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.

The knight sat up after he finished the ritual that allowed him to tap into the holiest of spirits. He murmured to his commander, "Do I wield a sword or plow today?"

Again, the commander grumbled while he knelt, thinking. Gareth huffed out a long breath through clenched teeth. "I'm afraid the days of the plow are over. Help me up. We need to prepare for war."

True to his word, Gareth had men and women alike scrambling around the temple grounds. Their people saddled horses and passed out tools to those whose jobs were reduced to simply surviving if the defenses were breached. It was a common ritual.

They lit the towers' fires, and drums beat their cadence, warning of the current direction of attack. The creatures always came from the east. Why did they have to announce that anymore?

Mentally weary of it all, Valentine mounted his warhorse. Valentine had more hope than Gareth, but even that hope didn't lie. Pretending the monsters had time to plan strategically at the rate and size they poured in was paranoid.

He longed for his youth, when this was rare and troops would swagger home over a victory. Back then, sometimes the demons would pour out the north woods.

Now, they didn't have time for fancy formations. Not that those were needed for a win. More than that, it was a slogging of brute strength and took too much time to recover from due to having nothing left to finesse.

Their first sign to attack was not the volleys of the archers. Those still hit at a pace and distance that made approaching death look like it would take half a day.

The depths of combing a field for arrows was all Valentine saw with each volley. The Dheebie* teens were threatening to turn back to flint arrowheads if the work became any more taxing**.

Reminiscing died with the sign that every motherless son waited for.

Loric swung down from a small rift in the sky to land on the back of a Gibbey and Rider***. He landed on top of the monster, wings flaring brightly, before they disappeared. The knight cleaved the bastard in half with his faith-backed sword, then stabbed the rider's 3rd eye with the twisted dagger.

Any man or woman of them capable of flight spread their wings to launch in a massive leap that covered the churning ground. As they fell, they spread their wings to help them land on top of a Gibbey.

Valentine held himself in reserve, steadying his horse under him. The urge to jump after them was still strong after years of self-denial.

Gareth muttered, "Something isn't right..."

They were winning, what was there to see? Valentine spotted a wall of new Gibbey creatures, as deep as the bluest sins. Why couldn't demons have more ruddy hues, like Goddess-given blood? They had curved teeth and ears, and holy depths, they were tall monsters in plating. Surely Gareth wasn't disturbed over a new beast.

That's when the hosts of heaven began to fall, killing many of these new monsters, but not fast enough. A man far off to the left split a Gibbey but the Ryder fit his whole head in his mouth and dented his helm into his skull. A woman, far closer up, took out both. Her price was the Rider gripping those spiritual wings and tearing them to tatters.

A flame licked down Valentine's spine with each death while he was held back. He wanted to dive down out of the air and stone these motherless sinners for breaching his world. A sword was divine mercy. They didn't merit a quick death based on the carnage in his sight.

But those deaths were not what Gareth meant.

Vajin, the only Dheebie in the Holy Knights, spread his wings and leapt at the new monsters. He never landed the blow because his soul came out with his wings and shot off to pierce the heavens. His body fell onto the Gibbey's tusks, a husk spraying blood and offal in every direction before crumbling to dust.

Valentine glanced back at his commander, hoping for some instruction. Instead, he saw the hollowed out face of his brother. Gareth, too, collapsed without his soul.

Then the horse crumbled from under him, and he stumbled to his feet through the fall.

The knight faced a sea of monsters, alone and left behind, not knowing whether to call this a victory or grief. Nothing left to guard, Valentine, too, leapt into the air and soared on holy wings to meet his fate. Over and over, one Gibbey at a time, a single being against a sea of hate, until the fields ran with the blue blood of monsters and the dust of his brothers-in-arms.

He wanted to be called home. How could he hope for a death that looked more like their Goddess thought they were insects to be pulled apart?

The Rapture had come for mankind in its greatest hour of need. The only man left to record it was trampled into the ground and no longer capable of caring about the land he loved.

* The Dheebie were supposed to be candle makers, not leaden tip dippers, for all that their name meant "to dip".
**Old women would stay home, making knitting needles and shafts from frostwood all day. They are the same thing, save the fletching and tip's dip in lead, to make a cap that would pierce the monstrous blue skins.
*** A dusky blue rhino-esque creature with six legs, carrying a 3-eyed green man with a gaping maw on its back. It wears a rudimentary harness against which the humanoid braces a twisted pole, a variant of jousting.