Archangel’s Ascension

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

  Outside, the shouts were growing louder.

  “To arms!”

  “They’re coming in! They’re here! The demons are entering the village! Noooo!”

  The hair on the back of the young man’s neck stood on end. He raced out of the Décamon with a single thought: This is my chance to make myself into the savior of the village.

  Crisondo was left alone. His friend Savarb would already be helping the general to direct the evacuation. He would stay in the Décamon. He would die. He concentrated once again on the stained-glass window, on the image of that winged warrior with a spear threatening the enemy, and he felt that its brightness was clearing away his sorrows.

  Chapter XII – Deathslayer’s Awakening

  The croaking of demons was a lightning bolt that unleashed terror in the village, running through the streets like snake venom through the veins. The spear in the chest of the first victim was the spur to flee with only the clothes they had on. There was no time left.

  “To the north!” the general’s soldiers shouted, frightened by the surprise attack of an assault team of hundreds of demons and humans.

  “Go!” Deathslayer was ordering. “Take my wife and my children a long way away from here!” he told his aides. Karolina was surprised to find Argbralius had been freed from the saddle. There was no time to go find him.

  He had designated Gáramond and a dozen soldiers to escort the carriage which was transporting his family and Nana Bromelia.

  The black line of accursed soldiers advanced with their swords and spears. The mage and his pupil each held a staff in one hand and a sword in the other, ready to unleash the fury of the Conjuring Arts against the enemy.

  Argbralius came out of the religious sanctuary and joined the confusion. With as much fear as determination, he picked up a sword from the ground and ran to the line of defense. He would fight till the last drop was spilled. He would be the bringer of peace, a sacristan whom the Empire would venerate throughout eternity; they would raise statues in his honor.

  Savarb was ready to give himself up to the glorious battle. They had not killed him three years ago and they would not do it now.

  The attacking demons were coming in and out of houses. Huge orcs could be seen chewing villagers, eating their living flesh. Men from the dark land could be seen raping women, while the larger orcs in the war party were walking behind the chaos. Fires were being set ablaze as the village was consumed by a handful of demons and dark men. Behind the larger orcs, there was a glimpse of a hooded figure in a black cloak, from whose hands flowed diffused red energy.

  “A sáffurtan!” Strangelus cried.

  There was a brief pause. Before the demons reached the line of defending soldiers, not more than one hundred imperial soldiers altogether, the larger orcs stopped. These were voj, the mutated and rotten creations of Elkam himself. The creatures had orc, human, and elf in them. They were strong, fast, and very cunning. The voj had vocal cords and spoke like humans.

  “We’ve come to decapitate the Deathslayer,” cried the voj who was commanding the war party. “It was ordained that he would be ours to consume. The plans were set in motion four centuries ago, and now our Master has newly returned in full force. Your presence in this village is no coincidence, Deathslayer; neither is yours, sorcerer. The two strongest military figures in the Empire stand before my war party. I was charged to take your head and eat your flesh so that I could learn something from your powers and strategies, respectively. The Empire is broken. It’s taming was a project that took us Némaldines four hundred years. It is time to fall, you have been defeated!

  “We have not forgotten the Times of Köel, nor the Battle of Maúralgum when our Master was slain four hundred years ago. We come well prepared. As we speak, more than a hundred war parties like my own are spreading across the Empire, ravaging villages, tormenting humans, creating corpses so that the sáffurtan can wield them like puppets. The cloud of chaos advances from the depth of Árath, where a spell of enormous power has been set in motion to cover the world in shadows. You are defeated!”

  Leandro did not show it—his helmet visor was on—but inwardly, he was horrified to face such a well-prepared war party. A war party with ten voj, many duj—the lesser orcs—hundreds of evil men and women, together with one sáffurtan. This was a formidable war party, enough to ravage a city. The general was ill-prepared. But of course, he now realized, this was indeed the intention of his predators. Evil must have spread to the Council of Kings; it was they who had given the final order for the general and the mage to come to the south, ill-prepared. And this was the reason. They would be feasted upon; they would be decapitated and digested by enemy filth. The Empire was under attack!

  Strangelus shivered. Four hundred years before, another cloud had advanced with Némaldon’s offensive and covered the world with shadows. The event was recorded in the books of history which were now treasured in the Cauda Poltos-Par Library. The enemy had taken advantage of the darkness, and not only to produce terror and hopelessness. Under that dense dark cloak, evil too had blossomed. The mage also remembered that Lulita had spoken of a spiral cloud at the time of the tragedy three years earlier.

  Next to his master, Elgahar was nervous. He had never fought before, least of all against demons able to wield the Black Arts. His knowledge in this field was limited. It would not be enough against the threat they must face.

  Strangelus noticed his pupil’s nervousness. “Remember the spells, step by step, clear your mind and focus—serene and calm, as in the lessons. The moment you lose control, you lose the capacity to conjure. Project the energy in the form of a bolt. If you fail, you will die. The spell will rebound and consume you in the process.”

  The atmosphere was growing tenser by the second. It smelt of fear. As the two opposing forces took one another’s measure, evil was spreading through the village as its inhabitants were dispatched with ease by those orcs and humans bent on creating chaos.

  The orcs croaked, eager to taste the Deathslayer’s flesh; the humans of Némaldon could not wait to feel the warmth of the enemy soldier’s blood on their faces.

  “I suppose you’re such cowards you need a sáffurtan in every attack!” the general said to provoke them.

  “Of course, you fool,” a voj replied with a mocking grin, showing his fierce fangs. “We’ll use your own people to conquer you. Don’t you think that’s a clever trick?”

  Silence ran like a shiver through the general’s lines. Deathslayer felt his heart sink. Rage burnt in his throat. For a single moment, a vision of his children playing and hugging him and showering him with kisses crossed his mind. He could feel their tiny lips on his cheek, their tumbles as they pushed him to the ground to punch him with their small toddler fists in play. The vision of fatherhood evaporated as he saw the voj charge. He thought of Karolina. He hoped they would make it safely. He could not run. Not now. Running would mean sure death. He had to face the enemy and do his best to defeat them.

  Leandro raised his sword and with a wrenching cry hurled himself like an arrow at the enemy. His people followed him without thinking, inspired and infected by their leader’s driving force.

  The clash between the lines was brutal. Steel, claws, and fangs fought in one-to-one combat which soon left its first victims. The ground was soon muddied with blood and scattered entrails. The pain evaporated into the sky in the form of screams which rent the soul. A bolt of electricity flashed through the air and charred twenty demons, then reappeared and shot at others. From the head mage’s wooden staff burst a beam of electricity which dazzled everyone. The demons covered their ears. The mage’s power tore through the war party.

  “YOU WILL NOT PREVAIL!” yelled Strangelus, his hands clutching at the staff with all his might as he summoned and spoke words of power. Another pulse of energy burst through the demons, killing them by the dozens. A voj exploded as the blast went through him.

  Behind the mage, the apprentice was hiding, unable to wield his sword a
nd frustrated at not being able to remember any of his lessons.

  The general fought valiantly, chopping off arms and heads with feline movements and accurate sword strokes.

  Argbralius could not summon the hatred he needed to project onto the enemy. He fought like an ordinary man with little skill in swordsmanship. He received a punch in the nose, stumbled, and at once started to bleed. The enemy lunged at him, ready to skewer him with the sword. Then something happened, something stirred inside him. He seized the man by the neck and squeezed. In a matter of moments, the enemy was dead. The black seed was there in all its splendor and his eyes shone with hunger. He launched himself into the attack.

  Lomans, the general’s captain, was swirling his morning star and crashing it against shields and skulls. The morning star was a formidable weapon wielded by the stronger, larger soldiers. He raised his arm and the spiked ball attached by a chain to the staff came down on the skull of a duj, crushing his helmet into the bone. Brains were squashed outwards. Lomans wielded the great weapon again and deflected a massive blow to his chest. In doing so he gathered momentum and brought the spiked ball down on the chest of a larger voj. The mutant orc’s chest exploded in a gush of air as its lungs were perforated. With a spinning motion, the captain tore the spiked ball free and gained more momentum, dropping it on two evil men’s heads and crushing them instantly.

  As he wielded his sword, Savarb was watching Argbralius and the violent glitter in his eyes, his animal way of moving. Since the first time he saw him, he had known there was something strange about the boy. Those sudden surges of dark energy were deeply unnatural. The young man was only a boy in his eyes, and yet it seemed that he was wielding the sword with extreme violence. There was no swordsmanship in his attacks. He hacked and chopped like an amateur, but with such strength!

  “The sáffurtan!” Strangelus shouted at his pupil.

  Elgahar saw that the sáffurtan’s bony hands were holding a spiral of red energy. Three imperial soldiers surrounded him to bring him down, but the demon shot a lightning bolt that went through them with ease. The bolt did not only kill the men. It had another effect: The bodies began to wake, to move like puppets toward the forces of the Empire, baring their teeth.

  Strangelus shot forth a dart of energy. The sáffurtan raised his hand, and inches away from colliding against his flesh, a dark purple translucent surface appeared and disappeared in an instant. Strangelus was familiar with that strong spell: It was a shield! It used soul-energy to deflect incoming blows of energy. He was defended by his shield, light blue now, a summoning that came from the forces within him.

  Mage and necromancer engaged in a furious, yet short-lived exchange of energy bolts, each hacking at the other’s shield. Before the mage could beat down the sáffurtan’s shield, the awakened dead had already reached the line of defense.

  The first soldier to be bitten let out a howl which appalled the others. Two, three, five corpses hurled themselves on him to feed on his innards. Other soldiers fell too, sacrificed to the hunger of the dead. The lines of the Empire, overcome by panic, began to retreat.

  “Their heads! We need to cut off their heads!” Deathslayer yelled.

  Strangelus was about to cast a spell of energy to pulverize the corpses, but at that exact moment, a powerful beam of death ripped down his shield. The mage fell back and quickly cast another shield around him. He could not defend his people! The moment he tried, the sáffurtan would slay him.

  The mage bared his teeth and became furious. He clawed his hands around the staff and scraped the earth with it, gathering it together. He threw the soil in the air and immediately cast Roots of the Mandrake. The soil became large spindle-shaped roots. Five roots dug deep into the sáffurtan. The shield was unable to block an earth spell, as it had been created to negate energy spells. Strangelus did not allow any repose. With another quick succession of operations, he pointed his staff at the necromancer and uttered the word of power: Magnasia! The necromancer’s shield caved in, and the dark mage began to burn alive.

  The mage showed deep exhaustion. Casting magic was not cost-free, and the cost was his life force itself. Cast too much before having the chance to recover, and you could die. The head mage reached into his blue toga and drew out a potion. He drank the manna and felt his stamina recover.

  “Il… cal… duuuuuja… miiii… ncha… la… ja…”

  Strangelus recognized the incantation. Words of power wielded by the Dark Arts! “They have another necromancer! Take cover!”

  A powerful beam of deadly energy was deflected by the mage’s shield. Other soldiers were not as lucky. The lethal blast ripped three of them open from the groin to the throat, exposing their innards.

  As death accumulated, the hidden necromancer continued summoning the dead. This was the typical strategy for a necromancer, to hide from the spells of a powerful mage and simply summon the dead back to use as his primary weapon. Coward!

  From the left came five riders, pushing their steeds to the limits of their strength. There were two warhorses, one tan and the other white. The large tan was ridden by Gramal Gard, a remarkable warrior from the Brutal-Fark Amon. On the white mare rode Lulita armed with bow and arrows. On the three other horses rode Luchy, Tomasa, and Lombardo.

  Lulita’s arrows flew true, bringing down dead and demons alike. Tomasa rode through the enemy line, wielding her pickaxe and cracking skulls with pleasure. Luchy stayed behind.

  Lombardo came down from his horse and began to wield the large sword Savarb had given him. He was not a military man but managed to kill one duj.

  Gramal leaped off his mount and came to the mage’s aid. “Go! Get some rest! You are weak, mage! We need you!”

  Without hesitating, the old magician began to retreat. Gramal Gard was in full armor. He had brought it to the village on the order of his commander Hakama, who had insisted he should take it in case things went astray. And astray they had certainly gone.

  The large soldier of the Brutal Fark-Amon division was a deadly foe by himself and was even deadlier when in unison with the other Brutal Fark-Amon. His armor was entirely white with an enormous breastplate and large shoulder plates. On his back shone an enchanted claymore. The Brutal Fark-Amon soldier uttered words of power. His long blond hair was tucked inside his all-white helmet, protecting his massive skull. Its visor was down, covering his eyes.

  The great Brutal Fark-Amon unsheathed the claymore from the scabbard on his back. The powerful ring of the heavy sword made a dent in the morale of the remaining demons. A mage was an enemy to be very wary of; a Brutal Fark-Amon, on the other hand, was a berserker, a heavy-set, heavy-hitting enemy with magic woven into his claymore.

  “Annacera!” yelled Gramal with a battle cry. The claymore turned a gleaming light blue as the enchantment took hold. The Brutal Fark-Amon threw himself into the battle. Like a charging bull, the magnificent soldier swung the claymore with implacable speed and accuracy. With each stride he gave, he swiveled in full force to deliver a deathblow few could parry successfully. The claymore tore through the remaining voj and duj. With a single swoop, the Brutal Fark-Amon cut through twenty corpses, then raised the sword in the air and buried the blade in the earth with a single fluid motion. The sudden flare of magic upwards from the earth destabilized the remaining evil men. As they stood there stunned, it was Lulita who picked them off one by one with her bow.

  Strangelus was gasping for breath. The general was panting.

  “Master!” Elgahar cried.

  “This battle is far from over!” yelled the general. “We must go north to Kathanas! That’s where we might have a chance to stop the advancing tide!”

  Lomans and Gramal clasped wrists.

  “Well met, soldier. Excellent skills,” said Lomans.

  “How many?” asked Gramal.

  “I slew about thirteen,” said Lomans as he ran behind the fleeing party.

  “I killed fifteen. Well done, Captain,” said Gramal with a grin.

  The
survivors headed north at a brisk pace. Those on horseback formed the vanguard, keeping an eye on the safety of the road.

  The general counted his forces: of the hundred soldiers he had started with, there were ten left, including Lomans. The Gods be thanked, they had now been joined by new forces and at the right moment: Lulita, Luchy, Tomasa, Gramal, and Lombardo. Lulita seemed to have been rejuvenated. He remembered fighting beside the Wild Woman and how she had never ceased to impress him with her courage in battle.

  Before setting out and leaving everything behind, he turned to look once more at the devastated village. This was only a taste of what was coming. The demons would be on their heels in no time. A sáffurtan was still alive in the ruined village. And with all those corpses, the necromancer would surely amass a venerable force of walking dead.

  Chapter XIII – Heading North

  It was nighttime and the column of survivors kept going, regardless of hunger, thirst, sleepiness, or exhaustion. Leandro was panting. He had been trotting for two days and had not reached the carriage which was carrying his family. He was thinking of the bands of thieves and murderers, and he feared for them.

  “Let’s stop here,” he said, his face troubled.

  As he halted, he was praying for the safety of Karolina and the twins. All his escort and entourage had departed with them. It was a bad idea to have come to this village ill-prepared, but of course, it was part of the design of whoever had planned to decapitate the Empire of its military command.

  I hope they’re all right, he repeated to himself again and again. He looked around at the villagers who were following the soldiers on foot. Only a handful of them had made it out alive, among them men, women, and their children. There were only five horsemen: Lulita, Luchy, Tomasa, Lombardo, and Gramal. Luchy had given up her mount to a couple with a newborn; the mother was badly wounded, and the father was doing his best to keep his small family on the mount. Gramal had given up his seat for the head mage, who was still recovering after the intense action. Lombardo had given his seat up to the weakest children, who would be unable to keep up with the fast pace.