The Final Campaign of Ceres the Forsaken: Book I

The Telling of Betrayal

By Travis, period 4

This tale begins in a time many ages ago, in a faraway land with a forgotten name. In the time of this telling, the land was fraught with danger in every guise one could think of. Small girls turned into raging werewolves. Giants raided cargo shipments carrying gold and jewels; strange old hermits camped outside city walls, asking strange questions of passing people and when answered wrong, enslaved them with magic. Wars were never ending, for it seemed that kings had an unsatiatable appetite for destruction. It was in this tumultuous time that the great knight Ceres the Forsaken gained fame through battle, and met his demise.

Ceres was the only knight who fought without banner or emblem; he had been disowned and ostracized from his home. As battle was his greatest talent, he became a mercenary, the greatest ever known. Bards sang of him long after his death, and the mere mention of his name was enough to make a person think twice about doing something stupid. In his time, there was no one who had not heard of him. He would fight a battle until he was the only one standing; he was rumored to have the strength of a thousand men and it was said that his sword Titan had descended directly from the sun. Giant and werewolf ran from him, and thieves scattered at the sound of his voice. In a battle, it seemed that he was many places at once, and it was rumored that he could disappear and reappear at will.

In any case, Ceres’ reputation caused resentment within any fighting unit he was hired to. Although they would never show this to his face, they hated the way people talked of him, like he was superior to them. On Ceres final campaign, this would make itself apparent.

In his final commissioned battle, Ceres was not in command like he liked to be. The commander was another knight, Brandon the Valorous (later renamed by scholars Brandon the Cowardly). While Ceres would have liked to continue fighting to the end, Brandon ordered Ceres and the rest of the men, about 20 in all, to retreat into the woods. Not one of the men who ventured into that wooded area ever returned alive.

The forest looked like any other, but there were subtle differences. There was none of the usual noise that permeates the atmosphere of any normal wood: none of the frogs singing, none of the birds chirping, not even snapping twigs underfoot. In fact, this forest was on top of the gates of Hell, and although he could not put his finger on it, Ceres knew from the moment he set foot on the twisted path, he knew that something was not quite right.

No one knows quite what happened to the first two. One moment they were there; the next they were gone with out so much as a small sound. The company found them farther down the path, tied to trees and with agonized expressions on their faces. They had been stabbed many times with what looked like claws of some sort, and although they did not appear to have gags of any sort, they had not heard any screams. Although several of the men wanted to turn back, Brandon insisted on pressing forward, taking them deeper into those cursed woods.

As they progressed farther into the heart of the area, things got worse. There seemed to be corpses at every intersection and curve, and it got darker and darker although it was morning when they had started this excursion. More men were taken, and in less subtle ways. One was grasped by tentacles and hauled up screaming and kicking to the canopy of the forest. When he reached the top, the tentacles ripped him apart and threw the pieces in opposite directions. Another man was eaten alive by a carnivorous tree before anyone could reach him. Two men died when some vines hanging down from a tree branch looped over their heads and broke their necks. Brandon himself was hauled up to the treetops by a pair of demons.

However, he was not killed. He made a pact with the demons that if they would spare him and give him power in Hell, he would give the men and Ceres to Hell personally. The demons agreed and turned back to their quarry.

When he had seen Brandon get seized, Ceres immediately took command of the men and ordered them to break off the retreat and return to the outside. The men agreed for they were eager to get out of the death trap. As they took flight in the opposite, more men were lost in combat, two to arrows and another to a deadfall with spikes at the bottom. Although many demons attacked Ceres, he managed to fight them off and slay them with the aid of his shield and Titan.

However, a most peculiar sight met them around a bend. There, standing nonchalant against a tree and apparently unharmed, was Brandon. When the men got up to him he told them they were going in the wrong direction; that he had scouted a shorter route out of there. The men, although warned by Ceres not to trust him, followed Brandon. Ceres continued on the way of his choosing.

He had not traveled long when he heard screaming. He quickly ran to the source, finding the Hellhound Cerberous devouring the last of the men he had fought with, with a host of demons and Brandon looking on. Enraged, Ceres hurled himself into battle against the horde.

The first demon he attacked never saw him coming. What expression that could be discerned from the two halves was one of surprise. The next two did not fare much better, both cut in half along the stomach by Titan’s mighty blade. The fourth managed to get his weapon up, just to be decapitated with a feint and downward swing. Ceres hacked demons apart left and right, coming closer to Brandon with every strike. As he progressed, he screamed insults at Brandon, "Traitor" and "Dishonorable scum" among the cleaner expletives used. Ceres kept swinging, demons kept falling, and the ground grew black with demon blood that day.

When he finally reached Brandon, the Hellhound Cerberous struck, attempting to eat Ceres and attacking with all three heads. When he was distracted, Brandon took the opportunity to attack Ceres, running at him with a spear.

Ceres saw the attack and had two options: parry the attack and be devoured by Cerberous, or hold off the monster and have Brandon run his spear through his abdomen. Ceres chose the third option and hurled himself into the void of Hell itself.