Chapter Text
Red Wolf Moon 1178
Alliance Territory
When the Captain gives her orders to attack, moonlight illuminates the battleground. The local lords in the region have some kind of beef with each other, but Shez doesn’t really pay too much attention to that kind of political stuff; his job is to come in and wipe out their enemies. A simple life for a simple mercenary. Shez smirks as he runs his blade across an enemy solider’s chest. Too easy.
“They’re not putting up much of a fight,” he smirks at his companion Getz. Getz swings his ax down, enthralled at the easy job. His confidence bursting, Shez decides to show off. “Are these guys new recruits or something? Guess that means I can mess with them a little.”
Captain Berling estimated an easy job, but he expected a bit more resistance than this poor showing. The enemy line is probably holding on their trump card. Their scouts told them that their opponents had hired the infamous Blade-Breaker, Jeralt Eisner. A man rumored to have never blundered a single job. All kinds of crazy rumors circulate around the man: how he’s survived a hundred battles, how he has debts laid all across Fódlan from his excessive drinking, and how he has a secret killing machine in his band who merciless murders their opponents without blinking. Some kind of Ashen Demon…
They fight off the armed guards on the front line, allowing Captain Berling to lead the charge and break through. The Captain is a beast on the battlefield, an archer without compare. With her at the lead, there’s no way they can lose.
The Captain cuts down a brigand and boasts, “I eat steak tougher than this! Hey! Out of my way!”
The Captain and their back-up archer, Lazley, run ahead of the troop, leading the charge. Getz and Shez stay behind, stopping the enemy stragglers from attacking at their back. With the evening torchlight and chaotic battlefield, Shez can’t make out where their opponents are lurking. What’s worse, the Captain ran off ahead of them, leaving her back exposed. Lazley’s a good shot, but if the enemy captain or his secret weapon show up, then she might get overwhelmed.
“Master your fear and advance!”
Getz pushes onward, running to catch up with the Captain. He yells back to Shez as he runs. “Keep yer eyes open! We still don’t know if the Ashen Demon is here!”
Shez huffs as he slices his blade across a brigand’s chest. No way the Ashen Demon’s here, this far out in the front lines. Defensively, it makes more sense to stay near their employer, keep them out of harm’s way. A frontline assault would be suicide-
“The main force is here!” An enemy foot solider screams, signaling to his brothers-in-arms on the reinforcements. “We’re saved! Now push! Push the enemy back!”
Crap!
Shez has no time to think. All he can do is push through the enemy lines and team up with the Captain and the others; the only way they're going to survive this night is if they work together. He runs ahead and finds the Captain, swatting down her enemies like flies. In the heat of battle, he can imagine the Captain smirking as she finally encounters some foes with teeth.
“You have no chance against Berling’s Mercenaries!” She gloats, her bowstring drawn back. “Stand down!”
Their opponents flee for cover, all save for one mysterious figure. The Captain laughs and lunges her steed forward, ready to engage. “So you’re the infamous Ashen Demon, huh? Face me!”
Shez can’t see the Captain’s opponent but he watches as their body language shifts to a fighting position. A fool with a death wish. There’s no way the Captain can lose to just one-
With a rapid swing of their blade, the shadowy opponent strikes the Captain and a bloodcurdling scream fills the air. The opponent knocks the Captain off her horse. The Captain clenches her midriff and before the she has a moment to react, the shadowy figure runs their sword through the Captain. In the jaws of death, Shez can hear the Captain choke out a dying curse.
“No… Just when my dream was… finally in sight… You… monster…"
Wh-What happened?
His legs feel like they’re made of concrete. It only took an instant. They survived countless battles but one merc murdered the Captain almost effortlessly. Is this the infamous Ashen Demon? The secret weapon in Jeralt’s arsenal, the legendary killer?
He watches as Lazley draws her bow back. The Ashen Demon doesn’t hesitate and runs towards her. In a panic, Lazley misses and the Ashen Demon slices her throat. A single strike was all it took. As Lazley’s body falls to the ground, a fire burns in Shez’s chest. He hasn’t known Lazley for long, but to die like that-
Shez rushes on to the battlefield.
He hears a yell and sees Getz, furious at the Ashen Demon’s slaughter, reach the opponent first. He swings his ax and the Demon runs her blade through his chest, as effortlessly as she killed the Captain and Lazley.
“Getz no!”
Getz gurgles something, barely clinging to life and the Ashen Demon tosses his body aside, alert to Shez’s position. In the torchlight near the gates, Shez finally sees the Ashen Demon up close.
Her ashen armor glimmers in the faint light. Her stance is strangely relaxed; she just ran her blade through three enemies and yet she’s composed, calm as if the battle is merely an inconvenience. Her wide, doll-like eyes glisten in the torchlight, observing his movements. At a distance, she barely looks like a threat. Yet his hands can’t stop shaking, even with a blade in his grasp.
“Stand down or die,” she commands plainly.
The indifference in her voice makes his blood boil. “We’re gonna stand, we’re gonna fight, and we’re gonna avenge the captain!”
He lunges, clashing his blade against hers. She parries, no even flinching. He’s unsure if there are any comrades left to back him up, but he can’t risk this monster moving past this point. She swings and he manages to barely block her attack, the blow throwing him back with the force of a demonic beast.
He tries to gain some distance, his heart beating like crazy. “Why am I so scared? It’s just one merc,” he mutters, trying to calm himself. His hands can’t stop shaking. He makes his way towards Getz, the mercenary growing paler and paler as he bleeds out.
“Argh! Run…” he coughs, blood spewing from the mouth. “Run while you can…”
Shez’s eyes widen as Getz suddenly goes limp, fear overwhelming him. “Getz, no! This can’t be happening…”
The Ashen Demon approaches, the grass crunching beneath her heavy footsteps. Shez struggles to get back on his feet, desperate to fight back. She swings her blade relentlessly and he manages to dodge, barely keeping up with her blows. With each blow, he loses more and more breath, while the Ashen Demon hasn’t even broken a sweat. In his desperation, he throws a swing but the Ashen Demon blocks with her fist and punches him. He gets back up and tries to charge but the Ashen Demon throws him off by tripping him with her foot.
She takes advantage of his weakness and thrusts her blade towards him. If not for his armor, he would have died, then and there. He tumbles on the ground, his blade in front of him.
He huffs, his chest heavy as he struggles to move his legs. This woman is a fighting monster. The rumors didn’t exaggerate at all. His eyes grow heavy and he knows that if he closes them now, he will never get a chance to open them again. In the glow of the full moon, he sees the silhouette of the Ashen Demon approaching. A merciless monster, coldly approaching the kill.
“I have to…” Shez mutters, attempting to keep conscious. “Keep fighting….”
Darkness overtakes him as he awaits death.
“-enough! We did what we came to do. Everyone, fall back!”
He can hear the faint echo of soldiers marching in the background as he blinks his eyes open. A tranquil feminine voice nearby speaks, “I see. This fight is over.”
Shez regains his bearings and watches as the Ashen Demon turns her back on him.
“Damn…” he whispers, half relieved, half enraged. “Where are you going?”
The Ashen Demon stops in her tracks, tilting her head back towards him. “We’ve achieved our mission here. You failed in your objective. No need to take your life.”
He growls, a futile effort given his condition. The Ashen Demon, sensing his bloodlust, muses. “You are in no condition to fight. Another time, perhaps.”
The Ashen Demon walks away, leaving him alone in a field of corpses. He steadies himself, but finds his legs slipping in the dirt. He drifts off, slipping away from consciousness until his employers’ men take to the battlefield, collecting the dead.
When he awoke, he winced at the bloodshed. As one of the few survivors of the battle, he recovers and helps to bury the dead, the moonlight battle replaying in his mind. He’s seen dozens of battlefields, been a member of other mercenary groups before, but burying the dead always gets worse when it comes to people he knows. He saw the Captain, the woman who took a chance on a rookie like him and let him join her crew, laying face down in a pool of dried blood.
His blood boils; it wasn’t a faceless army that did all this- it was the Ashen Demon.
The Ashen Demon killed the best members of Berling’s Mercenaries like they were gnats. The rest scattered and Jeralt’s mercenaries killed the remaining fighters, leaving him the sole survivor of the mercenary band. The Demon walked away, not even bothering to finish him off. His pride stings. Given her fierce fighting style, he barely held a candle to her. Going after her, as he is now, is a death wish.
But what is he supposed to do now? He doesn’t have a home anymore; not since his mother died. He has no friends, no family. Joining another mercenary group just means opening up for more fragile attachments. Mercenaries only stick around for the money, nothing else. Still, Berling’s Mercenaries was all he had.
There’s this fire burning inside that he can’t describe- an anger, a hatred burrowing in his core, a voice in his head telling him to fight. Maybe he’s just looking for an excuse, but he doesn’t care. Someday, he’ll kill the Ashen Demon.
With Jeralt’s mercenaries and the Ashen Demon prowling the Fódlan battlefields, it’ll be tough to find them again. They never stick to one place for too long. As he is now, he doesn’t stand a chance against the Ashen Demon and employers aren’t too keen on hiring a wandering mercenary from a dead band.
He has to sharpen his skills, strengthen his body beyond hers if he plans to stand a chance against the Demon. He lacks a mentor- his mother taught him the basics but very little on sword specifics- and the best places to train in Fódlan all cost money that he doesn’t have.
He’s heard stories of Albinean swordsmanship, how the swordmasters there move with a blinding speed and slice a dozen times before their opponent can even react. The Ashen Demon was quick, but if he can match her speed and strength he might have a better time attacking her before she gets to him.
It takes a few months (and a couple of odd detours with his wayward sense of direction) before he reaches the harbors in Adrestia. Boats traveling outside of Fódlan are uncommon, so he uses the last of his savings to buy a ticket to the island of Albinea, north of the Adrestian Empire. The freezing winds make for a rough voyage and the icy, rough terrain remind him of Faerghus, cold and desolate. Apparently, the island is home to a bunch of rare species of flora and fauna, but the tough climate reduces the island’s population to just a handful of fishing villages.
With no map and no idea, Shez goes off to ask for directions. The villagers speak a different language from mainland Fódlan, wary of outsiders. He’s not well-learned, but his mother taught him enough language basics in case Shez ever decided to live overseas. He finally manages to earn the villagers’ trust after fighting off a beast plaguing their village. A village elder informs him of a swordmaster training up in the mountains and Shez has his destination.
Shez trudges up the mountains, fighting off beasts and wayward bandits, until he finds an old master training in the isolated mountains. Master Nabarl is a stoic man, quiet and prone to secrecy, in a way that reminds Shez of his mother. Rumor has it he was once known as the Crimson Fencer, the master of the two sword technique, and traveled from Albinean to the regions of Fódlan and beyond, though why he retired to the mountains he never said.
For six months, Shez begged to train under his guidance, chatting the grumpy old man's ear off, and sleeping out it in the cold. The master refuses time and again until he saw Shez train out in the snow. What changed his mind, he never said, yet Shez was grateful all the same.
For one year, Shez endured the worse training imaginable- swimming in a frozen lake, swinging his sword until his fingers bled, fighting off fire-breathing bears. He didn’t even know bears could breath fire, though Master said they originally came from wizard capital in Morfis.
In his effort to prove himself to his Master, Shez went rushing in to slay the bear. He won the confrontation but lost the pack with all his supplies, including his return ticket back to Fódlan.
His Master, in a stoic fury, commands Shez to earn back the funds for his return trip before they continue with training in the two-sword style. Tickets to Fódlan are not cheap and it turns out earning money in a country consisting mainly of fishermen as a mercenary is a lot tougher than he could have imagined.
Begrudgingly, Shez commits himself to working in the fishing docks and selling the wares of the wild animals he’s slain to merchants traveling the docks. After a year, he finally manages to earn enough for a ticket and returns to his master, who claimed the merchant work was all part of his training, somehow. Shez doesn’t really get it, but he’s happy to proceed with learning the two blade style.
Shez trains rigorously, day in and day out, eating, breathing, and thinking of the sword. Flashes of the Ashen Demon would appear from time to time, but in the midst of his training, she felt like a ghost, a distant memory. His Master called him out on his distractions and Shez resolves to shove his feelings of revenge deep within, desperate to focus on the challenge ahead.
After another year of training, Shez decides to try his new skills on a much larger opponent. The mountains are home to giant salamanders, almost dragon sized. In Fódlan, you need a whole battalion to even put a dent in this monster’s thick hide and his Master pits him against one to display his mastery of the two blade style. Unfortunately, the giant bastard caught him off guard, scarring his right eye in the process. Master ended up cutting it down.
He spends six months recovering before his Master states they need to change his training. They embark on a journey across Albinea, helping the villagers that they come across, training in new terrains, slaying wild beasts. The Master doesn’t explain the purpose of this training, but there’s something about helping people that seems to give Shez greater strength than when he travels alone. Why is that?
Shez loses track of time, but judging from his stubble, he imagines they’ve journeyed this road for well over a year. It’s a tranquil life, rewarding in some aspects but empty in others. On this journey, the Ashen Demon seems like a distant memory. At nights, he’d look over his ticket and debate whether it’s even worth going back to Fódlan. It’s not like anyone’s waiting for him there.
He finally managed to slay a giant salamander on his own. The Master gives a curt nod, stoically impressed.
They make their way back to the Master’s hut when suddenly, his Master collapses. They seek shelter from the cold in a nearby cave and many times Shez contemplates wandering out to try and find a village for assistance. His Master forbids him.
Weeks pass before his Master finally leaves this world. To the bitter end, he refused to divulge any part of himself, not even the reason he agreed to take Shez as an apprentice. Whatever stories he had, whatever sins he carried, he took them all to the grave, just like Shez’s mother. Yet the Master, seemed oddly at peace with his decision and Shez buries another friend.
He wanders around for months, both from his poor sense of direction and his indifference, aimlessly looking for a purpose to continue his training. He finally reaches a fishing village on the edge of the island.
With the little money he has left, he opts to spend the night in a tavern and in the company of people for the first time in years. The rowdy merrymaking reminds Shez of what it felt like to just be a normal person again, carrying on without a care in the world. Yet there’s this gnawing emptiness inside him. A lack of meaning to it all.
He heads up to his room and observes himself for the first time in years. He’s put on a great deal of muscle from all his years training, dexterous enough to wield two blades in combat and maybe he’s grown a little taller as well. His eye’s healed up nicely, though the scar’s a bit jarring to look at. Luckily his hair covers it up. He’s got way too much stubble for his liking though. He grabs a shaving blade and contemplates his next objective.
Assisting villagers alongside his Master endeared him to the local population; if he wanted to, he could stay and find work here no problem. But then, what was the point of his training?
There’s always Fódlan. With his skillset, he’d find work easy and probably make good coin too. But then what? Just fight and fight until he dies?
A small voice whispers inside him and the memory of the Ashen Demon flashes in his eyes. The monster, the empty woman who slaughters people with no regard. She’s still out there, doing Goddess knows what. And he’ll make her pay.
Red Wolf Moon 1186
Fódlan
After a couple months, Shez makes it back on Adrestian shores. It’s amazing to hear the Fódlan tongue spoken so freely and to watch children playing in the market streets. It’s also fantastic to have warm weather again; he can finally move around without his heavy coat. He makes his way to a local tavern to relax and catch up on Fódlan news, particularly on Jeralt’s mercenaries. Doubt the Ashen Demon’s dead, but it’s better to have a sense on their whereabouts.
The tavern has an unusually high number of foreign travelers. Business must be pretty good; he heard the Empire’s usually more reserved with foreigners on their land. He takes a seat at the bar and calls out for the bartender and his assistant.
“Greetings good sirs!” Shez greets. ”It’s been a long time since I last set foot on Adrestian soil. Tell me, what are the happenings in this area?”
The middle aged bartender scowls, his hand trembling with the beer mug in his hand. He slams the mug on the counter, silencing the bar and drawing in all the attention. “Adrestian? You some type of loyalist?!”
“Whoa! Whoa!” Shez appeases, shocked at the bartender’s sudden turn-around. “Calm down! I have no idea what that is.”
A bar maiden with a thick braid steps in behind the counter and rolls her eyes. “Relax Pete. The guy’s coming in from overseas. He might not know about the Empire. Got plenty of people coming in and out who don’t know about the happenings onshore.”
“What?” Pete scowls, indignant. “You’ve got to be a total dingbat to not know about the Unification War.”
“War?” Shez blinks. “There was a War?!”
“Wha- Yes there was a War!” The man answers, irate. “What were you doing? Sleeping under a rock for five years?”
“No,” Shez counters defensively before backtracking. ”I mean news travels slow in Albinea. What happened?”
“Kid, everything happened!” The man replies, exasperated. “A massive war broke out in Fódlan. The Empire waged war against the Central Church!”
“What?” Shez exclaims, nearly falling off his seat. “That’s insane!” The Central Church is the lynchpin for all Fódlan. The Kingdom and Alliance owe too much to the church to ignore a direct attack. Going against the church is akin to political suicide; you’d be fighting all of Fódlan.
“Mmhm,” the bartender nods, relieved that Shez understands the gravity of the political strife. “Managed to capture the Archbishop too. Emperor divided the Kingdom and Alliance forces with in-fighting and moved their sights onward towards conquering their lands. Lasted nearly five years.”
“What the- the Empire declared war on all of Fódlan?” The bartender nods and Shez is left speechless. “That’s unbelievable.”
“In a manner of speaking yes. Well anyways, the conflict escalated but the Kingdom won in the end. The Alliance was left in shambles and the Emperor was executed. Things right now are pretty tense but overall, it’s an improvement compared to the constant bloodshed. Quiet, but not too worried about soldiers coming ’n to the bar and stealing.
“Sorry about the yelling earlier,” Pete apologies, his tone relaxing. “We just get ex-Imperialists who grumble too much for their own good. All things considered, the King’s a pretty swell guy. Been real nice to the commonfolk and the Kingdom’s helping out with the rebuilding down here.”
“Well, that’s good to hear," Shez exhales, relieved to hear that the chaos has died down. “Politics have never been my strong suit. Honestly, it makes no difference who calls all the shots as long as the people on the bottom flourish and there’s work for mercs. But man, that’s crazy though.”
He chuckles to himself. If he had stayed in Fódlan, he might have made a killing off the war. With the constant battles, lords get desperate and mercenaries line up for the chance to build their reputation. The big named mercenary groups probably got involved on the frontlines.
“Hey, so I’m a mercenary and there is someone I’m trying to look for. Wondering if you might have some information on them.”
“Score to settle?”
“Something like that,” he replies coyly. “Let’s just say this person owes me. She’s a mercenary, with cold dead eyes. She’ll strike you while drenched in her enemies’ blood, indifferent to the corpses she’s piled up. They say she’s the most feared member of Jeralt’s Mercenaries, outside of the old captain himself.”
Shez leans in to whisper, “The Ashen Demon.”
“The Ashen Demon?” The bartender whispers back. In a sudden motion, he throw his head back and laughs. “Har! Har! You really have been living under rock for five years!”
“What’s so funny?!”
“Jeralt’s Mercenaries are no more, kid!” He explains, wiping a tear from his jovial eye. “The Captain and the Ashen Demon joined up with the Church of Seiros! They say the ‘Ashen Demon’ earned Lady Rhea’s favor. After Lady Rhea’s capture, she took command of the Church forces to help the Kingdom win the War. Heck, Lady Rhea gave her blessing for her to take over the church!”
“What?!”
“Yeah,” the bar maiden jumps in, engaged with Pete’s reaction. “She was anointed the new Archbishop a few months ago. Rumor has it, she’s engaged to the King as well, so she’ll be the future Queen on top of that. Ha, it’s like a fairy tale.”
“What?!”
Pete continues to chuckle. “Haha, I don’t know what kind of score you’ve got to settle with her, but face it laddy, the Ashen Demon ain’t no demon anymore! She’s a hero! A holy woman. Now people are treating her like some kind of saint!”
Shez stares, his jaw agape. It’d be comical if it wasn’t so insane. How did the notorious mercenary rise up to become an Archbishop?
What the hell happened in five years?