Prologue - I'm Going That Way
And as the mausoleum fell to the storm,
The Greater Will was so filled with ire that
He plucked the dagger from His cleric and
In one stroke shrove the Three from His hand.
Then, leaving the world to its folly, He
Returned to the inner stars and rested - safe,
but alone and untended. And so He reached
Into the Great and drew them out - The Numen.
From The Erdtree Annals, Stars 1.1-8
Before swift-riding messengers, and babbling projections of mages and the drip-drip-drip of rumour from noble to soldier to peasant, it was the wind that let them know the world had changed. The Royal Capital was shuddering in the aftermath of something monumental. Blades had clashed at the foot of the Erdtree, and in the clang and clamour no could say what had occurred and what had not. In all this, they knew for certain one thing - a great wind was surging up from Limgrave, and the wings of the hawks were moving as one.
For the Carian heirs, this was a welcome distraction, for they had known something dreadful was about to occur in Leyndell. It had struck their house first, and then, trailing blood, had strode back up the Royal Highway and into the Altus Plateau. In its aftermath, the Manor had been left in tense stasis, like a bowstring drawn back. The arrow could not be unleashed until they knew what had happened in Leyndell. But they could investigate this new curiosity in the meantime.
Young Radahn sat among the Cuckoo Knights and the Trolls as they recounted the old tales, of the great storm - the True Storm - which had once come out of the South or perhaps the East and threatened to topple the Erdtree (but which had never disturbed the stars, they would jest in hushed tones). And he would ask them again and again to tell of the Storm Lord at its heart, and how Great Godfrey told the Crucible Knights to stand aside as he cut a path alone through the winds, and smothered the threat in his Golden glory.
Lunar Princess Ranni insisted on entering her mother's chambers with ceaseless secret questions, each one whispered in such quiet, tender tones even the grieving Queen to whom they were addressed might never have guessed at their content. And when she emerged, it is hard to say what she did. She did not play with Blaidd and Iji as she normally would. The Snow Witch, her beloved tutor, seemed banished from her confidence. Mostly, she just sat by the moongazing grounds, and contemplated Pidia, the legless Albinauric groundskeeper, as he polished the mighty stone astrolabe, scraping out starlight for hours at a time until finally, his work completed, he dragged himself away into his dark chambers.
And Rykard, barely a man, but of whom so much was required, withdrew to the library to bury his head in history for whole days at a time. Then, with a look of fierce purpose he emerged, brandishing his rings and setting the Fingercreepers scuttling. The grotesque, over-fingered hands rushed this way and that as they gathered supplies, put reins and saddles on horses and did all manner of other essential things. They carried messages, too - to the Preceptors, the Academy, his siblings - all conveying the same message:
I am departing the Manor to inspect the unusual phenomena observed in Limgrave more directly. Preliminary assessments suggest it is not a threat, but warrants further study to prevent it from becoming so. Any support you can provide would be valuable.
In my absence, I provisionally appoint Preceptor Seluvis as custodian of Caria Manor, so as to allow my siblings the opportunity to accompany me, should they desire a distraction from recent hardship.
Distinguished regards,
Rykard, Crown Prince of Caria.
And so a detachment readied to traverse Liurnia, and cross into Limgrave via the bridge at Stormveil Castle. Cuckoos and Trolls and those ghastly Fingercreepers assembled into ranks, and were joined by scholars of diverse conspectuses, all assembled around an ornate carriage embellished with the shades of night and fire. At sunset, they stood in a small valley at the foot of the manor, out of the way of the wind. Rykard stood at the postern gate, with his sister beside him.
"...And you'll send word if there's any change in Mum," Rykard instructed with a stroke of his fledgling red beard.
"I will," she said without emotion or even a glance his way.
Silence descended between them.
"You're certain I can't convince you?"
"I am certain, brother. I have matters to discuss with Mother and the Preceptors. You and Radahn have fun."
And one of them had to stay behind, anyway. If they didn't, the Academy would try to separate Mum from her amber egg, or if that was impossible, to bring her back to the academy under the guise of treatment. Even under normal circumstances, this would have been a risk. Rykard himself was having to fight the urge not to spend all his time trying to catch a glimpse of its contents, because after all, if it was true that Father had left her a piece of the Elden Ring… but that bore no thinking about.
The sorcerers would always have been tempted by such an artefact, but now was a bad time for temptation. After years of grumbling about the lunar sorceries, the purists saw blood trickling down the hill of Caria Manor. With Radagon departed for Leyndell, and Rennala his wife devastated by her latest miscarriage, who knew how far their temptations might lead them if they discovered she was truly unattended… But Ranni could keep them at bay, young as she was. Rykard trusted her implicitly.
"I understand," he nodded.
He looked past her normal retinue to a large, armoured figure on horseback. "Loretta, keep an eye on her. Just because she's in charge doesn't mean she has the run of the place. I don't want to hear she and Blaidd have been bathing in the moonpool again ."
Rykard arched an eyebrow and put a hand on his sister's shoulder. For the first time in days, he saw a flicker of warmth, small as an ember and quick as a lightning strike, flash across her face. He made a show of beaming, then turned to scrutinise the procession.
"Anyway, I'd best be leaving… If only Radahn would show himself."
"I'm coming!"
There was an uneven clatter, or perhaps more of a sputter of hooves as Rykard's younger brother rode into view, and every eyebrow in the immediate vicinity rose. In addition to riding gangly little Leroy - despite Rykard specifically telling him to give the poor pony a break - Radahn was wearing the strangest suit of armour anyone there had ever seen.
Even in the fading light, it shone. It was golden and jagged, with shocks of feather and fur. The helmet was built in the shade of a leonine maw, a great plume of fake red hair cascading out the back of the helmet and… were those tusks on the side?
"What in Marika's name are you wearing?" called Rykard.
Radahn spread his arms and yelled back:
"We're going to the site of the Lord of the Battlefield's greatest victory, brother, I'm dressed in his honour!"
"You're dressed in honour of Godfrey?"
"Aye! Iji made it for me!"
The Troll bowed his head in an apparent attempt to shrink out of existence, and an incredulous laugh escaped Rykard's lips. Radahn's face fell.
"What?"
"You commissioned Iji to make you a full set of armour? In honour of Godfrey?"
"Aye! Leroy and I are like Godfrey and Beast Regent Serosh! Inseparable, unstoppable, proper Elden Lord stock!" He thrust a fist into the sky.
Rykard's face split into a grin despite himself.
"And you're Serosh in this arrangement?"
Rykard's face went red but, as ever, he fought back immediately:
"I am, Rykard! Leroy's the strongest horse in the world! I'm only here to keep him civilized!"
The elder brother started laughing openly.
"I don't have to take this!" Radahn insisted with a jab of the finger.
Rykard doubled over, wheezing. At the sign of weakness, Radahn's scowl broke and he started to appreciate how silly he probably looked. A snort escaped his mouth and he rubbed the horse's neck affectionately.
"Alright, are we setting out?" asked Radahn.
Rykard recomposed himself.
"Yes, yes we are. Form up everyone, we're departing as soon as I enter that carriage."
"Better hurry then, brother, Leroy and I are racing you to Stormveil, and we're starting now! See you when I see you, Ranni!"
Immediately, he lashed the reins and Leroy shot off in a flurry of weak, wobbling and yet somehow swift gallops, precise even in their own way. Rykard smiled and trudged over to the carriage. He felt the wind again as he neared the carriage, and it carried a melancholy with it.
He glanced after Radahn as he rode up, out of the valley, in the direction of the Erdtree's towering radiance. The armour was too big for him, and it reminded Rykard of how small and sickly Radahn had been not so long ago. He'd had arms like twigs, and lungs like leaves. Only Leroy was small and slight enough to bear him safely. The Preceptors had expected him to die by the age of ten, like so many of their other siblings, and yet, both child and horse persisted. And while Radahn had only grown stronger and bolder and intended to become more so, Leroy seemed to be straining to keep up. To be wearing thin.
As he put a boot on the foot ladder, Rykard stopped to watch his brother cresting the hill. With the wind flowing through the helmet's mane, Radahn charged on up to the top. The Erdtree loomed just off to the side, tall and proud and radiating Golden light against the dusky sky. The rays struck Radahn's armour and seemed to set him ablaze. And Radahn's leonine shape seemed to become a beacon in its own right, casting reflected golden light across the night sky to the point where the shifting stars could barely be seen!
For a moment, he was this radiant, glorious eyesore, and then he turned away from the Erdtree, and followed the road to Limgrave. Rykard wiped his eyes and got into the carriage. He didn't look back at the Manor. He knew he wouldn't be able to bear it.
They took the road down through the Kingsrealm, the Academy rising to their left, the Moonlit plateau looming before them, the hawks only becoming more numerous overhead. Back at the Manor they had only seen large, arrowhead casts of hawks, but as they descended into the lakes of Liurnia, the arrowheads seemed to overlap and become tightly packed like a net thrown across the world, separating them from the sky and dragging them away from the Erdtree's radiance.
Some days later, they reached the foot of the plateau, and took the road East, where atop gloomy cliffs Stormveil was starting to peek into view. By this time the sky had grown dark with the hawks' numbers. They seemed to burst forth from clouds like maggots from rotten fruit and spill across any source of light. But they did not bring the creeping dark alone, soon all senses were beginning to be subsumed beneath them.
The beating of wings drowned out all sounds, to the point where Rykard could not exchange a word with his brother without catching his eye and beckoning him nearer. Weary-winged hawks, who had spent all their strength returning across the Sea of Fog, fell from the sky and filled their mouths with gamey tastes. As they fell under the joint shadows of the castle and the casts, the air was filled with falling feathers, and no man could stick out a hand without feeling their soft brush. The last thing Rykard noticed, but which Radahn mentioned to him and he never forgot thereafter, was the smell of the feathers.
As the errant plumage fell, it sucked the damp scent of lakewater from the air, replacing it with strange storm-born aromas. From here descended the sharp sting of pine, from there the gentle riverside reed, and flower-pollen from the fields, and baked goods from the cities, and any number of scent from further places, from stranger places, from somewhere unknowable…
"The hawks may be the only ones gathering, but they've brought the whole world with them," a Lazuli scholar had remarked.
And that locked a thought in Rykard's mind forever: "At least I kept my promise, in some small way."
Rykard remembered Radahn's bed-ridden, feverish, glass-eyed state. Too weak even to sit up, the small child gibbered and boasted about visions of the lands he would one day visit, that he was taming, that he had conquered - like Godfrey, with Godfrey, as Godfrey. Rykard had promised him, if he'd only recover, that one day they would see them all together. Just the two brothers, and maybe Blaidd if Ranni would ever let him off his leash to have some proper fun.
But now Father had gone to Leyndell, and Rykard could not shake the fear that he would never have the chance to fulfil his promise. That they would all die soon. That in his grief Radagon had crossed blades with Great Godfrey, and now the very man Rykard's brother idolised would soon stand in the ashes of all they had ever known. This one journey would have to suffice.
Radahn seemed to have sensed this, too. He asked the Preceptors about every scrap of land. Each church, or abandoned tower or strange animal needed an explanation. And regardless of whether he got an explanation or not, it warranted closer inspection.
But at that moment, Radahn was out scouting, and Rykard was starting to wonder when he might return. Then… Knock, knock!
Rykard just about heard it over the trundle of wheels and the beating wings.
"My prince!" called a muffled voice.
Not Radahn. There was something soft, educated about it. Neither Cuckoo nor Troll. A Preceptor, or perhaps a scholar?
He set aside the map he had been consulting, swigged some water, then gestured with his left hand. The rings upon it glowed purple, and outside a Fingercreeper the size of a dog scuttled up the door and turned the handle.
It creaked open, and a Twinsage scholar entered, both of his stone faces fixed on Rykard. The Carian Prince stood up, but did not look directly at the scholar. Their two-faced crowns were designed only to conceal and deceive. So, Rykard rejected the false choice, and immediately moved toward the window to look out.
They were approaching the Liurnia highway, which they would follow the remainder of the way to the bridge connecting Limgrave and Liurnia. Immediately, Rykard realised the issue. The hawks had deterred all travellers other than themselves, and they had not seen a soul outside their party in days. But the highway was not only in use, it was overflowing. Rykard reached into his robes and pulled out a telescope.
"A host of armed men is approaching Stormveil by the Highway, sire," the Twinsage explained preemptively. "They look set to reach the bridge before us… Should we wait?"
Rykard pressed the instrument to his eye, the cold metal sending a jolt through him. His eye widened, then narrowed, and whittled the world back into clarity.
As the Twinsage had said, a great column of warriors trudged dolorously onwards, weapons and armour marked with dried blood and viscera. Warriors who wore the tree-and-beast surcoat… but that could be any of the Golden Lineage! It could be Godwyn, Godefroy, sickly Godrick or even a vassal like the Haights or Marais. They could be passing by on any errand, any expedition to Limgrave or to Caelid to fight with Misbegotten, or Demihumans, or the latest abomination of the Graven Witch. It did not mean…
But it did.
The horned Crucible Knights guarded the bridge. And in the midst of the host, he noticed a gargantuan litter borne by eight oath-sworn trolls. The Lion rampant burned on its curtains.
Rykard let the telescope fall from his face. He almost let it fall from his hand altogether, but it wedged strangely in his fingers, so he tightened his grip and returned it to his robes. Once he'd done so, he wished he hadn't, because his hand had begun to tremble.
"My prince?" asked the Twinsage.
Despite the stone masks concealing his expressions, the scholar had bowed his heads, unable to look Rykard in the eye. The Crown Prince struggled to form words. He had to be mistaken, he couldn't have seen correctly. He turned his head and saw Radahn in the same predicament. His brother's face had fractured between elation and agony.
Godfrey had come, so Father was dead. Godfrey must have come to cut off his own and Radahn's perceived escape. By the Fingers, they might have already struck the Manor!
Rykard pushed the Twinsage aside and rushed out of the carriage. He looked back towards home, to scan for signs of smoke, symptoms of a raid. He could see nothing past the swarming birds overhead, only the Erdtree's rays piercing partway through. Despair filled his heart and from its very depths he cursed the skies and the birds and that damnable tree, the icon of his foe! He felt a spirit of anger rising in him, and his back arching in blasphemous defiance.
"Come then Godfrey, thou Erdtree tyrant-"
A hand clamped down on his shoulder. Radahn had gotten down from his horse, and with his golden glove he had slammed the spirit back into Rykard's body. The Crown Prince looked around, and saw the startled looks of their party. He suddenly couldn't remember if he'd been speaking aloud or had been able to contain the treasons within him. He calmed his thundering heart, and dammed the tide of panic in his mind.
To Radahn, he asked:
"Is there a way past the bridge?"
Radahn nodded. The tusks of his helmet caught the light and became radiant.
"Aye, a path up around the lower cliffs. Too rocky for a carriage."
Rykard clicked his tongue.
"We have relatives in Sellia…"
Radahn's eyes lit up. He cuffed his brother across the chest, a broad grin across his face. Rykard mustered a pained smile in response, then made his features stern once more. He spoke loudly, roaring over the thunderclap of wings above.
"I thank you all for your good service to the House of Caria, but my brother and I must go on alone. Feel free to return wherever you see fit, be that to the Manor, the Academy, or to your families. The world is all askew. All I ask is thatone of you deliver a message to my sister and my mother the Queen. Tell them that Radahn and I have set out for Sellia, and that we shall send word as soon as possible, should we make it there."
A masked Preceptor stepped forward. A woman. Miriam. The determination in her eyes was harder than any steel.
"The order of Preceptors remains loyal, my Prince. As we draw breath, your message will be delivered and Caria Manor defended."
Several scholars from the Academy stepped forward with similar, albeit less categoric affirmations of loyalty. The Cuckoos quietly acquiesced to others, seeing no need to make promises they did not care to uphold, which Rykard almost respected. The Trolls knew their loyalty was never in question, and so said nothing.
Without a word, he gestured with his ringed hand. A Fingercreeper the size of a horse detached itself from the back of the carriage and scuttled up to him. The many-fingered hand bent its knuckles, and bowed for him to sit in the saddle upon its back. He put a hand on the corpse-like flesh and pulled himself on.
One last glance at the litter filled Rykard with all the will he needed. As it was slowly borne toward the bridge, the Erdtree's light fell out across the sea, where even the innumerable hawks could not reach, the golden rays like a curtain demarking the edge of the world. And there, to his right, was Radahn, no longer touched by a drop of its so-called blessings, and more radiant than it could ever make him.
"Come then, Erdtree tyrant," he thought. "Rykard bows to thee no longer."
Radahn kicked Leroy's flanks, and Rykard twisted his ringed hand, and they charged off into the heart of the storm.
"Stop!" cried the guard clad in red and green.
But the brothers did not heed him. Radahn leapt clean over the warrior, who dropped flat to the ground. Rykard, grinning, skittered past on the Fingercreeper and up the rocky path. On their left, the procession across the bridge stopped. Weapons were drawn and cries of anger raised at the disrespect shown by these strangers. Or perhaps, Rykard fretted, they had recognised the Carian Princes as the object of their expedition.
Then again, the light by now was limited to the torches of the guards, and to the flickering orb of starlight he had summoned to illuminate their path. The hawks were like smoke over Stormveil. No sky could be seen, just shadow compounding shadow. Rykard spared a glimpse up at the battlements of that storied castle, and between the burning braziers he saw the hawks' leering down like a great, silhouetted jury.
And yet he cared nothing for their judgement. As he ducked a stone slung by one of the soldiers on the bridge, he laughed. He shot a glance back at the great litter he knew carried their enemy and idol, and saw its hulking carriers stop. Far, far back, across cliffs and ocean, he saw the trunk of the Erdtree glimmer faintly, but the light of its boughs could not reach them there. He was unbound, unfettered, the Lunar Prince free to roam in the dark at last.
Despite the obscurity Radahn remained radiant. His golden armour reflected every dim torch, drawing the eyes and the confusion of guards just long enough for the Fingercreeper to flick them aside.
And he hardly needed the starlight charm Rykard had summoned. Leroy, pulling ahead, seemed to know every dip and scratch in the landscape, his wobbling legs somehow avoiding each perfectly. By comparison the Fingercreeper was a shambling, stumbling thing, deserving of the dark.
But despite this, Rykard ascended and kept close behind. There was not a watchman they did not confound or disable without difficulty. All the while the hawks looked on, silent and inscrutable.
Then, the land levelled out, and they found themselves on a small plateau. Beyond the heavy cloud of hawks, Rykard could catch a glimpse of Limgrave. He had never thought much of its grey temperateness before, but that day it was a vision of paradise. A blessing without comparison. He cheered, and Radahn followed suit. They just had to-
Crack! A line of razor-sharp rocks began to burst forth from the ground just ahead of him. Rykard curled his wrist and the Fingercreeper dug its nails into the ground to slow itself. He gripped tightly to the saddle he had fashioned for the creature, only barely stopping himself from being unseated. He heard hooves skidding on the earth. Radahn was on the other side of the barrier, looking back and forth. Rykard followed the same frantic glances, seeking out a point where he could cross without shredding himself to pieces.
Then, a figure hopped down from a nearby boulder. After one glance, Rykard screamed to his brother:
"Go, Radahn! I'll hold him!"
His brother shot him a pained look of pleading, but Rykard shot him a look which mustered all their Father's scornful authority and then some, and he turned the horse to gallop away. Rykard turned the Fingercreeper to face his new opponent.
He drew his glintstone sword and flourished it, as much to comfort himself as to intimidate his enemy. His other hand took hold of a glintstone staff at his side. With a thought and a flash of an insignia displaying the sword and staff of Caria, a phalanx of five spectral swords materialised around him. On an instinct as old as the stars themselves, the glintblades angled towards the interloper.
An armoured boot stepped into the pale blue light Rykard had summoned, then a horned shield, and an angular helm with an axe-like horn on either side. A heavy sword sat in his hand, and its wide shield obscured his chest. Even under the blue tinge of the starlight sorcery, it was plain to see that his armour and weaponry were a rich, reddish brown. Some speculated it was the shade of the Erdtree's predecessor - the Greattree in whose shade the Crucible of Life had flourished.
A Crucible Knight stood before him, ready for war.
Any other day, Rykard would have been in awe to see such an emissary of a great and glorious past. That day, his eyes burned with blasphemous enmity. This was just an enemy to best. Another impediment to his brother's safety.
At that moment, Rykard twisted his ringed hand and his grotesque steed charged forth. Seconds after, the phalanx of glintblades shot forth, aiming straight for the Knight's head. In a swift move of the shield, all of them were blocked. But Rykard had anticipated this. With another twist of the hand, the Fingercreeper reared up, then drove its nails down for a killing blow.
But the Crucible Knight, with impossible swiftness, ducked away from the attack. Then, digging his heel into the ground, he pressed forward. A spectral, golden horn burst forth from the centre of his shield. It shot up, sharp as any blade, and burst through two knuckles and toward Rykard's face. Attempting to dodge the radiant horn, Rykard leant back too far and unseated himself.
The wind rushed from his lungs, and his ankle snapped. The starlight flickered as he struggled to maintain the enchantment against the paint. In the inconsistent light, he saw the Crucible Knight pass his sword through the Fingercreeper twice, then his steed fell still.
A glimpse back revealed the litter. It had opened, and a huge man was approaching, flanked by Crucible Knights on either side. Some great Golden - or no, white? - shape clung to his back. A huge, staff-like axe sat between his hands. Even in this darkness, his crown seemed to glow. He was coming up the rocky path toward them.
This vision of the enemy filled Rykard with the strength he needed to stand. A twist of his staff sent a twisting comet out to strike the Crucible Knight, but once again it bounced off his shield. Seeing a gap, he thrust his blade forward, but a twist of the greatsword sent it flying from his hand.
The knight loomed over him, sword drawn back for a precise strike. It would strike Rykard between the teeth and pass out the other side of his skull, leaving him alive just long enough for Godfrey to arrive and see the cleanness of the kill. Rykard twisted his ringed hand, and a Fingercreeper no larger than his own hand stirred, readying to leap up and strike the Knight in the throat. Rykard knew in that second that he would soon bring a thousand men to the grave with him then his murder go unavenged.
Then, a glorious battlecry. The hawks parted for a second and a beam of Golden light shone down over the Knight's head. Into it leapt Radahn, on the back of Leroy. They became a dazzling beacon, forcing the Knight to break his stance and seek to cover his eyes. Then… Clang! Radahn's black sword struck the knight on the helmet. The primordial metal bent, blood leaked from beneath.
Radahn landed and skidded to a stop. The Knight reeled, spitting blood and bleeding curses. Rykard cheered as his brother turned for a second charge. With the Erdtree's light still upon him, Radahn was as glorious as any great warrior of legend.
He was nimble as the Blind Swordsman as he turned. He was indefatigable as Godwyn as he hefted his sword back up for another blow. Steadfast as their father, Radagon, as he charged forward. Finally, he roared out:
"Caria holds the line!"
And he was as fearsome as Godfrey himself. Rykard's face split in ecstasy as he watched, waiting for the victory that would make his brother a legend. They just had to kill this one Knight, and they could be free.
The Knight clouted Radahn around the head with his shield. Metal clanged against metal. Radahn hit the ground in a daze. Leroy galloped on, skidding to a halt at the line of spiked rocks. Other than a single, scornful glance the Knight ignored the horse and rounded on Radahn.
Filled with rage, Rykard stepped forward, but pain shot through him as he put pressure on his fractured ankle. He fell flat, the Fingercreeper wriggling and scratching around his chest as it strained fruitlessly to match his will.
The Knight's greatsword rose. Rykard's spirit plummeted. He had failed.
"Hold, now!" called an old, sonorous voice. "They're only boys."
Rykard's eyes shot past the Knight. A man clad in blue and brass stepped out. A crown rounded his temples. Grey hair and a braided beard framed his face. And a spectral lion clung to his shoulder, growling out wise counsel. Godfrey himself had intervened. Clarity re-entered Radahn's eyes then tears began to well up within them. Rykard's entire being stood still.
"They're only boys," the Crown Prince repeated to himself in his thoughts. In a daring act of hope, he speculated: "Does he not know who we are? It is dark, after all, and he's never met us… Oh stars, be yet kind!"
The Elden Lord moved his hand delicately but definitively, the exposed muscles of his arms flexing and rippling as he did so, and dismissed the wounded Knight with all the grace the legends had described. Despite himself, Rykard felt a great reverence welling up within him.
And because of this Lordly greatness about him, it made the ways he deviated from legend all the more concerning. The guidance of grace no longer shone in his eyes, of course, but that had been known for a long time. Yet Serosh, the Beast Regent, now no longer shone gold, instead taking on a ghostly white shade.
Worse still, the greataxe Godfrey bore as a symbol of his vow as Lord - as much a sceptre as a weapon - was broken. One half of the double-sided blade had been shorn off. Rykard wondered if Father had done that. If he had, he could almost forgive him. It was some feat to do that much to a man such as this. And yet, a crack in the axe was like a fracture in the world. Rykard found himself shuddering for reasons he couldn't yet comprehend. Radahn remained enraptured, now on his feet and petting Leroy devotedly.
Godfrey brought them both back to reality by speaking. His face was stern, but his tone was soft.
"I must say boys, it's a worrying day when two children see a Crucible Knight and reckon they can face him… But who can fault you for confusion in times such as these?"
There was a wistful quality to it which demanded despair and longing. Rykard thought of mother clutching the Amber Egg. But then, Serosh adjusted his claws ever so slightly on Godfrey's shoulder, and his face and tone shifted. Warmth suddenly sparked in it. His teeth were bared in tentative mischief. The wistfulness somehow persisted.
"It is, however, impressive when a child manages to wound a soldier who has served since before I took Serosh upon my back!"
He allowed himself a laugh like it was the last drop of water in a vast desert. He turned his eyes, graceless but inviting, on Radahn. Rykard shot his brother a warning look, but Radahn paid him no mind. His cheeks were red as his hair and he was scrunching up his eyes to hold back joyous tears.
"You've a powerful swing, boy. I would that we had you in the old wars."
"Thank you, Great Godfrey," said Radahn.
"I must say, though, your armour is strange… The lion suggests one of my lineage, but I've seen no such design."
Radahn mumbled something.
"Speak up, boy."
"It's a tribute to your victories, Lord of the Battlefield!"
Godfrey's brow furrowed and a smile crept slowly across his face. Radahn's face glowed already at this small acknowledgement.
"Ah! I see it now. I am flattered. The lion for Serosh. Feathers for the hawks. Horns for the taming of the Crucible," Rykard cursed himself for mistaking them for tusks, "...And red hair for the giants."
Radahn went pale. A look of puzzlement marked the Elden Lord's features. Rykard looked around. Hawks had started to settle across the rocks in great numbers, staring at Godfrey. He tried to get his brother's attention, but his eyes could not be moved from Godfrey.
"Have I spoken wrong?"
Rykard felt his soul falling deeper and deeper into him. Some of his anger at the Erdtree tyrant returned. He tried to rise to his knees, as Radahn confessed.
"The red is for my father…" Before the inevitable question, he added: "I am Radahn, son of Radagon."
Godfrey backed away, swallowing, no longer able to look directly at Radahn. His lip curled as he took notice of the Fingercreeper, then made a two-fingered gesture to Rykard. Rykard wondered if the number of fingers was significant, some subconscious gesture of piety, perhaps?
"Then you are the elder… Rykard?"
He found his lungs bereft of air, and no matter how deep he breathed he couldn't seem to fill them again. Finally, he rasped:
"Yes, my Lord."
Godfrey nodded and adjusted his hands on the axe. He cast a longing look back towards the Erdtree, and Rykard felt empty, realising something he dared not understand.
Godfrey gripped the axe tighter still, and began to lift it. Rykard felt a tear run down his cheek. But then, a low, growling but regal voice spoke.
"A lord will be remembered by what he does, not what he was," counselled Serosh.
Godfrey sighed. His features subsided like an old cliff. And then, in a moment they were restored to stern inscrutability once more.
"Apologies, I have business with the Stormhawks. Then, I'll leave you."
Rykard found Radahn's hand under his arm, drawing him up. He was on his feet, leaning against his brother, watching the Elden Lord walk towards the battlements, the hawks hopping aside to let him pass.
Godfrey stopped at the foot of the wall and reached into his robes. A small pile of spirit ash shone gold in his hand. He held up the glowing pile, to the birds manning the walls. One hawk, larger than the others, reared up and squawked loud enough to be heard over all the winds conjured by his fellows in the air.
Godfrey's eyes drifted shut, and the ash was gold no more. Instead it glowed blue, and Rykard could have sworn he saw the shape of some mighty bird begin to form. The large hawk swooped down and grabbed the ashes away. He rested on the battlements once more, and led out a shrill caw which seemed to tear the very air.
The hawks trilled softly in response. Suddenly the great circling swarm became ordered. Ranks and lines formed as they all began to move with common cause. They formed a single column and streamed down from Stormveil's walls. The pillar of wind and feathers then set out along the road Godfrey's host was already following. They followed it down into Limgrave, then veered off towards the Weeping Peninsula, and finally out into the Sea of Fog.
At the end of the Weeping Peninsula, Rykard could see the sails of ships amassing. He could not speak.
Godfrey bowed to the large hawk on the walls, and the hawk responded in kind. It beat its winds and flew off to the other side of the Castle.
"Where are you going?" Rykard asked, feeling imbecilic but needing someone to confirm what he knew to be happening.
Godfrey weighed his words a moment. He did not look at them.
"I am leaving the Lands Between. I might someday return, I am told, but I do not put much stock in that vow."
Radahn gasped.
"I am sorry," Rykard said with sincerity. "May grace guide you, Lord Godfrey."
Godfrey scoffed, then cleared his throat. Even in this, where bitterness wished to devour him whole, he fought to maintain his dignity.
"And yourself, Prince Rykard."
And Godfrey began to set off down the hill, the Crucible Knights following slowly. Two of them dragged the one Radahn had stuck between them. He wasn't moving. He had quietly died while they spoke. Suddenly, Rykard found himself propped against a rock. Radahn hopped onto Leroy and rode out, shouting after them:
"Godfrey! Let me come with you! Let me serve under the Lord of the Battlefield, wherever he may fight!"
Godfrey looked back over his shoulder, and the wistful smile returned.
"We are departing on a long trek. We may never stop. You are certain you can keep pace with such a frail steed?"
"Leroy is not frail!"
"Come now, he is a little gangly, you must admit."
Radahn stopped a second, then said.
"When I was a child, I was sick. They thought I'd die, like most of the others. When it wasn't too bad, they let me go out, even let me ride. But I was too frail for the healthy horses, so they gave me a sick one. They expected us both to die, and we proved them wrong. We got strong together. We'll only get stronger with your guidance. Then, one day, we'll be Lord of the Battlefield, and you'll be learning from us."
Godfrey laughed, but it was not cruel. There was ambition in there, the relish of a challenge.
"You've a soul all your own, child, which is more than I can say for your father. Hold on to that… But you should know, I'm not the Lord of the Battlefield anymore. Your father is. If you want to learn from anyone… it'll have to be him."
Rykard craned his neck for a glimpse of Radahn's face. He could see nothing. Not a twitch of the head, not a straightening of the back. And yet, in the days and years to come, he knew that his brother must have said these next words with pure, indomitable determination in his tear-reddened eyes.
"Then I'll learn to beat him, and when you come back, I'll beat you too."
Godfrey's face split into a chasmous grin, replete with ambition and purpose.
"I live in hope of that day, child."
And so he left to join his great column of men, guided by the Hawks out onto and across the sea.
As Rykard would later learn, Godfrey had been banished alongside all the kin he had brought with him when he first came to the Lands Between, and all those descended from them (bar Vyke, for whom the dragoness Lansseax had pleaded). In Godfrey's place, Radagon was to wed Marika and become the new Elden Lord. She would adopt his three children and proclaim them Demigods in what some privately called an egregious dilution of the term. A dilution only further evidenced by Godwyn the Golden remaining heir apparent. And other children, born of Radagon and Marika, were soon to be born, with unclear places in the line of succession, and with strange afflictions and blessings evident in them from the first.
In strange corners of the earth, the children of the Greattree would seethe with renewed vigour at their dispossession, black flames would begin to spark in the shadow of the Giants' forge, and a forgotten serpent would slither its way back out of Gelmir's flames. Marika's Numen bodyguards and Albinauric attendants would soon cast their thoughts to sunken streets and old mistakes. And beneath the capital, the Omen Twins would guard a sparking, savage flame, and the voice of a Dynasty would begin to whisper in the ears of the Forlorn.
All the world would soon begin to stir and shift, with eyes upon the Elden Ring, and the Golden Order it upheld. The world twist, and tighten around the Capital, as alliances shifted and plots formed and failed. And then, finally, because of Marika's plot and Radagon's victory that day, this world would fracture, and all would turn to blood and bile.
But none of that was clear at that moment. That night, Rykard and Radahn watched as an army of champions left the Lands Between, carrying away all sense of myth and legend. What remained was uneasy. It was all so similar to the glorious tales they had adored, and the order of the world they had not questioned. Radagon, slighted by Godfrey in some obscure way, had left home in his lowest moment, and won himself the hand of the Goddess. Was that so different from Godfrey's own ascent? And yet, it all still felt so uncannily wrong.
And as the skies finally cleared of the last hawks, Rykard looked out at the Erdtree unimpeded. He did not feel blessed as the golden rays struck his face. He felt watched.