Hello, brave readers, today I present to you my second story in the wonderful world of For Honor. Now, we move away from the sodden muck of the Chosen's homeland and travel south, to a place of mystery. A place far away, further even than the homeland of the Ashfeldian legions. There, a great power looms ready to be tapped, an old glory, waiting to be turned to a grander purpose. As always, constructive criticism is appreciated, and without further ado, I humbly present...
The Oath of Mars, Part 1: Curios
Gradivus was not his real name. But he bore it all the same, for he was chosen. An Aspect of Mars. Deemed his most honored, he was the Strider, the one who marched forth. His greatest champion, assigned the greatest duty.
"Ultor, the blade."
Extending one rough, war-calloused hand, he accepted the pugio offered by his lesser Aspect. Taking the sacrifice's hair in the other, he pulled the head back till the front of the throat stretched taut, adam's apple bulging. He was bound tightly and gagged. There is no omen more ill than a sacrifice that defies its own offering. There is no greater honor than the letting of the blood, to be the cup-bearer of the god of war himself.
Placing the blade calmly to the throat, Gradivus pressed in and pulled across.
A certain peacekeeper sat calmly in her quarters within the mountaintop headquarters of her order, innumerable tomes piled around her. She had gone through twelve candles this night alone. They were not merely assassins, but antiquarians. She was now more the latter than the former. The ancient schematics of Ashfeld's great war machines had long stayed safe in the hands of her Sisters, along with other historical records. Knowledge of all kinds found it's way into the tower. She had once seen eyewitness reports of a 'firelance', a weapon of terrible power and unknown function, in the hands of kingdoms far to the east that had long been lost to time. She had seen firsthand accounts of life before the Cataclysm.
But this? She had never seen this before.
War raged to the north. Apollyon had won, even in death. Even now, the thought gnawed at her mind, slowly driving her insane.
But this? Well, it was a distraction, at least.
All people know of the Empire. Once, it stretched across the known world. But no one knows what happened to them.
But this? This offered a solution.
When they fell, the Legions rose, and the people they had subjugated for centuries took to Valkenheim. The Warborn said they overthrew them. The Chosen said they waged a war and won. The Legions said the earth simply swallowed it up like the Cataclysm come anew.
But this? This just might be the truth.
She suddenly became aware of a knocking at her door. How long had that been going? Then she heard a voice. A familiar one. One she hadn't heard in a long, long time.
Oh no.
For the tenth time, a certain lawbringer pounded at the door, now hard enough to set the hinges rattling. Did she hang herself? From what her aide said, that seemed likely. He has his money on a slit throat, though. Her aide didn't know her as well as he did. If she wanted to die, she'd make sure she left a mess for someone to clean up, not a corpse and some rope.
"God's sake, Elizabeth, open up!"
At the sound of a voice, the peacekeeper on the other side responded, throat quite unslit.
"Marius? Marius, is that you?"
"Yes, Elizabeth, it is unfortunately me. I know that we stand... opposed, in many of our beliefs, but we are united in our love for our people and this land, so I have come to you with-"
"Marius?"
"...Y-yes?"
"Your voice sounds higher than usual. Has the grand master finally decided to have you gelded?"
Irreverent. Puerile. Insulting. Exactly the same stupid old woman she's always been. Marius already knew this was a waste of time, but his pride bid him slam upon the oak with his fist one last time.
"OPEN. THIS. DOOR!"
"No!"
"Quit being a child!"
"When you quit being a TRAITOR!"
Every single time, no matter what, it always came back to this. At this point, it was little more than bait. All the same, Marius took it gladly.
"Elizabeth! What was I to do?! Tell me that! I was called! Called to serve!"
"Ha, called! Called to be Apollyon's lapdog! Called to be the hands of her ghost!"
"Called to DEFEND MY PEOPLE!"
"FROM A WAR WE STARTED! What is it with Lawbringers and working for killers?"
With a roar, Marius kicks the door open.
"HOLDEN CROSS NEARLY KILLED ME!"
Storming up to him, the veteran Peacekeeper hisses in his face.
"And yet he lives!"
"TO ATONE. He returned to the Iron in the end!"
"To keep doing what he's always done! Warmonger! Just like you!"
"We fight for peace!"
"DON'T YOU DARE!"
And a dagger was at his throat.
"Don't you DARE say that."
He presses into the blade, calling her bluff.
"What were we to do? Let the Chosen murder us?! Let the Warborn make trinkets from our corpses?!"
"FIGHT THEM BACK! AND NOT ONE STEP FURTHER. And what of the Myre?! They were our allies! Same as back then!"
"THAT WASN'T. MY. CALL!"
"And yet you followed! Blindly! Do you not remember why yours is the ROSE legion?! Why you have that fancy little halberd your precious Grand Master awarded you? Do you not remember Rosa Collis?!"
"I protect people!"
"By killing them?!"
"Did you want me to desert, Elizabeth?! Is that it?! To tear off my standards and run?!"
"I wanted you to speak out! To say something sane! To talk of peace! To say it was possible!"
"Maybe it isn't, Elizabeth! Maybe that was just a fluke! An alliance of convenience!"
"An 'alliance of convenience'?! Us laughing around the fire, drinking and smiling together?! Are you mad?!"
"I didn't have a choice!"
She slammed the dagger previously at Marius' throat into the desk behind her.
"OF COURSE YOU DID!"
She storms past him, the small woman shoving him with her shoulder hard enough to send him staggering to the side, despite his colossal bulk. He trips over a stack of candles and stumbles right into her discarded chair, helpless to stop her exit. All he could do was scream after her in a frothing rage.
"DAMN YOU, ELIZABETH!"
Head slumping down, he lets out a ragged sigh...
Only to see an open book, knocked from her desk by the impact.
A tremendous thump. Then, faintly, from the second floor of the rain-blasted tavern in which they were presently sat;
"DAMN YOU, ELIZABETH!"
Annabelle Dupris looks down at her pink cloth faulds, the standards of the Rose Legion, and sighs in disappointment. Garth Brickender, meanwhile, held his flail by the head, picking something out of his teeth with one of its many spikes. They had just arrived, not even enough time to doff their armor, and the two were already shouting each other down.
" 'Ow d'ye think it went? Odd there's a bar round 'ere, innit? Righ' in the shadow of the Peacekeeper's favorite clubhouse? I ain' complainin'."
"I suppose even peacekeepers have to drown their woes sometimes, Sir Garth..."
She puts her head on the counter.
"They're comfortable after a while, innit they?"
"They didn't even talk for two minutes."
"I didn't count one, missy."
"I was giving them the benefit of the doubt."
"Kinda feels like mommy and daddy don't love each other no more, huh? Whi's odd, cuz I'm older than him, doncha think?"
She balls her hands up, gritting her teeth. She could feel the moisture welling in her eyes.
"D-damn it... What happened? Fuck!"
"That mean dead bitch played us, is what happened. ...Wanna drink?"
She was silent for a while. But only a short while.
"...Yeah..."
He slams the countertop.
"Oi, barkeep!"
"We... we used to be friends."
"Yup."
"I-it all seemed so bright for a while. Like we were gonna beat her. Like we were heroes, come to slay the villain."
"Yup."
"But... but she... shit!"
Unable to keep them in, the Warden breaks down, forced tears ripped from unwilling eyes.
"Make it somethin' strong!"
Nervously, the aide watched as his stormy-eyed mistress strode purposefully out the backdoor, towards the stables. Towards him. Ah, piss.
"Hello milLLAADAHHHH!"
She hammered a dagger through his sleeve, pinning him to a post, and put another to his throat.
"You should have told him I was dead."
"Well, I said you probably were! That counts for something, riiIIIIGGHHH!"
The dagger at his neck was hammered into the wood at the side of his head, mere inches from his eye.
"Tell him I took a horse and fled the keep. Really play it up."
"Yes ma'am!"
"Guh! How do you drink this swill?!"
"You'll see in a minute, girlie!"
"What? What do you mean?"
"I mean it shall soon be clear. Keep some faith, don' ye?"
"I'm short on faith nowadays, Sir Garth..."
"Ain' we all?!"
"My master! My light! My love forbidden!"
Marius marches grimly for the aide. Dropping to his knees, he grovels towards him, blubbering.
"My flower! Gone, gone from this place, never to retur-"
Marius knees him in the face. Grabbing the unfortunate squire by his neck, he forces him down into the mud.
"WHICH WAY DID SHE GO?"
"Sh-she... she flees for Valk-"
Marius pushes him face-first into the mud, half-drowning the man before he pulled him back up for a single desperate breath.
"WHERE?!"
"Fuck. Apollyon... Why? What's so fun about killing people anyhow, huh..."
Oh no. 'Something strong' indeed. Her forehead was pressed to the rough wood. She was, for lack of a better word, sniveling. Helpfully, the Conqueror throws some fuel on the fire.
"Bitch."
"BITCH! FUCKIN' BITCH!"
So, the warden couldn't handle her drink. Good to know, the Conqueror notes. He guesses, anyway.
"YOU CAN'T RUN FROM THE LAW!"
The peacekeeper storms through the great library, the laysisters that tended the archives scattering at the sight of the two of them. Without looking over her shoulder, she sneers back.
"How long did that take you to come up with?! Bet smoke was coming from your ears by the end of it!"
"Don't walk away from me!"
"Walk?! This is a purposeful stride, thank you!"
"You don't even want to hear what I have to say, do you?!"
"HENCE THE PURPOSEFUL STRIDE!"
"Well, fuck you! You don't even know what you're turning down! You're content to lie here and read stories until you get fed up with it all, lay down, and DIE!"
"Stories?!"
She whirls around to find Marius holding up a small booklet. She recognized it. Until she had been so rudely interrupted, she had been studying it.
"Fairy stories! Dusty scraps of paper!"
"HISTORY!"
She tears it from his grip, holding it close like a child.
"It's history!"
He stammers for a moment in disbelief before stepping closer, towering over Elizabeth in a manner most others would find intimidating.
"And so what? That is the past, the lives of the long dead! People are dying here, today! By the thousands!"
"And so you want me to come and kill some more in some insane, ass-backwards attempt at making a right with two wrongs?!"
"NO!"
"THEN WHAT IS IT?!"
"I WANT YOU TO HELP ME SAVE SOMEONE!"
Hyperventilating and throat raw, Marius pants for some time, reigning in his anger.
"...You even get to use that big damn brain of yours."
She was weeping now, absolutely gutted, face pressed to the wood. The barkeep raises an eyebrow worryingly. Garth just gave a thumbs up and nodded.
"Another."
The man behind the counter splutters in incredulity, almost forced back a step by the absurdity of the request.
"Fuck off!"
"Naw, for me!"
"To the south, people have been disappearing. Hunters. Children. Anyone alone amongst the woodland. It was thought wolves were to blame, but the numbers were too great. Ashfeld serves as a buffer between the heartland and the war front. It was not a raid. At least, by any enemy that we know."
The two had calmed down. Somewhat. Sat across from each other at one of the library's many tables, they swallowed their enmity and got down to business. Elizabeth listened intently, in that oddly focused way Peacekeepers always did, leaning forward as if every word was vital.
"What do you mean by that?"
"What I mean is that it's not Samurai or Viking, but some other organized force. When we sent companies south into the Skyrakers, they didn't return. The scouts we sent to investigate reported signs of battle."
"The Skyraker mountains?"
"The very same. The Cataclysm sent them coming up through the earth like the Devil's teeth, and no one's ever managed to find a way through. All attempts to cross over failed. But... we think someone might have come from the other side."
"And how do you think I'll help?"
"How do you think? You're smart and can kill people. We need someone who can do both. Besides, the peacekeepers and their records might be able to tell us who we're dealing with."
"Hmm. Well, we know that civilizations existed to the south, certainly. The Skyrakers were once a great inland sea. The pre-cataclysm name for it was the Mare Nostrum. But a way through? Air becomes thinner the higher you go."
"Thinner? What do you mean?"
"I mean that above a certain height you can't breathe, pillock."
He rises from his seat, mouth opening, but after a moment, manages to calm himself, and sits back down.
"...Go on."
She raises an eyebrow at him, but does so.
"...So no, we can't go over. You can't go around, they extend too far into the sea to sail around the east, and the western desert's hot enough to bake skin off in the day and cold enough to freeze your spittle at night."
"Through? What about a tunnel?"
"No. It'd be the greatest architectural feat of all time. I doubt they'd go all that way for some measly peons."
"So, do you think they live in the foothills?"
"No! I don't know what I think! W-what about bandits?"
"Too well organized, and too few clues. They took even the bodies. All we found of them was blood and wreckage."
"What are they, ghosts?"
"That's the best you've got? Ghosts?"
"NO! I'm saying I don't know, Marius! Give me some time to go through my books, use that 'big damn brain'! Take me to the scene, so I can investigate it myself! The monkeys you call scouts probably trampled it all, but I'll see what I can salvage!"
"Fine then! Get your damn books! We leave. Tomorrow!"
"FINE!"
"FINE!"
He turns to one of the bookkeepers wandering the rows and points at a nearby table.
"Who funds the furnishings of this place?!"
"W-what? Don't hurt me!"
"WHO?"
"The church donated them! But most of these pieces are over a century old, so-"
With one meteoric fist, he smashes the nearest table clean in two. Then he tosses the sniveling girl a coinpurse.
"Here's the replacement fee. I needed to hit something."
Elizabeth mockingly shouts after him as he storms out of the room.
"Of course! Smash all you want! Brute!"
Then, she waits until she's certain he's gone, tosses the bookkeeper a few coins, and starts stabbing the table she was seated at, grumbling angrily.
"We're heading ou-"
Marius freezes. Before him, Warden Annabelle Dupris and Garth Brickender sat, at the tail end of some low mischief. Annabelle was, well, out for the count. Garth was chuckling jubilantly. The barkeep was stammering panickedly.
"I-i-i tried to-"
"SHUT-"
He freezes mid shout. Breathing in and out, he tries again.
"...It's... fine. Garth?"
"Oi. Got what ye wanted, boss?"
"For lack of a better term, yes. We move out come dawn, for the Skyrakers."
"Aw. Ye hear that, Ann?"
He pats the comatose girl on the back.
"Hell, she's gonna feel like death tomorrow."
Gradivus looks down at the widening pool of vitae at his feet. The men of these lands were strong, healthy. They will make fine fodder for his lord.
He looks to the yawning cavern at his back, carved from the mountainside by the world itself. Mars has forged the path. He needs but follow it. He needs but march.
"Ultor, to me. We return home. For now."