Enlightened Empire

Chapter 337: Felian Northdale, Really Trying to Keep it Together

In the humid air, a little creature flapped its wings and flew around in an erratic pattern. As always when its instincts didn’t draw it to a mate, it was in its eternal search for food. Then, something attracted the creature, a smell it enjoyed, and a warmth it could not resist. The creature flew towards the warmth, and landed, ready to feast.

BAM!

Felian smacked the bug off his hand. With a grimace, he looked at the nasty stain it had left behind, a fitting metaphor for this entire, god-forsaken island.

From the window of the room, he could hear the countless strange noises caused by the endless dark green where the bug had come from. Beyond these walls was what the locals called the green underworld, their version of a hell. After spending almost twenty days on this island, Felian could tell why. The evidence lay right before him.

“How are you feeling, Adjutant Arlon?”

Although he had worded it like a question, he could already tell from the man’s sallow complexion that he wasn’t in a great state. While his adjutant hadn’t looked too bad when he had returned from the jungle for the first time, he was sweating all over now, shivering, his face riddled with red and yellow spots where the endless bugs of the island had taken pieces of his flesh. Despite his sorry state, the man rose up from his sweat-soaked bed, his eyes flitting with panic.

“Sir, we need to leave this place,” His voice was pure panic, either for himself, or for the fellow men who were still healthy, but would be sent into the island’s heart today. However, Felian remained cold-hearted.

“And lose the war? That won’t be happening.”

As his hand ran across the scabbed wound along the left side of his neck, he thought back to Duke Herak’s mood during his last visit in central Medala. If it hadn’t been for his quick tongue, his lord may have beheaded him as soon as he dared to declare the battle on Yua Island lost. Although the knight wasn’t fully privy to the duke’s plans, it seemed like fulfilling his orders to Herak’s satisfaction had been an important part in them. Since suppression of the Green Island was an important part of the duke’s strategy, Felian had to try his damnedest, no matter the cost. He wasn’t ready to disappoint his lord again. In truth, he couldn’t afford to.

“We cannot conquer this island. No one can,” Arlon insisted. He had no idea what Felian was thinking, and had no idea about Duke Herak’s plans. All he knew was that a few short days on the island had left him in a horrible condition. However, no matter how much the man suffered, Felian had no pat of retreat and couldn’t shrink back from danger. Even if he were the one lying in bed right now, he would still have to give the same orders.

“There’s no need to conquer anything,” he said, trying to make their orders seem easier than they were. “All we need to do is busy our enemies for some time, while Duke Herak’s plan comes together. We can handle a few days in the forest.”

“However-”

Again, the man tried to rise, but Felian pushed his upper body back into the bedding.

“Lie down, Adjutant Arlon,” he said in a firm tone of order. “Take a rest and recover to health as soon as possible. Until then, there is no need for you to bother about the war. I will take care of everything, and shoulder both the burden, and the blame, should it be necessary.”

With a heavy heart, Felian left the adjutant’s private tent and stepped out into their makeshift camp. Over the past few days, they had at least managed to set up a half-decent wall around their tents, so Felian still couldn’t see the deadly jungle from here. However, hiding wouldn’t do him any good. There was work to be done, and it was waiting for him beyond these walls. Thus, he made his way outside, while he thought about the potential dangers they may face on this island.

From all the threats they had encountered in their first twenty days in this place, the signs weren’t good. Apart from the endless bugs who loved to feed on the flesh of visitors, daylight never shone within these islands. The trees fought each other for sparse sunlight, so they hugged into an unbroken canopy that blotted out the sun even just ten feet inland from the sandy beaches.

Although they had built a makeshift camp on the beach, which they planned to expand into a proper fortress, the shadows close-by meant that they were never truly safe. Their enemies could roll an entire battery of cannons into range without them noticing.

Of course they had tried to clear the forest as well, but the shrubbery and trees were dense, and complicated. It could take them a year to create a clearing so wide that their cannon balls couldn’t reach the end, and only if their enemies wouldn’t interrupt their work, which seemed inevitable.

From a defensive perspective, this place was a nightmare. This nightmare was only exacerbated by the endless howling of the large creatures inside, bizarre beasts of all shapes and sizes. In the first days after their arrival, his fellow knights had foolishly considered these beasts a welcome distraction. Unlike the insects which had been hated from the start, the exotic creatures had been considered trophies to be earned.

Most of the arcavian knights under Felian’s command had been eager to enter this hell, to prove their power in front of their peers. Whether it was ambition or vanity that drove them, Felian had been more cautious, and hadn’t joined their folly. The outcomes of their excursions had proven him right. Of the many who had entered the jungle with shiny armor and cocked hunting rifles, only few ever returned. The ones who did were worn down both in spirit and in body.

Some had been poisoned by tiny, colorful creatures and came to a violent, painful end. Others were missing limbs, somehow crawling back to their base camp before they were ended by the blood loss. Before one man’s death, he told feverish stories of mysterious, black demons that lurked in the shadows and hunted for people.

Others still seemed fine at first, but were later taken away by the mysterious illness that the locals called the ‘jungle curse’. Adjutant Arlon was the latest example of this group, though at least it seemed like he may survive the curse, unlike some of his fellow knights.

While Felian thought about the consequences of his decision to fight their decisive battle against the Green Island in this place, he left the north-facing gate and traveled along the wall to the east, which was the only area where his men had already begun to clear trees. Along the way, the impenetrable jungle was always to his left, a stark reminder of his own guilt, as well as the arrogance of the knights who had traveled inside and experienced its horror.

These days, no one in their expedition would be dumb enough to enter the jungle again, not as a form of leisure. Even so, many didn’t have a choice and still needed to face the threats of the green underworld. With worry, Felian marched over to the twenty individual ten-man commando teams who had assembled on the eastern clearing in front of the jungle.

The teams were split into two distinct camps, who kept far away from one another. Fifteen of the groups were sent by various allies, like the Colored Kings, as well as some forces from Medala. After the mess they had caused in their last big battle, and with their general show of haughtiness and arrogance, Felian couldn’t care less about them.

However, the remaining five teams were his fellow countrymen, and also men directly under his control. Those, he had to care for, not only because it was part of his duties, but also because he felt responsible for their lives and deaths, something he hadn’t taken good care of these days.

His face firmed up as he approached, and his worried frown disappeared. With his stony face and stiff posture, he looked like a stern, uncompromising arcavian noble, what most back home would consider a reliable leader. After all, the least he could do was pretend like he was still confident in his plans, and give his men some peace of mind before he sent them to their deaths.

As he closed in, the murmurs from the soldiers reduced, and the men stood up straight. Once he stood before them, he waited for an almost uncomfortable amount of time to build the tension, before he bellowed out the speech he had prepared throughout the past few days.

“Listen up!” he shouted as he walked up and down the rows of knights. “I know you must be uneasy, or frightened! Before you stands this nasty green wall, and behind it the unknown, fear itself!”

Although some of the men seemed indignant at his opening words, he only had to look in their eyes, where he saw the truth plain as day. Yes, they were scared, and rightfully so. What he had to do now, was make them forget their fear, and replace it with something stronger.

“But can you shrink in the face of danger?” he continued. “Dare you, with the gaze of Arcavus upon you? Among all the men of Borna, you are the elite of the elite! That’s why you were sent to the distant Occident, to fight for the kingdom’s prosperity. And it’s also why you are here, on this nameless island in the middle of nowhere, to overcome the kingdom’s harshest enemies. I will not make long speeches about our goals in this battle. You all know why we are here! You were there on Yua, when we were outflanked and out-thought, and had to run off like wet dogs. It’s a true shame for us to lose to them, to those ordinary people who have taken up arms for the Medalans. When Arcavus looks down on us, what does he see but a band of losers, who do not deserve to sit even on the very end of his table?”

As Felian looked around again, he saw that most knights had forgotten all about their earlier unease. After his insults and threats, they were all annoyed, bitter, or angry, just what he needed to rekindle their fire and let them die for him.

“But over the last days, with the failures of the greatest among you, you have seen the nature of this jungle,” he continued, as he pointed at the looming trees not far in the distance.

“Just imagine, what mysteries and dangers does this forest contain within, what can they do to a man? Your rifle weapons are useless, as are our cannons. Surrounded by leaves, you will be lucky to see beyond your own hand, while mystical beasts lurk around every corner. You will have to fight a melee, but not only against beasts. Not only you will be entering this place. The enemy commoners have landed on the other side of the island, and plan to face you one on one in its very heart. This time, there are two great threats to overcome, an enemy we have lost to before, and the forces of nature. You know what that means? It means that we are very lucky, you and I. Arcavus has granted us a chance to redeem ourselves. So long as you can overcome your fear, and face the threats inside with a clear mind, will you do worse than the commoners?”

He belted his final question across the troops.

“No!” they replied in one voice.

“With your strength, will those commoners find you in the dense jungle before you can find them?”

“No!”

“Do you think they will defeat you without their rifles, one on one and surrounded by trees?”

“No!”

“I admit, the lands before you are dangerous, they are deadly. But you are the proud sons of Arcavus, the great god who could rip out trees when he was still a mere child. What is a little forest before you? Whatever horror you fear within it, the simple commoners on the other side will be hurt ten times more by it. And yet, our goal is not even to defeat our foes. All we need to do is outlast them, to dare venture into the forest longer than them. As those who are stronger, faster, and greater than our enemies, do we really not have their stomach? Will we retreat from this dark place before they do?”

“No!”

“Then show me. Go inside, and prove that you are worthy. And once you exit on the other side, and drive our foes off the islands, you all will be heroes. Your lost honor restored, your pockets full of gold, and the eyes of Arcavus upon your great feat. Now go forth, and show them what true knights are made of.”

Although the men weren’t shouting with excitement after Felian’s speech, their eyes were glimmering in anticipation of the future, as if they could already see their glory hiding within the dark shadows of the jungle. As the small teams walked past Felian one by one, he wished them good luck and cautioned them to be careful, but some of them were barely listening, shaking all over their bodies. They didn’t shake from fear, but from excitement.

With a sigh, Felian looked on as their backs were swallowed up by the dark green hell. Would he ever see any of them again? If yes, how many? And what special hell would await himafter his death, the man who had made them so eager to enter this place and throw their lives away? He truly didn’t know, but he hoped that Arcavus would forgive him for his transgressions.