Sir Lucien had suggested to Duke Gladios that we send a contingent of infantrymen out into the city to find her. Duke Gladios shook his head. “The blasted elf is most likely long gone,” he’d said. “I’m sure she’s made her way out through the secret passages.”
I had to begrudgingly agree with the duke. Though I would have loved to go dashing through the underground tunnels beneath the city to find her, she’d probably made her escape hours ago.
Plus, with the battle yet to come, I didn’t think we should spare even one soldier from defending the wall.
Still, things were still looking grim. Though the Necromancer, during his brief visit, made me realize that he didn’t consider his victory a lock, we’d still need help from Mother Gaia herself to survive the next attack by Lord Blackfyre’s forces.
Though I’d been heartened to realize that I’d be able to unleash the full power of the Storm Gem on the Dark King after I used Aegis Winterhollow’s fang, now I was tempted to do that now, just to ensure that we survived the coming battle.
I wouldn’t even have to use the Storm Gem. If I took on the powers of a vampire lord, for even a few minutes, I’d be able to run roughshod over Lord Blackfyre’s army.
WINTERHOLLOW’S FANG
EFFECT: UPON USE, MAKES USER VAMPIRE LORD FOR 30 MINS
I was so tempted that I started grinding my teeth until my jaw got sore. But I couldn’t do it.
First of all, I could only use Winterhollow’s fang once, then it would be gone forever. And without being able to harness the power of a vampire lord, I wouldn’t be able to wield the Storm Gem properly enough to destroy the Necromancer.
That alone would have been enough to keep me from deploying the fang too early. But then, to finally squash my temptation, was the matter of mere logistics.
Yeah, a vampire lord was a god-tier creature, but I’d only take on those powers for thirty minutes. Even as a god-level badass, I didn’t think I’d be able to slaughter twenty or thirty thousand ghouls in that span of time.
Aegis Winterhollow had been crazy fast during our fight, but I didn’t think he’d have been fast enough to crush an entire army singlehandedly in a mere half-an-hour.
“Fuck,” I said in frustration. “Back to square one.”
I figured I’d check in on Sephara to see if she’d made any progress with Bella. For now, she was our best shot at making it out of the next battle in one piece.
As I made my way back to the infirmary, I even pulled my skill tree again, to see if there were any abilities or perks that I’d overlooked.
Of course, there were plenty that I hadn’t chosen, and I had more than enough skill points stocked that I could have picked a few without feeling guilty about it. The problem was, none of the available perks would have done much to aid me in the coming battle. As it was, until it came time to prick myself with Winterhollow’s fang, I was as powerful as I was going to get.
When I approached the infirmary, I heard Bella speaking to one of the other healers. Bella sounded frustrated, angry.
“I said, let me up out of this bed!” Bella growled in a tone so unfitting of her personality that, at first, I didn’t recognize her voice.
I felt hope rising up in my throat when I heard her speak, because that meant she was on the mend, but before I could enter the infirmary to see her, Sephara appeared and stopped me.
She raised a finger to her lips, signaling for me to be quiet. “Speak softly, Earthman,” she said. “We have to discuss my sister.”
“It sounds like you healed her!” I whispered.
“Aye,” the Mananymph said, but the visible frustration in her eyes told me there was a catch. “She’s awake and lucid and ready to rejoin the fight.”
“Good,” I said.
“No, not good,” Bella answered. “She’s too eager at the moment. I haven’t yet finished healing her, yet she keeps fighting with me to let her go down to the wall. She says she can crush the rest of Lord Blackfyre’s army with another seraph attack.”
“Well, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Oh, she could crush them, no question,” Sephara said. “But until I’ve completed the healing process, having her attempt that spell again would almost certainly kill her.”
That hope I’d felt promptly vanished. “Have you told her that?” I asked.
“Of course I did,” Sephara answered. “She’s ready to give her life for the city.”
“No,” I said emphatically. “I won’t let her sacrifice herself. Should I speak to her?”
“Not now,” Sephara said. “So far, I’ve been managing to reign her in myself. If she were to see you, it might make her more eager than ever to rejoin the defense of the wall.”
I nodded. “So, how much more time do you need?”
Sephara sighed. “If I’m lucky, maybe an hour. But that’s only if I’m lucky. It could take me up to two, maybe even three hours.”
God damn it, I didn’t like this. I had a gut feeling that the attack would resume well before she’d be done. If Bella heard the horns of war sounding, there’d be no keeping her in the infirmary. With her skills in illusion, she’d vanish from sight and sneak off to cast that spell, and she was so dedicated to our cause that sacrificing her life wouldn’t stop her.
But then I remembered something.
“She was wearing a ring,” I said. “The Imperial agent ring that had a paralyzation enchantment.”
Sephara smiled, stifled a cry of glee, and hugged me tight as she peppered my face with kisses. “Yes, I remember!” she said. “I removed it before I started treating her.” She stuck her hand into her robe, felt around, then grinned when she pulled the ring out.
“If you gotta use it on her, then you gotta use it on her,” I said. “The spell won’t hurt her, and it’ll keep her from running off.”
Sephara kissed me once more on the lips. “I’m almost tempted to stop calling you the idiot Earthman,” Sephara said, then darted back into the infirmary.
*****
At least now I wouldn’t have to worry about Bella killing herself by casting a spell. I looked out of a nearby window on my way back downstairs. I didn’t like what I saw.
Lord Blackfyre’s forces were getting into formation once more. They hadn’t marched any closer yet, but the chances appeared slim that Sephara could heal Bella before the battle reignited.
Yet, there was some good news. Though Sir Lucien had given the civilian conscripts the choice to head to Silverton, none had taken him up on the offer.
“Even the softest man in Homehold is intensely protective of his city,” Sir Lucien said when I saw him. “None so much as considered the option to leave, even if they risk never seeing their families again.”
Though they’d bolster our numbers, Sir Lucien had, however, agreed to keep the civilian conscripts off the battlements.
“I won’t have elderly or very young soldiers dying by the dozen, though,” Sir Lucien said. “I’ll keep them on the ground, where they can dogpile any ghouls that slip past our wall defenses.”
I liked the sound of that.
Then there was Pandora. I saw her while I was en route back to the wall. She was long past the point where flexing her mysticism muscles would cause her to pass out. Already, her eyes were crackling with that white magic.
“My connection to mysticism magic is more complete now than ever before,” she told me.
That could have been a game changer. If her TK abilities had an expanded range, she just might be able to pull down Lord Blackfyre’s wyvern. It would be a long shot for sure, but I just needed to get that lich lord bastard grounded. I knew he was more powerful than Lord Ephemera and Lord Necromorph, but I was itching to show the fucker that he was no match for me.
Then, once he was dead, the magic reanimating his forces would be cut off. The entire army would be crushed, with his death alone.
All I needed was the chance to strike him.
However, we still hadn’t reached th
e wall when we heard it.
On the battlements, the lookouts blew their warning horns, signaling that the horde appeared to be on the verge of marching again. Me and Pandora dashed back up to the wall. Duke Gladios and Sir Lucien watched from atop the gates.
Ahead, the undead army churned like a sea of corpses. Lord Blackfyre was a black dot in the sky, wheeling about on his wyvern, looking over his vast army.
“I’d guess there’s just under twenty-thousand of them,” Sir Lucien said as he surveyed their numbers. He looked back at me, smiling grimly. “Would you like to know how many soldiers we have left? Even with the civilian conscripts included?”
I laughed darkly. “No, Sir Lucien, I’d rather not.”
“Good thinking,” he said, then turned back to the horde.
I looked up and down the battlements. Between the dead and the soldiers too injured to fight, we were down to maybe a few hundred men. And yes, that included the civilian conscripts.
A few hundred that were about to take on an undead horde twenty-thousand-strong.
“Mother Gaia help us,” Pandora whispered.
“Hey down there, could you fellows use a hand?” came a voice from above us. “Or, to be more specific, a wing?”
I turned around and my eyes grew wide in disbelief. It was Aurelias Skybound!
The great hawk was flapping his massive wings as he landed atop the battlements, making the soldiers nearby cry out in shock, as few had ever seen one of the birdfolk.
“Holy shit!” I said. “Aurelias, you couldn’t have come at a better time.”
“Aye, I can see that,” the giant hawk said. “I told Maximus just this morning that I wanted to come here and check to make sure you and the Mananymphs made it back from the Imperial City. And here I find you on the verge of battle!”
Duke Gladios stepped toward the hawk, grinning widely. “Aurelias Skybound, it’s been too long!” Duke Gladios said as he bowed to the great hawk.
“Thankfully not a second longer,” Aurelias said. “Now tell me, how can I assist you?”
I smiled then jerked my thumb toward Lord Blackfyre in the sky. “Get me to that motherfucker,” I said. “We kill him, we kill his army. It’s that simple.”
The hawk grinned as watched the lich lord atop his wyvern. “Ah, fantastic. It’s been ages since I’ve crushed a wyvern’s neck with my talons. Climb aboard then, Gamelord. I’d be honored to have you upon my back once more!”
And the massive hawk didn’t arrive a moment too soon.
Out across the field, the undead swarm in the distance began to march again. Up and down the battlements, the lookouts blew their war horns.
As I climbed onto Aurelias’ back, the soldiers cheered, and I pointed my Dayfire blade toward the army advancing toward us.
“Let’s smash these assholes!” I cried out.
“For Homehold!” Duke Gladios shouted.
“For Homehold!” cried out Sir Lucien and Pandora.
Then, all along the wall and down in the city behind us, the soldiers and conscripts raised their blades and cheered.
“FOR HOMEHOLD!”
Aurelias took off, and the moment we were off the wall, I told him I was going to cast an invisibility spell on us.
“Good thinking, Champion!” the hawk said.
“I doubt that Lord Blackfyre spotted your approach,” I said. “But let’s keep it that way. I want to give the bastard a big surprise.”
As we took flight, the advancing horde of ghouls and skeletons, liches and zombified spriggan elders made the air smell of death and carrion rot. The horde was itching for blood, that much was obvious. The footsoldiers ran at a sprint, with their omnipresent undead moan that quickly grew deafening the closer we got.
It’d take us a few minutes to sneak up on Lord Blackfyre. I was careful to recast my invisibility spell well before the effects of the previous spell faded. I didn’t want to give the lich lord any advantage that I didn’t have to.
But I had to admit, as we flew over the horde, I had to struggle to keep myself calm. If I tumbled off the hawk’s back, not only did I have a long way to fall, but I’d be landing right in a boiling see of the undead. If the fall didn’t kill me, the thousands upon thousands of ghouls would have finished the job.
“Don’t worry, Gamelord!” Aurelias said. “As I told you before, no one falls off my back unless I want them to!”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The hardest part about my sneak attack was staying patient. A hundred feet below us, the horde was just starting to throw itself against the wall. Siege towers were rolling in and the spriggan elders were hurling large rocks at the gates.
Meanwhile, Lord Blackfyre was wheeling patiently overhead, watching the battle with a sharp eye.
I considered my options.
I resisted the urge to try to hit him with a ranged TK blast or force bomb. It might have knocked him from his wyvern, but I was sure his spell absorption and magic resistance were off the charts.
No, I’d have to tangle with him up close. He cut a fearsome form in his obsidian armor, but like all the other lich lords, he specialized in magic, not in melee. I decided to approach him on my terms, not his.
I leaned toward Aurelias Skybound’s ear and spoke quietly. “Approach him from behind. Try to get me as close as possible.”
The great hawk nodded, turned in a wide arc, and I cast a fortify strength spell and a fortify speed spell as we closed in on him.
I grit my teeth, glaring at the lich lord as we made our approach, then unsheathed the Dayfire longsword from my hip and made a save point.
Almost there.
Thirty feet away.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen feet…and that’s when the wyvern smelled us.
I hadn’t considered the beast’s sense of smell. There wasn’t much I could have done about it, as I didn’t have a camouflage scent spell, anyway.
“Careful!” I shouted to Aurelias as the wyvern snapped its head around, with the flames already sparking in his mouth.
Lord Blackfyre turned around quizzically right at the moment the wyvern let out its fiery breath.
“Fuck it,” I said to myself, then used my fortified strength to hurl myself off Aurelias’ back, right toward the lich lord bastard.
The great hawk laughed. “I like the way you fight, Earthman!” he shouted as I went crashing onto the wyvern’s back, right behind the lich lord.
Lord Blackfyre growled menacingly as my invisibility faded. I brought the Dayfire blade around, grabbed the tip with the Soulguard, and tried sawing it into the lich lord’s throat.
“Champion!” the lich lord hissed.
He managed to slip his obsidian gauntlets between his neck and my blade just in time. I grunted as I dug the blade into his armored gloves, causing the Dayfire enchantment to spark in his grip.
“Your head’s mine, motherfucker,” I growled.
“You’ll have to fight harder than that for my head, False Champion,” the lich lord said, then maneuvered his right hand just enough to catch me in the face with a lightning spark.
Though it only did minor damage, it was enough to blind me momentarily. Before I could reorient myself, the backward momentum caused me to tumble off the wyvern’s back, with the lich lord coming along for the ride.
We spun in the air. I slashed at him with the Dayfire blade as he unleashed an explosion of elemental destruction magic.
I raised the Soulguard and absorbed a deadly combination of fire and lightning magic.
SPELL ABSORPTION SKILL INCREASED +1
At the same time, I used my armorer’s knowledge and spotted the slightest bit of rust on his right shoulder plate. I slashed at it with the Dayfire longsword and the enchanted glass blade hacked through the weak point and bit into his pale flesh.
LONG BLADE SKILL INCREASED +1
It seemed like we were falling forever, when it was really just a span of a couple of seconds. Thanks to my fortify speed spell, I had enough time
to realize we were perhaps one second away from hitting the ground.
With my last bit of mana, I cast my short range teleportation spell before I could get splattered into the unforgiving ground beneath me.
While I teleported harmlessly to the ground, Lord Blackfyre slammed into the dirt like a black meteorite. Though he’d specialized in destruction magic, I quickly found out that he was no slouch in restoration.
As I quickly downed a restore mana potion, the lich lord healed himself just as fast. As he got to his feet and drew his ebony longsword, he sparked a large elemental mixture of ice, fire, and lightning magic that crackled ominously over his open palm.
“Hit me with your best shot, motherfucker,” I said.
It took me a moment to realize the lich lord was laughing. His voice was so low, so devious, that I could just barely make out the sound.
“I don’t think I even have to,” Lord Blackfyre said.
Then I realized why he was laughing.
We’d landed in the middle of his horde. His lightning spark had lingering effects on my vision, so I hadn’t noticed until just now.
“Coward,” I said as a legion of ghouls and skeletons slowly surrounded me.
I’d come all this way, and gotten so close, and now I was going to swarmed by a legion of –
A white flash.
The crackle of mysticism magic.
Pandora appeared in front of me, with Sir Lucien and a half-dozen Homehold soldiers along with her.
“Sir Lucien, round up your men!” Pandora shouted as she blasted away a hundred ghouls with a powerful TK blast. She turned to me, grinning. “Kill that asshole, Earthman.”
Now with some backup, I threw myself toward the lich lord. He hissed in frustration and launched his elemental combination spell.
I absorbed it with the Soulguard and slashed down with the Dayfire blade. He parried my attack with his ebony longsword, but he wasn’t prepared for the impact of my strike, and he staggered back several feet.
A ghoul came my way. I hacked it in half easily. Three more tried to flank me, but Sir Lucien hurled himself into their number, hacking and slashing them to pieces with his silver blade.
“You call this a ghoul horde, Blackfyre!” Sir Lucien said as he thrust his sword into the chest of an approaching apprentice lich.
Monstergirl Quest Book Two Page 18
