As Basil wandered through the abandoned remains of the old Terran town, she felt the familiar pangs of nostalgia, and the fleeting memories of treasured times long passed. Her pursuers wouldn't dare follow her onto such cursed land.
Emerton was once as normal a town as any. It was little more than a stopover between the quarry, mines, and the Marble Sanctum. It was a vital part of the Empire's inner workings, though largely overlooked.
It was a common trading place for people of all walks of life, and it wasn’t uncommon to notice the queer magic of the Feywild and the Fair Folk slip into the lifeblood of the town. It was a true sanctuary in the lands of the Terrans.
People found themselves engrossed in the inner workings of the community, back when the world was full of life and of dreams, in the days long past.
In a time where Basil wasn’t the last of her kind.
There was once beauty and creation abundant in Emerton. The stage of the town hall, lively with travelers and storytellers. A constant and steady stream of bards and artists once shared their stories and wares in the square, and in the great tavern.
Though Basil had never truly been able to rest her head in Emerton, she knew the grounds well. It was the closest thing she’d known to a hometown in her transient life, if only for the long rests during her academy days.
She felt her mind wander as she passed through the old trading post. She brushed the ashes off of the sign for Stanley Family’s Leather Goods. A shop that had once provided the heavy work gloves and safety belts for her company.
The same maker’s mark on the pair that she wore to this day.
Basil stopped to reach her hand into the long abandoned community garden. The markers for the roses had been washed away in the forest mist, and the rosebush she grazed crumpled at the touch. “Has it really been two decades since they murdered Quell?” She asked herself as she felt the ashen soil sifting between her fingers.
As if perhaps, the old words of Dondan Quell, The self proclaimed “Bandit King” had resonated through time.
There was graffiti littering the old burned out settlement. The words “Dondan Quell rides again” and “Witness the resurrection of the true king” were popular rallying cries from his believers.
They stood here Immortalized forever on brick and concrete. The napalm of the torches, and the abrasion of the rain had marred the paint, but the message was still clear.
These were the very words that damned the man to his death.
The Old Bandit King was once a deeply beloved folk hero in the region. A figure from the time of fires and candle light. Legends say he was a farmer who grew tired of the taxation and forced conscription of his countrymen.
Dondan Quell was the man who rallied the citizenry of Emerton to take arms against the order; for he knew their deepest flaws and fears, and in turn their greatest strength.
And though the campaign failed, the name Dondan Quell became synonymous as a boogeyman in the southern vale. A man who Basil was raised to hate unquestioningly.
And maybe… Basil thought to herself. Like his namesake, our Quell couldn't stand idly by.
Basil hadn’t participated in the raid upon Quell’s home and base, but still felt the guilt deeply in her heart. A simple majority vote. She knew her opposition mattered little. He wasn’t one of her soldiers. And the vote was 12-1.
We were just peacekeepers. She told herself upon hearing the news. They weren’t just kids from the slums anymore, nor were they rowdy students in the academy.
They were soldiers, but there was no war left to fight. It was simply a matter of group survival.
Like Basil, the man who called himself Quell was a member of the sacred Order of Iyr, assigned to the Onyx Sanctum.
He abandoned his sacred vows, and took the name and mantle of the old Bandit King, to spite his superiors for their inaction and isolationism.
After the ashes from the bombs settled, Quell broke the vow of silence and spoke words that fanned the fires of rebellion.
Quell took up arms with the locals, distributing guns and machinery to the peasants. He taught them forbidden knowledge and gave them the means to self govern. And in all of this, abandoned his sacred vows. His sweet words about “our revolution” meant nothing to the Order, to his former masters.
He knew it was a death sentence, but he chose to live out the last of his days as a free man.
He broke the rules and he would be made an example. It was a simple order for the rest of them to follow.
Basil had repeatedly refused to participate in the interrogation, or the court proceedings. And was even less interested in being a part of his execution, or the sacking of Everton.
“An abstaining vote is a vote to kill a man,” Paprika had insisted as she cast her secret ballot. “Ignoring the problem or making it into someone else's responsibility solves nothing. We agreed to this, we need to carry this out, for his sake as much as ours.” As a group they had deemed Quell a traitor, voting in favor of execution. He would die at the foot of the hanging tree, like a common criminal.
Her vote of dissent didn’t phase anyone. No one criticized, retaliated, or punished her for it. No one dared look her in the eyes. Basil voted in protest, and it simply did not matter.
The votes of condemnation didn’t mean that they agreed with the sentence. With time, each would confess privately and in turn, that they voted for his death out of fear and cowardice. They believed that if they protested his execution, they would join him on the chopping block.
They thought that if the votes to pardon outweighed the votes to execute, that they would end up splintering in the wake. And each expected the rest to dissent. To take the stand and justify this change of heart. But they were all cowards.
“And I was a coward too.” Basil reminded herself. She hadn’t pressed the issue. She had stated her opinion and let the rest play out.
No violent revolt. No rallying cry. Basil watched her brother die in front of her eyes without another word of protest.
Even Paprika, who spent her life undermining authority at every possible angle lowered her head and obeyed. “It’s a lost cause. And it just needs to be done and forgotten.” She’d said.
Quell chose to abandon his post for love and for family. But the Order of Iyr did not care about happiness. Its purpose was in its name.
It was Order in a world of Chaos. Those were the words they’d been taught to commit to memory. And until that tragic day, albeit through foolish means, their followers truly believed that this crusade would lead to order in the wilds.
“All must pay the price of the insolence and betrayal committed by their own. Regardless of their best intentions.” Fool words written by dead fools.
“But they… we were much younger then,” She whispered to herself.
Though the ashes of the old town square had been lost to a duodecad and-a-half of exposure to the abrasion of Fey magic, the hanging tree stood. The bench seats for witnesses, along with the hangman’s platform and noose were perfectly intact.
The executioner's block was still deeply stained in blood, as if wind, sleet, and rain had long since abandoned this place.
The greataxe remained, sharp and gleaming as morning it was last honed,
The coppery blood of Dondan Quell the Younger still lacquered on its steel. Salting the land and cursing the bloodline of anyone associated with the town, or the Order. It stood alone and untouched among the ashes and mold.
His wife and son had been slain before him by his former brothers and sisters, with no fair trial or chance to speak on their own behalf.
Their rebellion had been branded as common terrorists and enemy combatants. And, the word of Eir, the last remaining Paladin of the Order, was law.
As she watched the axe fall upon her blood brother’s neck, Basil alone stood before him. Basil alone prayed for his soul. Basil alone had understood.
“Once upon a time,” she thought to herself. “This might have sowed the seeds of rebellion, of a new order of understanding, and coexistence.”
Instead, Quell was right in another way. His last words burned into Basil’s psyche. “If we should die tomorrow, we should live today. No regrets, no fear. No more orders from on high.”
“I had a family, and you stole it from me. They were of my blood. My son was only two years old! And you ran him down. So don’t speak to me of salvation. Of family bonds. You’ve committed fratricide on one of your own! They were as much my family as yours, and you killed your own kin.” His dying breaths, his curse upon all that witness this crime against humanity.
Quell made no attempt to hide his worldliness, he spoke in the same heavy language of the academics. He spat their lore back at them, cursing a millennia of service.
None from the marble sanctum dared to reply to Quell’s words. They were outnumbered and outranked. None of them had interrupted the seeds of revolution or the community he sowed.
They had knowingly allowed him to go about his business, because it helped keep a chunk of the valley in line, and ease their burdens.
Each company had suffered unimaginable losses. And though each was a member of the order, each must deal with their own crimes and tribulations. They were simple soldiers, and it was not the place of Basil to speak on behalf of the traitor of another company. Live and let live they’d told themselves.
The younger Quell was a man aware of his audience. He knew to whom he spoke, and knew what he was sowing. But ideals or not, in the end, we must all reap.
It was Quell’s old commander, Eir the fabled Paladin, the General of the West, who passed the final judgment.
“One who takes the oath shall bear no fruit, take no childer, and poison not the well of goodness and righteousness. You shall know no family except your siblings in arms, and your elders. Any children spawned by a member of the Order are nothing more than abominations. Nephalem. They’re neither Terrans nor Iyr. They deserve no mercy. Do you have any more words in your own defense before we carry out the sentence?”
Despite the unwavering bellow of her voice, Eir took no joy, even behind her mask, of slaying the man she had once called brother. Her heavily coded words meant little to the listeners. It was all bylaws and amendments with bureaucrats like her.
“His name was Felix and you killed him. A child. An innocent. You called me brother once. You swore a covenant to protect ALL races and creeds. And yet you claim judgment over me? And yet, you spurned the blood of my blood. I hope you keep your pieces of silver close to your hearts. And I hope the gatekeeper grants you passage. Because you will carry the blood of the kin who you have condemned in fratricide for the rest of your days. Both here and to the river Styx. Eir. Sir,” Quell spat.
Eir made no move to silence the man, nor to contradict his final words.
Basil remembered following his eyes as they scanned the collective. But no other member of the order stood for him at his condemnation, none other met his eyes.
Basil stood alone. She nodded at him, she validated his last words. It didn’t matter who else heard them. Nearly two dozen of those who called themselves an order. None else caught his eye, dared acknowledge his words. She alone carried that burden.
“My name, and the names Iyr, and Emerton will be but ash. A cancer and a blight onto every waking night of your existence. And all whom till it, and all who command it, will be but ash. And you, and yours, and a thousand generations departed. You will feel the absence...” Quell spat.
Basil felt the same chill in her bones she had felt nearly twenty years past.
“You will yearn for the covenant that you now break by spilling the blood of my blood. For killing mine and mine. For the innocence and joy you have stolen. For all that my blood touches will remain, frozen and dead. Until you’ve come to truly understand, you too will live in the sickness and filth you have lain. My final gift.“ Quell paused, silent at last.
He closed his eyes, and he nodded. And with that, Eir dropped the axe upon his neck, and Quell was no more.
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