Danka26

The Girl with No Name

Chapter Twenty-Six ï¿½ The Witness

The Defenders crossed into the Lord of the Blue Moon's territory the day before Good Friday, 1758. The force consisted of 2600 mounted raiders, musketeers, nymphs, and even several cannons. Additionally, there were wagon trains bringing along enough supplies to travel as far as a crossroads south of Malï¿½nkta-Gordnï¿½ckta. The Grand Duke promised to dispatch additional supplies from the border town, but the help would not include any regular troops. Danka realized the Sovereign would help the Defenders in case they did, by some miracle, have a chance of taking Sumy Ris, but secretly he did not expect them to win.

On the southern shore of the river that formed the border between the Duchy and the Kingdom, the Defenders celebrated Easter. The dispirited local populace watched from a distance as the Danubians burned four screaming captured priests and their women danced naked around the huge bonfire. The invaders spent the next day passing out loaves of bread and dried river fish to hundreds of starving bystanders, feeding them to mock the story out of the Christian New Testament. An officer who spoke the Kingdom of the Moon's language shouted:

"The Roman God and his executed son cannot feed you, so it was our Path in Life to give you this meal! Remember, in your prayers, who fed you and who did not!"

The Defenders' journey to their first objective, the crossroads south of Malï¿½nkta-Gordnï¿½ckta, proved more difficult than the easy ride-through the previous summer. The Lord of the Blue Moon's army had partially recovered from the previous year's defeats and was strong enough to engage the Danubians. There were a series of small battles as the Danubians worked their way westward, which resulted in 50 killed and 120 injured. The musketeers and archers were not as affected by injuries as were the cavalrymen. Ominously, the Defenders already had lost a third of their best horsemen even before reaching the rendezvous point. The cannons were not as useful as the commander had anticipated because they took too long to set up. The sling bombs were not being deployed because the commander wanted to hold on to that secret for the final assault on Sumy Ris.

The Defenders were enormously relieved to see the Grand Duke's supply expedition, after having spent nearly two weeks fighting skirmish after skirmish. The Defenders' commander ordered all of the wounded to return north with the Grand Duke's army. After the regular soldiers departed, the invaders rested a day before continuing westward to their objective. Their morale greatly improved when the harassing attacks from the Lord of the Blue Moon's troops became less frequent. They passed through countryside that was completely depopulated and vacant, the contested zone that had been repeatedly devastated by war and invasions over the past four years.

The Lord of the Blue Moon's troops fell back, but not because the Defenders were too strong for them. The eastern enemy would shadow the Danubians to see what happened when they entered the Lord of the Red Moon's territory. Meanwhile, they would wait for supplies and re-enforcements. The Lord of the Blue Moon had learned from his past reckless mistakes and actually had a sound strategy regarding the Danubian invasion. He would wait to see if there was a major battle between the Danubians and the rival faction, then, assuming the victorious army was severely weakened, would attack the winners with his forces intact. The Lord of the Red Moon had decided on the same strategy. He would allow the Danubians to advance, see if the Blue Moon column attacked them, then order his men to assault whoever remained alive. So, the Defenders continued their advance towards Sumy Ris, aware of the two armies following them but mistakenly assuming neither was strong enough to launch an attack.

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On May 11th, the Defenders approached a town called Aksheriri Ris. The location was significant because it was inside the Lord of the Red Moon's territory and was only a day's journey east of the former Danubian capitol. In fact, from its hilltop it was possible to see the upper part of the watchtower overlooking Sumy Ris.

Commander Sï¿½upeckt knew that he had to capture Aksheriri Ris before proceeding to his main objective, to use it as a base of operations if at all possible. Aksheriri Ris was not very large, but its location was much more defensible than the flat farmland surrounding Sumy Ris. It sat on top of a hill and was partially surrounded by a small river that had cut a row of steep cliffs to the south and the west, so it could only be approached from the east or north. The town was much newer than Sumy Ris. During Danubian times it had been the site of a large seminary, but after 1502 the Ottomans tore down the seminary and used the location as a defensible place to store trading goods. There were some solidly-built warehouses around a market, along with a central plaza and a large mosque that was demolished after the Kingdom of the Moon became independent from the Ottoman Empire. The most important structure (apart from the ruined mosque) was an Ottoman-built garrison building, on the far northwest side of the town.

At one time the place must have been attractive, but in 1758 Aksheriri Ris was not in good condition. The town already was damaged from the war of independence and also from a raid the previous year by the Kingdom's rival faction. Only about half of the houses were occupied and the remaining inhabitants had partially dismantled the others for building supplies. The city had a wall facing the northern and eastern approaches, but the wall had collapsed in several places, leaving large gaps through which an enemy could easily enter. The Lord of the Red Moon's army had dug some trenches and built cannon emplacements over the past winter, but in May of 1758 there were not enough men to guard them. There were three guarded gates, to the east, northeast, and north that the residents still used out of habit, but there were plenty of other gaps where a person could freely walk into or out of the town.

Aksheriri Ris had a garrison of several hundred troops from the Red Moon army and about half of the civilian population was still living there. The place definitely was not abandoned and would have to be taken by force. When he saw the garrison, Commander Sï¿½upeckt suddenly realized how precarious his situation had become because the Danubians would not be able to take Aksheriri Ris without suffering significant losses. They would not be at full strength to assault Sumy Ris and there were two enemy armies of unknown size lurking nearby. Ilmï¿½tarkt commented to Danka that he had sat in on some of the commander's planning sessions and the other officers seemed very aware that capturing and holding onto Sumy Ris with 2500 troops was unrealistic, especially if the Danubians felt it was necessary to hold onto a second town and split their forces.

Under the circumstances the Defenders would have been better off bypassing Aksheriri Ris and trying to flee northward towards the Duchy. However, doing so would have entailed battling in the open with the forces of the Lord of the Red Moon and there was no guarantee the Danubians could hold off a sustained attack. Also, the majority of the Defenders were not yet aware how precarious their situation had become, but they would find out soon enough if they had to withdraw under constant assaults. There was another reason the commander decided not to retreat. During the previous summer he had defeated a force ten times the size of his own with his secret weapon: the sling-bombs. The Kingdom of the Moon factions would face a horrible surprise the first time he deployed them. If he chose the right moment and the Defenders killed enough of the enemy, it was possible the superior numbers of the enemy troops would not matter.

Commander Sï¿½upeckt decided a withdrawal was too risky and that if events went his way, it still might be possible to capture Sumy Ris. It would be better to occupy Aksheriri Ris, claim a victory, send word to the Grand Duke that the Defenders had captured a strategic town, and hope the Royal Army would enter the Kingdom to assist with the assault against Sumy Ris. Ilmï¿½tarkt and Danka knew that Commander Sï¿½upeckt was too caught up is his own fantasies to realize the Grand Duke would fully understand what really was going on: that the Defenders were cornered and faced imminent defeat.

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The assault on the town went as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The cannon crews finally proved their usefulness by dueling with the garrison's cannons and providing cover for the musketeers rushing through the gaps in the wall to enter the town. The Danubians swept into the unmanned trenches and used them for concealment and cover as they advanced on the town. The trenches were deep enough for the Danubian cannon crews to haul in their guns and direct them against the Red Moon troops at very short range. The townsfolk watched in dismay as fortifications they had worked on all winter ended up aiding the Danubians instead of the town's garrison, by allowing the enemy to easily bypass the outer defenses. With minimal opposition, the Danubians emerged from the trenches and charged through the walls. Danubian musketeers attacked the poorly-organized locals, driving them back while archers entered the houses and took over the upper floors. Families of terrified civilians added to the confusion and greatly complicated the operation.

The Danubians needed to clear out the local population, but did not want to do so by killing them. (The relative goodwill was not just because the Danubians were not accustomed to killing non-combatants: showing mercy towards the locals also would mean having to deal with far fewer rotting bodies once the town was under Danubian control.) When they took over the eastern gate, the militia ordered the nymphs to start chasing the town's non-combatants towards that exit. Amazed that they weren't being targeted for killing, thousands of panicky civilians rushed out, directed by strange half-naked women screaming in a foreign language and pointing crossbows at them.

Meanwhile, the city's garrison fought bravely, but they were badly outnumbered. The two remaining gates fell, followed by the warehouses. The militia turned the cannons around and used them against the Ottoman garrison building. When the building collapsed and the Danubians killed off the remaining enemy troops, the fighting ended. After a full day of chaotic and brutal combat, Aksheriri Ris came under Danubian control, for the first time in 250 years.

The Defenders had taken the town and could set up defensive positions, but it was clear to everyone they were in deep trouble. A fourth of the attackers had been killed or injured, which reduced the number of troops available for combat to 1700. Like their predecessors, they did not have enough men to guard the outer trenches and there was no reason a new group of assailants couldn't use them exactly in the same way the Danubians had used them. So, Commander Sï¿½upeckt ordered the unfortunate civilians who had not managed to evacuate to go outside and fill in holes they had spent all winter digging. Filling in the trenches would clear the field of vision and ensure no one could approach by using them as cover. Dalibora watched the operation with dismay. "We need to be using those defenses, not covering them up."

The medical staff set up an infirmary in one of the storehouses and spent the next several days operating on dozens of seriously injured patients. The medical team, in spite of being well-prepared, used up all their supplies. Horrid memories of the wounded from the battles of 1754 entered Danka's thoughts as she worked on dozens of equally hideous injuries in Aksheriri Ris. The mortality rate in the infirmary was very high, because Danka and one of the doctors quietly poisoned any patient they thought would not recover.

At the end of the second day in the captured town, the commander of the squad in charge of the sling-bombs moved his entire stock into a small storeroom inside the infirmary building. His reasoning was that the infirmary was the most defensible building now that the Ottoman garrison fort was ruined and the most likely place the Defenders would make their last stand. The doctors normally would have been very nervous about having high-explosives kept among their patients, but it was true that, because the patients could not easily move, it made sense to keep the most important means of defense in the same location.

Danka and her husband looked at the stacked boxes of sling-bombs, to make sure they were secured and none would fall and set off the others. At that moment the couple realized a horrible fact. The only reason the Defenders were attempting to capture Sumy Ris was because Commander Sï¿½upeckt had taken control of the militia and was using it to pursue his own dream instead of protecting the Duchy. The only reason he had taken control over the entire militia was because his unit won an impressive battle the previous summer. The only reason he won that battle was because of the bomb-formula provided by Danka and the design improvement provided by her husband.

Danka looked back at the room full of mutilated patients.

"This is our doing, yours and mine. We'll have a lot to answer for when we hold up our mirrors."

Ilmï¿½tarkt thought about arguing that only the commander was to blame, but he knew his wife was right. What could he say? They were trying to do the right thing, just trying to help the militia win its battles. How badly their efforts had failed.

"There's a saying... from the True Believers. 'The path to the Domain of Beelzebub is paved with the cobblestones of the kind actions of the righteous.' I guess the Destroyer understood that."

It was frightening to hear Ilmï¿½tarkt talk like that. He had always been so confident everything had a reasonable explanation and the deities were just the result of wishful thinking. That confidence in his own intellect and his unusual beliefs seemed to have vanished.

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While Danka spent her time with the medical staff, events outside were moving quickly. Commander Sï¿½upeckt sent out messengers with the cheery news that Aksheriri Ris was firmly under Danubian control and that the Defenders were fully ready to assist the Royal Army in an assault against Sumy Ris. In other words, the hidden meaning of the message was that the militia did not have the strength to take Sumy Ris by themselves and would need back-up.

Historical records from the period indicate the Grand Duke was extremely irritated at the situation and at himself for allowing it to happen. Nevertheless, he did lead an expeditionary force to help the militia. Its purpose would not be to do anything about Sumy Ris, but instead to rescue as many Defenders as possible. The sovereign understood that to do nothing while loyal militia fighters were defeated and slaughtered would make him lose honor among his subjects. However, as soon as everyone returned to the Duchy, the Grand Duke would make the Defenders pay for their folly by disarming and disbanding their units.

Meanwhile, the Lord of the Red Moon decided that allowing the Danubians to continue their occupation of Aksheriri Ris was intolerable. Yes, it would be possible to simply wait and starve them out, but the Lord of the Red Moon was not the type of leader who was willing to wait more than a few weeks. He decided to order his army forward and launch an assault to re-take the town. By the beginning of June he was able to gather 6000 troops for the assault, which was more than three times the number the Danubians had to defend themselves. However, 6000 Red Moon troops in 1758 were not the same impressive fighting force 6000 Red Moon troops would have been in 1754. The Red Moon Army was ragged and disorganized, having lost most of their best troops and officers years before.

When the Red Moon Army pushed forward, they ran into many problems, including getting stuck in the loose dirt of the freshly filled trenches. Still, it appeared they would overwhelm the Defenders by sheer numbers. When the Red Moon troops recaptured the northeast gate, Commander Sï¿½upeckt realized he could not wait any longer to use his secret weapon, the sling bombs. The Danubians hurled the explosives at the assailants and killed enough of them to force a chaotic retreat. The gate was back under Danubian control, but the Red Moon Army was not defeated and now they knew the Danubians' secret. The Red Moon commanders also knew how to defeat that secret, by firing volleys at anyone using a sling or carrying a small wooden box. When their musketeers finally managed to shoot one of the Danubian bomb-throwers, he fell off a rooftop and the explosion from the bomb he was about to throw and extra one he was carrying destroyed the gate along with two cannons and killed dozens of Defenders. As soon as the smoke cleared enough to see what they were doing, the enemy troops surged past the wreckage and entered the town.

Dalibora showed up at the infirmary to order Danka to join the rest of the squad in the defense of the town center. Danka reluctantly left her husband, suspecting it would be the last time she would ever see him. She wanted to kiss him goodbye, but Dalibora was yelling at her to move out.

The nymphs moved about the upper floors of buildings and houses as they hunted and engaged enemy troops who were fighting to get into the city. The women had to expose themselves to enemy fire whenever they tried to jump from one rooftop to the next, but were greatly assisted by smoke from muskets and burning houses, which provided concealment. However, needing to avoid the numerous thatched roofs of shoddily-repaired buildings and avoiding slippery tiles of many others horribly complicated their efforts to move about quickly. The archers aimed at their targets in the streets below and the enemy musket-men fired back, every so often hitting a nymph and sending her tumbling onto the ground. Within an hour both Dalibora and Oana had lost half their squad-members.

The Defenders fell back. Already half of the town was back under the control of the Lord of the Red Moon's troops and they were setting up to re-capture some of the larger buildings in the town center. The next large round of shooting, however, came from the east, outside the town. The attention of the Red Moon soldiers suddenly shifted to counter a cavalry charge by the rival Blue Moon soldiers as they attacked and raided the cannon crews of the Lord of the Red Moon's men. The assault was a daring one, meant to silence the Red Moon cannons so the Army of the Lord of the Blue Moon could advance unimpeded towards the town. The civil war reignited as the Red Moon soldiers withdrew from their more advanced positions in town to counter the approaching threat from outside. It turned out the Lord of the Blue Moon's commanders had decided to advance towards the city, but the rival faction had moved in prematurely, because the Danubians had not yet been defeated. The Defenders took advantage of the dubious respite to consolidate their positions around the mayor's residence and the town's armory while the Kingdom's soldiers fought each other. However, some of the Defenders were not able to withdraw and had to fight in place until they were killed.

The night that followed was the most nightmarish of Danka's life, a night in which she saw the Destroyer exercise total control over human beings. There was a chaotic three-way battle between the Danubians, the Red Moon faction, and the Blue Moon faction. Inside Aksheriri Ris, most of the fighting was between the Danubians and troops from the Red Moon Army. Outside, along the slope leading away from the town, the fighting was mostly between Red Moon soldiers and the Blue Moon soldiers. The only light was from explosions and burning buildings, so as the night wore on the fighting consisted of increasingly chaotic clashes between squad-sized units battling enemies they could barely see.

The Red Moon faction consolidated its control of the east gate and its cannons. As soon as the unit's commanders could bring up some cannon crews, the guns fired into the area still held by the Danubians. There were several explosions around the government area of the town. Then Danka saw the infirmary blow up. A cannonball or shell must have hit the room where the sling-bombs were being kept and set them off. Following a massive explosion that sent debris raining over the surrounding area, the building completely collapsed into burning wreckage. If Ilmï¿½tarkt was still in there (which was extremely likely) she had just become a widow.

Before Danka had time to mourn her husband, Dalibora's calf was shattered by a musket-ball and she tumbled to a balcony before falling to the street. Danka and the remaining nymphs had to go down and rescue her, because it was obvious she was still alive and must not be captured. When the women got to her, she was bleeding profusely and it was obvious her leg was badly hurt. Danka tore off her own skirt and ripped it into strips to make a tourniquet. The surviving nymphs, joined by a squad of Danubian musket-men, covered Danka and another squad member as they dragged Dalibora towards a stone house. They laid her on the floor and Danka more closely examined the wound. The bone was shattered. There was no question the leg would have to be amputated, but Danka did not have access to surgery equipment. All she had was a pouch of morphine and some other medicines to sedate injured patients.

Oana showed up, dragging in a member of her squad who had been shot in the chest. Danka cursed herself, because in the past she had successfully operated on a similar injury, but at that moment she did not have the equipment. Without surgery was not likely the second patient would survive very long. Danka's only option was to sedate her and try to control the bleeding.

The noise of battle continued outside, but Danka was out of the fight. Her quiver was empty and somehow her crossbow had broken. Even if she had crossbow bolts, she wouldn't have been able to use them. She was naked, having given up her skirt to make the tourniquet for Dalibora. Her husband was most likely dead. Her squad leader would never walk again, even assuming she could be operated on before her wound festered. She was in a wrecked stone house with two dying patients she could not treat, in a ruined town deep inside enemy territory.

For a while nothing happened. She peered outside and saw no living soldiers, but there were several dead men from the Red Moon faction lying on the street. Danka's heart jumped into her throat. Red Moon soldiers had been fighting right outside the house. Had they taken the city? The noise of battle had subsided, but by dawn break it increased again. From what Danka was able to hear from her location, it seemed the fighting from the east had died down and the new fighting was to the north, and perhaps not even in the city. Then the firing from the east picked up again.

Oana suddenly banged on the door and called out to Danka to let her in. She dragged in another nymph who had a serious head injury. A quick look at the new patient told Danka she was mortally wounded. Dalibora weakly asked what was going on. Oana paused for a moment, as though she were trying to decide whether to tell the truth or a lie. Finally she responded:

"Nothing's going on. The Red Moons are still in the outer part of the city, but we've pushed them back somewhat." Oana turned to Danka. "Make sure you keep this door barred and don't go out. No matter what you hear or think you're hearing, do not open this door and don't go out. I'll come back when it's safer."

"Can you at least get me a weapon? I don't have any bolts and my crossbow is broken."

"That's your fault. And no, I don't carry around extra weapons to pass out to dishonored careless fools. Now bar the door and don't go outside until I come back."

The battle sounds continued for a while. Danka thought she could hear "DOC-DOC DANUBE! ... DOC-DOC DANUBE! ... DOC-DOC DANUBE! ..." in the distance, but figured it must have been her imagination. The shooting from the north stopped, but there seemed to be a lot of shouting and movement outside. Then that stopped as well. There was more shooting from the direction of the wrecked garrison building and muffled screaming. There was a long period of relative silence, occasionally interrupted by a shot or a scream. Later, in the afternoon, there was another round of shooting near the warehouses and marketplace. Several squads of cavalrymen rode by the house. Later, a group of foreigners stopped outside the door and chatted for a bit before moving away. Danka felt sick. The Red Moon army must have retaken Aksheriri Ris. She looked around the house for women's clothing, but there was nothing. Whatever clothing the owners had they would have taken with them when they evacuated.

She noted a ladder going up to a loft, and another leading to a hatch door in the roof. Maybe she could go up to the roof and observe what was happening in the town. The house was close to the highest point on the hill and its roof stood above the rooftops of the nearby houses, so she had a panoramic view of both the city and the countryside beyond. When she looked to the north, in the distance she saw a large column of troops headed in the direction of the Duchy. She then heard series of horrific screams and some cruel laughter. She looked towards the mayor's residence and saw that the banner flying over the building was from the Blue Moon faction, not the Red Moon faction. Apparently the Lord of the Blue Moon had taken control of the city.

She looked again at the retreating column. Were they Danubian? Was it possible the Grand Duke's regular army did show up to evacuate the surviving Defenders? That would have explained the "DOC-DOC DANUBE! ... DOC-DOC DANUBE! ... DOC-DOC DANUBE! ..." she had heard earlier. But then...why would Oana not have returned to tell her and the others to leave with everyone else? Was it possible that Oana was killed? Or was it possible that she knew about the evacuation? Danka's mind went over the last conversation with her. She seemed to be hiding something. She had repeatedly told Danka not to look outside until she came back. The horrible thought came into her consciousness that Oana had deliberately left her and Dalibora behind, but why would she do that?

Dalibora weakly called out to her. Danka descended the ladder. Dalibora was conscious and in a lot of pain. Danka administered some morphine and the squad leader asked what was going on. As best she could, Danka described what she saw from the rooftop. The squad leader agreed there must have been an evacuation, that Oana knew about it, and out of pure spite, did not tell the rescuers about Danka and her three patients.

"Remember... Oana has the Destroyer in her soul. I'm not surprised. Not at all. She hated both of us and blamed us for her squad being taken away last year. She wanted revenge, and now she got it."

"But...she'd hate us that much... to leave us to be impaled?"

"She hates us that much, Defender Danka. She hates us that much."

"So what do we do?"

Dalibora thought for a moment before responding. She weakly sat up to look at her leg.

"You know... I'm still your commanding officer."

"Yes."

"You are sworn to obey me."

"Yes, I'm sworn to obey you."

"Then I am ordering to you poison me. And I'm ordering you to poison the others. I don't want to be in the Realm of the Living when the foreigners break down that door. As soon as my soul separates from my body, you will escape. Somehow you will sneak out of this cursed town and somehow you will return to the Duchy. When you return, you will find Oana. Those are my last orders."

"But..."

"I am ordering you to poison me. I am ordering you to separate my soul from my body. What part of that don't you understand?"

Danka prepared a fatal dose of sedative. There was a barrel of rainwater and a cracked cup with which she could administer it. She held Dalibora's hand while holding the cup to her mouth. It took about a minute for Dalibora's eyes to roll up slightly and her grip to loosen. Danka administered another dose to the woman with the chest wound. She looked at the woman with the head injury. She was unconscious and it was clear she was dying, so Danka did not bother trying to poison her. She glanced again at her dead squad leader.

A loud bang on the door made her jump. She heard shouting in the Kingdom's language and another bang. Dropping her medicine pouch, she rushed up the ladder and pushed open the hatch, just as the main door crashed open. A squad of Blue Moon troops entered the house as Danka exited and moved away from the opening. The course thatch dug into her unprotected skin, but that was the least of her worries. She lay flat as the hatch opened and a man looked both ways to make sure no one was on the roof. Fortunately he did not climb up to check the other side, so Danka stayed hidden. She watched the troops haul out the three corpses and toss them onto the street below.

From her vantage point Danka watched the enemy soldiers leave the house. One soldier marked the door with a piece of chalk to indicate the house had been checked and cleared. Danka crept back towards the hatch. If at all possible, she had to get back inside. She would be spotted on the roof as soon as someone happened to glance in her direction. It turned out all the soldiers had indeed left. She decided to stay in the loft in case anyone came back in and wait for nightfall before attempting to escape.

She looked at the bloodstains on the floor where her companions had died. She mourned the fact their bodies had been tossed outside, to lie in the street until someone came along and loaded them into a garbage wagon. They would not be given proper burials and would not be given mirrors, so they'd have nothing to hold up before the Creator in the Afterlife. As for her husband, and the other doctors, and all of their patients, not even bodies were left, given the force of the explosion and the fire that had destroyed the infirmary. She wondered how the Creator handled such situations.

For the first time, Danka prayed directly to the Destroyer. Very well, you've made me your witness. You've denied my desire to die with my companions. You've taken my husband. Now what? If you want me to escape and bear witness, how am I supposed to do that?

Danka waited in silence for a long time. There was no response. She was beyond exhausted, so there was nothing for her to do except sleep and wait for sunset so she could get out of the house.

She woke up to a world that was pitch black. It was true the house had no lanterns and was abandoned, but surely there would be some light coming in somewhere. She reached around and to her dismay, couldn't find anything to lay her hands on. She had to be in a void. What this the Realm of the Destroyer? Finally light did enter her imagination. So...the Destroyer had finally returned. Hopefully she'd receive instructions concerning what she needed to do next. But the familiar eyes did not appear. Instead, she saw Babï¿½ckt Yaga. Her former mistress's eyes stared deep into her soul.

"What have you done?"

"I...I don't understand, Alchemist."

"What have you done?"

"I guess...I guess I survived a battle, Alchemist. Now I need to figure out how to escape and bear witness of what happened here."

"To escape? To bear witness? To bear witness for whom? For the Profane One?"

"Yes, Alchemist. To bear witness for the Profane One."

"And you were foolish enough to think the Profane One would help you..."

"I was foolish enough to think that, Alchemist. That's what I was expecting."

"The Profane One helps no one. The Profane One will not help you. Serving the Profane One is vanity. Didn't I teach you that?"

"Yes, Alchemist."

"And you ignored my teachings. You ended up ignoring everything, didn't you?"

"Yes, Alchemist."

There was a long pause while Babï¿½ckt Yaga's eyes bore into Danka. The former Mistress continued:

"Do you really think you deserve to escape? Maybe a Blue Moon impalement hook is where you belong?"

"I don't know what I deserve, Alchemist."

"You don't know what you deserve. Well then... I, not the Destroyer, but I, will give you what you don't deserve. I will guide you to safety. But for you to accept my help, you must obey my instructions."

"Yes, Alchemist?"

"You are to take nothing with you from this cursed kingdom. You are not to carry anything in your hands, nor wear anything on your body. You will need to take off your boots and leave them behind: they're ruined anyway. When you leave this house, you will see a path ahead of you. It won't be lit up or obvious, but you'll know it's there. You will follow that path and not deviate from it. It will guide you out of Aksheriri Ris, guide you across the war zone, and guide you into the Duchy. The path will lead you to food and will lead you around your enemies. Throughout most of your journey, your enemies will be close-by, but they won't see you if you walk along the path precisely at the moment it shows itself. When the path deviates, you'll know you need to sleep."

"That's it, Alchemist? I just need to follow a path?"

"It will be hard at times, because often the path will lead you right out into the open, across fields and over hilltops, even though crowded areas. Part of the purpose of your journey will be to test your courage and your faith. But if you stay on the path and traverse it when it indicates, you will remain in the Realm of the Living and you will fulfill your Path in Life. There's one more detail. You must unbraid your hair before you begin your journey. Until you reach safety, your hair must be loose. Braids are a symbol of honor, and right now you have no honor."

Fearful that Babï¿½ckt Yaga's apparition would disappear, Danka undid her braids and fluffed out her hair.

"Now, go to the front door and turn left. Don't crouch or try to hide. Walk with confidence and dignity. Whenever you see the path, keep going."

"Alchemist?"

"Yes Follower Danka?"

"Will I ever see you again?"

"No. The Realm of the Afterlife allows me only one visit to the Realm of the Living. I've just used it on you. Now, like everyone else, I will fade and exist only in memory."

Babï¿½ckt Yaga's image disappeared, allowing Danka to see the dim evening light entering through openings in the dwelling's walls. Not knowing what else to do, she exited the front door and turned left, as instructed. Sure enough, in the darkness she could make out a path, a slightly lighter line of dried mud leading towards the city's eastern gate.

She struggled not to crouch or hide, which was very difficult given that she was completely naked in a strange town full of enemies. As she walked, she wondered about her unprotected feet, worried she might step on something sharp or stub her toe. She felt nothing: no rocks, no glass, no metal, no thorns. Wreckage was all around her, but her feet only touched cool smooth dirt.

She had numerous close calls as she walked away from the house. A squad of enemy soldiers crossed right in front of her but did not see her. She crossed a street and no sooner had she passed to the other side, a group of enemy cavalrymen galloped past. She walked right past people who had their backs turned, precisely at the moment they would have seen her had they turned around. After each "close call", she became slightly more confident that she really would be able to simply walk away.

The gate was wide open, to allow a supply caravan to pass through. The guards were too busy checking letters and talking to the drivers to notice a naked woman passing by the wagons on the other side. The path veered off the main road and crossed a meadow. Shortly before daybreak Danka came up to an abandoned village with a functioning well. She was ravenously thirsty, and the water was some of the best she had ever tasted. She left the village and crossed an orchard. All of the trees had been stripped of their fruit except for one, which had a single branch containing some apples. The wanderer feasted and continued her walk. The path lead her towards a ruined manor. Its fields lay abandoned, but there were some carrots and beets growing wild among the weeds. She came across another well inside a once-luxurious courtyard which, in spite of the destruction all around it, remained intact. Danka drank some more water and kept going.

By the end of the day, she had gone so far that Aksheriri Ris was no longer in sight. The Path veered into a ruined house, where most of the roof had collapsed. One room, containing a bed, remained intact. Danka soundly slept, the best night of sleep she had enjoyed for months. When she woke up, she noticed a sealed jar lying next to a wall. She opened it to discover it was full of dried fruit. She ate as much as she could before following the path eastward.

The second day was foggy in the morning and rainy in the afternoon. Her feet were covered in mud and her body was covered in water, but getting wet didn't bother her, since she didn't have to worry about her clothing. She could hear the noise from humans all around and see shadowy figures in the distance, but no one came close enough to recognize her as a naked wandering woman. It turned out to be fortunate that she stuffed herself with dried fruit in the morning, because she did not come across anything else to eat until the day had almost ended. As the sun set, she found several wild berry bushes growing next to an abandoned cottage. After eating, the path led her inside, where another bed was waiting.

She continued walking towards the east, in a journey that became more dreamlike with every passing day. During the entire journey she was crossing land that was completely unfamiliar. She walked along stream banks, across meadows, over hills that gave her a panoramic view of the landscape, and even though a small forest. She dreamt of what the land must have looked like during more peaceful times. Her imagination raced through the past, letting her see what the region looked like when it still was part of the Danubian Kingdom and referred to as Lower Danubia. She saw abandoned churches, some of which still had Danubian-style architecture. With each physical remnant of the past, she was able to visualize how it must have appeared hundreds of years before.

Eight days after escaping from Aksheriri Ris, Danka walked over a grassy hill where a few wild sheep were grazing. Nearby was a derelict manor, and on the other side there was a wrecked peasant village where empty impalement hooks were still hanging on some of the ruined walls. The ground was covered with scattered human bones, which were partially buried, bleached, and very brittle. The people in that spot must have been killed years before, perhaps right at the beginning of the Kingdom's civil war. Without really knowing why, Danka was convinced she was standing in the village where Isauria was born and had spent her childhood. Undoubtedly some of the bones under her feet were from the corpses of Isauria's relatives.

If Danka really was in Isauria's village, then Malï¿½nkta-Gordnï¿½ckta was just a short distance to the northeast. The imaginary path went over a second grassy hill overlooking both the manor and the village before crossing the road and continuing directly east. Danka was enormously relieved the route did not go north, because in her current condition Malï¿½nkta-Gordnï¿½ckta was absolutely the last place she wanted to go.

The day after she passed the road that led to the Duchy's border, the tops of the southern Danubian mountains came into sight, to her left. An yet, she was never tempted to turn north in an effort to shorten her time in the Kingdom of the Moon. By the middle of her journey she had complete confidence in the path. As long as she followed it, she was perfectly safe. She passed to the south of the ruined town she searched with Isauria, but when she reached the crest of a hill, she looked down and could see both the distant ruins and the river bordering the Duchy. She was only vaguely aware of the change, but by the final week of her trip she was walking completely in the open. She was naked and unarmed, but the Ancients were protecting her.

When she approached the location where she and Isauria had attacked the loggers, the path finally veered north. It was apparent she would re-enter the Duchy through the abandoned logging camp before proceeding towards the villages. The Ancients had a final test for her before they would allow her to leave the Kingdom of the Moon. She'd have to walk right through the middle of a town, in broad daylight and in plain view of hundreds of foreigners.

When they saw a detached naked woman walking through their town, the locals lined up along the road to stare at the strange sight. They talked among themselves, speculating who she was. Was she a spirit? A ghost? Lilith? A refugee who had gone mad? She couldn't be a mortal in her right mind, because she did not react at all to the murmuring crowd. Only one man approached her, wanting to touch her to see if she was at least a real person. As he raised his hand, she turned around and silently glared at him. Frightened, he backed away.

The crowd followed Danka as she headed towards the border. They stopped when she passed through a ruined church the locals considered cursed. She crested a final hill and made her way towards the river, which was swollen with mountain runoff. She casually swam across and emerged on Danubian soil.

Danka was in no hurry for the trip to end, and it seemed the path accommodated that wish for a few more days. She bathed in cold streams and foraged in the woods, eating berries and mushrooms during the day. At night she slept in the open.

She reached the bone-covered meadow where the Defenders had defeated the Red Moon soldiers nearly a year before. Not even a year, but how long ago that seemed, as though it were a different lifetime. Maybe it was. During those final days Danka's view of herself and her way of thinking transformed. In some ways she went back to being who she had been at the very start of her travels. She certainly did not consider herself a nymph fighting for the Defenders' militia. Anyhow, she suspected the Defenders no longer existed. Even if some of them had been rescued by the Royal Army, the Grand Duke would have no reason to allow the defeated militia to continue its operations.

The path ended at the largest of the three villages. As she stood in the main plaza, the settlers stared at her, not only because she was naked, but because her hair was loose. She seemed disoriented. The villagers were intimidated to approach her, but even with her disheveled appearance, some of them recognized her. One man remembered Isauria was her apprentice and left to find the girl. A few minutes later Isauria showed up. Like everyone else, she was shocked at her mentor's wild look, but she knew what to do. She led Danka to the bathhouse, bathed her, helped her clean her teeth, and re-braided her hair.

Sitting in her bath, Danka returned to her senses as the surreal dreamy feeling of her journey receded. She found it hard to believe that she had just walked for three weeks, naked, through enemy territory without being caught. And yet, it really happened: she wouldn't be sitting in the bath with her former servant washing her hair had the trip been nothing but a dream. As the reality of the Realm of the Living intruded upon her thoughts, the details of those final horrid hours in Aksheriri Ris invaded her soul and completely pushed aside the pleasant bliss she had felt during her trip. She stared at the edge of her tub and muttered:

"I'm a widow. I'm a widow, Apprentice Isauria, and a dishonored one at that, because I didn't bury my husband."

She explained what happened to Ilmï¿½tarkt, how she left him in the infirmary, and how, after Dalibora pulled her away, the entire structure blew up. Not only was her husband killed, but the other doctors were killed, along with dozens of injured patients. They were blown to unrecognizable bits and buried under burning timbers. Isauria surprised Danka with her response, one that seemed to come from a much older person.

"You didn't bury your husband because you couldn't; there was nothing to bury. You can't feel guilty about something you had no control over. Your Path in Life was to remain in the Realm of the Living and his Path in Life was destined to end where it did. And since his Path in Life had to end, wasn't it better it ended with a quick explosion than any other way? Doctor Ilmï¿½tarkt died the way he would have wanted to die. When his soul separated from his body, he was serving those around him, he was with his crew and the people he cared about. He died instantly, without knowing he was dying. Would you have wanted to see him dying in horrible pain and then have to abandon his body? Would that have been better, Defender Danka?"

"No. It wouldn't have been."

"I'm saying that because I would give anything for my family to have died the way Doctor Ilmï¿½tarkt died. Anything."

After a long pause, Danka commented:

"Speaking of that, I might have passed through your village, Apprentice Isauria. On my way back."

"Was it just west of the crossroads that lead up to Malï¿½nkta-Gordnï¿½ckta?"

"Yes."

"And there were sheep pastures, and a manor house, and two grassy hills, and on the other side of one of the hills some stone houses?"

"Yes."

"That was my village."

"I saw what happened there. I guess... looking at it through your perspective... my husband was indeed lucky."

Danka and Isauria could think of nothing more to say at the moment, but the bond between them had strengthened. Each had a much deeper understanding of the other. No longer was Danka the "Mistress" for Isauria, no longer was Isauria the "Servant" for Danka.

----------

Danka dressed in a new nymph's skirt and borrowed boots to pay a visit to the village elders. She told them what they already suspected, that the Defenders had been defeated and their expedition had failed. She gave a very short summary of the battle, but commented she would write a detailed report that would provide additional information and could be given to whoever was keeping records of the Defenders' activities. She spent the next three days with Isauria preparing a meticulous account of what happened to the expedition, from the time the militia left their base in the Duchy until the day she escaped. She tried to remember the names and circumstances of everyone she had seen killed or suspected had been killed. The only significant detail she left out was her former squad leader's betrayal. She'd address the situation with Oana herself.

She delivered the completed report to the village elder. When one of his assistants expressed skepticism over her claim that she simply walked away, she responded:

"You can believe whatever you want to believe. It makes no difference to me. However, I did witness the battle and, with the protection of the Ancients, I did manage to return. If you check what I've written against what other witnesses will have to say about the battle, you'll see that everything in the report is the truth."

The meeting ended and Danka was dismissed. Outside she overheard a couple of settlers talking about a column of Royal Guards who had been spotted in the hills to the west moving towards the villages. From what Danka could hear, the Guards were only a few hours away. Danka realized that if she wanted to retrieve her belongings from the Defenders' base camp in the mountains, she'd have to go there immediately. She took one of the Defenders' mules and departed with Isauria without telling anyone in the village where she was going.

Danka and Isauria returned to the base camp for the last time in their lives. There were very few people there, mostly the blacksmith and his assistants and a few workers who remained behind to repair the cabins and prepare them for following winter. The renegade priest was present as well. Danka decided to warn him about the Royal Guards and their pending takeover of the encampment. He called together the small group of Defenders, the paltry remnants of a formerly-impressive militia that had spent years making life miserable for the Kingdom of the Moon's soldiers. Danka summarized the battle and the destruction of the unit. She didn't know whether Commander Sï¿½upeckt was still alive, but suspected he was not. She confirmed the deaths of many others, including the majority of the nymphs.

Danka's companions gathered up their belongings and fled the encampment. They didn't know how they would be treated by the Royal Guards, but did not want to take the risk of finding out. The Priest returned to his quarters. He calculated that if the Grand Duke's men were occupied talking to him, it would give the others more time to put distance between themselves and the encampment.

Danka entered the cave, lit two lanterns, and went to where she and her husband kept their belongings. She grabbed her bucket, Ilmï¿½tarkt's journals and research, and his stash of medicines and alchemy ingredients. She took off the borrowed boots and the nymph's skirt. She no longer was a nymph, so she had no right to wear the skirt. She put on the old boots from her bucket, the ones she had worn when she left Rika Hï¿½ckt-nemï¿½t. When Isauria offered Danka a dress, she shook her head.

"I need to perform Public Penance. It's not my Path in Life to get dressed right now."

She told the teenager to take off her nymph's skirt and put on her trader's outfit. As the girl was changing, Danka put on her penance collar. She told Isauria to go to the armory and take a new crossbow and as many bolts as she could fit in her quiver. Their roles would be reversed: Danka would carry the supplies and Isauria would carry the weapon. When Isauria re-appeared with her new weapon, Danka took a look at her companion's dark hair. She realized it had grown out enough that it was long enough to braid. That gave Danka an idea, to see if Isauria could receive an official certificate from the Defenders' Priest, because a certificate would give her full social status in the Duchy as an adult woman.

Danka and Isauria found the Priest in his study, writing some final entries in a journal. He was shocked to see her wearing a Public Penance collar, but she responded simply by telling him the truth, the collar was a disguise so she could travel safely. She asked about a certificate for Isauria.

"Has the girl passed her fifteenth birthday?"

"No. I was planning to serve as her guardian until she was old enough to have her hair braided but, as you can see, that'll be impossible. No one will be around to attest she has the right to be a full citizen when she turns fifteen. So, I'm asking you to do that right now. I need her to accompany me, and she needs to travel as an adult, not a child."

"As you wish. Braid her hair, and I'll prepare the certificate."

Usually the hair-braiding ceremony is a momentous event in a young woman's life, second only to marriage. It is a special time, accompanied by celebration and ceremonies. For Isauria, there would be none of that. Like Danka's marriage, Isauria's hair-braiding would be done out of necessity and in a hurry, without any fanfare or celebration. Danka arranged Isauria's hair, taking her time in an effort to make it look as good as possible. If Isauria couldn't have a ceremony, at least she could have nice braids. When the priest handed her the paper, she became a Danubian citizen. Also, she aged a year, because her date of birth had to be moved back for the document to be valid.

The priest asked about documentation concerning Danka's collar. Would she like to have an updated Public Penance certificate? Danka hadn't thought about that, but realized a new certificate would be important. She also realized she had the opportunity to assume a new identity. The priest smiled mischievously.

"Excellent, because I have just what you need, a certificate for a woman in Rika Chorna called Vesna Rogï¿½skt. Very fancy and official-looking."

"And... what happened to the real Vesna Rogï¿½skt?"

"She was the wife of a Defender. Died two years ago in childbirth, just a few days before you showed up. But now he's dead too, and I kept the paper in case someone else needed it. So... it's yours, along with the name."

The two women knelt while the Priest issued a final goodbye blessing. They quietly wondered about the wisdom of being blessed by a man who spent his life "honoring" the Destroyer. Seeing the doubt on their faces, the Priest commented:

"Everyone seems to misunderstand the Destroyer. The Realm of the Living needs the Destroyer every bit as much as the Realm of the Living needs the Creator. Both of you are farm-girls, correct? Well, every year you plant a seed and give life to a plant. Then, a few months later, you pull the plant out of the ground and take its life away. Then you put in another seed and start another life. The point is, you can't start the second life until the first one has ended. The Destroyer is cruel, because death is cruel. But that does not make the Destroyer evil, any more than pulling plants out of the ground makes a farmer evil. There is a difference between cruel and evil."

"So... you're not leaving with everyone else?"

"No. I will be executed, undoubtedly, as a heretic and a corrupting influence, but from the beginning I knew that was my Path in Life. I would not have it any other way. And when I hold up my mirror, I will finally have the chance to explain why I did all the things that I did. In the end, I will see the ultimate truth and understand myself. I'm looking forward to that. I'm not scared at all."

Minutes later, the women left the encampment, traveling along a trail that would bypass the villages and the likely route of the approaching Royal Guards. Isauria rode on the mule along with their belongings, while Danka (now to be known to the world as Vesna Rogï¿½skt from Rika Chorna) walked ahead leading the animal by the reins. Ironically, Isauria's social status was way above that of her former mentor. Although they were both adults, Vesna was collared and Isauria was not. Had she wanted to, Isauria could have made Vesna kneel whenever they spoke to each other.

The path forked, one way going west and the other going east. As much as she would have liked to go east, Vesna knew that she had to return to the western valley. She had to settle Isauria's situation and then find Oana, assuming Oana was still alive.

----------

The same day that Defender Danka departed with Apprentice Isauria and the mule, the Danubian Royal Army took control of the garrison near the villages. The village elder gave Danka's notes to the commander of the Royal Guards. The Royal commander was impressed with the document's descriptive detail and organization of facts and events. It would make a valuable contribution to the Grand Duke's archive about the militia's failed assault on Aksheriri Ris. Knowing that the settlers could not possibly have written such a document, the Guards inquired about the author. The settlers described a nymph, incredibly beautiful, who had sought the Destroyer's protection after the battle so she could return. When the Royal Guards asked where she was, no one could find her. She had disappeared without a trace. The villagers neglected to mention anything about Isauria and the apprentice was completely forgotten.

The tragic, bizarre story behind the naked nymph's return from the Defenders' heroic battle became a favorite topic for discussion and speculation throughout the region. The settlers told each other fantastic tales about her escape and exaggerated her physical beauty. The Royal Guards adopted the villagers' stories and came up with some campfire songs to alleviate their boredom in that wretched, isolated garrison. Within a few months there were many versions floating around both sides of the eastern border about the alluring wanderer's adventures. Men imposed their own fantasies on her and some, including the village elder, claimed to have had sex with her.

By the following year, no one remembered the vanished nymph as Danka, the wife of Doctor Ilmï¿½tarkt and a member of Dalibora's squad. Instead, she became a woman of incredible beauty and mystery, a cursed deliverer of tragedy to the Realm of the Living.

Chapter 27

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Note01: During the 1970s, a group of revisionist historians more closely examined the relationship between the Grand Duke and Commander Sï¿½upeckt to look for clues indicating whether the Sovereign somehow betrayed the militia leader. Questions asked by the revisionists included: 1) Why did the Grand Duke allow an independent militia to guard the southeastern region in the first place, instead of using Royal Guards? 2) Why did the Grand Duke allow Commander Sï¿½upeckt to assault Sumy Ris, if he was convinced the expedition was likely to fail? Would it not have been better to convince the militia leader to not press forward with the project, or try to replace him with a more cautious leader and thus save lives? 3) Is it possible Commander Sï¿½upeckt could have taken Sumy Ris, if he had direct support from the Crown? 4) How much talent did Commander Sï¿½upeckt really have as a military commander? 5) What were the Grand Duke's personal feelings about Commander Sï¿½upeckt and the Defenders?

Let's examine these questions, keeping in mind that communications during the 1750s were unreliable and the Grand Duke did not always have timely and accurate intelligence concerning the situation along the eastern section of the border.

1) Between 1754 and 1764, the Grand Duke's most important priority, far more than anything else, was to permanently secure Hï¿½rkustk Ris province and make sure that is was so well protected that neither faction from the rival Kingdom would attempt to invade or launch cross-border raids. Absolutely nothing could be allowed to disrupt the incoming settlers and their new farms, so the Grand Duke stationed every available soldier he could spare to protect the peace of the region. The increased security of Hï¿½rkustk Ris province came at the expense of other areas such as the eastern border and the Vice Duchy of Rika Chorna. Given his lack of resources, the Grand Duke was more than happy to allow armed civilians to organize and secure a part of the border his troops could not adequately protect.

2) Our sources indicate that Commander Sï¿½upeckt's rise to power over the Defenders' entire militia caught the the Grand Duke by surprise. Because of poor communications, the Royal House was not aware until the spring of 1758 that the guerrilla units had coalesced around a single leader. He was genuinely concerned when he learned about the plan to assault Sumy Ris, but, because of issues of tradition and protocol, was not in a position to convince Commander Sï¿½upeckt to abort the mission. Instead, he provided information and maps to make sure the militia leader knew that Sumy Ris was indefensible. The Royal Army's intelligence, along with Defender Danka's updated map, did not make the militia leader change his mind, but it did make him change his target: to first capture Aksheriri Ris to later use as a base of operations against Sumy Ris.

From what my colleagues and I have seen of contemporary writings and the Grand Duke's memoirs, any deliberate act of deception or betrayal by the Grand Duke over Sumy Ris seems extremely unlikely. The ruler certainly would not have passed up the opportunity to capture the former Danubian capitol, if he were convinced it could be defended without straining the resources of the Royal Army in other parts of the Duchy. When the Grand Duke understood the Defenders' operation was destined to proceed, he provided as much support as he could, short of committing troops. Even if the militia troops were defeated, he wanted them to do as much damage as possible to the Kingdom of the Moon factions and further weaken them as a threat against the Royal Army and Hï¿½rkustk Ris province. In addition to providing supplies, during the expedition Royal Guards entered the Kingdom of the Moon on three occasions to evacuate wounded and dead Defenders prior to the final evacuation from Aksheriri Ris.

3) Given the Royal Army's experience in 1754, it is certainly possible the capture of Sumy Ris could have been repeated in 1758, but occupying the city and the surrounding region over a prolonged period of time would not have been possible, given the Royal Army's resources at the time. That reality is even more evident today than it was in 1758, because the devastation and depopulation from the civil war in the northern part of the Kingdom of the Moon was much more severe than in the southern part. The Danubians, both the Royal Army and the Defenders, had an inaccurate idea concerning the remaining strength of the two factions, which caused Commander Sï¿½upeckt to badly underestimate the size and strength of the armies shadowing his unit as they moved towards Aksheriri Ris.

4) Commander Sï¿½upeckt's defeat is undoubtedly the favorite classic tale of hubris, tragedy, and partial redemption that seems so well-suited for Danubian story-telling. The fact that he died with a crossbow in his hands while recklessly confronting an entire squad of Red Moon musketeers so the last of his men could scramble over some walls to join the Grand Duke's army assured his place as a hero instead of a villain in Danubian lore. Whatever else he may have been, he was no coward, although I suspect he used the enemy squad to commit suicide. But tragedy aside, was Commander Sï¿½upeckt a good military leader? He was, but for company-sized tactical operations, not long-term strategic operations. His rise to power within the militia was the direct result of a single battle, which in turn was the result of the secret sling-bombs supplied to him by Defender Danka. In other words, had Danka not provided the bomb design to her commander, he would not have had the prestige to take control of the Defenders, and the ill-fated campaign against Sumy Ris would not have happened.

5) The Grand Duke viewed Commander Sï¿½upeckt no differently than he viewed any other subject with charisma and talent, by asking: how can this person be useful to me? If the militia leader had a realistic chance of taking Sumy Ris, the Grand Duke would have been happy to let him claim most of the glory of victory, knowing that he would eventually consolidate control over the new territory through patience, co-opting of supporters, and cunning.

- Maritza Ortskt-Dukovna -

Note02: The Army of the Blue Moon defeated the rival faction, seized control of Aksheriri Ris, and held it from June 1758 through October of the same year. During those months Blue Moon troops launched raids against Sumy Ris and other previously safe towns within the Lord of the Red Moon's traditional area of control. The Lord of the Red Moon's men eventually retook the city, but lost control of it again at the beginning of 1759. The location changed hands a total of six times during the final phase of the Kingdom of the Moon's civil war and by 1764 not a single structure remained standing. The Ottoman Sultan ordered a mosque built on the hilltop in 1770, but that building was destroyed exactly a century later when the former Kingdom of the Moon's territory became an Austrian protectorate. After World War II a French casino developer purchased the entire hill, demolished all remaining ruins and archeological sites, and built the Emerald City resort, which continues to occupy the site today.

- Maritza Ortskt-Dukovna -