A week after Nic Verilo woke up, the capital city of the nation of Kyoku found itself in the center of an invading force. Ruby Serilo kept her words to Nic. To the south, the port of the city found itself full of ships unable to pass the blockade mere ker away in the water. There was no escape over the water. When the people of the city found this out, their instincts led them to the northern gate that led to the rest of the island that Kyoku encompassed. On the fields to the north of the city they found an invading army ready to murder any who tried to flee.
There was nothing the city could do except wait for reinforcements that weren’t guaranteed to come. Through the wind progenitor within the city, the Shogun had requested help from the City-State of Sanum. But for the Sanumites to arrive, they would need to hold out for a few days.
And so those days passed.
Skirmishes happened both on water and on land, and men and women died fighting for their beliefs. Some children became the unfortunate losses from guerilla attacks on the city by Ruby’s forces. Unlike her opponents, Ruby would stop at nothing to break the city and its inhabitants.
Four days after the siege of the capital began, Ordwell led his group of two hundred soldiers south from the northern end of the island. A little over half of those soldiers were from Sanum or Aric, while the rest hailed from Crystallia, led by their own leader: one Cyril Loughmen. When Cyril saw Ordwell leading his own men, the raccoon-kin gladly stepped forward, pledging that his city's soldiers would follow him to save their queen.
Now the two leaders stood on the edge of a forest to the north of the plains surrounding Kyoku’s capital. They had stopped their advance as the sun was beginning to set in the west. Ahead of them they found a decision waiting for them.
“They’re split into two.” Cyril stated the obvious with a small groan.
Ordwell wryly smiled, sharing the same annoyance with this revelation. They couldn’t go forward down the middle anymore. Their plan was to attack this force from behind, catching them off guard. But now that they knew that their opponents had split into two groups, that complicated their plans.
If they charged forward in between the two groups, they would quickly get flanked. The same would happen if they focused on only one group. Their backs would be open for the other to come at them.
“We’ll need to separate and attack both at the same time.” Ordwell spoke, a false certainty in his voice.
“Our groups are roughly the same size, so it would be easy to do…” Cyril mused over the proposition. Ordwell’s proposition was the obvious play. But to do it, they would need to coordinate over a long distance. If either was even a bit late, it would risk the other being pincered.
“We’ll go west, towards the encampment near the water.” Cyril offered to have his men take the far more dangerous route. The enemy encampment to the west was flanked on one side with a treacherous cliff leading to the ocean waves below.
“Are you sure?” Ordwell thought it too simple for his fellow commander to simply take the more dangerous option. It should’ve been his responsibility, as the lead commander who had gathered arms to help Kyoku.
“I am. You took the lead in gathering us, it’s only right that Crystallia shows just how dedicated we are as well.”
A show of courage. Ordwell knew what Cyril was doing now. As much as he felt it was his own obligation, Ordwell couldn’t deny that he was glad his men wouldn’t be near the cliff at night.
With their separation worked out, the two halves of the army split. They traveled along the edge of the forest until finally, they were behind the enemy’s camp. All Ordwell could think about was if Cyril was in place as well.
Ordwell took a deep breath. He looked at a mage standing next to him, and gave him a small nod. All they could do was hope.
Two fireballs shot into the air, at almost the same time.
A breath of relief escaped Ordwell’s mouth. Cyril had gotten into position in time.
Drawing the unusual sword at his waist, Ordwell let out a yell to begin the charge.
“FORWARD!”
As Ordwell and Cyril both shouted, two new armies appeared on the northern edge of the plain just outside of Kyoku’s capital. Trapped in a pincer attack, the forces under Ruby’s banner of conquest quickly found themselves dying far faster than acceptable to the leaders of their units.
Meanwhile, on the walls of the city, a young dark-skinned man, weary from days of fighting and leading, gaped in awe alongside the fiery salamander sitting on his shoulder. Knowing the identity of those who were coming to help, the son of the Chapman family followed in his father’s footsteps.
“THIS IS OUR CHANCE! PUSH THEM BACK!”
Kyoku’s forces poured out of the city walls, like ants from a hill, swarming towards their enemies.
And so the first real battle of the war began. A war that would not be just for Kyoku, but for the very soul of the planet itself. And though Salamander’s contractor was happy at the beginning of the battle, his defiance of fate would soon rear its ugly head.
“Paul, take my horse and go on.” Ordwell solemnly said as he got off the horse he had been riding for so long. The man he had spoken to, Paul Alberie, stopped in confusion behind the head of Sanum’s government.
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“What are you doing?” Alberie’s confusion seeped into his voice as he stared at the back of the man he had long since idolized.
“What I have to.” Ordwell never looked back. His eyes were drawn somewhere else. No, they were drawn to someone else.
The two had come across an elf within Ruby’s forces. He was powerful. Even Alberie could see that. Their forces were naturally being diverted by this single man. Magic rolled off the man as if it was overflowing from his very muscles. Dark hair hung limply down to his shoulders, veiling the man’s face.
The elf looked between Ordwell and Alberie. When Alberie saw his hair part, he was met with the yawning void within that face. His hands began to shake, causing the metal connectors at the end of the rope he was holding to jingle.
“O-,” Alberie gulped. “O-Okay.”
He didn’t understand how Ordwell could stand tall against that wall. What Alberie never knew was that this wasn’t Ordwell’s first time meeting the elf. While Alberie had been stuck shaking at the gulf in power, Ordwell was similarly shaking. He was shaking in anger.
“Orpheus.” Ordwell spat out the elf’s name in disgust.
“Ordwell Chapman… It seems that it’s time for me to finish that job from twenty years ago.”
Ordwell and the Elf Orpheus ran at each other, sword clashing against an abyssal darkness created from Orpheus’ hands. As steel struck darkness, Ordwell found surprise in the strength pushing back against his physical sword.
This black mass that Orpheus was able to create, the physical embodiment of the darkness that he was the progenitor over, was far too much for Ordwell.
Ordwell wasn’t a fighter. At most, he could’ve been seen as a tactician. But his home was not on the battlefield. That was always Luna’s place, not his. Going up against the same foe as her, Ordwell was bound to lose.
So he wasn’t surprised when a dark lance pierced his stomach.
He winced at the pain, but kept it in.
He had to give Sarman a chance. Even if it meant his own death.
Ordwell grabbed the dark lance and pulled. He pulled it further into himself, letting it dig into him and widen the wound. Once he was close enough, he grabbed one of Orpheus’ shoulders. Then the other.
“Get off me!”
Ordwell disregarded the scream of the man in front of him. He disregarded it and pulled in. He pulled Orpheus in, until the two were face to face.
Ordwell still remembered the last time he saw this dark lance.
He remembered that night like it was the night before.
“Come on! Ordy, we only have this one night to ourselves, let’s enjoy it!” Luna was pulling on Ordwell’s arm, pulling him out of the small room they had been given. Her dark hair, pulled back into a high ponytail, was bobbing back and forth.
Each time he saw her neck, Ordwell wanted to grab her into a deep embrace. If it was up to him, they would stay in for the night and work on having a second child. Though she had only just given birth to their son, Ordwell couldn’t help but also want a daughter.
But Luna had a different idea for the night.
She was enjoying having her body back from pregnancy. She wanted to go out into the town, to experience everything that this city could offer them in a single night.
Ultimately, Ordwell was unable to deny her wish.
It was because of that that the two found themselves on that street that night. On that street where Ordwell and Luna came face to face with Orpheus. And that night where Orpheus, despite her strong resistance, stabbed Luna in the gut.
When Ordwell held his wife in his arms, he had yelled at Salamander to heal her, yet the spirit progenitor responded negatively.
“Luna! Luna!” Ordwell cried out his wife’s name.
“Ordwell…” Luna’s voice was weak, yet Ordwell leaned in and listened to her words with every fiber of his being. “I love you. Please, protect our son, until he is ready…” Her last words had been about their son.
That night, Ordwell lost his wife. The man who killed her had disappeared into the night, leaving a crying Ordwell holding his dead wife for the townsfolk to find.
And now he was here in front of Ordwell, stabbing him with that same dark lance.
Ordwell remembered everything.
“Love…” Luna’s voice rang in his ears. Ordwell opened his eyes and saw her face in front of him. She was just on the other side of Orpheus, waiting for Ordwell to come with her. That smile. That smile of hers was what first drew Ordwell’s eye. And now it was calling to him again. “It’s time, love. Ordy, it’s time to let Sarman go.”
She was right. Ordwell could feel it. As a Phoenix-kin, Ordwell held the ability within his body to regenerate his youthfulness whenever he took a fatal blow. In exchange, a feather attached to his body would be used up. In his over two centuries of life, Ordwell had used almost all of his feathers up. Now, only a handful were still attached to his body.
Because of the dark lance going through his body, each of those feathers wanted to be used. They wanted the wound to be healed.
Ordwell wasn’t letting them.
His body was heating up. When a feather was used, he would be coated in a wreath of flames, starting from within. As he was holding Orpheus, not letting the Elf pull the lance out, Ordwell was causing the fire within him to grow.
The fire was growing, and Ordwell was getting hotter and hotter.
He heard Orpheus screaming at him, yet the words themselves were unintelligible. He heard the grass beneath them starting to burn.
“Ordy… come with me.” Luna held out a hand, which Ordwell gladly took.
“I’m sorry Sarman. I hope you know that I always loved you, and I always will.”
Ordwell let his body go.
He took his wife’s hand. It was the first time in years that he had held her in his arms. And as he looked into her eyes, they disappeared from the world in a flash of light.
On the first day of the war between Ruby’s forces and the Alliance of Free Nations, as the Alliance would soon come to be known, the survivors told a wondrous tale. On that night, after the sun had set, as soldiers spilled blood, when the Alliance survivors saw their commander, Sarman Chapman, be forcefully pulled back into the city by Paul Alberie and Yuuki Ito, night turned to day in an instant.
In the skies above that grassy plain, a fiery phoenix soared up above the fields, expelling its light for ker on end. Tales from the time tell of soldiers who were swept off their feet by a wave of heat that would burn them to a crisp before they even hit the ground.
While both sides suffered heavy losses from the blast, it was undoubtedly the first major breakthrough that the citizens of Kyoku’s capital had. They could now travel north, escaping the city and the blockade of their port.
