The Castillian Expedition

As promised during the taking of the Rock, the companions are journeying to Rancho Velasquez - in northeastern Zepeda, Castille - to reunite Don Cruz and his daughter Zoya with their family. Before the leave, however, Philip du Paix approaches Don Cruz and offers him a position as Governor of Zepeda (for the Montaignes) as General du Toille, the Montaigne general, is becoming too brutal for public consumption. Don Cruz refuses, and so Philip enlists the companions to try to convince Don Cruz to accept so that the southern front of the Castillian war can be wrapped up. Philip also tells the heroes that the Montaignes have a secret weapon: he gives them a blooded brooch belonging to Lucien du Lac, his pet Porté master, and says Lucien will bring the weapon through when they reach San Augustin.

The Village of Capistrano

While traveling south, the heroes stop in the village of Capistrano, where a Montaigne engineer lieutenant is preparing to execute the entire village -- they killed a Montaigne officer, and would not give up the name of the men who did it. By policy, the entire village must die. Negotiating, the heroes intercede and begin to talk to the prisoners; Julien meets two of them, and with them arranges an ambush for the Montaigne soldiers by a troop of Castillian rebels. Telling the Montaigne lieutenant where the rebels are supposedly camped, he sends them off to the ambush as the villagers flee.

The Ruins of Rancho Velasquez

Several days south of Capistrano, the companions reach Rancho Velasquez, Don Cruz' family home. It is ruins, and from what they can gather from the locals Doña Esther Villar del Velasquez, Don Cruz' wife, is being held prisoner by General du Toille at the Last Wall. On their way out of Rancho Velasquez, the heroes encounter El Vago: it is a tense moment, but after some negotiation they convince the Vagabond that they are acting in Castille's interests and that he should try to break Doña Velasquez and the other prisoners out once the companions have weakened the guards on the compound.

The Right Side of the Wrong Wall

The deal with El Vago is all part of a larger plan: the companions are trying to get rid of the cruel General du Toille out of camp so that they can go to his lieutenant, General Morlais, summon Lucien and then deploy the secret weapon to take San Augustin. If this happens while General du Toille is chasing after prisoners, it will prove an embarrassment for the general, forcing his removal from command and paving the way for Don Cruz to become governor after San Augustin has fallen.

They do this: Sebastien arranges for a meeting with all the Musketeers, leaving the prison camp holding Doña Velasquez and the other Castillian prisoners with a weakened guard. Los Vagos stages a raid to break out the prisoners, and then Aleksei - playing the messenger - enters General du Toille's tent while du Toille is in a rage. du Toille ignores him, of course, and storms off to pursue the escaped prisoners, taking about a third of his army with him.

Aleksei and Sebastien then go to Morlais, the lieutenant-general, and deliver the word from Philip that a secret weapon is on its way. Morlais is concerned about du Toille being absent with his men, but sees a chance for advancement and agrees to begin planning the attack. Lucien arrives, bearing four crystal phials full of blood, and says that if these phials can be poured on the ground behind enemy lines he can open up Porté gateways that can bring 50 men through to the other side.

Julien and Marie-Celeste, meanwhile, have been scoping a way across the lines to San Augustin; having found one, they return, and the all companions plot to cross the lines with Don Cruz and Lady Zoya after midnight that night. They have plan: Don Cruz, who has reluctantly agreed to become governor for the Montaignes, will make contact with the local dons so that once the wall falls he can become a resistance leader who will eventually negotiate a peace with General Morlais.

Across the Wall...

Getting across the wall the first time is easy enough; the companions bribe some Montaigne soldiers and then con and drug some Castillian soldiers on the opposite side, eventually crossing the wall and coming into San Augustin. There, Zoya and Don Cruz go to seek their kinsmen as the heroes set up anonymously - once again as Vodacce merchants - in a small inn.

The next day, Julien scouts out the fortifications along La Murra Ultima. General Morlais intends to attack through a central bastion, and the plan calls for two of the phials to be sowed inside the walls of that fortification and then one in each of the bastions on either side. The assaults on the side bastions are to serve as a distraction as the main bulk of Montaigne troops drive through the center.

While out and about, however, Julien notices a group of a dozen Ussurans lounging by a public fountain; when he approaches them, he gets their name - the Company of the Red Bear - and the identity of their leader, Boyar Yevgeny v'Pietrov. Telling Aleksei, Aleksei realizes that Yevgeny is his cousin, and has a tense conversation with Yevgeny where the boyar tells him he has been sent by the Gaius to aid the Castillians. Suspecting that Aleksei - a Montaigne - is in San Augustin to cause trouble, Yevgeny warns Aleksei to leave, which Aleksei promises to do.

Shortly after the meeting with Yevgeny, Aleksei touches base with Don Cruz, who tells him that he has a problem. Don Diego Mendez de San Augustino, commandante of the city, is the likely leader for any resistance - and he is a hard-liner, the sort of man who would provoke the Montaigne government into needing the cruelty of General du Toille to keep things in line. Armed with this information, Aleksei returns to the companions to head back over the wall to the Montaigne side.

...and Back Again

Julien, however, wants to stay behind, and so the companions split: Aleksei returns to Montaigne-occupied Castille, while Julien, Sebastien, and Marie-Celeste remain in free territory. There, Julien gives Sebastien and Marie-Celeste the slip and begins to plant two of the phials of blood - he has two and Aleksei has two - in the side bastions. Outside one of them, however, Yevgeny catches up to them with two of his men, and there is a tense moment before Aleksei appears out of a copse of trees. Now it is the companions against Yevgeny, and it is finally agreed that they will leave and go back across the lines, as Julien has completed his mission.

Yevgeny, however, has perhaps caught wind of Julien's antics - there is fear that the west bastion may have been compromised, but back with General Morlais it is decided to send a party through regardless. On the eve of the battle, Lucien opens the four portals - they grow a deep red, like a Porté gate that has been too long idle - and parties of Musketeers move through as the companions go to join the main fight.

The Taking Of San Augustin

All four of the companions distinguish themselves in battle. Julien takes a party of sappers across the wall in a flanking manuever, blowing gaps and fighting hard there cut off from the main body of the troops. Marie-Celeste and Sebastien, by contrast, go with the main force, and Sebastien ends up fighting his way into the gap the Musketeers sent through the portal opened in the bastion, taking a cannon in a bit of bloody battle to turn it on the Castillian forces.

Aleksei hang back, fancying himself no warrior, but when he sees his cousin Yevgeny fall to an assault by Musketeers he takes a body of men and charges into the heart of the fighting, taking up his wounded cousin and beginning the slow slog back out of the fight. Finally, as the sun begins to set General Morlais is able to close the gap, pushing past the wall into the city itself, where battlefield fighting fades into bloody house-by-house fighting.

All of the heroes are deeply wounded, and Julien - lost behind the lines - is missing, until Lucien du Lac appears with a bloody and unconscious Julien in his arms, handing him to the companions.

Aftermath

It is a long recovery; the companions begin a slow journey by sea north to Paix, with Julien and Yevgeny bedridden. Left behind in Castille is the war: true to plan, Don Cruz negotiates a truce after several bloody weeks that leaves him installed as Governeur du Zepede - governor of Montaigne-occupied Rancho Zepeda. This selling out led in turn to a breach between Don Cruz and his wife, who reportedly vowed vengeance on him before she fled to the countryside, taking her daughter with her. Montaigne, however, does well, as General Morlais continues to run down the last Castillian remnants following the breach of the Wall.

Persons of Note

• Philip du Paix -- Our heroes' patron.
• Lucien du Lac -- A Porté master attached to Philip.
• General Francois du Toille -- The brutal general in command of Rancho Zepeda, General du Toille is a cousin of the Duc du Toille and a cruel man.
• Lieutenant-General Valéry Morlais -- General du Toille's lieutenant, he is a competent commander from a minor noble family in Toille.
• Admiral Alazais Valois Praisse du Rachetisse -- Admiral of the Montaigne Navy, he was present at the fall of San Augustin.
• Don Cruz Montoya del Velasquez -- Former governor of Isla Tormentos, Don Cruz has been convinced by Montaigne to become their governor for occupied Zepeda.
• Zoya Villar del Velasquez -- Don Cruz' daughter, she is 16 and the most beautiful girl in Rancho Zepeda.
• Doña Esther Montoya Villar del Velasquez -- Don Cruz' estranged wife, Doña Esther is now a rebel leader in occupied Zepeda.
• Boyar Yevgeny v'Pietrov -- Aleksei's older cousin, Yevgeny is an Ussuran nobleman from Ussura with a frighteningly large axe and strange, green eyes. He leads the Company of the Red Bear, a dozen or so bogatyr adventurers sent by the Gaius into soft western lands.