Capítulo 17: Chapter 17 - John
AN:
Hey guys. Just wanted to point something out real quick. It's not very relevant to this chapter in particular but I'd thought you all should know this at some point. Maybe, I have mentioned it before, but I'm putting it out there now just to be clear if it wasn't obvious already.
John isn't a SI of myself, ironic considering the genre name. He is an SI of an imagined modern person who I gave a specific backstory to craft a specific personality. Any opinions on things or politics or ideas he may expression or may eventually develop probably won't line up with mine, and his actions and decisions are different than ones I would have made if it had been me in his shoes.
For example, I would have just become a farmer, blacksmith, or something similar if I had been transported to the version of the Lands Between that is in my story instead of attempting to help the Chosen Tarnished.
I'm super interested in anthropology (me and John are the same there) and philosophy and such, so I've gotten decent at getting into the heads of people who think entirely differently than me and seeing things from their point of view. That is what I am doing with John and the people of the Lands Between.
Anyways, enjoy the chapter!
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John and his twenty were gathered on the lift down to the Castletown entrance as their hundrier gave them their orders. Thankfully, they had repaired the lift the day before to make what was to come would go as quickly as possible.
"-and that is what you will do. Are there any questions?" their hundrier asked, standing on the stone just off the lift.
None of them spoke up.
"No questions. Good. We'll lower you down now. Press the enchanted mechanism on the lift there and the receiving mechanism at the pulley will go off and lower the lift. And remember, only up to thirty at a time on the lift. Now go."
John nodded and stepped on the mechanism in the center of the lift. It depressed, and after a few moments, the lift began to lower. John felt the familiar weightless feeling in his stomach that he always got from fast elevators.
John turned around and faced the men as the stone of the lift shaft began zooming by. He switched his face from the neutral, stoic expression he normally kept when commanding the men to a stern one.
"Alright men. If I see any of you so much as lift a fist and break the negotiations that Lord Edgar has worked out with the misbegotten and they aren't ambushing us, I'll gut you myself before the misbegotten can get to us and tear us limb from limb. If any of them give you any trouble while we're moving them, wait for me. Don't do anything yourself. Am I understood?"
John looked from man to man, meeting their eyes and making sure everyone understood. As they each met his eyes, none of them seemed confused or defiant. Good. Maybe the rebellion would go out with a whimper instead of a scream.
The lift slowed and stopped, leaving them in the corridor of the Castletown entrance. As they began warily making their way down the hallway, immediately John could tell the misbegotten had completely ransacked it. Everything that could be of use had been taken, and all that was left was discarded wooden scraps and broken furniture.
They made their way out to the burnt ruins of what remained of Castletown. The month of rain had washed much of the ash away down the road through the gutters on the side of the streets. The gutters themselves were stained black.
All that was left on the lots were small bits of blacked rubbish that hadn't been completely burned by the fire and various bits of warped metal from whatever metal tools and appliances had been in the buildings before they burnt down, and bits of collapsed stone from buildings that had some stone incorporated in their construction.
There was nothing left higher than knee height except for the various appliances such as wood burners or cooking ranges and stoves that some houses had had. Any building that once had multiple floors had collapsed into a burned ruin and looked no different than .
In the distance through the light rain they could see the mass of a few hundred misbegotten that had gathered a short distance away, and at the front of them holding her body up by her hands with her maimed tail for balance was Gharriel.
The crowd of misbegotten did not have on any armor that John could see, and he didn't see any weapons anywhere in sight either.
John resisted letting out a sigh of relief. It looked like there wasn't going to be any funny business.
John and his twenty approached, but the misbegotten didn't react besides shuffling around as they saw them.
John and his twenty arrived in front of the crowd of misbegotten, and he made eye contact with the misbegotten leader, looking her over.
Gharriel's body no longer had black charred patches, but rather pinkish scarred and puckered skin. All the gashes had been replaced by white scars, and her red hair was starting to grow back on her non-scarred skin, a few centimeters of stubble already showing.
How she looked reminded him of one of those hairless cats but crippled and badly scarred.
As she sized him up as well, John saw recognition light up in her eyes, but she said nothing.
Seeing none of them reacting adversely, John decided to speak.
"The first twenty. Have them step out and we'll begin."
The leonine misbegotten turned towards the rest of the misbegotten and gestured with her head towards John.
"You know what to do. Remember, if they do not keep their word, you all howl together. Now you, first group, step forward."
After looking back and forth between John and his men and Gharriel, the first of the misbegotten hesitantly stepped forward.
"Men, open formation."
John's men made a large empty square and John gestured to the misbegotten.
They nervously stepped between his men.
"Let's go," John ordered, and they began escorting the fidgeting misbegotten back to the lift. It took minutes as both groups warily made their way to and down the corridor before they stopped in front of the lift.
"Step on. Keep away from the edge." John ordered the misbegotten.
They complied. Once they were all on the lift John gave them another order.
"Press the button."
One of them did so, and a few moments later the lift began heading back up, leaving a flat bit of stone just under where the lift had rested. No infinite black pits under elevators in real life. Who would have thought.
After waiting for a minute and not hearing any problems, the first set was done. Now they just had eleven more to go.
They headed back to the crowd of misbegotten and got the second group. No problems happened with this group either.
And so things proceeded peacefully but nervously as each side expected the other to act out at any moment.
John and his men were once again only a few burnt lots away from being back in front of the crowd of misbegotten after their sixth trip, when the sound of a lone misbegotten's howling screech resounded in the distance from the direction of the castle.
What was happening!? Had Edgar started his slaughter of the misbegotten early!?
Instantly John and his men braced, and put their hands on their weapons!
The crowd of over one hundred misbegotten in front of them immediately began leaning forward and flexing their clawed hands, prepping for battle!
"HOLD!" roared the leonine misbegotten to the misbegotten with the primal fury that only a being like her could! "I SAY HOLD! LISTEN!"
Everyone there froze and didn't move, including John and his men, as that lone howl continued out in the distance, but no others joined it. After nearly a minute of it continuing by itself, the howl hitched and stuttered and was suddenly cut off. From the sound, someone must have muzzled or gagged whichever misbegotten had done that.
Gharriel turned and glared into the crowd of misbegotten. She was so furious that John was surprised that the rain hitting her wasn't turning to steam.
"Some fool who has misbehaved! The rest of you, you know what the deal is! We send you up and they restrain you and take you to their dungeon. If they hurt or separate you, then all of you begin howling.
"I have bartered my life away to save the lives of all our brothers and sisters! And that fool nearly threw it away!"
Gharriel kept talking to the misbegotten as she pointed at John.
"Don't let your foolishness jeopardize what I have sacrificed myself for again, or me and my men shall not save you when Edgar Morne sends men like him to come for you. Next time I hear a lone howler, I will not care if he is killed!" Gharriel growled at the crowd that cowed before her rage, before turning towards John.
"You, twentier. When this next group goes up, send one of your men up to deliver that message. Lone howlers like that are no longer under my protection. I will send a messenger to tell the same to my right hand Morsh, who is leading the second group by the cliffside."
John nodded in agreement, him and his men still tense waiting to see if any attack would come.
"Good. Next group, go with them."
But none of the misbegotten moved.
Gharriel started growling at them, clearly gearing up to do something to them if they didn't move. That got them moving.
Even more hesitantly than the first group, the next group approached and John's twenty warily escorted them to the lift. John sent a man up with the message from Gharriel.
They kept escorting the rest of the other groups, the messenger returning to them on the next pass. Thankfully, no other incidents happened.
As they escorted the groups of misbegotten, John looked at them and marveled at how truly unique each one of them were.
There were of course many that were similar, but none had quite the same features as another. Scales, feathers, fur, claws, fangs, proportions, tails, wings. No one misbegotten had the same features of another. Or at least within this sample of a couple hundred there were no exact duplicates.
As John looked at their features, John's mind churned.
He hadn't had much free time or, frankly, mental bandwidth for thinking heavily on anything besides the battle for Morne since the rebellion and his training had begun. But with the past few days of uneasy peace that had let him relax some, he'd found that his mind had went back to the mystery of the misbegotten.
What were they really? Why were they born like that? He could be wrong, but John just flatly didn't believe them to be a curse.
As he looked at their chimeric features, the red hair some grew that they were killed for and from what Edgar had said was affiliated with the Crucible, he had pieces of the puzzle. But no matter how much he scratched his brain, he just couldn't quite make things fit; the answer felt like it was on the tip of his tongue.
The same hair as the red wolves. The same red hair as the giants. The same red hair as Radagon. The Crucible. Features like knots, feathers, horns, and scales like the Crucible talismans.
John tried to make it all fit together. He could just tell that all of that fit into the picture somehow, but no matter what solution he came up with, the pieces didn't fit right to him. There was always a flaw he could see where it didn't pass the smell test.
As they finished with the last group of misbegotten from Gharriel's group, and John's twenty made their way back to Gharriel, he set aside this issue that had been plaguing his thoughts off and on for days.
He couldn't afford to be distracted by any of his theorizing for what was coming.
When they arrived back at Gharriel, who was now alone, Gharriel looked at John meaningfully.
"It is time for my death then, is it not? What better person than you to do it twentier, hmm?
"Well, before we get on with it, we have your accounting. I have wondered what you would be asking me."
John turned to his men.
"Men?" John gestured for his men to give them some room.
"We'll be right over there, Sergeant, just out of earshot," said Baker. "If we see anything or you yell for us, we'll come running."
John nodded.
"Good. You'll know we're done when she howls to tell her subordinates that everything is going to plan."
The men nodded and walked far enough away that there was no chance of even someone like John overhearing their conversation, let alone the more mundane soldiers without his advantages.
"So let's begin," John said once they were out of earshot. "The first thing we want to know about are the traitors. Who are they, what did they tell you, everything."
Gharriel chuckled.
"I should have expected that question to be the first. Very well.
"Most of our collaborators were killed in our initial attack and over time in the siege battles, but there are a few traitors still left in your ranks. A pair of lowly armsmen in your regulars and a few townsfolk. I will give you their names in a moment. But ultimately, they were of little use to us after our attack began.
"There is one traitor who your lord will care most about. A high officer who is still alive."
John's ears perked up as he listened to Gharriel's harsh voice. This was one of the things that Edgar was most interested in learning.
"He was the only person of any significant status that we had on our side at any point. The rest were useful, but he was irreplaceable. Marvion Tearwolfe."
John's mind stuttered as he processed that. Not Crann? His mind raced.
He recognized the name. It was the name of Crann's second. The man who had been the one to speak out both times amongst their clique when Edgar had been pressing them.
John remembered another small detail. One of only three knights who had been present at the Castletown entrance the night John had delivered his letter. The implicates were staggering.
"Marvion Tearwolfe, he was your only higher-ranker traitor? Not Crann Stormfeather?" John asked to confirm.
Gharriel nodded her head and chuckled darkly.
"Yes. Tearwolfe, not Stormfeather. When our lookouts discovered that mangled body of a fringefolk with dragonsblood whom you lot had thrown down the cliff, we worried our man had finally been discovered somehow.
"Imagine our mirth and our celebration when our more lowly collaborators told us that you had disposed of Crann Stormfeather instead, the strongest warrior that had been garrisoned at Morne, and the only warrior who had a chance at defeating me."
Gharriel's lone eye gleamed as she looked at him.
"Or at least, the only one we believed could defeat me."
Gharriel snorted.
"It seems your lord wasn't entirely foolish however, as he did have our man imprisoned and had watched for our flyers to make sure none of our collaborators could pass information, and so stopped us from learning anything about the trap you had laid."
John did his best not to keep the storm going on in his mind from showing on his face as he tried to process what he was being told.
Marvion had been the traitor, not Crann? He had helped throw an innocent man out of a window to his death? He still had his portion of the runes in his gut from the man's death.
But what about Crann's plans and actions? Why had he lied about the letter? Allowed Gharriel to ravage their ranks multiple times and almost doomed them?
John had to ask.
"But what about Crann recommending those sallies at the beginning of the siege and then weeks later, a few days before the final battle, giving you the opening to kill half our remaining irregulars? Why didn't he tell anyone about the letter that warned of the rebellion until after you all had attacked?"
Gharriel chuckled again, genuine amusement crossing her beastly face.
"Ah yes. Crann Stormfeather. Ironically, despite not being a traitor, he has been more helpful to our cause than our highest ranked turncoat in your ranks.
"You see, Tearwolfe often complained to our people that Stormfeather was a terrible officer. A man of extreme martial talent and who could call upon the storm like the legendary fringefolk commander Niall, but also a blustering arrogant nepotistic fool who could do none of the duties of an officer and fostered such things off on those who could while taking the acclaim of their deeds for himself.
"Tearwolfe told us that when that letter had been delivered to the Castle entrance, that letter had been given to Tearwolfe to hand to Stormfeather, who read it under the guise of his authority to learn of Morne's business, something Stormfeather did often.
"Tearwolfe, as he usually did, read it over Stormfeather's shoulder. As he read it, he despaired that our cause was finished before it could even truly begin.
"Imagine Tearwolfe's surprise when Stormfeather dismissed it as nonsense. That single act has done more to help our cause than any other act. Immediately afterward Tearwolfe came to me to tell me of what happened and we were forced to start our rebellion far earlier than we had wanted, our preparations incomplete, to ensure that whoever had learned of our plans didn't get another chance to inform the High Marshal ahead of time.
"Unfortunately, we still had at least another month of preparations to make before we would have been completely ready. To arm everyone we planned to, to decide on when it would be an opportune time to attack, and to position them so the garrison would be almost wholly destroyed before the end of the first night, rather than only cutting down a third of them.
"It was bitter that our preparations weren't able to be finished before whoever wrote that letter found us out.
"Most importantly, I hadn't been able to immediately grab the Grafted Blade Sword on that night. It would let me outmatch even Stormfeather, who would have more than my equal without it to enhance my abilities and cut the strength of any blow in half. Giving us a champion that Morne could not match. Well, not in direct combat at least.
"But even after he let us attack without warning, Stormfeather was not done letting his foolishness and arrogance contribute to our cause. So when he advocated for those sallies because he didn't believe 'lowly beings' like us could harm them, we ate them alive, and I struck and took the sword.
"And then when he heard word that his men were being questioned he spent precious time investigating who and what to try and prevent any of his accolades from being stripped of him, it gave another opportunity. We had only meant to have me destroy one wing's worth of your irregulars, but that gave us an opportunity to destroy both and assure our eventual victory."
John had trouble comprehending that. All Crann's traitorous actions had not been betrayal, but incompetence? His mind boggled at the thought of how bad a commander Crann was. To be so bad at your job that you were thought of as a traitor...
John just shook his head. He couldn't even find it in himself to feel bad about helping kill the bastard. He was still a traitor in practice and in spirit, if not in technicality, just from his negligence and incompetence.
That was one of the major problems with a feudal system like the one Golden Lineage and Golden Order ran their domains on. Distributing higher ranks to people based on status and backroom deals, rather than merit and deed, caused these sorts of disasters more often.
Not that such things didn't happen in the US or other modern militaries and governments, but it was a matter of degree here. Although, thinking of various incidents he knew about, maybe the comparison was closer than he thought.
Some of John's incredulousness about Crann must have shown on his as Gharriel chuckled again.
"Absurd, is it not? Thankfully, our cause has not suffered from lack of good leadership like your own. But enough about Stormfeather and Tearwolfe. You wish to know the names of the lesser collaborators, yes?"
John nodded and hurriedly took out a book of special parchment and a stick of material to write with. Both were waterproof and would let him write in the rain.
They were things that Morne had developed at some point in the past, but were expensive and time-consuming to produce, so they were only used for the most important information that had to be written or transported in the rain. Like important military messages and such.
John wrote down Marvion Tearwolfe and the names of the other traitors who still lived that Gharriel gave him. Afterwards, John asked for the names and professions of the dead traitors as well, and Gharriel obliged.
By the time he was done, he had a couple dozen names on his list. She even stated how they helped the rebel misbegotten. It painted a pretty clear picture.
The network of people who had been the ones that smuggled Gharriel and other trained misbegotten into the city and down into the misbegotten area of Clifftown and continually supplied them with food that they used to secure loyalty, among other things.
"That is the last of them. Now what do you wish to know next."
"Why did those people side with you? How did you recruit them?"
"Ha. I will not tell you that," Gharriel said with a grin on her face.
John eyed her, but moved on for the moment. He didn't want to alienate her just yet with aggression; he'd come back to it.
"Where did you and the other trained misbegotten come from? Many of you have red hair and all misbegotten discovered with such in Limgrave and the Weeping Peninsula are killed as soon as discovered."
"My kin and I were born in the Altus Plateau."
John raised his eyebrow at the wording. An obvious attempt at dodging the question.
"So you are saying that you came from Altus Plateau to the Weeping Peninsula? How were you not discovered for so long? And who trained you and sent you here? From my understanding, Altus Plateau only treats the misbegotten marginally better than they do here."
The light amusement that had been covering Gharriel disappeared instantly at John's questions.
"'Marginally better'? The treatment of my kind in Altus is far better than here. We are not liked, and we are considered savage, lesser. Like a cripple or disfigured person to be pitied or healed. But we are not slaves, and we do not work ourselves to death in mines or at other heavy labor unless we choose to for runes, like any other man.
"We may have many restrictions in possessions and our children are still gelded, our circumstances in Altus are far from pleasant, but we are not slaves to be worked to death and tortured for pleasure."
Gharriel venomously spit that last part out.
That last accusation... John hadn't seen it, but people with such tastes rarely advertise it openly to others. Only the stupid ones did. Even those who heavily looked down on misbegotten wouldn't approve of such... activities.
After a moment Gharriel calmed down slightly and continued.
"As for those questions, I refuse to answer you. I will not betray our Savior. All I shall say is that he helped us along."
That last bit stopped him. "He"?
That was the first time John had heard the Savior referred to by a pronoun. All the misbegotten had always just referred to a title when yelling war cries about the topic: 'The Savior' and 'Our Savior'. John along with the rest of the men doing battle had heard the misbegotten screaming about their savior for weeks. They had all assumed it was Gharriel.
"Who is this Savior?" John asked.
"I have already said I will not speak upon this."
Who was it? Radagon? Someone else he knew of? Someone who'd never appeared in the game, like those tarnished shardbearers who were hiding away? There was too much he didn't know to make a guess.
It seemed it was time he stopped playing nice. Everything he wanted to know would be behind this wall.
"We have a deal. We get the information we want from you, and in exchange we spare their lives."
Gharriel chuffed.
"Then take them. I will not answer. If I and every misbegotten from here to the Bridge of Sacrifice must die for me to keep this knowledge in confidence, then so be it."
John tried jockeying more info out of her about his line of questioning, pestering and threatening her, but she refused to answer.
John let out a sigh of frustration.
He moved back to asking how they convinced people to turn coat against Edgar. She gave the same "Savior helped them along" answer as the last question and refused to elaborate anymore, no matter how he approached the topic.
Asking about what their plan was if they had gotten control of Morne was also a bust.
In the end he just wrote down that she refused to speak on any of that. He moved on to another topic expecting to get stonewalled again.
"Fine. I'll move on to the next question. The cleavers, were they smuggled in as well? How?"
Gharriel's guarded expression lessened some and she shook her head. She began giving him her first real answer in a while, surprising him.
"They were not. Despite our shared love of our Savior, our collaborators refused to go as far as to help us bring in weapons. They did not believe such things would be overlooked like some more slaves would be. Instead in the tunnel system we had been digging out for many years, we made some very, very crude forges.
"After tricking our collaborators into giving us supplies to operate the forges, those crude cleavers were made out of scraps of materials our most loyal followers slowly collected over the years. The young and least accustomed to life at Morne were the most helpful to us with that, as many who had grown up already or had lived long lives before we had arrived refused to risk themselves to help, even if they wished us success and joined us in our faith in our Savior."
John sighed and put the writing materials away.
"Well, with you not answering any of the other questions, I believe that was it."
As John looked at Gharriel, the Leonine Misbegotten who would have been a boss in a game version of this universe, and knew he was soon to kill her. He felt an urge to ask her for her biography, but he resisted the urge to ask. He didn't have the time or his own private parchment to do that, and he doubted she'd tell him much of anything about this supposed 'savior'.
With how devout she was, he was sure that most of her story would be denied him because it somehow involved he suspected she was, due to her position as leader and instigator of this rebellion, with who or whatever this so-called 'savior' was, that had doomed her and her followers.
After all, even if they had succeeded perfectly like they had in the canon timeline, Godrick's men would have eventually wiped them off the face of the earth one way or another after some time even if the Chosen Tarnished had eliminated Godrick himself. The people of the Weeping Peninsula wouldn't tolerate the misbegotten being in control of Morne, especially after a massacre, and the fringefolk outnumbered and outgunned the misbegotten by a lot.
This entire rebellion had been an exercise in pointless suffering for both sides.
Without any more questions, the time had come for Gharriel.
After a few seconds as they sat there in the rain in silence contemplating what was soon to come, Gharriel spoke up.
"I recognize you, twentier. I remember seeing you, and I recognize your smell from when I ambushed that last unit of men that had sallied out in the early days of our siege of Castle Morne. The unit with two Banished Knights.
"I know you are the one in that final battle who manned the scorpio. The one who detonated what must have been explosive stone buried in the courtyard. From what my collaborators have told me, you are also responsible for that trap as well.
"But that is not all I know of you. I can see from your eyes and your speech that you are a foreigner to these lands.
"Before you take my life, I have two questions I wish to ask you twentier, if you will indulge me."
"Just two? Agreed," John answered, and Gharriel's scarred lips curled into a gentle smile.
"Then I thank you for this favor. Fate is a fickle thing. The Savior had everything calculated, everything accounted for, yet our rebellion still failed, due to a mysterious letter.
"I am certain there were no betrayals from those who follow our Savior. Yet we have a mysterious foreigner who doesn't seem to hate my kind even after this rebellion, and we have a mysterious letter that appeared near the zenith of our plans with information that no one disloyal to our cause should have had. Both of which were central to our undoing.
"I can feel it in my bones. Tell me twentier, are you the one responsible for that impossible letter? For the failure of our Savior's plan?"
With how confident she sounded, John already knew that she knew. There was no point in pretending or deflecting.
"Yes," John admitted.
Gharriel smiled, the scars on her bestial face contorting and shining in the rain. She continued in a frenzied whisper as she leaned closer, her eye gleaming with a burning gold, almost like a torch that pierced through the dreary shade from the rain.
"And tell me, did you know this because you have seen fate!?"
John froze.
What!? How had she figured that out!?
Very carefully, he didn't turn and look at the men standing a distance behind him, but from what he could hear, or rather not hear, it seemed they were still far enough away they hadn't heard Gharriel.
John stood there for a few moments silent.
He could deny it, but despite having spoken to her for just a few short minutes, he somehow knew that someone like Gharriel would not leak this. And she would soon be no more.
"Yes," John answered simply.
Gharriel began wheezing as she struggled to keep whispering to him and keep her laughs quiet at the same time.
"Hahaha! I see! So what I suspected is true! Hahahaha! We were undone by the power of oracle! One whose gift is powerful enough to pierce even the terror the stars hold for mighty General Radahn that keeps fate frozen in place! Hehehehe! Someone who can evade our Savior's calculations, his plans! Hahahaha! Against one such as you who can spite even our Savior, there was never a chance for us! Hehehehehe!"
Gharriel kept wheezing and laughing. Her mirth had a hysterical tone to it. Like she couldn't believe what she was saying and was having some kind of breakdown.
John didn't interrupt her as he waited for her episode to pass. He kept himself ready to react if her crazed laughter turned to action.
But he was wary for nothing. Soon her wheezing laughs subsided and she seemed to calm down from whatever was going on with her, leaving just an amused grin.
"I am honored that you are the one who bested me twentier. One who outdid even my Savior. And bested not with the strength of arm, but with the might of the mind. The weapon that time has proven once again to be the strongest of all.
"My only regret is that I will be unable to warn the Savior of you," she said, pointing at him with a gesture.
"Before we move on to the finale of this act, may I have your name?"
"John White," John nodded.
"John White," she tasted the name and took a long look at his face, "I must thank you for indulging me in these, my last moments. I shall now give the signal to Morsh that you have kept to our bargain."
Gharriel took a deep breath and, with her head pointed up into the air, let out an incredibly loud roar that echoed off into the distance, bouncing off the cliff walls that led up to Castle Morne. No doubt it reached her fellow misbegotten waiting near the cliffside.
After a dozen seconds, her roar petered out. She took a few moments to breathe and catch her breath before she looked to John.
"Now strike true."
Stepped up to Gharriel. Even missing her legs and just standing on her hands with half her body, she was taller than him and massively outmassed him. With a swipe of her arms she could snap his spine like a twig. What had that knight said? Flesh as strong and tough as a dragon?
John looked at his spear and then at Gharriel.
He could just keep stabbing her at her body until she died, but with how big and thick her body was, it would be quite painful and take a while. And he didn't want that.
Strangely, he felt respect for the crippled warrior in front of him.
Sure, she was a genocidal maniac, but the men on the side he had been forced to pick were no better. Not that he was one to talk down about them as his own hands were far from clean. He could still remember the screams of the children as he stood aside.
No. He wasn't interested in moralizing about any of this or sitting on any high horses. To him, the entire rebellion and the atrocities that had occurred and would occur, for both sides, had just been brutal pragmatism about how their world worked.
The people John really blamed for this were the Golden Order, and their deliberate suppression of things they considered to be outside their Order, such as the Crucible. Most of all the people who made the philosophy and values of the Golden Order followed. Marika, Radagon, and the Two Fingers.
The inevitability of this outcome was set into motion long, long ago, many millennia before the people who had lived in Castletown were even born. The chickens were just coming home to roost.
So John was not outraged at the things either side had done in pursuit of saving their own skins. He knew enough about history to say that what occurred here had been a relatively minor incident, as horrific as it had been.
What stuck out to him wasn't the flaws that had been ingrained in them at and since birth, but rather their admirable qualities. Bravery, strength, resilience. Noble sacrifice.
To John, Gharriel was more virtuous than Edgar. As ironic as it sounded to say about a genocidal leader.
And she may be his enemy, but John wasn't the sort to make up lies to himself about someone or something when he found them distasteful and blind himself to their good qualities.
John respected Gharriel despite her faults, so he wanted to make this as painless and honorable as possible.
As John considered how he was gonna go about his, Gharriel must have read something of his thoughts from the look on his face.
"You wish to deal me a swift death? You hesitate to cause me pain in my execution? How strange your mercy is John White. To wish to give me kindness in this moment even as you're to deal me my final punishment. It reminds me of a faint echo of my Savior."
Gharriel took in a breath and then let it out.
"Very well. I see you use a partisan. With the strength of a regular man, I doubt you could break through the back of my eye into my skull. That leaves us with one option."
Gharriel laid down on her back on the street. It was an intersection of what had probably once been a neighborhood before her rebels had burned it down and killed everyone who had lived there. She gestured for him to stand at the base of her torso by her leg stumps.
As she guided the tip of his spear and placed it right below her ribs, John knew what they were aiming for. Her heart.
She grabbed the shaft of the spear with her clawed hands a few feet above his own, and John looked into her lone eye and empty socket one final time.
"Now. Strike." Gharriel said.
As John thrust with all his strength, he felt Gharriel pull the spear into herself at the same time.
With their combined strength, the spear went up under the ribs, through nearly a foot of tough flesh including her lung, and right into her heart.
John could feel her body flinch and shiver in pain through the spear shaft as they held the polearm in her, but she didn't so much as grunt in pain. Rivets of hot blood ran down the spear and over his gauntlets, sinking through them and onto his hands, but he didn't let their eyes break contact.
They stayed like that for at least thirty seconds as her lifeblood spilled from the wound. Her body shivered as they waited for the mortal blow to kill her, and John could see her struggling with all her might to keep her head up to continue their stare even as she weakened and every breath was heavier than the last.
Her shivering got increasingly severe, and soon she tried to take yet another strained breath and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The chilly droplets raining down on them were a stark contrast to the warm stream of red that soaked his hands and had started down his arms under his armor.
Even as she hacked up blood, neither of them let their stare break, but John could see her eyes were becoming unfocused. She might have been looking at him, but he wasn't what she was seeing.
"Ahh..." She mournfully whispered, coughing and struggling to get her words out as blood bubbled up her throat and her breath began getting weaker. "I've failed him... I can't... I hope..... he lets me see... his shining kingdom... where... there... is... no..."
But no more words came.
And with that, Gharriel died.
Her hands went slack and her head dropped down onto the ground as her body stopped its struggling shaking.
John felt her runes rush into him but he didn't move even as more blood flowed down the spear through his armor's joints, further soaking his gambeson.
John stayed like that for a minute, eyes locked on the body in front of him, spear unwavering. A moment of silence.
He could just feel it. That it was important to do.
But time waits for no one but the Dragonlord. The minute passed all too quickly.
With significant struggle, he slowly pulled the spear from her body.
The hole where his spear left her body flooded with blood that poured onto the street, joining the blood that came from his own feet where it had run down his armor. Both streams were picked up by the rainwater and washed into the gutters on the side of the street to be carried away to the cliffside and dumped into the ocean.
No doubt some infinitesimally small portion of it would wash onto the beach that had been the home of the misbegotten of Morne.
John looked at the corpse.
"For what it's worth, I hope you get to see that shining kingdom Gharriel."
As he stood there looking at her wounded, scarred, and too-still body, the rain quickly washed away the blood from his armor and any tears he may have shed from where his eyes burned, he did not know.
It didn't take long until he heard the sound of his men approaching behind him. They had seen it had been done and finally came over.
John stood there looking for another few quiet moments before he turned his back on the corpse and faced his men, just as stoically centered as he ever was in front of them.
"Men. Get that head cut off."
John stood off to the side and watched as his men cut her head off.
It took them nearly two minutes of chopping with swords, the body's extraordinarily tough flesh making it difficult. When they reached her spine, swords wouldn't cut it. The warpicks took over at that point and used their hammer-ends to smash the body's incredibly tough vertebrae apart swing by swing. Then a greatsword made the final strike that cleaved the rest of her neck.
As they did all this, a fountain of blood poured from the body out into the street below. So much that all of it couldn't be washed into the gutters, and her blood started spreading. It colored the paved-stone streets red as a thin film of it quickly spread through the rainwater on the ground.
"Damn, this bastard was a tough one," one of his men said as he held the head in his hands, "The flesh truly was as tough as a dragon's. I hadn't believed it when I heard the others saying so. Sergeant, what are we doing with this?" he asked, holding her up towards John.
John looked down at the large, scarred, ugly head covered in blood.
"The High Marshal wanted proof. Go back to the lift and get it to the hundrier. After that, come back here. We got more misbegotten to meet at the cliffside."
The men left to take the head to the lift and John stayed with her headless corpse. Looking down at it.
Once he heard his men returning once again, John gave her one final look, and turned his back on the corpse for the final time.
"Good job men! That's half of it done. Now we just got to get through the other half. That roar was the signal to the rest of the misbegotten that everything is going according to plan. Let's get to the cliffside."
And so they marched off, leaving the defiled still-bleeding corpse behind them, alone in the cold rain in the center of that bloody intersection. And as they walked away to finish the job, they did not see it as the red continued to spread out in all four directions, washing over the streets of the burned and ruined Castletown in a blood red wave spurned onwards by the rain.
_____________________________________
By the time they arrived at the cliffside and found the rest of the misbegotten waiting for them, all the blood on John and his men's armor had been washed off. He imagined the hate-filled glares the misbegotten were giving him and his men would have been far greater if they still wore the evidence of what had happened.
Standing at the front of the group was Morsh who was holding the Grafted Blade Sword, but even with his large size, it seemed he struggled with the weight of the blade.
Morsh regarded the approaching John with an ice-cold demeanor, already knowing he and his men would be their executioners.
John warily nodded at the misbegotten man, keeping an eye on the sword in his hands. Morsh grudgingly nodded back.
"Send me your first twenty," John said with no preamble. He was done with sentimentality for the day. "We had an issue with the first group. You may have heard it. One of your people raised the alarm, howling, out of turn.
"Gharriel said those who pulled stunts like that weren't part of the deal anymore, and we could deal with them as we saw fit. You gonna uphold that?"
Morsh grunted, displeased.
"Yes. As long as Lord Morne upholds his side of the contract, we will ours. Troublemakers won't find a defender in us."
John nodded.
"Alright. You lot. You're first." Morsh pointed at a particular group.
And so they began escorting the second group of misbegotten to the lift, and John found himself with some time on his hands once again.
This time though there were differences from when he had been escorting misbegotten from Gharriel's group, besides the increased distance they needed to walk each trip.
All over two hundred of the group that had been gathered in the ruins of Castletown had been made up entirely of 'regular' misbegotten with the exception of Gharriel. These 'regular' misbegotten being the flightless misbegotten who were the size of a regular man, though their hunched forms made them shorted.
This was unusual because the misbegotten forces had plenty of 'specialty' troops. Not only was there Gharriel herself, but also large misbegotten elites, and winged, flying misbegotten, a distinction that had to be made as not all misbegotten with wings could actually fly.
This second group at the cliffside had been where all these non-regular misbegotten had been gathered making up about half the misbegotten in the group. The other half being 'regular' misbegotten, many of which had been foreign misbegotten rather than former slaves of Castle Morne.
In Edgar's study, while John and the rest of the officers were estimating enemy troops to make plans over the course of the siege, he had seen all the records that Castle Morne had relating to misbegotten and their numbers.
Unfortunately, or fortunately now that he thought about it, the bureaucracy of Godrick's domain was much lesser than the obsessive record-keeping John was used to in modern society, where the government documented the exact time and location every time someone farted over the course of their entire life.
So they didn't have perfect and exact information to make plans about the misbegotten numbers nor the breakdown of the various 'types' of misbegotten, as the castle didn't keep track of their misbegotten population and their lives basically at all after a misbegotten arrived and was handed over to them.
But that didn't mean they had learned nothing though.
According to Castle Morne's records of misbegotten that had been brought into Morne or given to the castle by the city's population when one was born there, one in thirty misbegotten were born large, and about one in twenty were born with full-sized wings though by the officers' anecdotal estimation only half of those full-winged misbegotten would actually get the "flight magic" that allowed them to fly.
Misbegotten like Gharriel were much, much, much rarer and were always killed immediately, along with others who showed closer connections to the Crucible such as those with large amounts of, or particularly intense, red hair. So they didn't have actual numbers for either of those as what never arrived in the first place was never noted down.
By their best estimates and educated guesses, it seemed that the native slave population of misbegotten had been around three thousand before the rebels had somehow smuggled close to five hundred extra foreign misbegotten over the years they had been plotting.
In a force of misbegotten that was composed of roughly three thousand five hundred individuals, as the rebels had been at the beginning of the rebellion, that meant that there should have been around one hundred twenty large misbegotten and roughly one hundred seventy winged misbegotten, with half of those being able to fly.
But due to the foreign misbegotten the rebels had somehow smuggled in having a higher concentration of 'special' misbegotten than average, the rebels had had something close to two hundred large misbegotten at the start of the rebellion and an unknown number of extra flyers.
Now, seeing as how the misbegotten host had been reduced to roughly five hundred individuals by the end of their last battle, you would expect based on the average numbers to have maybe fifteen or so large misbegotten and about twenty-five winged misbegotten left.
But the thing is, while the majority of the rebels' specialty troops had been killed, they still had a far higher survival than those 'regular' troops who the misbegotten leadership had used as disposable cannon fodder to wage a non-stop battle to wear the defenders down.
So there was actually a far higher concentration of these specialty troops now after the misbegotten had been whittled down to a seventh of what they had started with.
So about one hundred thirty of the five hundred misbegotten that remained were these specialty troops, all of whom were in this cliffside group of two hundred fifty that was being led by Morsh. About eighty of these remaining specialty troops were winged misbegotten and another fifty were large misbegotten. The other one hundred twenty being regular misbegotten.
Of course, not all of this cliffside group of misbegotten were going to be taken into custody. Not like all those in the Castletown ruins had been. Instead, one hundred of them would be staying here to face the blade.
Was John thinking about all this to distract himself from what he was to have to do?
No. He was thinking about all this because he, as twentier of his twenty, had to divide up the 'spoils'. After all, some misbegotten were worth more runes than others, and the twenty's 'bounty' had to be split appropriately.
Twentier would be entitled to the largest share, as the lead officer here. Followed by those who were fiviers. And those with the smallest share would be the digits, the name of the base unit of troop organization.
Anyways, as a result of them now escorting those from the cliffside group, not only were their trips to the lift longer, but there was also a number of these more unusual misbegotten every trip, as many of the 'regular' misbegotten in this group were foreign and slated for execution.
John was good at math, so it didn't take him more than a few minutes to get the distribution sorted in his head, leaving his mind to turn to once again pondering the mystery of the misbegotten as he looked over the more uncommon phenotypes they were escorting to the lift, trying to find a clue to the misbegotten mystery in their more unique features.
It drove him crazy that he could feel that he had all the puzzle pieces to solve this in his head already, but the answer just wouldn't come as he sounded out various ideas to himself in his head.
He was just missing a tiny piece that John knew that he knew, but he just wasn't able to think of it because he wasn't considering it part of this particular puzzle. There was something that he knew that was related to the puzzle of the misbegotten itching the back of his head, but he just wasn't able to think of what it was because he wasn't considering whatever it was to be related to the misbegotten puzzle.
Was it the Nox? They were associated with artificial life like the Dragonkin Soldiers. Maybe the Giants? They had red hair as well. These were some of the things John considered and tried to make fit. But nothing satisfied him, and the answer John sought continued to elude him despite him turning his mind into knots trying to figure it out.
John pondered this as they brought group after group of misbegotten to the lift.
As they brought their fourth group to the lift, his eyes absentmindedly scanned the forms of the unusual misbegotten in front of him, something sparked in John's head.
It wasn't the answer to the mystery that had been plaguing his mind however.
Those particularly-shaped scales arranged on arms in that pattern. His eyes came into full focus. Was that... Sihlas!? Hadn't he been killed with the rest of the misbegotten children!?
John did a double take.
It was! But how had that soldier ended up with Sihlas's drawings, which were still under John's armor!?
He dismissed unimportant considerations. What was important was that Sihlas was alive and in front of him right now!
His heart raced as he looked at his friend he had thought had been killed!
John nearly shouted his name right there in his excitement, but stopped himself as a realization hit him and suddenly felt like his gut was filled with lead.
Sihlas had his back to him, and it looked like Sihlas hadn't recognized John through the rain with this different set of armor on. That made John breathe a sigh of relief. Now wasn't the time, for many reasons.
Sihlas was alive, but in a few days when the reinforcements arrived, Edgar was going to kill the rest of the misbegotten in Morne. That was a massive problem.
His mind raced as he thought about what to do, and as ideas came to him, he put them away to further consider later. This was going to be hard to do with how vehemently Edgar seemed to be, and whatever plan he went with would have to be as ironclad as possible, but John was confident he could save Sihlas's life.
For now Sihlas would be safe in a cell with another nineteen misbegotten.
In fact, drawing any attention to Sihlas at all before his friend was free would be very dangerous. There was also the consideration that no one would want any of the misbegotten to survive, and would no doubt go out of their way to preemptively 'correct' things if they thought Sihlas may get away with his life due to any interference with John.
It was better if Sihlas was just another misbegotten for now.
John let Sihlas's group get onto the lift like all the others, none the wiser to what had happened with John.
A few trips later, and he and his men escorted the final group who were to be taken into custody.
As they made their way back to Morsh finish of things, they heard another lone howl erupt from the castle. This time it was immediately cut short with a violent screech of pain before going silent.
John and his group stopped and waited to see if the rest of that group would begin howling, but none did.
Still, as they approached the cliffside they approached carefully. As they did, John looked at the misbegotten who were left.
There were about forty 'regular' misbegotten with the other sixty being large or winged. Unlike the tense or skittish misbegotten John expected, either from the howl or their own upcoming death, they instead were just as calm as they had been when he had first arrived, though he could see their hate filled glares had been renewed by that howl.
These were the fully trained and battle-hardened misbegotten of Gharriel's Savior, who stood as if their coming death was of no significance to them.
It was terrifying to consider that maybe it really wasn't. True and utter devotion was a powerful thing.
And from what he could see from the looks of them, it seemed the misbegotten's leaders hadn't tried to make any misbegotten of Morne take the fall for them. Admirable.
They could have tried to pass some of the slaves off as their people and vice versa to save their skins, but they had not.
John and his men stopped before the group of one hundred heavily trained misbegotten, more than twenty of whom outmassed them significantly. He and his men eyed them all warily.
This was it. The final act of the rebellion. It all came down to this. Would they really go quietly?
"Is the deal still on?" John asked.
"It is."
Now then came one of the grimmest aspects of the Lands Between.
When men dropped runes on death, it quite literally put a price and worth on everyone's head.
What was even more darkly amusing was that John couldn't even use that as a reason for why the people of the Lands Between committed so many atrocities. Even without the reward of runes, John was sure most of them would do the same things.
John had twenty-one men total, including himself, to divide these one hundred misbegotten between. One twentier, four fiviers, and sixteen men.
He had already done the math.
John turned to his men to give the order.
"I already ate earlier, so I'm feeling generous. I'm giving away my share of the regular ones," John said, and he could see his men liked that announcement, though they were smart enough to break out into a cheer like he knew they wanted to.
"That means that digits get two regular misbegotten, one winged, and one large. Fiviers get two regular, two winged, and two large. I get the leftovers."
John's men drew their weapons and let out toothy, malicious smiles. Excited to quench their thirst for runes, blood, and the 'final' part of their revenge.
John watched Morsh and the steadfast misbegotten as his men got closer and closer to them.
"And no fooling about. I want this done clean and fast. We've already been out here in this cold as shit rain all fucking morning."
_________________________________________________________
Hours later at the end of the day, John sat down at a small table in his room and let out a deep breath as he finally relaxed.
It was finally over. The rebellion.
As a twentier, he had been given his own small office/apartment for himself in the barracks near the room his twenty slept.
The entire day had been shit, even after he was done with that terrible business out of the castle, when he had come back, things had kept being horrible. Turns out wrangling, organizing, and feeding hundreds of prisoners when all their jailers wanted to kill them wasn't so easy.
As he decompressed from an entire day filled with stress, his mind swirled with everything that had happened that day.
He'd given a long report and the notes to Edgar about what had transpired in the ruins of Castletown with Gharriel, and his superior hadn't been happy at all about learning the truth of Crann. The man had been so mad he'd used his storm powers to trash his own study, fucking up an insane amount of paperwork that John had been forced to help clean up after.
Edgar had went on about how he was going to have to make amends with and give reparations to the Stormfeather family, and how he'd have to arrange an honorable burial for Crann and restore the rank of the former Knight Major. There would be a formal retraction and public apology.
Then Edgar had gone on about how he was gonna execute Marvion Tearwolfe and the other traitors, and a bunch of other crap John understood but didn't care about as it wasn't relevant to him at all.
John was just glad he wasn't one of the living traitors. The poor bastards didn't know what the High Marshal had in store for them.
As for John, he'd decided not to worry about his part in what happened with Crann. He was sure that even if Edgar had known the man wasn't a traitor, he would have probably ordered something that would have ultimately ended with a similarly deadly fate for Crann anyways from all the damage the man's gross negligence and corruption had caused by that point.
John had found Edgar was a patient man, but he had a line. One that Crann had harshly crossed.
It was just another turd on top of the pile of shit that the Misbegotten Rebellion of Morne had turned out to be.
John stood back up and took his armor off. It would be the first time he slept without it in a month. It felt far longer than a single month with how much had happened, but it had indeed only been a single month.
Putting his armor up on the armor rack, he sat down at the table he used as a desk and placed his good luck charm down.
Looking at the small wooden box with a hole punched through it that lay in front of him, John thought about Sihlas and what he was gonna do to try and save the kid.
Ultimately, with Edgar's extremely sour mood from his report, John had decided to wait before he talked to Edgar about Sihlas. There was still tomorrow left, and then the day after the reinforcements were arriving. He could wait this small amount of time to increase the odds of him succeeding.
As for the transfer of the misbegotten to the dungeon, besides those two hiccups in the morning with those idiotic misbegotten who had resisted being bound despite the negotiated deal, nothing else had went wrong besides some nasty bruises, some rope burns, and stepped-on toes.
It was incredible that things had gone as well as they had, despite the huge pain in the ass the whole thing had turned into. And John was exhausted and ready to go to bed.
But before John could enter the sweet embrace of sleep, he had one last thing to do.
John picked up a stick of charcoal and opened an empty journal.
He had an important story to put to pen.
'Gharriel was a dedicated and powerful misbegotten warrior. A warrior that made a noble but futile sacrifice under the honorless deception of her enemies after nearly succeeding at staging a nearly impossible rebellion-'
___________________________________________
AN:
And so was the end of the Misbegotten Rebellion of Morne.
It might not look like it at first glance as nothing extremely flashy has changed about the MC's capabilities, but the MC has come a long way from where he was at the start of the rebellion, in capability and mentality. I'm tempted to elaborate on how, but I'd rather just let it show for itself in the actual story instead of letting WoG influence readers' perception of things.
We have only a few more chapters in Morne to wrap the last of the plot threads up, and then we'll be moving on.
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