War had been declared again, unfortunately. A dreary affair, all considered. At least, the people mused, it would be over quickly. The Kingdom and the Covenant had long since been border rivals, and though the people knew combat was truly inevitable in one way or another, they simply feigned ignorance. No one had any idea who would win, as was of course the basic nature of war in this day and age. The Kingdom and Covenant had equal force to bear in every way which mattered. Both had a very small standing army, mostly used for policing their territory and dealing with the stray issue. Outside of it they’d agreed to fight and didn’t want to escalate to greater forces for use in the battle Each power was made up of various baronies, towns, cities, all with some fairly good communication between them, though letters and messages via horseback were of course still days or weeks to complete their rounds. Infrastructure was good in both, with booming trade with external powers, other nations across the sea, on the southern border and across the lands they had access to. The real issue when it came down to it is that the current rulers wanted more, as rulers tended to do, and thus desired to expand. The South wasn’t an option. Every nation there spanned a large hegemony which could likely win any war with numbers, despite the skill that the Kingdom or Covenant could bring to bear.
Of course, both rulers claimed any reason but simple greed for their war. The Kingdom declared that the Covenant, a theocracy where every citizen paid tax to the church rather than the government, was corrupt and exploitative, along with oppression of their own people and was thus worthy of going to war with. The Covenant, then in turn, declared the Kingdom evil heretics who would steal their wives, corrupt their children and all around commit all manners of terrible acts onto them, their way of life, and everything that they held dear. Naturally, the people ate this all up. Why would their leaders ever tell a lie or hold greed, being chosen by the gods to rule? They each believed their side would claim victory when the war ended and their troops would be home in a flash, as they would say in the Hegemony. Each side was ready to fight, feeling energized, and generally confident. Declarations had been passed around, word had spread over the course of a few weeks, and no other power wished to join in. It was common courtesy to at least offer, as some last minute help from a foreign forces would never be a bad thing; however, none wished to join this time.The other powers of the world wished to observe and see the result, because whoever won the war would easily be the uncontested ruler of the others’ lands, and thus would be much stronger. The Kingdom and Covenant were mostly liked by the same people, or if one liked someone the other didn’t, they had an equal ally to match, so it seemed best to let things play out for now. No need to complicate a situation or lose valuable forces to a fight that wasn’t truly their own.
Once the invitation had been passed around to little avail, the next matter was to organize the time and place for the war, as naturally prompt scheduling was key to war in a civilized age such as this. A surprise attack would be frowned upon by many, and being seen as an unreasonable dishonorable savage in this day and age could mean political suicide at best, and at worst, another war just after the first. It would also mean that if you didn’t win with one strike, you had the potential to be struck back equally when you were not expecting it. With the possibilities of war in this era being nearly endless, you likely would not be expecting it in the slightest and that could turn the tables rather quickly. If they got the key strike on you, they could win the war in a single blow. All in all, it was a bad idea to try and fight dirty with the standards of modern warfare, and thus the meeting would organize a time and place between the two. A truce was of course in effect for the duration of the time surrounding the meeting. Assasination would be met with poor perceptions across the known and perhaps even unknown world, so no one truly considered it outside of passing thoughts of how one could potentially get something like that to go undetected or succeed without consequence, which would soon be dismissed like many other errant thoughts of sabotage.
The current King met the Covenant Pope in a mountain sanctuary, neither wanting to take the chance of visiting the other’s homeland. This place, claimed by neither country, housed the advisors and clergy of both. They both gave out some vague but still necessary appearances: pleasantries, greetings, well wishes and brief catching up of the leaders of the nation’s personal affairs. The Pope and King had once been old friends, or so the story went, so they did have “friendly” words to exchange despite the circumstances. How was the Queen doing, did the Pope’s son really flee the country, was the Hegemony really consolidating that much trade? Eventually, the hostility between the two forced the small talk to come to a close, and the pair got down to business. The time and place of the war was important, and neither side could afford to jeopardize or concede either of those factors to the enemy. As time of day, terrain and other factors could very easily turn the tide of battle to one individual or the other, they would debate it for hours on end. “How about the mountains, a large valley?” proposed the King, but the Pope refused, knowing that the King would have an advantage there due to the Kingdom being more well suited to such terrain, and thus would not allow him that advantage. “Perhaps out on the great plains?” proposed the Pope, admittedly putting on a great poker face to attempt to get across the idea that this would be a perfectly even place to fight, despite knowing that the Kingdom barely drilled on those lands and as a result their forces would be at a disadvantage against the Covenant’s more accustomed forces. Such negotiations were hard to come to a conclusion on when both parties wanted to come out with an advantage, and equally wouldn’t concede one to the enemy. Eventually, one of the monks of the mountaintop monastery spoke up, and calmly suggested that the battle take place on top and in between a group of mountains which did not peak in actual peaks, but instead a series of plateaus. It was an unknown and curious phenomenon, the monk said, and it would suit well for the battle. Valleys for the Kingdom, and flat and open areas for the Covenant. It seemed fair. After a bit of heavy and petty consideration, both parties agreed to that location. The next hurdle, in turn, was time. This one was far easier, thankfully, since very few individuals were accustomed to fighting in the night outside of basic training to defend against being caught unaware in it, but those were mostly revolving around retreating while saving resources that could be expended in a day time counterattack. This fact made it easy for both the Covenant and the Kingdom to agree to a simple time of high noon. A dramatic flair, granted, but one that could be agreed to by both parties. The final concession they gave each other was rather simple. They would be meeting two weeks from this date and time, as it was around noon during the negotiations (they’d of course started at the crack of dawn that morning-negotiations had truly dragged on something terrible). This would give both sides combatants time to potentially prepare for each other, prepare generally, and even potentially recruit more assistance, though they were unlikely to do the latter. The two rulers stood up, and turned away from each other without another word after the chance to gain an advantage over the other was gone, such was the nature of human conflict and greed, after all. Both were confident, for different reasons, that their individual victory was assured. The monks were simply glad to have their home emptied of the cacophony of argument; it was rather irritating, even for them with all their discipline.
The two weeks passed in rather short order, and the preparations being made were naturally hidden from the other. The Kingdom attempted to send spies to infiltrate, but the faithful and neighborly nature of the Covenants inner circles made getting meaningful information difficult, and outside of the food preferences and general political endorsements of the enemy, they gained little. The Covenant meanwhile, attempted to inspire the troops with speeches about just how much God truly was on their side, however its impact didn’t seem particularly rousing to anyone who received it. Both assured that they had the advantage, and both ordered their armies to march to the place where battle would be waged, where their victory would be cemented. The Kingdom was slightly more merciful in that, carrying their forces in an ornate litter across the plains and forests which led to the starting point of the battle. The Covenant, for their credit, went with the same concept, if one were to look at it from an abstract perspective. They had their troops carried as well, but without the cover the litter provided, instead getting them across with no issue to the troops mentioned, but with leagues of faithful simply carrying them in a mob, so dense that the troops could lay down on their people’s outstretched hands. These people had of course ‘volunteered’ for the position, with local priests informing the general populace of the faithful that they could potentially have sins or missed tithes forgiven if they were to do this holy task. Sadly, this led to many of their forces being slightly sunburnt. The Kingdom, in turn, had a mishap in their own right, that being accidentally forgetting ample food, so their force would be going into this fight rather hungry rather than at peak capacity. The King ordered his supply coordinators executed, however it did not quite fix the problem as anticipated nor would it fix things in a timely manner. Communication standards required days of travel, so the war would be over before they could pay for their crime. Naturally, these mishaps were overlooked in the end. They would not seem weak by conceding the war before it had even begun. Pathetically asking to reschedule would be an unacceptable show of weakness for either nation, and thus they continued. Reaching the side of the valley assigned to each nation, they began their climb. The forces were already irritated in some manner, but refused to display it. They had loyalty after all, and it wouldn’t be shattered by a simple issue of hunger or en mass sunburn; they had a war to win! Each force was carried up the mountain, alongside their respective leaders, to each side. They began setting up, servants spreading out and setting out chairs, pillows and blankets to ward off the cold, and other items of comfort such as that for the leaders, and in the Kingdom’s case, those who had carried the force. The Covenant simply used its faithful as blockers of the sun in the Pope’s eyes.
The King approached the Pope, a kindly smile on his face that did not meet his worried eyes. The Pope greeted him similarly, and they exchanged pleasantries, both of them agreeing to be kind in a transfer if either won, which led to some friendly laughter, and other accords being made in case of a loss. They then backed away from each other, and allowed the main event to begin. The faithful pulled out various signs of encouragement, as the Kingdom’s servants did similarly with their lesser numbers.
It was then that the combatants stepped out onto the field.
Stepping out of the litter first was a man in red robes by the name of Sir Artorias Caliban. He was reaching fifty, but he appeared twenty, as per standard of people of his sort. He held a staff in one hand, a crystal on the top faintly glowing with mysterious light and energy. He was a veteran of the Kingdom, of thirty years now, which other nations of the world would call a meager neonate in the grand scheme. with the nature of the Kingdom though, Caliban was the best of the best. He had been raised as a farm boy before his true talents had been found, and he’d been ushered away from parents he barely remembered into a life of luxury.This had come at the cost of rigorous training with his gifts, ones which he now intended to use to win the war in one fell swoop. He was a loyal man, having stood up and endorsed the current King time and time again (the privileges such as being able to marry one of the King’s daughters and owning a vast barony certainly helped secure the man’s support). Caliban had been preparing since early this morning, and considered himself ready.
Stepping out of the hordes of faithful on the Covenants side was a woman in immaculate white robes, slightly sunburned pale face sticking out. Her name was Lady Elezbeth Von Carline, a woman of a similar age to Sir Caliban, but appearing, like him, to be in her twenties. She carried a scepter which held the holy symbol of the Covenant, a goatthat seemed to be forged out of solid gold. It had an allure to it that was hard to describe, with all of the faithful and other observers transfixed on either that or the low cut nature of her robes. She was, similarly to Caliban, raised normally in a family of faithful fervent to God, until her talents had been revealed and she’d been taken away. Carline was truly fervent, to the point of being the favored consort of the Pope (though this was unknown to the public and most officials outside of rumors in higher circles of priests, though they ignored it to avoid having a nationwide crackdown on their own individuals of consortium), a position she seemed plenty content with. She was known to have quite the measure of natural talent in her profession, leading to her being chosen to lead the war against the Kingdom. Carline saw no purpose in preparing, fully expecting to be suprised by the individual in front of her.
One of the monks, having come here days in advance for personal enjoyment and preparedness, was present to be a neutral referee for the start of the fight. He was no longer getting personal enjoyment now that there was annoying nationalistic crowds on a formerly peaceful mountaintop, but they’d be gone soon enough. He spoke, and his voice was heard, simple as that.
“The war will begin when I declare it. As per the unspoken rules of mages and their use, the war will be represented by a duel between the strongest mages of the Kingdom and Covenant respectively. It can be safely assumed that due to the scarcity of mages, losing their strongest will be an assured loss for the nation in question, as no ordinary man or amount of ordinary men could possibly hope to defeat one. So thus, whoever loses this duel, will lose the war, and we can expedite an end to the conflict from there. Due to the nature of this, this fight must be to the death, and will only end with the death of one of the mages. Do both parties understand this?”
Both the King and Pope nodded, as did their representatives.
“Do both sides still wish to go through with this?” A useless question, the monk knew.
Both leaders nodded again, to the monk’s slight, but evident disappointment.
“Then, by the power invested in me by the neutrality of our monastery, let the war begin!”
That was all the two magi needed to start their magic. Artorias stayed put, slowly walking forward as he tapped his staff against the ground, while Elezbeth took off into the air with an elegance and extravagance only a truly confident mage could have. She raised her holy symbol, and storm clouds began to form rapidly, thunder rumbling across the mountain. Just as easily, she called down lightning into her symbol before swinging it towards Artorias, the lightning flashing in an instant as it moved to strike her opponent. Artorias, in turn, raised his staff? focus? in a flicking motion, stone coming apart from the mountain and forming a shield against the lightning. The bolt shattered the shield, but he just crumbled the mountain further, launching the rocks towards Elezbeth at a terminal velocity, enough to likely pulverize an entire platoon of men if he wished to do so. His foe, in turn, formed an iridescent prism around herself by parting the storm just enough for a single ray of sunlight to pierce down, reflect itself through all of the raindrops, and intensify in a very bright barrier. by the time the debris came anywhere close to her they had crumbled into dust. In the meantime however, while she was being extravagant, Artorias was still on the offensive, tearing more chunks off of the mountain and leaving them hovering. He climbed into the air using them as footstools, flinging two more in the direction of Elezbeth, but not aimed at her. Instead, the pair of them transformed into eagles with a wingspan larger than some buildings, which swooped towards the holy mage, screeching so loud that some of the bystanders were temporarily rendered deaf(though the mages, naturally seemed unfazed, with suddenly conjured earplugs appearing on both combatants). Elezbeth saw the birds coming and dropped from the sky,plummeting towards the valley below and launching the reflected light like a laser. It burned a perfect hole through one eagle’s eye, and into its brain, severing a core center and causing it to go limp in the sky. The other dove, causing her to tear all of the leaves off of the trees in the valley below, which transformed into thousands of locusts which surged upwards. The now leafless trees were sharpened into spikes of wood, which also launched upwards, surging forth in a massive offensive.
The swarms parted as the spikes launched, the would-be stakes impaling the eagle. The swarm then had a new target, that being Artorias, however he was barely fazed as he climbed his skyward stone staircase.dropping himself lower and into the mass of the swarm, a fire ignited from within which expanded outwards, turning the locusts to ash, and steam from rain making contact with the inferno. He then, not to let good material go to waste, formed the ash and steam into a colossus in the shape of a mighty dragon, casting it down into the valley, superheated to levels which rivaled the sun itself. It ignited and burned most of the valley as it surged towards the fleeing Elezbeth, growing bigger with each inch it moved. Elezbeth, to counter, seemingly stopped the rain, though Artorias didn’t figure out why until he looked up, and saw the rain hadn’t stopped. Instead, it had all momentarily paused to collect itself in a massive sphere, which he was too late to stop from hurling down into the valley. It impacted, and immediately extinguished the ashen monster. Elezbeth pulled out of the valley just high enough to not get wet as the valley now became a lake basin. She landed on the surface of the water, a bridge made from gold forming beneath her as she walked. She pointed her scepter at her opponent, conjuring a plume of toxins, which was dismissed by a gust of wind. However, the cloud was secretly a cover for the poisonous snake which she’d turned one of his socks into, which bit into his skin, only to find that his skin was rubbery and elastic.though the venom had been injected, it did very little to poison the now elastic Artorias, who sprung himself downwards like a slinky and summoned a pair of fists made of stone to knock Elezbeth off of her thin golden bridge. The fists turned to butterflies which floated around Elezbeth,who sent two lightning strikes down at the man who was now a much longer target. Artorias’s body snapped back to normal shape on the edge of Elezbeth’s bridge, where he landed, transforming into a bronze metal instead as he approached. Elezbeth tried to simply dismiss the bridge beneath him, but he simply continued transmuting the bronze there, a classic magical override technique. Frustrated, Elezbeth switched tactics.The mountains around started to rumble as large boulders began cascading downwards into the lake, sending large plumes of water towards the pair. Elezbeth propelled herself backwards with a continuous gust of wind, transforming the water into acid. Artorias was expecting a harmless puff of mist or at worst a small wave of water, and was caught off guard. The acid wave saw Artorias vanish, and Elezbeth grinned. She’d won, war wasn’t that hard it seemed.
She was rather shocked when Artorias emerged from the wave, seemingly riding it out on a sheet of bronze metal, with nothing but a small burn on the side of his face to show for his stint with the acid. As Elezbeth made contact with the other side of the lake, Artorias went back on an offensive, the ground beneath her starting to turn to quicksand.she dodged it, only for the nearby rock face to extend into spikes. She turned those spikes into harmless foam which she spiraled towards Artorias, who simply extended his current mounted position to block it away from himself. as he shifted his momentum and weight, he became a miniature meteor heading straight for Elezbeth. Elezbeth responded by turning his board into bees, which was turned into stone in a rapid fire attempt to correct, and then turned to a mass of flesh, which clung to Artorias and made him unable to course correct. Elezbeth melded into the stone of the mountain side, expecting Artorias to crash. However, he didn’t, instead melding after her, the board squishing into a bloody pulpy mass at the rock face. He looked forward, locking eyes with the holy mage, whose eyes widened seeing that he was still around, rocketing upwards and bursting out of the top of the mountain, covered in clay. She backed up as Artorias burst out, not giving him time to adjust before sending the clay on her at him in the form of tiny metal spikes tipped with lethal poison. Artorias, barely seeing the flash of metal, turned his entire body to clay and seemingly petrified himself, as the spikes thunked in and tipped him over, splattering him on the floor of the mountain with a squelch. Not keen on giving him any chance to get back up, (he could think himself out to be wholly healed if he was still alive after all), Elezbeth held out a hand, conjuring a ball of fire, acid, lightning, waves of pounding water which could put holes in plate mail, and a volley of serrated daggers onto the clay form, which was now nothing more than a stain. Elezbeth smirked, raising her hands in the air, only for a hand to grasp her ankle. She looked down as Artorias emerged from the air beneath her, she barely had time to react before he had time to cast a singular spell.
Her own scepter expanded, the horns jutting upwards at a perfect angle to both take her head off and impale her through the chest, as the scepter enlarged upwards and outwards. It reached a tipping point before toppling over backwards, ‘accidently’ falling in an area with crowds of faithful who watched in horror or scattered before it crushed scores of them, before tumbling off the side. The body of Elezbeth would be recovered a few weeks from now, ripped to bits on rocks and picked at by crows, but that wasn’t what was important at the moment.
Stunned silence resounded throughout the mountaintop. The King’s grin just then was said to surpass any others, as the Kingdom servants after the brief pause began to whoop and cheer, Artorias raising his arms in victory to the roaring crowds. The Pope seemed to be in shock, looking at the tumbled scepter and then back at his very squashed faithful, those who remained also starting to shout, but it was more the scream of shock, pain and anguish.
Unperturbed by the morbidness of the situation, the King approached the Pope. “I do believe I’ll be moving my troops into your lands within the month. I will of course need reparations from this awful inconvenience of a war, I’m thinking three fourths of your treasury…we’ll be of course also be dismantling most of the larger churches, maybe change the statues to depict me as to not completely destroy what you’ve built-and some statues of some Sir Caliban of course, we cannot forget him” the mage beamed in response.
The Pope changed from shock to anger, growing red in the face “Now you listen here Darius. I will not be commanded about like some kind of insignificant welp! I am the ruler of the largest church in the world! I have other mages, they will kill your pathetic mage a-” The King snapped his fingers “That is a good point Peter. Artorias?”
Artorias nodded, looking into the distance, at the clouds brought in by his deceased opponent vanished, including every cloud the mage could see beyond that.
Instead, a different shadow was cast over the area. See clouds, due to the nature of being what they are, are quite dense. Normally, this means little, as they remain in the sky, but as the clouds turned to large, heavy rocks which blotted out the sun from the magic of Artorias, things became slightly problematic. Even more problematic, was the throwing of said rocks into the territory of the Covenant, specifically aimed for the second largest city, which was publicly known as the home for the holy mages. It was naturally the primary target, and thus leveled.
“Tell me Peter, were you referring to the mages in the city which have just been pulverized? If so, that’s quite unfortunate for you.” He said, still with a grin to rival the most smug of men.
The Pope opened his mouth to shout again, only to find he couldn’t. He felt around in his mouth, only to find his tongue simply missing, like it was never there.
“You don’t have to take the fun out of it that much Artorias” the King chided, though he didn’t particularly care that much.
“My apologies for my liege. He was starting to annoy me.” the mage said simply.
“Ah, don’t worry, I feel similarly. I trust you avoided the capitol? I’d hate to lose their coffers…”
“I did. I thought of that.”
“Very good! You’ve been the best mage a King could ask for Artorias. Shall we go claim our spoils?”
Artorias nodded, before departing with the King.
Kingdom forces would sweep over what remained of the Covenant in the next few months, the Pope being publicly executed, and the church being slowly dismantled. There was some resistance, but it was little, and many of the Covenants armies had mysteriously died to giant rocks. The Kingdom was stronger than ever before, and would rule the land for years to come, under King Darius, and his sons, and his sons sons, and on, perhaps even conquering the Hegemony and foreign kingdoms someday to add to his great banner.
His grand aspirations were quashed precisely five months from when Elezbeth was killed, with the united Hegemony taking their chance to declare war on the Kingdom. A duel was naturally organized as a result, Artorias naturally representing the Kingdom as their strongest mage, against the greatest mage of the collective Hegemony.
They always say that there is always a bigger fish, but it was doubtful Artorias possibly had the time to contemplate that or much else before meeting a painful and embarrassing end, as he left himself open to an attack after thinking his opponent dead. This naturally came in the form of the slightest bit of poetic justice, seeing as the finishing blow was giant falling rocks.
The King was executed, fading into memory along with his mage. Eventually, the Hegemony too was challenged and beaten, and then those after them.
Such was the nature of war after all. Such a dreary prospect.
Kindling And Miscellany 