Chapter 1 – Death of a prince

"Tally ho," roared the Lord Gendrin, half-brother to the Lothrian king and commander of the cavalry cohort. In unison, the troops came to a halt. Only a small squad of elite soldiers and mages advanced beyond the formation. They were the honour guard, handpicked to serve and die at prince Cedric's side.

Clad in royal blue chain mail, the prince entered the fray, emerging from the throngs of battle-ready subjects gathered here under his command. Cedric's eyes were green as the summer leaves, his hair dark and wild, like a lion's mane. As heir-apparent to the kingdom of Lothrian, he bore the insignia of the Blackrose royal family proudly on his chest—a thorny rose vine entwined around a golden crown.

Prince Cedric was a lord's lord and he looked the part, advancing with the self-assured step of one accustomed to basking in the privileges of rank and renown. But above all he was a hardened swordmaster, tried and tested in the fires of war. And for all the favours bestowed unto him by fate, none of his subjects could deride him his heart; theirs was a prince who led from the front, a vanguard prince in the throes of vainglory—"glory to the prince, glory to the prince," the troops chanted as Cedric strode forth, resolved to be the first to come to Landsbury's defence.

The mission was simple: protect the inhabitants of this forlorn town under goblin assault.

Cedric surveyed the surroundings—an endless stretch of grassy plains, rippling like a verdant sea under the breeze. The prince savoured the strange and vast silence that came before bloodshed.

Lt. commander Gael closed the distance, her long blonde hair aflutter as she emerged at Cedric's side. "Caution is merited, my prince," she said with unfamiliar trepidation to her voice. "This place... it is tainted with a dark aura. We must send for aid. Call upon the clerics—a blessing to cleanse this accursed space." She spoke with winter's breath, frost glittering her every word. Cedric cherished the frostmage and her prudence. Many a time had she kept him clear of harm's way. And where they did tread, few dared follow, for frigid was the air in Gael's tempestuous wake.

The prince shook his head. "We cannot abide the wait. If we do not act now, this town will be lost to the goblin plague. We strike hard and fast, for my father, the king, has commanded me thus."

As Cedric raised his hand, his guard marched forward in a tight formation, their eyes glued to the ramshackle gate of Landsbury. Cavalry commander Gendrin moved with them. "Not a damn sound inside,” he spat. “Don't tell me these peasants couldn't hold out half a breath till I got here."

The prince shot his half-uncle a look of disdain. Though nominally a viscount, there was nothing noble about Gendrin... he was a loud and lazy man, with every bit the bearing of a back-alley brute.

Cedric would scold the man in private, but right now he needed calm. Needed his wits about him. Instinctively, his eyes found Lt. commander Gael, his faithful second wielding the tempered force of a gale. And the grace and beauty of a high-elf queen. Cedric could endure both frost and beauty—this he told himself, and he almost believed it. Gael did not notice his attention, and the prince thought it good. She was preparing an intricate weave to bolster her frost magic. The air grew cold around them as she commanded the element of winter's end.

Circling his mailed fist in the air, the prince signalled for a battering ram. It was an order for the cavalry transport troops. An order that needed relaying.

Gendrin spat on the ground—the half-uncle in half-defiance. But under the cold glare of the prince, the cavalry commander relented, raised a hand with three fingers outstretched.

There arrived then a quartet of steel-plated stallions, pulling the siege weapon into position and... it proved unnecessary, for suddenly the Landsbury gate swung open wide, and a war-touched townsman appeared. "Relief is here!" he cried, blood pouring from his gut, but he clung on to bravery, bulwarking the townsfolk gathered behind him from further fear and turmoil. "The king has sent for our rescue—we are saved!" he assured the townsfolk as he beckoned for prince Cedric and his armed guard to enter.

"Pay heed, my prince," offered Lt. commander Gael as she cast a wary glance at the townsman. The general quiet unnerved her. Something was not right. She motioned at two stout men in the honour guard, ordering them to scout ahead.

Cedric caught her assessing look, bidding him caution. He advanced in sure-footed strides. Appearing decisive shielded him from uncertainty, though his eyes scanned everywhere for danger. Accompanied by his honour guard, the prince followed closely behind the two scouts, stepping through the gate, weapons drawn and shields at the ready.

"Me name's Rory," said the bloodied townsman, grasping for Cedric's hand, but he was rebuffed by the two rugged scouts. "If it please m'lord," Rory went on undeterred, though his breath was ragged and uneven. "Men are dying as we speak—they've razed the fields and half the town already. We can't keep up this defence." A streak of red trickled down Rory's forehead as he spoke, exasperated and exhausted.

Cedric held the man's blood-marred stare as he bade the two scouts barge past, had them circle the war-torn houses and shattered fences of Landsbury. Swift and methodical, they returned, sweeping stone-faced gazes over the frightened townsfolk before rejoining Cedric's side. Nodding the all-clear.

"Your plight is ours," affirmed Cedric to Rory. "Lead us into the fray."

Rory nodded gratefully, again clasping at the prince's hand, successfully this time. He tugged Cedric on, leading him past the townsfolk as they gathered in a semicircle, their faces gaunt and pale, their eyes sunken and hollow. Cedric could sense their desperation.

"Tally ho," roared Gendrin as he remounted, brandishing his gilded spear—eager as ever to showcase his mettle once assured of the relative safety of a situation. He galloped to the front, his steed stomping and snorting in protest. "Fear not—fate smiles down on you in your hour of need," he intoned in a loud voice at the townsfolk as he strode past, beckoning his cavalry follow.

"We have set up spiked defence barriers," Rory continued, ignoring Gendrin's brazen charge as he led the prince and his guards past the town entrance and into the main square. "Three in all, but the first two we've had to abandon. They come in droves, sir prince, that they do. Vicious things, these goblins. Snarling and hissing and shanking and slashing. Just a bit further, m'lord. Round the corner we go, to the market plaza." A feverous haze passed over Rory's bloodshot eyes, the faint outline of a smile traced on his lips. His grip tightened around Cedric's wrist as he ushered the prince further into the hollow town's depths.

Cedric gave a brisk tug but could not break free of the townsman's vice-like grip. Then the prince put his full force on the line, seeking again to pull away as he let out a cry of alarm—both to no avail. The onset of his despair was drowned out by the Landsbury church bells; they launched into a mournful clanging—once, twice, thrice.

It all happened fast then, a harmonious cascade of events set in perilous motion.

Gendrin was the first to round the corner to the market plaza, his stallion rearing as it was struck by a large stone from a goblin's catapult, the impact forcing the rider to tumble with a dull shriek from his saddle and onto the cobblestones. A horde of goblins emerged in view, streaming past Gendrin's felled body, their eyes alight with hatred and their weapons raised high—swords and javelins and hatchets. They were misshapen beasts, green-skinned vermin standing three or four foot tall, sporting bulbous noses and long, pointed ears. Their eyes were dark and beady, like those of rodents, and their teeth were jagged and yellow.

The two honour guard scouts charged towards the goblins, slashing at the vile assailants with brutal strength, felling a goblin each and maiming several more. The ferocity of the men's blows knocked aside the goblins' weaponry, grossly outmatching them in sheer strength. But not in numbers. And the goblins are a crafty and relentless lot, swarming in waves, hurtling over the bodies of their fallen kin as they piled on the forward scouts, striking at the knee and elbow and other peripheral things—finding chinks in the frailer links of even the most musclebound human bodies. Striking and clawing in a blaze of green-skinned fury, the goblins overpowered the two scouts in a wild flurry, hacking and stabbing, then pinning their gored bodies to the ground as they finished the job.

Dozens upon dozens they numbered, clambering over blood and death toward the prince and his entourage. This was more than a minor goblin insurrection. They had united somehow, multiple tribes of unsightly vermin, forming a warband like never before seen.

"Unhand me, you dogged fool," cried Cedric as he pitted might against might, trying his all to jerk free from Rory's iron grip. Though his struggle proved in vain: townsman Rory held fast with a preternatural strength that eclipsed the bounds of mortal men. Even princes.

"Glacialus," incanted Gael suddenly as she lunged forward, wielding a mage-forged dagger made of ice, slashing at Rory's wrist. The blade sunk deep, severing bone and tendon. The hand tumbled to the ground, its fingers still grasping and clutching.

Rory's smile widened, revealing his graveyard of a mouth—rotten teeth suspended loosely in the brownish flesh of his maggot-infested gums. A putrid stench emanated from his body, signalling death and decay. His eyes then shone with a starlit yellow as the veins in his neck protruded, the surrounding skin beginning to peel and shrivel. "Fool you say, but this one has done as bid, dear prince. Pulled the veil right over those starlit eyes o' yours. And now the curtain falls. Rejoice, for your fetid lot awaits." The townsman's cackling turned to a gargling hiss, his eyes bulging and his tongue blackening and curling in his mouth.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Cedric moved like the wind, unsheathing Dicebolg, blade of the Blackrose—the named sword bequeathed to his lineage. In a single swift stroke, he cleaved the corrupted townsman's head clear from his body.

"Retreat—fall into formation," ordered Gael, and the honour guard formed a staggered line, inching back towards the entryway as they held off the tidal swathes of encroaching goblins.

"What is this foul magic?" inquired the prince, his eyes wild and incredulous.

Gael could only shake her head.

This sent a chill up Cedric's spine. Though a ranked specialist, Gael had prolific insight in all branches of magic. And if silence was the veteran frostmage's best answer... they were doomed.

As the party traversed the main square in guarded backstep, the gate of Landsbury shuttered with a resounding bang, barring the frazzled cavalry cohort from entry. And trapping the prince and his honour guard firmly within the town's walls. A sickly chill rose to envelop the air, wafting a foul stench that pervaded the senses.

Behind them, the townsfolk stood huddled and unmoving, their eyes dark and sunken in terror-stricken abandon—or in playing the part. One by one, they began to transform, their skin peeling off their bodies in flaky sheets, eyes aglow with a bright yellow light. Their movements were jerky and unnatural like haunted puppets, their mouths held agape with darkened tongues lolling.

"Shield wall, protect your liege!" shrieked Gael at the honour guard, all of whom answered the call with scarcely a missed step between them.

The hair on Cedric's arms stood on end, hearing a frantic pitch to Gael's ordinarily undaunted voice.

Death encircled the prince's party: swarms of goblins before them, and behind them half a town's worth of mobbing undead.

What a fool you are, Cedric thought in self-chastisement, and he could not rebuke the blame. He had led them all to their deaths—the staunch men and women of his blood-sworn guard. And Gael. Sweet Gael. She deserved better than this. Better than him. Hell, he even felt sorry for Gendrin, though his half-uncle had never shown him warmth or even kinship. Only spiteful envy.

"Break formation," Cedric commanded with head high and voice held stern. "We look upon death with fearless eyes. As equals."

The prince of Lothrian made a mad dash forward, with Dicebolg swirling in a dark-winged mist behind him. His first strike was blocked by a heavy-set goblin with a wooden shield, but the force of the blow was so strong that it shattered the shield and cleaved the goblin's arm clean off. Cedric spun and cut across another goblin's throat, nicking a third goblin in the shoulder. Dicebolg shone black as night, coursing with arcane energy as Cedric fed blood and fury to the blade's darkness—such was the synergy between the sacred sword and a son of the Blackrose royal line.

Cedric moved like lightning, hacking and hewing with ever-mounting strength as Dicebolg drank in more blood.

But he was not the only one dealing blow after blow. As the prince cleaved a goblin in half, turned to carve apart another, a third goblin struck him in the shin, hacking flesh from bone with strike after strike. Cedric gritted through it, his threshold for damage raised by Dicebolg's gluttony for blood and war. And death.

As the prince made his valiant stand, fateful Gael was not far behind. She had focused her might on the other end of the fray, pelting large arrays of thick-rimmed icicles at the undead townsfolk ambling ever toward her. But where one undead fell, another rose from the row behind, pushing to reclaim the spot at the shoulder of the frontrunners. They were too resilient, and they were too many.

Gael's eyes flashed with winter's fury, an incandescent gleam of her sorcerous skill. Breathing heavy, she gathered ambient magic around her, forced it to solidify in the element of her choosing. She unleashed blast after blast of frost, sending rows of the lolling undead careening into the dirt. She shot smaller, more directed missiles of ice at the most resilient townsfolk, those who had survived the prior onslaughts. But now they, too, reeled from the impact, with many incurring terminable wounds and many more outright felled.

Sublime Gael, frostmage of the age of Bartold, king-father to Cedric, the prince who would not ascend. She was rightly known as the embodiment of the mighty frost element—a force of nature that could not be stopped.

Until she was.

A hatchet hurled through the mist and frost, striking Gael in the back. She toppled in head-first freefall, like any mortal might.

The goblin responsible grinned and shrieked, was saluted by his lowly brethren for this heroic deed that would live on in goblin lore—the mighty throw that quenched the fury of the ice witch.

Cedric was ravaged from limb to limb, blood spurting from his chest and back and legs... innumerable holes that would amount, in the end, to singular death. As he hacked apart another throng of assailants, the prince caught wind of a goblin celebration—a mid-fight ceremony to elevate the greenskin with the keen eye and the strong arm. The prince followed their motions and he followed where their eyes went, cobbling together the affirmation of an understanding he feared most in this world.

"Gael—where.. is.." he sputtered to no one, for severed now from Dicebolg's blood haze, Cedric saw the barren truth for what it was. His honour guard had all fallen, brutalized and dismembered, their faces beyond recognition.

"Ga..ael?" The prince squeaked out in heartrending tones—asking the question he knew he should not.

He saw her then, sprawled facedown on the cold dead ground, a single streak of blonde remaining in the ruin of her form.

Tears welled up in Cedric's customarily unmoved countenance. Blood spurted from his many wounds as he moved to scout through blood- and tear-shot eyes for the culprit of this unholiest of deeds.

There, amidst a pile of raunchily snickering greenskins, Cedric saw his mark. A large and cunning-looking goblin, holding up Gael's blood-soaked scalp like a grand prize. Cedric bristled in raw derision, willed his broken body onward, moving neither deftly nor methodically, but with a dread malice none hath dare envision. Like a jungle cat in heat he hurtled over the beaten bodies of friend and foe alike, jostling against inattentive goblin standers-by for the sheer pleasure of seeing surprise turn to ghostly terror on their deformed snouts as Cedric tore and ripped at their flesh, forced thumb and forefinger in their eye-sockets and squeezed till the fingertips met. He roamed like an animal to his next kill. There was nothing princely in him left. When finally he reached the prize-flaunting goblin—the one clutching Gael's bloody scalp to his naked goblin chest, Cedric cut loose.

The goblin had heard him coming, and so Cedric ran him down, grappled him to the ground. Then he crushed the goblin's ears so he could hear no longer. Next he hacked off the goblin's hands, for they had desecrated dear beloved Gael. Then he took the goblin's eyes, for they had beheld the sacrilege, and then his tongue, so that the act would never again feature in his garbled goblin speak. Finally, he cleaved the goblin's legs at the hip, rendering him immobile. The thing howled in enduring agony, gesturing pitifully and begging for the end, it seemed. But Cedric merely sat back, leaving a window of initiative to the dozen or more trembling goblin who had witnessed their prized comrade's forcible atonement.

The prince cried bitter tears for the loss of all things, his pride and rank, his honour as a man, his noble guardsmen, his beloved Gael. He wept for Gael and he wept for himself, for both had been lost in the skirmish.

Before long, a bold goblin snuck up close, fearful but resolved, giving the wailing human a swift stab near the clavicles, drawing blood. The goblin cowered back, expecting hell and fury as a response... but neither came. Then he snickered, goading his brethren on—stab, stab, stab, he motioned. They all snickered and came well close to this burnt-out behemoth of a man, the wailing heap of flesh that remained. Hooting and hollering, they danced around their inert prey—stabbing and dancing and stabbing some more.

Blood streamed from all orifices of the man who was once a prince. Who was once a man.

"'Tis a sight for sore eyes to see a princeling so low," broke in a gruff and familiar voice from behind.

The dying prince clawed at the ground, flailing his smashed body in position to behold, as he did, the treasonous snake he had called half-uncle.

"Did my performance move you? 'Tally ho!' " cried Gendrin as he keeled over with a comical expression, one of feigned surprise, plastered across his brutish features.

The broken prince gave his half-uncle a long look tinged with unfathomable disgust. "H.." he tried to speak.

"How? Why?" offered Gendrin, amused at the faltering prince grasping for meaning. "I bet it's killing you to know," he said with a leering grin. "Pardon my candour, dear prince, but I suspect you were grinning ear to ear not long ago, when you thought old Geldrin here had been the first to fall.” He drew himself upright, standing tall and proud. “But look at me now. And look at you."

"A curse on those who speak ill of the dead," exclaimed a distant voice—a middle-aged townswoman it seemed, one of the rank and file undead. But she shimmered something ghostlike as she approached, flitting between the ruse of her assumed persona and the shadowy reality of her true self: a tall female darkmage with a conical hat and bandaged features, wielding a named staff by the ornate look of it.

"A curse here and there and everywhere," retorted Gendrin, flashing his trademark grin. "That's all you do, and I love you for it—I do, I swear I do," he joked, flinging his burly arm over the darkmage's narrow shoulder. She did not return the favour.

Gendrin leaned in close, whispered something as he tried to steal a kiss, but the darkmage deftly evaded his advances. "A battlefield is no place for foolery." She spoke in a staccato tone, dismissive, and with the hint of a foreign accent she wished not to reveal. “Not with the eyes of the dead curtailing our innermost sentiments.” Her stark blue eyes fell on the dying prince.

"My half-nephew," Gendrin snorted. "Quarter-nephew now by the look of him, all hacked up. How does this stubborn fool draw breath still? Must be that classic Blackrose resilience. And lowly old me, I was born on the wrong part of the family tree. Life’s unfair like that." He spat on the ground.

The prince let out something approximating a death rattle, though a ghost of his consciousness still clung to wakeful fact. He was desperate to learn all he could in this life. It would facilitate vengeance in the next.

"Hey, don’t you die on me just yet," said Gendrin, balancing his coarse sense of comedy with a serious tone of voice this time. He wanted to rub it in, Cedric knew. This is what I did to you, and you didn't see it coming, and now you're dead. That was how this accursed half-uncle and half-man operated.

"Take a look at the cause of your undoing." Gendrin bared his chest, showcasing a plethora of runic symbols blood-hammered into his flesh.

"That's enough—you'll risk it all for a laugh." The darkmage hissed, raising her staff as she summoned a void sphere.

"C... Caladbrinn," whimpered Cedric, knowing the true name of the staff by virtue of its distinctive ability.

The darkmage grew pale, started uttering profanities in her native tongue—an Eastern style by the florid sound of it.

"Hey, not yet—I'm not done raking his bony ass over the coals," Gendrin spat.

"The dead know more than you imagine, and this one is too wise for his own good... and ours. Devulgo!" The darkmage pelted Cedric with a refined-level void sphere, granting him the final relief. The heir to the Lothrian kingdom was no more.

It was a Thursday and it was a dark day. A day fit for killing princes.