LEGENDS OF CALRADIA: CONQUEST
Written & Narrated By: Sir Owen of Ruluns
Authors Note: This is a story I've been working on for some time now along with its Machinima-FanFilm counterpart I'll be posting on Youtube here in the next few weeks. The Story is set in the Fictional world of Calradia from the PC game Mount & Blade: Warband. I specifically used a personally modified version of the player made mod "Floris Expanded" for both game play footage in my Machinima and as reference to locations, noble names and to use as inspiration for the most accurate and detailed description of the environment and outlying area in most battles, the events during the battles and so forth. So with that said not much is really "Native" in this story.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own rights to "Mount&Blade", "Mount & Blade: Warband" or the mod "Floris Expanded". This is a not for profit fan fiction purely for entertainment purposes and unintended for purchase and/or distribution beyond this website. I do claim rights to several of the characters within the story however but on the large scale the majority of the characters, settings, place names and locations belongs to Taleworlds Entertainment and/or Paradox Interactive and/or the DevTeam for "Floris Expanded" which will be listed in full in the end credits of my Machinima counterpart to this story once posted on Youtube
Rated MA (Mature): Brutal Medieval Warfare|Strong Language|Suggestive Themes
-Chapter I-
The church bells rang as loud and true as any I'd ever heard, despite the fact I was nearly 50 feet underground bunked in one of the dungeon cells assigned my division. At that precise moment I was writing in my journal when men in the corridor outside my cell began shouting about the walls being breached. At first I couldn't comprehend this, I thought it a jest but then the earth began to shake with a violence like I had never experienced. The halls and cavern ways rumbled and shook as loose dirt and rocks fell from the ceiling. I dropped my quill and quickly dressed myself for battle.
Roughly I pulled my mail hauberk overhead followed by my red wool tunic. I fastened my main belt then girded my sword belt and fastened my quiver and bandolier straps. I grabbed my bow and headed for the surface. To some, 50 feet may not be much when using a direct staircase however the dungeons of Dhirim are more labyrinth than prison. It had been said that the tunnels in those underground passage ways were as far reaching as a secret entrance near the village Emirin to the west and even farther to the east near Amere. Though no one had tested this theory in centuries, each man knew that doing so would be an act of desertion and without a proper map and lighting, finding your way around those dank halls could become dangerous given the endless identical tunnels, corridors and the ever consuming darkness beyond the known perimeter. I myself had been turned around more times than I cared count, having run into old bones that were likely the remains of some poor sod attempting to prove the myth a reality. Some legends even claim these tunnels extend to the very bowls of the underworld, though this tale is often told by the infidel zealots in the temples in the Sarranid Sultanate and the Khergit Khanate.I just followed the rest of the rushed men donning their arms as we made our way towards the surface and hoped they knew where they were going.
It took well over five minutes to get to the surface, the hallways were narrow and it quickly became a shoving match as each man tried to advance on the one in front of him to be the first to reach the courtyard. There were thousands of us garrisoned in these dungeon cells. Once we finally reached the last corridor and began our ascent to ground level we were greeted immediately with flaming hollowed iron boulders filled with oil, exploding on the ground before us. In the wave just before mine as we exited the labyrinth, one such flaming iron ball landed in the midst of them exploding and sending their mutilated, dismembered bodies scattered across the outer courtyard. Some of the men both, a fore and aft of me stopped dead in their tracks, unable to fathom what they had just witnessed, frozen by fear. I would be a liar if I said my adrenaline wasn't racing, or that I wasn't scared out of my own body, but unlike some of the men surrounding me my body told me to keep moving lest I meet a similar fate. I pushed my way past the halted crowd of men in the narrow corridor leading to the surface. Just as I exited another hollowed iron ball descended towards the entrance. I just kept running even as the flaming boulder hit the base of the entrance behind me. It was close enough to get a thick shower of my fellows life essence upon my face and hair, and armour. The blast was enough to collapse the entrance and I knew that if their were any survivors, their only hope would be to pray that the old legends were true and that the tunnels had other secretive entrances and exits beyond the cities' walls. Maybe this was a gift to them from the maker, a way to escape this hell on earth.
I forced myself to keep moving towards the battlements though I came upon a deep wound in the earth, filled with blood and gristle of flesh, marred and severed limbs. Tripping over a rock protruding from the ground I fell face first into this cesspool of mortality. My mouth began to swell and pucker with the tasted of iron and blood and the smell of rotting flesh filled my nostrils. I quickly rose from the pool and a pair of eyeballs detached from their former position stirred up to float at the top of the blood and water-mixed solution. Screaming with fear and disgust I quickly dove out of the pool but only halfway. Forced to crawl the rest of the way out in fear, my body went into severe spasms as another flaming boulder struck not ten feet from where I lay. I felt the force of the blast hit me hard, knocking the wind from my chest. Fighting to keep lucid I slowly rose to one knee, though I quickly lost my bearings as well what little I could scrounge for dinner the day before and defecated over the bloodstained soil. The horrors I witness that day, I did everything I could to keep myself conscious, my mind was bombarded by the horrific scenes I'd been subjected to.
I rose from my knees to my feet, and began to run up the staircase, though I felt as if I was not in control of my own body. My nerves were shot, and in my mind, I begged the maker for mercy, to send an arrow to my heart, that I might die a quick death. As I continued up the stair case to the battlements my eyes focused on a section of the wall that had been blow away. The force of the impact must have been great because a portion of the keep some 40 feet behind the battlement had severe damage as well. An entire section of the keep's walls had been caved in from the explosion and even as I climbed the staircase the fire balls continued to rain down upon us.
I slipped continuously on the oily pools of blood and watered and the drain off of the oil from the fireballs as they flew overhead. The ground had been showered in this oil that the Rhodoks used, making any foot advancement folly. The stone and brick battlements too, were treacherous to walk upon and I was constantly having to take this into account as I continued up the battlements. Nearing the top, I felt tears run down my cheeks, though I was unsure for what reason I was crying, perhaps it was my nerves though the tears would flow for much of that battle. Finally making it to the top of the walls I took position next to a small squad of archers that still held the battlement's extension platform to my left. I nocked one shaft after the other, carefully placing my shots in the throats, eyes and groins of my attackers. I made a mental note of how many arrows I had before drawing my first. Starting out with 35 and just within a matter of minutes I'd fired off near 20 arrows all of which were kill shots.
Javelins and axes were flying everywhere, small balls made of lead tore through steel and into the flesh of the men I gathered with as well as the occasional arrow and bolt from the Rhodoks infamous crossbow regiments. As the Rhodoks pushed forward towards the gap in the wall by foot, the Nords prepared ladders for climbing on the far end of the walls on the opposite side. They were attempting to box us in and fight us on the battlements from both sides. As the Nords climbed the ladders some of the men filled the black iron cauldrons with boiling oil and emptied their contents onto the hapless Norsemen bellow.
I stayed aware of my peripheral line of sight as I knocked another arrow. I glanced to my right to see an archer drawing a long shafted bodkin arrow for his longbow. I looked forward again and released the arrow nocked in my bowstring. The man complimented my shot, which I placed at the pit of a Norseman's eye socket. As I turned slightly to him to thank him for his acknowledgment I caught the wisp and shimmer of a broad-head bolt as it entered the man's face and half exited the back of his head protruding from the base of his nect. I knocked another shaft while turning my head and closing my eyes. My face was showered with his sanguine life essence. I opened my burning eyes to line up another shot, though they felt as if someone had poured acid into them, my vision became obscured causing me to miss my target.
Releasing the last arrow from my quiver I tossed my bow and emptied quiver down the battlements to a safe place where I could retrieve them later. With no arrows left I was forced to relinquish my position as a yeoman and fight as a foot-soldier. I drew my sword, and set my path to intersect a Nord Huscarl who had managed to get up the ladders quick enough to bury his axe into another archer's head. Before he knew I was there, just as he wound up his strike designed for my lord, Count Geoffrey Haringoth, I ran him through from behind, the count turned around just in time to be surprised by the sight. I quickly removed my blade from the north man's kidney and grabbed his lifeless body, tossing it over the edge of the battlements for looting after the the battles end.
The count nodded at me in approval before returning to defending the battlements. I made short work of two more nord assailants but just as I removed the sword arm of one, several more hollowed iron balls descended from the heavens. One struck the tower of the central church temple the second destroyed a good portion of the market center southeast of our position, the forge being one of the casualties. The last explosive hit the middle of the castle keep damaging the structure further and causing its upper half to collapse. Count Haringoth screamed like a mad man, his wife and daughter were being housed near that section in the keep along with many of the other noblewomen of the realm. Haringoth motioned for me to accompany him and without question I followed his lead.
We worked our way down the staircase adjacent the battlements' rear-face as another iron ball descended, this time with a drastically low aim. It struck the wall again, near where the first hit, widening the gap for the enemy infantry to rush our troops into the courtyard. The blast sent both myself, the count, his retainers and the mass amount of men standing of the portion of the wall that was struck flailing about 60 feet into the air. I landed on my left arm, knowing for sure it was broke. The count rose to his feet quickly helping me up but it was not soon after we regained our bearing that a swarm of projectiles, lead balls, arrows, bolts, spears, axes and the like came flying into our midst un-aimed, at random. The count was struck in the shoulder with an arrow from a nord bow an I dropped to one knee after taking a lead ball in my upper right thigh.
Breaking off the protruding shaft near the arrows entry point, Count Haringoth threw the excess wood out of his hand and pulled me up to my feet again.
"We make our stand here" he said to me while kneeling on one knee, driving his sword into the ground, and even as arrows continued to harass our position he bowed his head.
"May thee, Divinus Exarch: Scorta Essencia Celestialis, guide thy soul to the heavens where fair and righteous judgement may be passed upon it."
"May thee, Divinus Heron: Salva Era, accept thy soul, that the circumstances which will see thy parting this plain for next, as both honorable and with dignity and valor."
" May thee, Divinus Archon: Yeven Era Celestialis Dominus Humanitas, keep thy soul for eternity. May ye be pleased with the life I've chosen to lead."
He rose from his kneeling position and directed his last words towards me, "And may the world weep for our loss, for it will surely be a darker place denied us... It was a pleasure fighting with you, Owen, of Ruluns."
In that moment I was awestruck, before the man had hardly said more than a few words to me, save the recited speech he gave us all when we swore our oaths before enlisting. I wasn't sure of a proper response, nervous now, more than ever before. Nobility was the one thing that scared me more than anything else. As a common man; a lowborn peasant, your life depended on their whims and mood swings. Count Haringoth however had never treated his men poorly, in fact he was renowned for treating his men with respect and dignity, a far cry from most of the realm's other lords. Though I continued to scramble for the proper words to say, feeling rushed I simply blurted out, "And to you, milord."
After the words escaped my lips I desperately wanted to find them and take them back, my response didn't even make sense and I felt a fool. Though out of the corner of my eye I saw a smirk grow on his face. That a phrase could be made humorous even amongst such surrounding as we occupied was almost unfathomable, though I myself, couldn't help but chuckle after the count had.
Afterwards we waited there for a time, he and I. It took only a matter of moments to finally see through the mist and fog and fire and smoke from the rubble. The missiles and projectiles had stopped coming our way, we both readied ourselves for what came next. At first it was hard to make out, but as they drew nearer we saw the silhouettes of men as they crossed the threshold of the blasted rock and stone of the ruined battlement. As we prepared to meet our fate the men whose paths were set on ours, stopped just short of a frogs-hair away. It was the ultimate stare-down. Only a few of us were left standing and of those few, fewer still were capable of fighting. Amongst the shattered steel and splintered wood, marred and butchered bodies, the limbs scattered like a puzzle, and smell of raw rotting flesh, we began to laugh incessantly even as the enemy marched on us.
They halted once more, for a moment. I think the sight of half a dozen knights, a noble lord and a common soldier standing against such a vast horde alone while laughing like mad men gave them pause for thought. Maybe we were mad men, we had certainly become accustomed to the insanity we were forced to live in everyday but a madness of a new sort was about to be birthed and a legend was about to be made a reality.