Drawlloween 23

Today's prompt is Red Knight......

The  Kingdom of Camelot's Red Knights were powerful warriors that wore armor  wreathed in furs and emblazoned with a helm of a mighty Lion. The Red  Knights learned to rear and train beasts for war on the battlefield.  They would capture wild beasts and through various means train them in  the art of war. Using bears, tigers, bulls, elephants, rhinos, wolves,  and hippos on occasion to fight as battle mounts or as allies alongside  them rushing into battle against their foes. The most dangerous however  were those who could command the loyalty of Dire animals, such as the  the dire bear or dire wolf as their companions. The most popular and  powerful of the companions however were the lion knights and the Dire  lion knights. Running swiftly with their destructive battle axes, they  would bound across the battlefield as the massive lions would sprint  along with them, shrugging off a hail of arrows and tearing through  swaths of enemies with a single swipe from their violent claws, cutting  their enemies to ribbons.

Whenever the red  knights would leave a battlefield, they would not only destroy their  enemies, but leave with a meal for themselves and their beasts, often  resorting to cannibalism in a ritualistic process of becoming one with  the creatures of the wild whom they shared this partnership with. The  Red knights were feared by many, and revered by more with their  practices seen as barbaric and yet revered. Their lions would often be  hunted and trained in the wild, with new members of the Red Knights  being sent into the wilds after long quests to Kumari Kandam, to spend  time among the witches and be imbued with an arcane pact, allowing them  to face a lion in battle and wrestle it into submission. The Lions of  Kumari Kandam were known for their ferocity and strength, cut off from  the other lions of the African plains and evolved to compete with the  tigers and other violent creatures of Lemuria. Some would find the ever  rare dire lion, and though most red knight squires lost their lives  attempting to tame these beasts, and more so trying to tame the might of  the dire lion, were struck dead and left as a feast for their would be  companion. Stories exist through Kumari Kandam of horrible acts of  procreation between beast and man with blood rituals that would spawn  hideous creatures known as Manticore, or of skin walking beasts known as  Rakshasa who commanded secret kingdoms of beasts as far as Buyan, and  of the deadly Gyno and Andro Sphinx that also resided within the hidden  depths of the world, and how Red Knights would hunt these creatures, or  learn from them and gain access to their inhuman knowledge.

Unlike  with many other knight castes within the kingdom, men and women were  equal among the red knights, often being distinguished by the titles of  red lords and red ladies. Unlike with the growing religious movements  across the world, the Red Knights worshipped many pagan deities, and  practiced much witchcraft, with some of the female red knights being  witches themselves accepted among their ranks and given the honorary  title of knight. The Red witches that joined them, many migrating from  Kumari Kandam, would find companionship and love amongst their ranks,  and would raise their children to be knights as well among the ranks  with much of the Red Knight society being secluded from the rest of the  Knight caste. Though the average man knew and feared the red knights.  Other knight sects such as the blue and white knights, looked down upon  the red knights as savages and heretical pagan fornicators that should  not be a part of the kingdom, and yet the red knights and their culture  prevailed despite minor clashes beginning among their people...

Whenever  the calamity struck and Camelot was cursed to a twisted, growing city,  spreading like wildfire across the world, the Red Knights became feral.  Howling and screaming at the moon, and tearing at their flesh to free  the beasts from within. Some fed themselves to the beasts, and others  still descended upon the beasts and tore their flesh, eating blood,  bone, and hair and reveling in the primal brutality of their new  madness. some became like the beasts, their faces changing and features  altered, with some of these alterations seen still today in some  children with cleft lips, or others born with tails or thumb like toes  on their feet, and even some with razor sharp teeth and a deep affinity  or understanding for many animals. In some cases beasts rose up on their  hind legs and spoke in the warped voices of humans, learning to wield  weapons and commanding feral humans to fight alongside them. And some  yet became so close to their beasts that they became indistinguishable  from one another. Their bodies and armor melding with the lions  themselves, their minds becoming one as they become chimeric  amalgamations of man and beast, fully dependent on one another. Some  possess two heads, while others have their faces combined and their  limbs melded together. Here we have an example of a Red Knight melded  with his former lion companion, making a hunched and violent axe  wielding berserker with the supernaturally combined strength of a man  and beast.

Many of them fight as savage  warriors with the tenacity of an animal, and others may possess secret  skills and techniques, martial magic passed down through the other red  knights as deadly skills of power, able to manipulate their own  energies, and that of the world around them to utilize various Pōr  Kalai (or Battle arts, or arts) to slay their foes, while others may  actually possess some arcane powers from time spent consorting with the  witches that returned with them to Camelot and were taught the arcane  arts, or those even bestowed with knowledge by the great wizard merlin,  or imbued with sorcerous arts by Morgan Le Fay....

Some  Red Knights escaped to Urth long ago, and their remnants still exist  among some of the factions within the Nemerian kingdoms, having been  absorbed into the various cultures over the millennia and are thought to  be involved in the origin of the Beastmasters of Karthoon that protect  the western border of the Fuirriev continent....