Tales of Mantica

by Rospond, Brandon; Waugh, Duncan; Werner, CL

  Hilde reached up to touch the scar down her cheek, but she quickly brought her hand back down when she realized what she was doing.

  “It’s a wonder I did not lose my life that day. It was decided that I was to relinquish my sword and title. That the horror I had seen, witnessing my entire army get massacred, was too much for any one paladin. The Hegemony would not hear my plea otherwise. They wanted me to retire my blade and work in Basilea instead as a… a… civilian.” The word exploded out of her mouth like some insult she was appalled to utter. “I gave most of my adult life to the Hegemony, and they wanted to dismiss me! It was then that I remembered hearing tales about the Northern Alliance and, since I had no better options, decided to see for myself what it was about.”

  Gavin found himself nodding at the end of her tale as he was halfway through the haunch of meat. He had often wondered how she got her wound, and her story was similar to the one Gavin had devised in his head.

  “Bravo! Encore!” Darriel clapped his hands as he wiped away an imaginary tear. “What a heartfelt story. And so here you are, well-fitted to join the band of merry misfits, indeed!”

  Hilde swore some sort of racial slur under her breath before emptying the contents of her mug. Darriel stared at her expectantly.

  “What, you don’t want to hear my tale?”

  “No, not really,” she leaned back on the bench, crossing her arms.

  “Not much to tell,” Benthur mumbled, his eyes still glued to his project. “You lived ‘round here. You were bored. You saw the Alliance banners. You signed up in search of some fun. You’ve found it in annoyin’ the piss outta others.”

  Darriel held out a finger pointed at Benthur, his mouth held agape for several moments. “You… couldn’t be further from the truth! You see, I… Well, my sister’s lover, he…” Darriel dropped his hands down, slamming them open palmed on the table once more. “Damn you, dwarf! Yes, you’re right. I was bored. The army was here. And I find most of you entertaining. You being the very exception to that!”

  If Benthur heard him, he didn’t pay his words any heed. He just kept playing with some small mechanical device, spinning things here, wrenching things there, inspecting the finer parts of it. Gavin chuckled slightly into his drink. He was always keen on the dwarf, even if he never joined them on the battlefield, due to his jobs within the castle.

  “Alright, fine,” Darriel held his hands up, running one of them through his slicked back, shoulder-length black hair as he composed himself. “Fine. Gorram?”

  “I already told you. It was a life I chose to leave behind. Other than that, I’ll pass on the details.”

  Darriel drummed his fingers on the table, as if trying to muster the courage to challenge the former Varangur to regale more of his tale, but he decided against it.

  “Okay, how about you, Sir Brooding?”

  “I’ll follow suit with Gorram,” Gavin said as he drained the last of his ale. He stood and grabbed his helmet. “I’ll pass. Good night to you all.”

  Gorram looked up and locked eyes with Gavin, sending a strange chill down his spine, but the bigger man eventually nodded before returning to his drink. Darriel sat defeated, and Benthur and Hilde said their good nights to Gavin.

  * * * * *

  Gavin awoke with a strange feeling. His eyes opened from the blackness, and the short rectangular room in which he came to looked nothing like he remembered. The walls looked to match the architectural style of Chill and not the barracks he resided in. There were no windows and very few things of actual interest. It was cold and empty.

  He tried to stand and faltered, realizing he was already on his feet when he awoke. He had a vague recognition of the room, but he wasn’t sure from where. He turned around to look at the empty walls, until his back was to the middle of the room.

  “So you have awoken.”

  The peaceful voice that sounded like music to his soul should have startled him, but for whatever reason, he felt calm and at ease. He turned around to see a woman hovering just above the ground in the center of the room. Her pale skin complimented the silvery teal hair that flowed down her back in long curly ribbons. Her white dress was as pure as the snow outside of Chill, accented with flowery, silver, crystal-like designs; as well as matching crystal teardrop earrings. Her deep blue eyes met Gavin and gave him a warm smile, despite her chilly appearance.

  “Wh-… Who are you?” It was the first question Gavin could utter in the slew of ones that rushed to his mind.

  “You may call me… Aurora.”

  “Aurora?” Gavin frowned. “Like the name the soldiers have for the wall’s reflection of light?”

  “Who do you think gave them the name?” The ethereal figure's eyes remained locked on Gavin's. “The word for such a concept would have needed to be derived from somewhere. Do you honestly believe that the minds of men alone could have come up with such a beautiful name?”

  Gavin recognized that there was some bite to those words behind the smile, and he knew he should have felt some form of resentment and concern, but those feelings were abandoned as again a wave of calm passed through him. As much as he tried to cling to the thoughts that pushed into his mind, they slipped away like water through open fingers, and he looked around the room once more.

  “Where are we? Why am I here? Last I recall, I was in my bed in the officers' quarters.”

  “Rest assured, we are still in Chill. Your body is indeed still lying in your bed.”

  This time, it was not as easy for whatever magical presence surrounding him to calm his raging mind.

  “My body?” His hands rushed to his chest, just now realizing that he was still fully armored.

  “Ease yourself, Gavin Stalspar. Your body remains asleep, but I have called your spirit here. For several nights that you have slept, I have been trying to call out, to make contact with you. At first, I believed that my efforts were in vain. Your spirit was brought here, but it remained still, unmoving, and unresponsive. However, I began to notice that with each subsequent time you arrived, you began to become more responsive; a twitch here, a movement there, and then finally your eyes opened. Wide and white, they stared, again unresponsive.”

  “And now,” Gavin shook his head, placing a hand to his temple as he fought an increasing pain.

  “And now, here we are.” Aurora, as the female called herself, spread her arms out in front of her and then let them fall to her sides.

  Gavin shook his head once more; there was some kind of war of thoughts going on internally. His confusion, his anger, an overwhelming alien calm, and a surging of very real pain all fought together on the battlefield of his mind, and he was having a hard time making sense of what was going on, let alone put together any coherent sentences.

  “I... Why? Why me?”

  “I have reached out to the minds of many that would fight under the banner of this Northern Alliance, and I have seen many reasons and ambitions. I've seen desire forging the paths of most – for money, power, and lust. I've seen those with the most noble of ambitions, and those that would fight purely for themselves. There are plenty of the lost, those that don't know why they fight or know nothing else but fighting and have no other motivation. Then, there are those with darker hearts with mind for even darker deeds.” Her eyes had slowly drifted away from him as she spoke, but now they shot back him, almost piercing Gavin with their intensity. “And then there is you. Different from all of the others.”

  “I am but a man, serving a man's purpose,” Gavin said, as he forced himself to straighten under her gaze.

  “But there is more to it than that. You do not have desires fueling you; the things you want aren't guiding your path. You do not know whether fighting for yourself or others serves a better outcome; you struggle to find loyalty. You are lost, but not like the others. You seek purpose, and I wish to give you one.”

  Gavin snuffed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I am not some puppet that can be commanded to do the will of some... whatever in
the Abyss you are.”

  “I am aware of that. It is that strength and conviction that you call out only when you need it that makes you the perfect bearer of this task. You need a path on which to walk, and I need someone who I can trust to save the very fates of the people of Mantica. I ask you, Gavin, please consider my words. You have every right to decline, but should you, it would take me time that Mantica does not have to find a replacement. Time, in which, the Abyss might rise to swallow the continent whole.”

  The calm was starting to turn the tide in his mind, but with it came clarity. She had been right, whoever this spiritual entity was. He sought purpose, the kind of which he was unsure if being a soldier in the Northern Alliance would ever give him. Aurora's words sparked something in him that he had not felt in a long time; excitement, perhaps? He couldn't quite put a name to it, but before he could even answer her, the pain pushed to the forefront and rocketed through his senses.

  The world around Gavin spun as darkness crept in from the corners of his vision. His hands went to his temples, but the pain was overwhelming. Aurora was still before him, the smile still on her face, albeit somewhat sadder. Her image was fading.

  “Think on what I've spoken to you of, Gavin Stalspar.”

  Blackness overtook Gavin before he felt his head ever hit the concrete floor. His vision returned even quicker than it had faded, and instead of impacting the ground, Gavin stopped himself when he sat straight up in his bed. He placed both hands out to stabilize himself on the frame, even though he was no longer moving. His head swam as reality settled back in; he remembered everything as if it were real life.

  It was going to be a long day.

  * * * * *

  The winds whipped past Gavin's helmet, finding ways into the crevices in between his armor, and sending chills down his spine. He flexed his fingers in the armored gauntlets to keep the blood flowing. Standing on the other side of Chill's walls, behind one of the many snowdrifts created for cover, Gavin missed the warmer climates more than ever.

  It didn't matter how closely his squad huddled behind him, he stood at the edge of the barricade, acting as the windshield, as he watched for the enemy. He was loosely aware of the other units around him; Darriel and Hilde were off to his right, with Gorram somewhere to his left, and several other commanders he wasn't so familiar with leading their units scattered between them.

  “The scouts sure of what they saw?” Rhynn, one of the Ice Kin elves in his unit, poked his head up to look past the icewall.

  “Have they ever been wrong?” Tomas, a large native of the north snorted, patting his dual axes on the ice. “They fled so damn fast, they dropped their bows where they stood – and probably their breeches too!”

  The men behind him laughed, but Gavin instead furrowed his eyebrows, staring on a point in the distance where the Abyssals would first appear around the mountain bend. Some time passed and his men began talking more, their laughing becoming a touch below raucous.

  “That's enough,” Gavin shot a look over his shoulder at Tomas, too often the instigator, and the large man nodded respectfully. “Stay focused. Speak among yourselves all you wish, I don't care what you're chattering about. Just remember the task at hand – those demons will be cresting the ridge at any moment, and I don't want ours to be the last unit astride the field.”

  It took a few moments, but their talk fell to whispers that ceased in distracting Gavin, none too soon! He heard them before he saw them; the trembling of the earth, the vicious roar of inhuman creations, the banging of rallying steel. The gargoyles were the first around, running on the ground on all fours like dogs instead of flying upon their crimson bat-wings. The beings of gray stone had pointed horns, some with long ratty manes; and a snarl twisted their faces, drool flailing out from their fanged maws. Behind them poured an army of demons, whose red skins were forged from the fires of the Abyss; an assortment of pointed and curved horns accented the long features and the twisted, abhorrent snarls.

  The scouts were not wrong. The number of Abyssals was staggering; Gavin didn't even want to think about how many there actually were. All he could see was a sea of crimson, a horned red horde.

  He roared as he surged forward, pulling his greatsword out with both hands. Just ahead of him, arrows rained down on the enemy, managing to take out a few of the gargoyles among countless other foot soldiers. He heard as well as felt the thunderous footsteps of the northmen and elves of his unit, and he could see Tomas just out of the corner of his eye. He could hear his men's fury as they bellowed out a war cry at the Abyssal demons; Gavin pushed himself to take wide and quick strides as to not be overtaken by the bigger men of his unit.

  His eyes locked with the first charging opponent; the gargoyle snarled as it flung open its mouth. It leapt through the air, using its wings to glide toward Gavin in a pounce. He brought his sword up to stop the two claws, coming to a sudden halt as the beast pushed on the other side of his blade. It remained midair, desperately snapping its many pointed teeth at Gavin's head. Shifting to the left, Gavin pulled the blade out and low. The gargoyle soared past him, but he brought his sword up, cleaving through the body and down the middle of its long spaded tail.

  Gavin only had a moment to make sure the torn beast was dead before the rest of the Abyssal forces were on him. The Northern Alliance defenders clashed hard with the demons, blade upon blade ringing out down the line. Gavin found himself against two of the evil entities, both swinging at him at the same time. The former knight parried their blows easily enough, but he found himself unable to work in any offense. He struggled to not backpedal under the offense, but he begrudgingly was being forced back.

  He just barely saw the arrow that pierced the head of one of the demons, and Gavin took the advantage to push back against the sole target. His swings were much more aggressive; not having to fear the other adversary getting in a strike, Gavin swung with unbridled intensity. He forced the demon back so much that it hesitated, and then Gavin rushed in with his shoulder. Losing one hand on its sword, the demon had no time to block the strike that cleaved straight through his unarmored chest. It struggled to stay straight, but a swift kick from Gavin put it down for good.

  He looked where the arrow had originally come from, and he found Darriel rapidly scanning the battlefield, letting out timed shots. The archer momentarily met his gaze, giving him a wink before he picked his next target.

  Gavin heard a howl and brought his sword up before he could see the enemy. The pommel struck home, catching the demon in the chin. It staggered back, shaking its head, but Gavin twirled his sword around and shoved it outward, piercing through the minimal hell-forged armor it wore. Its head shot back down at him, smiling with dark pleasure, blood dripping out its nostrils and down its fangs. It swung at him, but Gavin had no time to dodge. The blade caught him on the forearms and he felt a stinging under the armor. He let the blade go and looked down at his arms. The strike had cracked his forearm guard, piercing through and causing a light wound. The blood was trickling out and it stung, but he could tell it was not lethal. He cursed under his breath and kicked the downed demon in the head as it struggled to rise. He kicked it again and again until it stopped moving.

  Gavin bent down to retrieve his weapon, but another screech caught his attention. A second gargoyle was already upon him, its claws hooked into his breastplate. The two hit the ground and rolled several feet, the beast clawing ferociously at the armor while Gavin kept trying to punch the gargoyle in the face. They stopped rolling, but Gavin was pinned under the weight of the winged nightmare. It brought its head back, opened its jaws, and snapped forward. Gavin managed to grab both sides of the gargoyle’s face, struggling to keep the maw back from closing on his exposed throat. He could feel the sweat dripping down the side of his head as he fought for his life, but no matter how strong he was, the stony beast was forged in the inhuman fires of the Abyss.

  Just as he felt the muscles in his arms would snap, the gargoyle flew off his chest with a yelp o
f pain. Gavin scrambled to his feet and saw Gorram with his mighty pike in one hand, Gavin's greatsword in the other. The big man stared at Gavin, his look unreadable. The former Varangur warrior tossed over the sword and Gavin caught it with both hands.

  “Thanks,” Gavin nodded, as he turned to the gargoyle that staggered back to its own feet. Gorram nodded in response, keeping his eyes on the beast.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “Just a flesh wound from one of the demons. You came before the gargoyle could feast.”

  “Good. I would not see you die this day.”

  The gargoyle screamed as it flew through the air, claws out. Both men sidestepped and swung at separate angles; Gavin slashed up across the underbelly and Gorram performed a mighty execution strike downward. As they moved past the corpse of the gargoyle, the two men stood back to back. The demons had surrounded them; Gavin saw the flags of the Northern Alliance standard bearers some distance away, but they were not any of the men in his unit.

  “What were you saying about not dying today?” Gavin spat through gritted teeth.

  Gorram laughed darkly, the first time Gavin had ever heard, and it unnerved him. “No, we shall not die here, friend. There is much still to be done.”

  Gorram lunged forward, cleaving into the first foe his pike could find flesh in. Gavin used the momentum of his ally to dive straight toward the enemies before him. The fury he put into his blade was unrelenting as he swung in wide arcs, severing limbs of demons not prepared for the fury, and pushing back the circle that had wound tight upon them. He didn't stop his flurry of strikes, feeling the occasional blade strike his armor. He prayed his breastplate would hold out better than his armguards, that a demon would not get as lucky as the one that wounded him.