This is it, intruder. This is the part where everything starts to go… wrong.
I was happy at first, in Deilen. It was a nice change- free from responsibilities… free from my doubts.
But of course, life is like the tides.
Or so they say.
-
Upon their arrival… nothing much happened.
Deilen wasn’t much to look at behind its tall and castle-like walls and watch posts. A number of wood log houses were dotted around almost haphazardly, as if a little boy had simply placed them around at random. There weren’t many people around who weren’t soldiers, either, and the rare citizens ignored the newcomers and simply went about their business. People here walked leisurely, Arwen was quick to notice, even the soldiers- life in general seemed to be slower for them.
The merchant, Wil, seemed to know where he was going, so they followed him towards a non-descript log building Arwen would’ve mistaken for another house had they not wrapped around it and found a stable large enough for horse and carriage. The door inside led to a stale warehouse-like room, adorned with many wood shelves filled with different tools and supplies. Just like the overall demeanour of Deilen, the indoor storeroom was primarily wooden and dull.
They were staring at wooden shelves, in a wooden warehouse, surrounded by wooden walls, in a wooded forest. “This is me,” Wil retrieved a bucket lying by the entryway and slung it over his shoulder. “I need to go get Glimmer some water, so if anyone wants to help, you can start with removing the tarp from the carriage while I go to the well.”
“I’ll stay with Owen,” Cai told him. “Since Princess Arwen and Gwyn aren’t supposed to be lifting things around.”
Arwen wanted to protest, for her previously dislocated shoulder felt fine, but she had been advised not to do any strenuous exercise with it for another month, so she kept her mouth shut. “I will go with Rhi to find the local seamstress,” Eryk wrapped an arm around the doe-eyed girl. “Let’s go and find her together.”
“Means you’re stuck with us!” Dylan regarded Arwen and Gwyn with excitement. “Let’s go find this forge!”
“I hope it’s not made of wood,” Cadwy frowned deeply.
“Aww, don’t be so down,” Dylan grabbed a hold of Cadwy’s shoulders. “This is all so new to us!”
“Let go of me, please.”
Gwyn smiled at the Princess wryly. “Suppose you’re with me. Bad luck for you.”
Arwen nodded sagely. “Woe is me, indeed.”
-cut-
The forge was… not what Arwen expected.
Compared to the large stone brick building that was the blacksmiths in the Kingdom, the Deilen forge consisted of a slanted wooden roof held up by strait-laced branches, under which a small brick furnace, an anvil and a few scattered wooden desks stood strewn around. A man in plain brown clothes, complete with a black belt and thick black boots, stood with some sort of metal pliers in his hand. He regarded the foursome for a moment before speaking. “Are you my new smiths?”
“That’s us two,” Dylan pointed back and forth between himself and Cadwy. “We’re here to show you how it’s done!”
“Appreciated, mate,” the smith smiled. “My name’s Elgar Bonner. I’m embarrassed to have asked the Kingdom for help, but I simply can’t match the quality of the Kingdom’s swords with my techniques.”
“It’s all good, man!” Dylan smiled widely.
Conversely, Cadwy was all business. “That is completely fine. The Kingdom keeps its techniques close to its chest, but the number of troops stationed at Deilen makes an exception. There cannot be any blame assigned to you for your lack of knowledge.”
“Thanks for the understanding,” Elgar appeared relieved at the lack of judgement. “And, good to have some helpers.”
Arwen and Gwyn then spent the evening helping out where possible, though neither of them knew anything useful to do with smithing, so the onus was mostly left to the three who knew what they were doing. That bothered her at first, but she was soothed by Gwyn’s comparative lack of use to the smiths as well. Still, it killed time and energy, and by the time they grew tired, Cai turned up with impeccable timing. “We’ve got a place to stay,” he informed the five. “It’s getting late, so would you like to finish up here?”
The three blacksmiths thankfully concurred, and the night was spent in three different rooms at Collin’s Inn, the one and only place for travellers to stay at Deilen, for the other inns had been converted into barracks for the soldiers. The boys were divided up into two of the rooms, whilst Arwen and the vampire-girl had to share the third.
Rhiannon said nothing to Arwen and immediately chose one of four beds as far from her as possible. Although suspecting the vampire girl disliked the Princess, Arwen was nonetheless delighted that the vampire was such an agreeable lodging companion, and therefore left her to her business.
The week passed by quick for Arwen and her retainers. Wil had other places to be, and so was gone by day two with a now empty carriage. The two blacksmiths, Dylan and Cadwy, were settling in nicely at the demure forge, and Eryk spoke for Rhiannon when he said that the seamstress was a lovely woman who was learning fast. All but Eryk quickly found themselves useless, and so left the smiths well alone. To kill time, since all was left was for Rhiannon to pass on her stitching knowledge for the Deilen seamstress, they had explored the little castle village a little, visited the logging section to the west, where most of Deilen’s people travelled to during the day to harvest lumber, and even went on a two-day excursion to the End’s Ocean. The vast expanse of the sea intimidated Arwen, and she found sand endlessly annoying, but Gwyn, Cai, and Owen all seemed to enjoy the trip and so the Princess kept her dull thoughts to herself. A quick look-see at the barracks were also in order for Cai and Gwyn, who were able to temporarily reunite with old friends who congratulated them and lamented that they were not the ones to be serving under the Princess herself. Arwen had been shown around like a child’s toy, much to her frustration, but the two men seemed to be enjoying themselves, and so she endured the soldiers’ fawning. Truthfully, she was enjoying all the attention, too. It felt nice to be recognised and praised.
It was the sixth day when Rhiannon declared herself finished, and so the sleeping bags, supplies, and other possessions that they had retrieved from Wil before his departure, were hauled onto weary shoulders as the four-day journey back loomed.
Only Rhiannon was joining them on their return to the Kingdom, which meant Eryk once again hung back with her instead of mingling with Arwen and the three other boys taking the lead. It was about a one-day trip through Coed’s Forest, of which Arwen expected very little to happen, but as it turned out, bad things come to those who wait.
They were about three quarters of the way through Coed when Arwen froze in her tracks.
Cai almost bumped into her and turned his head to reveal his frowning expression. “What?”
Arwen had been expanding her magic outwards and inwards in a semi-bored practise session, continuing to flex her ‘lightning sight’ in the hopes that one day, she could attain that instinctive mastery her father could never quite reach. But it was during one of these quick, randomly timed bursts of power that a network of unexpected, human-shaped stars appeared in a flash before she instinctively called the magic back. Cursing at her mistake and allowing her lightning sight to expand once more, the Princess’s fears were confirmed…
Tristwch Road cut a curved path south-west from Deilen through Coed’s Forest, and in the surrounding woods, around nine humanoid lightning signatures were revealed in a circular formation around the group. Further down the path and out of sight to all but her magic, a mix of lightning formed a vaguely human-atop-horse shape in the distance.
Owen regarded Arwen with a disconcerted expression. “Arwen?”
“W-we’re surrounded.” She struggled to keep the panic from her voice. “There’s people in the forest all around us…”
Cai and Gwyn immediately readied their weapons. Eryk seemed to shrink back in horror as the realisation that his girlfriend could be in the middle of an ambush dawned upon him, whilst Rhiannon herself appeared mostly confused. Owen, however, appeared contrarily unconvinced. “It’s probably hunters or-”
The ambushing force immediately burst from their hiding spots, leaving a slew of crunching leaves and snapping branches in their wake as they charged into the road. Arwen and her retainers all bunched up close together in an almost instinctive response and huddled like cornered animals. Arwen’s eyes were wide and fearful, her heart throbbed such a fast rhythm in her chest that she felt like it was about to crawl up her throat. The sudden burst of adrenaline coursing through her veins was so intense that it felt like her entire body was being constricted.
The men wore Helvetian black-and-silver uniforms. They were Helvetian. What were they doing in Cyfoeth territory?
“Stay back and state your intentions!” Arwen shrieked in Iekean at the nine soldiers, all of which stood in defensive stances with their weapons drawn. To her initial surprise, the Helvetians did just that, stopping in a loose circle around the fearful Princess and her retinue.
It turned out, they were merely waiting. A rumbling thunderclap of hooves against the road signalled the horse rider’s approach, and soon a tall and lithe man in the Helvetian uniform rode in atop his white horse, stopping in the circumference of his fellow Helvetian soldiers. “Hail, southerners!” he greeted in a commanding voice, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from underneath his brown hair.
“You are in Cyfoethian territory,” Arwen yelled back at him. “Put down your weapons and leave!”
The horseback rider, who must have been their Commander, raised a hand, signalling the soldiers relax their stance. “Please do not fear,” he said to the Princess.
“Leave!” Arwen repeated her demand.
“Can we please not just talk?”
“You’ve illegally crossed the border!” Arwen protested. “You’ve no recourse but to leave!”
The Commander visibly sighed, and then raised his hand again. Another signal.
Immediately the Helvetians rushed in, wielding swords, axes, lances, and silvery shields alike. Eryk held Rhiannon behind her and stayed in a defensive position with Arwen, who immediately began scanning for any form of opening to escape. Cai and Gwyn met the charge head on, the former alight with magic and the latter keeping his foes at a distance with his lance. Arwen chose a random Helvetian and with a grunt, threw her dagger at the charging man, but soldier merely raised his shield and blocked the dagger, sending it scattering uselessly onto the ground. One of the soldiers foolishly tried to grab Arwen’s arm, but she sent a quick burst of lightning through her body and into him, sending him reeling back onto the ground. Owen stood in the middle of it all, frozen in horror, his bow hanging limply in his hands and his quiver completely untouched. Eryk kept two opponents back with his sword, but it was clear that the Helvetians had the advantage and were merely toying with the vampire. Another set of hands grabbed onto Arwen and a sword was levelled at her throat, but she was determined not to let herself get captured and moved to grab the sword in order to send a jolt of lightning through her attacker, consequences be damned.
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The tip of a lance dug painfully into the back of Arwen’s neck, just gently enough not to draw blood but harsh enough to freeze her in her tracks. “Stop!” the owner of the lance, the commanding horse rider, yelled to the others in a heavily accented Deinian. “Stop or Princess dies!”
Arwen, trapped between a sword at her throat and a lance on her nape, heard the fighting stop. “Arwen!” she heard Gwyn cry. “Don’t hurt her!”
“Tell your boys that if they make a move, they’ll watch their precious Princess get skewered,” the horse rider said to Arwen in Iekean.
Arwen called out in Deinian. “Everyone,” she tried to keep the fear from her tainting her voice, but when it came out unsteady and trembling, she knew she had failed. “Don’t make a move. He says he’ll… he’ll kill me if you do anything.”
“Told them?” the Commander asked her.
Half-frozen in horror, a slow and subtle nod was all Arwen could manage.
“Good,” the rider addressed his men. “Tie everyone up but the light mage! He’ll just burn through any ropes with his magic. Instead, keep two blades on him at all times.”
“What is the meaning of this?” Arwen tried to sound as authoritative as possible whilst the Helvetians carried out their Commander’s orders. Before she could receive an answer, the sword was removed from her throat and a rough set of hands forced her arms behind her back, wrapping her hands in what felt like finger-thick rope. She felt a sliver of desperation slide down her throat. With her hands bound, she couldn’t channel her magic, and that meant she was useless. If she were an any better mage, Arwen could’ve exuded lightning from her very pores like her father could, but she was still so inexperienced. She had never felt more helpless in her life.
“Get down!” a Helvetian kicked at the back of her knee, bucking Arwen’s legs and sending her painfully onto her knees.
“If you kill her,” Cai yelled behind her, “I’ll slaughter you all, I swear it.”
“Leave her alone!” Eryk roared. “Leave Rhiannon be! She has nothing to do with this!”
“Relax, man!” the Commander sounded exasperated. “Emil! Get another rope around the vampire! He’s struggling like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
Another voice. “Stop resisting, or we’ll cut your girlfriend’s throat!”
Arwen tried to turn to face her bound retainers behind her, but a sharp tip prodded into her right shoulder blade. “Ah, ah, ah,” the Commander trotted atop his horse around so that Arwen could face him. “Don’t look behind you, dear. The sight of your friends bound and helpless isn’t a pretty sight.”
“Tell us what you want!” Arwen was still being guarded by the sword-and-shield wielding Helvetian, but she could at least move her head without fear of having her throat slit.
“Order from high up,” the rider shrugged as his horse repositioned itself on the gravelly road. “A very important person wants you and your vampires dead.”
“What?” Arwen cried. “You’re crazy! If your King found out about this, y-you’d be arrested!”
The Commander smiled cruelly. “Oh, I don’t think I have to worry about King Fiske. But, be that as it may, I’m willing to cut you a deal.”
Arwen said nothing, so the Helvetian continued. “I have orders to kill you, Princess Arwen Blayney, but unlike your country, the age at which Helvetians become adults is eighteen. Do you know what that means?”
“… No.”
“It means I’ve been ordered to kill a child,” the Commander sounded appalled, and even leaned in to emphasise his point. “Can you believe that? Look, I’m not above killing, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re just an innocent young girl. Killing you? It doesn’t sit right with me. So, I’m willing to let you and your cute retainers go on your merry way, on one condition.”
Arwen shot him a horrified look. “W-what is the condition?”
“You all get to go free, so long as you allow me to kill your two vampire companions.”
“No!” Eryk screamed. “No! Kill me, but leave her out of it! She’s innocent! Rhiannon’s innocent!”
The vampire girl in question was sobbing fitfully, while Gwyn, Owen, and Cai remained mum. They understood something significant was happening, but didn’t know exactly what. Arwen realised that they had completely put their trust into her. She was the one who was going to save them. But was she good enough?
Arwen didn’t like vampires. She thought them a danger to society- a disaster waiting to happen. But, could she truly justify allowing two innocent vampires to die? Was upholding those morals worth her life? And the life of three other men? Arwen was sorely tempted to let the two vampires die, if only to save herself, but then… they would surely be haunting her dreams, too. “Kill me! Just me!” Eryk continued his desperate pleading. “She doesn’t have to die!”
“I’m scared!” Rhiannon wailed. “I don’t want to die!”
It was too much. It was too much! Arwen couldn’t think, and the rider seemed amused by her obvious turmoil. The roaring of blood in her ears and the weight of the lives of her retainers and herself pulled at her, making her feel as if she was spiralling into a deep abyss. “Don’t kill the vampire girl,” Arwen muttered weakly, having come to a decision. “Leave the girl, and the boy is yours.”
“Sorry, but I’m already disobeying direct orders to kill you, Arwen, dear.” The Commander shook his head. “Two dead vampires, and we’ll leave you be.”
“… No,” Arwen shook her head. “Only the male dies. Those are my terms.”
The Commanding rider paused, tilting his head in thought. A second passed, then two, then three, until he finally spoke up. “Noah,” he regarded someone behind the Princess. “Kill the vampire girl.”
“No!” Eryk roared, renewing his struggle behind Arwen, if the grunts and alarmed cries of the Helvetian soldiers behind her was a sign.
Rhiannon started screaming. The sound visibly made Arwen cringe as a soul-crushing despair enveloped her body. “Please!” Arwen pleaded to the rider. “Please, don’t kill her!”
“I gave you my terms,” the Commander replied in an agreeable tone. “But you wouldn’t have it. So now, unfortunately, you all die.”
“Please!” Arwen screamed. “Please, don’t do this!”
“Get off of her!” another scream from Eryk was followed by a cry and then a sickening crunch of bone snapping in someone’s limb.
The Commander’s eyes widened. His face paled. “Dear Gods!”
Before he could further react, a body flew past Arwen so quickly that it continued to roll from the sheer momentum even after landing, coming to a stop a good couple of dozen metres behind the horse-riding Commander. The scene behind her exploded in an orchestra of cries and screams and grunts, so panicked and fear-laden that it made their words hard to interpret. Arwen quickly shuffled around on her knees and gasped in terror at the sight before her.
“I said! Get off of her!” Eryk had broken free and had grabbed the soldier who held Rhiannon by the throat, using both his hands to pull until his head severed clean from his body, spraying fountains of blood into the air as the gleaming sheen of a spine glinted through the spire of red.
Another Helvetian tried to stab at the crazed vampire with his lance, but Eryk made use of his training and dodged the panicked strike, grabbing the polearm and pulling at it, sending its wielder stumbling into Eryk’s grip whereupon the vampire lifted him clean above him head before slamming him into the ground with a devastating cry. Eyes wild, with shiny white teeth gritted in pain or pleasure- Arwen couldn’t tell- the enraged vampire grabbed at the fallen man’s face and clenched his fingers, crushing his skull with the ease of a man mashing a tomato between his hands. The body convulsed wildly before Arwen’s very eyes, and the sight of his mangled head made her stomach twist in disgust, sending an intense urge to retch through her throat.
“Contain him!” the Commander screamed at the Helvetians, backing up slightly on his horse with a queasy expression on his face at the repulsing scene.
Arwen’s expression mirrored his as the next victim lined up before the vampire. A horizontal slash caught at Eryk’s arm, sending the vampire down with a scream of pain. The Helvetian soldier, seeing an opportunity, charged at the recovering vampire, but Eryk twisted around and lashed out with a wide sweep of his arm, catching the soldier on his side and sending him flying into a nearby tree, where he fell limply onto the ground and never moved again.
Eryk rose to full height with rage in his eyes. By this point, the three men who had been guarding Arwen, Owen and Gwyn had run over to help their compatriots, however, the two that held onto Cai stood firm, looking uncertain of themselves but nevertheless determined.
The next Helvetian was caught completely off guard when Eryk dived at him in a move eerily similar to what the crazed vampire-woman, Elain, had done against Gwyn. His hastily raised shield did little to deter the vampire when he collided with it, sending both of them tumbling onto the ground. Eryk ended up on top and straddled the horrified Helvetian, raising both of his arms and slamming his clenched fists down onto his face, going for the kill.
The soldier had managed to shift his shield in front of him, blocking Eryk’s blow, but the force of the strike snapped his arm in half. A scream so pain-filled that it struck deep at the Princess’s gut stabbed at Arwen, but the shattered Helvetian was temporarily saved by another soldier, who leapt onto Eryk from behind and attempted to slice his throat with a dagger. Unfazed, Eryk merely sacrificed his hand, wincing as the blade cut deep but saving himself from a fatal wound as he wrenched the dagger out of the Helvetian’s hand and tossed it onto the floor. Eryk then grabbed at the Helvetian’s arm and swung him off of his shoulder and onto the ground beside him. A brutal hammer-arm swing instantly crushed the man’s neck mere moments after he landed, and his subsequent chokes and squeaks of pain was cut off when an elbow crashed into his chest, obliterating his ribs and destroying his heart. Instantly, the body stilled.
Eryk then turned his attention to the Helvetian with the shattered arm, effortlessly knocking aside his useless attempt at shielding himself with his healthy arm before sending a fist into the side of his head, caving in the man’s skull with spurt of sticky blood.
It was at that point that Arwen found herself in tears, gasping and gagging at the glance into hell she was being offered by what must have been the Dark God himself. Blood covered almost every inch of Eryk’s clothes. It was pooled on the floor, it was splotched over still-twitching bodies, and it specked at the exposed spine of a soldier’s bodyless head as it rolled listlessly on the ground. Cai, Gwyn, and Owen all seemed equally terrified, their mouths hanging open and eyes frozen in an expression of fright.
The last free soldier approached the deranged vampire cautiously, however charged at him when the commanding horse-rider had decided to take matters into his own hands and charge the vampire that had single-handedly killed six of his men in less than two minutes. A throwing knife embedded itself into Eryk’s shoulder, eliciting a roar of pain from the blonde-haired demon as he momentarily stumbled, clutching at the wound in agony as the Commander took advantage of the opening to stab at him atop his horse as he rode by. Eryk, whether this was good for Arwen’s survival or not, managed to dive out of the way as the horse screamed past him, gaining enough distance fast enough that any hope of counter-attack was snatched away by the white steed’s speed.
Rolling back onto his feet, Eryk grabbed one of the fallen Helvetian’s lances and, with a sheer cry of pain, threw it directly towards the soldier who had thrown the knife at him. Arwen would’ve missed the lance if she blinked, for it travelled with a speed that rivalled her father’s ranged lightning bolts. It was a direct hit, and the lance flew straight through the Helvetian’s chest as if it were paper, sending the man twirling onto the floor with a scream.
Cai took advantage of the chaos, and the two soldiers holding onto Cai suddenly found themselves on fire. The first screamed and backed away, patting at the white flames burning away at his forearm, but the other was smarter and brutally clubbed the knight to the side of his head with his elbow before he could further act, sending him sprawling onto the ground, before they both ran at full speed northwards into the cover of the forest.
The horse rider was enraged at the desertion by what should have been two loyal Helvetian soldiers. He screamed obscenities from afar as his horse reared up, repositioning itself so it now faced the heaving vampire. A breath passed as rider and vampire studied each other.
And for a moment, nothing happened.
Then, both Eryk and the rider charged at each other. The horse thundered towards the running vampire- its rider facing his opponent with a pinched expression, readying his lance by his side as he prepared to simply trample Eryk with the horse’s superior size and speed. Eryk ran undaunted towards his certain death by stampeding, not even hesitating as the two drew closer, and closer, and closer.
Horse and vampire collided, and to Arwen’s scream-inducing horror, the vampire won out. Eryk had grabbed at the horse’s neck upon contact and clenched at it with all his might, using its momentum to lift it up into the air above him.
For a terrifying moment, Arwen’s tear-blurred eyes was frozen upon the silhouette of her vampire retainer, who had acted in a refrained and polite kindness for their entire journeys, who had saved her and her retainers from Elain, and who had, only a few minutes ago, been coddling up with his beloved girlfriend, stood tall with a wildly thrashing horse in his single handed-grip above his head. The horse must have weighed around four-hundred kilograms, yet it was nothing in the face of the impossible strength that Eryk was displaying.
Then, the commanding rider fell onto the ground with a cry, followed by a scream of sheer strain from Eryk as he plunged the horse downwards onto the ground, sending an explosion of gravel into the air as the animal contacted the ground with a heart-rending screech. A moment later, the shivering crunch of bones signalled the end to the horse’s wild kicking and neighing.
All fell silent as a dull wind blew through the forest, rustling the leaves and gently wafting at Arwen’s hair. The Princess’s gasping breaths and Rhiannon’s crying was the only source of noise amidst the dense regiment of trees.
Then, the Commander groaned.
He was wounded, Arwen could see through blurry vision, as would a sheer drop from such a height would do to someone. But Eryk wasn’t done with him yet. The vampire stalked the rider and picked him up by the neck, raising his limp body until he was at eye level. “Who sent you?” Eryk spat the words in Deinian, before realising his error and repeating the question in Iekean.
“Ughh,” the rider moaned in pain.
Eryk then proceeded to shake the man as if he were trying to shock some sense into him. “I said, who sent you?!”
The rider smiled despite his grim situation. “King Fiske… did.”
“No!” Eryk’s refusal was both immediate and laced with surprise. He leaned into the man’s face. “Brandt would never order such a thing.”
“You… don’t get it,” the Commander coughed uncontrollably for a few moments. “Stupid vampire.”
“Enough with this!” Eryk roared. “You die here!”
And with a fully winded-up punch to the side of the rider’s head, Arwen let out one final shriek of fear as the Helvetian Commander’s now concave head bounced off of the gravel road and started to roll, showered by the rain of his own blood.