The Abbot is back -
remember her? She’s meditating when she declares “it has begun”
That is never ever
ever good.
Things are heating up
with the Widow’s camp. She’s been brought back to her roots by the whole
execution rebellion last week; Gaius of the cheekbones points out that
executing rebels is kind of what a Baron should do but she remembers that the
whole point of these shenanigans was to stop maintaining the status quo - not
to create a status quo empire.
Which means she’s
also having doubts about the whole army surge thing because throwing away the
lives of your soldiers is a very baronish thing to do. Instead she’s decided
that she, Gaius-of-the-Cheekbones and Tilda-remember-her? Will lead a raid on
Castle Whitebone and assassinate Baron Chau
While the rest of her
army is fights to distract led by Nathaniel. Still lots of death but probably
not as much.
Since it’s the eve of
battle we have the necessary sexy romance and pledges of devotion because this
is what one does before war. Gaius pledges his sexy loyalty to the Widow
forever and ever and they kiss
And Nathaniel and
Lydia have a thing too, talking about the future, kissing, sex and Lydia
deciding she is coming to the war as well because a) she’s good at strategy and
b) if the Widow should unfortunately get stabbed or something they may need an
inspiring leader to take over
At this point Lydia
is just following the Widow around waiting to jump into her shoes before
they’re even cold. I imagine scenes like the following happen a dozen times a
day
People: the Widow has
fallen from her horse!
Lydia: Good people,
fear not; though the noble Widow has fallen, I, your new Baro-
People: She’s getting
up! She’s fine!
Lydia: TOTALLY LOYAL
TO YOU WIDOW!
So it’s off to the
wars and a really pretty fight scene with lots and lots of conveniently placed
pieces of burning wood for people to fall on and be all dramatic. Also they
have artillery because we need explosions despite the general sword aesthetic.
Also also, absolutely no-one fought wars like this. Except for a few Big Damn
Heroes everyone else is literally pairing off. It’s like a gazillion neat
little duels. Also also also, I’m going to introduce pole-arms and fighting in
rank and file and own this whole damn Badland.
Nathaniel, before
going into battle with the vanguard tells Lydia that she must hold the line
with the rear guard as they’re literally the only troops between Chau’s forces
and the sanctuary and everything else. No matter what she must hold the line
Time for some Epic
Nathaniel charges
through on horseback slicing and dicing as he does - and is hit by a crossbow
bolt
Lydia holds the line
Nathaniel, injured
and off his horse continues to fight several times his own number of men in
obviously dazzling style. Several times he is severely outnumbers and nearly
overwhelmed
Lydia holds the line
Nathaniel is injured
again and drops his sword. A man moves in to behead him, Nathaniel seems to
give up and I’m all ready to mourn him. And Lydia shoots the attacker with a
crossbow. She also leads her forces in a counter attack that wins the day and
makes me think Nathaniel kept waaay too many troops in reserve. Including
cavalry. Why are cavalry holding your line Nathaniel?
Victory! And Lydia
helps Nathaniel back to safety and healing… but plot twist: Lydia is the
injured one and may actually be dying....
But these guys have
just been here for distraction purposes and the true attack as Widow, Gaius and
Tilda launch their assault against way too many guards through hidden
passageways only Gaius knows. Tilda quickly drops back out of the way to fight
some random guards while Gaius takes on and murders Chau’s Regent leaving the
Widow to face off with Chau - we knew this would happen. The fight is brief and
more flashy because of awesome costumes than anything and comes to close when
Chau leads her into an ambush of a gazillion crossbowmen which is totally
cheating. With the upper hand she takes a moment to gloat that the Widow is
just another of Gaius’s flings which doesn’t shake the Widow at all because,
c’mon, we’ve seen the guy’s cheekbones. He doesn’t need to declare loyalty and
fight in a war to get him some.
Chau orders her men
to fire… and all the crossbow bolts freeze in midair. Then fly back against the
people who fired them. The Abbot has arrived and apparently she is basically
god. She needs the Widow to face the big bad that’s coming, so knocks her out
with a little touch to the forehead to take her with her
Y’know this whole
massacre war seems a little more sad when you realise there’s someone out there
who could walk through the battlefield and simple stop all these shenanigans
right now. I also want to know how Abbot power compares to Pilgrim power
Speaking off - let’s
get to Pilgrim and that big Big that’s coming. Sunny and Bajie arrive at the
camp and Bajie is clear from the beginning that he’s not having any of this
nonsense, mocking all of the followers as sheep. This is a timely reminder that
Bajie was a true believer in Asra but believes he was thoroughly conned by
Ankara and basically wasted his life on the whole thing. He is bitter and not
remotely subtle about showing it
And we run into MK
who sees Sunny and decides it’s time for some vengeance - not that Sunny
knows why. While Sunny is, as always, an awesome fighter and some times even
seems about to win, ultimately a Dark One always wins and Sunny is about to be
turned to chunky salsa when Pilgrim intervenes and flicks MK’s off-switch.
Reunion time!
Yes, reunion. It
seems Pilgrim and Sunny - or Sunzo - knew each other as small children and
Sunny and his sister even managed to save Pilgrim from those scary Black Lotus
people who the River King knew who run around with very impractical melee
weapons. They are apparently all prophesied and awesome and Cressida calls them
“Asra’s chosen sons”
Bajie tries to derail
all the chosen one speeches by making it clear he was the one who summoned them
by stealing their precious items - but Cressida just puts that down to fate
because it takes more than that to derail a true believer
Sunny is vaguely
interested but his main concern is Henry who is getting worse and worse. He has
a brief aside with MK to see if he can trust Pilgrim - though MK reveals that
Sunny killed his mother and Sunny admits he’s killed so many people he can’t
even remember any more. He tries to make a speech about being different people
now which… was nice and kind of worked with Nathaniel… but MK? Sorry but it’s
nothing but shady for the criminal to absolve himself to his victim.
Back to Henry -
Pilgrim can work a temporary fix - but he can’t cure him without going through
the whole Asra shininess
Which will also allow them to become gods and remake the world in their image
Bajie has a very Hard
No on this one.
Especially as the
minions find the Iridium Chamber, the entrance to Asra they’ve been digging
for. Inside which is a combination stone circle and computer system which
Pilgrim and Sunny need to turn on.
Bajie is so not
amused - he sees Cressida and Pilgrim as just a new con-artist like Ankara… at
least initially. But he can also, to Cressida’s surprise, read the word of Asra
and we get some world building. This chamber is where, 500 years ago, the Gift
was first unlocked. How shiny
500 years ago is also
when the world ended and we got this dystopia. Bajie puts 2 and 2 together and
comes up with Oh Fuck No. Cressida is convinced Pilgrim can control the
unleashed power which, to Bajie, is a shiny way of saying “control an entire
army of Dark Ones” which is a double Oh Fuck No. Cressida rubs it in by
praising him as the man who made it possible.
After a brief appeal
to Sunny in which Bajie realises there’s no way Sunny could ever choose
anything over Henry, he tries to grab some explosives and sabotage Asra himself
It does not go to
plan.
Captured he gets a
front row seat to them turning on the big, shiny, stone-circle-rune-and-80s-computers
thing. With compasses, as one does (still easier to work than Linux), and
surprisingly Henry was cured
I’ll admit, I
expected him to be sacrificed or eaten or something
And Pilgrim… is a
Dark One with a super super super super ominous voice. Godking Dark One I
think...
I’m going to assume
this is a bad thing. Echoy voices always mean bad things.
