A Knights Realm: Forsaken Rise

Chapter 12

                                      Chapter 12

                                 Zathorian Woods

                                Village of Melinor

Zekros, the cultist in charge of corrupting the elven realm, was enjoying a nice stew that he had his servants cook up for him. It had been quite difficult for him to convince his forsaken serfs to use clean animal meat rather than elven flesh; he may be a cultist but he still ate like a normal person.

Zekros had a small fire near him keeping him warm while he ate. He was stirring the contents of the bowl around and lifted his spoon for another mouthful. As he raised his spoon a horse eye emerged from the stew, Zekros cringed at the sight of it. The stupid servants had used more than just clean meat; they had used its eyes too. Disgusted at what he had been eating he dropped the spoon into the bowl and pushed it away and ate some bread instead.

He called out for one of his idiotic servants to take the stew away, and as the Ereion took the bowl outside it smelled the soup and snorted in distaste and threw it away.

Zekros was just finishing up when some of his guards called for him.

“Lord, come outside you need to see this!” yelled a guard from outside the large elven house Zekros had claimed as his own, when he had taken over Melinor.

Unlike his fellow cultist Verek, Zekros took into account what his men said. He quickly finished up the last of his meal and headed outside. The yard outside had beautiful flower beds and magnificent trees; mostly large maple trees and yellow flowers. However, that was before the corruption changed the land and turned it into a dying heap of stems and tree trunks covered in the dark vines and ooze. Zekros emerged from the house to find a large group of forsaken gathered in the yard and in front of them was a haggard Varlire, on his knees and breathing heavily. His armor was battered and broken and his eyes were strained and bloodshot. He had been given some rations and he was eating hungrily, it was like he hadn’t eaten for a few days.

“What is going on? Who is this?” Zekros asked his men, he could see that the Varlire in front of him wasn’t one of his; he had gained many Varlire since he started his conquest but this one wore different armor to the ones that had risen from the elves of the Zathorian Woods.

The Varlire struggled to stand up but eventually got to his feet and addressed the cultist in front of him “My name is Tihleh, I come from Kaz’Dorlain. I was part of Verek’s army.” Tihleh informed Zekros, without the courtesy of bowing or addressing him by lord, sire or any other form of public respect.

“What do you mean ‘was’?” Zekros asked.

“Verek is dead and his army is all but destroyed.” Tihleh said through a full mouth and Zekros’ eyes widened in surprise.

“Come in, we need to talk.” the cultist said, motioning for Tihleh to come into the house.

Tihleh went into the house, with Zekros close behind him. He was sure that a heap of questions were about to be asked, but he wasn’t going to play along unless he could get Zekros to follow some conditions. He wasn’t about to become enthralled to another cultist, no matter how different this one was to his former master.

Zekros paced the room wondering about what the new arrival was going to say. “Tihleh, tell me everything that happened, we cannot allow this to transpire here.”

“We were attacking Orzarum. My kin and I had come up with a plan to destroy the dwarves. But the dwarves had help. While the army attacked the gates a dwarven strike force ambushed and killed Verek, leaving the army without the powers of the corruption behind them.” Tihleh explained, as he fleed away from Orzarum he had come across Verek’s headless body; if there was anything good that came out of everything that had happened that day, it was that he was able to look down on the corpse of that damned cultist.