Under The Snail's Banner: The Conclussion
by Graham Swanson
The world that Neo knew didn't exist anymore. Flowers became cactuses riveted with sharp thorns.
Castles that once welcomed with him hornblasts, with pageantry and crowds of noble people, now
stood quiet. The single remaining walls slowly blew to dust under the storm current. Without the forests
nothing stopped the wind from dropping at one hundred horses per foot and blowing worms from there
to the other side of the uncharted lands.
Rows of white stakes poked up from dark fields. The animals scoured huge cracks for food. Creatures considered monsters by the clerics built shelters where once they harvested enough grapes to feed an entire city. Between the fields the shapes of tombstones developed. Neo looked at something down the road. He pretended not to see. Huge crosses, upside down polearms, pylons, magic barriers. The names long blown away. Mausoleums long since cracked open and looted. Large mounds of ground marked by a single post.
Neo remembered the knights who served under him. They would've stopped there, and stood guard for their entire lives. They WANTED to die old watching over a burial ground, protecting it from looters and from Necromancers.
The knights that served him had no oaths. When they came across a village of people, it was often poor. Some knights wanted to attack and claim what resources the village had, well water or animals. While the others tried to seek work as bodyguards or monster exterminators.
When the knights saw the mounds and mausoleums many changed course and went straight for it. They dug up bones and smashed open catacomb lids seeking anything that could be sold or boiled.
Without rain, they sucked moisture from rocks. Without food, they hunted snakes and tried to eat their eggs. When the snakes began to fight back and kill the knights, they resorted to eating the flesh of the dead.
They made necklaces out of the bones of the corpses and wore them. Others knitted wreaths from the hair of the fallen.
And when they prayed, to Neo's surprise, it was often to a shrine of Moloch. They smeared blood on the shrine, and he gave them a fire.
Often on the journey the stops halted and began to turn back. They have to cross a cursed bridge that stole souls, or they had to go across the swamp of the Vorgons, or they had to face a giant worm to cross a narrow mountain passage. These would precede major hardship, like being carried off by an avalanche, getting pelted by arrows dropped by eagles, scaling a cliff, or swimming across poison lakes.
Doom befell them again and again, but Neo promised to lead them to the New Promised Land. "It's real, it's worth it, I've done this before... and back then not a single human being had crossed the threshold."
They followed Neo so strongly that they pulled themselves up from the sand. No sleep, no beer, no food. They carted wagons without animals, as they had eaten their animals. They carried the wounded and the sick on their shoulders. Many monsters stood on top of the towers cut into the cliffside. Huge bugs would crawl up and down, and shout at them.
"Boo! You suck! Go back home!"
"We're going to the New Promised Land" Neo responded.
The knights hollered in response.Groups that broke apart rejoined. The knights far behind stayed on course. Others even fell in line to join them from the recesses.
Many good knights died along the way and asked to have their ashes spread around the promised land. There were too many people dying, and not enough knights that knew how to heal the sick. Some of the guys who perished were the slayers of giant mushrooms and strange creatures that grew out of the rocks of the mountain side. This made the knights afraid, as by then their weapons had broken, their arrows were gone, and they had nothing more to melt down into bullets.
The only one who kept his weapons and horse was Baldwin. He remained at the back of the procession. When they tried to take his horse, he battered them with his fire rune and broke their melted armor with a club.
Some knights lost their minds in the harsh lands. They saw things that weren't there, some became so confused that they walked off cliffs.
The knights still followed Neo. He defied death, for some that was evidence enough. He remembered the old Promised Land, and recalled stories of their initial journey down the torrents of the Toast River. It kept them focused on the efforts of a single day, but Baldwin recognized that Neo left out important details. For example,no one came back from the dead to lead them before. There was no red star leading them on. They also received the blessing from the Gods. This journey lacked those aspects.
But they had come a great way into the uncharted lands, and started seeing the sign posts pointing them to a spot under the red star, a cyclone of brilliant clouds coming up from the flat hard ground.
The knights arrived at the gate of the New Promised. Gallant Neo stood before them leading the bulwark. Scattered bands came up from behind. In the distance even more trotted through the harsh toegrass that broke off, slid under their suits undetected, then found calluses at the bottom of their feet and burroughed inside.The Telewind made the sun brighter, and made the gleam of the rocks blinding. After all the marching, the long trek brought them out of the lands of shadow.
Far from the crystal skulls the size of frostpeaks that caused their dreams to shatter and give way to waking nightmares. No longer did the deadpools spew toxins that ate away at their supply bags. No Hornettas to attack them by leaving footspikes in path before them. No banshees screamed at them as they descended down steep cliffs.
At first they couldn't believe what they saw. Carrots. Potatoes. Gourds. Fields of them. They stretched out beyond the horizon. People. Fat people. They hauled babies with them. They ruffled through raspberry bushes. So many grapes grew there that the air smelled like wine. The water turned red with the excess of fruit that fell in. The clouds turned golden under the sun. The rivers ran platinum with clean, cold water. At first they gathered in silence, believing what they saw must be a mirage. An illusion. Something constructed by sorcery. Then they saw it. A great red phoenix carrying the Torch of Sting. The Torch that eroded that elven storm, and allowed humans to exit the tundra and find the Toast River in the ancient times.
They dropped their swords and shields and sang a song that hadn't been sung since finding the Old Promised Land
"At last our journey has ended
and our weary eyes behold
Banners blessed a Promised Land
Behold the long awaited grains
The land our fathers saught
from ash and frost and hunger
Here the ancient spirits guide us
Here the old world hasn't fully died"
Emaciated, thin, shaking from sickness and injury, darkened by dirt, they held each other in salty tears.
A palace of moonstone clouds called on them to enter from far away. They all hoorahed and ran through the gateway. So many of them crowded together through a narrow entrance at once that they began climbing up the crystal walls, pulling each other up, singing and laughing as they rushed to enter the New Promised Land.
Once there, the Torch of the Phoenix shined its light on them, and their clothes became clean , their armor glistened once more with polish, their weariness was removed. They sank their heads into the creeks of wine. They dunked their heads in again and again.
One knight remained leary, carrying the haul of Neo's gear,
Ecstatic knights came rushing to Neo, their arms heavy with loads of food.
"Neo, conqueror of death, we shall name you king of all knights. What shall we do with this land? What is your wish? We will carry it out to the fullest."
The Knights smiled so big that their lips could be seen through slots in their helmets. They clamored to be ordered.
"King Neo, I bravely routed our courses and avoided the most danger. Let me be your royal advisor!"
"Dear Lord, I carried your pole arm through the snow storm and kept the Ice Wizards from causing those behind the line great harm. Let me be your arms bearer!"
"Neo, you are the King of the Knights. I played the cords to keep the morale high as we crossed the barren hellscapes. Grant me power, and I shall become your chronicler!"
"And what of Sir Baldwin?" Neo asked, pointing to the shadow crossing the barrier. Snail flag high on his shoulder, spear at his hip.
Everyone was quiet.
"He belongs in the wastes with the rest of the doomed. Not among one as brave and chivalrous as you."
"He's brutal and merciless. You mustn't trust him or he'll curse us all."
Neo tells his knights to watch his horses. Then he darted off to find Baldwin.
They met on horses. Fully armored. Sidearms at the hip. Spear on the shoulder. Neo kept his pistol in a sidemount. Baldwin kept a throwing hatchet on his saddle. This is just how knights greet each other. They lay their arms out. Baldwin refused to take his sword away. Neo decided to trust him, they shook gauntlets.
Shameful Baldwin didn't bow. Mud covered him from head to toe. Debris filled the slots of his helmet.
Neo, chivalrous and graced with keen admiration, calls on Baldwin "Good sir, you have been without food and water for days. I haven't seen you sleep in two weeks. Will you join me in my camp?"
Baldwin shakes his head.
"The other knights don't like you. Is what they say true?"
Baldwin nodded. He took the remaining alicorn from wrapped up paper and showed it off.
"Why have you come here?"
Baldwin took the banner from his shoulders and showed it to Neo.
"I do remember your order, sir. I was there when the warrior snails arrived. They pushed aside the rivers and trees and covered the enemy supply routes in slime so slick that their carts fell off the cliff. Do you wish to join us?"
Baldwin shook his head. He folded the banner back up, he tied it around his chest, then he pointed with his spear to the deeper core of the New Promised Land. The clouds cycloned with the light around the towering spires of a golden palace.
"Do you want money? or land? Or status?"
Baldwin shook his head. Clumps of grass dropped from the gaps between his plates. A jet stream crossed the sky. He gestured to it. Something moved at superspeed in the sky.
"Do they mean us harm?"
Baldwin nodded.
"Join me, and I will reward you. You will be the Skywatcher, and will blow a horn when threats from the sky arrive."
Baldwin shook his head.
"Very well. At least lend me your banner. I will hang it in my camp. It will be safe here, and you will be freed for your Oath."
Baldwin said nothing. Steam leaked from the holes and cracks in his armor.
"I can't leave a knight that has been around as long as you to sleep in the cold. Where will you make camp?"
Baldwin circled his finger around.
-
When Neo got back, his knights were already dividing the land up on a map. They slept in the houses of the villagers while Baldwin slept by a fire outside. Some of the fat happy people walked with baskets of fruit and goods when knights charged up to them.
"This is the land of Neo now. You are our peasants, I’ve come to take you as my wife."
Baldwin appeared on Fred. His mere presence was enough to startle the knights. They stood back as he rode up. He took the peasants onto his horse and rode away to their village on the outskirts of the gate.
The dead bodies that got carted all this way remained wrapped in shrouds in the wagons they were placed in. Their ghosts started floating over the wagons. Baldwin asked them if they wanted to become spirits- of if they wanted buried and blessed as never to rise again from the grave. They chose to rest in the New Promised Land as they had planned, and so Baldwin mounted the caskets in a cave he found full of gold in the mountain.
A part of him wanted to take a pickaxe and the geomancy rune and carve all the gold out. Other knights appeared with pickaxes, and Baldwin had to charge into them three times with his spear to get them to flee.
The villagers watched him.They weren't just humans, they lived besides mushrooms, and cactus people. Rumor got around that the peasants had some dark defender watching over them.
Baldwin watched the horizon with Fred. They looked over the empty castle foundations. Only jagged fences remained of walls and towers. Stones of once beautiful temples now littered the hill side. Bells grew out of gnarled trees.
"Paradise is real. But it's not something that can be conquered."
In the jet stream curling around the purple eyelid of the horizon, he saw two shards scorch the clouds. A storm brewed high in the atmosphere. The clouds were scorched with the shape of wings. A raven flew overhead.
"Men do not dream of heaven unless they intend to plunder it."
-
The knights of the New Promised land slammed their goblets on the table and tore maps to shreds. Neo stood in the middle, his eyes deep and focused on the shifting clouds. This bickering had gone on for days.
"No this says I am the lord of the sub precinct. My claim goes all the way past this creek."
"That's my driveway, you can't just claim whatever you'd like."
"I outrank you. I got to the New Promised Land first."
"By two steps. I could've been there sooner but I had to clear routes for you guys."
"Nay. He speaks lies. Dear Neo, who do you favor in this discourse?"
Neo looked around.
"Well, how about water zones are neutral?"
and all at once his hall of knights began fighting again.
"But what about all I sacrificed for this journey? don't I get to have all the peasants?"
"I lost an eye, both my arms, I'm the last of my order, if anyone should get the gourd fields it's me."
“I deserve Lands!”
“No one followed Neo more closely than me! I get to have the wine bottling plant!”
"I don't want to be a knight anymore. Can we have the entire south valley for a church?"
"Over my dead body heretic, I claim a strip of that valley. Your church is nothing but lies!"
Knights came in bushels of stuff, they dumped it before Neo.
"Lord Neo, what will be rewarded to whom?"
-
The towers turned white and the knights wept. They walked through the grape fields of New Promised Land for days. Their gambsons were soaked red with wine. Now they stood in the middle of it. The towers made music.
The knights hurled their helmets into the air and carried Neo on their shoulders.
“It's real! The New Promised Land is real!”
“All hail Neo the Revenant!”
-
Neo didn’t have the heart to tell them. But he had seen the Promised Land of old. This place was wonderful, but this place wasn’t the New Promised Land. It was a land he saw in his death vision. Laying in his casket, he had seen this place, smelled it, heard it, but he couldn’t touch it. He believed that this vision of a New Promised land is what resurrected him. A miracle that was more powerful than the blessing of the Gods. But he could still feel the wounds in his bursted lung that killed him. He still had the cavities in his teeth. He was still allergic to sweet peas. That is not divine resurrection.
He rode horses around the peasant villages. Everyone smiled. Even as he told them abd news of the world outside. The fall of the temples, the rise of the Black Dragon Empire and their plot to use surveillance orbs to watch every single living being for disloyalty, the rise of the Legion of Darkness and their wizards to push humans out of their kingdoms. The fall of the cities of Bek and Zel, and the loss of the technology they created.
The peasants didn’t think about what he said. They focused on the gardens around them. The smoking ovens. The fawning animals.The sharpening of hunting tools.
“Is it real?” He asked himself.
The knights kept celebrating. They wore animal heads over their own and played sports, shot birds, laying the foundation for a brewery.
Neo rode to the homes of the village. He saw some of the folks outside taking a break, so he rode over to talk to them.
“How long have you lived here?’
“Probably a thousand years.”
“So you’ve heard of me?”
“Not really.”
Neo thanked them and rode on. He thought, “maybe they just forgot.”
He went to the village square. They had a library, a place to fix their tools, and a place to house livestock. He tried every door, but nothing opened.
He rode to the palace. The door stayed shut no matter how hard he pulled. The handles even shocked him. For the next several days, he noticed messages. Messages calling him a fake revenant, a zombie, a fallen spirit.
Some read
“This is not salvation.”
“They eat brains.”
“Your memory is lying.”
The handwriting was rough. But it looked familiar but he couldn’t name it. The paper was coarse. Hard to write on. He looked up at the balconies of the palace. He saw the stagnant shapes of armored men watching over them.
Then he saw a note that asked for him directly. This was written in an elegant font, with splendid ink on smooth paper.
“Neo. Meet me in the palace hall at dusk before the stars set.”
-
Neo asked the villages who lived in the palace. They didn’t know who. It had been there before their time. He snuck into the nesting grounds of the Phoenix. On top of an iceberg melting on top of a mountain. Trees grew out of the ice and creatures made it their home. He knew it was the phoenix’s next because of the ashes and red feathers. He collected one, held it tight, and snuck back to the Palace.
He blew on the feather and it shot him upwards as long as he kept air pressure on it. He went up high enough that the trees looked like dark scratches on the land and the water looked like dark cracks. He blew for two minutes before he reached the balcony. At once the armored men had halberds out and visors down. He showed them the note, and once they saw the ink, they put their arms back on their shoulders, and let him enter.
He tried to open the door but it resisted him. He felt a push knock him back on his feet. The knights looked at each other, then at neo, and back at each other. One drew a square card, and slide it into a gash in the wall. The gash glowed green, and the door slid open.
Neo entered the smokey dark of the palace. He beheld an empty court, winding stairs, leading up to a heavenly bedroom. As he entered he heard humming and beeping. He tripped over cables on the floor, and stopped many times to watch glowing lights shift patterns and colors. He found small glass screens that made sounds when he pressed the buttons provided. They made the lights change, but he wasn’t sure what it was all for.
As he went up the stairs he heard more humming. He found huge machines collecting dust, with pools of water beneath that dripped to the floors below. They didn’t just hum, they rumbled.Valves full of a rancid blue chemical pumped into them, and came out a dirty brown that emptied out the gaps in the walls to the outside. Every level at least one huge beast of a machine printing out scrolls with numbers or sweltering under a fan.
The knights of the palace stood suspended over their guard posts. If Neo unplugged a cable by tripping over one, they’d simply plug it back in. Otherwise they hovered there by the wide open window or over the railings.
The stairs shifted under Neo’s feet. They led up to compartments stuffed with electric wires and loose cables and broken chips.
He knew technology like this existed at one time, but had never seen it himself. The cities of Bek and Zel were going to industrialize before the Valkyrie smited them from the face of the planet. The glass bulbs lighting up, the neon strip of lights, the moaning and electric pulsing they emitted. He was captivated.
He tried every screen pressing buttons, cleaning off the screen. He had the impulse to tear them from the wall but Neo was a smart knight. He decided these terminals are used to communicate with the great spinning sweat machines. If they could control the guards, then their power was not something he could easily unlock by hurling a screen down to the palace floor.
Neo pressed a green button. Digits blinked. The screen went from dark gray to a glowing white. It hurt his eyes in the dark of the palace. He saw the emblem of a key, and when he pressed it the digits turned to numbers. The computers revved up as the cables arched with plasma. Neo pressed himself against the wall and began untethering his armor. It looked like a lightning storm bursted from every screen and loose wire. But once it finished, the real staircase appeared in the center of the chamber. He ran up it, looking down to see the many floors of the palace broken apart. He could see the sunlight reaching the floor at the bottom where it reflected the pools of dripping fluid.
It took him to a final chamber. One great machine with a red screen in the middle, the emblem of the red star being projected from a major needle pointed to the sky. Large glowing terminals covered the walls.
He wanted to draw his pistol and shoot at the screens. They made sounds when they saw him. Text appeared. Then they developed into images of natural landscapes, of an armory, of the villagers plucking away at their gardens. One even showed Neo himself standing there in the room of sweltering machines. He looked all around.
“Show yourself witch!” He barked, convinced he’d been caught in some hex.
She lowered from the bedchamber, still in her nightgown. She sighed and landed before Neo with her staff. She wasn’t human. She was something else, something Neo had never seen before. She kept a hood over her head, a mask over his eyes. He could only see that her skin was blue and lips white.
“Welcome, Sir Neo.”
“None of it is real. It’s worse than I feared. It’s all an illusion powered by…. These!”
He hurled his glove to the floor and waved towards the flickering screens.
“Do not fret. The New Promised Land is indeed real. I am it’s engineer. The machine you see just monitors things for me and lets me know when I need to do upkeep.”
“Do you know what’s going to happen? The Valkyrie are coming. They will destroy this place.”
“Yes, they may. But The Valkyrie will not come to conquer. You were never meant to be here, Sir Neo.”
“No? Then whyfore did I experience visions of this place if not to lead these lost men to their Promised Land.”
“Because when I created this place, it took a powerful magic that I harnessed with the red star machine. It was powerful but it also created side effects.”
“Side effects?”
“Yes, your resurrection was a byproduct, not my initial design. You were never meant to be here. Nor were your knights.”
“I want them to be peaceful. I will not make a decision without your console.”
“Neo, your heart is in the right place. But those men came here to conquer my paradise. They will never accept another path.”
“They have come so far… I can’t tell them to leave.’
“Actually, I don’t want you to. Come here, Sir Runelon.” She beckoned at the guard against the window. He floated over to her. She unhooked his helmet. It was stuck on his head but she got her thumbs over the black steel and wrenched it from his head. His nose was reddened. His lips were swollen. His eyes had sunken into the back of his head. His tongue hung out of his mouth.
She spun him around so that Neo could see. A hole in the back of his head.
“Do you know how the red star machine works?”
He shook his head.
“When someone sees the light of the red star, their mind appears on my screen here. See? That’s you. If I choose to "download" your brain, it powers the computers, which power my soil, which powers the seeds, which feed the animals, who nurture my paradise.”
“What does this mean?”
“Im’ sure you’ve noticed. When it first begins, they forget about their old lives. They smile. Then they lose their senses, they forget who they were. They become statues, like my guards here”
“You’re brainwashing them?”
“It’s what keeps the paradise alive. It’s fortunate that you’ve come. We would be able to keep this going for the next thousand years. It’s a slow process. By the end of it, they are transformed into harmless creatures. Mushrooms, mice, spiders, snails.”
“That’s evil.”
“No, they’re quite happy. Watch.”
A screen snapped on with a knight angry that heaven hadn’t awarded him a head of cattle. He yelled at other knights like it was their fault. Then the red star shined on him. Neo watched the screen
Download.
Purge Trauma.
Remove Aggression
Happiness Maximum
Loyalty Maximum.
The knight smiled, then stood there, then turned to the temple and left the screen. Within fifteen minutes, the door was open. He was clanking up the steps until he made it to the top. Sweating, out of breath, fully suited, but smiling. She smiled back at him, then stuck a cable into the back of his head. His eyes sank, and his jaw slacked.
“Now look.” She pointed at another monitor. Somewhere,fruit under a tree rotted. It gathered flies. They dug into its flesh. Maggots peeked out. She pressed a key, and the flies went away, the maggot turned back into eggs, the fruit flew back to the flower of the tree. It was ripe and fresh to eat again.
“That’s how it works.”
“What of me? There must be some purpose to this?”
“No. And now the Valkyrie are going to come, destroy my palace, kill me, kill your knights, and leave the peasants behind as they soar back to Valhalla.”
“God chose me.”
“No, you were artificially selected. We also brought back the unicorn, and a delicious lemon beverage. All byproducts. All mistakes.”
Neo fell to his knees. Eyes wide enough to see the past. His old life flashed before him.
“I should’ve known. If I had known, I’d preferred to have stabbed myself to death or cast myself down upon a rock.”
“You should tell them the truth, Sir Neo. Spare us the wrath of the Valkyrie. For I see them coming.” She snapped on a screen. In it he saw a figure descending down the stairs. Her faint, angelic body carried by a pair of wings big enough to blow all the clouds of the atmosphere to the ground.
-
Neo pushed open the doors of the palace. The knights gathered at the great step to greet him. Mountjoy! They cried. Their faces exuberant, their cheeks fat, their eyes glistened. The laughter, the songs, the disbelief as their life there only got better and better. Never would they have to face a winged harper dropping arrows on them as they tried to cross a narrow path. Never would they have to eat the flesh of the dead. All their sacrifices paid off. Heaven offered them this…
But Neo understood that the rewards they asked of him had nothing to do with the journey. He saw the truth. No suffering caused the New Promised Land. The knights once dour and mean now looked giddy in the sunlight. They wrapped arms around their comrades, hugged them, frolicked in the grass to chase rabbits.
“Yes, Lord Neo. Tell us what you discovered in that palace!”
“Men, there’s a sorceress who lives there. She created the New Promised Land.”
They hoorayed.
“Long live the sorceress and her New Promised Land. Thank you, oh Sorcoress. How you saved us from a life of despair.”
“The thing about that…” Neo started. The knights settled down.
“The thing about what? Go ahead, Lord Neo. Whatever you say, we will attest to it.”
“She says… that you are all needed for a great battle.”
“What? A battle? Who? Who would dare threaten such a paradise?”
“She wouldn’t say who. Just that someday a threat will emerge. And we are to take arms and uphold the New Promised Land.
Way up on top of the palace the sorceress couldn’t stop laughing.
Neo marched back to his tent. It felt good to have solid ground under his feet. But it gave way under him, and he slid down. His men helped him back up and walked him to his camp.
“You know, it’s all that flying. Messes with depth perception. Your mind cannot find the ground. Your body did.”
The knights gathered around as the stars came out. They looked to the outskirts. Where Baldwin rode out to keep them from harassing the villagers.
“The threat? Who else could they mean?”
-
The next morning. Baldwin saw not one, not two, but a hundred jet streams entered the horizon like a new star being born. They swooped in crossing formations, to fly in tandem towards the surface of the planet. Fred bowed when he saw them. Baldwin tightened his belts, strapped his buckles, sheathed his sidearms, and lifted his spear to his shoulder. Before he left, he took the alicorn and strapped it around his neck. Then he recovered the dagger from the crypt he used to see its horn off. The blood dagger. It looked so dull, and ordinary. But its power within had been unleashed in the distant past. He flew the Snail banner from the head of his spear, and he rode off to the New Promised Land.
The knights there were already furious at him, and when they heard Fred trotting across the grounds they all ran out with their axes over their heads.
“Fools. A false heaven damns us all.”
“Heretic! Defialer! You’ve come to corrupt the New Promised Land!”
Baldwin rode through them and Fred charged faster than before.
He charged into Neo’s camp. Neo stood, deeply troubled in thought.
Baldwin showed them all the Valkyrie’s racing through space to reach them.
Neo whispered to Baldwin.
“I couldn’t tell them. But you can. Go into the palace. Find the red machine. Destroy it.”
Baldwin nodded.
Baldwin rode off again striking men with his spear and trampling others. He barged inside with Fred, and they raced up the stairs. The knights charged in after him. They cursed his name and cursed the banner of the snail. Fred, the saviest of horses, took careful gallops around the ruined steps. He leapt over collapsing floors, leaned against the wall where the tower bent so they could maneuver over a strip of brick to reach the next floor. The knights below didn’t dare to chase him over the hazards, so they fired shots up the palace. The bullets bounced around and struck Baldwin and struck Fred.Some got stuck in the armor, one or two struck directly and penetrated his already damaged armor. Blood trickled down his arm, but he rode upwards. Another bullet struck Fred in the hind leg. The horse didn’t lose his concentration. He saw danger before it showed its face. That’s one good horse.
He smashed the screens with his fist and with the pommel of his sword. The knight guards assembled to block him from entering the bedchamber. She charged into them with his spear and struck them with it until it splintered into a staff, then he hit them some more. By the time they lay defeated on the floor, the spear had been reduced to a fork. Their armors lay broken on the floor. He drew his sidearm and impaled the men within, then lifted their bodies up to drop on the knights below. One by one they dropped and the knights fled the palace.
Once then did he notice the amount of blood spilling from his wounds. The bottom half of his helmet was so bloody that he could taste it on his lips through the slots. His shirt was soaked. His chainmail turned red. He fell down to his knees but Fred bit him by the belt and pulled him back up. They entered the bedchamber together, both sidearms drawn.
The sorceress saw him and she floated down to greet him.
“If you do what you are thinking of doing, this place will become unstable. It might stay, it might change, it might be destroyed.”
Baldwin ignored her and marched over to the red screen with the needle shooting a red ray into the sky. He plunged his sword inside. Sparks and flames rode up his arm. His tunic caught fire. The sword melted. He shoved it in deeper, until it hit a beating heart within. He then clashed his second sidearm against the needle. The red star faded away. At once the ground rumbled. He chopped at the cables connected to the brains of the people there. The sun rumbled and fell beneath the stars. Yet its light remained. The phoenix crashed to the ground and burned up, and was not reborn. The fruits rotted, and the air swarmed with flies as they gathered at the creeks where the grapes fell and decomposed. The knight outside watched in horror.
“Neo, what’s happening? Tell us what needs to be done?”
“Curse Baldwin! He is the destroyer of the New Promised Land! Breaker of his Oaths! Lost soul destined to serve the demons of hell!”
Neo told them to take up arms and face the Valkyries.
“My Lord, that’s like telling a man to wrestle the moon.”
“It’s what we are born to do. Knights, we marched into the jaws of death before and survived. Now let's ride into heaven with charge to be remembered for all time!”
But the knights looked sadly at the frost on the leaves of grass. The happy trees began to fall over. Some parts became black as night, others the sun shined so bright that it erased the grime on the rocks. The creeks dried up, and the animals ran for shelter.
In some parts, thorny rose bushes developed so fast that the knights couldn’t escape, while other parts withered away and blew to dust.
The knights looked up at the Valkyries in the sky. They fled down the fields and into the village. They hid behind the folks and used them as human shields. Stormclouds gathered over them.
-
One hundred Valkyries halted at the ridge of the atmosphere. Himinvodra with her chrome helmet spoke.
“Hridmadra will be the first to land. The rest follow her.”
Hrimadra flew ahead of the others with the stormmace. When she swung it, it dropped a hurricane down on the New Promised Land.
-
Baldwin and Fred exited the palace. At once the freezing wind caught them. It blew trees out by the root and turned the grape fields over. An impossible geometry of light formed over the sky. A laser beam shot down and focused on the knights hiding in the village. Baldwin mounted Fred, recovered the Snail banner, and rode out to the village.
The villagers wanted to flee but the knights wouldn’t let them. They held people tight against them. They cursed the Valkyrie and when they saw Baldwin approach they jeered him as the cause of the destruction.
Lightning pelted the land, lit the trees on fire, lit the palace on fire. It struck knights running for their lives and cut them in half. Baldwin rode against the wind. Fred was fearless in the face of danger. First in the freezing cold rain. Then in a pelt of hail that dented Baldwin’s armor. The Valkyre’s wings appeared. Baldwin dismounted, and told Fred to wait.. But the horse followed him loyally. Baldwin had half a sword left, and the dagger.
He tied the horse to a pillar under the room of the unfinished brewery, and entered the storm. Current. Fred neighed for Baldwin to return and cut him loose, but Baldwin ignored him. He went out carrying the banner of the warrior snail.
Baldwin stood in the middle of the laser beam. Between the Valkyrie and the village. He felt it’s heat burn his armor. He felt his grip around the sword numb as frost covered the pommel, hilt, and gauntlet. Her wings appeared over the break in the clouds where a sliver of day light penetrated. Baldwin couldn’t let go of his broken sword. The wind deafened him. The light blinded one eye. He ran the blade of the dagger on the blood running down his armor.
It looked like a dull old blade, but when soaked in a knight’s blood, it transformed into a javelin. He saw the Valkyrie’s dewinging lance glimmer. Her warcry echoed across the land as she descended at the speed of light. She broke through the atmosphere. She broke through the clouds. She saw the target below her.
Baldwin hurled the Javelin.
It launched against the laser beam, splitting its light in half. The Valkyrie knew something was wrong but she had no time to deflect it. She tilted to avoid it, but it struck her where the wing meets the shoulder. Her course changed, and she landed hard on the ground. The impact created a fog of debris that covered the New Promised Land in raw soil. She bounced from the crater unscathed, her armor unblemished, her lance tight in both hands as she vaulted towards Baldwin.
The storm ended. He held out his broken sword, and gripped it with both hands. The Valkyrie used her lance to blow him off balance and strike him with darts of electricity. The darts exploded when they hit him, blowing holes in his hauberk, his sheaves, his shoulder pads, the top of his helmet. Locks of graying black hair rolled out.
Baldwin raised his sword again and pointed it at her. With one burst of her lance, the remaining blade and his gauntlets shattered into pieces. He still gripped the hilt, and he swung it like a hammer, making contact against her lance. When he did that the pommel cracked and he felt the steel blow up in his hands. With one last move, he stepped into distance, and in full witness of the village and the knights, became the first Knight to touch a Valkyrie. He grabbed her by her chest plate by the two fingers he had left, lifted her up. Her wings beat so hard that he lifted into the air with her.
The force was so strong that he swallowed his tongue. It was so cold that frost covered his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. With one quick slice, the lance had impaled him, and then she hurled him back to the ground.
Baldwin lay on the ground watching the Valkyries lined up in the sky. The villages and knights fled. Some place safe, he hoped.
Hridmadra landed on a slope where the freezing cold helped to heal her wounds. The javelin strike caused a cut on her shoulder. No Valkyrie had before been harmed by a mortal. She watched Baldwin on the ground.
Baldwin struggled to get up, but fell again. His bones were broken. His armor had fallen apart. His hands were gone. His eyes peered out of the visor of his helmet. He saw the palace before him. He dreamt he was walking inside.
He remembered a time when he entered the hall of his beloved lord. The first battle, when he earned his knighthood. He reached out to touch it, to see if it was real. As blood pooled in his skull, and his brains started leaking, he was walking there again. Surrounded by noble lords, friends, and battle companions. His lord welcomed him with wine and bread. He knelt there on the court floor.
Neo watched helplessly from his camp. The Valkyries waited for Hridmadra to return so they could finish off the rest. Baldwin twitched on the ground. By some miracle, he stood up again. No one followed him. He took a few paces towards the palace, then crawled up the steps, then stood inside, where he finally collapsed.
Hridmadra launched from the mountain, her shoulder now stronger than before. She tore through the canopy. Her wings flung the knights around Neo through the walls and into the mud. She faced Neo.
“I am Hridmadra. Your knights were warned not to come here. You were never meant to be reborn.” She scowled at him. Her armor reflected his face.
“Good Valkyrie, I was misled. The mechanism that made this place is now destroyed. There is no more need to slay us. Fly to the top of the palace, and take it back to your general.”
She vaulted off, a ray of light arched as he hopped on the burning roof of the palace. The sorceress warned that if she took the mechanism, that the red star would vanish, and the paradise would become a land of ruin.
Hridmadra grabbed it and soared out, leaving the Sorceress trapped in the burning palace.
Fred broke free of his tether and rushed to the palace floor. He nudged Baldwin’s body. He picked pieces of broken armor up in his mouth and tried to put them back on his body. He didn’t move to re assemble the suit like he always did.
Fred neighed and ran off towards the frozen mountain. He raced up the slopes, broke through the snow drifts, until he found the Valkyrie cleaning her gear and preparing for ascent. As she lifted back up, it created a rainbow bridge that went beyond the stars Fred followed it to Valhalla.
-
The New Promised Land felt cold. Neo covered himself in a blanket. Snow fell over the land. The sun had risen. But it brought no warmth. It was quiet. Not even the sound of wind. It didn’t look like something made up for theatre. It looked like the rest of the world. Real.
Neo cried as he looked over the raptured land. He saw the wounded knight get up. Richard the Orc. He reached down, and pulled a man out of the mud. Together they stood, held each other, and washed each other's wounds. Behind them, a pole with the Snail Banner fluttered.
THE END
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