Knights of the Golden Eight

"The price has been paid, so the mark has been made."

—The Knights of the Golden Eight's mantra

The Knights of the Golden Eight are a centuries-long group of knights who serve the shadow royal world as mercenaries and assassins.

History[]

Early History[]

During the course of the ruling of the shadow rulers of the world, the Four Legendary Kingdoms, a group of eight knights emerged to serve their will, but unlike most other knights, this group demanded payment for their services. Calling their order the Knights of the Golden Eight, the knights became assassins-for-hire with notoriously high fees, often demanding whole settlements of land as payment for their services.

While the original members of the group eventually died, they established a hierarchy where their serving squires would eventually replace the knight they served upon that knight's death, and followed a German numeral system for their members to abide by, with the leader of the Knights being known as Jaeger Eins.

Early into their activities, around the 4th to 5th century, the Knights obtained Aragon Castle on the Italian island of Ischia, which they made into their headquarters and established a platform known as the Petitioner's Ledge where any royal who wanted their services would be forced to gaze up at them as they made their request.

Over the centuries, the Knights of the Golden Eight accumulated great wealth and the deeds to land in service to the Four Kingdoms by performing various assassinations and the capturing of wanted persons, though they preferred the former assignments more. Much of the land they requested as payment were those rich in valuable minerals in order to exploit their resources. Their success and notoriety gave the Knights such a reputation that even the royal jailers of the Four Kingdoms, the Governor of the Royal Prison of Erebus, wary to compete with them for a target, and anyone who tried to retrieve a captured loved one from the Knights failed.

Towards the beginning of the 21st century, the Knights came to be led by the present-day Jaeger Eins. The Knights also gathered together a vast collection of weapons, military vehicles and other resources to further their goals, including master access codes for all television satellites, and even a highly expensive Bombardier Global 8000 with a serial number that granted them unrestricted access to any airfield in most countries around the world.

During his time as King of Land, Orlando Compton-Jones hired the Knights of the Golden Eight on at least one occasion.

A few years before 2016, the Knights were hired to capture a Swiss banker who had been discovered to have been embezzling money from European royal families. A bounty for the banker was also broadcast over a supposedly secure radio frequency for any other bounty hunters to learn of the contract, but the Knights managed to grab him first, albeit only after Aloysius Knight had sprayed him with MicroDots. Though the Knights brought the banker back to Aragon Castle, they apparently reached a deal with the current Governor of Erebus, Yago DeSaxe, to hand him over for imprisonment at Erebus.

The Three Secret Cities[]

In mid November 2016, four days after the fourth Great Games of the Hydra, the Trismagi Hardin "Sphinx" Lancaster and the son of the soon-to-be-force-abdicated King of Underworld, Dion DeSaxe, approached the Knights to hire their services. Dion, outraged by the upsetting of his plans to usurp his father at the Great Games, pled his case and demanded the assassination of Jack West Jr and the capture of Lily West and Alby Calvin. With Sphinx offering the Knights the down-payment of a Greek island he owned and the promise that Dion would grant them ownership of a few Indian states upon being officiated as the new King of Underworld, the Knights agreed to take on the assignment.

Additionally, Sphinx revealed that Jack's actions during the Great Games had provided an opportunity for a power grab against the Four Kingdoms, and so offered the Knights an alliance that would secure them through the coup he planned. Eins agreed to this plan, agreeing to ensure the capture of Lily alive for the success of the Trial of the Cities, and to secure an additional "package" he requested.

Learning that their targets heading to Anthony "Hades" DeSaxe's penthouse Saxony Tower, the Knights quickly began making their way to New York, and upon arrival at the McGuire Air Force Base, they acquired a pair of V-22 Ospreys and continued on to the Tower. As they set themselves into a holding position around the penthouse, the Knights spotted Yago confronting their targets. Eins, correctly guessing that the Four Kingdoms had set their jailer on Jack and Hades, took over the buildings PA system to state the Knights' intention to kill Jack and capture Lily, warning Yago that because the price had been paid for Jack's death, they would not allow him to take the target. Yago quickly acceded to their demand, and as soon as he and his men left with Hades, the Knights opened fire on the penthouse, killing Geoffrey Moles.

As some of the Knights disembarked the second Osprey and breached the penthouse, the Knights in the remaining Osprey continued to assail Jack's group to try an keep them pinned down, only for Jack, Lily and Mae Merriweather to jump onto the arm of a nearby crane controlled by Zoe and cross to the One Tribeca building. The Knights soon decided to bring down the building, and watched as it toppled into the Hudson River with their targets. However, after 10 minutes of waiting for them to surface, Eins realised that they must have escaped another way, and so decided to pull the Knights out and draw out Jack another way.

Using their access to the world's television satellites, the Knights activated every Emergency Broadcast Network in order to get a message out to Jack himself, exposing his identity to everyone viewing the broadcast, and, directly to Jack, warned the target that he would not be able to escape him.

Suspecting that Jack and his people would be heading to Venice to view a rubbing copy of the tablet of the Altar of the Cosmos, the Knights contacted the Fraternal Order of St. Paul to warn them and request that they stall Jack when he arrived. Indeed, as soon as Jack and Lily were confronted by High Brother Ezekiel, the Knights arrived, deploying three of their men down via parachutes while their Hercules landed on the Grand Canal. The men who parachuted down breached the Gallerie dell'Accademia and chased after Jack, Lily and Alby before the chase moved back onto the canals, and the Knights killed some investigating officers for their patrol boats. Jack's team, pursued by the Knights, managed to kill one of them and soon escaped, but were forced to leave Alby behind, who was quickly captured and sent to Aragon Castle.

Soon afterwards, Dion and Sphinx reached an agreement with Yago; as it was considered inappropriate for the Royal Governor to be in competition with the Golden Knights, they amended their deal with the Knights and permitted Yago to imprison Jack at Erebus. Seeking to exploit Jack's heroic nature and force him and Lily to come to them, the Knights came up with a plan to instead attack the relatives of his teammates. Jaeger Sechs was sent to collect Sphinx's other requested prize and to deal with Sky Monster's parents in New Zealand, while the rest of the Knights captured one of Jack's former allies, Lachlan Adamson, and his family, in London.

Once they were in position beneath the surface of the Thames, the Knights hung Lachlan and his family from their car and sent their remote-piloted Black Hawk to hover over the Thames, which soon captured the attention of the media. Not long after Jack and his team noticed this, Eins had the T.V. feeds hacked again to ensure Jack watched as the Knights blew up the Adamsons and Sky Monster's parents, to the horror of Julius and Sky Monster. Eins proceeded to call out Jack and Lily, demanding they meet them on Westminster Bridge before sending a remote-piloted Challenger tank onto the bridge and setting it to fire at Big Ben and the London Eye.

When Jack and Lily arrived on the Bridge, Eins revealed that the Knights also had a Chinook carrying a full double-decker bus, which they dropped into the river. Having expected that Jack would take control of their tank to bring down their aircraft, the Knights used the opportunity to grab the isolated Lily after she dove into the river to release the people on the bus. When Jack jumped in to try and save her, he killed the Knight who got in his way, but as he was soon captured by Yago, the remaining Knights were free to escape to their submarine with Lily.

The Knights of the Golden Eight soon reunited back at Aragon Castle, Sechs arriving first with Sphinx's extra package, and the rest were briefly seen to by their squires (the Knights who had died at Jack's hands were thus set to be replaced by their squires) before proceeding to bring Lily to face Dion and Sphinx with Alby. However, the Knights were surprised when an alarm sounded, with a helicopter having crashed nearby. Eins sent a pair of squires to investigate, who were killed by Julius, come seeking revenge for his twin's death. Though Jaegers Drei and Fünf moved to take him down, Julius managed to ambush them and kill them first, only to soon step into a trap.

After having him caged beside Alby, Eins mocked Julius for his attempt for vengeance and then furiously cut his hands off as punishment for killing the two Knights (and as a demonstration of what would happen to Alby). Despite the pain, Julius called Eins out for killing Lachlan and his children despite their innocence, calling him a sick fuck. In response, Eins dropped Julius's cage into the sea below, to Lily and Alby's despair. After watching Dion sever Alby's left hand, the Knights escorted Sphinx and Lily to the former's boat as he departed, their initial deal fulfilled.

The next day, the squires remained at Aragon Castle to guard Alby while the Knights themselves accompanied Dion to Naples for his coronation and to receive his agreed payment. After some minor drinking in celebration of Dion's ascension, the Knights returned to the Castle to continue the new King's torture of Alby. The Knights, however, were astounded as they unexpectedly came under from the liberated Jack and his team. After having Alby's cage dropped into the sea below, Eins was forced to order his remaining men to fall back after losing one Knight to Aloysius Knight's RPG and Acht as their railgun was destroyed. Eins hoped that setting torpedoes to strike the Castle would result in their enemies being destroyed during their escape, but in the end the Knights only escaped with their own lives.

The Knights of the Golden Eight soon joined Sphinx at his mansion near Atlas around the time that Jack's team was forced to back Orlando's people up in empowering the Immortal Weapons. Once Sphinx had the Mace in hand, he joined the Knights on his boat with the captive Lily, with Eins reporting that his men were armed and ready before they proceeded to the Rock of Gibraltar.

After Sphinx dropped them off a kilometer from the shore, the Knights and their squires swam the rest of the way and ambushed the Royal Marines stationed by the Four Kings to guard the Altar of the Cosmos during the sacrificial ceremony. Eins and three of his squires arrived at the Altar as Sphinx initiated his coup by stabbing Orlando with the Sword of the Rock, bringing down the last of the Royal Marines. The Knights proceeded to watch as Sphinx killed Lily to complete the ancient trial and soon departed with the rest of Sphinx's entourage.

The Two Lost Mountains[]

With Eins now serving as Sphinx's military commander, he and the rest of the Knights of the Golden Eight spent the next few weeks after the Trial of the Cities assisting consolidate the Trismagi's forcefully-acquired assets and resources from the Four Kingdoms, such as transporting the bronze and silver automatons from the Secret Cities and the Underworld.

The Golden Knights accompanied the rest of Sphinx's forces to Moscow as they invaded the Novodevichy Convent. Once there, Eins was ordered by Sphinx to blast open the crypt when Beatrice tried to claim that the Siren bells were not there, and when it was proved that they were, the Knights assisted in gathering up the ancient bells. After Sphinx tested one of the bells, causing everyone within a 30 mile radius collapse into a coma-like state, Sphinx and Eins began arranging an ambush for Jack and his team by using Lily as bait, and left Jaegers Zwei and Acht and several squires to wait with trucks carrying bronzemen to await their arrival.

From their perch on one of the Kremlin's watchtower, Zwei and Acht soon spotted a figure in gull wings land before Lily. Assuming that it was Jack, Zwei reported in to Eins, who gave them the go-ahead to put him to sleep. Using a Chinook drone carrying a Siren bell, Zwei remotely raised the chopper and had it rock the bell, sending Lily and her would-be-rescuer into the siren sleep while the Knights and nearby squires were protected by their protective earphones. Zwei then sent Acht to secure the bodies so that they could bring them to Sphinx and Eins, only for Acht to get knocked out by Jack and Aloysius Knight. When he realised he'd misidentified the earlier figure, Zwei started up the Chinook drone to ring the Siren bell again (though Knight gave Jack his protective helmet to keep the Australian conscious) and ordered his squires to move in on the Square with the trucks carrying bronzemen. The squires and bronzemen pursued Jack and Alby as they tried to get their unconscious friends to safety, but ultimately Rufus in the Black Raven was able to bring down most of them, collapsing a bridge on top of one truck that caused another to crash into the debris, and destroyed the last one with missiles.

Later, the Knights were among Sphinx's procession when he arrived at the first iron mountain at Mont Saint-Michel. After Sphinx had performed the Fall, Dion alerted Eins to the fact that his father had snuck on the Mont, the Knights checked the entrance to the undersea tunnel leading to Tombelaine island, and determined from the footprints that Jack and another person were also on the island. Upon apprehending Hades on Dion's order, the Knights brought the former king before Sphinx, and joined the attempt to keep Jack and Iolanthe from escaping.

As Jack destroyed the Falling Temple, Sphinx sent Dion with Eins and most of the Golden Knights to the second iron mountain beneath Aiguille du Midi, so that Dion could do the Fall there instead. While Jaeger Vier maintained control of a rover on the moon to ensure the lunar pedestal could be covered in thermal foil once the Fall was completed, Eins and the other Knights at the second mountain waited in the Hall of the Falling Temple while a clearing pod excavated the moon shaft.

At the same time, Sphinx sent Yago and a few of the other Knights to assault Hades's estate in Alsace-Lorraine, where the team were based. During the assault, the Knights joined the bronzemen in storming the basement, with one of them shooting Easton in the thigh and felling him to keep him from escaping with the others on the train.

As the clearing pod neared completely drilling through the blockages in the moon shaft, Dion and Eins's forces came under attack from a group of Omega monks and Romanian soldiers, and Jaeger Drei led their bronzemen forward as they defended their control of the Falling Temple while Vier contended with paratroopers descending on his observatory. Once the pod was through, Eins accompanied Dion as he released the Temple into the shaft and performed the Fall. Following Dion's success, Eins and the Knights accompanied him out of the iron mountain while Vier covered the moon pedestal and destroyed the uplink to the rover to prevent anyone else trying being able to perform a Fall.

Soon after, Knights five through eight were among Sphinx's force when they arrived at the Supreme Labyrinth's gates in the Sinai Desert. As part of Sphinx and Mendoza's Labyrinth team, Jaegers Sechs, Seiben and Acht helped to prepare and carry most of the gear they were taking with them into the ancient maze. As Jaeger Eins reported in that he was en-route with Dion, and that the Siren bells had arrived in the major cities Sphinx had ordered them sent to, Sphinx gave Jaeger Fünf a Ring of Command to begin arranging the bronze and silver guardians into defensive positions around the gates before his team headed into the Labyrinth.

Not long after, nine of the Siren bells were rung over major cities around the world, with Jaeger Zwei personally leading the team that put the residents of Jerusalem into the siren sleep. Before he could leave, Zwei noticed General Garthon Rastor and his forces arrive and blew up the Temple Mount to expose the fourth mountain Noting that Rastor's men were all wearing protective headphones, Zwei knew that he couldn't use the bell on them and risked losing it to them if he tried, and instead observed as Rastor performed the Fall.

When Dion and Eins arrived at the Labyrinth gates, the former was quickly provided with a team comprised of the Knights' squires and hurried into the Labyrinth, in order to help support Sphinx's progress against the Omega monks who had managed to get past the defences.

Shortly after Rastor left Jerusalem, Zwei saw Jack arrive, and delighted at the chance to take revenge for failing to deal with him in Moscow. As soon as he could, Zwei flew his Chinook up over the city and rang the bell, succeeding in putting Jack, Easton and Pooh Bear into the siren sleep. Landing near the sleepers, Zwei approached Jack with the intention of killing him, however, more members of Jack's team arrived and started felling Zwei's bronzemen with specialised bullets, forcing the Golden Knight to take cover and being unable to do anything but watch furiously as they fled.

Most (if not all) of the remaining Knights of the Golden Eight were reunited at the gates to the Supreme Labyrinth, where they joined the rest of Sphinx's defensive force in attempting to prevent any enemies from following Sphinx's team into the ancient maze. Despite their efforts, both Rastor's team and the Wests and Easton managed to slip past the Knights.

The One Impossible Labyrinth[]

As Sphinx and his team neared the end of the First Cavern, they heard the Order of the Omega enter the Cavern, and Sphinx ordered Jaeger Sechs to blow up the bridge behind them, with the Golden Knight complying by using an explosive pack to do so.

12 hours after Sphinx's team entered the Labyrinth, Dion and his team of squires from the Golden Knights followed suit, making their way through the First Cavern with relative ease. However, Dion's long-time lack of attention in history made him ignorant to the requirements to make it through the Labyrinth, and so once they arrived at the six entrances to the Endless Tunnel, Dion mis-identified the symbol of Ningizzida and led the squires into the wrong tunnel.

As the battle wound down outside the Gates, Jaeger Zwei and a few men managed to surround Alby and Knight after they had ejected from the downed Black Raven. Recalling that Jaeger Eins wanted Alby alive, and recognising Knight as among those who had attacked their base, Zwei decided to take the pair captive. Meanwhile, Eins began organising Sphinx's forces as they prepared to relocate to the coast of the Red Sea near the Red Horizon Star-4 rig by the Labyrinth's surface point.

At around this time, one of the other Golden Knights arrived at the Lake Albano Vault with a dozen bronzemen as he and his squires looked for clues to the Orphean bell's location on Chloe Carnarvon's behalf. Once the Knight had grabbed the Domitian scroll containing the clue, Chloe ordered him to bring it to her in Salzburg.

Several hours after making their way through their chosen tunnel, Dion and his team of squires came across a goldman, which they carelessly awoke and caused to attack them, with the squires looking into its face, some having their eyes liquified while others only suffered minor liquification. Dion and his squires fled back the way they came, only for a pair of silvermen joined in on the attack, and during the confrontation a crimson orb was inadvertently set off, further injuring the squires. By the time that they returned to the entrance ledge, the last two living squires were both brutally yanked back and killed by the goldman.

Once they had finally reached the City-Maze, Sphinx ordered Sechs to accompany him and Mendoza as they worked to navigate their way to the Castle of the Throne of Life, while Jaegers Seiben and Acht were told to stay behind and do whatever was necessary to slow down their competitors. Eventually the Omega monks arrived in the City-Maze, and Seiben and Acht managed to slow their pursuers' progress over several hours before they were both eventually shot and killed by the monks. As they neared the castle's pinnacle, Sechs began returning fire on the sniper-wielding monks, managing to kill one before he was hit in the chest by the second, the force from the bullet sending Sechs flying off of the castle and falling to his death.

At the same time, Eins had the captives Alby and Knight brought to him on the Red Horizon rig's helipad, where he taunted Alby about his new artificial hand and about killing Julius. After noting Sphinx would soon succeed in becoming the world's emperor, Eins took out his filament weapon and expressed his desire in slowly torturing and killing the pair; Alby for being a persistent hinderance, and Knight for having captured targets in bounty hunts that denied him and the Golden Knights being paid to kill them. But as Eins stepped forward to begin, an RPG fired by Rastor broke the seawall of the City-Maze, and the rushing seawater flowing into the exposed section of the Labyrinth caused the rig to lurch towards the breach. Taking advantage of the confusion, Alby struck Eins with a punch that broke the leader of the Golden Knight's nose and allowed him to steal his filament weapon.

As the rig became suspended over the flooding City-Maze, Eins confronted Alby inside the secured-in-place chopper, only for Alby to reflexively swipe at him with the filament weapon, severing off the lower half of Eins' face. Alby then pressed his attack and severed the Golden Knight's hands, and then, in vengeance for Julius and Lachlan, kicked the disfigured Eins out of the chopper, whose partially-exposed throat was filled with water, drowning him mid-fall. Witnessing this, Zwei prepared to ambush Alby and Knight from above, only for a Russian chopper flown by Rufus and Sky Monster to rise up and open fire on the Golden Knight, with Zwei being torn apart by the gunfire.

Later, one of the last remaining Knights arrived at Raven Rock where several families of the Four Kingdoms were sheltering, waiting with several Delta soldiers and nearly 200 bronzemen as a plane carrying Pooh Bear, Stretch, Lynda Fadel and Tracy Smith was forced land at the base following their capture of Sir John Marren. However, as Stretch had anticipated this scenario and set off an explosive that destroyed the plane, the caught-off-guard Knight was shot dead, allowing Pooh to take his Ring of Command.

Members[]

Note: the members of the Knights of the Golden Eight inherit the role of a Knight after serving time as that Knight's squire until their master's death. The identities of any of the Knights beyond their titles are unknown.

Introduced in The Three Secret Cities[]

Introduced in The Two Lost Mountains[]

Goals[]

While knights may typically pledge themselves to royals with their lives, the Knights of the Golden Eight are unique in which they demand payment for their services; typically their notoriously high fees involve the transfer of ownership of land rich in minerals for their own exploitation. Over the millennia, the Knights have garnered a reputation as the ultimate swords/guns for hire due to their exemplary success rate of killing or capturing targets that the shadow rulers of the world wish hire them for.

In the modern age, the Knights' primary goal remained the same as their original counterparts until Jack upset the Four Kingdoms' balance of power, with Sphinx proposing an alliance in which his entourage and the Knights would seize control in this new era. First, Dion and Sphinx hired the Knights formally to request the assassination of Jack, the capture of Lily for use in a sacrificial ceremony and Alby in order to be tortured. In the course of their assignment, however Sphinx and Dion arranged a deal with the Royal jailer Yago to instead have Jack imprisoned at Erebus.

Following the completion of their contract, the Knights became loyal to Sphinx as he set out to begin his coup against the Four Kingdoms, most likely having been promised a greater payment for their service. With Eins acting as Sphinx's military commander, the Knight of the Golden Eight have huge authority over the shadow royal world's military resources, and use their new position both to enforce Sphinx's orders and to aid him in his efforts to undergo the Trial of the Mountains and become the world's ruler.

Equipment[]

Weapons[]

MP-9 submachine pistols: To Be Added.
Glock pistols: To Be Added.
Steyr AUG assault rifles: To Be Added.
Filament Weapon: An ancient, harp-shaped weapon, with a super-thin, super-sharp thread running through the gap that Eins used to torment his enemies by cutting off entire sections of their bodies, such as their hands. After using it to remove Julius's hands, Eins loaned it to Dion to use on Alby. Eins later was prepared to use the filament weapon to slowly torture Alby and Knight on Red Horizon Star-4, but lost it to Alby when the rig started falling into the City-Maze, and had it used against him as Alby used the weapon to disfigure Eins by cutting off his lower jaw and hands.

Vehicles[]

Bombardier Global 8000: A private luxury plane that the Knights of the Golden Eight use to transport themselves during their assignments.
V-22 Ospreys: A tiltrotor military aircraft with VTOL capabilities. During the attack on Saxony Tower, Eins and his men used a pair of them to harry their targets as they evaded them and escaped into the Hudson.
Water-Capable CL-130 Hercules: A large military transport aircraft, with the Knights operating a water-capable variant of the C-130, which they used to pursue Jack to and through the canals of Venice.
Agusta A129 Mangusta attack helicopters:
Black Hawk helicopter: (remote-piloted)
Challenger 2 main battle tank: (remote-piloted)
Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter: An American-made twin-engine, tandem rotor heavy-lift helicopter used for troop transport. The Golden Knights also used some remote-piloted Chinooks to ring the Siren bells while in Moscow.
Lockheed Martin wet combat submersible: To Be Added.
Akula-class fast-attack submarine: To Be Added.

Other Equipment[]

Rings of Command: The four lesser rings that can control certain battalions of the bronze and silver guardians, which Eins used to command the automatons of the Underworld in order to take them away for Sphinx's army. The four rings were shared between Sphinx's subordinates, including some of the Knights of the Golden Eight, so that they could command a contingent of the automatons from one of their respective bases themselves. Eins, Zwei and Fünf each were wearing one when they were commanding Sphinx's army of bronzemen on various occasions during the Trial of the Mountains, but Eins was still wearing one when hee was killed and his body lost in the flooding City-Maze. Another Knight had his taken after being killed by Stretch outside Raven Rock.
- Bronze Guardians: The ancient bronze-coloured automatons which guard the important locales of the Super-Ancients' trials. While serving Sphinx, Eins orchestrated the bronzemen at the Underworld's removal to bring into Sphinx's forces. Zwei controlled a small force of them during the attempted ambush on Jack's team in Moscow, and also while he was in Jerusalem. Later, Eins had several under his control at the second iron mountain, defending him and Dion from the Omega monks. Jaeger Fünf organised the deployment of the automatons to act as defences to prevent anyone from getting into the Supreme Labyrinth.
Siren Bells: To Be Added.

Trivia[]

During the scene where Hades's estate is invaded, the Knights are not initially mentioned when Yago and the bronzemen arrived, it is only when they arrived on the escape train's platform with the bronzemen. Since half of their numbers were at the second iron mountain and more would arrive at the Supreme Labyrinth soon after with the rest of Sphinx's forces, either the mention of their presence was a mistake or it was the Knights' squires who joined Yago in the assault.
At the conclusion of The One Impossible Labyrinth, only six of the Golden Knights are confirmed killed (Jaegers Eins, Zwei, Sechs, Seiben, Acht, and one other unidentified Knight at Raven Rock), leaving the fates of the other two unknown.