“What about the animals?” Lisa asks him.
“They will not run away, if that is what you are thinking. They will eat, then sleep, and in the morning be ready and waiting for us.”
Lisa sits opposite Alastor, facing him. She leans against a stone the same way Alastor has, trying to find comfort. She soon gives up, laying upon the ground as Mikha’el has already done. Weary from the trek, all of them come into the arms of sleep within moments.
~-~~-~
The next day starts bright and early. During their meal, which is only enough to settle their appetites, a thought comes to Lisa.
“Alastor, if the castle and keep were once the center of the Old Kingdom, then there should have been a trade road to and from Essain, would there not?”
“There was,” Alastor answers. “It was once widely used and very well kept. Over the course of time, alliances wore out, the Old Kingdom fell and the road was destroyed deliberately. In its time, it took only a day and a half at a leisurely pace to make the trip to Essain. Unfortunately, no such roads remain, so we are forced to travel through the untamed lands.”
~-~~-~
The entire second day passes without violence. They stop once at midday, but none of them speaks much. The sun descends, and again they stop to sleep. The morning of the third day heralds ill omen. It is cold. The clouds gather but there is no rain. Not bird nor beast is seen or heard. Lisa wakes groggily. Only Mikha’el is there, sitting, watching over her.
“Where is Alastor?” she asks.
“Exploring. As you can no doubt tell, the weather has changed most dramatically. This worried him.” It is at this moment that Alastor returns, fog clinging to him like the fingers of death. “Did you find anything?” Mikha’el asks him.
“Nothing.”
“That is good, right?” asks Lisa hopefully.
“You misunderstand, Lisa. I found nothing. Not animal tracks, not a single living thing. It is like all of creation is in hiding, and the world itself weeps.”
A shiver goes down Lisa’s spine.
“What does this mean?” she asks them.
“Naught, one would hope,” Mikha’el tells her, while Alastor remains silent.
“Alastor?”
Lisa looks at him, the look of a fearful child.
“I am sorry, Your Highness. I cannot say.”
“Cannot, or will not?”
“Both, possibly.”
“Nonetheless,” Mikha’el interjects, “we must go on.”
Alastor and Lisa share an uneasy glance before heading to their stallions. Mikha’el takes off to find the way, circling and finally giving them the signal to follow. The going is slow or, at least, feels slow. The fog is as tight as a hangman’s noose. Mikha’el is forced to rise and dip, looking like a fish diving in and out of water as he flies above the fog then back down so that the riders can see him. Finally, as has been threatening all morning, heavy rain begins to fall, the droplets hitting with enough strength to convert the grassy plains into fields of mud.
The stallions remain unfazed. That is, however, until they slide down a steep hill which had been obscured by the fog and unseen by all. The animals lock their knees, riding down the hill with all courage they have. Alastor’s mind races back to the night with Gawain in the forest, falling into that mysterious moat. All he can think of, hope for, is that there is no violent drop now as there was then. Lisa has roughly the same thought, although it is not the violent drop that frights her, but rather what might be at the bottom of the fall.
Mikha’el now notices that the riders under his charge are missing. He descends; when he does not find the ground, he calls out.
“Alastor! Lisa!”
But neither the Knight or the Queen can hear him over the rain and grunts of the horses. Fortuitously, the hill soon levels out, leaving them at the bottom of a narrow mud-walled trench.
Mikha’el dives through the fog. Fear that he has led his allies off a mountain ledge engulfs him. The fog thins. The ground is rushing up to meet him. He flares his wings wide, trying to right himself for landing, but not quite. He falls hard into the mud, sinking into the rain saturated earth.
Alastor and Lisa saw the crash. Riding to their winged friend, they dismount with urgency and, with difficulty, they pull him from what would have surely been his grave.
“It is good that you two are well,” Mikha’el says, hiding his embarrassment, checking himself for injuries. “For a moment, I was afraid I had lead you to your doom.”
“It is good that we all three are well,” Lisa adds, voice still carrying her fright of Mikha’el’s fall.
Mikha’el brushes what he can of the mud from him, what he misses the rain washes away.
“I will discover what lay ahead,” Mikha’el announces just as he takes to the air again.
Alastor and Lisa get back on their horses, riding slowly side by side, waiting for Mikha’el’s report.
“How much longer do you expect it will take to get back home?” Lisa asks Alastor.
“I am sorry. I cannot judge how far we have gone today, and that makes it difficult to say how much more we need to go.”
Mikha’el glides down, circling over their heads.
“The path is long and narrow, but level and without any further pitfall. I will wait at its end for you.”
The riders whip at the reins, speeding through the rain and the mist; Mikha’el barely visible in the distance as he flies ahead. The farther they ride down the trench, the more the fog starts to dissipate, the rain likewise lessening to a drizzle. The end of the trench is now in sight, as is a much more somber Mikha’el, standing at the foot of the hill that leads back up.
“You do not look too well,” Alastor observes as he and Lisa stop before the winged one.
“I know now what this trench is, Alastor.”
Alastor stands in his saddle, now able to see and properly gauge the trench. It was, before the rain, freshly loosened earth. Ripped apart.
“No...”
“It was an opening for the dead soldiers. It is nothing but a massive, open grave.”
“That would mean thousands of them came from here. What would he need with such numbers...” Alastor’s voice fades as he finds Mikha’el’s face grow grimmer.
“Once you exit this grave, you will wonder no more, Son of Eoin.”
Mikha’el leaps up, flying out while Alastor and Lisa ride up the earthen ramp. As they go, a peculiar scent coils into their nostrils, hanging palpably amid the moisture still in the air. The farther from the grave they exit, the heavier and heavier the scent becomes.
“That smell is putrid. What is it? The undead?” the Queen asks her Knight.
Alastor knows it all too well. He smelled it in Judeheim, and in his dream.
“You do not want to know, Your Highness.”
At last they come again onto proper ground, right to the threshold of a thicket of lumber trees. With the fog now gone completely, they can clearly see columns of smoke rising up into the sky, coming from just beyond the trees. Mikha’el lands in a thick, barren tree, looking down at Lisa.
“My Lady, you will not like what is to be seen, but see it you must, I am afraid.”
Lisa becomes as dismally faced as her two companions. Their words leave no doubt that something horrible has occurred. Not concerned with her own well being, she whips on the reins, sending the stallion headlong through the trees, struck by a sense of familiarity while she does. It takes only strides to pass through the trees, and when she does, it is much worse than she ever expected. Nothing, not warnings or dire words could have readied her for this: the small city; with the tavern-inn at the center, the place she met the bards and Alastor; lays in complete desolation, the buildings burnt to the ground leaving nothing but empty husks.
Lisa leaps down from horseback, walking the blackened streets, the putrid smell growing stronger and stronger. Alastor dismounts also, leaving the animals to Mikha’el’s care. The Knight follows close behind
Lisa as she discovers the city’s main street. Looking west, she spies the way she first came into the city. She turns her head to the east end of the street, and immediately drops to her knees, jaw agape in turmoil and unbelievable sadness.
At the intersection in the center of the city, there stands a high mound, the bodies of every citizen piled, previously set ablaze and now a smoldering heap. Men and women, slaughtered without mercy. Lisa cries uncontrollably, wailing with unyielding lament.
She can hear Alastor walking up behind her.
“Why would he do this!? What did these people do!? They did not know who I was. I was not even here through the night!”
“They did nothing. This was an act of pure malicious spite. The Necromancer did this to hurt you. That is all.”
“He had already hurt me! He murdered my father, he murdered the Knight... what possible reason could he have to cause all this pain?”
Alastor looks upon the pyre. The charred corpses indistinguishable from one another.
“The Necromancer serves one that only wants to cause hurt and pain. A force that will never have its appetite for misery satiated. To the Necromancer, this is an homage to He Whom Is Served. It is a prayer. It is a tithe. Simply put, Lisa... it is his form of worship.”
Lisa stops crying, too tired to go on.
“How do we stop such a creature? How can something that thrives on misery be defeated?”
“By killing his agents first.”
Lisa looks up to the heavens in revelation.
“Killing the Necromancer... this will hinder the being he worships?”
Lisa stands, staring into Alastor’s eyes, craving his answer.
“It should do more than just hinder him, Your Highness.”
Lisa’s eyes darken, a look Alastor is quite familiar with.
“Alastor, promise me that no more will suffer this fate.”
He looks past her to the pyre, then back.
“I promise that I shall try.”
Mikha’el comes out from behind the ruins, doing his best to avoid looking at the dead out of respect for the fallen.
“Alastor, My Lady, let us leave this place. Our adversary awaits.”
Without another word they retake their saddles, continuing westward, neither of them looking back; the sight far too much to take in again. Lisa now has her bounds. To the west of the destroyed city is a field, then the forest she slept in, the trade roads, Edna’s home and, then, Essain.
Lisa’s eyes open wide with the shock of realization. Edna! How could she have forgotten her? Her father’s advisor, and the woman that practically raised her. At that moment, Lisa knew she would never forgive herself if any ill befell on Edna. She rides closer to Alastor.
“I know the way from here. Before we enter Essain proper, there is someone I must check on.”
“Who?”
“My father’s advisor, Edna. She lived just outside the kingdom.”
Alastor does not protest, but he does think it over a moment.
“If you want.”
After that, they speak no more. With Mikha’el above them, they continue on, over the plain and into the forest where Mikha’el is forced to fly just under the canopy of leaves in order to keep eyes on the riders.
The forest is dead quiet.
The tramping of hooves.
The beat of Mikha’el’s wings.
The slow, steady breathing of the stallions.
This is all to be heard.
The path narrows and becomes too small, the hanging leaves too dense. Knight and Queen are forced to slow and dismount, Mikha’el to land, and all to walk. They are on one of the old trade roads that serpentines throughout the forest and heads in multiple directions, some roads still in use, others decayed, destroyed or gone completely.
Lisa’s heart pounds in her chest with each foot forward. In her mind she knows that Alastor’s feud with the Necromancer goes back further than hers and her father’s involvement, but in her heart a darkness grows. She wants to be the one to end his life, to take from him what he has taken from so many others.
Vengeance shall be hers, she swears.
~-~~-~
The journey becomes sluggish and obstinate, the trees have spontaneously grown thicker in the time since Lisa was here last.
“Alastor, have you even known trees and plants to suddenly grow wild?” she asks.
“I cannot say that I have.”
“Perhaps nature itself is reacting to the Necromancer’s presence,” muses Mikha’el.
His logic is not argued against. The evil of the Necromancer far exceeds his shadow, making even the earth around him twist and distort into shades of its true form. After an hour of travel, Lisa recognizes the lay of the land again, sprinting ahead of the others, leaving her animal to Alastor. He and Mikha’el share an uneasy glance before running after the Queen.
Just beyond the trees, Lisa spots that familiar little cottage.
“Edna!” she shouts as she nears it.
Desperation for a friendly face, longing for the closest person she has to family left, spurs her on making her fleet of foot, much to Alastor’s dismay that is, he being unable to match her speed. He does not shout after her, though, suspecting that there might be unkind ears listening from within the all too unnatural nature surrounding them. In another moment, she is out of sight completely.
~-~~-~
Lisa bursts through the front door of Edna’s home, finding nothing but the obvious signs of violence. Tables, chairs and bookcases are all thrown down or flipped over; on the floor blood has been splattered, here and there piles of gore and ash. Upon everything, gouges from sword swings and other such damages. There is not, however, any bodies and, most despairing for the Queen, no sign of Edna whatsoever.
“Edna!” she cries, fearful of her whereabouts.
“You shall not find that old crone here,” a voice whispers from the cottage doorway.
Lisa rotates around slowly, deliberately. The voice, sadly, is a familiar one.
“Hector,” seethes Lisa.
“My lovely cousin. Welcome home. It is so good to see you again.”
Lisa moves to withdraw her blade, but at that moment the entire front of the cottage splinters, and in bursts yet more creatures, but not as grotesque as the others, who were corpses again given animation. No, these look entirely like men, and they wear the armor of Essain. They deftly capture Lisa, who only manages to yell a curse at the traitors before being gagged. The soldiers stop before Hector for their orders.
“Take her to the throne room. Our Master waits there for our guests.”
~-~~-~
Alastor hears the sound of the cottage being torn open and the shouted curse of the Queen. He pushes forward with all strength. Mikha’el hears too, abandoning the horses to give chase. Upon nearing the end of the road, the ground heaves powerfully, and up surges massive trees, thick and gnarled, barring the way out. Vines take life, flying overhead, forming a thick net so as to prevent Mikha’el from escaping. They stand side by side astonished at the sight.
“We must turn back, Alastor, and I can fly us over the forest.”
Alastor nods and the two begin retreat, only to face the eruption of a second tree-wall, effectively trapping them completely. Mikha’el roars, his wings flaring, his hands claw like.
“How can he have become so powerful! To bend nature itself to his demented will? How, Alastor?”
Alastor has no reply. He unsheathes his sword, swinging it once and cutting three trees clean through. Unlike normal trees, these cut ones shrivel and become dust. More try to take their place, but Alastor and Mikha’el do not tarry, leaping through the breach while it is still open.
The ruined cottage stands hushed, hollow and dead. Mikha’el scours the house whilst Alastor surveys the surroundings.
“Nothing,” Mikha’el says, returning to Alastor, “except the aftermath of battle, but whatever happened here was days ago.”
Alastor motions for Mikha
’el to look at the ground, seeing there deeply cut tracks in the half moist ground.
“It was a trap. They took her to Essain on foot, and they want me to follow.”
“Then you shall not oblige. I will fly you in.”
“No. I will go alone, do what he expects and may very well desire. You must stay out of sight, but close enough to watch me.”
“No, Alastor! I - ”
“You are Lisa’s only means of escape, Mikha’el, and I will not tire you with combat nor as having me a burden.”
Mikha’el does not think of arguing at this, gripping Alastor’s shoulders.
“I will be watching, Son of Eoin.”
“Everything else in this world is of no importance when weighed against Lisa. She is your absolute priority, understand?”
“I always have.”
Mikha’el takes to the air, soon gone from sight.
Now alone, Alastor sets his focus to Essain. Can one ever actually prepare to face their fate? If it was something that could be trained for, then it would not be something to be conquered, would it? One would simply be going through the motions, learning nothing, gaining even less. Thus, Fate has to be insurmountable, soul crushing, absurdly impossible and, above all, unexpected.
One must believe that they are absolutely abhorred by Fate.
Despised wholly.
Fate must want only the complete destruction of its victim.
Only then does it carry meaning in being triumphed over.
With all visible hope exhausted, Alastor does the only thing available to him, the one single act that might carry him through the trial ahead: he prays.
“God of my father, whoever you are, you are the one that influenced him upon his path, and are thus the one responsible for that path that I to this day now follow in his stead. I will not pretend to fathom whatever grand scheme you have concocted for myself, all I ask is for the strength of will and clarity of mind to do what is needed before I fall. Seeing as my failure will hurt you, and those that serve you, far more than it will hurt me, I doubt that my request is unreasonable.”
Unable to find any more words, Alastor ends his prayer, sprinting on toward Essain, the shadows of the future, and echoes of the past apparently becoming united in a singular goal.