By the time the Army of the White had taken Murray Hill, the name was a bit of a joke -- several times over, in fact. The king himself was some kind of undead thing, which made it the Army of the Wight to most. More significantly, the nature of the mad city had stained the pristine forces ever since they established a beachhead in Battery Park. The Queen Knight was wearing plum taffeta and leg warmers as soon as they'd swept into Tribeca, but that was really no surprise. One of the rooks disappeared during the Chinatown siege and emerged three days later from the Bowery wearing bamboo armor over its stone flesh and speaking in a Long Island/Mandarin pidgin that no one could understand reliably, but that was nothing to the way the foot soldiers deserted during the push through the Village; when they returned (and they didn't, always), they wore only parti-colored rags or had painted their face and chest blue, their once-alabaster tabards tied round the waists like kilts.

The Motley Army of the Wight held Murray hill, its captains in conference over the last steps to take before the Great Battle, which none of them discussed.

"If we take them through the Theatre District, we'd probably lose half the pawns, the Queen Knight, and both the Bishops," growled the King. His dry teeth ground together.

"Mid-Town seems safe," commented the Queen.

"Mid-Town always seems safe," retorted her liege. "That's where the danger's at – it's like the Bermuda Triangle, except real."

"Turtle Bay..."

The King nodded. "Probably our only real option. It'll take twice as long to get there of course, plus it brings Lenox Hill into play, but it's still safest. We can send one of the Rooks straight ahead to scout; we’re ... less likely ... to lose him like we might the others."

The Queen raised her gaze to his. "I could go, m'lord." Her voice was soft, but deep and musical. "You know my power, better than any. None could oppose me."

Such was the wisdom of the King that he did not immediately discount the suggestion. "Struth, my lady, no single opponent would best you." He laid a hand, chaste and bone-white, upon her arm. "But our foe would not send opponents singly against you, if he saw you on the field. I would save you for the final gambits."

"I do not fear my sister."

"I know that."

She held his eyes several long moments before nodding.

The King issued the orders to move out.

The Knight? entered the tent after the Queen had left, but from another direction -- from no direction, as far as the King could tell -- knights moved in ways others could not. The armored servant waited, his eyes not on the King, but on the slowly shifting folds of the tent flap where the Lady had departed.

"We will need to watch her," the kind said, apparently addressing the upturned palms of his emaciated hands. "It will be soon."

His knight nodded, then left the ten at an oblique angle that would take him on a path parallel to the Queen.

There are seven items of power that the White and the Black vie for. All seven have never been on the battlefield simultaneously -- no single being truly knows what will happen if they are. The White held the Knight of course, the Candle (wielded by the Queen), and the Dreamcatcher (held by the King); they were Courage and Hope and Vision. The Black held the Compass, the Mask, and the Quarter; they were Resolve and Strength and Fate.

Only very recently, the White had come into possession of the Key. It was a telling advantage; possibly the final advantage needed. That the King moved so cautiously when the advantage on the field was so clearly his spoke to many decades of tactical study in which the liege had learned that Advantages were very much like levers handling a great weight -- able to shift things dramatically, but very easily flipped out of your control when you weren't paying proper attention.

He suspected that in this, the Black's (ironically) darkest hour, his Lady the Queen might provide his opponent Hope, quite literally.

((to be concluded))