Armin sighed in frustration while listening to the report from the captain of his knight order; the man he trusted the most in this unforgiving world.
"My Lord, the peasants are clamouring for justice. The merchants are as silent as always. But most importantly, the knights are frustrated with the… inaction of the crown," the man had paused before putting the last bit of his sentence in more palatable terms for Armin.
"I know… but what do you want me to do…? I can't wage war against an invisible enemy? We don't even know which of the other kingdoms it was that sent the assassin to kill my father and older brother. Perhaps… it might not have even been one of the other kingdoms, given how far away they are from us," Armin rubbed his bald forehead with his hands.
"My Lord…" the captain could feel anger boiling within him. But this was not targeted at his Lord, but at the assassins, and the world itself at letting his original lord pass away while on an excursion to the animal farms outside the castle.
"…" Armin did not say anything, but quietly stood up. He walked to the wall where all the sun from the various windows in the room was focussed at.
He pressed his hand on one of the various stone plates which were suspended on exquisite iron and gold threads, following the text as he read aloud, "God has bestowed upon me the burden of knowledge. It is not a gift, but duty. Duty to my people. Duty to my mate. Duty to all of Jerry-kind. And it is in this Duty that I find faith…"
After finishing this line, a tear silently streaked across Armin's youthful cheek as he recalled his father explaining the ancient texts called the Revelation by the first king of the kingdom, back when it was but a tribe.
He recalled the deep yet soothing voice that had assured him and his elder brother how it would soon be their duty to control these vast lands under the kingdom. That it would be their duty to protect those living here. That they must protect.
And then his father's serious expression was replaced by the bloodied face with the shocked expression he had seen on his father and brother as they lay dead on the ground, with panicked combat occurring around him.
*Swish*
Armin opened his red eyes, a furious anger boiling within. He had been told by his father to be wary of the anger at times of peace, but to embrace it during war.
And he was embracing it with open arms, "Alright. Tell the men, We go to war!"
…
James watched as the first war was about to occur between the tribes; who had grown into kingdoms. Their individual population had not increased much, but their technology had grown considerably over the past 300 years.
And with this war, he would finally gain access to a large quantity of Collective Energy.
'As cavemen, the Jerries would die quite often from diseases and the likes. But in a tribe, that number significantly reduced, resulting in more of them living longer, around 70 years. And as they all grew from tribes into kingdoms, this lifespan only increased, to about 80. This not only caused by Collective Energy reserves to plummet, but also forced me to brutally reduce the birth-rate since I had no more Collective energy to continuously give birth to more Jerries. But that will not matter. The anger and rage I had used an entire free evolutionary intervention to induce, along with the passive effect of the Berserk trait, makes my Jerries inherently aggressive and prone to war.'
'It is actually quite surprising that they were able to stay together as a kingdom without going to war with something or someone all this time… then again, each kingdom is indeed really far from each other…'
'And… there is this poor kingdom…' James briefly turned his attention to the last kingdom he had helped form, which for some reason had split into 15 different tribes as soon as the kingdom was formed.
Now, the world had 5 kingdoms and 15 tribes within the land-are controlled by a single kingdom. And, each of the kingdoms were so far away, and had so much land in between, that war was never actually needed.
'Until now…!' James grinned, waiting for the bloodshed like a parched man in a dessert.
…
"My brothers-in-arms, my steel-hearted kin; look upon me not as your king, but as one among you who bleeds, who mourns, and who burns, for the grief that has hollowed our halls is the same grief that stands here with me beneath this open sky."
Armin spoke with a voice that trembled at its edges yet never broke, his hands clenched upon the haft of his banner as if to anchor himself to the world, while the first murmurs among the ranks tightened into a coiled readiness and the air itself seemed to lean forward to hear what the new king would declare.
"You all know what was taken from us; my father, the man who built this realm from sweat and soil, lies cold beneath the marble of our hall, and my brother, the sword of this kingdom, struck down before his prime with his honour stolen by the shadows that dare call themselves men."
As he named them, the knights drew breath as one, a rustling that moved like a tide through their ranks, their gauntleted fists flexing and their faces hardening beneath the metal, and high overhead the sun, a punishing witness, drove long white shafts of light across the field that made every edge of armour flare like an accusation.
"Their blood cries for justice, and it is a cry I will not let fade into the wind, for we owe them more than mourning and memory; we owe them reckoning, and we will see it granted."
There was a sound then that began at the back of the host and grew until it filled the space between earth and sky; a low, relentless roar that spoke of anger sharpened into resolve; while the clouds, as if answering some ancient summons, gathered slow and grey at the horizon and threw a rawness into the breeze that made banners snap like voices.
"I do not yet know the hand that wielded the dagger, nor the face that smiled as they died, but I know this; our neighbours to the east rejoice in our sorrow; they whisper that our line is broken, that our courage has rotted, that our kingdom stands leaderless, and I say they are wrong."
He let the word fall and watched it roll through the ranks, seeing hope kindle in the hard lines of the younger faces and old caution burn away as if by flame, and somewhere in the throng a veteran spat and laughed without mirth, the sound caught up by his fellows and turned into a chorus that made the very trees shiver.
"I say they will choke upon their laughter, and today we march not as beggars of peace but as the fire that answers injustice; we shall take the sun as witness to our wrath, and when its light touches the field of battle it shall gleam upon our blades as it gleamed upon the crowns of my father and brother before me."
As the promise left him, the soldiers tightened the straps of their greaves and adjusted their gauntlets until knuckles showed white beneath the metal, the collective shape of the host shifting with purpose, while the sky above them bared its pale face and the distant rumble of thunder, slow and patient, threaded the air like an approaching drum.
"You, the knights of this land, wear no horse beneath you, yet your strength needs none; your boots strike the earth harder than any steed's hooves, your shields hold firmer than any wall, and you are the heart of this kingdom; the iron pulse that no assassin's knife can still."
A man near the front, a veteran whose beard had been braided beneath his helm, let loose a single, ragged shout that the row behind him took up and multiplied into a warlike hymn, a noise full of grief and promise that seemed to make the very soil beneath their feet resonate as if the land itself acknowledged their vow.
"Let our enemies learn that grief does not weaken us; it forges us, and every tear shed for our fallen is tempered into rage; every heartbeat is a drum that calls us to vengeance, so that when we meet them under the sun they will see not men, but storms in armour."
A fine dust rose where a hundred thousand boots had shifted, and the sunlight caught it in motes that swirled like embers, giving the impression that the army itself smouldered with a living heat, while the faces of the knights, visible between bars of helms, were set and bright with an anger that made their features look carved anew.
"We do not fight for land. We do not fight for gold. We fight for the blood that has been spilled unjustly, for the names that must never be forgotten, and for the right to stand beneath the same sun that watched our fathers rise and fall."
At that, many around him struck their chests with the flat of their shields, a resonant percussion that answered his words and seemed to bind them together, and though none could see it plainly, some of the older men felt old loyalties and fresh hatred entwine within them as if a new lineage of purpose had been born that day.
"Raise your blades! Let the heavens hear our oath! We shall carve our vengeance into the soil itself, and let our enemies know that the kingdom they sought to break has instead been reborn in fire."
Armin raised his own blade high as if to catch the very sun and fling it back upon their foes, and the mass of metal and leather around him rose in echo until the clatter of steel became a single vast voice that rolled outward like thunder, the weather answering with a wind that whipped banners into a living sea of banners and sent a fine spray of dry earth across their faces.
"For my father! For my brother! For glory! Under the sun!"
The cry that followed was not merely noise but a covenant, a promise that left the field shaken and the clouds above them parting with a sudden, cruel openness, as if the world itself had been forced to look on and bear witness to the birth of a war whose name would be kept in memory as long as the sun rose to gild the graves.
Word Count: 1813 words