Knight of Endrell Book One: The Red Empire

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter 13

The war went on for forty days, moving from one district to another and each time the people met up with seven spies, minus thirty-three that were missing. Eunteneus himself unleashed explosions of power that while killing off hundreds of Gisic soldiers at a time, also ripped the very foundations of the empire. The cracks and holes that he left in the ground met with the spot where he unearthed the death beneath the empire that the red veil was meant to conceal and began to widen that hole, forming deeper and longer cracks in the empire's foundation that slowly spread like roots all over each city. What broke in the ground echoed in the sky, in which case holes started to form in the red veil's upper troposphere and spread out from there.

Throughout the fight, the people and everyone who fought alongside them stayed together, moving as one single unit so to preserve their strength, their numbers, and their children. Overtime the Gisic army would try to funnel the people into close quarters to give themselves some advantage, but each time Eunteneus and the Izzo tore down every wall that blocked them in and cleared away the debris to give the people some space. In some cases the soldiers dragged out their own beasts and monsters hidden within the depths of the empire to either tear the people apart or to eat them alive. They would come from beneath and above; some of which appeared to look like a nasty combination of dogs and badgers running on four legs called Rotafiin (Ro-tah-feen), while others were winged with the appearance of an elongated naked mole rat with wings called Motalixen, which would swoop down from the air to attack their prey.

The Izzo took most of the brunt of the Rotafiin from behind and Eunteneus with Kinai and the eight warriors from the front, but a few of them jumped over the woggris in an effort to get to the people. However, the people refused to fear them and scatter. Instead, they collectively aimed their swords and sharp weapons above their heads so that the creatures would land on them as soon as they jumped into the crowd. Ferocious as they were, the people rallied together and killed them with little damage to their own. Some were bitten here and there, a few seriously wounded but beginning to recover.

When the Motalixen prepared to attack they swarmed in great masses covering the cracking red sky, screaming and squawking in unison. In that moment Knightegel turned his attention in their direction while one of the spies covered his position. Then the assembly of Motalixen fell like diving hawks towards the people and just as they were about to land, the black knight raised his right hand and sprayed a cloud of violet flames into the air that met the creatures as they descended. The fire fanned out across the entire cluster, and burned them into vapors.

Above ground upon the rooftops of Gis, the Marksman and his company were cleaning house rather consistently. His group of archers were making quick work of their foes while he foresaw from the tower both theirs and their enemy's vulnerabilities, whereupon he directed his troop as to how best they could strengthen themselves as well as how to pick off their opponent's weak points. Better yet, the Gisic soldiers could neither hear him nor see him because of his cloaking abilities.

At times when the struggle became too much for his troops, he would conduct his telegraphing method, leaving an arrow on the tower where he stood and shoot another into the crowd of the Gisic army, carrying a copy of his essence with him. While in the midst of them, they were unable to touch or detect him at all. While he had the advantage, he would launch an arrow in one direction sending it bursting through the heads of an entire line of soldiers at once, and would catch it so that he could quickly repeat the process for about five to nine rounds or until his archers were able to regain the advantage. Walls across the cityscape started to populate with mutiny as hidden Kyrosian spies began to divide and whittle down the excessive numbers of the Gisic legions.

Other soldiers of Gis posted in various parts of the empire, that were not directly involved in the heat of the fight, waited at their stations until the people came to them. When they did, soldiers of Kyros who had infiltrated their ranks turned and started to fight against them, which threw off their guard. Eunteneus with Kinai and the eight warriors took on anything or anyone that was too great for the people to fight on their own, such as large troll-like monsters with weapons and battle gear bound to their flesh, or illusive beings that could move between the loop holes of perceived reality. Throughout the battle, Eunteneus's sword became a gallery of weaponry from a spear, to a double-sided axe, a one-handed hammer, a javelin and all kinds of artillery.

Kinai fought with the same vigor as that which awoke inside of him when he first fought the Gisic Legion in the Nine Peaks Mountains. The crystal armor overshadowed him again, phasing in and out of visibility most every time he swung his sword and even more so whenever something made contact with his sword while it was crystallized. He made short work of his foes, moving as fast as he was able in order to kill off as many as he could, all the while hoping that the king would come soon. 

As the people advanced from sector to sector of the empire, the citizens of Gis were killed in the streets without a fight. Men, women, and children died as the sentence was passed over them by the King of Kyros that none who bind themselves to the traitor Sidonin should live, not because they chose him, but because the emperor's sentence in response to his acts of treason was an eternal death. Therefore to bind oneself to a traitor sentenced to death, was to sentence oneself to death.

What's more was that they were murdered even by their own kin. They were pulled out of their homes by their own family members, out of either fear or loss of sanity, and were murdered. Sheer madness broke out in every city. Bodies filled the streets, Gisic soldier turned against Gisic citizen, brother against sister, sister against brother, child against mother and father, and so on. Their own decision finally brought them to ruin. At one moment Eunteneus stood upon a high wall, watching as the war spilled out before him and massacre spread, and he said with a grim voice, “As serpents devour serpents, so let the great red snake devour all its children, unto the end.”

Fire went up from all over the empire as the structure of the red veil imploded sporadically in a gallery of locations. All of Gis was darkening as its red halo faded away to reveal its true nature – that hellish throng of smoldering pyre and death which Kinai witnessed in the mountains where the real Gis was revealed to him.