The Seventh Seal was on the move. When the Seventh Seal traveled, gossip was the order of the day.
Everything was trotted out. Old gossips took on a new light. Aldric’s mysterious past. The origin of the name, ‘Seventh Seal’. Who was sleeping with who. Who had cheated at cards or at dice. Each culture that was represented in the Seventh Seal had their own folklore and their own auguries for the future.
Therannia was on everyones’ lips and what they might find there. Some wondered what Aldric’s proclamation meant. Why was Commander Daveth a ‘hero’? Well, what was a hero? Someone that would save them, of course.
Save them from what? Therannia, of course. Whatever happened in the lands of Therannia was so bad that they needed a hero to save them.
So... what happened in Therannia? The Therannian elves offered little in that direction. A mad king, surrounded by demons. A magical country, left to wrack and ruin.
Veterans of the Seventh Seal gave meaty backslaps to the new blood, to anyone younger than themselves. Demons? The Seal had fought demons before. Monsters? Daveth was a monster to defy all monsters. And, the veteran would say, fixing the younger man or elf with a beady eye, Daveth wasn’t just a monster, he was their monster. The Seventh Seal had fought demons, monsters, and even drakes. This- whatever it was- in Therannia had better take note: The Seventh Seal was coming, and nothing could stand against them.
One of the Therannians spoke up, then. The Seventh Seal had fought drakes before?
Oh, aye, was the answer. The ground had collapsed and the Seventh Seal had fallen into a ruin buried beneath the ground. A nest of drakes and drake’s eggs. Daveth himself had stared down a drake, eye to eye, while the rest of the Seventh Seal had looted the beasts rookery, stealing seven eggs while Daveth himself fought against the beast.
The Therannians were curious. What was a drake?
The veteran would explain. What was a drake? Oh, that was obvious. A great winged beast that breathes fire. Nearly undefeatable. Potent. Monstrous. The very definition of death incarnate. Said to be cousin to the mythical dragons themselves.
But... what was a dragon? Nobody could answer that question. Nobody had seen a dragon, after all.
One man opined that if Daveth could defeat a drake, then it was certain that he could defeat whatever a dragon was, likely tearing it apart limb from limb. The man was a monster, but he was their monster, and he’d never let anything happen to the Seventh Seal. Not on his watch.
They harkened back to the strange and mythic Beast that exploded from the ground and disappeared in a tear in the sky back in Philippa. Surely that was Daveth’s work.
That’s why it was important to follow the rules. That was why it was important to fall into ranks at the signal given.Aldric and Daveth would lead them to victory against armies, abominations, monsters, demons, and dragons. All they had to do was play their part, and victory, coin, and women would fall into their laps.
*****
“This isn’t like Therannia at all.” Malacath complained, waving his hand at the landscape. Since leaving the cultivated lands of Montesilvano, the ground gave way to rocky ground, stands of twisted trees, and the only road was thin and twisting. Short cliffs dotted the ground here and there, ripe for ambush spots.
“Of course not. This is the edge of the lands that were once owned by the Tamba-Komoti.”
“I don’t know of them.” Malacath replied, and Daveth shrugged.
“Me either.”
Aldric sighed. “Back before the War of Liberation, they were a collection of tribes. They liked to raid each other and sell each other as slaves to each other. A barbaric practice, but the frequent selling and reselling each other kept inbreeding sparse. Anyway, the Lyonesse,” he pointed northeast, “used to cross these lands and scoop them up as slaves and sell them to the Jeweled Cities. The Anglish conquered both the Tamba-Komoti and the Lyonesse, bringing the whole slave trade thing to a halt. When Rothgar was considered a lost cause, the Tamba-Komoti were relocated to Hesperia, the continent to the north of us, across the Mirras sea. The Tamba-Komoti spoiled their lands with endless wars and a colossal fuckup involving the Queen of Spiders.”
Aldric gestured to the barren wastelands that lay beyond the trees and cliffsides.
“You speak of Atlach Nacha.” Malacath muttered and made a sign with his hand warding against evil.
“The one and only.” Aldric replied, but then flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture. “If she even exists.”
“Many different people have heard of her.” Malacath argued. “It seems likely she exists.”
Daveth rolled his eyes. “Everyone’s heard of Darius Trakker, the Wandering Monk, but nobody’s seen him, either.”
Malacath nodded. “Fair enough.”
“And before you get started Aldric, I’ll remind you that he probably wasn’t Darius Trakker. I could call myself Darius Trakker and get away with the same shit.”
Aldric shrugged. “He might have been Darius Trakker. The man was a monk, if you recall.”
Daveth shrugged. “I remember what he taught me. I could call myself a monk.”
Aldric barked a laugh. “Sure you could.” He turned to Malacath. “You’ve been through these lands; what can we expect? Raiders? Mutants? Monsters?”
Malacath shook his head. “It was practically deserted when we came through. Some beasts we killed for food.”
He shook his head in disgust at the thought. No longer did they have the ability and freedom to simply purchase their foods from markets and restaurants, no, now they had to hunt for their food like ... like savages.
“Well, we’ll keep the scouts out anyway.”
*****
The Seventh Seal continued their trek across the wastelands of what had once been the lands belonging to the Tamba-Komoti. Nearly a thousand years prior, the lands were verdant and lush, filled with all sorts of growing things, but constant infighting and war had turned the fertile land barren and bleak.
From time to time abandoned cities could be seen on the horizon; remnants of Anglish occupation. Daveth gestured at Aldric and the crumbling cities, but Aldric shook his head. There was no room to try and loot cities abandoned several hundred years ago. Perhaps there might be, on the return back.
Abandoned cities typically didn’t hold much in the way of conventional loot like treasure and art and coin, rather they were useful for other things. Iron sconces could be torn out, nails stripped from wood, fittings collected and then melted down. A wealth of iron ingots could be traded to blacksmiths in cities starved for the precious metal, reforged into steel. Any actual treasure had either already been hauled away by the Anglish centuries before, or treasure hunters.
One of the scouts called out, hearing thunder. Daveth scanned the cloudless skies, and wondered if the scout was sleep-deprived. He watched a dog-sized spider scuttle under a rock, and frowned in concentration as he worked it over in his mind.
He wished Audra were with them. She could take clues and string them together into something reasonable.
Suddenly, he could hear it too, faintly.
“Thunder?” He muttered, and Aldric, who had been patiently trying to explain an Anglish joke to Malacath, lifted his head. “I don’t think that’s thunder, Daveth.”
Daveth waved a signal for the scouts to pull in closer to the Seventh Seal for safety’s sake, when suddenly a herd of horses surged over the edge of the horizon and stampeded straight towards the Seal.
“Fucking-” Daveth got out, and then began shouting orders for the Seal to form ranks instead of the caravan formation they’d been in.
The herd of horses was titanic. Massive, a wave of horseflesh that stretched from edge to edge of the horizon. There must have been thousands of them, in all sorts of colors, some with stripes, some piebald, some black, white, spotted, brown, there were even a few sleek-looking specimens that looked golden.
“Son of a fucking-” Daveth yelled and Aldric waved his sword like a baton, trying to direct the Seal to avoid the herd that was bearing down on them like an unrelenting tide of horseflesh. The whole army would be obliterated.
Suddenly, something lifted itself from the edge of the horizon. If the herd was huge, this creature was massive. It was lizardlike, with a gaping maw capable of gulping down a horse whole. It strode after the stampeding horses on legs like pillars, legs like leathery tree trunks. Its forlimbs were smaller and more delicate than its massive hindlimbs, but the claws it sported could rend a man in half with little effort.
“Riflemen!” Aldric called, gesturing at the massive lizard that thundered after the herd of horses.
It was going to be a massacre of untold proportions. The horses would hammer the Seal to shit, and anything living would be picked off by the gargantuan lizard that hundred after the horses, it’s maw gaping in anticipation.
A double dozen rifles hammered out their deadly song of murder and the tyrant lizard hurtled forward, towards the Seal.
“Arrows!” Daveth yelled, but the archers were still hastily stringing their bows.
Malacath drew his sword and pointed straight at the lizard.
“Starshell, first!” He yelled calmly.
Daveth blinked at the man. How could he shout at the top of his lungs and yet sound so calm?
“Earthwings, prepare the first wedge obstacle! Icewings, prepare first barrage!”
The starshell went off, a brilliant, blinding flash of light that sent the horses skittering in every direction, rushing past the Seventh Seal by mere feet.
As the gigantic lizard rushed down on them, suddenly one of its legs went out from underneath it and it slammed into the ground hard enough to blot out the sound of the stampede.
A crackling snap rushed out from the Therannians; a barrage of icicles that shattered against the giant lizard’s hide like glass.
Malacath made a bitter face, and then ordered a second barrage, which had little effect.
The gigantic lizard scrabbled at the ground, trying to jank its massive leg out from the hole.
“Make it bigger!” Daveth yelled at Malacath, who gave him a baffled look.
“Daveth grabbed the elf and lifted him out of the saddle and pointed with his other hand at the hole.
“That hole. Make it bigger. Bury the fucker!”
Malacath squirmed in the giant’s grip as he shouted his orders to the Therannians, to the mages that were familiar with earth magics.
The hole widened, deepened, and the gigantic lizard tumbled into the hole.
Malacath twisted in Daveth’s implacable grip. “Good call, Commander. Feel like letting me down anytime soon?”
Daveth plunked the elf down in his saddle and rode his horse to the edge of the pit, where the gigantic lizard thrashed and heaved and tried to regain its footing.
Daveth pulled out two blades and leapt into the pit.
“Commander-” Malacath shouted at the same time that Aldric yelled out “Asshole!”
Aldric, Malacath, Alysia, Lynnabel, and even Nicola peered into the pit, expecting... well, they weren’t sure what they were expecting, but a double dozen swords perforated the giant lizard’s torso and Daveth himself was standing in the thing’s mouth, a massive sword shoved into the upper palate of the lizard’s mouth, skewering its brain.
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Aldric blinked a few times, and used a handkerchief to wipe the dust from his face.
“You think it’s dead?” Aldric finally asked, and Daveth tugged his blade free as he extricated himself from its mouth.
“Maybe?” He called up. “If it’s not dead now, it will be eventually.”
Aldric gave him a confused look, and Daveth yanked one of the swords free. “Orgus blood-drinking blades.” He called by way of explanation. “Endlessly thirsty for blood. Cursed things, they don’t care where they get their blood, as long as they get to drink.”
“...Orgus...” Aldric began, and gaped at the giant as he was eyeing the sides of the pit. “You’ve carried those things since Bel-Arib?”
Daveth looked up at his captain and nodded. “Yeah. Useful.”
The gigantic lizard seemed smaller now that it was in a pit, laying on its side, eyes filmed in death.
Daveth went down the side of the lizard, plucking the short, slightly curved blades free from the monster, and slipping them into his belt pouch one at a time.
He looked up at Malacath. “Feel like getting me out of here anytime soon?” He asked, and the elf laughed.
“Most certainly, Commander.”
Daveth eyed the thousands of horses that stood around the Seventh Seal, sides heaving. “We’ve got no way of feeding so many.”
Aldric nodded. “A fortune in gold and steel and we can’t even afford to claim it.”
Daveth gave Alric a slap on the back. “How many times have we had to walk away from fortune, man?”
“Too many fuckin’ times.” Aldric spat. “That’s good horseflesh, there. If we could get the herd to the coast, maybe drive them up towards Metzcal...”
“We’ve only got enough feed for our horses boss, and it’s likely we’ll need to replenish for the trip out of Therannia... unless you’re planning on staying there?”
Aldric petulantly kicked a stone across the parched ground.
“Fuck you, I know all that.” He complained bitterly.
*****
The Ouros Gate was a massive stone wall that defied explanation. It was human-made, according to Aldric’s scholars, but it defied explanations as to how. The stone, a deep ruddy maroon, was unlike any local stone, which meant it had to be brought in from somewhere else. Nobody knew where. The nearby mountain ranges were composed of granite and other stones. The wall itself was two hundred miles long, with the gate itself right in the middle, and stood a full mile high.
The wall itself was carved with row after row of bare-chested men and women, twenty feet tall, each pointing towards the center of the wall, where a carved gateway that could accommodate a thousand men standing shoulder to shoulder resided.
The interior of the gate was carved in a language nobody could recognize. Thousands of rows of text carved deeply into the stone. Anglish scholars had the stone wall pegged at several thousand years old, but nothing had weathered away from the carvings or texts. No magical resonances, either.
“I never thought I would see this.” Aldric muttered as they rode through the gate.
“You check out the tits on the carvings?” Daveth asked, and Aldric shot him a look.
“You have no sense of romance, Daveth.” Aldric complained. “Nobody knows who built this thing, or why. It’s old beyond description. It’s meant to be appreciated.”
“I did.” Daveth replied. “Huge tits.”
Aldric sighed again. “Get your ass through the gate, and make sure the rest of the Seal gets through, too.”
Daveth nodded and set off through the massive gate. Aldric looked up into the cloud-swathed top and let out a sigh. He couldn’t figure out who made it, or what it was made for, but he could at least appreciate it for what it was: a marvel of human craftsmanship that had outlasted empires.
What would Darnell be like in a thousand years? A heap of broken images? Stone heaped atop stone? Would the Grand Cathedral stand the test of time? Would people wander its halls and puzzle over the scriptures carved in every stone? The Goddess that had demanded such things was centuries dead.
Likely Darnell would become another Philippa, shattered stone piled atop shattered stone, roads torn up for their paving stones, statues turned into mossy boulders. Maybe the Ishamaelites would finally win their war against the Anglish and everything would be swept aside as a new, stranger empire took its place.
Just past the Ouros Gate was Therannia. An elven nation that was barely two hundred years old. The Anglish Empire had lasted for over a millenia, it was said. Growing, changing, expanding, conquering. Swallowing nations whole, devouring continents in its ever urgent need for expansion.
Aldric’s teachers had told him about the rise and fall of empires. Eventually, as a society, the tenets that hold them together begin to rot away and the empire falls apart. The path is fairly simple, his teachers opined: They rose, they plateaued, they dipped, they rose and plateaued again, and then at some point, they would enter an indolent, lazy phase where the empire or nation would rot from the inside with indolence and corruption. Usually, it would take about five hundred to a thousand years for an empire to fall apart, but from what Malacath had explained during their long talks, the rot had set in quickly.
The Shapers had solved their problem by withdrawing from the rest of the world. They couldn’t afford to fall apart because they were wholly reliant upon themselves to survive. They were small enough that rot couldn’t set in too deeply. The Yamato would realize it soon enough. The Anglish... well, it might already be too late for them.
It took a full day to get through the Ouros Gate. The land between the Gate and Therannia’s border was empty, uncontrolled wildlands; likely the home of the massive herd of horses. And the lizard, couldn’t forget about that, either.
Aldric, from time to time, received letters through magical means from his contacts and allies that had spread across the Anglish Empire. Nicola, from the Radiant Sons, was able to help him in his correspondence. Metzcal had fallen silent again. The Urthan were eyeing Aston like a tasty morsel again. The Yamato were trying to pressure the Anglish into allowing them to secure Aston. The Yamato had heavily invested in Aston ever since the very beginning. Ardeal was muttering about civil war. The whole world seemed to ache for a chance to bare steel and point it at someone’s throat.
So many job opportunities.
Aldric reached out and touched the massive stone wall, perhaps a warning to those that came after.
“A man stood here and worried about the fate of the world.” He muttered to the stone that had stood mute for countless millennia.
He tucked his foot in his stirrup and swung into the saddle.
“Time’s wasting, and there’s killing to be done.”
*****
“Okay, time for war talk.” Aldric began as Daveth, Malacath, and the file leaders sat in Aldric’s command tent.
“We need to know about Therannia. Will we have to take the country, city by city? Just raid the capital? How much opposition can we expect? You told me the entire country is magical, what sort of countermeasures will we need? What spells are we likely to see? How big is the army, and what sort of disposition can we expect on the field?” Aldic asked, focused on Malacath.
“Finally, what’s our victory condition? Do we just have to kill Malachi Sunstorm, or are there others that would simply take his place if he fell?”
Malacath eyed the other members of the Seventh Seal, and gave a pensive sigh.
“I think taking the capital will be enough, but.... You have to understand, we’re not just talking about taking a city.”
Aldric made a cranking gesture with his hand. “Details, man.”
“You have to understand that Malachi... wants to protect his people. The demons have taken advantage of that. His... idea... was to...” He paused, and shook his head. “You should know I don’t speak of these things lightly. I’ll tell you what I know, what I believe, and what I suspect.”
Aldric nodded.
“In the beginning, Malachi made a lot of speeches. Justifications. He said that in the beginning, before the Long Night, there were the Red Men, the progenitors of all the races. The Red Men divided into several factions: The Shapers, The Seelie, and the Orcs. the Seelie explored the world, built vast and amazing wonders, and then left this world to travel to new ones. They left their cousins, the Sidhe, behind. The Sidhe went on to do the same thing- explore, conquer, create, destroy, and then move on. When they moved on, they left the Elven race behind, which split into two factions: The humans and the elves. The humans intermarried with the Orcs and the Orcs are no more. The elves are the pure strain, untouched from the beginning, having a line straight back to the Red Men.”
Daveth toyed with his cup. “Sounds like bullshit to me.”
Aldric nodded at that. “Anyone can make up whatever they want about what happened before the Long Night.”
Malacath shrugged at that. “Malachi said that it was our turn to leave this world. Elves were persecuted across the length and breadth of Aggenmor, and so it was our duty to preserve our race, our culture, our traditions. He wanted to bring every elf together from all over the world, but even a madman has limits, it seems.” Malacath snorted and took a swallow of his wine.
“Leaving this world can’t be done without... help. He found his help in demons. The country of Therannia would be wholly and completely removed from the world and kept safe in a demon realm.”
He let out a long sigh and Teryl rubbed his back gently.
“Part of the capital city is ... caught... in the demon realm. It is there he resides, in his “Obsidian Palace” where he holds court with his demonic allies and his mad counselors.”
He sat back in his chair and Teryl rubbed his shoulders helpfully.
“Some of the people went to his side, regardless of the ...cost. Some of the military, too. There is a great tear he is ripping in the world, and it grows day by day. It’s my belief that this is being done through... sacrifices made to his demonic allies.”
“Allies?” Aldric asked, and Malacath shrugged.
“Some went to his side. Enough. His sons did. The Third Princess left long before this started. Some magical quest of some sort.”
“Fuck.” Daveth muttered. “We’ll need cannon for this one, Aldric.”
Aldric eyed Daveth, and then turned his attention to Malacath.
“So what’s the victory condition?” he asked.
Malacath rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “It’s my belief that if we kill him, the rift will close.” He paused. “But to do that, he will need to be killed on that side of the rift. It’s my opinion that if we kill him on this side of the rift, it will just reopen.”
“No way home.” Morden muttered.
Daveth stood up from the table abruptly and knocked back his wine quickly. “I’m going to need to think this through.”
Kirilae found him first. He sat with his back against a chunk of rock, arms folded across his knees, staring out across the wasteland.
“How’s the patrol?” Daveth asked the young scout without looking up.
“I’m... not here about the patrol, Commander.” She began. “I think I’d like to be released from my commission and permission given to leave the Seventh Seal.”
Daveth raised an eyebrow. It was only natural that this sort of thing would happen. Fighting demons was outside of the Seventh Seal’s power.
“Makes sense. No one wants to fight demons with swords and spears.” He agreed quietly.
She shook her head, her silvery hair swaying in negation.
“I think that what Malachi is doing is right.” She replied. “This is a human world, with human nations deciding where elves can and can’t live. Leaving this world behind to protect elves makes sense to me.”
Daveth gave her a startled look.
“What? How does any of that make sense?” he blurted.
“It makes sense if you’re an elf. How many elven nations have been massacred at the hands of humans? Look at the Anglish. We’re barely considered people.”
“Look at the Seventh Seal.” Daveth replied, refolding his arms and resting his head on them. “Our rules apply equally to everyone, man, woman, beastman, or elf.”
Kirilae scoffed. “A human army. When Captain Malacath agreed to sign up with the Seventh Seal, I thought that things might change- but look, he was put under you and Aldric. A Captain, reduced to ... what? Less than a commander, more than a lieutenant?” She shook her head again.
“I think you should take some time to think about this some more.” Daveth encouraged. “Decide where your best interests lie. I don’t think you’ll be happy living with demons... and the kind of people that think joining hands with demons is a good idea.”
Her pretty face clenched into something that was ugly. “I want to live with my kind again... and away from the fear that some human is going to decide what my best interest is.” she sneered. “Let me go, or-” She stopped suddenly and her face cleared as if she realized something.
“I don’t know why I’m even asking. Why should I have to ask? I quit, Commander.” She declared, and turned and marched off into the evening shadows.
Daveth shook his head and lowered it to rest on his arms. Alysia came to him next.
“You going to quit, too?” He asked, and she gave him a wary look.
“Are you telling me that I should go?”
He lifted up his head and examined the Wolf Sister. “Just had an elf from the scouts quit on me.”
Alysia looked around, and seeing that nobody was within eye or earshot, carefully seated herself next to him.
“We take our oaths seriously.” Alysia whispered to him. “I would follow you into the Void of Oblivion if necessary.” After a minute of thought, she added, “Also, by my count, I owe you a hot meal. I plan on fulfilling that debt when the fight is over.”
Daveth snorted, and Alysia stood up and walked away, to be replaced by Aldric a few minutes later.
Aldric packed his pipe with tobacco while leaving on the boulder that Daveth rested against. He took his time, struck a match, puffed his pipe alight and only once he had it going to his satisfaction, he finally spoke.
“Out with it, man.”
“This is gonna be a shitshow.” Daveth muttered. “How do you fight demons, Aldric?”
“Magic, sometimes. Relics from the False Gods work too, so I’ve seen. Wish we had Eirawen with us. She could march through the whole thing and the demons wouldn’t even touch her.”
“One of the scouts quit. The white-haired elf. Thought Malachi had a good idea.”
“You’re fucking shitting me.” Aldric jolted, nearly dropping his pipe.
Daveth didn’t say anything, and Aldric let out a breath. “I guess you’re not shitting me.”
“So ends the story of the Seventh Seal.” Daveth muttered. “Not that there’ll be anyone to tell it.”
Aldric sat down next to the giant. “What, you think I’d bring the Tross into this shitshow? They’ll tell our stories long after we’re dead.”
Daveth snorted at that. “Fucking Morden, I swear. He got the good end of the deal.”
Aldric nodded. “You think we should bail? Drop the mission?”
Daveth took a long, pensive breath. “Let’s say we do this. We manage to pull this off through some fucking miracle. Who’s gonna pay us?”
Aldric rubbed his chin. “The world will have to owe us one.”