A few minutes later, the Brigadier walked towards the gate holding a grimy white shirt, formerly belonging to a street lamp lighter, tied to a pole. His chest itched as he imagined a dozen guns aimed at him, any of which could end his life before he even heard the shot, but he walked steadily and with every outward appearance of confidence as if he was surrounded by a shield of steel that no bullet could penetrate. Sometimes, an uncertain enemy would back down without a shot being fired if faced down firmly and sternly. It wasn't a widely advertised fact, but bluff and bluster was one of the most effective weapons in warfare.
“Stop where you are!” a voice called out, and the Brigadier relaxed. If they were talking, they weren't going to shoot. “Tell your friends to disperse before we come out and disperse them, and we won’t be taking prisoners!”
“I came to offer you the chance to surrender,” replied the Brigadier. “As you can see, the whole city is against you. We're in no hurry. If you don't give yourselves up we’ll just starve you out. Doesn't matter to us how long it takes. Weeks, months. It’s all the same to us.”
The guard laughed. “We've got Radiants!” he said. ”What'll you do if we send them out to get you?”
“Scatter and hide,” replied the Brigadier, “But that won't do you any good. We can watch every gate from hiding. We'll see if you send anyone out, to fetch food or for any other reason, and they’ll be ambushed in the streets. No-one will return to the palace alive. Maybe you can grow crops in the palace grounds. That's the only way you'll avoid a very unpleasant death from starvation.”
“You fool!” The guard laughed. “The Radiants can bring food in, right over your heads! They can also bring in explosives and artillery, anything else we need, and when we're ready we’ll retake the city. Put down this pathetic uprising with blood and fire. Give yourselves up now before you make it worse for yourselves.”
“You think the Radiants will be willing to act as your delivery service?” asked the Brigadier. “You think they've got nothing better to do? Why should they care if you live or die? Why should they go to that much trouble for you? King Nilon's regime is over. His army has been destroyed...”
“That's a lie!” There was an edge in the man's voice that told the Brigadier that he was half ready to believe it, though. There must be rumours circulating in the palace. If ordinary citizens could receive news by pigeon from Helberion, then surely the King could as well, and although powerful people usually took precautions to prevent sensitive conversations from being overheard, accidents happened. People were occasionally careless, especially if they were under stress or in the grip of a powerful emotion. The Brigadier was heartened, therefore. He now believed that the palace was full of rumours of a massive defeat in Helberion. Whether the rumours were true, of course, was another matter.
He decided to push his luck, therefore. What mattered wasn’t the truth, so much. It was what people believed the truth to be, and that was where he had the chance to help things along a bit. “It is the truth,” he said therefore. “We are in communication with our agents in Helberion...” Not exactly a lie if a message sent by pigeon carrying third hand news counted as a communication with agents. “...and they are keeping us fully informed of events over there. Carrow's army has been destroyed and King Leothan is sending his own army to carry out a punitive strike on this city. You have nothing to stop him but a few hundred city guards armed only with sidearms. Better for you to surrender now than suffer injury or death when your palace comes under artillery fire.”
That last bit was an outright lie, of course, but lies, or disinformation as military people liked to call it, was another well established weapon in times of war. As the guards knew very well, of course. The Brigadier didn't expect them to believe him. He only wanted to sow a few seeds of doubt and he knew he had succeeded when there was a long pause before the guard spoke again, as if he and his fellows were having a furious discussion in hushed voices as to whether his outrageous claim was to be believed.
The Brigadier just stood there, therefore, radiating calm and confidence, giving the guards time to stew, but while he did so he was also keeping a careful watch on the Radiants. The six original creatures were looking agitated, he thought, although with such alien creatures it was hard to be sure. The ceaseless movement of their tentacles had increased, giving the impression of a man wringing his hands with worry, and one of them was repeatedly gaining height and dropping again, reminding the Brigadier of a man pacing back and forth across a small room. For all he knew, though, this behaviour might indicate excitement, as if they were preparing to attack the crowd, something they would enjoy immensely. There must be a torrent of telepathic communication going on between them, he thought, as they digested whatever news it was that the seventh had just brought, and he wished there were some way he could eavesdrop on it. King Nilon would be able to eavesdrop, of course. If there were some way he could arrange to speak with him, perhaps he could goad him into revealing what was going on.
“You're lying!” The guard eventually shouted back. “Tell your friends to disperse or we’ll open fire on them!”
Several of the guards emerged from the guard post, brandishing their weapons, and the Brigadier was uncomfortably aware that he was well within their range of accuracy. He lifted the white flag higher and made sure both his hands were in plain sight and a good distance away from his weapons.
“Go tell your King what I just told you,” he said. “See if he thinks I'm lying. Do you want to risk his anger when he finds out you didn't pass on my message?”
“King Nilon is in constant telegraph contact with Leothan,” the guard replied. “If you were telling the truth, Leothan would tell him personally, not leave it to a rabble of discontented no gooders. Now go away before we shoot you down like a mad dog, flag or no flag!”
The Brigadier knew a serious threat when he heard one and so he backed away, watching the guards carefully as he did so. If one of them was about to shoot him, he was pretty sure he could draw and fire with enough accuracy to kill him before he could do so. That would be the end of him, of course, as the others all fired at him, but if he was going to die here, he wasn't going to die alone. The guards knew this. The Brigadier's reputation was almost legendary, and so they all held their fire, none of them wanting to be the one to shoot first. None of them wanting to be the one that would die.
The Radiants were behind the guard post, from where the Brigadier was standing, and so he was able to keep an eye on them at the same time as he was watching the guardsmen. As he continued to back away, he saw the Radiants rise higher until one of them was hidden by a single small cloud that was floating, all alone, in the blue sky. Were they leaving? he wondered. He didn't dare hope, but as they continued to rise they began to move away, to the east, summoning a stiff breeze to speed them on their way.
“Look!” he shouted to the guards, pointing. “The Radiants are leaving!”
The guards laughed, thinking that it must be a rather obvious trick, but one of them looked in the direction the Brigadier was pointing and his shocked cry of alarm made the others look as well. Behind him, the crowd was cheering. The guards stared, aghast, unable to believe what was happening. They began arguing furiously with each other while their captain tried frantically to regain order. In the palace grounds, the Brigadier saw members of the palace staff emerging from the building, along with a couple of members of the royal family, to judge from their dress. They also stared up at the departing Radiants, clearly as astonished as everyone else.
Then another figure emerged from the palace, and the Brigadier heard a cry of astonishment coming from Princess Ardria behind him. “That's King Nilon!” she exclaimed. “The King himself! Looks like he's not happy about losing his allies.”
The Brigadier had never met King Nilon in person, but there was no mistaking the regal bearing of the man, even if the finery of his crimson and gold clothing hadn't been enough. There was also no mistaking his consternation. He was waving up at the Radiants, now nothing more than tiny points of light in the distance. Beckoning gestures, part of the universal language of all human cultures everywhere. He was also shouting. The words were impossible to make out, but they could hear his tone. His fury and his fear. The fact that he was using spoken words was telling. It meant that the Radiants were ignoring his telepathic demand to return, and if they hadn't responded to that, mere spoken words would have no effect. The Brigadier remembered hearing debates among scientific men as to whether the Radiants even had a sense of hearing.
The Brigadier cautioned himself that their departure wasn't necessarily a good thing. They were moving east, after all. That was towards the nearest Radiant territory, but it was also towards Helberion. Maybe this meant something bad for his homeland. If it was, there was nothing he could do about it, but he could use it here and now, to help their situation in Carrow.
“There is your proof!” he shouted back at the guards. “The Radiants know that your King has lost. They have cast him away, discarded him, just as the people of this city have discarded him. Where is your delivery service now? No Radiants to bring you food while we hold you under siege.”
The guards were all staring at their Captain, begging him with their eyes to tell them that it wasn't true, but he could only stare at the departing Radiants as if he thought they might suddenly return. They had almost passed out of sight now, though. The tiny points of light were only visible if you knew exactly where to look.
“Look at your King,” continued the Brigadier. “He knows it’s over. See how he begs and pleads for the creatures to return. He knows he's lost without them. You cannot win. We will place you under siege and you will starve. It may take months but eventually you will open the gates and let us in. Why not open the gates to us now and save yourselves a lot of misery?”
“You will not tempt is into treason!” the captain shouted back. “Do you think our loyalty is so weak that it can be broken by a few words from a tired, worn out soldier whose glory days are far behind him? We are loyal to King Nilon and we are with him to the end!”
Some of his men were looking less certain, though, and the Brigadier decided that he'd accomplished as much as he could for the time being. The gate guards needed time to ponder these new developments. They needed to talk it over amongst themselves, away from their Captain. He suspected that men would begin slipping away in twos and threes until the reality of their predicament would be inescapably obvious to even the staunchest of the King's supporters. That was when they would send someone out to negotiate. He turned his back on them, therefore, and returned to the Princess.