Chapter 562: Last effort(7)

Chapter 562: Last effort(7)

Elyos staggered through the broken remains of the rebel center, his hands still gripping the wooden effigies of the gods so tightly his knuckles had gone white. His robes, once pristine symbols of purity and devotion, now clung to him with grime, ash, and the stench of burning flesh.

Around him, the world collapsed.

Smoke coiled upward like snakes into the night sky, swallowing the stars and smothering the moon. Fire licked the edges of tents and wooden palisades, climbing higher, spreading in hungry waves. The screams that had once come from the outer edges were now here—too close—layered and endless, a choir of death.

The men he had led in prayer, who had believed in him—who had whispered oaths of purpose around the campfires when bread was scarce and the cold crept into their bones—were being butchered.

One by one.

Each death was a nail in the coffin of the faith he had spent two years building.

He saw Calen go down first, a man whose knees had trembled the first time they were ordered to raise a sword—but who had done it anyway. A axe sheared through his collarbone, and he fell like a puppet whose strings were cut, his eyes still wide in disbelief as if asking Elyos why.

He saw Beras, trying to drag a younger boy away before a lance drove straight through both of them. The boy didn’t even scream. Beras did. A strangled, horrified sound.

He died last.

And others—faces he’d grown to know like family—disappeared beneath the steel tide.

Elyos’s knees gave way, and he fell, the effigies pressed against his chest like a child clinging to a mother’s embrace. His breath came in short, broken sobs. “No, no… not like this… not like this,” he murmured, rocking slightly. “This was supposed to be their holy day”

His mind refused to focus. Not on the death. Not on the chaos. Not even on the betrayal. But the truth clawed its way in anyway—Robert.

Robert, the man whom he had saved from the abyss just months ago. Robert, the man he had seen, shed the skin of his old self and rise again with purpose. His work. His greatest proof that even the blackest soul could be redeemed by divine light.

A lie. A mask.

That betrayal broke something deeper than a loss in battle. The gods had taken his hopes, crushed them in front of him, and now he cried while his flock was torn apart.

The royal soldiers were closing in.

They did not look like men. No, in the firelight and smoke, they were beasts. Demons. Cloaked in blood and shadow, eyes gleaming with a hunger not born of survival, but of sport.

“Fuck off rebels!” one bellowed, swinging a spiked mace that left bone dust in its wake. His laughter was manic.

“I bet you lot were promised glory,” another shouted, dragging a screaming man by the leg toward himself before jumping upon him like a hound on a carcass.

The royal voices echoed around Elyos—mocking, howling, alive. While his men—his sons—were dying for a dream now unraveling like so much mist under sunlight.

He did not know how much time had passed when Sir Joshen found him kneeling in the dirt, the firelight reflecting off the brass icons still clutched in Elyos’s trembling hands.

The knight’s armor was scratched, dented, painted in streaks of blood—some of it not his own. His sword hung low in his hand, dragging slightly as he walked, a limp beginning to show in his stride.

He stopped a few paces from the priest , as he held his horse by the rain and knelt on one knee, out of respect more than exhaustion. His voice, when it came, was a low rumble, heavy with things unsaid.

“It’s done,” Joshen said plainly, without flinching. “We’ve lost, Father. To all who still draw breath, it’s clear. The camp is fire and slaughter, and the gods have not come to deliver us.” He paused, eyes flicking to a heap of still-smoking bodies. “They’ve only come to witness the end.”

Elyos didn’t speak. He couldn’t. The silence wrapped around him like a shroud.

Joshen continued. “There are holes—small gaps in their lines. If you leave now, with a fast horse, you’ll reach the treeline before they regroup. But you must move soon. Reinforcements may come, and if they do… the net will close.”

Still no answer. The priest’s grip tightened on the effigies until his knuckles turned white. Joshen exhaled hard.

“I will stay behind with the others and buy what time we can. We can die with swords in hand. Let that be our last offering to the Gods.”

The knight rose again, stiffly, and turned to go—but paused. “You must survive, Father. At least you.You will not die a clean death if they catch you”

Elyos stared into the dark, his eyes unfocused, the weight of Joshen’s words pressing like a hand against his chest. Escape, the word repeated in his skull, over and over like a cruel joke. Escape. Escape. Escape.

Run.

Flee.

Live.

What was there to escape to?

What meaning did survival hold when the very thing that had given his life meaning—his cause, his flock, his sacred rebellion—was collapsing in fire and blood around him? How could he justify riding into the night while the men who had followed him for years were carved apart like swine?

He had called them sons. He had wept over their pain, bled with them, shared bread, prayer, and dreams of a better world. And now they were dying. Screaming. Begging.

Could he abandon them?

Was there still meaning in escape?

The effigies felt heavier now. Not with divine power—but with guilt.

Could he survive if all he brought with him was ruin?

Around him, the world wailed—steel clashed, voices shrieked, horses screamed as they fell beneath blades. The ground trembled with the weight of dying dreams.

And in that agony, he whispered words from the Book of the Warrior God, his voice low but steady, each syllable pressed with conviction not entirely his own:

“Let he who dies with the name of the gods upon his lips not tremble,For the gates of heaven will swing wide to the brave.Woe unto the man whose feet flee before his heart,Who runs not to live, but out of fear alone—For his steps shall echo forever in the halls of shame and fire shall strip the flesh from his bones.”

He closed his eyes.

How strange, he thought, how funny, in that bitter, cosmic sort of way, that now—of all gods—it would be the Brave One’s voice in his soul. Not She of the Gentle Hands, the goddess of mercy and peace, the one whose warmth he had always turned to in moments of doubt. The goddess he had prayed most

He opened his eyes, raising the effigy high above his head until it shimmered in the firelight like a final beacon.

“This field,” Elyos shouted hoarsely, his voice breaking with pain and faith, hoping that as many as his followers could hear it “this altar of blood and hope—let it be known to the heavens that all who die upon it shall be received, every last soul! Their names sung, not forgotten!”

He turned to the fleeing shadows, to the men still alive.

“But if I run—if I run—then I make small their sacrifice. Then I stain it with cowardice.”

He looked down at his own bloodied robes, then to the sky choked in smoke.

“No. I shall not flee. I will walk with them, these sons of mine, down the road of martyrdom.”

Joshen reappeared, dirt and blood smeared across his face, his eyes saddened by the fervor that took hold of the priest. “Father,” he began, “you still have time. You still—”

Elyos held up a hand. “Don’t tempt me, Joshen. Not you. I thank you—for your strength, your loyalty, your wisdom. But if you love me, do not ask me to shame myself.”

Joshen’s lips trembled, caught between protest and sorrow. His eyes burned with everything he could not say.

Then he nodded, solemnly. “Then let the gods see the truth of our hearts.”

He looked at his blade, kissed its bloodied hilt, and whispered, “Let them bear witness to their truest servants.”

And without another word, he mounted and turned his horse toward the fray.

Elyos watched him go.

Watched the knight, proud and bold, lower his blade and charge into the hell of steel and flame.

Into death.

And as the sound of battle devoured Joshen’s form, Elyos stood still, the effigy raised like a torch against despair.

They were all going to die tonight.

But some deaths were heavier with meaning than a lifetime lived in retreat.

——————

Alpheo sat like a statue carved by vanity and victory, perched atop his horse, his cloak fluttering gently behind him in the wind like a banner of effortless triumph. His eyes swept over the battlefield below with the smugness of a wolf after the slaughter. The torch-lit trails of routing soldiers twisted through the dark fields like frantic veins spilling from a wounded beast, and he followed them with the idle curiosity of a man watching ants flee from a kicked anthill.

“Look at them,” he said, voice velvet with amusement. “Running like they’ve seen the gods themselves rise from the dirt to gut them.”

Beside him, Asag shifted with a wince, the bandage around his ribs hidden beneath his armor, though the stiffness of his frame betrayed the pain. He hadn’t drawn sword tonight—neither had his men, stationed firmly as the rear guard by Alpheo’s orders. He had watched, listened, and now, with the battle fading into screams and smoke, he leaned in slightly.

“You want us to send the rear in?” Asag asked, gesturing vaguely toward the fields below. “We could rake through the stragglers. ”

Alpheo scoffed and made a dramatic swoosh of his hand through the air, as if brushing away a speck of dust on his lapel. “Bah. What’s left out there isn’t an army—it’s shadows and regrets. Mopping them up would be a waste of time . Let them crawl home, broken and bleeding and may the sing songs of how we shattered them.”

Asag gave a half-chuckle, eyeing the man he followed. “You do love your dramatics.”

“It’s part of the charm,I suppose” Alpheo grinned.

But then the wounded lord having noticed light coming from their right, pointed across the rightmost ridge, “There. Do you See them? There’s movement.”

Alpheo narrowed his eyes, then gave a single, approving nod. “Torghun is here already. Good. Of course he is. Always one step ahead, that one.” He paused, looking leftward, the expression twisting into faint irritation. “Left camp’s taking their sweet time though. Probably tripping in the dark…”

“Think they’ll miss the fun?”

“There’s barely any fun left,” Alpheo smirked, relaxing back into his saddle. “Torghun and his tribesmen will tear apart whatever scraps are left to chase. Honestly, after tonight, we’ll need to think about what to do with all the silence.” He gestured to the open plain again, the flames of the battlefield casting monstrous shadows over the dead. “I suppose a new order should be brought to the north, given the great void of power that this night will make.”

Asag made a low hum of agreement. “You sound disappointed.”

Alpheo smirked sideways at him, cocking a brow. “Victory always leaves me a little melancholy. Like finishing a good bottle of wine—you’re pleased, yes, but suddenly you’re also terribly aware it’s over, all you have is your hang-over.”

Asag let out a short, dry laugh and shook his head, the motion tight from the pain in his side. “Only you could find melancholy in a flawless victory,” he said, voice low and amused. “Anyone else would be halfway to drunk with glory by now.”

Alpheo smirked, eyes still dancing over the torchlit chaos below.

A comfortable silence passed between them before Asag tilted his head and asked, “By the way what do you make of the Voghondai? Your opinion, I mean. You’ve used them quite a lot if what Jarza told me after Aracina was correct ”

Alpheo clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “They’re good. Good in the right hands, at least. Fast on their feet, deadly with a javelin, and gods, do they know how to set a proper ambush. I’d wager there’s no better hunter in these lands than them”

He turned toward Asag with a small, satisfied grin. “Besides, giving them grain and land in exchange for service is quite the small pay considering what we gained”

He looked out again at the far-off torches where Torghun’s men moved like stalking panthers. “Torghun in particular’s earned his reward. That gate at Aracina… Egil told me they opened it fast, clean, no fumbling. They broke through like thunder. The job was done before he had even arrived.”

Asag chuckled, rubbing his chin. “I wonder if Egil likes them just because they’re as ferocious as he is.”

Alpheo shrugged, a slow, easy roll of the shoulders. “Wouldn’t be a bad reason. We might need that kind of savagery sooner than we’d like. War’s not done with us, and I’d rather have wolves on my leash than sheep in my camp.”

He paused again, thoughtful, then added, “We’ll keep the eastern continent close. Keep it a pool for strength. Six hundred of our warriors today were Voghondai auxiliaries, and they didn’t break. They fought like they were born for this blood-soaked soil. That’s something I can work with.”

He flashed a crooked grin. “And I do like having pieces on the board that don’t crack when the game gets cruel.”