Vangelis had no issues with Stephanos taking lead on their plans for what to do next. This was his kingdom. His monarchy now. He needed to be able to lead and make a point of his capabilities. Vangelis had heard from the man's now dead brother that Stephanos was a capable military leader. That his soldiers respected him and that his skills with a sword and bow were exceptional. But no-one in the capital city, or in the courts or Senate, would have ever seen the man in such a role, performing such tasks. Those were feats for the military and would have been conducted over seas, away from noble eyes. The only man the Court saw was the deviant, the ladies-man. The spare prince.

Now, was his time to shine.

And shine he did with a suitable and appropriate plan. The Order House was, therefore, deemed to be their next stop.

As they headed through the streets on horseback, Vangelis was frustrated to see that most of the fighting was over. Uncommon for such an insurgence to end so quickly without the application of soldiers, the only answer was for the aggressors to have backed off. To have disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. Which meant that the fight wasn't over - it was just postponed. And the people had been left without justice. And Stephanos without his chance to prove his mettle.

As they approached the Order House, Vangelis' anger rose stronger as they could all see that it was in flames.

Built on the side of an open courtyard, with a water-less fountain at its centre, dead bodies of civilians and cultists - mostly civilians - littered the empty space while the world Traitors marked the wall of the House.

A few good men were throwing buckets of water into the windows of the Order House but it seemed like a thankless and Vangelis stopped one with a hand to the shoulder to demand where the nearest well was that they were retrieving the water. When the man stated that it was at the end of the street, Vangelis quickly worked out that their task was also fruitless. By the time they had run back to get more water the flames would have grown again. Their efforts to quell it were meaningless.

Vangelis watched as Stephanos lost his cool and he couldn't blame the man. It had been a good plan and now all seemed lost for allowing Stephanos to take control of the situation. The rumours of his cowardice, hiding away in his palace would continue to spread and he would lose his integrity. And Integrity, for a monarch, as impossible to replace.

Frowning and assessing the situation Vangelis looked at the Order House, the courtyard and then at the wooden porches and structures built on the front of all the stores lining the courtyard. He looked at the building of the Order House - typical in its structure for Greek craftsmanship. It was square, white, three levels high and had short wooden polls along each storey where the next floor was supported.

With the tightening of his jaw, Vangelis had an idea.

Grabbing one of the men who was throwing water into the burning windows, Vangelis stopped him and pointed to the blood on the wall.

"Ignore the flames. Clean off that word!" He told the few loyal civilians who were still working the save the Order's headquarters. "It doesn't have to be perfect, just make sure no-one can read it anymore." He told them.

He then set about his own task, running into the courtyard. Grabbing a hold of one of drowned one's corpse under the arms.

"Nike!" He called to his commander, pointing to the awnings of the shops. "Take that down and make fire wood!" He told her. "We need as much burnable material as we can get!" He started heaving the corpse over to the wall of the Order House. "Alypius! go find some rope. A lot of it!"

Dropping the first corpse he intended to get against the wall, Vangelis headed over to Stephanos who was sort of standing like a dead man, lost to his own misgivings. He slapped the man on his injured shoulder deliberately. Hard.

"Knock it off, Stephanos and wake up." He grinned darkly at the man. "It's not over yet. And I have an idea. Come help me..."

And he nodded a head back towards the courtyard as he went out searching for another dead cultist...

People surged around him while he watched the fire rage. He was standing close enough that the heat made his skin prickle. If he stayed this close, it would singe the hairs on his arms soon. Distantly he heard Vangelis shouting orders but for all that he was paying attention, Vangelis might as well have been on another island.

Slowly the laughter died and he stared blankly as men found a bucket and washed the word TRAITOR off the building’s exterior. A laugh hiccuped out again. How funny. The building was burning and the first thing they were doing to it was washing off a word the whole city had seen already. Or maybe they hadn’t?

Vangelis was ordering again. Stephanos ignored him.

All at once a sharp pain radiated through his shoulder. He arched away but swung back around, squaring up with the offender, to find Vangelis The Statute glaring at him. “Son of a bitch,” he snarled, but Vangelis was speaking again. Stephanos shrugged the injured shoulder as if shoving off the dull burning and then frowned.

“Help you? Help you with what?” He followed Vangelis, drawing up beside him. “You do realize the Order House can’t be saved right?” The confidence he’d had in Vangelis was slipping as he looked around and saw what the man had ordered thus far. Nike was gathering what looked like bonfire materials while the other men were still violently scrubbing the blood off the wall but only intermittently. They had to take a swipe and jump back. The inferno was blistering their skin and their faces were already red as though they’d spent too long in direct sunlight.

Vangelis glanced back at him and Stephanos only gave him the same you’re insane glare that he’d been using at his back. Together they walked into the courtyard. Bodies were littered here and there. At first glance, the killings were random. Both men and women lay in the streets but a closer look revealed that all the victims, bar none, were rich. Their blood soaked clothes were indication of that as well as the bangles and rings.

Vangelis was right not to worry about his being squeamish at the sight of death. It bothered him but not like it would have if he’d never dealt wtih it. This was strange. Out of place. This kind of scene belonged on some distant battlefield; not in his own city. Still, it was easier to bear with the cloaked figures also lying about over the flagstones. He stood over one and watched the man’s blood seep between the cracks of the stones beneath him.

It was like a red river. A fleck of dirt was carried away on the blood’s surface. How appropriate.

Beside him, Vangelis bent and propped up a dead cultist, sliding his arms under the man’s armpits. Without hesitation, Stephanos grabbed the man’s ankles. Together, they hefted the dead man up, slogging back to the Order House and unceremoniously tossing him with his slumped friend. The body landed with a satisfying thump.

At Vangelis’s wicked grin, Stephanos offered one of his own. On this they could agree. It did seem a bit fitting to send off the bodies to the River Stix without any way to cross over. “You’re a bad man, deep down,” Stephanos teased. “I like it.”

It took five more trips to collect the rest of the bodies. Each time, they quipped with each other over the fate of this particular cultist. Stephanos was especially vicious in his ill wishes on the cultists.

By the time they’d slung the last of the cultists against the Order House, Nike had made the blaze only that much bigger with all the wood he had gathered. Stephanos didn’t look the thin man over closely. Instead he stood with his hands on his hips, covered in body fluids and blood, smiling at the blaze.

“We need to find more,” he said to Vangelis. “I don’t want any of those bastards to have any meaningful afterlife.”

The courtyard was a horror to behold. Carts were smashed, goods were strewn about the place. Food and water which should have been ripe and appetising had been crushed under foot - the lifeblood of the city only another metaphor for the death that had washed throughout Vasiliadon in the last arch of the sun. The same sun that had sunk so low now, it could barely be seen beyond the horizon. The limited light throughout odd shadows, turning the white walls of the city every shade of grey.

Even the architecture seemed to weep.

They were surrounded by the remnants of destruction. Bodies littered the courtyard - some clustered together, as if they were struck down as a family unit... others stood alone, discarded weapons laying only a few feet from their still and lifeless hands - outstretched still, as if to reach for protection against the death that had already claimed them.

Blood had seeped through and around the cobbles and tiles of the street; in some places huge black lakes of the stuff and in others the liquid had reached its final stretch and simply outlined the masonry in a morbid chequerboard.

The only light in the streets around them was the flames of the Order House. No civilian had lit a light, a candle or a home fire this evening, all attempting to close themselves off into their homes, no doubt, and avoid any unwanted attention from the wraiths that had slipped through the streets.

With only the one light source, the shadows of the four of them were long and mutated, wrapping themselves around the prone figures on the floor and creeping as they moved. Such shadows sent half of each of their faces into inky black. With each of them wearing a grim expression on their faces - of fury, grief, injustice and horror - they could have been the four steeds of Ares, personified in human form.

With the few glances he shared with Nike, it was clear to Vangelis that they were all determined. This carnage would not be going unpunished.

The four of them worked together in silence. Whether it was due to the particular emotions each was feeling in their gut or because they were simply shutting off all thought in order to follow the instructions Vangelis had given, he wasn't sure. But it made their process grim and dreary as they each worked.

By the time they were finished, Nike had accumulated a large pile of wood beside the Order House which she had begun to feed in through the windows, Alypius was running back to join them, reels of rope over his shoulder and, with Stephanos' help, Vangelis had dragged the bodies of the so-called brethren and piled them up against the wall of the a nearby building.

The layout of the courtyard was simple. A standard square with a central fountain. The Order House stood to one side, just slightly down the street. A second building - a storey shorter than the Order House - had its side to the edge of the courtyard. The other three sides of the open expanse were lined with single storey buildings - merchant stores and crafter's homes. Many had had wooden awnings and shelters out front to protect their wares from the weather. Their produce was now scattered in amongst the black congealed puddles on the floor and the awnings were now in Nike's hands, broken into firewood.

Taking the rope from the Taengean soldier with a nod of thanks, Vangelis headed immediately for the first masked assailant and was determined not to reveal their face. Let the message they were about to create be sent across Vasiliadon against the Creed as a whole- no the personal members of the faction.

Wrapping the coil of rope around the neck of the first cultist, Vangelis tied it in a sharp noose and then looked up towards the stop of the Order House's side building. The roof and then first floor of the structure was braced on beams - the ends of which provided notches protruding from the wall in two straight lines. Facing out onto the courtyard.

Tying a piece of wood to the opposite end of the line for a weight balance, Vangelis threw the rope up, hooked it over one of the protrusions and then heaved.

The cultist's corpse was pulled to standing like a macabre puppet, his toes barely brushing the ground as he swayed. Vangelis heaved again, and the man was hauled into the air, dangling, his heels brushing the wall behind him.

Mounting some crates that were stacked against the side of the building, Vangelis quickly tied the rope off against the beams, removed a dagger to cut away the secured section of the line, and then jumped back down to repeat the process.

He was encouraging of Alypius jumping forward to help as he instructed Nike to continue building the fire.

"Make the flames big, Nike." He told her. He then looked at Stephanos with a smile. "We need everyone looking this way."

With the noise in the open space, the dead city acting like an amplifier for any shifts of bodies or crackling of flames, a few civilians were already poking their heads out of windows or nervously making their way towards them in order to investigate.

"I think it's time for your entrance into the history books, Your Majesty." He said with a grim set to his mouth but an eager eye.

He looked up pointedly at the roof of the building. Were Stephanos to stand on the lower storey behind, he would be standing above a wall of his hanged enemies, and in front of a wall of flame built up by the burning Order House.

"Let Vasiliadon see what you do to men who attack your home." He told the man.