Gate of Dimensions

[Act 1] Chapter 14: A Suicidal War

Three weeks after Mordred's Loss

In a state of shock, Mordred screamed and woke up, finding himself in the purple linen of his bedroom in Camelot, as if it was all just a bad dream. Observing his blurry surroundings, he noticed a lot of experimental medical equipment all around his bed-chamber, the sort that is meant to heal a person quickly, along with his shelves stacked with many flasks filled with ointments and salves. It was as if he had been kept alive since the Germans blew his prized pet out of the sky.

A nearby physician ran right around the bedside and rummaged through his case of flasks, dropping some on the blue carpeting in his haste. "Your Majesty, you should be resting," the physician urged, grabbing a nearby flask of milky white and putting it to Mordred's lips. "Drink, it will dull your senses and put you back to sleep."

Still woozy, Mordred simply smacked the flask to the ground and got up from his bed. Any attempt to get the emperor to go back to bed was met with a groggy shove until the physician decided he wanted to remain awake.

Stumbling, he managed to drag himself towards the mirror and see the damage brought on to him. His face still remained the same, the part everyone liked, but his body had numerous cuts and bruises with bandages covering the flesh wounds on his torso. This was the least amount of damage anyone can expect to get from falling out of the sky, so he tried his hardest to be the slightest bit of gratitude.

Just as the wounded Emperor regained his sight, the door barged open again and in came the lords and dukes, surrounding the living emperor with an array of praises to the Paragons for his miraculous recovery.

"My lord, we knew you could not be killed!" Duke Bersur yelled, clearly in a state of shock. "You've been in bed for weeks!"

Mordred scrunched face, getting the other lords to stop speaking. "Enough with these praises, just tell me what the hell happened to me and why am I back in my city. Where the hell are the damned Grey Ones!?"

"Germans, Your Majesty," Bersur corrected.

Mordred raised an eyebrow, flabbergasted at the new word to the Anglo dictionary. "What are you on about? What kind of word is that?"

"While you were being cared for, people started putting messages, billboard posts, and criers all around Arthurian towns and cities to let everyone know what these people are called, claiming they are here only to end tyranny and restore your sister's rightful place. Germans are what we call them now, not Grey Ones."

"Ger-mans?" Mordred chuckled. "Sounds like someone with a really bad case of filth."

Right on time, Archduke Erenn approached from the door, sporting an eyepatch on his left eye. "And that filth is the blood of their enemies, the dark sorcery they muster and the metal on their beasts. These people had the power to kill your Eclipse, the greatest dragon on the Continent, and destroy your entire army in a single battle!"

"By the Paragons, it just never ends with you," Mordred sighed. "Can you just take a break from your harassment and would somebody tell me what happened to the rest of my army, the ones that managed to escape?"

Every noble, except for Erenn, in the room looked at each other in fear, almost daring each other to deliver the bad news.

Out of all of them, Bersur stepped forward and said, "There was another army of these Germans, Your Grace, wearing either black or the regular grey. They came out of nowhere and slaughtered everything in their path, more ruthlessly than the first army. Our men gave their lives so you could escape."

"Don't kid yourself, Duke Bersur." Erenn giggled, shoving the duke away. "What was left was left was getting massacred while we used them as a distraction to slip away into the forest, where the last of our contingent of knights were ambushed by dark elven guerillas."