“HOLD THE LINE!” Karsten barked and repeated with his sword drawn out, “HOLD THE LINE!”
“What IS happening?!” Lillian exclaimed in shock. She was standing right behind her father with Fekete next to her. The monsters’ behaviors had suddenly changed. They became far more violent, and each one of them was acting completely different as if they had gained personalities. Such had occurred before but to a lesser degree. This time, it was as if the orcs had gone completely unhinged and had gone insane. The sudden change in their behaviors rattled the defenders on how they should react. More importantly, the spear line defense had become virtually useless because the orcs ducked and attacked from below. Karsten was quick to respond and ordered the men to abandon spears and use swords instead. His swift decision held the line on top of the walls, but casualties were mounting, not to mention the fact that it was no longer safe to be on top of walls. Lillian had to defend herself several times, and so did her father.
“Milady, perhaps you should retreat to the keep,” Fekete advised with a whisper to her ear.
“Then what?” Lillian talked back aggressively. “Just wait for death inside?! I will not!”
“Cursed little things!” Karsten grumbled as he struck down an orc from its shoulder to the end of the other side. Blood splattered to his face and armor. Monsters were slipping through the defensive line, and the casualties were mounting quite fast. Several men were already down in pools of their own blood. There were some men whose job was to carry the wounded out of harm's way, but they were overwhelmed with the amount of injuries. Both Lilliam and Fekete drew out their swords and began to track down any orcs that bypassed the first line of defense. It was imperative that the line of defense didn’t get sandwiched by orcs. Worrying about their rear would greatly diminish their already reduced effectiveness.
“Call everyone out!” Karsten exclaimed while fighting orcs. “We cannot let the defense line fold!”
Soldiers worked on shifts since the siege was going 24 hours a day. No one would be able to fight intensively for a prolonged period. At this point, however, he made a decision to go all out to preserve the walls. He was going to bring everyone out, even those in reserve, to halt the gradually crumbling defense. In his defense, if the walls were overrun, that was it. Only a slaughter would await them once the orcs managed to open the gate from inside. Nodding at once, Fekete left Karsten and Lilliam to notify everyone inside of their current predicament.
“Lillian,” he said after finishing off an orc.
“Yes?” They had their backs at each other to cover their own rear. It was becoming chaotic. The once-firm defense line was pretty much no more with every soldier looking after themselves. Some displayed confusion on their faces while some showed fear. Many of them had their backs against each other like Karsten and Lilliam to minimize their blind point.
“The walls will be overrun. It is only a matter of time,” he said.
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out, father.”
“Good, we are on the same page then. We need to escape.”
She doubted what she had just heard. “I beg your pardon?”
Understanding that his daughter was very doubtful of what he had just told her, he explained.
“I was prepared to go down with the keep because I believed that my legacy was secure.”
“Leonhard could still surrender.”
He scoffed. “Too late for that. Don’t you think?”
She couldn’t argue back. She did agree that it was simply too late for him to surrender and expect everything to go smoothly. It was almost certain that her brother would be stripped of his titles and, although he may keep his nobility, becoming an unlanded noble was probably going to be worse than death. And that would be the best case scenario which was very unlikely to occur at this point. The realistic outcome was most likely death for her brother along with everyone else in his circle. She figured that her brother would know this already at least. In such a case, surrender would no longer be a viable option. He would need to defend his territory or die trying. If he had qualities like her father, he would have a chance but he did not. He was a skirt chaser although, to be fair, she was also quite similar not too long ago.
“I need to establish you as my sole heir. The Fenchel granted my request, but I need more than that.”
He wasn’t wrong, she felt. However, as far as she knew, her father never voluntarily abandoned a battle with the only exception being the recent war with Estana. He had a valid reason for that, however. She found it a bit strange to see him making such a suggestion in spite of him making sense.
“How will you escape?” She asked regardless, intrigued. She’d be lying that she was fully willing to die here. The first option that came to her mind was the cave in the basement of the keep. It had been dug wide enough for people to crawl through relatively easily. It had been secured as well with no further signs of monsters creeping in as well. Whether the other side was secure was another matter, however.
“There is only one choice, isn’t there?” he replied, implying that she would likely know already.
“The basement,” she replied.
“We will not leave now. We will wait until things become more chaotic.”
“Father…” She hesitated to continue. “Should we really abandon the keep? These soldiers …”
“We often have to make tough decisions. Soldiers are expandable. That’s the cold and hard truth.”
Their conversation was drawn out by the loud fighting occurring in the vicinity. Nobody could hear them at the moment.
He continued, “We will wait until the situation becomes untenable. That way, nobody will notice us sneaking out.”
She didn’t like the idea but had no reason to argue against her father, especially when it came to war time matters. He had far more experience than she ever could. Besides, she didn’t know any better ideas to begin with.
Soon, more soldiers flooded onto the walls, reinforcing the defense at the expense of sanity because the place was becoming really chaotic with so many orcs and humans fighting each other. The wounded were no longer tended to, nor were they being dragged out of harm's way. Everyone was focused on one thing: to kill whatever monster they saw on the wall. Such went on for hours until the sun escaped into the horizon. However, the monster attacks pressed on. Karsten along with Lillian and Fekete were forced to withdraw into the keep to eat and get some rest. Lillian’s knees buckled and she fell to her knees as soon as she entered a secure area.
“Oh, my God…! This really is madness!”
A maid approached swiftly, taking Karsten’s cloak off.
“Give us something to eat, quickly,” he told her. The maid nodded and walked away at a breezing pace while simultaneously folding his cloak on the move. She was clearly experienced in not wasting time. Fekete helped Lillian to stand up in the meanwhile. She was told about the plan to escape already. Only the three of them knew the plan. Once they had a quick meal, which was just some loaves of bread, boar jerky, and water plus wine, Karsten called for a soldier for a daily casualty report. It wasn’t pretty. Five hundred were reported injured with three hundred dead in a single day. It was equivalent to a month of casualties for them. It was clear that the keep was going to be overrun in a matter of days.
“We make our move after two days,” He declared after dismissing the soldier. It was a calculated decision. He foresaw that, after two days of intense defending, the keep should just be about to fall.
“Are you really sure about this, father?” Lillian asked with doubts in her mind.
“We don’t have a choice. We will all die otherwise.”
Uneasy silence dominated their room as Lillian couldn’t mount an argument. Exactly two days passed during which everyone had to endure hellish time fighting off monsters. The first day was relatively alright as the soldiers still had fighting spirits to hang onto. However, it was clear that everyone was deteriorating on the second day. With little to no rest as well as time to eat, that was given. Karsten subtly signaled Lillian and Fekete to follow her down. With how hectic it was, nobody questioned them. As soon as Lillian and Fekete stepped into the basement, the door behind them was suddenly shut. Startling, they looked back to find Karsten shut the door.
“Father! What are you doing?!” She banged the reinforced door at once. “You need to come, too!”
“I think not.” his distant voice was heard. “I need to ensure that you will have enough time to escape. Fekete, guard her with your life.”
“As you command,” she replied curtly with her palm on her chest. She was calm. Whether she was told beforehand or she expected this outcome was uncertain.
“Father! FATHER!” Lilliam continued to bang the door and tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge at all.
“Lillian, this will be my first and last lesson for you. Heed my words because even Leonhard wasn’t told this.”
She froze, unsure of what to expect.
“Think twice or even thrice when making decisions. Do not forget what nobility stands for. We, nobles, ought to protect those underneath us, for we are nothing without them.”
Then she heard a chuckle beyond the door. “I realize I may have veered off a bit, but my intentions have been sincere, well sometimes. Finally, never rely on luck. Luck is for useless fools. You make it happen with your own efforts.”
There were about five soldiers who were guarding the cave who approached them to see what the commotion was about. They were quite dumbfounded to find Lillian sobbing weakly against the door. Fekete stood in front of her, hiding her from being seen.
“The Lord demands his daughter to be escorted to safety,” she declared. “I will give you a moment if you need to prepare.”
The soldiers seemed to have understood the situation fast enough.
“Do we have food?” One of them asked, not even questioning her.
She turned her upper body around to show a large sack on her back.
“Enough for about several days at the most. We will starve a bit, but it should be just barely enough to reach a settlement,” she added. “We will need to ration.”
The men exchanged glances as if weighting on their options.
“The keep is going to fall. Better than dying,” she added.
“True enough,” one of them said. He must have been a sort of leader to them. “We will explore the cave first and see whether we can actually exit.”
“Yes, do that. I will calm the lady down meanwhile.”
Lillian did calm down fairly quickly because she had to. Realizing the weight placed on her shoulders, she had to bite her lips and stand up. She had to carry on the family Egra which was in a precarious situation. The once mighty royal family was walking on a thread where a single mistake could cost the entire bloodline. While Kamil hadn’t shown any aggression toward her family, the matter didn’t hang on him entirely. The voices of his advisors would matter as well. Even if he would overlook and let the Egra be, how the rest of the world would perceive it was an entirely different matter. Additionally, the deteriorated relationship with the Flissing concerned her.
“I know what must be done,” she said to Fekete. “Don’t worry about me.”
“It is dire, milady. You must stay strong.”
“I am aware…” Wiping out her tears from her eyes, she tided herself up a little to make herself look better. The soldiers returned after a moment, telling them that the way was clear.
“Nothing at all on the other side. In fact…, it looks dire.”
“Dire?” Fekete asked. It was a contradicting statement.
“All the orcs are climbing the keep like … bugs on a dead piece of flesh. It’s ugly. Their attention is on the keep entirely. Thanks for that, the exit is free.”
“Then let’s proceed quickly,” Lillian said, sidelining Fekete as she stepped forward. They wasted no time moving out because it was a golden opportunity to escape without being harassed. They understood that the monsters wanted to eradicate any living beings within and around the keep.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Let’s go. We have no other choice,” Lillian said while walking forward. It took them 10 solid minutes of crawling until they reached the end of the tunnel. The frozen soils made her hands and knees numb by the time she was out of it.
“Oh, my God…”
Looking up at the keep on the hill, they saw black dots moving up the walls. In fact, the walls were so full of such black dots that it looked as if tiny bugs were crawling over it.
image [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/7377/DP3DZE.png]
“That’s … impossible,” she uttered. She had newfound respect for the defenders. How they were able to hang on the control of the walls, she had no idea. It must have been truly chaotic up there. She would have probably perished by now if she didn’t make out.
“I believe the walls are overrun already at this point,” Fekete pointed out.
Lillian winced visibly by just thinking about placing herself in the defense of the keep. Every defender in the keep would be slashing their swords left and right just to keep himself alive at the moment.
“Father…,” she mumbled before turning away from the keep. “Let’s go. We must move.”
Traversing across the deadlands was weirdly a safe, yet boring, journey. Deadlands had nothing but a flat ash-colored gray ground. With nothing to look at, it became quite boring soon enough. At the same time, there were no wild animals or wandering monsters, either, making the place safe unexpectedly. The only thing they had to combat was the weather which was below freezing in the North whether it was day or night. However, Elsos was situated at the bottom of the Northern zone where the climate became warmer significantly the further one traveled south. In just a day away from the keep, the climate was becoming noticeably warmer although it was still below freezing. It was no longer deadlands as well. At this point, she had two choices: Tonga and Maiava. The former was controlled by the Flissing. The latter was controlled by the Fenchel. She wasn’t particularly thrilled to be protected by either of them.
image [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img924/128/zPpRpf.png]
“Tonga is a safer option,” Fekete said. “It’s far away from your brother’s territory.”
Maiava was closer than Tonga. It was about a day closer on foot. However, it was adjacent to Leonhard’s territory.
“Will the Flissing treat me with respect?” She wondered aloud. The Flissing betrayed the Egra essentially, thus her concern was valid. They could get rid of her in the shadows, and no one would really find out. Fekete narrowed her eyes, understanding her concern.
“You do have a point,” she agreed but added, “However, it is not like the Fenchel is a safe option, either. Maiava is controlled by the Lux Fenchel who is very much the same as the Flissing.”
“So, neither is safe, huh…”
“You will need to choose the lesser of two devils, milady.”
Lillian and Fekete were at a campfire while the five soldiers were standing nearby, guarding the premises.
“Can we make it to Tonga? How is our food?”
“If we consume once a day, it is enough. We will starve for a day or two but we won't die because of that.”
For commoners and soldiers, starving for a few days was not a big deal. For a former royalty like Lillian, it was something to be feared although she was too preoccupied to care.
“I want to ask for reinforcements to help Elsos. Between the Lux Fenchel and the Flissing, who would likely grant my request?”
Fekete folded her arms with her eyebrows knotted. “Neither, I’d say. You’d need to ask the Duke.”
“Then who'd be likely to let me use an airship to reach Ceres?”
When Fekete was about to answer, the soldiers approached them at once.
“The ground is shaking. It feels like an army is nearby,” one of them said, concerns in his voice.
“An army?!” Lillian stood up at once, and Fekete followed. Technically, they’d be friendly, but how they’d treat her was an entirely different question. She had no choice but to consider everyone a threat at this point.
“Should we hide from them?” Fekete asked urgently.
“No, let’s meet this army,” she declared. She considered her options and decided that she liked neither the Lux Fenchel nor the Flissing. Whoever this army belonged to, she decided to gamble.
“Uh…, Daniel?!” She was shocked to meet Daniel Flissing leading an army. He was in full plate armor, and his face was hard to make out. But he was a man who she had slept with numerous times. She was able to recognize him. “I, I mean, Lord Flissing!” She leaned forward with a palm on her chest. Fekete and the soldiers did the same.
“Lady Egra…” He looked equally surprised to meet her in the middle of nowhere. This was the first time they met after the divorce. “Were you not supposed to be at the keep?”
“The keep … has been overrun,” she said solemnly.
“When?”
“About a day ago.”
Daniel seemed to contemplate something for a moment. “I am on the Duke’s order to assist Elsos with supplies.”
She tilted her head and raised back up. “Assist with supplies?” She saw that the army wasn’t that big, possibly two thousand at the most. This was clearly not a relief force for the keep. “I don’t understand.”
“The Duke has defeated the dragon of Siwen mountain and was on his way to lift the siege on Elsos.”
Her eyes went wide. She didn’t know how Kamil was able to defeat the dragon, presumably alone, but she also knew that Daniel would not lie. He was leading an army under an assumption that Elsos would be safe by their arrival. As if he read her mind, he suggested.
“You are free to tag along if you wish.”
She glanced back at Fekete who seemed to have no problem with his proposition. She agreed therefore.
“Get the ladies on a cart!” Daniel shouted out an order. They wouldn’t speak to each other at all during the journey to Elsos. Daniel led the army, and Lillian stayed on a cart, sleeping most of the time from exhaustion. When they did arrive at the keep, everyone was amused at the mount of orc corpses because they were literally everywhere. Survivors were gathered in the courtyard and were warming themselves around campfires. There were just a few hundreds of survivors when Kamil came to their rescue. It didn’t look like he had brought an army of his own. How he was able to lift the siege, Lillian had absolutely no idea and she didn’t care because she dashed toward the door leading to the basement at once.
Karsten had tens of crude and rusted blades stuck in his body with numerous bodies of dead orcs scattered around his position. His neck had two, his chest had around ten - It was adamantly clear that the man did absolutely everything he could to stop orcs from barging into the basement, which he appeared to have succeeded since the door was still shut. He had his back against the reinforced wooden door, collapsed - dead. Interestingly, there was a faint grin on his face.
“Fa…. father…” Lillian collapsed to her knees slowly, looking completely broken. She never thought such a day would come to see her father dead like this. In her entire life, she looked up to her ever-so-powerful dad who never saw defeat in his life. He indeed never saw defeat until the end; his last mission was to earn enough for his daughter to flee. In that, he succeeded.
“Dad…!” She cried out as she fell to her four. Drops of tears fell out of her eyes. Kamil, flanked by Daniel, approached the scene from afar slowly with careful steps.
“My condolences,” Kamil said solemnly.
“DAD!” Crawling toward him, she attempted to hug him. Alas, the blades sticking out of his body made it impossible to do so. Instead, she caressed his cheeks with both of her hands very affectionately.
“You were the best,” she said, sobbing. Her face was streaked with tears. “Never defeated. Always victorious. Karsten Egra, the Conqueror.”
She broke down hard for a moment during which Kamil stood there simply with a distant look in his eyes.
“Leonhard…, it is all your … fucking fault,” she whispered with ire in her eyes. “You will pay.”
If her brother had taken more responsibility, this outcome would have not occurred. At least, that was what she had concluded. If her father hung onto defending the keep, they could have been saved just in time by the duke. Because Karsten rushed to ensure her safety, it had come to this. In her mind, the core fault was with Leonhard. Calming herself down, she cleaned her wet eyes and cheeks with her sleeves.
“Will you keep your word?” She asked without turning to face him. Her face was a mess, probably.
“Yes, you are the Lady of Elsos. We will help you rebuild this city.”
She released a sigh of relief. She had no time to mourn further; she had to ensure that everything was in order. She couldn’t be just a girl anymore.
“Is Anita still with you?”
He seemed to have been taken by the sudden change of the topic.
“Yes, why do you ask?”
Anita was her personal maid back in Keviel. When Lillian subtly threatened to harm Flora in front of Kamil, he grabbed her by the collar and counter-threatened her at which point Anita told her, “you deserved it” and defected to him on the spot.
“Please ask her if she wishes to come back. Tell her that she is forgiven.”
“May I ask why you wish her to be back?”
“She was the only one who dared to lecture me when I was in my darkest moment. She was the only one.”
“I see.” He seemed to have understood her point. “I will relay your message to her, but it will be down to her entirely.”
“Of course, I will not force her to return, for I have no right.”
Daniel seemed to be amused about how much Lillian had changed. They didn’t talk at all during the journey, so it came as a shock to him. Although things between them had gone too far for his feelings to come back, he couldn’t help but wonder what she had gone through to make her change like this. In some ways, he grew some sympathy for her.
“My liege,” Daniel said to Kamil. “The Lady needs a thorough rest.”
“Agreed, Lord Flissing.”
However, Lillian resisted and made a strange request. “I would like to stay by my father for a while longer. Do you have … wine with you?”
Kamil and Daniel looked at each other, amused.
“I do actually,” Daniel said, pulling out a waterskin with a red handkerchief. “Father always demands that I bring a wine waterskin with me.” He handed it over to Kamil, and he handed it over to her. They expected her to drink it. Instead she placed it in Karsten’s hands after placing them on his thighs.
“Father, at least bring this with you. You’ve always loved drinking.”
Tears gathered in her eyes once again, but this time she resisted sobbing. She took a moment of silence before turning around to face Kamil and Daniel. She got on four and bowed with her forehead touching the ground.
“I thank you for the assistance and avenging my father,” she said solemnly.
“You… have really changed,” Daniel blurted and covered his mouth soon. She slowly sat back down next to Karsten’s body, leaning her back against a cold stone wall.
“I had to change,” she said, beaming a smile. “I had to grow up.” Slowly, she closed her eyes and fell asleep almost immediately. It had been overly exhausting for her.
………….
………………..
……………………..
Karsten stood naked in pitch darkness although he could somehow see his own body as if his own body was radiating light. Opening his eyes and looking down, he opened and closed his fist a few times and noticed two things. One, he could see with both of his eyes. Two, a strange dulling sensation he had been feeling had vanished.
“I am dead, huh,” he said with a chuckle. “I hope Lillian made it.”
“She made it,” said a masculine voice. Two spheres of light appeared a short distance in front of him, and a golden scale, the size of an elephant, appeared in between.
“What is this?” He wondered aloud.
“Welcome to the Judgment,” said a feminine voice.
“The … judgment? So, the book was true?”
Ignoring his question, the feminine voice continued, “You’ve died, and your deeds will be judged here and now. Depending on the outcome, how you will be reborn is determined.”
“You said she made it. Do you speak the truth?”
“We are the God of Life and Death. We do not lie,” said the voices in unison.
“I’ve never believed in Gods… Will that count against me?”
“Your lack of faith in the Gods does not matter,” said the feminine voice.
Then immediately, the judgment scale shone in a pale yellow light very briefly and It started to lean heavily left.
“You were a cause of the loss of many people’s lives,” said the feminine voice.
“I am fully aware of my own deeds,” Karsten replied firmly.
“Do you have any remorse for what you’ve done?” asked the feminine voice.
“No, I made the calls because I believed that they were right at that time and given the circumstances.”
The massacres at Lyatan and Broon were his calls. Tens of thousands perished for no fault of their own to end a conflict sooner rather than later.
“Do you want to hear my excuses? Is that it?” He asked aggressively.
“No,” replied the masculine voice. “What’s done is done, period. No amount of excuses will reverse it. More importantly, we are not interested.”
“What matters to you then?”
“Your conviction alone.”
“Even if I was wrong to begin with?”
“What or who determines that you were wrong? If you are talking about human moral standards, we are not interested, for we are not mortals. We are Gods.”
“So, if I feel what I’ve done is right, that is it?”
“Essentially, yes,” said the feminine voice. “However, one must believe in it until the end. You did believe that your decisions were correct until your last breath. Thus, we will not count your actions as sins.”
Thus, the scale leaned to the right, evening out in the end.
“If you have doubts about your own deeds, then it is a sin,” said the masculine voice. “There is a thin line between conviction and madness. Yours was conviction.”
“I couldn’t care less,” he said flatly. “I am done, so punish me as you see fit.”
“Your actions near the end of your life have saved many lives,” said the feminine voice.
“I’ve never intended to save any lives. I simply wanted to perish in a battle,” he said with a crooked smile.
“Did you want to save your daughter?”
“Yes, I did. She was a failure but ended up maturing fast. I saw potential in her.”
“Did you love her as your daughter?”
“Not initially. Again, she was a failure. But …,” He trailed off for a moment. “She was the only one who stood by my side in darkness.” He beamed a smile. “She was the only one.”
The scale began to lean right.
“You’ve done well in this life,” said the masculine voice. “We will see how well you will do in your next life.”
“No punishment?”
“There is no reason to punish you. The scale leans right, meaning you have net positive karma.”
He chuckled. “I don’t know how it works out but I guess I shouldn’t complain. I was told that I killed innocents, yet you Gods don’t care.”
“In our eyes, nobody is innocent,” said the masculine voice. “Because the very moment they are born, they commit a sin.”
“A sin at the moment of birth? What would that be?”
“Giving great pain to their mothers.”
He furrowed his eyebrows. “But that is not their fault?”
“Perhaps by your standards. In our eyes, objectively speaking, that is a sin.”
“So…, no human is ever innocent from the very beginning is what you are saying?”
“You are correct. Every one of you starts with net negative karma.”
He shrugged, unable to understand the Gods’ point of view. “Whatever.” He heaved a long sigh. “I am done.”
His body began to fade away.
“Your memories will be erased. But we will see each other again,” said the feminine voice.
And Karsten was gone.