Up above, the comet was plain, even when rivalled by the climbing Sun.
The quarter was one of mean dwellings, stables and depositories, largely derelict. The focus of the crowd was a particular warehouse, some three storeys tall, that once had served as a grain store. There was a gallery, or veranda, projecting from its second floor, onto which sacks were hoisted. It was a perfect point to address the crowd from.
Inside the building the atmosphere was tense. Many rebels were assembled, along with all the Wolverines. The humans, Pepperdyne and Standeven, were not present, and neither were Jup and Spurral. It was thought best to keep them out of sight of the crowd.
Principal Sylandya, Acurial's aged matriarch, was the centre of attention. She sat as though enthroned on a hastily found, down-at-heel chair, and she wore the scarlet robe that signified the office she had never renounced. A small army of rebels buzzed about her. But her offspring, the twins Brelan and Chillder, stayed closest. A privilege that had been temporarily extended to Stryke and Coilla, though Stryke at least suspected this was because Sylandya found the Wolverines intriguing, and perhaps a bit exotic.
"Do you have your speech prepared, Mother?" Chillder asked.
"No. This is not a time for lectures. I'll speak from the heart, and the words I need will come."
Brelan smiled. "A typically wise decision."
"You always knew how to flatter your old mother," Sylandya told him. "But no soft soap today, I beg you. I need an honest steer from both of you on what we're doing here."
"You have doubts?" Chillder said, frowning.
" Of course I have doubts. I hope I've raised you well enough to know I would. What I'm about to say to that crowd is going to have a price. A price paid in blood. Citizens are going to suffer."
"They're suffering already, and the way things are it'll never stop. Surely it's better to pay that price to rid ourselves of the occupiers?"
"That's what my head says. My feelings aren't so clear-cut." She turned to Stryke. "What do our friends from… the North think?"
Stryke didn't miss her slight hesitation, and not for the first time suspected she was more sceptical about his band's story than her children were. "The orcs here have a choice. They can be cattle fit for slaughter or snow leopards lusting for prey. If they're going to throw off the yoke they need to remember what they are. Your call to arms and that thing in the sky could do it."
"Snow leopards? That's a class of beast I'm not familiar with in what I know of Acurial. They must be confined to your northern wastes." She eyed the necklace of leopards' fangs he wore as a trophy about his neck, and gave him a look half quizzical, half amused.
Stryke cursed himself for mentioning something unknown in this world. He said nothing.
"But of course you're right," she went on. "Most of this land's orcs have lived too long in a dream. My hope is that we can wake them. Whether Grilan-Zeat and my poor words can bring that about is moot." She smiled. "Oh, and the prophecy concerning a band of heroes. Let's not forget that."
"How much stock do you put in it?" Coilla asked.
"Prophecies and comets? It could all be so much moonfluff. Though I wouldn't tell your Sergeant Haskeer that; he seems rather taken with the romance of it."
"A big old softy, that's our Haskeer," Coilla told her with a straight face.
"I've no idea if the legends and omens have any real meaning," Sylandya repeated, "and frankly I don't care. I'll use whatever it takes to gain our freedom. Needs must."
"You've no qualms about telling the citizens a lie?"
"I didn't say it was a lie. But even if it is, sometimes a lie in the service of truth is tolerable."
"Makes sense to me," Stryke remarked.
Brelan came forward. "It's time, Mother. Are you ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." She clutched his hand, and reached for his sister's. "We're about to enter an abyss, in hope of finding the light beyond. You two have to promise me that whatever happens you'll keep faith with our cause."
"You'll be here to make sure we do," Chillder replied.
"The fate of the nation doesn't depend on one individual. Things change. Promise."
"I promise."
"Me, too," Brelan echoed. "But I think you're being — "
Sylandya placed her fingers on his lips, stilling him. "You said it was time."
The twins nodded. She rose and they moved to either side of her, taking her arms.
A little procession formed, led by the principal and the siblings. Several members of the resistance council followed, with Stryke and Coilla falling in at the rear. They made their way up a staircase to the floor above, and from there out onto the balcony-like veranda. A number of rebels were already there, as were a handful of Wolverines, including Haskeer.
From their vantage point they could make out the size of the crowd, which had further swollen. More orcs were arriving. When they recognised Sylandya, their roar was like thunder.
"How's she going to make herself heard over this din?" Coilla bellowed into Stryke's ear.
He shrugged.
When Brelan raised his arms, the crowd immediately fell silent. They boomed again when he announced the principal, then resumed an expectant hush.
Gently refusing her children's support, Sylandya stepped forward. Straight-backed, her face a picture of resolve, she seemed the exact opposite of the frail oldster of a moment before. And when she spoke it was in an impressively strong, loud voice. "Citizens of Acurial!" They roared once more at that, and even louder when she amended it to, "Citizens of free Acurial!"
When the clamour died down she continued, "We have suffered greatly in recent times! Our liberty has been stolen and our land defiled! Too long have we stood back and endured the indignities heaped upon us and the assaults on our pride!"
Archers were on the veranda, scanning the crowd. In the horde itself rebels, Wolverines and Vixens were watchful for any sign of opposition.
"The time is long overdue for us to throw off the shackles the outsiders have forged for us! And now we have a sign!"
Stryke couldn't say what drew his eye to a figure way over beyond the farthest edge of the crowd. It was true that whoever it was wore a cloak and hood that obscured their features, but many in the crowd were dressed that way, for fear of being identified. And the figure was far enough away to present no threat to the principal; too far even for an arrow to be unleashed with sufficient strength or accuracy. Yet Stryke still stared.
"We have the blessings of our revered forebears! We have the assurance of a prophecy! There! There in the sky!" She pointed to the heavens. The crowd went wild.
Stryke saw the figure take something from the folds of their cloak. He couldn't make out what it was.
"Peczan has held us in bondage long enough! Now Grilan-Zeat has come, a hammer to break the chains that bind us!"
The figure cast the object into the air. Or rather, released it. Whatever it was soared upward, seemingly of its own volition. Then it levelled out and started moving over the crowd.
"We have a heritage! A heritage of ferocity and battle, of victory over our foes! A heritage we have allowed ourselves to forget! Well, now the time has come to reawaken that slumbering spirit! To set free the hounds of war!"
As it got nearer, Stryke could see that the object had wings. At which point he stopped thinking of it as an object and started thinking of it as a bird. A white bird, not particularly large, flapping unerringly in their direction. He wondered what harm a bird could do.
"Coilla," he whispered, nudging her. "See that?" He pointed, but not obviously so.
She squinted. "A bird? Looks like a dove."
"Yes, I think it is a dove." He noticed that the figure who had released it had gone.
"What about it?" she asked slightly peevishly, irritated at his talking over Sylandya's speech.