Confessional, 20
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Nine
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Thirteen
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Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Yes. I know this took forever to get to you guys. Seriously. I'm so sorry about that. Hopefully the epilogue takes nowhere near that long. I don't want to keep you waiting that long for just a damn epilogue.
Confessional
Chapter Twenty
Glast Heim. How many would lose their lives to it? How long would it be kept shrouded beneath its curse to live, and yet not be alive? Who had given it the curse, and why? And why was it home to the ancient artifacts of the Ragnarok? All questions that soldiers never stopped to ask themselves; Glast Heim just was. It was a part of the world, just like Morroc and Geffen and Prontera and Payon. Just another place, and that was all.
For the first time, Chan found himself questioning these things. It was not like him to do so, and even less like him to actually attempt explanations. None of them were particularly pleasant.
And just when, exactly, had Fuuji started to lose it? Had Glast Heim done it to him or was it some other unknown? Lian's death had certainly seemed to take a toll on him; Chan had seen the crush from the start, he knew how torn up Fuuji had been over the girl. But had that been the thing to do it? Or had it just begun a chain of reactions leading up to this day?
He looked to the boy, who stared blankly down the path to the center of the courtyard. Only twenty; his life was already over, because he'd lost his mind. It was tragic, really. Even Chan felt sorry for him, to some degree; and perhaps he even felt that it could very well have been himself and that he was lucky to escape the fate. Which, of course, left him feeling guilty. The same way he'd felt guilty when he'd survived and Matthews had not.
Fuck, now he was thinking too much. He threw the sword down, holding his head in his hands. Fuuji glanced at him but said nothing, and then continued to stare into the distance of the courtyard.
Thinking was often a dangerous pasttime, his father had always been fond of telling him. He really hoped the bard got back here with Sralani soon, before he ended up driving himself crazy like Fuuji.
And then his eyes went wide and he stared past his hands at the grass for a moment as another dangerous thought struck him. the bard was not trustworthy. Not in the least. "Fuck," he muttered, leaning back against the base of the statue, staring to the door they were waiting for. It was highly likely that he'd ditched Lani somewhere along the way, perhaps even killed her. They may never get out of here. A hopeless smile graced his face as he thought of his daughter, staying with Mister McAllister right now. He really didn't want her going back to Alice; he had to get out of here alive, for her at the very least.
And now he found himself praying to God, the God that he was so indifferent toward and disconnected from, that things would go right for once.
This was why he hated having to depend on others.
~
But Nicholai had not killed Sralani; in fact he went out of his way to keep her protected inside of the labyrinth stair. And he was, indeed, leading her to the door. She wanted to find her brother, and he would help her do that. And also, somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt that he had to help the crusader. Chan didn't deserve to die, not like this. He deserved a warrior's death. He was the sort of man who stuck to his principles, the kind you could trust to be by your side in a war, were he on your side of course. And though they were enemies, Nicholai found himself with a deep respect for the man.
As she watched Nicholai dispatch a Wind Ghost with a sound smack from his lute, Lani found her thoughts trailing to how gracefully he moved, even in combat, and how beautiful he was, even in the same uniform that she wore, bringing out the features about him that normally were unseen. He turned to her, cocking his head to the side which caused his long braid to sway behind him, and said, "What?"
She realized suddenly that he'd noticed her staring, and she blushed, but did not turn away. Then he grinned as he realized the answer to his inquiry, which didn't help her thoughts much. To try and cover for herself, she stammered, "Th-there's a group here. W-we could try to find them for help."
He gave a nod, but as he walked away from her, carrying his instrument over his shoulder, he said, almost in passing, "I cannot blame you, Frauline, Nicholai is being quite lovely, ja?"
It was so sudden and random, she thought as she followed him. It was the same way she'd always felt around Tenyo, but so much stronger. And the feelings had come out of nowhere. Love at first sight? But she'd known him before, so it couldn't be. Was she really the kind of person to fall for somebody so quickly? And a man who was really a woman, no less. How did she go from one awkward lust to another?
They reached a dead end, and Nicholai sighed deeply, falling forward against the wall they'd run up against, as if his strength had left him. "I hate Glast Heim," he muttered to the stone.
Lani stepped forward, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," she said, "we'll find it."
He turned his head, glancing up at her. She leaned toward him, tentatively, knowing what her mind planned on but at the same time not knowing why she moved. Before she knew it, her lips were locked to his.
Suddenly she realized the warm tears against her cheeks, and she felt him choke back a sob so that it would not spill into her mouth from his. She pulled away from the kiss she'd instigated, looked into his cloudy blue eyes that were now foggy instead, filled with tears. "Are you okay?" she asked.
His act, the act that he'd been holding on to since he'd run away from Ulrike being torn to shreds, fell away suddenly and completely. He latched onto Lani, clinging to her as if for dear life, and sobbed into her shoulder. It was real, raw; none of his acting talent was put into the display. She heard him mutter some faint Schwartzwaldern words through his tears, but the only thing she was able to catch was the name Ulrike.
It broke her heart. She found herself wanting to cry too, but kept from it, deciding to be strong. To save him, like she'd said she would.
So she held him close while he cried, the same way she remembered her mother holding her when she had been very young.
~
Somewhere in the depths of the Chivalry, Kelly had relocated the team they'd found previously and informed them of the situation that Chan's squad faced. After consulting their map, they decided to try an approach from the prisons of the castle, which was their current location.
But the prisons were disconcertingly empty. It was always teeming with bugs and the ghouls of prisoners and sickle-weilding rybios, but now they just found the occasional Brilight or Hunter Fly. It was strange, and the squad's wizard said as much.
"What, like they're planning something?" the CO, a dark man in monk's clothes, asked in reply.
"They're monsters," Kelly said. "They're not that smart."
"No," the wizard argued, "once I found a--"
A clanking from behind stopped them and they all turned to see the Bloody Knight that had come up on them from nowhere. While that was daunting, they could take it. The monk stepped forward to engage it while the wizard began casting, and the thief took out his bow as the priest hung back to wait until he was needed.
When the wizard was halfway through his spell, that was when things went bad. The whinnying of a horse came up from nowhere and everywhere at once, and those not directly engaged turned just in time to watch the wizard be cut down by the Abyssmal Knight that had appeared from the depths of the shadows. The priest tried to heal him quickly, but to no avail; he was dead before he hit the ground, and the continued efforts were made in denial.
The monk was engaged with the bloody knight and could not take the new threat. Distracted by the cries from behind him, his adversary hit him a sound whack with his horned shield, goring him and taking him into the wall.
The thief panicked and ran, and the priest went with him because he did not know what else to do. Even Kelly was not arrogant enough to think he should stay for this battle, but when he tried to run, it was already too late, and the Abyss Knight was raising his sword again.
And when they were dispatched, the two monsters looked at one another, gave a nod that spoke of an underlying intelligence somewhere, and then split apart, to lie in wait for the next group of fools to find them.
~
When Lani was forced to release Nicholai to fend off a wind ghost, he knew that he didn't have time for a breakdown right now. So, when she turned back to him, she found him once again the proud-faced man she'd known before, but this time she knew it was a mask that he had pulled down to cover himself once more.
He strode past her to renew their quest for the door, surprising her just a bit with the sudden complete change in his demeanor. But she quickly followed after him as he turned the corner and headed down a staircase. Somewhere along the path, they encountered the squad that Lani had run into before with Kelly.
The four that she had met, the swordswoman, rogue, blacksmith, and sage, were there, gathered around a very shaken looking pair of a thief and priest. The priest looked to be better-off than the thief; his face was drained of colour, but he was explaining something in a very calm voice, while the thief, wide-eyed behind him, was shaking like a leaf and holding himself as if anchoring his body to reality.
"Out of nowhere," Lani heard him saying. "It was horrible."
Lieutenant Amaryn, the swordswoman, responded with, "And the other two?"
"Three, Rynam found us."
"Dead," the thief whispered, his wide eyes focused on nothing in the distance. "All dead, all of them dead."
Lani, hearing this, interrupted, because she could not help but say something. "Kelly's dead?"
All but the two being questioned looked up to her. The priest's gaze was centered on the distance behind her, glazed over like he did not know he was seeing, and the boy kept his eyes unfocused on nothing as he repeated, "All dead... Everyone..."
Nicholai stepped forward to address them, because Lani was shocked by the news and could not. "Herr Chan and Herr Fuuji will find a similar outcome if they are not found quickly. Will you help?"
"Chan?" Amaryn questioned. "Where is he?"
"Trapped in the courtyard, ja?"
The priest's eyes snapped into focus on Nicholai suddenly. "The courtyard below the castle? That's where we were going. We were attacked just near the door."
"What?" Lani cried.
"I bet they were guarding it," said the sage, as he turned back to his CO.
She looked up at him, and then at the rest of her squad. "It sounds like it. Morcott, do you know where the door is here?"
"Sure. Want me to scout?"
"Take Swift and go. Be careful." She emphasized the last sentence heavily.
"Roger, ma'am." He and the rogue ran off to do as they'd been tasked.
Amaryn then turned to Lani and Nicholai, asking, "What are they doing in the courtyard?"
"Hiding from Baphomet," Nicholai answered. "He is being very displeased and was sending his children after us."
Her eyes went just a bit wide. "Oh, shit. They're planning something."
"Planning?" The blacksmith looked at her. "They're not that smart, they're monsters."
"That was our mistake," said the priest. "Those two... They trapped us. The monsters here are smarter than we think."
"Fuck," muttered Amaryn. "This could get bad." She turned her attention fully upon Lani and Nicholai. "Why? What happened to piss off Bapho?"
"We were taking his sword." He pointed to his eye, adding, "And his eye," before dropping his hand, and staring back at her with an ice-coldness that she would have found disconcerting had she not seen so many things in her career.
"Fuck," she repeated, reminding both of them of Chan. Determined, and perhaps to give herself a little boost along with them, she said, "We'll get them out of there."
~
They had been sitting there so long, and Chan was so lost in his thoughts, that when he was suddenly pulled out of them, it was by a strange, scraping noise that he was sure he'd been hearing long before he actually noticed it. As he moved to look up at what was making the noise, his face was forcefully met by a weilded Bible, and he was knocked over, laid out on the stone pathway.
Though dazed, he managed to think through it enough to know that he was in danger from something, and he quickly hauled himself to his feet, stumbling away from whatever had just attacked him.
"Behind you," Tenyo said, just as the din in Chan's head had cleared.
Instinctively, he dropped to a knee. He felt the breeze as the book swung by overhead, and he quickly rose, turning at the same time to strike a blow against the assailant behind him. His sword met with nothing, but the opponent staggered back a few steps, losing its initiative against him.
A man with long silver hair and robes akin to Tenyo's, but more ornate and old-fashioned. One of the long-dead members of Geffenia's clergy, what the soldiers called a Dark Priest. The ghoul looked to Chan from behind the silvery strands that hung over his face, brandishing the Bible before his chest.
Chan stopped, staring, dumbfounded. There was a profound intelligence in the creature's eyes that he found himself unable to fathom. It was dead, it was a monster and a shadow of what it had once been, but it was smart, somehow.
"Where is she?"
Even more shocked, he nearly lost his grip on his sword, but managed to reaffirm it before his weapon clattered to the stone walkway. The Dark Priest did not speak as one would think a ghoul would speak. In fact, he sounded quite a bit like Tenyo. The only thing that gave him away, really, for being dead was the deathly pallor and way he moved, like his limbs weren't controlled from within.
"The woman with the voice, the songstress, where is she?" he demanded, again brandishing the book at Chan.
Tenyo watched the scene, blank, still lounging against that knife-weilding goblin. Chan wondered if he had been watching the same way as the thing had snuck up and cold-cocked him in the face, and then decided it was best not to really think about that one.
Without another word, it lunged at him. He was caught off-guard, but managed to sidestep in time to avoid the attack. The Dark Priest spun back effortlessly and swung his Bible again; this time Chan raised his sword to block the strike. The sound of metal against metal rang out in the courtyard as the two weapons met.
No wonder it had hurt so much.
The ghoul pulled back, and both fighters took up defensive stances, waiting for the other to move. "Where is she?" the thing demanded once more.
"Not fuckin' here, obviously," Chan snapped back in reply. "Who the hell wants to know?"
"Lord Baphomet wants her back."
"Back?" he said, before he realized how surprised he sounded. Was the bard originally an advocate of Glast Heim? Or did the thing mean Nicholai's brief treachery for the sword? But then...why were they sending scouts out for the bard, and not for the sword?
"Where is she?" it demanded once more.
"I don't fucking know, the bard left hours ago."
"Liar!"
"You fuckin' see 'im here?"
The Dark Priest hesitated, and there was a sort of dawning in his intelligent eyes as he realized what Chan said was true. He frowned, looking at the large, two-handed sword that Chan weilded. He recognized that. It belonged to them. "How did you get that sword?" he said, glaring at the crusader.
"That bard you're lookin' for."
The answer was met by a cold glare. Chan took the opportunity to glance at Fuuji; the boy was idly examining his fingernails, as if his former CO was not currently in the middle of the weirdest conversation he'd ever had. The dark priest took the opportunity to rush Chan, bringing his metal Bible up to catch him across the face. With reflexes Chan didn't even know he had, he raised the sword and blocked, his opponent's weapon glancing off and throwing him off balance. Fuuji didn't so much as bat an eye.
Then, the sound of stone grating on stone. He recognized it, the same sound the doors had made when he'd closed them. He looked up; a different set was opening. That could not be good. Those Baphomet Jr.'s had gotten permission and come back with reinforcements, most likely.
The dark priest took his momentary distraction as an opportunity and rushed him. Chan caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and raised his sword to block again, but this time he was the one caught off balance and he was thrown against one of the statues. The sound of stone on stone again, and apparently the statue had more give than it should have.
Fuuji looked up long enough to see Chan's realization that the statue had moved when he'd been thrown into it. This didn't go far before the dark priest leapt at him again. He ducked to the side, and caught the creature with a blow to the chest with his elbow, throwing him back. While the dark priest took the time to recover from his sudden fall, Chan quickly turned to the statue and pushed. It moved too smoothly for it to be a fluke, the thing was on tracks, which meant that it moved for a reason.
There was a passage. A ladder hidden by the statue, leading down into some sort of darkness. An escape? A ray of hope, definitely--
The monster was on him again, arms around his neck, dragging him back, away from his newfound escape route. "Nobody leaves!" it cried. "Nobody leaves Glast Heim forever!"
Fuuji stared as Chan struggled to get out of the monster's grip, but made no move to help. He realized suddenly that the sound of stone on stone had continued longer than it should have and seemed much closer now, and looked up at the doors that they were waiting for. They were indeed opening. He looked back to the doors at the other end of the courtyard to check their status; wide open, and a veritable horde was pouring out like a river had burst its dam, and there, at the front, stood Baphomet. Fuuji straightened, staring now at the army of undead that rushed toward them. He'd known it would end soon enough.
Chan's struggle ended, very suddenly, when the dark priest went limp and fell away. He was too busy trying to catch his breath from the choking he'd just endured to wonder why, and didn't even realize he was on his knees until he found himself looking up at a woman he remembered to be much shorter than himself. "Ama--"
"Chan, are you okay?" she asked in a hurried rush of words, before he could finish her name.
He looked up as a rogue, carrying a bow in one hand, walked over to kick the no-longer animated corpse of the dark priest, which lay there wide-eyed with an arrow piercing his temple. "Swift...?" he managed. She glanced over at him and flashed a smile.
And then, as Chan climbed to his feet, in a veritable blur of green and white, Lani rushed by the three of them to tackle her brother, clinging to him so fiercely that even he, in his mindless state, looked utterly shocked. "Oh, Tenyo," she cried, "Tenyo you're all right!"
And when Chan looked up to see this, he noticed behind them, in the distance, the advancing army. "Shit," he said.
Amaryn glanced up to see what he was looking at. Her eyes went wide, and she echoed his statement.
And then, suddenly, there came a scream from behind them and they both turned to the doorway just in time to watch Morcott, the sage, cast a fire wall to keep an abysmal knight and several mimic chests and hunter flies away from himself and Nicholai. Nicholai stood behind the sage, wide-eyed, weilding his bow a little unsurely. Both, certainly, looked very frightened.
"Fuck," Amaryn muttered, and then she followed with a, "Huh?" as Chan moved back toward the statue he'd moved to uncover the secret entrance.
"We gotta get out," he said, setting his shoulder against the statue again, shoving it all the way back to completely uncover the exit.
Meanwhile, Lani was shoved bodily from Tenyo, landing harshly on the ground. "Go away," he said, his voice cold.
She hastened to move back to her feet. "But Tenyo--"
"I'm going to die here," he said, glaring down at her. "There's nothing anybody can do about it."
She froze, staring back at him. She'd come so far to find him, she couldn't give up on that now.
Morcott practically screamed out the spelling words to cast another fire wall in a fit of panic. Nicholai was trying to control his shaking hands so that he could fire through it at the flies and chests; he knew there was no way he'd be able to kill that knight, or the two khalitzburgs with it. The sage followed up with an also panicked chant to cast a firebolt at one of the mimics. The two of them were not going to hold this front long. Thankfully, Swift had realized what was going on and was firing through the firewall as well, from her position near Chan and Amaryn.
"Go," Chan told Amaryn, standing over the passage into the darkness. She opened her mouth to refuse, but he interrupted her before she could speak. "Don't worry about it, I'll get everyone through."
She gave a nod and started down the ladder. He looked up at the approaching horde. Over halfway across the courtyard now. This had to go fast. He looked over to address Swift, but paused suddenly when he realized that the other squad seemed to be missing somebody. Brun, the blacksmith, where was he? "Swift," he said, "where the fuck is Brun?"
"LT sent him off with the two survivors to base camp," Swift answered, drawing back her bowstring and knocking a red hunter fly out of the air with a faint dying buzz.
That was a relief. Brun wasn't dead, at least. But "two survivors" didn't sound so good. No time to ask about that now, though. "Go," he told her, motioning to the passage. She nodded and followed her lieutenant down, just as Morcott cast another firewall and Nicholai found himself shaking so badly that he could not aim for the life of him.
Lani tugged Tenyo's arm, pleading for him to follow. He shoved her away once more, but this time she didn't fall. "I'm not going anywhere!" he shouted, glaring at her. She moved to grab him again, but she was grabbed instead. She looked back over her shoulder at Nicholai; she had less than a second to realize it was his hand stealing her arm before he stole her, dragging her to the exit.
"No!" she exclaimed, trying to pull away.
He yanked her toward himself and practically threw her into the statue. "Go!" he yelled at her, while she stared in shock. "Fool, you would die here too?"
"But Tenyo--" As she looked up at him, her brother gave her a cold glare, the likes of which she had never seen from him before. It shocked her, deeply. She saw nothing of her brother in that look.
Morcott arrived beside her then, took her more gently, and guided her down. She protested weakly, but he followed down after her, blocking her from climbing back up. Nicholai followed swiftly.
Chan looked up to Tenyo. He knew the kid wasn't coming. He'd made up his mind to die there. "Fuuji," he said anyway, with the faintest hope that it would spark him into something.
"I'll close it for you," he said coldly, without looking at him.
Chan wanted to ask why he even cared, what he thought he was accomplishing by letting himself die here. But he didn't have the time, that army was way too close for comfort. He tried to think of something poignant to say, but found nothing, and decided instead to let it be. He ducked into the passageway, leaving Fuuji alone to face Baphomet's minions.
He died against the statue, but anybody who might come for him later would find no body, nor traces of where one may have been, but for the trail of blood leading away.
~
The passage led to Glast Heim's culverts. Chan and Amaryn had been there together on assignment before, so they knew the path through without getting lost. Morcott cast a couple of firewalls behind them, knowing that the advance would follow them down. Their escape went unhindered; all the monsters that were normally there had been gathered up for Baphomet's army. They emerged from the culverts into the Church Graveyard without seeing even the faintest flash of the enemy, for which all were thankful.
But, once they were in the Graveyard, that meant Nicholai knew exactly where they were. He also knew that Chan was going to take him under arrest as soon as they were out of Glast, and he couldn't risk that. So he decided to make a break for it before he knew they were scott free.
"Fuck," Chan muttered, as Nicholai started running. "Morcott, catch 'im." He wasn't gonna chase him. Hell no. Leave that up to somebody who wasn't already completely fed up with him. "We'll meet you outside."
Lani normally would have protested, but she was too shaken up by what was going on to say anything, or even really notice what was going on. She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't used to things like this. Morcott, not even a muttered, "Yes sir," ran after Nicholai. The rest of them made their way out of the city, knowing that the denizens of Glast couldn't step foot over the threshold.
At the camp outside, Chan was forced to relate the story of what had happened to his senior officer, telling him that his entire squad was gone, that Baphomet was leading an army for the sword (which he was told by the CO to keep, rather than hand over), and that Morcott was still back there, apprehending the spy Clayborne had turned out to be.
It was as he was sitting there relating the story to the Major that Morcott ran back to the camp, stirring up a commotion as the soldiers around saw the body he was carrying. Chan saw him take a swift turn for the medic tent and threw his sword down, muttering a curse, not even bothering to excuse himself before standing and running to see what had happened.
When he got there, the medic was hurrying to bandage the horrible gashes running from the left side of Nicholai's face to about halfway down his arm. The bard seemed conscious, but definitely catatonic. Chan looked up at Morcott, whose clothes were stained in blood from carrying the spy back, and asked, "What the fuck happened?"
Morcott shook his head, auburn hair falling in his face as he did so. "Mimic." And that was the only explanation he would give.
"Fuck," Chan muttered. If the bard died here... "Don't you dare fucking let that bastard die," he said, addressing the medic.
She glanced up at him, eyes a bit wide at the harsh statement.
He shook his head, muttering frustrated curses under his breath, and walked out to go continue talking to the Major.
The next morning, when Chan took the Major to the medical tent to see if the bard were awake and coherent enough to answer some questions, those curses were loud enough for most of the camp to hear. Nicholai had vanished.
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Yes. I know this took forever to get to you guys. Seriously. I'm so sorry about that. Hopefully the epilogue takes nowhere near that long. I don't want to keep you waiting that long for just a damn epilogue.
Confessional
Chapter Twenty
Glast Heim. How many would lose their lives to it? How long would it be kept shrouded beneath its curse to live, and yet not be alive? Who had given it the curse, and why? And why was it home to the ancient artifacts of the Ragnarok? All questions that soldiers never stopped to ask themselves; Glast Heim just was. It was a part of the world, just like Morroc and Geffen and Prontera and Payon. Just another place, and that was all.
For the first time, Chan found himself questioning these things. It was not like him to do so, and even less like him to actually attempt explanations. None of them were particularly pleasant.
And just when, exactly, had Fuuji started to lose it? Had Glast Heim done it to him or was it some other unknown? Lian's death had certainly seemed to take a toll on him; Chan had seen the crush from the start, he knew how torn up Fuuji had been over the girl. But had that been the thing to do it? Or had it just begun a chain of reactions leading up to this day?
He looked to the boy, who stared blankly down the path to the center of the courtyard. Only twenty; his life was already over, because he'd lost his mind. It was tragic, really. Even Chan felt sorry for him, to some degree; and perhaps he even felt that it could very well have been himself and that he was lucky to escape the fate. Which, of course, left him feeling guilty. The same way he'd felt guilty when he'd survived and Matthews had not.
Fuck, now he was thinking too much. He threw the sword down, holding his head in his hands. Fuuji glanced at him but said nothing, and then continued to stare into the distance of the courtyard.
Thinking was often a dangerous pasttime, his father had always been fond of telling him. He really hoped the bard got back here with Sralani soon, before he ended up driving himself crazy like Fuuji.
And then his eyes went wide and he stared past his hands at the grass for a moment as another dangerous thought struck him. the bard was not trustworthy. Not in the least. "Fuck," he muttered, leaning back against the base of the statue, staring to the door they were waiting for. It was highly likely that he'd ditched Lani somewhere along the way, perhaps even killed her. They may never get out of here. A hopeless smile graced his face as he thought of his daughter, staying with Mister McAllister right now. He really didn't want her going back to Alice; he had to get out of here alive, for her at the very least.
And now he found himself praying to God, the God that he was so indifferent toward and disconnected from, that things would go right for once.
This was why he hated having to depend on others.
~
But Nicholai had not killed Sralani; in fact he went out of his way to keep her protected inside of the labyrinth stair. And he was, indeed, leading her to the door. She wanted to find her brother, and he would help her do that. And also, somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt that he had to help the crusader. Chan didn't deserve to die, not like this. He deserved a warrior's death. He was the sort of man who stuck to his principles, the kind you could trust to be by your side in a war, were he on your side of course. And though they were enemies, Nicholai found himself with a deep respect for the man.
As she watched Nicholai dispatch a Wind Ghost with a sound smack from his lute, Lani found her thoughts trailing to how gracefully he moved, even in combat, and how beautiful he was, even in the same uniform that she wore, bringing out the features about him that normally were unseen. He turned to her, cocking his head to the side which caused his long braid to sway behind him, and said, "What?"
She realized suddenly that he'd noticed her staring, and she blushed, but did not turn away. Then he grinned as he realized the answer to his inquiry, which didn't help her thoughts much. To try and cover for herself, she stammered, "Th-there's a group here. W-we could try to find them for help."
He gave a nod, but as he walked away from her, carrying his instrument over his shoulder, he said, almost in passing, "I cannot blame you, Frauline, Nicholai is being quite lovely, ja?"
It was so sudden and random, she thought as she followed him. It was the same way she'd always felt around Tenyo, but so much stronger. And the feelings had come out of nowhere. Love at first sight? But she'd known him before, so it couldn't be. Was she really the kind of person to fall for somebody so quickly? And a man who was really a woman, no less. How did she go from one awkward lust to another?
They reached a dead end, and Nicholai sighed deeply, falling forward against the wall they'd run up against, as if his strength had left him. "I hate Glast Heim," he muttered to the stone.
Lani stepped forward, reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," she said, "we'll find it."
He turned his head, glancing up at her. She leaned toward him, tentatively, knowing what her mind planned on but at the same time not knowing why she moved. Before she knew it, her lips were locked to his.
Suddenly she realized the warm tears against her cheeks, and she felt him choke back a sob so that it would not spill into her mouth from his. She pulled away from the kiss she'd instigated, looked into his cloudy blue eyes that were now foggy instead, filled with tears. "Are you okay?" she asked.
His act, the act that he'd been holding on to since he'd run away from Ulrike being torn to shreds, fell away suddenly and completely. He latched onto Lani, clinging to her as if for dear life, and sobbed into her shoulder. It was real, raw; none of his acting talent was put into the display. She heard him mutter some faint Schwartzwaldern words through his tears, but the only thing she was able to catch was the name Ulrike.
It broke her heart. She found herself wanting to cry too, but kept from it, deciding to be strong. To save him, like she'd said she would.
So she held him close while he cried, the same way she remembered her mother holding her when she had been very young.
~
Somewhere in the depths of the Chivalry, Kelly had relocated the team they'd found previously and informed them of the situation that Chan's squad faced. After consulting their map, they decided to try an approach from the prisons of the castle, which was their current location.
But the prisons were disconcertingly empty. It was always teeming with bugs and the ghouls of prisoners and sickle-weilding rybios, but now they just found the occasional Brilight or Hunter Fly. It was strange, and the squad's wizard said as much.
"What, like they're planning something?" the CO, a dark man in monk's clothes, asked in reply.
"They're monsters," Kelly said. "They're not that smart."
"No," the wizard argued, "once I found a--"
A clanking from behind stopped them and they all turned to see the Bloody Knight that had come up on them from nowhere. While that was daunting, they could take it. The monk stepped forward to engage it while the wizard began casting, and the thief took out his bow as the priest hung back to wait until he was needed.
When the wizard was halfway through his spell, that was when things went bad. The whinnying of a horse came up from nowhere and everywhere at once, and those not directly engaged turned just in time to watch the wizard be cut down by the Abyssmal Knight that had appeared from the depths of the shadows. The priest tried to heal him quickly, but to no avail; he was dead before he hit the ground, and the continued efforts were made in denial.
The monk was engaged with the bloody knight and could not take the new threat. Distracted by the cries from behind him, his adversary hit him a sound whack with his horned shield, goring him and taking him into the wall.
The thief panicked and ran, and the priest went with him because he did not know what else to do. Even Kelly was not arrogant enough to think he should stay for this battle, but when he tried to run, it was already too late, and the Abyss Knight was raising his sword again.
And when they were dispatched, the two monsters looked at one another, gave a nod that spoke of an underlying intelligence somewhere, and then split apart, to lie in wait for the next group of fools to find them.
~
When Lani was forced to release Nicholai to fend off a wind ghost, he knew that he didn't have time for a breakdown right now. So, when she turned back to him, she found him once again the proud-faced man she'd known before, but this time she knew it was a mask that he had pulled down to cover himself once more.
He strode past her to renew their quest for the door, surprising her just a bit with the sudden complete change in his demeanor. But she quickly followed after him as he turned the corner and headed down a staircase. Somewhere along the path, they encountered the squad that Lani had run into before with Kelly.
The four that she had met, the swordswoman, rogue, blacksmith, and sage, were there, gathered around a very shaken looking pair of a thief and priest. The priest looked to be better-off than the thief; his face was drained of colour, but he was explaining something in a very calm voice, while the thief, wide-eyed behind him, was shaking like a leaf and holding himself as if anchoring his body to reality.
"Out of nowhere," Lani heard him saying. "It was horrible."
Lieutenant Amaryn, the swordswoman, responded with, "And the other two?"
"Three, Rynam found us."
"Dead," the thief whispered, his wide eyes focused on nothing in the distance. "All dead, all of them dead."
Lani, hearing this, interrupted, because she could not help but say something. "Kelly's dead?"
All but the two being questioned looked up to her. The priest's gaze was centered on the distance behind her, glazed over like he did not know he was seeing, and the boy kept his eyes unfocused on nothing as he repeated, "All dead... Everyone..."
Nicholai stepped forward to address them, because Lani was shocked by the news and could not. "Herr Chan and Herr Fuuji will find a similar outcome if they are not found quickly. Will you help?"
"Chan?" Amaryn questioned. "Where is he?"
"Trapped in the courtyard, ja?"
The priest's eyes snapped into focus on Nicholai suddenly. "The courtyard below the castle? That's where we were going. We were attacked just near the door."
"What?" Lani cried.
"I bet they were guarding it," said the sage, as he turned back to his CO.
She looked up at him, and then at the rest of her squad. "It sounds like it. Morcott, do you know where the door is here?"
"Sure. Want me to scout?"
"Take Swift and go. Be careful." She emphasized the last sentence heavily.
"Roger, ma'am." He and the rogue ran off to do as they'd been tasked.
Amaryn then turned to Lani and Nicholai, asking, "What are they doing in the courtyard?"
"Hiding from Baphomet," Nicholai answered. "He is being very displeased and was sending his children after us."
Her eyes went just a bit wide. "Oh, shit. They're planning something."
"Planning?" The blacksmith looked at her. "They're not that smart, they're monsters."
"That was our mistake," said the priest. "Those two... They trapped us. The monsters here are smarter than we think."
"Fuck," muttered Amaryn. "This could get bad." She turned her attention fully upon Lani and Nicholai. "Why? What happened to piss off Bapho?"
"We were taking his sword." He pointed to his eye, adding, "And his eye," before dropping his hand, and staring back at her with an ice-coldness that she would have found disconcerting had she not seen so many things in her career.
"Fuck," she repeated, reminding both of them of Chan. Determined, and perhaps to give herself a little boost along with them, she said, "We'll get them out of there."
~
They had been sitting there so long, and Chan was so lost in his thoughts, that when he was suddenly pulled out of them, it was by a strange, scraping noise that he was sure he'd been hearing long before he actually noticed it. As he moved to look up at what was making the noise, his face was forcefully met by a weilded Bible, and he was knocked over, laid out on the stone pathway.
Though dazed, he managed to think through it enough to know that he was in danger from something, and he quickly hauled himself to his feet, stumbling away from whatever had just attacked him.
"Behind you," Tenyo said, just as the din in Chan's head had cleared.
Instinctively, he dropped to a knee. He felt the breeze as the book swung by overhead, and he quickly rose, turning at the same time to strike a blow against the assailant behind him. His sword met with nothing, but the opponent staggered back a few steps, losing its initiative against him.
A man with long silver hair and robes akin to Tenyo's, but more ornate and old-fashioned. One of the long-dead members of Geffenia's clergy, what the soldiers called a Dark Priest. The ghoul looked to Chan from behind the silvery strands that hung over his face, brandishing the Bible before his chest.
Chan stopped, staring, dumbfounded. There was a profound intelligence in the creature's eyes that he found himself unable to fathom. It was dead, it was a monster and a shadow of what it had once been, but it was smart, somehow.
"Where is she?"
Even more shocked, he nearly lost his grip on his sword, but managed to reaffirm it before his weapon clattered to the stone walkway. The Dark Priest did not speak as one would think a ghoul would speak. In fact, he sounded quite a bit like Tenyo. The only thing that gave him away, really, for being dead was the deathly pallor and way he moved, like his limbs weren't controlled from within.
"The woman with the voice, the songstress, where is she?" he demanded, again brandishing the book at Chan.
Tenyo watched the scene, blank, still lounging against that knife-weilding goblin. Chan wondered if he had been watching the same way as the thing had snuck up and cold-cocked him in the face, and then decided it was best not to really think about that one.
Without another word, it lunged at him. He was caught off-guard, but managed to sidestep in time to avoid the attack. The Dark Priest spun back effortlessly and swung his Bible again; this time Chan raised his sword to block the strike. The sound of metal against metal rang out in the courtyard as the two weapons met.
No wonder it had hurt so much.
The ghoul pulled back, and both fighters took up defensive stances, waiting for the other to move. "Where is she?" the thing demanded once more.
"Not fuckin' here, obviously," Chan snapped back in reply. "Who the hell wants to know?"
"Lord Baphomet wants her back."
"Back?" he said, before he realized how surprised he sounded. Was the bard originally an advocate of Glast Heim? Or did the thing mean Nicholai's brief treachery for the sword? But then...why were they sending scouts out for the bard, and not for the sword?
"Where is she?" it demanded once more.
"I don't fucking know, the bard left hours ago."
"Liar!"
"You fuckin' see 'im here?"
The Dark Priest hesitated, and there was a sort of dawning in his intelligent eyes as he realized what Chan said was true. He frowned, looking at the large, two-handed sword that Chan weilded. He recognized that. It belonged to them. "How did you get that sword?" he said, glaring at the crusader.
"That bard you're lookin' for."
The answer was met by a cold glare. Chan took the opportunity to glance at Fuuji; the boy was idly examining his fingernails, as if his former CO was not currently in the middle of the weirdest conversation he'd ever had. The dark priest took the opportunity to rush Chan, bringing his metal Bible up to catch him across the face. With reflexes Chan didn't even know he had, he raised the sword and blocked, his opponent's weapon glancing off and throwing him off balance. Fuuji didn't so much as bat an eye.
Then, the sound of stone grating on stone. He recognized it, the same sound the doors had made when he'd closed them. He looked up; a different set was opening. That could not be good. Those Baphomet Jr.'s had gotten permission and come back with reinforcements, most likely.
The dark priest took his momentary distraction as an opportunity and rushed him. Chan caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and raised his sword to block again, but this time he was the one caught off balance and he was thrown against one of the statues. The sound of stone on stone again, and apparently the statue had more give than it should have.
Fuuji looked up long enough to see Chan's realization that the statue had moved when he'd been thrown into it. This didn't go far before the dark priest leapt at him again. He ducked to the side, and caught the creature with a blow to the chest with his elbow, throwing him back. While the dark priest took the time to recover from his sudden fall, Chan quickly turned to the statue and pushed. It moved too smoothly for it to be a fluke, the thing was on tracks, which meant that it moved for a reason.
There was a passage. A ladder hidden by the statue, leading down into some sort of darkness. An escape? A ray of hope, definitely--
The monster was on him again, arms around his neck, dragging him back, away from his newfound escape route. "Nobody leaves!" it cried. "Nobody leaves Glast Heim forever!"
Fuuji stared as Chan struggled to get out of the monster's grip, but made no move to help. He realized suddenly that the sound of stone on stone had continued longer than it should have and seemed much closer now, and looked up at the doors that they were waiting for. They were indeed opening. He looked back to the doors at the other end of the courtyard to check their status; wide open, and a veritable horde was pouring out like a river had burst its dam, and there, at the front, stood Baphomet. Fuuji straightened, staring now at the army of undead that rushed toward them. He'd known it would end soon enough.
Chan's struggle ended, very suddenly, when the dark priest went limp and fell away. He was too busy trying to catch his breath from the choking he'd just endured to wonder why, and didn't even realize he was on his knees until he found himself looking up at a woman he remembered to be much shorter than himself. "Ama--"
"Chan, are you okay?" she asked in a hurried rush of words, before he could finish her name.
He looked up as a rogue, carrying a bow in one hand, walked over to kick the no-longer animated corpse of the dark priest, which lay there wide-eyed with an arrow piercing his temple. "Swift...?" he managed. She glanced over at him and flashed a smile.
And then, as Chan climbed to his feet, in a veritable blur of green and white, Lani rushed by the three of them to tackle her brother, clinging to him so fiercely that even he, in his mindless state, looked utterly shocked. "Oh, Tenyo," she cried, "Tenyo you're all right!"
And when Chan looked up to see this, he noticed behind them, in the distance, the advancing army. "Shit," he said.
Amaryn glanced up to see what he was looking at. Her eyes went wide, and she echoed his statement.
And then, suddenly, there came a scream from behind them and they both turned to the doorway just in time to watch Morcott, the sage, cast a fire wall to keep an abysmal knight and several mimic chests and hunter flies away from himself and Nicholai. Nicholai stood behind the sage, wide-eyed, weilding his bow a little unsurely. Both, certainly, looked very frightened.
"Fuck," Amaryn muttered, and then she followed with a, "Huh?" as Chan moved back toward the statue he'd moved to uncover the secret entrance.
"We gotta get out," he said, setting his shoulder against the statue again, shoving it all the way back to completely uncover the exit.
Meanwhile, Lani was shoved bodily from Tenyo, landing harshly on the ground. "Go away," he said, his voice cold.
She hastened to move back to her feet. "But Tenyo--"
"I'm going to die here," he said, glaring down at her. "There's nothing anybody can do about it."
She froze, staring back at him. She'd come so far to find him, she couldn't give up on that now.
Morcott practically screamed out the spelling words to cast another fire wall in a fit of panic. Nicholai was trying to control his shaking hands so that he could fire through it at the flies and chests; he knew there was no way he'd be able to kill that knight, or the two khalitzburgs with it. The sage followed up with an also panicked chant to cast a firebolt at one of the mimics. The two of them were not going to hold this front long. Thankfully, Swift had realized what was going on and was firing through the firewall as well, from her position near Chan and Amaryn.
"Go," Chan told Amaryn, standing over the passage into the darkness. She opened her mouth to refuse, but he interrupted her before she could speak. "Don't worry about it, I'll get everyone through."
She gave a nod and started down the ladder. He looked up at the approaching horde. Over halfway across the courtyard now. This had to go fast. He looked over to address Swift, but paused suddenly when he realized that the other squad seemed to be missing somebody. Brun, the blacksmith, where was he? "Swift," he said, "where the fuck is Brun?"
"LT sent him off with the two survivors to base camp," Swift answered, drawing back her bowstring and knocking a red hunter fly out of the air with a faint dying buzz.
That was a relief. Brun wasn't dead, at least. But "two survivors" didn't sound so good. No time to ask about that now, though. "Go," he told her, motioning to the passage. She nodded and followed her lieutenant down, just as Morcott cast another firewall and Nicholai found himself shaking so badly that he could not aim for the life of him.
Lani tugged Tenyo's arm, pleading for him to follow. He shoved her away once more, but this time she didn't fall. "I'm not going anywhere!" he shouted, glaring at her. She moved to grab him again, but she was grabbed instead. She looked back over her shoulder at Nicholai; she had less than a second to realize it was his hand stealing her arm before he stole her, dragging her to the exit.
"No!" she exclaimed, trying to pull away.
He yanked her toward himself and practically threw her into the statue. "Go!" he yelled at her, while she stared in shock. "Fool, you would die here too?"
"But Tenyo--" As she looked up at him, her brother gave her a cold glare, the likes of which she had never seen from him before. It shocked her, deeply. She saw nothing of her brother in that look.
Morcott arrived beside her then, took her more gently, and guided her down. She protested weakly, but he followed down after her, blocking her from climbing back up. Nicholai followed swiftly.
Chan looked up to Tenyo. He knew the kid wasn't coming. He'd made up his mind to die there. "Fuuji," he said anyway, with the faintest hope that it would spark him into something.
"I'll close it for you," he said coldly, without looking at him.
Chan wanted to ask why he even cared, what he thought he was accomplishing by letting himself die here. But he didn't have the time, that army was way too close for comfort. He tried to think of something poignant to say, but found nothing, and decided instead to let it be. He ducked into the passageway, leaving Fuuji alone to face Baphomet's minions.
He died against the statue, but anybody who might come for him later would find no body, nor traces of where one may have been, but for the trail of blood leading away.
~
The passage led to Glast Heim's culverts. Chan and Amaryn had been there together on assignment before, so they knew the path through without getting lost. Morcott cast a couple of firewalls behind them, knowing that the advance would follow them down. Their escape went unhindered; all the monsters that were normally there had been gathered up for Baphomet's army. They emerged from the culverts into the Church Graveyard without seeing even the faintest flash of the enemy, for which all were thankful.
But, once they were in the Graveyard, that meant Nicholai knew exactly where they were. He also knew that Chan was going to take him under arrest as soon as they were out of Glast, and he couldn't risk that. So he decided to make a break for it before he knew they were scott free.
"Fuck," Chan muttered, as Nicholai started running. "Morcott, catch 'im." He wasn't gonna chase him. Hell no. Leave that up to somebody who wasn't already completely fed up with him. "We'll meet you outside."
Lani normally would have protested, but she was too shaken up by what was going on to say anything, or even really notice what was going on. She wasn't a soldier. She wasn't used to things like this. Morcott, not even a muttered, "Yes sir," ran after Nicholai. The rest of them made their way out of the city, knowing that the denizens of Glast couldn't step foot over the threshold.
At the camp outside, Chan was forced to relate the story of what had happened to his senior officer, telling him that his entire squad was gone, that Baphomet was leading an army for the sword (which he was told by the CO to keep, rather than hand over), and that Morcott was still back there, apprehending the spy Clayborne had turned out to be.
It was as he was sitting there relating the story to the Major that Morcott ran back to the camp, stirring up a commotion as the soldiers around saw the body he was carrying. Chan saw him take a swift turn for the medic tent and threw his sword down, muttering a curse, not even bothering to excuse himself before standing and running to see what had happened.
When he got there, the medic was hurrying to bandage the horrible gashes running from the left side of Nicholai's face to about halfway down his arm. The bard seemed conscious, but definitely catatonic. Chan looked up at Morcott, whose clothes were stained in blood from carrying the spy back, and asked, "What the fuck happened?"
Morcott shook his head, auburn hair falling in his face as he did so. "Mimic." And that was the only explanation he would give.
"Fuck," Chan muttered. If the bard died here... "Don't you dare fucking let that bastard die," he said, addressing the medic.
She glanced up at him, eyes a bit wide at the harsh statement.
He shook his head, muttering frustrated curses under his breath, and walked out to go continue talking to the Major.
The next morning, when Chan took the Major to the medical tent to see if the bard were awake and coherent enough to answer some questions, those curses were loud enough for most of the camp to hear. Nicholai had vanished.