Year 2: The Battle of Rhodes - Chapter 1

The Battle of Rhodes had begun.

From portals connected to his domain far in the east, the Demon Emperor had unleashed some of his finest forces upon the Free People’s Alliance.

Dread Knights.

Ravens.

Machai and Hysminai.

Spiders and Gørviligr.

Skeletons and liches.

And, of course, leading them into battle were his generals.

Eris’s rule of leaving the Summoned Heroes alone has expired, David thought as he took his first proper steps into the west, emerging from Xi Shi’s portal into a palace in chaos. He couldn’t help but smile a little as he looked around the battlefield. Tonight, this game ends, Eris.

***

“Report!” Queen Dorothy demanded.

“The traitor elves are attempting to take the walls, spiders climb up the stones all across the palace to take the high ground, and demons stalk the courtyards and gardens! The eastern gate has fallen and undead, accompanied by liches, descend upon the city itself!”

“Thank you. Do not falter, proud Elves of the west! As unlikely as we all believed and hoped this day would be, we trained for it, we practiced, we rehearsed and we all knew that if it was going to happen, it’d be during the Festival of Heroes. Remember your training, trust in yourself and one another, and come with me!” Dorothy drew her elegant long, curved sword from its sheath and held it high into the air. “And push back the darkness of the east!”

Her men cheered out around her and followed her towards the walls.

***

Commander Hersi’s blade slit another elf’s throat, decorating his black obsidian bastard sword with their blood. He then spun and cut another man in two, before slicing open a woman’s stomach.

He and his Gørviligr, two thousand strong, had been given one task by the Demon Emperor: to take the walls of the King’s Palace and rain arrows into the city and the palace grounds.

They had had the element of surprise and slain more than a hundred lookouts and guards before the alarm had been raised but, now that it had, the fighting had been fierce. The elves serving Queen Dorothy in particular had proven difficult. They were as fast as the Gørviligr and had similar fighting styles, which made them hard to defeat.

However.

Hersi kicked an elf off the wall and onto the cliffs below, eliciting a satisfying crunching sound, just as arrows pierced the men beside him from the watchtowers.

“Tey-hath! The towers, now!”

“Yes, si-!” An arrow pierced his eye and he dropped down dead.

Frustrated, Hersi turned to the spider resting on his shoulder. “Jorōgumo, I need those towers taken, now!”

This one reports that my kin shall have done so soon.

“Make it even sooner!” Hersi turned to face a knight of Rhodes.

***

Kayleigh blasted another Machai across the room, its lifeless corpse collapsing onto a pile of its kin. Duncan and Hajime, stood back-to-back, cut down the ones surrounding them, just as their teammates dispatched the last of the Machai in the room.

“Everyone okay?!” Duncan yelled. He received a chorus of positive replies. “I’m worried about Yve, Elysa and Hailey.”

“I’m more worried about Yve and Elysa,” Akane said. Realising how blunt she had been, she quickly whispered, “Sorry, but-”

“We’ll discuss how this happened later, including any further speculations,” Kayleigh said, quickly taking charge of the conversation. “Sounds like the how damn palace is under attack, and this ballroom is just one hell of many.”

“We can’t just leave them-”

“I never said we would, Hajime. We should split up, four teams head out and figure out what the hell’s happened, while-”

“I’ll stay with my team.” Guy stepped forward, demon blood trickling down his face, and smiled. “We…don’t have as much experience as you guys fighting out there, so…if it’s okay, we can-”

“We’ll stay too,” Liam chimed in, grabbing Kavi and Adrien by the shoulder. “I know our leader and Hailey are out there, but we’re useless without them, as much as I hate to admit it and by God I shall never admit it before Yve.”

“But if you guys linked up-?”

“Six heroes aren’t going to be enough and you all know it. Better three complete teams head out than three and us lot.” Liam grinned. “Don’t worry, we’ll protect everyone. Duncan.” Liam turned to their unofficial leader and, sternly, said, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks about her - Hailey’s our teammate, and you’ll bring her and Yve back safely, you hear me? I know we don’t show it enough, but they’re our friends…well, we like to think they are at least.” He chuckled, then held out a fist. “You’ve got this.”

Smiling back, Duncan tapped his fist to Liam’s. “Leave it to us. Good luck you guys. Everyone, gather to your leaders, now!” Then, more quietly, he said to Hajime and Kayleigh. “We need to make sure the gates haven’t fallen and we need to check on Hailey and Yve.”

“The flare came from the dorms, so I’ll take my lot to them,” Kayleigh said. “Hopefully, we can find Talon and Dao Chen along the way.”

“Then, we’ll go to the east gate,” Hajime said. “The dorms are to the north, so that leaves you with the south.”

Duncan nodded. “Don’t forget, if you need help, find a mage who knows the telepathy spells and ask for help. We’re all in this together.” Duncan tried to show them a strong smile, but his anxiety came across nonetheless. “Don’t die, okay?”

“We won’t, so don’t you die either,” Kayleigh answered.

“…That’s another flag raised.”

“Shut up, Hajime.”

“Before you go, sorry to bother you,” Dante said as he jumped over to their spot, smiling. “I hate to ask this off you, but can I borrow Ewan for a bit?”

***

Lord Akechi and Princess Hiiragi had taken their finest warriors, the Blades of Yun, into the main palace as soon as they realised a battle had started.

Captain Hu and his eighteen best swords had fallen in behind them, going room by room, searching for survivors or the wounded, or additional men to join in their fight. Soon, they had a fighting force of forty soldiers and guards, and had told twenty-eight staff and guests to find somewhere to hide.

They had encountered both Hysminai and Machai as they moved through the long corridors, but they had proven easy to deal with. Akechi’s blades danced around the larger Machai, making short work of them, while Hiiragi’s tattoos had launched powerful piercing spells into the Hysminai shields and armour, dispatching them with ease.

“Prince Julius and Prince Augustus had retired early,” Akechi said, his worry for their safety evident in his voice. “If they were caught unaware, then it is likely they have both fallen.”

“Julius might no longer be the man he once was, but these demons should prove little challenge to him.” They came to a stop as they moved around a corner. “These ones however.” Hiiragi bit her lip. “Might prove more difficult.”

At the far end, finishing off a handful of guards and soldiers, dead bodies from both sides laying around them, were five men and women in dragon-metal plate armour and weapons.

One wielded a trident, another had a bident; there was one with a large chakram, one with a long poleax that he wielded with a single hand, and the final one had two sickles.

“The famed Dread Knights. My lord and lady.” Captain Hu and the Blades stepped forward, their katanas drawn and their thick shields raised. “Please leave them to us.”

“Nonsense.” Akechi stepped up beside the captain. “We shall fight beside you.”

“Weaklings,” the one with the chakram said, slicing the throat of the last surviving dwarven soldier. “They aren’t priorities.”

“If they are here, then the demons have failed,” the one with the sickles noted, cleaning their blades on the cloak of a fallen knight. “There are two monarchs with them.”

“Then, what are we waiting for?” The Dread Knight, with a mighty war cry, leapt into the air and launched the chakram towards their new opponents.

***

A phalanx formation met the charging undead along the main road into the Rhodes market.

At first, the soldiers on duty did not know what had happened when the alarms rang out, but they were quick to see the undead skeletal horde barrelling down towards them. Shield walls were formed, swords and spears ready to meet their foe, and then the liches attacked.

Fireballs blew holes in their formation, leaving large gaps for the undead to exploit. Lines collapsed soon afterwards as officers tried to regroup and recover their forces.

Initially, as the undead started to slaughter the fleeing crowds and defeated soldiers, it appeared as if the tragedy of Black Port was about to repeat itself.

Until.

A large spear flew threw the air and skewered two liches out of the sky, instantly destroying both.

“Thank the Goddess I decided to sneak out for a pub crawl,” Atalanta mused as she used magic to pull her weapon back to her. “Adventurers!” She glanced over her shoulder at the thousands of fellows behind her. “Charge!”

The adventurers, of all ranks and ages, charged to meet the heavily undead in battle.

Unlike the soldiers, the adventurers were much more experienced in dealing with monsters and soon the unstoppable wave of undead was halted in place, forced into a stalemate, giving the soldiers of the Free People’s Alliance time to rally, regroup and rejoin the battle.

Priests, mages and archers aimed to knock the liches out of the sky, but the surviving eight undead mages had learnt from their fallen brothers and flew too high for most to reach.

Then, they started chanting their foul magics.

Black energy gathered over the dead, both the shattered bones and the recently deceased, and they began to stir and rise again, all under the Banner of the Satyr Skull.

“Atalanta!”

“I know!” Her spear shattered another thirty undead with a single sweep. “We just need to reach them!”

***

King Alexander had been the first into battle as his men tried to retake the eastern gate.

However, their progress was none existent as an unforgiving battle was fought for the palace.

To even regain a foot of lost ground proved near impossible, as elves upon the walls sniped his men from an unreachable distance. The Hysminai, in their tight formations, were difficult to assault, and many men had died trying, dirtying the demons’ spears with their blood.

The Machai seemingly came from all sides as spiders leapt down from the rooftops of buildings and off of walls to wreak havoc in King Alexander’s lines. The king himself, a very seasoned warrior, struggled at times to keep up.

It’s likely that the Demon Emperor assaulted us through the portals we’ve heard about, he thought as he dispatched another horse-sized spider. If they are still open, then that means he could be bringing reinforcements in at a near unstoppable rate! I thought our barriers were designed to prevent such spells, unless…someone destroyed them. But it’d take an incredibly skill mage, one with enough mana to overload the spells and force them to short circuit.

King Alexander paused and sighed deeply, as the dark truth came over him.

“…We had another traitor.”

***

“Ewan!”

“On it, Dante!” The younger man leapt over his mentor’s crouched back and launched the spider across the room with his Arts, then used them to launch himself onto the spider’s stomach, stabbing it with his spear. The creature screeched and flailed its legs in agony before curling up in a ball, dead. “That’s the last of them, I think.”

“It is.” Dante stood back up, removing his scythe from the dead Hysminai and rested his weapon on his shoulder. “Nice work and you’ve gotten much better at controlling your Arts.”

“Thank you, though.” Ewan frowned a little. “I should go back and join Kayleigh and-”

“Once Kayleigh links up with Yve and Hailey, she’ll be back up to full strength. Don’t worry about them. Right now, we need to-”

Before Ewan could blink, he had been thrown backwards across the room and Dante had taken his place, his scythe locking against the halberd of one of the Demon Emperor’s most feared generals, the woman who had appeared at the Rivers House with great physical prowess.

“Impressive,” Xi Shi praised as she and Dante exchanged six bouts, before the latter retreated. “I can see why Hilda wants you dead.”

“I hate to break it to you, but that won’t be happening anytime soon,” Dante said cheerfully back, pushing Ewan so he was stood behind him. “I plan on dying of old age, married and with kids to look after me. Until that happens.” He shifted his stance into a defensive one. “I don’t plan on kicking the bucket.”

“…That won’t…be your fate…Dante.”

“There you are, Satyr Knight.” Hilda slowly walked up behind Xi Shi, trailing her bloodied spear behind her. “It’s been far too long; I don’t suppose you found that humanity you lost?”

Hilda tried to charge forward, but Xi Shi held a hand up, keeping Hilda back. “Normally, I would simply kill both of you and be done with it, but.” Xi Shi looked deep into Ewan’s eyes and licked her lips, sending unsettling shivers up and down the hero’s body. “I feel like playing with your little pet for a while. Go keep Hilda company one last time, Dante.”

“…Ewan, I can’t take them both.”

Ewan swallowed hard, sweat dripping from his forehead, as he gripped Gungnir, Divine Artifact, tighter. “I know.”

“…Xi Shi, was it? I’d like to make a request.”

“Oh?”

“You can play with him, but you can’t kill him until the Satyr Knight’s killed me or I’ve killed her.”

Xi Shi giggled. “I have no reason to agree to that, but.” She gave the pair a sadistic smile. “Why not? Hil-”

Hilda had already sprung into action.

Dante blocked her spear as the force of the impact carried them both into the room behind them.

Ewan didn’t take his eyes off Xi Shi however, even as he heard the sounds of the duel raging behind him.

“Do you know why I humoured him?”

“…Why?”

Xi Shi took one tiny step forward and Ewan’s whole body tensed up.

“Because - you are like me, even if you don’t remember everything.”

***

Kayleigh’s team hadn’t had to fight the thick of the enemy forces as they made their way through the pathways leading to the dorms.

The knights who had followed them, led by Chancellor Bernaught, had taken care of most of the enemies already, and covered them as they continued onwards.

“Best save your strength for the real enemy, not these weaklings!” The dwarf had cried out.

Grateful for his aid, Kayleigh, Gabriel, Fala and Trevor had made it back, and found Yve and Hailey, exhausted and bloody, standing by the front doors.

“Everyone!”

“Yve, Hailey!” Kayleigh sprinted towards them, relieved and hugged Yve for a brief moment. “I’ll never do that again.”

“By all means, feel free to do so again.”

“Not now, Yve,” Hailey said through tired pants. “Where’s everyone else?”

With slightly narrowed eyes, Kayleigh said, “Duncan’s team have gone south while Hajime’s has gone east.”

“Have we lost the gates then?” Yve asked.

“We have no idea, but we assumed the worst. Is everyone-?”

“Inside? Dead, we think, though I didn’t stop to count the bodies. It’s been an absolute slaughter in there.”

“Have you seen Elysa?”

“Wasn’t she with you?” Hailey asked.

“She was, but she ditched me and headed back to her room…you don’t think-?”

“I didn’t see her in there, but I’d rather not look again,” Yve said with a bitter laugh. “It’s…a little too grotesque for me.”

“…We’ll go in through the window,” Fala suggested.

“There’s bodies in there too.”

“I’ll go in and check. You guys stay here for now.”

“Splitting up isn’t wise,” Hailey argued. Steeling herself, she took a deep breath. “I’ll go with you.”

“…Okay. If we don’t come back, assume the worst. Even if we’re fine, just stay here, rest up, and then go and help the chancellor and his men, see if you can get them to help check up on the northern gate,” Kayleigh instructed them.

“…Kayleigh…can…can you make sure my cats are okay?”

Fala’s meek plea surprised Kayleigh, but she nodded and said, “Don’t worry, we will.”

Fala smiled and nodded.

“Hailey.”

“Right!”

The two women moved quickly through the hallway, with only Kayleigh sparing brief glances at the carnage to see if she could spot Elysa among the dead. She could not, though Kayleigh recognised many of the deceased, the maids she’d greeted every day, the soldiers who helped her train, the men and women who she’d spoken to as friends.

David Athelward…Cursing beneath her breath, Kayleigh moved forward, glaring daggers. I will make you pay for this!

***

Fenrir sniffed the air excitedly as a familiar scent drew close. “I wonder how much you’ve improved since our last encounter, hero.”

***

“Huh?” Confused, Stephanie looked around and panicked. “Where’d everyone go?”

One minute, she had been walking alongside Duncan and the rest of their team as they moved towards the southern gate, and then she was somewhere completely different within the castle, a place she knew well - the library.

“Why am I here?”

“It felt like the most appropriate place to meet you, young maiden.”

“Who’s there?!”

Stephanie immediately cast a defensive spell around her body and readied the Book of Thoth, its pages rapidly turning to an offensive spell.

No matter how hard she searched, she couldn’t spot the owner of the voice.

She saw dead demons and soldiers in near equal numbers, but the low torch light made it difficult to see. She conjured a ball of light into the air where it hovered at the ceiling, better illuminating the entire room, and finally saw him.

Sat atop a bookshelf, reading a thick tome, was someone she had never seen before, nor did she recognise him from any of the descriptions of the Demon Empire she’d read.

“I am Hermes Trismegistus, a fellow scholar and mage like yourself.” He shut the book and slowly floated down to her level using magic. “Amen has told me much about you.”

“…I’m flattered.”

Hermes laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to convert like he did.”

“Not in a million years!”

“A shame.” One of the grimoires tied to Hermes’s chains floated into the air before his palm. “We could have discovered so much together.”

***

“…It’s…a lie, right?”

“…Kayleigh.”

“Hailey, tell me…that’s not her, over there?” Kayleigh asked, knowing full well that her eyes had not deceived her.

Stood beside the crouching Fenrir, before a portal that had summoned demons, undead, Dread Knights and the generals of the Demon Empire, was the last missing hero, the one Kayleigh had called a good friend and served as a trusted confidant.

“Happy New Year, Kayleigh,” Elysa greeted her, curtseying slightly, before standing upright and smiling beautifully at her former team leader.