For a thousand years the tower had stood. On top of the Rigen mountain its views extending across the fiefdom’s rolling green fields and onwards to the snow-capped mountains that had acted as an impenetrable barrier against the outside world.
Seasons had changed in Pannithor. The power of the abyss had waxed and waned, the tides of the void had washed its fiendish flotsam into reality and brought the twisted elves on their soul haunted ships to unhappy shores. Yet none of these events had found their way through the impassable mountains, to the fiefdom of Rigen, to the grey stone citadel with the white roof and the purple silk banners that danced in the warm winds.
Peace and fruitfulness resided in the land until the day that they arrived. How they had found their way through the mountains no one knew. It was not unknown for the odd person, lost in the mountains, to blunder into the realm, but a whole army, marching in perfect order, this was impossible.
Queen Aitero saw them from her chambers at the very top of the citadel as they made their way through the fields. She cast her runes, calmly trying to understand who they were and by what path they had found their way into her realm. Each throw of the bones left her concerned, and more confused. Not one reading could clearly discern anything of the nature of the soldiers, their passage or their intent. All she could see in the falling runes was a cycle as irresistible as the seasons of life and death.
The Queen sent emissaries to entreat with the column of knights that made its way so slowly through the fields. So slow was their progress that it seemed they might take two days to reach the citadel, assuming it was their intended destination.
Over the next few hours, she watched them. As day turned into night they could no longer be seen, and so she ordered her soldiers to prepare for every eventuality the morning might bring. That night she tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes, she found herself watching two great dogs circling each other, growling, teeth bared, hackles raised. After a few seconds the dogs would jump at each other. They would fight and one would get the better of the other. The dog that was winning would start to swallow the losing dog, back legs first. But the losing dog was not to be beaten and would twist and turn and somehow get the back legs of the winning dog in its jaws and begin to swallow it whole. When both dogs had eaten each other, the dream would begin again. Gripped by a terror, the likes of which the Queen had never experienced in her life, she quickly gave up on sleep and turned her attention to the day that was to come.
The next morning the Queen watched from her tower as her soldiers stood to face the silent knights in their black and white livery. Without a word the knights cantered forward, lances dipped. The canter became a gallop. The knights closed the gap between them and the nervous soldiers of Rigen. This was the downside to peace in a world of war. The soldiers were untried, untested and unprepared. The knights crashed into them like a bull into a paper house, tearing them asunder. Luck and blind panic pulled two of the knights from their horses, but no more.
The Queen, knowing that there could be no military victory for Rigen made preparations to surrender her lands and herself, in the hope the knights would let her people live, but the bloodshed did not stop with the last of her soldiers’ final gasps. As the knights fought around the citadel, more of the order rode from the mountains and began to cut down those that worked in the fields, lived in the villages and pledged fealty to the queen.
When the sun finally dipped on that fateful day the sky burned an angry red that might as well have been cut from the valley of Rigen below.
That night the Queen cried, unable to comprehend the sheer scale of the slaughter, unable to understand how she had survived, unable to even guess at what horrors the next morning would reveal. When the sun rose, the knights were gone. The Queen ventured out from her citadel, aghast at the slaughter than surrounded her. Within just a few paces the hems of her ivory gown were gore soaked.
Not knowing what to do, she did what any Queen who cared for her people would do. What she could. If she could no longer care for them in life, she would do what she could for them in death. She returned to the citadel and drew a bucket of water from the well, spoke sacred words over it, and set about washing the faces of those who had served her in life, preparing them for their journey to the next world. For the next month she went from body to body, walking the length and breadth of her realm without sleep or sustenance, finding only one survivor.
As darkness fell on the day that saw the last of her subjects cleansed and ready for their final rest a strained voice asked her what she would do next.
The Queen looked long and hard into the eyes of the old man who had asked the question and in a voice that brooked no argument, free from any doubt, replied, “My people will have their revenge.”
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The Wizard's Bookshelf 