Once Upon A Time:

Majin: The Scattering

“And with strange aeons even death may die.”

– H.P. Lovecraft, The Nameless City

– ***** –

He ran faster than the wind across the field of corpses, friends and foes alike, who had finally stopped raising back to unlife. All around, trapped and maimed souls called out to him, begging for deliverance. He steeled his mind – it had become a second nature – and ignored them, as he ignored the pain radiating from his own severed arm.

Clean-up would have to wait. Right now, he couldn't afford to waste time on the suffering dead when the living still might need help. That's why he raced against time, refusing to spare attention to the curse that ate away at his own pathetic simulacrum of life.

Not slowing down, he passed through the transparent figure of a man. He had known this person. Once a fierce lieutenant of the third army, he was now no different than the hundreds of thousands of corpses that littered this cursed battlefield, and, sad irony, his soul was being tortured by a misfired spell casted by his own allies.

He sidestepped to avoid a lingering necrotic singularity and continued to dash forwards, his thoughts despite himself floating back to the meeting that had preceded the battle.

The Last Battle, the Princess had said. She hadn't even pretended to smile at the prospect of ending this nightmarish war. It had been years since they had seen Her smile, and he blamed himself for failing Her so entirely. She claimed otherwise, of course. Even decades of madness and death hadn't managed to leave a dent on the kindness the Supreme Commander showed to everyone that wasn't Her enemy.

Sadly, that kindness didn’t extend to Herself.

He hated himself for failing to protect the smile of his Lady and Master. It didn't matter if the other generals could forgive themselves, he knew he would never been able to do so.

Even before the ultimate clash that was to bring their suffering to an end, he hadn't found the words to comfort Her, leaving Her to give him an understanding pat on the shoulder as She walked up to Her mount Huginn with calm resignation.

He knew it would have been useless anyway. Be it in victory or in defeat, at the end of the day they already had lost.

Everything they swore to defend. Everything they took up the arms for. Everything they damned themselves to protect had already been laid to waste, often by the very forces they themselves unleashed but were unable to control.

And, be it fate, irony, or the fleeting desire of some cruel gods… victory it had been. But at what price? Both armies had been slaughtered, bodies and souls. The land was corrupted for centuries to come. Abominations ran rampant. And now even their Lady was missing.

The Princess wasn't dead, that much he knew. Wherever She might be in the world, he would have felt Her soul disappear. Since he hadn't, but was still unable to sense Her, it meant She didn't want to be found. The possibility that another being had captured the Princess – Her who had risen to the closest any living mortal ever came to godhood – wasn't even worth considering.

It pained him, but he respected Her choice. He had sworn loyalty and obedience. If She wanted to be left alone, this worthless retainer had no place in pursuing Her Highness. Instead, he would focus on the woman he still had a chance of being of any support to.

The others wouldn't be so accepting, that he knew.

Senar had always been a stupid mutt, mindless and lost without his master. He would pursue the Princess.

Edelwferia would leave with him. The young elven maiden’s feelings for her adoptive Sister had always gone beyond those of simple siblings. And, for all he knew, the Princess had answered those feelings, even if only to comfort her sick little sister. The Lady had always been selfless in that way. As Edelwferia’s days were numbered, he couldn't bring himself to blame the girl for going after her Beloved.

Vidal'ten would probably go too, but on his own. He had always been hard to read – being partially immaterial and barely visible didn’t help –, and the less talkative among them, but he didn't lose to anyone in terms of admiration for Her Highness.

Melkior... Melkior would do whatever he wanted. He had never been the most dedicated to the cause, although his loyalty had never been in question. Vengeance was a powerful motivation indeed. But for this reason, it was unlikely that he'd go out of his way to search for their missing Commander now that the war was finally over.

As the running man reminisced of his scattering comrades, a large crowded encampment came into view. It was startling to suddenly come upon so much life after the plains of death he had been crossing, but he wasn't surprised as his soul had detected those people far before his eyes.

Of course, the army wasn't entirely made up of fighters. Blacksmith, tailors, even cooks were there, although the number of soldiers that had actually required normal food – if any form of nutrition – had been rather low in the past few years.

Despite his gloomy mood, he felt faintly better seeing that at least some of their forces had survived. It was a shame though, that the only soul he wanted to check upon was the exact one he was unable to reach. But it was okay, he could sense his other half who was supposed to be next to her, and he didn’t sense any anguish from his soulmate, so she was most likely safe.

Then he saw the white-clad corpses being carried out of the camp and his blood froze.

Immediately, he released his power and his body dissolved in a mist of red vapour carrying his soul. It was a technique he had copied from Vidal'ten. He still wasn't able to fly through solid walls like the void elemental, but at least people and clothes weren’t an obstacle anymore.

He darted through the crowd, making a beeline for the largest tent, which was baring the crest of a laughing skull. He only switched back to solid form a heartbeat before stepping into the white pavillon, and barely registered the middle-aged midwife who addressed him a military salute as she exited.

"Aliade!"

"Oh, oh. Calm handsome. Is that the face of a victorious general? You look like you’ve seen a ghost," an old and overused joke reach his ears.

Relief washed over him at the sound of his wife’s cheerful voice. He turned around and let his eyes feast upon the beauty who laid on the large campaign bed, surrounded by a sea of fluffy pillows. Her long thick white mane surrounded her head like an aureole and her striking icy blue eyes were underlined with unusual dark rings. In her arms, she held a bundle of cloth and a new-born soul.

Next to her, a tall black-haired man with a scorched face was sitting on an uncomfortable-looking chair. The worried husband nodded to acknowledge Lander, his brother and Soulbound, before replying soberly:

"Victorious? Yes, we killed the Ever-Dying King, but all our forces were wiped out too."

"Hahaha... I bet he regretted his choice of nickname in the end," she chuckled weakly, then her tone became darker. "I'm so sorry I couldn't be with you on the battlefield. I'm sure I could have reduced our losses."

Aliade Merle, Aliade Sangbleu for a while now, was the sixth general of the Raven Army. Ironically, despite being the closest to an undead amongst their group, she also had the liveliest personality.

"No. Don't be sorry. The soldiers you raised before the battle were plenty already. It's not your fault the baby decided to come out four months early."

"He inherited your impatient personality, and childbirth surprisingly isn't mentioned in strategy books."

"An unfortunate blank, but we are used to deal with the unexpected."

An euphemism to resume how many times they had been ambushed and outsmarted by enemies who could read the future, or even mess with time itself.

"But you really didn't have to leave Lander with me."

"I preferred to go to battle with one less worry rather than with one more inefficient sword. He still hasn't recovered enough to be of any help."

He glanced towards his brother, who accepted the comment without objection. Even if Lander hadn't been rendered mute by a cursed flame spell in the last battle, he still wouldn't have complained. For the two of them, bluntness was no more than a way to show that they respected the other enough to believe them able to endure the truth.

"Say the man who lost his right arm?" she teased.

"I'll grow it back, then I will return to clean the aftermath."

"Such casual attitude about purifying tens of thousands of souls. Are you trying to show-off to your wife, Mister Bloodsoul Mage?"

"Show-off? What matter of a fool would brag over their handling of dead souls in front of the mighty Master of Death?"

Aliade pouted.

"I really don't like that gloomy nickname."

"I think I recall you saying it sounded 'so cool' just a decade ago."

"Aaaah... don't remind me that."

He granted her one of his rare smiles.

"So... how's my son?"

"Alive."

"... I suppose that is something to be happy about, since his mother is a lich."

"A flesh lich, please. Don't compare me to those bony failures. I think his father being a 'vampire' was actually more of a concern."

Greatest Necromancer the world had ever known, Aliade had been able to properly separate her soul from her body, becoming an immortal lich for all intent and purpose, except she succeeded in keeping her body perfectly functional through the procedure. To someone unable to sense souls, she wouldn't appear any different from any other non-undead woman... as long as that someone didn’t try to do something stupid like stab her through the heart or cut her head off, in which case they would notice Aliade didn't particularly care.

The vampire sighed.

"Will you ever tell me what pun gave birth to the glorious name of my species?" he asked as he made his way to his brother, who handed him a glass bottle full of an easily identifiable red fluid.

Aliade smiled maliciously and shook her head.

"Nope. It's your fault for not being able to find a decent name. Even Senar did better."

"Tsh," he snorted. "Better? What kind of word is 'werewolf'. It sounds like something an orc would come up with."

"It sounds cool. Admit it, your naming sense sucks. That's why I was the one to name our child."

He gulped down the content of the bottle, and sighed in relief when his arm began to regenerate. Then he turned back to his undead wife.

"Oooh... So my son was named 'Master of Death Junior'. How can you be so cruel?"

For years Aliade had dutifully educated her stiff husband in the concept of “humour”. Now she regretted her actions a bit. She stuck her tong out, before answering:

"No." She raised the small premature boy towards his now two-handed father. Her arms were shaking slightly but he put that on account of the recent delivery. "Say hello to Mordred Sangbleu, son of Drake."

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"Sounds dangerous." Drake smiled predatorily – but the fangs didn’t give him much choice – as he took the sleeping child from his wife's shaking grasp, then he added worriedly: "Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes. Just a little tired. I'll be fine tomorrow. More importantly, I can't feel the Princess anymore. Did she leave?"

His face darkened, and not only because of the matter of their missing Lady.

"Yes, but Edelwferia and the mutt went after Her. Vidal'ten too probably, though even I can't locate him," he answered dutifully. "But please don't change the subject."

"Tsh. And I thought your revered master would be a good bait," she replied, not denying the accusation.

"She's your Master too," Drake retorted. "But if She doesn't want me to look for Her, I won't. So you're my only concern right now. You, and my son."

He didn’t mention Lander, since his brother and he were practically a single entity by now.

"Drake... If I were to find you a fault, it would be you are too loyal. There's more to serving someone than being their yes-man."

"I trust the Princess knows what's right."

"And that's where you failed her."

Her tone was harsh. Drake felt panic grip his heart. Not because of what she said, but because of how she said it and why she had done so. She knew this was a sore point for him and, even if they had argued about his behaviour numerous times, she had never been this blunt. If she felt the need to push her point across even if it meant hurting him, she probably felt like she wouldn't have more occasions of trying to convince him.

Aliade saw the emotions twist her husband's face as he reached the logical conclusion. She sighed.

"Drake..."

"You're dying."

There was no reproach in his voice, no accusation, just sadness.

He extended his consciousness outside of his body and reached out to hers, then let his mind follow the immaterial link between her body and the phylactery containing her soul. He found it weakened and weakening, like a dying candle burning what little wick it had left.

Because her soul resided in a slightly separated plane, an interstice between this world and the ether of the afterlife, he usually couldn't feel it even with the powers of the Bloodsoul Mage, which was why she had managed to hide her state up to now.

"I saw them carrying your White Lich Guards out. I thought maybe the pain of childbirth had made you lose grip on their souls, but I should have known that you were way too good for such a mistake."

"That's me," she said weakly. "The genius girl who resurrected her neighbours' cat in her sleep at the age of five and caused the whole village to freak out."

"How?"

She knew from his serious and hurt expression that he wasn't referring to the creepily cute anecdote. She closed her eyes and answered in a sombre tone:

"Even the Master of Death isn't a god, Drake. For the one who is dead to hope to create life without paying the price can only be called foolishness." She reopened her eyes and started intently in her husband's. "Our child wouldn't have lived Drake. Growing up in the womb of a body devoid of a soul, he would have been an empty vessel at best. So I did what I had to do."

"You filled him with your own energy."

"Like a good mother is supposed to," she chuckled self-derisively as she closes her eyes again. "Please don't hate your son. If someone is to blame, it would be me and my own selfishness."

"I would never hate our son. Nor you. You are the greatest person I know. How could I hate you?"

"The greatest? Me? Hahaha…" she managed to laugh despite her fading voice. "What about your precious Princess."

There was no sarcasm in this question. Aliade too respected their Lady above all, and never had her husband's blind devotion to the woman led too jealousy. Not to say it didn't annoy the Necromancer at time, but the Supreme Commander was also her friend.

Drake shook his head.

"I trust Her decisions without question because I know, no matter how deep Her hatred, Her Highness still only lives to protect Her people, and because she is a kind and benevolent person. But while She and all of us fought to defeat our enemies and protect what we had too, you, my wife, are the only one among us fools who desired to bring life as much as to protect it."

"Haha... What a success that has been, right?" she said, the bitter irony in her voice quickly shifting to sweetness.

"Yes. A brilliant success," Drake replied as he lowered his gaze towards the child he was holding carefully, afraid his inhuman strength might break the fragile being, or his soul.

"It's funny," Aliade whispered. "They praised me as an existence akin to a god, the woman who could bring the dead back to life! But all I ever did was to puppet rotting corpses… And now that I finally succeed in bringing forth real, breathing, beautiful life, I won't be around to witness it bloom and brag about my greatness. Hahaha... How stupid is that?"

Tears began flowing down her cheeks, and she turned towards her helpless husband.

"Drake... I don't want to die..."

"Aliade..."

"I want to see Mordred grow up in the world we created... Protect him from the mistakes we made... Slap him when he'll make a girl cry... I'm sure he will... He's your son after all… You… You've always been terrible at handling girls... I... I want to be called 'mom' or 'mama' and not 'Master of Death', 'One Woman Army', 'Heart of Rotten Ice'... I want... I want..."

Her voice devolved into uncontrolled sobbing.

If her enemies, or even her own few living soldiers, had seen her right now, they wouldn’t have believed this was the same woman who emotionlessly slaughtered thousands of human, elves, dwarfs and beastmen alike, and then reanimated their still-warm corpses to send them after their friends, families and loved ones.

That woman was nowhere to be seen, her mask fallen to reveal the little girl from a backwater village, the one who loved flowers and dreamed of founding a large family. The girl who fell in love with an overly dutiful palace guard and followed him into a mad war, resolving herself to use her gift for Necromancy she had hated above all until then. The girl who befriended her husband's master and enjoyed sharing worries about banalities over tea and cookies.

"Aliade... I could-"

"No," she cut him, stopping her sobbing by a sheer act of will, her voice weak but unwavering.

She once again forced her stiffening eyelids open and stared angrily at the Bloodsoul Mage.

"You won't do anything! And you won't tempt me with empty promises. I know my soul more than anyone, Drake. And I know your powers at least as well as you do. We are the monsters we created ourselves to survive and destroy our foes. I don't regret what I have done, and I would do it again if I had too, better maybe, but if I accept your help now… If I let you use your magic to strengthen my mutated soul… It won't be me. I know it won't."

"I could find a way to..."

"NO! You know how many of our 'experiments' ended up causing as much damage as the abominations they were meant to stop? Drake, please... I finally succeeded in leaving a legacy that isn't tainted by blood and death. Mordred will hear plenty of tales about her horrible demon of a mother growing up. I don't want to add another about how I had to be put down as a soulless monster for clinging pathetically to a life I have knowingly forsaken."

Drake didn't reply and silently started at her in silence.

"Drake... please... Just let me go."

He took in a low breath.

"I will make sure Mordred hears all the stories about his beautiful mother who dreamed of a shining world filled with laughs and flowers."

"Hahaha... That's one optimist little idiot. You should introduce us one of these days, so I can slap some sense into her."

"She is a little idealist, but I love her."

"...thank you."

She closed her pale blue eyes. And this time, Drake knew the icy blue gems wouldn't open again.

Not a single tear fell from his eyes. Ever since he had altered his body with an original mix of Blood and Soul magic, a small anomaly had made it so that her tears were now blood. He had never been much for external displays of emotion, so he had never cried a lot anyway, but after then he had learned to repress his rare tears as not to creep people out.

After all those years, he wasn't even sure he still knew how to.

Drake turned towards Lander, who was now silently standing beside him. Decades of being bonded by their souls had made words unnecessary between the two brothers. The grieving husband nevertheless decided to voice his thoughts out loud, as much to centre himself than because his wife deserved as much.

"Please make preparation to burn Aliade’s corpse as fast as possible. There shouldn't be any problem, but as she said, we have been wrong before." He handed his son over to his brother, then continued: "Also, have the surviving vampires head to the battlefield as soon as they are done resting. We'll want to free the trapped souls as soon as possible, from both sides, and be done with this place."

"And you?"

"I'll be back in a couple hours," he said as he headed for the exit of the large tent.

Before stepping out, he looked back one last time. He seemed to hesitate, then finally added:

"...and prepare a carriage. As soon as we're done, we leave for Erwin. Her grandparents emigrated from there if I remember. The mountains should have protected that place from the worst of the war. It would be better for raising a child."

Another man might have reminded Drake Sangbleu of his duties as a general and Second in Command, especially now that both the Supreme Commander and every other central authority figure was either gone or dead.

Even if every enemy had been dealt with, rebuilding the land would be as hard, if not more, than the fight that had preceded. There were also the people to deal with, many who had never known a world at peace. Not to mention the remaining immortal super-soldiers, sometimes entire new races, biologically and magically engineered for the sole purpose of killing as efficiently as possible.

Instead, Lander just nodded.

A few orders addressed to selected competent people would take care of that. If anyone deserved to be a little selfish right now, it was the broken man before him.

Drake nodded back and left General Merle's headquarter as a blur.

Five minutes later, a distant explosion shook the ground and every survivor of the army looked around in fear.

Still holding the sleeping Mordred, Lander Sangbleu silently looked towards the mountains that stood east of the encampment and towards the red cloud that raised from behind the tall summits.

Through their bond, his brother’s heart-wrenching roar of grief echoed across his soul.

– ***** –

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Spoiler :

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See you next chapter.