Crown of Velúndé – Chapter 30: XCV — Red Snow (Patreon)

Chapter 30: XCV — Red Snow

Siegfried was dying.

And Kayode was watching it happen.

In the short time it had taken Kayode to ride to the Countess’s castle and return to Bracklocke, the enemy had carved several gashes into the High Chief’s form.

Siegfried roared as black blood ran down his body, staining his blue skin a deep, dark sheen. Yet he kept fighting. He kept holding the shield wall, even as the enemy—recognizing him as the pillar of the formation—began sending their best against him.

Stone-Spine gutted one man at the end of his blade, only to have another’s dagger bite into his back. He put that one down, and then the next, but not before yet another cut was opened across his body.

At last, he stumbled away from the wall. His legs buckled. He dropped to his knees, forced himself forward, took a single step back toward the shield wall—and then he tilted backward and collapsed into the snow.

His skin faded from blue to pink.

And so Stone-Spine died—not in a final clash, but from the last of a thousand cuts.

The shield wall buckled almost instantly without him, driven back farther with every surge of Volkmar’s forces. Without Siegfried to reinforce the line, Hellbringers, Mages and Archers were the only reason the enemy was not yet upon the walls.

Dame Varghelt was on a knee, helm off, armor dented and rended. Ser Gold was on both knees, only his hands on the snow to keep him up, and Xirio sat in the snow, clutching his belly, head rested against the wall.

Volkmar, bleeding, panting, but unambiguously victorious, walked slowly towards Varghelt.

‘It’s been an honour serving you, Great Lord,’ Varghelt said, duty and fear trembling in her voice.

“Kayode. It’s over. Let me help you,” Lami said, her voice breaking with a plea.

It was over. The only reason he hadn’t yet admitted so was stubbornness—nothing more. Kayode could not win this. He never could. Accepting her help was the only way to keep things from getting worse.

He would live out the rest of this Loop as nothing but an extension of Duchess Gimba and her household. That had always been the intended outcome. His refusal to accept it had been nothing but a futile struggle against the inevitable—a foolish battle, waged out of a refusal to accept the world for what it was.

He looked at Lami. “I—”

Something tore across the night.

Several somethings.

They burst from Nachdäm Forest, sprinting hard toward the enemy lines—an army, small but lethal, made of creatures of the night. Vampyres.

And at their head was the Countess.

They crashed into the rear of the Land Prince’s forces.

Jets of red-hot death erupted from the Dark Lady’s palms, melting flesh and drowning the night in screams. Her Sired followed in her wake, sowing pandemonium—feasting as they killed, drinking as they advanced.

Volkmar’s army faltered, panic spreading through their ranks. They did not know whether to face the Demonforms before them or the Vampyres at their backs.

Alrikta carved through them regardless, everything in her path reduced to wet red ruin. She vaulted the shield wall in a single bound and stretched out her hand toward the Paladin.

Bolts of blood screamed through the air.

Volkmar spun his blade like a windmill, knocking most aside—but one struck his neck. Kayode saw him flinch as the blood hissed and burned, eating through layers of skin and leaving the rest raw and reddened.

The Paladin wasted no time. His sword carved through the air, a singing arc racing toward the Vampyre.

Alrikta vaulted clear with perfect reflexes, thrusting out her hand as two bloody tendrils lashed toward him.

Volkmar swung to intercept—but the tendrils detonated before his blade could reach them, splashing him once more in searing crimson.

He winced. He hissed.

But he did not retreat.

Volkmar pushed forward through the pain and was rewarded for it—his blade’s tip caught the Vampyre’s fingers and sheared them off in a single, brutal swing.

Her flesh hissed. Alrikta screamed and reeled backward. Perhaps Volkmar’s weapon was forged to grant him an advantage over Monsters like her. Or perhaps it was a Feat Skill. Likely both, Kayode decided.

He moved to follow up—but Varghelt struck first.

Her boot slammed in behind his knee, buckling his leg and driving him down onto the other.

She thrust for his neck. Volkmar caught the blade on his own, steel shrieking as the weapons locked.

That moment of focus cost him, and Alrikta did not hesitate.

She pounced like a starving hound, leaping onto his shoulders and clamping her jaws around his neck, drinking deep.

Volkmar got to his feet and  clawed at her with one hand while the other fended off Dame Varghelt and her floating blade, fighting two battles at once.Xirio did not rise.

But Ser Jorren Gold did.

Ice tore through the air as he carved into the Paladin, hungry shards biting through chainmail—even as Volkmar invoked his Relic Skill, forcing the armor to cinch tight around him to hold what remained of it intact.

Volkmar’s entire body was suddenly set alight with a furious white aura, the heat searing even the air around him. Flesh burned from Alrikta’s skin as the Vampyre ignited in the holy fire.

Yet she did not relent.

Alrikta braced herself as blood surged and wrapped around her form, a living mantle against the inferno. Kayode watched it burn in her stead—blood hissing, boiling, blackening—while the flesh beneath was spared.

Volkmar bashed away a flying blade—only for Varghelt’s sword to carve into his face.

The edge caught his eye and ruined it.

He thrashed in agony and tried to retaliate, but the swing was wide, weak, off-center—his balance broken as the Vampyre writhed savagely around his neck.

Varghelt slipped past the strike, stepped cleanly into his blind spot, and slashed a blade across the Paladin’s side.

Steel ate through flesh and birthed a river of blood.

Volkmar stumbled back. Varghelt followed.

He swung again—slower this time, weaker still, his strength bleeding away with every second. She ducked beneath the blow, slammed her hilt into his wrist, and disarmed him. His blade fell into the snow.

Volkmar tried to widen the distance between them, butVarghelt had no intention of allowing it. She chased him down, matching each desperate stumble with relentless, measured steps.

She moved in for the killing blow—the strike meant to end the battle.

Volkmar cupped his hands together, and light bloomed in the space between his palms.

“Solar Lance!” The roar tore from him—angry, desperate, undying—thundering across the field so loudly Kayode felt it as much as heard it. A beam of white, merciless light screamed toward Varghelt.

She leapt.

The lance missed her heart and belly—but not her thigh.

‘Argh!’ Varghelt’s agony clawed through Kayode’s mind as she hit the snow hard, a smoking hole burned clean through her leg. She tried to rise. Failed. Fell back with a grunt of pain. Still, she fought.

Both swords tore free of the snow and streaked toward Volkmar—but he batted them aside with savage force, fury burning brighter than his failing strength. Kayode’s heart thundered.

“No,” Lami whispered.

He wrapped both hands around the Vampyre’s head and tore Alrikta free of him. The motion was wet and bloody—she took a chunk of the Paladin’s neck with her as she was ripped away.

Volkmar lifted her and hurled the Countess into Ser Gold, slamming him against the wall and knocking the man out cold.

He snatched up his sword, and before Alrikta could reorient, drove it through her heart—pinning her to the stone.

The Vampyre’s screech cut through the air like a lance.

She writhed, cried , kicked, and clawed as her body burned around the blade—until, at last, she went still. All that remained was a blackened husk.

Even that crumbled to ash and drifted away into the dark.

Volkmar stood hunched over, legs barely managing to keep him upright, blood streaming from his gut and neck, and staining the white beneath red. Still, he was the only man standing.

The Vampyres behind surged with renewed fervor, vengeance driving them as much as duty—but it was not enough. Without their Sire, their formation lost cohesion, and they were cut down by blades forged singularly to execute them. Soon, the undead host was only a shadow of what it had been, dwindling further with every passing moment.

Volkmar lurched toward Varghelt, each step seeming to take everything he had, his blade dragging in the snow.

Kayode saw her swords rise.

And then sink back into the snow as their controller’s mana proved a well run dry.

Volkmar was going to kill her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

But there was something Kayode could.

“Lami—take us to the gate!” he shouted, urgency bleeding into his voice.

She did not hesitate.

The chunk of stone forming the Highhall beneath them froze solid, then tore free from the structure with a thunderous crack.

Wind screamed past Kayode’s ears as they shot through the air, crossing the length of the town in an instant. It was a power that might have flattened a whole infantry formation in one stroke, but it hadn’t killed any of the enemy yet. 

They came to a dead halt between Volkmar and his prey.

The Land Prince eyed Lami’s furious eyes with weariness, and then settled on Kayode with disgust. “You would let your woman handle your affairs?!”

Power coiled in Lami’s fingers, and—

“I challenge you to single combat,” Kayode cut in.

“What?” came the voice of both his fiancee and his opponent.

Kayode only replied to one. “I said I challenge you to single combat,” Kayode repeated, stepping off ice and landing in snow.

Volkmar eyed him, and then laughed. “You must think us all brutes and savages like these demonbrokers you tamed. You think I have anything to prove to you? Oh I know I would send you to the below if we clashed swords, but why would I risk an assured victory just to do that?”

“Because of this,” Kayode reached into his collar and withdrew the Pendant of Tauri. The metal glistened underneath the moonlight’s gaze, as if even that celestial being sought the S Tier Relic. 

Volkmar’s eyes were locked onto it, like a Dragon seeing gold. He scanned the expertly worked runes, the supernatural work of the  metal, all signs that made it clear this was a Relic from a long lost time. A piece of the Velúndéan Empire’s lost glory.

“You recognised its quality didn’t you?” Kayode prodded. “When you first saw it in the High Hall. You know—perhaps not what its purpose is—but its worth.”

Volkmar said nothing, keeping his cards close to his chest—but Kayode knew he already had him.

“Sell this,” Kayode said, “and you’ll have the means to raise an army strong enough to fund a nation—to secure an A Tier Class stone, to spread the word and doctrine of Fêlûmûn farther than you ever thought possible.” He held Volkmar’s gaze. “Refuse my offer, and I walk away with the Relic in tow. You get a Barony—but you’ll live the rest of your life wondering what might have been, had you taken me up on it. If Iron Volkmar could ever have risen from a children’s tale to a legend in the history books. A King… If he’d only had bigger balls.”

Volkmar reached for his belt and unclipped a horn. From the runes marking its surface, Kayode knew it was no mundane instrument. He blew into it and a loud sound erupted into the air, carrying across the battlefield not unlike Kayode’s Spire.

At the sound, Volkmar’s forces ceased their fighting and pulled back, pausing their assault.

At a signal from Kayode his garrisons stopped attacking Volkmar’s men, and Kayode watched his shield wall cease their offenses, dropping to their knees out of exhaustion, the moment the respite was given. They would not have lasted much longer.

All eyes were on the Baron and the Land Prince.

Varghelt wore concern, Lami wore dread, all were certain this was going to be Kayode’s end.

Kayode settled his eye on Volkmar and he found that the Paladin’s one eye fixed onto him as well.

Weakened, sweating, heaving, panting as Volkmar was, Kayode was still not under the impression that he could best the Fifth Awakener in a battle. But he didn’t need to. All he needed to do was let the blood loss do so.

“You’re planning on surviving me till I bleed out,” Volkmar said, as if reading Kayode’s mind. He took a few steps back, brandishing his glowing blade as he walked. “That’s not going to happen.” A grin flashed in the Paladin’s eyes, and he slashed at the air, birthing a furious white arc in his wake.