Epilogue - 003

Turns since TBfGK: 1

Baring his teeth into the wind, Stanley shook his head and swooped down again. The place was unrecognizable! He could see Hamster, Maggie, and the...tunneler, the one who did toilet duty, Sideways or whatever his name was, on the new parapet of the new tower. But he didn't feel like buzzing them just yet.

He just kept swinging low over the new walls, the strange, powerful blocks of stone and mortar. The city was full of infantry, wearing white, black, red and...pink? Not enemies, Maggie'd told him. These were his forces, however weird they looked.

Banners were hanging all over the place with some kind of new logo: his own image, with a star-and-beams design. When he became an Overlord, he'd said that crests were Royalist and he wasn't going to have one. So who came up with this? He kind of liked it.

He circled and surveyed. There was the lake of lava, there was the stately, ornamented garrison, there was the new main gate, there was the lake again...

Where was Wanda?

Close behind Stanley as they circled, Jack and the Knight rode their puffing mounts. (Vurp. The Knight's name was Vurp. He was trying to get better about names.) He could hear the whip-snap of leather wings behind him, but those two knew better than to say anything when he was thinking.

Maybe Wanda was in the tower.

The Tool brought them in from Hamster's blind side, intending to pop up dramatically on the new perches. But as they neared the garrison, he got a closer look at the gleaming special regiments assembled for him below. Right, the Courtyard. That had to be Wanda, standing with a...blond warlord.

Oh. Oh, let that be Prince Ansom.

Stanley the Tool of the Titans nosed his dwagon over, and dropped into a dramatic dive.