AN:
A shorter chapter, but it felt like the natural stopping point. The next few I have in the pipeline are longer ones.
Enjoy!
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Kalé did not see John at the mess that evening, but neither did he see any of the irregulars. It wasn't until the next morning that they arrived.
They trudged into the mess looking beaten and battered, even if much of their equipment they now wore had been swapped to fresh equipment so the grime of battle no longer coated them.
He could see from their faces that many of them had grown older.
Not that they had aged physically, but rather in spirit. Despite having unlimited time to improve, most men reached a certain point in their lives where they were satisfied and settled there. They stopped growing in skill, in knowledge, in wisdom and wealth. In new experiences. They would stay where they were for decades and centuries.
They would stop growing completely, in every way. Hundreds of years would pass and they would barely change in any way besides having more entertaining stories and maybe a small cache of wealth.
Some people could be alive for centuries and not live for a second, and some people could experience centuries in a few short moments.
That is what Kalé saw of the irregulars. Their day of battle had aged them in a way mere time did not. Those who had survived at least, as he noticed a number of faces had not come back.
Unlike the others, John looked to be only slightly aged in comparison. That wasn't unexpected at this point. Kalé had always thought he had had an old soul for such a young body, and John had already experienced the most tragic of slaughters before he had been placed with the irregulars.
But even if John still had aged much after his own first battles, before his friend had gone through them, Kalé had thought he would have aged more after his first battle than he had. But John had not aged as much as Kalé had thought despite his friend's first battles being of the worst sort. But that was just one more mystery added to the puzzle that John was.
His friend did a very good job at convincing everyone around him he was a typical man, even if he could not pull it off flawlessly.
Yet even Kalé was beginning to realize that he could not see the depths of his friend as well as he had believed. Kalé was one of the oldest people in Limgrave, having been born before Caelid had been destroyed by the scarlet rot, and having lived for over two millennia.
When it came to John, Kalé had thought of his friend as if he was a large river. That there were depths that you could not see, but if you swam downwards you could reach the bottom with some effort. But now Kalé had swam down and discovered the river had no bottom, and Kalé was instead left with an abyss that he could not guess at the depth of.
It had shaken him. Truly.
John had been a fun lighthearted puzzlebox at first, but now Kalé had found that innocent puzzlebox was far more ominous as it had sliced his hand and made him bleed.
Before, he had thought maybe John's preternatural knowledge of Lands Between may have been given to him from a high ranking tarnished that had accompanied Godfrey in his campaigns in the Lands Between and in the Long March. If so, it made sense that John would know things that Kalé did not.
Yet it seemed John's knowledge was not just of the past. True knowledge of the future? Not just the incomplete knowledge of oracles like the astrologers who had read fate in the stars, but true knowledge of the future. That was something that was truly impossible, and was certainly not from a loose lipped tarnished.
Time was the one thing that was truly inviolate. Even the Dragonlord was said to be only able to twist and stop time.
The magnitude of this if his suspicion was true... it made Kalé's skin break out in goosebumps, in fear and excitement!
It could be that whatever John had known of the rebellion was from a conspirator in some way rather than impossible knowledge. But somehow Kalé did not think that was the case.
Kalé already thought that John was somehow divine or an agent of the Greater Will. But this was beyond something as mundane as that, and far more portentous.
Kalé just was not sure if this portent was benevolent or sinister. He was still committed to seeing this through till he finally discovered the fate of the nomadic merchants, his fate. He just needed to know what to expect the price to be.
Kalé had had quite a few close calls over the years, but never had the situation been so dire for him as being trapped here in this castle. He was no longer content to just slowly solve the puzzle of his friend.
Kalé would get his accounting if they survived; he was deserved it.
So Kalé did his duties and made the irregulars and the other folk in the castle their meals to sustain them as the siege ticked on day by day.
He and John still talked when they both had the time. Mostly they kept their conversations full of levity as there was no reason to talk about things they both knew were happening.
There was no reason to rehash the things that they were living through. Kalé would not learn much from John that he would not overhear from others in the mess, and John, frankly, had more pressing things to worry about than whatever Kalé was doing in the kitchen.
As the days passed, every day the twenties of men would return to the mess. More often than not, a few of them would be down a man. This was especially true of the irregulars, as the irregulars had much less training and experience than the regulars.
While most of the regulars had only been through a handful of battles over the decades since they were recruited into Godrick's forces, some few of the men still remained among them that had been present in the First Defense of Leyndell when, in the early period after the Shattering of the Elden Ring, Godefroy, head of the Golden Lineage at the time, had led his assault on Leyndell, starting the first battle of what would come to be known as the Shattering wars.
Such old veterans would not fall easily even if they were not the equal of champions. They were like gristle, they remained no matter how hard one chewed. These oldest of veterans were usually able to be spotted by the faint orange coloring of their weapons. Over the years having occasionally been granted the reward of having their weapons improved with smithing stones more than others.
As the strength of twenties weakened from the loss of men through the siege, fives and twenties would be merged to keep units up to full strength. Regulars were slowly mixed into irregular units as the opportunity presented itself for officers to join together multiple incomplete units to make more full strength units.
Despite Kalé not speaking to John of what his friend's twenty went through day by day, that did not mean he did not know. He just heard of it through overhearing others in the mess.
For example, he heard about how on their first battle in the corridors, John's twentier had almost been killed, and John had taken control before their line collapsed. This had earned his friend much esteem from the men despite his foreign blood.
With the irregulars being part of the garrison's defensive rotation now, Kalé heard of the other happenings of their battles each day. He heard of how they were making good progress with extracting supplies from below as they slowly fell back towards less exposed chokepoints further up towards Castle Morne proper.
And Kalé saw how every day the men in John's twenty and even some men from other twenties, began to look at John with more respect. Some with reverence even. As if they had seen a fraction of the potential that Kalé knew John possessed.
Kalé knew that John had matched and beaten his twentier, one of those enduring veterans, on the last day of his irregular training, and from talk about his performance in battles that Kalé overheard, it seemed that John was continuing to improve.
The kitchen was the heart of a castle where everyone had to come to at some point, besides the lord and the top officers who got their food brought to them, so Kalé also overheard how the entire defense was going from the men of the garrison.
They had been successful in falling back to better positions closer to the ground floor of the castle, and all the supplies in that area had been successfully moved by the townsfolk. The misbegotten had started switching to short assaults instead of a constant unending attack that they had been doing for over the past week. That was the good news.
On the other hand, the misbegotten had managed to increase the pressure with these shorter attacks and they also began actually defending themselves. Many of them had started wearing piecemeal bits of armor from the fallen soldiers on themselves wherever they could fit them. Some even carried scavenged golden flasks!
The men spoke of how it seemed like every other misbegotten had a piece of armor or two somewhere. It made those misbegotten fall in battle much less often as a casual strike from a defender may not kill them now.
Even more worrisome, Kalé had overheard someone speaking of the war supplies that Lord Edgar had tapped and they spoke of how they were already half empty of undamaged armor and crimson tears.
He also knew that many men had caught glimpses of the leonine misbegotten, but it had not engaged in any battles yet. It was especially worrying because in those doomed sallies that John had barely survived through, a significant number of the garrison's knights that were able to call upon the storm had perished. Now there were fewer men who could fight the leonine misbegotten off if he attacked.
It appeared the only thing saving the soldiers from the leonine misbegotten now was that its large size would make battle in the corridors a death sentence if the misbegotten leader ran into a knight that could call upon the storm and could not dodge.
So the days continued to tick by as the men fell one by one. And soon the mess hall only had two soldiers coming in every day for every three it had once had. Kalé reckoned there were only around four hundred men left.
Then one day after a battle John's twenty came to the mess hall missing a few of their number, and John was among those who did not appear.
Feeling dread building in his stomach, Kalé watched as the four men of John's five ate with an air of melancholy about them. He watched the mess entrance like a hawk, but John did not enter the entire time his twenty had their dinner. Nor did he enter after the men of his twenty finished and left.
Soon the people who came to eat dinner slowed to a trickle and then stopped. But still his friend did not appear.
The dread built in Kalé' as time passed and John did not arrive. When they cleaned up the kitchen and finished prepping for breakfast, and then they closed the mess until the next morning, Kalé's stomach dropped, his hope extinguished.
Kalé went to his room and sat languidly against the wall with his head in his arms.
His worst fears had been realized. How could this have happened!? This was not supposed to happen!
He was so out of it, Kalé did not notice someone had approached his room until he heard the sound of someone stepping inside.
Was he needed for more work in the mess?
Kalé looked up, and his yellow eyes widened!
"John!? You are alive!?"
John grunted and Kalé felt the malaise that had overcome him vanish and be replaced with relief as he held his hand to his chest.
"Yeah, though I don't feel it with the beating we took," John said as he sat down in his usual spot. "Sorry for being late. Today in the middle of our watch, among the usual misbegotten, there was a squad of some of those trained misbegotten that caught us by surprise. Killed most of our warpicks and our twentier in their surprise attack. I took over as head officer for the rest of that watch.
"When we were relieved, I delivered the news of what happened to my twenty to the officers, and Lord Edgar promoted me to the rank of Sergeant and made me the next twentier of our group for my deeds.
"Speaking of that Kalé, from now I'll be having breakfast and dinner in Lord Edgar's study with the rest of the 'higher' officers, the twentiers, the hundriers, and Lord Edgar. So I'll be late coming here in the evenings from now on. Maybe really late depending on how long things take."
That last part caught Kalé's attention.
"You are now part of the officers?"
John nodded his head.
"Yeah. Only because the garrison here is down to so few, and the rest of Lord Edgar's command is not kept in Morne itself. As one of the juniors, I'm there more to give information about my twenty and what is happening and receive orders, not help decide things. That's Lord Edgar and the hundriers."
Kalé's nose for information that he had developed over the centuries was itching at hearing that John was now among the inner circle of those leading, even as a junior.
"Is there anything you can tell me that I'd want to know?"
John stayed quiet and listened for a moment to make sure no one was coming down the hall.
"Okay, don't tell anyone else this because it's secret. We don't want everyone knowing and talking about it, and then the misbegotten manage to overhear it. Our men have spotted their fliers listening outside of windows and below the lips of ramparts to overhear things a few times."
John looked at him to convey the gravity of what he was saying.
"Nothing will leave my lips," Kalé swore.
John seemed convinced by his sincerity and began speaking.
"So with how you work in the kitchen, have you heard how Lord Edgar has been sending coded smoke signals, and we have been getting responses from the hills?"
Kalé nodded.
"I have heard of this."
"Well, those signals are from scouts from Edgar's men that were stationed in the Ramparts of Regret, the great rampart that cut the Weeping Peninsula in half and separated Morne from the rest of the small continent. We have just received information back from those reinforcement scouts today that told us the main force of the reinforcements are on their way.
"They will be here in just under two weeks. Eleven or twelve days. We just have to hold out for two more weeks. With how things are going now it looks like we'll be making it as long as the misbegotten keep their current strategy, but that probably won't last. They will eventually change after it doesn't work for long enough."
To Kalé, hearing that a force was coming to break the siege was a relief. To know there was a wisp of grace in the dark of this cave made everything much more bearable. As much as he was willing to die if he must to accomplish his goal, he did not wish to die.
"That is good to hear. That we are already half way through this," Kalé said.
"I thought the same. Just remember, do not spread it around," John said.
Kalé nodded.
"I understand. Is there anything else?"
"The misbegotten attacks? They have let up-"
Kalé and John once again enjoyed an evening of conversation before John left to return to the barracks.
Kalé was happy with how things had turned out today. As terrible as the sinking feeling of John's death had been, the knowledge John had given him made it worth the exchange.
They just had to endure for two more weeks.
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The next day, in the mess haul as Kalé was serving food, he was approached by one of the regulars. He wasn't a fringefolk knight with their engraved armor, he just looked like any of the other typical soldiers of Godrick.
"Are you Kalé?"
Kalé was immediately on guard. People asking for him was usually not good.
"Yes?"
"I heard you are a close friend of John White?" the soldier asked.
Kalé's guard dropped a little seeing this wasn't about him.
"Yes," Kalé confirmed.
"I wish to meet with him. He carried my injured, unconscious body up Clifftown and saved my life."
Kalé had not expected that.
"You are the other man that survived those units destroyed in the sallies two weeks ago?" Kalé asked.
The soldier nodded his head.
"Yes. I want to thank him for saving my life and not just leaving me to die down there. And with how things are looking, I want to make sure I get the chance to say it before either of us die."
Kalé recognized that the soldier was right. There was a great chance of either he or John dying before the siege was over. If the attrition kept up as it had, it looked like there half of the men defending now would die by the end of the next two weeks, leaving two hundred soldiers left plus all the nearly five hundred townsfolk.
"What is your name?" Kalé asked.
"Cronell."
Kalé gestured to the hallway with his head.
"Me and John speak every evening. Meet me here two hours from now after I am done with my duties for the day."
The soldier agreed, and they both continued on their separate ways for a time.
Two hours later, after Kalé was finished with his work in the mess hall for the day, he walked out to find that Cronell was waiting for him.
"Follow me," Kalé gestured to the man.
Kalé guided Cronell to his room and they settled in quietly to wait for John. Neither of them spoke. A nomadic merchant and a fringefolk soldier who did not know each other had nothing much to speak of.
Soon enough, John arrived after his daily meeting in Edgar's study with the other officers.
As John walked in, Kalé saw him look at the soldier sitting in his spot with confusion in his eyes.
"Kalé. What's going on with him?" John said, no doubt knowing Kalé would not just invite people into his room for no reason.
"That is Cronell. He is the man you saved from Clifftown at the beginning of the siege."
John looked at the man's face and a look of recognition crossed his face.
"Ah, you! So Cronell's your name? Never got it cause you were from knight Andren's twenty I believe. How are you doing? I know even after crimson tears you were unconscious for the whole day I was carrying you. A bad blow to the head I believe it was."
Cronell stood up.
"I am doing well now, sir. I woke up later that day after I was taken to the infirmary, but I was bedridden for two days as they waited to be able to give me more tears. I had been given three full flasks of tears before I had arrived there, so it took a few days for tears to be effective on me again."
John nodded his head.
"That makes sense. Half of our men had fallen before I separated from the rest. After the battle at the bottom of Clifftown we used the flasks of the fallen on the injured to make sure that they were as healed up as possible.
"Most of the flasks weren't full when we did, so we gave each injured man a few flasks to make sure they were as healed as we could before carrying them. We were very free with how much we gave to be sure.
"It doesn't surprise me you got fed enough tears to equate a few full flasks. So why are you hanging out with my friend?" John asked, pointing towards Kalé with his thumb.
Cronell took a breath to steel himself.
"Sir, I just wanted to tell you, thank you for saving my life. For not leaving me down there.
I've heard from men on the walls, that the misbegotten have been spotted cutting up bodies and eating them. If I'm to die in battle, I want a proper burial at least. Cremated with ghostflame, or given a sky burial if I earn the honor. Not ending up in a wretch's stomach so he can go and spread more misery in the world."
John nodded.
"You are welcome, Cronell. I can't say that the thought of leaving you there never crossed my mind, but I never gave it any serious consideration."
"Thank you, sir. It shows you are an honorable man, sir, to do what you did. That is why I came to you instead of anyone else, sir. I don't know who I can trust."
Cronell looked at Kalé, then at John, and back at Kalé again.
Kalé was surprised at this unexpected turn in the conversation and saw John's expression mirrored his.
John's gaze turned more serious as he looked at Cronell.
"You can trust Kalé with whatever this is Cronell. I trust him with my life."
Cronell hesitated, looking at Kalé, but continued.
"Very well. Sir, you see, I did not just want to thank you.
"While I was infirm in my sick bed, I was surrounded by many other men who were injured and dying. Some knew they would perish before they could take more tears.
"A man was brought in who was from one of Knight Major Crann's twenties. He was dying and it was clear he wouldn't make it through the night. He blamed Sir Crann for his coming death, and was cursing his name for hours.
"When I asked him about the circumstances and why he was cursing Sir Crann, the dying man, delirious from pain and blood loss, told me that Knight Major Crann has been lying to High Marshal Edgar. That there had never been any informant. And that somehow that was related to why it was the Knight Major's fault that he was dying.
"I tried to ask him more, but my words did not break through his haze."
Kalé did not know why this information was significant besides that lying to a superior was bad, but he saw John instantly had the entirety of his attention captured by Cronell's words. There was something Kalé was missing about what was being said.
"There was no informant? You are sure?" John asked.
"Yes."
Kalé watched as John went deep into thought at this response. What had just been said clearly meant far more to John than him. Kalé tried to put the pieces together himself.
Kalé knew from the High Marshal's address that day in the courtyard that this Knight Major Crann had given Edgar information about the leonine misbegotten. If Kalé presumed that Crann said he obtained that information from an informant it meant Crann had not see it himself.
By that point no one had actually seen the leonine misbegotten yet, and later a misbegotten like the leonine misbegotten being at Morne turned out to be true.
Crann had lied about where he had gotten this information and said he got it from an informant. If Kalé's presumption was true.
But why would Crann lie about that? What was the deeper meaning? Kalé could speculate any number of reasons, but he did not know enough to make anything that would not be a blind guess beyond that Crann lying to his superior officer about such important matters was bad.
Kalé did not have any more time to think before John put his hand on Cronell's shoulder.
"Why haven't you brought this forward before!? Are you willing to swear about what you heard to Lord Edgar?" John asked the soldier, his words conveying considerable gravity.
Cronell nodded heavily.
"I am willing to swear.
"I have not told anyone before now because Knight Major Crann is Lord Edgar's second in command with the men here in Castle Morne, and the hundrier with the most influence in this garrison. His influence over the men here is great, and I do not know the significance of the High Marshal's right hand man in this siege lying to him about this.
"I could not directly speak with the High Marshal without giving someone a reason for why I should be given leave to spe3ak with him and risk being silenced, and after Sir Carth's and Sir Andren's deaths, I did not know of any officers that could bring this directly to Lord Edgar that I could trust were not under the influence of Sir Crann.
"Then I heard you had been made twentier, so you'll now be meeting face to face with Lord Edgar every day."
John looked at Kalé, who still only had part of this puzzle and was trying to figure out exactly what all these ominous lies from Crann Stormfeather actually meant.
"This is extremely important Kalé. We'll talk later, I need to take him to Lord Edgar now," said John.
Kalé nodded, and moments later John and Cronell had left, marching down the hallway corridor with haste.
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AN:
I mentioned looking forward to PoE2, and I've been hardcore addicted to it the past few days. Luckily I expected this so I spent the last couple weekends before it came out doing extra work for this story to make sure chapters keep coming out. You guys enjoy your week as well.