Oaths of Dust

by Magnet-Head

Alarant de Lereyne is a knight of Calimdar, a city that used to work to protect the people of the Amber Plains. But after a calamitous winter forced their people to change into living suits of armour to survive, their national identity and chivalrous values start to decline, and as much as Alarant wishes he could stop it, plans are underway to undermine that legacy completely.

1. Prologue

Alarms bells rang. Militia rushed from the city, helping the workers in the fields to carry their harvest to safety or urging them to abandon it if they were too far from the walls. Within moments the danger revealed itself to be greater than the sentries had initially known, when flying insectoid drones dived from the clouds above the town to strike at the villagers still beyond the safety of the walls. Each drone had mandibles like daggers and a body as tall as a pony, and now that they were in sight, the village knew the danger bearing down upon them; Necrophages. Vile corpse-eating insectoids, the scourge of settlements on the Amber Plains. The sentries cried out and the militia doubled its efforts, sending as many into the fields as they could spare, armed with shields and spears to find off the drones long enough to bring the workers to safety. More dark shapes had begun appearing at the foot of the hill the village was built upon, heralding the flying drones as mere scouts of a larger force.

But even as the walls were manned and the gates closed and barred, a scuffle broke out on the walls. A mother and a father were calling for the gates to be reopened. Their daughter was down at the edge of the fields. Just old enough to help in the fields, she had become confused when the bells were rung and did not reach the walls in time. She had been ignored by the flying drones so far, but the horde that the sentries could see from the walls would not be so kind.

The parents of the abandoned child redoubled their efforts, but the captain remained steadfast. If the gates were opened, the village was doomed.

At this moment, all in the village heard a peculiar noise. A horn blast. The monsters heard it too, and it must have struck at their hearts, for the drones harassing the town turned back to re-join the larger horde. Sentries on the northern wall shouted and pointed, for they had seen the holders of the horn.

A second group was riding in from the north, not as monstrous or numerous as the first. Covered in golden-looking metallic armour, each carried a long lance and rode on a four-legged beast clad in the same armour. One rider towards the front carried a long, curling horn, seemingly made of gold. The rider sounded it again and the regiment turned towards the horde and lowered their lances.