As soon as the words spilled from the scouts’ lips, Sandon recognized the situation for exactly what it was: a trap.

Even a fool could see the edges of the deception, and the more the scout babbled, the more convinced Sandon became.

The man reported that the rebels had meticulously spread the grain into dozens of smaller, separate piles across the city squares. It was a queer way to handle a burning; if it was truly ash that the Lord of Epietoli desired, one great mountain of wheat and a single torch would have sufficed. By separating the stores, they were intentionally slowing the destruction, making it look as though the prize could still be saved if only the royal host arrived in time.

It was as plain as the sky. A lure. A trap.

However, it seemed the dear Lord of LemonTree had taken leave of his wits. Ober raised his sword, a blade he would have been better off using to trim those yellow whiskers than to spur an army, and his eyes went wide with a frantic, greedy light as he gave orders.

The wrong ones.

Some of the lords attempted to drag him back to reason. Sandon’s own father, Marox of Gegiodupi, warned that the move was too transparent. The Lord of Presoncu argued that they would surely be set upon while they were disorganized on the road. That lord’s son, Loris Silver-Axe, pointed out that not even a madman would starve his own garrison by burning every grain of wheat during a siege. Even Ober’s eldest son gave his father a look of profound doubt.

Lord Ober would have none of it. To Marox, he cried "craven." To Presoncu, he snapped that the road was nothing but open plains and that an ambush would have an easier time flying than hiding. To the Silver-Axe, he barked that what seemed sound to him was lunacy to that madman. Finally, he leveled a stare at his own heir that silenced the young man more effectively than a clout behind his ear.

The anxiety radiating from the Lemon Lord was far greater than the situation warranted. No doubt the Great Prince of Kakunia had promised him a reward beyond his wildest dreams if he delivered both the city and the stores intact. It was a fool’s errand; Ober had already neglected to search for the Prince’s missing son in his haste to reach Ricorum. What use would the Prince have for grain if his heir was lost?

But logic could not reach a mind clouded by whatever thing was promised him. Ober shouted for the army to make haste. He personally took command of the vanguard, ordering the strongest horses to be hitched to the water-barrel carts and sent thundering forward.

The knights spurred their mounts into a gallop, the heavy clatter of hooves drowned out by the rattling of the water wagons that were linked to the strongest horses they had. The footmen were left behind, a trail of dust marking their slower pace as the cavalry surged forward.

Dirt and dust rose by their frantic ride. Horses neighed and armor clinked. Along the way indeed they saw black smoke rising toward the air, like a stick floating above a lake of grey.

They separated further and further from the main force, behind them the carts and even further all the footmen. The scouts had said that only few of the piles were getting burnt so no doubt Lord Ober inteded to reach the piles before the enemy could burnt it wholly.

The rebels were practically begging for them to get to them as fast as they could.Not really a smart choice, but one that worked only because fools were given leave to command when they should had been given leave to get mold in their beds.

As Sandon rode, he looked out over the terrain. Lord Ober had been right about one thing: the land was a vast, unbroken expanse of plains. They could see for leagues in every direction, and the grass was too short to hide even a dog, let alone an army. They saw nothing. No hidden pikes, no waiting riders, no shimmering steel, just the empty, fields all the way to the grey walls of the castle-city of Ricorum.

Indeed what the scouts had reported was precisely what they found. Dozens upon dozens of small, neatly spaced crates and sacks, filled with grain, flour, salted jerky, and potatoes, stood scattered across the plain between the royal vanguard and the looming castle.

Only a third of the piles had been set to the torch, and as the royal knights arrived, there wasn’t a rebel in sight to finish the task.

Strange, Sandon thought, his eyes darting across the field. The logical move for Merelao would have been an ambush. He could have built the piles taller, hiding horses and men behind the walls of crates to spring out when the royals were disordered and distracted. He could have snatched Lord Ober himself, which, Sandon mused, might have been more of a boon to their cause than a curse.

But the Lemon Lord was too busy sighing in relief. He was already barking orders to his sixty knights, his anxiety replaced by the smug satisfaction of a merchant who had saved his inventory. Sandon ignored him, turning his gaze toward the battlements of Ricorum. They were a hundred meters off, well within the range of a longbow, yet the walls were silent. There was no glint of spear-tips, no shifting of armor in the embrasures.

The castle was unmanned.

Sandon scanned the horizon. It was all open plain; there was no forest to hide a reserve, no dip in the earth to mask a flank. Had the enemy retreated? Why leave the food half-burnt? The math didn’t add up until the heavy timber of the city gates suddenly groaned and burst open revealing the answer he searched.

Lord Ober’s son had been right: Merelao was alone, deep in enemy territory, outnumbered and abandoned. Every man on the plain knew it. Merelao knew it. But what only the "Mad Bull" seemed to realize was that he didn’t care.

In a world where valor was being suffocated by cold logistics and backroom deals, the rebels were doing the unthinkable.

They lit the way that had been spurned in darkness for decades.

Outnumbered, out-horsed, and out-knighted, Lord Merelao, the legitimate heir to the Kakunian throne, was not hunkering down behind stone, but instead chose to do the unnimaginable.

He charged.

A maniple of knights sallied from the gates, hooves thundering past the moat that had been filled for this moment. So valiant in their will, so brave in their action.

They weren’t close enough for a true surprise; the royals had plenty of time to dress their lines and counter-charge.

It was just so....fair?

They could have at least loosed a volley of arrows to thin their ranks before charging to tilt the odds to their sides, gods knew how much unfavored they were.

The knights stood paralyzed, struck by a sight they hadn’t seen in an age.

It was a display of suicidal chivalry that made the breath catch in Sandon’s throat. The enemy charged with lances leveled and couched, feet braced in the stirrups, backs leaned into the gallop to better weight their strikes.

At the head of the wedge rode a single man who defied the formation. His lance was not yet leveled; instead, he rode with a wild, terrifying grace. His boots stood atop the stirrup until his ass rose from the saddle, catching the wind as if daring it to bring on his challenge.

A red crimson cape fluttered behind him like the mane of a hunting beast. Trumped from the walls signalled before his grand advance.

His armor was a shining gold that that was worthy of adorning a prince.

But his helmet... his helmet was a nightmare made sun.

The golden horns rose like silver-tipped lightning against the gray sky, but as the distance closed, the illusion of the Royal Bull shattered. A bull did not possess those predatory maws; a bull’s skull was not so triangular, so wide, so terrifyingly lean.

The realization rippled through the Ser Sandor like a cold current.

It was a horned snake...

Merelao had taken the proud heraldry of his house and twisted it with the very nightmare that had defined him. Every soul on that field, from the lowest page to the highest lord, knew the tale. They knew he had been bitten by a serpent in the deep brush, depositing all of his evil inside a boy of thirteen.

They knew that boy had wandered the threshold of the grave, and that he had returned with his mind fractured and his spirit tempered in venom.

Now, the thing that had been spat back from death’s door was charging toward them, laughing as he rode like a storm.

Ser Sandon felt a strange, electric thrill bypass his fear. In a world of ledgers and grain-stores, this was a ghost of an age long forgotten. He reached up, his gauntlet rasping against his helmet as he slammed his visor shut. The world became a narrow slit of gray earth and gold-horned steel.

What valor, Sandon thought, his own pulse thundering in his ears. And if not valor... then that ought to be a madness so beautiful it commands the sun to stay still.

The royal knights remained paralyzed for a heartbeat longer, caught in the thrall of the dream Merelao had resurrected. They were staring at a legend in motion, a man who had discarded the safety of his walls for the purity of the lance-point.

"Merelao!"

Lord Ober’s screech finally broke the spell. The Lemon Lord fumbled with his reins, his yellow-dyed plate rattling like a bag of tin coins as he teetered in his saddle, recoiling from the sight of the approaching horned and snarling serpent.

He finally found his voice.

"Formation! Level lances! Charge the rebel! Bring me his head!"

The command was given, and the earth groaned under the sudden, violent shift of weight. Seventy royal knights dug their rowels into their horses’ flanks, a wall of steel surging forward to meet the wedge of less than thirty.

Across the shrinking expanse of the plain,where the rhythmic, bone-shaking thunder of hooves, the frantic neighing of stallions, the clatter of wood on iron, and the hungry caw of ravens circling above rang, one sound rose above the cacophony, cutting through the roar of the wind and the clank of armor: a sound that chilled the blood of every man present.

It was a lone, melodic laugh, rich with a terrifying jolliness.

And indeed jolly it was for Merelao was the one laughing.

He was laughing at the odds, laughing at the steel, and laughing at the very gods who had tried to claim him once before and in failed made him stronger.

This , indeed, was where he belonged.