TVisTV Book 4: Chapter 24 (RAW) (Patreon)

Chapter 24 - Do You Remember Love?

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything." 

- Plato.

The battle became, for a few moments, almost reassuringly simple.

Spike was unbridled berserker happiness made flesh, horn, and murder. He struck the front of the bandit line and made it ripple backward, men stumbling away from the thing they had mistaken for a mere animal. Spears thrust toward him, but most men lost their courage before the points came close enough to matter. Those who did not were rewarded for their conviction by being trampled, bitten, or gored.

The Knights of Carcaronne disengaged then charged again, their lances lowered, their destriers shoulder to shoulder; they crashed into a block of bandits with the grim professionalism of men who had spent their lives practicing this maneuver. The front ranks of their enemy folded under the impact. Men vanished beneath barded horses. Shields split, spears snapped, and a few brave fools tried to stand their ground and discovered why Aranthia had time and time again repelled the Imperial war machine. For a little while, it looked almost easy.

And above all of this, the archers along the rocks began to die.

A man drew back his bow, squinted toward the carriage, and then stiffened as something invisible drove a needle-thin blade through his eye. He toppled backward without so much as a proper scream, his arrow spinning loose from the string. Another bandit leaned over a ledge to loose a crossbow bolt, only for his throat to open in a bright line before his hand could find the trigger. He collapsed forward, choking, and fell from the rocks in a loose tumble.

Invisible Tia was at work, for Seraphina could feel flashes of her curious delight as she cut the threads of so many lives as she rode upon Kiwi, the three-eyed raven. Together they cut across the air, as his rider leaned from the saddle to lance a man through the eye, carve a throat, or slice the string from a bow just before it could loose.

They were killing fast, but they were not killing fast enough, and the numbers still heavily favored their attackers. The numbers remained what they were. For every bandit who fell, two more seemed to push in from the rocks or the road behind. The first charge had broken the men ahead, but not destroyed them, and the dead began to slow the living. Horses stumbled on bodies. Lances were lost or abandoned. Knights who should have wheeled away and charged again found themselves caught in the crush, drawing swords and maces as the fight collapsed into hacking work on all sides

Behind them, the second mass of bandits pressed toward the baggage train. Seraphina saw it all from beside the carriage, her mind arranging the pieces fast with Crystal’s cold logic.

If she joined the fight herself, she could kill many. That was not in question. She could take up her magic, draw upon the gifts twisting inside her, and turn part of the road into a charnel work of ice, blood, and broken earth. But even then, it would not be enough, and they would be nonetheless overwhelmed. And, with Cornelia still in her winter torpor, she would be about as useful as a wet noodle.

How rather irritating, she thought testily to herself.

A bolt struck the carriage panel beside her head and quivered there.

Miriam gave a startled cry from within.

“Stop being such a baby, Miriam!” decried Desdemona, also from within the vehicle. “Are you sure you don’t need a hand, Sera?”

“Stop pretending you are scared and go help the men and be useful, Milly!” ordered the blonde girl irately. “And, Desdemona, thank you for your kind offer, but I can’t have you ruin another set of clothes!”

That was a lie, of course. Desdemona’s high level of Change allowed her to take her current clothes into herself, but Seraphina believed in always keeping one dagger hidden.

Just then, Frest staggered up from beside the baggage wagon, one hand braced against the sideboard, the strange artifact held in the other. His face was still pale from the first shot, but there was color returning to him now, empty spaces along his belt where they should have been vials of Mana and Stamina potions. 

“Lady Seraphina,” he called, voice rough, “I can let one off again.”

“Then do so somewhere useful.”

He gave a tired laugh, braced himself against the wheel, and lifted the weapon.

Again, the Zajasite woke along the groove, violet-white light crawling around the iron bolt. Men nearby flinched and ducked without being ordered, already understanding that the artifact meant death to those who stood in front of it. Frest set his jaw, sighted along the bolt, and fired into the densest press of men pushing toward the rear wagons and the rearguard unit of men-at-arms.

Again, the weapon screamed, and the sound tore across the road, all lightning and tortured metal, and the bolt crossed the distance too quickly for the eye to follow. It struck the packed men like a line of punishment. Several bandits simply came apart in its path. Others fell screaming from the shock of it, knocked aside by fragments of their companions, their courage, or both.

The rearward pressure faltered, but it still was not enough, causing Seraphina to click her tongue in annoyance.

“Mistress Finleigh,” she called.

The Bard, who had been crouched behind the carriage with an expression suggesting she was reassessing the value of patronage, looked up.

Seraphina gave her a steady look. “Get your Chordrelle.”

Haze stared at her. “Now?”

“No, Haze. Tomorrow, after we have all been murdered, if we are lucky, and playthings to the roughest sort of men if we are not!” shot back the young noblewoman sharply. 

The Bard swallowed whatever reply she had been considering and moved. To her credit, she moved quickly, darting to the carriage steps while Miriam shoved the instrument case toward her with both hands and a face gone rather white. Haze snatched it up, opened it with shaking fingers, and drew the Chordrelle free.

“What am I playing?” the Bard asked.

Seraphina simply smiled and climbed up to the roof of the carriage. Then, holding her hands in front of her and her eyes closed as if in prayer, she began to sing.

At first, the sound was almost lost beneath the battle. Steel rang. Men shouted. Horses screamed. Spike’s delighted neigh rose from somewhere ahead as he introduced another unfortunate soul to the Shallow River. But Seraphina’s voice threaded through it all, bright and clear and carrying in a way no natural voice should have carried through such chaos.

Haze caught the melody after the first line.

Her fingers found the Chordrelle strings, uncertain for only a breath, and then the instrument answered. The notes rose beneath Seraphina’s voice, not leading, not competing, but lifting it. The old song took shape between them.

It was the Song of Heroes.

You have learned Mana Manipulation (lvl.4)

You have learned the Song of Heroes (lvl.1)

You have learned the Song of Heroes (lvl.2)

You have learned the Song of Heroes (lvl.3)

You have learned the Song of Heroes (lvl.4)

…

In the game, it had been a battlefield hymn, one of those grand spell skills attached to a late-story route where armies moved, and the very flavor of the game changed. It had been a rhythm game melded into a character skill, and only available if Este Lize had specialized correctly. For Seraphina, whose mastery of music went far beyond a mortal’s ken, it was as easy as singing happy birthday.

And, here, sung with blood in the snow and enemies closing in from all sides, it was allowed to truly bloom. It was a thing of the highest culture. For it was a love song. A love song that pushed beyond the mere idea of the thing that stirred between the loins, or a thing that stirred in the breast of a parent. Beyond even the bonds that men forge with sword and steel.

A remembrance of love.

The first verse rolled across the road like a memory no one present had lived but somehow recognized. It spoke not in words alone, but in the old shape of the thing. Stand, rise, strike, and endure. Protect the song and its singer. 

The melody found the men of Carcaronne first, settling into their bones, into the ache of their arms and the bruises beneath their armor. Shoulders straightened. Hands tightened around hilts. A Knight with blood running down one side of his face roared and drove his weapon straight through a shield. A man-at-arms who had been sagging against a wagon suddenly pushed himself upright, the arrow wound in his thigh closing enough that he could stand. Breath returned to lungs that had been empty a moment before.

Then came the second swell, and with it something harder. The song did not make them calm or peaceful. It did not make them noble. That would have been useless. It gave strength to their limbs and heat to their blood. It took the fear in their stomachs and fed it into anger. It sharpened pain into purpose and turned exhaustion into a distant thing to be paid for later. Men who had been holding the line began to push. Men who had been defending began to kill. It was, in short, a blessing of the most dangerous kind. One of Seraphina’s preferred kinds.

Sir Vikens felt it too. She saw the old Knight rise in his stirrups, his sword lifted high, and his voice cracked across the melee. “For Aranthia! For Carcaronne!”

The answer came like thunder.

The Knights surged forward again, not in a clean charge this time, but in a brutal, grinding advance. Their horses shoved into the packed men, while the riders above them hacked down with swords, axes, and hammers. Men-at-arms around the wagons began striking with renewed fury, shields slamming, spears thrusting, crossbows firing almost point-blank into the press. Meilin’s escort, who had been fighting with cool Imperial discipline, became somewhat less cool and considerably more effective, their spears moving in sharp, vicious rhythm.

Haze played faster, sweat standing at her brow, her eyes wide as she followed Seraphina’s voice. The Chordrelle rang bright and fierce beneath the song, and Seraphina felt the magic catch more strongly, turning from music into an undeniable command. 

The bandits found themselves facing a wall of people who had been ordered to be berserker heroes. They promptly began to die by the score.

Spike tore through the left flank, fanged mouth red and horn gleaming. Tia and Kiwi hunted the cliffs, leaving archers blind, bleeding, or tumbling from stone. Frest, drained again but still grinning with the white-edged satisfaction of a man who had fired a thunderbolt twice and survived, leaned against the wagon and laughed like an idiot. Sir Vikens’s line pushed forward, grinding the broken front of the ambush beneath hoof and steel.

Yet this skill, this power, for all its puissance, had a fatal weakness. The singer was utterly defenseless, and she had to stand where her allies could both see her and hear her song. In exchange for strengthening them, she had to place absolute trust in those she empowered. 

Three arrows flew past the girl’s head, missing her by centimeters. 

Or, it seemed, a Luck attribute that was a shield all in of itself.

You have gained 1 Luck.

Seraphina sang on, and her voice did not falter. Could not falter. The Song of Heroes took twenty Mana points for its initial activation and continued to drain a small amount from its singer. Seraphina could not stop drinking a Mana potion to restore her energies, but luckily, Seraphina had foresight to ensure that she had levelled up her Mana Regeneration skill. She could keep the song up, but only barely.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sir Frest raise his weapon again and sight another group of their attackers with a crazed look on his face as he laughed to the beat of the song.

Her hair stirred by the cold wind, and now her hands lifted slightly as if conducting the carnage herself. In a way, she supposed she was. The song carried from her, through Haze, through the men, through the very road, until the whole battle seemed to move to its rhythm.

However, the strain of it was beginning to show even on her. 

This is my stage, the greatest stage. All eyes are on me; the very world can hear my roar, was Seraphina’s internal mantra as she continued to sing with all of her heart.

“Do you remember love?” came the words of the ancient song, and for a moment, even Seraphina knew peace and strain lessened by a hair’s breadth

You have learned Improved Mana Regeneration (lvl.1)

A bandit broke first. Then another. Then a cluster of them on the right turned and ran, and that was all it took to start the rout. Courage was infectious, but so was terror, and terror had always been the faster disease. 

The ambush came apart, not evenly, not cleanly, but in great rending shudders. And those who tried to run were cut down by the Knights. Those who stayed were trampled or split open. Those who begged discovered that a berserker with a song in his blood was less than merciful.

Seraphina reached the final refrain and held the last note longer than should have been possible. And, for a moment, even the bandits seemed to hear it.

And that was what truly broke them. Some threw down their weapons and fell to their knees. Others ran for the rocks, only to be ridden down by Carcaronne horsemen or picked from the slopes by Tia and Kiwi. A few tried to rally around lesser captains, shouting curses at the Aranthians, but those knots of resistance were cut apart almost as quickly as they formed.

By the time Seraphina let the final note fade from her lips, the road was theirs again. The last vibration of the Chordrelle trembled into silence beneath her, and with it went the bright, burning edge that had filled the limbs of her escort. Men sagged,  horses stamped and blew steam into the cold air. Wounded men blinked as if waking from a fevered dream, their hands still clenched around bloodied weapons.

Seraphina remained standing atop the carriage for a moment longer, then her knees nearly betrayed her.

The young songstress descended with Miriam’s frantic help, accepting the maid’s arm as if she had just gone for a stroll through the park. Haze slumped beside the carriage with the Chordrelle held against her chest.

***

Sir Vikens rode up not long after, or it could have been forever. Probably forever. His armor was marked by dents, scratches, and a rather impressive amount of other people. He removed his helm, revealing a face flushed with exertion and grim satisfaction.

“The road is secure, my lady,” he declared simply, “And we have prisoners.”

Seraphina glanced past him.

The prisoners had been gathered near the side of the road under the watch of men-at-arms and Imperial guards. There were dozens of them, perhaps more than a hundred. Some knelt with their hands bound. Some lay wounded in the snow and dirt. A few wept. A few stared with the hollow disbelief of men who had wagered badly and only now understood the size of the debt.

Sir Vikens’s expression hardened. “What is your will?”

Seraphina did not answer immediately. This was Imperial land. It would be discourteous, not to mention politically untidy, to pretend otherwise. After all, when in Rome…

She turned her gaze toward Wen Meilin.

The Marquis’s daughter stood near her own escort, her pale green robes protected beneath a travel cloak, her face composed but bloodless. She had watched the battle. She had watched Seraphina sing. She had watched men become heroes and beasts under the command of a barbarian princess’s voice.

That, Seraphina suspected, would take some time to digest.

“Lady Wen,” Seraphina said gently, “what is customary in the lands of the Empire for such a crime?”

Meilin’s eyes moved slowly to the prisoners.

For the first time since Seraphina had met her, the girl’s cultivated softness did not quite hide what lay beneath it. There was digust there, and, perhaps, disgust too. But over both the hard old bones of Imperial law.

“For armed banditry upon the Emperor’s Road,” Meilin said, her voice quiet, “against noble travelers, with intent to abduct, ransom, and murder…”

She paused, biting her lower lip. 

“Burial while alive.”

The prisoners understood enough to react. One began begging at once, and another cursed. A whole group of them made a sound that was neither word nor prayer, but something lower and more animal.

“Then we shall respect the customs of the Empire,” Seraphina said.

Sir Vikens bowed his head once, and no one asked her to repeat the order.

The prisoners were set to work with their own hands. Shovels were taken from wagons. Where there were not enough shovels, men used broken shields and their own fingers. The earth beneath the snow was hard, but not impossible. Fear made them strong for a little while. Fear, Seraphina reflected, was a dreadfully efficient foreman.

The graves were dug beside the road, in long, uneven rows beneath the red stone gaze of the Pillars.

Predictably, a few tried to run. One bolted almost immediately, but a Carcaronne man-at-arms stepped into his path and opened him across the belly with a short, economical stroke. The man fell screaming into the snow and was left there, clutching himself and making a mess of his final moments.

Another waited until the digging had gone deeper. He struck the guard beside him with a stone and scrambled toward the rocks. A crossbow bolt took him in the back.

After that, most of them understood. Work would mean a few more precious seconds of life. Perhaps the barbarian lady would show mercy? So like that, the work continued.

Seraphina stood beneath the carriage awning with a cup of watered wine Miriam had pressed into her hands. She drank it slowly, more for the steadiness of the gesture than the taste. Desdemona was unusually quiet beside her, though not horrified. Merely thoughtful, which was always a more dangerous condition in her.

Seraphina watched it all from the warmth of the carriage.

The pit was ready before sunset, and the prisoners were placed within it. Some prayed, some begged, and some promised gold, information, service, loyalty, anything a desperate mouth could form. Seraphina listened to none of it. Promises made at the edge of a grave were usually poor investments.

The earth began to fall. Not quickly. Not ceremonially. Simply by the shovelful, thrown down by the soldiers. The cries rose, changed, muffled, and then became part of the ground.

By the time the last of it was done, the excellent Imperial road had been cleared enough for travel, the dead of Seraphina’s escort had been laid apart with care, and the bandits had been returned to the land in the manner prescribed by the land whose laws they had broken.

***

High above, hidden from view, a man cloaked in white and grey watched the prisoner’s final moments with the sunset.

“It seems the Tsudaenglou has not learned that attempting the same thing twice is the height of foolishness. While I draw breath, you will not harm the Golden Ogre,” came a small, unassuming voice from behind him.

The man moved before the final word faded, his sleeve snapping outward. Razor stars flashed through the dying light, each edge wet with poison. They hissed through empty air.

For one heartbeat, there was only silence.

Then cold iron slid between bone and flesh. The man tried to turn, but his knees loosened beneath him. His fingers twitched once, then again, the last of his poisoned stars slipping from his grasp.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small figure standing where no one should have been.

“Traitor…” was all he managed to utter before his death carried him across the Shallow River.