It turns out that the blood of the sire of your family line is actually a fairly decent component for divinations to find his descendants. I wasn’t looking for them over a broad area, anyway. I was looking for his children or cousins in the general area.

  Touching the heart Princess Kristie had carved out of King Varicci II’s chest was enough for the needed blood sample, and the magic ranged out with the Locate Object variant called Locate Bloodline.

  “There are five Corcosi remaining in the environment of the Castle.” I set up the locations in Markspace for everyone, and one that was quite a distance below.

  “There’s one in the labs,” Oswald said. “If you don’t mind, Highness?” he asked Kris respectfully.

  “Can you identify them?” she asked him coolly.

  “One thing the Corcosi have never failed at is making it known to everyone around them who is the true boss and how important they are,” the master assassin murmured back.

  She waved him off. He and Adso slipped out the door at the rear of the Hall rapidly, heading for the location on the west side where the entry Portal had once been to the Dungeon, and where it was likely to be again.

  The rest were on the east side.

  There was a creak and clatter as the door in that direction opened up, and a man in the black and reds of the Raven Hand stepped inside. “Your Majesty! We have almost finished up…” he trailed off as he took in the dead man on the throne, a whole lot of dead Viamontians around, and a bunch of very non-Viamontian faces in Freehold colors looking back at them.

  Zeks calmly pulled the door shut behind him.

  “Oh, shit,” the Cultist murmured, and then the bows came up and twanged almost simultaneously together.

  ---

  A minute later the main hall, as opposed to the main audience hall, was hit from three hallways at the same time. Princess Kristie and Briggs led the rush, the Mick and the lugians brought up the second waves, and the Knights of Lost Light, the Silyun Knights, and the Roaches formed the third.

  My contribution was to knock all the spellcasters off their feet with their own devoted Shards, and the Knights of Lost Light took over taking them down. The Roaches worked the bows, and the Silyun Knights occupied anybody who looked to be drawing a blade until the Knights of Lost Light dispatched their prone targets, which they did with great speed.

  The big and nasty five waded into the middle of the work going on and just laid waste.

  While Princess Kristie was by far the most lethal in terms of killing things, Briggs was by far the most disruptive. Endure’s bone-shaking hits sent men flying like ragged dolls. Even if the recepient survived the hits, they generally ended up at the feet of knights or Vanguards who brought their Weapons down in highly experienced killing moves on the stunned and half-dead men.

  As for their Portal, I expediently Fireballed it.

  The shocked technicians working on it screamed as they were enveloped by the blast, but I wasn’t nearly as good with such AoE’s as I was with Shards. Still, the explosion was enough to blast apart the carved stone, melt the aetherium they were using into unusable patterns, and blow them off the steps they’d made leading up to the Portal’s placement on the wall.

  Spellcasters all, their burning bodies became quick targets for the Roaches, who didn’t want them to get ideas about turning their magical talents to more effective uses.

  This area, however, was not Sound Bubbled, and so the shouts and calls and detonating magic were definitely enough to raise an alarm.

  That was fine, as the other members of the Corcosi Bloodline were suddenly moving in this direction, heading for the audience chamber.

  There were a large number of Raven Hand cultists and rather randomly outfitted individuals working at setting up a Portal similar to those we’d seen on Caul Island here. It appeared that after losing their base there, someone had gone looking for some allies, and who could be better than a morally bankrupt king isolated and surrounded by Eaters, always teetering on the edges of starvation, and soooo eager to be out of here and back to his life of conquest, plenty, and reigning over everyone he could raise his sword over?

  Viamontian knights began to race into the main hall as we pulled back to greet them, armed with their standard two-handed weapons of various sorts, only to find themselves face-to-face with five total powerhouses who happened to have a lot of support behind and around them, and were totally capable of taking on the forces rushing to the support of their king.

  Of course, the fact the king was dead was visible right there, but they were busy.

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  Master Oswald was right, however. The Corcosi nobles who survived, all of them knights of at least Tribune status, were very keen in showing off the family crest and had unique armor, letting everyone around know exactly who they were.

  They were also quick to command those around them into the fray ahead of them, as if their cowardice was going to give them further tactical advantage or something.

  I limned them all in silver Faerie Fire, just to make sure they couldn’t get away. They momentarily thought they were on fire, then they mocked the magic as ineffectual illusions loudly, and then the Roaches calmly shot them dead, while Kris and Briggs sent their knights flying.

  The Corcosi blood was all dead before “The King is dead!” arose in horror, and the knights there all looked to the throne and saw the bisected corpse and split throne there.

  Morale immediately faltered as the knights realized they weren’t actually fighting for anything now. They turned to the other members of the bloodline, and belatedly realized the second level of royalty was also quite dead. Then they turned to the surviving Hands, only to see the last two get relieved of their head and get their skull pancaked against a stone wall, respectively.

  That left a few scattered Tribunes from lesser houses scattered around, none of them with a valid claim to the throne, and all of them the preferred targets of the invaders who had taken out their king.

  The Viamontians fell back, retreating from the fight, and a simple command from Briggs allowed them to go.

  “Vivify the dead and wait for Oswald. Then we decide on what to do.”

  ------

  King Varicci was Burning merrily on his throne, and with him his heart. His belongings were set aside, especially his Sword, to be taken and melted down and thereby sending the Corcosi bloodline into final and much-deserved extinction.

  Kris was watching him go with a carefully blank expression as I stepped up to her.

  “Help much?” I asked her, curious, not judgmental.

  “Did it help her memories? No, I still remember everything he did to her, and I always will. It helped the anger and the fury, and I cleansed the Sword with his blood.”

  It was about what I expected. She wasn’t going to regret offing him or any of his relatives if they had any crimes to their name, and they were all either Red or Purple, just like the Hands he kept close to him. Some of the knights had been Blue, but that just meant unthinkingly loyal without having had to commit some atrocities in the past.

  “Glad there weren’t any children,” I murmured under my breath.

  She nodded slowly. Even hating the bloodline, she wasn’t going to murder a child for it, although she was perfectly capable of rendering them sterile and unable to pass it on. Viamontians got very enthusiastic about lineage and bloodlines and descending from Karkun and the Empyreans who had given them their blue skin, so any child would naturally be a focus of the opportunistic trying to set up a puppet king.

  We’d been spared that necessity of action, and likely that because of the population problem and food shortages.

  Amusingly enough, killing the cream of the nobility and military forces was likely going to help out their food situation immensely, as we’d just taken care of the least-productive sector of their economy.

  “The last Corcosi died a few minutes ago. Master Oswald should be returning to us shortly, and we can go.” The light of his target had been snuffed, indicating he’d found and eliminated his target. I had a suspicion it was a woman, but that was merely gut instinct.

  “I would like to see them sit here and be left to their own devices, but Nuhmudira is involved. Obviously the Viamontians would be a cheap source of manpower, especially if they could actually vacate the island and live somewhere relatively safe, although where that would be on Dereth is highly suspect. We’ve cleared all of Osteth, even if we aren’t living anywhere, so they couldn’t move into the locations actually meant to shelter people.”

  “Neither the Plateau nor Danby’s Outpost are held by us, and Wai Jhou was shade-held and could be ceded to them, although I consider it unlikely. It’s more likely that they are on the Tou-Tou Spurs now, all other things being equal.”

  Those were the two islands north of the Tou-Tou peninsula. They’d never been settled by Isparians… or at least, were not known to have been settled. We’d be visiting them shortly to find out.

  “Not Marae Lassel?” Kris snorted, knowing the answer to that.

  “The Aun or Hea would definitely have heard something by now, and Oswald visited there regularly, while his Green Hunters regularly traveled the North and kept abreast of who, what, and where. They won’t be using any of the known bandit holdings as too obvious, except maybe Northwatch Keep, because they built it. Pretty close to the olthoi, all things considered.”

  “That’s true. The best place for the Viamontians would have been Marae Lassel, as they’ve a residual presence there the Hea didn’t bother to drive off, and the Hea didn’t devote any real strength to hold it, mostly because the virindi don’t consider it very important.” She weighed the idea, and could only shake her head. “One more place for us to investigate… and likely they might be coming back here, if only to find out what is going on when their Portal doesn’t work.”

  “Which leads to the next obvious question about diplomatic relations. Abandoning the Viamontians here just means they’ll run right into the arms of the Freebooters if it means getting off this island.”

  “I know. And as the ones driving this effort, Briggs and I are the ones most responsible for what happens next. Needless to say, they aren’t going to be too happy dealing with us.”

  “On the other hand, the daughter of the man who butchered half of Viamont and three-quarters of the nobility there is just the person to give someone a diplomatic edge over them.”

  Her Hag’s smile flashed instantly. “That is true, I have to admit. How do you think it should be handled?”

  “Well, I’ve got stuff to do, but all the knights in the castle are running away urgently right now. At some point, they’re going to come back and want to know what is going on, who exactly they are fighting, and other formal knightly stuff dealing with the death of kings and the like.

  “You and Briggs should probably sit out there polishing your Weapons and waiting for them. I imagine knowing that the Corcosi line is dead upon Ispar, Viamont is a crushed dream, and you being perfectly willing to put all of the Viamontians knights, nobles, and volunteers to the sword without hesitation is something they should learn.”

  “That is true, it is,” she agreed, drawing herself upright. “Fuzzy will be absolutely cool with it, too. I doubt Elysa minds seeing them get what is coming to them, as Varicci has always been a dangerous rival and a most untrustworthy ally.” Her pale violet eyes flickered once. “Sure, let’s he and I sit out there and wait for them to send someone. This should be fun!”

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