The drums of Airgead Mountain spoke together in the dark; one doubled concussion, deep as a giant’s heartbeat, rolling across the snowfields to break against the walls of Lothian City like a wave against a cliff.

– BOOM BOOM –

Then silence, one heartbeat, then two, just long enough for more than ten thousand people to stop whatever they were doing and turn south, and then the march began in earnest. The drummers of Airgead set the rhythm. It was slow and measured to begin, and the column of Hanrahan moved down out of the hills toward the torch-crowned walls with the Crimson Knight at its head.

Sybyll rode at an unhurried walk, and Poppy kept the drummers’ time beneath her as though the mare had been born to it. A few weeks of blood and patience, and already the spirited mare carried darksteel through a winter’s night like a lady carrying a fan.

"Amaryllis would’ve liked ye, girl," Sybyll said softly as she rode. "She were patient too, when it mattered. It’s tha’ rest o’ tha’ time she were a terror. Give it a bit o’ time an’ ye will be too."

To her left rode Cossot, sitting straight as a lance with the great skull-visaged helm cradled against her hip, its grinning fanged face turned outward to catch the distant torchlight; a squire bearing her lady’s second face for all the world to see. To her right, Roseen rode with her hood back despite the cold, watching the walls grow with the cool, appraising eye of a merchant’s daughter pricing a market.

"There’s almost as many people on the wall as there were at Ian Hanrahan’s last banquet," Cossot breathed, barely stumbling over the former baron’s name. Her hands twitched slightly on the reins of her horse, as if they couldn’t quite forget the blood of the first man they’d executed.

In the days since Sybyll had taken the throne, Cossot had seen enough death, and she’d swung the axe enough times that the shock of the first life she’d taken had begun to fade.

Dame Sybyll refused to accept the corruption that Ian Hanrahan and his father, Aiden, had allowed to flourish in Hanrahan. Armed with testimony from both Ian and his incompetent son Bastian, along with the ledgers Sir Hugo had revealed, Sybyll had moved with ruthless speed to capture the worst criminals who preyed on the people of Hanrahan.

For a week, the town square of Hanrahan had run red with the blood of the most vile people Cossot had ever seen, until a river of blood seemed to flow from the square. At the same time, a river of gold and silver flowed into the hands of victims as Sybyll personally paid restitution to victims, their families, or friends.

Had it been anyone else, a week of executions would have heralded the beginning of a reign of terror and the people would have revolted or fled en masse. But for Dame Sybyll, each swing of the axe was met with cheers from the crowd of her people who increasingly realized that they were far safer with the Eldritch living among them and a vampire for a ruler than they’d been when things were ’normal.’

"Two hundred torches on the south stretch alone," Roseen said, pulling Cossot from her thoughts. "If Her Dominion invited a hundred worthies up there, the rest likely bribed the stair guards," she said, pausing slightly as she watched Cossot emerging from the heavy thoughts she’d fallen into. "I bet your da would have paid half a year’s takings for a spot."

"My da," said Cossot with a snort. "My da would’ve fainted dead away an hour ago when the Southern Steppe set the sky on fire."

"Then it is as well he stayed home, little squire," Jalal said, speaking easily despite maintaining a pace on foot that matched the horses in the column. If his missing arm troubled him, he gave no sign of it as he offered Cossot a bright smile. "What comes next would have finished him entirely."

At Jalal’s signal, the drums deepened, and their pace quickened. Sybyll listened to the song settle into the old cadence, racing for a moment, then silent for several breaths before it raced again, with drumbeats punctuated by the clack of sticks against the sides of the double-flared drums carried by the Stargazers of the Soft Paws.

It was a song that had once come down out of the woods near the summit of Airgead Mountain on the worst nights of the War of Inches when Bors Lothian had driven too close to the villages she protected, and only a massacre would convince him to retreat back to the ’safety’ of his rough mountain fort.

"Now then, ye old salts," Sybyll said with a predatory grin as her eyes swept the walls before settling on the golden spires of the temple and the Lothian’s manor beyond it. "Let’s see who remembers..."

While everyone else in the column could only speculate about how the City of Lothian reacted to the sound of Eldritch drumming approaching the walls, Sybyll’s ears were keener than any living creature, and she strained her physical senses to the limit to savor the reaction Jalal’s drummers produced among the people on the wall.

"... lied to me! You said the Hanrahans were coming after sunset, not, not this nightmare..."

"... down from this wall while I still have my skin, or, or at least light more torches. Light help us, if it’s too dark, they’ll find us up here, you don’t understand..."

The smile on Sybyll’s lips grew wider, fully revealing her fangs. Her tongue traced along her lips, as if she could taste the fear that she and Jalal had buried within the hearts of men who dared to visit Airgead Mountain just to plunder its riches.

"I promised not ta’ hurt ye, or collect on old debts," Sybyll said softly to herself. "But if a little drummin’ reminds ye of yer wrongs and leaves ye sleepless in yer beds t’night... Now whose fault would that be?"

But even as she savored the sense of dread brought on by her approach, her ears caught younger voices that had a completely different reaction to her arrival.

"... back from the edge, Adala..."

"...hard to see in the dark, and I don’t want to miss anything!"