Fate - First Reply Siege at Benhaven

[Lumen]

It was supposed to be simple supply drop-off. Benhaven was a small fort between Vel Cirak and Viret. A place staged to offer reinforcements if Vel Cirak was ever in dire need. A place to hold closer supplies. What was supposed to be simple mission to drop supplies off at Fort Benhaven, lasting a week at best, had turned into nearly two fortnights.

Exhaustion and weariness painted across every soldier's face as she stepped past their slumped bodies leaning against the walls. Rations from what Lumen and the retinue had brought were already dwindling. Every soldier that stepped out of the fortress walls never came back. Every scout lost. There were whispers of mutiny and desertion. Everyone was desperate.

They'd never seen the enemy other than a barrage of arrows that smelled like rot, decorating the outside of the fortress walls. No terms had been given. Who was it and why?

Lumen was exhausted.

She'd gotten maybe a few hours of sleep here and there. Winter was coming and the air was chilling. Not only were they running out of food but also fuel. She kept hoping that maybe one of the scouts had made it. That reinforcements would come.

Before it was too late for them all.

 

[Vardan]

Lumen

​

A small retinue made their way towards the gates of Benhaven, leaving a brazen trail through the snow and mud leading up to the fort. Vardan - the decrepit skeleton still in the tattered garments and rusted cuirass he had been buried in - was the only one with a horse. Lumen would doubtless recognize it as the one she had lost during the incursion at Orilon. Brunellus was still very much alive, if not terribly pleased with his current occupation.​

​

Vardan was followed closely by a pair of stumbling, shuffling undead, whose soiled armor betrayed the fact they had once been Anirian scouts attempting to escape Benhaven. One carried a large staff with two banners: the first the sumptuous royal sigil of his lineage, and the other a ragged white flag of parley. The other carried a crude brass horn.​

​

The parade of undead stopped just outside of range of whatever archers Benhaven had left to muster, but in full view of the walls. After an exaggerated gesture from Vardan, the zombie with the horn sucked air into its festering lungs and blew the horn, producing a harsh sound sure to be heard by someone.​

​

It was time to negotiate an end to the siege.​

 

[Lumen]

Nervous glances and whispers spread within the confines of the fort at the eerie sound of the horn.

"Initiate Adagio," Commander Yuri barked. An aging man, probably in his last few years of service before he retired. "It seems our siegers have finally shown themselves. Fuking bastards. You and Lieutenant Marshall are to take a small group to go meet with them. If they try anything, you know what to do."

Lumen frowned but saluted all the same.

"Yes sir."

Marshall looked at Lumen from the corner of his eyes. He had a dark red-hair and a peregrine falcon perched on one shoulder. It was clear he didn't think much of initiates. "Maybe you'll finally be of use," he mused. "Let's go."

Lumen pursed her lips but said nothing as she followed him to the front of the fort, as the gates opened just enough to let their small party out. Tawny-eyes taking in the figures across the field that waited for them. Just on the edge of the wood.

 

[Vardan]

When they arrived, Vardan looked as bored as a skeleton reasonably could. He had a finger entwined in the matted hair that still clung to his pate, which he twirled absently.​

​

"Ah, esteemed guests," he rasped, once the Anirians had halted within speaking distance, "You stand afore Vardan, true Lord of the Rosewood."​

​

Rosewood was the name of a region in the southern forests of the Allir Reach, named after a venerable castle of Rosewood Hall, which was presently occupied by all manner of pretenders and templars and rangers. Not that he expected any of these far-removed paupers to know anything of that. They only needed to be aware that he was a great man of distinguished pedigree.​

​

Normally a man of such station would be introduced by his servants, but the flag-bearer and bugler were not nearly as talkative in undeath as Vardan. He attempted to unwind his finger from his hair but inadvertently tore a small-yet-noticeable tuft free, which he discarded without remark. It always came back. Somehow.​

​

He continued, "I shall have your names. Then we may discuss the fate of Benhaven in earnest."​

 

[Lumen]

Lumen stared at the horse for a rather long time before her gaze shifted up the the thing that spoke. What kind of monster was this? An undead crusty skeleton.

And the others?

She swallowed as she recognized who they were. Glazed, dead looks in their eyes. One with his eyeball half hanging out. The other with a festering and flesh-eating wound that expanded half her face.

Marshall did nothing to hide the disdain on his face. "You fuking swine," he spat and sneered. "Your head will decorate the outside of these walls soon enough. I'd suggest you retreat while you can."

Lumen tried to keep her expression neutral. Was it possible to see emotion on a skeleton's face? She looked at Vardan silently, every now and then letting her gaze flicker to the woods beyond his shoulder to try and see how many others might be lurking in the shadows.

 

[Vardan]

As usual, Vardan found himself dealing with the unmannered. Such foul words. It seemed to him everyone on this side of the strait was a shitheel and a lackwit.​

​

Vardan waited magnanimously for Marshall to conclude his threat, "Nnnh. Nary a whit of decorum. Why delay thy victory, hm? I offer thee opportunity to conclude this siege with a gentleman's duel. My champion against one of thine own."​

​

The forest beyond Vardan was still, filled only with snow and barren trees. It seemed he considered the flag of truce to be sufficient protection.​

​

"Should mine prevail, the fort shall be ceded to me," Vardan's empty sockets were fixed on Marshall, "And if thou shouldst get the better of it... I shall dismiss the siege and submit myself as thy captive."​

​

Vardan withdrew an ornate scroll cylinder from one of Brunellus' saddlebags, which he passed to the bugler. It lumbered to the Anirians and offered it to the closest one.​

​

"My terms are scribed therein. Convey them to thy commander."​

 

[Lumen]

"Take it," he ordered to Lumen. Stepping forward, she plucked the rolled scroll from their old comrade's hands. Sneering at Vardan, Marshall tipped his head back to the fort.

"We'll raise a white flag when we have a response ready." As far as Marshall was concerned the response would be multiple arrows into the eye sockets of this fiend.

Lumen offered one last look to Vardan and her horse before retreating with the rest. Head on a swivel as they backtracked and her shield ready just in case there was an attack from behind.

 

[Vardan]

"Hhnn. Be quick about it," Vardan said, pausing to cough. It was a ragged, hacking noise. "I await with bated breath."​

​

He watched them go, then yanked on Brunellus' reins and led him back to the treeline. The footmen lurched after him, and before long the trio were gone from sight.​

​

---​

​

The case, when opened, had the odor of containing stale and musky air. It was richly embellished with a flowing, runic script that defied attempts to read it. Inside was a rolled up parchment, stamped with the wax seal of Vardan's house.​

​

As for the scroll: its written contents were the same terms Vardan had described to Marshall, albeit in much more words and decidedly antiquated prose.​

​

There was also the added addendum he expected an answer within three days.​

 

[Lumen]

The Commander studied the terms. He also sent another scout to try to break the lines. After three days and when the scout didn’t return, he sealed up his response. The white flag was raised within the fortress.

Lumen found herself accompanying Marshall once more outside the walls with a small contingency. A fresh blanket of snow had fallen, making things look almost beautiful. Lumen trained her gaze on the tree line. Watching in case of an ambush. In case of a trap.

Marshall’s sneer never quite left his face as he also waited. Murder in his eyes.

 

[Vardan]

Vardan was already waiting for them when they arrived, still astride Brunellus and with the same moldering, undead minions as before. It was almost as if they had never left, or perhaps had only retired a short distance away.​

​

He opened this latest round of negotiations with a fit of tremulous coughing.​

​

"Apologies, this frigid air disagrees with me," he said, once his hacking had subsided, and wiped his mouth with the back of his bony hand, "What is thy master's answer?"​

 

[Lumen]

"Well bloody go on," Marshall glared at Lumen. Not letting any disagreeable reaction slip onto her face, she stepped forward and offered the rolled and sealed response up to Vardan.

"That's my horse," she said quietly up to him. Just as quickly stepped back in line with those that had accompanied them from Benhaven.

"Terms have changed a bit," Marshall snapped. "You will have the opportunity to pick another warrior. Myself and her," disdain still in his gaze as he tipped his chin toward Lumen. "We will be fighting your two warriors. Do you accept?" A wad of his spit hit the ground between them.

 

[Vardan]

Vardan graciously accepted the rolled missive from the young lady. He broke the wax seal and unfurled it in a single fluid, practiced motion. When he yet lived he had received many such communiques. Usually they contained poetry rather than terms. Sometimes he missed those days - the ones before that mongrel Grichen ruined everything.​

​

Oh well. His head canted away from the scroll and after Lumen after she muttered something about Brunellus. "What?" He rasped audibly after her.​

​

But she was already scurrying back into line. Whatever. It must not have been important. He perused the scroll as he listened to Marshall. Yes, it all held true enough. Vardan shrugged, rolled up the scroll, and stowed it. A fine souvenir for himself once he was finished here.​

​

"A queer request," he eventually said, "But if it is thy desire to die cowering behind a woman, I shall oblige thee."​

​

It was a depraved culture that sent its womenfolk to war. He could not hope to make these Anirians understand the error of their inelegant militancy, only deal with them piecemeal. Vardan issued a rasping sigh and dismounted Brunellus.​

​

He had a small, dark pouch tied to his hip. Vardan gave Brunellus an affectionate pat as he hobbled forward, "Nnh. I hath come with only one grave champion, but methinks it shall suffice. Still, my bugler will take the second spot, if it pleases thee."​

​

Behind him, the undead bugler hobbled forward: some previously young man, a plucky scout, now rotting carelessly in ruined leather armor. The bugler had only his horn and no other discernable armaments. For some people, bad luck just got worse.​

​

Vardan came to a patch of dirt in the space between the two parties and scraped out shallow hole with his heel. He plucked a knuckle bone from his pouch, dropped it into the hole, and then covered it with dirt - again with his heel. The bugler came to stand to the left of it and Vardan went back to his miserable horse, which he remounted after a short struggle.​

​

"Thou'rt now ready to proceed?"​

 

[Lumen]

"Say that to my fucking face again and I will rip your skeleton head from your shoulders, beast," Marshall growled to Vardan. His face turning a bright red in rage at the fiend's comment of anything to do with Lumen. Lumen kept her eyes on what he was doing. Had then been a piece of handbone dropped into the dirt?

Then she studied the bugler.

Yes, it would be better to end his suffering than live his half-life he was in.

Their line stepped back after Vardan began to retreat back to his horse. Lumen readied her shield and slowly withdrew her sword. Marshall had a massive, spiked hammer he lifted.

"Get on with it," Marshall growled in response to Vardan, his blue eyes flickering between Vardan and the spot on the ground he'd just left.

 

[Vardan]

Vardan visibly recoiled from Marshall's outburst, almost as if struck. "Nnnh...! Thy language unbecomes thee greatly."​

​

There seemed to be no difference in the conduct of these Anirians and degenerate swineherds. Either they were vulgar and hot-tempered, as the man, or sulky and meek, as the woman. What had this poor, fallen world come to?​

​

The earth rumbled softly beneath the feet of all assembled. Horses, including Brunellus, shifted uneasily.​

​

"Ah, comes now my champion," Vardan said, rubbing his hands gleefully, "Keheheh... This shall be a rich spectacle."​

​

It wasn't anything someone with sure footing had to worry about. But that excluded the hapless bugler, who tripped tripped and then crawled away uncertainly from the epicenter of the tremors, which just happened to be where Vardan had buried the knucklebone.​

​

The soil buckled inwards, then swelled, only to fall inwards again. The motion repeated as if the earth were breathing... Or if something frightening was threatening to break out - which it eventually did after a few painful moments.​

​

A massive, gauntlet-clad hand burst forth, grasping aimlessly before flattening against the dirt and using this as leverage to pull itself out from underground. Slowly it tore itself free, scattering soil and snow: a tall, hulking abomination, reeking of death.​

​

It looked to be some mockery of a ruined knight pulled from a nightmare: clad head-to-toe in warped, piecemeal armor, which had been melted and reformed countless times. Discarded weapons stuck out from its back like spines.​

​

Wherever it had come from, it brought a sinister black greatsword as its armament of choice.​

​

Vardan was already talking, as if this were the most normal thing in Arethil, "Here - thou now stands afore Sir Medraut, mine oathsworn knight. As he is the challenger, the first blow is thine to take."​

​

The bugler inched next to Medraut, who was shaking bits of dirt and snow from the many crevices of his armor. A low groan came from the knight, which sounded like metal bending under stress.​

​

"Or," Vardan added after a moment, cleaning out one of his eye sockets with a finger, "Thou mayest yet yield."​

 

[Lumen]

Nnnh...! Thy language unbecomes thee greatly.

"You're worried about language when you've murdered my own and entrapped the rest of us to starve!" Marshall all but roared across that snowy-clearing. And for once, Lumen silently agreed with the man. Vardan's morals were as off-kilter as his skin on his bones.

Lumen's sword raised. Her shield was ready and up in her other arm. Eyes narrowed as the very earth broke apart. As the skeleton-man cackled.

Marshall didn't even wait for Vardan to stop talking. He lunged forward with his massive spiked hammer to the knight's greatsword, hoping to snap it in half with the blow. Lumen moved across the snowy-earth with a sure-footedness of one who had endured much training in all conditions. One who had been born and shaped into a refined weapon. While Marshall perhaps had it distracted, she jab her golden-sword toward the back of one of its knee-caps.

 

[Vardan]

Medraut gave a low grunt, seemingly out of surprise - he hadn't even lifted his blade when Marshall struck it with his hammer, cracking it in half at the middle. The whole thing disintegrated into a black mist. That was a common problem with these cursed weapons Medraut lugged around: they tended to be brittle compared to actual steel.​

​

He made another groan when Lumen stabbed him behind the knee. The blade sunk into the metal with ease. A black ichor seeped from the wound, but Medraut didn't buckle. Just above her, the weapons that stuck out of Medraut's back buzzed with energy: a locus point for whatever foul magic gave him form.​

​

Medraut made a fist with his massive hand and slammed it into Marshall's chest. The force of the blow crumpled the front of his breastplate - likely shattering his ribcage - and sent him clear off his feet a few meters away. In the next few minutes he would slip into shock and subsequently expire.​

​

So it goes.​

​

"Hah," said Vardan.​

​

As this transpired, the bugler approached Lumen from behind, and swung at her head with the wide, rusty bell of his instrument.​

 

[Lumen]

"No!" She yelped as Marshall took a hit that caved in his chest. Unmoving form hitting the snowy earth with a final unceremonious thud. She heard the uneven steps of the bugler behind her. Shield raised just in time to take the brunt of his blow.

Punching away with her shield, she raised her sword and arced it toward the bugler's neck, going for a swift beheading if he didn't lumber out of the way. And just as quickly, the temperature around her began to drop drastically as her magic enveloped the giant beast at her back, intending to flash freeze it.

 

[Vardan]

The bugler's head was cut clean from his body. It stood perfectly still for a long moment - as if carefully considering what to do in the face of this bad luck - before crumpling to the floor like a discarded rag.​

​

"Nnnh..." said Vardan, apparently displeased. Losing a good bugler was always a sad occasion.​

​

Medraut was turning to face Lumen, now carrying Marshall's warhammer, only to be stuck in place as ice creeped up his lumbering frame. He swung the warhammer in a furious overhead strike at Lumen as if she were a nail to batter into the earth.​

​

Whatever happened, Medraut was completely enveloped in a thin layer of ice shortly after. Frozen solid and immobilized. Maybe he grunted again, but no one could hear him.​

​

From his horse, Vardan sighed impatiently, and ran a hand down his face. "Hnnnngh... Very well. A stalemate."​

 

[Lumen]

Lumen stumbled out of the way just in time from becoming a squashed mess on the bleak, snowy landscape. Chest rose and fell in rapid breaths. Sword and shield arm still raised as she could afford to turn her full attention on Vardan.

"Call off the blockade," she breathed, keeping her sword arm up - the tip of her blade pointed at the skeleton's throat.

"And I want you to prove it's safe. Escort myself and this contingent," she glanced over her shoulder at the few other soldiers who had come out as witness. "To the main road."

 

[Vardan]

Vardan pointed his chin down, eying Lumen's sumptuous blade. Fine craftsmanship, though it ill-befitted this breathless peasant. "Hm...? Keheheheh... Ah. As the bout is inconclusive, I shall grant one of thy requests. Then I shall have one from thee."​

​

The unmistakable sound of ice cracking pierced the air. Hairline fractures appeared along Medraut's icy prison.​

​

"Choose with haste. Elsewise my champion may yet seek redress."​

 

[Lumen]

A quick glance over her shoulder as her frown deepened. Her frozen hold of the champion wouldn't last forever. And unfortunately, Vardan knew that too.

"Fine. Call off the blockade and I won't drag you back to the fortress myself." She still held her sword up but took a step back for good measure. Angled her body so her eyes could be on Vardan and the frozen behemoth.

"What do you want?"

 

[Vardan]

"Ah, of course. If that is thy wish..."​

​

Vardan beckoned for his remaining minion, the undead footman still carrying his moldering standard. It marched over with an uneven gait and stood patiently while Vardan leaned over from his saddle and slapped it across the face.​

​

A quick burst of black fire erupted from his palm. It left an intricate runic circle scorched in the footman's forehead. Then it lurched off again wordlessly, making its way past the treeline.​

​

"There," said Vardan, "The orders are soon relayed. My leal servants shall not hamper thy departure."​

​

He rolled his shoulders, producing an unpleasant cracking noise. Stretching after a hard day's work.​

​

"Thou mayest leave the fort of Benhaven to me. Then we may consider this score... Hnnnh. 'Settled'."​