Canto for the Fallen

“I will not. I tire of this story, tire of this life. I care not that our war with the Elves has left me a beggar-knight. I care that you were supposed to catch me as I fell. Did you not call me brother before? Does a brother leave his kin in the mud to bleed and rot after sending them toward inevitable death? You know you never claimed the bodies you left in that field of the Somme. I went there as I sought my soul, finding an old, bullet-riddled plate adhered to bones. You called us your knights, warriors superior to the soldiers of the state- the Volksturmtruppen. Equal to the Ordos’ warriors. We were your Ritterdrache, and you abandoned us.

Now, you want us to join your cause after these twenty years of miserable, unequal peace to fight in the Forever War? I will not be your slave soldier yet again. My son was executed in the colonies by your damn madmen. His crime? Questioning why we bow to Elves and let them enslave and consume our people. Why do we? Why do you suddenly want war with vampires and demonicka that have long been heeled when Elves, billions of them, are at our borders with weapons far beyond pike and shot? The true enemy builds itself up while we go to reclaim our masculinity. And you endorse this dalliance and ask the same of us?

I defy you, Kaiser. This letter leads my accusations nailed to this cathedral of Melentale. You have forgotten your people and allowed us to falter. If you abandon the colonies, we shall abandon you.

True brothers and sisters reading this, look upon these theses below and see what I see in our rotting Fatherland. The Lightborne shall rise again, and I will be with you when we scourge all Elves and free our kin. If the Kaiser denies this, then may his bones be crushed and join Arthur Eld’s in infamy.“

Prelude Letter to the 105 Accusations of Otto Von Falke

3803 A.H.

Last Knight-Commander of the Ritterdrache.

He was drawn and quartered shortly after for his treasonous uprising in Zerbrochene Küste; his supporters (1,239) were burned at the stake in the resulting Confessions.

-May Melentale preserve the Fatherland and smote all traitors-

Note by Jan von Liden, Historian of the Lightborne Königreich

The Long Dark

Late Winter 3805 A.H.

*********

The Crusader, Sword-brother of the Red Line

The Crusader held his bleeding chest as his blood steamed in the winter snow. His fingers traced the indent in his armor and the circular hole where that thunder lance had punched through plate and mail. He drew a sharp breath; he felt fragments of his chainmail tearing something inside him. He breathed again. It must be his right lung. He mouthed a prayer to All-Mother Melentale and raised his visor.

Blood dripped from the frosted steel where he had coughed into it. He wiped the gore from his good eye and turned that eye to search for his weapon. There, his broadsword lay where it slipped from his hand. He retrieved it and wiped crimson and browned snow from it. His other eye throbbed, and in the mirror of his steel, he saw a blackened, oozing hole where it had once been. That vampire could’ve just slammed that wispy blade of forwards, and he’d have been a dead man.

Instead, it just shot him and kicked him from the precipice.

He recalled brief flashes of light behind his closed eyes as his head played music on the rocks, and his body became one with the snow below. The cliff rose nearly two hundred feet behind him with plenty of jutting rocks that spared him a deadly descent- only gifting a violent, mocking one.

The Crusader steeled his resolve and buried the shame. He was a Lightborne, a descendant of humanity, and these wounds were nothing mortal. He could press on. He would bring ill tidings to the south. Yet that was enough victory in the Long War.

The Crusader dropped his shoulders and looked up to find Otto’s Eye in the starry sky—a red star in the long dark. It shined to his right, and he started off in that direction. Southbound was his mission now. The crusade was shattered, and the dead were uncountable—the colonies must be warned.

He grumbled as he noticed one of his arms hanging by threads of muscle at his elbow. Yellow-white bone shards peppered the dark red meat, and specks of shredded chainmail revealed how useless this armor had been. The memory flashed in his mind- a mailed fist striking his left arm and stealing all feeling from it except staggering agony. He released a long, misting breath as he stared at his maimed arm.

A quick slash, and it plopped into the snow. The Crusader moved on. He marched toward a black abyss ahead between the skeletal trees, where the twisting woods sang a song of silence. The snow piled down in waves, and the Crusader dropped his visor with the hilt of his sword. He would endure—for the Fatherland.

Greywraithe oaks rose steadily in their heights as he traveled, growing a handful of feet and then rising to tens of feet. The communal arboreal hive interlinked into nests of trees he couldn’t fit his hand through, much less his body. These hives hummed in a strange language; their song became an increasing annoyance as he failed to find a path clear of these knotted families. Detour after detour was his fate. He sometimes found himself staggering and stumbling through a madness of roots, returning to where he started. Once, through the darkness, he saw a rolling highland of ice and shrubs. He stepped into a footprint half-removed from the snowfall.

His eye inspected this trail, his chin rising to see a familiar, sheer cliff he had been kicked down. How? He turned around, seeing Otto’s Eye leading him back through the dark.

He stifled his roar of frustration into a sharp hiss of spite. He lost sight of Otto’s Eye when the Greywraithe ticket rose too high. He was not so young a woodsman that this was an easy mistake. He grew up amongst the Nulwoods of the Rhineland; this was his life.

He told all these things to himself, and all of them were lies to steal his confidence.

He stomped off into the woods yet again, only looking back in contempt for a moment at how foolish he had been. He noticed the discarded arm was missing. The implication registered, but he narrowed his mind to press on.

Hours passed by his assumption, his arm stump turning black from the cold was his clock in this dormant forest. Northland radiance danced in the cracks of the Greywraithe ticket, lines of dancing colors one could only see here. It was a reminder that All-Mother Melentale was still with him, even this far from home. He took the way of Sangarrus this time, a deliberate chain of thought to navigate this problem. Not just the woods but the plateau further south, the river lands below it, and the nearest colony loyal enough to the Fatherland to respond immediately. The last would be the hardest to find.

The War made the colonials bitter. This crusade was meant to unite us and send that anger northwards to the Forever War. The Crusader was told these things by his chapter master, but colonial Lightborne were just a minority in their number when they came here, and they were first to break rank in the first battles with the vampires. Even if he survived this, what would he do if the local colonial authority sent him off as a vagrant? The nearest chapter house was the Rhinegard, an ocean and eight months travel to the west away. He wouldn’t become like those beggar knights from the War. His kinsmen could go to the abyss if they tossed aside the warning he was bringing.

There was a crack of wood. The Crusader spun to it, lowering into his stance. He stumbled. His lost arm threw off that balance. Another sound rattled through the woods. His thoughts made him miss the source. He judged where it was vaguely—using the tip of his broadsword to guide his blurry sight to spots across the woods. Where was it?

He felt a shiver spread across his chilled skin. The tree beside him grew black and pockmarked as if it had aged rapidly. He heard the hum and spun around on his heel. He stumbled again, running into another tree. The bark broke off in a sludge on his armor.

He locked his eyes on it. His arm was aloft in the air, and black sparks of light snapped between his spread fingers into green brilliance, which made him sick. That was a hex.

The Crusader was sent flying. He splintered through necrotic trees, a bolt of energy tracing his chest to his hand. Reality screamed momentarily, the light splitting life and death into a black void where time slowed, accelerated, and erupted in a new, dying star. He tumbled end over end, down an incline, as he saw flashes of the light fade. His vision was filled with dancing stars as he collided with something hard.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

He coughed. It tasted like copper. Looking down, his chest plate smoldered. In between haggard breaths, he saw it rust, first in specks; then, entire handfuls came off as he checked for his flesh. He looked up; his hand was visible through black smote and ruin. Lights flickered.

The Crusader rolled, another scream roared into where he was, and the power still sent him rolling. He stumbled up, his armor coming off in chunks as he rushed whatever horror was ahead. Another blast struck the ground before him, and a spread of stone pellets ventilated him. He doubled over, blood splashing snow.

Another blast. He was sent further down the incline. He checked himself after he struck another tree. His wounds were rock shards that split through his chain. It wasn’t a direct hit.

He couldn’t fight it. He rolled away and sprinted, still holding his broadsword, as another scream sounded and decaying wood splinters rained on him. He was sent stumbling and staggering. The ground fell out from under him- it was a cliff.

He roared as he fell, striking the peaks of another Greywraithe tickets. His helmet ripped free. His body splintered branches as he tumbled, and he cratered the snow below.

Piles of snow dropped from weakened branches that snapped in an irregular melody. A broadsword, buried into a tree, reflected the long night and the still Crusader lying below. Silence came back to these northern woods, and the specks of snow began to pepper the Crusader’s bleeding wound.

He grunted. First, he dragged himself forward, a streak of reddish-brown snow left in his wake. Then, he came to his shaking feet, his first step filling his body with pain and dropping him back to the snow. He lay there, softly breathing.

He was back home for a moment when he heard a cry of “Father.” Faces stared down. He wanted to recognize them.

******

The Crusader rose to his feet, the dark edges of his vision creeping in as snow fell from his body in waves. He looked at his empty hand, unsure where his blade went. His arm stump was black as coal, and the skin around it was a tingling ghost white. It was hard to his touch- as if frozen. The same tingle was radiating across his face. His lips, his nose, his eyelids. His flesh felt rigid and numb wherever it was exposed. His helmet was gone. What remained of his armor was pitted in rust.

That hex… it must have been necrotic, the entropic energy of it so powerful it aged what it struck. Perhaps he looked decades older now.

Ahead, the woods thinned. He must proceed even if those who heard him ignored it. They must know an army was coming south.

He dragged his feet and pressed on.

As he exited the woods, shadows were everywhere, but not for long. The plateau had a distant view now, as well as the two rising, white suns in the west, drawing orange and red across the horizon. This was day five of his plight. He met that vampire on day four. Eighteen more days, he would reach the northernmost colonies south of the plateau. The vampires would stay busy with the remaining colonies here. Eventually, they might even run into the Elves on the eastern half of this land and endure the same horror as the Lightborne during the War.

He could make it.

He stopped. Motion caught the edge of his vision. On a hill, he saw a tattered, familiar banner. A red line crosses black fabric, holding back a thousand gold falling spears from a maiden and babe engraved in white embroidery. His banner. A figure was seated at the bottom of the pole.

It rose from a chair of mist that dissipated.

Fine, aristocratic clothes, dyed in black with red highlights and trimmed in silver-hued finery, with a golden chain clasp holding a sigil of a red-haired Valkyrie hung from a pale, white neck.

The figure was familiar, though it had been armored before. It smiled, revealing barbed fangs behind pale lips under a razor-thin mustache and goatee. Its black hair was parted at the side and grown thick and long down to the neck- a mockery of Lightborne nobility and poets. Black hair, the mark of the arch-traitors of Arthur Eld’s people. Even battered and busted, the sight of it filled the Crusader with rage.

Another pair of figures joined it. One freakishly tall, in weathered plate armor with a T-visor helm that hid its features, though the armor had the same Valkyrie motif across it like an art piece. A thick fur cloak wrapped around this figure’s shoulders, adding to his hulking shape.

The other, a beheaded Lightborne- in his master’s armor.

“I thought you died of the cold. That would have been a shame,” The pompous animal said to him in a soft tone with the Arthurian accent so common to these wretches. It reached down into the snow and grabbed something, tossing it over to the Crusader before it rested its hand on one of the twin swords on its belt.

The object struck the snow. It was his arm, though he only recognized it because of his personalized gauntlet, now defaced with rust. The flesh was rotten, black and grey, and necrotic bone showed.

“It was good at finding you, though the flesh was weak. It did not survive my ministration,” it continued.

“Leech, I will see you burn,” the Crusader hissed back.

“Sheep, you’ve not the shepherd to start that pyre,” the vampire answered.

It marched forward, walking down the hill while the headless corpse took the banner and followed. The armored figure stayed where it was, crossing its arms. The Crusader responded by widening his stance and balling his fist for a fight.

It started to circle the Crusader, and the Lightborne followed it, shifting his stance. He caught a closer look at that corpse following the vampire, it did indeed wear Chapter-Master Gustav’s armor. “If you’re wondering- yes,” said the beast. “He was an adequate swordsman, but nothing like the crusaders of old- or even close to the Ordos’ warriors of today. He fell for a thrust faint and didn’t guard his neck. It could’ve been stopped if he had worn a coif and helm,” The vampire stopped, and the corpse heeded some unspoken command and drove the banner pole into the snow. “O’ Lord, he could’ve just ducked. Even just catch the blade barehanded. I’ve seen that before. More than once. Lightborne are truly savage when you get fire in their eyes. So, what happened?” The vampire asked as it grasped the fabric of their sacred banner and inspected the art. “Did the Elves geld you?”

“Nothing happened,” The Crusader dismissed it.

“No, something did. Two hundred years ago I was in Northlands crossing blades with a sword-brother from Our Martyred Lady- if you know that chapter. I was the young count of the Valkanweald then. Nearly met my final death then. A damn Guardian from the Ordo Malleus came at me while my blade was still buried in that man’s brain,” it released the banner and clapped its hands together, “I dropped corpse and sword and ran for my life, scared the taint right out of me that bastard did-”

“Draw your sword,” the Crusader interrupted.

The vampire smirked. “I mean,” he started and cast a hand at the Lightborne. “Do I even need to?” he asked.

“I’ll fight you to the end.”

“We’re but two pages from that.”

“Which ends with my hand around your throat.”

“Can’t strangle a vampire,” it said with a huff of air, “I don’t need to breathe; I just do it to feel alive,” it pulled one of its swords free and tossed the blade and sheath to the Crusader’s feet. It was similar to the blade he used earlier. The size of a long sword with a blade that was only two fingers in width. Steam crept out from the sheath, where it met the sword’s hilt. “Here, on me, let’s make it fair,” it said.

The Crusader spat on it. “I won’t degrade myself touching a corrupt blade.”

“It’s silvered, dumbass,” it shot back.

The Crusader’s breath caught in his throat as he realized it. That was the truth. Sacred silver. Melentale’s metal, dispeller of demon and vampire alike. Just one cut could sear through evil. Why did it have this sword?

“Dumbstruck?” it asked. “That crusader I fought all that time ago. His armor was fully silvered, along with his weapon. Just standing near him scorched my hair and scarred my skin for decades. A simple sword-brother. Just a step above a spearman in your Volksturmtruppen.”

“Lies.”

The vampire made a motion with its hand, the bone-inlaid hilt hummed, and the sword withdrew as if commanded. The sword presented itself hilt-first to the Crusader, the point aimed at the vampire.

“Of all the crusaders here, only this… chapter master had a silver blade. Is it not a rite of passage? The Ordos’ warriors have them. Even now, in this rotting age.”

The Crusader remained silent.

“What does that make me then?” the vampire asked with a growing smile. “Am I your equal? Mayhaps not. You had but a steel broadsword and this banner, when I saw you first.”

“You’re nothing-”

“But I have a silver sword. Am I sword-brother? A Sargeant-at-arms?” The vampire drew its other sword, the same make though it looked like steel- steel tainted by something that made it appear like a liquid as the air touched it. “Maybe I’m your chapter master…”

“Shut up!” He snatched the silver sword before him. “I will take you with me.”

The vampire marched forward. “Of course, brother.”

The Crusader charged.

The vampire stepped to the side. There, once shielded by the vampire, was his chapter master’s corpse. The corpse drew an elegant pistol from its belt. A sound of thunder struck him.

The Crusader felt a new hole in his chest; he staggered, looking to his left to see a blade falling on him. It flashed past his head; he felt pain but pressed on. All he needed was one cut.

An arm stump hit the vampire’s chest; steaming blood sputtered on Northlander regalia.

The Crusader pressed forward with a headbutt.

Something struck his knee and dropped him. He looked down to see he was missing a leg with his missing arm. The vampire standing over him, tasting the blood that had splattered on his garb with a swish of its finger. A flick of its wrist and the blood on its blade splashed the Crusader’s face.

There was a pause then and a long stare from the vampire into Anton’s blood dropping from its gloved finger. “Well, I expected to be surprised, Ser Anton de Fayette,” the vampire broke its trance with these words. “I’m more surprised that you came here instead of going east. They have your daughter…”

“How do you know…” the Crusader breathed out. His wounds were setting now, sapping what strength he had.

“It’s in the blood. I’ll drink my fill after your death. I’ve been aching to feel the twin suns on my skin again. Would you like my name?” the vampire asked as it sheathed its steel sword. After all, I know all of you now.”

“I wouldn’t remember it.”

It was the first time he had seen the arrogance crack before it returned with a soft smile. “I guess it’s mutual. You’re just a facsimile of what people believed the old days were like. Eight hundred thousand crusaders died to us, and you lived long enough to see my suns rise. Victory enough in the Forever War- right?”

Anton de Fayette struggled enough to turn west to see the light spreading across the plateau and revealing the swamplands of the nearest colonies. They would have no warning. A weight dropped on his chest, drawing a grunt of pain from him. He looked back to see the vampire staring as well.

“I know where you were going. Hadroan is what it’s called. Some shithole in the frontier dealing in swamp puppy pelts and mudfish, apparently.” It looked down on him. “I spare you no victory here. You’ll die knowing you failed everything, including Marie- of course.” It motioned with a hand, and the silver sword rose, adjusted, and aimed down at Anton’s face. “I wonder if she thought you’d save her-”

“I go to Melentale, bastard. As will she. What waits for you?”

“Peace,” it answered.

The sword surged down.