3 Chapter 2
"The Kingdom's Crown held an empty throne, though not heirless; the Sceptre's Pride fell, for the Royal blood was besieged in slavery.
But even if such bondage was escaped, whose redemption did it truly bring?"
~
The Apex summit of the ruins of the Cross-Fraught Bridge,
Arching over and bowing into the Prussian Farriage Sea,
Kingdom of Tristendyre,
Night without moon,
The first Thursnight of the Second month,
XXI Year of Regency
Death, standing on the unravelled Cross-Fraught, with his reflections of the Grand Prophecy:
"The wings of this foretoken shall bring unto thee the heralds of Judah's Ascendancy:
His army enkindled to wage war against the Beast shall be a fifthteen warriors vested with arcane powers, a kind whose discipline is far more proficient in magical arts than the man of common blood; the scarlet ink of their heritage shall write their prologues tainted with disgrace as that of outlawed and exiled fugitives, but epilogues bearing honour, the visitation of Death being held words reserved and as uncertain as tide.
The Queen shall be captive, but no fetters truly hold her still; she shall dare, for destiny and dream shall be her breath and blood and a thirst for redemption and vengeance shall be the initials of her feat, the pulse of her footsteps.
The Bishops' deeds shall be as the constellations of stars, yet their tidings and glory shall be as rippled reflections of the starry skies upon the pools of water, uncrowned renown; Fates eased by the Blessing and Curse, as foreordained powers decree.
The Rooks, blood of a single race, shall be prone, a slighted fort when taking the poise of a shield, but heeding to redemption is the destiny solely he shalt write when enticed to please the darkness; his levins embarked shall vitally strike their intended port.
The Knight, with a drawn sword and a lightening horse, his rise shall challenge the throbs of his adversity; he shall mend the wounds of succour by day and burn his oils of contempt by night.
The Pawn, thy wreath shall be thy service tendered, Death shall not veil his tread before thine eyes; but a one reaching the deepest lairs of the Beast shall master the powers of the Class-Warriors willed."
Prophecies; the institution of Prophecies was a fascination. It was a surreal execution of proceedings, where the Future is divinely foretold: bestowed tidings or foreshadowings of presage or hope, to be annexed with the possession of lowly human intelligence.
And despite all the vigorous, feverish efforts and endeavours spent by all forces, be it in the realms of earth or the dark abyss beneath, Fate may be rewritten, Destiny may reverse, but not a word of a Prophecy would so much as quiver.
Predictions as cosmic as the holy birth of God's Son into a world of mortals have boldly been recorded, in reckless and unreserved faith, to see the sacred Order of the King's advent executed to superlative perfection, regardless the strives of the deathly powers, auras and hellish principalities to taint the messianic bloodline.
Thus was it unfathomable, as if Time itself was stilled and altered, to grant to the knowledge of earth's inmates, the happenings that would betide a millennial vista of years thereforth.
A curious smile of intrigue spread over the colourless countenance of the One standing silent and pacific, on the highest peak of the ruined Cross-Fraught, the summit past which was no more than descended rubble. It wasn't new for Death to stand at a point, leaving devastation at His wake, for it was only His sole purpose to reap all breath in His course.
The descent of the Ancient and mountainous Bridge, whose very stature challenged even the Apex of the Northern Sywegian Ghats that had arrested the prevalence of the icy trade winds however, was not His deed, but He had been there.
In an era, far into the feudal past, was an age whose generation had not left surviving artefacts about the fall of the mighty Cross-Fraught that had occurred when He had arrived, to strike His Sceptre and claim the perishing. He was Archaic; born from the bite of a forbidden fruit in Eden, He had beheld the genesis of prophecies, and had lived to see them come to pass.
And yet, all the age that was His would scarcely grant Him power beyond the slaughter He was born to serve, for every reaped soul would be delivered to supreme judgement before the Chief of all kind: the omnipotent Creator.
Death chuckled at the array of human dwelling strewed before Him, in the face of the Kingdom of Tristendyre. In fact, this domain was merely a drop in the oceans of sanctuaries of habitation and societies. Man lived in divisive and discordial demarcations, so far that the various realms that they had assorted into marked even the date of their years as per the respective regime of governance, and not in intercontinental unison. This was so be-cause at large, there was a monarchy presided by hate and strife and avarice.
It was gruesome how most preferred blindness to reality, for they chased riches and power, coveting government and territory, only to be awoken to the misfortunate vanity of their thirst at the final moments for which their life was theirs to list.
And as He had approached, the chill of his dark aesthetic had only subdued any scarce hues of fading hope, though none could recognise the magnitude of His stilling attendance. Awaiting the very end of all time granted to the soul, He would commence the inception of singular possession, drawing the life into His goblet.
The cold and deafening resonance of silence was oft broken by wails for the parted one, no eyes to pay heed to the departure of His absolute, yet undetected presence, when He took flight. In the grand scheme of affairs, nothing physical seemed to bear any significance, for they were all as fleeting as breath.
The breath that was distrained, from many of those it had been assigned to, even in a single Dragon Forage. And those great ruthless and diabolic beasts could only be vanquished to submission by the fifteen Warriors predestined. There were a veteran few bygone among such foreordained champions prophesied of, from a great portion of eras ago, and their deeds in slaughtering sundry of these gigantic serpents has been chronicled into the deathless history and renaissance of the human race.
However, as every breed that is not extinct brings forth generations, the Dragons have been waxing mightily, with their own remnant and bestial Class-Warriors breathing perils to their mortal opponent: mankind. In parallel rivalry, all the remaining Class-Soldiers of humanity had also emerged in the dynasty at hand.
Withal the advent of those vested with powers to save the human kind from the rising Dragon army, the men (that required the deliverance) themselves condemned these endangered warriors in persecution.
The Reaper watched as the prominent and noble avenues of St. Erdenguar in the heart of the Kingdom of Tristendyre vaunted a reverent Sceptre that was a crowning glory in Man's mortal hands for the absolute power it wielded. Even so, the extolment of such prestigious possession was apocryphal, for it was not the sovereign and native artefact prided upon the sacred plaque, but a foolish and lifeless replica thereof.
However, the originality of the Sceptre of Erdengaur was far from His bothers. His interests were much more invested in the presences of certain eminent persons in the Kingdom: a young Pawn, a Rook and a Bishop who was enfettered to the Pillory.
The Sea roaring beneath his aerial perch, frosty winds rushing about the air, the mighty and undivided land ahead, he lifted his gaze to see the Knight on a stallion dashing down the promontory, resolve firm in the pace of his drive.
A chill of spirited excitement ran down His spine, his nightish capes and fobs swept aback by the gust of the sharp, cold wind, the swirls of dark aura emitting off of his being, like a candle's fire deflected against the whistle blown by a child.
Drawing the billowed hood down his face, his impressed smirk emerged from beneath the black and seething hems, as his salient presence shaded into the darkness of the mysterious night.
So it began... again.
~
A fortnight heretofore, an event of massive impact had occurred, crippling the supremacy of the Regents in power. This, however, had required to be withheld from the knowledge of the townsfolk, for it would raise the outbreak of uproars and riots in lawless vandalisms. The order of the incident was so:
The crown of St. Erdengaur,
Kingdom of Tristendyre,
Night graced by a full moon,
The third Monday of the First month,
XXI Year of Regency
Mercedes Duvessa, the nescient Queen
The avenues of St. Erdengaur had held eldritch silence in the hush of night when a hooded woman had quietly stepped her bare foot on the stone floor of the boulevard. A discoloured hand to hold the hood down over her melanin-clad face and another to hold the reins of her mare that looked like the starless night sky; she was prepared to take her flight.
Her advent that night had been secret. Each step she'd taken towards the heart of St. Erdengaur had given her a pulsing combination of excitement, yet fear. There it had been, before her ice-coloured eyes: the Royal Sword in the shape of a sceptre rested in a sacred plaque. The pommel held root to a cluster of quartz, the grip as rugged as leather like the hide of a dragon's tail had composed it, thick cords branched to encircle the hilt as knuckle bows woven decoratively from the whiskers of the cosmic beast, the chappe designed the heart of the sword with a large diamond that displayed several reflections as one would see upon a strew of broken shards, bronze metal forged into the ornamental trimmings of the cross-guard and finally, the blade was of crystalline glass where the substance was translucent and blood-red, the edges and point being as sharp as to slice the very soul.
A quivering hand had reached forth to touch the hilt thereof and the familiar seismic sensation that she had always gotten had rushed over her. It had felt like a gust of wind had burst over her and her hair like it was billowing behind, her mind seeing new dynasties and her body had throbbed to the beat of the sceptre. It was not new to be enveloped by such excitements for she had tasted them each time the Kingdom saw a Dragon Forage. At that night, however, Mercedes had not expected to experience them, as there was no adrenal rush to justify such unnatural stirs.
She withdrew the diadem from her forehead, curls of maroonish locks unbridling their hold over it as they fell loose around her face. She gentle set it as a quillion against the sword, and its ornamental fascination had her transfixed for a moment's lapse.
Hauling the Sceptre out, she watched as the stone of its heart deflected a blinding flash of light. The dark-skinned princess smiled, when she saw the polish gem (that constituted the blade) reflecting her victorious countenance. The sword cut its way through the air, as it stood proudly hoisted high by its queen, before it was driven into its scabbard and no eyes beheld the magnificent lady riding away on her mount, the legacy of the clan held in her sheath.
~
