“We have considered that, sire. The repulsing field would prevent such weapons from passing through. The pikes and spears won’t break through the shield, but the undead will,” said Hal quickly.
“And why the fuck why?” came Tyler’s exasperated question.
“They are animated by the strange field we sensed. If it was enough to affect you through your multiple shields, logically, the barriers would not be an obstacle to them,” explained the guide. Tyler inwardly cursed.
“We recommend that the head be crushed, or if cut off, part of the cranium be destroyed. The energy sustaining them would probably keep them on this plane if the head is removed intact,” added X.
“And why the hell is that?”
“They are undead who regained the skills and abilities they had when still alive. We suspect it is not merely an issue of animated dead, but enthralled souls. In such sorcery, the head is usually the seat of the controlling enchantment. Their glowing eyes reveal that fact,” explained X.
A glance at sunken eyeholes blazing with a green radiance confirmed the guide’s comment. The number of bright green dots all looking at him gave him goosebumps. He shook off the feeling.
“How one was able to bypass the guardianship of the rulers of the underworlds of the pantheons is another issue, though we believe the dimensional medium used was a crucial element,” came the second part of the explanation.
“Another Lost One?” queried Tyler.
“We don’t believe so, sire. There’s no trace of Elder energy. Whoever did this knew ancient magical lore, one the pantheons have already forgotten and which is beyond their present abilities,” Hal clarified.
“We’ll worry about that once this is over. Take care of the archers. Your accuracy is way far better than mine, I’ll take care of the shield wall,” ordered the mage.
Thin beams of coruscating energy instantly shot out of the mage, bursting helmed skeletal heads watching them from the trees. Tyler let go of a chained lightning spell directed at the shield wall, and after a few seconds, followed it with an angry storm of large axe heads, thrown at exposed heads.
The guides were very effective, if one were to go by the greatly decreased number of arrows bouncing off or breaking against the shield. His spells, on the other hand, had mixed results. The lightning smashed and set afire the shields and spears of the approaching mass and burned some undead who simply brushed it off or had the fire handled by their shield-brothers. The force blade spell only netted him a few sliced or crushed skulls.
I swear they’re faster than I expected them to be. Some even evaded blades! Lessened body mass? wondered the mage.
“Hal? Leave the bowmen to X and do the approaching warriors,” Tyler told the guides. He knew he had reached his limit when faced with bobbing and weaving heads on top of moving bodies. Precise targeting would be next to impossible.
“You need to crush or slice the heads!” called out the mage to the companions.
“Damn. A waste of four arrows to every successful hit,” murmured Habrok.
He turned to the ranger.
“Don’t tell me you’re running out of shafts,” the mage told Habrok.
“No, sire. Refilled my quivers at that settlement. Packed them full too. I just don’t like wasting arrows. Four to one is a joke.”
“Keep shooting. We’ll get more arrows when we reach Hedmark.”
The formation of undead warriors suddenly opened up. Through their ranks ran a number of ax-wielding figures, each only clad in ragged wolf or bear skins. They were unbelievably fast, and the sight of naked, decaying, and filthy bodies wearing only torn and ragged animal pelts almost made him puke.
“Berserkr!” warned Habrok as he unleashed a flurry of his arrows, getting one whose body continued tumbling after its head exploded.
Tyndur and Kobu strode forward to meet the revenants. The mage, for his part, couldn’t help but wonder how frayed, desiccated, and crumbling flesh and bones managed to stay together. Hal got five of the rushing warriors, then the leading berserkers were within reach of the two companions in front of Tyler.
Kobu abruptly vanished and reappeared above one, his kanabo already raised for the killing blow. As the exile struck, the metal skull cap was flattened, and the whole head was crushed into the undead’s torso. After the squashing blow, the exile vanished. Tyler saw him next beside another revenant, the spiked mass of metal already swinging sideways to bash the head. The force was so strong, it didn’t only crush the head, but also removed it from the still running body. The mercenary was like a murderous pixie, weaving his deadly vanishing act through the rampaging attackers.
Tyndur approached the fight in a different manner, preferring to slice off part of the skull, but after he had rendered the opponent relatively immobile by incredibly rapid slashes against the legs and arms. The mage observed that the einherjar never targeted the torso of his opponent, although with his flaming battleaxe, every victim of Tyndur’s onslaught was left in a pyre of flames. Somehow, the mage saw the einherjar’s movements had a certain grace, a flow, to them. The warrior definitely had his own style, though not as refined or elegant as that of the movements of Kobu or Astrid, it was effective nonetheless. Even the way he evaded the strikes of the berserkers was impressive, especially in the way the einherjar’s defensive movements were incorporated into his attacks.
In the unfolding battle before him, Tyler noticed that the Norse never blocked. He moved to one side as his opponent attacked with its weapon, and then rapidly struck in various combinations which left his opponent with a partially cut up or bashed skull, while also leaving the attacker on fire. Then the fight was over. It took just under a minute by the mage’s calculations. The barrage of arrows had also stopped too. X had put an end to that problem.
But Tyler noticed the main group was nearer, though he believed Hal’s change of targeting priorities after he was done with the berserkers had something to do with it. Kobu and Tyndur were again in their previous positions, and he could see the einherjar beaming beatifically.
He got his quota of fighting for the day, concluded Tyler. Then he noticed the flaming bodies Tyndur left behind had ignited the dry leaves and shrubs on the ground. A forest fire was already starting to his left.
Shit. We’re going to be burned to death, thought the mage as he frantically searched his memory on any applicable forest spell. He came up with nothing. Fuck this. I should have asked Eira for lessons.
“Tyndur! Habrok! Put the fire out! I’ll handle these insomniac bastards!”
“Insomniac, sire?” asked Habrok as he passed the mage on his way to the growing fire.
“They’re dead. They should be sleeping,” Tyler answered testily.
The mage looked at the enemy with Kobu taking up a protective stand at his side. They were barely fifty feet away, though steadily being whittled down by X and Hal.
Fifty to sixty, my foot! There’s probably 100 or more, including the archers, swore the mage. Then his eyes fell on the ring given by Sarva. Energy, huh? Let’s see if this one can play havoc with them.
He concentrated on the ring which became warm to the touch.
“You called, Master?” came a deep, bass voice.
“Yes. There’s a group of revenants in front of us. Go and play with them.”
“As you wish. The Lord Sarva might have failed to mention it, but I have sufficient power to exist on your plane only for around fifteen of your minutes. The energy I need to manifest and fight is enormous, and the ring’s capacity is limited, hence the restriction.”
“Fifteen minutes is enough. I’ll try to find a way to extend your time later. Go. Play.”
A huge, armored translucent bull with enormous horns abruptly appeared five feet away from the mage. It looked like any bull from Earth, except it stood ten feet at the shoulders and was clad in what looked to be armor plate. Even its head was covered with a faceplate. But Tyler could feel the disruptive aura around it. It was a very powerful ancient spe
ll, that he could tell. It looked back at him, bowed, examined the incoming mass of undead for a few seconds, and then charged.
What followed was pure mayhem. The bull crashed into the shield wall, throwing undead left and right, and crushing whole bodies in its path. Then it proceeded to stamp revenants into the ground, mashing their bodies into gross unrecognizable lumps. Weapons passed harmlessly through its form. It worked insanely fast, and in a short while, the mass of undead was a revolting collection of long-dead flesh and bones, decorated here and there with broken weapons, armor, and shields.
Tyler himself was shocked at the spirit’s violent handiwork and the swiftness with which it was performed. His gaze went to his companions. Their reaction to what he saw was similar to his. Habrok’s jaw hung in amazement, Tyndur’s eyes bulged, and even the exile’s interest was clearly caught by the ferocity of the bull’s attack. The mage had to admit it was the craziest thing he had ever seen. It could be funny to some extent, especially when one recalled how the bull stomped on the fallen revenants like a jackhammer. Still, it was impressively fast and furious violence.
The spirit got rid of the few undead at the back of the formation and then inspected its handiwork. Satisfied, it went back to Tyler, but kept the same distance from the mage. It bowed again.
“That was impressive. And thank you,” the mage said.
“It is a pleasure to serve, Master.”
“Do you have a name?” he asked.
The spirit took some time to answer.
“I apologize, Master. It has been too long since I was on a plane other than the ring. I believe I was called Curavali, or cyclone in one of the languages of Earth.”
“You appear to be not the ordinary sort of spirit. The energy you exude does not match any magical spell I know of,” observed Tyler.
“I was created as a gift to the lord Sarva by an ancient people, not of this world and now gone, their empire lost beneath the seas.”
“You now wish to return to the ring?” asked the mage.
“With your permission, Master, I would like to stay until the enchantment runs out. It had been a while since I walked in your reality,” answered the spirit.
“I wouldn’t call millennia a while,” smiled Tyler. “You have my permission. We still have a fire to put out.”
The fire appeared beyond the efforts of the two warriors to control it. The men had put out the small fires near the trees, but the main conflagration had grown. Watching its progress as individual flames reached out and joined together, Tyler could see the danger posed by fiery embers floating on the breeze and starting more fires in the woods.
The mage looked at Tyndur’s weapon, slung on the einherjar’s back. It still had some flames around the blade. He looked at the roaring fire again.
“Hey, Tyndur! Your axe is still aflame,” the mage shouted.
“It’s all right, sire. No telling if there’s a skulker left,” answered the warrior.
“Can you try using your will on the fire? Put it out,” said Tyler.
The einherjar gawked at Tyler as though the mage was losing his mind.
“Humor me. Treat the fire as if it came from your axe. And I am not going mad,” reassured the mage. The fire did come from your weapon.
Shaking his head, Tyndur faced the blaze. Habrok was on the other side, trying to make sure it didn’t spread to the trees. The einherjar stared at the roaring flames. After several seconds, the rest of the party could see a visible reduction in the intensity and size of the fire. The einherjar kept on concentrating until the conflagration was but the size of a small brushfire. Habrok immediately moved in and put it out with dirt.
“How did you know that was going to work?” asked the very puzzled einherjar.
“The fire was started from the flames coming from your weapon. It stood to reason that the energy of the magical fire was still in the blaze. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the power of the flames of your weapon also sustained the blaze. Probably made it bigger than it should be,” explained Tyler.
Tyndur gravely thought about what the mage said for a while.
“That does open a lot of possibilities, sire,” he finally commented.
“Why does that statement worry me?” commented Tyler uneasily as he walked along the trail. The spirit bull was waiting for them farther ahead, though its attention was not on them. It was busy looking at its surroundings. The rest of the party fell into their usual formation.
“A powerful spirit, that one,” Kobu told the mage as they walked toward the huge armored bull.
“I agree, but I doubt if anybody could create such a creature anymore. That particular form was the result of a magical spell created by an empire now lying beneath the sea,” replied Tyler.
“Lost wisdom. I doubt if it came from a civilization founded on Adar. It must be an extremely potent spell, one of the jealously guarded secrets of knowledgeable magical practitioners. Which was actually the problem – they held on too long to such arcana that when they died, knowledge of the spells died with them,” commented the exile.
“That was for the best – the spread of such dangerous lore could have endangered everybody, even the world itself. No telling if some mad genius would come up with a world-ending twist to one such spell,” replied Tyler.
“I guess you’re right, sire. And I believe it is time for the spirit to take its leave. It’s fading away.”
Tyler saw that the exile was right. The huge bull was slowly disappearing. It glanced at them and gave a final bow before it was gone.
“Polite fellow,” pointedly observed Habrok.
***
They walked the few miles down to the ridge above the flat terrain separating Hedmark from the Barrens. Unlike Scarburg, the area wasn’t a gap in the sense of a narrow channel between mountains. The land was a wide expanse by itself, with settlements serving double duty as redoubts. The fortress-town served as the final barricade against onslaughts from the Barren Lands. Hedmark itself was a relic of a more bloody and violent past, a time when humans were struggling to wrestle control of the land from the creatures who made it their own. The region of Namdalen didn’t include Hedmark initially, but the need to remove any threat coming from the Barrens demanded a narrowing of the open frontiers.
But the mage was unaware of the area’s turbulent past, though he was curious how such a force of undead was in the woods. From the way the revenants were organized and fought, they must have been one cohesive group when they were alive. Taking advantage of the relative safety of their present surroundings, a conclusion reinforced by the normalcy of the woods, the mage decided to ask the two companions from Skaney about the matter.
“Habrok, do you have any idea about why such a group of undead is in these woods? If there’s no rational explanation for it, then we’re heading into a trap, or somebody knows about our movements. Or it could be both,” said the mage.
“No idea, sire. I did my hunting work to the south and the east. Job pickings then were scarce in this region. Only the occasional foray by creatures of the Barrens troubled the region, easily handled by the doughty warriors and inhabitants of Hedmark. No mercenary would be foolish enough to accept a commission for a hunt into the accursed lands. As I mentioned, the inhabitants of this area are hardy folk, which in turn means any job offer would be the death of any professional mercenary group,” replied the ranger.
“I believe I can answer that, sire,” spoke Tyndur. “You see, this land was not originally part of Skaney. It took a long time and uncounted lives before the warriors of Skaney were able to beat back the monsters and other creatures infesting the place. If memory serves me right, this area was a favorite haunt of the sons of Fenrir – Skoll and Hati. Though the shapeshifters we encountered were mainly werewolves and bears. At first, we thought they were rogue Úlfhéðnar or Svinfylking practitioners, but we found such opponents to be exactly what they appeared to be. Damned nuisances.”
“I am not familiar with the terms Ú
lfhéðnar and Svinfylking, Tyndur. Care to explain?” asked the mage.
“Úlfhéðnar refers to wolf-men but is also a term used to refer to the berserkr. Svinfylking means boar-warrior, followers of the god Freyr and the goddess Freyja. Likes battle-boars, those two. Rogue half-beasts do exist. Half-mad too,” explained the einherjar, clearly experienced in the subject.
“Thanks. Was the effort done through individual jarls or by High King?” inquired Tyler, curious about the extent of the High King’s authority.
“Individual lordly buffoons at first. Then when a sizable army of one of the jarls was lost, the High King called a ting at Hirdburg, his capital. Well, he should be concerned. His city was directly in the path of any massive incursion.”
“What’s a ting?” asked Tyler.
“A lords’ assembly. They recognized the danger of allowing such a wide border to face the Barrens, the defense line being from Barholm down to Stenhus, a vast distance to defend. Then began concerted efforts to push back the infested area, many warriors’ lives were sacrificed in a campaign across many years. Armies were decimated, expeditions lost, initial settlements razed to the ground, settlers massacred. It was a costly period for Skaney; people still remember the enormous cost and effort to secure this region,” said Tyndur, softly adding, “I know too. What I recall tells me I fought here. Desperate battles, not against men.”
Then he glanced at the three listeners who were clearly interested in what he was narrating. The speaker grinned at his companions.
“I had my fill of fighting during that time, that’s for sure. Don’t ask me about what we fought, that part appears quite vague in my recollections. Rest assured we got used to facing fangs, claws, and magic. But we won. Though I am not certain if I met my death here or somewhere else,” continued the einherjar who suddenly shook his head vigorously.
“Stupid memory flashes. All that comes is a sense of confused fighting against crawling, running, and… some flying beasties too. Wait. More blasted unclear memories,” said Tyndur who had stopped and closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then he looked at his companions.
The Accidental Archmage - Book Five Page 15
