Chapter 218: A Mother’s Spiteful Hate and Words of a Coming Calamity
Dawn rose over the charred and bloodied tapestry of the night’s sanguineous events, as hundreds of thousand of men worked tirelessly to salvage what they could from what the fire had failed to devour from among the ashes, only to always end up faced with the depressing sight of another discovered set of once pearlescent skeletons now burnt black; forcing them to pile on another comrade’s memory onto the small, macabre hills, erected nearby, as they readied another silent trench to add to the collection, all the while many others desperately cleaned and cleared the areas that were touched by the tragedy, trying desperately to rinse the scars caused by the scorching flames.
But while all this was occurring, I was within my newly replaced tent, silently listening to the finishing remarks of Avestan’s report, along with the rest of my high command and family "All in all, we have sustain almost eight thousand casualties over all three armies, while material expenses, such as tents and equipment remain at a minimum, my liege."
"Less than I expected." I lightly remarked, as I continued petting Bellerophon’s sleeping head.
"Indeed, sire. We were ready for double these numbers in our initial cost calculations, but thanks to the combined efforts of her majesty, along with the those of lord Horus and generals Leonid and Hasdrubal in particular, the traitors had little time to achieve much; especially the elite force general Leonid intercepted on the outskirts of the Iontis River." Avestan further explained.
"Honestly, I did very little." Leonid shook his head in response. "I believe the Artillery Corps and the Demon Born are more deserving of this praise than I. Even the Chimera Knights, who merely took charge of chasing down the last few stragglers and deserters, at the end did more than me."
"Couldn’t agree more! My darling’s were absolutely spectacular, weren’t they!" Orhan shamelessly accepted the praise, while Archon, as usual, remained quiet, saying nothing in return.
But while ignoring the odd cannoneer’s words, Hamilcar sagely said "The line between excessive humility and sarcastic mockery is very fine young man."
"My lord?" Leonid asked in slight confusion.
"In such times, just accept the commendation Leonid." I said, with a meaningful smile. "After all, if you, the man who perfectly commanded the battle and then personally captured the highest ranking officers of the enemy says he did nothing of significant worth, then what would others think?"
The fallout of my words was a literal, physical change in the tent’s temperature, as everyone suddenly found their eyes instinctively drawn to myself, Abraham and Hamilcar, since if one were to think for a moment then they would realize that all I, Abraham and my guard did was prolong a fight we could’ve finished before it even began, while the terrifying Hamilcar, who with the mere activation of his power could have frozen the entire kerfuffle in it’s tracks, simply kept the duchess of Enkada occupied, and only at the end did he arrive and deal with a few minor matters.
Leonid’s heterochromatic eyes widened in utter, undistilled horror at this realization, his already palid face growing deathly white, as he immediately wanted to apologize for his unintended error, when Hamilcar calmly cut him off, saying "Indeed, Tessiphina and I had very little to do by the time we entered the fray, with me in particular doing little more than inviting her to an impromptu duel. You should feel proud of yourself young man, you did well."
Leonid audibly gulped, before he bowed in gratitude, saying nothing more.
"Speaking of Tessiphina, where is she?" I then asked, finally relieving them from the oppressive tension.
"She and Barrafin are by the bedside of the injured..." Avestan began explaining, when he was suddenly interrupted.
"We’re here, my liege." Tessiphina’s voice, but now sharpened with an added edge of bone chilling darkness, sounded out as she calmly parted the tent’s curtain entrance, her ordinarily neutral heroic features now etched from arctic ice.
"Our deepest apologies for being so late." Barrafin, who entered a step behind her, bowed in apology, as his voice echoed out in unconcealed abhorrence.
"You’re excused." I answered, as I carefully scrutinized the results of our efforts. "Sit, we still have much to discuss."
"Sire." The two simultaneously saluted, before they quickly found their seats.
Looking towards Abraham, I simply commanded "Bring them."
"Right away, sire." He instantly understood, as he turned to his men and nodded, prompting my gold plated guards to leave the tent and return a moment later, dragging five cuffed and shackled slovenly men in.
Their ruckus causing the sleeping Bellerophon to irritably awaken, as threateningly began to growl in response.
"I’m impressed." I casually commented. "Most would’ve already given up resistance by this point."
As they were forced to their knees before us, the one in the middle with a bald head and the most defiant attitude, merely heavily inhaling through his nose, arrogantly snorting before he spat out a phlegm mixed with blood onto the floor before us.
My guard’s blow came quickly afterward, drawing blood from the back of his head in response, as the rest of those present coldly frowned at his audacious act, their eyes already reflecting his death in a dozen different, grizzly fashions.
I merely kept looking at them for a moment longer, before I coolly said, causing even those familiar to me to unconsciously lower their heads, half in obedience at orders not even meant for them, half in fear "I have questions for you runts, you will answer them."
"Ha!" The bald man loudly screamed the most artificial laugh any of us had ever heard, as he picked himself up, his eyes still slightly dazed from my guard’s strike, and deafeningly declared "You rotten whoreson! Do you think just any child playing conqueror is worthy of demanding answers from me?! Without these daft men around you, I would’ve already made you run yelping back to hide behind your mother’s dress, like the cur you are!"
Cyrus rose with a bang, his hand breaking the wooden table before him, as his golden aura pulsed around him in furious, uncontrollable flares, mimicking plumes of radiant fire; while even the more tame Nizam became unable to maintain his mature mask, as the air around him grew utterly unnatural, causing those around him to feel themselves suddenly drenched in frigid water, while what felt like cold, damp, starving serpents began to coil around them in a frighteningly constricting motion.
"My liege, allow me." Tessiphina, like a waiting predator finally catching scent of her quarry, unhesitantly unleashed her bladed whip from her waist and venomously cracked her fearsome weapon at the man’s neck, wrapping around it like a hangman’s noose, digging viciously into his throat just enough to elicit the most pain without the need for emergency healing or the loss of voice, before she then used her aura to slightly blunt the razors of her whip, as she pulled him towards her, causing him to embarrassingly crash laying down on the table, looking like a succulent pig laid out before us.
"Will you comply now?" She asked, as her lips stretched into a darkly beautiful picture of maternal vengeance.
He violently coughed, before he then spat out despite the roughness of his strained voice "If you had half a functioning brain you would all turn your blades against the boy, and offer his head to my lords, so that they might just decide to spare your worthless lives!"
"I prayed you would remain the suicidal fool." She whisperingly said, as her smile grew ever larger, as she raised her whip again to deliver her due recompense.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAH!" But before she could, a horrifically disturbed and very much inhuman laugh echoed out from my mouth, as my aura began to shift from the veil of mortality I was usually shrouded with, as my true form of my kind began to replace it, with ink black symbols of disorienting effects began to etch themselves upon my skin, while my hair visibly elongated and my normally already eerie eyes, grew genuinely mortifying, made all the more so as all the light that once illuminated the tent fled without a moment of protest, as though it was truly terrified to be trapped with me in such an enclosed space.
Those who’d already scene my true form, grew deathly quiet as they ever so slightly inched their seats away from me, while those who were not merely stared at the direction where only my silverish white eyes remained glaring at them through the thick cloak of darkness that allowed nothing pass; none more so than Barrafin and Tessiphina, who looked at me now with their earlier hate momentarily forgotten, and instead replaced with untold, soul stirring fear.
Only my Eve remained unmoving by my side, her eyes fixated upon me despite her inability to perceive me, as though she was determined to somehow defy and break her own ancestor’s trial.
Without another word I extended my hand towards the petrified man’s head and simply placed it atop his soaked cranium, before then I calmly summoned forth the infamy of my family, the reason why everyone north of the Hadrians learned to never dare to casually offend my house.
There was no scream, no explosion, no flare of light, or sudden wave of weight, merely the eerie racketing and desperate pounding of convulsing meat upon wood, and then nothing.
Slowly after the return of the unsettling silence, like a veil being removed from all their eyes, the darkness parted, allowing them to behold the aftermath, and their faces were simply robbed of all their colour in response.
For there was nothing left of the man but a thin layer of pure onyx ash, casually dusted in harrowing contrast over the light wooden surface, creating an unspeakably macabre image.
But this alone was not what unsettled them so, it was the sensation they felt when they looked at it, that made them feel an unnatural sickness come over them, made all the worse when a passing breeze wafted in from the fabric gates of the abyssal tent, unintentionally trespassing upon this terror inducing domain, and incidentally disturbing the man’s remnants, who when transgressed upon by being wafted into the light wind, began to change and corrupt the breeze’s whistle into, what sounded like to them, the man’s missing screams.
"You." I calmly called out to another of the prisoners, my voice booming forth with startling force, despite me not impowering my voice "Were your orders to ambush my army when your agents within my camp launch their sudden attack and I am assassinated?"
"Yes!" They all yelled out simultaneously.
"Were these orders and information given to you by a unified command structure under the four most dominant clans of the Middle Lands?" I questioned again.
"Yes!" And again they answered all at once.
"Why have the four clans formed a united front against me and seized all hostilities against one another?" I asked, after all they were the ones who first began attacking me by looting and raising one of my border forts, not the other way around, even if it was just a matter of time till I struck out at them.
"We-We don’t know!" One of them desperately yelled out.
"They simply just came out one day and decreed that the fighting was hereby halted!" Another quickly further explained.
"Have they formed a unified army yet or not?" I continued to question them with increasingly furrowed brows.
"Wh-When we departed the army was yet to be a-assembled." A third of them spoke.
"How many men?" I asked again.
"W-W-We don’t know!" The first stutteringly said.
"Estimate." I commanded with a pulse of divinity that caused them to shiver like dry leaves in the wind.
"...M-Maybe five hundred thousand." They looked at one another for a moment, before one of them unsurely muttered.
"If they have such a force, then why send only you?" I asked with one brow raised. "Why don’t they march their full force at me, themselves?"
"...W-We don’t know!" The third spoke out a moment later.
"Lies." Eve then suddenly decreed, and my power began to once again roil and rise within me, causing the darkness to begin to close in on them anew, making them all unconsciously relieve themselves, as they then desperately pleaded.
"N-No, we swear! We’re not sure why they didn’t, many of us were even against this plan, but the patriarchs were adamant for some reason!"
Seeing Eve not react, I asked "Why?"
Looking at one another again, as though having a silent conversation with each other at that moment, they eventually said "Th-There were some rumours we heard b-before we left. They said that the patriarchs were waiting the arrival of southern reinforcements before they advance at full force to the north."
