Northern
Cryolume Forest - Five Weeks Later
The
cryolume forest hums faintly around them, an endless cathedral of
glass-white trunks and bioluminescent frost that pulses softly in the
stillness. The air is brittle, dry, and cold enough to sting the
lungs with every breath. Their boots crunch through the snow, sending
quiet shockwaves through the crystalline undergrowth.
Spartan
walks ahead, her black and crimson armor faintly glimmering in the
pale cyan light. Beside her, towering and broad, Rho Voss trudges
with heavy steps. His armor is darker still, vantablack plates
swallowing the reflected light entirely. A massive pelt is thrown
over his shoulders, frost already clinging to the fur.
Spartan
speaks through their encrypted link, her voice a steady pulse against
the white noise of the forest. "We'll link up with the others at
camp. Belqartis killed a hornbeast earlier." She glances
sidelong at him. "If we're lucky, it's still fresh."
Rho
grunts, a low, wordless sound of approval that vibrates through the
comms.
"It's
been weeks since we've all been in the same place," Spartan
continues, her breath fogging faintly against her cracked visor. "I
think they've all forgotten what a proper fire looks like. Even
Naburiel's been quiet. Probably sulking somewhere under a glacier."
Rho
gives another grunt, this one almost a laugh.
Spartan
smirks. "Yeah, I know. You hate the cold more than he does.
We're almost there."
Then,
ping.
A
small, bright notification flashes in the corner of her HUD. The
glyph of the General Supreme burns briefly, then resolves into text:
New message from Magnus Tiberius.
Spartan
opens it mid-stride.
MAGNUS:
[A
transmission came in from Lucius. Forwarding to you now. Take your
time with it.]
Spartan's
brow furrows slightly. She slows, the crunch of snow beneath her
boots the only sound.
The
video opens automatically, taking up a quarter of her vision,
semi-transparent, floating against the forest's pallid backdrop. The
image stabilizes on Lucius Marcellus. He sits alone at his desk, the
dim lighting carving tired lines across his face. The usual poise in
his posture is gone; his eyes are shadowed, expression solemn.
"Spartan,
Supreme," he begins quietly, voice rough from lack of sleep.
"I'll start with some good news."
He
leans forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
"Michael
Junior is set to graduate from the Academy in a few weeks. Twenty-one
years old now. He'll be a Praetorian soon, just like the rest of us
were." A faint smile crosses his lips, but it doesn't reach his
eyes. "He's earned it."
Spartan
keeps walking, gaze flicking between the holo-feed and the frozen
terrain ahead. Rho Voss says nothing, only glancing briefly at her
through his tinted visor.
Lucius's
voice grows quieter. "As for the rest…"
He
exhales slowly.
"It's
a shame Father won't be there to see it. The Prefect passed away a
few weeks ago."
Spartan
stops walking.
The
wind sighs through the frozen canopy, whispering against the metallic
plates of her armor. Rho halts beside her, silent, the faint blue
light of the cryolume trees reflecting across his faceplate.
Lucius
continues. "The funeral was yesterday. He held on longer than
any of us expected. Cyber rejection… it comes for everyone
eventually. But I'd hoped it would come later."
He
glances down, the weight in his tone unmistakable. "Before he
passed, he named me Prefect. I didn't want it this way." There's
a pause. A long one. Then, softer, "He spoke of you, Spartan.
Said he wished he could see you one last time. But he knew why you
couldn't come home. Said you were fighting for our peace, and that
you should keep doing so. Not to mourn what was inevitable."
Spartan's
gloved hand tightens into a fist at her side. Her breath fogs the
inside of her helmet. Rho watches, still silent, his presence the
quiet, immovable kind she doesn't need to explain herself to.
Lucius
steadies himself again, switching tone as he moves to the next point.
"Magnus," he says, eyes lifting to the camera. "There's
unrest. Tarsians and Solisians on Anicarro have begun rioting. It's
small now, but spreading. The tension's been simmering since you left
for Nirna. I'll uphold our agreements. I'll keep it under control. We
can't afford another fracture."
The
feed flickers, static, then stabilizes again as Lucius leans back in
his chair, exhaustion catching up to him. "Tell Spartan… tell
her Father was proud."
The
transmission ends.
For
a moment, nothing moves.
Spartan
stands still, watching the snow drift between the cryolume trees. The
faint hum of the forest fills the silence again, soft and hollow.
She
finally lowers her head. "…Old bastard," she murmurs
beneath her breath, voice barely audible even through her own comms.
Rho
Voss looks to her, then to the northern horizon where their campfire
glows faintly in the distance through the pale forest haze. He lets
out a slow exhale, the sound low and grounding.
Spartan
inhales, straightens, and starts walking again. "Come on,"
she says quietly. "The others are waiting."
The
frost whispers against their armor as Spartan and Rho Voss continue
through the cryolume forest. The silence between them is not
uncomfortable, it never has been, but this one feels heavier, like
the forest itself is holding its breath.
Rho
reaches out and touches her shoulder, an armored gauntlet against the
carbon-steel plate. The weight is solid, grounding.
Spartan
glances over her shoulder, visor tilting slightly. "I'm all
right," she says quietly. Her tone isn't defensive, just tired.
"Truly."
She
exhales, vapor curling from the vents near her helmet's jawline.
"Junior'll be as old as his father by the time we return."
The corner of her mouth lifts with a humorless chuckle. "Breaks
my heart… and makes me laugh all the same."
Her
pace slows, boots crunching through the glittering snow. "Part
of me's grateful we can't have children," she murmurs.
"Families. Leaving them behind, watching them age from
light-years away, it's…" She trails off, shakes her head. "I
don't envy Michael and Victoria."
Rho
makes a low sound, almost a growl but softer, agreement, empathy, or
both.
Then,
something shifts in the air.
Spartan
stops mid-step, head turning slightly. A faint current, a scent
riding the wind, metal, oil, and the unmistakable tang of blood
sanctified. Her HUD pings an unidentified chemical trace, but she
doesn't need sensors to recognize that.
Her
voice drops to a whisper. "Do you smell that?"
Rho
inhales deeply through his helmet's vents. The sound is quiet but
sharp, precise. His shoulders stiffen. A small, almost imperceptible
nod.
Spartan's
hand drops to her sword hilt. "I know that scent," she
murmurs. "But… it's impossible."
The
snow crunches ahead of them.
Both
warriors freeze.
Then,
another crunch behind them.
Spartan's
muscles tense instantly. She turns slightly, blade half-drawn,
scanning the gleaming white forest. Between the cryolume trunks,
faint silhouettes begin to form, tall, broad, purposeful.
The
first two step forward, white-and-crimson Gilgamesh plate glinting
beneath the frozen glow. Their armor is trimmed in gold filigree,
each pauldron engraved with the unmistakable sigil of the Venators'
Cross.
Spartan's
heart lurches. No.
"Vardengard,"
she breathes.
But
not theirs.
These
are holy ones.
Tzurinn
and Akriel, Venator Vardengard, Captain Absjorn's chosen hunters.
Each bears a different weapon: Tzurinn wields a halberd wreathed in
faint harmonic light; Akriel, twin glaives that hum with resonant
energy.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
They
are laughing, low, eager, like wolves scenting blood.
And
as they circle, two more emerge from the pale, heavy-footed, armored
in the same sanctified red-white plate. One carries a chain-axe slung
over his shoulder, his name etched into his breastplate: Malchiel.
The other is leaner, faster, holding an ion sabre and smirking behind
his visor: Vaedran.
Four
Venator Vardengard.
Four
executioners.
The
circle closes.
For
the first time in years, Spartan feels the cold inside her chest.
Even
Rho Voss, stone of a man, unflinching through any hell, goes still,
every muscle locked, his breath quiet and measured. The only thing
that can make their kind hesitate… stands before them now.
Spartan
speaks low, almost reverently. "Venators… here?"
Tzurinn
tilts his head, the red glow of his visor like an ember in the frost.
His voice filters through vox distortion, smooth, confident, and
filled with cruel delight.
"By
the Absolute, we've been blessed to find you first." He steps
closer, halberd gleaming with harmonic fire. "It is nice to see
you again, bitch."
Akriel's
laughter is sharp, metallic. "You won't be escaping this time."
The
forest holds its breath.
Spartan
and Rho Voss draw their blades as one, reflex, muscle memory, the
bond between them wordless and absolute.
Snow
explodes upward in shimmering plumes as steel meets steel.
The
Venators strike first, no words, no warning. Just fury made flesh.
Tzurinn
lunges in a flash of crimson light, halberd cutting the air with the
sound of thunder. Akriel follows with a flourish of twin glaives,
their harmonic edges leaving trails of pale gold through the frost.
Spartan barely raises her shield in time. The blow shudders through
her arm, rattling her bones.
Rho
Voss pivots beside her, the weight of his zweihander whistling in a
deadly arc. It meets Malchiel's chain-axe mid-swing. Sparks cascade.
The forest itself seems to recoil at the violence.
"Rho,
left!" Spartan shouts, twisting her shield outward to deflect
Vaedran's sabre as it slides down the face of her plate, shrieking
like glass.
They
are surrounded, four against two. The Venators move with predatory
precision, inhuman rhythm, the hum of their weapons forming a
discordant hymn.
"Still
too slow, Spartan!" Tzurinn snarls through his vox, halberd
crashing against her shield again. "You and your mute hound
should've stayed buried on Rauvis!"
"Didn't
have the pleasure," Spartan growls back, driving her sword
upward in a quick riposte that slices across his pauldron, sparking
against his sanctified plate. "Next time, I'll remember to bring
flowers."
Akriel
laughs, his glaives spinning. "She remembers how to talk! I
thought fear had stolen her tongue."
Rho
Voss doesn't answer. He never does. He just moves, a blur of black
metal and killing intent. His zweihander carves through the air, so
heavy it sounds like tearing thunder. The blade slams against
Malchiel's chain-axe again, throwing both combatants backward with
the sheer concussive force.
The
four Venators close in, circling tighter. Their laughter turns
animal.
"Back
to back," Spartan mutters.
Rho
grunts in acknowledgment. They press shoulder to shoulder, a living
bulwark against the storm.
Tzurinn
and Akriel strike first again, Akriel leaping high, glaives
descending in twin arcs of light. Spartan raises her shield just in
time, the impact flaring across her HUD. Alarms flash red. Armor
strain: 37%.
Vaedran
rushes low from her flank. Spartan pivots, slamming her shield rim
into his jaw, cracking his visor. "You're not the first choirboy
to try me," she hisses, and her sword slashes out, cutting deep
across his arm.
Rho's
zweihander roars through the air. He catches Malchiel's chain-axe and
shatters it in two. The Venator stumbles, growling through vox
distortion, but Tzurinn sweeps in before Rho can follow up, the
halberd striking the Vardengard's chest plate with bone-crushing
force.
Rho
slides back, boots digging into the snow, armor smoking from the
kinetic burst, but he's still standing.
Still
breathing.
The
Venators circle again, their laughter subsiding into harsh, heavy
breathing.
Spartan
steadies her sword. "You've gotten better," she calls out,
visor gleaming. "Last time you couldn't even touch us."
Tzurinn's
voice drops low, almost reverent. "Last time, we fought as
soldiers."
He
raises his halberd, the blade crackling with divine light.
"This
time," he says, "we come as judgment."
And
then they're moving again, four blinding streaks of white and red,
colliding with two unyielding shadows in a storm of steel and wrath.
Even
with Olympian armor, Spartan and Rho Voss are driven back step by
step, the forest shaking around them as the Venators' holy fury
crashes against the forged might of the Forger's chosen.
The
air cracks with divine thunder.
Spartan
barely registers the new rhythm in the chaos, not the metallic clash
of blades, but the pounding rhythm of hooves breaking through snow
and ice. A heartbeat later, the forest erupts.
Absjorn
crashes through the veil of frozen trees atop his monstrous steed,
Balthamar, its snow-white hair still marred by old burns, one eye a
clouded ruin. Steam pours from its nostrils in white plumes. The
creature's roar sounds more like a furnace exhaling.
Spartan
turns, too late. "Rho!"
The
cry is drowned out as Absjorn's dual-headed axe arcs through the air,
charged with raw electricity. It strikes Rho Voss square in the
shoulder with the force of a meteor.
Impact.
The
explosion of light and sound shakes the entire clearing. Rho is
ripped from the ground, flung like a broken statue down the snowbank.
His left arm separates cleanly from his body, spinning through the
air before vanishing into the snow. He crashes through the frost and
disappears among the cryolume trees, leaving a jagged crimson trail.
"Rho!"
Spartan's voice tears from her throat. She steps forward
instinctively, but the moment she moves, the Venators are there
again.
Tzurinn's
halberd slams into her shield. Akriel's glaive carves sparks across
her flank. The air is thick with static rising like a cathedral choir
in full wrath.
Cassiel
gallops in behind Absjorn, his own mare shrieking as her hooves churn
the snow into mist. He leaps from the saddle mid-charge, landing
heavy, his staff already leveled at Spartan's chest.
"Spartan
of Invicta," he calls, voice amplified through the vox, serene
in its judgment. "You stand condemned by decree of the Absolute.
Your kind are false gods, mockeries of creation."
Spartan
pivots hard, the spear scraping across her pauldron, singing against
Olympian alloy. She drives her shield into Cassiel's chest, the
impact echoing, but he absorbs it like stone.
She
snarls through her vox: "You Venators, always preaching after
the strike."
Absjorn
reins in his horse, Balthamar pawing at the ground, snorting black
smoke. "The word of the Absolute needs no sermon," he
growls, axe dripping with sparks and Rho's blood. "Only
judgment."
He
swings again, this time at Spartan. The impact detonates through the
clearing like a thunderclap, knocking her several paces back. Her
armor holds, but the shock slams into her bones, rattling her HUD
with overload warnings.
The
four Venator Vardengard close in again, reforming their perimeter
while Cassiel and Absjorn ride the storm's edge.
Spartan
crouches low, shield raised, breathing hard inside her helm.
Somewhere below the ridge, Rho Voss is either dying, or about to make
them pay for assuming he can.
Through
the haze of snow and smoke, her voice cuts cold through the vox: "You
should've killed me first."
The
roar that tears from Spartan's throat is primal, a sound that shakes
snow from the branches above.
She
charges through the flurry, boots crushing the ice, crimson-plumed
helm cutting through the haze like a spearpoint. Absjorn wheels
Balthamar to meet her, the massive stallion snorting steam, one blind
eye burning like a dead star.
Spartan
leaps.
For
a heartbeat, she hangs in the air, her shield outstretched, fingers
clawing for Absjorn's throat, intent to drag him from the saddle and
crush him into the snow.
But
Balthamar rears, front hooves lashing like battering rams. The
shockwave alone nearly sends her sprawling. And before she can
recover, Cassiel's staff whistles through the air.
The
gilded cross at its head flashes in the frozen light, and the strike
lands with a thunderous crack against Spartan's ribs. Her shield
flares, then shatters in a burst of static. She hits the ground hard,
her breath knocked out, visor cracking against the frozen crust
beneath her.
She
forces herself up, vision swimming, snow melting in the heat that
pours from her wounded side.
Then
comes the second blow.
Absjorn
swings his axe backward as Balthamar spins, the twin heads screeching
through the air, and connect. The blade bite through her side,
carving deep through armor and flesh alike. Electricity crawls across
her plating, arcs of white and blue lightning snapping through the
trees as she's hurled across the forest floor.
She
crashes through a dead trunk, splintering it in two before slamming
into the base of another. Her armor smokes. Her HUD flickers.
Warnings blare: HEAT LIMIT EXCEEDED. VITALS UNSTABLE.
Snow
hisses as her blood burns through it.
And
through the haze, she sees him.
Rho
Voss, massive, broken, half buried in the drifts. His vantablack
Olympian plate gleams against the white expanse, a silhouette of
ruin. Blood pumps freely from his missing arm, a dark trail painting
the snow red. He kneels, trembling, one knee sinking deep into the
ice as he grips the hilt of his great zweihander with his remaining
hand.
Their
visors lock.
Spartan's
voice comes ragged, half snarl, half command. "Rho, run!"
He
doesn't move.
He
plants the blade into the snow, uses it to drag himself upright. His
breath comes out in fogged bursts behind his visor, silent, defiant.
Above
them, the Venators regroup, Cassiel and Absjorn circling with their
steeds, Tzurinn and Akriel closing in like hounds to the kill.
Spartan
grips her sword again, her other hand pressed to her bleeding side.
"Rho,
damn it, go!" she roars.
But
Rho Voss only turns slightly, one wordless motion that says all it
must: Never.
He
tears the zweihander free from the snow.
Then
as the Venators descend again, the Vardengard of Civitas Invicta
stand together once more, broken and bleeding, against the judgment
of the Absolute.
Spartan's
fingers move in a blur, left hand slamming down to her belt, pulling
free two smooth iron-gray spheres. The haptic clicks confirm her
priming sequence: smoke in one, flash in the other.
She
yanks both pins with a twist of her thumb.
"Cover!"
she snarls, not sure if Rho can even hear her through the ringing in
his ears.
The
first grenade hits the snow, bouncing once before bursting open,
thick plumes of ash-gray smoke pouring outward in roiling waves. The
world vanishes into haze.
Then
comes the second.
A
crack like thunder, light and sound tearing through the storm, a
detonation that shatters the air and sends flocks of birds scattering
from the trees. Even through her polarized visor, the flash sears her
eyes.
Shapes
twist and blur in the chaos. Venators shout curses, their chants
breaking into static-laced distortion as comms and sensors scramble
from the overload. Warsteeds rear and scream, their hooves hammering
the frozen ground.
Spartan
moves.
She
finds Rho by his silhouette, vast and staggering, blood painting the
snow where he stands. She grabs his good shoulder, armor locking
against armor, and pulls.
"Come
on!" she roars, her voice muffled in the storm. "Move!"
Rho
hesitates only a heartbeat. Even without seeing his face, she knows
the look behind that visor, that stubborn, immovable refusal to
retreat.
But
then, with a low growl that vibrates through his chest, he relents.
The
two vanish into the whiteout, the smoke curling around them like
ghostly tendrils. Spartan drags him forward, half-running,
half-hauling the bloodied giant as they carve a path through the
snow. Their footfalls thud heavy, their breath mechanical and ragged
in the silence that follows the flash.
Behind
them, the Venators emerge slowly from the veil, blinded, disoriented.
Cassiel shouts orders, his voice filtered and furious, but the forest
swallows it whole.
Only
the echo of boot prints and the faint trail of crimson remain,
melting faint lines into the untouched snow, the last proof that
Spartan and Rho Voss were ever there at all.
