Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

I stared at him for a moment. What truly horrified me was not what he said, but it was how he said it. So cold, so matter of fact, so consigned to the current state of affairs - either I was to rebuke it, or concede that nothing was to be done.

Yet, what could I do? What could I say? I had seen firsthand the devastation he wreaked - as much as it was brutal, it was also swift and efficient. Was it really that much better to have him on our side? Wouldn't it be better, for both their souls and for humanity, if someone just removed him from the equation all together?

Father, perhaps sensing my unease, then added: "He will stay on our side, Damian. In the few times I have spoken with him, he has had but three wants: women, weapons, and wealth. So long as he has each in ample amount, he won't care about trying to usurp us."

[Ahh there's something more here but I can't figure it out.]

How about a follow up prompt? Some notes on fleshing the story out? It has potential.

Start with describing the war. Why they were desperate enough to cut a deal.

Describing "It" and it's specific methods cruelty would be good.

Have it smile at Damian from a distance.

There was nothing but weeping behind the walls. The food stores were empty. The well had been poisoned last night by an underground tunnel. A plague had caught in the weak, huddled masses and begun to spread to the few strong folk remaining. Soldiers on the walls had learnt to sleep standing—there were too many wounded for there to be a rotation anymore.

Yet, the Colonel would not allow surrender. The last man to ask was hung from the walls. In the following days assault, the enemy had used the rope to help themselves climb up. “Chin up, Lieutenant,” the Colonel had said afterwards, clapping a hand onto my shoulder. “If we just hold for a few more days a relief force shall arrive, and then we’ll rout the bastards. Just do your best to keep morale up amongst the men, eh?” He chuckled, turned back to the window that looked out across the city. His eyes shone like medals and parade armour.

But relief had not come. Only a stranger, dressed in black and standing before starving soldiery and a coughing crowd. They had slipped in somehow, standing stock still in the centre of town since at least just before sunrise when a watchman had spotted them. They leant on a wooden staff covered in coruscating, convoluted rune work so dense it obscured whatever the staffs original shape had been. The sergeant of our regiment’s small Arcanist company said they had never seen rune work so detailed, and I had to agree. The few Arcanists I had seen in battle often had far simpler runes, enchanted to make their blades denser when striking or to shoot a bolt of fire as a trick. But this man… just his cloak seemed to make those warriors look like children playing with toys. Its dark-red stitching whirled and curved in ways that gave me a headache when I tried to follow it.

“I am the Mendicant,” he said. “You shall help me scribe a rune to this city. Then I shall take a year of life from all of you and destroy your enemies. Your Colonel has agreed.” The crowd murmured intensely, firstly at the Mendicant’s name—which had the sergeant turning white—and then at his decree. One stepped forwards and shouted an insult. His head exploded. The Mendicant didn’t even move. Then, as the crowd screamed and fled the square, he turned to me. His words were clear as if we were in an empty room together. “Lieutenant. Your men shall follow these blueprints, and shall be done by morning.” He pulled a wreath of papers out from his cloak, then walked off towards the keep. I looked to the sergeant, then began to walk towards the papers. What choice did we have?

​

That evening, I begged the Colonel to reconsider. I bargained, cajoled, pleaded, threatened, and implored. I told him we could still surrender. That working with a monster like that would have consequences far beyond this one battle. The Colonel simply smiled. “Yes, I know they are a monster. But it’s better to have a fellow like that on our side than the enemies, eh? Letting him kill them is hardly any different than using a sword to do the same. Well, only difference being, this time we’ll win the battle. We’ll be able to end the war—and, we’ll be heroes. Sounds a fair bit better to me than starving to death, don’t you agree, Lieutenant?” He turned towards me, and in his eyes I saw conviction tempered with sadness. He brought his hands around from behind his back and clasped them over mine. “But, let it never be said I do not listen to my subordinates advice. Just say the word and I shall tell him the deal is off. Simple as that.”

I opened my mouth to speak the words, to scream that we should not, could not work with a monster. That I was sure that even if we worked with him now, he was certain to show up on the other side of the battlefield eventually. That there were countless numbers of rouge, powerful Arcanists out there in the world, and dealing with this one now would only result in more deaths, too many to count. But I said nothing. Because gods help me, in his own sick and twisted way he was right. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want my comrades, my men who I was responsible for, to die. Nobody had to die, except for the ones who had put us in this position. Who had forced us into a corner and poked and prodded us and laughed like we were already dead. So I said instead, “The rune will be completed on schedule,” and the Colonel just nodded, without a smile.

​

The Mendicant gathered us all in the town square once more, now covered in a rune that spanned its entirety, as well as several of the surrounding neighbourhoods. When everyone in town had been found and brought, peacefully or not, the lines carved into the cobblestone pulsed once with bright blue light and then fell dark. He told us that would be all, and that we were welcome to the walls if we wished to watch. I went, of course.

They did not die slowly. The air around their whole camp seemed to change in texture—in my distant view, they seemed to shimmer and distort as though they were underwater. I saw men struggle to move, running slowly as though forced to wade through the very air. Arms attempted to move to throats and stopped halfway there as they collapsed. Nobody on the walls cheered as the last of our attackers collapsed. Instead, we just looked to the Mendicant who had joined us on the walls. And beneath his hood, I caught a glimpse of a smile.

Wow