The Perils of Regency

[Continuator]

Part One

All through the year discontent had gathered pace against the rule of the Daemon-Queen and her familiars. Whilst Kizzy and her daughter gathered the forces that they could at Rhodondra, Thanatos and Solecism had fallen to the armada led by the Vicerene of Jadid Khaz Modan whilst her son, Daniyal, had swept into Angularis at the head of the Army of the Southern League and was establishing a base of operations on the edge of Scoglitto.

While these forces manoeuvred on the periphery, the centre slipped into chaos. With the daemons and such militia as they could snatch together converging upon Highpass a vacuum opened in the heart of the government. Nowhere was this more apparent than in Modan-Hamlet the nominal capital of Malaboria and the administrative centre of the surrounding Region of Lachmodan.

The Daemon, Bifrons, had abandoned Modan-Hamlet and taken the road to the west accompanied by bands of loyalist militia, leaving the city under the control of a council of four regents appointed two-apiece from the ranks of the Loyalist Legion and the Coven of the Sun.

As the citizens, denizens, and loyal subjects of Malarboria awaited the outcome of the impending clash of arms, the atmosphere in Modan-Hamlet, a significant and ancient city in spite of its name, turned steadily against the regents over the course of the year. The Regents and the remaining Loyalists began to become painfully aware that the consent of the governed was steadily being withdrawn. Contributing to this unrest was the insensitivity of the Daemon-Queen, who had ruled through a combination of terror and debauchery, to local sentiment. The ceaseless, and largely fruitless, missionary work of the Coven had been a cause of great offence to Cedrists, Nazarenes and Pagans alike. The Coven and the Loyalists, along with their families, could feel disaster rolling towards them like an autumnal storm front. The smouldering resentment against the rule of the Daemon-Queen was pervasive, surfacing in odd rumours and in small incidents, that steadily worsened as the weeks passed. Desertions and assassinations began to have an appreciable effect on their ranks. With taxes withheld and efforts at collection meeting fierce street-level resistance, what remained of the government was sinking ever more deeply into debt, and lenders – taking an unsentimental view of the regime's prospects – began to demand exorbitant rates of interest in return for further loans.

Aware of the general unease, the loyalists began to seek the protection afforded by the grand town-houses of the collaborationist nobility. Most however sought the protection of the Keep overlooking Modan Hamlet. The Keep's castellan, the Bloodseer Sevinj, was reluctant to admit so many civilians into the heart of the state government but at length relented. The Keep had long been converted from a formal fortress into an imposing twelve-storey porticoed building set on a raised earthwork called a motte that was 34.5 riq wide (61m) and one toorriq high (8.82m). At the base of the motte were set angle-bastions, fortified artillery platforms, onto which had accrued over time a variety of clustered government buildings in various states of disrepair, including the State Mint and a debtors jail. As the news from Thanatos turned grim, Isabella had reportedly begun to burn suspected daemon worshippers on the advice of the Vigiles Arcani who had quietly arrived to oversee “decontamination”, the Bloodseer began to bring in provisions and ammunition, and began to organise a defence force from volunteers amongst the civilians cowering in the Keep.

Around the angle-bastions huddled a collection of temples and houses which would provide ideal cover and vantage points for an enemy. The Bloodseer made representations to the Regency Council to have them demolished, but the Regents were concerned that such a move would trigger the very revolt which they feared; so no action was taken. Instead the regents organised a promenade through the old city in an attempt to show that they were not intimidated by the populace in the hope that the rumours of discontent and insurrection would pass.

They did not pass. Finally, in the early hours of 16.XIII.1661 the storm broke as the Bell of Tempus, cedrist god of war, suddenly tolled. It was the signal for the city's populace to take up arms and fall upon the remaining daemon-worshippers and their collaborators.

The killings began as a troop of Jaysh al-Sathrati, disguised as Imperial Marshals, made for the barracks of the militia on the edge of town, largely empty since the departure of able-bodied to join the army in Highpass. The Babkhi soldiers quickly gunned down the company of invalids guarding the barrack's gate house and then seized the watch commander. Their prisoner begged for mercy but one of the Babki, without hesitating, ran him through with his bayonet. The commander, a noted officer of the Loyalist Legion was then thrown-half dead out of the window down to the street below, where a washerwoman dashed out his brains with a cobblestone – to the accompaniment of applause from a crowd that had gathered to witness the spectacle. The corpse was then dragged by its feet through the filthy streets of Modan-Hamlet by a vast throng of little children who celebrated the day as a holiday for their attendance at school had been excused, and subsequently the mutilated body was put on public display, hung from a gibbet.

The surviving garrison of the barracks, mostly comprised of the elderly, the infirm, and clerks, retreated into the armoury to make their last stand. Armed with little more than the ubiquitous M1508 Martini-Rossi police rifle and an assortment of pistols and revolvers, the motley band of defenders held off the forty of so Babkhi and the baying mob of Malarborians for a day; but without provisions or the hope of reinforcement theirs was a forlorn hope. The final handful of defenders set a fuse on a long timer in the munitions store, and then made a suicide sortie into the barracks courtyard. The ammunition stockpile blew just as the armoury building filled with celebrating crowds, the explosive conflagration consumed 240 tonnes of propellant charges and 5 million rounds of ammunition, held in storage since the War of Lost Brothers, killing hundreds, including the entire Babkhi contingent sent to organise the Coalition fighters. Momentarily the progress of the rebellion was checked as both sides recoiled from the shock of the detonation.

The Bloodseer used the opportunity afforded to lead a sortie of her volunteers to set fire to the Old City, as she had long desired, in order to create a clear field of fire for her marksmen set atop of the motte and keep.