The young duchess-to-be spared one last glance at her two slaves-turned-friends.
Urk, a middle-aged, grizzled veteran of the most filthy infantry. A man who ended up selling himself into slavery to save his treacherous wife and bastards from the same fate. He simply looked back at the duchess and rolled his eyes before standing to her left.
Zian, a young adult war slave, was brutally marked by the war that took away his tongue. Yet, rather than allowing his muteness to cripple him, he made silence his home, ultimately contributing a lion’s share to the Duchess intelligence network.
The young, barely eighteen Zian spared Camila a single glance, before taking position by his right.
And then, after the footsteps grew louder and louder, Camila's step-brother’s henchmen arrived at the scene, all dressed up in the finest armor of the dukedom.
‘Three colored,’ Camila glanced through the enemy unit, counting up the lesser officers. ‘Up to fifty men.’
The knight-like mercenaries approached in silence, the heavy echo of their steps making up for their lack of words.
A whistle cut through the air, quickly putting the entire unit to a stop. Then, their ranks parted, making way for a man sporting a colored feather on both sides of his helmet.
‘Why is he…?’
Camila’s eyes widened as she stared at the familiar face.
“Kill the criminals, seize the fraud.”
‘What?!’
The young lady froze, petrified by the sequence of events that were so out of reason she failed to comprehend them.
Earl, Camila’s childhood friend, raised his sword and pointed its tip at her group with a grave expression.
Earl, one of the most powerful counts of the dukedom and stalwart ally of the late duke Robert.
“Wait, it’s…”
Camila didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence.
Her brother’s bandits threw themselves at her, only to be met with a furious riposte from her two friends.
Everyone drew their swords and rushed to spill blood on the rich, fertile soil of the forest. And within moments, Camile’s trusted aides proved superior to the rowdy bunch of henchmen her bastard brother befriended and brought to his cause.
Upon the first shock of the blood spilling out, the fake knights stopped the attack, opting to surround the group instead. Having no interest in rushing straight into the arms of the enemy more than ten times more numerous, Urk and Zian retreated back to Camila’s side.
In the short, first clash, Urk brought down two and Zian one while further heavily wounding another enemy.
Normally, their odds would be even more favorable…
But the ducal armors bridged the difference in the skill between the two, making it extremely difficult to land a proper hit.
Still…
Camila’s friends paid the price of blood for the lives of three to four of her enemies.
Those henchmen managed to land a solid hit to Urk’s left arm and a light cut on Zion’s cheek.
Camila’s eyes widened. She then looked up, encompassing all of the aggressors within her field of view, and…
“STOP!”
The ducal authority had its limits.
And the wider the group she wanted her authority to apply, the lesser its effects would be, limiting the range of how much she could bend people’s will.
She wasn’t ordained as a crown duke like her father. In fact, as true-blood heiress of Robert’s lineage, she never received her ducal insignia either.
Still…
“STOP!”
Camila’s calm voice cut into the fabric of reality, invading it like a vicious parasite and consuming its content in order to replace it with one of its own.
‘This frequency… I nailed it!’
A grim, satisfied smile crept up Camila’s eyes, as her words came to command the world around.
She successfully managed to pinpoint the right frequency to zero in on her brother’s henchmen. By selecting various layers of her authority and her house’s relation with all those serving it, she specified just the right conditions to include the men in front of her.
Traitors, warriors, enemies.
Three conditions that at the world’s deepest level, perfectly reflected the men ahead.
And by uttering her silent scream of an order on this precise frequency, allowed Camila to rein all of the henchmen in.
The air grew stale as peace came upon the already bloodied battlefield.
It was merely a moment of respite for Camila’s men. Yet, right as they were both about to rush in to make use of their lady’s powers and cut down as many enemies as possible…
Slightly to the side, right where the forest nearly touched the nearby road, the space convulsed and broke, spitting out a strangely dressed man with a look of unholy torture on his face and blood puking out of his mouth and spraying all over his pierced gut.
A gory, unsavory image of a man escaping only to find himself right at his death anyway.
And yet, this anomaly… actually moved.
It extracted the blade from its guts, fully ignoring how it only made its bleeding stronger.
‘Wait, blood?’
Stumbling a step to the back, Camila stared at the crimson liquid spitting out of the man’s insides and mouth as he fell down on all fours, clearly mere moments away from passing.
‘It’s… red.’
Camila dully noted, equally as shocked as everyone else on the scene, Earl included.
Only primeval monsters could traverse the unknown dimension. And no primeval monster could ever bleed red.
No primeval monster would then slam two, disgustingly large needless into himself, one right into his freshly opened wound and the other, a moment later, under his left rib.
In a moment shorter than Camila needed to shake her shock off, this strange, human-like being rose up on all fours… only to tear space with its hand and reach out to some sort of a weird… but extremely useful-looking bag.
“Who the hell?!
Earl was the first to come back to his senses and utter the one question everyone wanted to ask.
Still, in mere seconds, he shook his head and looked at the human-like anomaly with a look of cold, dark disdain.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Earl’s guttural order filled the air. He then raised his eyes and spared a single glance of endless hate towards the weird anomaly.
“Kill it.”
The young duchess-to-be spared one last glance at her two slaves-turned-friends.
Urk, a middle-aged, grizzled veteran of the most filthy infantry. A man who ended up selling himself into slavery to save his treacherous wife and bastards from the same fate. He simply looked back at the duchess and rolled his eyes before standing to her left.
Zian, a young adult war slave, was brutally marked by the war that took away his tongue. Yet, rather than allowing his muteness to cripple him, he made silence his home, ultimately contributing a lion’s share to the Duchess intelligence network.
The young, barely eighteen Zian spared Camila a single glance, before taking position by his right.
And then, after the footsteps grew louder and louder, Camila's step-brother’s henchmen arrived at the scene, all dressed up in the finest armor of the dukedom.
‘Three colored,’ Camila glanced through the enemy unit, counting up the lesser officers. ‘Up to fifty men.’
The knight-like mercenaries approached in silence, the heavy echo of their steps making up for their lack of words.
A whistle cut through the air, quickly putting the entire unit to a stop. Then, their ranks parted, making way for a man sporting a colored feather on both sides of his helmet.
‘Why is he…?’
Camila’s eyes widened as she stared at the familiar face.
“Kill the criminals, seize the fraud.”
‘What?!’
The young lady froze, petrified by the sequence of events that were so out of reason she failed to comprehend them.
Earl, Camila’s childhood friend, raised his sword and pointed its tip at her group with a grave expression.
Earl, one of the most powerful counts of the dukedom and stalwart ally of the late duke Robert.
“Wait, it’s…”
Camila didn’t get the chance to finish her sentence.
Her brother’s bandits threw themselves at her, only to be met with a furious riposte from her two friends.
Everyone drew their swords and rushed to spill blood on the rich, fertile soil of the forest. And within moments, Camile’s trusted aides proved superior to the rowdy bunch of henchmen her bastard brother befriended and brought to his cause.
Upon the first shock of the blood spilling out, the fake knights stopped the attack, opting to surround the group instead. Having no interest in rushing straight into the arms of the enemy more than ten times more numerous, Urk and Zian retreated back to Camila’s side.
In the short, first clash, Urk brought down two and Zian one while further heavily wounding another enemy.
Normally, their odds would be even more favorable…
But the ducal armors bridged the difference in the skill between the two, making it extremely difficult to land a proper hit.
Still…
Camila’s friends paid the price of blood for the lives of three to four of her enemies.
Those henchmen managed to land a solid hit to Urk’s left arm and a light cut on Zion’s cheek.
Camila’s eyes widened. She then looked up, encompassing all of the aggressors within her field of view, and…
“STOP!”
The ducal authority had its limits.
And the wider the group she wanted her authority to apply, the lesser its effects would be, limiting the range of how much she could bend people’s will.
She wasn’t ordained as a crown duke like her father. In fact, as true-blood heiress of Robert’s lineage, she never received her ducal insignia either.
Still…
“STOP!”
Camila’s calm voice cut into the fabric of reality, invading it like a vicious parasite and consuming its content in order to replace it with one of its own.
‘This frequency… I nailed it!’
A grim, satisfied smile crept up Camila’s eyes, as her words came to command the world around.
She successfully managed to pinpoint the right frequency to zero in on her brother’s henchmen. By selecting various layers of her authority and her house’s relation with all those serving it, she specified just the right conditions to include the men in front of her.
Traitors, warriors, enemies.
Three conditions that at the world’s deepest level, perfectly reflected the men ahead.
And by uttering her silent scream of an order on this precise frequency, allowed Camila to rein all of the henchmen in.
The air grew stale as peace came upon the already bloodied battlefield.
It was merely a moment of respite for Camila’s men. Yet, right as they were both about to rush in to make use of their lady’s powers and cut down as many enemies as possible…
Slightly to the side, right where the forest nearly touched the nearby road, the space convulsed and broke, spitting out a strangely dressed man with a look of unholy torture on his face and blood puking out of his mouth and spraying all over his pierced gut.
A gory, unsavory image of a man escaping only to find himself right at his death anyway.
And yet, this anomaly… actually moved.
It extracted the blade from its guts, fully ignoring how it only made its bleeding stronger.
‘Wait, blood?’
Stumbling a step to the back, Camila stared at the crimson liquid spitting out of the man’s insides and mouth as he fell down on all fours, clearly mere moments away from passing.
‘It’s… red.’
Camila dully noted, equally as shocked as everyone else on the scene, Earl included.
Only primeval monsters could traverse the unknown dimension. And no primeval monster could ever bleed red.
No primeval monster would then slam two, disgustingly large needless into himself, one right into his freshly opened wound and the other, a moment later, under his left rib.
In a moment shorter than Camila needed to shake her shock off, this strange, human-like being rose up on all fours… only to tear space with its hand and reach out to some sort of a weird… but extremely useful-looking bag.
“Who the hell?!
Earl was the first to come back to his senses and utter the one question everyone wanted to ask.
Still, in mere seconds, he shook his head and looked at the human-like anomaly with a look of cold, dark disdain.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Earl’s guttural order filled the air. He then raised his eyes and spared a single glance of endless hate towards the weird anomaly.
“Kill it.”
