Totentanz

Prologue

Warning: contains violence, gore, and temporary character death.

There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go. -- J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

The kingdom was prepared when the monsters attacked again. Defeating them and driving them back for the third time was an easy task. Soon the last monster's corpse was burnt and the wards were repaired again.

No one expected the next invasion to come from their neighbouring kingdom. No one expected the new invaders to be other humans.

The king and queen of Avallot had just made their first public appearance after spending the invasion fighting at the head of the army. The common people were just beginning to pick up the pieces, rebuild their homes, and go on with their lives. As for the mist-shrouded Laoivere Mountains and the school of magic built somewhere amidst them, who knew what was happening there? Only magicians and magicians-in-training could find their way through the mist. The school's teachers had retreated back behind their wards as soon as the kingdom was safe. And the Great Mage Guireth-melaðr-hremón[1] had disappeared into Sólbjǫrgvegr[2] after slaying the largest monster.

On one side Avallot bordered the sea. The monsters crawled through a hole in the sky, a gap between the realms, directly above the beaches. Some were said to have taken up residence beneath the water. To the north and west were the impossibly tall Laoiveres. And to the south was the kingdom of Miavain.

It happened so suddenly. A horde of people came up from Miavain. People who walked for miles without stopping. People who took no notice of anything around them. People who acted more like walking corpses than real live people. They swept across Avallot in less than a day, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake. Buildings and fences were no obstacle to them. If they couldn't climb over them, they would smash them to pieces with inhuman strength. They followed the lead of a man in green armour riding an eight-legged horse.

They only stopped when they reached the capital. None of the crowd sat down or showed any signs of tiredness. None of them paid any attention to the angry complaints of the people whose houses and businesses they'd destroyed. None of them followed their leader into the royal palace.

Queen Lanlinn was waiting for him with her sword in her hand.

"Who are you and what do you want?" she demanded.

The knight didn't raise his visor. His voice filtered out, strangely distorted by the metal. "Light the eagle flare."

Lanlinn laughed in his face. "I can defeat an enemy army without summoning a Great Mage."

"I have no quarrel with you or your kingdom. My quarrel is only with Guireth-melaðr-hremón." Perhaps it was only the helmet, but Lanlinn had never heard an anganedted sound so much like a curse. "This army with me is entirely under my command. They have no thought except what I tell them to think. And unless Guireth-melaðr-hremón comes here in person, I will tell them to kill everyone in this city. Then everyone in the surrounding countryside. On and on, until there is no one left alive in this kingdom. So I repeat: light the eagle flare."

The royal palace had twelve flares in the light-tower. Each summoned one of the twelve Great Mages. Guireth-melaðr-hremón was associated with eagles, and so the one to attract her attention was called the eagle flare. Lanlinn lit it while the green knight stood by. Any normal man would have taken his helmet off long ago. Armour was neither comfortable nor meant to be worn for hours on end -- except in a battle, of course. Yet he made no move to remove it. If the heat and stale air bothered him, it was impossible to tell.