Instead of answering, something broke from the still-burning forest that surrounded the ruins of Ospon. A massive creature, standing head and shoulders above the average man. A thick black fur covered its entire body. Strange hands with three fingers held two massive double-bladed axes. An unusual armor covered the creature, leaving joints vulnerable but protecting the arms, shoulders, legs, and chest. The helmet had two crimson lenses, leaving the maw filled with crude fangs wide open. The creature paused for a moment and let out a guttural roar before charging at the rear of the escapees. In three great leaps, the creature reached the people and lifted its axes. The giant weapons came down, severing bones and muscles and splitting people in two.
"How dare thee!" Kaleria roared, nudging her hawgr to swoop down on the enemy. "A massacre most foul, in the land of House Sapon, to the guests of House Sapon? A thousand curses at thee!"
The creature lifted its head to see the incoming enemy. Kaleria cursed. She could not use her thunderspear at this range. People were still around the brutish beast; the damned creature only killed those who tried to run, deliberately leaving the rest to protect itself from her wrath. Those who fell to their knees or froze in horror were still safe. The creature smiled, crouching low for the strike.
"Foul swine. As if we are stupid." Kaleria kicked her hawgr, but the beast needed no instruction. It flapped its wings with far greater strength than before, rapidly picking up speed and rushing past the creature at blinding speed. The surprised creature failed to react to such a rapid change and found its throat impaled by the thunderspear. The axes fell from mighty hands as the bones of the neck were severed by the blade of the spear, and Kaleria lifted the dead body over her head, her smaller figure easily lifting the far bigger beast.
"You are not the only one Abnormal here, swine." The entire royal cavalry was full of Abnormals, humans whose physical prowess was far superior to those of normal humans. No amount of training could allow a regular human to match the abilities of an abnormal human. With great power came great duty, and the royal army of Sapon always felt rage when a slight was inflicted on the guests, willing or not, of the Sapon House. "In your next life, use better armor." Kaleria threw the corpse away from herself and her steed.
"What are you looking for?" She snapped at the people nearby. "Form up, follow the road. Move it, people; Strivald is just a day's journey away from here."
"But the enemies are behind us…" one serf began talking.
"You leave them to us," Kaleria responded while turning toward the fiery hell as more and more black figures broke through the flames. "By the oaths of the House Sapon, we will protect those who can't stand for themselves." The other members of the royal cavalry began forming behind her. She pointed the tip of her spear at the advancing enemies. "Foul villains, begone from our lands!"
A bolt of lightning from the tip of her spear struck one of the enemy creatures, briefly setting it on fire before exploding into a ball of light. The body was thrown back a dozen paces; the beast's breastplate had a melted hole where the bolt first struck. The foul beast twitched once and lay still, the air filled with the smell of burned flesh from the horrible wound.
Thunderspears were crafted by the elementalists of Sapon, people who had an unnatural ability to control the elements of nature. Elementalists were people who were lucky enough to encounter glow, gaining power greater than even abnormals. Such a thing was dangerous. Many students died during the training to gain power from the glow's poison. Yet those who survived became some of the greatest craftsmen in the Duchy. Fire, wind, and thunder were the most common elements. By binding lightning to a spear, one created a thunderspear, a weapon that could unleash the power of nature at the will of its wielder.
"Well said, my lady!" Ninio joyfully said, pointing his own spear and unleashing a fury of thunder at the advancing enemies.
"Back! Back, foul spawns!" Kaleria shouted, releasing another bolt of thunder, killing yet another creature, and setting nearby enemies ablaze in an explosion. "We will smite thee, we will kill thee, but we will not bow to thee! Away, away, go back to the horrors of your lands, leave in shame, and never return!"
Bolt after bolt was unleashed from the spears of the royal cavalry of Sapon, turning the advancing creatures into dead meat made of maimed bodies and burned flesh. But the wave of enemies was not halted for a minute. They charged on, showing no regard for their own safety. Kaleria counted at least fifty dead among the enemy ranks, a number large enough to show that any further attacks were pointless.
"Vile pigs!" Ninio let out a laugh at this sight. "They behave worse than animals. No discipline, no coordination, no plan…"
A gust of wind hit the rows of royal cavalry. The force of the wind was strong enough to knock several cavalrymen from their saddles. Kaleria was one of the fallen soldiers. She rolled on the ground, struggling to regain her balance and get back up. Finally, she had stopped the impact of the enemy's attack and stood up, reaching her hand to her neck, ripping off her long purple cape and throwing it away. She recovered her balance just in time as another creature leaped on her, taking advantage of the confusion in the ranks of the knights to close the distance between them. The creature struck with both axes in a long arc, forcing Kaleria to dodge to the side. Her spear, suddenly too long for her to wield, forced her to retreat even further to gain distance.
Her enemy, however, had no intention of letting her go. He stopped the momentum of his weapons and brought them back in an upward arc, trying to slice the knight. Kaleria raised her small shield, barely the size of a buckler, in front of her. The creature scoffed at such weak armor, but when its weapons struck the shield, a strong wall of wind came out of it, pushing the enemy's weapons up and back and forcing the creature backward. That was all the opening that Kaleria needed, as she grabbed the shaft of her spear in the middle and struck the enemy in the chest. The armor stopped the thrust at first, causing the tip of the blade to slide to the side, but soon the spear's tip glowed white with heat, slicing through the armor, flesh, and muscles underneath as if they were butter. The creature groaned from pain yet failed to react in time as Kaleria speared it, cutting through its spine. She tore her weapon free, and the enemy fell, still trying desperately to cling to its weapons.
"Your fight is over, enemy from lands unknown. Go into a deep slumber without dreams and bother us no more," the knight said, piercing the enemy's head with her spear. She noticed another great creature to her right, but only a thin smile fell on her lips. As the creature was almost on her, her hawgr snatched it in midair with his paw, shattering the enemy's armor with its beak and ripping the creature's head from its shoulders.
"Good work, my frie..." Kaleria's words were cut short as she felt a blow to her pauldron, the force of which caused her to spin around. Another blow was coming for the back of her head; she could feel it, so she twisted her arm with the shield behind her and released the wind from her shield, deflecting the incoming attack. She spun around, facing a new opponent.
A youth in the rich green armor of the house Ospon, was standing before her. Smooth armor plates that did not hinder any movement, a short wind spear in her hand, a helmet stylized after a bogon's head… The face was unmistakably familiar, however. Short blond hair, a round nose, broken from the old wound received during training, green eyes…
"Lucretia?" Kaleria asked in shock, "What made you turn on me?"
Instead of answering, the youth struck with her spear. The wind blew up to the right and left of the wind spear, seeking to deflect the enemy's weapons so that the tip of the spear could pierce Kaleria's heart. Kaleria sliced through the blast of the wind with her own thunderspear, cleaving a clear path for the blade of her spear to crash into the enemy's weapon. She forced the tip of Lucretia's weapon to pierce the ground and stepped on the enemy spear, holding it in place with her own spear and boot. The hawgr growled behind Kaleria, but with the tiniest nod, she sent her steed after other enemies. All around her, creatures of the enemy were locked in combat with the knights of Sapon.
"Whose vile lies forced you to raise arms against me?" Kaleria demanded the answer from Lucretia; both were still struggling.
The youth could not get her weapon, while Kaleria tried to keep a hold of the enemy spear. Both were Abnormals, both were potentially equal. Kaleria was older, but a few years ago she had trained all season with young Lucretia Ospon, the youngest of the Ospon main line. It was customary in the Sapon duchy for the children of all the major houses living in the Sapon lands to train together at some point in their lives. This was meant to create bonds between them. Kaleria knew the potential of her enemy and was surprised at just how basic the attempt by her opponent was. Lucretia liked to sneak around the battlefield and take down the enemies with one swift attack. Many knights of the realm considered such tactics unworthy of a knight, but the Sapon house learned to admire such a style. Everything had its use in a war. Nothing could be discarded if you wanted to win and uphold your oaths.
"Lies? No lies," Lucretia replied with a mad laugh.
She spat, and Kaleria dodged as steel needles hit the side of her helmet and bounced off into the darkness. Poisoned needles, a proud technique of the Ospon house. The nobles of the house have vigorously trained since childhood to learn how to store these deadly weapons in their throats and how to spit them out at sufficient speed to injure the enemy and let the poison do the rest. A technique that was despised by many houses in the kingdom, but one that has brought the Ospons countless victories in tournaments.
"Truth! The truth is what I saw! The truth is what forced me to alter the course, to betray my oaths."
With her spear free, Lucretia went on the offensive, unleashing a series of thrusts at Kaleria, intending to finish her off. Wind blew from her spear, nearly knocking Kaleria off her feet and forcing the knight to keep close and meet the spear's blade head-on, deflecting it with her own.
"What truth? What could have possibly turned you away from your people and your duty to them?" Kaleria asked, dodging another thrust. She was confused. What was going on? Lucretia's skills were always a little less than hers, but not by this much! These were amateurish attacks.
"Duty! You dare talk about duty to me?! You have no idea what I have given up for my duty!" Lucretia growled, the quality of her attacks suddenly changed.
Left knee, throat, shoulder—this time there was a soul behind her attacks. Three strikes, done in the eye's blink, forced Kaleria to use both her spear and shield to block the first two strikes and deflect the last hit with the wind power of her shield. Once again, had Lucretia used only the wind power of her spear, she would have had the advantage over Kaleria. But the other woman insisted on using only blade work this time.
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"My duty before the masses!" Lucretia spat out another needle, but this time her opponent was ready and dodged the incoming attack without leaving an opening. "'tis for this duty that I bear this shame. For seven days, we were subjected to unspeakable horrors as the enemy selected our soldiers and family members one by one within our own walls! None of my family were willing to make the sacrifice; none of them were willing to bow down, and so they were gone. They all died in glory, leaving me—me! To make the choice. Death to my subjects, death to those who came to us for refuge. Or to bow, to break my oaths and allow them to live, to allow them to choose, to stay under new rulers or to flee. I made the choice! I have betrayed my ruler; my oaths to the queen; I did so much to save lives!"
Lucretia swung the spear around herself once and struck with all her might, forcing Kaleria to dive to the side. "And yet! Despite all that I gave up, I am forced to partake in this… this butchery! Those who chose to stay loyal to the queen and leave are now being hunted by me! Those who were my comrades in arms are now being fought by me. I bowed, I obeyed, and this is my reward!"
"Who turned you?" Kaleria calmly asked, moving forward faster than an eye could follow, kicking Lucretia in the side with her elbow, and bulging the armor of her enemy deep within her body. Lucretia coughed from pain, and Kaleria swung her spear as if it were a staff, knocking the enemy's weapon away. "Who turned my friend against me?"
"The future." Lucretia weakly smiled. "Do it. Wash away my sins."
"No." Kaleria stopped. "The way of knighthood is not this easy. Many obstacles are in our path. You have been led astray, and thus you must pay penance. Once your sins are cleared, you will return to make your house proud and…"
"Hath you not heard the words of your opponent?" a voice asked behind Kaleria, and she felt a searing pain in her left shoulder as something hit her. She jumped away, clenching her spear and shield. Her shoulder was on fire, literally. The armor of her pauldron melted, revealing an ugly gash on the skin beneath. Flaming tongues still danced happily on the cloth beneath her armor.
"The future, the future has come and snatched us all away…" the new opponent mused while coming forward. Magnificent red armor covered him from neck to toe, leaving his blond head exposed. Despite his knightly armor, he wore no shield. Holding a sword covered in flames, the handsome youth smiled with a serene smile. "We are orphans now, bound to the Reclamation Army. Our family lines are gone from the world, our oaths are broken, our homes have been reduced to nothing, yet our people still live on… Will you join us? I wonder, will you make the same sacrifice as we did?" Antoniado Angor, the heir to the Angor family, asked Kaleria with a smile on his face.
Kaleria clenched her left fist to check if her hand still worked. No problem here. She decided, and without answering Antoniado, she lunged forth; the spear aimed at his face. With an almost casual effort, he deflected her attack with the sword, but left his side open to the shield in her left arm. She rammed her shield into his side and was about to activate the wind when she noticed an incoming attack from Lucretia out of the corner of her eye. Kaleria backed off from the spear of her opponent, and Antoniado attacked her with an overhead strike.
Her hawgr came at the traitorous son of the Angor duchy from behind, but a gigantic shadow appeared behind Antoniado. A giant lizard, a steed of the Angor family, almost closed its jaws on the hawgr's neck. But at the last second, the beast sensed danger and gracefully avoided the attack, leaving a deep claw mark on the hide of the enormous lizard with an almost arrogant swing. The huge blob under the lizard's neck tensed up, and the lizard spat acid at the hawgr, burning fur and skin on the beast's back.
Kaleria left her steed to duel on his own. The proud creature would refuse her aid, anyway. He had found his prey and was now fully intending to finish the fight. Meanwhile, she found herself hard-pressed by Antoniado and Lucretia. She had seen Antoniado once before, when his family brought him to the Sapon duchy on a diplomatic visit. Back then, he acted as if he were a careless-looking dolt, and she had dismissed him as a decadent individual because of his constant carousing and parties. The same face was on him now—the same careless smile. Yet his skills! He weaved a pattern in the air with his sword, making feints, trying to fool her into acting before stabbing her. Thrice she deflected his sword. Twice he scratched her armor. She hated to admit it, but the amateurish attacks of Lucretia helped her survive. When she was in the way of Antoniado, the traitor was forced to change the flow of his combat, his burning sword facing against the thunderspear again and again.
But finally, the stalemate was over. Antoniado pushed past Lucretia in an almost desperate maneuver; the spear of Kaleria was deflected by the windspear of Lucretia before she could punish Antoniado for his foolishness. Her enemy was before her, too close to use the spear or gain momentum to smite him with a swing. His sword shot forward like a flaming snake, aiming for her chest, and she could not block this attack in time. So, she chose not to. Let him have his win; she will take him with her. She grabbed her spear just beneath its blade and rammed the weapon forward. His weapon was almost on Kaleria, but if nature wills it, she'll live long enough to kill him.
Ninio saved her. Her loyal friend came at Antoniado atop the hawgr. His spear hit Antoniado's pauldron, melting the armor and cutting through the bone and muscle underneath. The beast struck both Antoniado and Lucretia at their sides, kicking them off their feet. The hawgr's beak snapped at Antoniado, tearing off part of his breastplate. With enough force to break through a castle gate, the hawgr tore the sword out of the traitor's hands, while Kaleria's own hit missed its mark and landed at Lucretia's chest, piercing her all the way to her spine.
"Misbegotten filth! You dare raise a hand against the noble Sapon house? Betray your oaths? Drat thee! Double drat thee!" Ninio roared, charging after Antoniado, intending to end the traitor. Kaleria ignored him and tore her spear from Lucretia, lowering her down. Two knights on their hawgrs flanked her, protecting her while she addressed her former friend.
"I am sorry," she said, as her former opponent coughed up blood. "But this thrust has left a mortal wound."
"Finally." Lucretia coughed, smiling through the pain. "My punishment is finally over. Be smarter; don't let him w…" She tried to say something, but convulsions took over her body, and when they stopped, she was finally dead.
Kaleria said a small prayer and turned to the battlefield, just as everything changed. Suddenly there was a thunderous noise, and something hit Ninio in the neck, just as the knight was about to deliver punishment to the wounded Antoniado. The unknown attack was not only strong enough to break the knight's jaw, but it tore through the poor man's flesh, tearing the gorget into pieces, breaking the back of the helmet, and literally tearing Ninio's neck in two, sending the sergeant's head flying. At the same time, something hit his hawgr, leaving the proud beast with a round hole in her head. Kaleria turned around to see two other knights of the royal cavalry in similar fashion, their bodies pierced with massive holes, their armor shredded, and their noble steeds slaughtered like cattle.
She turned and saw the culprit. A figure clad from head to toe in a heavy, oversized armor of green color, with a weird-looking thing in his right hand, was looking at Kaleria through the pale lenses of his helmet. A stream of smoke came from the thin tube at the end of the strange thing in his hand. Kaleria had seen similar things in photographs her family had shown her when she was a child studying in the Dome of Learning. This strange object was almost certainly a gun—a revolver, judging by its rotating cylinder. Guns were able to shoot fire, heat, or metal if the owner fed them properly. Like any tool, it needed to be maintained in order to function.
However, guns could not be used in the Living Lands! They would rust and breakdown due to the climate. Still, she could not deny what she saw. The man snapped his fingers with his free hand, and his helm slid back on its own, revealing the wrinkled face of the black-haired man, at least sixty years old from the looks of it, cautious gray eyes. He asked:
"Is this the Sapon bitch?"
"Yes…" groaned Antoniado from the ground, trying to get up.
"Meh, not impressed," the man said, reaching for something on his belt, his eyes still locked on Kaleria.
The knights of Sapon used everything to win. They studied everything they could. Her foe wielded a very archaic version of a handgun; she could bet her life on it. The records that other Sapon had brought back from the Ravaged Lands showed that the people there usually used more automatic weapons or weapons that could unleash searing beams of energy. If she was right, her enemy only had six shots left, and he had already used them all.
She raised her thunderspear and released the charge. The man darted to the side, narrowly dodging the bolt, and snapped with his free hand, causing his helmet to encircle his head. But while the enemy dodged the thunderbolt, he left himself wide open for attack as Kaleria leaped at him, aiming her weapon at his neck. The tip of her spear turned white as the lightning within it prepared to melt through any metal in its path. Just as she thrust her weapon at the man, he lunged at her and swung his weapon up, striking her spear just below the blade and pushing it upward, over his shoulder. Before Kaleria could back off to gain distance, the man, without stopping his momentum, hit her with the elbow of his right arm. An attack landed on the upper right of her chest, bending the chest plate and sending the knight flying a few steps back. She fell on her back and tried to stand, but received a hard kick in the face. Kaleria rolled on the ground and made a blind swing with her spear, forcing the attacker back. The damn bastard was Abnormal as well, judging by his unnatural speed and strength. Despite the oversized mountain of steel that served him as armor, the man moved with a grace that she could hardly match.
"You are done for today." The man snapped his hand, his helmet sliding down his chest to reveal his weary face. "Look at the future that comes to your lands."
Before Kaleria could respond to his boast, she heard a loud noise. An enormous behemoth of steel broke through the firewall; two long guns were on top of the vehicle's tower, and two smaller guns were at the sides of the vehicle. Huge tracks allowed the machine to move with ease across any battlefield. When it stopped, the machine unleashed searing heat from its side cannons, setting a knight and his hawgr on fire and causing the people running away to scream in horror. The intensity of the heat was great enough to melt the armor of the poor soul. The rider and his faithful steed barely had time to utter their last screams before the heat reduced them to scorched, burning remains.
"Here's the deal," the man continued, speaking in a rasping voice. "We can keep fighting. Who knows, maybe you can even kill me? But I am feeling generous today. Run, little rider; take your people and run. Run away and tell your ruler to bend the knee. Otherwise, we will come and do to you the same thing that we did to Ospon and Angor. We broke their backs; what chance do you think yours has against our might?"
More creatures burst through the flaming wall. These looked just like the creatures from before, but their armor was better, closing all the gaps in their bodies, and they carried large cannons in their hands. Along with them marched row after row of human soldiers, dressed similarly to Kaleria's current enemy, carrying long machineguns in their arms. Kaleria tried to recall everything she had learned about weapons from the outside world and concluded that her current forces had no chance against their foes.
"We accept your offer of a truce on the condition that you allow us and the civilians to retreat in peace," Kaleria said quickly. Her armor was damaged, and some bones in her body were probably broken. Her helm was bent from the strike of the enemy, the metal part was deeply embedded in her cheek. At least two teeth were missing. The knights were losing this fight now that the full extent of the enemy had been revealed. There was no shame in retreating if the knight kept the commoners alive.
"Peace…" the man spat. "I could send you home in pieces. But fine. Enough deaths for today. Those who stay on the road are promised safety by the Reclamation Army. Those who took to the woods, however, are fair game."
"Then the truce is accepted," Kaleria coldly responded, reaching for the horn in her belt. She used it to signal her troops to stop, while her enemy used some sort of communication as his helmet slid back on his head to signal his troops to stand down. Unfortunately, here and now, her troops were not in a position to dictate terms to the enemy. It was a miracle that they had rescued as many people as were already on the road. Kaleria waited until her hawgr reached her and mounted her steed.
"My thanks for your mercy, sirrah," Kaleria continued icily. "And when we win, I will try to repay the favor by sparing your people's lives if possible."
Her hawgr leapt into the air, joining the other knights as they soared into the sky. She ordered five members of the royal cavalry to monitor the running commoners, calm them down, and organize them on the road to Heaven Peak. The rest of her knights joined her as she sped back to the castle. Duke Marcus needs to know what happened here as soon as possible.