This was very, very bad.
The burning liquid would drop to the forest floor, where it would torch the fallen leaves… and accumulate in heat… and begin to burn the tree trunks from the ground up.
The forest would be destroyed within hours unless they killed the dragon now.
But she couldn’t bet everything on their success.
“Evacuate the elders and children! Archers, to the high places!” she shouted, then raced back into her house and up the spiral staircase to the spire.
Aravall was best defended against a ground attack. The archers could fire with impunity at the invaders from a hundred feet up and trust the latticework of wooden bridges to provide them cover.
An attack from the air was extremely unusual. It had only happened a handful of times over Aravall’s 2000 years of existence – most notably from small armies riding wyverns. But there were structures for just such a thing: towers that stretched up from the trees and provided a vantage point for repelling invaders from the sky.
Ladriel reached the top of her home and looked out in despair. The treetops were burning in a straight line a half mile long. And the flames were not abating. They were slowly spreading from tree to tree, like a ravenous creature made of light and heat.
The dragon was wheeling about in the sky, coming back down for another pass. As it turned, she thought she saw something strange upon its back:
A rider in black armor.
For a brief second she thought back to the dark elf that had come to the forest less than a week ago:
An evil sorcerer has taken over the city of Blackstone with an army from Hell. He crushed Blackstone’s forces in less than an hour. The surviving noblemen are going to surrounding kingdoms to raise an army to march on Blackstone and defeat the sorcerer. If they fail and the sorcerer wins, he’s not going to be content with Blackstone. He’ll come here eventually.
Was this the sorcerer?!
How could that be possible?!
She told herself, No, this is a lone rider on one dragon – it cannot be the one she spoke of.
Where is his magic?
Where is his army from Hell?
But the dark elf’s words echoed in her ears:
…hundreds of thousands of people will die…
Ladriel had answered callously at the time.
I don’t care. In fact, I hope the sorcerer wipes them all out.
The dark elf had responded, Once he does, he’ll come for you.
Considering what she had seen in the last two minutes, Ladriel’s rejoinder seemed reckless even to her:
Let him come. He shall find it a different proposition to attack the folk of Aravall than other races.
Ladriel’s blood ran cold in her veins, and she prayed silently to the Goddess Fala that her arrogance had not doomed her people.
The dragon was coming in low over the treetops.
There was something strange about it. Its wings were tattered in places, ripped with holes – and its body was missing large swaths of scales, exposing raw flesh beneath.
But the exposed flesh was green and moldering, like rot had taken hold.
How can it sustain those injuries and still fly?!
Across the treetops, Ladriel saw her men and women not only standing ready on the wooden towers and spires, but crouched on massive limbs, bows drawn and arrows ready.
“FIRE AT WILL!” she bellowed as the dragon came at them.
Five hundred arrows shot up from the treetops like a flight of deadly birds.
Most bounced off the dragon’s hide, but dozens sank into its flesh – where they made virtually no impact at all.
The dragon opened its mouth and liquid hellfire rained down again.
Screams of agony filled the air.
Ladriel fired as many times as she could, fast as she could.
The dragon rushed past.
She noticed that the dragon’s eye was completely black, like the bottom of a deep well. Tirelians were famous for their beautiful (and terrifying) iridescent eyes; perhaps this was not a Tirelian.
But she pushed that thought out of her mind and set about to her task.
One of her arrows hit the rider himself, but glanced off the armor.
The rider looked over at her. Though she could not see his eyes inside his black helmet, she knew that he was staring directly at her. She could feel the intensity of his gaze, enraged and vicious.
The rider lifted his arm, and suddenly black smoke boiled out of his gloved hand.
She watched in fascination and horror as the smoke spiraled towards her –
And three flying abominations emerged from the cloud, heading straight for her.
They were fifteen-foot-long black worms, with bodies at least twelve inches in diameter. Each had four wings that propelled them through the skies. They had no eyes, but their blunt snouts opened up into trifurcated jaws full of jagged teeth.
She fired at one and managed to hit inside its gullet, but that didn’t stop it.
They were coming right at her.
She dove headfirst back into the tower and tumbled painfully down the first portion of stairs.
One of the worms SLAMMED through the wooden tower just a few feet above her, turning the entire structure to matchsticks.
Another worm landed clumsily on the lookout’s platform. It forced its way down through the debris and wriggled after her like a snake burrowing into a hole in the ground.
She screamed and slid backwards down the stairs. The steps jammed painfully into her back as she stayed just inches ahead of the worm’s snapping jaws.
Her arrows spilled out of her quiver and all over the steps, but she was able to grab three and shoot them rapid-fire into the creature’s open mouth.
It gave a high-pitched shriek and disappeared in a burst of smoke.
She scrambled down the steps as fast as she could. She grabbed a couple of arrows on the way, but knew she had more stashed in her living quarters.
As she reached the main level of her home, she could see flames crackling outside the windows. Black smoke billowed past the glass like windblown curtains.
She grabbed a second quiver from among her things –
Another worm crashed through a window on the opposite side of her home.
It landed heavily on the wooden floor like a slab of meat. It slithered towards her clumsily, its four bat wings slapping the floor as it advanced.
Behind it, acrid smoke from the fire poured through the broken window.
She fired three arrows quickly into its open mouth. The thing screeched and then exploded in a puff of black mist.
Ladriel looked around. Her front door led out to the wooden walkway, which was entirely engulfed in flame.
No way to escape but through the window.
She bashed out the ragged remains of glass with a chair, then jumped from the sill out to the nearest thick-limbed branch.
That was when the third worm attacked.
It dove straight down from the air, slamming through smaller branches, aiming right at her.
She jumped in a blind panic to the next lowest limb.
The thing shot past her. Its mouth missed her, but its slimy body slapped against her and pushed her off balance, knocking her into the air.
She screamed as she fell and slammed into branch after branch. They broke her fall, but left her torn and bruised.
And still the worm was coming.
It oozed through the treetops like a serpent wending its way through the spokes of a tire.
Up above it, all the treetops and walkways of Aravall were aflame.
The rampant destruction broke her heart, but she had no time to linger on her pain, because the worm was nearly upon her.
She fired once, twice –
And then the thing closed its mouth. It was protecting itself.
Yet it kept advancing.
She fired arrow after arrow at its slug-like skin. The arrows sank in, but did not do the same level of da
mage.
It was only a few feet away –
She dropped from the branch she was on, backwards into the unknown, not looking behind her. There was no time.
Afraid its prey was slipping away, the worm darted down straight at her and opened its mouth to gobble her up.
She fired once more before she SLAMMED into another branch.
Her arrow landed deep inside the creature’s throat.
It gave one final high-pitched squeal, then exploded into smoke.
Ladriel slammed into another branch, fell again, hit another – but managed to hook her arm over a bough.
She dangled midair, bloody and battered, but hoisted herself up onto the branch.
Fifty feet above, the hanging bridges of Aravall were collapsing. Some dangled a moment, then crashed onto limbs below. Others plummeted a hundred feet to the forest floor.
She couldn’t go up. It was like she was underwater, and the treetops were the waves above – but a fire was raging across the surface like an oil slick set alight.
So she had to go down, sixty feet to the forest floor below.
All elf warriors kept silken cords in their quivers. The hundred-foot ribbons were like gossamer, light but incredibly strong, spun from the threads of a cane plant that grew in the hollows. The cords could be bound to a tree limb and used to rappel to the ground – or tied to an arrow, shot from a great distance, and then used to climb an obstacle or traverse a gap.
Ladriel quickly pulled out a cord from her quiver, tied the end to the branch she clung to, and slid to the forest floor. The cloth scorched the palms of her hands as she went.
When she hit the ground she immediately collapsed, she was so beaten up by her fall through the treetops.
She crouched for a moment on her hands and knees, looking around in despair at the destruction all around her.
Up above, it was like the sky was on fire. Oppressive waves of heat pulsed down on her. Wreckage from the treetop homes and walkways fell crashing to the ground. Liquid drops of fire dropped like hellish rain.
In the far distance, she could see children and old people fleeing into the forest, guided by a few men of the day watch.
But between them and her lay burning corpses – fallen brothers and sisters, their skin charred to blistered ash.
Other elves were fleeing the treetops, dropping down on silken cords.
At least the living would be able to escape. At least not everyone would perish today.
And then things got much, much worse.
Off in the distance came the shriek of wild things approaching fast.
Ladriel forced herself to her feet and nocked an arrow.
She saw them through the trees, running full tilt towards the survivors of Aravall: an army of dead things and demons.
The dead were of all races: human, orc, even elves. The only thing they had in common was their missing limbs, patches of exposed muscle and organs, and the moldering rot that covered every inch of their skin.
The demons were horrific. Ten-foot tall figure with scythe-like arms. Millipedes with human faces. Giant scorpions. Black, baying hounds with burning eyes.
The elven archers on the forest floor – the ones still alive, that is – immediately drew their bows and fired into the oncoming horde.
A few of the demons disappeared into puffs of black smoke, but the majority stayed the course. And the dead were completely unaffected. They took arrows to the throat, the chest, the head, and still they kept coming.
Then something happened that – if she had not seen it with her own eyes – she never would have believed it.
Black smoke rose up from the ground and entered the charred bodies littering the forest floor.
The corpses stood up, soot and embers falling from their blackened limbs, and drew their bows and arrows. The bows were sturdy, made of ironwood; the strings were strands of spun silver, impervious to all but the hottest fire.
Then the blackened corpses nocked arrows, aimed, and unleashed them on their still living brethren.
Elves screamed in pain as they were shot in the back, the side, the arm. They turned to see where the surprise attack had come from, and could not comprehend that they had been attacked by these shambling hulks of ash and scorched meat.
The living tried firing back, but either they were overrun by the dead and demons, or more rounds of arrows finished them off.
As soon as they died, they almost immediately rose up again, their eyes black. They joined the ranks of the dead and demons, and attacked any remaining elf.
Ladriel was out of the way of the main stampede of marauders. But one saw her – a misshapen human corpse with half its skull bashed in – and made straight for her.
She stumbled to her feet and shot arrow after arrow into its head and chest.
Nothing affected it. It kept running at her, its rusted sword held high.
Just as it was about to strike her, she pulled a long blade from a secret compartment in her quiver, darted forward, and decapitated it with one brutal thrust.
That stopped it – but just barely. The thing tumbled to its hands and knees, but kept scrounging about as though it was trying to find its severed head.
This was madness – it was all madness.
She was going to die here if she stayed… and so she ran.
She took refuge in a tree far from the worst of the fire, holed up in a hollow space in its trunk thirty feet above the ground.
Like a coward, she thought bitterly – but there was no other recourse. The only other option was to die.
From her hiding place she watched the seemingly endless dead as they raced through the forest, the flaming ruins of her beloved Aravall falling all around them.
Ten minutes passed before she saw him.
A figure in black armor, clutching a scepter with a blue orb fixed to the top. From his hands boiled black smoke, and out of the smoke came more demons.
He walked next to a female human dressed in black – and beside them both, a wraith made of shadow and billowing robes that seemed to float above the forest floor.
Behind them the dragon shoved its way through the forest, knocking down trees with its massive bulk, using its fire to blast any foe foolish enough to cross its master’s path.
The dark elf was right, Ladriel thought as grief and guilt overwhelmed her.
The sorcerer came for us, just as she said.
45
Eric – Aravall
Eric strode across the forest floor as ash and glowing embers fell thick as snow. The treetops burned a hundred feet above like a cathedral made of fire. His dragon stalked behind him, using its flames to destroy any enemy in their path.
The Dark Figure hovered on Eric’s right. It was manipulating the ambient air temperature so the blistering waves of heat from above wouldn’t kill him or Cythera.
Speaking of Cythera, she stayed on his left, resurrecting every elven corpse they came across.
And his rampaging army supplied him with plenty of fresh corpses.
It was like they were in an inverted version of Hell, walking underneath a fiery landscape as sparks rained down.
Screw Korvos, Eric thought with brooding satisfaction. I’m already the King of Hell. Me and my Army of the Damned.
“Behold my Army of the Damned,” he said aloud, trying it out.
He liked it.
Cythera must have liked it, too, because she gave him a winning smile.
They’d had sex for the first time last night. It hadn’t been that bad – plus he’d gotten the AI to fix the smell of her breath. But try as he might, he couldn’t get the image of her formerly half-burned face out of his mind. He’d had to shut his eyes and imagine the concubines from Blackstone the entire time.
But now she was even more devoted to him. Despite the drawbacks, it had been a good decision to make her queen.
Depending on how many more nights he had to spend in her bed, anyway.
“How many elves would you say you
’ve raised from the dead?” Eric asked Cythera.
“Hundreds,” she answered with a smile. “And I think there are many more to go.”
“Good. We’ve got a bunch archers now, and everybody else seems to be on the run,” Eric said with satisfaction. “I’m going to hang back and let you handle things for a little while.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, alarmed.
Actually, I’m logging out – but YOU don’t need to know that.
“Nowhere,” he said. For all intents and purposes he was telling the truth, since his digital body in the game would stay right here next to hers. “I just want you to get some practice in, that’s all.”
“Oh,” she said, not entirely convinced. “What are your orders?”
“Gather up all the dead elves you can – and then we march north to – where was that other place Mira went?” Eric asked the Dark Figure.
“ALSHURAT,” the AI answered. “THE OUTER REALM OF THE DARK DWARVES.”
“Yeah – that place. How quickly can we get to there from here?”
“YOU CAN FLY THERE WITHIN HOURS. YOUR ARMY, IF THEY TRAVEL ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT, WILL TAKE TWO DAYS.”
That was one benefit of having an army of undead soldiers. No need to rest, eat, or sleep… just keep running them until the flesh fell off their bones.
“Good… send them to Alshurat,” Eric instructed Cythera, “and then you and I will fly there once we’ve wrapped everything up here.”
The army changed course. Whereas they had been running west, they suddenly headed north at a full sprint.
Eric watched them go and calculated how long he would have before the next battle.
Two days in the Shattered Lands… one long night in Tokyo.
Just enough time to eat and sleep.
46
Eric – Tokyo – 11PM
Eric pulled off the virtual reality rig and sat up in bed.
Tokyo’s lights sparkled in the darkness outside his palatial window.
Considering that he’d started the morning off facing a sixty-year jail sentence, things were definitely looking up.
Not just a good day in the Shattered Lands, but a good day in the Real World, too.
Shattered Lands 3 Demon Wars Page 15
