Giselle looked down on Tianming Fort from the cliffs of Jade Palace Mound. The fortress capped a tilted bed of rock two hundred feet tall. A narrow chasm separated it from the Mound. Moats surrounded the outcrop to its north, east, and west. The Feng River ran along its southern face. The fortress had walls, but they were on top of the rock and mostly served as platforms for siege engines. Tianming Fort's main defense came from all that granite. The only way in and up was through a labyrinth of tunnels which hobgoblins excavated ten or twenty thousand years earlier.
Assaulting the fortress from the ground would have been tough even for the Goddess of Glaives. Tianming Fort was an extension of Jade Palace Mound's own defenses, however. A stone bridge connected the Mound to the upper level of the fortress.
The bridge's purpose was to allow the Emperor to reinforce the fortress quickly.
Great Yao's Founder was a celebrated general. His son saw himself as a warrior first and ruler second. After securing victory in the Strife of Ten Brothers and One Tyrant, the present Emperor embraced the role of military reformer. He kept his soldiers sharp through twenty years of peace and prosperity by emphasizing the importance of wargames. The Royal and Tianming Guards often simulated sieges of Tianming Fort. It was therefore not unusual to see troops marching across the stone bridge at all hours day or night.
This, however, was not a drill.
A gate and tower complex regulated traffic between Tianming Fort and the bridge. The purpose of that complex was to defend Jade Palace Mound from anyone who fought through Tianming Fort. The Crown Princess was therefore approaching from behind the fortifications.
Most of Tianming Town's sprawl lay south of the Feng River. Tianming Guard units patrolling the city operated out of Tianming River Arsenal instead of Tianming Fort. Earlier that day, the Crown Princess killed people in the Arsenal, but had not yet attacked the Duke's residence. After her attack on the Arsenal, however, the Duke ordered preparations to defend in the "wrong" direction.
Those preparations were limited.
Any open attempt to defend against the Mound would represent rebellion.
With the Duke's death, however, the calculus changed. His oldest daughter was used to being called "Duchess." Upon becoming the Duchess for real, she would have decided whether to submit or take radical action. Esmaralde and Giselle expected her to take radical action. Consistent with those expectations, defenders confronted Esmaralde at the end of the bridge.
The Crown Princess allowed them a moment for last words.
"Your Highness," said an anonymous young man of ambiguous rank, "this family has guarded Jade Palace Mound for centuries. Are you framing our Duke for crimes he has not committed; or have you been influenced by the real perpetrators?"
Esmaralde laughed.
"It feels like every generation," she said, "some great family gets purged. Their defenders always cry about being framed. Your family attacked me, boy. I didn't frame it for that. I wanted to kill Tianming Duke myself, but the Third Prince killed him for betraying the nation."
"If anyone has been betrayed," said the young man, "it's the families devoted to the traditions of our people. When the nobility has been replaced by shopkeepers, our only art will be numbers painted red or black. Our only customs will be carrying balances to the top of each new page."
Giselle doubted he thought of that himself.
"Cry about shopkeepers all you like," said Esmaralde. "Any family called noble put itself on top by committing despicable acts. If the Third Prince framed Tianming Duke, then he framed a guilty man. Surrender, or die."
The Goddess of Glaive's weapon materialized from a bolt of lighting. She took hold of the shaft, and advanced a step. Giselle felt bad for the schmucks. Even if Tianming Duke committed treason (and Giselle expected the Third Prince to be vindicated on that point), no one on gate duty played much role. Worrying about them was not her job, however.
Giselle's job was to enter the fortress and secure its evidence. Men and women serving nobles were irritatingly loyal. That loyalty owed in part to the fact they were often poor relatives; or, their ancestors served the same nobles for generations – maintaining traditions and customs blah blah blah. One noble tradition was to go out fighting. Duty, honor, glory. All that crap.
Fighting began.
Tianming Fort's forces enjoyed home turf advantage and superior numbers. The Mithril Guard brought skill and equipment. Esmaralde was the Goddess of Glaives. The young man passionate about revolutionary talking points fought well. He wasn't at Lady Wu's level, however. He died honorably doing his duty for the glory of his dead lord blah blah blah.
Esmaralde took the fight into Tianming Fort's uppermost courtyard.
By that time, Giselle had already flashed through shadows to rooftops. Transforming into thin curls of dust, she slipped under and through tight places. At ground level, Tianming Fort was one of the most fortified military installations in Great Yao. Up top, however, it was a palace as grand as anything on Jade Palace Mound. Adopting the pretense of imperial splendor was prohibited, but it would take more than ostentatious displays of wealth and bad taste to qualify as treason.
Panicked servants ran hither and yon.
If they surrendered, Esmaralde would spare them. In contrast to the ruthless Second Consort, the Crown Princess was a big softie when it came to maids, butlers, cooks, starving students, accountants, and even shopkeepers. Conveniently, maids, butlers, and especially cooks would know more about family business than gate grunts or foot soldiers. No one would get tortured. For a case like this, they'd just have to sit in a featureless room for a few days while Starlight Chamber's mystics meditated nearby.
Sure, it would be unpleasant. But no skin would be broken.
Of course, the Duke's people understood the value of maids, butlers, and cooks too. That put Giselle in a bind. She had not yet identified any repositories of incriminating evidence. Coming out of the shadows would slow her down. It might also alert the Duke's forces to her presence. At the same time, at least a few maids, butlers, and cooks would be repositories of incriminating evidence. If a commander somewhere went to the trouble of ordering specific people killed, then those people were extra likely to know incriminating things.
Giselle decided to play the heroine.
She cut the throats of two soldiers while still a puff of dust. After assuming her real form, she barked orders to the non-combatants.
"Tears and fears get people killed," she told them. "Stay here, stay hidden, surrender to the Crown Princess as soon as you can."
Then Giselle indulged her core competencies. When killing people she outclassed, Giselle used two blades. When wielding two weapons, there were always moments when the momentum of one pulled in a weird direction for the other. That didn't matter against trash, however, and Giselle found that she could kill about fifty percent faster.
A more capable opponent jumped into the mix.
Giselle suspected he was the commander who ordered the maids, butlers, and cooks killed. She tossed her left sword into the air, activated its animating spirit, and prepared to use her right sword with both hands. As far as Giselle knew, no one in Tianming Duke's mansion came close enough to her level to represent a threat. But she was surrounded, outnumbered, and on the clock. If the Crown Princess saw her playing with grunts, she'd never hear the end of it.
Giselle flashed past her new opponent. She deflected his weapon with hers and kept going until she passed through the outer ring of grunts. She sliced a few throats, rolled under the pursuing commander's strike, and blurred back through the center of battle to the other side of the ring. These motions pulled her opponents together in an awkward clump. She dropped two more grunts, turned, and blocked the commander once more.
He was faster than expected.
Her animated weapon attacked him from behind. He dodged, then parried, then thrust. Giselle was somewhere else by then and killing another grunt. It had been a seriously long time since she killed so many people in such a short time. The commander rolled across the ground and sliced at her legs.
That motion provided Giselle with valuable information.
Nandao Peak Abbey loved acrobatic tricks like that. The commander was one of the abducted martial artists. Perhaps those abductions should be reclassified as recruitments.
Giselle resolved to kill him. His body would represent incriminating evidence.
She went up. Rather than come down, she took a trip across the Gloaming Veil and emerged behind a decorative tree. The mansion's lanterns cast all sorts of shadows for her to play in. Giselle became small and flashed into the branches. As a midnight cat, she stepped silently along one limb waiting for the right angle.
Her target turned slightly.
Giselle's body ended up behind him. An instant later, the tip of her sword ended up in front. She let her animated weapon take care of the remaining grunts. After collecting it in her left hand, she sheathed both weapons and went back about her sneaky business. But the diversion had been worth it. Giselle was taking a small risk leaving the body of incriminating evidence behind, but Esmaralde would reach that courtyard soon.