Chapter 92. The final days of Winstead.
In the final weeks preceding the total collapse of Winstead as a nation, the skies began tearing themselves apart.
An unprecedented storm raged throughout the land, devastating verdant forests, and destroying every settlement in its path. People cowered helplessly within their homes as the thatch was ripped away and the supports came crashing down, wondering if the foretold end had finally arrived, praying for succor, for protection against nature's wrath, not yet knowing that the worst was still to come.
In addition to the death toll, much of the kingdom's precious farmlands were left ruined, promising an uneasy future for the realm, now fearful with the expectation of famine. The royal society of magi were summoned before the throne and berated like insolent children by their new monarch, Queen Seraphine, the eldest daughter of Septis, who blamed them for failing to predict this disaster, an act which was also unprecedented at the time, because the relationship between the monarchy and the proud mages that served it, could be tenuous in the best of times, and required constant mediation for its maintenance.
Forces loyal to the throne, others seizing an opportunity for advancement, and still others seeking only to settle old grudges in the name of religious mania, called upon the new queen to declare a purge and remove the magic wielding filth from their lofty positions. Magic was an abomination and even the so-called masters of the craft couldn't control it completely. Besides, Everly's use of magic proved its dangers! Clearly, it was time to return to older values. Time to be done with the forces of sorcery! The new queen was young, and arrogant, and had been raised with her mother's radical views.
Without the influence of the Godwells to council against this foolishness, it wasn't difficult to sway her.
The nobility, most of whom derived their authority from their magical bloodlines, knew what was coming and refused to play their role in the upcoming farce. Overnight, many of them openly rebelled, and sealed their lands away, creating many independent powers across the land that stood in defiance to the queen and the empress, both.
Winstead's failure to remain united would cost it dearly in the weeks to come.
Everly didn't mind the sudden appearances of so many challengers to her conquest. Bonus stages, she giddily declared.
___
"Who's singing?" asked Candice. Night had fallen over their village, and she was supposed to be asleep. Morning would arrive soon enough, and her father would need her well-rested to do her chores, but a strange voice now echoed throughout the sky, accompanied by instruments she had never heard. It was beautiful, unlike anything she'd ever heard, and it was also everywhere. What did it mean?
Take me out tonight. Where's there's music and there's people and they're young and alive~
"Candy?" her little sister Katy said. "What is that? Is this magic?" she smiled excitedly, eager to see what was happening.
"I don't know," Candice said. "It's so strange. Hey! Where are you going?"
"I want to see who's singing!" her little sister merrily replied.
"Stay in your room," ordered their father, marching out of his bedroom. He was a burly man, with a large white stripe through his large beard. Normally a stern, but loving figure in their lives, the trouble brought about by the great storms had aged him visibly, making him more prone to snap out words in anger.
He was also rattled by the news that the fighting was gradually moving nearer to the area in which they lived. Which was supposed to be impossible. Hadn't the traveling messengers promised that the undead would soon be defeated?
The drinking he'd begun indulging in hadn't improved things either. Hard times were coming.
"Father, I to see! I want to see!" Katy whined. "Is it the fairies? I want to see a fairy!"
"I said no. By the gods, why is it so loud?" her father wondered. "It's unnatural."
"But daddy!" Katy whined.
"We need to do as father says," Candice said, always the responsible daughter. Ever so dutiful.
The singing became louder and louder, the pacing more frenzied, the closer it came. Strange lights danced through their windows. Were there people yelling? What was happening?
"I want to see!" Katy yelled stubbornly.
She ran to the door and pulled it open.
"Girl, I said no!" shouted her father, a sudden fear twisting his features as he lumbered after his daughter. "Katy, stop—"
Beyond the doorway, Katy saw lights. Many lights. They were fires. Houses were burning, and people were screaming and pleading for their lives. Just outside the door, a rotting figure covered in broken armor, with a grinning mouth that seemed wider than her head, noticed her and happily sauntered over to where she stood. It opened its mouth exposing endless broken teeth and reached for the girl. She smiled back at it, but hers was frozen in place. Two teardrops rolled down both of her cheeks, but her smile remained.
"Daddy?" she said.
He was in front of her in an instant. Then he was screaming in pain and pleading for his girls to flee.
Candice grabbed Katy and ran to the back door to escape. Over her shoulder, Katy kept staring at her father and what the creature she'd let into the house was doing to him.
To die by your side, is such a heavenly way to die~
__
Days later.
They called him Grail, the Red Knight.
He stood nearly two meters tall in crimson armor, a massive figure wielding an axe nearly as large as he was. Attending him were dozens of knights in black armor, as well as hundreds of gibbering things, mishappen horrors summoned directly from the depths, that did nothing but kill and eat.
And heaven knows I'm miserable now.
Where the Red Knight appeared, cities burned. Crops were burned. Everything burned. The very soil he trod on became desecrated. To those who knew of knew of Everly but never saw her, Grail was the face of the end. Wherever he appeared, that haunting music preceded him. People began to dread singing itself.
So much as whistling a tune at the wrong moment had gotten people hanged.
In my life, why do I give valuable time? To people who don't care if I live or die?
The town of Vinedale collectively wept when the eerie chorus swept over them.
They knew what was coming.
__
The guardsman looked at the hellish landscape that was his battlefield.
It was covered in flames and strewn with shattered stone, where war cries were bellowed, and sacred oaths were sworn in the light's name. The screams of the dying intermixed with broken pleas for mercy from those who'd fallen into the wet, eager hands of the enemy.
I am the son. And the heir. ~
All throughout the carnage chimed the beautiful, maddening laughter of the denizens of the abyss, who sought flesh to play with and souls to damn. The black knights marched among the undead, barking orders and setting up ranks. The enemy was assembling for another charge, relentless in their drive to annihilate.
You shut your mouth! How can you say: I go about things the wrong way?
The guardsman wanted a bitter drink. He wanted a smoke. He wanted a woman. He wanted to be anywhere but here. He also never wanted to leave. This was the worst place he'd ever been. This was the best place he'd ever be.
I am human and I need to be loved~
This was his time to be a warrior fighting in the last days of the kingdom. Wasn't life a strange thing?
"WE STILL STAND!" cried the Commander. "Give them NO ground! Our ancestors see us! Our gods will protect us! THE CAPITAL STANDS!"
The commander died a moment later in a splash of blood and bone. One of those devils had waved a hand at him and he'd burst apart. Magic was such nasty work.
It was a good attempt at a speech, though. Inspiring. Too bad the fucking songs never ended.
"I wonder sometimes, if we're living extreme lives?" he wondered to himself aloud. Then he raised his sword and charged at the first undead bastard he saw.
No one responded to his question.
No one ever did.
Just like everyone else does!
__
The capital was falling. The queen couldn't understand.
Did things like this really happen? She knew magic was real. She knew demons were real. She knew evil was real. But such things existed out there in the dark places of the world. Not here. Not in her palace. Wasn't she a good person? Why would the gods allow a good person to suffer?
Fingers scratched outside her windows.
She was on the top floor of a very large tower.
See the luck I've had, could make a good man turn bad~
"Help me, please…" she squealed to anyone who was listening.
And there were people listening.
Good times, for a change~
If your definition of people was flexible enough.
__
The kingdom was lost.
Some would say, "A kingdom isn't the land you hail from, it's the people who created it."
That was stupid.
Of course, a kingdom was the land you hailed from. You had to come from something in order to be something! Only idiots thought otherwise.
General Carcer had been fighting what he cheerfully termed a "fighting retreat" for the last two weeks. They were heading to an eastern mountain pass, hoping to find refuge in neighboring lands. It would have been faster though, if all the damn refugees weren't slowing them down.
Not only had the ungrateful wretches demanded Carcer's protection, daily they begged for provisions. They pointed to their hungry children, their threadbare clothing, and their bare feet, and begged for help that he couldn't give. His men may have very well now comprised the last standing army in the kingdom. Each soldier had become precious and irreplaceable. They were the ones who needed to survive.
But the refugees weren't without value. They provided an excellent buffer between his men, and Everly's monsters. As long as the fiends had easy access to food and fun, Carcer and his people had a safer time of it. Morale began to soar among the men, the closer they came to the mountain pass and salvation. They hadn't encountered the enemy for days. Had they finally escaped their reach? Oh, please let it be so! Carcer prayed.
And then one bleak morning, they reached the pass and saw that they had been anticipated. A wall of black knights and walking nightmares of the void stood before them, blocking their path. Above them, towered the baleful figure of the Red Knight.
I'm not happy and I'm not sad~
Even worse: The music.
I regret everything, General Carcer thought as they pulled him from his horse and ate him.
__
Benny knew he shouldn't have gone out. He'd stayed hidden in his cellar for days, hoping to wait out the invaders. But his stockpiled supplies were low. Times were hard since the great storms, and he'd shared with his neighbors. What a mistake that had been! Now, he was the one in need, but was there anyone to repay his kindness? Of course, there weren't, they'd all been killed!
He hoped he'd be able to salvage supplies and return home, but then some bloody soldiers had come riding into the remains of town! Hot on their heels were a trio of those horrible Black Knights, relentless in their pursuit. Benny had barely managed to take cover in time before the sounds of battle began. It was over almost as soon as it started.
Now, all he could do was hide, and hope.
"Please…please, no more," rasped the voice of a dying man.
"GG, bro," said a voice in an unfamiliar accent. One of the invaders, no doubt.
Benny heard a horrible spattering sound and huddled in fear.
"Jesus, Mikus, try not to enjoy this shit so much," said a second voice.
"Why? It's the best part of the job! I didn't sign up for the fighting, it's the sadism afterwards I get off on."
"Does your mom know she raised a psychopath?"
"Does your mom know she raised a candy ass?"
"Fuck you, bro."
"Fuck you, bro!"
"Hey! That's enough," interrupted the third Knight. "Can we pretend we're professionals, please? Mikus, apologize."
"What the fuck for, Wes? He started it!"
"Yeah, but you're kind of offensive in general, man."
"Jesus, bro! Fine, fuck it, sorry you're a bitch, Curtis."
"Say that to my face, you roid-raging stump-cock."
"I AM NOT ON STEROIDS!"
"You got pimples on your back, bruh!"
"I'm taking health supplements!"
"It's minotaur testosterone, you simple-minded fuck!"
"YOU WANT TO GO ON THE RIDE? YOU WANT TO GO ON THE RIDE? I'LL TAKE YOU ON THE RIIIIIIIIDE, MOTHERFUCKER!" screamed Mikus.
"If you both keep carrying on like this, I'll kill you both. I'm serious, I can't take this shit anymore," Wes said coldly. "Test my resolve. You will fail."
"Wes, hey, man. Sorry. You know us, we're just messing around," said a contrite (and fearful) Mikus.
"Yeah, man. We're just—sorry. Sorry," said Curtis. "This assignment is getting to me. It's so balls."
"Yeah, it's definitely balls," agreed Mikus. "How long is Everly going to keep us out here? These people can't fight and the beer sucks. I'm going nuts, man."
"Exactly," said Curtis. "Fucking time differentials are messing me up, too. I came back to the memory palace after a two-week run, and only fifteen minutes had passed there since I left. We've been out here ages, mopping up stragglers, dude! I'm rocking a mustache under this helmet!"
"It's a good mustache, bro," Mikus said.
"Thanks," beamed Curtis.
"Stop complaining," said Wes. "We're fortunate to even have this job. Not a lot of people are willing to hire reincarnated mercenaries. Mikus, you especially lucked out when we convinced the boss to heal you after what the countess did to your punk ass."
"What did I even do to piss her off?" Mikus said bitterly. "Psycho vamp left me broken in half."
"You say that like our current employer doesn't have a temper too," Curtis smirked.
"What is the boss doing, anyway? And what's with all the fucking Morrisey?" Mikus asked.
"She's been in a mood. She wants to spread it around," Wes said said.
"That's so fucking emo," Mikus sneered.
"Shut uuuuup, stupid," said Wes. "You never know who's listening in."
"You know what I heard?" said Curtis. "That chick the boss was keeping locked up was what set her off."
"That little brunette with the tan? I saw her once. Woo, she was hot!" Mikus said gleefully.
"Yeah, she was," Curtis concurred.
"Yo, was she an escort or something? Her body was fire."
"Always with the objectification, eh Mikey?" asked Wes.
"Mikey like what Mikey like."
"Anyway," continued Curtis. "They were always fighting, like screaming at each other."
"What? Lesbians? Arguing? Nooooo," snorted Mikey.
"I think she likes men, too. You seen her with that new guy? Nick?" Wes said.
"I thought his name was Kent?" asked Curtis.
"Who cares? I'm pretty sure she's banging him, though. You seen how close they are?"
"Bullshit! If she's boffing anyone, it's Grail! I'm telling you; she has a daddy complex."
"I thought those two were just friends," said Wes.
"Again, bullshit! Who's your source?"
"Matty."
"Matty? You trust that gossipy little shit? Fucking rats," said Mikus with revulsion.
"Wow, now Mikey's got something to say about the rats," groaned Wes.
"Fuck, Mikey, you hate everybody don't you?" asked Curtis.
"No, I don't," Mikus said in a wounded voice. "I love you guys."
"…Goddamn it, Mikey. We love you too. Bring it in."
Benny peered from just around the corner and saw the three Black Knights huddled in a group hug.
"Drinks on me when we get back to camp," said Wes.
"Hell yeah! Sounds good to—hey, how long has that guy been hiding over there?" asked Curtis.
"Oh, I wasn't going to say anything. I wanted to let him have a little false hope, and then put him down when he thought he was safe. Trying to be a little humane," said Wes.
"Can I have him?" asked Mikus.
"Eh, can't see why not. Go have fun," Wes said fondly.
"Fucking sweet!" said Mikus. "Hey, buddy! Hey little guy! Come here for a sec, I wanna talk to you!"
To Benny's horror, one of the Knights began strolling his way, hefting a huge sword over one pauldron covered shoulder.
Benny bolted like a frightened hare, running faster than he ever had in his life. Get away, get away, get away, must get away—
A whistling sound tore through the air right behind him, and suddenly Benny fell flat on his face. When he tried to regain his legs, he soon found that was impossible; they'd both been severed. A tree ahead of him now had the Knight's sword embedded in its trunk.
"Mikey! OH MY GOD! One throw, two legs!" hooted Curtis.
"If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes," laughed Wes.
"FUCK yeah! Ultimate Frisbee, motherfuckeeeeeer!" crowed Mikey, as he bumped gauntleted fists with his friends.
Benny lay back and looked at the beautiful blue sky above him. He was getting colder now. Blood loss, if he wasn't mistake. It wouldn't be long now. Above him loomed the knights.
"Aww, poor little guy. Maybe you should have aimed for his head?" said Wes.
"Nah, that two-for-one hit was worth it," disagreed Curtis. "Still, he reminds me of a dog I saw hit by a car once. A labby."
"Ohhh, I love dogs," said Wes sadly.
"Yeah, he's got the same confused expression on his face. Like he's thinking, huh? Why is this happening? Wasn't I a good boy? Yeah, just like that," Curt said.
"Stop! I'm serious, you're gonna make me cry. I hate it when animals suffer," lamented Wes.
"What about people?" asked Curt.
"Fuck people," Wes said contemptuously.
"Pretty sad, though," Mikey said, after retrieving his sword. "Dying on your back like that. Fucking weak. I ain't ever going out like that."
"Now you're just tempting fate, dude," warned Curtis.
"Whatever. I'm like—"
Benny closed his eyes, as the cold continued to fill him. The voices of the invaders faded away, and soon he was carried from this world on a gentle and restful wave of darkness.
Everywhere across the land, the same story was repeated.
Centuries of history and culture, erased in a handful of weeks, once the great tormentor's attention was occupied with something new to amuse her.
A new name would soon be given to the conquered land for the (traumatized survivors ) newly liberated citizens to celebrate. A name befitting the future bastion of freedom and hope the land would surely become, where everyone would have the inalienable right to obey Everly or die. It would be a name truly befitting of the grandeur to come.
Once Everly got around to thinking of one, anyway.
Goodbye Winstead with your knights.
Goodbye any human rights.
Thanks for putting up a fight.
Goodbye Winstead and good night.
Organizations.
The Black Knight Order: Kathoras. Everly has developed an interest in collecting people who like her, share memories of a previous life on Earth. She is also in need of an elite officer class to control her endless army of reavers, to ease her burden. With that in mind, she had General Grail begin seeking out knights, adventurers, and mercenaries to personally train and have imbued with a portion of her power.
The Kathoras are the end result. A ruthless order of fanatics and fascists who worship the dirt Everly walks on, they work relentlessly to enforce her will. Capable of controlling the undead and wielding superhuman strength comparable to a lesser Sword King, the sight of them flanking Grail in battle has broken the spirit of many a proud knight in the field.