Ethria 3: The Liberator

by Holloway, Aaron

  “No can do, wizard. I think those two might have something to say about it.” Dale said, leaping to his feet. Bringing his shield and sword up in a traditional ready stance, he interposed himself between the rest of us and the threat. The two hounds circled around us and went to their master’s aid. Standing over his body and guarding him. I swore under my breath. I had been working on trying to keep my language cleaner, but I mean really. We had a perfectly good opportunity to kill the guy who caused all of this just ripped right out from under us.

  “I’m up,” Tol’geth said as he forced himself onto his knees. “Shakey, but up.” He turned to Pina and met her eyes. “Thank you.” She nodded and helped him to his feet.

  “Come on, you big lug, let’s get into the city gates before those dogs decide we’re lunch.”

  We made it nearly halfway to the front gate, limping slowly, the guards encouraging us from atop the towers with shouts of ‘hurry up’ and ‘come on, come on!’ We were less than fifty feet from the entrance when the sounds of steel and the snarling of undead rose behind us. I sighed, stopped, and turned to see what new thing the sorcerer had screwed us over with.

  Knights, nearly a hundred of them as far as I could tell. Nearly all the knights were on horseback were fighting against undead in a retreating action. They were being pushed out of a nearby crop of trees, the same ‘forest’ that Dale has offered to take us boar hunting in. Or at least what I thought were undead. They could have been flesh golems, but I was pretty sure they were undead. “So, that’s where the Orders went.” I said, shoulders drooping slightly.

  “They must have gotten attacked on their way to meet us.” Dale said. He was as exhausted. We all were.

  I turned back around and found the gate had been closed. The magical defenses of the city reactivated. We had nowhere to go. A man waving a bright red flag atop the walls drew my attention. He was screaming something at us, but I couldn’t make it out. Until the wind shifted slightly, carrying his words to me. “Try the bridge! Hurry, before you’re cut off!” I looked where he was pointing and found the large two towered stone bridge. I looked back at the knights who were retreating in good order towards stone bridge.

  Chapter 31: Stone Bridge and Old Hearth

  "Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts." - Winston Churchill

  Outskirts of the City of Sowers Vale, 9th Novos, 2989 AoR

  We started running towards the bridge; the battle was moving only slightly slower than we were. Snarling came from behind me and I saw that one of the two hellhounds was helping Jekkel to his feet, while the other was on our heels.

  “Go! I’ll hold this one off and meet up with the others.” Dale yelled as he dropped his sword and shield, and unslung his powerful looking crossbow. I hesitated, Dale was as exhausted as any of us. Sweat matted his hair. He had lost his helmet somewhere in the fighting. Yet he still moved with purpose. “What are you waiting for, wizard? Go!” As he yelled at me, he let loose a thick bolt from his weapon. It made a whistle before I heard a loud thunk. The sound snapped me out of whatever exhausted funk had me just staring at the scene, and I turned and ran. Well, ran is generous. It was more like I hobbled with purpose. My legs were still unsteady and one of my knees was throbbing with pain.

  Pina tripped a few feet from the bridge and Tol’geth simply reached down and plucked her off the ground, never once breaking stride. He moved like a lumbering rhino. Little of his normal powerful grace evident as he placed her on the stone bridge and turned to make sure I had followed. He patted me on the back as I and Ailsa made it to the dubious safety of the two guard towers that flanked the bridge. The archers were desperately trying to help the Knightly Orders, pouring volley after small volley into the undead horde that had appeared out of nowhere. As the knights retreated , forming a shield wall directly in front of us and blocking off the hell hound attack, I lost track of Dale. I nearly collapsed to the stone they named the bridge for, pulling myself up to the small guiding wall that prevented people from walking off the edge during storms.

  “Let me see to your friend,” a kindly and somewhat familiar voice said. I opened my eyes and found Tol’geth had joined the fighting at the front line. He stood shoulder to shoulder with the Lion, clearing undead in sweeping arcs of their weapons. The two laughed, making a game of who could kill more in a single attack. I shook my head tried to get control of my breathing.

  “Yes,” was all I could say. The man who had spoken was the slightly budgie priest I had seen before on the steps of the Dead Gods chapel. He wasn’t a priest of Dominus or the Dead God. His robe was red and the symbol there looked like a stylized flame. He bent down as my attention shifted to our defenses.

  The bridge and its towers prevented the knights from being flanked. Preventing any one knight, or even a group of knights, from being cut off and overwhelmed by the tide of lesser undead. The knight’s armor thick and would protect against most attacks from the more traditional undead. These were skeletons, and zombies, not the black tar-clad savage creatures I was used to. That protection was the entire point of their retreat. Most of the knights had either dismounted or lost their mounts in the fighting, but more than a handful of them formed a small squad of heavy cavalry near where me and my friends rested. They were reequipping, preparing for a charge whenever one would be deemed useful by leadership.

  The Priest’s hands glowed with a soft white light that radiated warmth through the cold. He placed his hands on Pina’s legs and the scrapes and bruises that I had not noticed before healed. She winced at the treatment, but otherwise said nothing until it was over. When he removed his hands and started making his way towards me she said “Thank you, priest. It is good to see not all your kind are evil.” As he kneeled next to me, he simply smiled more brightly.

  “Now, you. Anything broken?” He asked, as he gave me his full attention. I pointed towards my ribs, and he nodded. Hard, callused hands pressed firmly on my chest as he forcibly shifted bones back into place. In first aid, that would be a wild mistake to make as pieces of bone could cut, or even perforate your lunges. But with magic able to fast track the healing process, the bones needed to be in the right place. At least for lower tier spells, as higher-level ones would move broken bones into place automatically. I missed Ailsa’s spells as I gritted my teeth against the pain. His hands shined with the same warmth as before, and I felt a sharp stabbing heat fuse the bones back into place.

  You have been blessed by Father Flameright. Blessing of the Flame Effects: 100 HP worth of healing, removal of any moderate or minor status effects. Removal of any tier 1 curses or harmful enchantments.

  “GAH!” I grunted, trying to keep from arching my back or pulling away from the spell. When it was over, I asked about Dale. “My companion. He was right behind us. Did he make it?”

  “Yes, I saw his bravery,” Father Flameright said as he finished his spell and motioned for me to open my satchel. How he knew Ailsa was there, I didn’t know, but he was right to ask. I found her and gently placed her on my lap, allowing the priest to go to work. “He killed the hound that attacked him, but more than that I did not see, I left the tower to tend to the wounded.” The man winked at me. “Do not worry, men like him, the brave ones. They have a tendency to survive. Have faith.” I smirked at his statement. I knew what was against us. At least, I thought I did. I had been working myself and my friends to the bone trying to prepare for this, and still my plans had gone sideways. But his admonition stuck with me. Have faith. That was the only thing I really could do now, wasn’t it? Yes, I had prayed more than once about this situation but, had I actually shown faith? Had I chosen to believe that something good was going to come of our efforts? Or had I let the world and events around me dictate my outlook?

  “Thank you, I will try to remember that.” The priest graced me with a smile again as he stood dusting off his knees. He was about to go help more of the wounded, still streaming in from the fighting. “Wait.” The man s
tood still for a moment, raising his eyebrows. “Is, is there a way I can help? That, well, I don’t know, but there has to be something we can do to help. My faith teaches that where something is demanded of us,” I pointed towards the horde of undead that was still growing. “There will be a way prepared for us to do it.” The priest stopped and thought for a moment.

  “My faith teaches much the same thing. Maybe, no. Well, I doubt they will have need of it.”

  “What is it?” I asked, as I felt my body slowly return to some semblance of normal.

  “Wait here, I’ll be back in a moment.” The priest went and tended to the needs of several knights and squires who had been severely injured. Most of them practically jumped back to their feet and charged towards the front lines again. He insisted that several of them stay out of the fighting. He had stabilized their wounds, but they were still in no shape to fight.

  “Did we win?” Ailsa asked weakly, and I grinned. “Yup, yup we did. Kind of. Though we still have more, we have to do.”

  “More work? That doesn’t sound like we won. It sounds like we’re being punished.” I laughed softly as I felt the truth of the words hit me.

  “Truth and righteousness might be the inevitable victors in the fight against evil. But the enemy has their own right to choose. And darkness comes with powers of its own.” Pina said. She pulled herself over to sit next to us. “I am sorry I was harsh with you earlier, wizard. You seem to truly care for those around you. My judgments were,” she hesitated looking for the right expression.

  “Swift and harsh?” I asked, smiling to take the bite out of my words.

  “Yes, exactly that.” Pina smiled, chagrined. We sat in silence for a moment before I realized I was being a moron. Groaning at my stupidity, I pulled out several mana potions and handed the most powerful of them to Pina. “You, you had these all along?” She asked, looking at me as if I were stupid.

  “Yeah, I know. I know. I was tired and hurt, okay?” She rolled her eyes, uncorked the small powerful vial and downed it in a single gulp. I, on the other hand, drank three of the apprentice made concoctions. I felt a bit bloated by the time I was done, but my mana bar slowly ticked up to around a quarter full.

  I laid back and pulled out the control rod for my last golem. I felt it there, flying about, circling, looking for the sorcerer. It was enraged, but its eyesight was better than a humans. I had no idea where Jekkel had run off to, but it left me feeling deeply uneasy. I tried to send a command through the control rod for the golem to start its search from where our fight had been. But the giant deadly construct didn’t respond. I frowned, shook the rod, and tried again. Still nothing. I was getting a feed from the golem just fine, but for some reason the rod wasn’t sending my commands. I sighed and put the rod back into my pocket. That explosion must have damaged the enchantments. Oh well. I’ll just have to hope it finds him before he’s able to take it out. Maybe this thing the priest is going to bring us will help even the odds a bit more.

  Pina cleared her throat to get my attention. I opened my eyes at looked at her. “While it would have been smart for you to give them to us all when we first got here, that is not why I am disappointed. You, you are clearly new to working with a team.” I smacked my forehead.

  “I should have given everyone one of them before we even started out. Shouldn’t I?” She nodded and grinned.

  “It is good to see you are learning.” She said as I handed the most powerful of the potions I had purchased, and the smallest of them, to Ailsa. When she was done, she laid down on the stones with a satisfied sigh, her belly slightly distended.

  “Good mana juice.” She patted her belly with a satisfied sigh. We all chuckled, still exhausted from everything we had just been through. It was a needed release of tension.

  The priest reappeared a few minutes later. “I have only a moment before the next wave of wounded gets back to me.” The priest looked a bit worried, actively working to maintain his calm. “The horde here stretches for nearly a mile from what the tower says. There is little hope we have the endurance to keep this going that long.”

  “Where did it come from?” I asked. It was more a statement of astonishment than a real question, but the priest answered.

  “We don’t know for sure, but I heard one knight say it came from the south. That it must have slipped by the Count and his men. Regardless, I came back to answer your other question. There is one thing that might help since the city watch can’t come to our aid. My faith has our western temple near to here. In a small town named Old Hearth. If you can get there and tell our high priest about what is happening, he might use one of our faiths’ relics to help. If you head straight east, you will quickly come to a fork that leads south towards Fort Saint Michael, and north to Old Hearth. Tell him Father Flameright said we might need to use Kindler. I—” Several squires worked together to carry a fully armored knight back towards the priest. The knight was covered in blood, with his breastplate clawed, bent, and sticky with ichor. “I have to go.”

  “Wait, here. Take there.” I pulled out several of the healing and recovery potions I had purchased and handed them over. Including the Full Restore we had saved. I had intended to use it either on Ailsa or Tol’geth, but from the way the Priest and the other support people were looking, I was sure they would come across someone who they couldn’t save soon.

  “We can’t take these, you will need them.” He tried to protest, but I pushed them into his hands.

  “You know how the poem about the horse shoe goes, right? Well, apply it here. For want of a potion, and knight was lost. For want of a knight, the battle was lost, for want of a battle the kingdom was lost and so on. I don’t want that to happen here. Have a little faith in me and my friends,” I winked, and the priest guffawed.

  “I’m usually the one telling others that,” he said before turning and leaving. He handed off the potions to a helper I recognized.

  “Alderon? What are you doing here?”

  “Helping,” was all the teenager said before he followed the priest to tend to the wounded knight.

  ---

  Jekkel

  Jekkel laughed as more of the undead poured through the two portals in the woods south of the city. His master had told him that an undead horde had been sent some days ago to aid him in his escape. When it had not materialized, he had thought he was on his own. He was going to ask his master what to do, but they had been interrupted by the old fools who had attacked his tower that morning. Before his new orders or any renewed help could come through.

  But here the promised reinforcements were. Lead by two powerful skeletal magi, both wearing crowns of blue flame atop their laughing skulls. Jekkel had not spoken to them yet, nor would he until he had his prize. Only then would he take command, and march north, burning every village, town, and hovel in his path out of Tor and towards freedom.

  Jekkel scanned the enemy forces, the line of knights were sheathed in the finest steel and protected from any but the worst blows the undead skeletons and zombies could offer. But they were of no concern to him. He was looking for his prize, or at least someone he could visit revenge upon. Then he spotted him. The barbarian warrior who had taken part in his humiliation those years ago. He was in the center of the knights, lending them his strength. Another knight, his equal in size and from the looks of it ferocity, stood next to him. They defended each other as each swing of their swords ruined half a dozen undead. Cutting them not just on the physical but on a magical level. Destroying the spell constructs that held their forms together, allowing the lesser darklings to reanimate the corpses.

  Jekkel had never been a particular fan of that type of Dark magic, preferring to forge pacts with darklings of power directly. Necromancy dealt with the weak, the powerless from that dark realm who desired some expression on the mortal plane of Ethria. Fostering such weak spirits was a waste of time and resources in his eyes, good for little more than distraction and sapping the enemy’s strength. Which he supposed these un
dead were doing an admiral job of. Jekkel knew what he would do next. He had less than half his mana reserves remaining to him. His equipment provided most of the mana in that equation. Still, he could summon a few more darklings. Perhaps even one of his lords would respond to his call, despite it being nearly mid-day.

  As he was laying his plans, a roar of purest rage split the sky. Jekkel spotted the giant ape-dragon hybrid monstrosity the wizard had created hurdling towards him. The golem was master crafted, the handy work of not only the wizards’ efforts, but his as well. If the thing got ahold of him, Jekkel knew he was a dead man. Jekkel examined the creature using his new Aura sight. It was an ability granted to him by the small pamphlet his master had given him. He hadn’t wanted to use it fully after his test run on that pathetic hanger on, the leader of the eighth circle, had gone from merely fanatical to down right insane. But, he had read a single page of the small book, and learned how to harness the Forbidden Sight as the ability was called, an augmentation to his Aura Sight that allowed him to learn to read True Names. The augmentation filled in any gaps in information his Aura Sight failed to capture. It couldn’t tell him anything, but it enhanced his ability substantially.

  Jekkel smirked at the wizard’s incompetence and summoned a single Shadow Imp. The golem outclassed the darkling in every way but one, speed. With a single order, the Imp giggled at his plan and raced off, spear twirling in its hands as it went. When the Imp drew close enough to the golem, it threw its spear like a javelin, striking a hit in the golem’s upper right arm. The beast howled in rage and fixated on the imp which squeaked in fear and sped away in the opposite direction, towards the city walls.

  The shadow imp taunted the golem, staying just outside its reach. At the last moment, as the imp entered range of the city’s defenses, it dropped like a stone. The golem continued on, its momentum too great to stop so quickly. As the greater golem entered the city’s magical defensives, it burst in flames from the energy field. Then, a lightning bolt as thick as a man lept from the pitchfork in the grand statue’s hands and struck the golem. All that was left to fall to the ground was a hulking figure of ash and still smoldering cinders.