Dreadlords Bros Before Gallows

[Vance Calgrave]

Vance allowed himself to fully revel in the carnage. All of the anger and frustration that had been pent up, all of the pain that the academy had wrought, he let it fly, and it felt good. He was light, he was death, and he enjoyed the fear he saw around him.

It was especially grand to be fighting alongside Edric. He had almost an art-like appreciation for the way that boy fought. He moved mountains of muscle like water, blending his magic and physique together into a parade of destruction. Vance could almost feel the energy of life and death as Edric manipulated it.

He'd never tell him this, obviously, Edric's ego was big enough as it was. Still, when the warrior cleared the gate, he couldn't help but whistle his approval. "Show off..."

The dreadlord that, make no mistake, was now escorting them rather than the other way around, made easy work of the gate. He and Vance walked coolly over the fresh rubble. A few horsemen came towards them, those that were not being cut down by Edric alone. While one of them collapsed into a magically formed fissure, Vance deflected a lance strike with his sword. The horseman was wearing so much conductive armor that Vance delivered quite a bit more of a shock that he'd planned. The current gleefully swept over the dark plates and the rider fell to the ground. He had died before he fell, but his muscles continued to convulse for some time after.

Vance took note to reign in the lightning. Between the leaching rain and the battle to get here, his batteries would wane if he wasn't careful.

 

[Edric]

As the three Dreadlords cut their way through the cavalry Edric couldn't help but wonder how any city could stand against Vel Anir.

These soldiers were not ill-trained, they were not ill-disciplined or a gaggle of militia. These men would have put up a fight against an equal force, but that was not what they were met with. Edric, Vance, and their Dreadlord charge cut a swath through these men as though they were paper targets. Carnage and blood swept through them, and within mere minutes they broke.

Edric had only killed a few, half a dozen at most. Yet Vance's magic and the display of brutality was enough to rout even the most hardened men.

Cries of panic and fear rang out even as the earth shifted and quaked. Among screams of pain came the calls for retreat, no, no retreat, abandonment. Men ran, turning their horses and rushing out the gate instead of standing to die. Within mere minutes of sundering the gate, the courtyard stood empty.

All that surrounded them were dead and broken bodies.

Edric stood, clutching a stolen sword and glancing around them. Up ahead sat a set of great marble stairs, at the peak laying a palace which would have made some Nobles balk.

"Let's go collect a surrender."​

The Dreadlord said without a moment of hesitation, climbing the steps with no ceremony at all.

 

[Vance Calgrave]

Vance stretched and rolled his shoulders a few times before sheathing his sword. A night under a wet tarp hadn't done wonders for his joints. He inhaled the scents of burnt flesh and acid electricity that lingered in the air and kept a savage grin on his face.

Until their charge spoke again.

The man's voice was chilling. It might have been the weight behind it, like all the power he held was just below the surface of those rumbling words. Even though he was saying things that Vance wanted to hear... it was unnerving.

He regrouped with Edric to follow the man into the palace. "Do you think they'll be smart and let us walk right in?" he asked with a foul smirk. No one was ever that smart.

 

[Edric]

Edric glanced back towards the slaughter that lay behind them.

A memory flashed through his mind. One of the dozens of lectures they had received while growing up from the Proctors. Stories of how much of a difference Dreadlords truly made on the battlefield. These people weren't prepared. They couldn't have known.

"They should be." He said quietly.

The words were almost prophetic, for as they continued to ascend the steps the doors to the palace began to shift. Broken and tarnished silver split apart, revealing men wearing heavy armor such as they had seen before. Yet behind them were a dozen other figures, all dressed in darker colors.

Colors of mourning.

The Dreadlord waved to Vance and Edric, motioning for them to stay back. "Bets on him just killing them all?"

Edric whispered quietly to his companion.

 

[Vance Calgrave]

"I would, if they'd done to me what they did to him." Somewhere in Vance there might have been a wriggling sense of mercy, but wherever it lived had been very intentionally buried by the Academy. These people had made their own graves by taking a dreadlord of this caliber prisoner.

Something switched on in his brain, a rare moment of rational clarity amidst the bloodlust. "How... did they capture him? He had to have let them. Why?"

This didn't really make sense. This guy could have waltzed up to the palace by himself. Vance and Edric had just done the grunt work for him on the way here. Despite chewing up a full city block, the dreadlord (whose name Vance still did not know) showed no sign of fatigue.

What the hell was this guy's game?

 

[Edric]

Edric glanced at Vance for a brief moment, a frown pulling at his lips.

He had never even thought about such a thing. Vance was completely right, the man had torn through this city like it had been made of cardboard. Sure, the two of them had made it easier, but from seeing what the man could do it didn't make any sense that he had ever been captured.

"You're right." Edric said slowly, his head turning back to the Dreadlord and the Councilros speaking around him.

"This is outrageous-"

"You can't demand such a thing!"

"This is extortoniost! Vel Anir will kill us al-"​

Before the last man could finish the Dreadlord suddenly shot a glare at him, and Edric almost immediately seemed to tense as the man silenced. A brief pause lingered on the steps, and then slowly the Dreadlord turned. "Somethings...somethings wrong."

Edric said softly as the man wandered down the steps towards them.

 

[Vance Calgrave]

Vance didn't catch on immediately. It was weird that the guy was coming back, though. The councilors hadn't officially surrendered, and based on the last half hour that should put them under twelve tons of rock by now.

"Why isn't he killing them?"

It wasn't until he turned his head and saw Edric's face that Vance truly began to worry. Edric... knew things. Vance didn't know how, but the guy just had a sense about him. Probably tied into that weird life/death magic he was oh-so familiar with, twisting life forces and what-not. Had something changed in that bizarre current?

"What is it?" he looked back at the approaching one-man army, gripping his sword a little tighter. "Come on, Ed, what is it??" A nervous spark fell off his tongue on the last "t."

 

[Edric]

Edric grabbed Vance's shoulder, opening his mouth to speak when the Dreadlord cut him off.

"You lads had been rather useful."​

His fingers tensed on Vance's shoulder, lips thinning as his gaze flickered to his companion for just a brief moment. The tension in the air could have been cut with a knife, and Edric could feel his heart thundering away in his chest.

The Dreadlord seemed to pause just a few steps up from the two Initiate, the ground shifting and rumbling as magic began to pour through him.

"So I'm going to give you a choice. Join me, here in this city. Forge your own path away from the Republic."​

As he spoke the man practically spat the last word, and the curtain was tugged back. Suddenly things snapped into place within Edric's mind, and he realized just why the man had allowed himself to be captured. Why he'd made this spectacle. It had all been a show. A way to break the cities spirit.

"Think of it as early Graduation."​

Edric slowly took a step backward, doing his best to take Vance with him.

 

[Vance Calgrave]

Vance didn't need convincing. He stepped back with Edric and felt the copper bars along his limbs grow warm.

He had his own feelings on the Republic, not many of them good. Vel Anir had gone soft, forgotten what made them great. That had to be true, because if it wasn't, all of the pain he'd endured and the blood he'd shed had been for nothing.

Still... the Republic was Vel Anir now, and the Dreadlords had shaped it. Vance much preferred that to stuck-up houses.

He didn't have a clever quip right now. He was scared. Graduation or no, this was probably the strongest enemy he had faced so far. Adding moral confusion to the matter didn't exactly help.

Nope. His mind was made up. Vance didn't excel at drawn-out contemplation. As much as he enjoyed the power trip of the last half-hour, he didn't think joining a three-man rebellion was the best thing for him to do right now.

He whispered from the corner of his mouth to Edric, the smallest hint of macabre humor in his voice, "We're gonna fucking die, eh?"