It was quite a beautiful day. Well, Vilulf rarely got to lay eyes on the earth bathed in the golden light of day, so perhaps it was in fact quite regular and he had grown unfamiliar with what it was meant to look like. However, the stinging of the sun’s rays on his eyes was the main source of his pleasure.

“Mein Gott. This is a mess…a mess, I tell you,” snarled Klaus von Talhoffen. The pair brought up the middle of the convoy as it trailed along a dirt road. The travelling party was composed of horses, mules, carts, soldiers, miners, and peasants. Each person’s sight was obscured by an immense crowd of aimless, soulless beings that crowded about the sides of the road. The Enlightened, as the Clthics called them, completely engulfed Nernthandil Road. If you were a Church degenerate, you would probably refer to them as the undead.

Vilulf tsked and shook his head. The motion caused his armour’s already annoying clanking to amplify. “You really must stop saying that. God does not exist.”

The duke ignored Vilulf’s remark as he often did and instead continued, “What good is taking that blasted fortress if there is an ocean of flesh-feasters drowning it? How can we sally troops or maintain supply lines with this rabble trying to eat our men?”

He spoke of Nernthandil, the newly acquired castle that made this transfer of workers possible at all.

“That is why I’m here, my friend,” Vilulf replied with a smile, not that Klaus could see it. The vampire was clad in full plate armour. Not for protection from attack though, but for protection from daylight. He could have worn his favourite doublet, hose, gloves, and a face covering of some sort, but those things could all be torn and pierced. What then? He would roast to a second death in the sun. That would not do.

Klaus shook his head. “You will not always be around to quell their thirst.”

Tethspeakers, although being the sole inciters of the Enlightenment, were not the only ones able to herd the Enlightened. All vampires had the innate ability to impose their will onto weak-minded men, so if the subject had no mind to begin with, controlling them was quite easy. As long as the convoy remained in range of Vilulf, he could compel the Enlightened to keep away.

Klaus promptly peered over his shoulder at the crowd of workers behind him in the convoy. Vilulf tracked his eyes, noticing that they fell onto a woman amidst the mining crew. “You didn’t feed on her? Or force her into a life of servitude as one of your concubines?” asked the duke, voice awash with disgust.

Alison. Her gaze met with Vilulf’s and her eyes sharpened. Her tongue ran along the length of her lips.

“Oh, Alison. She was actually…quite incredible,” said Vilulf with a sigh. “I long to behold fear in the eyes of those I take. To hear them plead and scream for respite. So naturally, I engage in things that boring people like you would perhaps call…depraved. That one, though…she actually found pleasure in being degraded and humiliated. It was refreshing, I suppose. Arousing.” Each of his words was laced with longing.

Klaus emitted a short, uncomfortable grunt. “Please, I do not wish to know. Just keep your passions in check, Vilulf. We cannot afford to be distracted.”

Vilulf nodded. “What is the point of power if you cannot force it upon others? Last I checked, you were a lavishly decorated military commander. You force yourself onto others the same as I do, simply on a larger scale with thousands of lives in the balance. What is the difference?”

“I suppose there is no difference. That is why we must all be returned to our true state.”

Furrowing his brow, Vilulf jolted in shock. “I beg your pardon?”

Klaus shook his head as he tightly grasped the reins of his horse. “Yes, laugh at me, distract yourself from the fact that you could be reduced to a pile of ashes if I reach over and lift your visor.”

Vilulf chuckled under his breath. “A slight exaggeration, but apt, I must say.”

The Duke von Talhoffen explained, “Listen, Vilulf. Human nature is what propels us to dispense cruelty onto our fellow man. At the end of all this, when all of us have been Enlightened, the world will be at peace. No more war, no more crusades, no more scheming.”

Shame. I took Duke von Talhoffen for a man with a spine. It seems I was wrong about him. “Yes, we will be oblivious, drooling cattle cursed to graze on each other without any real purpose. How immensely boring.”

Before long, Vilulf felt his ears twitch. The helmet he wore would’ve drastically reduced the hearing of a regular man, but of course, Vilulf was not a regular man.

The vampire spoke urgently to his liege, “The rear guard. They’re gone.”

If there was one thing that Klaus gave Vilulf, it was respect where it was due. The duke nodded. "Myrktuul is not too far away…the footmen should be able to keep the miners safe in your absence. Go."

Vilulf briskly paced along the side of the road, passed the body of miners, and came upon the group of soldiers bringing up what should have been the midsection. He directed his ire toward the man-at-arms in charge of this cluster of troops. “You there. Did you not think it prudent to mention that you can no longer see the rear guard?” demanded the vampire.

One by one, the footmen groggily turned about and peered back down the road. "I supposed they fell out of the field of thy influence and got savaged by the Enlightened," reported the man-at-arms with a shrug.

Vilulf scoffed. "Come."

Joined by the Clthic soldiers who were mere children before his strength, Vilulf led the way down the road and around a bend. A smile found itself lathered across his face when his eyes fell upon the cause of all the commotion.

A band of holy knights, a mix of Thestors and Correnti, held a tight formation against a crowd of Enlightened. They swung their hammers, pollaxes, halberds, and swords at the encroaching waves of ‘undead’. In unison, they bellowed lines of their Scripture as a rallying cry. The caravan’s rear guard must have fallen some time ago; their bodies were nowhere to be seen.

“Yes, babble at them…that will make them stop,” Vilulf muttered to himself. With but a thought sent through the air, the Enlightened suddenly drew away from the holy knights, much to their surprise. It was only then that they realised that Vilulf was approaching with fifty men.

Vilulf strolled forward, arms outstretched in a gesture of friendliness. “Why, hello there, preachers of the Great Lie.”

Instantly, each of the knights glowed with rage. They are so very easily offended. It's hilarious.

"I am Vilulf, child of Lady Viktoria and loyal servant of the Clthics. What you face today, my friends, is a choice. Denounce your falsities, embrace the word of the Mythar, and you will be spared.”

Surprising absolutely no one, the knights moved not. A voice from the group of two dozen holy knights promptly answered, “We stand with God until death.”

Vilvulf shook his head in disbelief. “You, step forward,” he said, playfulness dripping from his voice.

One of the knights, a Thestor, presented himself. He held a bec de corbin in his hands; a two-handed polearm weapon with a long, curved spike on one side, a hammer on the other, and another spike on its tip.

“What is your name?”

“I am Otto, Marshal of the Legion of Glorious Exaction, and I shall see to it that thy cult is cast into the fire.”

The Clthic knight snorted, “Glorious Exaction. That is simply…ridiculous.”

Otto flexed his fingers around his weapon, his anger practically wafting through the breeze.

“Now, Brother Marshal, I have a proposition for you. To earn the freedom of your men, simply best me in single combat,” started Vilulf.

The Thestor Marshal glanced about in puzzlement, as did his brothers.

Vilulf raised his hands. “I am unarmed. Surely you can strike down some arrogant ponce foolish enough to besmirch the honour of that fictional man in the sky.”

The Clthic soldiers behind Vilulf chuckled in anticipation while the holy knights ignited with raw outrage.

Otto stepped forward as he announced, “I will send thee to Hell for that.”

With a bow, Vilulf answered, “Why, of course. I’ve always wanted to go there.”

-

Ash, sulphur, and horribly burnt meat. These odours melted together in the humid air and became so pungent that Alric gagged. The worst part of it was that no matter how far he walked, the smell would never depart. Perhaps because he was the cause of it.

The revenants had poured into the forest, all but erasing any notion of safe harbour from their onslaught. Each pack that had the misfortune of wandering into the path of Alric and Carthei was blasted into oblivion by their combined arcane might.

A former Tritan footman gracefully strode toward Alric, his eyes aglow with dim light. Vibrant yellow sunlight, softened by the leaves of the trees, painted the walking corpse’s mangled face. The Knight Thestor hesitantly raised his thrysteen, trying to keep in mind the dozens of concise instructions Carthei had given him on how to properly operate the thing. He squeezed the staff’s trigger.

Ash, sulphur, and horribly burnt meat.

The footman, now missing his head, dropped to the ground limply. Fortunate was I that this one stood close. Otherwise, I fear I would not have struck true. I long for a real weapon in my hands, not this…this damnable wand.

Carthei evidently did not share Alric’s discomfort. With frightening efficiency, she dispatched revenants both near and far without hesitation. As she swept back and forth to trap the creatures in her sights, her heavy cloak flapped like a pair of infernal wings.

The bodies mounted, as did the stink.

This had been the order of things for hours. How many exactly, Alric knew not. What he did know was that they could not fight them off forever.

More and more of the walking corpses paced out from behind the mask of trees, an unrelenting current of death. Alric controlled his hastened breathing, shouldered his thrysteen, then fired. His target’s right shoulder exploded, flinging the detached arm off into the distance. The revenant continued on its way, unfazed by the injury.

Alric growled in frustration, but promptly tried again. The thrysteen clicked, but nothing happened. The heart…! Replace the heart, fool!

His every fibre trembled as he popped the staff’s chamber open, causing it to spit out the empty heart, and reached into a pouch strapped to his belt with his other hand. All the while, his pursuers continued to walk briskly toward him.

With a fresh heart in his grip, cylindrical and pulsing blue, Alric slapped it into the thrysteen and pressed the chamber shut. Not a second later, he thrusted the tip of the arcane staff towards the face of the one-armed man-at-arms. Unlike the previous shot, this one found its mark. The resulting bolt of energy gorged the man’s neck, boiling away the lower half of his face and causing his head to roll from his shoulders.

One of the others, just a blur of colour in Alric’s peripheral vision, caused his heart to freeze. It was too close.

Alric didn’t have much of a choice in terms of weaponry; seeing as all of the revenants were soldiers slain at the battle of Threshfield, they wore battlefield armour. The only conventional weapons the Thestor had at his disposal were his longsword and rondel dagger. Although not the optimal tools in a skirmish, they would have served him well if he were facing fellow mortals. Stabbing a revenant in the armpit or neck would not garner the same response as stabbing a man in the armpit or neck. Evidently, anything short of destroying its brain would be but a tickle.

A jet of liquid sprayed across Alric’s helmet. Some of the stuff passed through the sights and breaths of his bascinet and onto his lips. He found that he knew the taste well; blood.

His would-be attacker dropped like the others and Alric saw Carthei over his shoulder, the tip of her staff smouldering from the blast. She tilted her head, her expression soft despite the blood and flesh that painted her face and cloak.

Instead of saying 'thank you', Alric just grunted harshly.

Carthei’s lips thinned and curled slightly. It wasn’t quite a smile, not quite a smirk even. Whatever it was, Alric found it confusing. She said rather too cordially, “I haven’t the time for your pleasant manners, Godslave. Come, I will show you how to harvest.”

He had many years spent claiming the lives of non-believers in the name of God, but Alric could not say that he had ever cut open a corpse in order to remove its heart. Carthei snapped the ribs of their quarry, sliced apart the meat, shoved her hands inside, and soothingly narrated the entire process with great detail. Quite frankly, Alric was more occupied with keeping himself from vomiting than with paying attention to her tutelage.

When the body had been liberated of its heart, Carthei held the thing up in the air and closed her eyes. She muttered strange words in some foreign tongue. If Alric could recognise one thing without fail, it was piety. He could feel the devotion oozing out of Carthei's every word without even understanding them. As treacherous and blasphemous as her ramblings were…Alric knew that she had undying faith in all of it.

Alric was left to his own thoughts for a moment as Carthei conducted her ritual. He felt as if he were blind and stumbling through a field of ditches. We lost. Pray tell, O great Father of All, how can that be? A horde of barbarians stood firm in defiance against thee, and they yet live…while thy faithful servants suffer unrighteous death. I beg thee, make me understand. And this magic that I now possess…it frightens me.

Suddenly, Carthei lowered the heart and spoke. "Something troubles you. Speak."

The Thestor frowned and remained silent.

"Like it or not, we are now reliant upon each other. I do not wish to place my trust in the hands of a brooding child," Carthei quipped.

With a growl, Alric finally gave in. “I hath no training in the mystic arts, nor the aptitude for it. I simply…grasped the staff and it obeyed my command."

Carthei shook her head with a pout. “Magic simply doesn't live where you thought it did. It resides solely within the instrument, not the wielder.” She would send her eyes into the forest often to see if the momentary peace was at an end.

Alric blinked rapidly. “…Any man could hold a thrysteen and make use of it?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Soon enough, before he could press any further, she extended the heart to Alric. “We haven’t the time to harvest more. We must go, before they return.”

The Thestor awkwardly accepted the strange gift and stuffed it into his belt pouch.

“You're welcome," Carthei droned with an arched eyebrow.

Before anything else could be said, a haunting scream bounced between the trees and seeped over the pair of unlikely allies. It weaved through the pillars of wood like a snake and wrapped itself around Alric’s head, clasping his ears.

Carthei popped to her feet and stared off into the distance. “It is close.”

The Knight Thestor and the druid once again took to navigating the death-infested forest. This time though, they had an objective. The howling repeated several times, providing them ample direction. Alric didn’t think they all sounded like the same person, either. A massacre was underway.

Careful to remain in the cover of the brush, Alric knelt by a clearing. Beyond was a dirt road that carved its way along the wood. One the side of the road was a mass of Clthic soldiers, revelling and laughing. They encircled several men, a group of Churchsworn knights. There were about fourteen of them, but they stood idle as one of their number engaged in combat against a single foe.

This foe wore armour made of plates that had been heat-treated to a glossy midnight black. It was also lavishly decorated with fluting, a technique often used by Steiffan smiths to create ornamental ridges on steel. Curiously, his sparrow-beaked armet helm had a black veil laid over its sights and breaths.

It was then that Alric’s eyes drifted downward. On the ground were an assortment of armour, discarded surcoats, severed limbs, and crushed heads. Glimmering ebony blood dampened the grass and created a wretched bog.

Curiously, there was a lack of undead…

The black knight weaved in and out of the Thestor’s carefully measured attacks with inhuman speed. It was clear from the cadence of his steps, the fluidity of his motions, that he was toying with the Thestor. Like a cat with its prey.

Suddenly, both of the black knight’s hands locked onto the sides of the Thestor’s head. With a sickening crunch, slurp, and horrific howl, the heretic ripped the holy knight’s head from his shoulders. He discarded the thing, sending it bouncing along the dirt like a ball.

Carthei inhaled sharply while Alric drew the Sign of the Pillar.

As blood splurted upward from the severed neck like water from a geyser, the black knight trembled. He lifted his visor. The face beneath promptly cracked open and a single fang emerged, embedding itself into the dead Thestor’s throat. This deed all but confirmed Alric’s suspicions.

“I don’t suppose you know what that is?” Carthei whispered bluntly.

The vampire, after completely draining the Thestor’s corpse, shoved it to the ground and turned towards Alric and Carthei. His face reassembled itself and seemed to smoke slightly in the sun. “My, my…what a pleasant voice,” he said as he lowered his visor.

Carthei swallowed. “H-He hears me…?”

Slowly, Alric raised his thysteen and slowed his breathing.

“I certainly can, my dear,” said the vampire as he took slow steps towards the brush. “That resonance within your throat makes me throb.”

Eventually, Alric’s arms stopped their shaking. He lined up his staff’s sights with the approaching vampire knight and nudged Carthei with his elbow. As much as he would like to relieve her fears by explaining everything to her, there was no time.

Thankfully, the gesture was enough to shake her out of her inaction. Her mind was not pliable enough for the creature to manipulate. She joined Alric in priming her thrysteen. The very moment they were aligned, Alric murmured, “Now.”

The vampire froze as he realised that he had waltzed directly into a trap, but it was too late. Both thrysteens erupted with a cool blue bolt of fire that lanced into the night creature’s gut. Sparks, blood, and meat were tossed about as the arcane missiles pierced his plate armour and flung his body backwards through the air.

His form, now a projectile in itself, hurtled into the force of Clthic soldiers and bowled over its vanguard. The Churchsworn knights suddenly roared into action, reciting in unison, “Ain Dtil sor unternum, val eletorn sor malestrun!”

As God’s love is infinite, so boundless is his hate.

The wave of Thestors and Correnti broke over the shocked Clthics who had recently outnumbered them. With every second that passed, however, the holy knights were dispatching any Clthics who were knocked off their feet by the vampire’s fall. The numbers evened out soon enough.

Alric slung his staff onto his back with the leather strap he had attached to it, and drew his longsword. His heart rate eased and his muscles loosened. This was where he belonged, where he found solace. As he joined his brothers, he half-sworded his blade, lashing out with thrusts.

A force that felt like the kick of a steed belted his shoulder, whipping it backward and wrenching his neck sideways. He felt the muscle on his upper left chest pop and deflate. If he had to guess what delivered the painful blow, it might have been a hammer or a mace. There was no use trying to figure it out. He and the other knights had one thing that they could afford to think about; survival.

Alric and Carthei’s arrival appeared to revitalise the drained holy knights; seventeen men fought with the fervour of a hundred. Alric took to half-swording in order to jab the tip of his sword into any unprotected areas of the men before him as well as unleash more murder strokes unto the heads of unsuspecting enemies. The screams of the heretics filled him with glee.

When the searing heat of such desperate battle vanished, not a single Clthic lived to creep further upon God’s earth.

The pain then came to him. Alric looked to his chest where there was now a sizable dent in his cuirass. He didn’t think that he was bleeding…but there was no way to know for sure without removing his armour, which had to wait until nightfall. Until then, prayer would have to suffice.

“The vampire…where is he?” a Correntis bellowed, his words short and ragged.

Carthei repeated the word as if she had never heard it before. She too had thrown herself into the fold. The spear fastened to her thrysteen was slick with Clthic blood.

After several seconds of silence, the Thestor cleared his throat and explained, “Vampires are men who have been cursed with eternal bloodthirst and an unending life of shadow. This price they pay buys them the strength of twenty men, the senses of a wolf, and the ability to peer into the minds of mortals.”

“They cannot be killed?” she asked softly.

“They can. Much like the undead, their heads must be destroyed. They will heal from any other injury.”

His eyes beheld body after body, but none wore armour of black. A trail of blood led down the road accompanied by the smell of burning meat. Carthei lowered herself to the ground and stared at the chain of clues. “It seems he had more pressing things to attend to…such as the preservation of his own life,” Carthei remarked as she stood.

“It shall not escape us,” exclaimed one of the knights. “Especially now that we have a saviour.”

Alric turned around to face the men that remained. Eleven Thestors and four Correnti. The man who spoke…it was Baldwyn. He continued, “I thought it to be a vision, but alas, it was nothing of the sort. It was thee, Alric. I beheld thy struggle against the Clthic abomination and how, with the light of God flowing through thy hands, thou hadst ended its wretched existence.”

If he were to be frank, Alric wanted to laugh in the face of such words. Baldwyn spoke as if he were anointed…chosen by God. “My brother, thou art mistaken. The magic…it resides–”

“In his very soul,” Carthei declared, cutting him off.

A pulsing, tingling dread pooled inside Alric’s stomach as he slowly turned to face his Mnem’non friend. “What manner of filth doth spill from thy mouth?!” he hissed under his breath.

“You say you saw it, Baldwyn. As did I. Alric used magic to destroy a golem; an unholy union of witch and demonic beast. Only the chosen can wrangle the wild forces of the arcane.”

‘Unholy’, ‘witch’, ‘demonic’...she is tailoring her speech to best suit the audience. Foul snake!

Carthei continued, “As I was chosen, Alric has been chosen. By your God.”

Baldwyn dropped to one knee and drew the Sign of the Pillar. Some of the others followed. There were a select few that remained standing.

“R-Rise, all of thee!” Alric snapped as he paced over to Baldwyn and forced him upright. “I am but a servant, the same as all of thee. Where is the Marshal?”

Baldwyn finally lifted his visor as he said, “Surely the shredded remains of our brethren did not elude thine eyes? Otto is dead. The first to be torn asunder by the vampire.”

Alric growled under his breath as he peered at the pool of gore beneath their feet. He could feel Baldwyn’s thoughts assemble themselves and he dreaded the moment where they would become words. It was all too soon.

“Loathe be I to agree with a pagan, but it is plain to all that she speaks not deceit. Her sorcery as well as our brother’s speak aptly; they both smite the enemies of Heaven. Alric has been anointed by God. He should lead us,” muttered Baldwyn.

“I shall suffer this no more,” Alric dismissed as he waved a hand at his compatriot and stomped away.

His outburst seemed to quell the high levels of excitement at least for a moment. The holy knights took the moment of relative peace to consolidate themselves before planning on their next move. It gave Alric ample time to take Carthei to the other side of the bloodied road and seize her by the shoulder.

“Explain thyself, Carthei…! What dark machinations hath that strange mind of thine imposed upon my brethren? Were the words shared between us in the wood naught but lies?”

Carthei shook her head. In a hushed tone coupled with anxious glances about, she answered, “Can you imagine what would happen to your kingdoms if the masses knew that the power of the Ethereals was simply free for the taking? Look at the ruin you have wrought without magic. Your wars have wiped hundreds of thousands of people from the face of the earth with but steel and wood.”

Alric felt the tension in his shoulders amplify.

Carthei leant closer to him and whispered, “Armies backed by magic would sow unspeakable death. Millions.” Her voice was rickety and faint in his ears. “The myths regarding magic, that it is rare and difficult to command, who do you think wrote them? We druids were shaping spells long before even the F’aldyns came together. The truth is this; we are not ready. We will destroy ourselves. Look at what the Clthics have done.”

“...Thy pagan comrades have infiltrated the University?" Alric pressed.

She nodded. “The secret must be guarded. For the day when armies burn each other to dust using magic is the day when the Athroct’u creeps closer to us. Now you must protect it.”

I care not for this nonsensical prophecy. If each Knight Thestor carried a thrysteen, all the world would bow before the one true God once the earth runs black with the blood of the infidel.

Carthei seemed to see Alric’s thoughts through his eyes. She shook her head and trudged back across the road. “You hold a great many things in your hands, Godslave. Do be careful.”