A Perverted Path to Victory

The Last Knight

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“Look at them!” Emeric cried, flinging his arm toward the litter-strewn sea. “No matter how many boats you send out, they will all be smashed to pieces! Have you no sense?!”

The creature that seemed to be in charge of the Holy Army looked down on him. Emeric did not know what it was. Its teal skin was left naked and bare to the elements, yet there was no sign of sex or gender that Emeric could discern on its body. Standing ten towering feet tall, its arms were so thick with bulging muscle that its biceps rivaled its own torso in diameter, giving it a gorilla-like bearing, a comparison that was furthered by the fact its knuckles dragged the ground even as it stood perfectly erect. Its ram-horned head was miniscule, smaller than Emeric’s, which looked absolutely ludicrous on the creature’s otherwise massive frame.

As the thing stared imperiously down upon Emeric, titanic shoulders rising and falling with every breath, he could not manage to find the humor in its strange appearance. 

“I fight for a holy cause, pale Knight. If the death of this entire army is required to sink the black ship, we will die with smiles on our faces.”

“But you are achieving nothing!” Emeric all but wailed. “Look! How many boats have their cannons broken? How many good souls have been dragged into the depths by their armor? I see the honor in your fight, but there is no honor in suicide!”

“If but one boat reaches their hull, and but one worshipper manages to scale its side, and but one death of the unholy results from it, all the sacrifices before will have been worthwhile.”

“Madness!” He spat.

“Remove him,” the creature ordered, waving one massive arm in Emeric’s direction. The more normal humans around the army’s commander leapt to the task, but Emeric was already wheeling Gallant around, popping the reins to send him into a sprint. 

Why can’t they see? He wondered, leaning low against the saddle to help Gallant gain speed. They must know they stand no chance against this foe!

The Black Ship stood in the center of the lake like a fallen thunderstorm. Enveloped by billowing gouts of smoke from unceasing cannonfire, which pierced it through with thirty-foot lances of flame. Only the tip of the masts rose through the smoke, and from this distance, Emeric thought he could just barely spot the movement of the vessel’s crew atop those sails. The lake around the ship looked like the refuse-filled puddle found in the dumps beyond a city. Floating corpses of every kind were bobbing in the brown water, a thin patina of blood surrounding them. A few were still moving, clinging to the fragments of the rowboats that had carried them to their inevitable demise, but they were losing strength quickly in the icy waters. Few would survive long enough to float to shore. 

Emeric guided Gallant toward the Lock itself. The great stone barrier was perhaps a mile long and a dozen paces thick, made of granite cubes ten feet in diameter. It would have taken a week or more for a team of miners to clear a gap large enough for the Black Ship to sail through. He couldn’t say for certain how the Fae Admiral had breached the others, but he had his suspicions. 

The lake was silent once more by the time he and Gallant were on the Lock itself. The prepared canoes and rowboats had been exhausted, every one of them destroyed before they could so much as loose an arrow at the Black Ship. Emeric did not know how many had died in the mindless assault. Thousands, likely.

Once atop the Lock, Emeric found another commander. This one struck a less intimidating figure than the behemoth from earlier, but he knew better than to think the old man was harmless. He sat cross-legged on the stones, looking down at a map as he stroked the head of a gray-eyed wolf that lay in his lap. Gallant, despite a decade spent as a warhorse, let out a nostril-flaring whinny at the sight of the animal, refusing to approach any closer.

“Do you speak Carrion?” Emeric asked as he swung out of the saddle. 

“I do,” the old man said quietly. He did not look up. “Who are you?”

“One who has fought this enemy before, and knows things that might save the lives of your soldiers this day.”

“Oh?” The old man patted his wolf’s head. “What do you think, Tuddles?”

The gray-tinged animal lifted its head wearily, swinging its muzzle toward Emeric. Both its eyes were scarred and blind, but its attention pointed squarely at him nonetheless. After a moment spent sniffing the air, the wolf’s head returned to its master’s lap. 

“Tuddles thinks you’re telling the truth. Good for you, because he’s hungry for manflesh. Been too long since he had any.” The old man finally looked up from the map, inspecting Emeric. “Well? What do you have to say?”

Emeric took a deep breath. “I know what that ship is. You can’t win this fight.”

“Bah,” the old man scoffed. “I’ve fought all manner of spellcaster in this life of mine. That they’ve put fifty of them aboard a ship might make them harder to reach, but they’ll die like the rest.”

Emeric looked to his left. The Black Ship’s sails were filling out, stirring the vessel to motion. “There is not a single mage aboard that ship,” he said. “You don’t know the enemy you fight. I do.”

“No mages? And how do you suppose to know something so impossible?”

“I have fought the people that built it,” Emeric said. He spoke quickly, desperately, trying to pour every drop of sincerity into his words so that he might convince the man of the task’s hopelessness. “I was a Knight in an army that fought with strength, honor, and determination. We had mages and enchantments on our side, we fought with the tactics mastered by a thousand years of tradition, and the weapons aboard that ship slaughtered us in droves. You have no hope.”

The man inspected Emeric, his face a blend of doubt, interest, and disbelief. “They’re not invincible. Nothing but the gods are. And you survived the battle, clearly.”

“I did not.”

The old man’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? I must admit that you’ve piqued my interest, Knight.”

Emeric took a step forward. “Then what must I do to convince you of my claims? To show you that you must abandon this cause? I can tell you of their weapons, of their leader, of the ways they will crush you—”

The man held up a withered hand. Tuddles the wolf smacked his wrist with a paw, dragging it back down to his head as a demand to continue the scratching. 

“You may very well know more of the enemy than I, Knight, but you do not know this about me: no matter how doomed this battle may be, I will fight it all the same.”

Emeric’s fists balled, trembling. It was so infuriating! There was no sense in it, nothing more than pure, undiluted idiocy!

“Why?” He ground out. “Why throw so many lives away?”

The old man tilted his head like a dog hearing a sound they couldn’t quite understand. 

“I would have thought your kind would be rather familiar with it. It is what honor demands of me, Sir Knight.”

Emeric froze. Bit his tongue. Then spat on the stones before the man’s feet, turning away. 

I see now why She guided me here.

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Ignite Parables

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He could hear nothing over the bombardment. One of his five senses had been overwhelmed to the point of uselessness by the incessant, cavitating booms of ship-borne artillery. The starboard cannon battery may not have been firing at its absolute maximum rate, but that was only because it had been firing for nigh on an hour now. The repeated concussions had left Ignite’s body numb and tingling, every joint aching from the changes in pressure as much as the constant state of tense readiness he had been forced to assume. 

“Port side!” A voice cried. Ignite could tell it was from a man screaming at the top of his lungs, but it sounded quiet and distant to his aching ears. “Port side, port side! Make ready to repel boarders!”

Ignite abandoned the Marines he had been standing beside with a harsh shout and slap on the back, ordering them to stay put as he rushed to the opposite side of the ship. He unshouldered his rifle and lowered it as he went, polished bayonet rendered dull by the thick powder fog. 

Just before he reached the port side gunwale, an azarketi soldier leapt over the railing, wooden spear clenched between their teeth.

Ignite’s bayonet took them through the ribs, the momentum of his sprint sending it straight out the man’s back, embedding the blade’s tip in the gunwale. He jerked to one side, ripping the blade free, then lifted the rifle to his shoulder, waiting. 

Another azarketi leapt up. Ignite pulled the trigger, sending a bullet through the center of their chest. They tumbled back over the side, dead before they hit the water. 

The first azarketi tried to stand, clutching their side with one hand, using their spear as a crutch in the other. They slipped in their own blood, falling face-first to the deck. Ignite put his bayonet through the back of their chest, then stepped away, reloading his rifle-musket. 

To his left and right, other azarketi were trying to leap up onto the deck. They were each met by a bayonet or bullet from one of Ignite’s Marines, rarely surviving long enough to take a second step across the planking. A few here or there seemed to have the skill of an Irregular, laying about themselves with sword and spear, but they were gunned down nearly as quickly as the rest, targeted by riflemen in the rigging. 

Somewhere along the hull, an azarketi made the mistake of climbing across the open hatch of a gunport. A cannon boomed, a 24-pound iron ball scattering chunks of their body across a hundred paces of open water. 

The lake had begun the day as a dark grayish-blue. Now it was brown. Ignite suspected it would be red by sunset. 

Suddenly, despite his near deafness, a voice cut through the air with crystalline clarity. 

“Prepare to cast off tow! Light the fuses and send ‘er with best wishes, if ye please!”

Still loading his musket, Ignite turned to watch the orders get carried out. The small merchant ship that had been captured several days ago had seen all of its cargo tossed overboard, its rigging locked in place, and a great deal of extra sail cloth added for the sake of speed. Even from this distance, it had spent the battle so buried in powder smoke that it had been difficult for Ignite to make out. He suspected— and hoped— that it wasn’t going to be intercepted. 

“Ready!” Called the First Officer. 

“Ready!” Called Gunner Balon. 

“Cast off!”

With several mighty blows from their cutlasses, the ropes that had kept the vessel bound to their own were severed. Ignite immediately felt the Waverake heave to one side as Admiral Nora put the rudder hard over, giving the freed ship room to begin picking up the wind. As the two ships passed side-by-side, Ignite saw flames beginning to lick down the masts, crawling towards the deck. 

Gods, but I hope we’re far enough away when those reach the hull.

His attention was forced back to the fight at hand as a trio of azarketi flung themselves over the railing, their coordination finally allowing them to make a break in the line of Marines. He saw one Marine get shoved to the deck, musket clattering away as he scrambled backward, raising his hands to defend against three raised spears. 

With a steady hand and keen eye, Ignite slipped Kate from her holster. 

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The Last Knight

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“You must destroy that ship!” Emeric roared, pointing to the flaming vessel that was drifting toward his place upon the Lock. “I do not care how long you have been preparing this ritual! Divert your mage’s efforts immediately! If the Fae Admiral thinks a single flaming ship will be your destruction, it is because she is right!”

The man guarding the circle of muttering spellcasters listened intently to Emeric, a serious expression on his face. When Emeric finally stopped yelling, panting heavily, the man waved a hand to the thirty foot tree next to him. 

“Get this mad barbarian out of here.” 

The tree creaked and groaned as its trunk doubled over, a tangled net of limbs reaching down for Emeric. He leapt back, swiping his sword through the most outstretched limbs. The tree made another series of groans, this time deeper and with a great deal of rattling and clacking, but Emeric was already sprinting away, whistling for Gallant. 

The mages did not interrupt their ritual. They stood with hands in their air, eyes lidded and robes flowing as they chanted. Damned fools. They likely thought that the fire ship was nothing more than the common form that was known to sailors across the world. If that had been the case, the ploy was a foolish one. There were no ships for it to collide with, no formation for it to scatter, and nothing but cold stone for it to crash against. They didn’t know why the Fae Admiral had launched a burning ship against them, but they felt confident they had no need to concern themselves with it. 

Why will no one LISTEN to me? He raged, leaping into Gallant’s saddle. The tree nearly caught him then, but it made the mistake of sweeping low, trying to attack both Emeric and Gallant. He whispered a quiet prayer of thanks that his horse, innocent in the eyes of Amarat, was not to suffer the worst parts of his own curse. A cannonball came shrieking through the air at just the right moment to shear through the lower half of the tree’s limbs, keeping them from touching Gallant’s flank. 

Emeric wasn’t so protected. 

He was thrown from the saddle with a pained grunt as a branch collided with his armor, hitting the stones with a second cry. His armor, that plain, unadorned and unenchanted set, made a horrible crashing sound as he slid along the ground. 

“Gallant!” He yelled, leaping to his feet. It wasn’t the first time he’d been unhorsed in battle, and he knew well how to hop back into the saddle. Once Gallant came around, he could throw himself over the saddle belly-first, trusting his loyal steed to steer as needed while he—

Gallant was still pounding away. Emeric saw his broad chest knocking down soldiers like wheat in a field as he fled, ignoring Emeric’s cries. 

Still breathing hard, Emeric froze. It would have taken the Divine’s interference to make Gallant disobey him. He knew what that meant.

He turned, slowly, toward the burning ship. It was perhaps fifty yards from the Lock, and the flames had finished eating its way down the mainmast, lighting the deck ablaze.

There was a flash. Emeric sucked in a breath. 

For the fifth time, he died. 

The eruption of blackpowder was apocalyptic. He knew that he died in an instant, too quickly to feel the slightest twinge of pain, but his Curse was not so kind. As the blast wave reached him, Emeric felt his living corpse get lifted off its feet, shrapnel of wood and stone piercing him in a hundred places. His lungs were crushed by the pressure, his skull broken and shattered a dozen times over, and his armor was pressed into his chest like a cruel guillotine, stopping only when it collided with his spine. 

He hit the ground some few hundred feet away, already dead, yet in incomprehensible agony. Even the shelter of being driven mad by pain was not given to him. He rolled end over end, new bones breaking, each as exquisite and sharp a torture as the first finger he had broken as a young boy. When he came to a stop, he would have begun to sob, to scream, but his body was too broken to do so. 

His open eyes stared lifelessly across the Lock. He could see smoking debris falling like autumn leaves, some drifting on the wind, others crashing to the ground. Many of them were bodies. Pieces of them, at least. 

Through the shrieking pain that consumed his mind, Emeric wondered how long he would be dead this time. The last time he had died, Amarat hadn’t let his body move until he had seen the final destruction of the army he had supported. The other few times he had died, when he had been defeated in single combat, he had been allowed to stand the moment that his opponent had left the area.

It took hours, this time. His eyes began to dry, vision blurring, and he eventually began to drown in the pooling blood dribbling from his nose and mouth. His bowels voided themselves, as they always did when a man died, and the stench of his own defecation was somehow more intense than the sulfur smoke. It made him want to retch. 

Finally, when the sun had begun to set, he felt his body begin to respond to his commands. He first twitched a finger. Then his wrist. Then he began to flex the rest of his body’s muscles, feeling his capacity coming back by degrees. 

He sat up. It was torture. His body was still filled with debris from the explosion. His own shattered armor, pieces of wood, chunks of stone. He began the laborious, agonizing process of ripping them from his body. Tears streamed down his face through the entire ordeal, but he did not sob. His macerated lungs couldn’t manage the effort. 

Eventually, he stood. Blood soaked his body, which was mostly naked. The long stretch of the Lock was occupied by corpses and the leavings of the explosion. Everything was coated in black soot, including himself. He turned around, unsteady on his feet. 

And came face-to-face with a squad of soldiers wearing steel breastplates, Carrion helmets, with cutlasses dangling from their hips. 

And muskets at their shoulders.

“Someone’s alive?” One said. 

“How?” Said another. 

They were speaking Continental. With a southern accent. 

A Tulian accent. 

Emeric tried to raise his hands in surrender. His quivering limbs didn’t obey his commands. 

“He is a Knight,” one man said. His voice was louder and more authoritative than the others, strangely accented. When he stepped forward, Emeric saw that his skin was the color of oil. “And he is still armed.”

Emeric looked down at his longsword. It was still on his hip, somehow. Finding that he still couldn’t speak, he tried to reach for it, hoping to throw it to the ground. 

A gunshot took him in the chest. He fell forward, to his knees, staring up at the man. 

He was holding the same kind of pistol that the Eliah Heir had used on that fateful day. As the man pulled the weapon’s hammer back once more, Emeric knew what was about to happen. 

A second shot took him in the chest. A third. And then, finally, a bullet passed cleanly through the front of his forehead, leaving the world dark. 

He wondered how long it would be until he could no longer recall how many times he’d died. 

“I don’t like that he survived that explosion,” the pistol-wielding man said. “He could be some creature in the form of a man. Cut off his head and toss it into the lake on the southern side of the Lock, then fling the body as far north as you can.”

“Yes, sir!”

Emeric waited. A knife came to his throat, and he could only imagine the process would be agonizing. 

It was.

He had little sensation left now. Only pain. He could hear nothing, see nothing, and barely feel the world around him. He felt water rushing around his head.

Why? He asked silently. What was the point of this? Why torture me so? What lesson did I learn? 

Amarat responded. 

DO NOT STAND AGAINST MY ALLIES.

Ah, Emeric thought, his head hitting the lake muck. Yes, I suppose I should have seen that coming, shouldn’t I?

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