Nicopola – Elandia Border
Foot of the South Targe Mountain Range
Inside one of the chambers in the underground complex, the young man with the prosthetic lower leg kept walking in circles until he was certain everything felt right. His steps echoed softly across the stone, absent the harsh clank of wood or metal. The prosthetic foot was finely made, with the shape and suppleness of flesh, and color and nails like those of a real foot.
"Marc," Paulos called from his workbench. "Why don't you go above and see if you can run?"
"In the snow?" Marc snorted at Paulos' confidence.
"Go ahead. If any of those fell creatures come again, you better be confident in your new leg."
Marc nodded. It was sound advice. Fighting the urge to quip that he would use the leg to run away if another fell beast appeared, he turned to the figure seated on the wooden crates. "Master, are you coming with me?"
"No," Sagarius said, uninterested. "It's cold."
The young man snorted at her answer. Many times, she behaved like an old lady, but he dared not say it. After what she had done for them, nobody would speak of her with disrespect, even in jest.
"Then I'll head up quickly and come back here," he said.
"Take your time," Sagarius said.
After Marc left the chamber, Sagarius caught Paulos looking at her. "Am I a bother?" she asked.
"Not at all. It's just that I wish I could do something about your hand," he said.
Sagarius closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly. "It's a fair price for the mistake I made."
Paulos wanted to argue, but he was not Bald Eagle or Sir Munius, so he only offered a stiff smile and returned to his work. The other two had already told her not to blame herself. There was no way Lady Sagaria could have foreseen a fell beast lurking in the forest to their destination. But she was unfortunately as stubborn as a mountain goat.
Sagarius tucked her left arm beneath her woolen cloak. It had been a few months since, but she had not grown used to it. The lost limb had been with her for more than eight hundred years. She doubted she would ever grow used to its absence.
She drew a sharp breath and turned toward the humanlike shape resting against the wall, sealed within a case of stone and glass.
It was the Hero Set. A full set of prostheses made by the Grand Progenitors.
Even now, the stone case hummed softly, powered by a gemstone embedded within it, holding back mold, damp, and rot.
Since finding it, Sagarius had restored many of its function that it might last several more centuries, perhaps longer.
They had been fortunate to find it hidden inside the Imperium Armory. Not even she had known that such a set still existed in the world. Now, the right leg had gone to a squire, and the lower left leg had gone to Marc.
The Grand Progenitors had been master craftsmen. Their prostheses were wondrous to behold, so finely made that she had seen Marc's prosthetic toes move like those of a living person.
Even the golems that guarded her father's underground palace seemed crude beside such work.
It was truly a lost art.
Unfortunately, the left-hand prosthesis from the Hero Set was missing. Someone, likely one of the heroes from the Beastmen War, had used it long ago. Worse, the left arm was not divided like the right. On the right side, the hand, forearm, and upper arm were separate pieces, likely because it had been designed as the sword arm, where finer movement mattered most. Meanwhile, the left arm, meant more for shield work, had been made simpler.
Now only the left upper arm prosthesis remained, whole from shoulder to wrist, with the hand gone.
If she wanted to use it, she would need to cut away what remained of her own arm. And even then, she would be left with an artificial limb that still had no hand.
From his workbench, Paulos said, "Sir Munius said the excavation of the lower vaults is progressing well. Since our food situation is no longer as worrying as before, we should be able to explore more sections soon enough. Perhaps we can find another set like this."
"I wouldn't get my hopes too high," Sagarius said without looking. "After all, its proportions were made for a man, not a woman. It would still look ill on me."
"Ah..." Paulos murmured. He had just realized there was another issue he hadn't considered.
Sagarius continued to sit and wait for Marc's return. She was glad that only after a few months, he could use his prosthetic leg almost as well as his old limb. Meanwhile, her stump had barely healed, even with magic.
Not wanting to think about that, she turned her attention to Paulos. The high official from the Capital had proven instrumental in their survival. Without him, they would have been lost, even with all these artifacts around them.
Watching him tinker with the items found in the vault brought back memories of her father working in his workshop when she was young.
To the elves, items made by the Grand Progenitors were greatly prized, though they often did not know how they worked. Despite their affinity with magic, advanced runes were beyond them. They required a kind of skill and understanding that the elves never possessed.
Like a weaver standing before a royal gown, it was intimidating to even think of making such cloth, not knowing where to begin. Even skilled with thread and loom, a weaver would not know the design, the method, or the royal tailor's experience needed to produce such a magnificent piece.
Feeling a bit bored, she asked, "So, what are you working on now?"
"Oh, there are several dwarven items I found, and I might be able to fix this earring."
"I see..." She was actually the one who had ruined that magical device by trying to see the person he was speaking to. The old earring had been a poor copy of a Dwarven-made one, too weak for her use.
Sagarius then recalled the place and their circumstances.
Korelia, wasn't it?
She remembered the memories she had shared with the person on the other end: Ingrid, a mage serving under a promising young lord in far away region. The same lord she wanted to meet. Yet one did not seek a lord's audience empty-handed. A guest needed a suitable gift, something rare enough to open the door and useful enough to keep it open.
That reason, her guilt over breaking Paulos' earring and seeking a replacement, and the need to find a place where these refugees could survive the war-torn Imperium, was why she had selected Vindebona.
Yet, it had ended in tragedy.
"Lady Sagaria," Paulos called, prompting Sagarius to turn toward him. "If you hadn't protected us, we'd be long dead. You shouldn't blame yourself."
"It was I who wanted to go to this city."
"But nobody knew a fell beast had taken the forest." He paused. "What you and the others did was nothing less than heroic. You saved us all. Including my wife and my daughter. For that, I can't thank you enough."
Sagarius took a deep breath. Even though she knew it was genuine, it did not move her. She had heard it too often, and now she was not in the mood to act like a sociable human. Still, she had something to say.
"I actually wanted to run," she said, prompting Paulos' full attention.
"When I saw the fell beast—"
"Of course everyone wanted to run," Paulos cut her off. "I don't think anyone would think of fighting after seeing that thing... But you, Lady Sagaria. You actually fought, and that gave us hope that it could be defeated."
"Six days. And more than four hundred died," she lamented.
The beast had been large, nearly the size of a hunter's lodge. Its sickly dark body moved on six legs, each powerfully built and ending in an uneven number of claws that tore through old trees as if they were nothing. Its hide was not fur, but glossy scales, like the scales she had seen on dragon sculptures.
Yet, its face was too small for its body.
A narrow, goat-like face peered from a thicket of horns and mane. The mouth was small, unlike a carnivore's. But the eyes were bright, filled with some unknown intellect. They did not glare like an animal's. They watched. There was an eerie, almost human cleverness in them.
Horns crowded its head, growing from its skull without order. Some curled like a ram's, while others jutted sideways, backward, or upward. Together, they looked like a crown of horns.
Behind it, many tails lashed through the dark. Long, scaled, serpentine things, moving as if each had a life of its own.
Even recalling it now, Sagarius had to keep only hand from trembling.
"Four hundred are missing," Paulos corrected her, his voice pulling her back. "The true casualties are unknown. We only buried a little over two hundred."
Sagarius lowered her gaze. "It frightens me. Despite knowing magic, I was never a fighter. If I hadn't thought of the refugees with us, over a thousand souls, I would've fled."
"And that's what makes it heroic," Paulos said warmly.
Sagarius did not react, but her lips softened. Even so, she knew she was too old to play a hero.
"Oh," Paulos suddenly exclaimed, holding up a piece he had just found, as if remembering something.
Without explaining, he rushed toward one of the piles of items he meant to fix. He opened one of the larger ones and began installing the parts with a screwdriver. Many of the pieces here were copied from old Dwarven designs, perfected by the Grand Progenitors.
After several moments, he hastily turned a rusty knob. The object, as tall as a child and boxy in design, came alive and produced the familiar sound of a fan.
"It's working," he cried enthusiastically.
"It's a heater, isn't it?" Sagarius said.
"You know it?" Paulos chuckled, happily surprised. Then he began wiping the grime from the object like a prized possession. Without question, a heater powered by gemstones would be useful in such an underground place.
Aside from the guard area, there was no ventilation or hearths. And with more than eight hundred refugees, many had to sleep inside the vault.
Even with its city wall relatively intact, Vindebona was in ruins. Before the snowstorm, they had only managed to make the gatehouse and a few buildings near the hidden Imperial armoury habitable.
The last time Sagarius was here, it had still been new. They had called it the Imperial colony city of Vindebona, a frontline border city and the first of many raised against the beastmen war. But after the frontline advanced further, the city was sealed and abandoned.
Now, in ruin, it had become their sanctuary.
***
World View
With most of Midlandia covered in snow, families gathered inside their houses, sharing warmth and stories as they worked at their winter crafts. While mending clothes, bedsheets, and blankets, or stirring pottage over the hearth, they spoke of the harvest feast, the war, and inevitably, the new Lord.
In the past, many had called him the Black Lord, or worse. Now, in the first week of the new year, more and more called him simply their Lord.
They spoke of his victories, of his unbelievable lightning conquest of Midlandia, of his airships, and of the brave knights and elite fighters who had captured Lord Reginald from Lubina, the strongest castle in Midlandia. Like him or not, it was the kind of feat men turned into songs.
Children and youths listened eagerly to tales of the rebellion, where the Lord had triumphed against all odds. They heard of the SAR’s sacrifice at the Race Track, and of the duck cavalry that trampled the Saint’s Believers, vile men who had once made meals of the prized race ducks.
Slowly, even though the Midlandians were, in truth, a conquered people, the stream of triumphs was too alluring to ignore. It was natural for people to want a place in something greater than themselves, and to feel that they, too, had become part of a victory.
Scholars, physicians, craftsmen, and men of letters also began to gather around him. Despite early mistrust and stubborn resistance, the flow of his inventions captured their imagination.
The hair elixir and medicated soaps pleased households and physicians alike. The rugged carriages and spring beds spread through merchant homes, inns, and noble houses. In Canardia, the washing machine became a marvel of practical machinery. Meanwhile, the medical writings attributed to him, from accepted practices of medicine to warnings about poisons, gave scholars something harder to dismiss.
So did the Iliad epic and the public libraries he founded.
In him, many saw the promise of a better life. And it was not an empty one. Outside of war, his government was filled not only with nobles, but also with trained and educated landless gentry and capable commoners. He had championed the school of the landless, given them paths into service, and even spared Lord Reginald, whose learning and reformist ideas might yet serve the realm, when many expected blood.
That, more than anything, endeared him to the educated class.
And when rumors spread that the Lord intended to spare farms from taxes, even cautious scholars began to nod in approval. It was one of their oldest dreams made policy. A realm, they believed, grew strongest when the government knew when not to place its hand upon the people. Their theories of prosperity through light rule and low burdens were finally going to be tested.
Not only the intellectuals, craftsmen, merchants, and laborers were also impressed by his steel. The still-secret metal produced in his workshops was among the finest anyone had seen, rivaling the lost works of the Great Progenitor era.
Seen in a new light, more and more people came to accept his claim over Midlandia. Some pointed out that he had only acted after assassins had been sent to kill him. Others simply looked at his unbroken string of successes. Many believed he was blessed by the Ancients, and with so many triumphs behind him, it was difficult to argue otherwise.
If any indifference or quiet resistance to his rule remained, his last campaign at the monastery broke much of it.
The stories of the night battle spread like wildfire. At first, few believed the rumors of the undead at face value. They were too absurd, too grotesque, too impossible. Even his strongest supporters received them with disbelief.
But months before winter, when the procession reached their city, few could deny what they saw.
It was no victory parade. The carts came slowly through the streets, guarded on all sides, bearing the proof for every eye to see. Dozens of undead still twitched and stirred in their cages, their flesh black with rot. The large one was worse. Even headless, it still moved, murmuring a name from somewhere deep in its ruined throat.
And there lay the Saint’s embalmed face, sealed beneath glass in a hastily wrought metal box, the same face her believers had worshipped, still recognizable despite the scales that covered her neck, chin, and cheeks.
Her body was no different. Local physicians and village elders were brought forward to examine it. They touched the scales and felt that they were real. Even the skin was wrong, too hard to be human, while her nails had grown into claws. The local embalmer, who had kept the body from decay, confirmed it before the gathered witnesses. Nothing about her body was human.
Many had wanted to doubt. But faced with such a sight, doubt became difficult.
Supporting the account were the words of the former Saint Candidate and the former Believers who had witnessed the night battle with their own eyes. The proof was so complete, so undeniable, that faith in the Saint collapsed.
But it did not vanish.
Many former followers accepted the truth in shame. But a few clung harder than before, claiming the witnesses had been frightened, bought, or bewitched. Some whispered that the Saint had been framed. Worse, some believed she had not fallen at all, but had gone into hiding. They went on believing that her silence was only another trial of faith.
Yet, the gatherings grew smaller. The donations dried up. The sympathizers who once offered barns, cellars, or back rooms began to turn them away.
Though thinner in number, they were fiercer in conviction. But without shelter or support, they became easier to find. One by one, their names began to reach the bailiffs.
The Lord’s victory over the undead spread beyond the province and was met elsewhere with strong disbelief. Other lords dismissed it as mere propaganda, a lie sold to the populace to secure their obedience and bind them to the Black Lord’s rule.
But not all lords thought so.
Behind closed doors, the new Earl of Elandia, Bengrieve, was utterly shaken by the news. Unlike the others, he had good spies, and he knew there was truth behind the rumors.
This development threw cold water over his plans. He had waged border wars against Lord Gottfried's men in Tiberia to reclaim the Duke's lost lands and sent infiltrators into the Capital ahead of their spring campaign. But now everyone around him was uneasy.
Even within the tall walls of the city, the people had grown restless.
Yet he couldn't blame them. The thousand-year Capital had fallen. The Old Capital in Centuria was under siege by the western nomads. And now the undead had risen in the heart of Midlandia.
If anything, Bengrieve felt fortunate that it had happened after he was forced out of Midlandia. His House’s involvement with the Monastery was well known, and it could have turned against him spectacularly. After all, people were suspicious and superstitious.
If he had still been in Midlandia, then he would probably have faced not only the undead but also the people’s wrath.
That he had escaped such a precarious position by letting Lansius take care of Midlandia was a remarkable fortune.
Still, he could not completely escape the shadow of the undead.
Without certainty that the undead had all been exterminated, the story spread wildly through travelers and minstrels who had come before the winter snows. As expected, reports of fell beasts and other dark creatures increased across Elandia. In towns and villages, men spoke of undead, liches, and wraiths.
More people were missing, and the bailiffs could no longer blame it all on Nicopolan mercenary remnants or the blizzard. There were bodies now, gruesome ones, half-eaten and torn apart. And not all of the wounds looked as though they had been made by a beast’s jaws.
The situation had grown bad enough that more officers suggested postponement to their spring campaign, fearing threats to their own towns, villages, and estates. Even their grip on Elandia as a whole might be at risk. At the same time, their allies and lesser nobles, fearing that the undead might cross into their lands, demanded that Elandia heighten its readiness along the border with Midlandia.
And that was before any of them learned of the situation in the east.
Bengrieve had only just received urgent word from the far east that the Navalnia Empire had invaded the Margravate of Edessa. He kept the report close. His House could not afford another piece of bad news spreading.
So many things were happening at once that Bengrieve could only sit and wonder how everything had gone so wrong.
Meanwhile, his father-in-law, the Duke, who had been kept from hearing ill news, held the year’s-turning feast in the vast hall of Swan Castle, inviting every noble willing to brave the snow and make the journey.
The Duke was frail and sick, yet he stubbornly wished the tradition to continue.
Lord Bengrieve could only sigh sharply as his attendants helped him into fine, shimmering fabrics and dusted his face and hair with powder, so he would not look too pale beside his wife. She, too, had been prepared in her chamber, heavily powdered, her cheeks given color to lend her the look of youth and vitality.
While one attendant adjusted the fall of his sleeve, his aide approached with a folded letter.
"My lord, word from Lowlandia."
Bengrieve paused, curiosity overcoming his weariness. "Read it for me."
The aide showed him the seal, though Bengrieve did not look, then broke it and opened the letter. His eyes moved quickly over the lines before he gave the matter in brief. "My lord, the Count and Countess of Midlandia give their gratitude for the title and pledge one hundred warhorses to your House."
For the first time that evening, Bengrieve was amused, though not by much. He looked at his reflection, at the powdered face staring back from the polished glass, and allowed himself a thin smile.
"At least the brat knows gratitude," he muttered to his aide as they prepared to leave for the feast.
They applied a strong musk perfume to his neck and wrists, lending him the scent expected of a vigorous lord.
Lord Bengrieve needed to appear at his finest. The spring campaign now depended on charm and smooth words. Tonight, he had to restore their confidence.
“My Lord, are you ready?” his aide asked.
Bengrieve glanced over the waiting entourage. Every man and woman had been dressed in their best, polished, and perfumed.
“Certainly,” Lord Bengrieve answered. “After all, there is nothing wrong in Elandia.”
Only his aide and guard captain understood the answer.
***
Lansius
Even with his eyes shut, the man from Bellandia could tell he was falling into a bottomless ocean of red and darkness. It stretched vast around him, so vast that his mind could not comprehend it. And there, where only endless depth and eternity existed, his consciousness drifted, leaving him with nothing but himself.
The vast darkness continued to swallow him whole, like a raindrop vanishing into the sea. His consciousness began to melt away, mixing into the great ocean.
His sense of self had eroded to a fraction of near nothingness. There was nothing left for him to feel but the slow, constant pull downward, and a peace so deep it made him uneasy.
But that uneasiness soon disappeared.
There was no more reason to feel.
There was no more reason to think.
There was no more regret.
There was only nothingness.
He had no tether left to the world.
He had forgotten nearly everything.
He was finally free.
Then a spark of thought stirred in the dark.
I've felt this before...
Warmth rushed inward. Then came noise, sudden and violent enough to startle him.
“We’re losing him!” a youthful voice shouted from somewhere beyond the darkness, muffled, hazy, distant.
An old voice snapped, “Petra, do what you can!”
“I’m trying. We don’t have enough,” a woman answered, her voice strained.
Then came a familiar voice. “Lans!”
"My Lord!"
They called his name, but he opened his eyes and saw only darkness. The red stillness closed around him as he sank deeper into the vast, sunless abyss.
Is this death...?
He expected an answer, but found none. His fall remained undisturbed as he slowly faded away.
Then something warm engulfed him.
It wrapped around him, keeping him from the cold ocean below.
For a long time, there was only that warmth.
He stopped caring. It was too exhausting.
Without him knowing, the endless ocean slowly faded away. Around him, winter melted into spring. Spring burned into summer. Summer rotted into autumn, and autumn froze again into winter. The seasons turned quickly, like painted leaves swept across a dead sky.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
All the while, the dead Imperium continued to rot. His Shogunate stood alone against the coming tide.
Through it all, something held him fast.
A stubborn warmth that would not let him die.
***
PS: I’ll be on mandatory company leave next week, so there’ll be no chapter on Tuesday the 23rd or Friday the 26th.
This only happens every two or three years, and the last time around, I actually didn’t have one because Covid still happened.🫠
Normal schedule will resume on Tuesday the 30th.🔥
So, we have Sagarius and Marc this chapter. Also a little world view, Bengrieve, and Lansius, along with a "true" fell beast finally making their appearance. At least that one is dead.
More to come next chapter!
As always, gratitude for supporting Horizon of War! 💎💖🦆