20th of Coldborn, second month of 984:
“You are telling me you did not try to examine our Lord, but that you tried to kill him in the Druid’s Guild, and made him do a Sacrament detailing how you will kill him?” It was the first time Sorak was listening to an angered Andras.
His cold voice shrinking her centimetre for centimetre, he added, “And you have hidden from me, the one who asked you for help with this matter, for three and a half weeks that he is both tainted with grey mana and that little fight you had?”
“They were orders from your Lord. You pestered me everyday during those weeks, Andras. My patience has its limits.” Tried to defend herself.
“So you could do nothing more. I see.” His hand, which was grabbing the pommel of his sword, clenched.
“He is an heretic, a ne…..”
“I do not care, paladin. He is not a religious man, that is clear, but he was the Lord we needed and the only one we had. He did the job nobody dared to do out of fear of the powerhouses of the barony. And, evermore, never have I seen him, not in war and not in peace, use those necromantic powers for his own personal gain. If you don’t have any more betrayals you ought to tell me, I will be on my way.” Looking at her as if he was looking at a stranger, he decided to put this senseless operation that had backfired splendidly to rest.
“I have not betrayed anyone, Andras. If anything he betrayed us all.”
Not dignifying her with a word, he went back to the castle, already regretting visiting the church just to be metaphorically slapped in the face.
“You named it the Light of Hope?! I would rather believe you had married a bishop!!.”
“Shup it.” Said Noct while slurring his words, “It are a good name! You are too much of a great man, and one what…who saved my hide too many times to number. I really think that it suts, suits you. You give me hope, so I call it the Light of Hope, because it’s yours light.”
Looking at the sky, it was starting to dark, twilight was near and he had to hurry up. Before he could start to pick up the pace, the heavy steps of an armed paladin resounded behind.
“What, do you want, Sorak.”
“For you to see reason, Elenia’s grace, give me patience!” Roughly cursed Sorak, “You agreed that he was not to remain when you joined our faction, Andras! We are now closer than ever! And this has changed from a lordly matter to a religious one. I cannot let this go and you know it!”
“Plans change, High Paladin. If we start our rule by betrayal and plots, are we as better as you claim us to be?” Shooted back Andras, not stopping his march.
“It matters no longer! How thick can your skull be for it to not understand the graveness of toying with grey magic?!”
“I will repeat it one more time, I never saw him act upon his capabilities. If he is one, then he is the best necromancer I have ever met.”
“....you are nearing heresy, Andras. Turn back on your words, see reason and…..”
Before she could finish, a lizardman with a white tail, half running and half tripping, shivering thanks to both its cold blood and the temperatures of a winter evening, crashed to the ground near them.
“Sir Silvius?!” Asked Andras, recognizing the sapient as the alchemist that had tended his daughter. Quickly running towards him, he covered him with his warm coat and helped him to his feet.
His bruised face had lost a tooth but was otherwise fine, scales were hard to bruise after all, if one could bypass the evident fear in it. Andras noticed he was clutching a potion he had guarded from the fall with his body.
“High, High Co-co-commander Andrasss, o-our lo-lord needsss thisss.” Quickly handling him the potion, relief turned apparent in his face as he had met someone of trust. “Sssoral commanded me to alter the-the-the anti-poisssonsss of Noct. I ac-acted as if I had agreed and I wanted to notify our Lo-lord, but the guard ssstarted to harasss me, they started to threaten me. I caved in, my family, they started to target my ssspouse.”
Helping him to a bench and shielding him from the wind, he listened on.
“Sssoral came three daysss ago for a ‘devouring poison’. I feared for my life, Karasss be cursed and defeated!! I tried to sleep it off, I feared for my family! I am a coward and an oaf! But, every time I saw the new egg of my spouse, I couldn’t, I simply couldn’t. Forgive me, Elenia, I am a weakling!”
Andras’ face hardened and he said, “But you are here, that’s what counts.”
“They, they saw me leave the store, my, my….”
Andras gazed at Sorak and ordered, “The Paladins, call them now!”
Sorak rushed from where she had come, discipline kicking in.
“They wouldn’t act rashly in the middle of the day. Stay here and guide the paladins. I guess that’s the antidote?”
“Ye-yesss.” Cold and his sleepless nights making it were getting to him after the adrenaline started to clean itself from his system.
Looking back, and seeing as how the paladins were already leaving the church in a hurry, he nodded and got up.
“You did the right thing. Do not dwell in your cowardice, revel in your bravery of today.” After saying that, he rushed towards the castle.
………..
The tray carrying two tees and a few sweets was trembling as if under the attack of an earthquake. Soral could not, for the life of her, keep her hands steady. ‘How in all of the Nether did that bastard of an alchemist accede to my demands. Wasn’t he a close friend of my brother?!’ Her thoughts betrayed the dark intentions of her kind and maidenly act, for Noct’s cup was poisoned. ‘Ah, I see. He told my brother and he agreed to play this charade to the end to laugh at me? Typical of him. Idiot!’ Starting to curse the Duchess for making her act as a fool, she still carried on. The last missive of five days ago had confirmed to her that the Islands and the Duchess had started the uprising, and she had demanded Noct to be taken out. If he rallied an army of undead and fought together with the Empire they would have no chance of winning.
Sixteen thousand veteran soldiers would disembark in Frozen Baia, and they would pincer attack the loyalists left together with the Duchess forces, rounding around twenty thousand. The loyalists were estimated to be around sixteen thousand, so it would be a swift victory if the plans weren’t told to the enemy.
So she knocked on his room’s door, secretly wishing he would not be inside.
“Enter.”
Breathing in, she did her best to steady her arms and enter as confident as always. This time Noct was also writing something in a paper. Several maps laid in the desk, detailing the sewer system.
“What did….Why are you carrying that?”
“It gets tiring talking for hours. Excuse me for bringing something to eat while you grind my failures as a ruler and make me eat them.”
Smirking, he dropped the quill and cleaned the desk, classifying the documents inside a drawer.
“Stop making mistakes and I will stop. I appreciate you also prepared my portion, at least.” Taking the cup, dwelling in his thoughts, he missed the flinch of Soral as he started to drink, as he was thirsty and had had no time to go out of his room, as he was updating the underground maps.
What his body did not miss was the poison, as he had grown sensitive to these things after so many murder attempts. Raising an eyebrow, he quickly returned to his poker face as he drank. ‘So she hates me so much she can’t wait for one more month. I cannot fault her, but it still hurts.’ Hiding the pain in his voice, he asked as he finished the cup.
“Do you mind if we discuss the affairs of the realm later?” He reeled his survival instincts in as they started to lash out. ‘This is the proof I wanted, Silvius was in it too. I bet the anti-poisons won’t work either!.’
“Huh? No, I do not mind.” Soral answered. ‘Why is he not getting angry? I just poisoned you and you noticed!’
“First, I owe you something long overdue.” Opening another drawer, he brought out the book he had finished a few weeks ago. ‘She does not deserve to know our lifework, I still got time. I just need to destroy the poison, chain her and call the guards. Turning this is as easy as saying one word!’. Weighing it in his right hand, he passed it to her after a few seconds. “It is not up to the quality I wanted but will suffice, for now. After all, all Ashen need to wield fire magic, even if it's the thing I deserted from.”
Receiving it with her trembling hands, she opened it. ‘To my sister, Soral of the Ashen. Fire spells and modifications for their better use.’ “What?”
“I know, you prefer other elements, ice and electricity are your favoured ones after all. But it’s the Household tradition, in this I will not buckle.”
Her unfocused gaze returned to Noct as he continued to talk.
“A few more things I have to say before the ceremony: You got a good eye, High Commander Andras is trustworthy, he will serve you well, and he is also a long time friend of the family. You can confide in him.” ‘Shut up.’, “Samil will also make a good knight, she takes after her father, something to take pride on.”
Turning to look at her, he nodded and smiled, “A good friend she is and will be, trust her and never betray that trust. It would hurt you more than you would think.” ‘Shut up, shut up. No more, please.’. “And, while the paladins of Elenia can be truly overwhelming at times, they make steadfast allies. They don’t lie and try to uphold their justice and ideals, no matter the cost. Great comrades and terrible enemies, hear their judgements, for they will be spoken from the heart, but beware of higher authority figures. Nobody can resist the corruption that comes with higher power, no matter what they tell you.” ‘Please, scream at me, yell at me, get angry at me, hit me if you desire it, but stop talking as if this was our last conversation! Stop this senseless joke already! You are being too cruel right now! Get up and start to laugh like a maniac right now!!’
“Lastly…. I do not know how to say this, but I will give it a try. You will always grow, even so, you have already surpassed me. In half a year you have returned the peace to the city. It feels, alive.” He turned to look at the window, the sunset was starting to hide one side of the sun already. All of him was screaming at him to jump through the window, arrive at the ground, solve the poison issue, and rain netherfire upon his sister for this betrayal. He knew that if he did that, the plot of Soral would fail, their backers would ditch her and her birthright would be taken away by another family, as there were no more Ashen women. Remembering the promise he had made to protect his sister, he deafened his doubts and inside thoughts.
“I had forgotten this is how it felt when Mother was alive. Even if it wasn’t big, even if we didn’t had money, it felt full of hope. You returned that feeling, sister, a thing I never could manage to do.” He turned to look at her, hiding his feelings and fears as down as he could. ‘Gods, I, I am afraid, afraid of death, of dying at the hands of my sister, turning her into another killer, another me. May Elenia grant her peace. At least I was enough of a bastard to be forgotten quickly, I suppose.’. What he saw was the image of her silently crying sister. Flabbergasted, he didn’t know how to react before her sister started to reply.
“Stop this already!! I am tired of your sick games!!” She rushed to him and started to hit him in the chest with enough strength to hurt him. ‘The training has worked wonderfully.’ was his stray thought. “Don’t you dare to talk like that! Fine, I will…..”
Before she could follow, a guard body slammed open the door and screamed, “Enemy attack!”
Noct quickly turned towards the window as a crossbow bolt broke the window and shattered upon contact with his newly formed gauntlet.
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Shielding Soral with his body, he quickly tuned in to hear the noises of battle in the garden. Or not hear those sounds he had been expecting, as reality proved. Dread coming in, a creeping fear barreling in his mind. ‘How did the guard know…’ Reacting with the same energy as a bear defending its pups, his right hand pushed Soral out of his back, making her crash against a wall, just before the sword of the guard pierced his back and left by his guts.
Turning with such force he tore both his innards and the sword from the guard’s hands, he activated his armour plates and, grabbing the guard’s head, crashed it towards the ground with such force it splattered all of the room. His now fully formed full armour blocking another two bolts, he acted with haste, pulling the sword that had stabbed him and wielding it to meet the new attacker, who had intruded by the broken window after having climbed the wall.
Meeting their charge head on. Noct tried to overpower them with a flurry of blows, knowing that time was not on his side. His exhaustion had other things to say, and forced him to cast another stamina recovering spell after stopping his offensive and letting the long distance attackers another free shot.
This time only one bolt struck true, being blocked by Noct’s helmet. Another attacker joined the first one at the time to see Noct parry an overhead strike, sliding the attackers sword to one side and using that inertia to reposition his sword and cut the enemy’s neck, who had to back a few steps, drowning in their blood.
Noct tried to take the initiative, the great pangs of pain finally overpowering him and making him fall onto his old injured side, almost knocking him out.
The attacker, not willing to overlook the casting mage on the backline, as Soral was starting to hastily draw a spell circle, rushed to her. Soral flinched, breaking her concentration and dispelling the illusion magic that she was using to form the spell circle, causing it to be dispelled.
Her physical training, on the other hand, didn’t fail her. By muscle memory trained by countless bouts, she ducked the slash and hard punched the enemy, breaking a few of her knuckles as she hit hard and enchanted armour. Her vision now blurry thanks to the pain, she dodged another strike from the sword just to be kicked in the guts, making her impact again against the wall and bruising her stomach. The solleret did not have any pity on her, internal bleeding being the delivered punishment.
Noct’s blurry vision could only miss inform him of the scene, as the bandit started to wrestle with Soral, who was trying to steal their sword, and he witnessed a punch to her face, finally freeing their sword.
He had no mind power left, his injuries were too painful for him to be able to cast complex spells, rising up being out of the question. The faint scream of a falling enemy escaped his ears, as he could only look as the assassin pointed their sword down and started the stab.
Raising his hand at the same time as the door opened, he let out a simple spell of grey mana, a discharge of corrupt and creepy green energy that hit the bastard right in the head, quickly withering it and killing them in a second.
The ‘friendly’ guard that entered prepared his crossbow, ready to kill Noct, before a hastily thrown sword from the window pierced their chest with enough inertia to carry them to the wall behind them, skewering them there.
………
‘So the vixen is back in his room, huh?’ Thought Eve while she lazily looked through the missives. It had grown overconfident after getting them, so it had used its valuable time to share it with Noct the moments it could.
After a few minutes, it rose up in a fury, growling after seeing the traitorous guard stab Noct in the back, both literally and metaphorically. Taking the short route, it broke the window and rushed towards the position. “My daughters, I order you a new hunt. Our Lord is under attack. Hunt them all!! Tear out their innards and give them as fodder to the surface pigs!’ It warned its undead clique.
In mere seconds it arrived at the nearby buildings from where they were shooting. Its appearance had turned more monstrous, akin to a humanised vargheist without the wings, as it had entered hunt mode. Its undead legs tearing chunks from the walls of the buildings, she flew to the top and catched one crossbowman by surprise. After tearing their arms, it let them to bleed out in agony while it jumped to the next roof, where the other two crossbowmen were. They didn't see it arrive before it launched one of the two out of the room and to a death by fall damage. The last one was able to scream before its claws ripped their head off their shoulders.
Looking back at the castle, she saw more attackers trying to climb up, who had to abandon that endeavour as its sisters had caught up to them. Undead required no sleep, after all, and had been ready to follow its orders whenever it was required of them.
Joining the fray, she climbed and grabbed one of the attackers, who had tried to retreat to the inside of the castle, by the foot and pulling them down, causing them to droop to the floor screaming.
It finally arrived near its master. And just enough, as it did have little time to murder the last crossbowman with a nearby sword it had managed to pick, launching it towards the last bastard.
Inspecting the room, not minding the screams of the habitants of the castle and the guards that were trying to investigate what the nether was happening, its gaze fell on its loved one. Its appearance returning to the beautiful lady it usually wore, she kneeled and tried to assess the severity of his injuries.
Starting to panic, it froze the open cuts to stop the blood flow, knowing it was but a stopgap measure.
Contrary to her growing fears, Noct was able to focus thanks to her treatment and started to heal his wounds. Eve, calming down, hugged him.
“I, I don’t know how you managed to arrive with such impeccable timing, but I owe you my…” Noct started to feel something wrong, very wrong inside him. His brain shut down due to the stress of both his injuries, of the pain of the wounds and, primarily, to the damage that the poison had been doing to him, as it had started to eat away at both its blue and grey mana, and the reaction it spiked after his cast of direct mana. His healing spell broke and the half repaired tissues broke down. Full blow distress took over Eve, as it did not know healing magic. Why would it learn it? After all, vampires regenerated by themselves.
……….
All of the skeletons working or standing by in the underground rose their heads and looked in the same direction. A growing dread clouding them all.
Lantraz was the first one to act. Eve had warned it of what this sudden feeling of freedom entailed.
“Paladins, to me. Divisions one to five scout the city. Coordinate with the Sisters that had just retreated from the surface! You got orders to carry out. This is not a sneak mission, I repeat, not a mission that requires subtlety! Carry my orders and carry them now!”
“Paladins, to the castle.”
……….
“Noct!” Soral’s scream was enough to draw in the vampire's attention, and her very presence made it flip.
Pouncing on Soral, it grabbed her by the neck and crashed her onto the walls. “You!!” Eve snarled, as it started to choke her, impervious to her futile attempts at crawling at her arms. That situation did not hold for long, as Andras was the first to cross that door and collide against the vampire, freeing Soral and pushing Eve backwards.
But what he was fighting was not human. Reacting to the new threat, Eve smacked him with its right arm and launched him to the other side of the room, his armour causing a ruckus with all the noise it made upon impact.
Turning its gaze back to Soral, it missed another threat yet again. This one more dangerous, a holy sword amputated its left arm, its blue fire burning away at its lifeforce. Now it was forced to retreat several steps.
“Foul monster, you have no power here! Return to the Nether from where you came!” Boomed Sorak.
“I will bite off your neck and drench the floor in your blood!” Roared Eve as she charged again.
This time it dodged by a finger the slash from Sorak and seized the shield. Pulling with its inhuman strength, it managed to bend the shield and move it out of position altogether with Sorak’s shoulder, dislocating it. As it lunged forward, an ice cone stabbed it in the eye before it could bite Sorak, stunning it long enough to give Andras the time to push it away with his shield, letting Sorak recuperate her combat posture.
……..
“Run!” Screamed a Middle Finger of the Hands, as one of his comrades was suddenly seized by the foot near a drain outlet on the road and fell onto the ground, being dismembered and healed to recover as a source of information. They managed fifteen steps before they got cut down by the skeleton force that had invaded the nearby roads to the castle.
The brigade commander signalled to the skeletons to act with more care. While it agreed with Lantraz over the danger, most of the skeletons knew the importance of not being seen, so they discarded the original orders. After all, it had complete trust that Lantraz would be able to save their lord. Next road, its hand gestured.
……….
Not giving up, it hissed at them, now trying to judge the right engagement tactic. Its left arm starting to regenerate, Looking at his Lord, knocked out and in a precarious state, it knew it would need to act recklessly or face his death. Crouching down, it prepared to jump again. Sorak readied her healthy arm and ignited even more her sword, Soral finished the preparations of two ice spells, and Andras screamed,
“Wait, aren’t you the other maid of this castle?! We are on the same side, we do not want Lord Noct to…..”
Eve jumped nonetheless. Not two seconds after, Lantraz phased from the ground in the middle of them and blocked Eve with its tower shield, smacking her hand on the head and making her fall to the ground.
Eve hissed at the new opponent before realising what it was.
“Lantraz, what are you doing, we need to get Lord Noct….”
“Back off, Eve!! Does your brain have nothing but blood in it?! Of course, when Lord Noct is dying, is the perfect time to finish your feud with….enough nonsense.” Knowing it had little time, it stopped talking and throwed down his gauntlets, revealing two bone hands burning in golden fire, the characteristic flames of the Zunist faith. Kneeling near Noct, it started to try to heal him, its faith failing to properly start its holy job.
Andras, recognising the undead paladin's armour, rushed to Noct and reached for the antidote. “He has been poisoned. Magic won’t work. The poison reacts to strong magic, I fear he used magic in this fight and paid the price.” As he neared Noct, he judged the reactions of the new undead and, seeing that it was peaceful, forced down the antidote by Noct’s throat.
“Thank you, High Commander Andras.” Not his healing was starting to work, not that it stopped the rejection reaction of the grey mana against holy power, making the process even more difficult.
Before Eve could snap against Andras, the paladins Lantraz had brought managed to seize it from behind and started to hold Eve down.
“Unhand me, bone morons!” Not many more words were able to get out, as they quickly muffled it.
Sorak, after taking a few seconds to take the madness, and wishing it was a nightmare, went to aid the healing of Noct side by side with an undead, a pure one at that, who was wielding holy magic. The sight was enough to shake her faith, the ramifications would have shaken the Empire.
Soral, realising her bruise was getting worse, focused on healing himself.
………………….
“My vassals,” Screamed Duchess Larra to the congregation that had grouped in his palace, all loyal vassals that had come with their armies to fight for their north.
“Today, let it be now to the whole Empire that the Warg that is the north shall be enslaved no more. Today, we are breaking the chains that had stopped us from freely achieving the glory and honour that we, northerners, deserve in our lands. Today, we will stop letting the southerner bastards from taking our fur and blood for their petty benefit.”
With more and more vigour, her voice enraptured her loyalist, “Today, the Warg will be free of its muzzle, and we will bite the morons that dared hope it would be enough to stop our fangs from reaching them! Today, the north roars, ‘We have had enough.’, it screams!! No longer our children, fathers and brothers will bleed for a conflict that we do not care about!! No more our vast riches will be usurped by the greedy and fat central nobles, depleting our beautiful land of its bounty, the bounty that is rightfully ours!!”
“Today the Warg awakes from its forced slumber, today, the Fenix meets a new foe! One that will pluck its feathers and bathe in its embers as it burns away!!”
Her tone cooling down and gaining a dark edge, it drew the audience in, “But the Warg is smart. The Empire has infiltrated us, its corruption has trapped dozens of our brothers and sisters. Golden wolves surround us, but winter does not forgive nor forget. We will first purge these traitors with the cunning the North is capable of!! We will meet up with our allies from beyond the sea, and destroy these bootlickers, these knaves whose ancestors are rolling in their graves thanks to the dishonour they have committed after turning their backs to their true home! Once we have secured our home from its inside enemies, we will secure our borders! The empire has grown complacent, and its strength has bleed out in the far south. This is our chance, our chance to save our fellow countrymen from this slavery!”
Her guards started to bang their shield with their sword, yet her voice overpowered that belligerent sound. “My vassals from the future Northern Kingdom, roar! Let me hear your valour, your strength, your will to fight! We are wolves, we bow to no cowardly golden bird!! For the North!!”
“For the North!” The cacophony of the bloodthirsty rebels crashed against the walls of the throne room, threatening to break the windows from its sheer volume.
The North marched to war, to its war. One it had willingly chosen.
……….
“My mates, I think you have fallen under the impression that I like conflict.” Monologued Ilkom, a Pirate Captain from the Islands, as he walked up and down on his podium, where the expeditionary army were waiting for his speech.
“When the republican dogs begged me to join their pesky war, I said that I would rather bed their mothers and give them smarter children.” He started to laugh, the army also found it fairly humourous.
“When they offered me three teens of ships full of gold for our little help we will give today, I started to think their mothers would beg me to give them smarter children!” Now the captain roared in laughter.
“If the fools want to drown us in gold, let them try. We are all expert drinkers, ain’t I right?” His voice toning down the playful tone and turning more dark, more dangerous, he continued,
“So here we are. Are you ready for the work of your lives, mates? Today, we sail towards the heavily guarded north of the Empire. Full of snow, ice, cursed fauna, and unraided riches. And they will be so kind as to open us the door, put a carpet on the floor to not let us steep on their shitty lands, do all of the hard jobs, kiss us goodnight and let us access all their cities unopposed, and, even more, for free!”
A dangerous smirk shoved in his face as he continued, “So, my buddies. Today we work, today we fight, today we bleed and sweat! Today we launch to the seas and start the voyage! Today we do what pirates do best, we arrive at a coast, and we watch it burn! If they all want to offer us so much gold we will be cleaning our asses of shit with it tomorrow, they can be my guest! Ain’t you all with me?!” The roars of the rowdy soldiers were enough of a yes.
“That’s the energy I want, that the republic has paid us to have! We do a little bit of goblinating here and there, we let the North be set aflame, and we watch the spectacle with the heaviest pockets we will have in decades! This is as a raid as one can get. We kill a few thousands bastards, we raid a few hundred cities, and we bail when the thing starts going south. Business as usual, alright?!” The roars and laughter of the army kept the show going.
“Let the symphony of our cannons and the slish and slash of our sword talk for us, boys! Words are time and time is gold!!”
……………….