“Mom, where is Father?”
She looked into my eyes. “He should be close to the front lines, why?” Then her eyes widened. “By the gods, he doesn’t know you’re alive yet! We have to go to him right away; he would never forgive himself if he dies on the front lines before seeing you again.”
She was somehow hugging and dragging me along, or at least trying to, but she had no way of knowing how much the armor really weighed. “You’ve put on some weight over the years, my girl.”
I watched as massive pillars of smoke and the top of what looked like a burning tornado rose from the direction of the fighting. “Yeah, about that…you see, I didn’t come alone and, by this time, I would say they have the front gate under control. And I’m not fat, it’s the armor!”
She sighed in relief. “You brought reinforcements?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Well, there are only seven of us.”
“Seven?”
“If you count the horses, that is.”
She was silent for a second. “From anyone but you, my daughter, anyone but you.”
I didn’t want to say it but Winya was insisting. “And Mom, there is one more thing…you see, Mom, the thing is…I met this boy…”
……………………………………………………………..
Alex
With a horde of undead down there, the Vakhas were irritated as usual, and our charge into the ranks of the skeletons and zombies carved a huge channel all the way to the wall. The few ghouls that tried to bring down our mounts were fried instantly, and pretty much any undead within ten feet on either side of the warhorses got the same treatment. Once at the wall, Lin and Julia hopped off, and Kaima swung around and started taking out anything that came close to them. Reggie had flowed through the earth following us down to the wall, and as soon as the girls started casting, he erupted up out of the soil. This time, an even larger version of himself - easily thirty-five feet tall, appeared and started smashing undead between the huge boulder paddles that served as his hands. It looked like he was destroying a dozen or more at a time with this method.
Having dropped the girls off close to the wall, Somnus and I turned around and plowed through undead in an attempt to reach the beleaguered dark elf cavalry. Out of the fifty horses that originally tried to break free, there were fewer than twenty still on their feet, and they were plunging around wild eyed, their riders barely able to keep them under control. Finally, their leader just ordered his remaining troops to dismount and release them. The surviving cavalry men and women formed a circle, nearly back to back, fighting off the zombies and ghouls attacking them. Estimating the size of the area between the horsemen and the front gate to be about the same as the vampire cavern, I slid off Somnus and triggered the frost enchantment on my hammer.
Just like before, the ground became etched in pure white hoar frost as it radiated out in a wave instantly gluing a huge group of undead to the chewed up turf. As there was nothing able to move in my immediate vicinity, I allowed a quick look to the hills where I thought the trebuchets should have been. I was rewarded by the image of several columns of thick roiling smoke rising from the area; something big was definitely burning over there. By the time I shifted my vision back down to the battle, there were a lot of ice statues in front of me. In the confines of a cavern, I was fairly confident that a boot stomp would shatter them. But out here on the open plains on squishy ground, it probably wouldn’t work. So I resigned myself to having to manually smash them all.
What I didn’t count on was a very perturbed Combat Pixie who came buzzing in over the heads of the icy undead. She paused with an evil look on her face over the still-burning crater from the trebuchet impact and cast a spell. Instantly, the winds picked up in a tight swirling motion over the fire pit, pushed upward and captured the flames, sending them 300 feet or more into the sky. The wind moaned like a rabid, savage creature, becoming wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. Just the increased wind velocity in the area had already shattered all the ice statues into drifts of frozen waste. With a slight hand gesture, Nia pushed the howling wind monster out into the mass of still attacking undead that stretched to the south of the gate. Some undead it just obliterated by eroding their flesh and bones into nothingness; some were sucked up into the screaming vortex, incinerated and vomited out the top like a burning chimney. Another hand movement, and the base of the wind column grew and swept the undead before it in thirty foot swaths.
I sat on my horse for a split moment in absolute awe at the sight. Sometimes, even I forget the amount of magical destruction packed into the innocent-looking pixie body, but then I remembered I had a job to do. Riding forward, Somnus and I made short work of any undead left between the cavalry survivors and the main gate. Circling their position, I yelled for them to head back inside the gate, and they responded like the well-trained troops they were. Gathering up their wounded, they dragged or carried them across the battlefield and back inside the safety of the walls. With the wind screaming as loud as it was, it was hard to hear, but I thought I caught the sound of cheers from the walls as the last of them made it inside.
I glanced over and saw Julia with her eyes closed and arms stretched up, chanting something. Upon closer inspection, the hedge wall was looking a lot better; the few undead that were still attempting to break through were getting nowhere. Kaima and Lin, meanwhile, had her back and were repulsing any skeletons or zombies that attempted to get near. Reggie was also still in full battle mode on the north side of the gate area. I think he was almost as destructive as Nia’s fire tornado.
All good things must come to an end, and even Nia’s potent magic had limits. Finally, she had no more to give and the wind monster dissipated as she flew erratically to my shoulder and collapsed with a relieved sigh. Somnus and I spent a little while just riding around incinerating any pockets of undead that we could get to efficiently.
Finally when it looked like the number of undead were down into the upper hundreds rather than thousands, the dark elf populace could be contained no more and they burst out of their walls in a killing rage for what had been done to their city. Thousands of purple-skinned warriors and shopkeepers alike picked up weapons and headed outside like they were going to some form of sporting event. With favorable numbers on their side for a change, it was a slaughter. Of course, the undead are too stupid to withdraw so they perished, again! The townspeople brought out wagons filled with firewood and lit great conflagrations of wood and oil every fifty feet or so across the battlefield. They then used hooked sticks to drag the corpses into the flames.
I watched this, still on Somnus, from the far edge of the battlefield, and a few minutes later Lin and Julia joined me on Kaima, looking tired but happy at the same time. Reggie had finally had enough and returned to his earth, but not before sucking down nearly all the undead parts back into the soil where they belonged. I had a feeling that those bodies would never be rising again for any necromancer, no matter how powerful. Ashes to ashes; the earth will take its due.
Slowly, we approached the main gate at a walk, weapons sheathed, trying to look harmless. But after what the wall sentries had just seen us do, I could understand how they could be a little taken aback. As we got within talking range of the badly damaged gate, three guards came out, two had bows trained on us and the third carried a sword.
“Hold, paladin! You and your company have not been granted the liberty of our city; state your business here!” he said boldly, but I could sense a large measure of apprehension as well. I also recognized that voice, even if he was speaking in common rather than the dark elf dialogue I was used to hearing. This man had been the lieutenant of the guard from the village where I grew up. Ollis Tancreek was a good man who would often search for me if I wandered out into the woods too far and got lost, which happened from time to time. I didn’t exactly have many friends my age growing up so I had to entertain myself. Usually this involved pretending to be a great explorer or knight errand, and you
can only explore so much within the safe confines of the village square.
“Ollis Tancreek,” I intoned gravely in elven, “do you always insult an old friend who usually shared his mother’s famous sweet oat rounds and taught you how to make your wife’s yarrow soup at least marginally palatable, even though everyone said it was the worst in the village?”
The guardsman’s chin dropped a couple inches as I removed my helm and smiled down at him.
His grizzled face broke into a sheepish smile as he chuckled, “Aye, that yarrow soup was pretty foul stuff. Alex Martin, as I live and breathe! By the gods, what are you doing here, boy? He turned to the archers next to him. “Lower your weapons, this man is one of us. Alex, come inside and we will get you taken care of.”
It took them a few minutes to get the damaged gate opened far enough to allow horses the size of Somnus and Kaima to pass through. As we were waiting, Lin leaned across and whispered, “You know these people?”
“Yeah, he was one of the guards from my old village. He’s a good man and we can trust him.” She nodded as the gate finally opened.
Ollis led us in a ways before stopping us a hundred feet from the gate. “You know the rules, Alex; this is as far as I can take you without the King’s permission.” He smiled up at me. “But I don’t think that will be a problem.” He looked at Somnus and gestured, asking permission to touch him. I nodded, letting him stroke Somnus’s neck. “These are magnificent animals; and from the look of that armor, I would have to say your life has changed a lot since you were the small boy I remember.”
I nodded. “That it has, but surprisingly only in the last year. It’s a long story, and one I would love to tell you when you have time; but for now, how bad was it?”
He sighed. “The attack started yesterday and hasn’t stopped since, even at night. Looking back, though, it couldn’t have gone much better for us really. The undead horde arrived and started attacking, but they were just the scythe fodder; the real heavy hitters that we were dreading never materialized. Even so, if it wasn’t for the new King ordering this wall built, they would have walked right into town and there wouldn’t have been a thing we could have done about it. As it was, our scouts are baffled. Originally, there were more than twice the number of undead mustering in the hills; but for some reason, about half pulled out and simply dispersed. We had also heard from some of our vampire allies that there was going to be a huge vampire attack as well, and that never happened, either.” Ollis slapped me on the leg, since that was all he could reach, and continued, “And, of course, then you and your friends show up out of the blue and take out a big chunk of what was left; including, I assume, those damn trebuchets that we didn’t know about. You have our sincerest thanks, by the way; we would have lost even more lives if you had not shown up.” He looked down the road and grinned. “Uh-oh, looks like I should get back to my post; the Chief, I mean the King, is coming.”
I got down off Somnus and removed my gauntlets, tucking them into a saddlebag. Reaching up, I lifted Lin and Julia off the back of their horse as well. Coming down the broad street were four dark elves in full chainmail and carrying spears. They surrounded a tall, older elf in light chainmail armor and adorned with an impressive royal necklace. I studied him as they approached; he had a surprisingly light-hearted look considering his people had just survived a huge attack. And just like with Ollis, there was much that I was familiar with in that smile, that walk, and sound of his voice as he was talking to his men. I could see that his eyes were much more drawn to the sight of Somnus and Kaima than to any human visitors, but, finally, I couldn’t hold it in any longer and I blurted out, “Fern? You’re the dark elf King?”
I knew Fern was not his real name, but it was what I called the man that I could only describe as my best adult friend while growing up. I still don’t remember what his real name actually is. Yes, he was an adult back then and had some gray in his hair now, but he was still a great man, almost like a second father or an uncle to me.
His eyes shot wide and he wheeled smoothly to look at my face when he heard that name. “There’s only one family that calls me that. Is that really you, Alex? Ha, it is! I would recognize those eyes anywhere!” He clamped an arm down on my shoulder and gave me a firm handshake. “What are you doing here?”
Ollis made a coughing sound to get Fern’s attention. “Sir, Alex and his friends here were the ones that broke the undead back lines.”
Fern looked at me in a new light and examined my armor. “Yes, I just heard about it. Sorry I missed the action; I was in an emergency defense meeting. So you’re the apparition in white that my cavalry commander was raving about who saved half of his command. Well done! So, Alex, you finally learned how to use a sword then?”
I smiled. “Not quite.” I unsheathed my hammer off my back. The elf guards stirred uneasily, and he waved them off. “I’m more of a smashing kind of guy.”
He eyed the hammer. “I can see that, spikes and all; but where did you get all this? I know dark elves aren’t the best with metal craft, but I have never even heard of white metal.”
“Long story; best kept in private as well.”
He smiled. “Of course, but we need to find Mrs. Fern. She would kill me if she found out you were here and we didn’t call her.” He turned to lead me away, but it didn’t take much to stop him.
“Um, sir, hold on a second, I need to introduce everyone.”
He looked back with an embarrassed nod. “I’m sorry; yes, please do.”
“The two warhorses are Kaima and Somnus; they are well…. pretty unique.”
“I can see that. It’s not every day you see a pair of unicorn-armored flaming white horses, let alone a horse even close to their size; those two are big. Where did you get them? And why do you have two of them?”
I laughed. “Yes, they are big. They were a gift from a close relative and I have a partner running around here somewhere who rides the mare. You see Fern…I met this girl…”
I saw regret and sadness run across his face as he paused momentarily, but he immediately recovered and cloaked it in a broad smile and slapped me on the back. “That’s fantastic, you’ll have to bring her by to meet us sometime. Mrs. Fern is going to be so proud to see what you’ve become.”
Fern looked around absently for a second and then called out a pair of names. Within seconds, two young boys showed up with their hands behind their backs and their heads down as if they had been caught doing something wrong. Fern squinted down at them, the deep laugh lines set in his face. “If you two are going to slack on your duties just to see a bit of the action, I’ll put you to work myself. Take these two fine horses to my stables and tend to them. Food, new bedding, and a good rubdown for both of them, got it?” They both grinned, thinking they might have dodged punishment for what they did and happily got to work. Back in the village, it was severely frowned upon for a child who hadn’t passed his or her adulthood trial to participate in or even witness battle. I chuckled as I watched the boys eagerly take the reins from the girls and lead the horses down the road. They reminded me of the stable boys from Sky Raven and I longed to return there.
“And who are your friends?” Fern asked.
I brought the girls forward. “This is Lin and Julia; they’re druids from Xarparion.” The girls performed a modest curtsey, and from the way their eyes danced, I knew they were stuffing down a giggle somewhere.
Fern looked at me incredulously. “Druids?” He walked up to them and performed a long, formal bow, then took their hands. “Young ladies, I can’t tell you how pleased I am to meet you. You honor our Capital with your presence. If there is anything I can do to entice you to stay with us longer,” he gave them both a fatherly wink, “you just let me know. In fact, I think I might have just the thing!” He turned and shouted up to the wall. “Ollis, could I borrow your daughter this evening for an assignment vital to the interests of the city? These two druid girls could use a dedicated guide to show them around.
Ollis stuck his head over the wall above us and looked down in confusion, then his face suddenly lit up with understanding. “Of course, my King; she would be very happy to show them around, especially if it gets her out of her calligraphy assignments. Just give me a few minutes to have her fetched.”
Fern looked back at the girls and released their hands. “Ryllis is one of our brightest young scholars and I think you three will get along famously together. She will take you on a tour of our city’s libraries. If I’m not mistaken, there are a large number of old druid volumes that probably haven’t been cracked open in centuries.”
I think the girls nearly toppled over from shock and glee; in fact, I had to put a hand on Lin’s back to keep her upright. “Your…your…your libraries? she stammered, her eyes shining. “We get to see the archives of the druids of old?” Julia was practically hopping up and down as well.
Fern just laughed. “I see no reason why not. I’m sure the scholars would absolute love the chance to actually talk with some real druids. Alex and I are just going to catch up on some old times, so he can tell me about the past years. It would be rude of me to force the two of you to sit though that.”
I don’t think they heard any of that nor do I think they cared; all they did was bounce around and giggle. I looked at Fern and pointed to Nia on my shoulder. “Fern, I would like to introduce Nia. Aside from obviously being a pixie, she is a powerful wizard in her own right, also my bodyguard and best friend.” Nia preened at the introduction but still kept her eyes on Fern as if daring him to try and separate us. “She’ll be coming with us. I don’t think you will have any luck convincing her otherwise.”
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