//------------------------------//
// Gilda II 
// Story: A Journey in Griffonstone 
// by RangerOfRhudaur 
//------------------------------//

Her foe danced around her, keeping just out of range of her staff while trying to dart in with blows of their own. She paid those blows no mind; her armor took them for her, she felt nothing through the plates. Those few times her foe aimed for somewhere other than plate, she moved so that plate or her shield took the blow, and then she struck with one of her own. Her foe'd dodged all of them so far, but he was dancing to dodge them, and you couldn't dance forever.

A footstep too slow.

There.

Her staff took him in the slow foot, sending it flying out from under him. Desperately, he batted her staff away as he tried to regain his balance. Good; he was keeping an eye on her weapon, controlling it.

Too bad she had more than one.

He fell to the ground, her shield standing where his chest had been a moment before. He turned his fall into a roll, rose to his feet, and found her staff pointing at his nose. Behind his helmet's screen, she knew he was glaring at her.

A poke to the screen, and the fight was over.

"You still dance, boy," she said as she took off her helmet. "You don't dance to dodge; get out of the danger zone, stop-"

"-stop the threat," the boy interrupted her, his eye-roll audible, "get back in the fight, I know. You, Sir Cloudfloor, and the rest of the company have told me that a million times already."

"Then listen to it," she shot back effortlessly before grabbing her water bottle and taking a strong sip.

"My brain's trying to," he replied as he took his own helmet off. "But my body's not getting the message. I try to control myself, keep my movements contained, do what you and everyone else has told me way too many times, but once my battle-senses kick in my legs go back to dancing."

She understood; if your body was used to something, then battle, where you traded your regular brain for the battle-senses that would keep you alive, meant that your brain wasn't around to tell it not to do that. Everyone in the company had had to deal with that at one time or another, even Gram the Forever-Fighter. Of course, everyone, or at least everyone who'd made it for long, knew the solution, too, though she doubted the boy would like it.

"So practice," she said, wiping her mouth as she swallowed one last gulp of water. "Practice until your legs dodge properly, even in battle."

The boy nodded, though wearily. He trained well when he put his mind to it, but he knew that he'd need to do that for a long time before his body would learn how to not dance. He still had the spark in his eyes, the one that meant he wasn't gonna give up, but he also had the far-away look of the trainee who knew just what not giving up would require.

The door to the chamber where they were training creaked open, a heart-shaped face peering in. "There y'are," its bearer sighed in relief, her Dockside accent melting her words together as she pushed the door open. "For a bit, I was afraid I was gonna haveta check every room in this place."

"Why were you looking for us?" Gilda asked.

"Sir Cloudfloor wants to see you," came the reply. "And he said he wants you parade-ready, so," here the messenger blushed as she briefly looked at Gallus, "you might wanna hit the showers first."

Gilda smirked as Gallus rolled his eyes. The messenger's crush on him was sweet, and watching him try to play the 'I'm-too-cool-for-love' card was always good for a laugh. He didn't return her crush, no, but he was too scared of hurting her to flat-out say no, so he tried to tell her indirectly by playing the stone-cold soldier whenever they had to talk. Hiding behind masks, like he always did when things turned tough.

He always called himself a man, had since one of the recruiters had found him scavenging from a dumpster; "I can live on my own," he said, "That makes me a man." Maybe, but playing pretend to try to solve a problem wasn't the action of a man. Boys dreamed; men lived in the real world. Pretending to be heartless so that you didn't have to deal with heart problems like love was a boy's move; recognizing that, doing something more than that, was what a real man would do.

You want me to call you a man, Gallus? Give me a reason to. "We'll be there enkissur," she said, stretching. "But first, a lesson for Gallus."

The boy blinked, turning to look at Gilda. "Ma'am?"

"As an Iron Fang, you can expect to see diplomatic work," she replied. "Guarding embassies, diplomats, messages, ve surekli, ve surekli. I want you to practice," she gestured at the messenger, "by keeping Sir Cloudfloor's ambassador to us company while I get ready. Clear?"

While the messenger quietly gasped in joy, her aide gave her a look of purest anger. He obeyed, though, as he knew he had to, his tongue lashing out a "Crystal" before throwing a knife-like salute and turning to glare at the messenger.

Lesson failed, Gilda shook her head as she left to clean up.





As soon as she finished making ready, Gallus stormed off to do likewise, giving Gilda and the messenger a few moments to talk. Nothing much had changed since they'd last run into each other a few days ago, but the messenger had a way with words, a way that made even small changes interesting to hear about. Sadly, her tongue tripped over itself just as she was about to tell Gilda how that banana had gotten in the bottle, as Gallus returned in full parade kit.

Gilda gave a quiet whistle as she looked him over; the boy could certainly clean himself up. His gloves and greaves almost glowed, even in the room's low light, and his breastplate shone, the Iron Fang emblem in its center burnished like silver. He'd even gotten his mail to look good, a deep black as opposed to the usual dull grey. Once he put his helmet, currently underarm, on, he would be the very picture of an Iron Fang.

"Well done, boy," she murmured, giving a nod after she finished her inspection. Though he bristled at her name for him, he gave a murmur of thanks at the praise; praise and commendations like that were what he needed to buy a better position than being her aide, technically speaking her apprentice, in the company.

Turning back to the messenger (blushing once again as she gave Gallus a once-over-and-over), Gilda gestured to the door. "Lead the way," she said.

Blinking free of the boy's spell, the messenger briefly blushed deeper and stammered, "R-right, f-follow me!" Then, almost tripping over her own feet, she scurried out of the room, the two Iron Fangs following close behind.

The electric lights Guthwin had had installed flickered overhead as they marched through the palace, the smooth stone floor covered here and there by carpets of varying quality (and taste, judging by that orange-and-green one). Sir Cloudfloor didn't care about things like that, always said something about "focus on the house, not the trimmings" when asked, but the House of Otto did, said that they added to the "regal atmosphere" of the place, and gave their dainty little feet something other than bare stone to walk on as a bonus. Since they basically controlled the regency's purse strings (as well as the rest of Griffonstone's), the palace was beginning to bounce back from centuries of being alternatively abandoned and looted, long-missing carpets and other "trimmings" coming back better (arguably) than ever.

Of course, that wouldn't've mattered if the house itself had fallen apart, but, by some miracle, just like the Runery it had refused to die, though unlike the Runery it had also managed to refuse to decay; despite the chaos, neglect, and salty sea wind of several hundred years, the palace was still as good as new, at least according to the architects the House of Otto had brought in. Not even the Great Earthquake that killed Guto Boreas and at least a tenth of the city had broken or even seemed to hurt the stony tree. In all Gilda's patrolling of the place, inside and out, over the past three years she couldn't recall ever seeing a single crack or seam in the stonework. It honestly gave her the creeps, especially on the heels of her visit to the Runery; the place was unnatural, somewhere outside of the realm of normal Men like her. She was an intruder here, not a guard.

She shook her head; the Runery had shaken her up more than she thought, apparently. She was starting to sound like the Arch Rune-master, a dreamer with their head never going below the clouds. The palace was well-built, just like any number of other places; it was well-built and lucky, not magic. All the stories, all the creeps she was feeling, all of it was just in her head.

"... and Gleedle just upped the reward for finding Guilden to fifty-k," broke into that head, the messenger's prattling voice echoing off the walls and Gallus' uncaring ears.

Gilda bowed her head; Guilden had been the herald of the disappearances, vanishing almost two months before they really started becoming a problem. Those few who knew him said that he was a quiet, bookish sort, more interested in books and practice than people, a taste the Runery had given him a lot of opportunities to indulge in. The last time anyone had seen him, he'd been heading out for lunch, a scroll and a small book accompanying him. In the three months since then, neither boy nor scroll nor book had reappeared, despite the Runery's gradually rising reward for news of him and the regency's efforts to track him down. By this point, with all the other disappearances afflicting the city, Gilda doubted he would ever be found.

"I can't just abandon my duty to go bounty-hunting," Gallus replied, voice stern and stony. "I haven't sworn myself into the Iron Fangs yet, but I'm still loyal to them, and they need me here. My mission needs me here, and the mission comes first."

"I know," the messenger said, frantically making pacifying gestures with their hands. "I know, I wasn't tryna tell yata do anything like that, I was just lettin' you know in case you're ever open."

Gallus snorted at that. "Between Guthwin's appointment and the kidnappings," he replied, "I'll be lucky if I'm open before the Blue Moon Festival."

"You might get lucky soon," the messenger smiled. "Gravine told me that Glenda got a message sayin' that Manehattan's got a pretty good fleet goin', an' they're chompin' at the bit to head east once the Unmarked get cleared out. That'll help with the kidnappin's, adleast."

"Which means they'll find Guilden, which means someone else will get that fifty thousand before I can even start looking," Gallus pointed out, puncturing that smile. "I'll be glad that they caught whoever's behind it and that Guilden's safe, but I won't be looking forward to bounty-hunting someone who's already been found."

The messenger meekly nodded as Gilda shook her head. She'd already sent the boy through the psych-war course twice, and it was still too easy to get under his skin. "Words are wind, words are water; they don't do anything, let them wash over you," the words On Yua always drilled into his students, and they were right, at least judging by how quickly the boy seemed to shrug them off. Maybe he'll get it the third time, she sighed. And if he doesn't maybe he'll need to get the boot.

She didn't want him to get kicked out, of course, she saw more good than bad in him, but that bad left her wondering if he was made to be a soldier. Not everyone was born to wield staff and shield, after all. Some didn't have the strength to swing a staff, some lacked the toughness to use a shield, and some lacked the wisdom to make the best of them. Gallus was strong, and surprisingly tough for someone so thin, but his wisdom seemed like thin soil; they scattered seed in it and watered it well, but nothing grew.

Maybe he'd do better in logistics, she mused. The boy was smart and shrewd, and if he wasn't good at budgeting he wouldn't have lasted so long on his own. He was a quick learner, too, even for more complicated stuff, and there wasn't anything in the QM's office that didn't make Gilda's head spin.

But she knew that wouldn't happen; Gallus wanted to be an Iron Fang, an Iron Fang knight, and he wouldn't accept anything less. Either he would graduate and join her as a brother-in-arms or he would leave and become one of her charges; there would be no middle ground for him.

As she looked at his stony, gloomy face and the nervous glances the messenger shot his way, she wondered where the coin would fall.





Gianna and Rory were a bad sign.

Usually, Sir Cloudfloor rotated who served as his door guards, trying to spread the responsibility - and benefits, as well as training opportunity - through as much of the company as he could. The only exceptions were when something was wrong; then, he called in his elite.

Elite like Gianna and Rory.

Gianna nodded as they drew closer. "Sir Cloudfloor's waiting for you," she said. "Weapons at the door, then you can go in."

Gilda nodded, then passed her sword, knife, and collapsed staff over, gesturing for Gallus and the messenger to do the same.

Before the messenger could obey, Rory spoke up. "Not this one," his earthquake of a voice rumbled. "This one is not part of the meeting. Sir Cloudfloor said so, said this one was to go back to her duties."

"Oh," the messenger squeaked. "O-okay. S-see you later, Gilda. B-bye, Gallus. See you-see you later."

The boy merely grunted in reply, passing his sword to Gianna. Gilda gave the messenger a sympathetic look, one which the recipient blinked her thanks for before scampering away, her light feet quickly disappearing down the halls.

As Gallus passed Gianna his knife and gave himself the ritual pat-down, Rory eased the door open, gesturing for them to enter. Gilda nodded, then mumbled an order to her aide and passed through the doorway.

Sir Cloudfloor's office was surprisingly large, considering his disdain for "trimmings," but its size was being put to the test; twelve bodies were pressed inside, ten nervously waiting in front of Sir Cloudfloor's desk, an aide standing behind it, and in a simple wooden chair to the aide's left sat the grand knight himself. Hair grey as steel, face sharp and hard as flint, posture so straight you could use it as a ruler...

... and eyes that weren't completely able to hide their worry.

Gianna and Rory were bad signs. Sir Cloudfloor being visibly worried was a worse one.

The door gently closed behind them, a sound that was quickly overshadowed by Sir Cloudfloor clearing his throat. "The twelve of yours' mission," he said, "has been moved up. You're to go to the Harbor enkissur; Allegiance is supposed to dock within the hour."

One of the others, Gasiy if she remembered correctly, chuckled. "When they said they would be here by the 20th, I didn't think they meant right at the start."

Sir Cloudfloor didn't laugh. "They didn't. They're here early because they were attacked."

The room fell silent. All the air in it had been stolen at his words.

Attacked? Gilda's jaw dropped. Who would be dumb enough to attack Allegiance? Even if they managed to claw through Celaeno - and if half the things people say about her are true, that's a big if - they'd still end up with Mount Aris and Oddo hunting for their heads. How desperate, or mad, is whoever did this?

"Attacked?" Gallus asked. "By who?"

"They don't know," Sir Cloudfloor replied. "However, Captain Celaeno believes that they might've been our mysterious kidnappers, judging by their behavior. If so, we might have our first lead regarding them, though it's not much. Allegiance was attacked around Gemerelli, just a few hours ago, so the trail there should still be hot, or at least warm by the time we get there. Unfortunately, there's a lot of ground to cover, and it's too dangerous to send isolated scouts. I've discussed it with the rest of the council and we've decided that, short-staffed as we already are, we can't let this chance pass; the Russet-Reds will head south to search Gemerelli at first light, everyone else will have to pull double-duty until they get back. For some, that means guarding the city, for some guarding the council. For you?" He leaned forward. "Celaeno's passengers are high-risk targets. You walk with them, you eat with them, you sleep with them, you don't let them out of your sight. Until proven otherwise, assume every room is a trap, every outing an ambush, every person an attacker. If you're proven right, keep them safe at all costs. Steal any auto you need, use the maximum force required, use yourself as a body shield for them, whatever it takes. If they die but you don't, you'll soon wish you did. Understood?"

They all nodded, Gallus kneeling after he did so. "While my heart still beats," he promised. "I will not let any harm come to them."

Some of the others chuckled at the boy's theatrics, others shook their heads, and a few smiled at him.

Sir Cloudfloor simply looked back at him, face blank, and said, "See that you do."