Prologue
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Year 753 of the Age of the Dragon
1000 Days After the Fall of Arindell
3 Years After the Death of Hope
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Lightning split across the black morass revealing the last remaining fighters bearing the standard of the Pendragon* fleeing into the woods. Clothed in a mismatched set of armor, Emily Jusenkyou† gripped her father’s sword+ as she watched the slaughter.
With the hilt chained to her gauntlet, she whispered to the blade. “Echbalder, if there was ever a time for you to transform, this is it.”
Out of the cold fog that banked upon the far side of the clearing, a contingent of dark-clothed soldiers appeared. Draped in tattered garments like a death shroud, they carried blackened weapons.
The battle-lines are broken, Emily thought. It’s now or never.
Emily raised the blade in one hand, and held a trumpet to her lips with the other. She sounded a cadence for the last attack.
Behind her, a thousand paladins on horseback charged.
It pained Emily to send the last of her best troops into certain doom. The day her father fell, the day she took up his sword, that was the day hope died. The Alliance P and the Order of Slayer Dragons SS died with it, Emily and her army just didn’t know enough to stop breathing yet.
She backed into the woods and began to pick off scattered enemy soldiers who’d made it to the tree line. “As long as I stand, I will cut you down!” Emily threw her trumpet aside and swung the sword with both hands at an armored enemy. The enchanted steel cleaved through his black plate and spilled his viscera across the forest floor.
Blood splattered in a graceful arc as the sword came around and struck again.
More of them survived the paladin’s# charge than Emily expected. They had her surrounded, but the daughter of the last Pendragon fought best this way.
Thrust and slash. Parry, slash, slash.
Like an elegant dance, she kept her feet moving, kept her body swishing through the air where nothing could touch her.
Yet her enemies kept coming.
A violent impact filled the air, like thunder with no sound.
What armor Emily scrounged during the fall of Arindell protected most of her, but the blast of magical energies made her already tired muscles burn. No one thing would kill her, she would day by a thousand little cuts. One of Samuel’s Fate’s battle-mages had to be nearby. She was certainly going to kill him.
Echbalder formed the only link to Echbaldam, the one weapon that could defeat Samuel Fate**. For that reason alone, he desired to posses it.
Through the trees Emily spotted the wizard’s blue coat standing in stark contrast against the earth, blackened and blood-soaked by his spell. Emily raised Echbalder and screamed a battle cry.
The mage saw her. He kicked his leg back and threw up a powerful ward.
Echbalder cleaved through it.
No magic could stop her blade.
In the dim light of the forest, Emily wiped the blood from her sword. Her father’s Slayer Dragon power died with him. She was not the Pendragon, not now. No one was. High overhead, through a gap in the trees she could see Aren’s sun begin to set, and knew she would not see it rise again.
Hoof beats echoed through the fog, but not of the mighty warhorses ridden by the last of the paladins. In that moment, Emily knew the end to her long fight drew near.
The counter-charge broke through the trees. These weren’t horses, but conjured abominations of dark magic. Each held a rider dressed in mail of pure white, gleaming against the jet-black coats of their steeds. Fate’s elite soldiers, not even Emily’s finest troops could stop them.
As they charged past, one of them swung his lance at Emily. The impact dented her breastplate and threw her against a tree, knocking her helmet from her head. In that instant she felt where the weapon pierced her skin, the tainted curse of dark magic searing into her blood like snake venom. Behind the charge came the infantry to finish off any stragglers, the same thing Emily had been doing just minutes before. Another turn of fortune, a bad one, this time.
Alone, surrounded, she dropped to a knee and waited for the end.
For one brief moment, she imagined playing the victory cadence on her trumpet, fantasized of an outcome that would make her father proud. But this wasn’t that. This was her end, and she’d done little more than delay it.
A soldier raised his battleaxe above Emily’s head. She tried to raise her sword one last time, but her arm hung limp at her side. The white-rot curse from the lance wound already gripped her.
In her final moment, Emily felt no more fear.
But the axe did not come down. His chest exploded, a snaking rope of twisting, black energy arced like lighting, dancing between the trees and piercing the hearts of every soldier in sight.
“Is this all you have to show for yourself? I had thought the favored daughter to be made of sterner stuff.”
Emily forced a smile as the red-robed woman sauntered out of the mist. Shoulders back, chin high, energy still crackled between her fingertips. With a little wink, she raised her left hand to call back the last of the lightning.
“Naomi,” Emily gripped her free hand into a fist. “Help me up. I have to get the sword locked away.”
Naomi Jusenkyou†† put her arm under Emily’s shoulder and dragged her to her feet. Emily managed a smile for her little sister, knowing she at least would fight on. With her right hand, she gripped Echbalder, with her left, she wiped blood from her forehead.
The silver fingertips of her gauntlet came back covered in white.
“Let’s get you out of the path of the horses and heal you,” Naomi said.
“My wound is mortal,” Emily exhaled. Her breath came out like a cloud even in the warm air, and she knew the curse was taking hold. “They got me with one of those blasted white weapons…”
“No, no, no,” Naomi cooed. “Let me try. Here, there is a cave.”
“Help me get my armor off,” Emily’s voice barely made it above a whisper.
With her shoulder supporting Emily’s weight, Naomi continued to half-carry her into the cave. Using an orichalcum knife from their father, she cut the leather straps on Emily’s left bracer. “They’ll be time for all of that soon enough. I may need your armor’s enchantments to heal you.”
“No,” Emily raised Echbalder and ran the blade deep across her exposed skin. “I have to open a vein before the white-rot gets too far.” Bright scarlet blood spilled out of her wound and coated the sword. “I have to seal it away.”
“You’re not allowed to die on me like father,” Naomi’s muscles tensed around Emily. Her nostrils flared and Emily could feel the heat rising off of her sister’s skin. “Mother has disappeared, One King only knows where. Father is dead. Jason has abandoned us. All the heroes of the light are gone. You don’t get to leave me.”
“There are no more choices, it’s in God’s hands now,” Emily no longer had the strength to undo the chains binding the sword to her hand. This was her vow, her oath in steel.
“Don’t waste the last of our blood on a fool’s errand,” Naomi said. “Give me the sword. Let me fight on in father’s stead.”
“You will fight,” Emily fell to her knees upon the dusty cavern floor. “But not in father’s stead. Your power is the strongest our line has ever been.” Her vision blurred, her head felt heavy and she could not lift it to meet her sister’s gaze. As her blood drained away, her skin grew cold and her heart began to pound in her ears. The last of her magical reserves were gone. To cast her final spell, Emily began to pour out her little-remaining life-force. The shock to her system gave her just enough strength to raise her brow one last time and focus her eyes on her sister. “I’m trusting you to hold the line. Better the sword be lost for thousands of years than to fall into the hands of that monster.”
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End:
Prologue
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