Chapter 23: Tension Between Kings (Patreon)

A military general stood atop the 300-foot wall overlooking Servene’s Harbor City. From up high, he couldn’t see individual people, but he could hear the haunting shrieks of soldiers as King Everwood’s ships cut through the fog, mere minutes from disembarking and flooding the city.

“General Dubois! What should we do? Everyone’s waiting. Sir!”

The panicked cry of a soldier startled him, and he looked over, looking at the young man as if he had amnesia. He had been so engrossed in the horrifying scene below that it felt like he was in a nightmare that even a musket shot wouldn’t wake him from. “Captaine…. Mobilize….”

General Dubois faltered. In his 177 years of service for the Grand Armée, he was known as a man of decisive action and meticulous adherence to protocol, even in the face of horror and tragedy. However, tonight, there in the blistering rain, listening to the harrowed cries of soldiers after watching his king die, he couldn’t speak.

“General Dubois! We need command! The soldiers are panicking. Some are fleeing for their lives. Whatever’s happening down there, we need to… oh Gods….”

Turning, the soldier’s rapid speaking stopped as if someone hit him in the jaw. He overlooked the harbor and saw small ships racing to the shore at speeds that didn’t seem imaginable. There was a regiment ordered to blow up the harbor to prevent the docking of ships, but they were long gone, and the small ships with dotted figures cloaked in black made that irrelevant.

“G-General….”

“Man your posts and prepare to protect the wall, but await orders.”

“Does that mean—“

“I don’t know, Colonel Richard! This isn’t something that we can plan for! For now, claim that King Bouchard is ordering a deferment of assault unless attacked and is deciding on a cease-fire. Prevent panic at all costs!”

Major Richard smiled bitterly. That time had long since passed. Even as they spoke, they could hear the haunting shrieks of the dead as if tormented souls of the Underworld, as depicted in the book of Solara. The soldiers were in disarray, many praying in the distance or soliciting female soldiers, brandy on their lips. It was a time of panic, pain, and peril, and no soldier would take the news of a potential cease-fire well—especially those who knew King Bouchard had died.

“Just see it done!” General Dubois yelled. “The last thing we need—“

A haunting wave of panic suddenly spread along the wall, rattling the stone steps. Looking through the embrasure, the two military officers watched as the soldiers on the small ships mounted the harbor.

“Are those demons…?” Major Richard asked in horror.

There, walking along the peer were soldiers in all black, wearing full face masks that made them look like ants. As they walked up, the officers had a premonition of dread, and when they saw the weapons in the soldiers’ hands, it only deepened.

“Are those rifles?” General Dubois whispered.

Then he heard it.

At first, it was distant, perhaps explainable by the ratat of the pounding rain. However, as the soldiers got closer, they heard it grow. Three shots. Rapid succession. And as more soldiers got closer, so too did it increase.

“Gods….” General Doubis watched in horror when he saw the black ants dragging away the wounded and bringing them to the harbor. However, the ones that were too injured or tried to fight back were swiftly dispatched by a new type of horrifying weapon. ”Major Richard. Do whatever it takes to restrain the soldiers. If these demons are, in fact, King Everwood’s army, we must parlay. If they’re not, we must prepare to sacrifice everything to stop them.”

2

I watched the operation from the ocean, which had since cleared of fog. Unlike King Bouchard, I wasn’t about to walk into enemy territory thinking I was invincible. Servene still had a famous army of Luges, dragon-like creatures with long studded tails that attacked in swarms, decimating everything with sound-based attacks that ruptured organs and could trigger earthquakes. We were prepared on ships with mounted machine guns, awaiting their arrival. 

In the meantime, I watched as Graken’s soldiers carried out wounded combatants, bringing them to the harbor. Mages awaited them, summoning heated water to bathe the soldiers before healing them with magic and alchemic potions. Once they were healed, the soldiers immobilized them with chloroform rags and locked them in chains. 

As for the combatants who were still trying to fight, they received three rounds of 5.56x45mm NATO cartridges into their skulls. Mercy is reserved for those with common sense. I prayed that General Dubois deserved mercy. 

“How are you doing?” Zenith asked, putting her arms on the deck’s rail. Her gaze glinted with warfare, disconnected from her peace-time persona.

“I’m fine,” I replied.

“Even with what you’re watching? In all my centuries, I’ve never seen something like that before.”

“And hopefully, you’ll never see anything like it again.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“I already answered you.”

“Did you?”

I turned to her in frustration. Zenith’s experience with warfare far exceeded mine, and it could take days, years, or centuries to truly understand how tonight would change me. So, I respected her question. However, it was meaningless. “Those soldiers are experiencing pain, Zenith, and pain is temporary. Our forces will heal most of them, and the city will fall with the least amount of casualties ever recorded for a major siege. This is a victory.”

“Then start treating it like one,” Zenith snorted. “I’m not sure what attachments you had to this weapon in your old world, but you should let it go. Earth and Solstice are as different as who you are and who you were.”

I smirked venomously. “If our worlds were so different, we wouldn’t be on a continent dominated by the ghosts of my past people.” I turned back to the shore. “And this scene wouldn’t reflect what I read in history books.”

Zenith fell silent for a while, sharing in the blended sound of the crashing waves and distant cries. Then she glanced at me. “Kings and gods create the world in their image. This world will only reflect your own if you let it.”

I fell silent and contemplated her words as she walked away. It was hard to conceptualize, but her words rang true.

This world was mine.

So long as I retained my humanity, Solstice would lose its barbarity. Its swords would be replaced with pens; its shields with institutions. There would be no Holocaust, gulags, or lost generations. Mass starvation wouldn’t spread like the plague and kill tens of millions. There wouldn’t be atomic blasts that ripped across countries or senseless dropping of napalm and Agent Orange.

I didn’t share the radical philosophies of Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, or Adoph Hitler. Nor did I have the barbarity of past generals. Most importantly, I didn’t massacre or plunder cities as a psychological tactic like Genghis Khan.

I was different.

Humans may remain the same, but the age I came from was markedly different than the ones that preceded it. I may not be justice, but I was the closest thing to it that Solstice would ever get. 

That was all I could do; that was more than this world deserved. 

General Dubois’s voice boomed from an amplification circle in the harbor, asking to parlay.

As I prepared the answer, Thea wrapped her arms over my chest from the back, and I felt her magical pressure wrapping around my skin beneath the armor. “Are you ready?”

I smiled. “That’s a much better question. I came here ready; nothing has changed.”

“Good.” She rested her ear on my back, listening to my heart. “I believe in you.”

“Thank you.” With those words, I gave the word to the deck’s captain, and we approached the shore.

3

When we reached the harbor, we docked our ships. The moment they were, my soldiers unloaded Brownings and ran into the city like a stampede, their boots clacking in unison. Every fifty feet or so, they mounted Browning M2s and pointed them into the sky.

A dozen guards surrounded me, holding staffs with crystals powering a portable ward, creating a barrier designed to withstand the attacks of the archwizards. I was certain of its power—as it was made with their technology.

General Dubois didn’t know that, but seeing a dome reflecting rain in a hundred-foot radius would be harrowing. That was a nice touch.

Approaching the middle of the city, my soldiers put on ear muffs, and we activated a fifty-foot amplification circle my forces had painted in the center of Harbor City, making the whole city glow. It was time to speak.

General Dubois spoke first: “King Everwood. We would like—“

“People of Servene!” I interupted, my voice booming like thunder. It reached the entire city. “King Bouchard is dead. The offensive is lost. If you concede, we will occupy this city peacefully like Bringla, which is now at twice its former glory. There will be no assault, plunder, or heinous crimes. If you don’t—“

I paused, allowing the gravity of my words to shake their bones.

“—evacuate your citizens by morning. Anyone remaining in the city will receive a fate worse than death.”

With those words, I looked up to the general and activated a smaller circle that only he could hear. “General Dubois. Unlike your propaganda-stricken citizens, you know that our occupation of Goldenspire was the most civil and beneficial this world has ever known. Concede Servene, hand over The Swarm, and repeat history. Defying it will sentence thousands to death and suffering. You have until morning.”

With those words, I turned around.

“King Everwood!” he boomed from the top of the wall.

I stopped and turned. “What?”

“This goes both ways. Powerful as you are, Servene controls 500 Luges and walls that are impenetrable. It could take you a month in a siege. So let’s negotiate.”

I whispered to one of my majors, and soldiers ran into the city.

“What are you doing?” General Dubois asked.

However, I ignored him, glued to the wall for ten minutes until I got a signal. Then, I put up my hand and turned back to the wall. 

“General Dubois. My army graciously invites The Swarm to attack us,” I said with a straight expression. “As for your petty wall—“

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The general’s voice cracked as the wall shook from plastic explosives. A violent eruption of beastly screeching and thrashing came from the other side. It was The Swarm, eager to join the fray.

“—we’ll breach it at exactly 7 am tomorrow morning."

I looked up to the wall where General Dubois was standing, watching him through the mana signature swirling around him. His expression was hidden, but I could feel it in my bones. “Servene has fallen, General. The only thing we’re discussing is your side’s death toll.”

With those words, I turned around and walked back to my warship, a hundred-foot barrier rendering the rain useless in my wake. 

4

A clash of steel and fantastical beasts echoed in the Threnosia Forest, accented by the rhythm of hailing rain. An occasional explosion from a fire spell or screech from a thunderstag riding overhead gave percussion to the battle. This was war—the type with swords, magic, and bloodshed—the type Solstice had known for countless millennia. 

The warfare was beyond anything that was seen on Novena. Trees cracked for dozens of meters from sweeping wind blades, bisecting soldiers in a line as dirt exploded in the air. Others took a powerful sword strike to their forearms and barely bled as they kicked people through trees.

It was bloody.

Messy.

Destructive.

Bleak.

“Hold the fucking line!” Marvis screamed. “If you think these fuckers are beating your asses, just wait for the slaughter you’re going to get if you break formation!”

The soldiers who could hear him grinned, but they could barely see their commander over the chaos and blood pouring down their faces. Most didn’t hear him at all. However, they all fought on.

Marvis saw the bleak situation and jumped into the fray, freeing a major by push-kicking a red-armored combatant in the chest. Their armor crumbled around his foot, sending them flying into a tree with a crack.

“Thanks, Gen—“

Before the major could thank his king, an arrow shot out of the forest. An inch before it impaled his neck, Marvis thrust out his hand, and the arrow pushed off course with a gust of wind, slamming into another soldier’s head.

“Don’t talk, you fool!” Marvis roared. “Channel your inner bachelor and pierce everything in sight. Or just kill people. Whatever you—“

“Watch out!” The major lunged forward when he heard a piercing screech of air and pushed Marvis—but it was too late. A thrown sword pierced through the King’s back, exiting out of his stomach instead of his chest.

“Son of a bitch!” Marvis screamed.

Enemy combatants charged in a stampede of red armor and sharpened spears. Marvis scoffed and lunged forward, grabbing the first by the head and ramming her eye into the sword in his stomach. Then he grabbed another person’s spear and snapped it with his fingers, taking the bladed end and slicing the man’s throat before kicking a third.

“You’re not worthy, you swine!” Marvis roared. “Leave the fighting to the grown-ups!” As his soldiers flooded the area, he turned. “Don’t you agree, Lena?”

A redhead with piercing green eyes gazed at him through the forest from where the sword came from. She walked out with her royal red armor, her footsteps silencing the soldiers around her. “You’re as arrogant as ever,” Lena replied. She was Queen Boudica, the leader of the Vervainians, and universally revered throughout Antigua. “The battle is already over.”

The forest fell dead silent save for the screams of wounded soldiers. Everyone had their eyes fixed on their leaders fighting; this battle would determine the fate of Forge and Cyrvena as a whole.

“Women,” Marvis scoffed, “calls a man arrogant, then says the battle’s already over.”

“I don’t have a sword in my back,” she replied.

“Neither do I,” he snorted, flicking around his hand as the sword slid out of his body with telekinesis and floated to his hands.

“You’re such a man. Bravado till the end,” Lena deadpanned, looking at the blood-soaked sword he was twirling. “Don’t tell me that you plan to fight me with that.”

Marvis grinned. “You’re getting lazy.”

“Prove it.”

Lena shot across the battlefield with ghostly speed, hacking multiple soldiers in half in a blood spray as she led the assault.

Marvis swung his original sword, steaming billowing from it as it met her blade. Her eyes widened when she saw it was red-hot, but it was too late. Her magic, the one gifted to her by a god upon her reincarnation, was called Void Cutter. It allowed her to cut through anything without distinction, a perfect attack for someone who fought with blades who needed to cut through an unknown opponent—no matter what they might be. It was useful, but she understood its weakness as the sword cleaved down and her blade cut through it, sending a searing blade flying onto her face.

Lena screamed in pain as her sword flew off course, hitting Marvis in the shoulder but not killing him. Then he swung the bloody sword from his back into her side, sending her flying into a tree with a devastating crack. 

Her armored regiment circled around her, but Marvis released a wave of pressure that brought them to their knees. Then he waved his hand and sent them flying like old toys, causing the area to fall silent again.

“We’ve all gotten lazy,” Marvis said, walking forward. “We’ve been around for centuries, fucking around with each other. Fighting for this and that like pre-pubescent teenagers.”

Lena watched him approach with amazement. He was lecturing her as he was losing intense amounts of blood. One of her higher magics also induced heavy bleeding—something that could kill any being. Marvis would die soon, but he was still grinning. “What’s your point?”

“My point is that this,” Marvis looked around, looking at all the soldiers watching in anticipation, “it’s antiquated. And even after you saw a king die without magic, you’re still acting like you’ve won because I’m wounded.”

Lena’s widened, and she shot up just in time to dodge an explosion of splinters that came from the spot her head just was.

She didn’t escape the next one. Something hit and pierced straight through her armor and shoulder, exploding out the back. “Damn it!”

Booms echoed in the distance as her soldiers started dying in waves. 

“How is this possible?!”

Marvis grinned, dropping to a knee, his pain and blood loss catching up with him. “As it turns out, that King Killer is a normal weapon. A normal fucking weapon that children can kill kings with.”

A flurry of explosions rattled from the direction she was running, and the soldiers in front of her exploded in a hailfire of blood and malice. More projectiles hit her as well, sending her jumping for a tree.

“Did you come to sacrifice yourself?!” Lena screamed, understanding he led her to a trap.

“Sacrifice myself? Are you mad, woman?!” Marvis scoffed. “Unlike you, I don’t attack past lovers without warning.”

Lena’s eyes shot open with a primal instinct, and her expression turned crazed. Like a trapped animal, she lifted her sword. “Limitless Void!” Slashing,  an eighty-foot arc of black anti-matter shot through the forest, eating through everything and silencing the Browning M2 machine guns that had encircled her. Then she shot in that direction, cleaving through soldiers with guns of all descriptions.

Bullets hailed down on her as she entered her rampage, but a barrier shot up, slowing their velocity. Anti-material rifles—designed to shoot through tanks—could kill kings and archwizards because of their piercing power. Once a projectile cut through a person’s skull or heart, it was lethal. Otherwise, the blow wasn’t that powerful. And once the bullets slowed, they were useless. That’s why Marvis had to pin her down for a sniper shot through the thicket (something that was difficult). With bullets slowed and the snipers useless, no one save Marvis could stop her rampage, and he could barely move.

Thus, an unhindered slaughter followed. Lena sliced a soldier in half as he blocked, and her sword cleaved through the second as if there was no resistance. Then she arced backward, leveling a slash that cut through friend and foe alike. Eighty people died in less than two minutes.

Marvis developed a bittersweet smile as he watched the dance of death. I should’ve just killed you. But gods…. The look in his eyes was one of tragic love and twisted fantasies wrought with pain and conflicting emotions. He didn’t get off on watching people die, but watching her hair flowing through the air was mesmerizing. It was the same as it was when he met her so long ago.

Still, Lena was his enemy now, and she didn’t share the look in his eyes. There was no soul in her body. She was an animal. A monster. And when she finished off his regiment and turned to him, there wasn’t a streak of mercy in her eyes. Just the same ambivalence that she had to everyone she had just killed.

And that’s why we parted ways, Marvis internally laughed, his shoulders going limp as he awaited his execution.

Suddenly, a bright blue beam of light flooded the forest, licking his skin with heat and silencing scores of soldiers in its wake.

“What the fuck was that?” Looking up, he saw a massive wyvern, azure blue, and the size of a mythical dragon. It had been centuries since the last had died in the Battle of the Maelvine, and now he was witnessing another one. “Where did a dragon come from?”

However, as soon as the beast had passed, it disappeared in thin air. Looking across the scorched path, he saw Lena looking into the forest with wide eyes, unsure as to what had just happened.

“That can’t be Zenith, can it?” Marvis muttered in disbelief. He had met the silver-haired woman, but she didn’t leave him with the impression of a ruler. She was just another country’s princess without a title. “There’s no way.” 

Still, he waited to see in silence as Lena assessed the situation, keeping in motion, trying to figure out how to avoid machinegun traps and attacks from the King Killer. However, she kept flitting her eyes to the forest. Whatever the beast was, it was still there—and it was getting closer.

The soldiers, still alive, trembled, scraping their metal off logs and corpses as they stumbled to their feet. Everyone listened to their hearts, waiting in dread. Then, in the forest, they heard a snap, and everyone saw her.

There was indeed a beautiful woman with silky silver hair and purple eyes walking toward them with a leather bag at her side. With every step, the earth seemed to tremble and quake. With every second, her pressure felt more suffocating.

Lena watched with a tense expression. For the first time in perhaps centuries, she felt true apprehension fighting an enemy. And when she saw the burn mark on the woman’s face as she entered the clearing, she understood that the woman was a combat veteran. “Who are you?”

“My name is Zenith Veil, first daughter of the king of Dragon’s Roost, trusted advisor to the benevolent King Ryker Alexander Everwood, CEO of Zenith Cosmetics,” Zenith reached into a leather bag and threw out King Bouchard’s head with a resounding thud, “and Margrave of Servene.”

5

Roslain Edwar had her body wrapped around her personal servant when the halls around her chambers were thumping with boot steps, and someone was pounding on her door.

“Roslain! Get ready!” King Edwar yelled. “We must speak at once.”

In a panic, she pushed off Timothy’s body with surreal force, making him yelp in pain. Then, something that Roslain had never experienced happened. King Edwar acted upon his trembling rage and kicked down the door, walking in to find his wife’s personal assistant naked, scrambling for clothing as she quickly pulled on pantaloons.

“Shut the door, you brute!” Roslain screamed, seeing the guards staring at her body.

“It’s nothing they haven’t seen before,” King Edwar snapped. Suddenly, the hall of guards turned silent, and a few of the men trembled, creating a surreal atmosphere of fear and condemnation.

“What is it?! What is so important that you’d humiliate me like this?!” Roslain screamed, cheeks flushed in humiliation expressed as anger. “When my father hears—“

“Your father is dead,” he replied, throwing a scroll on her bed. It was his note of passing, blood red like the message, written in his handwriting in the event of his passing and waxed with his seal. There could be no counterfeit.

“What…?” she whispered. “This can’t be true. Servene is impregnable.”

“Apparently not,” King Edwar scoffed. “It’s something you and those walls share in common. Let’s go.” He grabbed her arm.

“Go where?!” Roslain snapped. 

“To leave for Servene. The city will likely fall in the next few days if it hasn’t already. We must be there to discuss terms with King Everwood.”

“Terms?! Terms?! That animal supposedly killed my father, and you want to negotiate with him?! What type of craven man are you?!”

King Edwar slammed the door in the guards’ faces and glowered at her. “Listen, Roslain. Anyone with the power to kill King Bouchard a day after their arrival has the power to kill anyone. You weren’t there, but I was. King Everwood killed a king without magic from a killer outside Emperor Kenani’s sphere of perception. Some said it was a fluke. Others said it was staged. But he showed up on this fucking continent and killed your father on the first day. I might be a craven, but I’m not a fool.”

Roslain looked away, her mind racing as she avoided him. After ten oppressive seconds, she looked at him and shook her head. “If you want to deal with that animal, do it. But I’m not going to negotiate with my father’s killer.”

His face turned crimson, a thousand negative emotions threatening to burst like a dam. However, when he saw the lethal look in her eyes, he scoffed and turned away. “Fine. I’ll do this on my own,” he declared, opening the door. Then he turned to her. “But when I come back, you’ll start acting like a queen, or I’ll start inquiring about Rickard.”

Roslain’s eyes widened in shock, making him smirk with petty, sadistic satisfaction as he slammed the door and walked away with the guards. Once it was quiet, she turned to Timothy and scoffed. “Unbelievable. He acts like a man for the first time, then he leaves his adulterer alive and naked in his wife’s bed.”

Timothy shook, feeling the weight of her words and the pressure of her gaze. “S-Should I leave?”

Roslain smiled viciously, eyeing him up and down. “No, Timothy. As of today, you’re mine. Everything in this room, beyond these walls, and within this kingdom is mine.” She looked out the window. “God knows that fool would bring it to ruin otherwise. Now, come help me dress, there’s a lot to do before he returns.”

6

General Dubois walked before lines of armored battalions, harrowing screeches meeting every step. Behind the soldier were three hundred dragon-like creatures, each larger than a griffin but smaller than a wyvern. Just locking them up on the outer wall took the size of a crop field within the city, requiring them to lock up the luges between buildings. Each was snarling, snapping, biting at their chains. Their master, King Bouchard, was dead, and they wanted blood. If negotiations fell through, he’d have to give them it.

It was currently past midnight, and in a few hours, the moon would give way to hues of reds and purples, and an explosion would rip a hole through Servene’s Great Wall. Then, whatever gas King Everwood released into Harbor City would undoubtedly wind up in Servene’s Capital, causing havoc.

After countless reports, General Dubois knew that it was a yellow gas, and it was dropped by the crowls, the Nightmares of Sundell, as the myth-like intel described them—

—but there was nothing he could do about it.

Knowing King Everwood, he’d drop the gas to the north, south, east, and west, making use of wind magic lethal in any direction—including up. Then there was the King Killer, which he watched eat through men and women of all power equally. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do about that.

In all regards, the situation was bleak. If it weren’t for The Swarm, the other generals wouldn’t have anything to argue about. It would be a lost offensive.

However, they did have The Swarm, a group of creatures that attacked through vibrations instead of with fire. A group of creatures notorious for being difficult to block or counterattack.

Each luge let out a screech that made most soldiers’ eardrums rupture, leaving them disoriented and lost. It penetrated through barriers, and the only way to truly escape it was to use Circles of Silences to eliminate sounds and wards to prevent physical vibrations from cracking the ground and rupturing organs. However, doing that left the army vulnerable; with one sense cut off, they could only rely upon their eyes to fight, and they couldn’t hear mages chanting or moving of battalions.

The Swarm was a horrifying entity.

That’s why, during the last meeting, General Roux had slammed his hands on the table in a fury, yelling, If King Everwood could fight The Swarm, he wouldn’t have demanded we turn them over! Even if he had a thousand King Killers, the Nightmares, and a murder of wyverns, he couldn’t survive such an attack unscathed. We must do as much damage as possible while we can! Even if you craven fools wish to concede the city, we can’t do it without leverage!

That argument was reasonable. Even if Servene was destined to fall, King Everwood still needed a force large enough to occupy the city and an army to march inland to support King Reckog in the fight against Queen Boudica. If they had the potential to deliver a devastating loss, he would likely negotiate.

Still…. The generals who were loudest were the people who didn’t [see] what happened. They didn’t watch King Everwood’s forces suppress thousands of soldiers before they even got on land. They didn’t witness King Bouchard, a leader and warrior of legend, die unceremoniously alongside the weak cannon fodder. Anyone who saw that would think differently. 

And the tone in King Everwood’s voice…. That was the most haunting of all.

It wasn’t just confidence: King Reckog was famous for his flamboyant bluster that didn’t match his actions. Most kings were like that. And it wasn’t absolute confidence that he had heard spoken by Emperor Kenani, Queen Boudica, and King Elio back when he was the ruler of Enigmara. Those leaders spoke with absolute confidence regarding their own strength (unless discussing each other) but faltered when considering the costs to their troops, kingdoms, and legacies.

King Everwood’s voice was neither flamboyant nor weighing. No. What General Dubois heard in his voice was regret. It was the type of tone that a soldier had when standing before civilians, dreading the order to kill them in cold blood but willing to do so if necessary.

It was a surreal tone to hear outside of Servene’s Great Wall. And the rational part of his brain told him to ignore it. Yet General Dubois watched as King Everwood opened the gates of the Underworld upon Harbor City and then arrived and saved the tormented souls there with more haste than he did in seizing it. That was something that only those who witnessed and heard it could understand.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to put into words or explain to others. Others like General Roux, the general who commanded The Swarm.