"I can't do anything but watch," Rubaan replied.
Eon stepped forward, gazing at the pile of corpses before him. A cocktail of blood, excrement and other bodily fluids pooled beneath them, while carrion birds circled overhead. Eon stood silently, observing the dead for a moment, and then took a breath.
"Aal syruum…" he spoke, clenching his fists. "Aal syruum it deraanio." He watched in silence, and then repeated his words.
"Aal syruum!" he shouted, "Aal syruum it deraanio! Aal syruum it deraanio! Deraanio nit iskalii!"
Eon and Dalan both felt a sudden gust of ice-cold wind and heard something that sounded like rock cracking. Dalan looked around nervously. But Eon kept his gaze on the pile of bodies. Something was happening, and Eon was feeling a strange feeling of surprise and excitement.
The pile of bodies began to quiver, and the gust of wind grew stronger. Dalan clutched his cloak, holding it in place. He dug his feet into the ground as the wind blew around them. But Eon stood with his arms outstretched.
"Aal syruum!" he shouted again, as the pile of bodies tumbled over. Each individual body began to seize, and Eon watched as one of the arms raised.
"Yes!" he shouted, "become alive!" The skin split from the arm and the bone emerged from the flesh, moving on its own accord. Eon focused on the one body and watched as all the flesh ripped away while the bloody skeleton within stood.
The skeleton took a step, and others followed behind it. Nearly two dozen bloody skeletons stood or dragged themselves toward Eon. Dalan gasped and took a fearful step back.
"Hold your ground, good judge!" Eon commanded as the wind died down. "You have nothing to fear as long as you follow me."
"By the Brothers light and all that is holy," Rubaan declared from within Eon. "This cannot be!"
"It is so, dear Rubaan!" Eon shouted with glee, "My power is limitless. Our power is limitless. We now command not only the living and created, but now the dead! Do you understand what this means!"
"I…" Rubaan replied. "I cannot fathom any of this…"
"Rubaan!" Eon declared. "We are gods in the flesh! We can make this world right. We can make it our own in the image we wish it to be in… no… we will! This world will be ours!"
Rubaan was silent as Eon stepped up to one of the skeletons.
"They are… they are beautiful Rubaan," Eon said. "They are ours to command, and they are beautiful. Fight me no longer dear host, for now; you must see that it is in vain. Put your trust, your faith in me and you will never want again… your family will never fear again."
"I… I cannot…" Rubaan replied. "I… I have to. I have to trust you… for my family."
"Then you are my brother," Eon bellowed. He paused as he reached out and caressed one of the bloody bones that stood before him.
"And speaking of brothers… We have waited long enough. I think it is time we paid yours a visit. Come. Let us depart for the Belhaasi Weald. Let us together find the Demon and bring him to his army. He is to be one of us… Come Rubaan. Let us find Crinnan, that he may become brother to us both!"
Chapter Nineteen
Crinnan X
22nd of Ramlia – 346AG
23:00 – Pado Village – Belhaasi Weald
After the gunfire stopped, the people of Pado started to come out of their homes to inspect the damage that had been done. Sage, Guntz, and Crinnan stood at the center of all the dead bodies, so the villagers ran to them for answers. Crinnan saw Freyja, Garb, and Nora the Faire among them.
"Wow." Freyja exclaimed dully as he approached Crinnan, "There's like… so many bodies out here…"
"Right," Crinnan rolled his eyes as he too surveyed the area. "Where have you been?"
"We had food at a dinner place," Freyja replied, "Mister Sage gave us some money…"
"They take money here?" Crinnan asked, looking over at Sage. "Nevermind, how soon will we be ready?"
"Very. We need to talk to the minister; first, we need him to flood you." Crinnan pointed behind him. Sage turned around to face the minister.
"Ah very good!" he declared. "Can we get Crinnan flooded now?"
"I fear not," the minister pointed at something behind him. Sage turned around again to find that the minister's tent and the buildings surrounding it had caught fire in all the chaos.
"That is a bit problematic," Sage noted with a hum. "What do you propose we do?"
"I propose that you take great care." The minister replied. "Crinnan has only one thread, and if it is cut, that will be his end."
"Indeed," Sage wiped a bit of blood off of his bare chest. "Are our guides ready to leave?"
"Yes," the minister replied. Sage nodded and walked toward Nora, the Faire from before.
"We need to be as quick as possible," he said to her. "Your bald friend does not seem to enjoy expressing himself through words. So I need you to tell me exactly how long you anticipate this taking."
Nora nodded a bobble-headed nod and smiled. "Twenty kilometers would take Guntz and me about an hour and a half," she said, in a high pitched nasally voice. "For a normal person, it would take about five hours. With that kid and freak, I would expect about five or six hours." Crinnan groaned and ran his fingers through his hair.
"Can we not just leave them?" he snapped. "They are just slowing us down. I do not want to deal with them. It is not like the people here are going to feed them to Toraans or anything."
Sage began to speak, but Garb lurched forward angrily.
"You say you fight to rid the world of the oppression of the Empire? You say that your army fights for freedom?" The Toraan asked with an upset tone, "I ask you why do you fight if not to save the children. Is their tomorrow not as valuable as yours? Should they not have an opportunity to grow up and become people like you and me?"
He crossed his long arms and started to breathe heavily. "If you do not fight for the children's freedom, then I ask are you any better than the Govians? Can you so easily shrug off the lives of the children?" He looked behind him at Freyja and sighed, "Who do you fight for, Crinnan? Are you so selfish to fight only for yourself, for your army? There is a world of hurting people out here, and you are worried about how you feel. You are worried about getting to your friends so that you can be happy again. Grow up and take some responsibility. Who do you really fight for Crinnan?"
Sage's eyes grew wide at the Toraan's sudden outburst. He whistled and turned around, pretending he did not notice anything that was just said.
Crinnan was left to fend for himself. All he could do was blink. Garb's words cut him like a knife. All of a sudden he felt like a terrible person. He looked away out of shame and lowered his head.
"You’re right," he clenched his fists. "I’m sorry…"
Crinnan's words were cut off by a villager's scream. He looked up quick enough to lock eyes with a Govian soldier who was lying on the ground and aiming a rifle directly at him. Crinnan reached for his pistol, but not before the Govian could get a few shots off.
Crinnan felt the hot bullets tear through both his chest and his stomach. Everything slowed down as they embedded themselves within Crinnan's body. He looked around, dazed and lost balance.
Sage threw his arm out at the soldier, and his head quickly snapped backward, engulfed in flame. He ran over to Crinnan and fell to the ground beside him. As he surveyed Crinnan's wounds, his expression became grim.
"I cannot do anything," he grunted frantically, cradling Crinnan's head in his arms. "Without your NaNe, I should say that my healing abilities will not work on you."
It was becoming hard for him to breathe. Crinnan reached up to feel his wounds and streams of blood trickled down his hands. He looked up at Sage and tried to talk, but only more blood came out.
Tears welled up Crinnan's eyes. He thought about what Garb had said and realized that he was soon going to die in the arms of a stranger. He realized that he would never see his squad or his family again, and he felt that his life had been completely and utterly worthless.
C
rinnan closed his eyes in grief, not wishing his last thoughts to be those of everything he had lost or failed at. In the darkness of his mind, in the last resting place of Eshan the Govian, Crinnan once again saw the flames that he had dreamt of. He saw the swirling blue vortex above him and the face of the unknown but beautiful woman whom he had embraced. Crinnan focused on that face, and as he felt his life leaving him, he found himself speaking.
"Milinka…" He said weakly, "I… I will find you."
Epilogue
Cade IV
23rd of Ramlia – 346AG
0:00 – Outside Pado Village – Belhaasi Weald
Cade sat perched on a limb outside the village of Pado and peered through the scope of his rifle. The skin beneath his leather half-mask itched, but he did not have the time to scratch it; he was too focused on the task at hand.
"Where did they all come from?" He asked himself as he fired a bullet into one of the Govian soldier's skulls. "There are so many." He took a deep breath, and as he exhaled, he fired another shot.
As they realized they were under fire, the Govian soldiers scrambled for cover. Cade did his best to dispatch as many as he could before they were all out of view; he was at least able to keep Crinnan covered.
A bullet whizzed past causing him to flinch slightly. He was fortunate that it was dark and that he had enough cover to remain hidden so that his enemies did not have a real target. Quickly, he scanned the area and located his attacker. "Would work much better if you aimed…" he mumbled as he pulled the trigger.
He continued to stare through his scope and hoped the others would make their move. He watched as a soldier that was facing his direction take about five bullets from behind. He smiled as Crinnan, and the bald Elf leaped out from cover and began to clean up the battlefield. After he took a few more shots, he slung his rifle around his back and jumped down to the ground.
The wounds that he had incurred after having been blasted out the window by Sage had closed up by then thanks to the efforts of his NaNe and the sap from the Lithanni Sentinel that he had used. Only a slight bit of discomfort came over him as he landed on the foliage. He rifled through his pack for a painkiller but instead found a pack of cigarettes.
"Hello ladies." he said as he set his bag aside, "I think one of you should do just fine." He flipped the box open and pulled one out. After he had placed it between his lips, he lightly tapped the end of the cigarette, and it started to smoke. He took a drag and smiled.
As he took a moment to enjoy his cigarette, he noticed his communicator was vibrating against his hip. Curiously, he pulled it out of its pouch and flipped it open. Nida was calling.
"Nida." Cade quietly said into the device, taking another drag of his cigarette. "What is the problem?"
"Are you okay?" She replied, "I have been trying to get ahold of you for forty-five minutes, but service has been unreliable due to the coming storm. I saw your NaNe activity spike and then level out again. Were you hurt?"
"I am fine now," Cade replied. "Tell Smirnov not to worry."
"You need to be careful." Nida replied, "I… We cannot afford to lose you over something so small."
"Nobody is going to lose anything," Cade said. "So do not worry… and this is important Nida. I can feel it." Nida was silent for a moment but eventually spoke again.
"Okay, Mister President," she said. "I am sorry for having bothered you."
"Do not be like that Nida." Cade replied, "It is all going to be okay… listen, I love you…" The line went dead, and he groaned and flipped his communicator shut and put it back in its place.
"Nida…" He muttered, silently thinking about his relationship with her. He wished his position in the corporation did not have to get in the way of his feelings. He wanted so badly to be able to take hold of her and to run away–to start their family and to be able to bring her to meet his family. He wondered if she felt the same way. He hoped so.
The sound of gunfire threw him out of his fantasies and back into the Belhaasi Weald. He raised his rifle to see what was going on and through his scope, he saw a Govian soldier being pelted with the same NaNe abilities that had been used against himself earlier that night.
"Sajinious… " He mumbled, the cigarette hanging from his mouth.
He moved his rifle to the left a little and saw somebody lying on the ground. He saw that Sage was kneeling next to him. Cade could not find Crinnan anywhere until he realized exactly what he was looking at.
It was Crinnan lying on the ground; he had been shot. Cade quickly slung his rifle over his shoulder and picked up his pack. "Do not die on me kid." He whispered as he grabbed the flood syringe from his satchel. "I'm fucking coming you stupid little son of a bitch."
INCEPTION
Book Two of THE BLACK KNIGHT Series
Written by Christian J. Gilliland
Acknowledgments
For my girls: Brielle, Penelope, and Everly.
Everything I do, I do for you.
For Atley and Shelley. Thank you for always supporting me.
For Shawn and Tyler.
Prologue
21st of Ramlia – 346AG
09:00 – Black Knight Base 21
The sky was gray and overcast over the Calduur Mountains of northern Canrom. The wind blew lightly over the land and rustled the lush trees and vegetation that filled the area. Small flowers had bloomed in the grass and trees for the month of Ramlia, the summer month, had come and was already three weeks in. While the world was bustling with life around them, the inhabitants of Black Knight Base 21 had taken the day to mourn the loss of two of their own. Jeph Scaven and Crinnan Jamiso.
“He was a good soldier," captain Bran, the hulking white-haired and single-eyed Gaian announced to the crowd of mourners that stood before him. His voice rang out over the silence like thunder over the sea. “Crinnan was young… quiet… he was strong. The boy had his life ahead of him. It is truly a shame that we lost him the way we did,"
Behind Bran was a stone altar with a flame burning on top of it. Crinnan’s sword and chest piece rested at the foot of the altar; his sword had been found in the Weald, his armor had been left behind in the Izla'Axi caverns. The mourners looked on with faces that were mostly devoid of emotion. They had all grown accustomed to death, numb to it… only those that were close to Crinnan showed visible signs of pain.
“I wish there was more we could have done," Bran reflected as he lowered his head. “I wish he could’ve continued the fight with us… I suppose the reality now is that he has given us another reason to fight… the reason being that his fight was never in vain. That his memory will live on,"
A middle-aged male Humaan and dark-haired she-Elf stood behind the towering Gaian Captain. The man, Commander Crinnan Jamiso Sr., had his arm wrapped around his wife’s shoulders. She stood silently with her arms crossed and head lowered; a furious look was painted onto her face.
“Lord Crinnan, would you like to say a few words?" Bran asked, turning to the two. Commander Crinnan looked at his wife and squeezed her shoulder. He let go and stepped forward.
Bran looked at Commander Crinnan who stood a foot and a half below his eye level and placed his massive hand on Crinnan’s back. “I’m sorry old friend," Crinnan nodded at him, and Bran stepped back and stood next to Crinnan’s wife.
Commander Crinnan stood for a moment and stared at the ground before him in silent deliberation. He looked at the mourners before him, and they waited patiently as he gathered his thoughts. Finally, he sighed and spoke.
“What does a man say…" commander Crinnan asked, his voice aged but smooth. “What does a man say at his son’s funeral?" he bit his lip and nodded his head again.
“As many of you know, Crinnan is not the first child I have lost. My first daughter and eldest son both went missing long ago. Ladia and I pray that they still breathe. While we may hold on to even the slightest shred of hope for them, I fear that my son Crinnan’s fate is decided," he wiped a tear away from his eye and cleared his thr
oat. “Crinnan is… was… very much like his mother," he said with a chuckle. “Kind of an asshole."
The mourners laughed, for many of them knew of the younger Crinnan’s reputation. He did not like to be looked at, touched, or spoken to, and he always had a sharp word or balled fist for most who tried. He always preferred to be left alone.
Commander Crinnan looked back at his wife and saw that however faint, a half smile had momentarily formed on her face. He knew she would probably rip his ear off later for his comment, but making her smile was worth the lashing he would undoubtedly receive...
“I remember when he was young," commander Crinnan continued, “He was a little fireball. He would always get into fights with his elder siblings. Nobody was too big for him…" Crinnan laughed as a memory popped in his mind. “Why, I remember one time I took his toy sword away. He punched me square in the dick," the mourners laughed again and so did Crinnan.
“God, I loved that kid," Crinnan's face briefly wrinkled up with sadness. “I will always love that kid… you see, behind that hard exterior, behind those walls that he built for himself was the most beautiful heart. He felt so much harder and deeper than any of my other children… he experienced the world differently than the rest of us. He protected animals from his brother Kiersen, protected his twin brother from… his brother Kiersen… He would always snuggle up in my or Ladia’s arms at the end of the day. When we would kiss the top of that thick-haired head, he would try to burrow deeper. My son loved being loved. He hated showing love though… but that is something I can forgive," Crinnan sighed deeply, and looked out at everyone.
"While I have done my best, I have not always been there for my children," the commander admitted with sorrow in his voice. "I wish... things could have been different. Had I been able to be there to protect them, Sayraa, Kiersen... Had I been there with Crinnan I would have given every breath I had to protect him," he sighed, and tears fell down his face.
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