Year 222. Fields of Amphe, Capital of Duke Polydius Audax - Khirn

RUNEARCH

Amphe. Never before had there been a more audaciously built, unnecessarily complex, and wholly underutilized city in the entire span of Khirn’s landscape. Not even the roaming cities of Tahrir could hope to compare to this monstrous settlement of walls and spires that put the capital of the dead King to shame. A quarter-mile thick of metal-reinforced blackened-red stone, enhanced by arcaeno—once rumor, now proven by his revenant sight—protected by rows upon rows of counter-siege emplacements and architectural designs to allow the garrison to fire upon any attacking army with spear, arrow, and rock with impunity.

Erik Apa stood at the head of his camp situated within the fields outside the city, the farmland and plains providing good foundations for setting up the siege. He was disarmed and unarmored—robed only in plain grey cloth with a simple sash of rank around his chest. His arms were crossed, brows knitted to shield his eyes from the sun’s blazing rays that had risen to greet this cloudless day, and straining mind recalling the previous days’ attempts at “diplomacy” with the people of Amphe. Duke Polydius Audax himself had greeted him just beyond the city gates and contributed quite heavily to the failure of those attempts. Erik Apa considered it an act of self-sabotage. His face had been a clear mask of worry at the shattering of whatever dull plan he had the rest of the royalty in Aslofidor had concocted to raise the dead pantheons with war and Aedol’s power.

On that matter, Erik Apa had attempted to question the good Blackstone, only to receive the ashes of a deity gone to the void of un-being.

Blackstone’s servant, Crius, offered some greater insight than the Av’an, though was still partially bound to whatever overall silence the latter had desired to enforce. “Believe in our Father. Trust in His plan.”

The answer had given him pause and no sense of comfort. All it had done was give him a worry like that of a rabbit staring down a crouching wolf. Still, he kept that sensation as hidden as he could from a timeless, near-omnipotent being and set his sights on the conquest of Aslofidor. Taking the King’s territories was easy enough with the Prince at his side and the entirety of Heracla enthralled to his will. Moving from city to city, town to town, farmhouse to farmhouse was tedious but simple. Now, as he stood outside the grandiose walls of Amphe, he controlled an army in the millions.

Naturally, the fields of Amphe could never sustain such numbers. Thus, he divided his forces into various cohorts under the regulations of Dekun and sent them into the neighboring lands. Tahrir, Belanor, Veoris, and his homeland of Dekun. All would face those bearing his flag and would either kneel or die. Outside of Amphe, he held a number equal to that he had marched on Acocaea, Akma Yal at his side.

“Think we can do this, tohyi?” the aforementioned asked, stepping up beside the Runearch at the head of the camp that bustled with as much activity as a city.

Erik Apa shrugged, licking the dryness of the air from his lips. “They have not attacked us yet despite our failed attempts at getting them to lay down their arms. So we still have the advantage of not having anyone dead yet.”

The Wiseman pursed his lips and nodded. “Always a good thing before a battle. Think we have enough men?”

“We should. We’re stronger. Better. Wiser.”

“Are you sure you cannot just do it by yourself?”

“I am sure. Human bodies are one thing. Entire fortifications are another.”

“Fair point. Have you consulted Sevi Ulu?”

He shook his head.

“You should. She always helped you before. Besides, she’s been asking for you for months now, though has stopped in recent days. She appears dour.”

“She helped, yes, until Acocaea, which killed me.”

“Was that her fault? Or the influence of whatever power revived your stubborn ass?”

Erik Apa glared at his blood brother before cracking out into a rueful chuckle, conceding. “You are right. I should not hold it against her. She is a good woman and has helped me get this far.”

The Wiseman placed a hand on his shoulder. “Be swift in your apologies for ignoring her, tohyi. No need to upset the witch before we put our lives on the line.”

Erik Apa grinned and clapped a hand on Akma Yal’s back before turning to enter the camp. Every five steps brought a salute and a greeting from the army, many of them Dekunian and most Aslofidorian. He was as surprised by that now as he was at the beginning of the war between King and Duke. Long had he considered them his mortal foes, the borders of their two nations never allowing them to enjoy anything more than a few true months of peace. The war had given them something of similar note. Strange that they were now bound in deeper ties yet.

“You finally come to see me, Maprapeyni,” Sevi Ulu said, almost emotionless, as he entered her tent—an almost mystical abode filled with artifacts of Dekun’s furthest reaches and a collection of literature that provided both light reading and guidelines for her abilities. Or so she said.

“I do,” he concurred, chewing the inside of his cheek.

“To what do I owe this return of your presence?”

“An apology. I want to apologize.”

Sevi Ulu waved him away dismissively. She sat at the small reading table, a gold-leaf tome sprawled for her to absorb its contents. “You are Maprapeyni; you need not apologize for anything.”

He approached her, reaching for her shoulder with his hand but stopping just short of the mark. He returned it to his side and cleared his throat. “Ignoring you for months on end, if not the entire year since my return, deserves an apology. More than I can give.”

“Then do not attempt to give what you cannot afford, Maprapeyni,” Sevi Ulu said, turning both the page of her book and her gaze toward him. Her expression was soft against the emotionless tone of her voice, though burdened with a hint of pain.

“I was grieved with the pain of death and the failure of Acocaea. I placed the blame upon you for not providing insight into the battle and-”

Sevi Ulu held up a hand, attempting to silence his words. “I understand your grievance toward me, Erik Apa. You need not apologize.”

Erik Apa grunted, cracking his knuckles with nervousness. “You should not have gone a year without seeing me alone.”

“Perhaps that was my penance to pay for leading you to your death,” she suggested, trying to smile small and knowing. It was a failed attempt.

He frowned, a shade of regret passing over his battle-hardened features. “What penance should be paid for something that has only led to my greatest successes in this conflict?”

She laughed, somber and low. “A question you ask only now with the year of it staining your sword. Before now, you had no reason-”

“You led me to victory after victory during the war, Sevi.” He knelt to be just below her eye level. “And though I perished because you were unable to see beyond Acocaea, you still have led me to victory. I am beyond what I was now. I am-”

“-greater than what you were. As I said, you would be.”

“Yes, and you deserve my gratitude and my apology.”

Sevi Ulu’s eyes were shadowed with exhaustion. “Maprapeyni, I don’t want either. They are not needed.”

“But-”

She turned in her seat, a forced smile on her face. “In time, when time is something we have, I will accept them. But for now, I do what you need of me without gratitude or apology. And you must do what I want of you to prove that you are greater than what you were.”

“And what is it that you want?”

“To pick up your spear...and kill them all.”

The Runearch sat atop his horse at the helm of eight-hundred-thousand, armored in his unblemished black plate, his right hand holding the Spear of Blackstone, his left a spiked buckler shield. Wind whipped past his head, his banners fluttering in its breeze by the thousands, the horses skittish in their restlessness—anxious in the silence leading to the battle. The walls of the city awaited them like a titan’s arm, sunburnt and threatening to move at a notice to swat them aside.

He could not tell how many were awaiting them atop the battlements or within the wall’s interior defense halls. He could not guess how many prepared their siege engines in the courtyards behind the gates. Erik Apa was only allowed to fight what he could see.

“Ready to die again, tohyi?” Akma Yal asked him as he strode his great warhorse up, giving a small laugh to break the tension of the question.

“Always, puhkigh,” he answered with a curt nod. “It is time we finish this, as much as I would wished to avoid slaughtering them all.”

“We can still try Adil Ere’s suggestion.”

“Assassination? Dishonorable.”

Akma Yal rolled his shoulders and clicked his tongue. “Some would say so is using the Runes. Some would say so is the new power you possess, and we now possess to accomplish what we have accomplished.”

“Remember when you never said anything against me? Questioned me?”

“No.”

The Runearch nodded. “Keep it that way. Ride down to Adil Ere. Tell him we will use his plan.”

Akma Yal stirred his steed to turn. “Will not be a long siege then, tohyi. The man has been practicing his Script the whole campaign. Duke will be dead by nightfall.”

“More time for us to get situated and prepare for the attack on the Bastion.”

Akma Yal departed, riding down the line of thousands with a haste that should have been unthinkable for any horse. His steed, however—like his purpose—was Dekunian bred. Erik Apa steeled his nerves as he gazed upon the walls one last time before fate was set, turning to face his army.

The front was led by Dekunian and Aslofidorian footsoldiers armed with spears and large shields, followed by cavalry armed with spears, shields, and swords, who in turn were followed by select footsoldiers armed with pikes. Interspersed between each formation were massive siege engines, hold-over constructs from the King such as towers, catapults, ballistae, siege hooks, and three battering rams in the middle lane. Beyond the general ranks of the army, many other regiments included several defensive units, apothecaries, many elite units, and the stealth units of Adil Ere. Each soldier wore the colors of the Runearch—once rainbow flourishes over steel plate, now pitch black with the former flourishing present only on pauldrons and plumes. His banner fluttered in the dozens by dozens by dozens, the sigil of a gauntlet contained within a fifteen-point star, a magma-red eye clutched in the palm.

He nodded at the sight and raised his spear, silencing any murmurs that may have been spreading throughout the lines. His voice carried impossibly throughout the expanse. It was like the roar of a storm ripping the foundations of a home apart. “Warriors of Dekun! Warriors of Aslofidor! Today, we put to rest the tumult of this kingdom! Today, we cure the decay that refuses to let prosperity grow in place of rot! Raise your swords, raise your spears, set your heart to purpose, and fight with me!”

A howl of war. A boom of engines releasing their burning payloads upon the walls. The thwick and whistle of thousands of arrows. The creak of towers moving to their goal. The Siege of Amphe had begun.

The final days before the True War rose from the depths had set.

And only two souls knew.

Two souls, one clutching the ashes of a dead god and the other kneeling before them in abject worship. This was the battle that would engorge them both with the power needed. And who could stop them?

The walls of Amphe.

A quarter-mile thick of metal-reinforced blackened-red stone, enhanced by arcaeno. Defended by men beyond count, bolstered with camps, siege engines of their own, and pathways into the city for reinforcements to swarm and swarm and swarm. No fortification should ever have been so massive. No war ever needed such designs. Yet, they were, and they were what needed to fall.

And the Runearch’s army refused to balk.

“Breach the walls!” he shouted over the edge of a crenellation, tossing a young man over it as emphasis for his command. He knew the walls could never be sundered through. They were much too thick for that, a veritable village for its battlements. He could only hope that his warriors would be able to destroy pieces and carve their way through the interior halls or utilize the towers that had latched on, some more successfully than others—others having never made it at all. From these, swarms of his men swelled up the ladders, charging down the ramps with hisses and battle cries, slaughtering and being slaughtered.

He cut his way through hordes of the Duke’s men, the Spear of Blackstone rending flesh to mulch with so much as a scratch, reducing brave men and women to whimpering, pathetic messes on the ground. Unlike Acocaea, none posed him a challenge. None gave him grievance. None were Yvon ne’Banuus, the Blessed Harbingers, that silver knight, or that bear. None were them, and the pain of boredom quickly washed over him as he reached the center of the battlements.

“Tohyi!” Yola Tal roared as she came into view from the bloody skirmish, clutching the upper body of what appeared to have been a captain of the defenders. She planted her spear into the ground and tossed the half-corpse aside. Burning orbs from the catapults soared over them. Several of her elite guards appeared next to her in a flash of that fiery light, panting with the exerted joy of battle. “Good fight already, huh?”

The Runearch snarled and gazed upon the carnage. Already, mounds of the dead began to form. “It won’t amount to anything unless we get the army through the fucking defenses.”

“Then get them through the walls, tohyi!” she said. “You have that new power, right? Can you not just destroy them yourself?”

“I am not that strong with it yet, hats—behind you!”

Yola Tal spun, picking up her spear with a single flick of her fingers and skewering her would-be assailant through the bridge of his nose. He fell, sputtering blood. “Rap rihka⁠a,” she cursed, spitting on his corpse.

“Tsi pakihe, Yola,” the Runearch ordered. “I don’t need you getting backstabbed because you’re distracted.”

Yola Tal nodded and smiled, bright and powerful. “Understood, tohyi.”

Erik Apa flourished his spear. “Good. Now, let us see the army break into the city.”

“How do you figure we do that?”

He pointed to the monolithic structure some one hundred feet away from them. It had been his intended target with his siege tower, but the defenses of the walls had knocked it off course. “The gatehouse. We get there, we open the gates, let the army in.”

“Risky, but-”

“Lots of killing.”

“Lots of killing. Rap munnae. Let’s do it, tohyi!”

Countless had fallen to him by the time he and Yola Tal reached the gatehouse. His black armor bore the sheen of blood and the grit of bone and gore. He had carved a dozen Runes by the time he blasted open the doors into the house, half to protect him and half to slaughter hundreds—thousands. Bodies lay in twisted sculptures of mean and tendon, screaming at the empty heavens.

“We need to get the gates open!” he yelled to Yola Tal as they stared at the carnage awaiting them inside that house, which had remained unassailed up to that point.

“Get to the wheels,” she spat, readying her spear as the first of the guards inside the gatehouse charged. The blade cut through his neck like butter. “I’ll deal with the puhoa.”

Year 222. Amphe, Capital of Duke Polydius Audax - Khirn

ADIL ERE

Breaking through the chaos had been easy enough. He was alone, lightly armored, slipping through corpse piles and slinking along with the reciting of the Script. With commands to his regiment, he had been able to send them off on their own missions throughout the city: find persons of interest, interrogate them, or kill them. Sow discord throughout the defenders. Leave them without leaders. His was of a similar vein, though assuredly more challenging to accomplish despite the ease of finding respite atop one of the many grand manses that occupied this place.

“This place is much too large,” he said, clicking his heels as they hung over the edge of the building. “What do you need with all this space? All these people in one area? It makes no sense to me. Too many secrets, too much sweat, too much shit.”

Adil Ere snorted. A glob of mucus entered his mouth and forced him to hack it up onto the bleeding leg wound of the man he had dragged on top of the manse with him. “Foreign bodies in an open wound are never good, especially involving saliva or mucus,” he explained to the half-conscious guard. “You could get an infection. Mayri repamghuk⁠a.”

“Go fuck yourself,” the guard choked as the saliva and mucus in his leg bubbled and churned into a spreading sickness that turned the crimson shade of his blood into a thick reddish-green.

“Tell me what I want to know, and I can heal you.”

“Go...fuck yourself,” the guard shivered, the effects of infection already taking hold.

“Chichi yi tupri⁠a po,” Adil Ere recited, gripping the man’s face and drawing a will from him. His eyes blackened and shriveled to blindness. Nausea filled the Ghost Tracker, the strain of the Script still familiar. How he wished he could use the Runes like Erik Apa. “I can fix that if you tell me what I want to know. Where is the Duke?”

“It burns! It burns!” the man writhed on the rooftop, clutching at his face, carving his nails through his cheeks until bits of his flesh were hanging off the bone.

“It does, yes. But I just said I can fix that.”

“Make it stop!”

“Where is the Duke? I can make it stop if you tell me that.”

“Please!”

“You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

“Help me!”

Adil Ere shook his head, sighing. "Payte yi miyka⁠a mu yeyri⁠a."

The man stopped writhing in Adil Ere’s grasp, his head turning grotesquely against the rooftop until a snap was heard, and bits of his spine popped against his skin. Blood and clear liquid oozed from his orifices to pool down the stones, hands twitching against the back of his neck.

“Useless,” Adil Ere grunted, rising to his feet.

He muttered a piece of the Script, his body seizing stiff with the soreness and nausea of its incantation. Remnants of his breakfast lurched into his throat. He spat them out on the road where he had landed safely. He felt the eyes of the person who had come to investigate the noise. They remained hidden. He moved through the alleys and emptiest streets, a phantom in daylight, the sounds of war his trail as he kept to the shadows. Too many people lived here. Guards, reinforcement legions, and citizens that had yet to find shelter from the shields. Each step he took almost caught him.

One step did. Into a courtyard, he wandered. It was empty save for a fountain and statue. Smaller than expected, much like one he would see in a Dekunian city. A voice cleared its throat behind him, and he turned, feigning shock.

The woman standing before him was a monstrous thing, armored in unadorned leather and gambeson bearing the colors of Belanore, a battleaxe in her right hand. An eyepatch covered her right eye. The rest of that side of her face was burned and scarred. “Were you following me?” he asked.

She pointed to the nearest building, her lips pulled into a disappointed frown. “Since you came down from the rooftop. I heard the man crying out for help. Saw you.”

Adil Ere sucked his teeth, reaching his hand towards the hilt of his dagger as surreptitiously as he could. “Sloppy work on my part.”

The Belanorian scoffed. “No, it wasn’t.” She began to walk toward him, prompting him to take equal steps back. “You wanted this. Lured me in.”

His heels touched the stone of the fountain, prompting him to step back and up on it. The water rippled to his right, offering him a reflection of the sky and himself. “How so?”

The woman was a predator with teeth of steel. He knew with increasing clarity that in a fight, he would lose. Only the Script could save him, but even that was uncertain in the instinct that roiled in his stomach. “If you didn’t want people to hear so you could lure them into your trap, you would have kept him quieter. Cut out his tongue.”

“Needed information from him. Hard to get information from a tongueless man.”

“True.”

“You’re alone,” he noted, stopping at the back edge of the fountain.

The Belanorian motioned at him, stepping up onto the fountain with him, staying at the opposite edge. “So are you.”

He kept his face impassive despite the natural urge to run. “Where’s your people?”

“Helping where they need to.”

“You were sent here to help defend your allies, then. So they don’t lose, and you aren’t under threat.”

“Something like that,” the Belanorian said, hefting her battleaxe onto her shoulder. To him, it was a massive weapon, a double-handed war axe capable of rending flesh and splitting armor. To her, it was as a single-handed chopping tool. “You were sent ahead by the Runemaster, weren’t you? Looking to kill the Duke?”

He nodded, hand now clutching the pommel of his dagger. “Perceptive. And it’s Runearch now.”

“I have that quality.” The Belanorian cocked her head and laughed once, surprised. “Finally killed his mother, did he?”

Adil Ere unsheathed his dagger, holding it low and loose, keeping his stance light. The Belanorian never moved. “Surprised that news hasn’t broken yet.”

She looked at the sky. It was bright and blue, almost cloudless, save for the trails of smoke that filled it as burning payloads from the siege crashed beyond the walls. “I’ve been away from the birds for a while. Haven’t heard their chirping.”

The Ghost Tracker used her moment of distraction to step down from the fountain, keeping his heartbeat as still as he could when she stepped forward after him all the same. “Well, now you’ve heard the chirping. Quite a bit of it. What do you intend to do?”

She looked back down at him and sighed heavily, mockingly disappointed. “Well, naturally, I have to kill you.”

He breathed in sharply, his loose grip on the dagger turning stiff and set offensively. “Naturally.”

The Belanorian lunged at him, stepping off the fountain and swinging her axe down from her shoulder. Adil Ere sidestepped, watching as the blade carved into the stone floor beneath him. An exhale of breath and a stab for her neck. She released her axe and grabbed his wrist, twisting the attack away from her and striking his forearm with her elbow. He yelled, releasing the dagger and barely avoiding the next strike.

“Payte te ghayut⁠a mu yeyri⁠a!” he recited, watching as the woman’s ankle twisted under her weight.

The Belanorian did not yell in pain, instead calmly muttering: “Tsiri te ghayut⁠a mu yeyri⁠a.”

Adil Ere’s widened as the woman recovered instantly, her ankle snapping back into place. “You know the Script?”

“I’ve had cause to learn since Acocaea,” she grinned, marching toward him. “I would appreciate a lesson in the Runes, however.”

He weaved five elbow strikes for his head, striking her face with equal counterpunches. She absorbed each one, laughing and grabbing the back of his head as he stared at her in confusion. Another elbow attempt, this one connecting with force and shattering two of his teeth. He fell back, dazed.

“Come on, I can’t go from Erik Apa to this,” she bemoaned, stepping over him and crossing her arms. “Get up.”