Count Rahkam eyed the man sitting across from him carefully. Physically the man looked half the count’s age, toned arms with smooth skin, closely cropped brown hair and a well-trimmed mustache. But the look the man’s eyes, combined with the deference with which the other Ascenders treated him told a very different story. He was introduced with the title of ‘General,’ the leader of an army. Apparently the man had quite the history in his past world. Compared to the other Ascenders Rahkam had interacted with, this man was a Noble. He wasn’t a common, uneducated soldier, while those soldiers had made Rahkam feel physically inadequate, this was the first time Rahkam felt he might not be the smartest man in the room.
“Count Rahkam, I presume?” the General asked as the count got settled.
“That is correct, General Henderson,” Rahkam replied carefully, deciding to treat this interaction as if he were speaking with a peer, another count or noble of equivalent standing.
“A pleasure to meet you,” Henderson smiled, “I hope your journey here wasn’t too difficult.”
“Not at all,” Rahkam assured him, “my keep isn’t too far from the Wood, and I can make good time when not accompanied by my lady wife.”
“Not a fan of travel is she?”
“Not since she lost the ability to walk a few years back,” Rahkam replied, “she always had difficulty moving about but not that she’s confined to a rolling chair, traveling with her requires far more effort.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Henderson leaned forward, “one of my men has some medical training, I’ll have him accompany you back so he can inspect her.”
“Thanks for the offer but you needn’t bother, we’ve already had the best physicians in the region look at her to no avail. Even the Priests of the God of Medication were unable to assist.”
“No offence but this world is rather… backwards technologically,” Henderson insisted, “many of the ailments you have are things we’ve long since dealt with in our world.”
“I suppose if you are going to insist,” Rahkam chuckled.
“I am,” confirmed Henderson, “can’t have our patron in this world worried for the health of his wife all the time.”
“Of course. I dare not raise my hopes but I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to allow your man to take a look.”
“Indeed,” the General nodded, leaning back in his chair, “is it your wife’s health holding you back from desiring the crown as well?”
“The crown?” Rahkam, despite himself, was caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. Exchanging pleasantries and gifts was a common part of interactions between nobles, a careful dual of words designed to make one look generous and powerful disguised by kind, soft words. To suddenly jump from that to treason was… unexpected to say the least.
“If not your wife, then do you bare some loyalty to the previous king’s son?” Henderson pressed, “with how split I understand your kingdom to be, and with the wealth of power you’ve found for yourself, many men would seek to improve their station.”
“It is not so easy to become king,” Rahkam replied, “I can have the most powerful army in the world, but it won’t let me bond to the keystone.”
“Keystone?” it was Henderson’s turn to look confused.
“Do you not have those in your world?” Rahkam asked, Henderson reply with a shake of his head, “each kingdom has a Keystone, placed there by the Tempest King himself. How they function is largely unknown, but we know it prevents the world from shifting within its influence. Without it our kingdoms would be slowly torn apart by the shifting of the world. Unless your world has a way to deal with that problem as well we need it.”
“Our world didn’t… shift,” Henderson replied slowly, “but that still doesn’t tell me why you can’t become king.”
“The keystone must be bound to someone or it will eventually stop functioning,” explained the Count, “according to the law laid by the Tempest King someone must be bound to the stone within one year of the previous bond breaking. Only a relation to the previous king can bind the stone. And before you ask why the one bound to the stone is called King, it’s because the one bound to the stone gains access to its abilities. He can, for example, withdraw the keystone’s protection over a tract of land and within a fortnight that land will be replaced.
“In the past kings have used this power to banish the castles of rebellious lords from their lands,” Rahkam continued, “it’s why in the centuries since the Shattering of the Tempest King’s Empire, the borders of the kingdoms have only barely shifted, as only the lands protected by two keystones can trade hands without one side simply banishing it.”
“That makes things… difficult,” Henderson said after a moment, “and the previous king only had two children?”
“And his parents are all dead,” Rahkam confirmed, “it’s the reason we’re in this crisis. If one heir dies then both sides would be forced to side with the remaining heir or risk being banished beyond the Watchers. But the prince is worried that if he binds to the stone while his succession is still in doubt, it may force the hands of those who oppose him. The keystone is powerful, but it isn’t immediate, the shifting of the lands is chaotic and unpredictable. If he is bound to the stone the rebellious counts will have to quickly decide if they will bend the knee or, if they feel they won’t be forgiven, they might attempt to kill him. Perhaps even going to war.”
“But your plan involves going after this… champion, shouldn’t your target be this other heir?”
“It was her, but she made it to Templeholm, a sacred city, part of no kingdom, protected by the gods themselves. Unless she leaves, we can’t touch her,” Rahkam sighed, annoyed at being forced to remember his past failures, “if our kingdom’s champion wasn’t such a waste he could endorse the prince and the counts would be forced to accept it.”
“So you want one of us ‘ascenders’ to replace the champion and endorse your prince?” Henderson asked, the count nodding in reply, “what happens if there’s no surviving heirs?”
“I don’t know,” Rahkam admitted, “and no one wants to find out. Chances are the keystone fails and our kingdom is lost.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
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“Why won’t you just die,” Nathen panted, glaring at the mole he’d been fighting for what felt like hours by this point. He’d reduced both of the monster’s flanks to little more than bloody meat by this point, even its arms were covered in cuts, none deep enough to disable the limbs but all of the other moles had fallen by this point.
These specimens were slightly larger than the previous ones, at first Nathen had thought it just a quirk, but now he was thinking these were the strongest in the colony. Of the four beasts that had been engaged, only one had fallen, the other humans taking down theirs first likely due to all being ascenders. Afterwards they’d gone to bail the kobolds out, they were also forced to take on two moles, but only had one ascender. Without him the non-ascender kobolds had been butchered, more than half their number falling while their lone ascender struggled to fight another mole on his own.
No one was uninjured by this point, while the kobolds had the worst of it the other humans were also struggling. Many of them had taken at least glancing blows from launched claws, while Reiner had been battered in melee. Thankfully it seemed Ascenders were tougher than most, as injuries that had put down one of the kobolds were mere flesh wounds. Even Nathen was sporting several wounds that he thought might have been lethal, yet he was still fighting. Perhaps, like the mole, he simply took more killing before he’d go down.
The pause in the fight while both combatants caught their breath ended as Nathen saw one of the mole’s upper limbs cock back, a claw having just regrown. Pulling his sword back and up he entered his first form. The limb jerked forward shooting the claw out, Nathen had long since grown used to the attacks and, even exhausted as he was, it was a simple matter for him to bat the humming blade from the air. From there he smoothly transitioned into his second form, sword lowered, allowing him to move more easily. He darted in, hoping to land some strikes on the mole as it was still clearly as tired as he was. It had kept both main limbs up, covering its head, and despite the blood loss and exhaustion it was a simple matter for the mole to swipe outwards, warding Nathen off.
The attack wasn’t fast enough to have any real chance of hitting him, but it did force him back. Several more times he attempted to slip through an opening, only to be rebuffed by the massive claws of the mole monster. Gritting his teeth, he decided that if he couldn’t find an opening, he’d have to make one. With a deep breath he pulled his sword up into his third form, one he barely understood despite inventing it. Unlike the other two forms, it felt like this one was coming from within him. Before he’d claimed the Stormblade he’d have ignored the feeling, but now he listened to it. If his soul was telling him something he wouldn’t ignore it.
Dashing forward once more the mole once more prepared to bat him away, but instead of ducking back Nathen jumped, stabbing his blade into the creature’s forearm and landing atop it. With a soft cry of pain the mole instinctively pulled the limb in while sweeping its other to remove him. Pulling the blade back he dove over the three-foot-long claws, rolled along the other limb and stabbed out to the side, impaling the other limb. As expected, the beast lashed out with the injured limb, clearly intending to force Nathen back again. But with its arms crossed over its face it failed to see him slid down to the ground and roll forward. In an instant Nathen found himself inches from the mole’s nose, with no massive claw tipped limbs in his way. With a roar he lunged, burying his sword to the hilt in the monster’s eye. With a last spasm the bloodied monster finally fell.
Nathen had to put his foot on the dead monster’s face to pull his blade free. He finally got it out and turned to go help the others just in time for the last mole on the Kobold’s side fall. Still panting Nathen half stumbled over to the others as they turned, expecting to have to go help him next.
“You killed it by yourself?” Masood asked, to which Nathen only nodded, “how much of that blood is yours?”
Nathen was absolutely covered in blood, both his and the mole’s. Still catching his breath he simply shrugged.
“What now?” he gasped out.
“Now, we deal with the root,” Masood said, turned to where the fleshy roots covered one side of the large cavern. While they’d been fighting another newborn mole had emerged, but neither of the two new beasts were in any condition to fight. The first had mostly cleaned itself off, but was still clearly having trouble moving around. Combined with being only the size of a large dog they wouldn’t pose much of a challenge. An assumption proved correct when a couple of arrows took each down, leaving just the root.
“If we can find the seed, the core, the root will die,” the Kobold Ascender explained, surprising Nathen. He’d been told they could talk, but he hadn’t heard them speak before. But what really caught him off guard was the deep voice of the small dog like being.
“Then we’d best get cutting,” Masood agreed, stopping Nathen as he moved to help, “let’s get you bandaged up and in some clean clothing first.”
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“What’s the plan?” Lex asked as they fought desperately. Without the break to let their marks wear off the Mutts were slowly gaining the upper hand. Gregory paused, stepping back to look around as his mind raced. There was a chance that the pack lord would be unwilling to sacrifice more Mutts to bridge the fire again, but was that a chance he was willing to take?
No, Gregory quickly decided that without a way to get rid of the marks the only choice was to retreat.
“Keep pulling back,” he shouted, his voice carrying over the din of battle somehow, “light the next trench as soon as everyone is over.”
No one replied, but along the line the knights began taking steps back, the rearmost ranks ensuring they had room to move back. A minute later the second to last flame wall flared up and almost instantly a barking howl echoed down the valley.
“Back!” Gregory shouted, “those in the back unhitch the horses and mount up!”
Without having to hold off the Mutts the Knights quickly retreated past the final trench, allowing Gregory light it even as Mutts were beginning to throw themselves on the previous one. They hadn’t expected to have to retreat in this kind of hurry, but the knights moved quickly. How narrow the valley is worked against them here, limiting the number of knights that could ride out at once. Combined with the injured, who took longer to get on horseback, and the difficulty in simply moving nearly a thousand men and horses around in such a narrow space, less than a third were on the move by the time the Mutts reached the final flame wall. This time they didn’t even pause before beginning to throw themselves into the fire.
Gregory cursed, seeing that the flames weren’t going to hold long enough for everyone to escape.
“Stop!” he commanded the tide of Mutts, focusing all his might on making them obey. A blue light swept out to cover the nearest beasts, freezing them in their tracks. Only to release them less than a second later and leaving Gregory feeling drained.
“Damnit,” he cursed again, lifting his bloodied halberd, “we’re going to have to fight a rear action to let the others escape.”
“But Sir Ascender, that’s suicide!” a knight standing next to him exclaimed.
“I’ll find some way out,” he gasped, taking a fighting stance, only for the butt of a spear to slam into the back of his head. He instantly slumped, Lex catching him before he could hit the ground.
“Ensure he makes it back, Lady Priest,” the Knight smiled, it had been obvious that someone would need to stay behind, as one nearly two dozen of the older knights had made their way to the front. The movement was entirely unplanned, each of them deciding on their own to do so.
“I’ll ensure the Protector hears of your bravery,” she replied, tossing the unconscious Gregory over a horse and hopping onto the back of another. The older knight didn’t reply, simply turning as another rank of Mutts jumped into the flames, smothering them for a moment. Lex took the hint and kicked the horse into motion, leading the one Gregory was sprawled over.
Not a word was spoken as just shy of a hundred senior Slayer Knights stood against the tide of Mutts. Despite their injuries and accumulated marks they stood strong. Even as the flames died down enough for the monsters to surge forward they stood. The last Slayer Knight to leave paused, throwing one last glance back at the battle, as brave as those men were they wouldn’t hold long. With regret he drove his heels into his mount’s flanks.