the hilt of his sword. "Unless, that is, you have changed your mind?"

He allowed the question to hang for a moment before continuing. "I've been instructed only to retrieve the leaders for public execution," he said, gaze never leaving the Phantom. "It should be entirely my decision as to whether or not your misguided followers live to be tried, but I respect that, as a leader, you are accustomed to deciding for your men. What is it to be - your band of peasants, or an allegedly empty stronghold?"

"Say kyth'awi," said the Phantom flatly, words bitten off as though he regretted wasting them in this manner. "Circle around north. If your soldiers aren't blind enough to miss a flat rock face halfway up the cliff -"

"Then," interjected the commander smoothly, "we need only present the ultimatum once more. I'm sure the lives of your men are not worth a show of useless defiance." Without waiting for a response, he turned on his heel to speak to one of the three or four lieutenants in attendance. "The one who calls himself Phantom Grey, and the boy." A wave of his hand indicated Jate, and Sorian turned to look the Phantom in the eye as he explicated - "In the event that we must persuade him from reluctance. The other had better come too." Another gesture, this time in Kjan's direction. "In my tent. The rabble are to be subdued. See that none escape."

Moving with the persuasion of a prodding spear butt, the Phantom watched the rest of his forces being herded like livestock into the maze of tents. His stomach clenched the moment they were out of sight and his eyes fell once again on Jate. Powerful persuasion. They could not afford to lose their last remaining heir, not at any cost.

They traversed the beaten-dirt tracks between tents with hostile silence on both the Phantom's part, and the part of the nervous escort. The commander strode ahead. In other circumstances, the obsessive vigilance of the jittery soldiers might have made the Phantom feel smug, but being on the receiving end of a too-enthusiastic prod with a spear tended to cancel out any smugness.

Too soon, the imperial purple of the commander's pavilion loomed out of the rapidly clearing mist. Once inside, the guard thinned considerably - now the Phantom only had one at each elbow, instead of four - and the commander seated himself. The Phantom noted that his chair was solid oak, and wondered how many soldiers had cursed the inconvenience of transporting its heavy bulk from Y'rydha. Egotistical.

"So," Sorian began, looking over the trio of prisoners before him. He steepled his fingers and appeared contemplative. "Tell me, Phantom Grey - how have you managed, all these years, with a force of fifty peasants?"

He was clearly and intensely skeptical. The commander's gaze flickered to Kjan. "Or perhaps your second-in-command is more willing to expand upon this feat of tactical brilliance."

_________________

"My name is Kjan," said second-in-command replied evenly. "And there are sixty-seven of us, if you'd bother to count your own prisoners. Our strikes have primarily been of the sort that requires more wit and strategy than sheer numbers, so it works. Especially since your average foot soldier has the intellectual capacity of a rock."

"You would compare a handful of untrained farmers with pitchforks to Kytana's finest?" the commander inquired.

Kjan merely shrugged. "Given that we've lasted for seven years and are only in your custody now because we chose to surrender, I'd say we did something right," he pointed out casually. "You'd be amazed how much more motivation a man has to perform well when he actually likes his leader."

"Yes, you do harp on about that, don't you," responded Sorian, and didn't wait for a reply. "Sixty-seven men who like their leader are still a poor substitute for a thousand who are paid and need not depend on thievery for their food."

The Phantom pounced. "From your overflowing treasuries?" he interjected acidly.

Sorian ignored the interruption, seemingly having decided that all he would glean from the uncooperative Phantom Grey was sarcasm. "And the mercenary who accompanied you three days ago?" he continued to inquire smoothly of Kjan. "Where is she?"

The Phantom shrugged off nervous hands at his elbows and took a step forward. "As you would learn from the lawful agreements of the Mercenary's Guild with the Crown, those affiliated with the Guild are exempt from persecution based on the side they consent to serve," he said, managing to bite his words off even in the dull, legalistic language.

"That does not answer my question." The Commander shifted in his seat and dismissed the topic. "It is of no consequence. My soldiers will search your Keep and kill any they find, and if this mercenary is among them, so much the worse for her."

"Slaughtering civilians by execution not sufficient for you?" snapped the Phantom, incensed.

"No. Do you imply there are those still inside the Keep?"

"I merely point out," said the Phantom with difficulty, "that you do yourself no credit by murdering those who fail to -"

"I will search the forests as well," announced the commander, and the Phantom decided he was beginning to be weary of being interrupted. "Unless you can offer proof I will find nothing?"

_________________

Kjan quickly calculated how much ground the refugees would have already covered. The final group had left shortly before midnight, which gave them at least a seven-hour lead on the soldiers. They were traveling with children, which would mean more frequent stops, but the tunnel also cut a much straighter path than traveling above ground would allow and opened into the woods far away from the Keep. Kjan was fairly confident that they would be able to reach their various destinations before soldiers became a serious threat, and arguing about it with the commander would likely only do more harm anyway.

"Look," he said, folding his arms as much as the irons would allow. "You have us in custody, you know how to access the Keep, and you've made it suitably clear that if you find any innocent children, you'll kill them. Might we get on with this?"

"You haven't answered-"

"Nor are we likely to in the near future, making this whole endeavour a bit pointless," Kjan interrupted. He registered somewhere in the back of his mind that it was probably unwise to anger one's captors, but this was getting ridiculous. "Whether we confirm or deny the existence of civilians, you'll still murder any you find, so if it's all the same to you, I'd rather we just got moving. All you're doing right now is making His Rotundity wait longer for his prize."

Over his steepled fingertips, Sorian's gaze flicked sharply from rebel to rebel. He appeared to be considering. Abruptly, as though having made a decision inwardly, he leaned back in the chair and spoke deliberately to the soldier at the Phantom's right elbow. "Dismissed."

As they turned to depart, the commander stood up. "Be advised," he said, forcing a contrived smile that more resembled a baring of his teeth, "that insubordination will only worsen your current and - desperate - state of affairs. Should you feel the need to comment on His Highness' personal appearance in his hearing, you may find he takes such things quite seriously."

"What can he do? We're already being executed," muttered the Phantom as he ducked, soldiers again hovering at his elbows, underneath the tent flap. He received a resounding smack with the butt of a spear for this liberty.

Militia could be seen, in the rapidly clearing mist, scaling the sides of the towering mountain. The sun reflected off many a soldier's gleaming armor.

The Phantom would have rubbed his head, which was still smarting, had his hands been free. Instead, he wondered - with a spark of trepidation - at the unending tablecloth of crimson and purple tents spread over the trampled field. Many were already being dismantled in preparation for a return to Y'rydha, but the sheer numbers did not fail to make an impression.

Their brave cluster of rebels was gathered in a patch of bare dirt, heavily guarded. The Phantom guessed that with their departure to Y'rydha being in the immediate future, there was little point in further measures of restraint, and what with them being in the middle of a seething mass of army, it wasn't as though escape was easy.

Squaring his shoulders, he caught himself after an unceremonious shove into the ring of soldiers, and straightened with a clanking of manacles. "Oy, men! Let's hope Y'rydha is more comfortable!"

There was a scattered cheer. The Phantom allowed himself a thin smile. The plan hadn't begun yet.

_________________

Even for the highly efficient soldiers, it took nearly an hour to finish breaking camp and set out for Y'rydha. On horseback, it was typically just under a day's journey to the capital, but Kjan estimated that it would be at least two if they continued at this pace. The sheer number of people made it slow going, not to mention the fact that nearly a hundred of those had limited use of their arms. Kjan had never had excessive difficulty getting around with cuffs on, but he'd also never tried to do so in the rocky, uneven foothills. There were no major incidents, but between stumbling and the occasional overly-enthusiastic prod from the shaft of a spear, nearly all of them had acquired an extra bruise or two by the time they stopped that evening.

Arrangements for the rebels were much as they had been that morning - a random patch of land in the middle of camp - though this time with a defined perimeter. Guards were posted all along said perimeter, in addition to the few who would occasionally wander through to make sure the prisoners weren't up to anything. Both Kjan and the Phantom had spent more or less the entire day in near proximity to Jate. Neither voiced a reason for it, but it wasn't exactly difficult to figure out why they might be averse to anything happening to the last surviving heir, especially now that everything more or less hinged upon him. Not that anything was likely to happen, of course, but better safe that sorry.

Thus it was that during the cursory meal of military rations (Kjan was seriously considering starvation as a suitable alternative to another rock-hard biscuit), the three ended up sitting together. Whether by coincidence or because it was second nature by now, both Ash and Dante eventually joined them.

"You know, this isn't all that different from how we've spent the past month, really," Kjan commented abruptly. "Minus a campfire and bedding and edible food, of course. And my pipe. I think I miss the pipe the most." He paused briefly to rub at his wrists. Handcuffs were only a minor inconvenience for the first few hours, but after they had been rubbing on one's skin all day, they really were quite uncomfortable. "Wouldn't object horribly to getting rid of these, either."

"...oh, you wouldn't object, would you?" Dante retaliated with a snort. Everything on him ached... he was suddenly and keenly aware of every inch of his body.

"The only thing that's kept me sane these past hours is by trying to figure out what hurts worst. It's really a tie between my feet and my back. There is more of my back to hurt, so it seems more obvious... but by the underworlds, my feet are on fire."

He lifted a foot a little as if to illustrate - his boots now long past any hope of repair. He muttered a bit more, a few things about the Regent's men that he doubted they'd take kindly to hearing. "No decency," he said at last. "I wouldn't be surprised if they just massacre us all before we even get there."

_________________
<center>
"The piano is able to communicate the subtlest universal truths by means of wood, metal and vibrating air."

"Oh, I don't imagine they'll kill us yet- not all of us, in any case. The Regent'll want to 'make an example' of us, and the best way to do that is public hangings." Ash said matter-of-factly.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to get a bite of biscuit, he tossed it away and stretched out on the ground. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but it did give his sore muscles a chance to rest. Glancing around at the perimeter of guards, he grinned wryly. "Quite the escort for a few peasants with pitchforks."

"Edible food?" Jate snorted. "I do seem to recall playing stones with my biscuits one night. Got a nice score of twelve," he mused. He tried to wriggle into a more comfortable position, but all that happened was that the cuffs rubbed his wrists even more. "How did you stand these things? I never knew how much having my arms in front of me affected my balance." Moving his head back and forth, Jate tried to rid himself of a lingering kink.

_________________
going on a journey through my old claims

"Now, now," said the Phantom. "Optimism is a virtue."

He was staring off into some unidentified corner of the camp, past the nearest soldier, watching the idle, aimless way that torch flames reflected off the burnished armor. The crimson of tents was a backdrop to the hungry flames, broken only by the purple of the commander's abode, which reminded him of -

His stomach protested feebly and he ignored it. "Remember the plan," he muttered in an undertone, the mantra that kept him sane. More could be said, but the ring of soldiers was far too close for the Phantom's comfort. He settled for shooting a meaningful look at Dante. This served to kill the conversation.

"Wonder what sort of festivities they've got planned," said the Phantom thoughtfully. "Two silvers says we get to spend a lovely couple of days in the stocks so everyone gets to see Phantom Grey."

_________________

"If I had two silvers, I'd take you up on that," Jate said dryly. "Stocks are too easily escapable. One negligent guard and there go your prisoners." He stared off at the darkness, perhaps dreaming of escape. Shaking himself back, he continued, "No, I would guess either some sort of parade or nothing at all. I don't think the Regent would want to chance it."

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going on a journey through my old claims

"Bear in mind that the last time they had you behind bars, we got you out in less than twenty-four hours," Kjan commented lightly. "They won't be taking any chances this time, even if they do have most of those responsible for the rescue in custody as well. We're rather dangerous, you know."

Giving up on trying to consume the last bit of his rations, he tossed it away with a sound of disgust. "But I do agree that the Regent won't be able to resist making some sort of scene out of it all. It's not every day that the infamous Phantom Grey turns himself in, after all," he continued. "The fact that he's even risking having us alive in the capital suggests that he wants to make sure that everyone possible sees this happen. He won't pass up an opportunity to gloat."