Necromancer’s Sorrow: (Series Finale)

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

  The central market was empty, as it had been these past weeks after the summons to war. But the regular customers, like Lulita and a handful of grandparents, children, and a couple of young Deserters, were wandering around the market looking for food to buy.

  Times were bad for the stallholders too. The people of the rural area had suffered from the snowfalls and the produce on sale was of lower quality. Most of the vendors, a furtive bunch of people, had not answered the summons to war, muttering that their responsibility was to feed the villages where they sold their produce.

  Among those shopping was Don Dargos of Vásufeld. The nobleman was walking with two soldiers at his side at every moment, sniffing the produce and encouraging the people around him. The nobleman who lived in the village before had been Don Rodrigo Thorén who had been a quiet person and not very involved with local affairs. Don Dargos of the House of Darbán, in contrast, was charismatic and loved to get involved with village life.

  Lulita came as close as she could until the soldiers raised one hand and reached for their swords with the other.

  “I’d like to speak to your boss,” Lulita said decisively.

  Don Dargos turned. Before the soldier could intervene, he came up to her and greeted her with a hug. Lulita hugged him back. Tomasa and the soldiers exchanged looks that said, “I could kill you.”

  “The grandmother of Luciella of the Holy Comment. She’s a very special girl. I hope the journey north has been prosperous. Any news of her?”

  “Nothing at all,” Lulita replied with a shrug.

  “And this? You’re wearing full armor? It’s beautiful, eh? Wyvern, isn’t it?”

  “Inherited from my mother. Tomasa’s, I bought in the North.”

  The noonday sun was shining intensely, and to see well they had to narrow their eyes. The weather was delightful, typical of the tropical south. Thank goodness the snow had vanished months before.

  “I’d love to get some to add to my collection. I love collecting—”

  “Don Dargos,” Lulita interrupted with her eyes stern. “I have a feeling that the bad times are about to come back. Leandro has certainly waged war in the North and if that’s so, I fear it’ll soon reach us.”

  “Impossible! We’re a very, very long way from them, Doña Lulita! What makes you think Leandro will lose the battle?”

  “The fact that he’s fighting against the God of Chaos.”

  Lulita was surrounded by a dozen frightened pairs of eyes. Nobody had dared to say this. But when she said it, the fact suddenly seemed to become truer than ever.

  “The sun’s shining and people are strolling quietly in the streets. The village is prospering. But if the war’s against the God of Chaos, I don’t think Leandro will have much luck. Something bad is going to happen. We need to be prepared.”

  When she had said this, the people who had gathered to listen to her began to leave as fast as they could. Nobody wanted to have to prepare for anything.

  “I’m not the village leader, Lulita. I can’t order them to do anything.”

  “But you’re the only one who has a large garrison with enough weapons and armor to defend those of us who are here. The village needs you if evil is really on its way.”

  “What could a handful of soldiers do against a sea of demons, if they come?” Don Dargos asked worriedly. He was imagining it happening.

  “It’s not as if we were going to pit ourselves against the advance of evil. We could use the castle as a point of defense, a fort where we could dig ourselves in.”

  The nobleman scratched his chin. “That’s not a bad idea. All right. If things turn sour, my castle is at your disposal. There, that’s that.”

  This said, Lulita took her leave and tried to talk to the locals to encourage them to take up arms, even if it were only a spade or a rake. Nobody would listen. Nobody wanted to know anything about the war.

  That same evening, when she was about to go back to the estate, disappointed with her village because it would not listen to her, a young lad of around fifteen approached her.

  “Um… Ma’am Lulita?”

  “Yes?” The grandmother looked closely at the boy’s face. He was a teenager, very shy with dark skin and black eyes. He reminded her of Manchego, although this boy was much taller and thinner with limbs so skinny he looked like a scarecrow.

  “My name’s Ruben and… Well, I… Me and some friends, we deserted. We listened to your conversation with Don Dargos and we want to take part in the defense of the village. My mom, she says I’m no good for all that business of fighting and that these limbs of mine aren’t much use.” He looked down at his thin, feebly-muscled arms. “But maybe I could help you get the people in the village prepared. Do something, I mean.”

  Lulita saw one thing in those eyes: the lad felt guilty. Guilty at not having gone to the war with the other youths of his age.

  “Well, go and start convincing people. Go to Don Dargos and ask him for a suit of armor your size.”

  “I already have armor, ma’am. My grandfather left his to me.”

  “Then we’re all set,” Lulita said. “Get ready for war.”

  The days passed with extreme slowness. The housework lost its flavor. The people hated Lulita for having interfered in their quiet lives, and reluctantly, most of them began to get themselves ready in their own way and at their own pace.

  On one particular unremarkable evening, Lulita felt the earth tremble. She stood up, listening to Rufus barking. It was a warning.

  She went out to the old dog and crouched down beside him. He was barking at the horizon where there was a view of the moors with their mountains and greenery.

  “What can you smell, Rufus?”

  The dog whimpered and took a step back. He barked another couple of times, then ran back to the estate. Lulita stood up and scanned the horizon with a beating heart. There! What was that? It was as if a wall were moving toward them. It was a black cloak as though a large cloud were passing across the sun but it was a cloudless evening.

  It was minutes after she had begun to stare at the moving shadow that she realized it was not a cloak or shadow. A hundred thousand soldiers clad in black armor were moving like a sea that covered the horizon from moor to moor. Lulita saw curved swords, spiked helmets, and huge bodies. They were orcs!

  “Orcs!”

  She felt a stab of depression in her chest and felt defeated. How would they survive an attacking wave as huge as this? Leandro must be losing the war. These were Mórgomiel’s servants who had come to put an end to them.

  The impossibility of surviving an attack like this left her paralyzed. But soon, Rufus’s barking and Tomasa’s shout alerted her.

  “Hell, take the reins!” the big woman shouted again. She was already riding one of their horses. Tomasa had got Sureña ready for her, a white mare that she had for years. Tomasa was riding the stud they called Granola.

  Lulita mounted as fast as she could, grasped the reins, and they shot off out of the estate. Would they see it again? Would their memories be burned again? It did not matter anymore. Ever since the estate had burned that first time and they had lost everything, including Eromes’ memoirs, losing tangible things no longer mattered so much to her.

  ***

  They came into the village at a gallop.

  “Ruben! Ruben!” Lulita shouted when she saw the lad loading a sack of potatoes for his home. “The time’s come! A sea of orcs is on its way! They’re coming to exterminate us, for sure! To arms! To Don Dargo’s castle! To arms!”

  This time, more lads came out of their homes to look at the grandmother. This was serious. It was real. They ran inside to put on their armor, then got ready to help the older people to the castle.

  Don Dargos had opened the gate and lit torches on the castle walls and towers. The soldiers had alerted him to the fact that the village was heading towards them en masse. This castle was not surrounded by a moat, so there was no drawbridge.

  When Lulita and Tomasa dismount
ed and set foot in the courtyard, Don Dargos came out of the donjon, flanked by two soldiers.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “An army of orcs is approaching, fast! There are so many of them that their lines span the entire horizon! Come on, man! To arms!”

  “To arms!” he echoed. “Soldiers, take up arms on the battlements! Archers, get yourselves ready by the arrowslits! I want the parapets supplied with rocks and boiling oil! Help the rest of the village to come in quickly! Off you go!”

  The moment had come without warning. Here and now, the final judgment would take place. There was no premonition, no glorious battle before the end. Evil would consume everything and everyone.

  “Tomasa, I want you in one of the towers beside the parapet. You must do everything you can to stop those bastards climbing the walls.”

  “And you, ma’am? I’m not moving from your side unless either death takes me or it takes you.”

  “All right, suit yourself. You can protect me while I shoot through an arrowslit. Off we go!”

  Lulita passed a soldier and grabbed his quiver full of arrows. Although he protested, there was not much he could do about it. There was too much chaos around them.

  The minutes crawled by, and the enemy did not seem to be coming any closer.

  “Shut the gate!” Don Dargos shouted. He was in his full armor now. “Take the ones who can’t fight to the guards’ quarters. Anybody else who can handle a weapon, even a rake, I want on the walls, the battlements, or in the courtyard, ready to receive and repel the enemy. Now!”

  The gate shut. Before Don Dargos could bark any more orders, he glanced through the gate and saw the wall of soldiers in black armor running at top speed toward the castle.

  “By the God of Light! Holy Alac! What madness is this!? They’re going to flood us!”

  From the arrowslit, Lulita was able to see a hundred orcs peeling off from that wave of enemies to sack the village and set fire to it. The remaining wave of orcs kept going, combing the land for more villages, settlements, and cities to wreak havoc on.

  “Archers! Release!” shouted the captain in charge of the soldiers.

  From the towers and embrasures flew a handful of arrows. Nothing in comparison with the number of orcs around them. The village was in flames by now. The castle was not very large; its walls were at the most two hundred strides long and three hundred wide, forming a square with the donjon in the center. The orcs were so numerous that soon they had the castle surrounded. Then, they began their attack.

  “They haven’t come properly prepared!” Lulita shouted. “They haven’t brought any machinery for climbing the walls!” She was hitting an orc every three seconds, the time it took her to nock the arrow, pull the string, aim, and release.

  “They might not have any assault machines,” Don Dargos shouted back from the lookout, “but there are too many of them! They’ll soon manage to climb the wall or hack it down. There’s no way out of this for us, gentlemen! Give it all you’ve got!” An arrow struck his helmet, knocking it askew and leaving him half-stunned.

  “My lord!” the captain yelled at him. “Get behind the battlements!”

  “Defend the castle at all costs!” Don Dargos shouted as soon as he had recovered his senses. When he got back to his feet, he scanned the horizon. Wherever he looked, there were signs of the billions of orcs that had come to claim the world. Soon they would occupy the whole planet, and nobody would escape their claws.

  Chapter LV — The Dance of War

  The last of the Amaranth never managed to get away through the Portal as the defenders cornered them. The hundred thousand Dakatak had moved forward ruthlessly, and now the insects were tearing them apart with their jaws.

  “We’ve won!” came a cry in the distance when the last Amaranth had fallen. The scene around the Portal of the Worlds was one of pure carnage.

  “To me! All leaders to me!” Leandro shouted. “Raigan!” he called to the captain in command of the cavalry. “Organize the cavalry into groups of ten riders and form them into rows a hundred strides from the ramp. If anything comes out of there, attack and massacre it!”

  “Yes, sir!” yelled the captain. At once, he began to bark orders, and soon, the cavalry was organized as ordered.

  “An impressive victory!” commented Tenos Domaryath when he arrived near the Portal. “An unrivaled commander of the forces!”

  Duke Vásufeld dismounted and handed the reins to one of the soldiers of his garrison. The other dukes had arrived in answer to the general’s call.

  “You, Captain Garza,” General Deathslayer called to Mondragon in front of the soldiers around the Portal. “You are hereby promoted to Commander of the Forces of Mandrake under my supervision. You will carry out my orders and your captains will be in charge of the divisions.”

  Captain Mondragon Garza, surrounded by his soldiers including First Lieutenant Barlow, was left stunned. His mouth fell open. He could not believe that he had been promoted.

  Leandro glared at him.

  “Yes sir!” said the newly-promoted commander.

  “Muster all the armies from each city, including the Imperial Army. Have them form ranks around the Portal.”

  “Just a moment!” protested Leor Buvarzo of Bónufor. “I am in command of my army!” The other dukes began to mutter discontentedly.

  “Silence!” Leandro snapped. “If we’re going to win this bloody war, it’ll be because we’re properly organized! Commander Garza has his instructions and soon you’ll have yours! Commander, carry on.”

  The commander bowed and left to carry out his order, followed by his first lieutenant.

  The scene was chaos, a blood-bath of limbs, severed limbs, and red mud. The Fields of Flora had never seen a battle as bloody as this since the Battle of Maúralgum, and now the carnage of those days had been surpassed.

  The Portal of the Worlds was surrounded by corpses of every species, but there was no doubt that there were more attackers dead than defenders. There were so many of them piled on top of one another and charred by Nordost’s breath that everywhere around the platform was a carpet of dead bodies.

  Others arrived: Othus the Benevolent, Düll Donn, Sendar, Lombardo, Ítalshin, Uroquiel, an insect in resin armor named Gelkak, Valímidos the giant he-goat from Hoomasaas, Quelshún of Crallys, Lohrén of the elves of Allündel, Merok of Grizna, Janikur of Kathanas, Nidra the Naevas Aedán, and Lenga the Thief with Cail the Intrepid at her side.

  Leandro’s gaze turned to the leaders of each army. It gladdened his heart to see Lombardo, even though he had no time to greet him. The dukes were uncomfortable among so many beings from different worlds. If they did found it hard enough to get used to the insects, adjusting to a giant he-goat with a horse’s back, human torso, and intelligent eyes was even harder. The monolith caused them no greater repulsion in comparison with the other foreign beings.

  From the sky came a powerful beating of wings and a colossal, metal-scaled body landed gently, taking great care not to crush anybody. He did it so gracefully that the earth did not even tremble. It was the force of his presence and his cavernous voice that announced his arrival.

  “A well-fought battle,” Nordost said. “But the dangers have barely begun. This may have been a test, an attack to assess the power of our forces. I can assure you that it will not be long before Mórgomiel sends the second wave of his attack.”

  Every soldier in every army was left breathless at the sight of the dragon before them. To see such a creature speaking and reasoning was something out of a dream for most of them. Besides, the Dragon of the Metal Scales was beautiful and the aura he emanated was so powerful that it left them in awe. Nobody could doubt that they were in the presence of a divine being.

  “Leaders of other cultures, worlds, and cities,” Leandro began. “I regret that we have to meet in such unfortunate circumstances, surrounded by destruction and chaos.” He saluted each of the foreign leaders, introducing himself and asking for their name
s. Nidra was flying around Lohrén.

  The Metallic Knight descended from Nordost’s back. Leandro and the other leaders looked closely at him and could not hide their surprise. He was a knight clad in an impressive suit of armor and a helmet with dragon’s wings, bearing a sword that looked as though it had been forged by the Gods themselves, as it was.

  “Leaders, I am the Metallic Knight. I am a god who, in times of yore, helped to fight against and defeat the God of Chaos during the Times of Chaos that he brought about thousands of years ago. In that time, he managed to defeat me, though not my dragon. With his magic, Nordost succeeded in infusing my essence into my armor. When I donned it once again, I came back to life. All is not lost. And yes, it is true. Mórgomiel has just begun to unleash hell itself. Things are only going to get worse from now on. But you have me and my valiant dragon to help you in these renewed Times of Chaos.”

  Leandro swallowed hard. This god, this Metallic Knight, had a very particular look in his eyes. He could almost say that he recognized him. Though he would never dare disrespect a god. A god? There was a god before them? What on earth were they doing standing there?

  He came back to his senses. “By the Gods! A god! A dragon!” He knelt and bowed his head.

  The word spread like wildfire and the news that they were standing before a god ran through the armies. Not all of them believed in the Gods, but for the Mandrakians, this was the nearest thing to a miracle. They wasted no time in imitating Leandro. Before anyone could so much as breathe, almost four hundred thousand souls had knelt before the god and the dragon. The other armies on the other hand did not, not out of any lack of respect, but because they had their own beliefs.