Lord Kass' Department of Communications

     I looked up slowly at the tall, imposing Darigan Eyrie staring down his beak at me. For a few seconds, I forgot even my own name, and I swallowed hard.

     “Answer when Lord Kass is speaking, you!” the Darigan Krawk on my right side snarled, shaking me like a rag doll. Her claws were clamped down hard on my arm, and she squeezed just tightly enough for me to emit an undignified squeak.

     “J-Jethrodd Spiketree, my lord,” I managed to babble, nearly biting my lip as I kept myself from asking the many questions that had resettled in my brain. Why had his guards come to pick me up when I just wanted to report for work that morning – me, a harmless Darigan Usul? And what had happened to my office? The Darigan Dark Weekly had been locked up, its windows boarded up and its issues tossed into an old crate outside, and before I could ask around about it, the Darigan Krawk and her companion, a heavyset Darigan Blumaroo, had whisked me to Lord Kass’ chambers in chains.

     Lord Kass picked up a sheaf of papers and scanned them before tossing them back onto his desk.

     “One of the chief reporters of the Darigan Dark Weekly, I see.” He grinned; it was not a very nice grin. “And, about to be promoted to editor.”

     “Y…Yes, my lord,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

     “I’ve read your work. I must say, I’m impressed.”

     I relaxed slightly – only very slightly – and tensed when Lord Kass spoke again.

     “Impressed that you and the rest of the Dark Weekly still had the nerve to carry on destroying morale up here on Kass Citadel,” he said, and with a flick of his wrist, he sent the papers flying every which way without flinching. The Blumaroo on my left blew out a breath to keep one sheet – which I had recognised as a page from my story on the worsening famine on the Citadel – from wafting onto his nose.

     I shuddered, the fur on the back of my neck – and everywhere else – standing on end. The shackles on my wrists and ankles jangled in response.

     “P-Please, my lord,” I blurted out before I could stop myself, “I, no, we, we just report the truth…and it’s – “

     “Report the truth?” Lord Kass cut through my words swiftly, his expression unreadable. I wondered if this would be the last thing I saw before I was thrown off Kass Citadel.

     But he continued speaking.

     “I see,” said Lord Kass, nodding thoughtfully. Then his grin returned.

     I shut my eyes briefly, expecting the Krawk and the Blumaroo to pick me up and bring me to the edge…or perhaps lead me to my dungeon suite. I hoped it was the latter.

     As it turned out, it was neither.

     Lord Kass approached me and clapped a hand onto my shoulder. I nearly leapt out of my fur. “I’ll make you a deal. Work for me. Report the truth for me, and you’ll have a new job instead of working for a silly tabloid.” His grin flickered briefly into something else, something more sinister. “Of course, if you don’t want to, I can send you away…immediately.”

     My voice caught in my throat, and I bobbed my head in a bow, as best I could while chained and sandwiched between two guards.

     “Yes, yes, I’ll do it, milord.”

     “Good.” Lord Kass snatched up a stray sheet of paper. “You can start by rewriting your article. Because there’s a reason behind this famine on the Citadel. And its people deserve to know what it is.”

     * * *

     I was only allowed to leave the fortress once a week, to run my errands, to visit my family, and of course, to buy my groceries. But even though my new job paid quite well, there was not much in the way of groceries. On one particular day, all I had were some bruised apples, a few Dariberries, two skins of water and one skin of milk. And while I managed to find some Sphinx Links imported from the Lost Desert, they had to be frozen as soon as possible lest they go bad before I could eat them.

     As I took the cobbled, thorny path back to Lord Kass’ chambers, I caught a glimpse of a flier in the wing of a Darigan Pteri who flew past me.

     My heart skipped a beat. That was one of the fliers I had written, entitled…

     “The Insatiable Greed of Meridell!” exclaimed a Darigan Kacheek, hissing as she gestured to the flier, flipping to one of the pages. “I knew Meridell was not to be trusted! They speak of peace, but they’ll never leave us alone!”

     “I know,” a Darigan Lenny said, nodding sagely. “They took our Orb, and who even knows if they punished the knights who stole it from us and destroyed our home? Meridell won’t stop until it has taken everything from us.”

     “Including our freedom.”

     “Yes! Lord Kass was right! Though…did he write this?”

     “They were issued with his seal, maybe he had a ghostwriter? Or his new Department of Communications?”

     I hid my face behind my grocery bag as I walked past them. On paper, that was my job – Department of Communications. That was what I told my parents and my older brother Judeth. But only Lord Kass and his inner circle knew what my job really was.

     “That Darigan was a fraud! Weak, senile…we needed a leader like Lord Kass!”

     I craned my neck toward the source of the voice – a Techo conversing with a JubJub. Both also held my flyers.

     “He’ll fight the famine, and Meridell!”

     * * *

     But even though I was only allowed to leave the fortress once a week – and only for a few hours – Lord Kass supplied me with everything I needed to spread his messages.

     His lies, a voice at the back of my head would always remind me.

     I sat at my typewriter in my office, which was full of papers and posters and other Lord Kass paraphernalia. I was publishing lies, but those lies were what fed my family and myself. Leaning back in my chair, I glanced at my pocket watch and then up at the door.

     The minute hand ticked slowly up to the twelve. Then, Lord Kass opened my door with such a loud bang that some of the books on the shelves behind it rattled. My stomach also rattled; with him were my captors, the Darigan Krawk and the Darigan Blumaroo guards whose names I never caught – or if I did, I forgot them again.

     “My lord,” I said, the chair scraping against the floor as I stood up to bow.

     “I have a new job for you,” he growled. “Tell me. Now that we have pinpointed Meridell as the cause of all the Citadel’s problems, what comes next?”

     Coming clean and telling the truth were probably not the answers.

     “We have shown everyone who the real monster is,” said Lord Kass, sweeping an arm over some of my anti-Meridell propaganda fliers tacked onto my corkboard. “What do we do with monsters, Spiketree?”

     I twiddled my claws and hoped that the sound they made didn’t carry throughout the room. It did.

     “We…get rid of them?”

     The Darigan Eyrie’s expression twisted into a terrible grin that sent chills down my spine and all the way through my tail.

     “Exactly. And how do we do that?”

     The gears in my mind turned and ground as I searched for an answer that would please him. Whenever Lord Kass was in a bad mood, he never hesitated to share it with anyone in the same room. My ears twitched.

     “We…fight them?” At that last word, my voice cracked into a shrill squeak.

     Lord Kass raised his hand. I flinched, and so did the guards. But what was more shocking was that he gave my shoulder a hefty clap, not enough to send me sprawling, enough to make me stagger slightly.

     “Spiketree, I knew I could count on you,” he said. Then he turned away, beckoning the Krawk and the Blumaroo to follow. “We are going to recruit soldiers for my army, who will raze Meridell to the ground until nothing of it is left.”

     We? I nearly said that out loud. But as I watched the retreating backs of Kass and his minions, I knew what he meant.

     I sat back down, looked at my typewriter and breathed in. Then, I started to type.

     Lord Kass wants YOU to join his glorious army! Sign up now as Kass Citadel prepares to raze Meridell to the ground for all its crimes!

     * * *

     I knew my recruitment materials would reach every corner of the Citadel, but I had not expected them to reach my family – specifically, Judeth. The big, burly Darigan Tuskaninny was immediately drafted into the army, we said our goodbyes, and I wished him safe travels – and a safe return home.

     So, I was surprised to find him on another one of my days off, clad in a long black cloak, lurking in an alleyway and pulling me into it.

     “J-Judeth? I thought you were with the…” He clapped a large hand over my mouth.

     “Shhh.” Judeth glanced this way, and that, and even up at the high-rise residences with their clotheslines swaying in the wind. After wrinkling his nose at a nearby dumpster and lowering his hand from my face, he said, “I saw the fliers and newsletters you’ve been putting out about how Lord Kass is nearing victory in Meridell, how he and his soldiers are unstoppable. I don’t have a lot of time before my commanding officer finds out I flew back here, so I’ll make this simple: stop with the lies, Jethrodd.”

     I swallowed hard. “You know why I’m doing this. I’m doing this for our family. If I stop…”

     The Tuskaninny shook his head. “Okay, we blame Meridell for the famine, for how the Citadel has declined, and then we go to war against them…but can we really go on like this? There are things Lord Kass is keeping, even from you – from everyone. Things they deserve to know.”

     “What?”

     “You knew I was deployed to Meridell with the Thirteenth Squadron, right? But I don’t think you know…what happened to the Thirteenth Squadron.”

     Judeth was right. While I hoped that he’d find time to write, I knew that with Lord Kass’ plan to annihilate Meridell in full swing, Judeth might be too busy. Not to mention, asking around the fortress was probably not a good idea.

     “Many of them were injured in battle and sent to a neutral zone designated near Meri Acres Farm for the injured and civilians.”

     “Meri Acres Farm?” I realised belatedly that my voice had risen and dropped it again to a whisper. “But didn’t Lord Kass say he mounted a huge offensive there against Meridell’s peasant mili…” My words caught in my throat.

     An attack so close to a neutral zone with all the Citadel’s heavy artillery and firepower. From the look on Judeth’s face, we were thinking the exact same thing.

     “I can show you, if you want,” he said. “There is an outpost several blocks away where you can see Meri Acre Farms and all the places near it.”

     “W-Won’t anyone see us?”

     “Like I said, only if you want.”

     I bit my lip and nodded resolutely. “Take me there.”

     * * *

     It was not a long flight to the outpost, but it seemed to take an eternity and a half; much of it was ducking in the shadows of buildings or passing through abandoned houses. But we finally arrived at the tower, built several steps away from the edge of the Citadel, and conveniently deserted. I wondered if Judeth knew no one would be manning it – or perhaps, whoever used to be manning it had been deployed to Meridell below.

     We swooped into the outpost, and he gestured to a spiky telescope which creaked when he swivelled it toward the direction of Meri Acre Farms. I put my eye against the lens, and my breath caught in my throat.

     Much of Meri Acre Farms had been laid waste, fields ravaged, trees chopped down for battering rams and weaponry, fruits and berries plundered by hungry soldiers. Next to it was a smouldering splatter of black and grey, rubble and debris and a scorched, torn banner with an emblem of a potion bottle wrapped in white gauze.

     The Tuskaninny’s face was sombre when I looked at him. I didn’t want to see any more. That was enough.

     “Lord Kass also plays favourites with the squadrons sent to fight his war,” he said, breaking the silence between us at last. “Had that been another squadron – one totally loyal to him – he probably wouldn’t have let it get caught in the crossfire.”

     “Are you saying you’re not loyal to him?” I asked.

     “Lord Darigan, at least, respected the neutral zones he and King Skarl designated. King Skarl continues to do so now. Lord Kass…will do anything, will sacrifice anyone, for his war.”

     I grimaced.

     “Just because you’re his Department of Communications doesn’t mean you’ll be exempt. I’m just warning you – remember what happened to Major Crandall. He was lucky to have been banished. Speaking of Major Crandall…his daughter has been found out. You know about that, don’t you.”

     “Yes,” I said softly.

     “We saw her running away from Meridell Castle a few days ago. His plan to incapacitate everyone in the castle using her magic has already failed.”

     “What? But he never…he never told me…”

     “Like I said, Lord Kass keeps many things from you, and everyone else.”

     I slapped the telescope as I stepped away from it. “Then what do you want me to do? You think it’s so easy for me to quit my job?”

     Judeth sighed, lowering his hood over his face.

     “That’s for you to think about. You’re supposed to be a journalist, aren’t you? You’re supposed to be reporting the truth. And if our parents found out what you were really doing as Department of Communications…”

     * * *

     My heart – and the rest of me – was heavy as I returned to the fortress. I looked around and silently kicked the wall, grumbling about how Judeth didn’t even have any good advice for me on how to leave my job. I could run away, like he did, but I thought of our parents, thought of how they needed to eat…

     “That dancer…that traitor’s daughter…has fled the castle, Hadrak. You and Morguss had better come up with a new plan quickly, or else.”

     I ducked behind a corner, holding my breath and straining my ears. From the corner of my eye I could see Lord Kass, speaking to a green Mynci with a prominent beard and eyebrows.

     “Not to worry, not to worry, Your Excellency,” the Mynci answered, grinning and rubbing his hands. “Once Meridell Castle pulls itself together, it will finally send support to those poor knights left scrabbling about. Once those knights are ready, there’s no doubt they will strike directly at the Citadel. At your stronghold, milord.”

     There was silence. I clutched my chest and waited to hear what they said next.

     “And? You will not lead them away from my stronghold?”

     “Oh no, no, no. This is the perfect battleground. You hold all the cards here, milord. Instead, we will wait for them, and strike! We’ll call back many of your troops to defend the fort, and we’ll even keep the fighting away from most of the civilians.”

     ”Most”?

     “I don’t care. I want Meridell so beaten, so broken, that they won’t rise again,” said Lord Kass. “We’ll take whatever they leave behind and build my empire over their ruins!” I heard him breathe out, likely in relief. “Very well, Hadrak. You shall eat very well tonight, at dinner.”

     “Thank you, thank you, Your Excellency. Shall I call for Morguss?”

     “Never mind. I’ll deal with that hag myself.”

     I watched Hadrak perform a sweeping, almost overdramatic bow. “As you wish, sire.” He left, and I noticed a spring in his step as he disappeared down a flight of stairs.

     That left me alone in this corridor with Lord Kass. I remembered Judeth, remembered the ruins of that neutral zone…and took a step forward.

     Then, like a coward, I turned away and walked briskly toward my office. I shut the door behind me with a bit more force than usual and stomped toward my typewriter, my papers, my work. As far as I could tell, nothing was unchanged, there were no new directives left on my desk, no messages…

     I jumped with a small squeak when my door banged open. It was Lord Kass, and I stumbled all over my feet and tail to bow properly for him.

     Fate could be so cruel sometimes.

     “Spiketree!” he barked, kicking my door shut, “you have a new assignment.”

     “Milord?”

     “You have one week to send a new newsletter,” the Darigan Eyrie said. “Recruiting more fighters for our cause to seal our victory over Meridell. All for the people of the Citadel. We will exact revenge upon Meridell…and feast when we are done!”

     I glanced at my seat and my typewriter, my heart hammering what felt like a million beats per minute. My hands were beginning to sweat.

     “Well?”

     My throat was suddenly dry. I felt like I had one foot ready to step forward, take the leap, and decide that I’ve had enough of these lies. The other foot hung back, preferring my cushy but deceptive job as Department of Communications.

     “Head in the clouds, Spiketree? Enjoy your day off…a bit too much?”

     He whirled around and locked my door. I instinctively took a step backward.

     “I received word that one of my soldiers deserted his post,” said Lord Kass steadily. Dangerously. With narrowed eyes and bared teeth. “Private Judeth Spiketree. Perhaps you’ve heard of him? Met him?”

     “I…he’s…” I caught myself. No, I thought. Not Judeth. Regardless of what decision I would make, I would leave him out of it.

     “A little Carmariller told me,” the Eyrie went on, “that he was sighted flying due west of here. With a Darigan Usul that looked very much like you.”

     I was trembling, but I wondered if it was less fear…and more of adrenaline pumping through me to give me the burst of energy to do what needed to be done.

     “M-Milord,” I began, “if the C-Cita-d-del is in the middle of f-famine, th-then why…does Hadrak get to…”

     “A reward for his hard work,” said Lord Kass smoothly. “If you do well enough, even you – “

     “F-For…the p-people…o-of the Citadel…b-b-but…but you…you don’t care that they get killed along with the enemy, don’t you?”

     “You were with Private Spiketree then.” It was not a question. And before I could think, his hand shot out and grabbed me by the collar of my tunic, pulling me face-to-face with him. “You two really are brothers.”

     He spat the words into my face and hurled me to the floor. My head hit the bookshelves on the way down, and I saw stars dance in my vision as I sprawled next to my table. Then, I felt him hoist me back onto my feet, gripping me so tightly my breath whistled in my throat.

     “But,” he went on, “you were useful. A pity you finally outlived your usefulness.”

     * * *

     I sat in the corner of my cell, weeping uncontrollably. I didn’t even notice that only a crust of stale bread and a cup of questionable-looking water were on the tray that was slid under my door.

     I was lucky. Lord Kass threw me into the dungeon instead of throwing me off the Citadel. But Judeth? Kass had his spies track him down and post him onto the front line. We saw each other briefly, just long enough for him to see that I was down here, and for me to see that he was being marched off by Kass’ guards.

     There was a chance I would never see my brother again.

     I curled up, drawing my knees to my chest. I wondered how my parents were – after dealing in lies, this was how I ended up. My heart ached; they would be wondering why the money suddenly stopped, or where Judeth was, or if I was still working for Kass…

     Had it all been worth it?

     I had thrown away my dignity and my calling as a journalist, even though Kass had been the one to press me into it. But I continued…and…and…

     The idea that many people of the Citadel had marched to their deaths in Kass’ personal vendetta because of what I had written settled into my brain like damp fungus. Judeth might join that list, and I would live in fear of that day, not knowing what would become of him.

     And not knowing what would become of me.

     I closed my tear-filled eyes and fell into a fitful sleep.

     * * *

     Days and days passed me by. All I knew was the war raging outside, the snatches of Kass and his minions parading about in the dungeon, plans and strategies and battles whispered behind these dark walls, like dry leaves tossed on the wind. No one cared that I was there to hear it all. No one cared about me.

     Then, one day, after another night of poor sleep, I opened my eyes to a tall, imposing figure of a robed Korbat standing outside my cell.

     “Is this him?” he asked in a deep, rumbling voice.

     “Jethrodd!”

     It was all too much for my poor brain. There was Lord Darigan, alive and well, with a Darigan Tuskaninny I knew to be Judeth.

     “Judeth!” I sobbed, leaping from my cot, clutching the bars and reaching out for his hand. We clasped hands, and I saw that he was crying, too. “I’m so glad you’re alive, I’m so glad, how are Mother and Father…and I’m so, so, so sorry.” I swallowed hard and looked up at Lord Darigan. “I’m sorry…milord. After everything I’ve written…”

     “Well,” said Lord Darigan, with a wave of his hand, “I think you’ve been imprisoned long enough for everything you did as Kass’ Department of Communications. The rest of your sentence can be community service at the local college…to make sure Darigan Citadel never falls for any propaganda or fake news, ever again.”

     I lowered my head reverently. “Of course, milord. But, if I may…please, let me ask for one more thing. Besides my freedom.”

     “What is it?”

     “I’d like to bring the Darigan Dark Weekly back, too. To report the truth, as always.”

     The End.