by RW Krpoun
“Yeah, might as well.”
Five days passed with the city caught in a void of unreality. Every day more civilians departed for safer environs as long columns of wagons bearing war and siege supplies rolled in. Replacements for the garrison and the Iron Fan’s lawkeepers were brought in by boat as fishermen loaded their craft with their families and headed south.
Within the city those who were staying for whatever reason went about their tasks with a stoic resignation, going through the motions of peace while awaiting the changes brought by war. At night strong drink flowed freely and wanton debauchery served to ease nerves stretched tight by the waiting.
The Black Talons held themselves apart, quietly going about their tasks as the hours counted down. Their goal was to get home regardless of how the impending conflict played out, but overlaying that grand goal was the closer one of surviving the events to come.
Four days after leveling up the Black Talons gathered after dinner to test out the Settlers of Cathan board that Derek had had made from memory. “The Stone ought to be in view of the walls by noon,” Jeff observed, rolling the dice.
“I can feel it,” Shad noted, talking a sip of cider. “Have been for about four hours.”
“Makes you wonder,” Derek sighed. “This place feels like the Alamo. We’re in a bigger game that we were in the Realm or the Prison.”
“Wonder what?” Shad threw the dice and made his choices.
“You know. If we make it.”
“The Iraqis threw everything they had at us, and we stacked the goat-lovers like sandbags. We killed Revenants in the Prison, and Tek in the Realm. We damn near re-enacted Custer’s Last Stand against hobs in the Realm and we fought our way across this dump. We have killed Elves everywhere we have been. I’m not worried about the Death Lords; hell, we’ve killed three of them so far. We’ll make our way out of here.”
“Or at least leave a trail of corpses behind us,” Fred grunted. “I think Derek cheated when he had these cards drawn up.”
“It is what Derek does,” Jeff agreed, studying the board. “You notice he is winning?”
“He always wins,” Shad shook his head disgustedly. “He plays a quiet, humble game in anything strategic, right up to the point where he stabs everyone in the back.”
Noon on the next, deeply overcast, day found the Black Talons sitting on the curled eaves of a wall-fort watching Boneguard-led units of Undead spill into view, moving into skirmish order out of the mile-distant tree line.
“How many did they bring?” Fred asked, taking a pull from a wineskin and passing it to Jeff.
“About five thousand skeletal foot,” Shad frowned at the distant figures. “With sixty to seventy thousand Undead in the main force about eight to ten days behind. The Empire have about the same ready, except that body for body the Imperials have a decided edge.” He waved away the wineskin when Jeff offered it.
“Not exactly a real Undead horde,” Derek rubbed his jaw. “What are the Death Lords banking on?”
“I do not know, but it has to do with the Stone, that much is obvious.” The warder pointed at the plum colored clouds roiling over the roadway. “That isn’t normal. Nor is the storm front moving against the wind it is dragging with it.”
“Heavy mojo,” Jeff shrugged. “But scary looking clouds and freak weather doesn’t win battles. What does the Stone do?”
“It brings the Wind of Souls,” Derek shrugged. “But that is likely a metaphor for an Undead army.”
“Could the wind be toxic, like chemical warfare?” Fred suggested.
“No.” Shad rubbed his sword’s hilt. “The Death Lords’ lore is very specific, and it isn’t really geared to combat beyond one-on-one stuff. That’s what makes so little sense about this whole business: the Imperials can’t knock out the Stone, but nothing any spellcaster can detect about it suggests it could affect the Imperials.”
“It’s bulletproof but unarmed,” Jeff shook his head. “Who designed this thing, the French?”
The Talons watched as the Undead moved a few hundred yards past the tree line and then deployed into a perimeter, closely watched by Imperial cavalry.
After the better part of an hour the World Stone came into view: a block of black basalt carved into what appeared to be a stepped pyramid three stories high that floated about six feet off the ground on a layer of pus-colored light. It moved slower than a man’s easy stroll and was surrounded by a ring of hooded Death Lords, each necromancer five feet from his neighbors.
The Stone was hard to look at directly; it was so black that it didn’t seem to be a color, or even an object, but rather a hole in reality itself that slid across the countryside.
“I can’t tell if it has three steps per side, or four,” Derek rubbed his eyes.
“I couldn’t even be sure it was three-dimensional,” Jeff nervously cracked his knuckles.
“That is serious mojo,” Fred drawled. “You feeling it, Shad?”
“In my sinuses,” the warder rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s like hearing glass scream.”
“That is our boy Cecil using the Stone to cauterize the leaks with the Stone itself, since we killed plan A. In the Realm the Tek must be dying like fire ants in a hard frost.”
“You can tell that?” Derek was surprised.
“Yeah. Didn’t know I could until just now, but I can. Kind of a limited-application skill, you might say.” Fred grinned.
“So why did Cecil waste the time getting the books here?” Jeff asked.
“That isn’t a good use for the Stone. There must be a cost to be paid but I’m not certain how. Shad, any ideas?”
“Strain: Cecil is red-lining the occult engine, so to speak. They’ll pay for it down the line, but apparently they think it is worthwhile at the moment. I don’t have the level to be able to say if they’re right or not.”
“So when does the Wind of Souls start?” Derek wondered.
“It already has, locally,” Fred shrugged.
“So what does it do?”
“I don’t know,” Shad answered grimly. “I can sense it, as can Fred and every other spell-slinger in the city, but I don’t know what it means.”
“It’s like occult radiation,” Fred shrugged, playing with his rat-tail.
“Well, whatever it does, it is powering up the Fang,” Shad closed the hard leather case they had had made for the artifact. “It ought to be locked and loaded for whatever it does by sun down.”
“Might as well head back,” Derek hopped down to the catwalk. “We can roll at first light.”
“You know, Midori said the Fang had to be exposed to the Stone,” Shad muttered as the Black Talons worked their way through onlookers towards the stairs to ground level. “But instead it is definitely being charged by the Stone.”
“I am not putting much stock in what Midori says,” Fred grunted.
“I think we’re being hamstrung by accepted RPG social contracts,” Derek said thoughtfully.
“What?”
“You know, regardless of their backgrounds the PCs are treated as equals by powerful NPCs once they are embarked on the core quest. Nobody ever gets the bum’s rush when they try to visit the local nobility on their way to Mount Doom,” the Ronin explained. “Everyone cooperates.”
“That’s true,” Fred nodded. “You can play a talking lizard in Skyrim and you still get full cooperation.”
“I think we have been seeing ourselves in that role, but the truth is that we’re a pawn on the game board. Fu Hao was the only one who treated us as if we have any real value,” Derek concluded.
“That’s true,” Jeff conceded. “If it was the Army treating us the way Midori does we wouldn’t think twice about it.”
The Black Talons were gathered in Fred and Jeff’s room arguing over Derek’s effort to recreate the board game Settlers of Cathan.
“I am telling you, there are not that many tree hexes!” Jeff jabbed a finger at the board. “More sheep, less trees.”
&n
bsp; “Four each of sheep, timber, and wheat, three each of ore and stone, and the desert,” Derek counted off on his fingers. “Nineteen hexes, moron.”
“Bull,” Jeff threw up his hands. “This is another scam of yours.”
“You know how much of a pain it was to get this made?”
“Are we sure nineteen is the right number of tiles?” Fred scratched his cheek. “I thought there was twenty-four?”
“You’re thinking of the six player expansion,” Shad shook his head. “But the number of ports is off.”
“Look, nobody had any objections when I showed you the list of what I was commissioning….” Derek’s anger was climbing to the surface.
“Hold on,” Fred held up a hand. “You hear something?”
“Like what?” Shad asked distractedly as he counted cards.
“I dunno. Something.”
“Don’t try to change the subject,” Derek shook his finger at the big Healer.
“You’re about to lose a finger if you don’t…there it is again.”
“What is?” Jeff didn’t look up from where he was laying out the resource tiles again.
“I heard something.”
“I’m hearing a lot of stuff. Mostly Derek trying to cheat.”
“I’m serious.” Fred caught up his old, wooden club and padded to the door in his stocking feet to peer out into the hallway. “Might be downstairs.”
“I’m going to get more cider,” Shad stood and caught up the small keg by its rope sling; after a moment’s hesitation he slung his sword belt over his other shoulder. “Anybody want anything?”
“How about some of those little sweet pastries?” Jeff suggested. “Anyone want to split an order? What the hell, get some, Shad.”
“OK.”
There were only three customers left in the common room, three tough-looking boat captains flush from weeks of hauling Imperial cargo into the city and civilians out of Litam playing tiles for silver; the three serving girls were busy cleaning up after the evening meal. Shad gave the keg and his order to one of the girls and took a seat where he could keep an eye on the front door.
Slouching against the wall, wishing for a chair, Shad sipped the tea one of the girls brought him and frowned at the far wall. Nothing felt right here, and it wasn’t just the different culture; he wasn’t sure what Midori was up to, whose side she was on, or what she really expected. The World Stone was a moving oddity and he couldn’t work out what possible use it provided the Death Lords.
In all, their noble pursuit of Cecil had degenerated into a great deal of fighting and an undramatic confrontation with the vanguard of the Death Lords’ ambitions. For the first time he wondered if perhaps they had over-estimated their enemy’s abilities. So far the necromancers’ invasion looked to be about as wise and well-thought-out as the Italian war with Greece.
Something jolted him back to the present; without an overt move he eyed his surroundings, noting that one of the Captains, a heavy-set man of Asian ancestry with a net of scars across his left cheek and jaw was also alert.
Scratching at the front door brought Shad to his feet; as a serving girl walked to open the door the warder picked up his sword belt from the table and buckled it on, first the main buckle and then the two flanking buckles, pulling each tight so the belt would not shift when he drew his sword, finishing with hitching at the scabbards so the hilts rode just so.
The girl opened the door and vanished, one second standing framed in the doorway looking out, the next gone. Shad drew his sword as he moved around the table to the open floor, keeping his eyes on the doorway.
Scar-face was on his feet as well, Shad saw out of the corner of his eye, a kukri in one tattooed paw as he backed away from the table, much to the surprise of the others at the table.
“Get away,” Shad told the nearest serving girl, who had been sweeping the floor. “Back towards the kitchen.” Moving a careful step at a time, he approached the doorway, plucking a coin from his belt as he moved.
He was a dozen feet away when a man burst in from the darkness outside, a bloody hatchet in hand. Shad ducked under the clumsy swing and used his angled blade in a brutal drawing cut across his foe’s exposed lower torso, the edge slicing through fat and muscle to open the abdominal cavity.
The man staggered, turning awkwardly to come at Shad again, and the warder found himself squaring off with a corpse. His attacker’s skin hung slack against the underlying bone and his clothes were fouled with mud; his head was at an angle and the mark of a noose stood out clearly against the gray, souring flesh. Only the green fire in the thing’s eyes distinguished it from the corpse of a Red Dragon freshly hung and pitched frozen solid into the trenches outside the city. The creature ignored the ropes of drying intestine that poked out of the rent in its belly and brought its hatchet up for another try.
Shad flipped the coin in his left hand and the Undead dropped like a puppet with its strings cut even as three more burst into the lighted room from the dark street outside. A hanni woman with a terrible spear wound now packed with the mud of her former entombment came at him with a long fishing knife, leading with the point. He parried with his jitte, pinning the blade long enough to split her skull.
He, Scar-face, and one of the serving girls were backing to the stairs as more Undead entered the common room; the other two boat captains were fighting for their lives and there were screams and the crash of plates in the kitchen.
“Get to my room and warn my fellows!” Shad barked at the girl. “Go!” He jerked his head upwards as the girl fled up the stairs. “Three more blades.”
“The more the merrier,” Scar-face grunted as he chopped through a skull.
As the pair mounted a fighting retreat up the stairs Shad saw the serving girl who had vanished stagger back into the common room, the front of her gown soaked in fresh blood and the green glow in her eyes. Moments later the first Dragon he had cut down started climbing clumsily to its feet.
Scar-face crippled a dead peasant wielding a broken boat-hook, and its tumble down the steps bought enough time for Shad to dig out a piece of chalk and scribble a line of runes in the air across the stairway. “That will stop them for a few minutes,” he advised Scar-face. “Hopefully long enough.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jeff demanded as Shad burst through the door. The other Black Talons were finishing getting their gear on while the serving girl huddled in a corner weeping. Scar-face remained by the door, watching down the hall.
“The Wind of Souls.” Shad wiped his blade on a futon and sheathed it before strapping his harness in place. “Where’s my knapsack?”
“Here,” Derek had it ready. “What do you mean, the Wind of Souls?”
“Look, necromancy is a complicated business involving planting bits of sentient being into constructs. It is slow, painstaking single-craftsman work.” Shad slung his knapsack and settled it. “The Wind is something else, like industrial production lines. It simply animates an intact corpse and apparently fills it with homicidal intent. Quickly, I might add. I spell-blasted one and a minute later it was active again. I don’t know for sure how it works, but we are seriously screwed.” The warder plucked coins and started around the room. “Night vision.”
“You blasted what? What is going on?” Fred snapped.
“Zombies. As in ‘aim for the head’ Undead. The Wind of Souls is a Zombie plague, and we’re in a city surrounded by trenches full of thawing corpses.”
The Black Talons were silent as he finished the buffs.
“Well, shit,” Fred sighed, discarding his wooden club and unwrapping his dragon-bone weapon.
Fred levered the window frame out of the wall while the Talons conferred. “River or walls?” Derek mused. “We need to get out. How many zombies are there going to be, Shad?”
“As many as they have bodies for, is my guess. They’re clumsy and slow when first reanimated, but they limber up fast. The ones downstairs were probably buried inside the walls, but the ones
outside could get in via the river.”
“That’s why the Imperial Army isn’t in here with us,” Fred observed. “The river cutting through is a weak spot in the defenses.”
“Makes you wonder why they built the northern-most city on two sides of the river,” Jeff shook his head.
“Because the warders could sense Undead and have the garrison waiting,” Shad finished tying off the rope to a spike Fred had pounded into a handy joist. “It would be a turkey shoot. Except that the World Stone is blinding every spell-slinger within five miles.”
“So walls or river?” Derek repeated.
“Walls,” Jeff led the sobbing girl to the window. “I don’t want to try to swim with a zombie on me.” Heaving the girl onto his shoulder he stepped through the hole and free-roped to the street below.
“Good point,” Shad shrugged. “Derek, then Fred.”
“”Wall it is then,” Fred nodded as he followed Derek.
Shad motioned to the rope. “You’re next,” he told Scar-face.
“They are coming through the floor beyond your wards,” the sailor advised in passing. “Thank you for the help.”
“You’re welcome,” the warder replied absently, eyeing the room dividers.
Scar-face was gone when Shad rejoined the others. “Where did he go?” the warder tapped his cheek.
“Took off towards the river,” Fred shrugged. “You set fire to the room, didn’t you?’
“Yeah. Used a dampening ward, the place ought to go up like a bomb.”
“Great. This way, I think,” the big Texan pointed east. “There’s already fires starting across town.”
“From The Last Samurai to The Walking Dead,” Jeff held his swords out as Shad etched glowing runes near the hilts. “The Death Lords are getting double dividends off the Red Dragon.”
“Certainly explains why they backed a hopeless uprising,” Derek agreed as he led the Talons down the street. “Real estate prices are about to take yet another beating.”