It had not taken long for the battle to end, after Silenos succeeded in killing the Puppeteer. As a rule, Silenos had seen enough combat to say that battles rarely lasted long at all when one side was controlled by sapient thought, and the other an overwhelming urge to put those sapient thinkers in their stomachs. Without the direction of siege engines and scaling ladders, the undead, remarkably stupid, he thought, even for amateurs, simply couldn’t defend themselves against human engineering. Clustering for trebuchets fire to rend them apart, impotently clawing at wooden gates and stone walls while thrown boulders crushed skulls and spines. It took close of a day in all, due to the sheer weight of numbers, but the following butchery had stopped being a true battle hours before it finally ended.

Ensharia and Silenos’ deed in slaying the Puppeteer had not gone unnoticed, and both of them had been called forth by the King to be rewarded. Silenos suspected he would not really be rewarded, at least not in any meaningful way. These idiots seemed to have mistaken him for an altruist, and doubtless wanted to take advantage of that misidentified trait by honouring him through some position or other. General, champion, whichever was most suitable. Highly venerated roles in a society were perhaps the oldest way in all the world that the intelligent had of manipulating the stupid.

If he was given a medal, Silenos might well kill the offending monarch on sheer principle.

“Do you think we’ll get a medal?” Ensharia asked from his side, eyes wide as dinner plates, face glowing with naive expectation. Silenos had told her, after the fight, that she had done well to sacrifice her life in order to buy him the chance to strike, and had been a useful tool for leveraging his magnificent strength. She seemed to have thought he was joking. The woman’s pale skin flushed red whenever a compliment was paid to her heroism, and her eyes glinted with pride at every awed stare Silenos received.

For his part, Silenos could not claim to find the state disagreeable. Word had spread of his power, first from the destroyed siege engines, then the slain Puppeteer. People now gazed upon him with just a tinge of fear to supplement their respect. It was, finally, as things ought to be.

The two of them made their way briskly through the castle, which Silenos noted had remained almost untouched despite the carnage outside. A trebuchet had clipped one of the outer walls at some point, but beyond such superficial degradation it had weathered the siege well. Likely because all of its defenders had been dying on walls at the city’s edge, a mile away from it.

Farther still from the conflict lay the King and Queen, both of whom greeted Silenos with smiles as he entered, neither of whom had so much as a single scratch upon them. It was very much to be expected. As was the wariness. Silenos saw it, however much they tried to keep it from their gazes. A silent, abstract fear of him, of his power. Good. It was the inevitable reaction of any who witnessed his abilities, and it was as things should be. Those with power needed respect from those without.

“Saviour.” The King called out, voice carrying across the hall as a booming wave. There were others present, finely-dressed and nourished enough that Silenos imagined they were a part of some aristocratic class. By their expressions, they seemed to have heard at least second-hand stories about him. More awe, more fear.

“For your services in the defence of our city, your heroic defeat of the enemy General, and your preservation of the human race, you have my and the Nation of Elkatin’s thanks. We owe you a debt of gratitude, and will repay it however is within our power.”

Silenos considered demanding some financial recompense, perhaps a slice of his own territory. Such things would give a useful grounding to eventually establish himself, once he’d spent enough time learning of the new world.

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But such a demand would also run the risk of irking his new allies, better to bite his tongue and accept whatever non-entity of a reward was handed over instead. He could always take a nation himself later.

“I thank you.” He nodded, not bowed, doing the King a near-unprecedented honour by treating him almost like an equal of his own. The man did not appear to notice what ridiculous consideration he’d been shown.

“Alas.” He continued. “Elkatin is only one Kingdom, and you are Saviour of the world itself. We cannot defeat the Dark Lord with just our own power, however great yours might be.”

Silenos resisted the urge to laugh. They’d barely even seen his power, and couldn’t fathom it if they did, but he knew better than to treat himself as untouchable. He’d nearly died in the battle, albeit due to circumstance and was not capable enough that he could be certain nothing would match him. The Great Ancestor, leader of House Shaiagrazni, they could have let their guard down. But not their lessers.

“What would you suggest we do as an alternative?” He asked the King. Whispers ran out through the court, muttered, scandalised disbelief. Silenos did not dignify them with a glance, he was well familiar with the response inferior minds tended to have of Shaiagrazni’s Named speaking without undue reverence to their randomly-selected leaders. Whispering about it was simply the most inane thing they might have done.

Clearly, though, his question was enough to entice them. Silenos felt the room cramp in as faces studied the conversation ever more intensely, awaiting an answer.

“...There are others.” The King said at last. “People of great power, of magic, knowledge, strength and swiftness. People who might be turned to pit their strength against the Dark Lord and remove his scourge from the world.”

SIlenos glanced at the Paladin, Ensharia, keeping his face carefully neutral.

“Would you describe her as such an individual?” He asked.

The woman’s eyes fell to her feet, clearly she was clever enough to realise what he was trying to do, but the King simply thought. Then slowly shook his head.

“Ensharia is remarkable, one of the strongest Paladins now active, but there are others in her order of greater power. She is, however, not countable among the foremost warriors of this world. None in the city can match her, but in the KIngdom there may be some who could, and in the surrounding lands it is all but guaranteed. We would need a hundred of her to win this war, not a dozen.”

It was actually quite reassuring, and simultaneously was not. If Silenos had been sent to gather yet more individuals of the Paladin’s power then he’d have been wasting his time, with sufficient preparation he might have slaughtered fifty of her.

“Where are the first of these luminaries?” Silenos asked. The King waved his question aside so contemptuously he almost killed the monarch on sheer reflex.

“You will be provided with a list, but first we need your assurance that you can find these figures and secure their aid.”

He considered the matter.

“I would like Ensharia to accompany me.” Silenos said, instantly. The woman was at least almost passable as a bodyguard, and with his Grotesquery destroyed he would have to make do. Silenos had not yet coined a way to reanimate an already destroyed undead, and too few defenders had perished to supply him with the many thousands of bodies needed to create such a behemoth.

Silenos winced, his skin experiencing a sudden, phantom spasm of pain. The Biomantically-grown plates of keratin and hide that had largely been burned in his fight were gone, now, but some whisper of the agony they’d been subjected to still remained. He made a note to dampen his pain receptors when next he transformed, such a reaction might be inconvenient in the heat of battle.

“Done.” The King nodded, triumphantly. “And the two of you shall have the fleetest horses in Elkatin, too!”

They left shortly after, their business done, and headed to prepare. Silenos was surprised by the Paladin slowly raising her voice, hesitantly directing a question at him.

“Why me, Saviour?” She asked, thoughtful, hopeful.

Silenos threw another glance along her form. Perfectly sized, he thought, to both cover much of his body, and be quickly pulled in front of it should he suddenly need a shield.

“Because I see great potential in you.” He replied. A smile beamed across her face as they made their way off.