A nest.
There were only three major nests in the world, dragonborne hatchlings and enough fire to burn all the kingdoms combined several times over.
Were there such a place in the Burning Lands, it would've been known, as every army would've been long melted, burned, or eaten alive. If it was where Alrieon was keeping Michael, then it was a fool's game to go searching it out, assuming one could even find their way in the first place.
Neither Victoria nor Peter had Michael's level of faith, and he himself was liable to be excommunicated were Al to have decided killing her off was a worthy sentence.
Eris was buried by the fire, his weapons laid with him, and Victoria couldn't stop weeping for hours. Peter held her tight, believing there was a way to bring him back, though they all knew the truth.
What bothered him most was why they all hadn't been dead during their first encounter, Alrieon severing his head off in less than three moves. The High Lord either wasn't alone, or was toying with them.
"He shouldn't be capable of wielding such a weapon," Peter said, still holding Victoria. "Only children of the gods can do so, and none of them are in the kingdoms of the elves."
"How can you be sure?" He asked, a shiver down his spine for the first time.
Brand's warning recalled to him, what he were to do should such a time come.
"Someone's with him," Peter said, looking up. "He lost Hardok, so he bargained for something else. Someone else, but none of the gods' children have walked these battlefields for centuries."
"How many are there?"
"Three. Maybe four, I can' t quite recall, but they're powerful. Every champion in all the kingdoms serves them, dozens for one."
Victoria rubbed her eyes. "Do you really believe he's gone? There's nothing we can do to being him back?"
"He's gone," Peter said, hugging her tight, "and even if he's not, he won't be the same."
She looked at him, fighting back tears, but lowered her head.
"Is he, back at the dungeon?" He asked.
Peter nodded. "Holy weapons at bare minimum strike a Soulless down to their base form. Like newborns, though we crawled up out of the ground, whether swamp or a dark dungeon, no weapons, no skills, and new type of darkness in our soulless husk."
"Alright, that's enough," Victoria said, drawing her sword. "We have to find the nest!"
"Aye," he agreed, standing, swords clanging in the distance.
Though it was easier said.
They wandered the woods for days, encountering every major army and countless roaming war bands.
What his flail didn't turn to piles of flesh Peter and Victoria shot between the eyes, bellies, or breasts.
Hundreds, maybe thousands they slaughtered, most from Wayfork and the neighboring kingdom of Banish. The latter was a poor nation, poorest of all the kingdoms of men, and they wore leather, though many were fierce fighters, none surrendering even down to the last men.
He along with the two Elfstones killed more men than at any point he'd awakened within the swamps.
So much blood on their hands it kept them warm throughout the night, when it was so cold even their mithril trimmed cloaks frosted. It was all they could muster, as any direction they went took them right back to Eris' grave or a battle.
Soulless monsters, he heard a number of soldiers within the front of shield walls call them on a bone chilling morning. No amount of slaughter made their search any easier, and after a week or so passed Peter and Victoria were running low on good arrows. They loosed iron and bronze, rationing what little razor steel and mithril they had left, though their hits landed less.
Unsatisfied, one step backward after another since arriving in Marryvia, he roared upon arriving at the front of an army's shield wall.
He demanded Carl, the cunt High Lord, or anyone daring to face him.
Were he to die he would return to his own journey, though getting slain by a holy weapon brought about something he didn't believe was possible; fear.
For the first time, haven slaughtered hundreds of men, undead, vampyres, and dragons, he was afraid. It would be the last step backward, and he didn't know what would become of him were he to return to the swamp.
At dusk, another day's slaughter nearing an end, he swept dozens of soldiers away. Their mail was rusty, though officers were sturdy enough it took him another sweep to crack open. Upon sight of flaming arrows overhead, he saw the flame insignia's.
"Hurry!" Peter shouted.
He turned to see the mad lad, atop a stolen horse with someone in long brown robes slung over it behind him.
Victoria darted off into the woods, but he kept slaughtering, shouting like a banshee, turning soldiers into bones and limbs.
"For Eris! For Eris!"
Volleys showered him with iron, but it tickled.
"For Michael! For Eris!"
Lines, armies from multiple kingdoms, the greatest in all land, turned away from him.
They cried out, as a babe would for its mother's tit, some begging on their knees. Knights, lord commanders, seasoned officers in bloody armor worth an entire village, shouted for men to fight.
One such commander, a man he'd encountered before, wearing armor white like the moon, rode to him. Atop a steed parting hundreds of frightened soldiers, Robyn led with an iron lance.
"Bastard Soulless monster!"
Upon clearing the lines, Robyn charged him in open space, no more than a dozen meters between them.
Flail overhead, he whipped it, cracks like a steel hissing thunder. Robyn's horse took the burnt of it, spikes bludgeoning its head clean off. The young knight collapsed head first into blood soaked mud, lance splattered to the side. Soldiers rushed to drag the lad away, some charging towards him.
He swatted them away, then turned to rejoin the others.
While armies retreated, enemies amongst one another fleeing a towering brute in blood stained horned armor, he ran through the cursed fog.
Over broken branches, crooked shafts, and blackened corpses, he sprinted best as he could figure where the remaining Elstone's fled.
Who Peter captured was as good a guess as any, but it must've been someone useful. The mad lad was of a different type than many he encountered, something daring about him. He liked it, and would offer a handful of coin to have such company on his journey back to Marryvia.
"Over here," Peter waved, light flickering ahead.
On the other side of a great old willow, were Peter, Victoria, and a rope bound gagged Father Willbress.
Dagger in hand, mithril gleaming with ore of the stars, Peter ran the flat side against Willbress' cheek.
"Ya' don't need all your fingers father," the mad lad whispered. "So if ya' don't agree to lead us to the nests, Delilah here'll be more than happy to lighten the load on your hands."
Red faced, Willbress groaned, entitled even in bondage.
Victoria sighed, ripping the muddy rag out his mouth, "Pete, we can't harm a pr-."
"Watch the fuckin' woods Vic!" Peter snapped, shoving a hand over Willbress, pointing his dagger at her. "You're the best shot we've got, and we don't know how much time we've got left!"
She glared at him, firm hand on her bow, then faced out.
Peter removed a hand over Willbress, who cursed before threatening their eternal lives.
"This is but a taste of your damnation! All you heathen born scum!" Willbress spat, looking from Peter to him. "I knew you to be an omen the moment his majesty returned from those treacherous woods, and by what little grace the gods have over these lands we found you again in this sh-."
He clouted the old father in the ear, so hard the bald hag tasted dirt on impact.
Peter pulled the dirt mouthed priest back up, then started cutting into a wrinkly left pinky finger. Willbress held it in for a moment, then groans turned to whimpers. Peter clasped a hand on the old father's mouth, who wriggled as metal carved into bone.
"Peter!" Victoria whispered, stomping over to him.
It was too late.
Willbress whimpered, Peter holding a pinky overhead.
While shoving the crones face into dirt, Peter asked, "Care to help us old father?"
Bloodshot eyes, and drooly lips, Willbress looked up and spat in Peter's face.
The mad lad shrugged, shoving the old father's face down again, cutting into the left ring finger. Willbress waved a hand, though Peter finished cutting a second finger off, giving it a kiss before throwing it away.
Willbress, a blubbering mess, sat up against the tree, nodding. "I'll help you. By the gods, please, mercy!"
"Was that so fucking hard?" Peter said, using the fathers robes to clean his dagger.
"Why is it, that you need to seek the nest of all places?" Willbress asked, Victoria offering him water. "Besides, if I knew where it was, I'd have had Lord Isaac's Phoenix Blades dispatch of Alrieon and his riders by now."
"Where are the Phoenix's?" He asked, wondering if Paracles was about.
"Anywhere his majesty isn't," Willbress replied, wrapping the wounds on his left hand. "They despise him, as he despises foreign mercenaries."
"Very well," Peter said, bored of the small talk. "You'll seek the nests, we'll destroy it down to the last egg, and all will be forgiven and paid for by the kingdom, agreed?"
Willbress was slow, but nodded. "What is it you seek there?"
Peter stood the father up, roughing him against the tree. "Get your cross out, mark this tree."
Ahead of two stones and an ember, the old father led the way.
Peter scarred every stump or boulder with his dagger, marking every few dozen paces or so.
The mad lad warned the crone any attempt to turn them towards a camp within the kingdom, and the brute would twist out the old father's innards before using them as a noose.
Willbress prayed every step of the way.