by Rex Jameson
Jandhar cursed at the seeming invincibility of this fiend. He had seen the Blood Lord lose flesh in the fires, but the demon lord didn’t seem to even need to regenerate. The fire and burning liquid had no effect. The Blood Lord might be killable. The demon lord was unassailable.
Jandhar heard the screams of men behind him as he turned back to the hordes of thousands of undead pouring across the field from the nearby tree line. Jasmine fell in behind him and together with Jahgo, they did considerable damage to this horde of the damned. The undead melted by the hundreds and thousands, but the battle was far from won.
Out of his periphery, countless men screamed as the Blood Lord tossed them into the air, but still, his pikemen and archers fought on. They marched forward, collapsing formations even as men along the edges were picked off one-by-one by unnatural foes. He watched his adopted sons Zosa and Venzin as they clawed at undead, flipping the corpses to each other and then ferociously tearing off their heads before raining fire down in thorough, layered lines on the battlefield. He welled with pride that the well-trained men and dragons maintained their composure and kept pressing on. He almost shouted encouragement to them until he was nearly rocked out of his saddle by an explosion that sent scales and blood careening past his face.
Jandhar panicked as he searched for the source of the blast. Jasmine was fine. Jahgo continued to bathe undead in flames, but only one green dragon remained airborne. Zosa flapped around the swarming undead, engulfing them in fire as the creatures reached for the twitching body of Venzin. Jandhar banked hard and circled his fallen son. Zosa shrieked mournfully, and Jasmine belched flaming liquid down on the undead that bit and pulled at their mortally-wounded brother.
Venzin’s neck was blown wide open at the glands. Jandhar cursed the surgeons for not inspecting him more thoroughly, but then he remembered that he had called them off when Etcher had made his protestation at the handling of the war. In his mind’s eye, he could still see Venzin bobbing his head in anticipation, ready to take off—not knowing or caring that his stitches needed repair.
Tears began to fall down Jandhar’s face as Jasmine made another dive. The man in the tattered robe and vest leapt from the center of a formation he was terrorizing and darted toward the downed dragon.
“No!” Jandhar yelled as he saw the look of anticipation on the freakish Blood Lord’s face. “Up, my children! Up!”
Jasmine pulled up just as Julian began to crouch low like a panther ready to strike. The vampire growled as he changed course toward the dying dragon again.
“Fire on Venzin from above!” Jandhar said. “Incinerate him before he’s used against us!”
Jahgo poured liquid death onto his fallen brother. Venzin gave one final gurgled screech through the oozing flames as Jasmine and Zosa joined in. Far below, Julian cursed.
“You coward!” Julian said. “Come down here and fight me!”
Undead continued to run mindlessly through the flames around Venzin to try to reach him and pull him out of the fire. Back across the field, Orcus howled in frustration. He turned toward the pikemen who continued their northward march across the tall grasses. The demon lord broke into a run, and the Visanthi officer corps barked panicked commands. Jandhar pulled hard on Jahgo, and Jasmine followed close behind. Zosa stayed behind and consumed hundreds more undead minions in flame.
Jandhar and Jahgo reached the demon lord just as Orcus swung his massive staff into a formation, flinging men aside. Orcus strode into the middle of the formation as the pikemen stabbed at him harmlessly. The demon lord raised his arms and a foul black wind rushed out of his body in a putrid cloud. The entire battalion—500 well-trained men—turned undead in an instant. Jandhar watched them fall and then rise within seconds. Green-eyed and dead, and hungry for the flesh of the living.
Jandhar gawked at the impossibility of his foe. He watched helplessly as Orcus pressed on to the next regiment. The creature was evil incarnate.
“Retreat!” Jandhar cried from his mount. “To the East! Do not engage the demon lord!”
Bugles blew as Orcus obliterated another battalion in seconds. The demon lord laughed maniacally as Jahgo and Jasmine bathed recently loyal men in flames. 500 freshly-created undead fell in the fire. Then 1,000. Then 2,000 pikemen who had only recently stood by the ocean and mourned with Prince Jandhar as he watched Nintil’s funeral barge drift aflame on the waves. A quarter of his remaining dragons and men were lost in the span of minutes.
“Consume them all!” Jandhar spat. “Kill all the undead you can! Rain devastation down, my children! But watch the vampire, and stay away from the demon lord!”
The disorganized retreat turned into localized routs as Julian entered the running battle. He laughed as the dragons tried to stop him with fire. He threw flaming men at Jagho and Jasmine to taunt them while he devoured the innards of screaming soldiers to rejuvenate himself within streams of continuous flame.
Jandhar pulled up on Jahgo’s scales to survey the field. As long as the Blood Lord had living creatures to consume, attacking him seemed pointless. So, Jandhar dove behind his retreating men, creating north-south lines of oily fire and watching as the mindless hordes of undead set themselves alight as they ran through the flames. Few of the recently turned undead escaped the wrath of his dragons as they moved east with the retreating army, but keeping Orcus’ army growth in check was small consolation. Jandhar couldn’t stop and let his men regroup and recover. The undead could be bottled up and contained with fire from his children, but the two invincible fiends chasing his men didn’t seem to tire or even slow down. He knew that this vampire would keep coming, no matter what. The only hope was to reach Croft Keep and hope its garrison was still alive and willing to help. Otherwise, there might not be a Visanth army to ferry back to Scythica.
Clayton crouched within bushes on the western treeline of the battlefield where Prince Jandhar and Orcus clashed. 500 well-armed Reborn were with him from Perketh. He had convinced them to leave the safety of the Perketh walls and fortifications for a scouting exercise, but what was happening on the field in front of them between the dragons and the undead was all out war. No one had seen anything like it, and the living seemed to be losing, or at least retreating.
“Are we going to try to help them?” Master Nathan asked as he knelt beside Clayton with a warhammer.
Howland Davidson leaned against a nearby tree with an axe under his arm. “Seems like a bad idea. We’ve been watching this Dragon Prince for the past half-hour, and his only weakness seems to be bringing a bunch of potential undead minions into a fight with the Lord of the Undead. If that Visanthi brat would have just sat on his dragons and caked the ground with fiery ruin, if he had left his pikemen at home, Orcus would have less men, not more.”
Clayton watched Julian Mallory’s grisly work in the far fields. Body parts and screaming torsos flew through the air, only to be incinerated immediately by a black or white dragon. Then the creatures would attack a ragtag line of ancient undead raised from some far-off crypt.
“Any gains the demon lord has made,” Clayton said, “have been quickly lost.”
“That was minutes ago,” Nathan said, tapping his hammer against his palm. “The tide has turned here. The pikemen have their backs to the Blood Lord now. They’re not even fighting back.”
“It wasn’t like they were putting up much of a fight before,” Howland said, “Maybe running that direction, they’ll at least get far enough away that they aren’t joining the other side immediately and making things worse.”
The dragons blocked in another regiment of freshly turned soldiers and incinerated them. The green dragon chased a line of older ghouls, and Julian Mallory and Orcus ran through the flames to harass more soldiers. The main line of undead fell farther behind though, hampered by deadly flames.
“Men have to sleep some time,” Clayton said, “but the undead and Orcus don’t need rest. They’ll catch the men and convert them, unless there’s reason to be distracted.”
“Sarah’s going to want me home,” Howland said. “The town people only agreed to this excursion because they thought this was a scouting mission.”
Clayton grunted, and Nathan continued to pound the hammer head into his hand. The blacksmiths had only made enough armor for 600 to 700 people. So, Clayton had hand-picked the strongest of the men and women, equipped them with the best weapons and gear and marched them north. The other three thousand reborn remained in Perketh, manning the reinforced walls and building fortifications.
“Our purpose in scouting was to determine how vulnerable we still are in Perketh,” Clayton said, “and now we know. If we go back to our homes, Perketh keeps 500 strong men and women to possibly fight another day. But Orcus might move his entire force east, destroy several thousand men, and come back to Perketh with 10,000 or more because those men out there are already tired and have devils on their heels.”
“We can’t kill Orcus or that deranged High Lord either,” Howland said. “Out there is suicide.”
“He doesn’t want to kill us,” Clayton said. “If he wanted us dead, he would have done it in Perketh.”
“You’ve seen what he can do on the battlefield,” Nathan agreed. “If this demon lord would have walked through our town like he’s done on this battlefield, do you think any of us would have been able to stop him? He wants us to join him. He’s asked us dozens of times, called all friendly-like from just outside the town walls.”
“I don’t understand it,” Howland said. “I mean, I’m a catch, of course! I’d want me around too, but this is a bit much! Some guys just don’t know when to quit.”
Master Nathan chuckled.
“He’s the Lord of the Undead,” Clayton said. “For countless years, he’s thought himself the master of all of those things like us. But we’re not undead. We’re Reborn. We don’t belong to him or anyone else. We choose who we want to be—who we want to follow.”
“I’m just telling you,” Howland said, “that if we go out there, and that goat-headed bastard and his blood-mouthed lapdog turn toward us, I’m running back to Sarah. You can bring me up on cowardice charges in the Perketh Theater with all the children playing judges if you like, but I think I’ve earned a bit of time between the sheets with my wife after a month of fighting!”
“The mouth on you,” a metal-clad woman with dark brown hair chided him from the bushes.
“Look, you can admire any part of me you like,” Howland said, “but you’re not sweet-talking me out of which bed I’m going to.”
The woman chuckled and cursed him for being thick.
“We’re going to make a stand here,” Clayton said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “We’re going to divert these undead from the men they’re pursuing. Orcus is only as strong as his horde. We’ll thin them out and send what we can to the Abyss. Maybe the Dragon Prince and his brood will help us out and set fire to all those that remain in these fields.”
“You shouldn’t put your trust in a Visanthi,” Howland said, picking up his hammer and moving to the edge of the field, out in plain sight. “Can’t think for shit. Can’t fight for shit.”
Orcus turned toward Howland and a few men who joined him. Howland and Nathan both gripped their hammers menacingly and growled at the demon lord.
“Maybe the Visanthi just need someone to show them how to fight,” Nathan said to Howland. “If you had run home to Sarah, you’d have missed the opportunity.”
Howland chortled and laughed heartily, as did several of the Reborn.
“Out,” Clayton encouraged the others in the bushes and trees, “Everyone out. Look strong! Defy the demon lord and his men! Attract their attention and keep them on the field until you stomp them into the earth!”
The 500-strong force walked forward. Men and women beat their plated chests with their hammers, swords and clubs. Chainmail clanked against their greaves and armguards.
“Let him hear you!” Clayton commanded. “Tell him what you think of his invasion. Let him know where he can stick his invitation to join the undead!”
Men yelled in defiance. Some of the women got creative with a string of curses and invitations for Orcus’ minions to sodomize their own corpses.
“By Cronos, woman!” Howland exclaimed to an older lady in chainmail. “What were you in Dona? A laundress? I think you’re not quite done scrubbing that mouth of yours in the creek water. Filthy!”
The woman punched him in his pauldrons from behind, and he giggled as he swayed in place, waiting for the undead attackers.
“This is not the time for cleanliness,” Clayton yelled, a grin across his lips. “Now is the time for dirt and grime. Say whatever you have to! Get them over here! Do whatever must be done, but don’t let those undead bastards out of your sight!”
Clayton slammed the butt of his hammer into the ground and cupped his hands over his mouth. He inhaled deeply and let his voice boom across the meadow.
“Come on, you bastards! Taste the steel of Ashton’s Army!”
He grabbed his hammer and ran forward, and so did hundreds of Reborn. The heavy grating of steel and iron armor behind him exhilarated him and surged him forward. The men and women of Perketh and Dona followed him again. But this time, into certain death.
Nathan yelled as he smashed an undead pikemen that was recently raised from the Visanthi regulars. Clayton smashed through the leather tunics of two reanimated creatures with a single blow. A woman leapt atop another and cut his head off with two short swords. Dozens of spears pierced the undead and sent the cowards running. For every three undead that died, two ran into the bushes. Many of them looked back at Orcus, who shook his head before turning to the east and the Visanthi men who fled in full rout. Still, hundreds of undead broke from the eastern advance and charged Ashton’s Army.
“If the Visanthi keep running,” Howland said, after slamming a grotesque man’s head through the dirt, “how am I supposed to teach them how to fight?”
Clayton laughed as he rammed his hammer through the torso of a large, ragged undead man. He sent the butt of his weapon through the skull of a smaller one. Nathan crushed two ghouls in a single swing. A few undead ran into the nearby forests to escape the onslaught.
“Don’t run away!” Clayton screamed. “Nirendia doesn’t want you, but the Abyss awaits you! Let us show you the way back to the underworld!”
The last he saw of Orcus, the goat-headed fiend followed his vampiric general into the eastern woods toward Croft Keep. Across the field, a thousand undead followed him, but several hundred, maybe even a thousand stayed behind to engage the brazen men and women of Perketh. Ashton’s Army. Clayton’s people. He couldn’t have been prouder to be Reborn.
20
The Elves Arrive at Croft Keep
The wood elf Nessamela, also known as Captain Liritmear to her people, scampered across the open grasslands between Velia and Bowersby. Behind her were elite, long-eared men and women of Calenanna’s best regiment. She had trained with most of them every day for the past couple hundred years. They moved like a herd of dark panthers amongst the reeds—uncamouflaged, thrilled by the hunt, and openly dangerous. Rabbits and deer scampered ahead of them, disturbed by the stampede and the surprise of movement.
Belegcam was close on her trail. He hadn’t spoken since the royal family had offered her their two greatest sons in matrimony. There was a part of her that felt sorry for her lieutenant. There was a bigger part of her that found herself daydreaming about taking both of the princes to her own little corner of the forest, where she would make them compete against each other in trials of endurance so noisy and so energetic that all of nature would gather to watch how it was properly done.
In between her romantic fantasies as the long grasses brushed against her skin, she kept an eye out for orcs. Her regiment had run for the better part of a week since the confrontation with the horde coming from Oldrakh. The elves’ only detour had been to the elven king, the leader of her people, to get permission to mobilize out of the fo
rests. Since then, they had been on an emergency sprint through the forests to Croft Keep, from where an owl had been dispatched with a request for reinforcement just as Liritmear’s arrows had fallen on the northern orc force.
Four hundred of the finest elven soldiers were with her now. Whatever orcish force assaulted the keep would pay dearly for the offense. The men behind her crisscrossed each other like eager teenagers of a wolf-pack, jostling for the opportunity to contribute first in any kills. They sprinted through the fields of the human kingdom of Surdel until they reached the outskirts of Bowersby. Liritmear sniffed at the air for signs of the orcs, whether stench or flames, but she found none. She held up a fist. Belegcam cursed in frustration as he pulled up beside her.
“What are they playing at?” he asked.
“It is strange,” she agreed with a nod.
If orcs had come through here, these towns shouldn’t be standing. They should at least be burning.
“It’s not like them to leave these villages and homes intact,” he said. “The message said they’ve been encamped outside the Keep. And that was a week ago…”
“Perhaps they’re waiting for something this time,” she said, completely unconvinced of her own thoughts.
“Orcs?” he asked. “You think those dolts are here with an actual plan?”
His eyes widened at the prospect.
A line of archers formed up behind her, waiting for her command. “What are your orders, Captain?”
“Something’s off,” she said cautiously.
“You think they’re waiting for something?” Belegcam asked. “Bypassing the towns to bring up heavy equipment? Catapults?”
She made a face at the bizarreness of the suggestion.
“Anytime they’ve moved catapults in the past,” she said, “they went after Mallory Keep. They’ve been doing the exact same tactic for millennia—taking the path of least resistance.”
