The Kingdom / Chapter 01.01 - "The Farmer"
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
A golden haze settled around the hills as the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, barn swallows tittering out their morning song as they swooped and twirled through the glistening spring air. The bluebird concert rang in harsh contrast to the stuttered scraping of the plow against the soil and the braying complaints of the old mare pulling its iron sorrow. The farmer, young and hale, kept the plow steady, angling and pushing and lifting to make the horse's work as easy as possible. Two hours he had worked, and there were ten more yet to come, and though he found himself lost in thought, his body continued to perform the task at hand. Plow the field. Prepare for sowing. Autumn will come far too quickly, and there must be crops to reap.
“Good morning, farmer!” A voice snapped him out of his reverie, and he tugged on the mare's reins, bringing her to a sudden halt. Turning to the east, he pinched his eyes to slits, squinting out the sunlight. There, on the road, stood a wagon covered with canvas stretched over hoops of wood. The driver, a balding man of small stature, gave a friendly wave and a warm smile. “Is this the road to Philadelphia?”
“It is indeed, sir,” he replied, his voice thick and husky. He wiped his brow; sweat already starting to bead on his forehead. “It's perhaps a day's walk – half a day, by wagon. From where do you travel?” The farmer tugged off his gloves, shoving them into his belt, and began walking over the uneven field to the trail. As he drew closer, a ginger-haired woman climbed from the back of the cart onto the bench beside the man, smoothing her dress as she sat.
“The Amsterdam Principality, my good friend, from Manhattan Isle,” he said. “Name's Neville Roberts; I'm a cartographer. My family and I will be taking a coach out to the west to help put to map the first intercontinental railroad.” He seemed very certain of himself, bright and cheerful.
“Dragging us out of civilized lands, he is,” the woman teased. “But I love him, and I'd have it no other way.”
The farmer grinned, a lop-sided, boyish smile. “Give my best to the King, then,” he said. “Ol' Honest Abe can use all the help he can get.” The mapmaker nodded and thanked him, then placed a bowler atop his head and rallied his horses. The farmer watched, standing aside the road, as two children – one a teenage girl, the other a boy of perhaps nine or ten years – waved to him from the back of the wagon. He raised his hand to return the wave, when a loud CRACK! split the air, followed by a shrill whistle. He watched in disbelief as a glowing orb crashed down on the wagon, toppling it. Neville and his wife were thrown from their seat, spilling out onto the ground as the farmer bolted toward them. Shouts of disbelief and screams of fear filled his ears as he scrambled to pull the younger Roberts' to safety.
“Look out!” the woman yelled, “Behind you!”
The farmer spun about, his eyes going wide as a thin bolt of sickly green light lanced from the clouds above, spreading into a swirling vortex as it neared the ground. Stumbling backwards, he grabbed a spinning wheel for support, staring in awe as a tall, stark creature brandishing a strange weapon – a heavy rifle with some sort of thick blade welded to its underside – stepped from the twisting portal, followed by another, then a third. The first, different from the others only the the color of the bands at his shoulders, barked out what could only be a command (though in a tongue the farmer had never before heard – perhaps French!), sending the other two menacingly toward the fallen couple.
With a twist of his arms, he broke the metal binding of the wheel from its wooden rim and spokes, spinning it in his hand as he leaped toward the invading creatures. The first fell quickly as he caught it in the soft tissue of its neck with the edge of the ring, which caught and remained buried in the being's spine. Relinquishing his makeshift weapon, he turned to the second just in time to dodge a blow from its vicious blade. He dropped to the ground and rolled to the side, wrenching the rifle from the hands of his fallen opponent. Rising to one knee, he took aim and pulled the trigger: the shot rang true, striking the oncoming opponent square in the chest.
The farmer rounded on the last invader, or what he thought must be the last, when two more stepped from the gateway. Glancing to his right, he met the gaze of the cartographer, motioning with his eyes for them to leave. The man shook his head ever so slightly, tightening his grip on a Winchester rifle which must have landed conveniently nearby. The farmer's eyes went wide as the man raised his gun and leveled his sights on the leader of the alien forces. “This is the Kingdom of America, and I know what you are. Your kind aren't welcome here!” he shouted as he squeezed the trigger.
The slug glanced off the leader's right pauldron, ricocheting into the air. The monster, which the farmer was only now beginning to understand must be the Rikti – vile creatures rumored to be from nowhere worse than the depths of Hell itself – let out a low, rumbling laugh, It took two steps toward Neville, its mouth forming words beyond comprehension, punctuated by three which were as clear as they were frightening. “Die: Humans must.”
“No!” the farmer yelled as the Rikti commander lifted its weapon to take a shot at the mapmaker. Without thinking, he bounded between the two, a single leap carrying him into the path of the oncoming slug. The pain was quick, a snakebite at the shoulder, and his body jerked backwards, then fell, crumbling like a child's ragdoll. The world blurred, then faded back into view, and the towering villain was bringing its weapon around for a second shot when the tail end of an arrow seemed to sprout from its chest. Two more stepped forward to take its place, and another two materialized from the portal.
“Run! You need to run now!” It was a woman's voice, quick and musical, and the farmer, laying at an awkward angle, could barely make out her lithe, naked form, ushering the Roberts' away while holding off the attackers with her bow. Two more of the beasts fell, and two more appeared, their numbers seeming to be endless, but at last it appeared the woman had led the family to safety. The farmer, satisfied that he was able to aid them, closed his eyes as four Rikti hefted him up, and he passed into disturbing darkness as they dragged him through their portal into another world.
