The Zombie Knight

It had been another long day. Covered in dirt and grime, rotten flesh and blackened blood, he wiped his forehead and took a long, deep breath before finally taking a seat on the nearest tree stump. It was wide enough to fit ten men, at least. He rolled his shoulders as he looked around another time.

Felled trees of gargantuan proportions littered the horizon, splintered apart or wholly uprooted--or simply sliced clean through like the one he was currently sitting on.

The Jaskadan Forest wasn’t looking too good, anymore. This portion of it. There was still plenty more left to go, though, east of here and north, as well. These rotting bastards were lucky the Ardoran continent was so vast.

Among the fallen trees lay also his fallen opponents. It took quite a bit for them to stay down. They weren’t like normal servants--that was for certain. While they didn’t appear to regenerate much at all, each one had the durability of a hundred-year-old servant, at a minimum.

Fire had seemed effective at first, but they appeared to have adapted, somehow. Freezing them never worked at all. Perhaps their rotten brains weren’t even functional to begin with. Plus, they could move without need of their muscles, too, so the fight would continue long after a typical servant’s body would have been rendered totally immobile.

‘You do not mean that, surely,’ said Kalikos. ‘It was by your design that I have become this way. Do not think I did not notice or have forgotten.’

Caster held up his hands defensively, though he was still laughing. “Don’t be mad. You know we’re better off, now.”

And when Kalikos made no response, Rezolo took the opportunity to chime in. ‘You are truly rooting against Abolish in this war? Do you not still count yourselves as part of it?’

“We are Freemen now,” said Caster. “As are you, no?”

“Yes,” said Caster. “But if our internal rivals were eliminated for us, then that task would be made quite a bit easier, wouldn’t you say? Or does that sound too cold to you?”

‘I suppose not,’ said Rezolo. ‘I’m just surprised. But either way, I doubt things will go smoothly for us. If our side does suffer losses as great as you are suggesting, then do you think the Vanguard will care to differentiate between Freemen and non-Freemen? If such a time indeed arrives, then I imagine they will be as ruthless as anyone in Abolish.’

‘Right you may be,’ said Kalikos. ‘Which is why we should preserve our strength. Manpower will be crucial in the days to come.’

Rezolo had no response for that, apparently.

Loren wanted to ask about who they planned on recruiting next, but a sudden tremor arrived, pulling trails of dust from the rocky ceiling.

“Looks like it’s begun,” said Caster, looking up. “We should be safe down here, though.”

Loren stared at him a moment. “...You came here in order to avoid the fighting?”

The small man returned a slight smile. “There’s nothing up there worth risking our lives for. In fact, we should probably just skedaddle. I hope you’re a strong swimmer.”

Loren’s mouth was open, but he didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t exactly what he’d been expecting from his fearless leader who also happened to be one of the most powerful servants he’d ever met.

Caster seemed amused by his reaction. “Are you disappointed, Lighteyes? I thought you were tired of me dragging you into fights all the time.”

Well, he was. But this was different. Or was it? Loren was confused. “I... just... thought that the enemy might be down here...”

As they made their way down, the flat stones of the fortress gradually receded into uneven, natural rock. Caster led them through one final door, and then they were just in a narrow, winding cave. There weren’t even stairs anymore, despite the fact that they were still descending.

And an eerie quiet arrived, broken only by their echoing footsteps. Almost no light was making it down here, either, which wasn’t a problem for Loren Lighteyes--and apparently not for Caster Egmond, either, judging by the way he just kept on moving forward without even slowing down.

Kalikos was following closely behind Caster, having not said a word this entire time. It almost made Loren want to ask him another question, just to hear what random smattering of ideas might spill out again.

At length, however, the cave widened into a much larger space, enough so that it nearly looked like a manmade chamber.

A thick beam of light from above made it clear where the well was located. It must’ve been around midday, too, with how strong that beam was.

Loren could see a wide pool of water farther down, along with various sunken paths through which it gently flowed.

Hmm. Apart from that, this place was a dead end. So he supposed if anyone was going to be sneaking in, it would have to be through one those underwater holes. He wished he knew which of them, if any, led down to the base of the mountain. Hell, perhaps they all did.

“This should be far enough,” said Caster, voice bouncing off the cave walls. “We’ll wait here, for now.”

“Wait for what, exactly?” said Loren. “To be attacked?” Didn’t seem like much a plan.

Caster turned and looked at him for the first time in a while. “On the contrary, just the opposite.”

“...What do you mean?”

‘‘Twill be starting soon,’ said Kalikos.

Rezolo was the one to ask the obvious question. ‘What will?’

‘The end of Abolish.’

Loren’s eyes widened. He exchanged looks with Rezolo, who seemed equally bewildered.

“Perhaps,” added Caster. “But perhaps not.”

‘You truly see them surviving this?’ asked Kalikos.

“The ones here? Certainly not. But elsewhere? Many among them will be quite difficult to get rid of. You know that, Kal.”

‘Mm. Alas, you may be right. Wishful thinking may have gripped me.’

“Heh. Didn’t think you were the type to take sides, anymore.”

What exactly that something was, the rumors had difficulty pinning down. Some said he’d captured them all and now had a dozen or more high-ranking reapers as hostages.

Others said it was far worse, that he didn’t just capture them. They said he’d turned them. Brainwashed them. Enslaved their minds and made them release all of their servants, just like that.

And still others said that no, it was something that was arguably even more terrifying. He’d simply convinced them to join him. With mere words. Didn’t even have to brainwash them.

All-in-all, it sounded rather unlikely to Loren--or at the very last, greatly exaggerated. For one thing, how in the world would anyone here in Abolish have learned about him doing something like that? If all the reapers turned traitor, and all the servants were released, then there would’ve been no one left to relay what happened.

And whenever Loren had pointed out such things to the various soldiers who were gossiping about it, they began sounding abruptly less certain and less fearful. But some also tried posing some iffy explanations. Maybe one or two reapers had escaped, they’d said. Maybe the Surgeon had let them get away precisely for this reason, because he wanted Abolish to know.

Whatever the truth actually was, all of the rumors seemed to agree that Frederick was in an almost unassailably advantageous position now.

That this war was already lost, even.

Regardless of how Frederick had managed to pull it off, if he really did have so many ex-Abolish reapers feeding him intel, then that would explain why every operation was a failure. Frederick knew what they were going to do before they did it. He knew their backup plans for their backup plans.

Needless to say, morale in this corner of the war was rather low. Over the course of Caster’s little tour around the continent, Loren didn’t think he’d ever seen it this bad.

The one saving grace, some said, was that the Surgeon Saint had a bleeding heart. A man renowned for his mercy. So if they were to lose, then at least they could be relatively certain that he would spare their lives.

That was why a lot the guardsmen and soldiers around here actually looked more bored than afraid. To many of them, the upcoming battles were already a foregone conclusion. It was just a waiting game, now.

Loren admired his confidence but didn’t share it. “Sir, if the enemy has sent someone to infiltrate, they won’t be pushovers. Frederick himself could be among them.”

“Doubtful,” said Caster, “but if he is, that would be fortunate for us. I should like to speak with him.”

Loren frowned. He supposed there was no point in arguing, but from everything he’d been hearing of these two Melmoorian warfronts, Captain General Fen Frederick of the Vanguard was most likely not someone that they would want to encounter. While there were definitely other men making names for themselves out here, the Surgeon Saint’s reputation had risen the most.

Frederick was being attributed with the majority of Melmoore’s success thus far. Whether that was actually the truth of things or not remained to be seen, but Lighteyes had seen and heard the fear that his name evoked in many of the men around here.

There was one particular story that had caught Loren’s attention, too.

Supposedly, it happened in a place called Erimor, a little mountain town in southern Melmoore and one of the earliest conquests in Corrico’s invasion. The town had quickly become a headquarters from which the Corricoans organized and coordinated their assaults on larger cities in the area. By all accounts, it had been a well-positioned, easily defensible location--and nicely hidden away, to boot. Even satellites couldn’t spot it because of the way a certain mountainous cave arched over it.

The expectation had been that, even if their offensives failed or otherwise stalled, Erimor would allow their HQ to operate discreetly for quite a while, buying them plenty of extra time to regroup or implement various contingency plans.

And progress had been good. The invasion proceeded quite strongly.

At first.

Major cities were captured quickly--or just completely annihilated. The sphere of influence grew rapidly, with Erimor near the heart of it, well-protected on all sides.

Until Erimor went totally dark.

Word stopped arriving. No new orders. No new plans. No new intel. No new anything. And the cracks in the invasion began to form, until every new assault failed, either because they were too unorganized or the enemy too well-prepared.

The rumors were still uncertain about how Erimor had been taken back so suddenly, but it was popular sentiment that Frederick was responsible, that he’d snuck into the town with a small force--or even alone, as some told it--and done something to all of the Abolish reapers there.

When he finally arrived, he stopped, suddenly rethinking. Supposing he actually did stumble upon a gaggle of attackers trying to sneak their way into the fortress, it would not go well for him all alone. Such a force would doubtless be composed of the enemy’s most elite soldiers.

Granted, this was the Melmoorian army and not the Vanguard, so maybe elite wouldn’t mean much, comparatively. But then again, the Vanguard might be sprinkled in among them.

He didn’t have any authority here, though. He couldn’t just order some guards to follow him. Caster could’ve, but he wasn’t--

“What’re you up to, Lighteyes?”

Loren just about jumped out of his skin before turning around and seeing Caster standing there. He needed a second to compose himself. “Sir, ah...”

“Not planning on doing anything stupid, I hope,” said Caster. “I can’t afford to lose my right-hand man, you know.”

Right-hand man? Was that really what he was to him? That was a hell of a compliment, but Loren didn’t know how much truth could be in it. He didn’t feel like he’d been doing anything lately to deserve it. Or anything at all, for that matter. “I, uh... I just wanted to check for a route through the well. If this fortress has any weakness, it might be there.” Wait, why had Caster said all that just now? Had he already known what Loren was planning to do?

“Interesting. I’ll go with you.”

Loren blinked but didn’t get the chance to respond.

Despite what he’d said, Caster was already moving ahead, not waiting for him.

Loren followed. He’d only had a vague idea of where to go in the first place. The well was certainly wide enough for a man to be lowered down, but there should’ve also been a staircase in the nearby keep that led into some underground caverns, to which the well belonged.

Probably.

Whenever they visited a new fortress, he’d always seen Caster pouring over maps and blueprints. Loren had tried to look over them, too, but now that his knowledge was actually being somewhat tested, he was feeling unsure of himself.

They made their way down together, drawing glances from various guardsmen as they passed.

“You could ask for more men, sir,” said Loren. “They’d listen to you.”

“They’d just get in the way,” said Caster. “It’ll be a tight fit down there, I’m sure.”

He searched for anything out of the ordinary. If a ground attack was truly imminent, then it would be obvious from this vantage point. That was one of the primary reasons why fortresses were built on mountains like this, after all.

But the age of this place did not do it any favors in the modern era. Naturally, an aerial assault was a very real possibility here, and in fact, it would almost certainly arrive first in order to soften the defenders up for the eventual siege. Long-range artillery was also quite likely, though he didn’t see any at the moment, which was another sign an attack was not yet to occur.

He supposed a stealthy amphibious assault was still a possibility, though. There was a long river that snaked across the landscape, coming right up to the base of the mountain and wrapping partially around it before flowing into the eastern horizon. If he were the one tasked with leading a surprise attack, that was how he would approach it, but it still wouldn’t be easy.

The Rat’s Nest got its water from an underground well, deep in the heart of the mountain. If there was a path there from the river, it was not obvious and would therefore be quite narrow, making it easily defensible.

Assuming the defenders were actually guarding it, that was.

Maybe that was something he should look into while he still had the time.

‘Well?’ said Rezolo in the echo of privacy. ‘What do you see?’

‘Not much.’ His feet did start moving, however, back down the stairs. ‘Would they really mount an attack, now? What about those rumors of peace talks already going on?’

‘Unfortunately, they might just be rumors,’ said Rezolo, ‘but even if they’re not, talks do not equate to a ceasefire, much less a treaty. And if the Melmoorians are able to strike a major blow before anything is officially agreed upon, then that would certainly improve their bargaining power, now wouldn’t it?’

That was definitely not what he wanted to hear, right now, but he found it hard to disagree with the reaper’s perspective.

‘Where are you going?’ said Rezolo. ‘You only looked for a few minutes.’

‘I want to check something.’

The well, rather annoyingly, was back through the inner walls, on the other side the labyrinth. He kept a brisk pace as he returned, feeling increasingly uneasy the closer he got.

The place had a peculiar layout to it, no doubt due to the work of many different architects over many different eras, but its most prominent feature had to be the labyrinthine walls that surrounded the inner keep. The outer walls were normal enough, but the inner ones were full of branching paths, dead ends, booby traps, and bored-looking guardsmen standing atop crenellated turrets.

Whatever medieval lord had commissioned this horrific maze must have been quite the paranoid bastard. Perhaps that was why this stronghold had come to be called the Rat’s Nest.

Not a very flattering name for a place that boasted such impressive structures. True, it wasn’t the most... aesthetically pleasing castle Loren had ever seen, what with its mismatched stones and bricks and woods and lamps. But that still struck him as a bit unfair to the builders. He doubted any of them would’ve chosen such a name.

Thankfully, the maze was much easier to navigate when you had keys to the multitude of doors and gates that went straight down the center of it. And at the moment, most of the gates were up, probably because the guardsmen or perhaps one of the head honchos around here hated having to constantly wait for them to be raised and lowered whenever coming or going from the keep.

If Loren shouted for the guards to lower those gates, he wondered if they would even listen to him. He hoped he wasn’t going to find out.

He made for the outer walls, taking the first staircase that he could find to the top.

From up here, the view was certainly something.

The Rat’s Nest was a fortress within the nation of Corrico. And Corrico was currently at war with Melmoore. Not more than three months ago, Corrico and Ostra had both declared war by invading Melmoore, but here and now, it was the Melmoorian forces that Loren could see all the way out there on the horizon, sprawled across a number of tented encampments.

Was that three separate battalions? No, four. A full brigade, most likely, commanded by a brigadier general. If they were marching, at this distance, it would likely be two full days before they made it here, but to Loren’s eyes, there was not enough movement for that to be the case.

Yet.

None of this was news, of course. They’d known the circumstances of this place when choosing to come here, and from the sound of what Kalikos had just been rambling about, perhaps those circumstances were precisely why Caster had picked this place.

Rezolo kept trying. ‘What do you mean? Why won’t we be here for much longer? Where is our next destination?’

‘No, no,’ said Kalikos. ‘You do not see. The Great Song is soon to be sung. And as such, many of these places shall be rent to dust. No way to know which may survive. Too many souls with too much gravity. And so communion must be swift. If any of these grounds be suitable, then they may be worth defending.’

What in the world? ‘You catch any of that?’ asked Lighteyes.

‘Uh, not really...’ Rezolo hovered closer to Loren. ‘But it sounds like we might be in for a fight soon.’

‘Oh yeah? What else is new?’

‘What is this Great Song you speak of?’ asked Rezolo, publicly again.

‘That is indeed the question,’ said Kalikos. ‘A turning point of the Age, perhaps. Or maybe just a footnote. Much is at stake, whatever the case. ‘Tis a wonder that the self-proclaimed protectors of this realm have not already given up the gambit, considering how much they have lost--and how much more they may yet. Fools, I say. But brave ones, to be sure.’

Loren squinted, feeling almost like he understood some of that. “Are you... talking about about the Vanguard, right now?”

‘To be a fool is a terrible thing. But to be a great fool--that may not be so bad. In fact, it may be necessary on the greater path. Judge them not too harshly, though they may deserve it. But if they be worthy, they will surely be able to endure such criticism, no? A curious matter.’

‘Yeah, he lost me again,’ said Loren.

Rezolo attached himself to his shoulder. ‘Let’s go do some scouting, shall we? I have a bad feeling.’

‘Is it okay to leave Caster and Kalikos alone?’ he asked. ‘What if someone attacks the reaper while Caster is busy talking to the dirt or whatever?’

‘I think they’ll be fine. I doubt Caster is that deeply incapacitated. Come on, now. Go put those eyes of yours to good use.’

Loren made no further argument.

This fortress, as he understood it, was one of the older ones on Eloa. It had traded hands many times between the Vanguard and Abolish--and likely others, too.

‘‘Twould be quite the hurdle, taking care of it while intangible,’ Kalikos went on, ‘but perhaps that would make it all the more worthwhile.’

Loren exchanged glances with Rezolo. They’d already discussed the other reaper’s peculiarity at length. According to Rezolo, Kalikos wasn’t like this the last time they’d spoken, some thirty years ago.

Which was worrying information. It would’ve been more comforting to know that Kalikos had always just been some kind of kook. Thinking about how or why he might’ve changed... well, Loren didn’t like where his imagination wanted to go.

Rezolo, bless him, decided to take another crack at a conversation. ‘Kalikos,’ he said, which didn’t even manage to draw the other reaper’s gaze toward him. ‘Do you know why Caster is so interested in visiting these strongholds?’

Loren resisted the urge to shake his head. That was a question they’d both asked before, but from Rezolo’s intonation, it sounded like it was being asked for the first time. Perhaps Rezolo expected Kalikos to have no recollection of it ever having come up before and was therefore trying to be more gentle or subtle in his approach, despite any frustration that he might be feeling.

If so, then Loren could certainly relate.

Kalikos, however, appeared not to even hear him.

Loren had never seen a reaper in such a state. He had to wonder if it might be some kind of act. Reapers did have a tendency to be deceitful, sometimes for no other reason than to amuse themselves.

If it was an act, though, then it was a damn convincing one.

Rezolo gave a silent sigh, wrapped in the echo of privacy.

Loren was still debating whether he wanted to ask Caster directly about Kalikos’ apparent condition. It seemed quite a rude and awkward subject to bring up, and while he liked Caster more than just about any other boss he’d ever had in Abolish, that didn’t stop the man from still being rather terrifying, in his own way. They hadn’t been working together long enough for Loren to really know how Caster would react to such questions. Even if Caster didn’t fly off the handle and attack him, it could still cause other types of problems in their relationship.

Yeah. Better to just keep his head down and his mouth shut, for now. That was what Rezolo usually told him to do, anyway.

‘Won’t be here for much longer,’ said Kalikos. ‘Best to take it all in while you still can.’

The two of them had gotten into more than a few scraps during this trip. And worse still, despite being the chief instigator, Caster was frequently fine with standing by and watching Loren do all the fighting.

“Just trying to get a measure of you, lad,” he’d said. “I hope you’re not planning on complaining. You need the experience.”

Thankfully, Caster did step in whenever the situation began to look truly dire.

And while he had yet to see the Marauder ever get serious during a fight, it was now quite obvious to Loren that this man was far more powerful than he’d expected. And he’d already expected a lot.

The guy could lay opponents out without even moving a muscle. Somehow, he could just look at them, and they’d crumple like paper--and not always in the same manner, either. Sometimes, they would just fall over and stay down, seemingly passed out cold.

Other times, it was less pretty.

One guy ended up looking as if almost every bone in his body had been snapped in two and folded together, like he’d been crammed into an invisible box. And for all Loren knew, maybe he had. Loren still wasn’t sure how Caster’s powers worked. Rezolo said that Caster was supposed to be a destruction user, but none of the stuff he’d seen so far had looked like destruction to Loren.

All in all, though, Loren couldn’t say he was hating his time with the Marauder. This gig was definitely strange, but he knew from personal experience that there were far, far worse ones in Abolish.

It’d be nice if Caster could pick up the pace a bit, though.

This “communing with the land” business would’ve been a lot better if it didn’t mean Loren had to stand around so much. And it was unpredictable, too. Caster could be done in a few minutes or a few hours.

On this occasion, it was the latter.

The man’s reaper, Kalikos, was even stranger. Whenever Loren tried asking for elaboration or clarification on something from Kalikos, the reaper usually gave him some weird non-answer--or even a total non sequitur.

The oddest things that the reaper said, however, were the things that arrived out of nowhere, unprompted.

‘I should like a puppy of my own, someday,’ he said.

Loren’s foot stopped tapping as he looked over at the reaper, hovering around the Marauder’s short, motionless figure.

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