(This chapter features a one time POV shift. If that's not your thing, feel free to skip this chapter. It's not a big deal.)
The account that follows is an excerpt from the journal of Corporal Eldred, commander of the Greenhaven Militia stationed in Petra.
I stood at the head of the company, a ragtag group of farmers and villagers hastily armed with spears and pitchforks. Our mismatched uniforms stained with monstrous blood displayed our irregular nature. The weight of responsibility bore down on me as I gazed out across the fields of ripening crops. Tearlessly weeping for our once vibrant town of Petra. Lord Green had been correct, we could not stand.
Our lord, wounded by the flying white serpent of lightning, lay beside his maid. Sage Rhendal, a wise man and potent sage who had accompanied my lord took custody of their bodies, ordering them to be treated with every medicine at our disposal. He doted on them, personally examining and applying each medicine with an expert’s touch. Meanwhile leaving the defense to me.
Each day, we harvested the crops, moving in a warband for safety. With Rhendal’s warnings we ambushed many vagrant portals, but it was not enough. As the sun dipped below the horizon, more of these sinister portals would open, spewing forth grotesque creatures that sought to devour everything in their path. We knew not from whence these portals emerged, but I, Corporal Eldred of the Greenhaven militia, would hold the line.
Twas a grand tribulation after the serpent god’s appearance had broken the courage of men. Moral had been shattered into cowardice. I needed to show them that hope was not lost, prove to them that we could prevail against their numbers. That the spirit of humanity would not be shattered by beasts. Or such was my mind, for I was hopeful. Supposing our strength would convince Lord Green to let us stay, once he knew Petra could feed his entire land he would send us soldiers and magi to save the harvest.
Late in the evening on the day of our lord’s arrival, more portals appeared, glowing purple disks forming ugly bruises against the warmth of an orange sunset. The monsters that poured forth from the portal were like twisted nightmares brought to life, incarnations of violence. Taller than a horse yet thinner than a rail with dozens of spindly appendages. Each tipped with a foot long blade, sharper than any spear.
They moved with terrible swiftness, and their shrill, piercing screams sent shivers down the spines of my inexperienced militia. We formed a tight defensive line, using the steel of our spears to keep the creatures at bay until the archers could bring them down. The snake women had shown us the need for shields, and many of the men now carried planks of wood or stools in lieu of a proper ward.
For we had left the shields of our station at Greenhaven, entrusting them to their proper armories. We could never have guessed the dire want of armor in our peaceful fields and quiet kitchens.
That night the lord and his maid slept. Rhendal did what he could, but healing was not his specialty. Nor was our greenman anywhere to be found. I prayed for Saul Earthshaper’s safe return, for he was our healer, protector, and guiding spirit. Yet I presumed the worst. Some of the men wished to form a search party but I forbade them, knowing that division traded lives for well-wishes.
As the sun rose on the next day, new portals appeared. Our sharp eyed sentries raised the alarm early, giving us the time we needed to encircle the portals with spears.
New creatures appeared, hulking brutes with thick, armored hides. Impervious to our spears they broke our lines in a stride. We fought valiantly, but the casualties mounted, fear gnawing at the hearts of my men. Champion Bryce was the first to triumph over them. The fearless knave saw they had no weapons other than their natural strength and in a fit of desperation tackled the hulk. A dozen men followed suit and they pinned it to the ground until Bryce broke its wind with the hilv of his axe.
Still, our twenty militia had dwindled to eight, and the farmers who had swelled our ranks to three scores now numbered less than two. Evidence of Lord Green’s painful wisdom, but it was too late to flee, we could not abandon our Lord. So we fought on.
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As the days crept past, the assaults from the magic portals grew in intensity. Our Greenhaven militia was pushed to the brink, their once-eager faces now etched with exhaustion and despair. The creatures we faced were ghastly beings thought to exist only in ancient legends. We did not know their names, but feared them all the same. Fiends with tentacle-like appendages, whipping the air, slashing with an uncanny accuracy and claiming more lives.
Then came creatures of flame and molten fury that left a trail of scorched earth wherever they tread. Rhendal showed his strength against them, decanting their heat into his staff and still Lord Green did not awaken. Despite the totality of his slumber, Green was troubled with nightmares. Taken to howling incomprehensible gibberish in fits of fevered delusion. The flesh on his splintered arm peeled away, bearing the marks of Heaven’s Wrath. Layla hung the graft in deadman Rork’s rafters, treating it as a future relic.
Oh I wished for her confidence. Without healing our lord would soon perish. As would his maid whose condition was far worse. Her once lustrous hair fell from her body. Unable to find roots in the blistered mess of her once clear skin. The blisters were so dire that when Rhendal treated her, a full half of her tail broke off during a bandage renewal. Yet she still drew breath. How she lived while her body failed was a grisly mystery I did not wish to view. I am loathe to admit, but I pray for her death, not out of malice or malcontent, but out of pity. None deserved to suffer as she has. Not even traitors to the kingdom.
Her condition emboldened the men, turning their hearts against their wisdom. They demanded we send a party to Sintra, thinking to recover a healer from the wooden palisades, as if Sintra would allow a healer to leave their protection. Again I forbade them, barring their way by strength of my own arm. Thankfully, the sage interceeded on my behalf, cowing the men with a ball of fire.
He spoke of arcane truths, of how the serpent hadn’t meant to wound them, and would not grant them death. They would recover on their own, given enough time and protection. This he promised, dismissing his flame and swearing on his own life.
On the morrow, our situation grew dire when enigmatic shades emerged, spectral beings that drained the life force from anyone unfortunate enough to be touched by their icy tendrils. Spears passed through them, and shields did not slow them. Bryce showed his initiative and tried to burn them with a torch, drawing their ire. I watched as they devoured Bryce’s soul, ripping him apart with spectral blades. Rhendal showed his ruthless cunning then; waiting til they gathered around Bryce to extinguish them all with a single jet of hellfire.
His savage will, lead me to question my resolve as a leader. Sacrifice had been demanded but I could not give voice to the order. I had failed in my responsibility as a corporal and I could see the same doubt mirrored in the eyes of my men. We fought valiantly, but the monsters, with their ever-increasing numbers and gruesome abilities, seemed insurmountable.
Night and day blurred together. The entire town had formed into two bands. Those too weak or wounded —who remained in their homes— and those who harvested one field at a time, reaping all we could between waves.
The relentless assault continued, claiming the lives of our families and friends. Their deaths hardening our hearts, teaching us to carry on, to adapt to the casualties as quickly as we adapted to the horrors that poured from the portals each day. We devised new strategies and weapons, honing our skills on the hides of our enemies. On the sixth day, our quivers ran dry. Yet we found solace by turning to the fresh corpses of our foes, fashioning new arrows from the needle limbs.
Blades of chitin, and shields from hulk’s bones. Necessity fathered our ingenuity, becoming our only ally against the endless hordes. The village’s women and children helped tend to the wounded, their support a lifeline in our darkest hours. Though I saw many sons pick up their father’s spears, hafts still slick with paternal blood, yet we offered them no pity.
On the seventh day, our Lord awoke, saving no thought for himself he devoted all his healing to the maid. How she withstood her injuries was beyond our ken, and rumor’s of Rhendal’s dark arts began to spread. Some of the men thought she must have been possessed of a demon.
Her fur peeled away with the bandages, whilst her blackened nails amputated themselves like diseased warts. Scabs covered her body, cracking and bleeding with every movement, saturating her once neat dress with ichor. Rhendal ordered her clothes be cut away and burned, taking her care upon himself once more by cauterizing the worst of her bleeding sores.
On the eighth day, she awoke, screaming and sobbing in agony at the disaster of her flesh, begging for death with a ferocity that shook our hardened hearts.