The Lizardman Heroes

by Kugane Maruyama

  What had changed the most visually was their gear. The previous skeletons had had only rusty swords. These skeletons were very well outfitted. Also, maybe it was just in his head, but they even appeared to have better physiques. It seemed like there were three types, each with different gear.

  The most numerous wore splendid breastplates, carried shields shaped like a stretched-out inverted triangle—kite shields—in one hand, and held various weapons in the other. On their backs were quivers and composite longbows. They were well prepared for close- or long-range fighting.

  The next type had ratty crimson capes flapping behind them over the same breastplate, held round shields and bastard swords, and wore helmets.

  Finally, the least numerous type had the most complete gear sets. They wore full plate armor with a magnificent golden gleam and clutched shining lances. Their eye-poppingly crimson capes seemed free of the slightest speck of dirt.

  After his initial observations, Zaryusu realized something, and unable to believe his eyes, he rubbed them a few times with his hands. But it was still there—the truth.

  “What…? No way…”

  “Th-that’s ridiculous…” Zaryusu released a pained murmur at the same time as Crusch’s surprised gasp—they’d realized the same thing.

  Then Zenbel reacted. “Yep, you noticed it, too, huh?” His voice was pained like the others’.

  “Yeah…” Zaryusu closed his mouth. He didn’t want to say it—because that would just make it worse. But he had to. “Those look like magic weapons, don’t they?”

  Crusch, next to him, nodded.

  All the weapons the skeletons had were enchanted. One had a sword imbued with fire, another a hammer with blue lightning. There was one holding a spear with a glowing green tip, and even one with a sickle that seemed to be coated in purple goop.

  “That’s not all. Take a closer look at their armor and shields… They’re all magic.”

  Zaryusu squinted.

  Then he groaned in spite of himself. Their glowing wasn’t reflected light but something inside the objects themselves.

  How much power do you need to equip that many skeleton soldiers with magic gear? Certainly if the magic was just to make blades sharper, the larger countries Zaryusu had heard of could probably do it if they planned ahead of time. But to imbue each of the weapons with its own attribute—all different kinds of effects—was a different story.

  Zaryusu remembered the stories of the dwarves he’d heard from Zenbel the other day.

  Dwarves were a mountain race with exceptional metalworking abilities. When they sat down to drink, the sagas they told contained stories of the king who built the Great Dwarven Empire, a hero shrouded in adamantite armor, who killed a dragon at the end of a one-on-one fight, one of the Thirteen Heroes, Magic Mechanic. Even in those tales, there were no armies—certainly not one of more than five thousand—outfitted with that much magic gear.

  So what was Zaryusu seeing?

  “A mythical army…” If it wasn’t in the stories of the people, it had to be from the stories of the gods.

  Zaryusu shook with a single intense shudder. This was completely beyond his expectations. They’d made an enemy out of someone they shouldn’t have.

  Still, he had gathered everyone here, fully aware that they might be wiped out. Could the one who’d come up with such a cruel plan be afraid now? Their enemy was unimaginably strong. He knew that. The question was what to do about it.

  “That can’t be real. It has to be an illusion.”

  For a split second, everyone there asked the same wordless question: What are you talking about? The skeletons were maintaining a completely motionless stance, but they seemed distinctly substantial, and their presence was powerful enough to give one the chills. They couldn’t be anything so flimsy as an illusion.

  The confusing thing was that the one who’d said it was the Small Fang chief. He definitely hadn’t gone crazy.

  “What basis do you have for saying that?”

  He confidently responded to Zaryusu’s question. “We’ve been sending scouts out on rotation. None of them saw any undead like that, and it’s not like they could have just overlooked that many. All the scouts have come back safe, too.”

  “I see… But it sure doesn’t seem like an illusion to me.”

  “But…well, maybe not. But if it’s not, then they must have tunneled their way here. That would explain why we didn’t see them.”

  “…I don’t care if they tunneled or flew—what are we gonna do? They don’t seem to want to start a fight right away, but I don’t get the feeling they came here to negotiate!”

  “Yeah… If it’s like last time, they’ll make some kind of move…”

  Zaryusu stared at the skeletons. He was trying to make out who the commander was when a shivery wind blew past him. It wasn’t just one gust—the wind kept blowing.

  He was positive the strange, abrupt chill was no natural phenomenon but brought about by magic.

  “The wind is—? Huh? …No way! It’s a different spell…? But it can’t be…” Crusch shivered, hugging her body.

  Her reaction wasn’t just from the cold, which was why Zaryusu asked, “Crusch, where did this freezing wind come from?”

  “…You might not believe me, but listen, Zaryusu. Up until now, I thought the change in the weather was caused by the tier-four spell Control Cloud. But it’s not. Control Cloud can manipulate clouds, but it can’t create a cold wind like this. That means…the power isn’t manipulating clouds but changing the weather and climate. In other words, someone cast the tier-six spell Control Weather…at least, that’s what I think.” She added in a voice so small no one could hear, “I don’t know for sure, since it’s a realm of magic I can’t use myself.”

  Zaryusu knew how awesome the power of the sixth tier was. Even Iguvua, the most powerful enemy he’d faced since taking up a sword, couldn’t use it. It was the supreme tier, said to be the highest in the world.

  “Is this…the power of the Great One or whoever? That…definitely makes sense…” Calling someone who can use tier-six magic “great” was not an exaggeration.

  “Whoa, everybody and their brother is bummin’ out.” Zenbel’s complaint was an apt description of the atmosphere.

  This weather was unseasonably cold—that is, their environment had changed in an impossible way. The lizardmen’s morale was dropping sharply.

  Last time it had just been the appearance of a cloud. They could deal with this degree of cold by building a bonfire and having the priests perform a ritual, but the autumn wind had taught the lizardmen that their opponents had the power to warp nature, the uncontrollable.

  They didn’t need to hear Crusch’s explanation to understand the immense power of their enemy—the wind nipping at them said it all.

  “Tch! Those bastards—they’re on the move.” Zaryusu ground his teeth. His tail was trying to flail, but he willed it not to. Are you really gonna do that now?

  When the orderly rows of skeletons began marching forward with precisely measured steps, the warrior lizardmen grew agitated, and some made warning growls. But Zaryusu, observing their movements, made a different judgment: Those aren’t combat movements.

  Just when Zaryusu and Zenbel raised their voices to calm down the shaken lizardmen—

  “Calm down!”

  —a jarring shout ripped through the air.

  Everyone turned to see Shasuryu.

  “I’ll say it again. Calm down.” A silence fell, and the only sound was his confident, dignified voice. “And don’t be afraid, warriors. Don’t do anything that would disappoint the many ancestral spirits behind you.” He wove his way through the quiet lizardmen and stood next to Zaryusu. “What are they up to, Zaryusu?”

  “Brother, they’re on the move, but it doesn’t look like combat prep.”

  “Mph.”

  The marching skeletons formed ten rows of five hundred.

  “What are they planning to do?”

 
As if they’d been waiting for the question, the skeletons began to advance again. With perfect control, the rows parted to the left and right from the middle, not a single skeleton out of place. Between the two sides, they left about a twenty-skeleton gap. In that space, there was a lone figure.

  The shape wasn’t all that big. Even at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards, Zaryusu could tell it was smaller than him. It wore a raven-black robe and gave off an ominous, evil aura. Its resemblance to the elder lich they had fought the previous day suggested it was a caster. There was, however, one very different thing about this one, and that was its strength.

  When he saw it, ice crept up Zaryusu’s spine. He knew instinctively that the difference in power between the elder lich of yesterday and this thing was like the difference between a toddler and a warrior.

  It gushed a frigid evil from its entire being. He could feel it even at this distance. And that wasn’t all. Its gear was also on another level.

  An absolute ruler had appeared in the form of inescapable death.

  “The…ruler of death?” Zaryusu surprised even himself as he uttered the most fitting words for the monster. And he’d hit the nail on the head.

  It truly was the lord who ruled over death.

  “…Ooh!”

  What was the ruler of death going to do?

  The lizardmen, watching with bated breath, all simultaneously shouted in surprise. A magic circle about ten yards across had suddenly spread out around the caster as a huge dome. It gave off a pale-blue glow, and patterns like translucent letters or symbols appeared on it. These characters changed at a dizzying rate; the same pattern didn’t linger for even an instant. The way the pale light kept shifting as it illuminated the area was fantastic, and if it hadn’t been the work of their enemy, they probably would have been captivated. Now, though, they weren’t at all.

  What is that? Not comprehending what he was seeing, Zaryusu was confused. He’d never seen a huge dome projected into the air like that when a caster used magic. The action his opponent was taking was entirely outside the realm of his knowledge. So he asked the female who probably knew the most about magic out of anyone there. “What in the world is that?”

  “I—I don’t know. I have no idea what it is!” she replied, sounding scared. Apparently she was especially frightened precisely because she knew about magic and still couldn’t recognize the spell.

  The moment after he was about to calm her—perhaps the spell was cast—the dome burst, and countless sparks of light whirled up into the air. All at once they spread across the sky as if they were exploding and—

  —the lake…froze.

  Not a single lizardman present understood what had happened—not the uncommonly able tribal chief Shasuryu, not the brilliant priest Crusch, not the experienced traveler Zaryusu. Even these lizardmen with faculties matchless throughout all lizardman history couldn’t immediately comprehend what had taken place, it was so outrageous.

  They couldn’t comprehend how their feet were below the ice.

  Moments later, after their brains had processed what had just happened before their eyes, the screams went up.

  Every lizardman—yes, all of them—shrieked.

  Even Zaryusu. Crusch and Shasuryu, and even the one who probably had the most courage, Zenbel. They lost themselves in a fear that welled from the bottom of their hearts and climbed straight out of their souls to manifest in a scream.

  It was a reality too horrible. The lake that had never iced over, the lake that had never changed ever since they were born, had warped and frozen.

  The lizardmen panicked and pulled their legs up. Luckily, since the ice wasn’t too thick, it broke right away, but it immediately refroze. The chill coming from below—the biting cold—proved they weren’t seeing things.

  Flustered, Zaryusu hopped up on a mud wall and surveyed the scene—and the view left him speechless.

  Everything in his field of vision was frozen.

  Certainly the entire lake couldn’t be frozen, but it was a fact that as far as his eyes could see, everything was covered in ice.

  In a corner of his mind, worries about his fish preserve popped up, but now wasn’t the time.

  Crusch had hopped next to Zaryusu, and when she surveyed the area, her jaw fell open just like his. The voice from her agape mouth sounded like her soul had left her. “No way…”

  Zaryusu didn’t want to believe it, either.

  “You monster!” he barked, hoping it would ease the fear.

  “Get up now!” Shasuryu’s roar echoed.

  Several lizardmen had collapsed. The members of the warrior caste who were all right worked together to pull them out of the frozen marsh.

  All the lizardmen being pulled were pale in the face and trembling. The rising chill was probably sapping their life force.

  “Brother, I’m going to go check around the village!” Zaryusu had Frost Pain, so this level of chill wouldn’t affect him.

  “No…don’t go!”

  “Why not?!”

  “They’re probably going to make their move. I won’t let you leave us now! Keep an eye on the enemy. I forbid you to miss a single thing! You’ve traveled the world and have all sorts of knowledge—you’re the lizardman for this job.” Shifting his gaze from Zaryusu, Shasuryu called out to the warriors in the area. “I’m going to cast the chill defense spell Ice Energy Protection. Go around the village and tell everyone to stay away from the ice!”

  “I’ll cast, too!”

  “Great! Then you and I will split up the work. If you see anyone in trouble, cast a healing spell on them.” Crusch and Shasuryu managed to safely begin casting the protective magic on the lizardmen.

  Zaryusu stayed up on the mud wall with his keen gaze aimed at the enemy line so as not to miss a single move. He had to do exactly what his brother told him.

  “Hup!” Zenbel hopped up on the wall next to him and checked the enemy lines in an easygoing way. “Take it a little easier. Your brother, he’s just like that, right? Has high expectations of your know-how? Even if you miss something, he’s not gonna get mad. More importantly, if you focus too hard, your field of vision’ll shrink!” Zenbel’s unconcerned voice was soothing.

  It was just like in the fight with the elder lich; everyone needed to do what they could, and they would add all their efforts together.

  Zaryusu looked around and saw that warriors had also jumped up on the wall to observe the enemy. No, he wasn’t fighting alone. He was fighting with a great many friends.

  It seemed like he’d been shaken up in the face of such overwhelming power by that display of magic.

  Zaryusu exhaled, like he was breathing out something that had festered in his heart.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.”

  “…But yeah. You’re here, too.”

  “Hmph. Don’t expect much in the brains department!”

  They laughed a bit together as they watched the enemy’s movements.

  “But yeesh, those are some serious monsters.”

  “Yeah. They’re on another level…”

  The King of Death, arrogant yet impressive like a true king, was eyeing the lizardman village. His body should have been small, but it seemed to have swelled dozens of times larger.

  “…That’s gotta be the guy they call the Great One.”

  “Probably. I don’t want to believe that they have more than one monster who can use magic powerful enough to freeze the lake.”

  “Seriously. Ahh, I get it. To monsters who can do this kind of stuff, we lizardmen must be like little specks of dirt. Ahh, shit. Ahh, shit! We’re no better than worms! Oh, he’s moving.”

  The caster who had frozen the river raised his free hand and waved toward the village. It must be a signal. Zaryusu’s hunch came true in horrifying fashion directly after that.

  “Ahhh!” Voices cried out from here and there throughout the village.

  “What…is that? What the heck is that?!”

&nb
sp; Nothing could surprise him anymore. Or so Zaryusu had thought, but what he saw made him practically shriek involuntarily.

  What stood before them was a giant statue with two arms and legs that appeared to be made out of stone. A red light, pulsing almost like a heartbeat, shone through from the bedrock of its thick chest. Solid arms, solid legs. Its squat body might have even been rather cute—if the thing hadn’t stood almost a hundred feet tall.

  That gigantic statue had suddenly appeared out of the forest. At this point, believing it was an illusion made more sense.

  The giant statue moved slowly, raising up a huge boulder from who knew where.

  Then the hulking creature threw it.

  Zaryusu instinctively covered his face. All those in the gigantic stone’s path would surely die.

  In the darkness their world had become, Zaryusu was struck at once by a tremendous rumbling and a sound like an explosion. The wall beneath him swayed intensely, creaking.

  Along with a roar like heavy rain—the kicked-up dirt falling back to the ground—from the village came the cries of not only children but adults as well.

  Despite having braced themselves, they were unable to withstand this fear that was beyond anything they could have imagined. Even though they’d made it through the previous battle, this was enough to regress them to small children.

  Relieved he had his life, Zaryusu timidly opened his eyes to see the undead army beginning to move. The giant statue was gone.

  They approached the newly fallen huge stone, lying in the marsh about midway between the two groups; held their flat shields over their heads; and crouched down. More skeletons, nimbly keeping their balance, got up on the shields of the first ones and then held their own shields up in the same way.

  Zaryusu shook like he’d been struck by lightning when he understood what they were doing. “Are they building…stairs? Who uses troops that would inspire songs of praise in legends to build stairs?!”

  They worked toward the top of the rock at an uncanny speed, and the staircase built out of the undead army took shape.

  Then some other undead soldiers began to move—about a hundred even more magnificent undead. In their hands they clutched spears like lancers might hold, decorated with fabric: crimson cloth with the same crest stitched into each pennon.