by B G Mitchell
Lucinda smiled and tried to clear her mind. “Fine, just a few too many late nights. So what can I help you with?”
Nataylia took a chair she always took in front of Lucinda’s desk. Lucinda noticed that the dress only came down to her thighs. Nataylia they produced a pouch. “This is the latest reports from our scouts. Apparently the short version, the enemy is just a day away.”
“Thanks,” replied Lucinda. “But you are not normally in the process of delivering dispatches.”
Nataylia sighed. “I am sorry to disturb you, but I was wondering what happens after this battle.”
“We rebuild the city and carry on,” replied Lucinda without missing a beat. She was still standing by the doorway to the balcony.
Nataylia got up from the chair and stood in front of Lucinda. “I just worried if Zateria would send any more forces against us. The truth is, I had a rather disturbing vision in the temple. It showed her forces marching on the villages and towns of the land above.” She rested her head on Lucinda’s shoulder.
Lucinda replied by wrapping her arms around her and saying to her softly, “Whatever comes, we will be ready.” She then gently brushed Nataylia’s light blue hair and enjoyed the warmth of her body.
The side street Shareriza had found had been thankfully empty. She had moved slowly, avoiding any signs of the skeletons. She had heard cannon fire in the distance as well as rabid fire from muskets. That was a bit odd, for as far as she knew, only Elves had use of gunpowder. The mages in their wisdom had outlawed that type of magic. The city was getting darker as she crept and by the time she had arrived at the alleyway exit that leads out onto one of the main streets, it was already dusk. She peeked out the side and saw a whole group of skeletons marching up the road.
Thinking shit to herself, she pulled her head back in and was about to run when she heard a voice shout, “Fire,” followed by a loud bang and the sound of many objects impacting.
She then heard more voices and heard even some musket fire. She then heard a second round of shots and heard another voice shout, “Move forward,” and the sound of a group of armed men on the move. She peeked her head out from the alleyway and saw the horde of skeletons crumbled in a pile. She then looked back at the other direction and saw a group of guardsmen and Elven Soldiers marching along the road. One of the guardsmen nodded to her and pointed towards the far end of the city.
He then said, “We have cleared the road. If you head to the gates, you will be able to find safety.” Shareriza nodded and ran down the main street as she heard more gunfire in the background.
As Zateria walked into her throne room, she nodded at her trusted lieutenant (there are three ranks of lieutenants, lieutenant, trusted lieutenant, and completely trusted lieutenant, promotion to the third rank is awarded posthumously). Draconia had managed to get a tapestry created which showed a map of her new holdings in the land of the moon and sun. She looked at the map and smiled. It showed a large section of the wild wastes as well as the former human realm.
“Good work, Draconia, but it does need to be updated.” She then pointed to the town of Murahimand. “That town there will be my new capital. Already my faithful from Narderba have settled and are being joined by other dark elves from the lands below. They have even started construction of a large temple using the ample available human slave labour, dedicated to one of the best goddess ever,” Draconia said. “Which is you, of course.”
Zateria smiled and replied, “Yes, a perfect place to project my power and keep my avatar ready to go. The city’s new name will be Nuraderba.”
Draconia bowed deeply before replying, “I mean no offence, my goddess, but why not take the capital Merdith?”
Zateria sat down on her throne before replying, “Because there are not enough dark elves to maintain my holdings, and I wanted a buffer zone between me and the realm of Lerwyn.” She looked at the other tapestry. One was a map of her holdings on the Abyss, which, given her recent success, was now a large chunk. The other one was a map of down below and included the dark elf cities under her grip. She noted that Narderba was still there. She sighed and waved her arm. The city faded to grey. She turned to Draconia. “Now the question we need to ask is how Urgath managed to get to the ancient realm of humanity and bring back such a destructive device.”
Draconia again spoke up this time sounding rather nervous. “Do we need to go back to the crater?”
Zateria shook her head and sighed before replying, “No, there is no point. Every group we send gets sick and whatever clue was there was destroyed by the blast.” She thought for a moment then carried on. “But send some prisoners anyway. Who knows, they might get lucky, but no, this was carried out by powerful beings.”
Draconia nodded and motioned for one of her aids. “But, mistress,” she replied. “Which god could be more powerful than you?”
Zateria slammed her fist down on her throne and shouted out like the very statement had caused offense. “NONE, but there is always our ancient enemy.” She stood up as the room was silent. All the demons and minions knew what she meant, but they were too afraid to think what this could mean when even Zateria, the dark goddess of the elves, admitted there were more powerful foes. Zateria then said in a loud and commanding tone, “Listen here, and listen all. I want you to go out and find every single thing you can about any rumours of strange happenings throughout the realms, especially anything that may be related to dark minds.” She looked at her audience and knowing what fiends are like, chose to continue, “There will, of course, be a reward.” With that, half of her hanger ones were out of the door. She sat down back on her throne and sighed. She rather hoped to herself that she was wrong.
The night was setting in, and the remains of the skeleton army had managed to regroup by the south wall. Arderan had found his mount and was now in front of a large part of the elven infantry and a couple of battalions. Followed by the remains of the city guard as they marched down the street, Arderan could make out figures silhouetted by the flames. It did not take him long to pick up the figures were the skeleton army. He shouted, “Halt,” and looked back. His cannons were still coming up in the rear. He grabbed his pistol and shouted to a sergeant on the first line, “Line them up, and remember, aim for the hearts. Fire when ready.”
The sergeant nodded and began shouting out commands in such a thick sergeant accent that would make any sergeant in the British army proud. He then heard the first round firing, dropping a couple of skeletons. A couple of seconds later he heard the second round go off, then the third and fourth. Seeing the horde still advancing, Arderan rode up the road as he heard a new group of soldiers take up position. About a hundred meters down the road, he found the captain and his cannons still caught up on cobbles in the road.
“Right,” he shouted. “Set up here.” The captains nodded and proceed to set the cannons up into a firing position. He then rode back to the front line and shouted at the sergeant, “I want a staggered retreat to the canon.” The sergeant shouted to his men as the first line stepped back and the second firing line took up position and began to fire into the oncoming cartilage horde.
It took them about ten minutes of firing and stepping back to finally reach the cannons were set up and loaded. Once the line had stepped past them, he then shouted, “Fire,” sending a blast of specially made canister shot and smoke into the skeleton warriors, causing the first advancing line to shatter. The infantry, knowing the drill, had taken up position besides the cannon and now while they were being reloaded, took their chance through the smoke and fired blindly into the enemy. By the time the second shot of the cannon had gone off, the smoke had barely cleared, but he could see the enemy, thanks to the torch light form his soldiers. They were now closing in on to a crossroads about fifty meters away, and he had two choices: either retreat, leaving the cannons behind, or engage in hand to hand combat. As they reached the crossroads, he heard another voice which he recognized as Hisoruth, shout, “Fire,” and was rewarded with the site
of a skeleton horde being hit along the side be another round of cartridge shot.
The first line on the right was torn to shreds. The second line collapsed, and the third line managed to lose only a couple. Arderan raised his pistol and shouted, “Well, what are you waiting for? FIRE.” He then aimed and pulled the trigger, sending a cloud of smoke up and dropping his target and causing the cartridge to raise. He heard more gunfire this time also from the crossroads, and was rewarded by even more skeletons dropping. It took a full five more rounds of cannon and rifled gunshot before the last of the undead horde fell.
Once he was able to go around the corner, he got down from his mount and tipped his hat to Hisoruth. Cardar appeared and smiled at Arderan. “Thank the gods. Now I can focus my men on putting out the fires.” Arderan looked at the skyline and noticed that it was starting to get lighter.
Before he could add his own thoughts, another human guardsmen came up and said in a rather urgent voice, “I am sorry, sir, but we have refugees coming from the north.”
Cardar looked thoughtful for a moment and then asked in a very confused tone, “Why the north?”
The guardsmen cleared his throat. “I am sorry, sir, a messenger was sent, but the north has been invaded by a collection of orcs and dark elves.”
Cardar slammed his fist into an open palm. “Of course,” he said to no one. “The messenger would have gone to the wizard. How long till the army gets here?”
“Well, they have halted their advance. Apparently, according to rumours, their leader, who happened to be an avatar of Zateria, has headed back north.”
Cardar looked at him for a moment. He rubbed his brow and sighed. “Well, give them what help we can.” Arderan looked out over the smouldering city.
The temple seemed an outpost of silence in the city preparing for war, thought Lucinda to herself. Most of the noise was from the building of barricades, choke points, and kill zones. Now also there seemed to be more and more dwarfs around as well as another hundred and fifty troops, and despite the sudden higher price of beer, there had been no problems. Although it seemed the average elf on the street happened to be more worried about the invasion than dwarf created shortages of beer.
The temple itself was a converted house that used to belong to one of the smaller families. It had a couple of walls knocked out, and a new roof was in the process of being put in (many have asked why buildings underground need a roof, well dark elves are a paranoid lot, and if a building did not have a roof it is in fact an access point, that and bats). The old temples were dedicated to Zateria, and most had been had been stripped, but to consecrate the ground the temple stood on would have taken a lot of time, and the city really needed a temple now to accommodate the growing band of Mikiria followers. Inside it just had a simple polished stone floor. On the side were a couple of tables with a collection of candles on it, and at the far end of the temple was a marble statue of a beautiful dark elf female with short hair wearing a simple dress that barely reached her knees and had a long v neck. One of her hands was held out, and the other held a book by her side. There were also bunches of sitting cushions about as polished stone floors can be very cold. Lucinda went off to one of the tables in the side and lit an offering candle, then sat down on one of the cushions and prepared to mediate and slowly cleared her mind.
She suddenly felt a presence. She slowly opened her eyes and saw before her a beautiful dark elf female with short white hair wearing a simple dress that barely reached her knees and had a long V neck, but what really clued Lucinda in that this was not a mere mortal was the eyes of the female, which where white and glowing. She sat, unable to move at all as the figure looked at her and smiled. She heard the calming voice of a female elf as the figure spoke, “Welcome, Lucinda. This, I believe, is your first visit to my temple.”
Stunned into silence, Lucinda just nodded. The figure carried on her conversation like she could read Lucinda’s mind.
“I want to thank you for defending the city and not giving up.” Lucinda felt overwhelmed what could one say to a god that was thanking you. The figure turned and she then spoke again. “The priestess, Nataylia, has served me well, and she was going to eventually be one of my chosen, but her heart belongs to another. I wish you well.” With that, the figure vanished again, leaving Lucinda alone with her thoughts.
The view of Mexico City was quite nice, Gary thought to himself as he looked out the window of his hotel room. Just one more day to go. He checked his rucksack which had in it toothpaste, a couple of toothbrushes, a huge collection of five bladed razors, as well as a collection of tools, including a gun cleaning kit. He then checked one duffle bag which had in it all the guides he could fine on metallurgy, ballistics, and any sort of technology. This had been requested by Bloodhammer.
The second duffle bag contained packs of ammunition for his rifle and pistol as well as the AK-47 he had found. He also checked the clothes he planned to wear tomorrow, a pair of sturdy black boots, cameo pants with many pockets, and a jacket which also had many pockets. Since it was possible he was going to be summoned into a war zone, he wanted to be as heavily armed as possible.
He checked the gun belt he was going to wear, fitted for the thousandth time. He looked at the brand new laptop he brought and, making sure the internet was connected, hopefully if all went to plan, he thought to himself, Bloodhammer will be able to give me a ten minute warning before the summoning.
He picked up the rifle. He had given it a clean, and he was planning to go out of the city and do some target shooting. Luckily, he had found enough ammo to spare from that small shed. Which provided him ten grenades which should hopefully give him a fighting chance.
To say Gargamer was unimpressed with the enemy was an understatement. He felt confident as he marched on. The enemy had not laid out any traps or prepared any ambushes, and now they were right on the enemy doorstep. The skeleton warriors had made it first and where now patiently waiting for the order to advance. He waited back as the human and the grand necromancer rode up on their horses. The grand necromancer turned to the skeletons and waved his staff. They turned as one and slowly marched out of the cavern past the check post which were empty and on to one of the main roads leading to the centre of the cavern.
Cautiously, the orcs followed the skeletons, as did Gargamer, who looked around the rooftops to see if there was any sign of movement. Next, followed the human mercenaries. A little while down, the skeletons came to stop in front of a large statue of a dark elf woman with outstretched hands. On either side of the statue were flat roofed dark elf houses and a large barricade that had been put up. It felt wrong to Gargamer. He could feel some sort of magic at work. He looked at the statue, then saw something glint off in the distance and suddenly felt the hair on his neck stand up. A sudden bolt of purple lighting struck the statue, causing it to glow purple. The beam then jumped between the skeletons, causing them to glow as well.
As Zateria sat on her throne, she felt a tingling force. Her magic was being drained. She sat up and went to a pillar with a cloth covering what seemed to be a large ball. She pulled back the cover. It was the ball that encased the remains of Gary. Currently, it was a frustrating object. She had peered into his mind to find clues about the device that destroyed a large population of demons. All she had gotten were strange images of blinking windows, and valleys of glass, the off disembodied voice were she could only make out the words, “Please mind the gap.”
She had put the lack of communication down to distance and was in the process of working a spell to get an even stronger signal. Now the ball itself was quivering. The glass itself seemed to shake. She heard a creak and saw a crack appearing. The cracks grew. She stepped back before the ball rose up in the air and shattered in a loud bang into thousands of pieces. The only sound heard afterwards was the tinkle of thousands of small shards of glass on the floor. Well, she thought to herself, this was a turn for the books. He was back. She then smiled. Maybe at last she would get some answers.
The grand necromancer looked on in shock as he felt strange magic in the air. About three quarters of the skeletons suddenly rose and were smashed into the statue, which itself crumbled into a small, glowing, purple ball. The ball suddenly exploded in a bright light, and where there had been a skeleton army before was one slightly stunned human who was wearing a light grey, long sleeved jacket as well as a black shirt and black pants. He also had what seemed to be a strange shaped black pipe with a handle in his hands as well as two heavy square sacks next to him and a backpack on his back. Before he had any more time to figure out what was up with the strange man, he heard loud banging sounds and flashing as the human turned the pipe towards his men.
A ding sound next to his foot caught his attention and clued him in that the human in front was not the only one with strange magical weapons. He looked up and about a hundred dark elves and dwarfs were pointing strange pipes at him from the roof. He looked around and saw almost half of his men lying on the floor, wounded, and did the only logical thing one could do under such circumstances, and that was retreat. As he started to run, he saw the human running with him, and some of his men were running as well. He heard another loud bang as he turned and launched a couple of fireballs into the buildings where the Dark Elves seemed to be firing from.
Gary loaded another clip into his rifle as he searched for a new target. He brought the sites up to his eye and found a fleeing orc. He squeezed the trigger and felt the impact on his shoulder but did not seem to hear the round as the orc simply collapsed forward. Feeling the adrenaline surge through his body, he searched for another target. This time it was a skeleton that was quite close to him and was wearing just a chest plate and had a simple broadsword in his hands. Undead, he thought to himself and aimed for the skull, firing off a single shot which went in through the front and smashed out through the back into a nearby wall and taking a large chuck of the skull with it.