NABC Volume 5 Epilogue 2
Volume 5 Epilogue 2
Prince Evander, the crown prince of Vanderfall, looked over the wide stretch of land ahead of him and found himself wondering yet again how Elias had managed to clear away the darkness of the plague so thoroughly that one could hardly tell it had ever taken hold here.As the first prince of the empire, Evander had been among the first to flee to safety once it became clear that the plague could not be contained. On that journey, he had passed through this very territory, and he remembered it well. Even back then, the corruption had already been taking root in the trees around them. The rot had spread so visibly that they had driven their horses through the land as fast as possible, unwilling to linger even a moment longer than necessary.
Now, though, the place looked almost whole again. It wasn’t perfect—but it was so much better.
The grass still grew unevenly in many places, and there were stretches where the land remained bare and stripped, as if life had not quite decided to return there fully. But even so, it was recovering. Given enough time, it might even return to what it once had been.
And that’s exactly what troubled him.
He couldn’t understand how Elias had done it.
The old Magus, stubborn as ever, had refused to give him a proper answer. All Elias had said was that he had accepted help from the new neighbouring king. Evander knew that man was powerful, of course. By now almost everyone did. But strong enough to purge an entire plague-ridden territory? That, to him, still felt excessive. Even the church had praised the man openly, and that alone only made Evander more doubtful. In his eyes, it all sounded far too convenient for a proper explanation. Without knowing how to win over the public and the church alike, no mere baron could rise to kingship so quickly.
His brothers had agreed with him on that point.
The thought of them made something shift faintly in his chest, and for a brief moment he almost missed them.
He slowed his horse a little and looked around. Dozens of carriages surrounded him, and behind them came hundreds of commoners on foot, all moving in one long, weary trail.
Some of the more fortunate among them had managed to keep horses, but most had lost whatever little wealth they once possessed to the plague and now made the journey on foot, returning with the faint hope of reclaiming what remained, even though Evander knew that for many of them, whatever they had left behind was likely gone forever.
His brothers had already parted ways with him earlier, each taking different groups of commoners and nobles toward separate parts of Vanderfall so they could begin reclaiming their scattered cities and lands. Around Evander now, the carriages held mostly nobles and wealthy merchants, the people important enough to ride rather than walk. Among them, of course, was the most important person in Vanderfall itself.
His father.
The king had not originally intended to make this journey.
Evander could not say he hated the man, but his father had long since filled himself with dreams of immortality and a desperate need to remain alive for as long as possible, and because of that he rarely left the safety of the castle. He had only fled during the plague because staying would have meant death, and once they had settled into their temporary residence, the old king had wished to remain there even longer under the excuse of healing and regaining his strength.
In the end, though, Evander had persuaded him.
His brothers had added their own voices as well, though not out of affection. They all understood the same simple truth: having the king present on this return would reassure the commoners.
That mattered.
Trust in the royal family had been slipping for some time now, and Evander knew it better than most. Bringing the king back before the eyes of the people was one way to start patching that damage. As crown prince, he could not afford to ignore such things. One day, he would need the commoners to accept his rule.
He had already spent years making sure the rest of the royal family would do the same.
Getting his brothers to accept him as the rightful heir had taken time, flattery, and a careful offering of everything they wanted—everything except the throne itself. Fortunately for him, most of them had never been hard to move. They were easier to manipulate than they realized and, more importantly, far less ambitious than they liked to appear.
It had also helped that news from Lancephil had spread.
The fall of much of its royal family had only strengthened Evander’s position. In times like these, no one wanted succession to become uncertain. No one wanted the sort of chaos that invited an early death.
Though Evander still had a long road ahead before the throne would truly be his.
He had no intention of killing his father or anything so crude, but he did need Magus Elias standing behind him. The man might obey because of the oaths already in place, but Evander wanted more than reluctant obedience. He wanted real support.
And as he fixed his thoughts on that, he barely noticed one of the Knights approaching until the man spoke.
“Your Highness, there is something you need to see.”
“What is it? Is there still a part of the land ahead under the plague?” The prince said immediately.
The Knight shook his head. He looked strangely unsure of how to phrase what he had come to report, but in the end he simply blurted it out.
“It’s not the plague. There are monsters ahead.”
“Monsters?”
Evander frowned.
From what he knew, Elias had already warned them there would still be corrupted beasts and mana fiends left behind. The old Magus had cleansed the land itself, yes, but he had never claimed to have exterminated every last thing the plague had twisted. Yet the way the Knight had said it made it clear this was not some small nuisance they could simply ride past.
Evander dismounted immediately.
A few retainers moved ahead to clear a path as he followed the Knight away from the line of carriages and toward a low hill where the road began to slope down. A group of Knights was already gathered there, all of them staring below with grim faces. When they noticed him arriving, they stepped aside at once.
He looked down instinctively and felt his heart tighten.
Below them stood a sea of monsters.
They were things he had never seen before. They were huge creatures, each one as large as a troll, but looking far more dangerous in the way they held themselves. Their bodies were thick with muscle, so swollen it looked almost unnatural, and their skin carried a strange golden cast that made them seem wrong. They stood on two legs like men, but there was nothing human in the way they watched the hill.
Goosebumps ran up his skin when he saw how still they were, simply staring up at them.
Evander had no idea what they were doing here.
He immediately looked at the Knights beside him and asked, “Does anyone know what they are?”
The men exchanged glances before shaking their heads. One of the older Knights frowned. “They look a bit like minotaurs, Your Highness… but I’ve served in every region of Vanderfall, and I’ve never seen anything like them here.”
Evander exhaled through his nose. “Then we take another route. This may simply be their territory, and they might be waiting for us to step into it before attacking. There should be another path down the hill. I don’t want to get dragged into an unnecessary batt—”
He didn’t get to finish.
Movement flashed below. Evander turned just in time to see the creature at the very front suddenly step forward. Then, without warning, it jumped.
Panic hit him at once.
His hand flew to his sword, and before he could even think further, the Knights around him surged in front of him. One of them shoved him backward so hard that Evander nearly stumbled, and he cursed the man for it—only to see, the next second, why he had done it.
The beast landed right in front of the Knights. The impact alone shook the earth. Before Evander could process anything, it moved.
Its claws swept out in a brutal arc, fast enough that Evander barely followed them. One of the Knights managed to strike first, his blade cutting into the creature’s torso, but the hit drew almost no blood. The beast barely seemed to notice it. Its claw came down on the Knight’s armor and punched straight through the steel as if it were thin cloth, sinking into the man’s flesh while it cried out.
Before anyone else could react, the monster grabbed two more men—one in each hand—and hurled them down the slope toward the rest of its kind.
Evander saw all of it, and in that instant, he knew there was only one sensible thing left to do.
So he turned and ran straight for the carriages.
As he ran, the screams of his Knights followed behind him, sharp and cut short one after another, and whatever part of him still wished to turn back died with them. Those things were not opponents for ordinary men. Maybe a line of Mages could slow them. . But knights alone were nothing.
So he shouted as loud as he could. “Turn the carriages around! Mages, prepare your spells! Beasts ahead!”
At once, the whole road descended into chaos.
Drivers yanked at their reins, horses screamed and reared as men tried to force the carriages into some sort of order, and panic spread through the commoners like fire through dry grass. Mages stumbled out from the carriages and began building spell structures with shaking hands, and for one brief second, Evander actually felt relief. Maybe they could hold. Maybe numbers would be enough. Maybe—
A roar shattered the thought.
He looked up just in time to see one of the beasts come crashing down onto a carriage. Wood splintered under its weight. The whole thing collapsed flat with a horrible crunch, and blood sprayed across the road. One of the Mages reacted quickly, sending flames straight at the monster’s body, but the beast did not even hesitate. It turned through the fire as if it were no more than hot wind, leapt at the Mage, grabbed him, and tore his head off in one savage motion.
The sight made Evander’s heart drop. They were not going to hold, not even close.
He immediately changed course and made for one of the horses instead. He needed to get away from here. He needed to survive. But as he moved, something worse caught his eye, something that froze him far more completely than the slaughter around him.
One of the beasts was charging toward his father’s carriage.
“No!” he shouted.
For a second, through the narrow gap of the carriage door, he saw his father’s silhouette inside, just beginning to move, just beginning to understand what was going on. Then the beast hit.
The carriage exploded inward under the force of it.
Evander heard his father cry out, a sound of pain and terror mixed together, and then the beast’s arm smashed down through the wreckage. He did not see what followed. He turned away too quickly, driven by something raw and blind, and rushed for his horse again.
He never reached it.
One of the beasts dropped down right in front of him.
Evander stopped so suddenly he nearly stumbled. His eyes widened as the creature looked at him and grinned, as if it already knew exactly who he was and what that meant.
Within the next ten seconds, both the king and crown prince of Vanderfall were dead.
***
King Sereth Valmor of Alparca looked down at the thousands of men gathered below, all of them standing shoulder to shoulder with their faces turned upward toward him on the castle walls.
There were nearly fifteen thousand soldiers fit for battle across the kingdom, and what stood before him now was only a fraction of that force, barely a tenth. Even so, the energy rising from them was enough to stir something old in his blood. It hung in the air like heat before a storm, restless and eager, and for a brief moment Sereth simply stood there and let himself feel it.
When had he last felt this way?
He honestly could not remember.
The years behind him had been filled with little more than polite duels and ceremonial clashes, things too small to deserve the name of war. In his older age, he had turned more toward books than battlefields, and in doing so had neglected more than just his sword arm. He had neglected his family too, perhaps for longer than he cared to admit.
Maybe that was why fate had taken his son from him.
Maybe that was why his boy had died at the hands of a foreign king while Sereth himself had been sitting among old pages and stale thoughts. There had been a time, after all, when he told himself he would step away from war to spend more time with those closest to him. But even now, standing above his soldiers, Sereth knew that had only been a half-truth. The real reason he had withdrawn was simpler and uglier.
He had grown bored. Too many battles had felt beneath him. Too many victories had seemed certain before they even began. He had let himself turn away because war no longer thrilled him the way it once had, and in return, fate had answered with cruelty. It had taken his son and shoved him back toward the thing he had tried to leave behind.
A vicious cycle.
And yet, for all that, he could not bring himself to turn away from it now. War was his fate. It had always been his fate.
And he would see it through to its end, all the way until Arzan’s head lay in his hands.
A presence came to his side just then, light and familiar enough that he did not reach for a weapon. He turned his head and found his wife standing there beside him, her gaze first on the soldiers below before it shifted to him.
“What are you thinking, dear?” she asked.
Sereth looked back over the gathered men for a moment before answering.
“The same thing I think every time we stand on the edge of war.”
She nodded slowly, because there had never been much of him she didn’t understand.
“You’re thinking of your fate,” she said, “and of how war has always been tied to it.”
King Sereth Valmor gave a small nod. “Yes,” he said. “I can’t turn away from it.”
His wife let her gaze drift over the long rows of soldiers below before asking, “And it isn’t because you want to avenge your son?”
Sereth turned to look at her properly then.
“I do,” he said. “I want the head of the man who killed my son.” His voice remained steady, but there was iron beneath it. “I’ve heard every detail of that final battle. Every single bit. And I want Arzan to taste the same kind of end.”
For a moment, he fell quiet.
Then he added, “But I won’t lie to myself either. If it had been wholly my decision, I would have handled it differently. I do not fear Lancephil, and I do not fear its army, but Arzan…” His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked back toward the horizon. “Arzan is an enigma. And when facing something you don’t fully understand, information matters.”
His wife studied him for a moment. “And yet you are still preparing for war against him.”
Sereth nodded again, slower this time.
The sky above them was growing heavier with clouds, and he lifted his eyes toward it as he answered. “Yes. Because our son must be avenged, and because I made you a promise. I keep my promises.”
That drew a smile from her.
“That,” she said softly, “is why I agreed to marry you the day you asked for my hand.” Then her smile thinned. “When you return, bring me his head. I want to spit on the man who killed my son.”
Sereth gave only a low grunt in answer.
His wife turned and left him there, stepping away from his side with the same calm certainty she always seemed to carry. Sereth watched her go for a moment, then looked back down at the soldiers below.
He had always known that, no matter how many men stood behind him, his wars were his own.
And this one would be no different.
As he looked out over the gathered force again, a faint smile touched his face. In his mind, the scent of blood was already in the air.
***
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