by HDA Roberts
Then why are you shaking?
I said I knew, I didn't say I liked it.
She squeezed me tighter, laughing a little.
I called my shadows as the first of them ran, yes ran, over the lip of the hill (which was just not fair, zombies are supposed to shamble; damn you Romero!). The sky was still light, so I got a good long look at the line of rotting cadavers, all in their Sunday best, bone and organ peeking through tears in fabric and flesh. I let my subconscious have full reign against the incoming creatures, letting my fear do its work on them. There had to be a hundred in that first wave, they started off relatively 'fresh' (meaning meaty), but I started seeing pure skeletons among the mix as they flung themselves at us. They were all so fast...
My shadows condensed down into darting spikes no more than a centimetre wide, penetrating skulls and ribcages as the Reanimates came for us, perfectly silent. Even as they fell, more and more came, along with the first Revenant, a little girl, blonde and beautiful, smiling beatifically.
I shifted my focus, letting my shadows deal with the Reanimates on auto while I pulled fire and force into a spell and broke my own heart as I made that little child-thing scream in frustrated pain and endless sorrow. She hadn't been a Magician; I got her with my first volley, tears running down my face.
That was a memory that would fester, believe me.
Back to the Zombies, whose line had gotten closer, and thicker.
My shadows had smashed dozens of them, but there were always more. I was saving my big guns for when the Sorcerers came through. I was expecting at least three. I condensed my shadows in tight before releasing them in a wave that disrupted the formation of zombies, throwing every one within fifty metres away, crushing the closest ones into paste.
The smell on that hilltop was horrific. The sight even worse...
All that crushed and mangled flesh and bone. My stomach rebelled, but I held my gorge.
The second Revenant.
Tall and broad, dressed as a monk, brown robe tied with string, tonsure and cross. His eyes were kind, his hands held out to his side as if for an embrace. I repeated my earlier actions without hesitation, but missed the heart on my first barrage, forcing me to recast. He wept as I destroyed him, as if trying to tell me I was making a huge mistake; another spike to my heart.
Always more dead came, hundreds of them. Stonebridge's graveyards must be emptying.
The first Magician Revenant. This one didn't look kind, a tall man with evil eyes and a thick chin. Acolyte, with a minor Wind specialty amplified by the Black. He was able to divert my initial Fire attack, and I vaporised his left arm instead of head and torso. I sent shadows which pulped his brain and bought me the time to do it properly.
The dead were now in piles thirty-deep, and creeping closer as their numbers pushed them through. Too many. It's not like they could get through my shields, not right away, but the sheer weight of numbers would weaken them. Even physical force can do the trick if there's enough of it.
I told my shadows to up the tempo. The actions became less focussed, but more immediate, lashing out with terrible force, smashing the dead back by the dozen with crushed chests, skulls and legs. It would slow more of them, but destroy fewer at a time.
It was working. I was holding them back!
That's when the first spirit appeared.
It was screaming, burning in the waning sunlight. It flew straight into a shield and bounced off, but not before ripping a layer away with it. And it was one of fifty!
Alright, they don't like Light. I had plenty to spare...
I started throwing photobursts, draining my store of Light energy at a frightening rate. A dozen and then another dozen of them vanished, screaming as they went back to whatever place they'd come from. I doubt they'd been destroyed.
Bloody hell, it was exhausting! Even with Hopkins' Well to draw on, I was flagging and I'd already had a bit of a day...
The Spirits had retreated, flying in a circle around the hill. They were too dispersed to banish until I had more light to play with. They were still sizzling, getting weaker, but the sun was starting to set, which might have worried me, but a lack of light was certainly better for me than them.
The tide of dead was starting to slow to a trickle, and my shadows had very successfully smashed the ones that had come through.
"I think we're winning!" I shouted, forgetting that she couldn't hear me.
Which was good.
I'd hate to think that she'd heard me say something so utterly asinine...
Different things started coming over the hill.
Bigger, stronger, dead things. They wore shadows like armour and carried weapons made of bone.
I directed my shadows at them, and they couldn't get traction on the armour! They just slithered off!
I switched tactics and reached out for their shadows. It was a struggle, but I got control of one set of 'armour' and used it to shatter its occupant. But I already knew that was a lost cause. There were already about twenty of those things running for us, and in the time it took me to get one, the rest had closed half the distance.
Oh well, looks like I'd have to commit my reserves quicker than I'd thought. I still had another trick or two up my sleeves.
I called fire, force and light into a Chaos Beam and played it across the advancing ranks of the armoured dead, and they went up like match-heads, burning and breaking even as they tried to get closer.
All twenty fell, and nothing else came for a minute while I caught my breath. Another minute passed. Three, four.
I started to relax a little.
And so that's naturally when the next wave came.
Much bigger than the last one.
This one had a little of everything in it. Reanimates, armoured zombies, spirits, and three Revenants. There had to be hundreds, pouring from portals close enough to sense, but not close enough to seal.
How many more dead people could there possibly be in Stonebridge?
How long until our enemies started making dead people to keep up the flow?
I sent my shadows to meet the tide.
They weren't going to be enough.
I'd need Hopkins, but with Revenants coming, she might freeze. But without her we'd be overrun...
Before I could make a decision, the world exploded in light and fire, and the entire hill was bathed in flames as the other three Archons descended and landed next to us. Kron's hands glowed as she landed, facing outwards directly behind me, Palmyra to my left and Killian to my right.
"Amateurs," Kron said as Light blossomed and the last of the spirits dissolved, not sure if she meant me or whoever called the ghosts, "Situation?"
"Darius Hellstrom cast a Revenant Summoning on Hopkins," I said, "She and I are pooling energy and defence. I felt it best not to get her involved in a fight that would put her up against people she loved."
"Sappy," Kron said, "but not unwise, Graves. Who's coming?"
"Nash, and my Father, Patricia, certainly," Hopkins said, dropping a couple of her muffling spells, "More, but they'll be the worst."
"Nash?!" Killian bellowed, "After everything he put us through?"
"He was still our brother, and I still loved him!" Hopkins said sadly.
"Damn it, Jen!" Kron said.
"Is this really the time?" I asked, "I think they're coming."
"The kid's right," Killian said, "I feel them gathering. Jen, stay where you are."
"Though when this is done, you're never hearing the end of it," Palmyra said, reaching back to pat Hopkins' back.
"Not funny," she replied.
"It's a little funny," Killian chimed in, "what do you think, Kid?"
"She's my teacher, she can give me detention, how stupid do you think I am?" I asked.
Killian barked out a laugh.
"What are they waiting for?" Palmyra asked.
"Four Archons here?" I asked, "They're waiting for dark."
"The others don't care about light," Killian
said, "Hopkins Senior was almost as good a Death Mage as I am."
"They're smart. They all want the same thing, and they're willing to work together," Kron said, "I've dealt with Black Revenants before. They're no dumber than they were in life and Arandor Hopkins was nobody's fool."
"When they come, Graves, you hold off Nash while the rest of us deal with Arandor and the others. Don't let that bastard get a clear shot if you can avoid it," Kron said.
"You want me to go up against a Shadow Archon?" I asked in what wasn't a very manly voice.
"And try not to screw it up," Kron added.
"Oh, thanks!" I said, "Thanks very much!"
"Any time, I specialise in motivational speeches," she replied. I couldn't see it, but I could feel her smirking.
"I'm sure it saves Time," I muttered.
"Don't start that shit again, I will hurt you!"
I shut up.
We got another ten minutes, every one of them spent watchful and quiet. I was scared, as I usually am when the shit hits the fan. But I wasn't alone. I was where I was supposed to be...
...with my brother and sisters.
My eyes went wide...
And that's when the real enemy came, and thinking profound thoughts was the last thing on my mind.
They came all at once, appearing out of nowhere far above us, throwing Magic like there was no end to it. A man with Hopkins' eyes flew straight towards us, entropy curling around his form. He gestured and a beam of pure death came straight at us. Palmyra twitched and white light peeled it apart before it could do us harm. The other Archons opened up while I faced down Nash.
"Oh, look at this, a kitten that thinks it's a tiger," he said, smiling nastily.
He was tall and strong, held by his shadows. He had high cheekbones and a good chin. Dark eyes, made darker by his affinity. His constructs were different to mine. My shadows tended to look like weaponised black water, organic and flowing; his were just horrible, filled with the shapes of tormented men and women shifting and merging, faces screaming in agony.
"I prefer to think of myself more as a piranha who thinks he's a shark," I said, trying for bravado.
"Give her to me. I don't want you. I want her. Give her to me," he said, his black eyes very intent.
"And then what? You go quietly back to the grave?" I asked, playing for time.
"Not for a while, would be my guess. Enough time to make this permanent. I am an Archon, after all, little boy."
"You were," I countered, "These were your brother and sisters, would an Archon have tried to do what you're doing?"
"In fact, I did," he said with an evil smile splitting his face, "very nearly succeeded, too. At the very least, it looks like I'll get one, maybe even two of you bastards."
"Doubt it," I said.
"We'll see," he replied.
He called up the Black.
I called up my Dragon.
Are you there? I asked, sending the thoughts into my shadows.
Always, came the reply.
Can you help?
Of course.
I let the elemental take what he needed, and Nash's eyes went wide as a gateway opened and the Dragon came. He turned to throw Black Magic at it, I threw twenty dispels from Hopkins and my cannons at his head. Energy exploded from his form and his beam went wide.
"Bloody hell, Kid!" Killian said, "Is that what I think it is?"
"Shadow Elemental," I said.
"Graves, that's not an Elemental! That's a sodding Leviathan!" Killian said as the Shadow Dragon swatted Nash with its colossal flank before breathing a gout of shadows over the incoming dead, taking a massive bite out their ranks. It vanished just as suddenly as it appeared before it came out again and did the same thing at the other end of the hill; it tore the dead to pieces.
So did the Archons. Palmyra defended, damn near perfectly, in fact. If there was something one of the others couldn't manage, like Shadow Magic or Entropy, she blocked it, dismantled it or diverted it. Killian threw everything he had at Hopkins Senior, and the man reeled, throwing up entropy to fight entropy.
But in the end, a Death Sorcerer, no matter how skilled, how powerful, can't beat the Gravelord, not if he'd held the post for centuries as Killian had.
Hopkins' father disintegrated under a cascade of rot that left him little more than a steaming puddle, just as three more Sorcerers came in from the side and were snapped up by the Dragon. The big problem was Nash.
The Dragon could bash him. It could delay him, but its breath couldn't touch him any more than it could me. I felt Nash reaching out for it, but he couldn't. The Shadows were mine now.
Even if he'd been alive, they would be mine.
Can you keep him busy? I asked the Dragon.
Of course.
I started gathering energy, as much Light as I could from my generator, enough for a good wallop, and I added Force and Heat.
The Dragon came in low and hard, spitting shadow, great gouts of it. Nash laughed.
I threw my Chaos Ball and it exploded against his shields. He screamed in frustration and turned back to me, raising his hand. The Black collected at his palm and I saw him grin as so much of his power went into that spell.
He lifted his arm to throw it...
And he froze.
I had to blink hard a couple of times.
Kron!
"Don't just stand there!" she snapped, "Give the bastard everything you've got!"
Didn't need to tell me twice.
I cast Shadow Lances at him, bigger, stronger, nastier that I'd ever cast before. I conjured more than a dozen and followed them up with force, fire and light, every spell getting to the edge of her time manipulation and freezing along with Nash until he was surrounded by the flickering power of dozens of attack spells, any one of which would have killed a normal man.
Kron released her spell with a shout and they all hit him at once.
The result was... impressive.
In that there was nothing left of him at all.
What few Revenants remaining after that were easy prey for Killain, Kron and my Dragon, who gobbled down another four while destroying the last of the attacking dead.
He looked around and I felt his disappointment at the lack of opponents.
That was fun, he sent, next time, make sure there's something tastier.
Thank you for everything, I sent back.
Life for the One, he sent, and then he vanished through another gate.
The portals disintegrated, and the world went quiet again.
Killian came over and patted Hopkins on the shoulder and she looked up.
"What the hell took so long? Graves smells like blood and charred bacon and I've been stuck here for a solid hour!" she complained.
"I smell like that because I was attacked, you insensitive teacher," I said over my shoulder as she disentangled herself and we closed off our Wells.
"Always complaints. I had a day too, you don't see me bitching about it," she said with a glare that concealed a smile.
"And how much lightning did you take to the face on your bad day?" I replied.
"Don't exaggerate, you got hit on the arm."
"And now I can't ever eat bacon again, you tell me that's not a hit right to the soul!"
Seriously, the injury (and now my clothes) smelt like charred bacon. You try eating it after that sort of hit to the senses.
Hopkins rolled her eyes before taking my hand in hers.
She was about to speak, but then I saw her eyes go wide as she felt something on my left pinkie finger and she pulled it up.
She smiled as she saw the black signet ring that hadn't been there an hour ago, a stylised silver eye on the face in recess.
"About damned time!" she barked.
Chapter 25
Killian looked over, "What? Oh. Shit, lost the pool."
"I don't want to know," I said, shaking my head.
"I had six months ago," Kron said, smiling broadly at me, "Disappointing, Graves
."
"Wait, how does someone with Time Magic get that wrong?" I asked.
"It's probability, not certainty, how do you not know that?" she asked with a long-suffering sigh.
"I'm self-taught," I said self-consciously.
"That's because you're the only person who can tolerate you as a student," Hopkins muttered.
"Why didn't you just tell me?" I asked.
"You know why," Hopkins said, "There are certain things you have to figure out for yourself."
"That's convenient," I muttered.
"Not for me it bloody wasn't!" Hopkins said, "You were a pissy little bitch for damn near a month, and I could simply have told you and fixed it, but no. And could you have figured it out in good time? Of course not. You had to wait until now of all bloody times."
"Leaving that aside," Palmyra said, walking up to me and hugging me tightly, "Welcome home, Brother."
I didn't really know what to say to that, so I just stayed quiet, smiling, going a bit red in the face.
"Already doing better than the last one, she didn't shut up for a solid hour," Killian said slyly.
"I'm standing right here!" Palmyra said dangerously, "And it was a confusing time, shut up!"
Killian grinned widely, and the little Life Mage glared back.
Hopkins turned to me, "I know this is likely overwhelming, so go back to Windward, talk to your friends and we'll chat in a while, alright? There's enough of a mess for us to clean up here anyway, and it needs to be done quickly."
I nodded.
"I'll make you a portal," she said, turning.
"Would you mind making one for Stonebridge?" I asked, "I need to check in with my friends."
She smirked and waved her hand, opening the way.
I walked towards it.
"Hey, Kid?" Killian said.
I turned.
"Seriously," he said, patting my shoulder, "We're glad to have you with us. You were right where you were supposed to be, and you are more than we hoped you'd be. We are all here if you need us, just as you've proven that you are there for us."
"Thank you," I said with a smile.
Kron nodded to me and Palmyra gave me another brief hug. I shook hands with Killian and Hopkins patted my shoulder, whispering thanks even as she shooed me away with tears in her eyes (which I pretended not to see).
