Steel and Mana

Chapter 388 – Winter in Markoth (4)

No one in Markoth had expected the winter to pass in a way that it did at all. But this year… it had all changed. By the end of the first month, everyone repeated the same thing:

Avalon had come.

What would have been the most shocking for any other neighboring country to see was how a broken city was beginning to rebuild itself in the middle of winter. Their transformation was inconceivable in light of how the people lived just a few months ago. Since the whole city bowed to them, the Knights of Avalon did not make new speeches, build statues, or demand anything from the people. Even if they were willing, they never once ordered them to do anything except find shelter when the monsters came.

Well, there was one thing they did ask them... to eat.

Many were unsure at first, but watching how they dismantled the monsters, skinned them, collected their blood, and removed the bones, they realized it wasn't just a felled monster. The Avalonians were hunters, and these beasts were their prey. When the bonfires were lit, and the meat began sizzling, the aroma that spread around the city was just like barbecuing a chicken.

Their hungry bellies gave in first, and soon, everyone was eating, for the first time in decades, without thinking about preserving more for tomorrow. They devoured the flesh of the abomination with great relish, feeling it was their way of paying back for all the suffering. It was their chance to turn the table on them, or at least feel like they did so.

What they didn't realize was that the energy coming back to their limbs, making them feel energized once again, wasn't simply because of hope. The monster's meat was doing its job on their malnourished bodies, and it was even more effective than on anyone else.

"I wonder..." Garrick asked, being the one from Trailblazers from Atuvia, holding a piece of meat in his hand. "If I could make a profit on this..."

"If you hunt down your own, you can start selling it." Tiburon appeared next to him, grinning, holding his own, taking big bites out of it. "I know that light in your eyes, sniffing profit besides the roasted meat. Sure, but it is up to you."

"I did think about it." He smiled sheepishly, looking at the Knight, whom he now respected just as much as the locals. It was also his first time seeing Avalon's actual strength, something that scared him, but in a good way. "But I don't have a machine like yours to kill my own."

"True." Tiburon grinned, taking another bite, "But there are smaller ones that a normal army can defeat. You could sell those. Their meat is just as juicy. Yeah, some have nasty things in them, but cook it well, and all is good!"

"I bet..." Garrick muttered, glancing towards the Avalonian troops, thinking that he may just understand how they grew so big. He wasn't like the people around him.. the moment he began feeling the changes after eating the same meat for a few days, he immediately put things together. "There is no way to ask for some samples from this one, is there?"

"Sorry," Tiburon shook his head. "None. The moment we killed it, this one became Avalonian property. My knight captain said to share, so we are sharing. But it is not for sale."

"Understood." He chuckled, nodding, "I will have to pass on this venture then! There is no way that I could put together a group that is willing to go and fight against a beast, even if it is smaller..."

He wasn't wrong. Even if he did, most of them probably would flee the moment it came down to face one. To stand their ground and meet death face-to-face willingly, they needed a special kind of resolve. Maybe that was why the locals began worshipping them so eagerly.

Maybe worship was not the best word for it, but Garrick heard how they whispered their names like prayers. Not exactly their pilots' names... but their machines' callsigns. Valiant, Thunder, Shadow, Leviathan, all of them become the most uttered names amongst the people. Mothers traced the shapes of those words into their children’s palms before bed as if the syllables alone could keep the nightmares at bay.

But nobody stopped them from doing so. Who would dare to tell them to stop feeling safe again? In the first weeks after their king knelt, the streets of Markoth slowly came alive again.

Children were out in the streets; people were working even harder, cleaning and actually wanting to rebuild and patch up the ruined houses. The blacksmiths were not straightening out ruined armor or swords. Instead, they were making tools so the people could use them to revive the city, one house at a time. With the Knight’s Errant high above like a guardian bird, they could ignore the noises coming from far away. No longer was every racket that the wind carried over to the city the sign of the end.

Of course, it didn't mean the winter had already ended because a week and a half later, the monsters returned.

The second assault of the winter beasts was another giant. It was a tusked thing covered in ridged bone and with a flaming breath that melted the snow around it. It came alone in the middle of the day, roaring in anger as it tore through the northern woods, following the same trail the first pair cut out. When Jonas, the same guard who first noticed the Knight's Errant arriving, saw this one come, unlike the previous times, he didn't tumble; he didn't panic. He shouted the warning and sounded the alarms... and then people began rushing towards the walls, watching in anticipation.

They weren't disappointed... because it never reached the city.

People who couldn't reach the walls gathered on rooftops to see it fall. They huddled together on watchtowers, their breath fogging the cold air, their shouts echoing far and wide as they cheered on their heroes.

It was Corinn's Shadow who finished off the beast in combat, its blade coated with a streak of red lightning as it clashed against the monster’s bone-covered hide. Magic ran through the beast's defenses, repelling her bone sword at first, but in the consequent battle, the Leviathan's gauntlet tore into it deep enough to create an opening. With the Thunder's constant, long-range harassing and the Valiant's well-timed tag-teaming with the Leviathan, the beast had no chance at all. She moved in right at the perfect moment, sinking her sword into its neck through the new opening, severing something deep within.

The beast fell, trashing on the ground, its blood spraying everywhere... but it could do nothing more, only bleed out and die. By then, the people knew that they had seen gods fight, and their new gods had won.

However, winter was not over. More came in the following weeks.

Two more great monsters appeared as time went on—one a serpentine thing that tunneled beneath the snow, bursting from the ground in showers of ice and earth, just to be bombarded from above as the Knight's Errand joined in this time, shredding the monster to pieces. The other was like a massive, wingless bird, its feathers sharpened like blades, capable of ejecting them from its body, making them fly around the battlefield like boomerangs.

Once again, the Shadow lured the monster into a trap where it was pinned and torn apart by Thunder’s crushing blows coming at it from far away at a supersonic speed. Even if the monster was capable of using its feathers as weapons, if none of its targets got close enough... it was just another chicken, ready for slaughter. And they slaughtered it, feeding the city once again with a revigorating dinner.

Maybe because their rising spirit was felt by the broken Pass, around the end of the second month of winter, something different came through. It was not one monster, not two. It was a horde of hundreds of smaller yet still two-to-three meters tall, four-legged creatures, looking like a mix between a scorpion and a donkey.

This time, the Avalonians ordered the people to stay inside as their soldiers began preparing on the walls to meet those who would undoubtedly slip through. The people obeyed, but to the Avalonians' surprise, those who had previously guarded the city remained with them. They stood on the walls, knowing that they may very well die. But instead of desperation, this time around, they were doing it because they wanted to.

Jonas, slightly trembling, holding his spear, gulped, biting into his lip. He was afraid, but... he had to stay. He had to protect the others' hopes.

"Stay close to me." The tall, skull-masked Avalonian suddenly spoke up, standing next to him.

"My Lord?" He asked, surprised, his shaking suddenly stopping.

"Stay close to me, Jonas of Markoth." He repeated, his helmeted face watching the approaching horde, his hand resting on the long bone-made sword resting at his side. "I will protect you... and teach you how to slay these damned vermin."

"..." He was amazed by hearing what the so-far silent warrior had told him... but then, he pulled himself to his full height, clutching his spear with new resolve. "Yes, My Lord!"

An hour later, the tide was wholly exterminated with barely a dozen casualties, all of those coming from Markoth's own while amongst the Avalonian soldiers, some were also injured, but none of them died.

Jonas watched from the thick of it as the black-armored soldiers fought with precision, inhumane strength, and speed. Their weapons were glowing and were imbued with actual magic, something he had never seen before. They cut through the beasts' chitin armor and bones as if they were made out of straw. They moved like death-incarnate, quick and sure, delivering death to the bastards. Not once; it was he who delivered the final blow as his Lord cut open the beasts, giving him the perfect moment to strike, allowing him to slaughter them. It was... cathartic. Jonas felt as if all the darkness, all the weight, was lifting from his shoulders and heart. He no longer heard his family's death cries while he alone survived... he was finally taking his revenge on them. He was finally... freed.

"You would be a good soldier even in Avalon," his guardian said after the end of the carnage, patting his shoulders. Unlike Jonas, he wasn't out of breath, but Jonas didn't care. He simply nodded, smiling and crying while standing on the corpse of one of the felled beasts.

"Thank you... My Lord!" he said, wiping his face, but he just smeared it with more blood and grime. "It is only because you are here. Because we’re not alone anymore.”

That sentence became a kind of mantra amongst Markoth's people. It was not quite a prayer, not quite a vow. But something that people said every time something good happened. And, spending so much time with the Avalonians, at the end of it all, the name of the Sovereign began to resurface more and more.

Even if no one had seen him, even if he was just someone from far away... The Knights defending them still answered to him. The airship above the city bore his banner—black and purple, with a touch of gold. The new colors of Markoth.

Only a month after their first victory, children started carving the symbol of Avalon into wooden trinkets and proudly wore them around their necks. The older men even debated whether this Sovereign was truly a man or something more—maybe even someone sent by the Gods, maybe divine himself.

The remaining temple, in addition to housing the orphans, now lit candles for the Sovereign alongside the other Gods. Nobody called this a heresy. Even the remaining priests agreed, saying that faith was survival, and Avalon had earned theirs.

Winter continued in Markoth, but it no longer held the same terror as before. Snow still fell, and icicles still grew under the gutters of the houses. Sometimes, monsters howled in the distance... But the fear that once rotted the hearts of every man, woman, and child had considerably faded. Whenever they were unsure, they simply turned towards the ones in black, standing tall on their walls.

They were their protectors. Their miracle.

Their gods of winter.

They were Avalonians... The saviors of Markoth.