A blast of icy wind from the east brought with it a rotten stench they'd all grown sorely acquainted with.
Dane wrinkled his nose beneath the cloth mask he'd wrapped tightly about his face. It brought little relief against the smell of death, though little was still better than none.
He looked around the courtyard of what was once a small town temple, reduced to a mass of dust and rubble with mutilated bodies strewn over the top of broken bricks and tiles. The gods and their mortal servants meant nothing to the creatures of nightmares.
Heavy footfalls sounded from behind, signalling the approach of one of his foot soldiers. "How many have we lost now?" Dane asked, his voice tight, strained by weeks of bloodshed and loss.
"Our last count was five hundred, Majesty."
He nodded slowly, unsurprised yet still reluctant to accept this new reality that plagued his kingdom. It was like this every day; every day since the first morning he rode out of the gates of Lyons. It took them until nightfall that day to reach the southern town where the monsters—exactly as Geoffrey described—shredded the flesh of terrified townsfolk with their sharp claws and battered down the wood and stone of every building in their path with their strong bodies and barbed tails, ravaging lands and destroying lives.
These were not foes they could negotiate for peace or truce. With every ounce of strength and determination, Dane and his allies fought, seeking to push them back and failing miserably. From each encounter in the past fortnight, they'd learnt about the beasts: their heightened sense of hearing, their preference for the dark, the weak points in their hard, leathery skin. A few could soar into the sky and dive into packs of men, crushing cavalry and armour, though most were wingless, the size of a battering ram and packed with muscle. A well-aimed weapon directly into their eye and skull has been the only way they'd killed any of these creatures. But for every lesson learnt, every beast slain, so too they lost a dozen good men.
Tilting his head back, Dane squinted his eyes against the bright noon sky, letting one lone tear slide down the side of his cheek. He didn't know how long he could go on for, what there even was to return to, now that he'd found his love and let it go again.
* * *
"Lady Cassandra," the old steward greeted with a deep bow.
Cassie stood at the balcony in the king's chambers, her back held ramrod straight as she looked down at the rowdy crowd gathered before the palace gates. "How many are there?" she asked.
"Our last count was five hundred, m'lady."
She nodded slowly. It was like this every day; every day since the first morning Dane rode out. It took her parents and her until nightfall that day to figure out some sort of theory for her... transformation? Transcendence? Transmigration? Whatever it was, she'd woken that day as Cassandra Rivera of Melina, but a new Cassandra unlike ever before. It was as if the fog that had dulled her mind for as long as she could remember had finally lifted, and for the first time, she could really see, and hear, and think.
In the days that followed, she found herself picking up fragments of memories of her other life—her life as Cassie Rogers, who hailed from Auckland, New Zealand, Planet Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, who had another family and an entirely different identity.
Some days, she felt very much like Cassandra, a lady born with noble blood, brought up with the belief that women like her had three simple goals in life: marry well, bear a son and help raise her family's station in society. Other days, like this one, she was once again Cassie, an Earthen imposter bearing all the knowledge that Cassandra had of this court and these lands.
YOU ARE READING
Bride to the Cursed: a Snow White retelling
Fantasy[COMPLETED] When a king makes an order, he expects it to be followed. When King Dane divorced his wife, he expected her to get out of his sight and stay out of his sight. Not reappear three months later in his bed, spouting nonsense about being a 'l...
