Realm of Monsters - Chapter 583: Calamity
Chapter 583: Calamity
The smell of smoke and the stench of the dead permeated the air, even before Stryga and Gwyn crested the hill. They couldn’t help but inhale the damning scent with every breath. The battlefield stretched across the small valley. Where once there was vibrant grass, there were now only ugly patches of yellow withered grass. The rest of the land had been scorched black if not outright ripped apart as if a massive hand had clawed through the earth. Thousands of bodies from both sides littered the ground.
“We’re too late,” Stryga whispered.
“This… This was what you wanted to stop?” Gwyn asked in morbid horror. “My lady, your mother, she— If she was here then…”
“I know,” Stryga muttered. She pulled on her reins and urged her horse forward. The steed neighed and refused to go down the hill until Stryga cast a simple mind spell on her horse and Gwyn’s.
As they moved through the battlefield they spotted bodies skewered by spears or swords. Others had arrows lodged in their chests. Many, however, were little more than charred broken skeletons.
Gwyn held back the urge to vomit as she spotted a group of dead soldiers whose flesh seemed to have melted into a bloody viscous puddle underneath them. Stryga spotted a group of men and women dressed in the black robes of Holo’s Shade’s mages. They had been impaled by dark crystalline structures rising from the earth. The crystals had skewered them from their bottom all the way up and out their mouths.
Cracked statues of goblins fleeing some unknown horror stood in front of Stryga’s way. She and Gwyn walked around them, grimly staring at the statues. Gwyn reached out hesitantly and touched one, only for it to crumble into small chunks of rock and a pile of dust.
Gwyn swallowed hard and inhaled shakily. “I have seen all manners of magic. I have witnessed the Ebon Lords do the impossible. But this… all of this. There is no magic in all the Realms that could cause such horror.” She turned to Stryga, desperation in her eyes. “What happened here?”
Stryga slid off her horse and knelt down. She brushed her fingers across the scorched dirt and soot. “The wrath of gods.”
“Gods? They did this?” Gwyn hopped off her horse with a lithe step.
“We have angered them. I think.”
“You think?” Gwyn frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Stjerne told Ravellan our kind had overstepped,” she muttered in a defeated tone. “Right before he killed him.”
“Are you saying,” Gwyn swallowed, “You saw the Traveler kill Lord Ravellan?”
Stryga looked up at her, eyes brimming with tears. “He killed everyone. Syrak, he—” she gasped through her sobbing, “Your brother tried to save Lana. I watched as Stjerne murdered them. And I couldn’t do anything. I tried. I tried, Gwyn. And now my mom—”
Gwyn wrapped her arms around Stryga and pulled her in close. “It isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault.”
“But it is. I attacked Lunis, the gods are angry because of me.”
“You attacked the city on the commands of Ebon Lords, many of whom are now dead in this cursed place. The gods have had their revenge.”
“This won’t end, Gwyn. They won’t stop until everyone is dead.” Stryga bit her lip. “I have been thinking about this. The gods are said to guide mortal-kind throughout the millennia. But if that was the case, then why let any of this happen in the first place? And then I remembered Solis. Some of the Ebon Lords claimed they killed him. What if this is their revenge?”
Gwyn looked around the scorched wasteland. “You think the Ebon Lords could have fought something like this?”
“I don’t know. Maybe together? Maybe they did kill Solis. Maybe they only hurt him. Either way, the gods are done with us. I don’t think they’re going to stop.”
“Then why come here in the first place? Why not evacuate everyone from both our Houses and flee to the Northern Lands? We still have our territories and castles in the mountains.”
“Because I’m still alive,” Stryga admitted. “Stjerne spared my life. I don’t know why, but he must have had a reason. I am the War Master of Holo’s Shade. If I can just find him and talk to him, I think I can make some sort of truce.”
“You don’t know that. For all we know he might just kill you the moment he sees you.”
“…I have to hope.”
“My lady, it is my duty to protect you. I cannot let you just—”
“It is your duty to protect House Veres. If the gods’ rampage continues, then there will be nothing left. House Veres and House Gale will die.” Stryga gripped Gwyn’s hands, “If you want to protect the Veres family, then help me save them. Please.”
Gwyn closed her eyes shut and her shoulders slumped in defeat. “Where do we even find the gods?”
Stryga looked to the south where ashen trees lined the horizon and the mountains that loomed behind them. “Evenfall is said to hold the Celestial Shrine. The great temple of Lunae.”
“Evenfall is a sacred fortress. No one but the goblins have ever set foot behind its walls.”
Stryga’s expression grew determined. “If there is anywhere that I can find an audience with the gods, it is there.”
Gwyn shook her head. “We don’t even know how to get there.”
“We know it’s on the mountain of Moon Fang.” She pointed to the mountain that vaguely resembled a fang jutting towards the sky.
“Yes, behind an entire forest of monsters. And you know, a fortress.”
Stryga stood to her feet and brushed off the ash and dirt. “Then we don’t have time to waste.”
~~~
The red leaves of the canopy filtered the last light of the sunset, dyeing the entire area in hues of red. Nalindor sat on the grass, his back resting on an ashen tree. He watched the hundred or so men and women huddled around a couple of campfires. The nights were growing colder and the appearance of the frost wolves earlier hadn’t helped.
Nalindor tried his best to remember what had happened. The battle had been a blur after he had awoken a second time. Explosions hurled all around them. He thought he was going to die as the clashing of soldiers all around rang in his ears. Frost-mist suddenly poured into the battlefield and then the frost wolves emerged. The heralds of Lunae led the Lunisians away from the battlefield and into the safety of Vulture Woods, before disappearing as quickly as they had arrived.
He couldn’t help but chuckle wryly at the thought. There was little safety in Vulture Woods, monsters of all manner stalked the forest. Even still, it had been better than staying on that cursed battlefield.
Lenore and Sev had carried him with a handful of soldiers into the mist and the woods beyond. The army, or at least what was left of it, had been split. Nalindor had no idea how many had survived and made it into the woods. Let alone how many might survive the night in this damned forest. Thankfully, Sev and Lenore were still with him, but the rest of the company was lost to them. He hoped they had made it out, but that was all he had, a hope.
The hundred or so survivors that stood in this makeshift camp came from various companies and battalions. Few knew each other, but they were all well acquainted with the chain of command. Nalindor was the only captain among them and they all looked to him for leadership, unfortunately.
Nalindor didn’t know what was going on more than anyone else. They had been ambushed by the Ebon Lords and their armies. Now they were stuck in a forest known for harboring the most dangerous beasts in all the Null Realms.
Fucking brilliant.
Sev walked through the small huddled groups of goblins. Checking for the wounded with the worst injuries. He channeled White and did his best to heal them. Nalindor knew his friend was tired, the signs of mana exhaustion were clear. Ragged breathing, heavy sweating, and a faint tremble in the hands. Still, Nalindor let him work. He knew it helped the healer keep his mind off the deaths of so many others.
Yesterday morning there had been rumors of how Lunis had been ransacked. Nalindor, like so many others, had dismissed them as hearsay. But now many began to wonder. Their army had been attacked from several sides, including the back. It shouldn’t have been possible to have struck from behind, there were several small outposts and supply lines leading directly from Lunis. But if the city had fallen, then…
A deep pit of anger burned in Nalindor’s chest. He clenched his hand over his sword’s hilt.
“Here,” Lenore walked up to him and handed him a piece of bread. “Some of the soldiers had some rations on them when they escaped.”
“I’m fine. Give it to someone else who needs it more,” Nalindor waved her away.
Lenore snatched his hand and placed the bread in his palm. “You’re the captain. We need you on your feet. Eat.”
He nodded reluctantly and began nibbling on the dried old bread. Satisfied, Lenore sat next to him with a pained groan.
“You alright?” he asked.
“Fine. Just my old knees. I’m not as spry as the rest of you.” She cupped her hands together and exhaled warm air between them. “So, any plans on how to get us out of here?”
“That depends. Do you know how to get to Evenfall from here?”
“There is only one path our people use to reach the fortress. It is well-guarded and its location is a secret.”
“But you’ve been, haven’t you?”
“All Lunisian acolytes make the journey to the Celestial Shrine to be trained.”
“So you know the way?”
“I’m no pathfinder.”
“You don’t remember anything? Anything at all?
“I know that we are far from the path.”
“Great, that helps,” he muttered sarcastically.
The soldiers talked amongst themselves around the campfires. They spoke of the battle, or rather how little they understood of what happened during the battle. It had been chaos. What little they could agree upon was that they were all alive because of Lunae’s intervention.
“We are alive because Lunae deemed it so,” said a woman, and her fellow soldiers nodded in fervent agreement.
Lenore and Nalindor shared a look. They had both seen another party on the battlefield. They were not vampires, drows, or goblins. They were something else entirely. A pair of women as tall as any troll, more beautiful than the finest ladies at a ball, and more terrifying than anything they had ever seen.
Even now, the scarlet woman’s frightening visage haunted his mind. He had never felt so utterly helpless than at the moment she stood in front of him. Had the strangers been there to help? Or to wreak havoc? Nalindor didn’t know.
“We don’t have much food,” Lenore broke him out of his thoughts. “Certainly not enough food to last us to Evenfall.”
Nalindor glanced at the way they came, even here, a league deep into the forest he could still smell the charred bodies. “We can’t go back either. We don’t know if the battle is still going or who won.”
The old woman tapped her staff, it was a habit Nalindor noticed she did whenever she was pondering something. “I can read the stars well enough,” she admitted. “If we can survive the next few days, I think I can get us on the path to Evenfall. Maybe.”
Nalindor nodded in understanding. “Then that’s what we’ll do. In the morning I’ll arrange for a hunting party. Until then, we should get some sleep.”
“Aye, captain.” Lenore closed her eyes and rested her head on his shoulder.
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