1 – Death of a Monster

Thin sheets of rain lashed from the sea of clouds overhead, forming rivers and burbling gulleys in the battlefield. The Bloody Wight stood erect beneath the storm, the water turning into continuous coils of steam whenever they struck the stark ebony plates of his armour.

A myriad of bolts and shafts, some as thick as a toddler’s arm, protruded from his back. Yet he scarcely seemed to notice them. In one hand he effortlessly hefted his claymore, the long black blade marked with curling tongues of fire along the edge that cast a vibrant orange glow around him. Even on that cold and dismal battlefield, the knight in black blazed like a vengeful star.

Ahead of him, lining the hillside, stood an army of aspiring assassins. Spearmen on horseback, a myriad of archers, armoured men with pikes and shields, engineers manning a small cluster of cannons and ballistas. And, standing distinct from the rest, was a beefy bald man in a flowing grey cloak.

The Wight focused on him in particular, but that was impossible to tell at a glance. His drake-winged helmet obscured his face entirely, the visor leaving his eyes entirely veiled in shadow.

They all stood there, motionless, waiting for the others to make a move.

The bald man took a step forward, a Grey Sorcerer known to the world as Lanten Basque. A persistent thorn in the Wight’s side. “Wight!” he shouted, great voice booming across the muddy field. “We give you one chance to surrender! Do that and your death will be a quick one, a mercy an undead monster such as yourself does not deserve.”

Silence reigned again. The Wight did not move.

The men present fingered their weapons in silent anxiety, watching him unblinking. Many of them were wondering what the armoured hulk was even thinking about, for he had not made so much as a sound since the initial salvo hit him, an ambush that had caught him alone and unaware, ravaging the surrounding landcape.

Some thought he was planning on who he would kill first. Others thought he was debating what magical weapon to summon from his profane, burning arsenal. Some, dimly, hoped he was considering surrender.

But none of them could have guessed, could have dreamed, that the Bloody Wight was… bored.

Exhausted.

Tired.

He stared uphill, eyes somewhat glazed over. How many years has this been going on? He asked himself. How many of these fools have I put in the dirt? All for Emperor Novos, and we’re no closer to taking the continent like he always spoke of.

The Wight heaved a sigh, a long and rattling sound that sent steam rising in gouts from the sides of his visor. All these years and nothing to show for it. Just one big line on a map, budging back and forth, with nobody making any real progress.

It wasn’t what he had been promised. When he had been revived, remade into a revenant, he’d been promised vengeance. Conquest. Power. Years later, he scarcely had anything beyond his own power. And even vengeance had been denied him.

Gods… but he was exhausted.

“Wight!” Lanten bellowed. “This is your only chance! We shan’t allow Novos’ monster to live another moment in this world, but your end can still be a merciful one!”

Slowly, the Wight stood erect and gave a small flex of his shoulders. The shafts buried in his armour broke and splintered, clattering into the mud at his sides. He summoned his resolve, the blaze of his claymore intensifying into a veritable inferno.

“I give an offer to you, Lanten.” His voice, in this state, was a distorted and echoing snarl. He aimed the blade at the wizard, the gathered soldiers flinching away in a mounting horror. “Lay. On. And damned be he who falls first!”

One more fight, he told himself as he took that first step in the squelching mud. The first bolts shattered against his breastplate. Always one more fight. Lanten’s eyes took on a silver glow, earth churning and rising beneath his feet at his command.

When does it end?

The rain fell heavily on the battle-scarred ruin of Pondra Field that evening. Smoke rose in great columns, tarring the sky black as rain fell gently upon the sodden mud. An army of men lay dead and spread about, their weapons and bodies shattered.

At the heart of the battlefield, in a crater that was about four meters deep and sixty across, lay the corpse of Lanten Basque. Scraps of warped, heat-blasted armour were littered about him. Clutched in his hands was the warped wreckage of a knight’s helmet, the broken end of a blade poking through his sternum.

When the soldiers of the Holy Kingdom of Rhonde came upon this scene, they believed that the Bloody Wight was dead. That a burst of powerful magic had torn him apart, at the cost of Lanten’s life.

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Just as the Wight had wished. He had, after all, spent some time staging the entire scene.

Only one person had left Pondra Field. A tall and lean human silhouette, pale and russet haired, who stalked through the mud and the rain. His clothing was simple, the white shirt, dark trousers, and boots he wore whenever he wasn’t fully transformed.

Anyone who looked upon him, shabby and caked in ash and mud as he was, they’d think him little more than one of the countless refugees to be found in the no man’s land between the Novos Empire and the Holy Kingdom of Rhonde.

Just what he wanted. The Bloody Wight was dead, and the man who had once worn his armour stalked off into the rainy night in the hopes that he would forever stay that way.

Being totally honest, the whole thing was perhaps the most insane and stupid thing I could have done. But, well, I had simply had enough. Years spent fighting a war on behalf of a mad lich would sap the patience of most any man, and even the anger and thirst for vengeance I had felt was not enough to keep me interested. And being alone on that battlefield, with no other witnesses, gave me a perfect chance to fake my death.

When opportunity presents, you have to seize it.