Current date in world: July 19, 2326 TP
~Aurelio~
The armor was covered in dark, dried blood, yet it still gleamed defiantly in all its silver glory in the light of the twin suns. It was as if the armor had a mind of its own. Its dirtied state only served to better contrast the pure shining silver of the few clean spots left on it. For such a proud state, only one man could be capable of wearing such a piece of mastery in craftsmanship. Only one man was worthy to wear this beautifully hand tailored, silver Bellatorite.
Count Aurelio Ortansio gazed at his city. It was practically a mound of dregs when King Ferdinand Agenor VI bequeathed it upon him when a territory was needed to legitimize his then promotion to count. The streets were full of trash, vermin and worst of all, Bloodfallen. The poor, uncivilized refuse was an eyesore to look at years ago. Of course, Bloodfallen were needed to do much of the work of the kingdom, they had the right, the privilege, to do the less desirable tasks that Crownborn should never even have to think of doing. Aurelio had always considered them to be beneath those born with divine heritage. It was the natural order of things. Despite their low birth, they were useful still. With enough instruction and work, they could be made into fine soldiers and citizens. His city was the fruition of molding them into what they were supposed to be, loyal subjects and servants that were reliable and effective. Over the course of a little over a decade, Count Aurelio had rebuilt the fallen city, its previous name forgotten. Now, it was called Garadan, the City of Noble Fortune. Bloodfallen still far outpopulated the Crownborn of the city, but his Bloodfallen had been well trained and reared to properly serve their Crownborn superiors. The city was adorned with great, ornate walls and battlements, the streets were paved to perfection, there were several markets full of thriving goods and trade, and the city guard was fully manned, armed and dutifully experienced. All of this was what Aurelio lived for. To create a beautiful and strong people ever progressing up and forward to greater heights. Despite all he had achieved thus far though, it still was not enough. With his most recent triumph, the dukedom of his province would be his.
The company of warriors had halted as their lord stopped to look at their home. Aurelio sat completely still on his Agenorian destrier. Rays of sunlight were breaking through the clouds. His soldiers stood in reverence and awe at their lord. It was as if he was a statue sculpted by the gods. His Bellatorite armor completely covered his entire body. It was plated and had silver dragon scales patterned into it to form his house crest of a regal, flowering hydrangea. A magnificent, silver cape attached to his pauldrons flowed as a gentle breeze passed by. After a still silence of a few ponderous moments he removed his helm. His hair went slightly below his shoulders and was a sleek black. Despite the dirtied state of his armor, his head appeared to be clean and kempt. The skin of his face was a smooth beige and was almost flawless, without blemish aside from a large scar running down from the right side of his forehead to his mouth. His silver eyes glowed with an energetic youthfulness that was a telling sign of his great vigor. He was fifty-three years old. Though many his age were either very robust or starting to become scrawny and showing signs of age fatiguing them, Aurelio had maintained a strong and tempered figure. He would not let himself erode and decay. That was for the weak. And he was of the strong. He would live as long as possible to build and leave a legacy that the Kingdom of Agenor would be proud of for the rest of its days.
Raising his Silver Bellatorite greatsword to the twin suns Aurelio roared, “FOR AGENOR!”
In unison reply all his soldiers shouted, “FOR AGENOR! FOR AGENOR!”
“My proud and loyal warriors,” Aurelio said with a loud and commanding voice. “You all have proven your worthiness and dedication. This journey has been long and perilous, yet I stand here victorious. We stand here victorious. Go now. Return to your homes and rest for a little while. You have earned this respite after all we have been through.”
The soldiers shouted altogether in unison again, this time in veneration of their lord, “ORTANSIO! ORTANSIO!” and they all began to march the rest of the way to the city.
Aurelio still lingered watching as his company of two thousand warriors passed by. Indeed, it had been a long and perilous journey. Less than half of the men he had taken remained of his five thousand strong legion. It had taken about a month to rally his soldiers from the villages and lesser cities of his county. Most of his soldiers were Bloodfallen as was most of the populace of the kingdom as Crownborn were becoming more and more rare as the years passed on by. Interbreeding by careless nobles throughout centuries past had led to the chosen lineage of divine blood becoming diluted. Aurelio was one of very few purebred Crownborn of few purebred Crownborn families left in the kingdom. He held himself high and considered his ability to transform things of lesser nature into greater things a gift of his divine heritage. Even though most of his people, his soldiers included, were Bloodfallen, he had made them truly his. He refined them and made them respectable even for how lowly their blood was. The loss to his forces was great, but it was not without gain, for they had achieved the goal of their journey. He could replace Bloodfallen with more Bloodfallen easily, but the Crownborn soldiers he had lost weighed heavily on his heart. These past couple months he had lost the greater part of the portion of Crownborn soldiers that were part of his military.
A long wagon covered in sheets passed by. The sheets were of a special make being woven of white and yellow linen blessed and sanctified by priestesses of both Athena and Hygeia to purify and cleanse the bodies of the fallen. A strong perfume emanated from the sheets, and though Aurelio hated the smell; he hated far more what the perfume was supposed to help mask. Despite the sheets being well secured and covering entirely the mass that was underneath them, a strong, lingering stench still broke through. The smell of death. Rotting and decaying corpses lay in that wagon. Aurelio raised a shining gauntleted hand to his face in an attempt to try and mask the smell. It helped a little. The actual smell did not bother him that much, but the memory that it brought was burned into his mind. An image of large, sharp teeth entered his head. They were oozing with a foul, faintly yellow liquid. He saw large black scaled appendages as large as the trunks of old trees that ended in six fingered claws on hands and feet. A large head with four great ram horns stared at him with sunken, deep green eyes full of malice. The great jaws opened and the foul, oozing liquid was expelled like water bursting from a dam. Silhouettes of men were running to attack the great figure as its fell breath engulfed them. He remembered cries of utmost pain and anguish so full of despair that it unnerved him just thinking about it even after it was all over. The silhouettes started to melt. It was steady, fast enough to where he could see within seconds their dissolving forms, but slow enough to where their cries lasted as if for an eternity. The great head swayed on a thick and flexible neck, craning eerily and uncannily, this way and that way. The green eyes fixated on the mass of melting soldiers. It almost seemed like the great beast was grinning, like it was enjoying the cries coming from the puddle of metal and flesh. The jaws opened again, slowly. And then they were gone. All was silent and everything was starting to become shrouded in a shadowy darkness.
Aurelio came back to himself.
A cold sweat had come over him. The wagon of the fallen was now far past him. It was only a fraction of what they could salvage and even then, some of the bodies were in such wretched states that they were unrecognizable, some missing heads, arms or legs, and some with their skin and flesh partially melted. He had witnessed horrifying sights before. Countless battles against many adversaries had hardened him. Goblins, trolls, giants and demonfolk had all met his blade. He had witnessed the depraved nature of these foes firsthand on many occasions. Yet, this most recent campaign had completely fazed him unlike anything he had ever fought before. Ever since the fateful encounter just only days ago, the feeling had kept gnawing and biting in the back of his mind. He was better than this. This would not last. He would not let it. He would not allow it. This had been something completely different to anything he had taken on before. It had been the most difficult task of his entire life. It was reasonable to have a bit of battle shock from such an encounter he thought to himself. Keep standing tall. Keep standing strong. The soon to be new duke of the Thasos Province must keep his composure.
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“Uncle Aurelio, Uncle Aurelio!” a young man shouted with a flamboyantly enthusiastic voice as he rode up to Count Ortansio.
Aurelio looked over to see the young soldier riding up to him. He also rode on an Agenorian destrier, it was a bit younger and smaller than Aurelio’s and trotted proudly with its shiny, black mane flowing through the air. The soldier bore a coat of arms draped on his horse and his armor cape was that of a phoenix and a silver dragon circling each other. It was the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Agenor and on the front of the soldier’s chest piece was a golden red phoenix with silver dragon scales forming a five-pointed star around it; the crest of the royal family. The young soldier, a boy of seventeen years of age, was Prince Carlos Agenor. He was a son of the king’s younger brother and had been sent to Aurelio to become his squire ten years ago with the intention that Aurelio would train him to be a great warrior. The prince was a pureblooded Crownborn and Aurelio treated him as much like a son as he treated any of his own children. Somehow, despite the hard training, the countless amount of discipline that had to be worked into him and the grueling battles he had already been in, the boy still had a sense of innocence and youthful whimsy. No matter how many times Aurelio had tried to make the boy address him as Lord Ortansio over the years, the young prince would always feign fealty to the concept for a few days and then slowly progress back into calling him Uncle Aurelio. The prince was a comely lad who had become quite popular with the young ladies of Aurelio’s court in Garadan. Like Aurelio, the boy had the marks of the noble bloodlines of the Agenorian Kingdom, he had sleek black hair slightly shorter than Aurelio’s, light tan skin and mesmerizing silver eyes. Aurelio already had plans on who he was going to marry the boy off to, which of course would help stabilize his power in the kingdom even more in addition to taking the dukedom of the Thasos Province.
“Uncle Aurelio,” Carlos said with the same enthusiasm he had when he was riding up, but now with a bit more formalness to his voice. “This is such a great day! You have achieved something neither father or Uncle Ferdinand have achieved. It has been over a century since something of this magnitude has been accomplished in the kingdom. This is so exciting!”
“Do not speak lightly of the king, boy,” Aurelio said in a mixed stern yet gentle tone. “My achievement is not solely mine. It is also an achievement for King Ferdinand and all of Agenor.”
“Oh, sorry, sorry. Honestly though, I don’t think anyone else in the kingdom could have done it. You really are the best. I had absolutely no doubt at all that you would be victorious. Oh… I wish I could have been there when you landed the final blow. This will be a legend that bards and minstrels will sing of for decades if not centuries to come.”
“You should be grateful you were not there. Now knowing the things I saw and went through at that time, I am grateful that I had made the decision to have you fight off his minions away from where I fought him. Some of the soldiers that were there with me, the ones that survived, have been petrified with terror on their faces since the encounter. Some of them won’t stop muttering. I fear they might be going mad.”
“But they are Bloodfallen, aren’t they? I would not have succumbed like them especially if you were there. Our divine blood protects us from malice and dark magic. Right?”
Aurelio sat there for a moment quiet. Amongst the survivors, twelve of them had been Crownborn, and they were just like the rest. Should he tell Prince Carlos the truth? Should he tell him that the mere thought of the encounter filled himself with fear?
No.
Some things were better left unsaid. “I have always been confident in our noble blood, Prince Carlos. I always will be. But this was not something I would have wanted to risk having you too near to. Be proud you were able to participate in this campaign. You played a vital role. With most of his minions being taken care of by you and your unit, I was able to completely focus on my task. But, enough of this. We can talk later at the celebration. You need to go have a rest like everyone else. I won’t have an Agenorian prince being without proper repose while within my care.”
“But Uncle Ortansio, if anyone is needing rest, it surely is you? You had the greatest burden of us all. I will not return back to the city until you have.”
Stubborn boy. Aurelio had wanted to sit here and meditate without interruption. That great battle was still fresh in his mind, and small things kept reminding him of it, and each time he was reminded of it the same scene would play again in his head. That same, awful, dreaded scene. The prince always picked these unfortunate times to bother him. Carlos meant well, he had become the honorable and strong warrior that he had personally trained over the years, but sometimes he was a little too honorable, and perhaps a little too clingy as well. But by the shining Crown Regalia, the prince was right. Aurelio had broken more bones on this last campaign than any other point in his life. He had suffered many cuts and lacerations, and worst of all, he had been hit by the burning liquid that seeped from the jaws of the beast. He had not taken a direct hit, but was grazed barely by it as he was agile enough to get out of the way. The pain was indescribable and he could only wonder how much worse it was for those that had been hit directly by it. Fortunately, his wounds and broken bones healed much faster than normal men. The divine blood he had been blessed with gave him a vitality that was impressive among men. Even with such powers of recovery and clerics specialized in healing within his company, the wounds he had received were taking much longer to heal than usual. His left leg was in a bad shape still. By the end of the battle, the split bone from that leg had been poking out of his skin. It would be back to normal, battle-ready condition in time, but it would be a week or two until then.
“Fine,” Aurelio said. “Have it your way.” And he started off to enter the city.
Carlos rode next to him and seemed very eager about something. He kept looking at Aurelio up and down as they rode. “Uncle Aurelio, you got to tell me what happened. It’s best if you start reciting the great tale now so that you have the most accurate version fresh and ready for Isabella to write it down.”
“Weren’t you the one saying I should get rest above everyone else, Prince Carlos? My mind is weary as much as my body is. The tale can wait. I am not so old yet that I forget the most important battle of my life just days after it has happened.”
“Sorry, Uncle Aurelio. It’s just so exciting I can barely contain myself.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to let that all out when we celebrate later.”
The main gate was drawing close. There was a great mass of voices conversing loudly within the walls. The streets were busy, no doubt, expecting the triumphant return of their city lord, the one and only, Count Aurelio Ortansio. They passed the gate and within seconds the crowds were cheering for their city lord. It was the least they could do to praise him. A great evil had threatened their kingdom and it had been making its way first through the Province of Thasos. And it was thanks to Aurelio that this evil had been vanquished, and that it had not been able to proceed any further in.
It had started four months back. Thasos was the most north western part of Agenor and it bordered the great land of Daxodias which was a land full of beasts and terrible monsters. It was not unexpected if things of that nature came over the border to raid and pillage, but that was exactly why Aurelio had been stationed there. He was the kingdom’s defense against such things. Though, unfortunately, the first attack was not within his domain. It had happened at the capital city of the province, Thessabel City, which had been governed by Duke Balthazar Belus II. It was a coastal city with a great navy and a formidable infantry two thousand strong. Like Garadan, being a city of the Thasos Province, it served as a first defense against the enemies of the kingdom that would come from the great sea or from the north. Overnight, the city had been laid to waste. Its navy had been decimated. Few of the ships were able to escape the great dread that had come. Once the surviving ships made it back to land safely envoys were sent to warn the rest of the kingdom.