Chapter IV: The Order of the Raven Knights [2]

"Eldric! Order the retreat!" the shaman yelled, mustering his loudest voice.

Eldric heard the call amid the commotion; between the cries of death from the impotent horde and the rattling noises of collapsing structures. The disarray only allowed him a handful of men to heed his command as his voice was drowned by the tumult. Less than fifty men rode beside him as his horse trotted through the streets blocked by debris and rubble. Fire spread throughout everywhere they go as Eldric and his men traversed along the streets to gather those allies still alive, only to find hundreds if not thousands of corpses lying around dead, trampled by their own mounts, buried on large slabs of stones and chunks of timber or burned alive in search of wealth and treasures. At all directions he took glimpse, chaos was erupting. 

"At this rate, we will either be cooked or buried alive in this godforsaken town," execrated an older warrior accoutered in bear hide armor that extended from his head to his waist who rode close to Eldric. He recognized him as Zallack, a mighty he-bear warrior– otherwise known as berserkers by other kingdoms– and one of his father's rivals on vying for control of their tribe once in the past.

"That much can easily be seen, no need to tell me," Eldric retorted sharply.

"You got a plan, then, chief-thane's son?" Zallack sneered, the mockery visible upon his face despite the dangers they faced.

Eldric glared at the warrior fiercely, letting out a snarl. "Not a good time for your silly jeering."

"A piece of advice. There is a slim chance if not none at all for a miraculous victory for our army. Try not be a hero or die in jeopardy like one. Still a young lad you are. That father of yours will be saddened if you were to fall here."

When the warrior departed from his side, Eldric braced the reins of his mount and sped up towards the gate, where fighting was still ensuing. Blackened corpses littered the district when the gate once stood. More from our own than theirs, Eldric thought. The way they died was clear enough for Eldric to deduce. The wall and the nearby premise beneath flickered orange and red, indicating that they suffered the same fate as those who were with Eldric, burned to a crisp by the wicked dragon. And all that remained of the Celbriac horde was no greater than a quarter of the original two thousand men. He expected that the group they had left to subdue the remaining defenders would be triumphant for they outnumbered the soldiers, yet he saw otherwise.

A rider covered in blood and fresh wounds approached the group of Eldric. Before the man could speak, he was forestalled by Eldric. "Tell us what happened?!"

"He burned our warriors… summoning and commanding that wicked beast," the man gasped bitterly. "I saw it with my own eyes. It was as if he tamed the thing."

"Who was it?"

"A boy in rich clothing. He was with a black knight."

"Curse them!" he said, spitting. "I knew that something was amiss with that noble. We must regroup with father. And perhaps the path of victory can still be grasped with the remnants of the horde. Gather those wounded and all men who has still life in them. We retreat! Thank our great god Gushpard father did not send all our warriors into this pit hell, lest we sacrifice too many. That reminds me, I failed to see where is Gaudmult…"

"We have searched for him and his clansmen since they ventured to the wall, found no trace of them since then. I am afraid that even as mighty as he is, Gaudmult might have succumbed into the enemies' blades."

"Bastards be damned!"

He turned from the warrior to Elder Zerith, who was madly muttering to himself. "…taming a dragon should require a high level of magic and an immense amount of mana, so how can this be? It should not have been possible in the first place, so how?!"

"Snap out of it. Do not dwell upon your delusions, elder."

"You do not understand the gravity of our situation, Eldric. Performing a summoning ritual of such caliber and even taming the elusive and majestic dragon race is downright impossible. Even more preposterous is that those creatures were supposed to have been vanished thousands of years ago by the mages of Theocracy."

"Then how would you explain this, huh?!" Eldric said in agitation, gesturing upon the heap of dead before him.

"I do not know either. But unless we are being subjected to trickery and all this are mere illu–"

The shaman was cut off from what he was about to say as his severed head fell to the ground. Overshadowing the headless body was a black shape of great stature. It bore a greataxe with its burly forelimb, its mouth oozing with thick white smoke. Contrast to the hue of the smoke was its complexion, dark as coal. An adamantine horn curved in an arch protruded from the forehead, its neck as hard and thick as a solid stone block. The entirety of his body was covered in dark fur, and beneath its waist lay a begrimed loincloth.

A shiver ran down his spine as Eldric staggered and fell from his mount. "First a dragon, and now a minotaur? Who knew those were more than a petty lore. Can this hell hole be any worse?"

One of his warriors attempted to strike the dark beast from its back, but he was cut asunder with a mighty perpendicular swing from the minotaur. Two other warriors tried to ram their blades to the minotaur's front, but a single twirl was enough for them to be sent out flying. A larger group charged, but they too were smitten by its strong limbs and its greataxe. Realizing that close-quarters combat was futile, Eldric's men assembled and coordinated an attack by throwing their spears and javelins towards the accursed beast. Unexpectedly, the minotaur parried all the projectiles and lunged forward to counter the attack. It splashed gore killing the dozen lot who orchestrated the attack, and moved on towards the other. The minotaur flung his mighty greataxe forward, repeatedly, slamming aside warriors as if they were nothing more than hallow tree branches and slender twigs. Although his warriors fought hard and valiantly, they were of no match for the minotaur's vicious strength.

Eldric could not resist the urge to avenge his fallen brethren. He unsheathed his blade from its scabbard, let out a battle cry, and charged the beast head on. However, before he could reach it, a single horseman stood in his way. "You fool!" Zallack bawled at him angrily. "What did I say, you imbecile. Have you no brain? The battle is already lost. Your father may have a good thousand and a half men that still remained at his command outside, but what hope can it have to defeat some Ill-spawns that sprung out of legend?"

"Do not stop me, Zallack," Eldric scowled. "I will slay that beast even if that is the last thing I do!"

"Half a hundred men have already tried and failed. Do not add up to our dead to be mourned. Even if for some impossible reason you managed to kill that thing, there is the other one who will spout flames into your pitiful self. Not to mention, those archers above the wall plummeting down arrows at us!"

"You would dare abandon our comrades?!

Fury flushed about Zallack's ragged face. He dismounted his horse, summoned an ounce of his strength, and slapped Eldric with the back of his hand. Pain swelled upon the spot where he was smacked, and Eldric was propelled aback from the strike, growling in pain and spitting blood. "If you want the death of our brethren be in vain, so be it!" Zallack berated him. Then, he boarded his saddle, gripped the reins tight, and beckoned Eldric to his own horse. "But if you are not a simpleton as I think you are, you would realize that there will always be the morrow for retribution."

Eldric understood the profundity in the old warrior's words. Zallack had survived decades of winters and summers battling countless foes, he knew. Doubtlessly witness the severity of war to some extent he had yet to fathom, and experienced the torment of losing comrades and loved ones. But more importantly, Zallack had spent all his lifetime with the members of his tribe far longer than he had. Deep in those eyes of his was an unquenchable agony expertly concealed. "Then if I wanted vengeance, I must outlive this nightmare."

"Indeed," Zallack replied calmly.

"Easier said than done."

Eldric and Zallack turned to the ravaging bull-man, tirelessly brandishing its weapon causing grievous amount of death toll within their diminished ranks, blockading the crumbled gate at its back and trapping the men in a solid confinement. Consequently, the remnants of the Norsmundi contingent were decimated and scattered, either struck by the hideous creature or picked off by the soldiers defending the wall. With the minotaur at the fore and the burning town at rear, the horde was almost devoid of an escape route.

"How do you propose we get pass that thing?" Eldric queried, his knuckles white upon gripping his blade.

"We ride," Zallack answered. "…and hope. With me, warrior!"

The two horses broke into a gallop, their riders' swords raised, mustering their courage upon facing the unsuspecting minotaur that was immersed at plunging its diabolical blade on its pitiable preys. Eldric knew the unspoken plan between him and Zallack. Riding close in arm's length, he knew that either one of them can cross safely if the other one sacrificed himself as the decoy. Zallack may have been an enemy of my father's once, but he is a fine warrior through and through, Eldric thought. He cleared his throat, endeavoring to summon his loudest war whoop.

"To me, damned vile creature!" Zallack preempted, grimacing at Eldric when the two of them neared the minotaur. The old warrior hacked his blade with every shred of his remaining strength aimed at the beast. To his solace, the minotaur diverted its attention towards him, letting the young red-haired warrior traverse the path to safety. Upon looking back, he saw how the minotaur brutally cleaved the muscular flesh of the old tribesman as it splashed gore.

"I owe you my life," Eldric muttered to himself as he gained distance from the murderer of Zallack. "Watch me upon Gushpard's Realm, I shall have my vengeance."

Eldric was not directing his anger upon the wicked dragon that led his men to a bloodbath, nor the accursed minotaur that continued the carnage of his warriors whilst he flee, and neither did he inculpate the soldiers atop the wall decimating his comrades. The blame falls to but one person, and I curse him an internal suffering, he thought bitterly. His memory flashed to the scene when he had laid eyes upon the young man in dark regal clothing harboring a contemptuous glare, and yet wore an impassive façade.

A dozen more curses swirled upon his mind when he sensed a blade cutting air flung against him. He was on the verge of reaching the shaft leading outside, but was momentarily halted when he winced as pain swelled in his shoulder. He let out a shriek as the unbearable pain ensued. Turning back to search upon the cause of his agony, he saw Zallack's blade spiked against his shoulder blade, and looking further back the minotaur recovering his form from a throw. The throbbing of the wound made him dizzy, but the truth lay clear of his head. He knew the beast had intelligence, not the mindless brute who dare massacre his comrades that he first thought. It was intent on not a soul escaping its grasp!

Bracing for pain, he yanked the blade out from his body, blood streaming, then applied pressure to the gaping hole with his right palm. Relief flowed over him when he sensed the minotaur was not in pursuit of him, but chastised himself as he pictured his comrades suffering in his stead. Fighting the urge to faint amidst the soreness of the wound, Eldric clutched the reins of his mount and sped up, his very life depending on it. He knew he cannot fall when he was this close upon getting through to warn his father about the monstrosities that had befallen the town, and later to execute his revenge.

Upon journeying across the bridge, hope fluttered upon his heart as he spotted his father's main camp, fortunately still intact and unscathed. However, a sudden suspicion betrayed the hope he felt, the very same sentiment he harbored at the beginning of this ordeal. Lingering upon his unsettled mind was a sense of restlessness and distress. So far, his intuitions had yet to fail him, and his only shortcoming was his slow and inadequate responses.

"Shall the gods throw a fate far worse than I have suffered?" he whispered to himself as he rode rapidly despite his many injuries and fatal wounds, eager to reach his father and tell him the trespass they had committed upon storming the land of Regalia, and the tragedy that had befallen them.

Suddenly, the pondering of his thoughts was interrupted by the roaring sound of a horn, blown loud enough that it pierced his ears, adding to the excruciating sensation he was enduring. The blare came from the vast forest extending south, elevated upon a smooth hill of grooves and trees. Squinting through his blurred eyesight that threatened him to drop unconscious, he struggled to see the large dust cloud forming bounded for the main camp of the horde. Eldric gulped nervously as he heard horse hooves roughly a hundred in number advancing rapidly in a triangular wedge. The dust cloud descended upon the sloping terrain in an accelerated speed, and inside lurked a contingent of heavily armored cavalrymen all clad in dark cape and steel plates from helmet down to greaves. Breaking the monotonous black of the armor were the silver accents and dark azure plumed helm with a single slit in the visor and a garment beneath the fauld of the same hue as the plum, suspended upon the waist. The charging knights rode in barded warhorses, a few carrying black banners with a noble crest outlined in white Eldric recognized as the symbol of House Walruse of Regalia. Equipped in lances and cavalry blades, the knights broke in a full gallop towards the flank of the Celbriac horde as they closed in the final distance.

Even afar, Eldric knew that the main camp was plunged into disorder as warriors hurriedly formed the battle lines to intercept the knightly charge. Most of the men on the camp were only starting to divert their gaze from the town to the unforeseen assault. The knights made contact upon the disorganized line of the tribesmen, and with sheer momentum tore their ranks like hot knife through butter. Trampling both men and tents, the charge did not slow down and continuously punctured deep into the camp, carving a great hole that sucked the lives of his kinsmen ruthlessly. Eldric remembered his encounter with a soldier of the same armor when he surmounted the wall. I was barely a match for him, he thought. Another crushing memory filled him, a recollection of two years prior.

It was a skirmish that took place in the borderlands between Runtallia and Norsmund, when a couple hundred of his warriors trapped an entire squadron of Regalian soldiers, outnumbering them twenty to one. Despite the odds, however, the skirmish did not prove in Eldric's favor, as it ended in utter disaster for him and his men, a battle where he was the sole survivor. Coincidentally, it was the fateful day he first felt true fear at the hands of the infamously dreaded Knight Reaper, who towered beneath the mounds of his comrades reduced to lifeless cadavers beneath her feet. Twice now had he witnessed the fearsomeness of lone might and prowess of two of them in twain separate occasions.

"To think…" he muttered, raising his voice in a maddening laugh whilst tear dampened his eyes. He shed both blood and tears as he mourned, staring at the havoc before him. "A hundred of those bastards clustered in one place."

Alas, Eldric was devoid of all strength. Succumbing to his wounds, he fell from his mount, and lay unconscious upon the turf, in between the town plagued by a dragon and a minotaur, and the horde's camp that was reduced in a bloodbath by men in black suit of armor.