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The Aurelian banners throughout the nation had long since turned to ash. Fuel for the braziers that had once illuminated the magnificent fabric that had Aurelian insignia woven into them. The only banners hanging now sported the Macedonian insignia.
Aurelis had been effectively conquered. King Michalis of Macedon had led assault after assault, each meticulously planned out and perfectly executed. As a conqueror and warlord, he was almost without peer. Yet for all his indisputable skill, in Aurelis he had found a enemy he was forced to admit was beyond what he expected.
Prince Hardin of Aurelis was resourceful, and the nation was well prepared to fight off an invasion. Aurelis was not known for its military prowess, but it seemed that Aurelian knights were hiding in every nook and cranny of the nation. Wherever Michalis went, a Macedonian victory was sure to follow. Wherever Hardin went, Aurelis struck victoriously against the hated invaders. It seemed as though every slice of land Michalis conquered fell back into Hardin's possession the day after the Macedonian King moved onward.
It continued like that for a time, but eventually the difference in army size turned the tides in Macedon's favor. Aurelis simply did not have the numbers necessary to stand against Macedon forever. Hardin had not been caught, nor had his brother the Aurelian King, or even a certain four elite Aurelians who took their orders directly from the prince. Yet Macedon had, for all extents and purposes, won.
Michalis took his leave, judging that there was no way even an enemy as cunning as Hardin could turn a tide so overwhelmingly against him without help from a third party. In his place, General Emereus took the reins of the invasion, now occupation, of Aurelis. Emereus was a high ranked general in Macedon, but he could not lay claim to the skill one would expect of one in his position. Emereus took his position as the head of the occupation as a mark of honor, never realizing that his King regarded him as an embarrassment to be kept away from the nation of Macedon.
Emereus was no match for Hardin, but the situation was slanted so grossly in Emereus' favor that he was able to easily hold onto his position in Aurelis' royal castle. Yet recently a number of minor installations that Macedon had full control over had begun falling. There was no firm proof that Aurelians were responsible for the routing of Macedonian soldiers, but…
One of the smaller conquered Aurelian forts, but also one very close to the Aurelian Palace, was losing guards. Macedonian patrols would disappear from their routes, and their bodies, cold by that point, were found in a closet somewhere. Other soldiers who were on night duty were discovered dead in the morning, stabbed multiple times over. There had been no signs of any perpetrators behind the deaths, and there was little evidence of intruders in the fort at all.
The Macedonian army was not known for having a spiritual point of view, but some were whispering that the fort might have been haunted. The thought of slain Aurelians trying to seek revenge from beyond the grave seemed to chill the blood in the veins of the soldiers. With greater frequency, the soldiers inside the fort stayed huddled together in the castle's inner sanctum, believing that numbers would protect them against the incorporeal.
Which seemed to be true. Those who stayed in the inner sanctum at night never fell to any pasty white hands reaching for their beating hearts. Those who were forced to see to the night time duties, however, weren't always still breathing in the morning. The thought of fleeing the fort was likely on everyone's mind, but they could not do that without leave from someone higher in the chain of command. The present leader of the fort never sent a letter, paralyzed by the thought of what people would think of him if they learned he was scared of 'ghosts'.
As a half moon was rising, one of the patrols, understandably stressed, was moving through the halls of the small fort. His breath came out slowly, visible in the chilly night as his eyes darted from side to side, trying to be aware of everything surrounding him. He passed a pair of banners, most now sported the Macedonian symbol, but some still had the Aurelian insignia. Since the belief was that the deaths were the act of vindictive Aurelian spirits, it had been decided that burning the remaining Aurelis banners in the fort, or anything else that might incite the spirits further, would be forbidden.
As the patrol began to move past one banner, he failed to notice the fabric move, with the movement of something behind it. Something came out from behind the fabric, a figure that was not ethereal in any sense, but very corporeal. The intruder moved without making a sound, and wrapped an arm around the Macedonian's head, covering the patrols mouth with his hand.
The soldier's first instinct was to make a muffled yell for help, and he would have done that if the assailant did not suddenly put a blade to the soldier's neck and cut deep.
The Macedonian slumped forward. The shadowy figure quickly began to haul the fresh corpse off. The figure's destination was only a short distance away, leading to a small closet. Another figure appeared and opened the door, allowing the first to ungracefully shove the corpse in, the third to be added to the closet tonight.
The first figure, one of his eyes hidden behind his purple bangs, nodded at the red haired man. Wolf and Vyland, two of the Aurelian elites, and some of the precious few Aurelians who were still fighting, did not risk words. Their two comrades, Sedgar and Roshea, were somewhere else, continuing the task of thinning out the Macedonians in the fort. Those two were the ones charged with leaving stabbed and mutilated corpses just lying in the halls.
At first, hiding corpses in the closet was just to hide the true nature of why Macedonian agents had disappeared until the Aurelians could get out of the fort. Leaving corpses stabbed in the hallway was simple intimidation. The four Aurelians continued to do these things once it became clear that the Macedonians believed that the fort was haunted. It wasn't an act of sadistic pleasure, it was psychological warfare.
But the game was going to end tonight.
In the past, there would be dozens of patrols across the many halls of the fort. The number of people on patrol had decreased, surely partly due to the fact that the guards were now scared to patrol. But the greater reason was likely related to there simply not being many soldiers left.
In light of the noted apparent lack of Macedonians, it had been decided by the prince and King that tonight the enemy would completely lose control of the fort. Wolf, Vyland, Roshea, and Sedgar would kill whoever they found in the halls on the way to the inner sanctum. They would meet up at the doors, and after that it would be a matter of simply routing those inside.
Wolf motioned for Vyland to follow. They slowly stalked down the hallway, both eager in their own way to kill the invaders who had settled into the Aurelian structure. Moving in a way that would prevent them from being potentially seen resulted in slow progress, and if they encountered another patrol they would have to return to the closet.
Fortunately, they reached the door to the inner sanctum without encountering anyone further. Tonight, there were not even guards outside the door. Even so, Wolf and Vyland got themselves out of sight. The minutes crept by slowly, Vyland felt irritation prick at him at the wait. His sword, more appropriate for this sort of operation then his usual lance, was eager for the final act. Yet as time went on, the thought that something might have happened to Roshea and Sedgar occurred to him.
He glanced at Wolf, the most skilled and composed of the four had a face that never wavered. Vyland was about to say that they should try to search for their companions, then he heard a sound.
Vyland was more of a brute and a warrior then he was a spy and assassin. Among the four, he was the weakest link in the chain, but he was picking up some tricks. He heard that sound, but all he could say was that it was… a sound. Wolf's head had already turned to the direction the sound had come from, and he already knew what had made the sound, and how it had made the sound.
Roshea's eyes met Wolf's. Wolf's eyes narrowed in a wordless reprimand for the fact that Roshea had allowed his boots to click on the floor. The younger knight's sword had a fair amount of blood on it, he had seemingly been doing his job of leaving clearly dead corpses behind him. Yet there was less blood then usual. Sedgar was also with him. Roshea and Sedgar moved to the others, allowing the unofficial unit of the four to be joined.
Wolf just nodded. There was just the bronze doors into where the fort's lord once dwelt in front of them now.
The Macedonians inside numbered only a little over thirty. They turned to the sound of the door creaking open. There was no sign of any physical being, and one of the Macedonians rose and closed with the door with an obvious swiftness. No one noticed a certain four intruders that had slipped in before anyone's head had turned.
Wolf, positioned behind a pillar, examined what the enemy was doing. He knew that he and his comrades were by far the more skilled group, but he had no interest in taking unnecessary risks, and they were outnumbered. Making a gesture with his hands to command the other three to stay where they were, Wolf moved forward.
The Macedonians were… eating. Food that Wolf assumed had been taken straight from the Aurelian farmlands. Slowly stalking around the room, Wolf was able to determine the man who was probably the… sergeant? Captain? Wolf couldn't discern the man's exact station, but it was clearly the man in charge of the fort. A man who wore more decorated armor, though he seemed disinclined to wear his helm right now. It presented an easy target, and when the man was gone the Macedonians would be incapable of coordinating themselves.
He returned to his allies and made several movements with his hand. The four used a very complicated series of hand gestures to convey words, and they all understood what Wolf was thinking. All four moved in separate directions, readying themselves in strategic positions around the room.
Wolf reached into a small satchel and pulled out what looked like a dart. He was positioned behind the fort leader and he focused himself. Picking out a spot on the leader to target, he threw the dart forward.
The small, insignificantly small thing sunk into an exposed bit of skin near the leader's neck.
There was a slight twitch to the leader's face, but he did not realize in any way what had just happened. Wolf had struck him with a subtle poison dart, spiked with a poison that worked lethally fast. Only seconds after injection the leader began to sweat, then slowly, he opted to simply lie down for the night, oblivious to how badly his neck was swelling.
This was the final moment. Wolf raised a hand, his comrades saw it but the Macedonians didn't. He lowered his hand, then raised it and lowered it again. A third time he raised it up, and when he brought it down this time, the Aurelians sprung.
The first Macedonians couldn't even gasp before the swords and knives pierced them to instantly fatal effect. The next weren't able to do much more then just widen their eyes in doomed realization.
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" One Macedonian that had not been anywhere near where the Aurelians had sprung began to frantically shake the unit leader. The Lieutenant, however… his eyes had already rolled back by the poison Wolf had hit him with. The soldier turned with wide eyes to receive a fatal slash from the red-haired killer across his face.
The attack, overall, just took barely over a minute. A few Macedonians had managed to rise with weapons in hand, but they were still too busy fighting the shock of the attack, and were too demoralized at the sight of so many comrades dying. Many of them didn't even make a swing with their ready weapon before death claimed them.
"Leave the bodies." Wolf commanded. "Let their superiors think that this fort is still firmly under their control for now. We'll commandeer it later. Take only supplies."
The other three nodded. There were few Aurelians still fighting, and those that were had little in the way of supplies. It was shameful, but if they had to be armed with Macedonian steel and silver, then so be it.
This was a successful operation, but none of the four looked particularly stressed or exhilarated. This was just one in a long series of forts they pried from Macedon's control. This was just another day of the job. The only difference was that these Macedonians had been unexpectedly superstitious, which only resulted in the operation being slightly easier then usual.
The four left, it wouldn't be long before the stench of that room would be unbearable even for Wolf. They exited for fort, and immediately fell into their old familiar stealth tactics. Though they were very relaxed compared to their usual stealth, no Macedonians were nearby right now.
"What next?" Sedgar asked. Wolf looked at the comrade who spoke, then turned away.
"We return to Coyote." Wolf answered, speaking of their prince, who was 'Coyote' in the public eye, and would never be anything besides 'Coyote' to his men. He turned away, taking a moment to look at the rising moon. In a jollier time, one of his allies would have joked about a man named Wolf staring at the moon. "There is something he wanted to show us after this operation. 'Meet the princess' was all he told me."
His companions made no visual cues that revealed their reaction. Wolf, who knew them so well, could read the sense of curiosity, slight excitement, and maybe apprehension, in them. Without speaking any further words, the four slipped into the Aurelian woods.
In my own headcanon, I like to think Michalis went to Aurelis and was the one who carved up most of the nation on the name of Dolhr. Mostly just because I balk at the idea that Emereus (boss of FE11's Chapter 6) was the one who put Hardin on the defensive.
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