[???? Into The Black – CHROMATICS.]
ELDORIA'S STUNNING FLAG, a print of a pale falcon with a golden eye, billowed on an ice mount several days later. It had been planted forthwith at the end of the battle and the vanquish of the Giants. All the territories of the deep North were claimed back under the Empire's great shadow. Rumbrun was no more, but the fey Queen let it keep its name—a mock remembrance.
Giselle, Rafel, Aya Naamah and Cora, the lieutenant Ser Romulus, Yemaya, and a few others stayed behind to reinforce the wards on the demolished ancient pillars of ice. There were no walls to keep back evil, no Nephilim to keep back either. Still, Giselle ordered a union of her Wiccan coven and Cora's Laveyan one to touch up the protective glyphs.
The sister witches, with a voice as one, carved up the tundra in leylines as one big slice of magical haven invulnerable to blood sorceries and crafts of the grim occult. If any such mutated horde like the spawn of the Titans recently conquered were to arise in the vast uninhabited lands of snow, the Regent at such time would have more a fighting chance than Giselle got.
The Queen prepared for the future. Because one thing was certain,
"Evil never truly dies."
Veracious words out from Rafel's mouth and deep into her heart.
The surviving Giants of the battle had journeyed back south with the legions some four days ago, in chains. Rafel had watched the long line of the troops winding like a river as they marched around the high Alps. They were completely vanished into the silvery panorama by dusk that same day.
And now, nearly a week since the war, only he and a small company of the Queen's most trusted circle remained along the tundra.
They had made camp from the unburned beams of the Nephilims tents. Or at least what remained of it. Rafel could still hear the fires raging that terrible night and the choking screaming whenever the wind picked up. The vale of Magvath beyond was shrouded in a hex. An intentional sorcery made by Cora to keep the stench of the hundreds of rotting corpses, man and giant, from entering their camp.
At the moment, it was early evening.
The snows that had begun that morning had pulled up and now the air was clear. The skies had a washed glow and a rosy sun spilled through. Not bright but fresh off a blue firmament. The white hills of the tundra roundabout stretched for miles into sleepy blue horizon. The panorama was beatific. The view, enchanting.
Rafel sat on an old metal chair outside a large tent. One of the four in the camp.
He read silently from an old, withered tome he found in the ashes after the battle. It was in the single box collection he had recovered from Ekron's only possession. Somehow, the dead Chieftain did love books. Rafel turned the yellowed, decaying pages with intrigue. Cora had fashioned reading glasses for him from bristles and glass.
Rafel lifted his eyes a moment to scan the white plains.
'The witches should be returning anytime soon,' he mused. 'Reinforcements of arcane wards this ancient is no joke. They have taken a whole day amongst the icestone pillars.'
He looked from the sweet fair outlands to the slow burning fire he had going. A three-stand coal pot—another recovery from Ekron's iron box, frothed the aroma of broth into the air. Rafel was cooking. But not just for himself. For their entire little camp. Between himself, his women, the Queen and her Lieutenant, and Yemaya, they were all in total less than ten souls left behind.
'The armies must have reached the Capitol by now.'
Steam poured out as she lifted the lid and a delicious aroma wafted into the air.
"Woah, Rafel. This smells amazing." Giselle complimented.
Rafel would blush, but his skin was epically pale.
She grabbed a scoop and dipped into the broth for a taste while the others oohed and ahhed at the aroma. Aya returned with the cleaving knife and sat like Romulus in snow. She crossed her legs and began with the bison's albino head. She winked at Rafel when she smelled the aroma from the stew.
"Lord Master does many things impeccably," she offered. She left her words at that but everyone went pink.
Many things was... many things.
"Gods! Tastes like heaven."
Giselle had just lowered her open palm and licked at her lips. She dipped in the ladle again to draw another scoop. Instantly, everyone stretched out their hands for a taste. They were so liberal, like little kids.
"By the Martyr, where did you learn to cook like this?" Yemaya said herself. She stood beside Giselle and peered up from her palm, licked clean to Rafel and back again. "Even my harem struggle with a good porridge. And I have four girlfriends!" Yemaya joked.
The others laughed, tasting and complimenting in their own way.
Rafel didn't fail to notice the water queen artfully kept talk of her male lover, Gawain, who had been felled in the battle from her lips. He let it slide. She deserved to mourn, but not at the moment. Gawain had being carried back in stasis of a summoned [Rare] Cryo block on the chariots of the Atlanteans back to the sea.
Rafel couldn't even imagine the scenario of him losing one of his.
Giselle gingerly covered the pot and left the broth to brew some more. She said,
"Between the beef, the grapevine, and Lord Rafel's excellent bouillon, I say we have enough for a good meal and wine indulgence tonight!"
"Fuck yes. I've been needing a hot meal." Cora chirped.
Everyone laughed. This time, including Rafel.
The sun set on the Alps, making the white mountains into a prism and splashing a kaleidoscope of natural colors on the little, flourishing company. For that brief moment of time, no one thought about the valley of a thousand decomposing bodies shielded from sight and breath by magic, just thirty feet away.
Back in the Capitol, a fucking trip away, people were calling the battle of Nephilims by a name that would still skitter hearts generations to come, they were calling it, SKYFALL.