The touch of dragonfire had grown quite familiar to Alric after days of walking the fields of desolation. The smell that it left behind was intensely noxious and the blazes it started would burn for days on end. As if the dragon itself was not worrying enough, it was clear that once again, mankind was turning upon itself. A nameless army swept clean what the dragon left standing. The desecrated Churches and vandalised shrines he passed told him all he needed to know about who was responsible. They were no longer the poorly-organised rabble he thought them to be.

Even after securing several nights of rest, Alric could not shake the tension that bubbled beneath his skin. The fingers of his right hand tapped against the shaft of his pollaxe as he rested it on his shoulder and sent his wild eyes all about.

He along with the four druids and the Correntis named Matvey chose to travel on foot to the Thestors' regional fortress of Nernthandil. In such hostile territory, ambushes were to be expected. Having to deal with horses and pack animals in the midst of that chaos would have made everything much more difficult, so Alric left Nocht and his wagon of supplies at the Hospital. The only things he retrieved were his pollaxe and his copy of the Scripture. The Mnem'non showed themselves to be incredibly skilled foragers and hunters; even with most animal life frightened away by the destruction and the plant life seared, they somehow managed to keep provisions well-stocked.

Smoke drowned the sky, obscuring the dragon. Alric could not say he liked seeing the monstrosity when the skies were clear, but he much rathered knowing where it was. With nothing but grey froth in the air, no one could be sure that it hadn’t left its incorporeal perch.

The mountainous terrain was broken up by dense wood, some of which had been scorched and shredded into blackened sticks. Periodically, a distant ‘bang’ would sound and bounce against the mountain walls above.

Konth was worried that there was a medium-sized force marching in their wake. He often slipped behind the rest of the group to cover the rear. He said that he heard horses, perhaps outriders of a hostile army. Whatever was walking behind them, the party had no choice but to keep going. There were only six of them. Even with the sorcery of the Mnem'non, Alric doubted they could last against any more than twenty soldiers. He hoped that the manoeuvrability of a small group would be enough to keep them away from any large forces out there.

Vontross led the way as they avoided the roads and stuck instead to the forests. The blanket of acrid mist seeped between the trees like a pestilence. Alric came to a halt before a sheer drop that was too step to hike down. Through the clouds of static smoke, even with his visor raised, Alric could barely make out the hamlet of Threshfield atop its knoll. Surrounding it were vast fields of farmland. Behind the town, just partially visible, was Nernthandil. Only one of its walls pierced the grey fog, a monolith of hand-worked stone erected in recognition of God’s infinite rage.

Nernthandil was protected by the rocky cliff walls that sounded it; the only way to approach it was by walking the valley, and taking Threshfield. Alric could see fortifications along the edge of the town facing away from the fortress monastery.

An enemy camp was standing well out of arrow range across the plain. Tiny banners topped with bone proudly jutted out from the encampment.

Carthei barked at Vontross, “Octhum.”

Vontross reached into his robe and pulled out a strange looking device. It was a cylinder, slightly conical. He tossed it over to Carthei who elegantly plucked it out of the air and held it up to her eye.

Alric tilted his head like a confused dog.

“Those damnable fools. They wave the banner of Clth,” she said aloud.

Her fellow Mnem’non all furrowed their brows in anger. Matvey and Alric were left to glance at each other and shrug.

“What is…Clth?” Matvey asked.

The deep brown colours of Carthei’s face paint had begun to wear off. The smooth blue tone of her skin caught the light. “It is the name of the ancient betrayer who splintered the druids into the isolated tribes you see today. I...suppose he may be my people's equivalent of the Devil.”

"Except he's real," said Konth.

Matvey and Alric's heads slowly revolved to face the young druid. They glared at him in silence.

"A-A man. Except he's a man. Was a m-man," he corrected with such speed that Alric barely deciphered what he said. “I’ll just…remain silent.”

"...This is even more dangerous than you initially thought, Brother. They must be put to death with haste," muttered Matvey.

Carthei lowered the device and turned to Alric, seeing that his eyes were still fixed on the thing. With a weak smile, she handed it to him. "Here. See this Clthic Assembly for yourself."

The Thestor turned his nose up at the object.

With a sigh, Carthei widened his eyes and shook the octhum. "Do you want to see your most hated enemy, or not?"

Finally, Alric hesitantly accepted the octhum and pressed it against his right eye and closed his left. It was not dissimilar to how shaped lenses used by scribes magnified text or how eyeglasses corrected poor vision, but the extreme nature of the octhum’s magnification made Alric feel lightheaded. He could now see the ripples of wind on the heretic banner and the frayed fibres that hung from it. Soldiers moved around the camp, dressed in varying kinds of armour all painted with the mark of Clth.

Their equipment had made it abundantly clear that the demonists had been recruiting from the ranks of nobility. Each man was a professional soldier. A mercenary. It seems that the enemies of God have grown wiser. Without indoctrinating the wealthy, their army would be doomed to be the legion of children and peasants that it was at Tvatch. Nevertheless, in joining the Clthic Assembly they have slighted God, and so they must be punished. Alric had yet to see any witches, but a twisting feeling deep within assured him that they were there.

He moved his sight to Threshfield. Alric’s shoulders eased and his heart slowed. He saw his brethren, other knights of the Order of Saint Thestus, leading common soldiers in the defence of the town.

As he finally passed the device back to Carthei, he remarked, “These arcane arts of thine…frightening.”

“This is not magic, Godslave. Just a trick of the light,” she corrected, passing it back to Vontross who stowed it beneath his cloak.

After twenty minutes of navigating the particularly dense mess of tree roots, ditches, and boulders, Alric’s party came to the bottom of the valley and were peering out from the cover of the flora. He made a step out of the shroud of trees, but was violently jerked backwards. Managing to save himself from tumbling over by shifting his weight forward, the Thestor realised that Carthei had her hand firmly fastened to his right pauldron. “What!?” he snapped with frustration dripping from his words.

Eventually, his attention drifted back to the clearing between the wood and Threshfield. H-How did I not see it before?

Dozens of bodies littered the fields. Most were Knights Thestor; the others were perhaps followers they had accrued to come to Nernthandil’s defence. The manner in which their corpses decorated the plain indicated that they all fell as they rushed to reach the village. The Cry of God acted as bait on a hook for these poor souls.

“They were slaughtered by thrysteen bolts,” said Narsei. “No more than one shot for each man.”

Without warning, a figure emerged further down the tree line. It was another Knight Thestor, the size of Alric’s thumb due to how far removed he was. He walked in the direction of Threshfield, followed by a handful of Lacron soldiers.

“Brother!” Alric screamed at the top of his lungs. “Retreat!”

The distant Thestor slowed and glanced about in confusion. Other shouts emanating from Threshfield echoed Alric's warning. A thunderous ‘snap’ pierced the silence and time seemed to slow. A needle of light came zooming in from the direction of the Clthic camp, locked onto the knight’s head. It punched straight through the steel of his hounskull bascinet. There was a blinding flash of light for a split second. When it passed, jets of blood and gas escaped from the sights and breaths of his helmet, then the knight’s body fell to the ground.

His retinue made a mad dash for Threshfield. One by one, the process was repeated. Alric had never seen anything like it. Each man was struck mid-sprint with unfathomable accuracy. Heads were reduced to cones of tumbling, bloody chunks, and torsos were blown inside-out. After mere seconds, there was no longer any living thing in the farmlands surrounding the hamlet. It was then that Alric realised he had been blessed by God to have only encountered witches in close quarters.

Alric exhaled an unsteady breath as he drew the Sign of the Pillar, his hand trembling. That knight, like all his brethren, was trained to kill since he was a child. He was bred to dispense death. After earning his knighthood and serving as a warrior elite, he turned to the Order of Saint Thestus and underwent even more training. All that skill, all that armour, and he was just picked off from afar the way a bowman could slaughter a rabbit. If thou wert to kill someone, thou must look him in the eye. Commit the deed with responsibility. Even archers are not this removed from the violence; more often than not, they too would enter the melee after expending their arrows. With this abhorrent magic, a man can strike another down without even laying eyes upon his face. Without hearing the rattle of his final breath. It is immoral. Cowardly.

Vontross once again retrieved his octhum. He then readied his thrysteen and pressed the object onto its length, causing it to lock in place with a ‘click’. The hunter then lifted the staff, pressed the end against his shoulder, and rested his cheek against its side so he could peer into the magnifying contraption that was now attached to the weapon.

“I found the wretch,” reported Vontross. “I see at least six others.”

Carthei’s face drained of all emotion as she weighed the situation in her mind. Alric was certain that she was considering whether it was worth telegraphing her people’s presence. Suddenly unleashing magic onto the Clthics during a battle would have been the preferred first strike of the Mnem’non, but there was no reaching Threshfield without eliminating the witches.

“Kill them.”

Vontross took a deep breath. Alric stared at the man, upper lip quivering. The Mnem’non possess the same power? The power to dispatch someone from leagues away? The tip of his thrysteen lit up like a holy star three times in rapid succession.

“Run!” He barked.

Alric hesitated for a moment, but ultimately threw himself out from the embrace of the trees and forced himself to a sprint. His feet punched against the earth and all the components of his armour rung like chimes in the wind. The sound of his own breathing overwhelmed his senses. His eyes were pinned on Threshfield as it grew larger with every moment that passed.

Not daring to curb his pace even slightly, the Thestor tilted his chin over his shoulder. Matvey trailed behind, followed by Konth, then Narsei, Carthei, and Vontross.

It was the longest handful of minutes in Alric’s life. Laced into his wheezing was an ever-growing whimper. In the past, he always could rest easy knowing that his armour would keep him safe from arrows and crossbow bolts. There was a slim potential of shots penetrating his mail, but that was it: a slim potential. However, seeing plate pierced before his very eyes by eldritch energy did wonders to undermine all of that faith. One hit, anywhere on his body, would likely send him into the next life. He waited for a volley of return fire. He waited for his life to come to an abrupt and sudden end. The longer he waited, the more painful it became.

The main dirt road of Threshfield swallowed Alric as he came storming forth. A blur of brown, green, and blue was everything his eyes beheld as he tossed himself behind the closest piece of cover before he could even get a good look at it. The ground barrelled into his chest like a battering ram.

Alric groaned as he pushed himself up into a crouch. With time to spare now, he gazed about. There was a makeshift wall made of thick chunks of stone propped up by wooden trussing and lengths of rope. Here, behind this barricade, were two Knights Thestor, a Knight Correntis, and a Tritan archer. The Order that each knight served was plain to see from the surcoats they wore; white with a red Pillar for the Thestors, black with a white Pillar for the Correntis. They paid no mind to Alric. Matvey was of no interest either as he leapt behind a piece of stone on the other side of the dirt road. Instead, they stared at their still-approaching company.

Each Mnem’non druid shouldered their staff as they ran, casting blue sparks of enchanted lightning deep into the Clthic camp. Loud ‘bangs’, not unlike the ones Alric heard on the trek here, consumed the air.

“Thou art the first to make it across! Some of the footmen hath started to dub this place the Field of the Damned!” called a Thestor over the sound of the arcane discharges. His armour was bare steel like Alric’s and the others’; flourished and decorated armour was prohibited amongst the military orders of the Church, as it was yet another way for nobles to measure their wealth and show pride in it.

“Witches!?” murmured another Thestor, much younger and inexperienced judging by his wavering tone. “Thou’st brought witches into our midst!”

Alric peered into his helmet’s sights and said, “Silence, before I remove thy tongue!” Perhaps he was angry because he agreed with the young Thestor's sentiments.

The Mnem’non slid into cover around the village; Carthei slammed her back onto the surface of the wall that Alric had hid behind. Instantly, the other holy knights anxiously inched away from her. The Tritan archer shrugged. “After what I just saw you lot do, I’d reckon tha smart thing to do would be ta get closer, if anythin’,” he muttered charmingly.

“To assume that a knight of our Order would be daft enough to lead our sworn enemies to us is an insult of the man’s faith,” added the first more hardened knight. With the thrysteen fire now absent, his voice had lowered to a faint murmur. “These folk are allies.”

Alric nodded. “I thank thee, Brother…?” He trailed off, prompting the man for his name.

“Otto. Marshall of the Forty-First Host.”

Again, to spite the hierarchical nature of noble court, there was no such thing as rank among the Orders. Only role. Otto did indeed lead the men of his Grand Host, but that did not mean anyone regarded him as a superior man. It was a position that rotated with every season to avoid any cultivation of ego. For most, it was a burden.

Alric cocked his head. “The Legion of Glorious Exaction… Pray tell me, this cannot be all that remains.”

Otto shook his head. “T-The dragon. We stood no chance.”

“Why does it not simply erase us all now?” asked Carthei.

“I reckon only God knows the answer to that,” added the archer.

With a deep inhale, Otto continued. “Is it truly as it seems? Hath those cowardly sorcerers been sent to Hell?”

Carthei shook her head. “We struck a great deal of them…but I cannot say for certain.”

Alric took this moment to poke his head up from behind cover and look at the Clthic encampment. He saw a great deal of movement even without the help of the octhum. “They are mobilising infantry. It seems that they now understand they can no longer afford to lob light at thee from afar without consequence,” assessed Alric.

The young Thestor rolled his shoulders back and forth. “The time is finally upon us, then. We shall see who will stand victorious; a band of spineless heretics, or the mightiest warriors in all the realm united in their love of God.”

Although the lad was a bit overconfident, Alric would be lying if he said he was anything less than eager to run these fools through.