Chương 20: How Pure Your Hatred

Asgar froze.

"Oh come now, young Asgar," the Lance said with a laugh.

"You surely didn't expect to hide such a soul, did you? You're practically dripping with malevolent power. I could sense you from a dozen leagues away." He didn't know what to say. No more clever lies sprang from his lips. He just gaped like a fish.

"Bless you, dear boy. Peasant background, I presume? No no, there's no shame in it. Some of my most steadfast companions are peasant-born."

"Farmer," he croaked.

"How d'you know?"

"No noble would allow such ignorance of the ways of magik to flourish in their beloved scions, I can promise you that. More's the pity—I dare say I'd trade arrogance for ignorance in many of my contemporaries. Ignorance can be fixed, whilst other ailments remain smugly incurable, I'm afraid." The ground rushed by far below, trees rendered tiny pinpricks by their altitude. The steady beat of fan-like wings might have grounded others, but all it did was remind him how fucking high they were.

Armour skill or no, there was no chance of surviving a fall from up here.

"So then, chap, how did it happen? Cursed by an ancient oak in a dark forest? Sold your soul to the demon-lords for power? Begged a dark spirit for help seducing a beautiful young girl? I pray not the last—never ends well, and I'd hoped to make use of you before I kill you." He sighed, and Asgar shivered at the certainty in the man's resigned tone.

"Can't work with a rapist though, and believe me, my life would be far easier if I could! Do you know how many of the houses I have blood feuds with? Honestly, it's difficult to remember sometimes. If Anora were ever to take advantage of some poor stable boy I think I'd have to give up entirely. A nice long sojourn into the Pits, never to return. A tragedy, they'd call it in public, all the while celebrating in private." He sighed dramatically again.

"Of course, it is tempting sometimes even now, but by all the varied lords of hell, the weather, you know? Fire and brimstone, peat bogs and swamps—does my complexion no favours." Asgar finally got his brain working.

"Can't say. I've never visited."

"Ha! Yes, well I won't pretend it's a brilliant destination for a holiday, but I suppose you don't get many opportunities for them now, hey?"

"Didn't get a lot of them to begin with," he replied. If he could just keep the Knight talking, perhaps he'd forget his original question. Seemed the type to get lost in his own words, this man. Typical noble, but what had Asgar been expecting? The Golden Lance was the archetypical Knight that generations of noble-born prats had been raised to emulate. Of course he was an out-of-touch prick. The Knight in question let out another bark of laughter.

"' A farmer wakes before the world', as they say. Now, I asked you a question earlier, and I'm afraid I must insist on an answer." Asgar winced.

"And before you attempt to deceive me with some pretty truth from your silver tongue, just know that Enaid here can smell lies. Isn't that right, old girl?" The Pegasus whickered beneath them, and Asgar's body shook from the basso rumble of the sound alone. Slender and long though its legs might have been, this mount was a titan of graceful muscle. It was also the only thing preventing him from plummeting hundreds of yards to his death. Better not piss it off.

"I…" Asgar began. He'd never been a good liar so the less he said the better.

"I swore an oath."

"Oh, but what a terribly foolish thing to do," the Lance sighed.

"What sort of oath?"

"They burned my village to the fucking ground," he growled, losing some of his composure.

"What kind of oath do you think I swore?"

"Certainly not one forswearing profanity!" The Lance's easy laughter grated on him.

"But I suppose it's a tale as old as time. Some ill-conceived oath or curse or other assorted soul contract and then BAM! Blessed by a higher power and whisked off to see the queen for a royally sanctioned class. Must have been quite the shake up for a peasant." The silence stretched, and it was clear the Knight was waiting for Asgar to give further answers. They were answers he very much did not want to give though.

"You said you had blood feuds with the houses. What d'you mean?"

"Don't think I don't see what you're doing here, young man! But I suppose we have the time. As I said earlier, I have some… call it 'moral aversions' if you will, to the actions of many of my peers. Such aversions can land me in a spot of bother, and well… ipso facto, a few young scions wind up dead. What am I to do? Say no to a duel? Perish the thought."

"So you kill nobles?"

"If you want to be uncouth about it. And I can see that you do. Fine! Yes, I've killed a few nobles in my time."

"A few?"

"Yes, a few… hundred."

"A few hundred!?" Asgar shouted.

"That's more than all the nobles in the fucking kingdom!" His voice was loud with shock, but internally he was beginning to come round to the idea. If a Knight, even a famous one, could kill most of the nobility and still be left alive, then perhaps his chances of success were higher than he'd first thought.

"Not all at once, you dolt. I did say ' in my time', did I not?"

"That's still… that's a lot. How has the queen let you live?"

"In my defence, my time has been long. Centuries, we're talking here, young Asgar. When I first claimed my knighthood, the queen was not the queen, and Ardentia was a very different place. That is a lot of time to accumulate such grisly accolades. But to your real question; they were, one and all, sanctioned duels. Can't rightly fault a man for winning, can you? Here's a tip then, my young friend: If you're planning to kill a man, convince him to duel you first."

"And how do I do that?" Asgar asked, breathlessly.

"Hypothetically?"

"Err, yeah.

'course. Hypothetically speaking, I mean."

"Well, hypothetically speaking," the Lance replied, and Asgar didn't like the note of knowing amusement in the man's tone.

"The best way to convince a man to duel you is to make sure you have something he desires, and once you have that, to make him understand the only way for him to get it is to duel you for it. It also helps if he's a dullard and you're easily underestimated." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Asgar took that in. The sky was growing dark ahead, clouds swirling ominously as they reached the boundary where the hills were in danger of becoming mountains.

"Say, Asgar," the Knight said conversationally.

"You wouldn't happen to be thinking of killing a member of the peerage, would you now?" He winced.

"'Course not. Just curious, is all. Hypothetical, you know? Not somethin' we ever talked 'bout much in the fields, y'see." The Lance barked a laugh, though it was drowned out beneath the clap of thunder, as was most of his reply.

"… Not half as convincing as you might think, dear boy. But good attempt, nonetheless. I wish we could have met under different circumstances, I really do. You seem a decent sort of fellow, and I'd hate to have to kill you." The Knight's voice grew serious towards the end, trailing off in what Asgar suspected was supposed to be sincerity. He didn't believe it. Smug, pompous, impossibly proud of his own voice…

the Golden Lance seemed like a model of everything Asgar had come to despise, and the way he talked so frankly, so casually, about the murder of nobles… Not that Asgar had any love for the pricks, but the man spoke as if it was all a game. Probably was to one such as him, but that's exactly why Asgar would kill him. Show him the consequences of forgetting about the little people, the ones who faced his toy soldiers and— Not yet, not yet, not yet. He clenched his fists tight.

The Knight's head was bare of his helm, the nape of his neck just about visible as he peered down past his mount's head at the world below. Asgar had no weapons, but the Lance himself wore a long knife strapped to one hip. It was within reach, and if he only leaned forwards he could— The Pegasus whinnied, and he jerked his hand back. The Lance called soothing words to the creature, and Asgar tried his best to calm his racing heart.

"Easy, Enaid. Just some storms, hold to our bearing. There are no gods in these hills we need fear." Asgar meanwhile was trying to swallow the burning lump of coal lodged in his throat, or so it felt. He could surely do it now. The Knight's mount might notice, but what did Asgar care if he plunged to his death, so long as the arrogant bastard died with him? He'd been running headfirst into terrifying battles for days now, just for such an opportunity as now presented itself to him, back turned.

He reached for the knife again. Made of grey stone, hilt wrapped in stained white leather, and was it blood staining the grip? Before he could grasp it, thunder shook the world again. Asgar flinched back, and the Golden Lance laughed uproariously. The flying horse wheeled around a spike of lightning that speared into the rocky terrain below, missing them by a scant few feet. The tangy taste of burnt air lingered. Asgar suspected there was a black plinth below currently feasting on that primal power.

"Come on, old girl, let's have ourselves some fun!" called the Knight as they flew through the thunderstorm. His mount agreed, its shining white mane dancing against the gloom as it flicked its head, then dove. The great wings furled and Asgar was enveloped in a feathery embrace, his stomach flipping as they dropped like a stone.

Then wings snapped out again, giving him a perfect view of the ridge they hurtled towards, before they corkscrewed down into the valley and up again, rising over the next ridgeline in a rush. They weaved through the pillars of blue lightning, rain lashing at them and the sky above dark despite the supposed summer's morning. The Lance looked back over his shoulder, rivulets of water dripping down his face to collect on either side of his moustache. His smile was electric. Asgar tried not to vomit.

They passed through the storm in less than an hour, and then they were back to flying down over grassy ridges towards the lowlands. Not long now 'till they reached the army. In fact, he should be able to see them any minute now. They'd be camped—"God above…" he breathed. The camp was gone, lost amidst a sea of chitinous flesh. He was less than a mile distant now, and with the physical empowerment from his class came greater clarity of vision.

He could pick out individual logs in the palisade wall, but most were covered by the swarming bodies. Thousands, no, tens of thousands, of the Hellspawn were assaulting the camp from every direction. It was more a small fort now, with evidence of a moat dug all around the edge of his palisade, but that had been mostly filled with the bodies of the hellish creatures.

The battlefield beyond it had been turned charnal, bodies strewn about in pit-traps, crushed against stakes and utterly demolished by repeated blows from siege equipment of a like Asgar had never witnessed. The remains of the 2nd infantry regiment manned the palisade, fighting back against the climbing insectile creatures with spears and axes, though how they were holding back the tide, Asgar had no clue. It seemed incomprehensible.

The strand was simply endless, just thousands and thousands of chittering, screeching creatures throwing themselves at the small fort. Then his soul shivered, and he felt the pulse of power in the distance. From inside the encampment crested a wave of translucent force which rose high above the fort and then fell upon the creatures assaulting it. Hundreds were knocked back, crushed, peeled, mangled and otherwise destroyed in the face of that power.

What followed was a brief lull, so achingly brief, before the creatures rushed back in to climb over the corpses of their fellows in their desperation to get at the humans inside.

"Mages doing good work as ever, I see," commented the Lance.

"Enaid, old girl, bring us closer for a strafing run, will you dear?" The pegasus whinnied in displeasure—Asgar wasn't sure how he knew, but he did—and then they were wheeling down at an angle to skim above the outer layers of the horde. He heard gibbering screams and the stampeding of a million clawed feet against the earth, and then the Lance stood from his slight crouch, cracked his knuckles, and vaulted over the Peagsus' wing to disappear from view.

Asgar leaned over, expecting to see him plummet to the earth, but instead the Knight just hung from one of his mount's legs. Like a mouse in the claws of an eagle, he dangled, and Asgar could make neither heads nor tails of it. The Knight saw him staring and threw a wink his way, then shouted up at him.

"You'll want to cover your face for this next part." Then the Golden Lance burned. A cloak of molten fire unfurled from his shoulders, and then kept unfurling. Down it flowed; a river of deadly bubbling stone that caked the creatures beneath and cooked them in their shells. The earth was scorched, black smoke rising high almost immediately, and on great fan-like wings they rose above it and kept flying.

Around the temporary fort they flew, the Lance's fiery cloak scorching uncountable creatures practically uncontested. The occasional spear of bone flew their way, launched by something no doubt horrific and with too many legs, but the famous hero seemed undeterred, letting his magic wash over the masses in a deadly hail.

"The fort!" Asgar screamed as he noticed a relatively undefended section at the back.

"Reinforce the fort!" The Lance's voice boomed back, tone a mockery of regret.

"Afraid I can't do much about that, my young friend. If I get too close, the smoke will kill more than I'll save, and my magik isn't of the precise kind, sadly. They're on their own. Perhaps you can shout some words of encouragement as we fly past? Really jig them up! You'd be surprised what a bit of moral can do for an army." Asgar bit back a curse. Shouldn't have been a surprise. Fucking prick cared more for glory than saving people. Still, they weren't overrun yet. Then he saw it.

A group of hellspawn of a different colour. Their segmented shells were striped red and black, their scythe-like arms longer and bodies thicker than their fellows. There must have been half a hundred scuttling towards the fort, and they were aiming for the weaker section. Clearly, he wasn't the only who'd noticed. Rather than soldiers manning the wall, that section was staffed by a mismatched guard. Asgar spied aprons and hats, axes and hammers, but precious few real weapons and a startling lack of armour.

These were camp followers: cooks, cleaners, artisans and grooms. Asgar's heart clenched. Strix could be down there. They were swinging around, the Lance's power carving a swathe through the horde, but that group of red-scaled demons were too close to the wall to be caught in its radius. He had a choice to make. Stay, and his friends—quite possibly the only ones he had in this entire fucking country—might die. Leave, and he'd lose his best chance at revenge. They flew past the palisade, and Asgar leapt.