What preperations lead too...

[Vanidor]

It happened sometime late in the evening. Long after most men and women were safely, as safe as one could be in Myrken, in their beds and sheltered from the predations of the night. Long after, even, the courier from the Amesbury estates had talked his way through the usually locked gate that lead towards Xanth Grange and Trae Kelsa beyond. Perhaps he had been allowed through, due to some machination of the game of politics. Word had to be spread in some regard, correct?

Yet here, after the thunder of those frenetic hooves faded into the night, another band would come to the gates with orders direct from on high. This was a thing that should have been done ages ago, but waiting had paid that cost already. So. It was done, and the great gates that allowed entrance, and exit, from Myrken were barred closed.

At the Amasynian Gate, as the men who warded it called the structure, the Second company set roots in the Wall-Fort so recently upgraded by the strength of arm provided by Dominik Kaczmarek and the rest of his brood. The Fifth, recently raised and woefully understrength (out of a hundred and twenty five that should have been, only seventy were under arms in that Company) was placed upon the lengths of wall considered the best choices for scaling. The scouts were put at the places that were considered the worst.

And at the Derry Gate, that which held the road that lead up towards invasion embroiled Derry, towards Heath, to New Dauntless in the north, and even Gheru Fen, forces under Brotherhood arms moved along the length of stonework and wood. The Third company made their home at the Gate-Fort here, the only places with more grizzled veterans would have been the First. The Fourth spread out along the walls here, told to keep a watchful eye for folk seeking to flee the 'Troubles beyond the Ringwall.' In this case as well, the talented Scouting Corp set their men in the places that were considered ill or harder places to circumvent the hefty lengths of stone so graciously placed by Councilor Guiscard.

And as for the First itself, and the remainder of the Scouts. Dawn would see the main force of that Command, about eighty in all along with a full quarter of the remaining Scouts, stream from the main gates in their full battle dress. They headed, oddly enough, not for Myrkentown. They were not here to pull down the Governor, not yet, not unless the people wanted it. Instead, they would depart their fortress, leaving it well guarded by the remainder of the Company and the last of the Scouts, and instead make a field camp that was halfway from each of the two Wall Gates.

It was a camp that would go up quickly, a ditch dug into the earth in a circle around their location. Wooden spikes driven into the ground, and a makeshift wall of hewn timbers for a palisade. They even made a sort of bridge to span the spear-laden ditch they dug, to allow them to sally forth from their hastily made field-fort. It was something done with methodical ease, a thing trained into the heart and soul of every man to make a stand in that circle of wood. It took them less than two hours to get it all done. In the center of the Fort the standard of the Brotherhood was raised, just like it flew over the gates on either side of the gateway province.

Aeryn was preparing himself, it seemed, for a conflict.

[Mathieu Laurent]

Lothbury has guarded itself well in the months following the Drow incursions -- and the attack upon its own towers, in particular. Lothbury has existed under a self-imposed seclusion, so that it has been speculated -- and not so inaccurately -- that they had no concern save for the sanctity of their lord's wellbeing, no interest at all save for the protection of their own grounds, their own walls, and Myrken be damned.

Perhaps that makes it significant that, deep in the grip of this night, there had risen a creaking from the worn hinges of the Estate's tall, iron gates.