14th day of Zun’s Rest, twelfth month of the year, 983

  One of the guards near the gates of the throne room gulped upon hearing the messenger. Arming themselves with courage, they walked towards the throne. “My regent, the high merchant Haldas has come on urgent business, or, at least, she says so. Should we let her in?” They kneeled in front of Noct at the end of that question..

  Noct didn’t move an inch from his usual indolent position on the throne. Neither he moved his head from the first that was resting on nor did his gaze travel to the guard. “Do let her in.”

  The guard nervously saluted and fast walked to open the doors. Not a second later an eastern woman confidently strolled in. Her golden hair trailing behind her, she was accompanied by two mercenaries and four underlings under her direct orders. In chains, a dozen slaves were being pulled behind by a third mercenary.

  Bowing down with a beaming smile, she gazed at the debtor that the association had asked her to remind of their duties. What joy that it had been the arrogant Ashen. Having travelled from their subsidiary in Astar's capital, she was dying to remind him. “I thank you for meeting me at such a busy time of the year, sire. Truly, your generosity knows no bonds, sire, for meeting me unannounced must have derailed your duties.”

  Noct didn’t answer in any vocal capacity. His cold gaze drilled into her to get to the point.

  Not losing her confident smile, she was taking her time, finding joy in this small power play of his. “As per our contract, I have come to deliver the goods you wanted from me. Skilled bureaucrats, even if they are a sorry bunch that failed their lords.” Shaking her head, she smirked. “To forgive even traitors, you do embody the ideals demanded by Elenia.”

  “And what is the real reason for you to be here? In person.” Muttered Noct.

  Her smirk turned into a smile and she seemed to grow a little bit taller. Yet she got to the main point. “As you know, I am an integral part of the Merchant Association. And, as you should know, your yearly payment is coming up and it appears the letters addressed to you have gone unanswered. They asked me to see if there has been a failure on our part or if you are already ready to pay your household’s due.”

  “I see.” Still not moving, the shadow’s produced by Halas moved forward and, growing to a small size in front of her, receded leaving only a platinum coin behind. “You may pick my payment whenever.”

  Her smile froze in her face. “My apologies? I think I may have misheard you?” Her practiced poker face allowed her to take a small breath unnoticed to gloss over this act. “I never knew you had a fondness for jokes, sire. Yet, I don’t believe this topic is one that should be taken lightly. After all, it is the future of the Ashen household we are speaking about here, so, if you...”

  “This is not a joke, Haldas. I am returning our long lasting contract to its real and true quantity. That,” Noct glared at the coin. “was the original amount of debt that remained when our past baroness passed away. I have been paying the interest invented by your corrupt association, disguised as a personal favour to my persona during my regency, and one you buffoons racked on your own accord. I am ending this charade of a deal, loan or whatever you choose to call it. I will no longer allow you to profit from this barony.”

  Yet her smile remained. “While I may overstep my boundaries here, regent, I do believe that you have no legal power nor real authority over this matter at hand. And if you choose to continue this breach of contract we may find yourself obligated to take it to the County’s Courts. I do recommend to still keep some amiability between us to prevent this matter from escalating, don’t you think?”

  “Feel free.” Noct’s tone couldn’t hold more boredom even if he tried to. “My actions today shall not change. Take what I have offered and act as you want, but do act outside of my castle. You are tiresome.”

  Now her smile banished, being exchanged for a frown. “And I shall repeat, regent, that you do not have the capabilities to just force through this issue. Throwing a fit about it won’t help anyone. And, if you do not comply, we are contractually mandated to take our due, as law obliges us to!”

  Noct started to snicker, his muttering turning into an amused voice, “If you can find a single gold coin in this castle I would congratulate you. Your association already took everything. Indeed I cannot pay anymore, so I won’t…nor that I would if I had enough to.” His gaze returned to boredom as he was done with this conversation.

  Letting her facade crack, her smirk turned greedy, “Oh, but we wouldn’t dare to trample over the dignity of the Ashen household like that, sire. The city is included in your sister’s birthright so I am sure we could find enough funding there to carry on your debt’s payments. And we have the means to do it ourselves, without interruptions to your oh so important duties.”

  Now that made Noct slowly rise from her throne, his hand dropping to the handle of his sword. Haldas stood tall, feeling brave to continue this standoff. A few seconds passed and her smirk grew, knowing that Noct would not dare to do anything to her beyond petty intimidatory tactics.

  That smirk reminded Noct of how Ixtal looked at the merchandise he used to bring. In the blink of an eye Noct had shadow phased to a feet in front of her. His hand darted to her neck, starting to choke her as he raised her in mid air.

  Her two mercenaries tried to unsheathe their swords, only for their shadows to be brought to life by Noct’s ring, hidden under his gauntlet, and forced to tear their throats. The third mercenary, seeing the corpses drop, raised his arms in surrender, causing Noct to notice him and repeat the spell on them this time. Unbothered by the feeble tries of Haldas to break his iron hold as she ran out of air, he clenched his hand. The crack of her neck resounded at the same time as the third mercenary’s corpse dropped to the ground.

  Ignoring the screams from merchant, slave and Mulia alike, he threw the corpse to the side. His freezing glare turned to the entourage, his voice a low growl. “Who was her second in command.” His eyes shone sick green, screaming murder, as his hand slowly crafted a spell, as if creating a beast ready to pounce. ‘A fourth body on the ground will set a very good example.’

  A sapient brave enough, who was but a merchant in training, raised their trembling hand, willing to protect their comrades from the fate that the tyrant of Alpin would surely ensure. “It is I, sire.”

  Not speaking a word, Noct raised his hand, causing the rest of the merchants to back a few steps, cowardice and fear making them mute. Before the spell was completed a clear and loud voice resounded in the throne room.

  “My regent. The army requires more funding.” Noct’s glare turned to the doors, where the origin, that wasn’t but Andras, stood fully visible. Hiding his cold sweat thanks to his armour, he walked towards Noct with the proper respect and kneeled in front of him. He was struggling to not let his lack of breath show, as he had run here as soon as he had heard the screams. Thanked be the Gods for him being called to help with the preparations of the trip.

  His lack of etiquette of just asking out loud, not minding what was happening, made Noct’s frown deepen. Nevertheless, that random request had, indeed, de-escalated the situation, as only Andras could manage to.

  “...it needs what?” Growled Noct, somewhat confused, his hand still raised and aimed at the brave one.

  “More funding, my regent.” Repeated Andras, his head bowed.

  His fury slowly giving away, he noticed what Andras was going. It did feel nostalgic, for this had not been the first time Andras had put a stop to what he wanted to do but shouldn’t. Always acting and positioning himself as the perfect punching bag, ready to take his fury. Sighing, he let his spell fade and his hand to lower.

  “Denied.” Turning his now non murderous attention towards the ‘second in command’ he continued their early business. “Tell your association whatever you want, I consider our contract fulfilled and paid as per it was mandated. Leave. Now.”

  The trembling merchants could not have bolted quicker from the room. Turning to the slaves, Noct casted a different kind of spell, a rusting one, and walked towards them. Most were looking at him with mixed signals, the less with straight trepidation. Yet, who could blame the more for enjoying the death of their slavers?

  Arriving next to them, Noct rusted and broke their slave collars. His tone returned to his earlier, bored one. “If you want to work, head to the guilds with the coat of arms of this barony. Tomorrow, in the main square, the castle will post a recruitment drive for literate people and servants. Head to the kitchen with my servant,” Mulia jumped but quickly nodded and started to lead them, ”to receive food and clothes. You are dismissed.”

  The comitive leaving, and when everyone but Andras and Noct had left Soral, who had been stalking the meeting, dispelled her camouflage.

  “...do you have a plan to deal with a literal invasion of our barony or did you just act as you wanted to?” Asked Soral, her head space was already filled with disappointment as it had no more capacity. “And, could you, next time, just, maybe, not fill my throne room with corpses?”

  Sitting back on the throne, Noct waved to the side, causing the shadows to eat the corpses. “It was necessary.”

  Soral rolled her eyes. Shaking her head, she turned around, not wanting to know how he would deal with this catastrophe. “Leave it to my brother to start a damned war the day of my first social gathering. You could not hold your bloodlust for a day, huh? I come here to start our journey and what do I see? You, spilling souls on my throne room. What a morning gift.” Sighing, she continued, “They may have been vipers, but you strike at the wrong tree.”

  “And now what, my regent?” Asked Andras, needing to know how to operate and if there was a need to levy the men at arms. He wanted to say something yet his hatred towards slavers had made the experience somewhat cathartic. His spouse had been on their claws, after all.

  “You may add breaching of merchant contracts to my list of sins. But I believe you will need more paper, it's getting kind of full.” Looking towards the door, Noct ordered. ”Send a contingent of scouts towards the forest. If they were so ballsy they should have known about our predisposition to not pay our dues, maybe all that spending and upgrading tickled them off. A mercenary army should not be hard to spot.”

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  “So your answer is to send my men to scout an enemy that may be already dug in?”

  “Yes. I am ordering them to die if need be.”

  Andras quietly saluted and went to meet his obligations.

  “....don’t tell me that was your plan, please.” Soral scratched her forehead. “Just…fix this before we have to leave, alright?” It appears Noct was Netherbent on creating more enemies. What’s more, this time she couldn’t blame him for reacting that way. She had also been hard pressed to not follow his example and execute that damned high merchant upon threatening a sacking of her city. Still, some long term planning would have been great.

  ………………..

  “I told you it was a good idea to keep spying on Noct.” Boasted Eve, its eyes trailing him as he left the throne room.

  “...so you have kept saying these past five years.” Whispered Kal, the one who maintained the clairvoyance, a complex ritual that made a mirror show the reality that was happening to the object that was being observed. A drop of Noct’s blood had been the catalyst for it.

  With a predatory smile, Eve ignored Kal, “I will tell Lantraz. We got prey to hunt.” It looked at the other mirror, which showed what its bat familiar, a magic infused pet, was seeing. A contingent of about fifteen hundred men marching with extreme respect and care through the forest.

  Kal nodded and dispelled the spell and casted another to communicate with the dryads. Once warned, Lantraz started to handpick their best five hundred skeletons for the coming massacre. It had not been joking when it had told Noct it would bend his ideals for him. No mercenary would leave that forest with their meat on them, and he would gladly perform that orchestra of death.

  …………………

  “Captain.” Informed one of the squadron of mounted scouts. “There’s a fresh woman’s body in the way.”

  “A local resident?” A small man asked, with little confidence.

  “I think a corpse is more likely. Maybe she got lost?”

  “If she was dead she would already be fertiliser, the forest….Inform the main force, it could be a trap of the forest.” Using the spyglass of the Imperial regiment that his subordinate had passed to him, he looked at the woman a hundred fifty metres away, lying on the ground as if she were dead. Untouched by plants. ”The rest, unmount and follow me.”

  With the discipline of men used to war, they quickly safeguarded their mounts and slowly crawled towards her, never stopping their checking of the surrounding forest. It had been way too calm. Their commander had expected they would have to resort to burning the forest to advance upon the barony, yet the march had been tranquil, too tranquil for the rumoured ‘man eater forest’.

  In a few minutes they reached her. One of the scouts examined the body from afar. “She is not breathing.”

  “That corpse is giving me the creeps.” Said another scout, while suppressing a shudder. Their gaze was locked on the nearby tree branches, seeing moving hands in the movements of the leaves.

  The captain couldn't help but agree with the second. They had a good head above his shoulders and good instincts so, if they believed something was wrong it usually was. Adding to that, his own instincts were screaming at him, he felt watched. Grabbing his readied crossbow, he shot a bolt through the woman’s head. Seeing the little force which the blood flowed out of it, he nodded and gave new orders, attention turned to the surroundings.

  They dispersed to investigate the surrounding area. When no eyes were falling on her, Eve rose up and, with the sneakiness only a member of the undead could possess, she stalked towards the captain and, grabbing his throat, it ripped it off with the ease someone would tear a piece of dough, and activated her spell, causing his blood to start flowing out of the body.

  The noise alerted the rest of the scouts, but when they turned they only saw several icicles of blood impaling them. The last thing they saw was their blood joining those and forming a whirlpool around the vampire. With a predatory smirk, Eve calmly walked towards the main force of mercenaries, her magic shield now active. With a slight movement of its hand it pulled the bolt out of its brains, unceremoniously dropping it on the ground. The wound rapidly healed.

  ………….

  Hearing the report of his scouts, the commander started to command. “Men, ready yourselves! We are walking into a trap!! I want everyone into their formations! Shields and spearmen to the sides, mages archers on the center, paladins on the back! Now!”

  His army swiftly moved and they reduced their march speed as they redid their structure. After half an hour, and no more scouting reports from the six groups they had, he halted the march, fearing the worst. While he was in the middle of forming new scouting groups, a laugh resounded all over the forest. With his hair standing up, he, and his army, looked to the front. There they saw a most bizarre spectacle. A beautiful woman in the midst of a flying and dancing mass of blood slowly coming to view between the trees.

  Finding out now where, and to what, his scouts had disappeared to, he ordered, “New formation! Shields and paladins to the front, archers ready and wait for my order, mages start casting!! We are fighting an undead, I repeat, an undead!!” He feared the massacre his shield bearers would suffer, but the alternative of letting his five paladins, the only way they could kill it, tank the first hits was even worse.

  Light panic doing wonders to the forming speed of the formation, they readied to engage the vampire. The commander’s fears were being proved right soon enough, as blood blades ripped across the common soldiers, cleaving through metal shields, armour and flesh with ease. The first line of shields were turned into red paste. Impacting the second, the storm of blood lost force, and it was only stopped by the shields of the third line together with the empowering faith shields from the paladins.

  Cleaning a few dozen corpses off the way with shadow magic, Eve jumped in to fight the dispersed paladins. Mid air, the blood was remade into another blade that crashed again. The men collapsed, the paladins stood firm. Their shield glowing with the power of their faith, they held their ground against the currents of blood. Not only able to defend, they started to hack at them, their swords slowly burning a little volume of it with every strike. But blood was not all they had to worry about, as gravity claimed her price and it dropped from the air, lunging at the paladin on the centre of the line, who had just blocked a blood strike and was wide open. Its clawed hands penetrated through metal, soon finding flesh. Tearing open his chest and swiftly grabbing his heart, which she quickly pulled out and crushed with a mad laugh, trying to frighten and distract them.

  The appearance of a vampire did transform into a beast, as told by the legends, when they partook in combat. Claws often seen in wolfmen appeared, their cutting power equal to the very steel they often destroyed. Their teeth also grew into fanged rows and their bodies exerted all the strength they were capable of. But they were not invulnerable, being extremely weak to holy energies, fire and silver. This form was but a last resort, when diplomacy and subterfuge failed and only force could save them. What’s more, it consumed a lot of energy. Not that Eve was affected, as its mastery in water magic let it replenish itself with fresh blood as easily as taking a sip.

  Nonetheless, the very arms it had used to stab the paladin were blackened, burned by the faith stored upon the shield and armour they had traversed. Still, its confidence was high. The reduced output its body could put under the sun was of no consequence for it, as it was facing nothing but mortal beings. And the paladins were proving to be flour of the same lot.

  The second paladin, affected by the gory show it was performing, lunged against her, screaming his pain and hate for the death of his friend, only for his sword to plunge into the moving blood of his deceased comrade, burning a good portion of it yet pushing his sword away with the torrent. With his stance broken, Eve didn’t miss the opportunity and ripped another throat, lessening the number of dangerous foes to three.

  Learning from their mistakes, they formed up, covering the weak spots of each other. Meaning, Eve chose to pelt them with floods of blood, icicles thrown by different positions at the same time and the evermore. Yet they held steadfast, protecting the line. Protecting their mortal comrades behind. And, finally, support came for the paladins.

  “Release!” The first volley of magic and arrows fell upon Eve, weakening her blood shield as a third evaporated away.

  Toying with the paladins and ignoring the back lane, she murdered every brave soldier who got too close to the ‘arena’ with her water magic and tanked all the magic its shield could take. At the fourth magic volley arrows also rained upon the ground, soon consumed by the fireballs that hit her.

  “Now!!” Screamed a paladin, causing their group to rush it as it had been laid bare, burning and without her blood shield. She smirked and, turning into smoke, dodged the first paladin's stab that burned some of that smoke and quickly retreated to the woods. It had achieved her goal, as the mercenary army had structured itself to fight her, dismissing the protection of its flanks and behind. Quick enough, a skeleton cavalry marched from the direction Eve had come, the direction the army was facing. Dodging and jumping between trees, they were at a small five hundred metres

  The sounds of a cavalry’s charge sent the army into a panic. The commander was able to calm it down and swiftly switch the shield bearers for spearmen. The skilled army managed to restructure itself in time and waited for the closing impact that never quite hit, as the skeletons that came by the road and forest in front of them just passed between and through them, mere illusions that smoked themselves out in the midst of their lines.

  In the confusion caused by this fake charge, hundreds of crossbow bolts rained upon the rear of the army, swiftly culling the mages and archers and upping the chaos by a hundred, as they had come from the sides that they had already scouted.

  “From behind! The en…!!!” Tried to order the commander before a bolt aimed at his head found its aim true, ending his futile struggle against the tide of undead.

  Without his commander, having his mages and archers downed after the first volley and the completely useless formation they were in, the mercenary force wasted valuable time on restructuring themselves, yet again. Those valuable moments granted their enemy in hiding another two volleys of enchanted bolts. Not even armour could save them from the bite of magic binded steel. Having lost half, about eight hundred soldiers, being completely demoralised and having their structure of command turned non existent, they broke down to their original mercenary companies, further difficulting their efforts of staying alive.

  Yet they managed to. Having turned around in a workable formation, they were starting to charge towards the forest on the left side, shields somewhat mitigating the rain of enchanted bolts. Yet their efforts were thwarted, as a pulse of pure light pierced their formation by the middle, leaving dozens of burning bodies and vaporising the mercenaries that had been directly hit by it in its wake. That pulse of light curved up when it almost reached the other side of the forest, vanishing on the sky.

  That was the last reason the men needed to break ranks and run away, dispersing, in their panic, in all directions.

  “Do not let one run away.” Whispered Kal, the mage that had brought to life that ruthless light show. The hundreds of skeletons that had been camouflaged thanks to his magic revealed themselves and pursued the routing men. No man could outrun the undead, so they all meet their maker that day, some sooner, some later.

  Looking at the nearing smoke that was Eve, Kal asked, “What do we do with the bodies?”

  Reforming itself, Eve scoffed at the dumb question. “We bring them to our side.”

  “Won’t Noct notice?”

  “And he will praise us for upping our numbers!”

  Kal rolled the fire in his eye sockets. “....whatever.”

  …………..

  “Sir, we found a hidden spell circle.”

  “What? You find a spell circle but no mercenary troops?” Asked Andras, both relieved and worried, having chosen himself as the leader of the scout group.

  “None, sir. The spell circle was In the very center of the forest, high Commander, it was enormous, if I am allowed to comment, and very well hidden.”

  “Still…No army? Could the dryads have killed the army but not stopped the creation of that spell?” Andras doubted, more to himself than to the scout. Arriving at a conclusion he wasn’t keen on thinking about, he ordered. “Call High Mage Albestus, we will need to investigate the woods.”

  “Should I inform our lord?”

  “No, let us deal with this in secrecy until we have found more information.” Andras cursed. Maybe Noct had had a plan?

  …………………….

  The next day the carriage of Alpin marched on towards their destination, the county of Astar, as they could not wait any longer. Their entourage included Soral, Sorak, Noct, Mulia and 7 baroness guards.

  Andras was ordered to watch over the barony as a temporary ruler.

  ……………