His Divine Madness

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15 - The Mark of Royalty

Dietrich sat in one of the Guest Pavilion’s many luxurious chairs, laying his feet on the table before it in deliberate spite of the family it once belonged to. What a joke it was that such a building could exist in the walls of his own castle, with furnishings more opulent than those of his own quarters, with chairs the size of his own throne. For ages, he had lived in humiliating submission beneath the ever so powerful Avarian royalty. Now, things were finally about to change. Just another week and a letter would surely return from the capital permitting a marriage ceremony for himself and the princess. It would be a spectacle for all noblemen to see, one that told them a new age was upon them, where Avaria would no longer be the passive and indulgent pig it had become under the old King’s complacency. Upon them would be an age of conquest, an age where Avaria would conquer the known world with its army of ravenous beasts. Finally, he could fulfil the dreams of his ancestors ...

14 - The Only Way

With no time to waste, Bernhart and Luitold headed back into the keep and quietly slipped through the halls toward the Guest Wing, where Rudolf’s private quarters resided. Bernhart was still processing the information Quintus had just told him, though he knew his only option was to continue forward with a stoic face and consider the details later. The Count, a man he looked up to only a week prior, had now been exposed as his greatest enemy, a man willing to destroy, manipulate, and corrupt himself all for the sake of power.

Act II Completed! (Update)

As Act II has now reached its conclusion, I think it’s due time I post another update/news post here on this blog. With two out of four acts complete, the draft of HDM is now well underway, and I must say things are shaping up to be quite a bit larger than I first imagined. My goal when I began this draft was to write a story 60,000 words long, which roughly equates to just around 200 pages, making it quite the short book. Now though, the word count has reached just under 44,000 and we’re only halfway done, meaning the book could end up being a true full-length novel, something I never thought I’d be able to do had I told myself this a year ago. This growth in word count is mostly thanks to the unforeseen size of chapters 7-11, with 10 and 11 in particular being 20 pages each in my manuscript, far surpassing the goal I set for myself which is 10 to 12. I’ve found when what you write is a piece of yourself, words just flow out naturally. Speaking of which, I truly feel this bo...

13 - First Drops

Luitold sat in the comfort of his bed, his body exhausted from another day of training. Though dusk wouldn’t be for another two hours, the tranquility of his bath just earlier had relaxed his body and mind, and the dark cloudy skies overhead provided the illusion of night.

12 - A Dark Reunion

Later that day, in the mid afternoon, Bernhart and Luitold were sparring once again under the watch of Rudolf from above the pit. After four days of rigorous training, Luitold had improved considerably in his beast form, with his animalistic instincts seeming to merge with the control he held in his human mind.

11 - Nights at the Pavilion

The next evening, after another day of training with Luitold, Bernhart returned to the Guest Pavilion to begin his next shift of guard duty. He had only half a day between his shifts, time which was split between about five hours of sleep in the early morning and seven hours of training, eating, and bathing until a few hours before dusk when he would begin again.

10 - A Knight's Duty

Shortly after Lady Agnes’s arrival, Bernhart, along with Rudolf and Luitold, returned to the pit to continue Luitold’s training. It would still be multiple hours until it was his time to guard the princess. Once back at the pit, Luitold again was instructed to climb down inside and retrieved one of the glass jars on the shelf beside him. This would be Bernhart’s fourth time observing the boy transform.

9 - Heaven's Blessing

The next morning at the very same time, Luitold and Bernhart walked through the castle grounds as they returned to the same building as the day before. Luitold hadn’t slept quite as well as the night prior. When he returned to his quarters, Rudolf had given him a small cup of wine to ease his stomach, which also helped get the taste of blood and raw pig out of his mouth. Even then, resting was difficult with so much on his mind.

8 - The Bestial Realm

Luitold had just woken up from the most comfortable sleep of perhaps his entire life. After four days of riding in Dietrich’s carriage, which was equally rough in ride as it was opulent, the warm and supple bedding he slept in at the castle was like a dream. In just one night at Isenburg, he had been given all of the luxuries that life as a peasant had never provided him. When the party had first arrived, they were greeted with a bountiful dinner prepared by Dietrich’s staff, one consisting of fresh roasted meat, expensive white bread, and wine, all things the boy had never once dreamed of being treated to. As he slowly awoke from his slumber, Luitold continued to lay in the comfort of his bed even as the sounds of others beginning their morning routines began to echo on the other side of his door. He indulged in this comfort for what felt like nearly an hour, an hour that freed his mind from the pressures of the outside world. For once, it wasn’t the pain of...

7 - Perception

After four days of travel, the men had arrived at Isenburg Castletown, where Dietrich and his knights resided. Luitold had been given his own room that night, making him the only peasant besides Bernhart to receive such a privilege. Dietrich’s castle was among the most comfortable in the kingdom for all who were granted its residence, though for Rudolf it was a place he dreaded visiting whenever the time came.

6 - Walls

Bernhart sat amongst the hundreds of men laid across Rheinmark’s inner courtyard, nearly all of which were on the brink of death. Though he had been acclaimed as one of Avaria’s greatest warriors, in truth, absolute warfare like what he had seen five days prior was something still completely new to him. After all, Avaria was seldom a kingdom where warfare prospered.

Here is a map I created of Avaria and its surrounding states! Though it's not officially disclosed in the chapters, His Divine Madness takes place within a version of central Europe from an alternate history. Avaria as well as the “Unincorporated States” section of the map both make up land which would have been part of the greater Holy Roman Empire during this era of real-world history. For one reason or another, the HRE has been shrunken to only its southern territory in this world. The map may be edited before this book reaches publication.

5 - A Report

Five days after the Battle of Rheinmark, Rudolf still found himself confined within the castle beside his fellow barons. To the shock of everyone, Avaria had somehow claimed victory over Alemannia, leaving them to retreat back into their existing borders. Even after the near week that had passed, the barons still knew nothing of how this battle unfolded. Each and every battle waged by Avaria would be documented by at least one battle herald, a man with the sole purpose of watching the battlefield and reporting its events to the nobility. However, Count Varen had been in very poor shape since Rudolf’s army arrived. His illness seemed to stem from his anxiety for the battle prior to its happening, but even now it had persisted. Until Varen was back in good health, the herald would not be able to tell his report with a complete audience.

4 - Novum Verum

Count Dietrich of Isenburg arrived at the great doors of Old Corvel Palace in the dead of night. It had been long since he last visited the capital, possibly close to two years if he remembered correctly. It required good reason for the Count to return to this place, and good reason was indeed what he possessed on this quiet night.

3 - Whispers in the Fog

Nine days after their departure from Holzstadt, the levy had arrived at Rheinmark Castletown, the capital landmark of Rheinmark County. Typically, castletowns would be at the center of a county, and this was usually true for Rheinmark as well, only now Alemannia had taken all of the baronies of the county’s western half, leaving the castle vulnerable to siege at any moment. The urgency of the situation was apparent as soon as the men entered the town.

2 - Snowfall

Luitold Knoll was leaving the confines of Holzstadt for the first time in his life, only not in the way he ever dreamed. Luitold, an orphan and a serf, had grown to know little of life beyond digging and starving in the two years since his mother disappeared. Freedom from this life was an aspiration that seemed further and further away as the months passed, yet somehow, the day he left Holzstadt was already upon him.