Laguna Hallik
Adept
Red
Flashback by Mike Brenizer.
For eight days, Sabastian paced back and forth through his well-appointed and lavishly comfortable room. The chain and manacles around his ankles clinked and rattled with each step, but besides that he couldn't complain. The Galanthian had never eaten so well in his life, and every request he made was given to him, except for his freedom. The grizzled guard at the door made that perfectly clear. Sabastian never was able to recall exactly when or how he fell in battle. One moment he was alongside his fellow Swords of Lore and the next he was waking up here.
Damned Icenian mages must have gotten the drop on him.
The door handle shook, the sounds of keys releasing the heavy locks sunk deep in the hard wood. As the door swung inward a tall man dressed in fine, comfortable robes walked in carrying two crystal glasses and a dusty bottle of clear liquid.
"I think today we could try some of the pepper mead I was telling you about,” said the man with a friendly smile.
This had been the norm for the last week of Sebastian’s life. At first he had been tight lipped with his captor, expecting him to ask about troop movements and then threaten torture. Instead the Icenian brought refreshments and only seemed interested in stories of Galanthia.
What was your home like? Where are the best ports for travel? What were Galanthian cuisines flavored with? Have you seen any good plays lately? None of it made any sense. So he eventually obliged his captor in hopes of winning his freedom. Five days later and his hope had turned to frustration, at eight days now he was furious.
"Take your mead and shove it up your ***," Sebastian growled.
"In two more days I am taking you home."
"You... you’re taking me back to Galanthia? Just like that? Keep me like a pet and then release an enemy soldier back to his home?" Sebastian stuttered in disbelief.
"Something like that."
"Yeah, and how many limbs will I be missing when I get back?"
"I promise not a drop of your blood will be left in Icenia,” the man said as he popped the cork on the bottle. The two men took their ritualistic places at the small table in the center of the room. The glasses were laid out and each filled in turn, the scent of crisp golden apples filled the air.
Sabastian raised his glass in toast. "To home."
"Agreed,” the Icenian replied. “To home.”
Both men drank deeply, draining their glasses. They took a moment to savor the slight burning sensation given by the sweet alcoholic elixir. Stifling a yawn, Sabastian reached for the bottle, but faltered and knocked it to the floor.
"You poisoned the… the mead?”
“The glasses, actually,” the Icenian remarked.
Sebastian’s eyes grew heavy very quickly and his head sunk to the table, where he began to snore. The Icenian stood up and walked to the door, where he signaled to the Guard Captain.
"Bring in the sample, Captain, and please move the incubator to the laboratory. Use the indestructible table and straps. Secure him as if your life depended on it."
+++
Sabastian awoke groggy, light headed, and cold. In the darkness, he tried to move his limbs, but his body would not obey him.
"So I'm dead, and this is the way I shall spend eternity?" He said to himself.
A light flickered into being in front of him, then another followed by many more until the room was almost blindingly bright.
"You’re not dead, just restrained." The Icenian sat at a table in front of him, staring intently at an empty vial stained dark red.
"I thought you said you were going to release me!?"
"I said that I was taking you back home, most of you anyway. Your blood, to be specific. Not a drop will remain in Icenia. It’s much too dangerous to have inside the borders, post transition. Everything else must be burned."
"What madness is this?"
"There is something very special, and very terrible, flowing through your veins. It will not only change your body and mind, but your very spirit as well. You will be the first Galanthian of many to be effected by the Luminus strain."
"You ******* bastard! What are you talking about? What is a Luminus?"
The Icenian sighed and set down the vial very carefully.
"I am truly sorry that I don't have time to answer all of your questions. Just know that you are very special, Sabastian. Your body will provide enough contagion to flavor half the wells in Galanthia Major. I'm also afraid that this will be our last conversation. When you see me next you won't recognize me. Not that your mind would be able to form words even if you did."
The Galanthian spit into the Icenian’s face. The Icenian wiped the phlegm from his cheek and calmly picked up the vial on the table.
"Fortunately, saliva doesn't become infectious until stage three. Goodbye, Sabastian. Thank you again for all the information, it should help greatly in my travels."
Screams and curses followed the Icenian out, as the door was pulled shut and tightly locked.
+++
"Yes, Captain?"
"Are you sure this is how you want to proceed? If this works, thousands will die."
"Hundreds of thousands, Captain. Galanthia has been a problem for Icenia for far too long, and as long as they are ruled by the blood-leeches they will continue to be a threat."
"Yes, but is this how we really want to beat them?"
"I don't want to beat them, Captain. I want to break them! This will be the end of Galanthia as it exists today. It will either crumble upon itself or change. Either way, they will never challenge us as a major power on this continent again."
"Forgive me, my Lord, but if you do this... your spirit will forever be tainted. The Hero’s Graveyard will be closed to you."
"Perhaps, Captain, perhaps. In the end it does not matter. I'm not important. Those who will die are not important. All that matters, Captain, is that Icenia endures."
+++
“Galanthia will endure, Rezimus.”
Silas Omegaddon and Rezimus had arrived back in Boltcliff as the sun set. Once the siege’s foundations had been laid, Silas had no qualms about leaving the daily trivium of command to his necromancers and skeletal warlords. Rezimus expressed no resistance to the orders to return, which meant he was learning his place. That was good.
Silas instructed Rezimus to debrief the captains of Boltcliff and reorganize their dispositions, but already Silas could tell that it had been a quiet few weeks in their absence. There were no signs of Red Madness activity at all. There had barely been any on the road north as well. Perhaps, they had finally slain enough of the damnable things.
He considered stopping by the healer’s tent to find something to eat, but activity by the Grand Ballista stopped him. A figure clad in black clothing was busily working at the base of the war machine. Even the Empire’s siege engineers were plainly identifiable. This was an intruder.
“You, identify yourself!” Silas called out to the man. He drew his blades and began to run to apprehend him. The man looked up and gave a whistle-signal. Two men dashed out from behind the marble pedestal wielding swords in one hand and oaken stakes in the other. One man had an ugly scar across his throat and the other was tattooed blue.
Silas was set back by their furious assault. He worked his defense while trying to pass through. He got sloppy and one of their swords bit with a flash of light. The wound exploded with red, vampiric blood. Enchanted swords.
He redoubled his efforts to defend and it slowed his advance to the ballista. The men began to make daring jabs with their stakes, which he slapped away as quickly as possible.
“Rezimus!”
Rezimus dashed out of the command tent just before Silas called his name. He drew his sword and scanned the opposition, but when he saw the bald man trapping the ballista he panicked and pulled up his hood.
“Rezimus, take the blue one!”
Rezimus charged the Vakkar, swinging high and slow. The Vakkar disengaged the vampire to deal with the new threat. He leveled hard, quick strikes at Rezimus’ head, but Rezimus blocked the blows and stepped inside the warrior’s reach, shoulder charging him back.
The Vakkar braced against the impact and hurled Rezimus to the ground. As he raised his blade for a quick finish, Rezimus punched the hilt of his blade into his knee. The Vakkar was taken off of his feet and landed on the ground next to Rezimus. He dove on the fallen warrior and placed his blade upon the blue stained throat.
“Tell your leader to keep working. I’ll buy him time,” Rezimus whispered.
The Vakkar looked absolutely confused as Rezimus got back up and slipped an oaken stake out of his boot, but did as the stranger asked. He rolled and ran to the bald man to deliver the message. The bald man tried to get a look at Rezimus, but the rigor of working with traps required his attention.
Rezimus stalked behind Silas as he dueled the South Galanthian, looking as if he were about to flank. With a cry that consisted more of primal hatred than of language, he thrust the stake into Silas’ back.
The South Galanthian was shocked more than relieved, but said nothing. He shook off the surprise after a second and stabbed his own stake deep into Silas’ chest. Silas’ screamed and roared in ways that were not human.
The saboteur took the screams as his cue to run. The traps left on the ballista began to tick. The Vakkar and the South Galanthian began to run with him. The ticks accelerated and there was a muffled bang. The ballista disappeared in a puff of flames before a shock wave blasted everyone nearby to the ground.
+++
Andros von Stratton picked himself up out of the dirt and debris. The explosion had been a lot more spectacular that he’d predicted. When Dominus Miliardo had offered him a mission to track the vampire who led the Plainsheart assault and bomb his crypt, Andros had only one question, “How big are the bombs?”
Getting in to Boltcliff had been simple. The soldiers had gotten lazy in the absence of their boss. Especially on the aspect of watching the cliff for climbers.
As he looked around, North Galanthian troops were pulling themselves back to their feet. Some were crying out for healers, some weren’t moving at all. Haldr and Lucius were pulling themselves to their feet, bloodied but alive. Their escape options were beginning to thin, so he grabbed the two and pulled them toward the front gate. They’d make a run for it before the confusion settled.
The outer wall was buzzing with activity, but none of it directed inwards. The guards on the towers were shouting and blowing rally horns. One word could be heard above all in the frantic cries.
“Red.”
The saboteurs exchanged concerned glances and ran back the way they came. Hiding was not difficult as the soldiers ran in a panic to the front gates. All of them were shouting about the same thing: an incoming wave of the Red Madness. Andros decided that the only way out of Boltcliff was the way they climbed in.
The courtyard of the Grand Ballista had cleared itself out. All that remained were the necromancers that were tending to the oaken stakes embedded in the vampire. They had removed the one in his chest and he was moving yet again. Andros nodded to Haldr and Lucius and they ran forward to stab the necromancers to death. Andros lamented that he did not have the Book of the Dawn, as the vampire must have been too old for the stakes to finish him.
The vampire struggled against the paralysis that had gripped his lower body, as he screamed angrily for “the traitor.”
Andros assumed he meant the man in the hood standing on the edge of the cliff, where the ballista had become a burning ruin. The man was speaking to an obsidian falcon. As he let the construct fly, he took a step off of the cliff, speaking aloud the words,
“Icenia endures.”
Flashback by Mike Brenizer.
For eight days, Sabastian paced back and forth through his well-appointed and lavishly comfortable room. The chain and manacles around his ankles clinked and rattled with each step, but besides that he couldn't complain. The Galanthian had never eaten so well in his life, and every request he made was given to him, except for his freedom. The grizzled guard at the door made that perfectly clear. Sabastian never was able to recall exactly when or how he fell in battle. One moment he was alongside his fellow Swords of Lore and the next he was waking up here.
Damned Icenian mages must have gotten the drop on him.
The door handle shook, the sounds of keys releasing the heavy locks sunk deep in the hard wood. As the door swung inward a tall man dressed in fine, comfortable robes walked in carrying two crystal glasses and a dusty bottle of clear liquid.
"I think today we could try some of the pepper mead I was telling you about,” said the man with a friendly smile.
This had been the norm for the last week of Sebastian’s life. At first he had been tight lipped with his captor, expecting him to ask about troop movements and then threaten torture. Instead the Icenian brought refreshments and only seemed interested in stories of Galanthia.
What was your home like? Where are the best ports for travel? What were Galanthian cuisines flavored with? Have you seen any good plays lately? None of it made any sense. So he eventually obliged his captor in hopes of winning his freedom. Five days later and his hope had turned to frustration, at eight days now he was furious.
"Take your mead and shove it up your ***," Sebastian growled.
"In two more days I am taking you home."
"You... you’re taking me back to Galanthia? Just like that? Keep me like a pet and then release an enemy soldier back to his home?" Sebastian stuttered in disbelief.
"Something like that."
"Yeah, and how many limbs will I be missing when I get back?"
"I promise not a drop of your blood will be left in Icenia,” the man said as he popped the cork on the bottle. The two men took their ritualistic places at the small table in the center of the room. The glasses were laid out and each filled in turn, the scent of crisp golden apples filled the air.
Sabastian raised his glass in toast. "To home."
"Agreed,” the Icenian replied. “To home.”
Both men drank deeply, draining their glasses. They took a moment to savor the slight burning sensation given by the sweet alcoholic elixir. Stifling a yawn, Sabastian reached for the bottle, but faltered and knocked it to the floor.
"You poisoned the… the mead?”
“The glasses, actually,” the Icenian remarked.
Sebastian’s eyes grew heavy very quickly and his head sunk to the table, where he began to snore. The Icenian stood up and walked to the door, where he signaled to the Guard Captain.
"Bring in the sample, Captain, and please move the incubator to the laboratory. Use the indestructible table and straps. Secure him as if your life depended on it."
+++
Sabastian awoke groggy, light headed, and cold. In the darkness, he tried to move his limbs, but his body would not obey him.
"So I'm dead, and this is the way I shall spend eternity?" He said to himself.
A light flickered into being in front of him, then another followed by many more until the room was almost blindingly bright.
"You’re not dead, just restrained." The Icenian sat at a table in front of him, staring intently at an empty vial stained dark red.
"I thought you said you were going to release me!?"
"I said that I was taking you back home, most of you anyway. Your blood, to be specific. Not a drop will remain in Icenia. It’s much too dangerous to have inside the borders, post transition. Everything else must be burned."
"What madness is this?"
"There is something very special, and very terrible, flowing through your veins. It will not only change your body and mind, but your very spirit as well. You will be the first Galanthian of many to be effected by the Luminus strain."
"You ******* bastard! What are you talking about? What is a Luminus?"
The Icenian sighed and set down the vial very carefully.
"I am truly sorry that I don't have time to answer all of your questions. Just know that you are very special, Sabastian. Your body will provide enough contagion to flavor half the wells in Galanthia Major. I'm also afraid that this will be our last conversation. When you see me next you won't recognize me. Not that your mind would be able to form words even if you did."
The Galanthian spit into the Icenian’s face. The Icenian wiped the phlegm from his cheek and calmly picked up the vial on the table.
"Fortunately, saliva doesn't become infectious until stage three. Goodbye, Sabastian. Thank you again for all the information, it should help greatly in my travels."
Screams and curses followed the Icenian out, as the door was pulled shut and tightly locked.
+++
"Yes, Captain?"
"Are you sure this is how you want to proceed? If this works, thousands will die."
"Hundreds of thousands, Captain. Galanthia has been a problem for Icenia for far too long, and as long as they are ruled by the blood-leeches they will continue to be a threat."
"Yes, but is this how we really want to beat them?"
"I don't want to beat them, Captain. I want to break them! This will be the end of Galanthia as it exists today. It will either crumble upon itself or change. Either way, they will never challenge us as a major power on this continent again."
"Forgive me, my Lord, but if you do this... your spirit will forever be tainted. The Hero’s Graveyard will be closed to you."
"Perhaps, Captain, perhaps. In the end it does not matter. I'm not important. Those who will die are not important. All that matters, Captain, is that Icenia endures."
+++
“Galanthia will endure, Rezimus.”
Silas Omegaddon and Rezimus had arrived back in Boltcliff as the sun set. Once the siege’s foundations had been laid, Silas had no qualms about leaving the daily trivium of command to his necromancers and skeletal warlords. Rezimus expressed no resistance to the orders to return, which meant he was learning his place. That was good.
Silas instructed Rezimus to debrief the captains of Boltcliff and reorganize their dispositions, but already Silas could tell that it had been a quiet few weeks in their absence. There were no signs of Red Madness activity at all. There had barely been any on the road north as well. Perhaps, they had finally slain enough of the damnable things.
He considered stopping by the healer’s tent to find something to eat, but activity by the Grand Ballista stopped him. A figure clad in black clothing was busily working at the base of the war machine. Even the Empire’s siege engineers were plainly identifiable. This was an intruder.
“You, identify yourself!” Silas called out to the man. He drew his blades and began to run to apprehend him. The man looked up and gave a whistle-signal. Two men dashed out from behind the marble pedestal wielding swords in one hand and oaken stakes in the other. One man had an ugly scar across his throat and the other was tattooed blue.
Silas was set back by their furious assault. He worked his defense while trying to pass through. He got sloppy and one of their swords bit with a flash of light. The wound exploded with red, vampiric blood. Enchanted swords.
He redoubled his efforts to defend and it slowed his advance to the ballista. The men began to make daring jabs with their stakes, which he slapped away as quickly as possible.
“Rezimus!”
Rezimus dashed out of the command tent just before Silas called his name. He drew his sword and scanned the opposition, but when he saw the bald man trapping the ballista he panicked and pulled up his hood.
“Rezimus, take the blue one!”
Rezimus charged the Vakkar, swinging high and slow. The Vakkar disengaged the vampire to deal with the new threat. He leveled hard, quick strikes at Rezimus’ head, but Rezimus blocked the blows and stepped inside the warrior’s reach, shoulder charging him back.
The Vakkar braced against the impact and hurled Rezimus to the ground. As he raised his blade for a quick finish, Rezimus punched the hilt of his blade into his knee. The Vakkar was taken off of his feet and landed on the ground next to Rezimus. He dove on the fallen warrior and placed his blade upon the blue stained throat.
“Tell your leader to keep working. I’ll buy him time,” Rezimus whispered.
The Vakkar looked absolutely confused as Rezimus got back up and slipped an oaken stake out of his boot, but did as the stranger asked. He rolled and ran to the bald man to deliver the message. The bald man tried to get a look at Rezimus, but the rigor of working with traps required his attention.
Rezimus stalked behind Silas as he dueled the South Galanthian, looking as if he were about to flank. With a cry that consisted more of primal hatred than of language, he thrust the stake into Silas’ back.
The South Galanthian was shocked more than relieved, but said nothing. He shook off the surprise after a second and stabbed his own stake deep into Silas’ chest. Silas’ screamed and roared in ways that were not human.
The saboteur took the screams as his cue to run. The traps left on the ballista began to tick. The Vakkar and the South Galanthian began to run with him. The ticks accelerated and there was a muffled bang. The ballista disappeared in a puff of flames before a shock wave blasted everyone nearby to the ground.
+++
Andros von Stratton picked himself up out of the dirt and debris. The explosion had been a lot more spectacular that he’d predicted. When Dominus Miliardo had offered him a mission to track the vampire who led the Plainsheart assault and bomb his crypt, Andros had only one question, “How big are the bombs?”
Getting in to Boltcliff had been simple. The soldiers had gotten lazy in the absence of their boss. Especially on the aspect of watching the cliff for climbers.
As he looked around, North Galanthian troops were pulling themselves back to their feet. Some were crying out for healers, some weren’t moving at all. Haldr and Lucius were pulling themselves to their feet, bloodied but alive. Their escape options were beginning to thin, so he grabbed the two and pulled them toward the front gate. They’d make a run for it before the confusion settled.
The outer wall was buzzing with activity, but none of it directed inwards. The guards on the towers were shouting and blowing rally horns. One word could be heard above all in the frantic cries.
“Red.”
The saboteurs exchanged concerned glances and ran back the way they came. Hiding was not difficult as the soldiers ran in a panic to the front gates. All of them were shouting about the same thing: an incoming wave of the Red Madness. Andros decided that the only way out of Boltcliff was the way they climbed in.
The courtyard of the Grand Ballista had cleared itself out. All that remained were the necromancers that were tending to the oaken stakes embedded in the vampire. They had removed the one in his chest and he was moving yet again. Andros nodded to Haldr and Lucius and they ran forward to stab the necromancers to death. Andros lamented that he did not have the Book of the Dawn, as the vampire must have been too old for the stakes to finish him.
The vampire struggled against the paralysis that had gripped his lower body, as he screamed angrily for “the traitor.”
Andros assumed he meant the man in the hood standing on the edge of the cliff, where the ballista had become a burning ruin. The man was speaking to an obsidian falcon. As he let the construct fly, he took a step off of the cliff, speaking aloud the words,
“Icenia endures.”