Chapter 577: Reckoning

  The grassy hills of Dusk Valley stretched out all around them. Stryga and her army had marched out from Lunis yesterday at noon. They had only stopped to rest for the night. The sun was already beginning to dip over the horizon and yet, when Stryga looked behind her she could still see the faint pillars of smoke in the distance.

  Her soldiers had burned half of Lunis to the ground and ransacked the rest. They had razed the oldest city in the Ebon Realm to the ground. They had left the beautiful Sapphire of the East in ruins.

  Anger boiled inside her as she stared at the back of the man walking ahead of her, his feet almost gliding off the grass thanks to Orange magic. Ravellan was her liege and her soon-to-be husband. He was the man she had fallen in love with and it made his betrayal sting that much more. He knew she would never have given the orders to attack the city if she thought there wasn’t an army gathering inside its walls.

  Instead, Stryga had believed his lie and had ordered her soldiers to fight without quarter. She had tried to squash the rising army before it was too late. By the time she realized the truth, her soldiers were already engaged in battle all across the city. What could she have done…?

  Excuses, she thought bitterly.

  At the end of the day, it was her decision. She was the War Master of Holo’s Shade. The final decision to attack was hers. War was already and she would continue to fight, for her House, for her friends, and for the soldiers who placed their trust in her.

  “I said I’m fine,” Lana yelled from behind her.

  “You’re bleeding,” said Syrak insistently.

  Lana pulled her arm away and hid it underneath her cloak. “It’s just a scrape.”

  “It’s a gash. Let me see it. Please,” he said with worried scarlet eyes.

  Lana tried to ignore him. It only took a few seconds before she caved. “...Fine,” she grumbled and lifted her arm.

  He smirked. “Good girl.”

  Without hesitation, she socked him in the gut.

  He gasped and doubled over with a grimace.

  “Call me that again and it’ll be your balls.”

  “Fair,” he wheezed.

  Syrak stumbled the next few steps but quickly gathered himself and grabbed her hand, carefully pulling back her red-dyed sleeve. A long gash ran up her forearm.

  He channeled Blue and rinsed off her arm with a splash of water, then switched into White, a soft healing glowing around his fingertips. “Why didn’t you tell me you were this hurt?”

  “Because I didn’t want you fussing over me like a damn hen,” Lana huffed.

  “You may be the fastest battle mage in our battalion but even you can still get injured. This is war. You can show off later.”

  “I wasn’t showing off. One of our men was shot in the shoulder. I was covering his retreat.”

  “Did you manage to save him?”

  “No, he died before help arrived.”

  “...We can’t save everyone, but if we rely on each other we can get through this damn war.” Syrak ended his spell and let her arm go. “Done. It’ll leave a bit of a scar on your pretty grey skin, but what can you do? Healing spells aren’t my forte.”

  “No shit.” She clenched her hand open and closed. “At least I can move it.”

  “We’ll get you better treatment once we stop for the night.”

  “I know. Thanks…”

  “You’re welcome,” he beamed.

  “And it’s Holo’s Shade.”

  “What?”

  “I’m the fastest battle mage in Holo’s Shade, not just the battalion.”

  “I think our War Master might have something to say about that,” he inclined his head.

  Lana followed his gaze and noticed Stryga looking back at them. She grinned, “What do you say, general? Up for a spar?”

  “Maybe later. We still have ground to cover,” Stryga replied.

  “We’re stopping early for the day,” Ravellan called out from atop the hill.

  “Looks like I’m not the only one who wants to see this fight,” said Lana.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to postpone your sparring match, Captain Lana,” said Ravellan solemnly.

  Stryga walked up next to him and spotted a village lying at the foot of the hill. “A tribal settlement?”

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  “No, it’s one of our own. I sent a messenger up ahead. The villagers were supposed to welcome us with supplies. Captain Syrak!”

  The vampire jogged up to them. “Yes, my lord?”

  “What do you smell?”

  “It’s too far to smell anything,” Syrak said as if it were obvious.

  Ravellan glanced at Stryga. “General?”

  She inhaled deeply. “Something’s wrong… I smell blood. Lots of it.”

  “Too far, hm?” Ravellan cocked an eyebrow at Syrak. “Inform the men to follow us and be ready for combat. We’re going down.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “I thought you vampires could smell blood from far away? Or is it just your nose that’s broken?” Lana teased.

  Syrak rolled his eyes. “Shut up, the general is more than just a vampire. She’s a Veres.”

  Stryga smiled to herself. Many people believed an ancient and famous lineage like the Veres carried some sort of power in their bloodline. She was content to let people continue to think so.

~~~

  As they drew closer to the village the scent of blood grew more pungent. Lana spotted the first body, a leg protruding from the corner of a small house. The drow woman's corpse was bisected above the waist. Her upper half lay a few meters away. A long smear of blood between the two.

  They found more drow bodies strewn about the ground the more they walked. Some had long gashes, others broken bones, a few had been ripped apart like the first woman. And then there were some who were burned or mutilated beyond recognition.

  “This was a work of magic, dozens of mages and spells by the looks of it,” noted Ravellan in a tone bereft of his usual charm.

  “By the state of the bodies they’ve only been dead for a few hours,” noted Stryga.

  “Then they can’t be too far,” said Ravellan.

  “No, it was a small company of mages. They’ll be moving twice as fast as us at least.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “If it had been a larger battalion they would have flattened the grass, but all these hills seem relatively untouched. It must have been a small group of mages who escaped Lunis ahead of us.”

  “I see. We were too late,” he said despondently.

  “They’re probably hoping to meet up with the Lunisian army and warn them about what happened to Lunis.”

  “Then why waste time here?”

  “That’s why,” Stryga pointed at the bonfire in the distance.

  The village square was a mess of bodies. It seemed as if most of the villagers had gathered here. “They were preparing the supplies for our army,” Stryga guessed.

  “I take it, those are our supplies?” Ravellan glanced at the bonfire.

  The smell of burning food and wood filled the air.

  “I imagine so…”

  Lana stood over a little girl’s corpse, her limbs crumpled in painful angles. She clenched her fists tight, “They could have subdued these people easily, they have magic. But this, this is… They died horribly.”

  “Those fucking savages,” Syrak cursed.

  “They wanted revenge,” muttered Stryga.

  “There’s a survivor!” A soldier shouted and pointed to a small boy at the other side of the bonfire.

  Lana pushed past the soldiers beginning gawking at the sight and knelt next to the boy. He was huddled over an older woman lying on the ground, a large bloody hole where her heart had once been. His eyes shifted, barely registering Lana’s presence, before falling back over the dead woman who could only be his mother.

  Stryga’s heart broke at the sight. He was a child, no older than her little brother. Now he was alone, ripped away from everyone he loved, for a war he didn’t know, started by people who would never know him.

  Lana coughed to the side, before reaching out and placing her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “It’s okay now,” she whispered gently.

  The boy said nothing. Didn’t move. He simply sat there, staring at his mother with dull eyes.

  “My name is Lana. I grew up in a village just like this one,” she forced herself to smile. “Can you— Can you tell me what happened here?”

  The boy didn’t respond.

  “It’s obvious what happened here,” said Ravellan coldly. “The Lunisians were trying to hurt us, to shake our resolve. It will not work.”

  “They’re dead,” the boy muttered. “They’re all dead… Because of people like you.”

  “Careful with your words, boy,” said one of the soldiers, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Lana sent the man a glare that made his jaw snap shut. “Leave him be.”

  “She’s right, let the boy speak,” said Ravellan. “What is your name, child? And what precisely transpired in this village?”

  “...Everyone died. They didn't do anything wrong,” he whispered. “They were innocent, but they were killed anyway.” He brushed the hair from his mother’s face. “They were killed because of people like you.”

  Lana coughed, but Ravellan raised his hand for silence. “You’re right,” he said. “I will not pretend to explain to you why they died, just as I do not expect a child to understand the grim reality of the world. Unfortunately, you now understand that reality better than most. But take comfort in knowing that your village’s sacrifice today will help shape a greater future for the Realm. Their deaths were a necessary loss in the war we will end. And I swear to you, we will end it. We will avenge your mother and your people.”

  “Necessary?” The boy furrowed his brow and looked up at him. “No one here asked for this, they didn’t want a war. But your greed drove you to reach beyond what’s yours. This village paid the price. This is your fault.”

  Ravellan narrowed his eyes, “Careful with your next words. I have been lenient on account of your loss, but do not forget your place, boy.”

  “It is you who has forgotten your place, Ravellan Lutharik.”

  Lana coughed heavily and covered her mouth. She drew back her hand, her fingers were covered in blood.

  Ravellan frowned and took a step back. “Who are you?”

  The boy stood to his feet as Lana collapsed, her coughs turning into ragged gasps. He spoke in a calm unfamiliar voice, it was deep and quiet, yet it reached across the entire village, and sent a shiver through every man and woman.

  “I am your Reckoning.”

  “Lana! Get away from him!” shouted Syrak. He threw his hands up and aimed at the boy, but his snarl melted into confusion, “M-My magic… It isn’t working!”

  Stryga channeled her Colors. She felt the mana answer her call before it abruptly diffused out of her body as if ink droplets in the sea. A cold sensation suddenly filled her veins where her mana had once been. Her head swayed with vertigo and she fell to one knee.

  “I am your Calamity.”

  All around Stryga, soldiers bent over in fits of hoarse coughing, retching up blood. They fell to the ground, gasping for breath, as blood seeped from their eyes and ears.

  Ravellan stood alone, he stared in fear at the boy whose eyes glowed with cold light.

  “I am your Death.”