Chapter Eight, Fields of Mourning
Snowcrest 29th 19 AD, Valkingrad village
Valkingrad lay as ashen bruial behind the trail of the Lord’s path to purge his inner pyre. The rebellious battlements & their stalwart defense proved stubborn, at the cost of bovine anemics and faded spirits among the Drakoni. Though they’d sent his Majesty behind shield wall they won naught. Devoured by Dragon’s Breath of Albrecht’s design: launchers of fire that stole the forests & folk of this stubborn city. Maddening echo of proclamation for the hearth & woods around lived in lingering winds. That minstrel accompaniment which drummed singularity of sound, in anthem of immolation. Ghoulish gusts curtained the elements with the essence Drakkon’s sentencing of the town to mad fyre from beyond the grave of its speech: “Call to Thunder! Evocation ov Flame!”
The Lord’s ire loitered in the smog summoned of his order. That the traitors would not relinquish Baron’s whereabouts nor unbar their gates while manning such walled resistance meant that all Valkyrwood around the village had to burn to scorch the rebels’ stoicism. Inferno from which the women & oldfolk were first to flee.
The men went about the gruesome work of stringing up fled bodies onto spikes, tossing burdensome husks unto smaller funeral fires and snuffing the lead pillars of smoke choking the victors’ breath. But they found not the bard’s body among the dead, though Heimskal and other valiant traitors now stretched on poles as ruinous relics.
Then an abrupt horn of war resounded from nearby field, disturbing tasks. After ordering his captains to continue the burning & building of effigies until no bodies remained, Drakkon went to his advance scouts outside the charred skeleton of Valkingrad.
Skittish sentinels reported that more of Baron’s banner waving militants amass by the remaining forest across the valley snow. Through the falling flakes the lone lord thought he gleaned his friend of long ago. Atop a horse outstretching the flag of the People’s Protectorate and blowing the horn’s shrill scream. Scowling at the world the emperor saddled his horse and made out to meet him.
The two leaders rode towards one another. Each brashly refusing any bodyguards to accompany them and ready to combat with word or sword. That luminescent green between them deigned as the midpoint to meet, Drakkon reached the Andrasil tree, standing in solitude at the center of the field in eternal defiance of (or stubborn harmony with) the elements. Unhorsing, he propped himself against the trunk and under glowing flakes waited for his rival.
Baron went on foot nearing the great tree. Marching beneath foreboding branches with hurt branded on his brow. “DRAKKON!” He bellows across gray landscape. “You killed them all?! You place the carcasses of children & mothers on spiked rostrum and toss the rest to balefire all for embittered delusion?!” Closing the gap, the glow of the embers from the ruin in the distance cast faint light their faces, shining no intent on forgiveness.
Drakkon stood his ground and claimed more, expanding his stance to show he would not step back. Even if he knew his feet planted on hollow foundation save the boots of reprisal. “Thou art but a stinging pest that should long been crushed the moment thou were exposed as slandering scum and a lecherous lout. Betrayer of all oaths, all friendship and decency!”
“Now instead of honoring the chance at life and reflection granted to thee, thou riled the realm against rule & order and return to me with a swarm of arrows & spite? Always a gaping wound in my side till the death, but thy thorn shall soon be torn out. I regret showing mercy to thee on that Fel eve. ‘Twas weakness of heart. But I will not waver for a second this time when the moment comes to strike thee down. My resolve will not wither in this cold. I know what I am and what I am capable of – what I must take to erase this stain of fleeting life. Thy breath draws thin, to the last!”
Baron spat. “Killing me would hath saved me from the pain of witnessing you grow evermore into monster. Would that you had a heart still you could understand the rupture you cause mine. Already your reign is ash, yet you can still be more than that. The people demand to rule themselves. You know you hath no right so put this farce down. You may yet be more than maddening knave!”
The restless lord’s pupils flare at Baron, staring beneath the heavy boughs of ancient tree. “That misguided idealism which instills in you the hatefully inane urge to raise swords against your Emperor deceives you again! Fooled into believing petty band of rag tied crofters can persevere against my might. You will be destroyed; of that I assure you. I would rather make thee a bleeding ‘martyr’ than allow thee another day of life! One cannot lead troops from the grave and without guidance they will fall as quick and hard as winter hail.”
“There need be no more graves if you will only sheathe this rage. Temper steel with humanity. I may yet one day add redeeming verse to your song, that it be more than a parable against tyranny.” Baron’s tense gaze fell into thought. He fought back reluctant tears, but they bled from his ducts despite him. “I hate what transgressed. But I will not allow my woes to get in the way of duty to rescind what befalls our people by your cruel hand. If we must meet on the field of battle, I shall sever it. Your reign must end, and I shall record the history of it for future folk. Etch in the annals either how a humbled man of faded legend forwent his throne for peace or as a despot who clung too harshly to empty crown, bought by blood. That all can remember how he became a far more terrible dragon than any former serpent. Or else as he who relented his era for one which the people earn the right to command their lives and not bow before pretenders.”
Drakkon’s thoughts swelled. Yet his tears failed to flee from frigid surface, keeping to cold demeanor when next he spoke. “You were nothing to me but a useful little songbird whose gentle tune brought me the love of the Many. So that I could seize what was mine by destiny, I made a champion of you! You were my left hand! You used the power I bestowed upon you to undermine my rulings and corrupt the foundation of the empire we fought to build! Do not think that I feel a shard of kinship nor mercy for you simply on basis of past service. You are no friend of mine! But an enemy & stain that must be smote! One that will rot beneath this tree.”
Baron’s pained hysteric laugh shivered, mocking and feverish. “You cannot hide what we were behind distant words. I know we were as brothers once, you and I... A close thread about us with twisted connection – the travesty of what once was - brings me to tears of disgust! While you refuse to address me as an equal, man to man, the threads of the past yet bind you. Truly, this is tragedy... I looked up to you, Drakkon! You were a living inspiration to me. Not as a ‘god’ or deity on a plinth, but as a man and leader who stood for something that mattered!”
The bard inched closer to the man he accused, nearly battering the bridge of Drakkon’s nose with his own. His acutely transfixed on those of his rival and former ruler. “Ah, That glint in your eye... I see! You know the truth of your birth. Has it settled well in the chasm within that skull? That you had me damned for knowing the truth you must yourself accept? You are no ‘god’! You never were. Nor will you ever be. The drapery of delusion which you and your witch-mother toiled so hard to cast over the eyes of the people is being pulled back to reveal the truth! Soon to be torn open!”
But the bearer of the crown of blasphemy would not stand to be berated. Not when his soul already stabbed such cycles of doubt & damnation within. “God or not, I am your better. At least I was faithful. Loyal, even to lie. Knowing what I am cannot unlink me from this shape I’ve chained! Shall not shake my ire for treachery & covetousness, nor save a rebel’s fate from being exiled in death along Helrivers of the nether past all astral light! I would rather be a hermit, deny my crown, were it not that a knave yet challenges me, in thee!”
“Then let us both depart for exile if it should save the rest from senseless scourge?” Baron spit sorrowful want, followed by war-song. “Yet war is thy want and my brothers do not fear thee. Thy tactics of intimidation are as devoid of meaning as that hollow crown! Our resolve shall outlast that bloodthirsty beast hiding behind an empty helm. Must this shape be so: more revolting than any treachery, any slime that lathers the dark and dank places at the fringes of earth? At least I know who I am, as a man, and what this world demands of me! No more honorifics of thee, should thou not forsake this course and find a soul, only steel to meet & fell thy tainted trunk if reason cannot avail!”
Drakkon’s wrath unearthed with quivering quickness. Unsheathing his sword to posture threat at the bold skald. “Thrall! Traitor! I swear by all the elements abound and by my arm that when the day rises thy head will hover on spiked neck! I will make an example of thee that will silence the dissent sown. It all will have been for naught – every furious sound of thy passion proclaimed drowned in deafening void of death! All the light built up by thee to be washed away by a single storm - as every one of thy men falls before the axe of my vengeance! Unless thou kneel!”
“Nay, I will not kneel who one who will not show his face beneath the mask. Surrender this violence or be forever worse a fiend than Kassan ever could be.” The bard flung taunting rebuttal, “Thou art the grown image of thy father before he fell. Do be so kind as to emulate his fatal step if our blades must cross tomorrow.”
The edge of Drakkon’s blade nicked Baron’s neck. But he did not draw his blade in retaliatory defense. His refusal only infuriated the wielder by denying him the gratification of fight he so needed to pacify inner turmoil. Drakkon added slight force to the gesture, drawing careful drops. His temperament seethed at this peaceful acceptance of death. He searched in his mind with haste as to what words could be the most lethal to yield a fighting stance, to arise impulsive act to justify want for execution.
“Once thy demons lay rotten on this field I shall press on, to scour the land for all those libraries and Illuminaries. I shall cast their contents to devouring drake. Thy life’s work of shall be burnt, and thy name struck from the tablet of life. Then I shall carve fresh history from thine festering body of work...Desecrate it! Rewrite it as my tale, in my fashion, to become Truth! This I shall do out of spite for thee!”
“Shave thy spite! Thou would go so far in hate & hubris to snuff out the lamplight of illumination in this world? Deny folk knowledge and wisdom, all to secure thine decrepit lie?!”
“For thee, future generations would be damned to wallow in ignorance, blinded by shallow ideology? Then that man I once knew and admired is too far gone. The thing that appears before me is nothing but a husk already beginning to crack.”
Baron exhaled, no sigh of fear but of sadness. “Ah, but it doesn’t matter. Thy threats are soon to be annulled anyways! I know in my deepest of hearts that those bastions of sanctified Light shall persist to press against thine Age of Dark. Even if thou command expeditions to the brim of thy death bed, their hope will remain far from thine wicked sight! Whatever knowledge that thou wouldst forbid shall be free from thy talons. In the alcoves of the earth, even if but in the humble groves known only to the smallfolk who work and toil this land, that light will always burn for those who seek it.”
Drakkon retracted his edge. Then moved to swing wildly across. A feint to force his enemy to fend and incur the need of a swift & violent conclusion to their quarrel. Baron however did not fluster nor flinch in the face of belligerent posturing. Thus, he replied in stalwart but sad tone. “I can see thou art in maddening midst of feral desperation. It is as if thou art longing for the very fate thou claims to will unto me. Death is in thine eyes. It calls to thee.”
The skald tasted a fallen sprinkle from tree leaf then swirled parting words about his tongue. “If I must, I will put thee down; take thee to the pyre as thou hast done to thousands. Thou shalt become but a pile of cinders. Thy legacy will of ash and despair. Should anyone remember thy name it will be spoken in whispers as a curse or cried with relief from the end of horror brought by thee. Thy dark age but brief. Unless you redeem light in thyself?”
“Back thy spit with steel, skald!” The emperor of waning reign lunged his blade into the Andrasil trunk. Effervescent sap lapped up the stab. But the proclaimed martyr simply shifted from the feeble attempt. “Answer for thy covetous crime, oh agent of misrule!”
“If thou will not accept the mantle of common humanity then thou deserve nothing.” Baron refused to draw iron in protest. Denying him the gratification of the duel. After the chance passed, and Drakkon’s sword did not run through him, the rebel captain turned away. With grief exhaled he vowed curse. “If thou cannot abandon thy title and become something true then may thy thoughts be forever haunted, anchored to thy sins. Lift that crest from thy head before it falls or may thine hours stretch lonely, creeping onto deathly passage.”
“Before the sun’s chariot can be chased back once more, I will burn thy body and with it cleanse all memories of thee with it.” Came the venom of Drakkon’s counter curse.
The singer mounted his steed and tossed a pouch of coin that spilt by the cursed Lord’s boots. They surged, flickering emblem not of tribute but of taunt; for the coins shined fresh mintage of Protectorate symbol, a cross of farm rake of common folk & scroll of learning. With this he swung a bitter jeer, telling his erstwhile emperor that upon his fall the lineage to his rabble would be legitimized & flourish. No matter his pitiful triumphs Drakkon could not crush their spirit, the people would reclaim their place & prosperity without his imperial didacts.
Prelude to Apocalypse
The Morning of Battle, Snowcrest 30th, 19 AD
The small hours passed without an ounce of sleep. Drakkon denied himself reprieve (or snare) of dreams. He stirred, pacing frantically about the perimeter of the camp. Baron’s words pierced his thoughts, bleeding litany. Even as he tried to deny them space in his mind they grew, expanding anxieties. Azarra’s agonized wail joined the clamor of curses, repeating. Over & over, he heard the splashing of blood rained by his command. Shuddering hand felt the shakes of his sword in flesh of fallen foes. Abrasive cries echoing, no matter muttering protests. Every negative aspect of both of his parents branded insignia in his chest. As if they were there haunting, dictating his nature and guiding phantom flow.
He, a creature sewn by shrewd influence rather than sculpted of personal chisel. Paranoia refused all thoughts and being as true. No longer could he call upon heavenly fire nor will power and belief. He had not the power nor faith to call upon any support from the realms beyond his own. No miracle was with him. In this fading realm so dismal and empty. That no lightning from the gods struck down this imposter of storm crown showed the sky emptied of Divine influence. Whispers on welkin of glorified delusions cast no ire from above. Surrounded by starved soldiers he was yet alone.
When the begrimed dawn shyly peeked from behind a cloud blanket, a young and enthusiastic scout equipped with a report gave salutation. The poor boy thought he smelt glory on the winds. “Hail Imperator! I must speak of the enemy’s number camped ‘cross the dell: During the sparse hours, the rebels rallied more arms to their cause, locals & late retainers. Yet shameful souls slithered from our camp. The foe now outnumbers us by more than two hundred heads. But many of them have only pitchforks and wood cutting tools, so should be no match for our forces. By your sign we move. We stand to win a Living triumph, Lord.”
Drakkon scratched at his bushy, ill-fitting beard while he fenced his attention in on what this news provoked in him. With wings and works of fire, the tide will flow in my favor. If only to wash away that thief of Corinna’s heart in the wake of withering fate...
The emperor clasped the scout’s shoulder feigning what inspirational push his waning heart could beckon. “We must not waste initiative. I will rally the captains and assemble our host. Our vanguard set upon our charge to take the center hill quick, with calvary to the forest flanks. The rush of our bravest should bash their swiftest and send what formations they plan into disarray. A final bolt of thunder then for them! Mark Mordaunt to leave his best man with a good crew here with camp & cart, if more rabble creeps up this route. Then ready his position for the charge. His riders wax their wings. They will hammer them by wind when the hour is ripe!”
This morning there were no more motivating speeches to reverberate their legacy throughout the ages with pride and passion for what is reaped of fateful field. Instead, the High Lord quietly ordered his forces onward. Beginning in eerie silence save creaking greaves and grunts. The men following their emperor felt then no great fealty, nor fierceness in the face of their foes. When battle spawned it roused simply as worn, delirious dream.
Their Living Lord fights as reckless gale. Lunging to engage any opponent, opening himself up for attack as if he cared not to survive this encounter but to slay as many others as possible. Berserker chaunt compels him. Eclipsing cool strategy. Yet this inspires intimidation in the rebels, wary to incur retribution from this lunatic’s sword; no godly blade but compelled by a mad storm of loathing for all life. An anarchistic gambit became the mess of combat upon the white-gray fields. Battle formations soon forgone for single grudges and blind clash.
Emptiness besieges every soul who takes up blade, bow or blunt force that day. Pervading gloom of purposeless struggle sunders the air and morale of each soldier. Exhaustion seizes the Drakoni, weary of vain conflict without lasting grounds. And though the Protectorate sought revenge, they too were tired and felt victory against the imperials a fevered fancy. The drift and direction of the battle, as apathetic and chaotic in its shambling pushes from either side. Flow of the field never bending to one claimant.
With progress moot, Drakkon finds himself carried to small rest among his shield-bearers. Wherein he siphons the fury remaining in his breath to blow appalling siren. He releases a pair of brooding bellows, for thunder & wings. Signals the cavalry charge of his Winged Drakes & their mercenary cohorts under Mordaunt. The abrasion of ascendant horns thrashes the spirit of every pawn on the board. Funeral chimes to bring down a hail of dragon fire behind the rebels & riders of apocalypse unto their unruly ranks.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Its resonance is heard but the answer only shatters the front furthermore. Fragmenting the men into frenzy as an avalanche of arrows and the lightning of the Manticore crackles indiscriminately. Dragon’s Breath summons pandemonium to the front. For while Mordaunt obeys the alarum of thunder, he hails havoc with it, and heeds not the call for his steeds. Blasting Helwinds of bolts & flame from missile powder against imperials and insurrectionists alike.
Across the field the master of these mercenaries and those veteran Drakes loyal to him dug in stubborn hoof with taciturn analysis of the sway of slaughter. Mordaunt denies the dissonant call for mounted aid. Turns to address his men, to be the first of his fresh legions. For his hour ripens, as he stands to topple the throne of creation with storm of Selenic retribution.
“This battle is lost for them. Retreat and turn round from whence we came. Drakkon’s day is over, though our hour yet approaches and our honour is unspoiled. To the North and to the West we ride! To Silverwood Grove and the spoils of a respite we hath earned well!” Most Manticore move to his command. Turning away from the battlefield at his whim. Drakkon’s reign ends upon this tiny hill & a death in disgrace. Let false Lord rot in this field as those he forsook do in mass graves. I tether the threads of tomorrow to a future woven with Will alone. This day is yours, Selene, as much as mine. For the ‘gods’ who forgot you are gutted by their dishonor. Let their pantheon perish in smoke!
But before he could humor his thoughts further one disobedient scout seated at the back of the line interrupted with a refusal of this critical command to turn cloak. This lone, young dissident rode up to Mordaunt as he led the battalion’s route. Contested his commander in brash, if foolish, dissent. “NAY!! We cannot abandon the day! We have their flank from here! Why flee the field?”
“They are mad, stunned & beaten.” Mordaunt nearly unsheathed his sword to slice the dissenter’s neck but stayed himself. This little lad simply found himself in the wrong company, and yet he still deserved the choice. “We forge our destinies this day. We forsake not the throne. For ours is to raise a court of our own standing. Yet you may yet choose to ride to fatal fantasy out there in hobbling, hopeless slaughter. The rest of us are thinking of our families & futures that are still yet flesh & reality. Go to your whim.”
The ‘little lad’ spat from his saddle. Rushed to the cart at the back to snatch a weapon worth two dozen men – draconic fire spitters – and rode alone into the fray. “For the emperor!”
Mordaunt cut into the sky with his obsidian Fang of Vizzarion. Spoke then ambition, raising blasphemous exclamation. “We ride out for destinies that are ours to own! Follow me and be given wings to spread above & beyond the barriers of the old, cursed crown which led us here. The mind of man and soul of this land is free to be shaped. We are a force unto our own. Drakkon’s Light dies. Not ours. Let them grind each other for petty vanity. Yet I would lead us to a life of enrichment and glory. Move with me!”
Signing the retreat, he sealed Drakkon to defeat. Thus began the solemn march away from their Emperor’s call of grave desperation. If any among them should have felt troubled at this blatant betrayal, they dared not show it. Their teeth jittered in the cold, but heads held to simple thoughts of a warm fire and bed away from all this strife betwixt kin hastened their hooves. What worth was there in harboring regrets for those so weary & without cunning to cut a crown and they, so ripe for glory? As they rode beyond the valley the winter wind bemoaned the tragedy caught within its icy fold.
Drakkon’s sanity fled from him with those faithless riders. His fingers drag his eyelids and spay his nostrils. Terrible howl of insipid resent shatters the seals of those fighting men around. His standard quakes. Fearing they’d been cursed with incapacity before enfolding ignominy. To the rebels the sound signified the waning power of this false god and jolted them with vigor to win the day and silence that wounded cry.
As Drakkon ushers commands to his nearest warriors his final tinge of grand posture evaporates in fumes of impotent rage. His brows fold to strenuous, beet red. Veins bulge from neck and forehead, exposing erratic flaying of any dignity. The strain on his throat breaks while issuing bloated execution mandates. Demands death for all turncoats and cowards following Mordaunt. Croaks orders never to be fulfilled. Yet he would not release control even as the unbending edges of this grip on reality bleed. Odors of his decaying mental vapors alienate those around as their faith is flayed.
The emperor’s verbal retinue regresses to crude insults and rough profanity, flung with futility at Mordaunt. Casting slurs and slights at his soldiers, whether fled or bled for him. Declares them callow cravens who crumble under the pressures of a real fight. With the forlorn affair of Drakkon’s ranks, his ravings of retribution ring dull. Lined meekly with the hopeless anger of a hateful man wrangling with his wits.
Unwilling to lay down and die, abandoned by all, Drakkon hammers his heart with iron. Charges the enemy with mindless ferocity for the center hill under old tree shade. His mindset a vacuous swamp of scorn’s sludge. He swings & stabs wildly, without restrain or care. Rancor outweighing any trace of remorse as the bear in him carves up countless men who once fought for him as comrades. Feral strikes show no compassion reserved for his life, carelessly endangered, or others. Death was his Hand. His arm & bridge to carry him along to its dark country beyond life, where he’d delivered countless souls and would reap more (including Baron’s) on the course. Adrift upon consummate gales of morbid fortune from the dark caster-cousins of Malderath in her Hels.
A flurry of blades floods the field with haphazard havoc. Both sides breaking into destitute lunges. The sky above shares in their despair. Concealing sparse pockets of light beaming as beacons over small sections of the gorge, winter storm overruns the dawn’s dim glow. Blackens the halo of Solaris, tainting its orb to aspect of night. Discord takes the reins of the field and leaves no soul untorn nor body unscarred. In the mayhem, a jagged bearded axe forces its way towards a gap in the Imperator’s plates from behind.
The reprobate who stabbed between Drakkon’s shoulders, one of his partisans. Who just as swiftly pays for this not by the blade of the lord he betrayed but by an arrow shot by a rebel aiming for the man’s mark. The plate and mesh beneath hold the serrated metal mouth off, yet its tiny trident portends torrent of mass confusion sweeping up all. Disorienting spell confounds all until any recognizable form of proper battle is stripped bare. With brother hesitant to engage with his brother. Old friends gaping at one another across clanging swords. Rivals lusting for cathartic duels. Each man clasped to his small strife and shrunk to sheer survival. Nothing left but to push through the flesh and mettle of the man immediately ahead.
Yet the most resilient Drakoni loyalists carve out a tenuous position at the center by the Andrasil. This reverent tree, the only relic of order in the barbarous conflict. A brave scout of near seventeen cycles dares the route to its roots. Sliding from the bridle of his skittering steed, snorting paranoic frenzy and ailing whinnies, this loyal youth delivers to his liege a scarce stockpile of precious powder projectiles. His ephemeral gift to glory that day.
Baron’s battle horn sounds, coming to contest the white crests of the dell with his banners. His contingent of horsemen dash with haste towards the weakening lines. A brown and cherry wave to wash the Drakes into red tide. Intent on lancing the Lord of Imperium and bringing the embattled Aera to swift end.
Assembled beneath the boughs of the Andrasil the fading Lord fastidiously orders those last few Dragon’s Breath pillars aimed at the cavalry. Although they were few the riders presented a clear threat and were led by spiritual head of their foe. Flint strikes fuses, discharging the blazing lances. Several fyre-lances find their mark & obliterate the advancing aspiring knights. Spitting fire unto the riders, igniting the leather uniforms and gambesons. Hels’ torch frightens what steeds & men were not instantly scorched.
But the rigged-up lines of fiery bolt spitters (ugly projectile-launching contraptions carved with a belligerent sneer in the face) that scorched Valkingrad & its woods with their tongues prove unpredictable. The one in front of their improvised command post fails to fire properly. Its aborted flight sparks blind embers. These crude contraptions dreamt up by the mind of Albrecht, serving as Primus to Ty-Drasil and Magus ov Imperial arms without slightest snicker or scorn for his utility (abandoning study & healing of the body in favor of warfare engineering), not so infallible as espoused.
The fickle fuse burns back into itself, misfiring disastrously. The blast kills the operator of the fyre-lance and sends his seared palms into the air. Incendiary wave tosses Drakkon and a dozen defenders backwards. Ash and charcoal exhaust coat the area with profuse pitch-black ether. The discharge crumples Drakkon’s chest plate like parchment. Caves it in and crushes his air passage. He rasps and wheezes amidst smoke as he claws at the broken, burdensome armor to shuffle it off with his winged helm. The bright white, azure, and gold insignia on the plate, completely wiped by the corrosion. No trace of the imperial star of storm. The color black as soot.
“Thy legacy will be one of ash and despair.” Baron’s curse burns through the barriers in his brain with painful clarity. All as cinders spit up into the branches of the tree, igniting them in a less than miraculous glow. He struggles there beneath shower of burning boughs until a nearby footman helps him remove the shattered armour and rising to his feet. Drakkon prays his ribcage hadn’t shattered though it felt so. Though to what gods he prayed he no longer knew. How could he beseech those of the high pantheon for help when he stole their glory to cloak himself? Was it luck he prayed to, or a universal current carrying chance and guiding all through subtle undertow? No matter, reflection passes in the smoke.
Through the smoggy haze a figure in cherry-brown jack plate appears upon steed of mist. Cutting through the thinned strips of imperial guard, and zealously scouring the gray hill for his challenger. Drakkon faces this contender, drawn to clash by the drawstrings of insidious determinism. This contender, none other than Baron. His glare lit by loathsome malice. No penitence from the one nor fluttering of intent in the other’s eyes.
The rebel skald’s swift storm of dodges flew by in slow motion as their knell struck. Every swipe stretched over an incomprehensible length. Drakkon’s mind was not to be found in the present, for an odd and irritable dissociation took him. None of it felt real. A construct of nefarious destiny or Saatharian sham soon to fade. Half-seeking severance from his form. Through this cyclone the present reeled him in he witnessed his obsidian blade shatter the steel challenging his to continue carving down, to skewer shoulder & slice through the sinews of the bard’s chest. Yet his command fell flat midway, the blade stalling with capricious smirk.
Though ready to strike the killing blow and close this dreadful chapter, the Helwinds deny Drakkon. Wings of the Fates flap about Baron, their speed his mantle. The breeze of battle whips him from the path of the blade. Phantom clasps arrest the sword ov imperium. A ghostly whisper blows through the emperor’s core. Faint and distant at first, it escalates to ethereal wail striking from dimension beyond this. A cyclone of disembodied voices whirls about his head. Their wordless chorus cuts through by haunting lilt. Vapors of powder explosion bury his fallen blade. A phalanx of wraiths encompasses him, manifest from residue of misfire & misrule.
An abominable apparition arises from this phantasmal wall. A specter of colossal stature, its shadowy body the lingering smoke. Soon the smog rears a ghastly head, bearing a great crown of spiked horns. A vision of one long dead... Kassan! Father! Above this vision another incorporeal specter appears, impending over the floating antlers. His mother’s revenant claims the air over malformed head. Joins with it. Azarra’s astral messenger, born of sulfur, bears the Scepter of erosion.
Her phantasm extends arms to him with neither scorn nor succor. The clamor ceases, the world goes deaf. Her gaping jaw pours crescendo of gray lament. Voice of horror sends his spine into shock. His phantom mother’s will, unrelenting, chains him, even from the gulf of distance or afterlife. Her spindling threads tether him to psychotic paralysis as the flesh of his father’s face melts to ursine skull. Azarra’s aurora divides the dreary air, streaming sapphire & emerald bolts into Drakkon’s eyes, blinding him to all but the haze of their hue. Cataracts of blighting curse.
A lonely blade, his own obsidian, slices through the spectral curtain about him and exorcises daemonic shroud with steel. Reveals the cold, critical reality cutting into him. Baron’s triumph bites him while bewitched by wraiths, taken in trance. Drakkon’s befuddled sense too slow to parry to the blow. His shambled tunic, slashed. A bloody ravine across his chest. The Lord repels back to the snowy ground, wounds spilling stains. Fingers claw at the snow. Fists dig into the earth to anchor staggered self. Clamoring up to the trunk of the Andrasil.
But Baron must’ve hesitated or else his fading hastened, for the edge failed to be fatal. He slashed when he could have stabbed. The bard faltered, stumbling his chance. The reddish-brown of his armor concealed much of the injuries, hiding blood with its hue. Yet they were minor compared to those of the marred lord, who wrestled with want to let this final stake strike his coil to the tree. But this fatal thrust was not to be. The star-blade disobeyed its passing master, or else heard skald’s command of mercy. For the sword flung not into head of regal pretender but to the ground near the ailing grip of it’s true master. Eyeless hands shambled to find the hilt as the color of the present flashed to form. Yet the great blade felt too heavy to wield even with sight returning.
“Let this maimed pride scar over and heal you of that sickly hubris.” The warrior poet’s words shivered with the singed branches above as he struggled to his steed. “Stay down till you can renounce that burdensome crown. If you should rise, do so as a man, humbled. Or else rot as a defeated demigod.”
As the wispy ocean ebbed from his lids Drakkon saw Baron clutching his heart, having spent it in second wind, before vanishing amid smoke and trailing mist. “I must raise a final fyrd. Our lot is not lost with one shattered sword. I wish not to rally arms over your tomb but to hunt the manticore, Mordaunt, and save our Corinna.”
Drifting back against the trunk of the Andrasil, Drakkon glimpsed how few of the Protectorate revolt remained. Yet the faith of his loyalist also faded, and few gave chase to fight for a fallen lord. As he let fall the curtains of his eyes, abandoning all awareness, ruin seized the field...
Ashen Winds
After the battle
The bite of the breeze nibbled on open wounds. Icy squalls gnawed at tender lesions. Drakkon’s hands clutched his chest setting his greaves against the bleeding wound which pours out into the snows; gray-white ground drank up the sanguine flood like wine and became drunk on his pain. Bellows of agony instinctually left him, limping to the center of the hilltop to set his eyes over the field. Scanning the tumbledown field, he found it littered with corpses strewn about all within sight. Birds of carrion long circling above in the glowering skies chose this as their hour. They swooped down in mass to pick upon the flesh of the dead without discrimination.
Gargling whimpers of maimed men, laid out on the ground. Friends mourn, even offer weeping comfort as they pass. Yet many now kneel beside men not of their own camp but mates and kin who had taken up arms against them. Charged by their commanders to spill the blood of their lines, beset in vain opposition to one another. The tainted white-gilt standard of the Drakoni forces and the red brown of the People’s Protectorate blend in morbid unity. Nothing but Death hailed that day. The bonds of allegiance, as mutilated as the bodies about the holy tree.
Stragglers on either side flew to cover of the woods. Drakkon’s howl echoed in ailing winds and dead ears. At the bottom of the hill stirred a contingent of Drakoni warriors, among the last. Despair written on their countenances with more clarity than words could say. He rose his body with his sword and bellowed to them.
“To me! To me!” Desperation and the pale grip of the cold travelled with his cry. These men of surviving rank shook their head in silent protest while they contemplated amongst themselves the next move. Only a single young scout chose to hear to the emperor’s plea and approach the charred tree. Few had fight or hope still in them. The rest turned their back on their former master and for the woods. Fleeing from fury of the firmament.
“I require assistance! Aid thy emperor!” His breath and speech, sparser than stern. So hoarse & hollow, carrying none of the spirit which once rallied them to him. “Carry me back will thee? We must find Corinna; she may heal me. Nay, return to Windhand. Mordaunt - the fell knight - betrays me. Tis he who designed this day’s destruction by fleeing the field... I-I demand his execution!” Blood seeped from side of his mouth, deadening vicious voice.
But there was nothing to siphon loyalty from the last who, spying Drakkon’s frailty, sensed that it was he who had been betrayed. Seeing his lord leak from wound of mortal arm the boy sliced a pact of flight in different form. Tearfully falling from faith onto his sword, that shame split his stomach. His imperator lacked the fortitude to admonish, let alone stop, this shedding departure. Why live on when your god decays before you?
Royal limbs recede to tremors, and the ghoul’s stature sloops against ashen stump. This ghastly shade cast morbid aspect, wan and gaunt. Mine is abandoned... All the songs of earth & wind so baleful to me. This ruination is of me. To think that I thought myself a god! Upraised on a shrine above and before all the world to be but a playground for my fantasies! But Baron was right. I tightened my grip so harshly over the reins that I rule over nothing but a blighted barrow! All I heralded with this ‘Living Aeon’ was strife evermore. A ‘glorious’ grave of godhood & glut for dominion.
I cannot even blame mother. My ear yearned for her falsity; my faith fevered for her dreaming dogma. What am I without delusion? A ghost. A faint shadow beneath the doorstep, soon to be obscured by greater dark. I am nothing! I should crawl into the deepest hole and hope that all remembrance be buried with me. In this, final hour, his ghost saw the gaping maw of infinity stretch. Knowing, in scope of that sepulcher snout, how laughably small he was.
No signs of sentience appear across the site. Silence culls every cry, the souls that uttered them devoid of life or faraway fled. Flames & foul mist of forlorn fighting, snuffed by Snowcrest blanket. Drakkon stood among terrible disquietude. Shivering, awaiting the end of his vain candle. The torn flesh beneath tattered garb gushed sympathy for the dead of this dell. Yet he bled envy for them and prayed fears for the fate of the living. What boon or bane was left but lunacy? Those who would inherit the vestige of his legacy.
This necropolis of flesh frozen from rot and glazed over eyes no longer seen as people. These sapped souls, no longer recognizable as fixtures of his life, his ailing sway, but seemed effigies of all selves he could have been without being bound to gross godhead. As paintings, plagued by feeble storm croon. Mocking delirium pervades. The legions of crows treating themselves to the eyes of the fallen laugh at his expense. The only creatures grateful to him, hailing them as a friend for this lordly feast. Their gratitude expressed by saving his carcass-meat for dessert, a tantalizing sight by the blistered base of the Andrasil. There burnt saplings fell beside premonitions of blizzard.
Slowly Drakkon’s weary lids fall. All vision, coated with sweat and sobs. The bawling of the towering whiteout drowns out these sickly sniffles. In his astral eye: picturesque scene of wheat field & garden grove gaining clarity, changing shape under his curtains. Oh! To be anything but that which I am! To be anything but this. Awareness of the self that I possess tortures me! What could I be in another life, another world untouched by the blight of this being? To be a simple farmer far away. Tending to his pastures and to the care of my love. To fear not death, occupying mind with mere contentment of a nice breeze and sweet caress. To graze that graine of another life, field abundant with humble beauty. To fill my lungs with the aroma of love, to kiss her and brim with glow of infinity in smallest joys. To warm my limbs by the fire, with her at my side.
His conscious attention drifts into this sphere of fantasy, but cold reality snatches him back. Heart ov Imperia splinters as memories wind through its yarns. Impressions of the horror he’d imposed on this world brand his inner wool. Sobbing renews. Cursing his blind ambition that drove him to this ditch of a dais. Waiting for the caress of Malderath and whatever she may bring.
Snare of crowing gloom snaps at pounding of hooves. Living fate reverberates by the steps of that steed, stirring him from the wintry red sheet covering his soul. Through watery veil and congealed blood his focus strains on a figure riding toward him with immense haste and intent. The rider, cloaked in the shade of snows and ethereal pace, races against the windstorm.
The horse bounding over white-gray sea wore emblem of Drakoni sign. Though this detail flashed no hope for he knew he no friends nor fanatics were left to carry him out of this wretched hole. The great, corroded, tree behind him groaned semblance of waning enchantment. As undying as the man resting against its ruin, who steered sloping chin to see this visitor or avenger.
The face was too distant to make out. And white visor concealed the visage of mounted apparition. Aspect paler than the wraith webs wreathing his wits. Drakkon’s eyelids seal and again the gentle waft of dreaming golden meadow blows into his soul.