I had donned my finest garb. A merchant’s honesty admits: it was my only garb, but it had been washed, brushed, its seams re-stitched where turmoil and strife had gnawed through. A poor man’s armor, but armor nonetheless. Into the fold at my collar I had pressed an olive branch—no mere ornament, but the emblem of peace. Renewal. Concord. The sign given to us in Scripture, taught across the rivers and the hills alike. I trusted the Natives would know it, and, knowing, would answer.

  The cloth lay stiff against me, the scent of soap not yet dulled by sweat or travel. I could feel each stitch as if it bound me to the role itself: Factor, courier, emissary of a world that pretended still to have rules. And if peace could be worn, then I meant to wear it, plain for all to see.

  Mikel had endured the same ritual of preparation: his hair brushed smooth, his scruff shaven clean, his neck and wrists glistening faintly with the heavy oils he had over-applied in some fit of zeal. He carried himself differently now—shoulders back, chest proud—as though the laboring dockhand’s bent spine had been hammered straight at last.

  “A sign for sore eyes, Factor,” he said, his grin sharp beneath the sheen. “Truly a gathering of import. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “You look kempt and fine yourself, Mikel,” I replied, tone measured but granting the praise. “Now, let us meet our brethren with proper haste, no?”

  “Indeed, Edelmer.” His hand lingered on the latch of the Platz door, then paused, turned toward me. His eyes held a flicker—half marvel, half disbelief.

  “To think,” he muttered. “To think I was a mere dockhand once. Pulling ropes. Hauling cargo.” He laughed, dry in the throat. “And now…” He shook his head, the grin creeping back. “I have earned a different measure with you, Factor. The Guild Merchant.” He scoffed, though not bitterly—more as if testing the weight of the title aloud. “We have surpassed our boundaries tenfold, have we not?”

  I stepped closer, set my hand firmly upon his shoulder. A gesture both to steady him and to bind the moment. My voice was even, meant to root him to purpose.

  “We have come a long way,” I said. “We have taken a sour land and coaxed from it ripe fruit. And now, Mikel—” my grip pressed tighter, “—now we must see that the harvest is not squandered.”

  “Indeed, Factor. Let me lead the way.”

  And so he opened the door—to the strife and the spectacle that waited beyond. A gathering, yes, but more than that: a reckoning laid bare on the stones of the Platz. A meeting not just with men, but with the beyond.

  Soldiers lined in their ranks, steel and powder ready. Riders too many to number, mounted and restless, their mounts stamping the dust as if sensing the charge in the air. Between them, the living tide of people moved: mending, sewing, hammering, hauling. Ready hands, busy hands—each act a stave against dread.

  And over it all, the sounds: drums rolling like thunder to mark resolve, trumpets cutting bright to signal both order and defiance. They were not only commands. They were declarations. We are here. We are many. We will be heard.

  Near the entrance to the bastion, a local band struck up their own defiance: lute strings plucked, drums rattled, voices raised in the cracked but certain cadence of the old tongue.

  A welcome, a feast! The hordes come, we greet them in kind!

  We sing! We dance! A meeting of kin!

  Children spun in circles around them, bare feet slapping stone, laughter breaking in strange contrast to the steel-etched faces of soldiers rushing past.

  And I—Factor, emissary, man of contracts—could not escape the dissonance. Fear clung close, but so too did joy, in equal measure. Was this the threshold of peace, or its funeral? Possible friends, possible replacements.

  For who did God deem fit to rule this land? Us? Them? Or both together?

  Time would soon weigh that balance.

  I looked, and kept looking, for the man in command. Grave would be where he always placed himself—close to the tension, close to the line where parley and blood shared the same breath.

  I found him on the parapet, posted not far from where the first words with these “new” natives had been exchanged. He was dressed for the moment—somber, deliberate. Breastplate polished, steel buckled, yet fine cloth gleamed faintly beneath the plates. It spoke his mind without need for words: we will kill, but peace is preferable. If such a costume soothed him, I would not argue.

  “Commander.”

  “Factor.”

  “I see your men are readied.”

  “They are. Powder measured, pistols primed, rifles loaded, spears and swords honed until they’d shave bark from oak.” He turned to me then, eyes shadowed under the brim of his hat. “To impress, of course. Yet you and I both know such arms would not avail us, should those giants sour their temper. That is why the cannons stand readied with chains and scatter-shot.”

  My gaze lingered on the nearest brass beast, its mouth yawning toward the hills like a hungry idol. “A last stand,” I murmured.

  “Aye. One volley would reap a fair share of them. Enough, perhaps, that the border towns—and Hasholm herself—might have a chance.”

  “I see you keep to melancholy again,” I said, tone flat but edged, as if weighing the word.

  “Melancholy thoughts spare us greater tragedies, Allemand.” His voice was low, steady, almost weary. “I would think you of all men understood that.”

  “I do, Commander.”

  The words barely left me before the air shifted. From the Platz below rose the pounding of drums, but not drums alone. Horns blared, fiddles whined, lutes plucked in rising chorus until the square itself seemed to breathe with them. What began as measure and cadence had become a tide—song upon song, spilling into every alley, carrying man’s voice upward to the very walls.

  A hymn unfurled, unbidden:

  When I awoke, I heard the voice

  Oh pure, oh loud, it bore me hence;

  I speak to you, as father and shepherd!

  Follow thy flock, meet your maker!

  And so I ran, and so I leapt,

  I ran, I leapt, to salvation!

  The verses came from the throats of young women, their earnestness sharper than any polished blade. Around them, men joined in dance—steps quick, light, the patterns of weddings, of midsummer fields, of feasts where death was far away.

  I watched, and in their abandon I felt the strange swell: the world itself seemed to lean to our side, arrayed not with cannon or powder, but with voice, with rhythm, with warmth that no steel could mirror.

  For indeed—how else could one stand before such heavenly force, if not with splendour? If not with joy burning bright enough to answer giants?

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  “You will see this is right, Grave,” I said—without hesitation, without space for doubt.

  “You will see this alliance made in Heaven.”

  He turned, brow furrowed, gaze narrowing as if to study whether I still spoke as Factor, or had slipped into another’s robes entirely.

  “A priest’s tongue neither suits you nor befits you.”

  I gave a small shrug, shoulders loosening in open concession. “No. But it is the feeling of the day. I am eager to meet our brethren in faith—no matter how tall they stand.”

  His gaze lingered, steady, running over me as if to measure whether conviction or madness held my frame upright.

  “If that is your case…” His voice sank lower, iron under gravel. “…then get ready to meet your maker.”

  We entered the Platz together. The crowd parted by instinct—soldiers stiffened and saluted Grave, and some, to my faint surprise, offered the same to me. Authority had many shapes: his in iron and command, mine in ledgers and lines. Between us we carried the closest resemblance to rule that this fractured place possessed.

  We had come to meet Sul.

  That sweat-soaked colossus who had dared greet the Others with bell and psalm, like some rustic prophet proclaiming revelation by dint of lung and brass.

  He stood at the gate still, frame trembling from exertion. His chest heaved, his skin slick with the sheen of endless labor. Since yesterday he had wandered to and fro—bell in hand, summoning men and Natives alike, his stride as tireless as his zeal. Now, at last, the effort showed: the panting, the wobble of shoulders, the grin stretched almost grotesque in its enormity. A smile wide as a man’s arm, shining out through exhaustion.

  “I did say so, friends. I did.”

  The words came ragged, broken by breath, but carried all the same. He pointed toward the gate with a shaking hand.

  “I told thee the bell was the key. I felt it. It was my calling. A thought, or remembrance, long hidden.” His chest rose and fell. “But I found it.”

  Grave lifted a gauntleted hand, the gesture sharp enough to cut Sul’s jubilance in half.

  “Enough. Tell me the situation. In what stance are they set? What mood governs them now?”

  Sul’s huge form swayed once, then steadied. His voice dropped into a steadier rhythm, though sweat still streamed from him.

  “Solemn,” he said. “Some at prayer, others at rest, some keeping guard. But all hold still. They are ready to converse, Commander.”

  “Have you readied them for parley?” Grave’s words came clipped, shorn of ceremony. His temper had shortened with the weight pressing him—the word of God carried on other tongues. He had not yet decided whether these giants came to revel or to repent, and the uncertainty gnawed at him.

  “Grave,” Sul answered in hushed tones, a surprising softness from so immense a frame, “they have been readied since their arrival. The congregation is gathered. They came, listened, and spoke. They remain still—speaking, praying, lifting their eyes to the heavens in reverence, and turning to us with questions. They ask why the gates are shut.”

  “My heavens, Sul—where did this torrent come from? Has the visit loosened your cork?”

  A grin broke across the giant’s weary face, and yet his reply carried no jest.

  “My friends are now many, Grave. I have spoken with kin. My words have been plenty, my tongue loosened, my spirit lifted.”

  I reached for Grave’s arm—no subtlety in it, only the deliberate weight of touch meant to anchor him against the immensity of the moment.

  “Sul lays the matter bare.” I pressed, my voice firm, edged with urgency. “They came to speak. Indeed—they pray for this very chance. To wait longer may prove a folly born only of fear. I urge we hasten the meeting, Commander. Let us welcome them with the same voice Sul has already imparted.”

  Grave shifted—whether lightened by my words or burdened by the shame of having stalled so long, I could not tell. His voice, when it came, was steadier.

  “Sul. You have been a beacon of steadfastness and truth since your arrival. I have had no reason to believe you stand against our cause.” He stepped forward, measuring the giant’s frame as one commander measures another. “Tell me, then—are we greeting friends?”

  Sul’s grin spread, as wide and unshaken as ever. His melon-sized fist reached out and closed around Grave’s hand, the gesture so vast it looked less like a handshake than a mother cradling the limb of her infant.

  “They are us, and we are them,” he said. “They have always been friends.”

  No court clerk, no priest, no chronicler could have twisted those words into anything but confirmation.

  Grave nodded, the thought settling in his bones. Then his hand snapped to my shoulder with the weight of decision.

  “Allemand. Fetch Mikel. He will take my sword and pistol, and keep them safe.”

  The steel followed swiftly—gauntlets stripped and cast down, faded plates clattering against the stone; the gorget unclasped, the old brass buckle biting once more before giving way.

  Then he turned to me, fire alive again in his eyes.

  “Factor—help me with the cuirass. Friends are met bare.”

  As the weight of his armor slipped from him, so too did the weight upon my own shoulders. Each buckle loosed, each plate falling to stone, seemed to peel away the tally of despair I had kept so long—days left to live, weeks left to starve, columns of the dead marked as if they were figures in a ledger. That reckoning, grim and endless, blurred now like a fevered dream.

  We had found friends. And they were to be welcomed.

  “Forgive me for this, Grave,” I said, my cheeks flushed hot with the surge of the moment. Then I left him, striding into the press of the Platz.

  I mounted the nearest barrel stout enough to bear me, planting my boots until my frame towered over the mass of faces—welcomers and doubters alike, dancers and soldiers, children and elders, every eye drawn by the fire in the air.

  “We have accord!” I cried, letting the words carry like iron across the sea of colour and motion. To the drummers and fiddlers, to the sweating pikemen, to the women still circling in their dance—I gave voice as if to the whole world, for the whole world was gathered here.

  The Guild had taught me to speak, to wield words as bellows. And now I used them.

  “Behold, Zeltzerheim! Grave—saviour, commander, leader of men—unsheathes his sword only to lay it aside! See how he strips his armour, stands bare before Heaven and earth alike, in concord with those who approach our gates!”

  The murmur broke across the crowd—astonishment in some, wide grins in others. Eyes shone, hands twitched toward one another.

  “They have not come in silence, nor in threat, but in song! Songs to Him! To Joseph, our Father! A miracle, plain before us—one to stir the marrow of any faithful heart! Grave has seen it. Sul has delivered it. And our visitors stand ready to affirm it!”

  A cheer tore loose—first scattered, then swelling. A tambourine rattled sharp approval, a soldier slammed the butt of his pike to the ground in rhythm, others joined, steel clanging against stone like the pulse of a thousand hands.

  “We have been shaken, tested, driven to the brink—yet they have come to struggle with us! They have sung with us! They seek to share our beat!”

  The crescendo built, the Platz itself seeming to tremble beneath it.

  “People of Zeltzerheim—” I thrust the words down like a gavel, “—we shall meet them in kind!”

  And then it broke. A roar, unchained. A jubilee of voices, limbs cast upward, feet stamping stone, hands clapping, striking, waving in rhythm. Drums rolled in thunder, rattles shook, the air itself thickened with sound.

  A city cried out as one, and the cry was welcome.

  A troop of players struck a chord—bright, cutting, the kind that seizes the marrow before thought can rise. A shout followed, filling the air, and then a voice lifted—a tone painted with the colors of spring, swelling clear above the tumult:

  “The rivers may widen, the mountains may tower,

  Yet forward we press, for Thy promise is near!

  The road is a garden, the sky is a flower,

  And joy is the fruit that we gather each year!”

  The words rippled outward, carried by the strings and pipes, by hands clapping in time, until the whole Platz seemed to breathe the hymn. The Pilgrims Light—song of communion, of bonds, of the long road walked together. A fitting choice, and well chosen.

  Voices joined—first scattered, then weaving, until a second ensemble rose up to catch the refrain. A choir born of hope itself, swelling until the walls shuddered with the sound.

  “Come, greet our brethren!” someone cried, and the cry became many, folding into the song like another verse. The square became one voice—of welcome, of promise, of a people choosing joy as their weapon.