"Mono/Dialogue"
'Inner thoughts'
Narration
[Message/communication apparatus]
Date: Winter 1919 NWC or 646 AU.
Location: Isle of Fallfiore, Zorphal (?) Loyalists’ stronghold.
POV: Narrator
Winter should have been the time for them to reassess and rest. A time where no amount of human determination would be enough for prolonged conflict beneath chilly winds. That is such na?ve thinking, due to one simple fact: mortal antics.
There’s a time when the weather becomes so cold that it presents an opportunity. For even when logic dictates otherwise, opportunities rarely strike twice. Such is how the Isle of Fallfiore, once a frontline and bulwark against monsters from the Forgotten Ocean, was forced to fight for its people’s very existence.
Arrows of fme, infused with magic that would have been otherwise proven futile, rain upon the defenders on the battlement. The cold touch of snowfkes upon their skin does little to mitigate, let alone wash, the smell of sweat and blood from their body. Cacophonous noises intermingled with shields getting mangled, spears snapped and ruptured, bdes bent and broken, and bloodied fkes of flesh fking off as steel and others smash them off bodies.
“Hold! Hold your ground! This wall is the only thing separating life from death! Hold!” Raegova roared as the walls of Palfr were being pummeled piece by piece from across the frozen strait. Yes, winter had frozen the strait over, and with it the true scale of the tsunami that engulfed the crossing point.
Such weight of men and arms would have made the ice buckle, but Arganean mages on the other side ensured the ice bridge never broke. They strain themselves, coughing and shivering as mana is used at a rate that will leave them incapacitated. Mages aren’t used to break down the walls; they are used for support, and far from glorious work.
Doubtful if they want glory, for one could be heard muttering thanks and prayers for not being sent on foot to the meat grinder. It’s not that they didn’t try to batter the walls directly with magic, but because the wall is highly resistant to it. Era changed, and its impregnability to magic had been proven to be wanting.
Kingdom’s st organized loyalist pinned their hopes on the wall. The very wall that is being broken piece by piece, with precision or brute force. Civilians… no, there are no civilians. News and whispers on what happened to the defeated had forced their hand, but it was not enough to completely harden their heart against the approaching death.
‘There’s no end of them… how much longer? Why do I persist?’ Raegova had been fighting for days on end, watching with weary and helpless rage as he was forced to yet again cut down more of his former countrymen. How many more? How much longer? Am I a fool after all? Gods, had you abandoned us? Such questions swirl inside his mind, and yet his limbs divide themselves with mechanical efficiency.
Lips that never stop shouting commands, redirecting men and materiel with his booming voice that could drown the snow. His voice also acts as a rallying point, reminding everyone staking their lives on this very stone wall that he is with them, close and dancing with death as they did.
His hands twirled and gripped his increasingly dull great sword without elegance; only primal fury and adrenaline coiled in his gut. A swing from someone like him is a dirge of death. Such as when a man was snapped into two, steel and wood buckling from this hunk of metal he called a sword. Another poor soul had his entire spine wrenched out from neck down, hurtling onto the sea of men below.
His legs never stop their steps, never relenting as any foothold is simply bulldozed over by his muscur frame. He suffered wounds, big and small, but the sight of him barreling down and knocking leaders does wonders. Still, he began to slow down as his body had not been sufficiently rested.
“Archers! Nock! Draw! Loose!” Nasza’s voice cut through the din of combat, clear and ced with both resigned fury and exhaustion of a woman who had seen far too much in a lifetime. Her men, humans or otherwise, lose their arrows nonstop against the assault that never seems to abate. Most of them are mere conscripts, forced to fight a war they had grown to resent.
These men stormed his defenses like men possessed. Possessed, yes. For nothing can break a man or woman better than the promise of unadulterated horror that shall befall their family should they falter. Across the sea of screaming men, stood the Imperial Army, toasting and betting; celebrating and perhaps fucking while he bleed and suffer.
“Die!” Cried a man as he impaled a satyr, horror and hatred coalescing into an ugly bile. His satyr foe snarled back and threw a broken shard of shield, hitting the man right in the face as he plummeted from the wall. The satyr gasp weakens… and he too colpses as more bodies push forward, trampling him.
“Just die damn you!” A teenager barely rge enough to hold a sword shouts with tears in his eyes. His voice was robbed by a mace caving his throat in. He slumped onto the floor, gurgling out for help that was drowned as he too ended up trampled to death as men cshed with steel in hand.
It is a very fatal, unfortunate reality to die not of a bde but be trampled underneath like weeds. There has always been a misconception that it was weapons, magic, and such that caused the deaths. No, reality is uglier. Simple desperation and nature that no one truly wants to die. The brother and sister on your side are sshing and hacking or stabbing and crushing blindly. It is that instinct to live that made everything several levels more tragic.
“Mother! H-Help!” Near the staircase is a squire, his hands desperately trying to keep his intestines from spilling out. He can only taste iron and numbness, crying out to his mother, who will soon lose a son. No one cared, friend or foe, as he leaned weakly with croaky words. Pain had long deserted him, only a husk of a man that might have been destined for greatness.
“Ahh… p-please… help…” This one was part of that sea of men; he walked through the cascade of chaos as men hacked away at his brother and sisters. Gaze lost in painful delirium, both of his hands were gone as he paced around the walls, and judging by his bloodied crags of limbs, an ice mage had shattered him.
The confusion of heraldry, ck of identification, and his dying state spared him from death to face a crueler fate as others were granted release he craved. Many such people are on both sides, most ended up trampled for their cries of help, drowned out by angry, desperate shouting matches.
“… *sobs*…” As others cry out in anger or suffer through their ill fates, this one is just a small boy. He clutched an arrow quiver as he leaned ft against the small space between the parapets. This small boy had once run across the meadow watching over goats and sheep, and in the present, was forced to observe as bodies piled up.
A boy of such small stature can do nothing. Time slows down, and he watches with great detail as a man loses his head with a burst of crimson as the hammer crushes him. He watched as a woman fell down the walls, her eyes full of tears as she locked eyes with him. Around him, madness and the failure of mankind had been etched vividly, a vision of blood and death that would haunt him forevermore.
“Praise be the enlightened one… for I am one with fate, and fate shall cim.” Others resort to withdrawing and quietly spend their st moment on a rite. Prayer beads, symbols, and effigies are clutched tightly. These people barely whimper as occasional arrowheads or crossbow bolts puncture them. They are at peace, eager to accept sweet salvation.
A series of thumps made the defenders duck under cover and brace themselves.
He pivoted just in time as a cannonball smashed the wall he was standing upon. Small it might be, but even such a small projectile was still made of pure steel and lead, causing cracks and chipping away at the walls.
It wasn’t any better above the sky; his griffins and wyverns are losing horribly from sheer numbers. Sooner or ter, they will be forced to retreat and abandon the st thread of defenses before they are open for full invasion.
“Mother… give me strength.” He whispered as his hand gripped his sword. Time, it seems… is truly a merciless mistress.
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“We are not breaking through.” A man who had seen better days announced hoarsely. The wind of winter battered him as he stood atop a broken prow, a ship that had been wreckage after that disastrous crossing. His retinue shifted uneasily, some with helplessness, and others with boiling scorn towards the Halciadonish lounging in their camp with wine in hand and ughter in turn.
“This is suicide, Lord Merylis, that wretch-blooded monster is too stubborn for his good.” The man addressed such turns to look behind him. He found a weary, bitter, and restless man with golden locks of hair between his curtains of bck. Merylis sighed, an innumerable number one at this point.
“We have little choice on the matter, Baron Illyres. Our vassal depends on us to finish this war swiftly. Her Majesty the Queen had brokered the painstaking peace; we must not squander her sacrifice.” His words are ash for many around him, and yet he spends no more time than necessary.
“Her Majesty… You cimed?” Illyres’s voice grates no different than jagged steel dragged through rocks. His aide pressed the matter onward, bitterness in his tongue made little justice to the raging hellfire in his heart.
“We were holding them back. Mages, Knights, and our knights with guns had pushed them back! The West had hold while the center buckle, the north suckling on their golden fingers, and for the south to be thrown into pandemonium!” Such bile, his words are treasonous, but Merylis let him fre up more, his gaze had long since gone distant when the news of His Majesty’s passing spread.
“Indeed, Baron Illyres. We had indeed held… but such power had all been owned to the crown. Power no mortal could wield except for them.”
“Then why?!?” He spoke on behalf of many wronged sons and daughters, of the many people left to stew and suffer due to Ionie’s treachery. Illyres had lost his fief, his people, and his family butchered to death while his sole daughter was held hostage.
Many people lost someone, many seek vengeance, and no one is more eager than the Western Lords of Arganea, who had been betrayed. His brazen dispy, his bold words of dissent, soon spread amongst themselves.
They had been robbed of their home, their rules, and their rightful King. King Zelos was not the best of monarchs; he was even derided as cking and ineffectual compared to the bright stars that are his children. But he was there; he was the one who led the charge as they stabilized the frontline.
Soon, more voices rose.
“She is no true Queen! She tarnished the Arganean’s name! She shamed her ancestors to lick the sole of the Conqueror’s feet!”
“I have no desire to fight and die for a coward like her! A woman who couldn’t keep her promise is worthless despite her achievements! So what if she could make some peasants in the middle of nowhere read?”
“She should be ashamed for bending her knees to the madman! We would have won the war, but her cowardly nature showed!”
“The King was not weak! He was there when we broke the Imperial first army! We should not have bent! We should fight on!”
To them, he was their King; he was the one who deserved to die in glory and be remembered better. As, his short and illustrious fervor was tarnished by his daughter. Kinsying had lost much of its importance, but it is very much a useful tool to fy Ionie’s reputation. The only reason she could keep the throne was none other than her power and the blessing of the spirits.
Another reason would be the Crown’s power being rendered useless without the Royal Family’s blood at the helm. Thus, Illyres have an extra consideration to take when they were forced to march from the West to the East to kill their people. Disdain against nonhumans had been on a steady rise, but even they would rather be side-by-side with the beast compared to meekly following the Imperial Army’s direction.
Merylis… he has more than a few choices of rebuttal for these fools. It takes a fool to talk some sense to fools, after all.
“Because power comes at a price.” Stern and cold was his voice, robbing them of their thunder as more and more die fighting while screaming.
“We have seen how well the Empire could leap and bound farther than ever. The Crown indeed provides us with an edge, but for how much longer? The King turned white and frail because he kept on hoping that we could win… we would not, and won’t.”
“… Coward.” Illyres sees red, and so do his colleagues. They began unsheathing their bdes, but the Old Man didn’t seem to care. This treasonous conduct would have been prevented if there were an Imperial liaison to remind them of their precarious household in the west. As, those liaisons are content to watch and divert the artillery corps, with arquebusiers around them to deter retreat without consent.
His eyes are ahead, focused as he measures every crack on the wall and the broken bodies around it. He is measuring death to open up a gateway to victory. History will have multiple versions of him, and he is certain that cowardice would be part of his effigy.
“Indeed, I am a coward; a realistic coward. How long would you think Arganea can st alone? How long would you think it will take for us to buckle and bend beneath our weight? The Crown could only provide a finite one-sided border of protection, or concentrated on one settlement.” That argument silenced the angered nobles.
“We relied on trade, and with the grinding war on our side, there will be nothing left for us to fight for. The Empire can sit back on its urels and watch as we all starve. Our navy was broken in that one naval battle; the blockade will be our doom. If not by our enemy, our people will rise against us. One cannot expect obedience and loyalty on an empty stomach and family left to suffer.”
The dissenting officers and nobles gred would have killed him ten times over, but that’s all they can do. They are as powerless as he is; they can probably kill him and have enough time to run and hide… but then what? All they will contribute is more suffering for their people waiting at home in the West.
Merylis noted their fgging dissent and reasserted his role.
“If you know what’s better for our people’s survival, take command and move onward to the fourth. Baron Illryes, prepare a cavalry unit to cut off their retreat. If Sir Raegova understands what’s best, he will surrender soon.”
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“This is madness.” Surprisingly, such a word did not come from Raegova or Merylis’ side, but from the Imperial army. They had been ordered to observe the chaos that the battle had become, to the point where their artillery joined the fray to speed up the assault, much to the cannoners’ dismay.
These cannons are mounted on a floating ptform, in case the ice breaks, though unlikely with the Ice Mages' focused concentration. Still, this same man, forced to watch the battle from afar, was the one who assured his commander that such caution was unwarranted in war.
Aside from the cannonners’ concerns, he clutched his ornate bde tightly, a pair of hand cannons strapped to his breastpte. His green eyes reveal his growing worries about how the battle’s progress so far.
He had witnessed the attempted mutiny by Merylis’s officer and men, but also saw how he reined them in. Such incompetence and treachery are punishable by death, yet he was given a standing order not to intervene as long as the former Arganean Western Army could take the stronghold. Only then could he administer punishment. But that’s not the main reason, at least.
“What do you mean, Elgin?” His colleague raised an eyebrow, an apple in his hand. They sat in their tent, surrounded by heavily armed guards. Their ornate tent stood out starkly in the blizzard, especially with a fire mage maintaining it so snow wouldn’t touch it. Halciadon had embraced both science and arcane power, but the fact that a mage was here, reduced to a mere tent warmer, spoke volumes about their once-infallible station.
“All of this, Raldorn… are we trying to make an enemy of the Arganean or what? Sending their men to fight their own, or else we kill their family? What sort of nonsensical idea is this? We should not sow the seeds of hatred by using them like disposable pawns.”
“Hah… you are always so sentimental, friend. This is just how politics performs its bck magic, and we don’t need the Western Nobles, no. It will be even better if they all die here. Western Arganean would be corralled to our superiority soon enough. When trade flows back, and the economy is up and running, watch as those illiterate peasants happily accept Imperial Coinage.”
“Well, said people, had some of their family was murdered here.”
“Easy, bme it on those nobles. Life won’t suddenly cease when a css of people gets eradicated. Unlike our more sensible values, these archaic, honor-obsessed fools are the problem. Western Lords of Arganea still have their First Night Right left untouched since the Kingdom’s inception. Acadion had done away with such practice 500 years ago.”
“That doesn’t change; there’s a better way to go about it. We could have sent them alongside us, we should be there to and show that we-” Raldorn barked out a ugh, he even shook his head, hearing everything from him.
“You’re truly na?ve, friend. I suppose that’s one reason why Lady Asgarthia had chosen you as his champion… always ready to see the best way to utilize an approach with long-term consequences in mind…” Raldorn's smile becomes cold and perhaps a touch too reveling at the carnage unfolding.
“We do not need them. Hell, I say good riddance. I can’t bear the idea of being lumped in the same manner as these wretched beast blood. We are better than this. Remember how these beasts once gloated on their superiority? How is the strength of a bear, the eyes of hawks, the limbs of deer, and all those colorful features? Remember how they toyed with humans back during the ancient age before the First Hero uplifted us? We are merely pying by their rules; it is not our fault if they’re going extinct.” Raldorn snorted before pouring a generous amount of wine into his silver goblet.
“Tell me, who would those poor wretches go to listen to? Their lords who one nothing but harm and conscripting even the firstborn, or the Emperor’s merciful bailiffs and sheriffs that keep the peace? Why should these simplistic people endure outside any walled settlement when compliance guarantees a full belly?”
“Well, that’s-”
“Yes, I am aware there will be people greedier than us, but we must also remember that the Emperor had cast them aside to chase ghosts down south. They are no issue.” Elgin finds himself entrapped and besieged by his friend’s simple logic. There had indeed been precedents of peasants not even knowing who their lords were supposed to be, precedents where the high nobles might be raving mad, but the peasants' problem stays on that simple logic calculus of ‘What to eat tomorrow? How should I divide it for my family? Is the taxation due or not?’ That’s the difference between people who traded spits and those who traded sweat.
“… We will face rebellion in the west… Sellswords and people who can’t accept how His Majesty’s rule will endure for decades to come.”
“Short-term rebellion is normal; small in scale and eventuality. Long term? We merely need to feed the people, and soon they will be raising the Empire’s banner with all their hearts. Well, the beast blood will need to be relocated, but I am confident the Empire has uses for them.”
Elgin no longer has the stomach to argue, especially against that st opinion of his friend.
‘We have beast’s blood in our veins as well… thin as it is, but it is there… by the Aligned-and-Blessed-Heaven… I fear we are fighting for a cause with curse-den lips… Dearest Mother, what would you have me do?’
Beneath the icy strait, moments ago.
While Children of Men and beasts hacked upon one another above the gcial surface, a different kind of foe crept beneath the frozen sea. A group of E.I.R.I-an operatives donned their special underwater kit, specialized to survive even the harshness of SIEZ. Their bodysuit is made of a synthetic mix of Nadir Dolphin, found around Regalian’s coast, famed for surviving since SIEZ formed, and an artificial compound.
Although their bodysuits seem to have some alterations and changes. For one, their diving mask has been modified to include horns, their bodysuits are full of moss and small pieces of props. More sinisterly would be how their orange eyes glow in the darkness, giving the impression of something that shouldn’t exist.
They swam through the freezing water, as the ice above them held weights far above what one could expect. Of course, such a thing would have been impossible without the ice mages, but these mercenaries cared little for New World’s witchcraft when they too had a ‘witchcraft’ of their own; science.
Accompanying them would be eight, four-meter-long and fifty-centimeter-tall, tube-like objects. These objects have a peculiar opening on their topside, perhaps for cargo or something more… concrete. Each of these is being pushed by four mercenaries armed with an underwater needle-gun, officially designated as UCR-V1, for self-defense. New World’s local wildlife often shows disinterest whenever Regalian approaches, but there were precedents of attacks regardless.
[Approaching objective Esker One… maintain cohesion, slow is smooth and smooth is fast…] The frontmost team informed through their radio, the breathing mask allows them better coordination compared to mere diving equipment. One of them keeps their rifle in one hand while the other pushes the tube-like object forth.
Each team seamlessly sneaks beneath notice, positioning their package for the next part soon unfolding…
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He gazed towards the towering battlements ahead of him, many of his friends, rivals, and countrymen had been felled when they stubbornly approached. He is nervous, he is sorely nervous. He had been forced to march from his tiny hamlet under the order of a local nded lord; he scarcely remembered the title. He was promised that he was doing the right thing to fight back against the invading Imperials…
Now he is here, far from home, fighting his people, while his supposed liege takes orders from said enemy. He is bitter; angered even, but what can a poor man from a farming hamlet do? Either he forced his trembling legs over the icy and brittle bridge, or be whipped and killed. It was unfair, it was heinous, but he marches on.
Around him would be those sharing a simir fate. Exhausted, cold, and on the end of their wits. Some muttered to some uncaring gods, some clutched mementos from home, and most gripped their spears and raised their shields. He does the same, he can feel arrows and bolts striking this overglorified wooden pnk they called a shield.
He marches, and marches, and marches…
“Onward! Do not falter! Those beasts will soon break! We will be home with glory!” Cried a pissant who thought themselves puissant. He found these sorts of men contemptible, but he marches on. He marches on as a man screams in pain when an arrow pierces his shield onto his hand. He marched as a man ran away from his post, only to be cut down by an officer wearing a bitter expression.
“Victory or death-”
BOOM!
He was thrown off his feet, and rge explosions had rocked the rear line, flinging men and siege weapons alike. He barely had a chance to get up before he heard screaming.
“THE ICE IS BREAKING!” A horrifying chill struck his spine, and he scrambled to stand. His effort was futile as the cracks overtook flocks of terrified men, young or old. His feet had grown shaky, that failure to maintain bance made him slip off the surface… and straight onto the cold, dead sea… but then he recalled; he could swim.
Instinct kicks in as he holds his breath, the freezing water pricks his skin, but he deftly unbinds himself from steel, chainmail, and all manner of things that will weigh him down. The salty, cold water made his eyes burn, but he kept on trying. He found others of the same mind, and others who are not so fortunate.
He saw someone who never swam sink, their voice long gone as salt water made do of their body. Another is choking and bleeding, a part of his body caught by a jagged piece of ice. He closes his eyes and swims upward, even using sinking or floating bodies to give him lift… except he found how some of these corpses had an elongated steel stabbing them, ripping through chainmail easily.
More damningly? It came from below.
Against his better judgment, he peered into the abyss and found dozens of bright orange lights skimming through the dark; they move too fast for even a seasoned swimmer, too swift and silent. The darkness made their silhouette hard to determine, but he sees orange bzing light, horns, and a body that doesn’t look like Children of Men with webbed feet, closer to a fish.
Thus, his fate was sealed, with hundreds and thousands following suit.
[END OF CHAPTER]
Author’s Note:
Yo there, this is me, myself, and I, the author who finally got something to do IRL
I have nothing to say other than expect some rather… dark comedy? Eh, we’ll see…
Update……………………………………………………………………
Ciao
