by Brent Tyman
Around five thousand creatures stayed behind, where they all reformed into a formation. The dog like creatures in front, the ranged ones in the back, and I believe I spotted several armored ones in the center mass.
The battlefield was littered with corpses, and I spotted some creatures even eating the dead on the spot.
Why had the creatures even come here? Why attack us now when they could have waited for the battle between us and the Vulenchian to conclude. They were far smarter than the simple animals they looked like.
“Hold men, remember why you fight. Remember all our fallen brothers. Do not falter now,” I shouted and heard a cheer across the whole fort as the men got ready for another battle. They knew there was no escape.
It was either victory or death. Especially since all the truth sayers are down, so we could not portal our way out of this mess.
Lunara came back to me, and Raina also appeared behind her.
“My king, I just wanted to say… It’s been an honor to serve you,” Raina said. That was so unexpected that I gave her a quizzical look. Her helmet was off and I saw that she had tied her black hair back into a ponytail. I noticed her pale cheeks had turned red after her words.
Even she thought this was the end. I didn’t blame her for thinking like this. These creatures were strong and deadly.
“It’s not over yet. I’ve still got some fight left in me, and so do you. Keep your mind sharp and your blade wet,” I said as I turned back to the army of creatures.
I had to keep a straight face amongst all those that fought for me. Even if I could barely hold a knife in my hand.
As it was when we had first met them, the creatures did nothing other than stare at us. It was as if they were waiting for something. This time I could not make use of Eliandra’s mist spell, so this left me few options to engage them.
Enough time had passed that I could hear my men muttered amongst themselves. I tried to figure out why these creatures were waiting, and nothing really stuck out to me. No others had joined them, and they did nothing other than stay in their formation.
Finally, I caught some movement from the center mass. One of the armored ones broke away from its kin and strolled towards us. The other creatures parted for him as he crushed through any corpses in its way.
This one had the same scale-like armor on its chest, but also had a strange shine to its leathery skin. Its exoskeleton was darker than the others, and it walked with a refined purpose that seemed peculiar to me. Was this the Zegari’s second in command or something of that nature?
It walked past our bow range and I knew the archers looked at me on how to respond.
“Raina, have everyone hold fire. No sudden moves either,” I ordered. Raina shouted out my commands to the rest of the men, but I could plainly see that they were on edge. I was too.
The armored one walked directly towards me on the wall and stared up at me. This one had no helmet, so I could see its face from this distance. It had blood-red eyes and sported needle-like teeth in its long snout. It had a tail that ended in a point behind it. Its body seemed to be all muscle or exoskeleton, which no doubt made it powerful in its own right.
It growled as it came to a stop a few paces from the wall. My men had their bows nocked and ready, aimed at the armored one. It watched me from its position, and a small curl in its mouth suggested it was amused from the whole affair.
“Ordan Strix,” the armored one said. It spoke our language so perfectly and clearly, that my mouth went agape. My men all whispered to themselves, and I raised a hand for silence.
“You can speak?” I asked, and the creature gurgled a laugh from its snout.
“Yes, I can. I was born to speak the language of this land, as are all my clutch kin. A skill imparted to us after consuming these humans,” the armored one said.
That it could talk at all was chilling, but also convenient. Perhaps I could get some information out of it.
“Who are you?” I asked as I leaned my head over the wall.
The armored one bowed low, with its right arm clutched to its chest. It was like how Frostburnian nobles bowed to one another.
“You may call me Reska. I am of the First Clutch and command this army you see before you,” Reska said smoothly as he came up from his bow.
I quirked my eyebrow at that. The armored one had a name and a rank. These creatures might as well be one of the civilized races on this land.
“All right… Reska. You already know of me, how?” I asked. This was the burning question in my mind. Did they interrogate one of the Vulenchians that heard about my coronation as king?
Reska turned his head and seemed to grin at me with his snout, as if I had asked something obvious.
“Of course we know you,” Reska said. “You are the one that saved my queen. We all saw the memory of it. The amount of prime needed to unlock those seals was immense. We could not have asked for a more powerful savior.”
His queen? He must have meant the Zegari itself.
“Right, so you can see into each other's memories. Good to know. What do you want from us?” I asked.
Another laugh resounded from Reska.
“You need not be so on guard. We have no wish to harm you. In fact, I would allow you to strike me down where I stand. It would be the least I could do,” Reska said as his tail swished from side to side.
What the fuck did that mean?
“What do you mean, you attacked us when we first appeared in Pernra,” I said in anger as the memory of my dead men appeared in my mind.
“From what I saw, it was in fact you that attacked us. We made no aggressive actions to you, and my clutch kin called for one with the gift of language to appear. He had little knowledge of your tongue except for a few words, as you heard,” Reska said.
At first I wanted Reska to keep his snout shut. But when I thought about it, some of what he said rang true. The creatures made no move to attack, but they got into formation and were ready to charge at us before Eliandra’s fireball spell.
My men whispered amongst themselves and Raina came up to me.
“My king, if this is the commander of the army, we should kill it while we have the chance. We must avenge our fallen brothers,” Raina whispered with a bit of heat in her voice.
“Your people are hungry for blood, I like that,” Reska growled out before he laughed hard. That Reska could hear her from this far away was impressive.
“I tire of this,” I said as I gripped the wall in front of me. “Speak your purpose, what do you want?”
Reska pointed behind him, to the horizon beyond his army.
“We have your armored horse riders. We have captured all of them. My queen wishes to meet you once again, so you will come to the Fancern forest. Bring your army if you like, it matters not,” Reska said.
I hissed through my teeth as it explained why the riders never arrived. These creatures had taken them. Why they didn’t just kill them was beyond me, but I had to get them back.
“Ordan please be wary, this is too strange,” Lunara whispered, but I raised a hand.
“We will discuss this when he's gone,” I said, and she nodded.
I turned back to Reska and tried my best not to let any emotion show on my face. I wished I had my helmet on.
“Fine, we will come, but answer this. You said earlier you would not harm me, why?” I asked. His statement was so strange that I needed some clarity on it.
Reska laughed again as he turned away and walked back to his army.
“Haha, the answer is obvious,” he said as he waved a clawed hand behind him.
“Why would I hurt our father?”
Chapter 9
I sat in the command tent with both Lunara and Raina. Eliandra had yet to wake up, but some slave healers had tended to her. They confirmed she should recover soon.
I drummed my hand along the table edge and tried to keep my focus. My hands were both bloodied up after I took off my gauntlets earlier, but the pain had lessened somewhat.
The healthy men were already hard at work on repairing the fort, while the injured had their wounds healed.
Reska’s army left to go back east, while I imagined some still chased after the Vulenchians that fled. It was now time to discuss the next steps, and I wasn’t looking forward to this.
“Raina, give me the current report to start off,” I said. The woman looked at me and nodded.
“Yes, my king. Repairs are underway but we need to wait for the truth sayers to recover before we can reconstruct the gates faster. The men are happy to have… won the battle, but word has spread of the creatures demands,” Raina said.
“Enough about that,” Lunara said abruptly as she frowned at me. “What did that thing mean, Ordan? How are you its father?” Lunara asked as she frowned at me.
Lunara seemed eager to know the details, and I honestly did not know what to tell her. What did it even mean to be Reska’s father?
“Look,” I said as I raised both my hands. “I had no interaction with the Zegari other than what I have told you. Lestia made a big deal of it when the creature licked the blood from my finger, but that was it.”
The two women looked dubious about my claims, and I didn’t blame them. I never imagined things would develop this way.
“So you didn’t give it your seed or anything… like that?” Lunara asked tentatively and it was my turn to frown at her.
“No,” I said. “I did not.” Lunara’s mouth lifted into a small smirk for a moment before she crossed her arms and sighed.
“My king,” Raina said. “We must be very careful. Our job is to eliminate this Zegari threat, but that now seems impossible with our current forces. The enemy had perhaps thirty thousand troops… or creatures on the field. This does not include the reports of more of them scattered around the Fancern forest. If there is a chance to have these creatures leave Fulgrem alone, we must consider taking the risk.”
“You want Ordan to actually go to these creatures, what if it is a trap? What if it wants to eat him? I say we leave and go to Dunara,” Lunara said.
I quirked an eyebrow at this. How would that help?
“Why Dunara?” I asked as I drummed my fingers on the table again.
“We can get married,” Lunara said with a smile. “Then we can petition my mother to send more troops to save us. She wants our help against the high elves, but the same rules apply to her. She would need to declare war against these creatures and send my father to deal with it. Now that we sustained major losses, they likely would not deny us.”
It wasn’t a bad plan, but even with the dark elves behind us, I still didn’t like the odds. The thought of these creatures as they killed my men in Pernra filled me with rage, but I could not deny their strength. I would put these emotions away if it meant peace.
“I do not want to agitate these creatures any longer. They know I freed their queen. That must count for something among them. Even more so now that we know they are very intelligent,” I said. I sighed as I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair.
“Here’s what we do, we shall take a few days to rest and meet these creatures with our full force. The danger is too great if we split ourselves now, especially with our diminished numbers. We repair the fort but take everything with us, just in case there is an opportunity to return. I’ll see what this queen has to say,” I said.
The woman nodded at me, although Lunara’s face showed that she did not trust these creatures one bit. I knew she also worried for Eliandra, as the two have become the best of friends over the past weeks.
“Good, let’s get back to work,” I said.
Eliandra woke up the day after our meeting, and I couldn’t help myself as I granted her as many kisses as she wanted. I loved the human woman, more than I realized.
She healed my wounds and scolded me for using my power recklessly again, but I expected that from her. Me and Lunara told her of recent events, about the golden knights, the Zegari’s creatures and of course, Reska’s words. Eliandra was just as surprised as the rest of us about the creatures origins and their use of the term father on me, but seemed more interested in the golden knights.
The second one I had killed was in ruins inside the fort, and so was the one that the creatures melted. The first one, despite its crushed head, had the rest of its body intact.
Just as I thought, the beings were hollow inside. There was little difference between them and a standard suit of armor, other than that they were gold, giant and moved.
Eliandra wanted to see the inside of the chest on the intact golden knight, and I had a few slaves cut it open for her. To our surprise, there was a faint golden orb of prime inside. It spun in midair and winked out of existence as soon as Eliandra touched it.
Despite the truth sayers help with examining the golden knights once they had recovered, we did not find out what they were. All we knew was that the light beam created them, likely magic from the enemy mages.
They also did not understand why they had been knocked out after the golden knights appeared. Eliandra claimed that the world darkened for her, and that was it. The lack of information concerned me, but there was nothing else I could do for now.
It took us around five days to have everyone ready to go to the Fancern forest. Raina had detailed the losses to me, and it wasn’t good. Overall, we had lost over one thousand and five hundred men, mostly from the infantry. There were some scattered losses from the archers and crossbowmen, but the units were mostly intact.
The men that didn’t work on repairs to the fort helped carry the bodies of the fallen back to the capital. We burned the ones that were not fit to bring back to their families, but the process delayed our departure.
This was fine. My people deserved better than the hardships we endured on Frostburn.
Eliandra spend most of her time at the capital, as she elected to be the one to keep the portal between us open. Flavious and Eklis applauded me for my supposed victory against the Vulenchians, but only through letter. I had no wish to see them in the capital, as they would no doubt keep me there to go over other options for dealing with the creatures. The pair were smart to be sure, that was one of the many reasons they had the positions they did. But this was my mistake, and I would solve it my way.
One thing they disagreed about was the time frame for my departure. They wanted to send me more troops, but it was taking them far longer than expected. They wanted me to wait another week, but I did not want to waste any time. The Zegari had captured the riders, and I had to save me. I would leave no one behind.
The trek to the Fancern forest was eerily silent. No one talked. Perhaps it was because of our loses, or perhaps they thought this would be our last march together.
From Raina’s estimated, we had killed around six thousand of the Vulenchians before the golden knights and creatures intervened. There was no way to be sure, but it was something to be proud of. These humans had shown that they could not match us in strength and had to overwhelm us to stand a chance.
“Don’t look so forlorn, master,” Tessa whispered in my ear. She wore a thin leather jerkin to blend in with the rest of the slaves, as she did not want to stand out. It also helped with the cold, I suppose.
“I am just thinking of how proud I am of the men. But it will be some time before they realize what they have accomplished in this land,” I said as I rubbed my hands together.
Tessa, despite her unique ability, did not take part in violence. Although none of the slaves did, that was the one thing we did not allow them to do in Frostburn. That rule had carried itself over here too. It was to protect ourselves in cases of slave revolts, as there were more of them than us.
I wouldn’t mind if Tessa wielded a weapon, as I trusted her explicitly. She seemed to have no interest in our wars, however. She preferred to serve me instead and keep away from that aspect of our culture. She had stayed in my personal tent during the siege and then with the other slaves at the back of the fort when the golden knight had run amok.
“Hmm,” Tessa said as she placed her head on my shoulder as we walked. “You are a king, so it pleases me that you care deeply for those that fight for you. Time heals all wounds, and you must not expect for things to go your way so soon. Let the men grieve, let them be sad. They will be snap out of their stupor before you know it. Focus on our people and make us prosper.”
I gave Tessa a kiss right then, and she giggled in my mouth as she responded to my advance.
She knew exactly what to say to me, always. A drug, as they called. I could not get enough of her.
I could hear Eliandra and Lunara who whispered to each other as I pulled away from Tessa, but they quieted soon after. Lunara had perked up once Eliandra had recovered, and things were back to normal.
It took us another three days to reach the forest. Once we did, I had little idea on where to go after.
The forest was empty as far as I could see, with no real sign of any movement. The scouts had also reported no activity on the tree line, other than the creatures had dragged away corpses from an earlier battle with the Vulenchians. I had forbidden them from entering the forest proper, as I did not want to anger this queen, or have them killed.
“Where could they be?” Eliandra asked from beside me.
“Perhaps they will appear when we enter the treeline?” Raina suggested as she scanned the horizon.
“There is only one way to find out, tell the men to keep a close eye on their surroundings. I don’t want to get flanked if this turns out to be a trap,” I said as I headed forward.
I could hear the march of my army as we entered the Fancern forest, which consisted of tall trees and thick bushes. I could smell a strange odor coming from further in, which smelled of blood and something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I could see small blood trails that led further into the forest, but there weren’t many and seemed to dissipate the more we continued forward.
“I can’t hear the birds, or even crickets. This doesn’t feel right,” Lunara said as she gripped a dagger on her belt.
“I can feel a large mass of prime coming from ahead of us, whatever it is, it's incredibly powerful,” Eliandra said. Her eyes darted from side to side as she clutched part of her dress.
