World Upside Down

The castle of Vadirska was in a turmoil of activity and agitation. Soldiers shouted and called out hurriedly across halls and chambers, out on the courtyard grounds and on the walls, frantically trying to organize and keep their teeth from chattering in cold and fear. Weapons clanked, horses reared and captains barked to their inferiors as the small Castle Guard was organized as quickly as possible, battalions and then trained regiments of hundreds forming inside the walls. Over it all, a feeling and atmosphere of fear and shock settled, like a distant storm cloud...Kire'falraedis, fallen? Was it possible? Had the world gone mad? The castle dwellers would've believed that the snows on the top of the mountains were all going to melt sooner. But even after the frantic, half-dead messenger had arrived at the Castle Vadirska and gave his impossible message, the north countryside was screaming bloddy murder it was the truth, as refugees came streaming back, telling tales of evil.

As Gaeljwen was hurried, still stunned, down the barracks below, in the other wing of the higher keep far darker matters were brewing.

General Aaron was pacing the room, grumbling, mumbling, frantically thinking, still reeling from the information that their own trusted pillar of protection had fallen. As he walked back and forth across the long, narrow dining hall that was dimly lit by the torches and dull, clouded sunlight streaming above, the Countess and Sesircas the counselor watched him go from where they both say at the table. A few minor officers of huscarls of the guard stood here and there around the long table too, surveying the old maps and reports laying there in disarray, standing around quietly and as puzzled as their commander was.

The countess herself sat at the head of the long, slender table, looking down shocked and almost looking helplessly at the map before her. Sesircas was little different, except that where his lady's face was void of feeling for the moment, his was a blur of activity, his mind whirling, thinking, trying to solve the puzzle.

"How?!" He asked again, hoarsely, for the eighth time.

Aaron, at the far end of the room now and striding back again with his hands clasped behind his back, looked up sharply.

"I don't know!" He growled, and returned to pacing. Sesircas returned to studying the map, as if perhaps it was some kind of joke.

With a sudden twist, Aaron returned to the table abruptly, his face grim and perhaps a little frightened, and put a hand on the map.

"If they've broken Kire'falaedis, then they have two options for invading." He said bluntly, putting aside the mystery of it for a moment. He placed a mail and gloved finger on the yellowing map in front of the Countess.

"They can either press southwest, down behind Lake Japhethis, and attack the lands of House Kairok head on. If they made that move it would be fatal, my lady, I'm afraid..." He sighed grimly, "All of Kairok's forces are, as usual, garrisoning the west border Kire'Sephal and the forests there, they will be entirely flanked, surprised, and outnumbered. It...will be carnage. I can almost be sure of it."

Countess India nodded her head quietly, unmoving but trying to comprehend as her mind still swam. "And the other?"

"The other move, Countess? Why its southeast..."

"Straight towards us. Right here and now." Sesircas finished bluntly as he shook his head.

Huscarl general Aaron nodded slowly, not taking his even, blue gaze off the map. "Yes, straight towards us. We've got no report which way this...this invasion went after they broke Kire'falraedis, which is why we should hurry with all speed, but if they DO come to us we'll have to meet them on the field somewhere between here and there."

"And if they go to the Lake House, by the time we get there it will be burned to the ground. Norns, goblins, whatever it may be." Sesircas finished again, sighing. "They'll be less prepared than we are, all their forces patrolling the western borders and all their ships downriver."

"If they've gone that way...it will be brutal." Aaron commented again. He turned and strode away slowly, as if to contemplate this.

The shouts and cries of soldiers and young men below echoed up to them from the grounds, as banners were raised and horses ridden out. The constantly blowing and cool wind that now whistled in the high windows above seemed to grow a little harder and more chill, as if it too sensed the change in the castle. When one one of the six foundations of Savarica had just been destroyed, it seemed as if the day itself was somehow crooked and impossible, like a nightmare.

"...Either way, our armies have to go the same way." Aaron went on after another round of pacing, as he returned to stand by India's chair. He looked tired, almost afraid, though his lady and employer looked far worse.

"We'll march straight towards Kire'falraedis within the hour, and either intercept the coming enemy, or chase them the other way."

"And learn what happened there." Sesircas put on with a grunt, as he sat back wearily in his chair as though he too had been dealt a massive blow.

Aaron nodded slowly. "Yes. And find out what happened."

"...You know what it means?"

Both of the strategist men and the scattered, puzzled officers around the room looked to the voice of their lady and countess as she spoke. India's eyes looked up with a slow realization in them, as though something had just been made clear to her. Her face had grown pale.

Aaron's brow furrowed. "What?" Forgetting his usual polite courtesy, he asked rather sharply...though the state of his own mind was perhaps in too much confusion to think clearly.

The Countess India looked up at him slowly, fixing her blue-green gaze on him with something like fear and bewilderment in them. Sitting rather comfortably in her head throne in that room, she looked a regal queen from her post there, hands gripping the polished arms of the chair until they too turned pale.

"Nothing can break those castles from the outside. No evil from outside Savarica, in the wilds, can approach it."

Sesircas snorted. "We know that."

"Than in order for it to fail and for some army to attack from the outside, it had to have been broken. And not from outside."

This brought a dead silence as the implications of the statement settled on all.

India went on, in a flat, dull tone of voice.

"It means that it was attacked from the inside. There was a traitor involved. In our castle. In our forces."

The silence dragged on. It was broken only by the frantic sounds of the organizing men below and the whispering, cold wind in the windows above. The torches flickered.