by J D Franx
“Let’s move, quickly,” he said. “Back to the fortress and get everyone ready.” He grunted. “It seems ghosting their camp is not an option. This battle begins today and it has just become the fight for Sokn’s future.”
Chapter Two
STEINN FORTRESS
NORTHERN SOKN
Engier ducked behind the stone wall as the first ball of rune fire slammed into the fortress and exploded on the ramparts around him. “Tyr’s bloody blades,” he cursed, as yet another, much closer detonation rocked the wall to his right. “Seems the thieving bastards took more runes from the Skall than just bloodstone.”
“So it would seem, my lord,” Drengr agreed. Rising to his feet, the wizard snapped a fire opal runestone between his fingers and released his own fireball down onto the barricaded wizards. The searing ball of fire detonated when it struck the shield wall erected by twenty of the walking dead that protected each set of undead archers. The attack did little damage beyond lighting three of the corpses on fire. The dead men stood their ground even as they burned.
Engier cursed under his breath. Because the dead warriors below felt no pain and could carry a shield, the wizard’s rune spell accomplished little beyond lessening the number of arrows and magic coming back at them. The shield wall protecting the undead archers was tactic the enemy had never used before. The flaming corpses burned for a full minute and two lost an arm before the rune magic dissipated, but still the dead held their shields firm while others fired arrows from behind the protection they offered. Cursing a second time, Engier shook his head at how hard the raised dead were to put back down.
“That’ll keep their bastard rebel heads down for a bit,” Drengr shouted, as he laughed. Engier knew his wizard was enjoying the freedom to cast runes as he saw fit, something the Ama Taugr were rarely allowed to do. A second snap of runes and the sizzle of fire hit his ears at the same time as the wizard barked a warning. “These two walls are weak, my lord. They will not hold forever under this kind of assault.”
“They don’t need to hold forever, wizard,” Brenna shouted before she loosed an arrow from her bow. A single dead man among the horde fell to the ground and didn’t rise. “One at a time, if need be, for as long it takes for the Sea Lords and the Riddari to arrive.” She ducked back down into cover as a wave of enemy arrows whistled passed her head.
“Impressive battle strategy for simple necromancers, Drengr,” Engier growled, with an almost accusatory tone.
“If you say so, my lord,” the wizard quipped. “Too busy ducking to notice.”
“Take a look next time, runecaster,” Brenna barked. “The shield wall protects the rebel wizards and allows archers to fire from cover. The rest of the dead are attacking the weakened parts of our wall with the sheer weight of their numbers.” Staying low, she scooted over to Engier, adding, “We can’t hold them long enough.”
“We have to hold until the Riddari or the Sea Lords arrive, otherwise the mountain clans’ attack will be swallowed by the heavy number of walking dead yet to attack. We’re on our own until the horsemen and the pirates get here, Brenna. Drengr! Some help over here would be nice!” Engier bellowed, but it wasn’t really an order. He could see his wizard digging through his bag of runes looking for something. Knowing Drengr, it was probably much bigger and much louder.
“Do something, wizard! Shit.” Brenna hissed through clenched teeth as an enemy ball of fire struck the top of the battlements and flames roared through the arrow curtain to her left. “Now! I can’t even get a cursed shot off.”
“I would prefer to stay behind the wall, my lords. If it’s all the same to you,” he said.
“Drengr!” Engier growled. The heat and flames bombarding the ramparts were beginning to irritate him, but there was little he could do aside from grunt with frustration. He’d never been a bowman and until the fighting became sword on axe, Engier would remain pinned down behind the walls.
In direct contradiction to his own statement, Drengr stood and snapped two quartz runes between the thumb and forefinger of each hand. Unlike normal runes, the quartz didn’t break, but crumbled instead. The white shards swirled in Drengr’s hands like heavy dust before he clapped them together and tossed the dust into the air. A massive cloud of gray and black formed above his head, yet long tentacles of white cloud spiraled out from the wizard’s hands. A simple push or pull on either tether and the cloud moved to the left or the right until it came to a stop over the battlefield above the enemy shield wall. Doing so left him fully exposed on the ramparts, arrows soared his way and one quickly found him, striking his shoulder.
He grunted at the impact and staggered sideways, bumping into Engier.
“Drengr, hang on,” he snapped. Seeing his friend vulnerable, he steadied the runecaster and then raised his shield to give them both protection from more incoming arrows. With an arrow buried in his shoulder, the wizard nearly dropped the spell, only managing to hold on thanks to years of experience suffering similar battlefield wounds. A frown of intense concentration marred his features and Engier knew he struggled to keep the spell alive even as he violently pulled and pushed at the magical storm with the arrow grinding in his shoulder. Lightning flashed through the clouds, steadily building in intensity until the first strike of energy leapt from the storm and pummeled the ground, taking out several of the shield wall’s undead warriors while lighting numerous others on fire. Unlike natural lightning, the bolts of energy formed fast and jumped away from the clouds at ever-increasing intervals, hammering the enemy when they hit the ground before each bolt leapt back up into the clouds like normal lightning.
Engier and Brenna’s men cheered as the undead warriors flew through the air in pieces before crashing to the dirt, never to rise again. With a groan of agony, Drengr tied the cloud tentacles together and threw them up into the storm. Freed from his control, the clouds reacted immediately and strikes of lightning blasted from the storm every few seconds, allowing them both to get back into cover.
“That will keep them busy for a bit,” Drengr gasped and slowly collapsed against his Jarl.
“Finally,” Brenna snapped, before standing to loose several arrows in a row.
Engier frowned and caught Drengr, slowly lowering him to the walkway. The wizard was exhausted and could use a break from casting runes, along with needing an arrow removed from his shoulder. He peeled back Drengr’s leather armor and checked the wound.
“Take a breath, the arrow is high in your shoulder, it hasn’t hit bone or anything vital from what I can see. It has to come out, you know—”
“I know what it means, just do it, my lord,” Drengr interrupted. Removing his leather glove, he rolled it and jammed it between his teeth before shifting his position so Engier had room to push the arrow through his shoulder.
With a nod, Engier pulled his axe from its sheath and used the enchanted blade to burn through the arrow shaft just below the flight feathers. He tilted the blade sideways and laid the axe along the wooden shaft until it was fully engulfed in flames. “Ready?" he asked, getting a nod from his wizard, he grabbed the arrowhead behind his shoulder and eased the shaft out. The flames cauterized the wound and Drengr failed to suppress a scream of agony.
“Good?’ Engier asked, getting another nod as sweat dripped from Drengr’s nose. “Good, wait here ’til—” Engier began, but was cut off by a shout from across the courtyard.
“Breach! The wall is down. Breach!”
“Curse you and your timing, Tyr,” he spat and pressed a rag to both sides of Drengr’s shoulder before leaning him back against the wall. Engier turned and grabbed the top of the catwalk ladder. “Jarl Brenna, with me, hurry! I’ll send a healer to you, Drengr, stay here and keep pressure on that wound.”
The wizard nodded and Engier quickly slid down with his hands and feet on the sides of the ladder. Hitting bottom, he turned in time to see the first of the walking dead stumble into the courtyard from a hole in the crumbling wall. His men engaged the walking dead b
ut were quickly forced back by the large numbers pushing through the break.
“Give me something, Tyr, you bastard,” he cursed the sky. “Kick the Fates in the ass for me. We need more time!”
The decrepit wall was the fortress’ weakest section and his men built it up as best they could, but they didn’t have the time to set new stones in mud and he didn’t have the numbers needed to protect it properly. The rebel necromancer’s numbers eventually forced a way through, just as he suspected.
The fight had finally come down to hand to hand combat and Engier’s heart hammered in his chest at the thrill of close battle. A snarl crept onto his lips and he smiled at the prospect of chopping his way through more undead. He squeezed the handle of his shield and sharp blades sprung from the edge, turning it into a smaller version of the saw blades he’d seen in the lumber mills around the forest community of Yrstak in the southern half of his lands.
A walking corpse shambled towards him and Engier punched out with his shield, giving it a twist as it made contact with the dead man’s face. The blades cut into the rotting flesh easier than a razor-runed sword through a block of hard cheese and the top half of the corpse’s head spun from its body. The putrid red mist permeating the lifeless husk sputtered and died as he glanced down. A second decrepit corpse stumbled his way and Engier swung his axe hard, powering it through the dead man’s neck. The head hit the ground and rolled away as the corpse fell in the dirt. A burst of excitement flipped his stomach sideways when the creature didn’t rise, and he laughed with a relief he hadn’t felt in days. The undead could be put down permanently with less effort than they first thought.
Instantly realizing the monstrosity would never rise again, he stomped the skull flat and bellowed across the courtyard. “The heads! Remove the heads and they stay dead!” Without waiting for an answer from the warriors fighting their way through the courtyard, he rushed towards the breach, swinging both his shield and sword at the head of every walking corpse he passed.
MAIN GATE
STEINN FORTRESS
The minutes of battle slowly passed into a full hour. Engier wiped the rotted viscera from his face and inhaled through his mouth before snorting even more of the filth from his nostrils. The stench from a normal battle tested a man’s stomach and stretched the strength of his will to its very limits. Men and women, especially warriors, always died hard and screaming. Blood, splayed insides, and death-evacuated bodily fluids made war a vile and nasty business. It got everywhere, especially in your mouth and nose. It made war against the living a nightmare, and war against the undead a living nightmare. The reek of corrupted flesh and black blood hung thick in the air from one end of Steiin Fortress to the other. Engier wiped his mouth on his sleeve, no amount of mead would ever strip the putrid taste from his tongue.
As he cleaved the last dead man from his sight he spat at the charred and twisted remains of the main gate before staring out over the valley, where another wave of undead marched their way. Tapping the white and gray ash from his hot blade, he heard a set of steps behind him, but immediately recognized the gait.
“Less than five minutes before they arrive,” Jarl Brenna offered. She stepped up beside him and carefully wiped her blades with a filthy cloth.
Engier knew her blades would remain razor sharp even though she had probably cut down as many of the walking dead as he had. The white opal runes imbued in her blades during their forging ensured it. Most often called the razor rune, the white opal enhanced a weapon’s blade with magic that let it cut deep into an enemy. Bone, leather, and metal, her blades cut through it all. It was one of the trickiest runes to forge weapons with and white opal was one of Sokn’s most valuable minerals. It reminded him that he wasn’t so lucky. Taking a small stone from the pouch on his waist, he slid it along his axe blade, repeatedly flipping the stone to the other side so it wouldn’t get too hot from the runes enchanting his own axe. “We won’t stop this wave,” he said. “The wall is down in two places and the front gate is in ruins. Any word from the Lords yet?”
Brenna shook her head. “I haven’t seen Drengr and none of my men have seen Boulder’s pale horse. They were too busy fighting.”
“Of course,” he said, sarcastically. Without the reinforcements, his men and women, along with Brenna’s, were fighting a losing battle. He scoffed. Many a family and friend would breathe their last before the days end. Brenna and himself included. “It has been a pleasure to fight at your side for once, Jarl Brenna Kaesia.”
The young Jarl sheathed her swords and pulled a halberd from the chest of a rotting corpse lying on the ground to her right. “Appropriate would you not think, Jarl War-Blood?” she asked with a smile.
He chuckled. Unlike most other clans in the last hundred years, no one referred to the Kaesia clan by their modern name. Jarl Brenna’s traditional clan insisted the Northmen use the old language of their people, even though most in Sokn spoke the common tongue since peace with the indigenous peoples of the south had been struck over a century ago. “It is appropriate, Jarl Brenna Long-Spear.”
“I will look for you in Valhalla, Engier, may you be one of the half chosen this day. Try not to die too easily, I would hate for the Valkyries to pass you by because you did not stand out on the battlefield and were found unworthy.” She winked at him and a crooked smile quickly followed. After saying something similar during their first encounter with the undead, Brenna seemed to be making a habit of poking fun at their mutual beliefs. The Valkyrie only claimed the spirits of those they deemed worthy by heroically standing out on the battlefield before death.
He barked with laughter. “It’ll take all of them to drag me from this battlefield, Brenna, even if I am dead. I expect it will take the same number to carry you to Valhalla as well.”
“How about we leave the Valkyries alone for today, my lords,” Drengr suggested as he arrived at Engier’s side. His shoulder had been patched by one of the healers, and the color had returned to his face. “I do so enjoy living,” he said, continuing on. “Besides, my wife is a horrendously jealous woman and the last thing I need is her fighting a Valkyrie for my soul.”
“I would think that blessed woman would be grateful to be rid of your stinking wizard carcass,” Brenna quipped.
“Blessed?” Engier scoffed. “Nothing blessed about the way that woman wields a war axe.”
“Hrmph,” Brenna said, but quickly laughed. “She is! Blessed by Tyr those axes of hers’ be.”
“My lords,” Drengr sighed, clearly exasperated by the Jarls’ banter in the face of impending death. “Perhaps we should worry less about my blessed wife, especially seeing she is with the bulk of our army, not here. Perhaps we should be more concerned about the walking dead who will be arriving here shortly. Do we go out and meet them or continue to fight at the breaches?”
“We’ll be swallowed by their numbers on open ground,” Engier said, stating the obvious. “The breaches and what’s left of the front gate at least funnel them through in smaller numbers.”
“I agree,” Brenna added.
“Then we defend the breaches until we can defend them no longer,” Engier said. “Be ready, here they come.”
The wave of undead shuffled forward, coming hard at the front gate. The sinister red mist, always present within and around the walking dead, slowly coiled and billowed its way forward, corrupting everything it touched. The grass and dirt at their feet wilted and turned brown in a matter of seconds while the first of several Northmen who fell dead just outside the gate began to rise with their weapons still in hand. With the last few minutes before the undead reached the gate, Engier studied the dead men close. Some were clearly recent dead, with putrid blackened flesh and white teeth still in their sockets even though the creatures erratically snapped and gnashed their teeth at everything. A shiver ran up his spine and a cold fear crept into his throat at the mere thought of falling under a wave of snapping jaws. Before he could force the fear back down, he caught sight of dozens of animated
skeletons several rows back in the approaching formation and the hairs on his neck immediately prickled to life at what it meant in combination with everything else he could see. Signs of more advanced battlefield strategy was more than apparent as the undead with spears and heavy shields stumbled forward while those with only swords followed behind. The rebel necromancers hung back, content to let their undead army do all the fighting for them now, but they immediately ran into a wall of fire as Drengr snapped a fire opal and tossed it forward. Two more fire opals cracked and floated above his hands while he manipulated the energies in order to grow the magic drastically before he tossed them forward as well. A massive wall of fire jumped to life in front of him and Drengr groaned as he forced the wall higher and wider. An undead warrior rolled through the flames and rushed at them with fire dripping from its rotted head and limbs. Engier leapt forward and drove his axe through its face as a second and then a third burning dead man stumbled past, but quickly fell to their knees as the rune fire ate through them. As he turned to attack, he found Brenna already there, covering his side. She stepped around him and her flashing spear cut down both of the dead. Drengr’s spell began to fade and as the flames died out dozens of undead surged toward them.
Engier blocked and swung his axe as they were forced back into the fortress courtyard by the sheer weight and number of undead. Something brushed against his back and he spun but pulled his axe back at the last minute.
“Hamay? Damn boy, what do you need?”
“We lost the other breach, my lord,” the Housekarl yelled back even as he cut down two undead warriors with his greatsword. “There’s too many to hold.”
“Brenna!” Engier shouted. “We’re back to back.”
The woman shrieked with rage, but a serene calm quickly crept over her face and Engier knew what was coming. “I will see you again, Jarl Engier. I’ll have a horn of mead waiting for you in the halls of Valhalla.” She screamed again and the war cry was quickly picked up by several of her warriors as Brenna and her fighters went berserk. Forcing their way through the throng of walking dead, they chopped and swung mindlessly at anything in reach as they pushed deeper into the enemy horde of undead. More of her warriors followed faithfully and in seconds they were gone from sight, swallowed by the undead. Swinging his axe up into the jawbone of a walking skeleton, Engier felt Drengr bump into his side as the ground rumbled beneath his feet.
