THAT SAME EVENING, in the Imperial Castle of the Empire, high above all institutions and domiciles of the Capitol, a lone rider came rushing through the cobblestone streets. People flew to the side at his galloping horse, staring afterward at the might and fury of his steed. And for the reason behind such urgency.
The rider was a patrol guard from the North.
A Grey Stag of Her Majesty's forces.
And the rider had a message. A grim one.
The patrolman fell upon Giselle's throne room in haste, riding in like a mad man. A meeting of the Queen's Court was in session, Giselle herself on the throne. Everyone in the majestic white hall turned to stare at the audacious black-robed knight.
In the silence, someone dropped a fart. It echoed and few snickers were heard. The Nobleman who'd gassed shrugged, unembarrassed. The air was tense.
But Giselle payed no attention to the sidelines. She looked rather, on this new rider. To enter her presence riding on a horse spoke tales of the news to come. Her nearest Gold Cloaks moved to accost the Stag but Giselle held up her hand.
She quietly watched the black rider jump off his saddle. His mountain boots clanged loudly against the stone floors. His shoes held wear of a long journey. The patrolman had had a long travel. Walking to the dais, the rider knelt—more like collapsed—before the Queen.
He pulled off his helmet, and everyone gasped.
Giselle's hands went white on her throne's armrests.
Half the rider's face was gone.
Flat out gone!
Brain matter, bits of bone and black blood oozed out the sawed off side. People covered their noses. Some, their mouths. Obviously, this man was dead. But someone had sent him all the way back from the North, keeping him not alive but animate by Dark Sorcery. A blood moon ritual perhaps.
Since he was a Stag, it was clearly intended as a message.
Giselle retreated back into her seat when the half-headed man screeched. Someone had taken a sword to his head, and badly. He was deformed grotesquely, vertically from his scalp downwards.
"Shit. That was Ser Petyr." Someone said.
Giselle wondered how this person knew just what Knight he had been. He was missing most of his face anyway.
"Urrrgggghhhhllluh!" The dead Stag yowled.
His half lips moved and people finally retched in a corner. One particular Lady vomited into a priceless vase of carved, Valhallan history. The zombie knight was trying to speak.
"Ruuuumbrrrr. . .Rumbrun, Your Majesty. It has begun!"
Blood and maggots dropped from the peeling side of the head to the throne room floors. A wet squelch sounded out. People vomited fresh, and most ran out the hall. Giselle was afraid to ask what had begun.
The fallen, decomposing Stag tried again.
"Ruuuumbrrrr. . . Rumbrun, Your Majesty. Thhhthhh–They are coming. From the deep North, from the caves of the Ice God. Rrrrr. . .rings of devils at their fingertips. Rrrrruuum. . . Rumbrun comes. RUMBRUUUUN!!!
It has begun. It has begun! I tell ye, Yoooour Majestyyyy. I–I ssssss. . .seen it with me own eyessss. It has begun. Coming from the North, they are coming. The Crusaders. It has begun. Thhhhh. . .the Crusade of Rumbrun."
SPLAT!
The rest of the man's brain fell out the side of his torn head. The remaining people in the hall sank to the nearest flower vases or mighty pillars. Everyone was vomiting. Even a Gold Cloak had his gilded helmet and retched buckets into it.
It was such a twisted sight.
Anyone could tell Ser Petyr—if it was him, had been killed violently. But only the darkest of minds would make his corpse ride out a journey of several days through the thick of winter to the city.
With the skull finally empty, no dark magic was able to keep life in the body again. Or at least, a fragment of it. The slain Stag collapsed right next to his gray matter. Bloodshot eyes stared out from a maggot-infested green face to Giselle's.
The Fey Queen beheld in it the horrors to come.
War wasn't coming. War was here.
[🎶 Every Rose Has Its Thorn – Poison.]
Giselle shot up to her feet so fast her rhinestone crown shivered on her head. She barked out orders to her loyal and most trusted: her Gold Cloaks, and the only ones not green in the face and still in the Throne room.
"Get this carnage to Camerlengo's laboratory! Have him try his best, see if we can trace the arcane print to its Spellcaster. And afterwards, burn the body in a pyre outside the city's gates. The most honor we can grant this Stag to not bury him in all the dark magic swaming his corpse.
Like a Griffin, I wish for his soul to saunter majestically and free into his eternity. As for his tale, it shall not leave this halls! Restrict the Nobles to the Castle if you have to. We have many rooms and food. Keep them busy. Organize a party; do some shit!
But don't let them hobble and talk.
I, on the other hand have to see a man about frozen crusaders."
Giselle left the throne room with her golden robes sweeping behind her and the heads of armored officers turned down. That night, she could get no rest. She kept seeing black faces and raining icicles.
"Oh, for fucks' sake!"
She rolled and rolled in bed.
And at dawn, before the most proud of her trained peacocks could crow in the sunrise, the Queen had mounted her winged carriage and rode out the sleeping streets of the Capitol to seek the advise of the only man she knew who could save her Empire from a horde of Ice Men.
The sun was just beginning to nestle the skies when she pulled up to the eerie gates of Emberfall.
The news from the zombie Stag was just one of her many excuses to see Rafel again. Her arrival woke up the entire Manor. It wasn't everyday the Queen of the Empire pulled up to your doors. Stewards, Chefs, Maids, Gardeners, the whole lot, cracked up an inspired morning when they rubbed their eyes open to find Giselle Van Imperia behind the Mansion's door.
"I'm here to see the Earl."
Cora let her in.
But Rafel was not awakened—no one dared. The Queen was made to wait in the brightening Day Room. She watched silently the miracle of the sunrise flood the room with colors both heavenly and wintry. It was a peaceful countryside air. She imagined Seraphs beating their many wings up there, in the highest of silver clouds.
Giselle must have known Rafel was an early bird for she did not have to wait long. As the new day dawned, she blinked when the redhaired Lord of the Manor himself strode in dreamily. He was like a daydream, walking with his head down. The golden morning sun hit his face and stray locks of his ruddy hair found their way into his ethereal gaze.
His hair was wet. A recent shower. Giselle noticed. How couldn't she?
The man smelled like summer and spring, and this in winter.
"Good Morning, Your Majesty. Sorry for the wait. Let's get to it then," Rafel greeted.
Giselle tried not to bring up the issue of his stunning handsomeness as he led her out the Day Room to his Study, where they could discuss the reason for her early arrival. She did covertly compliment him though.
"Yes, 'tis a fine morning, Your Grace," said the blond Queen. "—even finer now that I see you."
Rafel returned Giselle's smile as they entered his study.
"I have a problem, Lord Israfel. And it is called the Crusade of Rumbrun."
She did not mince words.
In the opulent aristocratic and sensual ambiance of the quiet room, they dissolved into a studious conversation. In it, Giselle told the tale of the horrifying Knight of the North, once her Stag of the northern defenses, that had arrived missing half a face. She finished thus,
". . .I ordered an arcane autopsy of Camerlengo. He probably won't get a seance or bloodprint reading of the Caster. Dark Wizards tend to hide their magicks in banned occult rituals. Ser Petyr's body would meet a pyre afterwards."
Rafel remained silent for a long while. Try as she might, Giselle's fae magic couldn't break into his Hellish mind. If she wanted a mind-read, she'd have to ask. She stood on the other side of his gray pinewood desk and looked upon his ruddy features.
Rafel was seated. His long fingers tapped at his knee. He regarded the ornate Grandfather clock chiming away softly. An hour had gone by.
His reading haven had been converted into some sort of War Room. Maps of excellent Eldorian cartography brought up from his shelves lined the gun-metal desk. Wooden figurines of ships and dragons and knights dotted several points on the map, marking out positions of strategy: where the infantry or navy would be best deployed.
And where not.
It was like a game of Chess.
Critical thinking to excel in the art of war.
Because war it was. Giselle—and Ser Petyr's cursed fucking corpse—had made that abundantly clear.
However, Rafel was not a cruel host and would not let his Queen starve, even in the deliberations of war. Tabs of hot chocolate, vanilla, and cones of melting ice cream were scattered on another lower table to the side; their breakfast. In Rafel's silence, Giselle swept her hand over the table to pour out the remnant paper plates and bread crumbs into a small garbage can.
Rafel was still in thought. She could see the little strikes of the clock's minute hand reflected in his yellow dragon eyes.
Rafel counted on certain things in life to be perpetual. The sunrise for instance. No one, not even conjoined Principalities could keep back the dawn. He could also count on the immortality of his Uncle, the Archdemon, Lucifer Morningstar to remain forever. The man was the personification of all evil. And evil would always live forever, whereunto life itself continued.
These things were eternal. They could be depended upon.
But not this fucking Crusade!
Ascending to earth, Rafel expected to fight in wars—and win them. Chaos was his second nature. Nevertheless, the Crusade of Rumbrun was a curveball.
Who were these fucking assholes anyway?
Rafel moved his gilded eyes from the chiming clock to Giselle.
"Who are these people?"
Giselle sighed and pulled a chair close.
"They are the anti Life of Eldoria. As Legend goes, the first men who settled here of course made deals with the already nesting Sprites and Faeries who habited the lands. But some of those pioneer settlers were greedy and sought out the frosty lairs of the giants. The offspring of the Titans.
There, amongst the unseen ice caves, the settlers not immediately used by giants to pick their teeth of polar bear meat were savagely subjected to serve as slave concubines until the death. The women got pregnant.
And the Nephilims were born.
This progeny were faster, stronger, and worse—invulnerable. The least of them was well over ten feet. They strung the skulls of trespassers on their shoulders and wore the scalps of their enemies as shinguards. Utter barbarians!
The ruling Mages and Druids then harbored together and created a spell to partition off the lands too deep in the North for comfort, coincidentally the arctic realms of the giants. The Nephilims did resist, but Faerie magic prevailed in the end. The lands of the furthest north, where even fish struggle to dwell was thus named Rumbrun, and quickly torn off every map in existence."
"And the Crusade?" Rafel stroked his jaw.
Giselle sat back in her seat, motionless for a while, before replying in a voice like smooth, pouring ale.
"Every decade or so, during long months of winter, the barriers of Fae Blessed runes keeping back the Nephilims wane in strength. The blue giants kick at the invisible wall, and sounds of their pounding echo out miles of the tundra.
Every Regent since the veiling of Rumbrun has being saying to revitalize the runes, and update the arcane system. But so far, the Kings and Queens have managed to leave their actions to mere words. It is prophesied in the ancient scripts of the Highfather though, that one day, the veil would come tumbling out and the horde of Nephilims which have being growing surmountably would swarm and claim all of Eldoria.
It just happens to be my luck that it's my regime the fucking giants choose to break through."
Rafel stopped tapping his fingers. He peered straight into Giselle's gold pupils.
"So The Stags are the kingdom's scouts for when the wall falls?"
"Yes." Giselle nodded. "From Ser Petyr's horrific entry, I gather the Walls of Rumbrun have fallen."
Rafel stood up slowly, and he walked to the map spread on the table. He touched the curling edges.
"Where does their crusade begin?"
Giselle, the blonde Fae, put on his own silver reading glasses and struck a spot on the map with a small cane. It beared North on the overhead compass.
"Frostholm."
They both recited as one.
That city was just recovering from one genocide. And Giselle had been merciful. Who knew just how sick the minds of blue giants were?
"Shit." Rafel echoed Giselle's thoughts.
"Yeah. . . shit just about the covers it." The Queen responded. She rose to her feet also and moved around the war table to stand beside Rafel. "So, what do we do, mighty Israfel?"
Rafel quietly waved his hand over the area of Frostholm sketched on the map. A new figurine appeared in at his fingertips. It was black, menacing, and bigger than the rest. From Giselle's point of view, it appeared to be a Titan.
She never would in aeons guess it was Rafel. He, a Titan.
Rafel gingerly dropped the macabre wooden figurine over the paper and slid it to far up North, as far away from Frostholm and into the surrounding tundra marked on the map. He let the Titan menace hang over a perch of Alps.
Giselle touched his hand over the map.
"What are you thinking, my Lord?"
A sinister grin lit the entire Study and Giselle saw shadows dance in the corner of her eyes.
"The Crusade of Rumbrun would only forever be a rumor. . .if the Nephilims never leave the deep North to begin with."
Rafel's words were for a second cryptic. It hung dangerously in the room, the implied meaning far louder than his baritone. But the moment she comprehended it, her unquenchable manic delight entered her golden eyes. She hugged Rafel's strong arm. Together, they stared as one over the map.
The Crusade of Rumbrun was about to end. . .just as quickly as it begun.
Was there ever a foe who could stand in his way? The Fey Queen wondered silently in her mind.
They were about to find out, because just like Avalon and its peak of limitless magic, eventually, all Empires fall, grinded to dust beneath the heel of a fresh prophecy and Conqueror.