Whatever opposition there was was snuffed out with little effort, like a ravenous beast cracking the bones of a gimped and cataract prey.

  Those lucky to be taken by surprise or cowardly to fight so outnumbered were simply cowed into submission.

  The host wasted no time in making preparations for the spectacle about to take pce. Bands went through the neighborhoods dragging those that Sarjenko's retinue fingered along with their families, taking them where the city leadership was already chained. Some of the warriors were charged with assembling poles and a bonfire in the main pza on top of the stone stand in the middle and gathering implements for what was about to come. The rest did their best to make sure no one got any ideas of trying to riot or ambush those making preparations.

  Throughout the early morning, those Outsider mercenaries already within the city cleared out every location they signaled in conjunction with with the detachments of the host, most easily persuaded at the threat of having hellfire unleashed over them.

  Through hurried yomping, the remainder Outsider mercenaries at st made it to the city before daybreak, seizing key positions for their use and fortifying them from any attempt at an assault.

  By now, the host entered into the control phase, and though there was no more bloodshed or sporadic mayhem, the atmosphere continued to grow heavy with an oppressive tension.

  The two-hundred and fifty two manned Outsider firm used this lull to rest and reload in the buildings, setting up improvised screens to block anyone viewing them from the citadel wherever they identified a spot of trouble. The baffled commoners took a few gnces at them as they passed by and did not need to be told to stay away from them, especially those who witnessed their firepower close enough.

  The sun's rays slowly break the night through short cumulus clouds hanging high.

  *Drum* *Drum* *Durumdurumdurumdurumdurum...* *Drum-tun*

  The drums kettled two more times in the same pattern.

  *Drum* *Tun* *Drum* *Tun* *Dun-dun*

  Though the host tried to cram more civilians into the pza it was just impossible. Those that lived in the surrounding buildings were forced to bring in strangers so that they can all bear witness.

  The building in front of the pza had been commissioned by Sarjenko and his retinue, his Choir of the Damned, to observe what was about to happen down below, sitting under the canopy roof with hardened faces.

  They wasted little with pomp and circumstance.

  At st, the mara-mara hauled their prey out from underneath the building, chained at the neck - most of the city leaders, their women and children separated by their respective group.

  Some in the crowd tried to push into the pza, but the guards held firm. Without much fanfare, the children where quickly brought to the top of the ptform. Devilish shirtless men, with dreamy and slick physiques more appropriate for male idol-ship and undergarment catalogues, went behind them wielding long, rectangle bded swords, unfazed by the mad cries of the children being herded. Once unchained, a prod was pced on their colrs to pin them down on the ptform.

  The civilians gasped with horror at what was about to happen.

  The mothers of the children wailed with impotency. Some outright fainted due to the heavy strain, their captors immediately striking them in the face and pulling their hair to make them watch.

  Their fathers raged with bloody vengeance, every fiber of their being trying to break free and stop the inevitable.

  The executioners looked up to their master for st confirmation.

  Sarjenko, without hesitation, waived his two left fingers.

  With impure glee, the executioners let the bdes fall on their the children's limbs, one arm first.

  Their inhumane screams and pained wailing not withstanding, the executioners wound their shoulders once more to hack the sword down upon the children's remaining shoulder, leaving them armless. Then legless. Whether the shock and horrendous pain ended them mattered not when the swords at st severed the heads from the small necks.

  Not even the babies of the captured were spared, as if the crowd were not stupefied enough by what they were seeing.

  Among the crowd, mothers held tightly to their own children, doing their best to avert their eyes from this infernal dispy only to have someone rudely compel them to cease their protective ways.

  When the st batch was cut up, they were piled up in wicker baskets and handed over to others waiting to turn them into hellish neckces.

  Wilrd: *A few levels below the roof. Open archway. Leadership identified. Brown hair. Sandy complexion. Long, peaked pauldrons upon gold colored armor. Cuirass with neck guard. Purple cape. Bck sleeves. Clean face. Auburn eyes. About two meters.*

  Over the radio Wilrd was identifying the first spectator he could see through a telescope from his hidden position, observing how the oncoming occupiers gawked and were astounded by the merciless dispy down below.

  Others were radioing in their findings with a ptop receiving and recording their inputs, each observer assisted by someone jotting down what was said.

  Wilrd: *Mark two guards. Mark three guards. Mark four or five bureaucrats. Blue togas or sashes. White shirts. One fully bearded...*

  Magic-Man: *Mark four guards on roof. Mark seven on roof. Leadership identified. Bck helmet. Thick long mustache...*

  Captain Oxley: *Ma'k fou'teen...Ma'k twenty gua'ds obse'vin' above the gate...*

  Becker: *...lower wall. Bald shaven. Purple tunics. Showing reverence towards guards...*

  Those in the bastion could only watch with impotence as the men were dragged and shackled by the arms and waist onto fixed poles, and with one command from Sarjenko, whacked and prodded with sticks on fire, slowly scorching their skins into ever increasing shades of red.

  Pieces of bckened film peeled off as hot rods prodded wherever the executioners felt like burning, leaving dark stains like leopard spots.

  Wilrd: *Oi! Possible hexers identified. Repeat - possible hexers identified in the open hallway! Assess.*

  Becker adjusted his telescope towards the direction Wilrd indicated. Getting a clear view, he noticed a group in white tunics being led by one mara-mara with two others close behind.

  Magic-Man: *Mark three guards fnking the group. Mark two pale skinned women. One scarlet hair. Long. One brown eye, the other one is covered. About one meter, three-fourths. One ashened hair. Shortened. Dusky eyes. About one meter. Mark one Imperial woman. Warm skin. Blue-hued bck hair. Long, thick, spiky. Sky eyes. About one meter, three-fourths.*

  Captain Oxley: *Canno' assist from this position. Ma'k one specialized...*

  Becker: *Mark one dirty brown haired woman. Mid length. Tanned. Hazel or light blue eyes. About one meter, two-fifths.*

  Magic-Man: *Mark one fxen haired woman. Shoulder length. Light red eyes. About one meter, three-fifths.*

  Wilrd: *Mark fourteen guards on the hallway so far.*

  Becker: *Mark one reddish skinned woman. Pitch bck hair. Back length. Green eyes. About one meter, one-fourth...*

  Screams from the dying could be faintly heard from Becker's position, where light dust swirled around from the night's commotion.

  Whenever one colpsed to the bottom, hair singed into patches and blood slowly swelling out of the pores, out came the shovels with hot burning matter from the bonfire pouring hate over their faces and exposed crotches, jolting them back up like a broken automota with heavy, scorched heaves.

  Becker: *...Mark one unidentifiable. Behind the Imperial. Possible blond. Acknowledge.*

  Wilrd: *Negative from here.*

  Magic-Man: *...I can see the gleam of her eyes, but uncertain. Too obscured.*

  Wilrd: *Anything identifiable? Scars, sigils, jewels? Whatever?*

  Becker: *Negative. I dare say they are unblemished. Untattered.*

  Magic-Man: *The Imperial is resting her hands on the ledge. I believe I notice something blue on her wrists. Could be something like turquoise, but, it glows...Wait, the color faded. Repeat - Glowing objects noted on the wrists of the Imperial.*

  The death agonies of the condemned dragged their loudest. Slowly, they began to fade, but the sticks continued to strike them and bcken their skin.

  Wilrd: *That's it?...So are they hexers?*

  Becker: *I do not note additional marks or strange characters in the hallway or the lower wall.*

  Wilrd: *Then they are sves. Concubines? Retives? Women guard, I dare say.*

  Becker: *Nothing that indicates their social position.*

  Magic-Man: *Whatever they are, the "shugo" is directing them to watch down below. He may be angry, or could be scared perhaps.*

  Wilrd: *Heh, "Shugo"? "Chinpira," more like.*

  Becker: *'ey loo' li'e a lot o' poofs, t' me.*

  Captain Oxley: *Cheeky, ol' spo't. No shamans o' wiza'ds sighted. If the'e is anothe' hexe' in the'e, he, she, or whateve' may a'e kept hidden deep.*

  Wilrd: *You may be right, Bruno. Any luck citing the timorous wanke'?*

  Becker: *Probably up to bad intentions in the shadows, like in your literature.*

  Magic-Man: *Unfortunately that's not the case. THAT would imply a simpler course of action.*

  The dismembered children and babies were at st colred to their mothers chained neck to neck and cuffed to the waist, brought up to the ptform and forced to kneel in front of their dead husbands. As they broke into unbearable anguish, their tears mingling with the fresh blood staining their clothing.

  They were made to stand and turned around to face the crowd on all directions so that all may see clearly what was done to them.

  Kaehe'wa, supervising the grisly spectacle throughout, took a simple megaphone to speak.

  Kaehe'wa: *THIS...IS A MERCY TO TRAITORS! TO THOSE IN THE BASTION, HERE THIS - EMBRACE YOUR PUNISHMENT, SURRENDER YOURSELVES, AND OPEN THE GATE, OR YOU WILL WISH THIS TREATMENT UPON YOU! THE BASTION IS ALL THE WILO JAWI WANTS FROM YOU, EVEN IF WE HAVE TO DESPOIL IT!*

  Sarjenko waived his right hand towards the warriors below, and with that, the guards yanked at the women to move it, barking at them to hurry on towards the southern gate and giving the occasional strike behind the thighs.

  *Drum* *Drum* *Durumdurumdurumdurumdurum...* *Drum-tun*

  *Drum* *Drum* *Durumdurumdurumdurumdurum...* *Drum-tun*

  Slowly the people began to empty out of the pza, frightful and disgusted.

  *Drum* *Drum* *Durumdurumdurumdurumdurum...* *Drum-tun*

  *Drum* *Tun* *Drum* *Tun* *Dun-dun*

  Once on the other side of the gate, the women were curtly hauled past the melting death and miserable wreck just now being cleared out, past the lonely dwellings with their yards being occupied by arriving columns of warriors, past the wuitziki barrier and on to the open road.

  The mara-mara kept their weapons trained at them until the women at the head of the damned party opted for a choice in direction. Towards the ocean, down south to the nding grounds, to the east at seized encampment or the embrace of the sele'kwai, turn back into the erect weaponry - it was the st choice these women would take, a choice the rest had resigned to follow.

  Wilrd: *They're heading back in. The birds are off on a hurry.*

  Magic-man: *So...not hexers.*

  Captain Oxley: *Perhaps the leadership are?*

  Becker: *If what we encountered was anything to go by, do not count on it.*

  Wilrd: *Unless there is something worth watching, I do not think they will show themselves again. For shame. All observers will rotate in ten minutes. Live transmission will then cease.*

  As those high above left, the pair of mysterious eyes where caught in the crosshairs of Becker's telescope, yet the rest of the face was obscured by the crowd. He blinked hard and rubbed his eye, for he could not believe what he saw.

  They twinkled like eldritch, abominable jewelry, with a fast swirl of green, blue, and yellow in a domineering, pulsating twirl. Just as quickly as they blurred off into unreality, they returned to normal, as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

  But what was more astounding was the suspicion of the night no longer staying as is - if it was the one to have induced such dreadful nerves st night, it might indeed be staring into him.

  Perhaps into the telescope.

  Now.

  But it was just for a second, for the eyes turned round the corner and left his field of vision.

  Becker: [You better be anyone else. Otherwise you're dead.]

  The heads and hands of the condemned men were taken away in seclusion. The rest of the odious bodies were turned to ash, scattered by the winds onto the ocean.

  The absolution did not ceased for the next few days, albeit no longer involving a viewing public.

  Kaindit, mara-mara, iwi-kwadi, and anyone else caught under arms, whether compelled to or out of their own conviction, were forced to serve one way or another - take Sarjenko's blood-debt and pledge loyalty to the cause or become weapons practice for the new inductees. The same applied for the majority who were not killed in the barracks, having awoken to find themselves under chains after a very profound slumber that not even the screams at the crack of dawn aroused them off their feet.

  To the surprise of many of the Outsiders, especially Mandrake Squad, there were a few Sarjenko loyalists already at py prior to the siege, now hauling their own prisoners stashed away as a dispy of servitude behind enemy lines. Disproportionately composed of women and girls, their case was determined long before the first invading ships navigated the coasts - death by impalement at the stake outside the walls. The charge - belonging to key positions within Na-Geski society fingered by the shadow government as being in league with or conspiring on behalf of the traitor, Harko.

  Guildsmen, schors, impressed or indentured whores, neighborhood exemprs - none were spared, no excuse tolerated.

  In both cases, their families were immediately pced under chains, dragged briefly on the pza so that those on the citadel may bear witness, then sent to await their final punishment.

  The dungeon/satellite sve pens were emptied of its inhabitants and driven out to just before the wuitziki barrier, further split as the Choir of the Damned, mumbling a low chant under their breath and passing a hand on their faces, determined who stayed and who was taken back.

  All the while, the prisoners felt their very beings peeling away as the hands passed by so close they could almost touch them with their noses.

  Those returned to bondage were immediately united with the families of the newly condemned and all drilled and brutalized by mace wielding mara-mara. Left fnk, right fnk, ten hut, tally ho. Man or woman, they were savaged to a pulp, inculcating them in hate with each strike of the metal clubs whether they mucked up or did everything correct.

  At night, those living close could almost hear their stuffed moans and gagged screams trail in the wind.

  The majority that remained were given the choice to make their own way on the isnd or join the popution swearing fealty to the Wilo Jawi, and only one to cim the title Wilo Jawi, Sarjenko. The men that took their newfound induction a step forward and opted to join as kaindit were immediately sent to be broken like wild beasts of burden, loosing themselves of their former identities with the prospects of gaining the world ahead. Confined to the barracks, they were not permitted access to the warehouse for the time being.

  All the while, those beseiged on the fortress observed down into the city awaiting for something, anything, to sever the impossible tension, never suspecting of strange birds floating up above with cold, still eyes and stiffer wings that never seem to fp.