by Matt Forbeck
The Orb had done that without Archie ordering it to happen. He wondered, had the Orb simply read his mind—as it seemed capable of doing—or had it anticipated his request and taken care of the matter for him? And since it could manage that, did it mean that the Orb of Dominance didn’t really need him in the end?
More questions that Archie didn’t think he wanted answered.
“Thank you,” Archie said aloud. “I wasn’t sure if I should leave some of the redstone golems behind to protect the place or not.”
Highblock Keep will be safe without you. And you will need all the help you can get against the Undead who plague both your people and the desert.
Archie started for the stairs, which would take him straight to the desert’s edge. The redstone golems lumbered after him, taking care not to damage anything. He was glad they had made the steps to Highblock Keep so deep and wide. Otherwise, creatures like these wouldn’t have been able to navigate them at all.
Once they reached the ground, Archie felt vulnerable again. Even with the redstone golems marching behind him, he missed the comfort of the walls of Highblock Keep.
“Could I not have sent the redstone golems out to help the Illagers on their own?” he asked. That way he could have remained safe inside his new home and not risked himself at all.
The redstone golems are not very smart. They need guidance from someone who can understand the situations they might find themselves in.
Archie nodded at that. As much as he didn’t like the answer, it made sense. The iron golems that protected villages worked something like that. They were strong and tenacious but relatively easy to fool. But with someone like him guiding them with a strong hand, they would be truly dangerous.
“An army needs a leader.” Archie thought he could hear the Orb chuckling softly in agreement.
With that, Archie led his current army—small in number, but large in size—into the desert. The redstone golems followed him without question or complaint as they rumbled along beneath the scorching sun. Archie thought about commanding one of them to walk close enough to him to provide him with some shade, but the fear of being squashed by a wayward foot made him put that notion aside.
As they traveled, Archie realized that he had only a rough idea of where he could find the Illager raiding party. He knew where they had been at dawn when he’d been watching them survive the battle with the Undead mobs, but he didn’t know where they might have gone since then. He considered trying to use the Orb to look for them again, but it seemed like perhaps that wouldn’t work properly if he wasn’t sitting in his chair at the top of the Obsidian Pinnacle.
We will find them.
Archie didn’t even want to ask how. He’d put all his faith in the Orb of Dominance up until now. This would be a rotten time to start arguing with it.
As they moved deeper into the desert, Archie spotted the temple out of which the Undead had been streaming. It stood silent at the moment. Not a living thing moved on or around it, not even a bird. It seemed like it had been built and abandoned untold centuries ago.
Give the Desert Temple a wide berth for now.
“I thought the redstone golems would be enough to protect me.”
They should be sufficient for most purposes, but they are a force, not an army.
“Can they at least take on the Undead attacking the Illagers?” For an instant Archie wondered if the Orb had brought him out here to die.
You need not worry about my loyalty. I serve you, and only you. We are bound together.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
The golems should be able to take on a force of Undead similar to that which you witnessed this morning. Especially if the Illagers will help us.
Archie’s stomach twisted into a knot. He didn’t know if the Illagers would be happy to see him. He hoped that they would welcome the opportunity that he and his redstone golems would be able to offer them, but Thord wasn’t his biggest fan.
There was a chance the Illager evoker would sneer at Archie and refuse his help. There was even a possibility that he’d order the raiding party to attack Archie and his redstone golem band. If that happened, Archie would be forced to defend himself—and that would be terrible all around.
They will not attack us.
“You don’t know them like I do.”
If they attack us, we will exterminate them.
The idea of finally having the upper hand over Thord appealed to Archie. In the past, he’d preferred to avoid fights in general, mostly because he knew that he would lose them. The fact that he might win a fight now didn’t make him any more eager to start it—especially if it meant that he might wind up ending some of his fellow Illagers in the process.
But if he could humiliate Thord in front of the others? He wouldn’t mind that a bit.
“What if they hurt the redstone golems?” Archie had only a handful of them to rely on. If he had to fight the Undead with them, he didn’t want to waste any of his mighty subjects on fighting people who should have been his allies rather than his enemies.
We can always make more.
Archie gasped. If they could manufacture more redstone golems, then why were they wasting their time looking for the Illagers? Other than to save them, of course.
It just seemed like it would have been simpler to make more subjects than to bring Illagers into the fold. The redstone golems followed his orders without question, and they never mocked him or talked back. He didn’t feel like he’d get nearly the same kind of respect out of his fellow Illagers.
Plus, he wouldn’t have had to leave behind the safety of Highblock Keep!
Making new redstone golems is not a simple process. It requires more heat than can be found in Highblock Keep.
Heat? Archie knew where he could find plenty of heat.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
By the time the sun set, Archie and his redstone golems still hadn’t found the Illager raiding party. They had made it all the way around to the southern side of the Desert Temple, but no matter where Archie looked, he couldn’t find any members of his former tribe.
The Undead, though, began to appear the instant the sun’s rays no longer fell on the gates of the Desert Temple. One by one they came shuffling or clattering out of it, forming a well-spaced line that stretched toward the darkest parts of the desert. They didn’t seem to have any destination in mind, but they clearly hungered for fresh prey.
Despite the size of the redstone golems, Archie did his best to keep them out of the way of the Undead mobs. To his amazement, they managed it. The mobs ignored them, barely even looking in their direction.
With the fall of dusk, Archie was ready to give up on finding the Illager raiding party until the morning. He looked around for a tall dune on which he could set up camp, and he wondered if he could manage to climb up on one of the redstone golems’ shoulders and fall asleep there. He didn’t think it could be any worse than snoozing in the branches of a tree.
The Illagers are not far off.
“How do you know that?”
Archie suppressed a moment’s irritation at the Orb. Did it know where the Illager raiding party was? Had it known the entire time they’d been wandering around lost?
Listen.
Archie opened his mouth to snap an angry retort at the Orb, telling it to listen to him, but before he could manage it, he realized what the Orb meant. He shut his mouth carefully and held his breath. He closed his eyes, cocked his head to the side, and reached out with his raised ear.
Off in the distance, over the groaning of husks, he heard the twanging of bowstrings, the clash of steel, and the cries of the injured and the dying.
He opened his eyes and swung his head about as if it were on a swivel. He took the measure of the sounds as he did, until he managed to determine the direction from which they echoed acros
s the dunes.
Then he finally remembered to breathe.
“That way.” He marched off in that direction, using the staff as a walking stick. The redstone golems fell in line behind him.
Eager to get a good look at what he’d been hearing, Archie hustled ahead. The sounds became louder as he approached their source, but the desert played tricks on him. Every time he topped a dune, he fully expected to see the battle playing out before him, but he was disappointed several times before he finally came upon it.
When he finally reached the fight, Archie skidded to a halt in the sand at the peak of the final dune and took it all in. Below him, a horde of Undead mobs fought in pitched battle with the Illager raiding party.
There were more husks and skeletons this time than before, and tonight they were being ordered around by a skeletal figure wearing a bejeweled circlet on its head and long, priestly robes. It wielded a staff, much like the one Archie held, but without a glowing Orb floating atop it. The figure hovered just above the ground, its feet never touching the sands below it.
A necromancer. An ancient wizard that uses death magic to control the Undead.
That sounded like the worst thing Archie had ever heard of, even in his cruelest nightmares. He’d run into Undead before, but he’d never thought too much about where they might come from. They just showed up every night—kind of like bats in the darkened sky—and disappeared in the daylight. The idea that they might be directed by something—or someone—chilled him to the bone.
That explained, he supposed, why the husks and skeletons had managed to surround the Illager raiding party tonight. Generally the Illagers were faster than the Undead and managed to keep away from them until they were ready to bring the fight to them. Somehow, though, the creatures had penned the Illagers in on all sides, and they were closing the trap around them in the deadliest ways.
Archie didn’t know what came over him. He hated fighting and wanted to stay as far away from it as possible. In the past, he would have frozen up and simply watched the battle devolve into carnage until there were no Illagers left to scream to him for help.
Now, though, he stood tall in front of his redstone golems, pointed toward the Undead with his Orb-topped staff, and shouted, “Charge!”
The redstone golems obeyed without hesitation. They lumbered straight into the battle with no concern for their own safety. They wanted only to please their master.
The Undead didn’t pay much attention to the assault. They had their hands, bows, and teeth full dealing with the Illagers they were attacking. The fact that the desert sands were suddenly thrumming under their feet didn’t bother them in the slightest.
The necromancer spotted the redstone golems, but not before they were only a dozen strides away. It spun about and waved its staff, ordering some of the Undead to break off and face the incoming threat, but it was too late for them to do much about it.
The redstone golems slammed into the Undead like a roaring tide smashing into a beach. They swept aside husks like they were tiny children, and they stomped the skeletons to pieces and ground their bones beneath their feet.
A shout of surprise went up among the beleaguered Illagers, and then a raw-voiced cheer. They had started to flag with exhaustion and had prepared themselves to face their final moments with their inevitable defeat. Newly heartened, they raised their weapons once again to aid in the destruction of the Undead.
Archie felt like cheering himself as he watched the battle play out from a relatively safe distance, just beyond bowshot, should an enterprising skeleton get any heroic notions into its skull. The redstone golems were doing better against the Undead than he could have hoped.
Then the necromancer waved its staff again. Every one of the husks still standing turned and focused their silent hunger on a single one of the redstone golems. They surrounded it on all sides and pulled at it with their rotting fingers and bit at it with their broken teeth while the Illagers and the other redstone golems busied themselves with beating the skeletons to pieces instead.
Archie watched in horror as the husks overwhelmed the victimized redstone golem. The creature swung recklessly at anything within reach, knocking husk after husk away from its rocky self, but every creature it slammed aside was replaced instantly.
The relentless onslaught wore the creature down. Its leg gave out, and it fell to one knee. In an instant, the husks clambered over it like it was a small hill and tore at it until it fell onto the sand in a glowing heap.
Archie knew right away that the redstone golem was done.
Despair filled his heart. He only had so many of these creatures, and the Undead appeared to be limitless. Even if he carried the battle that night, would the losses leave him with enough redstone golems to protect Highblock Keep? Was he going to be a hero one night only to lose everything he’d gained the next?
You need an army. If you fail here, the most you can hope for is to spend the rest of your days sealed in Highblock Keep with the drawbridge raised.
Archie wasn’t convinced that would be so bad. It would be lonely, sure, but he was used to being lonely. And it would be much better than how he’d lived when he’d been wandering the land on his own. At least he’d be safe and warm.
You don’t really want to waste such power by hiding it away. Power is meant to be used.
Someone had hidden the Orb of Dominance away, Archie knew, but not for what purpose. The fact that Archie had never heard of that person or the power of the Orb perhaps proved that point. Did Archie really want to live quiet and forgotten when he could become a legend?
He’d never dreamed of such a destiny before. He’d had a hard enough time keeping himself from being beaten up. But now, with all this power at his disposal, how could he bear to waste it?
With renewed determination, Archie took his staff and pointed it straight at the Undead leader. “Take down the necromancer!” he shouted.
The remaining redstone golems turned as one to execute Archie’s order. Ignoring the skeletons still firing arrows at them, they lumbered directly toward the necromancer.
When the necromancer realized the redstone golems were coming after him, he thrust his free hand in the air and recalled the husks to his side. They abandoned the downed redstone golem, which was now nothing more than a heap of glowing rubble, and hurried to their master’s aid.
Meanwhile, the skeletons broke off from the redstone golems and the heartened Illagers and made straight for Archie. This turn of events surprised him, as up until that point he’d felt like he’d been untouchable. The first arrows fired at him fell well short of hitting him—but not short enough for his liking.
He thought of turning and fleeing into the desert. Surely the redstone golems and the Illager raiding party would be fine on their own. Once the redstone golems killed the necromancer, the other mobs would be easy for them to deal with.
You are a leader. Leaders do not flee.
Archie groaned out loud. He knew the Orb of Dominance was right, but he felt like he would personally be much better off as a living coward than a dead leader.
You can defeat any Undead who dare come near you. Do it.
Archie looked up at the glowing Orb and realized it was right. He was panicking over nothing. He only needed to use the power it had granted him.
He held his staff high and willed the Orb to destroy the incoming Undead.
Archie had worried that the Orb wouldn’t be able to reach the skeletons until they were too close for comfort. It had been one thing to destroy those husks atop the hollow mountain. The Orb could destroy long before they managed to put Archie in any real danger. But could it defeat the skeletons before they drew close enough to fire their arrows into him?
He shouldn’t have worried. The Orb had not once steered him wrong so far, and it didn’t do so now. It fired out powerful bolt after bolt so fast that
it incinerated the skeletons closest to him just as they were about to loose their bowstrings. Their weapons clattered to the ground where they had once stood, their arrows rolling away behind them.
Archie let out a little cheer of his own. Perhaps that wasn’t the thing a strong and confident leader would do, but he didn’t care. He was too thrilled to keep his excitement to himself.
Fortunately, the necromancer didn’t have a similar means of responding to the redstone golems. Its husks had rallied to its side, but the much-larger golems were busily stomping them into paste. As Archie watched, one of the golems broke through the husks and smashed a redstone fist right into the necromancer’s face. The necromancer reeled back, staggered by the blow.
Meanwhile, more of the skeletons approached Archie, following the necromancer’s last orders to them, which must have been something like, “Kill the person with the glowing Orb on a staff.” They didn’t seem to have any sense of self-preservation. They just kept marching toward him, and the Orb kept lancing fresh bolts of power through them.
The Illager raiding party had stopped fighting at this point. The ones who were still on their feet were checking on their injured friends, seeing what they could do to help them. Without the Undead mobs attacking them, they could haul the ones who could be saved away from the battle and then get ready to leap back into the fracas should their savior not prove up to the task.
Another of the redstone golems went down under a pile of husks. The loss caused Archie to groan in dismay, but the resultant movement of the husks toward the downed golem opened up a gap in the line they’d formed in front of the necromancer. Two of the remaining redstone golems dashed forward and began knocking the necromancer back and forth between them like a bony punching bag.
In a matter of moments, the necromancer crumbled to the ground in a heap of broken bones.
When that happened, the other Undead mobs lost their unity. The husks were content to keep attacking the golems, but the skeletons decided that perhaps it was best to keep their distance from Archie and his stunningly effective Orb.