by Greg Curtis
“In the same way there are other rules. Things like life. Like luck. Like death. But for some reason these are things you give names to. You call them gods. You give them natures. And in doing so you shape them into something that they are not. Worse than that, you create them – in a way.”
“What's in Wilberton trying to get out, isn't a god exactly. It's the personification of a fundamental rule of the world. Death. A basic force that now, thanks to tens of thousands of years and the beliefs of millions of people, acts like a god. One you created. It is complete with all the fears you imbued upon it, all the evil you ascribed to it, and all the mercurial savagery and mystery. It can't help doing what it does. It's terrifying because you let your fear of it shape it that way. It's evil because you let your beliefs make it so. You gave it rules it had to obey. Rules that make it dangerous. You took something completely natural and fashioned a monster out of it.”
Edrick would have said something – maybe asked a question, perhaps even argued – except that just then the Priests began their chant and he forgot everything else. The battle had begun. And what sort of a battle plan was it he had to ask himself for the thousandth time, when it was once again led by the priests and the entire plan revolved around protecting them? He understood it – the Priests chanted, the enemy came for them, while everyone else tried to keep them safe. It just didn’t sound very soldier like. It also hadn’t worked all that well last time.
Edrick immediately turned his attention to the ruined town, waiting for the enemy to burst from it in numbers. But he also kept looking to the skies, expecting at any moment to see drakes bursting down from it. Most of all he tried to keep from fidgeting. The waiting was hard. But everyone else was no doubt feeling the same.
As before the Priests' chant took time to build in power. It could not be rushed – he didn't know why. And as the sound slowly grew and spread out across the land, he shuffled nervously from one foot to the other. His heart was starting to beat a little faster in his chest. He felt like a condemned man waiting for someone to push the lever for the trap door to give way beneath him, letting him fall to his death. Yet there was nothing to be done but wait.
Slowly the chant filled the land and the sky, and then spread out over it. Soon it began to drown out the song of the birds and the gentle roar of the wind. Edrick knew that the Priests’ chant would soon be answered. But this time there was no perpetual storm of darkness and orange fire above the town to show them the chant had reached Coldwater by flickering. All Edrick could judge it by was the loudness.
But in time the chant was heard and the demon answered.
The iron golems appeared at the edge of the town in numbers and started running for them. But no one shot at them. The range was too great for the rifles to reach, and in any case the new commanders had drilled their men relentlessly. They had a plan and they were going to stick to it. That plan of course, began with the wizards.
As soon as they appeared the wizards hit the ground in front of them with their earth spells, creating barricades to slow the advancing enemy, exactly as they had before. But this time there was a surprise in store for the golems. They had improved on the enchantments from before. The barricades were taller and had nearly vertical sides which made it harder for the golems to clamber over them.
Eventually they did, but the wizards had planned for that too. When they jumped down the other side, instead of landing on the ground they sank into it, as it had been turned into a swamp. If only they had tried that the first time he thought. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t have been so effective against ice golems who might well have floated. Iron however, didn't float. And the instant they hit the swamp, the iron golems sank leaving behind only a splash of muddy water to show where they had been.
Edrick watched as golem after golem made it to the top of the barricade only to jump down and then promptly sink out of sight. It was a good sight. But he also knew it wouldn't kill them. The golems weren't alive to begin with and they didn't breathe. So somewhere under all that mud he knew, they were still moving forward, trying to find something hard to grip on to so they could clamber out and continue their attack.
Two or three minutes later, he watched as the first of them did just that. Edrick saw its head rise out of the ground, followed by the rest of its body, and he knew that the swamp had been filled. From now on as fast as the golems fell into the trap, more would escape it. It had done its job.
Someone gave the order, and immediately those who had created the swamp cast their spell to drain the water out of it.
More heads appeared in the distance. More iron golems began hauling themselves out of the swamp. Now though, they were considerably slower than they had been. Without the water the swamp became dirt, and it was ten times harder to dig your way out of dirt than out of swamp. Maybe a dozen succeeded. But they weren't the threat. It was the others that had been slower over the barricades and who were now landing on soft dirt when they jumped.
How many were buried, Edrick wondered? A hundred? Two hundred? He didn't know. But what he did know was that just as they had prepared for this battle so too had the enemy. Hundreds might have been buried. But hundreds more were still coming for them.
Next it was his turn and perhaps that of a dozen others to act. Now that the golems were out in the open with no barricade in front of them and no swamp for them to sink into and wash off the acid it was time for acid splash. So, he and the others began casting furiously, hurling splashes of acid at the oncoming golems, and hoping that the things would dissolve before they reached them. Long before. Suddenly Edrick didn't have any more time to worry. He was too busy casting. So Edrick did just that, whole all the time he watched as the golems drew closer.
Was it working? He didn't know. He couldn't see with just his own eyes and he didn't have time to look through the magic window he'd set up. All he could do was cast and hope. He also prayed to Sirtis. The Priests wouldn't like that he assumed. And from what Fae had told him, he doubted the Faerie would think any better of it. But the Lady of Light had always been his goddess and just then he didn't care about anything else.
When the first of the golems crossed to within half a league of them the next part of the plan was activated, and another barricade of dirt rose in front of them. But this barricade was far taller than the first one and it had no swamp on their side of it. It was designed purely as a wall. A barrier to hold them in while the acid did its work. A lot of their plan was based on delay. Slowing the enemy enough for their weapons to work. Allowing the Priests enough time for their chant to destroy the demon's hold on Wilberton and send it home. Time was crucial.
But the barricade also prevented them from seeing what was happening on the other side. So Edrick couldn't tell how well the acid was working. And if it was, then how many had been hit by the spell and how many escaped. He couldn't keep striking at them either. All he could do was stand there and hope.
Suddenly the drakes arrived, and the battle erupted. No doubt the demon had planned on the iron golems and the drakes smashing into their ranks at the same time. Obviously he'd realised that his golems were being held back and slowly dissolved, so he'd sent the drakes in early and alone.
In a heartbeat weapons fire erupted, sending trails of fire streaming through the air. The sound was loud enough to drown out the Priests' chant. But there were also drakes falling out of the sky as he and others sent their magic into the beasts. Knowing to expect drakes the wizards had prepared a fire protection spell. Immediately they appeared on the horizon, the wizards erected great shields over the people below. When they flew over them, the shields caught the drakes' fire and reflected it straight back at the flying serpents. And of course it was drake fire – far hotter than normal fire. The fire that drakes weren't immune to.
He watched in awe as dozens of the great beasts laid down streams of fire and then promptly exploded in balls of flame before falling to the ground in deluges of burning body parts. Others, those he had hit with
his less spectacular bone lock spell, simply fell out of the air. Some, he hoped, broke bones when they hit the ground. But they weren't dead. Some of them proved that as they lay there helplessly on the ground. Even down they still managed to blast fire at everyone nearby.
“Duck!”
Someone screamed at Edrick, causing him to look up hurriedly and then leap sideways as a large chunk of burning drake crashed down at the exact place he'd been standing.
Edrick crashed to the ground in a confused tangle of limbs, and was only just trying to get back on his feet as an axe ploughed into the ground inches from his head. A huge double headed axe that looked like it could only be wielded by a giant. It wasn’t though. Looking up he saw some sort of undead creature attempting to pull out the haft of the axe. A creature not much taller than a man but at least twice as broad and far more powerful.
“Dung!” Edrick scrambled for his feet just as the creature pulled the axe free, and then had to throw himself to the side once more as it brought its axe down, missing him by an even narrower margin. But at least it did miss! Before it had time to try again something passed through its head, shattering its skull, and the undead creature fell down. It did not get up again.
Edrick got to his feet again, desperately trying to work out what was happening. But it quickly became obvious; the demon had sent out a third army. An army of undead creatures. And they were everywhere. It seemed that just as they had prepared for this battle so too had the demon.
For as far as he could see – and smoke was already obscuring much of the battlefield –soldiers were battling these undead creatures. And while their guns worked, the undead weren't giving them time to reload. Which meant it was quickly becoming sword or bayonet against axe and spear.
The fight was a bloody one. Everywhere he looked, Edrick could see soldiers falling to the ground, most of them with catastrophic injuries. But those undead creatures of bone and sinew were falling too. As soon as their heads went, they collapsed in a heap, something that the soldiers quickly realised. Soon they were cutting heads off as fast as they knew how. But there were so many of them! And they were quick!
Meanwhile he found himself in a relatively calm part of the battlefield – which was probably the only reason he was still alive – and he had a few seconds to think. But not many he realised as he saw one of the undead things break loose of the melee and run for him.
Edrick panicked and time seemed to slow as he saw the thing coming for him. His hand reached instinctively for the only weapon he had on him – his belt knife – and when his fingers curled around the hilt and pulled it free he knew it was useless. The knife was tiny and this thing wasn't. It looked like a tooth pick in his hands.
He was going to die!
But then from somewhere a spell came to him. Not a true spell but a word. Chiasma. He yelled the word and raised his free hand as though commanding the creature to stop running, and in a heartbeat it exploded into dust.
“The hell?!” For a split second he stood there, shocked and covered in dust, wondering what had happened. Where had the spell come from? It certainly wasn’t one he had known before that moment. And then he realised that he didn't care. There were more of these undead creatures all around and they had to die.
“Chiasma! Chiasma! Chiasma!” Edrick raised his hand, palm facing them and started yelling the spell as fast as he could against every one of them that he could see. And as he did so he looked on in satisfaction as he saw the creatures explode in fountains of dust and bone. Little by little he began to clear the field around him of the creatures. But there were thousands of them, and he could only destroy so many of them one at a time. It wasn't enough. Still, he kept using it, blasting creature after creature into dust, and hoping that the rest of the army would be able to kill the rest.
Meanwhile the drakes continued flying overhead, bursting into flames and falling to the ground, many crushing unfortunate soldiers as they did so. Others were laying down rivers of fire on the unsuspecting, turning the battle field into a garden of flames. And everything had become confusion.
Were they winning? Had they bought the Priests enough time? Edrick kept asking himself those questions as he fought. But he had no answers and no time to look. Nor could he see much as the smoke was thickening despite their spells to stop that happening. All he could do was keep casting that single spell and hope it was enough. And listen to the sound of the Priests chanting, men screaming and weapons firing.
Time stretched as it had before. Fear was making everything seem to take an eternity. And his fear was only growing as he kept waiting for the smoke to thicken so much that he wouldn't be able to see at all. Even though he knew that they'd taken steps to protect against that. Even when he could feel the wind blowing. Then the true terror would return. Of being blind and surrounded, helpless and not knowing from what direction death would come. But all he could do was keep killing the undead creatures while looking for any drakes about to fall on him.
Then what had already become a nightmare of confusion and terror grew worse. Suddenly Wilberton was standing right in front of him!
The ancient wizard was on the battlefield, not twenty feet from him! His long shock of white hair and tattered robe was blowing wildly in a non-existent storm. He was shouting something at Edrick, his face filled with madness. Edrick though couldn't hear a single word he said. He couldn't hear anything over the roar of the battle and the chant of the Priests.
But he knew what he had to do. Edrick raised his knife and ran at the wizard with all the speed he could find in his legs, a single thought running through him. One strike! One precious strike! One stab through the wizard's heart and it would be over!
Edrick ran at the wizard, knife ready, screaming his head off like a mad man, and he thought for a moment he was going to do it. He was going to kill him! A heartbeat later the knife cut through thin air just as the wizard disappeared. Instead Edrick found himself leaping through smoke before once more crashing into the hard ground in a tangle of confused limbs. Then he lay there wondering what had happened.
He'd been there! Right in front of him! Then suddenly he wasn't there! Almost at exactly the same instant as his knife should have plunged into his chest. What in all the hells had happened?!
But the how didn't matter he realised as he dragged himself to his feet again, and desperately started looking around for more undead creatures about to pounce on him. Or iron golems. Or drakes striking from above. The only thing that mattered right now was surviving this battle.
Except that he couldn't see any of the undead creatures nearby. The smoke was thick certainly despite the breeze they'd cast to disperse it, but he could still see well enough through it to identify soldiers. And bodies. But there were no undead among them anymore.
Where had they gone? Edrick spun around on his heels, hand already outstretched, the spell on his lips, looking for them. But for as far as he could see in any direction there simply weren't any. They'd gone.
Immediately Edrick turned his attention to the skies, readying his spell of bone lock. Once again he was denied his attack. The drakes had started falling out of the sky even as he was about to cast the first spell. All of them.
There was no reason for them to fall. They hadn't been hit with any spells as far as he could see. They had just suddenly begun tumbling out of the sky. Everyone started scattering as they realised the danger. He had to run too as an entire drake smashed into the ground barely thirty feet from him. Its whip like tail cut the air like a knife just behind him. before slicing into the ground only a few feet away.
Edrick breathed a sigh of relief when it missed him. And he smiled when he heard its bones snap. But afterwards, when he looked up at the sky and saw that it was mercifully clear of the winged, fire breathing serpents, he had to wonder. First the undead creatures. Now the drakes. Two of the lich's armies had been destroyed. And when he looked back over the battlefield he couldn't see any more of the iron golems anywhere. They should have
been standing tall over the soldiers by now. Killing mercilessly. Where had they gone? Were they still trapped behind the barricade? And then he reminded himself that he had seen Wilberton standing on the battlefield as well, before he too had disappeared. Just what was happening?
Others were clearly thinking the same thing. All around he could see soldiers standing there, weapons in hand, scratching their heads, and looking around in confusion. Suddenly they had no one left to fight.
Edrick spun on his heels, desperately trying to find the enemy. Thinking that they must be behind him. But he couldn't find them no matter how many times he turned. They just weren't there!
Was it over?!
For the longest time Edrick found himself wondering that. Standing there, spinning around slowly, ready to strike down whatever came for him, with nothing but a knife in his hand and an inexplicable peace all around. Others were doing almost exactly the same thing. And then finally somewhere in the distance a cry went up.
“They did it!”
For a moment Edrick didn't understand. But he understood that the last of the smoke was slowly clearing to reveal a battlefield filled with dead drakes and a clear sky. And that the soldiers were seeing the same thing as him.
