Ellingham Morosely was a big lad and would be a larger man when he was full grown.  While some might have needed a moment to break a door open, he’d needed only one thrust from his shoulder to see the frame surrender to him, and the punch he delivered to the guard that rose to challenge him was such that the man and his consciousness had been swiftly parted before he even hit the ground.  But though he was a big lad, he wasn’t the best when it came to a fight and as the others in the room moved to swarm him, he relented and fell back.

That was when the rest of the gang entered.

It had been too long since Brentley Wolsingham was in an earnest fight, but that was what the boys in the bar gave him.  His lip had been busted and his right hand was certain to heal a little queerly for all the strikes that had come and gone, but by the end of the brawl there were bloodied bats in the hands of his men and the others were cast to the ground, tied up and kept from interfering in what was to come.

“Alright, boys, you know what to do.  We want it clean and fast.  No reason to have anyone suffering for another man’s actions.”  

Those same bats, bloodied by the men that had stood against him, were used to smash the drinks that lined the area behind the bar of the Queen’s Club.  Brentley walked idly through the wreckage and stopped short of one man, whose eyes had come open and who stared at him with bewilderment and confusion written across his bloodied face.

“But you’re one of us,” the man stammered. Brentley crouched down and touched his chin, turning it this way and that.  He couldn’t have been more than two decades old if a day, but he’d seen enough of the world to know how to hold a sword or a gun if he was told to. After considering that, Brentley removed his cigarette to expel a cloud of smoke down on him. “You’re not one of mine.  I know my men.  I’d never abandon them.   If fate favored you, then you would have been one of them.”  He removed another cigarette from his pocket, a personally rolled piece of rationed tobacco that had been favored during the civil war, and placed it within the man’s mouth.  

“But why? We’re – we work together.” “Worked together,” Brentley corrected.  “You’re not from ‘round here are you, lad?” “N-no, I’m not.” “Have you ever heard of the Folahm?” “The pikers? – I mean…” “No, you have it true.  Pikers, punters, prostitutes – whatever you want to call them, that’s what my people were.  Nothing but a lot of layabouts what did what they wanted and didn’t let anyone tell them what to do.  Do you know where they are now?” “I mean, I don’t…” “Dead.  Wiped out.  Folahm, it’s an empty word now.  But that’s what it is and that’s what my boys are, lad.  We’re empty.  Sometimes, it’s better to do what you’re told.”

He patted his cheek before standing and looking over the bar again.  “Alright, that’s enough of that.  Ellingham, bring it in.  No need to wait any longer.”  The large lad nodded his head and disappeared out the door.  As he did so, Brentley began toward it while his men filed out swiftly.

The Queen’s Club had at one time been Loryn’s Pub, which belonged to a man that found himself first in Gideon’s debt and then his employ.  When the Queen’s Gilnean Legion came to Northwold, it was only too convenient for Lord Bankston to see his newly made thugs to a proper task of setting to work on those that had trespassed against him.  Perhaps their methods had been a bit stark and senseless, but the Queen’s Club was given to them and a friendship was forged.  It stood cold and aloof among its peers, no less imperious than the stone faced bitch it was named for – as likely to invite someone into its arms as it was to turn them away.  It was only a shame that it was time for that lady to be taught a lesson in respect, but that was something out of his hands.

“But why, we didn’t do nothing foul to you,” the man who he’d spoken to called out after him.  Brentley stopped and fitted his hands into the pockets of the coat that hung over him near as long as the reaper’s robes.

“What’s your name, lad?” “Godfrey.” “Godfrey, you had a choice to make some time ago.  Might not have realized it was your choice at the time, but you made it.  You picked up a sword – you picked up a gun, or a bow, or whatever it is you kill a man with, and you said that you’d follow your leader until the end.”  The cigarette was removed again as he shared a bit more smoke with the darkened establishment. “The end’s come sooner than you expected, that’s all.”

Upon hearing that the men inside began to struggle all the more against their bonds, but it didn’t matter.  Ellingham came back into the room, rolling a barrel before himself.  When stopped, Brentley took the crowbar from him and saw it opened.  The blackened powder within it spilled out, and he used his foot to drag it deeper inside.  

“You can’t do this! We’re the Queen’s bloody Gilnean Legion!” A soft, mordant chuckle left Brentley at that before he shook his head. “Head out, Ellingham.  This is the Queen’s bloody Legion we’re dealing with.  They’re about to make a bloody mess.”

There were more cries that were to follow that, but it didn’t matter.  Brentley struck his match, the same as he had done dozens of times before, and let the thing rest on the edge of a table.  Eventually it would fall.  Eventually, the lesson would be learned.

It was not until they were across from the club that Ellingham spoke up.  “But he was sort of right, wasn’t he?  I mean, he didn’t make no choice to betray or nothing.”

“My grandfather was a king among the Falohm, they said.  Came to work for baron’s father as a bear tamer.  Know how he did it?” Ellingham shook his head, so he went on. “People ‘round these parts though it was magic, but it was nothing so spectacular.  He’d take something the bear loved: its cub, and kill it right in front of its face.  All of its life, a bear’s known to use its strength to get what it wants, but that didn’t much matter when it was chained.  So it’d exhaust itself, roar and spit, and do all it could to get free.  But from day to day, it’d just have to look at its dead cub there – lifeless, unable to help it.

“Eventually it’d resign itself and that was when he did what he needed to do.  He’d break it down all the way so it knew that no matter what it did, it’d never be able to challenge him.”

Ellingham rubbed his brow at that. “But Romel’s not a bear.” “No, not half as strong, but he’s near as dumb.  He thought he could hedge his bets after failing Lord Bankston.  This’ll remind him that even if he runs, he’s not so far out of our grasp that we can’t reach him.”

The explosion came without warning.  To those that had never seen such a thing, there was a supposition that when something exploded it expanded outward and that was that.  But it was a religious thing – an experience that denied even Brentley’s cynical view of the world.  From the first time he had set to destroying a foundation he had known there was something otherworldly in inviting hell into the living world, but that was what it was.  The flames that leapt into the air carried with them the souls of those slain, and as it rose above all else within the row of buildings, his eyes for once found some purpose within them.  There would be screaming from those that weren’t killed immediately.  Missing limbs, broken body parts.  The sounds were a reminder, but the flash of heat that washed over him was like a kiss from an old lover.

He watched, with waning emotion, as the building fell into nothingness and the wreckage of man and monument became one beneath Northwold’s skies.  

“Whatever happened to him?” Ellingham asked him as the fires fell back upon themselves and the cries of those injured met with the air.