Shouting of zealous men, clanging of steel, thudding of feet on the earth, and the distinct sound of thysteen fire wove an aural tapestry of a most appetising battle. Alric could sense the overwhelming fervour of his fellow Thestor brothers as he sat with them upon their steeds. They were all desperate to join the Battle of Threshfield, but strategy dictated their discretion.

The village of Threshfield draped the surface of a hill, both of which were in the shadow of Nernthandil, a supreme fortress monastery. This hill served a pivotal purpose this day; it provided two-hundred Knights Thestor and their accompanying warhorses a place to muster from the gates of Nernthandil unseen by their heretic enemies. When the order was given, the wave of cavalry would sweep away the Clthics like ships in a storm.

About fifty other Thestors fought on foot alongside one-hundred knights Correntis, another hundred common infantry, and approximately four hundred common archers. The archers, once expending their allocated arrows, would join the melee as light infantry.

Considering the fact that the Forty-First Host, dubbed the Legion of Glorious Exaction, once numbered at least eight-thousand, the combined count of surviving Thestors and Correnti were a measly three-hundred and fifty. Even then, many of these were men already garrisoned at Nernthandil, so the Forty-First was even more depleted than it would seem. If it weren’t for the dwindling food and water, the knights of the Holy Orders would have dug deep within their fortress indefinitely. Given their undying faith, they decided to meet the enemy on the field rather than surrender or die of starvation.

At least for Alric, the residents of Threshfield who had all been evacuated to Nernthandil served as a potent incentive to win the day. Innocent farmers, families, merchants, priests, nuns, and plebeians had their lives dependent on the outcome of this battle.

The Army of God was eight-hundred strong, while estimates of the Clthics’ force stood at one-thousand two hundred. Marshal Otto was hoping that the thrysteen support lent by the Mnem’non as well as the shrouded cavalry charge would be enough impact to turn the tables.

It had been some time since Alric had last mounted a warhorse. They were intensely fierce and disciplined animals, far less skittish than horses not subjected to the same lifelong training. Anything from a lance bobbing above its head, or the sound of clanking armour would cause any reasonable mount to frighten and disobey their rider. When Alric first bought her, he had spent a great deal of time teaching Nocht not to fear the racket of his plate, only to forget to acclimate her to the scabbard of his longsword occasionally tapping her on the rump as they rode. The first time this happened, he was almost thrown from the saddle by her thrashing.

Warhorses on the other hand, were bred to be at as much ease as possible during the chaos of warfare. Every possible article of stimuli was ingrained into the stallion's mind. However, like men, they rarely thought it prudent to charge suicidally into raised pikes. They would be most effective charging upon an already engaged foe. Nernthandil had a stable of these elite warhorses, although many had already died due to lack of food. The one trusted to Alric, an energetic thing named Dtilvre, would huff and scoop his front hooves at the dirt in an effort to convince his rider that it was time to dive into combat.

Despite the effort Alric had gone through to carry his pollaxe with him all this way in case he was to be involved in a skirmish, it was not a weapon intended for use on horseback. Every mounted Thestor, Alric included, held in their hand a war lance. It differed in several ways to the lances used in tournament jousts of peace; it had a deadly spearhead on its tip instead of a pronged coronel, it lacked the circular metal vamplate designed to protect the wielder’s hand, and was made of a sturdier wood that was less likely to shatter into a million pieces on impact. A shattering lance was good when your primary goal was not to kill your opponent, not so much for the opposite.

Alric, like all his brothers, held his lance with the bottom end resting on his right foot as the latter was suspended in his saddle’s stirrups. This created a forest of lances all outstretched towards the heavens.

With the smoke and haze blown away by the breeze, Alric was puzzled to see that the monstrous dragon was no longer hovering in place high in the sky. Alric was waiting for the beast to turn downward and incinerate both the Legion of Glorious Exaction and Nernthandil with a single puff of its volcanic breath. But it never came. Where it went, no one was certain.

Alric was positioned on the first line of the charge, to the right of its commander, a man named Galfrido. To Alric’s right was Baldwyn, the young headstrong knight he had met the previous day. His posture was stiff and his right leg was constantly jittering against the saddle. Every man had their visor lifted; only when they were in the final moments of the charge would they be lowered.

“It is a good day to die, is it not?” Galfrido declared.

Alric chuckled as he saw Baldwyn perform a double-take. The young knight replied, “No. It most certainly is not.”

“Wallow in your fear of death then, young one. Long have I asked for a day upon which I can give my life to the Father for ultimate penance,” Galfrido continued.

Alric replied, “Thou art free to do so, Brother. I, however, do not plan on departing this place before the Clthics have all had their spines removed from their disgusting bodies.”

Momentarily, Alric saw a flag emerge from one of the farmhouse windows and flutter in the wind.

“The time has come!” roared Galfrido. “Brothers, forward!”

In unison, the mass of horses walked steadily forward. Each Thestor was packed as close as possible to the next rider in the formation. Alric felt his left knee periodically tap against Baldwyn’s right as their steeds moved at a pace synchronised with the other one-hundred and ninety-eight knights.

Slowly but surely, the crowd of mounted men rounded the side of Threshfield Hill. Alric finally laid eyes upon the battle for the first time. White-hot lines of light denoting thrysteen discharges criss-crossed the farmland, drawing themselves from the wood to the village and back again. Wings of infantry were engaging in ferocious hand-to-hand fighting. From where Alric was, he saw only blocks of gleaming steel pushing against each other.

Galfrido yelled, spurring his horse into a canter. Alric followed, heaving his lance up off his foot and holding it by its handle, still pointed up. The stomping of hooves on the soil grew to an ominous drumming. In his vision, the rectangles of infantry swelled.

In a moment that frightened Alric beyond words, a spike of energy hurtled out of the forest, narrowly missing Galfrido’s head by mere inches. Several of the warhorses neighed in fright, but fortunately for Alric, it seemed that Dtilvre wasn’t bothered.

More came. Alric heard screams of both man and horse alike. Despite the intense nagging of his inner voice, he didn’t turn his head to behold the carnage. He took solace in the fact that the Mnem'non promptly returned fire upon the witches to cover the knights. Alric's focus remained upon what lay in front of him; the vulnerable flank of the Clthic infantry.

One final scream of rage from Galfrido told Alric everything he needed to know; it was time to push into a full gallop. The hoof falls went from foreboding drums to a chorus of thunder. Every bone in Alric’s body shook, as did each plate of steel that comprised his armour. He dropped the reins from his left hand, slammed his visor shut, retook the reins, then tucked the back end of his lance held in his right hand up and under his armpit.

Jagged rays of starlight pulsed across his tiny frames of vision as his target grew even larger. From there, they came into range of arrows. A concussive force slammed into Alric’s shoulder, then his chest, then his head. They were all amplified by the speed at which Dtilvre charged. The pain was dulled by the intensity of the situation; Alric hadn’t time to process it.

The gallop turned Alric’s situational awareness into a garbled mess of blurs, streaks, and smudges. His worry about not handling a lance in years was in fact unfounded; once he was in the middle of the frantic charge, it came back to him via muscle memory. His brain could still decipher the seemingly incomprehensible sludge picked up by his eyes so he slowly began to lower his lance from its upward-tilting position.

Some of the enemy footmen were so deeply engaged by the Church infantry, thrysteens, and arrows that they didn’t even see the charge coming.

A single moment in time was captured by Alric’s skewed perception. The face of a Clthic footman as he stared wide-eyed at the oncoming wall of horses. In his eyes, Alric could see helplessness. Submission to death. Alric’s couched lance had its tip lined up perfectly with the man’s face. Some of his compatriots had tried to move out of the way, much to the Thestors’ benefit. This created a weakness in the formation that the cavalry charge was always designed to exploit.

Suddenly, time went from standing still to moving a million miles an hour. An incredible impact surged its way up Alric’s lance and into his body, indicating that his lance had struck true. Reflexively, before the full impact of the blow could be transferred to him, Alric let go of the weapon. The ocean of infantry began to part, either breaking formation to move to safety or being sucked beneath the mighty hooves of the warhorses.

Alric seized Dtilvre’s reins with both hands and gritted his teeth. He and his brothers had to weather the storm, survive until they were clear of the block of soldiers. If they slowed and became ensnared by the regrouping footmen, they would be set upon from every direction and massacred.

Screaming, thudding, his own breathing. Those were the only three things Alric could hear.

Suddenly, the screeching was recanted and once again, Alric’s eyes were swallowed by the green fields. Only then did he glance to his sides. Astonishingly, his brothers were still at his flanks as close as they were when the charge started. Galfrido’s lance was still intact, while Baldwyn’s had been snapped in two.

“About!” screamed Galfrido. Once they had made significant distance, each of the knights and their warhorses slowed and steered the formation around. From this new perspective, Alric could see the chaos that he and his brothers had just wrought.

The Clthic infantry was in shambles. The centre of their ranks had been smashed into disarray with a fair amount fleeing for safety. It was, however, the minority that fled for their lives. It was now time for the allied infantry to make the most of this opportunity. The cavalry had nothing to do but watch and assess the situation; if the infantry succeeded in breaking the enemy line, it would be time for the cavalry to engage in the rout, where the most death would be inflicted in any battle. If the Clthics stood fast, it may be time for the horsemen to re-arm with more lances and charge once again. God, if thou couldst heareth my pleas, I do not wish to do that again.

Along the field, Alric could now see fallen horses and the Thestors that rode them. Some of the holy knights had been crushed by their steeds when they fell, others were dispatched with ease by the hostiles as they lay on the ground, while a rare few were fortunate enough to survive and join the infantry.

Alric watched with bated breath as the soup of Thestors, Correnti, and common soldiers advanced into the scrambled line of demonists. Thrysteen bolts fired by the Mnem’non impacted specific points in the Clthic ranks, instantly killing whoever they struck. The enemy infantry buckled as they sustained close-quarters thrashing as well as an onslaught of eldritch energies.

Surely, the Clthics broke. They began to trickle back towards the camp nestled in the wood.

“They are routed! Run them down!” cried Galfrido. “No quarter!”

Alric scooped his war hammer from his belt and screamed at the top of his lungs. A one-handed hammer with a spike on its back side, this weapon was incredibly effective at delivering lethal blows onto the heads of enemies from horseback even if they wore helmets.

What followed was another all-out gallop by the Knights of Saint Thestus as they pursued their retreating foes. This part always brought great pleasure to Alric. Watching the helpless enemies of God lose all their faith and pathetically try to save themselves like terrified children while he and the other righteous servants chased them down upon their mounts.

Alric extended his right hand, preparing his hammer for the sorry excuses for soldiers that ran from him. Dtilvre easily closed the distance with the first man, the second, third, and so on. For each footman that fell into Alric’s range, he swung the curved spike of his hammer downward at their helmeted heads and each impact rang like a tolling bell. The men dropped instantly, dead or unconscious, it mattered not. Alric did not want a single demonist to escape with their life.

He and his compatriots swept across the retreating Clthics, getting closer and closer to the treeline. However, it was then that Dtilvre began to falter. As did Alric. It was now not only the flogging of horseshoes on the ground…but something else. Something much more immense and soul shaking.

Alric slowed Dtilvre to a canter and before long, many of his knight brothers felt it too.

By the Heavens…is there an ogre awaiting us in the wood?

Whatever came out was much more agile than an ogre. It paced out of the trees on two legs perpetually bent at the knee, vaguely humanoid in shape. The thing was at least as tall as an ogre, but nowhere near as wide and lumbering. It did however share an ogre’s composition; a robust skeleton and a thick plated carapace. The creature’s torso was a strange, top-heavy shape and its arms…well, in Alric’s opinion, it did not have arms. Instead, it had two masses of armoured appendages hanging from its shoulders. There were no fingers on the strangely mangled limbs, only a single gaping hole on each. Upon its back and top were pikes adorned with impaled corpses, heads, and other body parts. The monster itself did not have a head, but a thin red line on the front of its body seemed to Alric to be an unblinking demonic eye.

Alric was overcome with fear. His very soul was petrified. Dtilvre whinnied and reared, then started to turn around to flee.

One of the masses on the creature’s arm suddenly exploded with fire, dust, and a deafening ‘boom’.

This was enough to terrify Dtilvre, who bucked and threw Alric from his saddle. The knight twirled through the air and landed on his chest, his war hammer soaring out of his hand and out of sight. Every ounce of air in his lungs was forced out and his forehead slammed harshly against the inside of his helmet. Flinging his visor open as he gasped and retched, Alric managed to look back toward the village. He felt as if his ears were filled with blood.

He saw Dtilvre galloping for his life as well as other horses, some with rider and some without. What remained of the cavalry formation regrouped and now charged directly for the horrifying new monster. Behind them, where the mass of Church footmen used to be, was a cloud of dirt, smoke, and fire that was almost as large as the hamlet of Threshfield itself. Horrified, Alric looked back at the towering monstrosity.

It jogged forward from the forest, the orifice on its right limb smoking. Its left one started emitting a high-pitched whirl, as if something inside it was spinning rapidly. What came next, Alric could not even hope to comprehend. It seemed a hundred detonations occurred in the barrel of the appendage every second as the aberration swept it slowly across the field.

Alric turned back to the approaching knightly charge. Heads exploded. Thestors were torn limb from limb. These invisible missiles were fired in an unbelievably rapid succession and tore straight through plate armour. It did not inflame its victims the way thrysteen fire did, but instead pocked everything unfortunate enough to be standing in its path full of tiny holes.

When Alric returned his panicked stare back to the rapidly closing monster, he saw bolts of light buffeting it from several different angles. T-The Mnem’non.

The points of light washed the creature’s hide with blossoms of blue fire, misshaping its chitin and staggering its calculated gait.

As Alric scuttered backwards on all fours, his widened eyes unable to move from the subject of his terror, his hand plunged into something that was soft and wet. A Clthic witch. Well, the pathetic sludge that remained of her. Alric’s hand was splayed within a stew of her flesh and bone. Only her grotesque mask remained intact…and her thrysteen staff beside it.

In an act of sheer desperation, Alric clambered for the weapon and directed it at the monster’s lower abdomen.

I beseech thee, God, grant me the power to wield this mystical artefact! Guide me in felling this hellish abomination!

Although it seemed that Alric’s prayers had been answered, the reality was that he squeezed as hard as he could on the length of the thrysteen. One of his fingers pressed against a moving part and there came a ‘click’.

There was no physical kickback as the stream of energy erupted from the thrysteen, only immense heat and light. The crystalline shard of lightning found its mark, directly where Alric had pointed it. It flowered into a miniature sun for a moment then cooled, revealing that it did remarkable damage. Alric stared down at the thrysteen’s trigger in disbelief, then clicked it down another three times.

Specks of mystical fire swirled about as the creature staggered backwards. Its chest began to spark and it bleated in a sustained drone.

When the smoke cleared, Alric could see a gap in the armour on its chest. The tiniest seam, within which Alric could spy a spigot of blood spraying outward. Swallowing his fear, the Thestor pushed to his feet. He discarded the thrysteen and seized a nearby halberd that was lying loosely within the fingers of a dismembered arm. With this polearm grasped firmly in both hands, Alric did the exact opposite of what his instincts told him to do; sprint as fast as he could toward the mountainous behemoth.

With the polearm levelled in front of him, Alric roared into the monster’s gut as it had its body lowered to the ground in a moment of exhaustion. Like a divine miracle, Alric’s headstrong charge sent the steel head of the halberd scraping straight into the breach in the creature’s shell.

All of a sudden, Alric’s momentum was brought to a halt and his body lurched forward. The halberd was jammed in the creature’s chitin; it hadn’t been pushed deep enough to cause any significant damage.

Alric gritted his teeth and pushed with every drop of strength he had left. The weapon did not move. He pulled on it, leaning the combined weight of his body and his armour into it. The weapon did not move.

He was promptly worked into another panic when the monster began to rise from its momentary rest. As its body was lifted from the dirt by its humming legs, Alric leapt onto its torso, his feet finding purchase on a ridge just below the halberd wound. His stomach sloshed about within his body as he watched the ground grow more distant beneath him. The Thestor swallowed and turned his attention back to the halberd.

With both hands, he snatched the weapon and this time tried wrenching it side to side. The strange material that composed the monster’s shell began to groan as Alric forced the halberd so fiercely that its shaft began to bend. Screaming in exertion, the knight felt his muscles falter.

The halberd shifted, and from the creature’s gullet came a loud ‘crack’. The monster’s belly folded open like a pair of iron doors, unleashing a tsunami of vile, thick yellow liquid. The foul-smelling sludge almost propelled Alric right off of the creature but he managed to grab both sides of its torn gut and brace himself against the disgusting tide.

Some of it managed to find its way into his mouth. Alric gagged, turned over his shoulder, and vomited in lieu of the sickening concoction that tasted like oil and spoiled meat.

When he turned back to what resided within the behemoth’s split belly, he was overcome with terror.

Hanging by a cable made of the monster’s innards was a woman, naked and with all four of her limbs missing. Her skull had been completely skinned, cleared of all tissue and her jaw had been snapped free. The behemoth’s entrails funnelled themselves like snakes into her eye sockets, nostrils, open throat, and ears, suspending her in mid-air like a hanged man. Plunged into the ends of the stumps that were the remnants of her now absent arms and legs were lengths of sinew that bound her further to the creature she was inside. Despite all of this…she was alive. Her muffled, guttural screams and writhing communicated as much.

It seemed that her body was previously floating in the revolting yellow fluid; now that it was absent, the forces of nature had her harshly dangling by the face from the tubes that ran into her every orifice. She swung to and fro like a pendulum as she dripped with the now sparse liquid. I-Is she prey of the beast? Doomed to be d-digested little by little?

Suddenly, the monster thrashed back and forth. Alric fell to his knees on the lip of the creature’s belly, clutched on for dear life and watched as its two ‘arms’ attempted to turn inward to fire upon him. However, when they reached a certain point, a loud ‘snap’ sounded and the rotation ceased.

As Alric spun back to the wretch within the creature’s gut, his quivering lip slowed. As the monster walked, the swallowed woman’s thighs twitched. When it attempted to turn its arms, her biceps trembled. Her entire body flexed and wriggled, in tandem with the monster's violent convulsions.

No. She is no victim. She is a witch…willing this monstrosity about from within…

This line of thought brought great clarity to Alric. He knew now that it was not the time for fear, but the time to spill blood. God had allowed him to lay eyes upon the sickening lengths the Devil would go to mimic a fraction of His heavenly might. The Knights of Saint Thestor did not need such twisted unions to receive power, they needed only faith.

Alric closed his eyes for a moment, inhaled sharply, then sprung into action. He snatched his rondel dagger from its scabbard and dove onto the swallowed witch. Grabbing her by the neck with one hand, he pressed his dagger up to its hand guard into her abdomen.

A sharp, high-pitched gasp escaped from the witch’s obstructed throat.

“Ain Dtil sor unternum, val eletorn sor malestrun,” Alric whispered. “Witness His mercy in this death, and His hatred in what awaits thee in Hell.”

He drew the dagger across the entire length of her belly. The screeching only grew in volume and intensity as the woman’s intestinal tract was vomited from the newly sliced mouth on her abdomen. Her black blood mixed with the golden yellow that pooled beneath her.

The unstoppable colossus lumbered forward with several weak steps then teetered forward. Alric was not prepared for the sudden shift of balance. He slipped backwards, the world around him transforming into a slush of greens and blues until his back slammed into the ground.

His eyes widened as he saw the massive monster leaning over him. Its joints wheezed as they loosened…and sent the beast tipping over with Alric directly beneath it. He managed a sharp inhale as his instincts urged him to frivolously raise his arms in front of his face. He closed his eyes.

With how loud the sound of impact was, Alric thought that the world had come to an end…or perhaps simply just his world. But he felt sweat dripping from his face. He heard the faint clacks of his armour. Perhaps God did not wish him gone from creation just yet.

Hesitantly, Alric forced his eyes open. There, suspeneded in the air above him, hanging from the monster’s savaged body, was the swallowed witch. The manner in which the monster fell meant that its elongated ‘arms’ had prevented its body from making contact with the ground, instead propping it up…saving Alric’s life. This also flung the witch’s body out of the beast’s gullet and allowed it to flutter in the wind like a flag.

Alric stared at the body as the breeze made it dance, rattling the entrails that hung from her sliced belly like chimes.

His vision refocused onto something rustling in the treeline. More stomping footfalls not dissimilar to what this fallen offence to God had produced. The Thestor’s heart froze and he shook his head frantically. “N-No…please God, n-no…!”

Surely enough, another behemoth identical to this one emerged from the wood, its two appendages ablaze with yellow sparks. Before long, another joined it. Before the might of these two unfathomable forces of darkness, no one stood a chance. Threshfield was detonated into a cloud of dirt. What little that already remained of the Church infantry was torn to ribbons. And ultimately, Nernthandil’s walls were shattered by an earth-shaking roar.

Tears welled in Alric’s eyes.

“It’s time to go,” came a whisper. Alric jolted upright and sent his gaze about. There, hidden behind the wreckage of the monster, was Carthei.

Alric swallowed. “N-No…I cannot flee. I must die in battle, like my brothers have.”

Carthei knelt and scooped something up from the ground. She tossed it at Alric, who almost failed to catch it before it smacked him in the nose. It was the thrysteen he had used… “We can win against the interlopers in time, but we cannot succeed in open battle against their golems.”

The Thestor sluggishly pushed to his feet, retrieved his dagger, then spat, “If I could kill one, I can kill the others.”

Once again, Alric found himself being seized by the shoulder by Carthei. “Don’t be a fool. To slay a multi-limbed beast like the Clthics, chopping at its innumerable appendages will only waste time; you must remove its head. Everything you do will be for naught if all you strike against are pawns. You must know this.”

Alric snarled in frustration as he pulled free of her grasp. But he didn’t move. He only stood there and watched as more invisible missiles reduced Nernthandil’s watchtowers to rubble. Nearlu a thousand of God’s loyal servants…thrown to the grave.

However, it was not the end.

Carthei and Alric sent their eyes to the ground as the dead trembled beneath their very feet. Friend and foe alike. A wretched chorus resounded throughout the Fields of Damnation, “01001001 01101110 01101001 01110100 01101001 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01101111 01110111 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110111 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101101 01101111 01100100 01100101 00101110 00100000 01010000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101001 01110100 00101110”

Alric swallowed. “Run,” he whispered to Carthei.