believe it or not through the narines chaos i DIDNT forget about the prompts i asked from you guys, so here's the monster attack on the green castle (@ahurumustdie asked for this and yes this is the other thing that was SUPPOSED to be ready for your bday but. i hate action scenes with every part of my body and only remembered that when id already dedicated myself to it. sorry)
monster attack on the green castle (4.1k words):
Kiva's forces hugged the Green Castle in a spread of different coloured encampments, stretching entirely over the flatland of the grounds and encroaching onto the forest. Laira had been reluctant to house an army; the earth of the east was too damp to so much as pitch a tent successfully, let alone legions of them, and she didn’t have enough grounds even with the weather permitting. The solution to this, much to her dismay, was to cut down some of the forest to make room and use the wood to lay as foundations. It was sensible, and felled a negligible amount compared to the grand woodland covering almost all of the east, but Laira was unhappy with it all the same, and made her displeasure known.
Of course, she would not hear the alternative where Kiva’s army didn’t meet her here. The Harasaeons were in crisis and Laira demanded to see her kin before they entered the wolf's den of the north.
If Laira Vanushzu made a demand, there was little even the Queen of Burnos could do but agree.
Drako looked out at it all from a window in the Great Hall. Golden tents for the Harasaeons’ forces, their numbers even to that of the purple tents belonging to the Goldesters, and how ridiculous was that? The royal army was twenty thousand strong, yet barely a fraction were with them, not after Rin’s claim, not after the Head of the Queen’s Guard made her choice known. It was despicable, treacherous, but the rage in Drako’s blood served no one if he let it loose. He'd grown very good at swallowing back this sense of unfairness, this urge to scream at the entire bloody saga. What could he do but keep going forward? What could he do but stand at his mother’s side?
Rin would stand alone. This was what he chose, what he wanted. When had that happened? Where had Drako been?
“Sulking will not double the army,” Darya chirped, appearing at Drako’s side. She’d donned an overzealous sense of excitement about all the hubbub, barely hiding how unsettled she truly was. Few people would understand Rin’s betrayal like Darya would, and Drako found comfort in her now.
“I’m not sulking,” Drako mumbled, crossing his arms and glaring harder out the window. The Great Hall was empty aside their family; him, Darya, Kiva and Laira. Even Nebetta had made herself scarce after a brief but firm squeeze of his shoulder and a kiss to Darya’s cheek, though she had bowed to Kiva, lower than she’d been expected to in years. Few people would understand Rin’s betrayal, but loyalty existed here regardless of this fondness they all shared, once so bright, now a haunting they were learning to live with.
“Alright, please stop sulking, is that better?” Darya whined, pushing in front of him so he was forced to look at her. “They're talking about army rations, Drako. I'm bored out of my mind here.”
Drako glanced behind him to where Kiva and Laira were sat at the end of the long, oak table taking up the centre of the Great Hall, heads bowed over maps and diagrams and lists, ironing out the logistics of moving an army to the Kroi Mountains. Behind them, the fireplace crackled, spitting out sparks, the glow painting Kiva in shades of orange. She looked exhausted, crown dumped on the other end of the table, abandoned the moment Laira ordered all staff to leave them and swept Kiva into an ironlike hug. Drako had thought his mother looked very small like that, frightened like a child. He remembered Laira’s words, still ringing in his mind. For the first time since your oldest ancestor acceded the throne, the House of Harasaeon is divided. May the gods help us all.
He looked back to Darya, her silver eyes wilder than normal, desperate for him to latch onto her silly attempts at distraction. Drako sighed.
“You know, you will be the head of House Vanushzu one day,” he said, smiling a little. “It’s important you learn from such boring conversations.”
Darya scoffed. “No, when I am in charge, there will be no armies. I will live in my castle with Nebetta and read books and drink wine all day.”
“That sounds very realistic and mature,” Drako said with feigned seriousness.
“Yes," Darya agreed sagely. "I thought so too.”
They held eye contact a moment before breaking into laughter, and for a moment, he could convince himself that everything was normal. Nebetta had left to fetch Akila. Rin was sat by the fire with some boring text he’d already read a hundred times, speaking only to read them passages or tell them random facts, uncaring of whatever conversation he was interrupting. But when Drako turned slightly, it was only his mother and grandmother by the fire, and when they stopped laughing, the doors burst open to reveal a flustered messenger.
“Your Majesty!” the man, red-faced and sweating, cried. "I have a report of several creatures approaching us rapidly from the west!”
Kiva looked bewildered, and Laira was already on her feet, frowning deeply. “What kind of creatures?”
The messenger hesitated here, as if not entirely believing his own words. “I was told... I was told they are Barimus, my lady.”
“Barimus?” Kiva repeated.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the messenger nodded. “Reports of three of them leaving the western deserts began this morning. They haven’t attacked anyone, in fact they have actively avoided settlements. The Green Castle is directly in their current trajectory. It's believed... It’s believed they have been sent to hunt.”
Barimus were monsters from the sands of the Westlands, giant snakes the size of the palace towers and four rows of teeth each the length of a spear and able to shred even the toughest hide. Still, for their terrifying appearance, Professor Tai’s bestiary noted Barimus as unintelligent due to their hunting habits, which saw them latching onto a single scent at a time and blindly pursuing regardless of newer, easier prey that might emerge in the meantime. It was this behaviour that saw Samas Abalaoi begin researching into potentially harnessing the monsters. It was noted by Tai that once Barimus latched onto a scent, they were practically harmless to anyone and anything save the owner of the scent they were given. Samas argued this could be weaponised if wielded appropriately, but research was sluggish due to many being reluctant to so much as enter the deserts, let alone conduct thorough analysis.
If Barimus were headed this way, ignoring whatever settlements that lay before them, it could only mean one thing.
Samas had figured out how to harness the Barimus, and had given them a scent.
“We have an army here, we can-.”
“How far out are they?” Kiva cut Drako off, rising to turn the full weight of her purposeful stare onto the messenger.
“A-About twenty leagues, Your Majesty, but they are moving fast,” the messenger stammered.
“We can fight them. We have Dea,” Drako urged, but Kiva just held up a hand, not even looking at him.
“Thank you,” she offered a small smile to the messenger. “You did well to bring this to us as swiftly as you did. Please tell General Kahlu I want the entire army on the move in the next hour. The soldiers are to take only what they can carry and what hasn’t yet been unpacked from the carts. Stress the urgency of the situation.”
She wanted to retreat. They had an entire army here, and she wanted to retreat because of three monsters. Drako waited for the messenger to bow and scurry off before striding towards the table.
“Ama, what kind of order is that?!” he demanded.
“A smart one, Aduenus,” Kiva hissed. "We aren’t doing this now, I don’t have time.”
Darya placed a hand on his shoulder. “Drako, perhaps-.”
“No!” he yelled, shrugging her off and whirling on his mother again. “He chases us from our home, you let him. He takes your crown, you let him. He sends monsters after us, you let him. Why summon an army if all you do is run away?”
“This is not the same-.”
“Tell me how it differs!”
“They are monsters!” Kiva snapped, slamming a palm to the table separating them, before forcing herself to calm. “We know no way of defeating them, astenai. We have not defeated them, not in my lifetime nor my mother’s nor even my grandmother’s with all of Tai’s research at her disposal! This will not be won with numbers or swords or even Deata. It will be a massacre and I refuse to subject my soldiers to that.” She drew herself up tall, staring each of them down in turn before settling on Drako. “We will retreat. That is my order, as your mother and as your queen.”
Laira nodded her agreement, already coming to the same conclusion, and Darya left to find Nebetta. Drako felt himself going through the motions of the retreat, clapping hands with General Kahlu, giving orders to soldiers, being ushered forward with his mother, but it all felt very far away, like there was water in his ears. The retreat was logical, was the tactical thing to do, was what he himself would have called for had it been any other fight, but rage sung a death march in his blood, deafening any sensibility with its chorus. Herines did this. Herines was hunting them down.
He couldn’t believe it. His very body was rejecting it, had been for weeks now. It seemed his brother would force him into this realisation if he would not come to it himself. They always did push each other like no one else could.
As they crested a hill, the Green Castle now abandoned below them, Drako heard a distant, grating cry that shook the air, and it snapped him back to the present. His horse shuffled beneath him, spooked, and Drako once again cursed at being made to ride one. Somewhere above the clouds, Dea soared, keeping an eye out for them. He could feel her if he could not see her, and she was uneasy.
The Barimus were close. Too close.
This retreat was tactical, but not foolproof. If the Bariums were headed directly to them, it meant they had the scent of someone in their midst. Aside that, it was a dozen unknowns. At what point did Barimus give up an unsuccessful hunt? Would they follow them over the kingdom until they died of starvation? Who exactly were they after? Why had Rin conceded to Samas’ experimentation like this? For what end?
Drako’s skin crawled with the need to do something, and when the next Barimus cry – high-pitched and ending in a jarring hiss – sounded, he pulled his horse to a stop, rounding on where Kiva rode at his side.
“We’re too slow,” he pointed out.
“Slower yet if you insist on stopping,” she responded, brushing her horse close enough to subtly push him onwards. His horse, entirely disobedient to its master, simply went where it was pushed, stupid thing that it was.
“They will catch up,” Drako growled. “And if what we know of Barimus is true, who’s to say if they’ll ever stop? We're prolonging the inevitable.”
“If there is to be a battle,” Kiva said carefully, “I will not have it at the Green Castle. I intend to dissuade the monsters with the northern weather. If we can just reach Ainefirth before they reach us, I believe they will stop.”
Drako didn’t want to hear that, because it made sense. The Westlands were the hottest region of Burnos; why would monsters accustomed to that weather follow them into the bitter northern frost? Could they even survive it?
But he didn’t want to plan. He didn’t want to think. He craved, desperately, the blind, burning release that came with a fight. He wanted his muscles to ache with each swing of his sword as he buried it into something, wanted to feel each limb answer his call with precision and effortlessness, wanted to win.
Usually when he got like this, he pictured a faceless combatant, chasing more the high of the fight than any individual retribution, but as they rode onwards, Drako pictured fighting Rin.
He wanted – childishly, stupidly, thoughtlessly – to punch his brother in the face.
Dea surged down suddenly, Drako’s stomach rolling with the descent like he was riding her after all, and he snapped his head in her direction before she’d even broken the cloud cover. It only took her a few tiks to land heavily a little ways ahead of them, neck and tail stretching out until she was cutting off the length of the army, black scales rippling with caution as gold eyes settled on something in the distance, and she let out a low growl.
“Drako...?” Kiva started, pulling her horse to a stop to frown over at him.
Drako narrowed his eyes. Something was wrong. Dea had spotted something. He was certain of it like he’d been the one to see it, and he dismounted his horse to jog towards her. Her eyes didn’t break from the horizon, but she lowered her head to let him dig his fingers into her thick hide. At this size, even with her chin to the floor, Drako only came eye-level with her teeth, something that unsettled most people even if they stood far more distanced than Drako ever did.
Her growling increased in intensity, and then a lone rider emerged on the hill ahead of them.
He wore the golden insignia of the Harasaeons, but Dea pawed the ground like she wanted no more than for Drako to allow her to pounce. This rider was not one of their number.
Drako told Kiva so much and her gaze narrowed, but she stayed silent.
No one moved as the rider, a man wearing the versatile leathers and slacks of a messenger, paused as close as possible without being in direct range of Dea’s bared teeth. Drako made no move to pull her back, glaring at the rider from her side.
“I have a message from the capital!” the man called out into the heavy silence. It was an especially frowned upon act of war to kill a messenger, but there still came risk, and the man’s chest was heaving as he stared down an army.
“Speak,” Kiva ordered. “You are protected under Burnosian law.”
The messenger visibly sighed in relief, before pulling a scroll from his pouch and beginning to read.
“By order of His Royal Majesty King Herines of Burnos, Grand Lord of the Royal House of Harasaeon, Sarra of the Four Corners and Kiren’s Hook, Father of Snakes, Serpent of the Burnapsu, I sentence Deata, the Namaya, Aineanum of the Father of Dragons, to death by Barimus.”
Their army was three thousand strong, those on horseback riding in formation and pulling carts, the footsoldiers disappearing behind the hills, the earth torn to shreds beneath so many feet as they marched to this sudden standstill, yet when the messenger finished speaking, everything was deathly silent. It shouldn’t have been possible with so many people, yet Drako could hear nothing but the blood rushing in his ears, pouring into his thoughts until he could see nothing but red.
Herines had... King Herines, as he had crowned himself, stealing their mother’s title while she still breathed... He had ordered for Dea to be... He’d sent those monsters... He was trying to kill her. Rin was trying to kill Dea. His brother was trying to kill his aineanum.
In a moment of hysteria, Drako’s mind spat out a memory of Nate, how nonchalant he was about Dea, how fundamentally he didn’t understand the bond Drako shared with her. She was just a pet, in his eyes. Even many nobles of Kusig didn’t entirely comprehend what it was to have an aineanum, didn’t understand that they shared a soul bond, Drako’s conscience existing within Dea’s, hers within his. Every emotion an echo, bouncing back, a shared sentiment, no love or hatred experienced alone.
To kill a Harasaeon’s aineanum was to kill them. In fact, it was considered worse. A dead Harasaeon was a dead Harasaeon, but a Harasaeon without an aineanum was a ghost, cursed to fade away into a dishonourable, slow, agonisingly lonely death. It was frustrating when people then could not understand why Dea was so important to Drako, but he couldn’t resent it. It was something only the Harasaeons had ever experienced. They understood. That was enough.
For Herines to do this when he knew what it meant...
He would have to hate Drako. More than hate. More than any human emotion. There weren’t words for this level of contempt. His brother, who he had grown with, learned with, become a person with, had done this to him.
The Barimus cried out once more, much closer than before. They'd wasted too much time here. The Green Castle was still in view from the hills, and if Drako squinted, he could see three shapes moving forward. They moved erratically, slithering like any other snake would but rearing their gaping mouths to shred the earth in their way, used to more malleable, sandy environments. They were big, bigger than Dea was as she stood now.
But Deata was a morriga dragon, the namaya, and could grow larger still.
Everything stopped all at once as Drako swung up onto Dea’s back, the mount so familiar, so right, easy as breathing. The rush of blood in his ears cut off into a silence so sudden it was violent, a breath held and kept past the point of suffocation. There was no wind, no whisper, no weight. Dea changed, growing and growing until Drako could no longer straddle her, holding instead with one hand onto a protruding spike, feet finding more hidden in her hide, and he looked down at the army far, far below.
“Drako, no!” Kiva yelled, panicked, horrified, the only other person in the kingdom who understood. “He wants Dea to fight them! Don't do this! If you lose her-.”
“Go!” Drako barked, Dea’s great wings already beating against the air to launch them upwards with enough force that the first three lines of the army staggered back, some falling from their horses. He couldn’t hear the end of that sentence, couldn’t even consider it. His skin itched with violence and rage the likes of which he’d never felt before, not even in Stainside. It terrified him. He revelled in it, the wind biting his face as they flew directly to the monsters.
The closer he got, the more Drako could make them out. Their eyes were slit, blinking with four different eyelids, a horrific yellow colour that narrowed on Dea the moment they saw her approach, the first Barimus rearing back like a cobra ready to bite. They collided right in front of the gates of the Green Castle and Drako thought, distantly, that Laira would probably yell at him for this.
Dea barrelled into the monster, jaws hinging open wide enough that she was able to tear its head off with one single bite. Blood doused Drako like he’d just stood beneath a waterfall, hot and choking, and his hands slipped from their grip, but he let it happen when he saw the second Barimus lunging for Dea’s unprotected side. He pushed his heels into her and launched himself at the monster, sword already drawn, and buried it to the hilt into the top of its neck. Gravity was desperately yanking him down, in a battle against the tough hide of the Barimus, and Drako held on desperately, refusing to let go, refusing to lose to this beast that wanted to take Dea from him. The Barimus roared in pain when the sword began to slice down with Drako’s fall, its entire neck vibrating with the sound and seeking only to further drag Drako down. He yelled with the monster, a cry of utter rage, the blood dripping down his face getting in his mouth, and he pushed the sword harder, finally cutting the soft insides and beginning to fall in earnest.
He cleaved the Barimus open, guts spilling out onto the grass with a disgusting splashing sound, and before Drako could even worry about falling, Dea was swooping beneath him and catching him, weaving around the collapsing body of the dead Barimus and darting at the third and final one. Drako shouted again, incomprehensible noise like an animal, desperate to release the pressure crushing him, to feel some escape from all this blood, but the sound was lost to the wind and the competition of such colossal beasts crashing into one another.
Dea caught the Barimus with her claws, shredding its eyes from its skull. While it was blinded, Drako leapt forward with his sword, cutting one of its great, piercing teeth from its jaw before it could dig into Dea’s wing, bloody gum still hanging from it. In his hands, it was the length of his torso and heavy enough to put him out of the fight if he wished to hold on to it. It was no matter, because Dea reared back and with a great breath, fire poured from her mouth, bright orange and furious, and the Barimus was helpless to do anything but burn, writhing in agony before twitching to stillness.
Drako didn’t know how long the fight had taken. It had felt like mere tiks, but his chest was heaving, clothes stained red, and there wasn’t an inch of his skin that wasn't covered in blood. It dripped from his hair, blinked into his vision, made his one-handed hold on Dea slippery as she took them back to the army.
No one spoke, staring slack jawed at their bloody prince, the guts still hanging from Dea’s teeth.
The messenger had dismounted in his horror, grip white-knuckled on his horse’s reigns, and Drako jumped from Dea’s back, landing easily to march towards the messenger and dump the Barimus tooth at his feet, blood splattering up the man’s boots.
“Take this to Herines,” Drako said, tone gravelly with exertion. “And tell him this: if he truly wishes for a death between us, I will arrange his myself.”
The messenger stammered helplessly, terror in his eyes, terror of Drako, and some cruel part of Drako revelled in it.
“Y-Yes, Your Highness!” the man finally managed to say, bowing jerkily before grabbing the tooth, too hurried to even wince at the gummy flesh attached to it, stuffing it in his largest saddle pack. He looked like he couldn’t get back on his horse quick enough, giving it a sharp kick to the ribs and galloping away like if he stuck around Drako might change his mind on allowing the man to live. Drako scoffed at the thought. He needed the man to tell everyone. He needed Herines to know exactly what happened here.
Drako had dithered. He'd wanted to defend his brother, to find some reasonable explanation for all of this where love still existed between them, but today, Rin made his position known. He wanted the crown far more than he cared for Drako, and he was willing to sever the most sacred of bonds if it ensured his rule. Between Harasaeon and aineanum. Between maatui. The remains stained the grass where Drako stood, dripping, choking on the smell. He knew what he told that messenger, but the truth existed here, plain as the glistening blood beneath the sunlight.
There had already been a death between Herines and Adeunus Harasaeon. It would rot in the heat, gather flies and maggots, and its bones would be trampled by three thousand soldiers, crushed to dust like it never even mattered. Perhaps it didn’t.
-----
Hidden behind a crumbled castle wall, freshly escaped from their cell in the chaos of the army’s sudden retreat, Gi and Lilla stood entirely frozen. Gi remained expressionless as ever, save for the slightly widened state of her eyes and the way she’d cocked her head slightly at the three dead Barimus now in concerning proximity to them, but Lilla wore her awe plainly, mouth hanging open. She wasn’t sure if she’d blinked since Drako split one of the monsters open with little more than a sword and unadulterated rage.
They needed to move. Without the threat of the monsters, there was a chance the army might return, or even just send some riders to fetch the prisoners they’d certainly realise sooner or later had been forgotten. Lilla was still a little bitter about that, but it was a distant feeling, overwhelmed by the recurring thought of what the actual fuck just happened.
Gi sighed. “Nate will never believe us.”
“Not in a thousand years,” Lilla agreed.
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