by Dante King
I’d left the old head of the guards, Bryn, in charge as my viceroy; he’d always been loyal to me, and he’d been at the Keep since before I was born. He knew how everything worked, and I knew I could trust him to take care of affairs in Brakith efficiently while I was away.
He’d make sure Edwin was kept under house arrest, after I’d released the whiny actor from the stocks on my shit-faced way to bed. The guards had been told I would personally release him when the time was right yesterday, and with all the bottomless chalices and “All hail Lord Vance Chauzec, God of Death!”s, it hadn’t exactly been at the top of my priority list.
Perhaps I should have considered some among my new disciples might have held back a little less than the townspeople when it came to publicly shaming someone who had betrayed their god. Still, I had released him and promised he wouldn’t be put back up there if he behaved under house arrest.
Though I wasn’t sure he’d heard me through the layer of crusted sewage and rot that he hadn’t been able to break away from his eyes and ears. I didn’t feel bad about this three-inch beauty mask my disciples had smeared on him, though. It was a fitting final night of mortification on the stocks for the pretty boy.
Anna had begged me to allow her to accompany me on the quest, but, even in my inebriated state, with my weakened resolve, I’d managed to tell her no. As smokin’ hot as she was, she was no warrior, and we didn’t need any extra baggage where we were going. Knowing she’d be here wet and waiting when I returned victorious wasn’t a bad motivator for completing the quest either.
Elyse, ever responsible, had gone to bed early and was thus feeling lively. Isu was as much of a loner as she ever was and seemed to be in a foul mood for having to come out of the crypts and walk about in the daylight again. Rollar was absorbed in the scrolls and tomes he’d brought along, reading them while riding his giant dire-bear. Drok simply jogged alongside us, at the very back or front of the train, depending on which way the wind was blowing so that we’d be out of range of his reek. He’d drunk himself to oblivion the night before and had maybe two or three hours of sleep, but the huge bastard seemed right as rain regardless.
I rode up ahead of everyone on Fang, with a division of my skeletal cavalry behind me. I rode in silence, alone, for a good few hours in the morning, but eventually my hangover, mild as it was, required me to get back to the supply wagon to refill my waterskin.
I lifted up the cover at the back of the wagon and then whipped out Grave Oath and cursed when I saw a pair of eyes staring out from under a pile of cloaks at me.
“You have about two fucking seconds to show yourself, you piece of shit,” I said, “before I turn that pile of cloaks into a soul-sucking pincushion with this dagger and make it the last place you ever fucking hide in your soon-to-be-short life.”
“It’s me, Vance! Please don’t hurt me!” a familiar voice protested, shrill with fright.
I groaned, slipped Grave Oath back into its sheath, and buried my face in my hands.
“Anna, for fuck’s sake,” I grumbled. “I told you that you weren’t allowed to come with me! What the fuck are you doing hiding back there?”
Anna climbed out of the pile of cloaks under which she’d been hiding. “I just… I had to come, Vance. It sounds stupid, but I had a dream that I really, really had to come with you on this quest. The Charm Goddess, Lucielle, spoke to me in the dream and said that she was in great danger. She needed your help, but if I didn’t come along on this quest, you wouldn’t be able to help her. I’m sorry for disobeying you, Vance, but I just had to. I had to come along. I can’t explain to you how vivid this dream felt and how important Lucielle’s message felt to me. You just have to trust me.”
I sighed and shook my head. “Well, I suppose we’ve already gone too far for you to make it back to Brakith on your own before nightfall, and I’m sure as hell not going to turn around and escort you all that way back. So, I guess—”
“Vance!” Rollar boomed from the front of the train, his voice hoarse with urgency. “We’ve got trouble, big trouble!”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Stay in the wagon, Anna. You’re no fighter, and I’ll never forgive myself if you get killed. Get back under the cloaks, now!”
I jogged out to where Fang was waiting for me at the very front of the train. I saw what Rollar was talking about before I got there. About a mile ahead, troops were pouring out of the woods onto the road. It was a force of northern barbarian cavalry, mounted on huge direwolves.
“Friends of yours?” I asked Rollar and Drok grimly.
“They’re not a band I know,” Rollar muttered. “But they look like marauders. The type who kill first and ask questions later.”
Drok, however, did seem to know them—and not in a good way.
“Enemies,” he growled. “And that one,” he shouted, pointing at a huge, red-haired barbarian on a black direwolf “he raid Drok’s village, steal Drok’s gold, kill Drok’s friends, and fuck Drok’s wife!”
“Well then,” I said as I jumped onto Fang and drew my kusarigama, “I guess it’s time to repay him the favor. Get ready for battle, everyone!”
Chapter Six
“You! Pretty man with big lizard,” the red-haired colossus on his huge direwolf bellowed, pointing his battle-axe at me. “I kill you first, then I take your women!”
“I’ve got a big lizard all right, asshole,” I roared back, “but you’re gonna be choking on it before this beautiful day is out, while I suck your fucking soul out through your eyeball!”
“Big words, pretty boy!” He raised his battle-axe high above his head. “But they not save you, or you women!” He shouted something in his barbarian tongue to his fellow warriors, and together, they let out a crashing roar.
My harpy would have been useful in this situation; I’d heard that northern barbarians, for all their bluster, were quite afraid of harpies—or anything large and menacing that was able to fly, really. It would have been great to have struck some fear into these louts’ hearts before crushing them like insects. But crushing them like insects would be satisfying regardless. My harpy was currently hundreds of miles away, searching for Rami-Xayon, homing in on her location using the piece of the broken artifact.
Well, that left more barbarian brawn for me to deal with, and I didn’t for a second doubt my ability to take all these cocky fuckers on without Talon. This fight was an exciting opportunity for me; I’d get to try my kusarigama’s restored wind powers in battle. I wish I’d had the chance to try out my new full plate armor, with its skeleton theme in gleaming black, too, but there would be plenty of opportunities for that in the future.
“Isu, you take the right flank,” I yelled, “Elyse, you take left! Rollar, bring your bear over here; you and I are gonna punch through their center like a titan’s fist! Drok, you run right behind us and finish off whoever we leave alive!”
Everyone shouted in agreement and got into their respective positions.
I shot strands of my consciousness into the minds of the skeletal cavalry division that was right behind me, and, at the very rear of the train, the skeletal infantrymen, led by Sarge, along with the division of zombie crusaders led by Captain Jandor. I maneuvered the skeletal cavalrymen into a wedge behind me while I directed the skeletal infantry to advance in a square behind Isu, and Jandor and his zombies to take up another square behind Elyse; this would prevent the barbarian direwolf cavalry from being able to smash through either my left or right flank; they’d be facing a wall of bodies, and even with their size and weight advantage over my troops—which was, admittedly, significant—they’d have a tough time plowing through us.
If the barbarians had any trepidation about facing a force of undead troops, though, they didn’t show it; instead, they formed up into a solid line, three ranks deep, and bellowed curses and insults at us while their direwolf mounts growled and snarled, flattened their ears, and bared their fangs. Most of the barbarian cavalrymen were armed with battle-axes, flails, and large morni
ng-star maces. While any of those weapons would quite easily smash one of my skeletal cavalrymen into a pile of shattered bones with one good hit, they were giving up a lot of reach. If they were impaled by one of my cavalrymen’s long lances before they could hit him with one of their massive weapons, their weapons’ crushing power advantage would be completely negated. These fuckers were going to taste the razor-sharp tips of my lances.
In the last couple of months, I’d practiced commanding large numbers of my undead troops simultaneously. I wasn’t sure if it was all the practice or all the new power coming in from the souls my many Temple of Necrosis followers had been taking for me, but I’d become much better at directing large groups of undead soldiers with individual commands instead of having them all perform identical actions.
It was a mental challenge, to be sure; observing through the eyes of dozens, if not hundreds of troops, at once was something that would very quickly fry every circuit in your brain if you weren’t prepared for it. After all the practice, it had become more instinctual than anything, really. I didn’t have to consciously think about it or analyze too much of what was going on; instead, it was almost like I was mounted on my harpy, flying high above the ground and observing whatever maneuver I was doing as if I was a boy again, playing battle board games with my father, moving little carved pieces around while taking in the totality of the action all at once. All this I felt while simultaneously experiencing the battle through the eyes and senses of every individual soldier.
In this way, I positioned my skeletal cavalrymen into a wedge, with their long lances couched. Rollar and myself on our huge mounts, with Drok directly behind the pair of us dual-wielding two huge battle-axes, formed the arrowhead of the wedge.
“Leave red-beard for me,” Drok said. “He rape Drok’s wife. Now, Drok rape him!”
“He’s all yours, my friend,” I said. “But I might ‘tenderize’ him a little before I hand him over to you.”
Drok’s gaze locked on the red-haired barbarian. “As long as Drok kill him.”
“Fine by me.” The immense pressure of a Wind Magic tornado built inside my kusarigama as I raised it above my head. “I hope you’re lubed up, assholes, because ready or not, here I come! Charge!”
With a howl and a rattle of bones, my troops and I charged, and with whoops and curses and wild screams, the red-haired asshole led his direwolf-mounted cavalry into a wild, undisciplined run, thundering down the broad road to meet us head-on.
I had to admit, as I kicked Fang into a thundering charge, that the sight of these massive barbarian warriors in their armor of furs, rusty steel, horned helmets, and leather, with their billowing hair and beards and tattooed faces, sitting atop equally massive direwolves, was an awe-inspiring sight. I decided there and then that I was going to resurrect every single one of these bastards as an undead warrior in my service.
The pressure of the tornado in my kusarigama was so powerful, it seemed ready to explode into splinters in my hands. Exactly the right time to release it. A man-sized tornado tore out of the weapon. While I was tempted to direct it at the red-haired leader, I sent it hurtling off to the side, aiming at a massive, obese barbarian warrior with long black dreadlocks and a beard down to his boulder-like gut instead. As he raced toward my troops seated on his direwolf, I sent the tornado smashing into him from the side.
The whirling wind plucked him off his wolf like the hand of a god—which it was, in a sense. Then I used the tornado with the 300-pound barbarian like a flail: directing the barbarian’s momentum and weight, I smashed through the ranks of his scruffy companions, bowling them off their mounts as they charged.
Inside the kusarigama, another tornado was building with rapidly increasing pressure. This one I directed at a tall, blond barbarian wearing a bear’s head for a helmet. Again, I used the mass of howling wind to pluck him off his mount, but this time, I made the tornado come at him from below, sweeping him just inches above the ground and whipping him across in a vicious arc. The flying rider-and-wolf smashed more charging wolves’ legs out from underneath them, causing the beasts to throw their riders face-first into the dirt.
Damn, this weapon was fun.
We were mere moments from impact now, so I switched up my kusarigama’s magic, drawing instead on its Death Magic so that I could channel the raw strength of my skeletons into the chain section.
The red-haired brute was barreling straight at me, intent on giving me a lil’ taste of that disproportionate battle-axe of his. Unfortunately for him, he was going to taste my kusarigama chain long before the blade of his axe got anywhere near me. I could have lopped his head off quite easily, but I’d promised Drok he could take this carrot-top’s life, so I reluctantly held back.
As he reared up on his direwolf, I whipped my kusarigama chain at his direwolf, channeling the strength of a few skeletons through the weapon. The chain hit the beast with the force of a dragon’s tail, sending it and the shocked rider up in the air. The beast crashed through the treetops 50 yards away, but I caught the barbarian by sprinting past him and whipping the kusarigama chain around him while he was airborne. Once my makeshift lasso caught, I snapped him backward, slamming him into the ground behind me as Fang and I hurtled onward.
The red-haired chump screamed as he was dragged along behind us, bouncing and lurching over every rock on the road. It was perhaps understandable, as Drok was running right behind us, hacking with his battle-axe at the man who’d screwed his wife, roaring out insults in his coarse barbarian tongue while he lopped the fool’s limbs off one by one.
That was one barbarian I wouldn’t be resurrecting; there wasn’t much left to resurrect by the time Drok was done with him. Just as I whipped the chain of the kusarigama back in front of me, with nothing but the red-haired asshole’s headless, limbless torso left hanging on, our forces met with ground-shaking impact.
As large as the direwolves and their mounts were, Fang was much bigger, and the momentum of his furious charge sent him smashing through their center like a raging bull plowing through a field full of lambs. Jerking his massive, blood-red head left and right, he sent wolves and riders flying, while Rollar’s gigantic direbear did the same beside me, cannoning through the barbarians like a boulder launched by a trebuchet.
As I sped through them, I leaned out of my saddle, slicing through barbarian warriors with the razor edge of the kusarigama blade. I clove torsos in half and removed heads and limbs as if they were made of nothing but wet paper. One of the barbarians aimed his direwolf in a flying leap at me, hoping to smash into me and knock me off of Fang. I ducked under the flying missile of wolf and man but aimed a quick upward slash at the wolf as it passed over me. It was sufficient to take its head off. Instinct made me dart out a hand and catch the decapitated wolf’s head as it fell in a blood-spraying whirl. In a spur of brutal inspiration, I jolted a charge of reanimating Death magic into the wolf’s head and hurled it at a passing barbarian. The suddenly alive-and-snapping wolf’s head clamped its jaws around the barbarian’s throat. He screamed as he fell off his mount, rolling in a chaotic cartwheel in the dirt as he tried to fight off the huge beast’s undead disembodied head.
To the left, Elyse was whipping her rope of light around, plucking enemies off their wolves and slamming them into the ground while Jandor and his zombies presented the charging enemy cavalry with an impenetrable wall of tower shields, against which their charge broke and shattered.
To the right, Isu was making short work of any barbarians who dared to attack her, blasting flesh-melting acid into their faces and the faces of their direwolves, sending them screaming in agony. Sarge, meanwhile, swung his golden greatsword around him in scything arcs and hacked off limbs and heads of direwolves and barbarians alike, with his skeleton infantrymen mopping up any momentarily lucky bastard who survived the combined onslaught of him and Isu.
Of course, the barbarians and their direwolves were inflicting some damage on my forces; whenever one of them managed to turn aside or dod
ge the thrust of one of my skeletal cavalrymen’s lances, or a skeletal infantryman’s sword or ax, they would invariably smash that skeleton to smithereens with the impact of their heavy weapons or the powerful jaws of their direwolves. In terms of overall damage, however, the northerners were taking worse than they gave, and it quickly became apparent to them that this was a battle they didn’t have a hope in hell of winning.
After plowing straight through the ranks of the barbarians, Rollar and I wheeled our mounts around and charged straight back into the battle. He used his magic hammer to blast earsplitting booms of thunder into the mass of barbarian cavalrymen, and the force of these blasts ripped them off their mounts, or terrified the wolves so much that they threw their riders off and ran yelping in fright from the battlefield.
In the thick of it, Drok was in berserker mode, his two huge axes flying around him like steel tornadoes, as he engaged multiple opponents at once. I jumped off Fang, Grave Oath gripped in one hand and my kusarigama in the other, and left my pet lizard to rampage on his own while I took on some barbarians on foot.
A huge, gray-haired veteran, his face almost entirely blue from tattoos, ran screaming at me, his long-handled battle-axe raised above his head. He took a downward swipe at me with the heavy weapon, but he hadn’t counted on my speed. I darted forward, under the blow, and slammed the kusarigama through his stomach in passing, impaling him on the blade. I then spun my body around in the opposite direction, stabbed Grave Oath into the back of his skull, and sucked his soul out of his lifeless body.
Before his body even hit the ground I was on to the next opponent—two of them actually, who came at me from both my left and my right at the same time. In a mere second, I drew on the power of half a dozen of my skeletons, channeling their combined strength into the kusarigama chain, which I whipped around me in a full 360-degree arc. The force of the chain hitting each barbarian, one a split second after the other, sent both of them flying out over the battlefield to crash into the trees on either side of the road.