Reborn as the Black Knight

 

The convoy moves through the vast expanse of the Empire, a line of color and sound snaking along the worn part of the world that just simply feels older than all the rest of it. The territories held by the Empire are recorded to be amongst the oldest settled lands in history. So many ancient stories and myths have played out in these same hills and woodlands that legions of scholars could devote their lives to only these topics and still never finish studying them all. Anqa-pulled carriages creak and groan, the massive feathered beasts striding with determination, talons striking the ground rhythmically. The air is rich with the scent of travel, the remnants of yesterday’s rain still clinging to the foliage lining the path. Yet amid the vibrant sights and sounds, Dandy feels as if she's trapped in a storm, waves of emotions crashing down around her, the world blurring at the edges. Everything has gone crazy in her life.

“Can you believe it? Everyone at home is going to be so excited!” The voice of a nearby soldier rises above the din, filled with awe as he glances at Hero. Dandy watches from the far side of the carriage, her fingers trembling against the wood, its surface splintered and worn from use.

“We’re finally saved,” another soldier says, his eyes sparkling with admiration. “Herr Ritter won’t know what hit him.”

Dandy's heart sinks under the weight of it all. She grips the carriage’s edge, knuckles pale, focusing intently on the rhythm of the anqas’ gait to distract herself and keep her mind busy — a futile attempt as she keeps getting pulled back into reality by the noise of people. The laughter and shouts of camaraderie ripple through the convoy like the flames of their nighttime fires flickering against the night sky whenever they stop. Soldiers share stories of Hero's exploits told to them by their mother’s mothers, each embellishment becoming more and more grandiose than the last. Hero always has to chime in, adding or correcting details about what actually happened. A lot of the time, his version of the story is actually much worse or less flattering than the mythological spin, but his representation of it seems to impress the soldiers more than if he had just let them believe the exaggerations. The eager soldiers, drawn in by his strength, surround him, faces lit with excitement as they look toward him. She watches, confused, as these battle-hardened, dark-spirited men almost seem to turn into excited children in his presence.

Another day and another night of travel pass.

Dandy can’t get it together. The memories of the monastery just keep washing over her in waves — the shrieks of despair, the chaos, the fire, the blood — the dark thing. It doesn’t matter if it's day and she’s riding in the carriage or if it’s nighttime and she’s supposed to be resting. It always all comes back to her. A familiar pressure settles around her heart, a sensation she ran from as a child. She thought she got away from it, but it seems to have caught up to her in the end, hasn’t it? Guilt digs deeper, churning in her stomach.

— This isn’t the first time she’s had to run from a place for her life. But it is the first time that anyone other than herself made it out.

Glancing sideways, she catches Hero’s eye. He appears different amid the crowd than she is, energized and vibrant, his smile brightening the space. She doesn’t know how to explain it in a way that makes sense, but he really does seem like something more than human, even when he’s just talking and walking like everyone else. He’s like a statue come to life, animated to move but never allowed to lose the smile it was carved with. Gods, she wishes he would just trip and fall onto his stupid, perfect face. Dandy crosses her arms.

The convoy trudges further, and the forest begins to thin. Their path grows wider, cutting out from an old forest path into a central, main road — one of the primary arteries of the nation. The soldier’s sing as they march, their voices weaving through crimson skies that meld into dark blues. Yet, despite everyone being in such a great mood, the colors around her seem flat and muted. The clamor fades as they breach the edge of the woods, entering a clearing of jaw-dropping splendor marred by sadness. A once-bustling hamlet lies abandoned, its buildings crumbling to dust amid the remnants of blood-soaked soil.

“Used to live here,” a soldier remarks beside her, chewing on the words as he looks around the crumbled, black ruins of a collection of houses and broken shops. “The enemy attacked here just a month ago,” he explains.

“What? This deep into the nation?” asks Dandy, taken aback. They’re nowhere near the border. The soldier nods. She had no idea the war was going this badly. Then again, this place is on the way to the monastery, so she shouldn’t really be surprised. But still… seeing the destruction spread out like this… Dandy's stomach knots. What has she gotten herself into here? She should take her chance next time they make camp and make a break for it into the night before anyone notices. This all isn’t her mess to be involved in.

Hero shifts slightly on his mount, and she senses his gaze turning towards her. “Dandy?” he asks. “Everything alright? You seem pale. Well, you have for days. But paler.”

“Just not used to riding in a carriage so much,” she lies, looking to the side. “Makes me a little dizzy.”

“Laughter is the best medicine,” says the coachman, entering into their conversation. “Let us hear another tale from the hero!” he insists.

Waving him off and looking away in the other direction with quite some determination, Dandy gives her blessing to be left alone. Hero chuckles, his laughter infectious, filling the air with buoyant energy. The soldiers surround him as they march, faces eager.

“Very well then,” starts Hero, holding his arms out and grabbing two men next to him as they march together. “Here’s the tale of my greatest defeat!” Hero bellows, drawing attention with a flicker of mischief dancing behind his eyes.

“— Was it a demon-king?” asks a man.

“Idiot. He killed the demon-king,” remarks someone else there. “It’s for sure the story about the golden dragon horde,” he says in a confident tone. “I know all of the hero’s stories,” he says proudly, tapping his head. “Read every single tome about him as a boy.”

Hero laughs, his loud bellow carrying through the crowd as he shakes his head. “You flatter me, gentlemen. But I assure you, this one is far less impressive than any of that,” he confesses, now really getting their attention. He lets go of the two soldiers, illustrating a weave with his hands. “No. The greatest pain I ever suffered was when I was just a simple level one adventurer, starting out in the world,” starts Hero. “— A dumb boy. Do you know why I started fighting monsters?” he asks.

A soldier lifts his hand. “To protect people?”

“To serve your God?” guesses someone else.

Hero shakes his head. “No. The truth is…” he starts, hanging his head. “- I had a crush on the girl running the counter in the adventurers’ guild,” he admits, eyebrows raising around him, a few soldiers laughing already, knowing his pain on a personal level. Adventurers’ guilds are historically notorious in the Empire for employing any manner of trick to drag in as many warm bodies as possible. “An elf. She was probably thirty years older than I was,” he sighs… “But at the time, she needed someone to kill a few giant rats in the sewer, and my eyes were bigger than my head,” says Hero. “She took one look at me, pointed me out, and said that I looked like the perfect man for the job.” The man shrugs, a defeated but happy smile on his face. “At the time, I thought she was being serious, and I wanted to impress her. Well, it turns out she was actually just making a joke at my expense,” he explains, opening his eyes again and looking up toward the sky as they walk. “They were all laughing in there when I grabbed an old broken pipe, left out the door, and climbed straight down the next hole into the city sewers,” he admits, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head as everyone around him laughs now too. “It took me a week to get back out. But I did get those rats,” he notes. “Way I smelled and looked after sure didn’t help me get her though,” he finishes, the soldiers around him howling.

Dandy snorts, holding down a laugh herself, and then quickly paints it over with a fresh grimace. She wants to be angry and sad right now. Stop being funny and charming, asshole.

The priestess turns her head further away, her neck craning almost painfully from the strain of turning it as far in the opposite direction of him as she can, as the carriages roll on toward the capital, everyone else having a great time.

 

---

 

 

Far to the north, at the mountainous edge of the nation, snow still flies even in this warm season, although one would be hard pressed to explain its presence given the heat of the midday sun and, even more so, the deeply glowing pools of lava that bubble and drip from all around the cliff faces. But it falls nonetheless to the world below in thick, dense blankets from the clouds above — two of which seem more firm than the rest.

Two pieces of the mountain have been separated from the rest of the natural rock and, yet, somehow manage to stay there adrift — aloft — suspended in the air by a magical presence so strong that all of the ground below the islands is constantly crushed and flattened from its downward force. Massive, long chains made by a generation of men — thick enough to bind giants — anchor the floating landmasses to the sides of the mountain. On each of the two islands that are next to each other, drifting and swaying ever so slowly over the world, sits a castle keep, a tower. Both of the fortresses are of the same design, only inverted in rotation as one of the islands does like to drift upside down now and then, with the massive castle on its surface dangling downward toward the world below. But this doesn’t bother the inhabitants, who, because of the powerful royal magics present inside, notice nothing more changed in their lives than the sky becoming much more solid for a day or two. Then, the island will have reverted itself in time for the other one to begin its rotation.

It’s only once every two weeks when they both align for a moment, standing upright and proud next to each other, with strong presence, as if they were meant to protect the mountain rather than the mountain them.

One island is blanketed with thick, fluffy snow. Ice dangles from it like sharp needles. The other island is blackened and charred, red lava and fire leaking from it in grooved channels down to the world below — creating a moat around the two that is beyond the scope of any conventional army to cross.

Only every two weeks, when the fortress align and their magic cancels each other out — snow melting and hardening the lava into stone — can the path be used and the fortresses entered or exited. The mountain way is too treacherous and steep to climb; the old walls and towers that used to guard its precarious road now all buried in landslides and rockfalls, leaving no other way up or down than the one.

On each tower stands a person, looking at the other as the islands tilt into unification, their crowns touching together. The stone battlements of the two towers link together for a moment’s time, locking into each other like the clasped fingers of two hands.

“Sister. I do believe it is time for us to go,” says the one from the frozen island, looking at the other, who holds the same posture, positioning, and even appearance on her own tower that is rung by fire, trying to eat at the stonework.

The other sister — a twin — shares the look. “Sister, I do agree it is time for us to go,” she says at the exact same time as the first.

Their words lock in together, just like the towers do.

They’re both of an untrained build that leans toward an athletic diet, if not the practices of such a lifestyle. Their eyes are a golden ocher. The one on the burning tower wears a coat, always being too cold. The one on the frozen tower wears a summer dress, always being too warm — the clothes are their only real differentiator. Everything else about them could be a perfect mirror copy, from their voice to their movements to their thoughts, that many over the years have suspected to be shared via some manner of spectral connection. Unlike the hair of their other sisters, which ranges from short to long, these two's is just in the middle of length, with a half-wave so stiff that it never seems to diverge in as much as the frizz of a single hair. It’s like the world was intent on keeping them both the same.

Hemlock Odofredus Krone — the warm one from the frozen island — nods, holding out a hand over the tower. “Then let us go -”

Parsley Odofredus Krone — the cold one from the burning island — nods, grabbing the hand as the two of them step onto the tower battlements to meet in the middle. “- find our wicked sister,” she finishes for her.

They both look toward the south at the same time. “Acacia,” they say, speaking as one.

The two middle sisters of the royal family of the kingdom, older than Acacia but younger than Manchineel or their brother — the king — depart.

 

---

 

 

“I don’t want to,” sighs Acacia.

“You must,” remarks Junis, walking next to her. “If you want to be the queen, then you need to do a queen’s work,” explains the elf.

Acacia, walking with her hands behind her back, looks up toward the sky. “From what I recall, my mother didn’t do much of anything except participate in balls, weddings, and the occasional feast and dance,” she remarks, thinking. “Father and his court handled everything.”

Junis nods. “Mm. Mm. However,” she starts, sharply.

“However?” asks Acacia, sensing a counter-argument on its way.

“However, you neither have a husband to do all your work for you nor do you have the luxury of a court bigger than us few,” explains Junis. Acacia sighs again. “If you wish to be queen, you must expand your circle and hire advisers,” she says. “Running a kingdom is more than running just this city and some lands around it. It will require delegation on every level.”

Acacia and Junis walk for a while, going through the corridors of the fortress built on the lands that once belonged to the deceased Baron Ersteig — a cruel wretch. This fortress — a castle — is the official seat of Acacia’s power for all diplomatic affairs regarding her fledgling kingdom.

“I don’t trust anyone except you all,” explains Acacia, staring at the paintings that line the hall — portraits of the nobility of the land, meant to flatter them during their visit to her realm. “These people are snakes, Junis,” hisses the youngest princess. “They’re serpents of the highest order. I wouldn’t trust them to tend to my gardens without them planting nightshade, let alone manage pieces of my domain.”

“As I recall…” starts the elf, smiling.

Acacia lifts a hand, stopping her. “That was different,” she says, knowing exactly where Junis is going to go. The two of them spend too much time together. It’s gotten to the point where she knows what Junis is thinking more often than not.

“— You used to call me the same thing, and look at us now,” says Junis, going on anyway, grabbing Acacia’s shoulder to pull her in closer, rubbing her cheek against hers. “Best friends for life.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Junis,” remarks Acacia, her face half smudged in.

“Will we have another sleepover soon? I’d love to finish that book we started reading together,” remarks the elf, clutching her papers to her core. “It was so exciting!”

“Very well. Assuming we don’t get eaten by a den of vipers today,” says Acacia, her eyes narrowing as they approach the large double door at the end of the hall. Two guards in black armor stand on either side of it with halberds in the air.

“Can we paint each others faces again too?” asks Junis. “I didn’t get to finish your eyes last time!”

“Junis. Please,” says Acacia. “We’re at work.” She grabs the handle of the door, starting to pull it open, but then stopping a second in. Acacia looks back at Junis. “…Fine,” she says. “I’ll tell Sir Knight to buy the colors.”

“Can we we paint him up too?” asks Junis.

“Of course,” says Acacia, smiling, as she opens the door to the grand open hall on the other side. She doesn’t actually open the door; she just grabs the handle and goes through the motions of opening the door. In reality, the guards on either side of the door open it for her with a subtle combined shove and pull. Opening doors by yourself is all the rage in noble society these days, given the state of the world and the war. The appearance of being ‘hands on’ has become vogue.

— Of course, not enough to actually do it. But still. The presentation is what matters.

The doors fly open, and Acacia steps out with Junis behind her, the princess’ cloak billowing as she walks toward the staircase leading down, looking at the hall below. Tables are there, and music plays. People from all around the nation — nobles of many houses and families with names and lineages too complicated to pronounce or think about — all fill the room. Hundreds of eyes turn her way, the music stopping for a quick moment, before Acacia starts descending the stairs, Junis walking behind her, as applause comes from below.

There’s no practical reason for the room to be designed this way, with the entrance leading directly to a single grand staircase that descends down toward the space. The truth is that she had Sir Knight’s men build it exactly like this just so she could make a dramatic entrance in exactly such a situation. She’s been waiting for months for this.

Smugly, she swipes a strand of hair back behind her ear, as she takes her leisurely time moving down the stairs, sparing the odd delicate wave here and there for a familiar face.

She’s gathered people of power here from all around the nation today.

Junis is right, as much as she hates to admit it. In fact, Junis is more often right than not. It’s a rather annoying sticking point about her personality, but that aside. It’s true that if Acacia wants to be the queen of an entire kingdom and not just her little corner of it, then she’ll need more warm bodies than her core group and even more than Sir Knight. She needs the backing of these families and their domains, because if she is the queen, then that means she needs drones to do her bidding.

Unfortunately, unlike the bees, her potential drones require flattery, pampering, and maybe a little sprinkle of wealth into their coffers.

But she has money, and these creatures are easily bought.

It’s not loyalty she’s getting, but rather service. But in this level of nobility, there is no such concept as loyalty. Loyalty is a commoner’s responsibility toward his owner, a knight’s pledge toward his master. But between the rulers of the nation, something like loyalty is a distasteful thing, and she would never expect it to be here in any deal or contract made. In noble society, spiritual loyalty to another displays a weakness of character because one would bind themselves to the whims of said person or cause rather than forging their own destiny. Dependency is a poor quality for a leader, and the nobles pride themselves on being — whether it is true or not in pragmatic terms — guides, shepherds, and keepers of the people of their territories.

They only kneel for the crown because they have something to gain from doing so — more power, not because they believe in it.

 

---

 

 

“There’s just so much happening,” says the priestess, looking through one paper after the other as she digs through a mountain of documents, wax-stamped ledgers, and tomes full of reports from around the regions under their control. Her eyes dart from one word to the next, reading across several pages at the same time. “Monsters in the southwest, attracted by their civil war,” she reads. “Villages under attack by bandits — presumed to be undead soldiers — along the old battlefields.” She picks up a different paper, flipping it over. “Whatever Zero did, monsters have started going crazy all over the world,” mutters Chicory. She tsks, working the paper for a while, before looking over to a small corner on her desk against the wall.

There, between a row of books and a few towers of paperwork, is a small, little gap in the middle of it all. One should, ideally, be able to see the wall through the mess. However, there is only a perplexing darkness to see.

“And I’ve been hearing some weird rumors from the empire. Really weird. I need to verify them still,” she mutters.

The darkness inside of the little cranny ebbs, tendrils of it poking out and through some of the papers. One of the sheets in her fingers is pulled away, as if sucked into a vortex, and vanishes straight into the hole against the wall.

“Can’t you just make some more soldiers to handle all of this?” asks Chicory, rubbing her tired face.

Sir Knight’s voice responds from the shadow. “I’m already everywhere I can be,” he explains. “A kingdom is a big place, though.”

Chicory sighs, folding her arms. She leans back on her chair. “And here I thought you were supposed to be some legendary world-changing monster.”

“What do you want from me, Chicory?” asks the darkness. “I’m working on changing the world. I didn’t promise to do a perfect job, though,” he explains. She stares as the hole spits out that piece of paper again. It drifts around, landing then again on her desk. “I just said I’d do the bare minimum past zero, and here we are.”

“Here we are…” sighs Chicory, sounding tired. Everyone is tired. There hasn’t really been much rest for anybody since the situation around Acacia’s ascension began to escalate.

Chicory has taken up the duty of going through the reports, delivered to her by the cartfuls by Sir Knight’s soldiers. They stem from the region and are full of requests for help — financial or physical — or just updates on the day to day. She goes through them, looking for the most important and critical aspects, before passing that information on to Sir Knight, who then sends his army out that way to handle those situations first. Occasionally, if there is something that is particularly juicy, Acacia herself will go there for the political clout of her appearance.

“What about this one?” asks the royal agent, her eyes glancing back to a particular paper. She reads it. “Oh, that’s bad,” mutters Chicory, going over the report. “Wow.”

“Don’t make it so suspenseful,” remarks Sir Knight. “My poor heart can’t take it.”

Chicory slides the paper over into the hole.

“Some old dragon bones came back to life,” she explains. “Looks like it’s completely cut off several main roads because the mound it was buried in is right in the middle of a critical fork.” She turns her head, looking at a map pinned to the wall at the central road in the east that diverts into two. One heads toward Acacia’s nation, the other heads up further north.

“The bones came back to life, or the dragon did?” asks Sir Knight.

Chicory opens her mouth to reply, but then stops and closes one eye for a moment as she makes an awkward wince. “The bones,” she explains.

“…What does that even mean?” asks Sir Knight.

“It means that you need to get down there fast,” replies Chicory, her finger tapping the map. The region is outside of Acacia’s territory, nesting on the border between the remainder of her brother’s kingdom and the eastern Empire, which said person is at war with. Whether Acacia herself and her rebel territory are at war with the Empire or not as well is still up for debate. There is no official stance on either side regarding the matter. “Every single person running from the east needs to go down this fork if they want to get to either us or further south,” she explains. “If we don’t fix this, those people will have nowhere to escape to except the capital.”

That’s bad for them.

Every extra body added to the capital city’s population will make the final siege that much more difficult. Whereas every person they can scoop up can be put to work producing for Acacia’s nation in some form or another, if that’s in the dungeon, the military, or in some form of profession. Plus, the public image of her being benevolent and welcoming to everyone is critical for her campaign.

“This is in enemy territory though,” replies Sir Knight.

“They have no interest in dealing with the problem,” replies Chicory plainly. “But we do. So?”

Sir Knight thinks for a second. “I’ll send some soldiers,” he replies affirmatively. The darkness swirls together, like water running down a channel in the street, and then it vanishes, leaving only a normally empty gap between the tower of books and the stack of paper.

 

---

 

 

The air tastes bitter.

Once vibrant meadows had danced here with flowers abloom, swaying beneath the warm embrace of good sunlight, but now, a thick shroud of gray looms perpetually overhead, the heavens almost weeping for a land forsaken. The scent of damp rot mingles with a bitter tang in the air, heavy with the whispers of departing souls. Bodies lie against the wall; some of them still move, but that doesn’t redefine the state of their damnation as the miasma washes over them. Cobbled streets, once alive with laughter, lie now choked with weeds and scattered debris, remnants of lives abandoned in the chaos of war. The village, once famous for its beautiful flowers, is now a dead and barren place within no man's land. Hunched forms shuffle through the alleyways, their eyes sunken, faces gaunt; they are travelers stranded, refugees. Shadows flicker in the corners of dilapidated abandoned homes that have been reclaimed for the night, and the occasional distant rumble echoes — from the battles fought not far beyond the borders of the now dead fields.

Cecelia stands at the crossroads, her heart aching because of the choice to make but also because of the literal poison in the air. The road to the east lies half buried beneath the remnants of shattered dreams, piles of debris marking where life had once flourished. A shallow breath escapes her lips, mixing with the fog of uncertainty that hangs in the air, the chill enveloping her. She glances toward the remnants of a flower shop, the final petals of wilted blooms strewn about. The dead plants here and all around her are caused by the plague creeping through the village. Walking forward cautiously, she steps over a cracked stone, the sharp edges cruel against her skin, resonating with the pain that fills the silence. Underfoot, the dirt is cold. They came from the east. It's tempting to go back, but that isn't a solution.

From somewhere deep within the village, a wraith-like moan pierces the stillness, causing Cecelia to pause. The sound wraps around her, cold and unwelcome. She draws her cloak tighter around her thin frame, holding the fabric more tightly over her pursed lips as if it could shield her from the air. Her eyes dart to the side, to the man standing there too.

“Cecelia! We can't stay here any longer,” he says plainly. Pavel, his own frame as desperate as that of the lost structures around them, eyes wide with worry. The strength of a once-promising warrior is marred now, his shoulders slumped under an unseen weight, and the flicker of hope faded. He’s doing better than the others, but it’s getting to him quickly. He’s withering, just like the flowers, just like she is. He looks down the road she's watching. “They say the sickness takes those who dare venture west,” he adds, the tremor in his voice betraying his own fears. “But it’s madness. We cannot remain in this death trap.”

Her gaze falls to the ground. “It’s not just the disease, Pavel,” she murmurs, her voice quaking. “The war… they say it’s pressing back to the village again from the east.” She shakes her head. “We can’t go back that way anymore.”

He steps closer, his breath warm against her cold cheek. “What choice do we have? We’re trapped; this town is a graveyard.”

“A graveyard,” she repeats, the word sinking into her like a stone dropping into a well. “But if we turn west…”

“Cecelia, don’t say it,” he interrupts fiercely, his voice rising. “You know what’s out there. We must find another way out before the plague finds us. Before…” He hesitates.

There are stories. Stories from people who say they’ve seen something not far down the road to the west. But she doesn’t know if they’re true or not. All that she knows is that everyone who has tried to go west either never came back or came back screaming and maddened, hyperventilating in a panic until the poison air overcame them. The body can survive here for a while, but only if you breathe slowly to minimize it. Cecelia's heart beats as she considers the whispered tales told from behind the fading fires within the eyes before they succumbed to an illness that numbs the mind and steals away the very will to live.

“No more,” she breathes again, the last of the old fire igniting in her chest. “I will not go back east. I refuse to be a pawn in their game any longer,” explains the woman.

Pavel's brow furrows as he studies her face. “We don’t have a choice. There’s nowhere left but the east,” he explains. “At least there, we’ll have a chance.” He gestures around himself. “This place is dead. Everyone here is dead, even if they haven’t noticed it yet,” says the man through the shawl covering his lower face. “We don’t need to join them,” he argues. He points down the road to the west. “Death.” He points down the road back to the east, whence they came. “Maybe death, but not guaranteed. I think our odds are clear.”

She looks at him, hating that he’s right. But she doesn't want to admit it to him or reality. Nonetheless, maybe there really is no choice in the matter. She nods, not having the luxury to spare to voice that she actually thinks this is a terrible idea. “Okay. FIne. We’ll venture back to the east. If we’re lucky, maybe we can squeeze back north through the forests there before the war gets to us again.” She looks over at a broken window and at the planter full of dead flowers inside of it. There are cots and children’s playthings inside the ruin. “It’s better than dying here.”

A guttural cough erupts to her left, followed by a cry of despair. She glances at the figure hunched against a charred wall: a woman, skin pallid, eyes glazed, mouth frothing. A pitiful moan escapes her lips as life slips away. The poison air has taken her.

She nods her head to him, the two of them making their way back through the village back toward the east again for only a minute before he stops her again. “Look.” Pavel's voice drops to a tense whisper as he flicks his gaze down the way. “There’s movement in the fog, Cecilia.”

She turns on her heel, a knot coiling in her gut as she scans the encroaching mist. Emerging figures stumble through the gloom, clutching tattered belongings to their chests, eyes wild with fear, oblivious to the growing malaise surrounding them as they stumble into the miasma. The first of them have already begun coughing.

“We should go,” she insists, grabbing his arm. It’s dangerous to be near the freshly arrived. They can be particularly desperate.

A fresh wave of panicked voices reaches their ears before they round a heap of debris, dislodging ash that swirls into the air. The incoming group stumbles in from the east, their faces pale and streaked with dirt, eyes wide as though glimpsing their own demise. They carry the scent of iron mixed with a sickness that makes Cecelia's stomach churn. “It’s hell out there!” a man gasps, his voice hoarse, ragged. He collapses against a broken pillar, clutching his side, crimson blooming through his fingers. He pants for air, wheezing. His head rolls to the side as he winces. “East?” he asks, seeing them facing their way down the road. She tentatively nods. “You’ll never make it through. The fighting -” He coughs violently, the sound reverberating in the eerie quiet. “The ground’s soaked with blood, and the screams — they never stop,” he gasps, and she watches the miasma creep, almost like a living thing, down his throat. He makes an ugly face. “We had to run. We had to leave them behind — the others — or…”

Cecelia's heart sinks into the pit of her stomach. Pavel moves closer, his hand resting protectively on her shoulder. “We can’t stay here, Pavel,” Cecelia argues, her voice barely above a whisper, a raw edge punctuating her words. “We can’t wait for the plague to choose us as its next victim.”

Pavel's face darkens, frustration etched in the lines of his forehead. “Do you even hear what he's saying? The east is a slaughterhouse. What will we do when we walk straight into a battlefield? You thought the ruins were bad? Just wait until the war finds you.”

“This was your idea, Pavel, and what other choice do we have?” she snaps, anger flaring, alarm intermingling with her determination as he suddenly seems to be backing out of his own plan at the first sight of trouble. He always does this. For a man his size, he's a real chickenshit. “If we don’t at least try, we might as well lay down and die with the rest of them!” she argues. She crosses her arms, glaring at him. “I am not going to walk back through this hellscape of a village one more time. You telling me we need to go east is still within earshot, Pavel. Well, we’re going back east now, war or not. That’s that,” she finishes, finding she’s made herself clear.

Pavel's expression falters, despair swimming in his eyes. “There’s no guarantee we’ll make it alive — even if we run through the forests… maybe a scout troop will catch us on the sides.”

“I understand that!” she counters fiercely, her breath hitching as a sense of urgency tightens in her chest. “But standing still here will only ensure our death. You get that, right?" she snaps. "You want us to rot away like them?” asks Cecilia, pointing at the wall, where people go to sit down when they start to feel just a little too tired to stand up anymore.

— There are a lot of people there now who were once very tired.

Pavel's hands run through his hair in frustration as his gaze darts back and forth as he tries to agree on one of their three terrible choices, now that this new information of the surging war has come in. West, death. East, death. Stay here, death. It's all not so great.

But before he can reply, a low, ominous sound reverberates from the west — a haunting groan that vibrates through the very bones of the world. The air changes, thickening with an unnameable dread that filters through the group, hearts racing in time with the rhythm of the incoming danger as the ground shakes. Burnt wood crumbles down from many rooftops all around them, people panicking and scattering as a minor quake seems to have arrived.

“What the hell is that?” Pavel mutters, his eyes widening as he shifts his stance, muscles tensed.

Cecelia can feel it — an instinctive chill creeping along her spine. “We should go, Pavel", she mutters. "Now,” she whispers urgently, pushing past her fear and shoving back against the suffocating air that constricts her throat. This time she grabs his arm, slowly stepping back and away toward a broken house as the rest of the small group of survivors turns, not sure what they should be terrified most of anymore. The low rumble becomes a roar — a primal sound that rumbles in their chests.

“So, uh… east or west?” Pavel asks her nervously, fixing her with an intense gaze as shadows deepen around them.

“Pavel, you exhausting fool,” she hisses through her shawl as the two of them hide. "If we weren't friends, I would have left you behind weeks ago."

"Good thing I'm so charming," replies the man. She spares herself the luxury of rolling her eyes, instead keeping her sight trained toward the rumbling west.

Years of adventuring have made her sharp in the ways of survival.

Is there an ominous growling coming from the fog? Rule one: get away from the ominous growling coming from the fog. A surprising number of adventurers would have done well to learn this lesson before it was too late. Thankfully, because of their failures, she was able to learn by observing rather than doing.

“East,” Cecelia insists.

“But going west was your idea,” he replies, looking back toward the east and the distant fires on the horizon that glow through the mist like fairylight. The west continues to rumble as something approaches from the distance.

"Pavel, you horrific coward -” she starts, unable to finish.

Around her, the fading cries of the villagers merge into a cacophony of fear and disbelief. Shadows dart through the ruins as frantic movements blur with the sickly swirling fog. Cecelia glances at Pavel, his face etched with horror and his eyes darting wildly. From the depths of the fog — to the west, not the east — something stirs. An ominous rustle of wooden frames crumbling like trampled leaves, followed by the guttural grinding of bone against bone. Cecelia's heart plummets as the grotesque silhouette begins to materialize — a long thing. A twisted, bending thing. A mass of half-moon shapes stacked together moves and winds — they’re ribs. They’re giant ribs connected and layered over one another. Femurs run along its body. Claws make up its fangs. Decayed, gray meat fills only some of the many, many gaps in its body and, from the rest, secretes out a mist. It is a giant undead golem. It glides like a nightmare, a serpent woven from the rotting flesh and shattered bones of a dragon, colors of decay mingling grotesquely in its form. Screams fill the air, a chorus of terror that spreads like wildfire among the crowd. People choke on the poisoned air, their bodies betraying them as they struggle for breath amidst the horror. “Run! Run!” someone screams, but the words dissolve into the anarchy. People scatter, shouting and trying to escape. The serpent golem contorts, its grotesque head turning toward the panicking crowd, jaw unhinging with a wet squelch, revealing rows of jagged, broken teeth still glistening with the remnants of its last meal — whoever had tried to go west last, and then the person before that, and the one before that. Each meal had drawn it just a little closer to the old village. Time distorts; a heart-stopping moment hangs desperately, stretching out like the shadows that fall across the village.

Cecilia's mind races. This is a high-level monster. They don't stand a chance. It must have been drawn here by the war, by all the dead. The monstrous serpent lunges, a horrific motion that sends its bulk crashing down toward a man who collapses in despair, too sick to escape. Cecelia watches, frozen, as the beast engulfs him, the sounds of eaten flesh echoing in her mind. Bones crunch together with the sound of only-poorly muffled screams, as most of them leak back out of the gaps in the monster together with an indistinct wetness.

“Cecelia!” Pavel's voice cuts through the haze, pulling her back from the edge of inaction. “We really need to make a choice!”

"NO SHIT, PAVEL?!" she snaps at him.

Panic sharpens her senses, fueling her legs as she pulls Pavel along with her in the first random direction she chooses, regardless of which way the compass points. They weave through the throngs of frantic bodies, desperate for any semblance of hope, and spot an opening in the debris. “Over there!” she shouts, pointing to a gap between the collapsed beams of an old stable. The world around them shatters as screams of terror combine with the relentless sounds of gnashing teeth and ripping flesh that reverberate through the toxic air.

“Oh, gods…” she mutters, covering her already-covered mouth with her hand as she holds down fresh vomit, the two of them watching as the serpent, the monster, gorges itself on the people who are too weak to run anymore — gorges itself on the dead. It can’t even eat them; it just breaks them apart, chewing them like an animal on the hunt. But the mush of people just slips out through the chasms in its flesh, leaving behind it an unsightly trail as if it were some sort of slug as it smears over the secreted grime as it moves.

It’s trapped a group of people in a house out across the square. They’re done for.

Cecelia looks at Pavel, getting ready to yank him after her. If this thing is here now, that means the road to the west is clear. If it’s busy eating everyone else, the two of them can make a break for it.

And then, in the blink of an eye, her plan changes again. In days such as these, she is learning plans have a shorter life expectancy than a level one goblin. She's sure she's changed her plan five times in the last hour already.

Cecelia's head snaps around as a legion of soldiers clad in black armor charges through the miasma, dark silhouettes moving in mass. Their obsidian spears glint, catching the rare light that finds its way down toward them. Despite their charge, an eerie silence surrounds them, their movements deliberate and synchronized. There’s no war cry, no collective scream. They’re just… quiet, apart from the clanking of their metal. They have no need for words. Their faces are obscured beneath the visors of their helmets. The only thing that gives them identity is the single banner flown behind them by a standard-bearer — the flag of the youngest princess of the nation, Acacia Odofredus Krone. But Cecelia's heart races as fresh chaos rages around them. “This is our chance!” she says, shaking him again. She points out toward the charging army. “Let’s get in there!” she explains, a glint in her eyes as she comes up with a brand new plan again-again right there on the spot.

“No!” he yells back, grasping her arm tight and pulling her back from the fray. “Are you crazy?” he asks. “They’re trained for this! We need to survive!” explains Pavel, pointing at himself. "Why the hell would we help them fight that thing? Let's use the chance to get out of here!"

“No, dummy!” she argues, gesturing with her hands, her fingers walking over the air. “We get in there, look useful, and then when they leave, we’ll pretend to be hurt and catch a ride with a carriage!” She nods. “It’s foolproof! The rebel kingdom takes anybody!”

Pavel taps his head, looking at her as if she were insane. “Yeah, to the gallows!” he argues. “I heard from a guy who knows a guy who delivers mail for a living that they wiped out an entire monastery back home.”

“What?” she asks. “That doesn’t make any sense. How would they even have gotten there? It’s all the way across the war zone.”

“How the hell did they get here?” he asks.

She opens her mouth to reply and then closes it again before too much poison leaks into her. She doesn’t have a reply to that, actually.

How the hell did these guys get here? To the west, the direction they came from is nothing but the king’s territory for weeks worth of marching. Or has the war really changed that much since they ran away? Cecelia looks back toward the fight, having made too many plans now to think straight. She needs some info.

The clash of steel on bone reverberates as the soldiers engage the serpent golem, spears jabbing into the putrid flesh, crimson splattering like dark rain all around it from its drool. The creature heaves, snarling in discontent, twisting its form in an attempt to shake off its attackers. She watches as the scene unfolds. Soldiers launch themselves onto the beast without a care in the world as it thrashes them against walls, breaking old houses as it flails to shake them off like fleas. The air is thick with the screams of the dying survivors mingling with the sounds of wordless metal defiance echoing in the darkness. Yet the miasma thickens as the monster is enraged, and with it, the undead thing grows more grotesque as the secretions of its body almost seem to coagulate and solidify. The soldiers thrust their weapons into the writhing mass. “Damn. These guys aren’t afraid of anything, are they?” mutters Pavel. She shakes her head quietly, watching as one of the black-armored men attempts to climb up the serpent’s back, only to be flung halfway across the world by it a moment later.

She doesn’t hear as much as a whimper as he catapults through the air like a brand new shooting star. In fact, she's sure that she sees the catapulted man salute in mid-air before vanishing toward the horizon.

What kind of battle-hardened elite monsters are these people? How did the youngest princess find so many of them? Cecilia can’t explain it. Did all of the king’s greatest knights and soldiers rebel for the cause of his youngest sister? Is she that convincing and charismatic?

The battlefield becomes a grotesque theater as the black-armored soldiers swarm the serpent golem, their movement shockingly synchronized. Their visors glint in the dim light, reflecting the dread surrounding them, while their spears pierce the body of the enemy. Cecelia watches, breathless, as they encircle the monstrous creature, their forms merging into a dark tide. It’s hard to see them through the miasma, but they almost look like a surge of black water from this far away, like a wave that’s washing over a dead thing to offer it burial at sea. The bone serpent thrashes violently, its massive bulk crashing into the soldiers with a sullen roar, splintering their ranks, yet they do not falter. Bodies pile amid the wreckage, crushed and scattered, only to fade away from sight moments later. And then even more soldiers in black armor continue to pour out from the western fog bank. There must be hundreds of them. Cecelia's stomach churns at the sight of them getting trampled and flattened by the dozens, but she’s wide-eyed with a mixture of awe and fear. The swarm continues to push, thrusting their spears into the gaping maw of the snake, devoid of any trace of human emotion.

“Who are they...?” Cecelia wonders aloud, struggling to comprehend the horror and heroism displayed before her. Six armed phantoms leap upon the serpent’s coiling body, their blades glinting viciously against the festering flesh as they begin to hack away at its neck.

Suddenly, a figure cloaked in deep black emerges from the swirling miasma, its identity hidden beneath an enigmatic hood. The presence commands an otherworldly air, weaving through the fighting soldiers as they push back against the beast's wrath. Soldiers encircle the snake, pinning it with spears from all angles.

A void fills the space around the black-robed wizard, dull, empty sparks swirling from his fingertips.

She can’t see anything else except emptiness of many kinds that seems to be everywhere. The miasma, the sounds of the battle, the screaming — it all seems to just… get sucked into a hole the wizard is holding in his hands. A wave of energy emanates from him, a cascade that washes over the nascent horror as he raises his arms. The miasma pulses and seizes before retreating, recoiling against the oppressive force as if sensing its own demise. Cecelia's breath catches, a bewildered silence falling over the tumult, one shared look between her and Pavel. The undead golem struggles, lashing out in all directions. But the spearmen hold it steady, having pierced it from all sides from top to bottom. Their boots press down, sliding through the dirt as they hold firm against an incredible mass of muscle and bone.

“What is he d -?” starts Pavel, but words abandon him as the wizard unleashes a torrent of magic, vibrant hues of fire from the houses, of blood and gore from the dead, of glinting metal from black armor, all merging in swirling patterns that dance like fireflies drawn into a gloom as he projects forward a vortex. The power cascades over the serpent, its body starting to contort and crack, pieces of it pulling forward as if something were tugging on it. The monster thrashes wildly, disoriented, and angry as it tries to fight against the unseen force pulling it in as if it were on a fisherman's hook, its gelatinous, foul body writhing against the oppressive power. The black-armored soldiers don’t relent, driving their spears deeper, force of will undeterred, silently unyielding. With a final, ear-splitting roar, the beast contorts, its form buckling under the onslaught of magic and steel. Its head rips off at the pierced ring around its neck, tumbling and crashing over a broken roof before it flies straight into the empty void the wizard had projected out ahead of himself.

The rest of its body simply collapses and then begins to lurch toward the abyss.

Cecelia feels the pulse of energy wash over her, pulling at the dampness that clings to her skin, pulling it away together with billowing strands of her hair. The void, the black hole, pulls in everything around it. Debris, flames, and rot all just… They’re just consumed. She watches, transfixed, as the last of the serpent begins to unravel, its dark mass turning to ash, the mighty remnants of the undead dragon flaking into the air like dust. As the last of the creature implodes upon itself, a shockwave tumbles through the village, sending black clods spiraling outward.

And as soon as the giant corpse is gone, the miasma dissipates.

For a moment, silence descends — a stark contrast to the chaos that has just unfolded. Cecelia hunches there in the ruins, breathless and bewildered, looking around as the other survivors blink in disbelief from their hiding places, trying to process what they just saw.

“It’s gone…” Pavel whispers, their shared relief barely audible above the fading echoes of devastation. He looks at her and then slowly pulls down his face covering, taking a cautiously deep breath of the air. “It’s gone. Cecelia! The fog!”

With the monster vanquished, the dark soldiers stand still amidst the wreckage, their visors opaque, the quietness eerie in the aftermath of violence. Cecelia observes them, a chill running down her spine — these emotionless figures whose only expression lies in the spears they wield. None of them cheer, mourn, or… do much of anything. They’re just kind of standing there. But then the cloaked figure, the wizard, begins to withdraw, gliding as gracefully as he arrived. Slowly, one after the other, the soldiers grab their spears and lances and simply turn back around, marching back the way they came as if they were just hollow shells.

Cecelia yanks Pavel after her, breaking free from cover, sneaking after their saviors to try and find their carriages.

But they can’t seem to find any of them. The two of them round a corner, expecting to see an entire legion standing there in black armor and fabric, but instead, there is nothing at all except a free and clear road that heads to the west.

The only thing there is a banner of Lady Krone, stuck proudly into the ground, and billowing in the now clean air.

And as for the soldiers, it’s like they were never there at all.

 

---

 

 

“Uh huh. Uh huh,” mutters the royal agent half-interestedly, striking through some things with her quill and writing down a few notes. “So you saved the village?” she asks. “Any other interesting developments to note?” The priestess looks at the black hole that has reappeared on her desk.

“Well, I can do wizards now,” replies Sir Knight, the glee in his voice really quite unfitting to the depth of his guttural tone.

Chicory, hearing the scrunching of fabric, looks behind herself at the black-hooded wizard standing there, his features obscured by his robes. He would look quite ominous, if not for the fact that Sir Knight was puppetteering around in the shadowy body, making it do a series of one-legged squats and absurd stretches. “Should'a thought of this sooner.”

 

 

Chicory purses her lips, not saying anything for a moment. “Noted,” she then remarks in disinterest, writing a line into the ledger. “Next on the list is, uh…”

She grabs another troublesome case from the reports for him to handle.