Absalom’s Trials

by J. D. L. Rosell

  But though they were blinded, their attacks, already in motion, didn’t stop. One trident took me just below the knee, and another near my opposite hip. As my health hit below 10%, I could scarcely believe what was happening. I'd been so confident I could overcome a dozen Naiad soldiers. Blind soldiers even! But once again, I'd been proven wrong. I’d lost.

  As I sank to my knees, the last trident bit deep into my throat. I tasted bitter metal. Then nothing.

  You have died.

  All your items remain at the location of your death. You or any other player may retrieve them at any time.

  You are also weakened by your resurrection. While weakened, you receive a -25% penalty to all attributes and meters, which will cease at the end of 3 hours. This penalty will become more severe with subsequent deaths.

  Next time, don’t suck, Marrow.

  As I awoke, the penalty weighing heavily on me, I realized my struggles weren't actually over. Sure, I didn't have armor, weapons, or dignity. But that didn't mean I could just call it quits. I had magic and channels still. And most important of all, I had authority. Even if I myself couldn't fight effectively, I could still supervise.

  I glanced down at myself. Supervising in my underwear. Great.

  But I made myself rise anyway from the floor of the resurrection shrine and start moving. The shrine I'd spawned at was apparently on the other side of the city, so I had a ways to hustle. Nothing for it but to go. I set my jaw and started running.

  Not nearly as many people stared as I thought they would, though considering a battle was still going on and their lives were in danger, I didn't blame them. My lack of clothing wasn't the only discomfort though. My feet were soon raw and bleeding from running on the rough cobblestones, and I acquired statuses of Minor Bleeding and Minor Limp. I ignored them and pushed on for as long as my stamina held out, then hobbled along as it recovered. I left a trail of bloody footprints behind.

  Finally, the eastern gate came into view. Only I'd forgotten one thing: the Cerulean Empire had already breached the walls. What I stumbled into was an open melee on the streets. Burghmen fought Naiads up and down every alley and on every stoop, a battle broken up into skirmishes. It was chaotic and made it impossible to know who was winning and who was losing. I stared around, dazed, in the middle of the street. What could I do about this, nearly naked and unarmed? What had I ever been able to do?

  I was startled from my stupor a moment later when two of the Naiads broke off and made for me. I didn't even think of magic or faith. Somehow, the confusion of the scene flipped on the reptile part of my brain. I was already in enough pain. I was scared. I didn’t have any real hope that we could win. And suddenly, it was all too much to keep going.

  So as the enemy bore down on me, I turned tail and ran the other way.

  Breath hissing between my teeth, I kept looking over my shoulder, hoping they'd leave off the chase and go fight more obvious enemies. But the trail of bloody footprints must have been too tantalizing, for the Cerulean soldiers kept on after me. I turned into an alley and started to climb, wanting nothing but to be left alone. A second later, I realized there was no way I’d make it up before they attacked me. I wasn’t thinking straight. Was this because of the death penalty? Or was I totally losing my grip?

  I turned and faced the two Naiads as they stepped into the alley. Somehow, they loomed larger than the ones that had come before. It wasn’t their stats; I checked just to be sure, but they were still the same level 12 as the others. It was all in my head, yet I couldn’t banish the impression. My hands trembled as I raised them, and my mind was blank of any spells or channels.

  “Marrow,” a voice whispered in my ear.

  I startled. “Ava?”

  The Naiads paused their advance, confused by my conversation with seemingly no one.

  “I know I’m supposed to give you advice or something,” my Specter companion whispered. “But you already know everything you need to. And I’m supposed to give you a sword or an item that will save you, but you’ve gotten plenty of those, or at least do in your loot pile. So with all the love in the world, here’s the best thing I can do for you.”

  “Ava, what are you—?”

  My words were promptly cut off as an invisible hand slapped me squarely across the face.

  I staggered. “Are you kidding me?!” I roared.

  The Cerulean soldier looked more skeptical than ever. But they knew they had a duty, and they started forward again, tridents held menacingly forward.

  “Good luck!” And though she’d been invisible the whole time, I somehow knew she was actually gone. Leaving me to face the two soldiers without a lick of help.

  Rage boiled up in me. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that I didn’t have clothes or weapons, or that I’d just died earlier, or that I was probably going to fail this trial. The rage burned that all away. All that mattered was making these two bastards pay for it.

  I could have made it easy, just channeled Basilisk’s Gaze or Icy Plume then taken them out, but I didn’t want easy right then. I charged at them at a full sprint. They hesitated, then both realized it’d be an easy kill if they just held their tridents out to gore me.

  Exactly what I’d expected them to do. Spinning around them at the last second, I took a scrape of a prong along my side but got inside their reach and grabbed hold of one of the tridents, then butted the end of it into one of the soldiers’ crotch. Apparently they did have reproductive parts there, for he doubled over immediately. As he lost his grip on his trident, I seized it and thrust the haft in the face of his fellow, hitting one of the black eyes and setting him off balance. I stabbed the butt of the trident through the eye of the one I’d taken the pot-shot at, then stuck the second in the throat with the pointy end. They fell limply to the ground.

  I grinned down at my handiwork, blood dripping from my hands. That was more like it.

  I took a deep breath then let it out, the smell of fresh blood and dead fish-men almost a perfume. With Ava’s help, I had my confidence back. And even more important, I’d found the anger that had kept me going through these damned trials so far. If anything was going to get me through the rest of this battle, it was that.

  20

  For Glory (And All That)

  After patching my health with Minor Healing, I stalked out of the alley with a trident in hand, then began to run. But this time, I wasn’t running away. I was running toward the front and the breached walls. I was going to fight this to the last.

  And as I set toward it, it suddenly crystallized in my mind what I had to do. I’d used my mind all I could to strategize and win this battle, but now, that wasn’t going to do anything. This wasn’t the Trial of Generalship. It was the Trial of Glory. And nothing was more glorious than a last-second rally.

  As the wall came into view, so did the sounds of fighting and screams of the dying. I slowed, but not from fear anymore. No matter how well I fought, I was never going to inspire people if I was nearly naked. Looting the dead might be frowned upon, but it wouldn’t be my first time. I knelt next to a Burghman who looked like he’d died from a stab in the side. “Sorry, pal,” I muttered as I stripped off his armor. A leather hauberk, a chainmail shirt, trousers with minimal protection, and leather boots — I wouldn’t look impressive, but I didn’t have to. Maybe an ordinary soldier was exactly the person the defenders of Stalburgh needed to see leading the charge. I also took the man’s sword, a regular crude iron one with half its durability left, and a round wooden shield. I left the helmet where it was. Like Clay Cooper, I didn’t need a helmet falling into my eyes and getting in the way. I’d do as well without.

  I saw a pair of Naiads closing in on a soldier and grinned. Here’s where it started; one soldier saved. I ran toward him with high hopes. But before I could arrive, the Cerulean soldiers ran him through.

  I skittered to a stop. Bummer. Then I shrugged and I killed them anyway.

  Then it was on to the next skirmish, and the next one. Sometimes I
arrived soon enough to save the soldier or group of soldiers; more often, I didn’t. But slowly, I began to gather a knot of Burghmen around me, Humans and Devalyn and Satyr and Gnarish, all banding together to defend their home city.

  “To me!” I shouted. And as we cut down more and more of the Naiads, the defenders of Stalburgh rallied around me.

  The gates, which had been busted open and teemed with the soldiers of the Cerulean Empire, came into sight, and the soldiers around me quailed. So I cast Mass Deception once more, but instead of summoning Naiads, I summoned Burghmen. They suddenly streamed in from the alleys, and the soldiers around me were astounded, but didn’t question it. As one, they roared and surged forward, and I led them at the front.

  We fought more like cornered beasts than men, simply to stay alive than for a high ideal like glory. Winning was glory enough for us.

  Even with my death penalty, I fought as hard as any of them. I battered a soldier down with my shield, than ran him through with my crude sword. “For Stalburgh!” I shouted.

  “For Stalburgh!” my soldiers around me shouted, and fought on.

  I used Hamstring a dozen times, leaving the crippled Naiads behind for my soldiers to clean up. “For Ebretin!” I yelled.

  “For Ebretin!” they echoed, heartened at the immediate kills.

  But no matter how many rallying shouts I called, that didn’t change the fact that dozens more Naiads poured through the gate with every passing second. As I fought, my stamina flagging toward null, despair began to creep in again. There wouldn’t be any glorious last push to get the Naiads out of the city; there were far too few Stalburgh defenders left. I was going to lose, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Or almost nothing.

  I staggered back from the fight and raised my hand. I had made a promise not to use the greatest power of the Ghost Ring again, made a promise to the very god of the Specters himself, Mordreth. I had said I wouldn’t yoke all the Specters of Kalthinia to fight for me again. But if this was the only thing I could do to win the trial, I had to risk breaking that promise. I knew the consequences for failure. A broken promise, even to a deity, was worth avoiding Faze-Aught.

  I raised the hidden ring and shouted, “Faq’dohl!”

  Immediately, the ground swirled with mist. Phantoms formed from it, swords and spears and axes in their hands. Soldiers of the Empire and Ebretin alike cried out in fear and retreated as Specters suddenly stood among and around them, hovering pale and vacant and menacing.

  I pointed at the Naiads. “Kill.”

  They set to their butchery.

  A second later, the ring burned on my hand, and I cried out. This hadn’t happened before. Then the pain hit my head, and I fell, barely conscious of my body.

  “You broke your promise!” the voice of an old, angry man hissed in my head. “You do not deserve the Dominion Ring you wear!”

  “Please, Mordreth!” I cried out. “I have to! I have to win!”

  “Not like this!”

  The Ghost Ring burned even hotter, and I knew my finger was a goner. But that was the least of my concerns. I needed those soldiers.

  “Father!”

  Suddenly, the heaving pain in my head abated, as did the burning of the ring. I sat up, dazed. “Ava?” I asked uncertainly.

  “Daughter,” Mordreth’s voice said in my head. He still sounded angry, but there was a gentleness to him now.

  Ava suddenly materialized next to me. “Please, Father,” Ava pleaded. “Permit him this one transgression, disgusting as it is. Take away the Ghost Ring after this if you must, but please, he must succeed!”

  I blinked my blurry eyesight at my Spectral companion. Once again, she was intervening to save me.

  Mordreth sighed in my head. “I’m sorry, Avaline. But I cannot allow the enslavement of those placed under my charge.”

  Just like that, the reprieve was over, and the burning in the Ghost Ring came back with a vengeance. I cried out and stared at my hand in horror, for the middle finger of my right hand was blackened and crumbling to ash amidst the burning white band. A moment later, the finger completely fell off, and the Ghost Ring dissipated into thin air as it did. I collapsed, just hoping someone would come along to finish me off and let the pain end. I’d take an even deeper death penalty if the pain would just stop.

  A cool hand touched my forehead. “I tried, Marrow,” Ava said softly. “And I bought you a little time. See? The army has cleared away the Naiads from the gates. But you’ll have to win the rest of this on your own.”

  “Thank you,” I murmured to her. By force of will alone, I opened my eyes and met hers. She smiled and traced her hand along my face. Then with my next blink, she was gone like she’d never been there.

  I groaned and sat up, clutching my injured hand to me. My struggle with the Spectral God had cut my health down to literally 1. It was probably intentional, but whether it was to spare me or torture me, I couldn’t tell. Still, it was nothing a couple rounds of channeling Minor Healing didn’t put aright. I stood, refreshed, except for one thing. The finger that had once bore the Ghost Ring hadn’t regenerated, but was still missing, the knuckle black and ashy. I swallowed and put it out of mind, picked up my sword and shield where I’d dropped them, and looked around.

  Ava had told the truth: the Specter army had indeed pushed the Cerulean army well away from the gates and back outside Stalburgh, slaughtering Naiads as they went. It wasn’t a complete sweep, but it was enough of a rout for me to accept. Or would be so long as someone closed the damned gates soon. Looking around, I didn’t immediately see Burghmen until I looked closer into the nearest shadowed alleys. There, men and women in armor cowered, staring wide-eyed where Specters had slaughtered the enemy just moments before.

  I waved at them impatiently, then pointed to the gates. “Get them closed!” I roared. “Before the frogs return!” I wasn’t proud of using the slur, but I thought it might rouse the soldiers into compliance.

  One of them snapped out of their stupor and started running for the wall stairs. Others were quick on his heels. Within minutes, the Burghmen had cranked the gates closed again.

  I climbed the walls and looked out. There was still a sea of bodies, but many of them were lying down. Thousands of dead from both sides. My stomach turned at the sight, and I had to swallow. But there was an even more welcome sight. The dark blue uniforms and banners of the Cerulean Empire weren’t coming close for another assault. They were growing further away.

  The Cerulean Empire was retreating.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d done it. I’d rebuffed the Naiads’ attack. Sure, I’d lied and cheated and schemed my way into it without a lick of glory, but I’d done it. That was good enough for me.

  One of the soldiers pointed up in the sky. “What’s that?”

  My stomach sunk.

  “Crows for a feast, I’d bet!” one of them guessed.

  “All at once?” the first questioned.

  One finally thought to pull out a spyglass. “Fickle gods,” he moaned, and crumpled to the stone.

  “What?” the second demanded.

  “The eagles are coming!” a soldier shouted randomly.

  But I knew this wasn’t the Battle of Five Armies. The birds weren’t coming for our side.

  “I… I think they’re sky elves,” the one who’d looked through the spyglass said faintly from the ground.

  I closed my eyes and didn’t do anything. What could I do? The enemy was in the sky, and I had nothing with that kind of range. And Basilisk’s Gaze was useless against Valyn.

  Despite the situation, I felt a smile slowly spread across my face. It was time to test the theory I’d been harboring. I’d hoped the Valyn wouldn’t show up after all, but now that they had, there was nothing for it but to wait and see.

  “Open the gates,” I said to soldiers next to me.

  They looked at me with confusion. “What for? We just closed them!”

  “Let me through and close them ag
ain for all that it matters. Just let me out.”

  Without waiting for an answer, I headed down the stairs and stood before the gate. Apparently, my charisma was still sufficient even with my death penalty to compel them to obedience, for they cracked open the gate enough for me to slip through. Letting the sword and shield slip from my arms, I started to run onto the battlefield.

  I left Stalburgh to its fate as the sun-fliers swooped down on the city.

  21

  Standing Trial

  I found the loot of my dead body through a useful feature I hadn’t noticed before: a marker on my map showing where I’d died. Guess I’d never had too much occasion to notice it before these damned trials. Ignoring the resuming battle behind me as the Valyn descended on Stalburgh, I stripped off the dead Burghman’s armor and put on my old equipment. Waste not, want not — rather than just discard it, I put the armor in my bag. The thought made me regret dropping the shield and sword earlier. Sometimes I was too dramatic for my own good, or at least for maximal peddling profit.

  I rolled my shoulders and sighed as I tried blotting out the screams of the dying back on Stalburgh’s walls. Sorry, my brief comrades. But there was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do. I just had to let it run its course.

  I headed west across the open battlefield, navigating around corpses and fallen machines of war, until I reached the forested hills where the druids had set up the Roots gate. As I drew nearer, I came across more bodies, and these strangely deformed. Instead of wounds by swords and spears and arrows, these were savaged as if by wild animals. The answer why lay all around me. Dead Fralishk littered the field as well as Naiads. Also pocketing the hills were the holes and tunnels I’d instructed them to dig, a task which they’d accomplished with impossible speed. I felt a bit guilty using the fox-rat people in a war that wasn’t their own, but what choice had I had? We’d nearly fallen to the Cerulean Empire even with all the tricks I’d pulled out. I couldn’t look back now.