Until This World Ends

Ch.1: The Resolute

Valentine Auger lived the normal life of a holy knight. Early morning prayers were expected, but the depth he bowed to as he prayed was his own choice. He was the one who knelt with his forehead touching the soil where the Goddess' feet once trod.

Very few knights went to such lengths of piety. It wasn't due to beliefs; it was unconventional due to early back spasms.

He'd abase himself at dawn in the courtyard, while the only man he respected knelt next to him. Gareth Helmsman was a decade older, and his back had stiffened from the decades-long battle with demons. This brother would grunt in mild annoyance when he knelt, and then he would lean forward on his knees to bow. The deference was still there, but no abasement ever showed.

But Valentine knew his thoughts. Gareth, a supposedly Goddess-fearing man, thought the woman was full of shit. It wasn't disbelief, but more a conviction of incompetence. "They're getting stronger."

"Mmm..." Valentine didn't want to breathe in the dust that startled with each snort of his nostrils. If it wasn't for the Goddess, they wouldn't have made it so long. 18 years of warfare, and he fought every single battle that came his way. This experience showed these creatures becoming more monstrous with every passing year. That they survived had to be through the Goddess' knowledge. She gave so much power to the saints who fought. There were no other conclusions to draw.

The courtyard filled with more knights and soldiers, squires and monks. They prayed for another sunrise on the back of this one. It was a fatalistic view that they all held, as dying in battle was the biggest threat they knew. No give us this day our daily bread, but more Can there be bread, tomorrow?

They didn't prepare for what would come, or the monsters would charge through a wheat field instead of following the more tempting path. Harvest was the most intense time for the people of King's Port. Most of the city was safe from monsters, due to how the walls braced against the sea. The grain fields sheltered from the winds of the sea behind the city and were pinched between that and the Blackwood forest. They used to stretch out directly eastward, but with that many demons crossing the land, they learned to move the fields.

And there was no rhythm or season to the attacks. Daily life was split behind a sword and a plow for everyone—well, almost everyone. A farmer didn't plow his orchard, nor did a scholar plow his papers.

Hardly anyone in the order took to plowing people. Not that lovemaking was a sin, but that it was difficult to give oneself over to a relationship or even the act. So much of the soul went into killing the monsters that were destroying humanity one nation at a time.

Even Asheradama had splintered into city fortresses in the end. They hadn't heard from those bastions of life since Gareth took over.

Valentine disciplined himself for his love for all of mankind. But he found it a lot easier to be that devoted to all because he was only absorbed in one person, Gareth—his mentor and brother in arms.

The knight was approaching his middle years, where his strength would soon falter. Younger men must pick up the sword while he slowly crawled to the grave. Gareth was even closer, but showed no interest in retirement.

But it wasn't because the old commander wanted to be in battle. He was tired, well beyond done. Gareth was one of the few who could sense when these bastards would breach the world and invade hearth and home, to destroy life, like living was wrong.

Valentine bowed to the ground to show he was still capable of guarding his very life, his friend. The day he could no longer do so was when he would retire. Other than his might, Valentine wasn't needed in this world, and he knew it. Men like Gareth were—the called, the chosen. Such people served Arden with the whole of themselves, no matter their private views on it all. Because they did, people still had hope in living.