18th of Firstleaf, third month of 984:
Queen Larra rode ahead as always. Sleep had proved hard to find and her eye bags were the only recompense her repeated tries to fall asleep had managed to achieve. Anger had carried her actions and, once it had cooled down, only regret had remained.
The sight she had grown used to didn’t help her in her internal battle, as the prisoners had been halved in their hopeless march. Trying her best to keep her blank face, she cursed in the privacy of her mind. ‘I feel sick with myself… Karax, grant me the strength to see this to the end, to protect my people and country, to finally change what has rotten and threatens to crash down all that we have made. To not let my atrocities be in vain.’
In contrast, her despised ally was riding as merrily as he could. Ilkom was even whistling the tune of a buccaneer song. ‘“On and on flow the waves”, is it?’ Tried to distract herself Larra.
Giving up, she tried to start small talk, “Have your scouts encountered more problems?”
Shrugging up, he said, “Casualties are mounting up but now we are, at least, fighting back. They are human soldiers, surprisingly. Some scouting parties do banish completely, and those, I suspect, are the work of the undead.”
“You should have accepted my plan of enlarging the parties.”
“And make them small armies on their own? They are scouts. If they are not able to scout they are worthless.” Starting to toy with his dagger to hide his displeasure at being used as a distraction, he twistedly retorted. “”At least the mines are no longer a problem.”
Turning her face away from his smirk, she saw a bat on the fly. “A lone bat? At midday?”
Ilkom following her gaze, his smirk turned into a smile and, readying his dagger, he launched it. Snipping it in the guts, its pained cries were enough to generate a small crack in Larra’s poker face in the form of a small frown. The anomaly of the encounter overshadowed by his ally’s intentional cruelty, she snapped back.
“Is being a barbarian everything you know?”
“How am I to know? I am just a barbarian.” Started to laugh Ilkom.
Her knuckles turning white from the intensity of her grip on the reins of her horse, she turned to look at the front, not that it helped her mood.
With the head distracted, the lookouts were the first to notice a small flock of birds. Owls, crows, pigeons,..., some with unusual colours, others with spots of very strange colours, some bigger, some smaller. An elven lookout was the first one to notice that the ones who were near carried some sort of rolled up parchment. A bad feeling overtaking him, he rushed to his commander to inform while his comrades sounded the alarm.
Confusion and sneer taking over the army, as they mistook it as a false alarm at the beginning. Only the mages paled and started to try and cast magic shields, as they realised the direction the birds were flying to. Their trajectory, a direct collision towards the supply carts, now evident, a good portion of the army reacted against the thirty to forty rare birds. Commanders and High Commanders started to shout orders, trying to ready the unfazed levies and confused but disciplined men at arms.
Some birds were pelted with bolts and magic arrows, a volley that managed to destroy their physical forms and causing the parchments to drop, which, on the fall, as they had taken the mana dispersed by the destroyed familiars, blew up in flames. Still, most reached their destination and, bypassing the hastily put up shields, entered the carts. Once inside, they were dispelled. The mana that fueled their corporeal body turned to fuel the activation of the immolation spells they carried.
Dozens of fiery explosions shaked up the plains they were traversing, disrupting grazing animals and startling real birds to fly. While the spells were small and only resulted in fires, they were enough to completely scorch the carts before the fires could be put out.
While the army maintained their alert state, Larra rode towards the centre, knowing this was a one moment attack, as familiars weren’t easy nor cheap to conjure after all, for they needed the personal mana of the caster. A startled Ilkom rushed his horse to keep up with her.
Overlooking the fire quenching efforts, she asked a nearby Commander. “How many losses?”
Fear evident in his gaze, he questioned more than answered, “ About, twenty eight carts?” Realising what he had blurted out, he hastily added, “Still, no men lost their life!”
The horse of Larra growing uneasy thanks to the badly contained ire of its rider, it started to hoff and kick the dirt a bit.
“They manage to make the ‘Traitorous Trench’ seem like a morning walk in the forest in comparison, the Four Winds be damned!” Started Ilkom. He bit in his next words, as he saw that the Queen was not in for his jokes.
“Ilkom, call the rest of the High Commanders here.” The coldness of her voice made Ilkom swallow any and all complaints he had with being ordered as a ‘Helper’ and he rushed to his duties.
While she ordered Ilkom, the commander had silently slipped away to direct, now far away from there, the damage control efforts.
…………….
The Big Sister nodded after hearing their new instruction, carrying to the rest of its units that they would stop targeting the scouts together with the human soldiers.
Once it left the tent, Noct sighed and sat on the ground to rest a bit. In her hand, a missive from Ice Garden rested, opened and read.
“They acted as the oafs they are! So unwary and sluggish, fools! It was a total victory, Noct!” Celebrated Eve, using her excitement as an excuse to hug Noct.
“Tone down, you will worsen my headache.” Tiredly chastised her Noct, as he had spent the night writing the spells together with the other mages. After a few seconds, he agreed, “It was a proverbial coin flip.” A small smirk coming up, he continued, “We called front and won but It is not a bet I want to make again. Still, the lack of future intel this plot has caused would have proven insurmountable if not for the arrival of the reinforcements in the next two days.”
“A victory is still a victory!” Continued Eve.
"Could you call High Commander Andras, Kraus and Lantraz here?” Cut her Noct.
Its face, hidden behind his head, turned dark with an evil scowl. Once it disentangled itself from him it turned into an angry, but innocent face. “Weren’t you complaining about a migraine? Working will do it no good.”
“Should I turn the request into an order? It is important.” Continued Noct coldly, even if perplexed by the feelings the hug of Eve had evoked in him.
“No need, no need…Elenia’s boots, would it kill you to rest more?” Asked while it turned away, bloodlust emanated from its eyes once its back was against Noct. ‘That meatbag of Andras really has to go.’ Plotted while it left the tent. Squinting at the sun, it caressed the ring in her index finger. It had been a gift from Noct given to her on their first expedition after its new body. Working as its theocratic counterparts, it shielded Eve from the harmful sunlight, letting it walk beneath its holy power without as much as a sting.
As it walked along several tents, it didn’t register the dirty looks its body received. It also didn’t gaze in wonder at the thousand and one things it was seeing for the first, second or third time. Unlike Kal or Lantraz, who had gazed with shyness or grabbed and studied it as much as possible respectively, Eve hadn’t given them the time of its day. They held no value to it nor would they ever do, that it was sure of.
A man collided with her and was knocked back as if he had hit a wall of iron, his initial intent of coping a feel forgotten after seeing her walk it off as if she had been hit by a bee. He was so low on its priorities Eve had not realised it had collided with someone, its dark thoughts were all it was giving its attention to.
‘He is one of the last things he has left on the surface. That Elenia’s wench had outed herself out; his sister is lusting after her throne and I couldn’t be more happy about it, as that will destroy his second home; only Andras is close enough to chain him here.’ A smirk coming to its face, an act that opened her a clear a big path between the tents, so terrifying it was, ‘We are in a battlefield after all, accidents happen, it’s dangerous, anyone can die after all.’
Still, its gaze fell on one of those tops that the soldiers were using to bet their money away near a campfire, twenty tents away from its position. ‘“You use this string, tie it around the slim part and you just pull it as quickly as you can.” Explained a younger Noct during one of the times he had brought toys to play with them.’
Doubt making it fumble its next step, it scowled and started to walk faster, trying to outrun the marginal guilt it had started to feel.
………….
‘Thanked be Zun, the first four villages have complied perfectly.’ Praised Paladin in its head as it marched with its comrades under the dead of the night. They were one day ahead of schedule thanks to the fear the Islands had caused in the past and it felt shamefully reassured on it holding up. Still, what Paladin did not know is that humans forget easily, and the next villages were inland, far away from the coast, too far to have known the pain of their cutlasses.
Not that far from the village, they heard a cry of a cry. Paladin’s response was swift, quickly turning its undead horse towards the sound and kicking it into a mad rush. Its fellow paladins followed suit without a shred of hesitation. The sigh of a nearby Sister wasn’t heard in their rush.
Dodging trees and branches, they reached the origin of the cries. A young boy, no more than eight, had fallen on its back and was crawling backwards, trying to stop a heavily deformed zombie with a stick he had picked on that small clearing. Nearby, a sack of herbs had been hastily thrown out, letting its contents be spilled on the ground.
Jumping from its running horse, Paladin unsheathed its mace in mid air and, once its legs collided with the ground, dashed towards the zombie.
Its burned head turned to it. Its black robes stained by both dirt, dry blood and decayed matter, moved with it, as they were glued to its damaged form. If it could be healed, the image of a young man would have become apparent, as the body was still kind of fresh, not more than four days had passed.
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Its left full of moving larvae, as the right one had been burned off, it turned to look, confused, at its fellow undead as Paladin’s mace fell onto its head, crushing it like a watermelon.The fire from the mace quickly bloomed to consume its upper part. In a few seconds the whole body was being licked by sacred flames and, after a semi audible sigh of content, the corpse fell backwards.
The kid screamed again and his back collided with a tree, letting him no escape. Paladin turned to the boy and, slowly, went on his knees. As the attention of the kid had been solely focused on those two undeads, the Sisters had been able to hide the undead horses.
“Fear not, child. I am a paladin of Zun.” Said Paladin while timidly reaching to its emblem and tapping it a few times. Its fellow paladins stood a few metres away on the lookout. Speaking as softly as he could, he continued, “Are you alright? Were you harmed by the zombie?”
The shaking of the boy going down, he nodded, now less afraid.
“Did you get lost in this part of the forest?” Continued Paladin.
The word ‘forest’ made something tick in the boy who, nudging away most of his fear, got up with shaky legs and tried to go to the bag of herbs. Falling midway, his fall was impeded by Paladin.
“Calm down, you h….”
“My aunty!! She is sick!! Please, I need to bring back the herbs!”
Nodding, Paladin raised the kid to its shoulders after noticing it had twisted his ankle in his retreat, picked the bag, and said, “Mark the way, I will run for both of us.”
An extravagant procession followed these actions. A little kid on top of an undead, commanding a total of eleven paladins of Zun, rush a whole brigade of undead between shortcuts and dirt paths to his village. Their stamina never depleting, they took a few tens of minutes for what the kid had needed an hour and a half. Reaching a hand on the outer part of the village, Paladin opened the locked door in the quickest way possible.
After another sigh from the Sister who had followed them, it started to repair the door between curses, they quickly crossed the rooms of the house until they reached the dormitory.
There, a sick woman lied, sweating profusely and muttering nothings, near a surprised and scared medic and a crying little girl.
“I have brought the herbs you needed!” Screamed the boy as Paladin crouched to let him down, worry for the sick patient present in its green eyes.
“Sir Kellen?! Our Lady prohibited you from…!!”
“Pardon me for interrupting but we have a more important thing to focus on. We are paladins of Zun and we are here to help.” Interjected Paladin as it, without caring about the weak efforts of the medic to keep him away, kneeled at the patient’s side.
Paladin frowned and muttered, “Red fever?”
The medic, giving up as he had stolen a gaze at Zun’s emblem, nodded. “I will need a few hours to prepare the medicinal herbs Sir Kellen bravely brought, but…” Not wanting to say anything definitive in front of the kids, he weakly waved.
“I can take over, but I will need privacy. Faith is a job in which one’s focus cannot be lost or I could endanger the patient.”
“No! I am not leaving mommy!!” Screamed the little girl, crying
“So be it, sir….?”
“Titus.” Asked the medic as he investigated the herbs.
“Could you carry Sir Kellen out at least?”
Nodding, Titus left together with a regretful Kellen, who knew he could not do more. He jumped and cursed after getting out of the room as he almost collided with one of the other ten paladins, who were clunkily waiting in a ‘too small for that many people’ room.
Solemnly watching over the woman, who appeared to be in her fifties, it let its weapons and shield rest against the closed door and undressed its gauntlets, revealing its bony hands.
The little girl froze on that sight, the paling of her face hidden behind the mess her teary face had become.
Paladin rested his hands about an inch above her torso and closed his eyes. ‘I ask you for might, Zun. Not for me but for a life that is close to fading away. Let me act as a channel of Your Divinity, let me shamefully use You as the hand that holds her here. Grant me the permission to act on your name to save a life.’ The small sound of a flickering fire crossed his mind and it started to repeat the prayer in a loop. Its closed eyes could not see its skeleton hands light in holy light, akin to the sunlight that bathed a summer morning, a warm and light orange tinged with yellow.
Seconds giving way to minutes, Paladin started to hunch over, its corporeal body losing strength as it was purified and channelled towards the woman. Her white skin full of little skin wounds turning to a healthy colour, the wounds closing up, she started to breathe normally. Her silent mutterings, which came to an end as she finally fell asleep, were the signal that caused Paladin to retreat his hands and almost fall backwards.
“Mommy!” Returned the voice of the little girl, hugging the now warm arm of her mother.
“She is a strong woman, she would have been fine without my help.” Tried to consoled her with a laugh Paladin, its weakness only letting it be a mix between a cough and several sighs. After cutting its own laughter, it continued, “Still, it is rude to interrupt someone's sleep. And your mother looks like she really needs it. Let’s go.” As it lended her its left hand, it realised its folly.
The little girl, whose fear had turned into confusion as the monster had been too nice, nodded and asked, trying to know if he was a normal person, “Yes mister…but, what happened to your hands?”
Not wanting to scare her, Paladin answered, “It is a party trick, you should see the chaos these littles can provoque!” Now it's laughter sounding natural, it begged more than asked, “But it would not be a surprise if everybody knew about them, could you keep this old man’s secret?”
The little girl puffed her cheeks and accused, “That’s mean!!” Turning to her mother, she guiltily accepted, “But I will do it. Only if you promise me to not do that joke again!” ‘He can’t be bad after helping mommy, right? He even carried Kellen here!’
Putting on a depressed appearance, it regretfully said, “You are no fun… Alright, I will stop.” Dressing its gauntlets, Paladin guided the little girl outside the room to let the woman rest.
After waiting a bit for the medic to diagnose her new condition and profusely thank the paladins, they left, with directions, towards the home of the Governor.
………..
“I refuse to comply.” Simply said Landowner Woodgrow.
“It is not in your….”
“These are my lands, my people and my possessions, paladin of Zun. Bring me a stamped order from The Courts and, only then, will I willingly comply.”
“We have got orders in case you do not….”
“What will you do, burn down this whole village?” Asked, in a sarcastic manner. Misunderstanding the conflicted looks the paladins were giving themselves, she added, “You have no power nor authority to order me around!”
After that remark, Isolde angrily closed the door. ‘My day couldn't get any worse than this…’ Meditated inside her mind. First, the corpse of her right hand, whom she had killed, had disappeared, thank Elenia nobody had seen it. After that, she had been forced to exile the commander of the militia after he had managed to steal her forged documents she had used to ransack the resident merchants of their possessions. And, if that weren’t enough, now the Imperial Army wanted her village to be destroyed.
‘As if I would let them end my ambitions…’ With the baron above her being a traitor, she was seeing her opportunity to rise in the ranks and add several villages to her name. She had enough money to hire a few hundred mercenaries and conquer her competition by steel, and she was damned if she let some fanatics destroy her life’s work.
………..
Paladin remained, kneeling, in front of the mansion of the Woodgrows. The sun had risen half an hour after their first visit and its comrades had gone to repeatedly try, and fail, to convince the villagers to retreat. Their infamy increasing together with the irritation of the peasants, it had not been long till a villager ‘tripped’ and dropped in him a bucket of manure.
Sighing, it raised after eight hours of worthless waiting and asking for it to be heard and started to travel towards the river. Dark thoughts flying in its head, it tried to keep up the hope. What it could not keep from itself was the rotten tomato a mischievous and brave kid threw at him, which broke upon impact, drenching him in even more garbage. Unused to this type of senseless violence, it tried to march on before a rock clacked against its helmet. Its walk speeding up, it tried to drown its anger, for it knew it unjust. It did not help it with stopping the barrage of four older kids nor did it stop their laughs.
Reaching the river, it dived in and out and returned to the village, for time was of essence. On its way it noticed one of its brothers who was coming to clean itself too.
“Andre.” Hailed Paladin.
“Captain Nameless.” Hailed Andred. Doubt in its eyes, it struggled and tried both to stop himself from talking and to talk, until the latest won and it sounded, “I wanted to ask, why are we still here?” Asked Andre, both anger and regret were visible in its posture.
“Why shouldn’t we be, sibling? Only two thirds of the day has passed.” Counterasked Paladin.
“They have already declared to boredom their willingness to stay, captain. Should we use this time to save the other villages?” Muttered Andre, not knowing if he was speaking from logic or from misguided feelings.
“A day for each one, sibling.” Evaded Paladin.
Nodding, Andre sighed and continued its cleaning duty.
Reaching the village, Paladin soon found itself in a cramped alley, its back against the wall. ‘Why are we still here?’ It asked himself. It was not as deaf as to not have heard the rumours and words the villagers spoke of them. Winter had been boring and they were being a great distraction as the proverbial punching bag. Mocked as wanna be robbers, as fools, as sad excuses of religious fanatics. “Don’t you have better things to do than harass us?”, “If you have time to be here, shouldn’t you be fighting the enemy, as you swore to?”, “Go away already.”.
It wasn’t used to confront unearned malice head on and it would be a lie if it said it had not shaken him. It couldn’t refute Andre, for it knew its concerns were rightful. ‘We never know if we will meet additional obstacles or mud plains. Haven’t they made their choice already?’
Before it could expand that trail of thought, a Sister appeared before it. Its mail flowing like a dress of battle, it reported, “News from our Lord Noct. Riders will come to sack the villages. He has decreed to make haste. Time is now even more valuable. Should we commence?”
Paladin saw its eyes reflected on the sickles of the Sister, moving as if they were alive and hungrily searching for food. ‘Would I regret accepting now or will I regret waiting here will cost us the rest of the villages and the advantage we search for, that we need?’ Its beliefs being challenged for the first time since it learned them, it felt unprepared to make the decision. Looking to the left, searching for his Lord or his mentor Lantraz, for anyone it could ask for clarity really, its eyes only found the small child it had lied to.
As if she had a sixth sense, she followed its gaze and, beaming a smile at him after finding him, she rushed towards him. The sister banishing from view, Paladin distanced itself from the wall that was supporting him. Not being able to meet the gaze of the kid it was going to condemn to death, it asked in a bright tone.
“My lady, why are you here? Shouldn’t you be with your mother?”
The little girl, breathing heavily after running here, said, “Mommy is fine! She woke up and said she felt no ouchies anymore! Thank you mister!!”
The hugh its leg received tore apart its metaphorical heart. Patting her in the head, it said, “Isn’t that great news, my lady!”
Letting go of the hug, she kicked a bit of dirt nearby and asked, shily but without fear, “Could you bend down, pretty please?”
Bending down, Paladin soon found the reason for the strange request. A common white flower which grew everywhere, a daisy, was helped by the girl’s hands to its helmet and attached itself on one of the holes in its lower part.
“Thank you for your help! If you have a problem, you know where our home is!” Leaving as quick as she had come, it left the surprised Paladin in the dark alley.
The sister reappearing, it watched, dumbfounded, as Paladin lightly touched the flower and, with new energy, got up and started walking.
“...our…orders?...Where are you going?” Asked it, confused.
Paladin turned towards her, renewed fire in its eyes, and said, “Back to the square to try again.”
………….