by Jim Galford
Along the way, both kits faltered at one point or another, but he kept scooping them back onto their feet and hurrying them along. By the time they entered the village proper, dozens of the residents were armed and marching in his direction.
“Large force coming up the valley!” Estin called to the nearest of the barbarians—Bockkan, he realized after he had spoken—who appeared to be in charge of the group. “Secure the entrance to the village. Don’t let anything past you that you don’t already know belongs here.”
Bockkan pounded his chest in acknowledgement, then raised his spear, calling for his men to follow him into battle. As one, the twenty men and women charged northward, disappearing into the trees.
With the kits in tow, Estin ran again, then stopped when he heard another horn cry from the south. This one was cut short, too.
“Children,” Estin said nervously, kneeling between them, “where are your daggers? Go get them and meet me at Ulra’s tent. Bring your mother if you see her.”
They both ran off, going exactly where he told them to. That alone let him know that they understood the severity of what was happening.
The horn cries had done their duty and as Estin made his way towards Ulra and Doln’s home, he watched the village rapidly mobilize. The young and elderly were being hurriedly moved towards the west end of the valley by a cluster of younger warriors and hunters, where the valley narrowed and could be defended with a smaller number of people. Meanwhile, everywhere else, every able being of any race and breed was being armed and rapidly trained by several dwarven smiths. It was honestly the first time Estin had ever seen some of the wildlings look as though they would fight anything, with even the prey breeds carrying weapons nervously.
Up on the mountainsides, Estin could just make out groups of halflings, arming massive traps that would either collapse the valley entrances, or hopefully crush whoever was invading. That had been an idea of Feanne’s only a week earlier and he hoped that it would pay off.
Within seconds of reaching Ulra’s tent, he could hear the first echoed sounds of fighting in the north valley. Bockkan’s men were far off, he knew, but their cries and challenges rang through the air, warning everyone that those who had arrived were not friendly and that the battle had begun. The calls to battle were very quickly replaced by the screams of the dying.
“Ulra!” Estin called, spotting the bear with her mate not far off. They were herding a group of young elves towards the west, as Finth sat near their tent, pulling on a suit of rusted chainmail.
Finth glanced up at him and hurried in fastening his belt, rushing over to join the group as Estin came to a halt near Doln.
“Do we have any defense groups set up?” he asked, though Ulra shook her head immediately. “Where are Linn and Yoska?”
“Arming and meeting us at your tent, along with anyone they can find,” Finth told him, motioning back towards Estin and Feanne’s tent. “The plan is to guard that location so that you can use your fancy little circle to raise our fallen, or whatever in the planes you do with that thing. If we can hold the damned thing long enough, we might be able to beat off whoever’s gotten it in their head to stomp on us. Feanne already knows and is gathering others.”
The group took a little while to head back the way Estin had come, having to stop repeatedly to guide smaller groups towards or away from the center of the village, where they intended to hold their ground. By the time they did arrive, nearly forty men and women had formed a giant ring around the single tent. All the nearby structures had been torn down hastily and tossed aside to provide better visibility for when the intruders arrived. Anything that did enter the valley would need to come near that tent to head westward.
A distant explosion in the north told Estin that things were not going well and the halflings’ trap had been sprung.
“Get inside,” Linn barked when he saw Estin. The man was decked head to toe in armor and had managed to find a decent sword and shield somewhere. “We’ve got two more healers out here with us. Feanne wants you on the circle, until we need you outside.”
He rushed through the tight crowd, losing Finth, Ulra, and Doln as they joined the others. Pushing into the tent, he cringed at seeing Oria and Atall still there, sitting beside Feanne at the middle of the tent. Both children looked up nervously as he came in, their hands on their knives.
“We are in trouble, Estin,” Feanne whispered, her eyes distant. “The Miharon may be gone, but I can still feel the woods through the gifts he gave me. Something is defiling the land as it comes this way. The woods are screaming out against it.”
“Undead?”
Feanne nodded.
“I believe so. I did not feel this when the elementals got close. I cannot think of anything else that would upset nature this gravely. Even so, there are a lot of them. I felt nothing like this when small groups attacked. Even Insrin’s village did not feel this dire.”
Estin watched the children’s faces, but they were fighting to keep a calm demeanor. Neither reacted at all to their mother’s remarks, but he could still see the tension in them.
Sitting down at the edge of the healing circle, Estin touched the stones that made up its border, testing the magic. He had not needed the conduit to the spirits since the circle had been completed, so he wanted to familiarize himself with its feel before the battle began. He only hoped that he would not need to use it.
His fingers passing through the circle harmlessly, Estin felt the familiar openness to the realm of the spirits, the touch of those recently dead passing through his mind, waking him to their calls. It was something Asrahn had taught him to be aware of when he entered such a circle, allowing him to immediately hear the cry of any spirit that sought his aid in returning to the world. This time though, something felt off. The magic was not quite as he remembered it, but he could not find words to describe what was different. He shrugged back the thought and reminded himself that he had not used that particular circle before and it was likely just the newness of it that he was feeling.
“They’re here!” came a woman’s call outside, just as a crack of magical energy left the air with a scent of ozone. That was soon followed by the twang of many dozens of bows being fired.
Within seconds, Estin could hear the crashes of hundreds of weapons and bodies impacting as the war lines collided. He closed his eyes and cringed at the sounds, trying to block them out, as every new cry and shout made him want to go outside all the more. Some of the screams he recognized, making it all that much more painful.
“You may go,” Feanne told him, her gaze still distant as she brushed at both children, almost as though she were reassuring herself they were still there. “If the time comes, I can hold the tent against whatever comes. No one will touch the children or the circle while I draw breath. Just be sure to return if our allies begin dying.”
Estin knelt in front of her, cradling her head against his for just a moment. He repeated the affectionate embrace for each of the kits, then left the tent, drawing his swords as he went.
The chaos surrounding him very nearly broke Estin’s resolve as he stepped from the tent, stunning him with the violence everywhere. For as far as he could see in all directions, the ghastly faces of the recently dead grinned and mouthed silent words at them, pushing at one another in an attempt to get closer to the living.
Blood was the next thing that sunk into Estin’s mind as he began pushing his way to the front lines. It was everywhere, both dried on the corpses and fresh on his companions, who were so overwhelmed by the enemy forces that they could not fall back to tend to their injuries. As he joined them, he had to catch warriors who simply collapsed from their wounds, unable to continue. He had not even gotten to the front of the group before he had exhausted much of his ability to heal for the day, just tending to those most grievously wounded.
“Nice of you to join us, fox-mate,” grunted Bockkan, nearby. The man’s body was savaged, bloody lines marring every inch of his flesh that was not co
vered with animal hides. He took most of the head off a groaning zombie with his axe, then kicked the body away, giving Estin the space to join him. “Show them what the fox has taught us about being more than we appear. I look forward to dying at your side.”
Estin took that to be about as close to complement as the man was capable of and hopped in beside him, deflecting the grasping fingers of the zombies with his swords, cutting into the nearest creatures as best he could. They hardly seemed to notice, pushing forward at him, trying to grab or strike with their remaining fingers.
Estin shut down his mind at that point, knowing that if he thought too much, fear would overwhelm him. It was one of the most stressed points that Feanne had taught him so long ago, that as a breed that would not intentionally face conflict, he needed to distance himself from that instinct to run. That was something he had only used briefly in the time since then, but now was essential as he saw the undead tear each other apart in an attempt to get at him, trying to bury their broken and rotted teeth into his flesh.
Magic proved indispensible in the fight and not just for Estin. Throughout the group, they had scattered some of the more powerful spellcasters that had come to the village for shelter. From them, sprays of flame and lightning, as well as crashing balls of ice and stone flew into the enemy, wreaking gory carnage on their lines and often giving the warriors more time to tend to their wounds or fall back as another took their place.
In addition to Estin, there were also more healers who ran tirelessly through the group, doing what they could to keep the warriors fighting. He rarely saw them spend the time to fully heal anyone, instead conserving their abilities to only mend those who were unable to fight anymore.
To Estin’s surprise, he even saw several spellcasters hanging near the tent who were led by the vine-clad fae-kin that had originally led him into the village when they had arrived. That group helped the healers occasionally, but mostly spent their time summoning vines and other hindrances for the undead. Once, he even saw the fae-kin woman raise her face to the sky calling down a massive eagle that was larger than Ulra, which swept through the enemy lines, tearing dozens of the undead apart before it was dragged to the ground and butchered, its screams mingling with those of so many others.
Hours or minutes later, Estin was staggering away from the front lines, his arms torn and barely able to hold his weapons. Deep scratches covered most of his skin and he knew that he was no longer providing enough cover for Bockkan, so he stepped back, letting a dwarven warrior take his place as he checked over his injuries.
The cuts were painful and bled awfully, but Estin assured himself that they were not severe enough to waste what remained of his strength on healing. Instead, he began moving through the crowd of defenders, tending to others.
“Get Estin inside!” came a call that made Estin’s ears perk. He did not recognize the voice, but he obeyed anyway, slashing open the canvas wall to get in more quickly.
Inside, Feanne and the kits were tending to several severely injured warriors and one of the other healers. As he moved towards them to help, Feanne waved him towards the circle instead, where seven bodies had been dragged in and lay beside the stones.
“Get them up as fast as you can!” she ordered him, tying off a bandage on an aging elf, whose arm hung weakly, covered in blood. “We need everyone out there.”
Estin sat down in the healing circle, pulling the first body in with him. There was no time for ritual or preparation, so he just dragged the corpse onto his lap. With the slightest touch of healing, he restored the body enough that the woman should live if he brought her back to life, then looked around for its spirit. Instantly, he saw the ghostly form of the halfling woman hovering nearby, gazing sadly at her body.
“Come back to…,” he began, then watched as the ghostly shape was battered around, as if by winds. “Come back, please!”
The halfling’s ghost reached for her body, but then was blown away, fading into nothing. The circle was still and empty, aside from Estin.
“Lost her!” he called back to Feanne, setting aside the body.
He grabbed the next corpse, repeating the process of healing it slightly, then looking for the spirit. This time, he found himself entirely unable to even shift his gaze into the spirit realm. There was nothing there, as though the circle was powerless and even Estin’s own ability to see the spirits had gone.
In a fearful panic, Estin pulled one body after another into the circle, seeing and feeling nothing. There was nothing there at all. Everything beyond his spells had failed, leaving him with no connection to the dead.
“Feanne,” he said, voice trembling, “we just lost the circle. I cannot raise these people. Our dead are going to stay dead.”
“How is that even possible?” she demanded.
“I have no idea. We need a new plan.”
Feanne got up, motioning for the kits to stay where they were. She paced the edge of the tent and traced the outermost line of the area with her feet. Once she had circled the whole place, she closed her eyes and began tracing runes in the air over the entrance to the tent, the lines that she drew in the air lighting briefly, then fading.
“They cannot enter the tent,” she said as she finished. “The others can fall back here and the undead will be blocked. It is the best I can offer until we find out why your circle is not working and fix it.”
Feanne leaned out of the tent, shouting as loudly as she could over the din of battle, “If you are injured, come inside. The undead cannot follow you here!”
She came back in, going back to the kits and sitting down between them, then returned to tending to the injured.
Estin got up and walked around his circle, eyeing the pattern of the stones. What he knew of the magic that controlled the circles told him that there was really nothing that could disrupt or break them once they had been created. All of the care was needed in their creation, rather than afterwards. Even the stones that marked it were more for the people visiting to show them where the magical energies were…the stones had no bearing on the magic itself. Asrahn had told him it could last for years without even tending to its magic. There seemed to be no reason it was not working. Even as he wondered, two more bodies were dragged inside, which he ignored, unable to do anything to help them.
“Can you raise them without the circle?” asked Feanne.
“I can help maybe two people, but that would use up what little strength I have left. Without the circle, we’ll lose the village within the hour. I need to know what’s happening and whether the undead managed to do this.”
Rushing back outside, Estin watched the raging throng of undead, which was tearing into the defenders, pushing those that remained tight against the tent. Those that fell more often than not were dragged off into the undead horde, screaming as they went. Already, the number of living had dwindled to half of what it had begun.
Finally, Estin spotted a group of black-clad figures deep in the crowd of corpses. This group moved casually through the zombies and skeletons, picking through the wreckage of the camp as though they were looting the place.
“Finth!” Estin called into the crowd, only to have the battered and bloodied dwarf show up a moment later, panting as he picked pieces of zombie off of his face. “I’m going out there. I need you to clear the way if I come running back.”
“Just stab yourself in the face with your sword, monkey. It’s a cleaner death, with less puss-buckets poking at you.”
“I’m not planning on dying just yet.”
Estin focused a little of his dwindling strength into raising a magical barrier around himself, then walked into the undead forces. The barrier would not last him terribly long, but he knew it could keep the undead from touching him, giving him the singular opportunity to scout what was happening beyond the immediate battle and possibly find out how the undead were keeping his circle suppressed.
As he stepped into the crowd, the undead wailed and clawed in his direction, many forgetting
their other targets as they tried desperately to reach him. The nature of the spell kept these creatures from coming closer than an inch or two to him, but every decayed hand that reached for him made Estin flinch, wondering if that would be the one that got through the barrier.
He moved as swiftly as he could through the crowd of clawing and groaning undead, making his way towards what he guessed were Turessians. It was slow-going, but soon he broke free of the back end of the undead line, the zombies and others returning to their task of attacking the other defenders.
Ahead of him, the four black-robed figures moved towards the west end of the camp, seemingly not having noticed him yet.
Estin followed the group, trailing them to the far west end of where the village’s structures had been. Most were now in shambles, having been trampled by the undead during their approach. It was here that the Turessians stopped, turning to face him abruptly.
“You risk a lot coming outside of your sad group of allies,” noted one. From what little Estin could see of the man under his hood, his face was partially skeletal. “Do you believe we cannot tear down that pesky bit of magical sanctuary you wear like a shield?”
Estin did not reply, but tried to get a look at each of the Turessians. If one of them was suppressing his circle, they would be concentrating to maintain that effect. He just needed to find out which one and somehow interrupt them. It was clearly not the tall one that was speaking, leaving the very short one and the two that looked to be of average build.
“Do you wish to see what has become of your others?”
Estin’s ears twitched and he found himself cocking his head. He knew of only one other group and they had run far to the west, where they should have outpaced the undead and escaped into the woods.
The Turessian grinned back at him and waved him to follow, then began heading westward.
Following nervously, Estin made sure to maintain his barrier. He had no idea if it would even slow the Turessians, but he had no intention of making it any easier on them than he had to. The effort was starting to make him feel sick, but he would keep it going as long as he could.