03- The Apostles of Doom

by J. Langland

  ZZzztt. Hilda glanced to her left flank, beyond the soldier, Thad, who was guarding it, to see a wight being zapped by the protective shield she had wrapped around her squad. Thad quickly smashed its head in with his mace, which she had also Blessed.

  Hilda nodded, pleased. This part of the field was mostly cleared of active combatants, but the rear guard were starting to move back in. They needed to hurry towards the vampire-led ghoul armies before they got bogged down with more zombies. Hilda frowned, trying to understand where they had gotten so many corpses to reanimate.

  Suddenly there was a commotion among the mass of zombies ahead and to the right of them, separated from them by about thirty feet of mulched zombie corpses. The zombies, who had been milling around, apparently awaiting orders, now seemed to be scrambling to change positions and move out of the way of something. She had to adjust her Holy Sight, but something on the other side of the zombies was apparently causing havoc.

  Whatever the commotion was, she could see various zombie limbs flying up into the air and coming back down among the still-functional zombies. It was rather similar to the havoc wreaked by the D’Orcs, but there were no D’Orcs in that area that she knew of. Whatever it was, it was below the head height of the zombies, and heading towards them.

  “Alert!” Hilda told her squad, pointing to the commotion. The region was poorly lit; their principal light source was her own Holy Light, which lit them up as very obvious targets. The remainder of the illumination on the battlefield came from the Citadel’s walls some distance behind them; lightning bolts crashing down upon the D’Orc regiment about two thousand feet southwest of them; fireballs launched by various wizards; and whatever pyrotechnic display Orcus, Ashena Brightfeather or some other high-powered knight or avatar might produce in the process of battling the Unlife. The squad turned to face the commotion.

  Suddenly the area at the front of the zombie line erupted in a whirlwind of blood, zombie guts and random pieces of goo-covered severed limbs. This was clearly visible due to the fact that the whirlwind was glowing extremely brightly. It appeared to be a gigantic, self-propelled, metal spinning glaive, about five feet in width.

  The glaive whirled out of the mass of zombies, causing Hilda’s squad to move to full defensive crouches, preparing for an attack. However, instead of attacking, the spinning glaive came to a halt and suddenly started rearranging itself. Within moments, there was a humanoid sword golem standing in front of them.

  “Hilda of Rivenrock!” Ruiden shouted.

  “Stand down, he’s with us. This is Sir Talarius’s sword, Ruiden,” Hilda shouted to her squad.

  “His sword?” Jacob asked her in disbelief.

  “It’s a very long story, but yes, we know each other. He used to store himself in my inn room,” Hilda said. Jacob looked at her in puzzlement. Hilda shook her head. “Yes, I know how crazy that sounds.”

  Ruiden walked over to them. “Good to see you again, Hilda!”

  The sword seemed much more sociable than it had been in Freehold. It almost seemed relaxed.

  “Good to see you, Ruiden. So I take it you found Talarius and that is how you came to be here?” Hilda asked.

  “Indeed, I have seen and learned a lot, much of it very disturbing, but yes, I was on his back when he entered the Command Center with Lord Tommus, or Lord Orcus as he is known here,” Ruiden said.

  Hilda smiled somewhat thinly. “Well, we certainly have much to catch up on, but perhaps we could hold off on that until after the Storm Lords are vanquished?” Hilda asked.

  “Certainly. Where are you off to? Would you like me to clear a path?” the sword asked.

  Hilda tilted her head, nodding. “That would be most generous of you.” It would certainly speed their progress. She’d need to Lay To Rest the zombie parts that Ruiden would end up strewing in their path, but it would be far safer for her squad.

  Hilda blinked as off to their left and overhead, a brilliant flash of light erupted and continued. Hilda turned to see a figure her Holy Sight revealed as Ashena Brightfeather, flying over a regiment of the Army of the Night. The extremely bright light was Krinna Fire emanating from a large mirrored shield bearing the symbol of Krinna and blasting down upon the army below a concentrated beam of Unlife-incinerating light. Clearly, Krinna’s archons had arrived on the planet in full force.

  Praelgeis’s Command Center: DOA + 20, Early First Period

  “Where are these avatars coming from, and where is their mana coming from?” Praelgeis demanded of Exador.

  Exador shook his head. “They must be relaying the mana from somewhere else on Nysegard. Local runic gateways to their other fortresses. My guess would be that they are dropping archons to other fortresses they have. From those fortresses, they are then ferrying in combat-ready avatars.

  “We have not encountered this much resistance since the Battle of Night’s Helm,” Daerth Tromlane hissed.

  Praelgeis’s helm shook. “This is worse. Much worse. I do not recall ever seeing this many senior avatars. Ramses has noted that the winged saint with the Krinna Fire is Ashena Brightfeather, Prophetess of Nysegard. I have counted at least eighteen other avatars. At no point in history have the Forces of Light deployed this level of force.”

  “And they come with a reborn Orcus,” Baba Smirt’ hissed. “With Orcus returned, he and the Siblings should be at each other’s throats, fighting each other! That was the Dark Apostle’s contingency plan should we fail to permanently slay Orcus.”

  “How did this happen with no warning?” Praelgeis asked.

  Exador kept his mouth closed. It happened with no warning because it had happened incredibly fast; a matter of quarter-months. Nothing happened that fast for immortals. These ventures took centuries, not months or quarter-months. He was not, however, going to reveal this information. The fact that he had been aware that Lenamare’s demon was suspected of being Orcus reborn, and not told them, would only aggravate his relationships with them.

  “If we are going to have any hope of salvaging this fiasco, we are going to need to go big,” Baba Smert’ hissed. “Very big.”

  “Hmm. Well, while you figure out what’s very big,” Exador said, watching Ashena cook untold numbers of troops, “might I suggest something that is modestly big, and unusual?”

  “And what would that be?” Praelgeis asked.

  “Fire, cold and lightning don’t do much to slow the D’Orcs down. I don’t know if you have it in your spellbooks—it was a surprise to me when the Council of Wizardry used it against me—but it would at least knock that flying torch out of the sky and keep the D’Orcs pinned down.”

  Ankle-Deep in Zombies, Doom First Regiment: One Hour Later

  “These are the days, my friend!” Darg-Krallnom shouted to his second-in-command, Ergda Doom Wraith.

  “Hah!” Ergda shouted back. “It is good to be back home on Nysegard; I take great comfort in obliterating Unlife! I was sure we would never return to such simple pleasures!” she said, flicking the head off an alvaran zombie and into her mouth. “Candy!”

  Darg-Krallnom grimaced. “I do not know how you can eat such junk food!”

  “I haven’t had such delicacies in a very long time,” Ergda pointed out.

  “Yes, but that stuff is literally rotten!” Darg-Krallnom complained.

  “I prefer the term fermented; you know, as with glargh or sauerkraut!” Ergda replied and popped another zombie head into her mouth.

  Darg-Krallnom splattered a small zombie squad and then turned his primary attention back to Ergda. “Notice how they’ve stopped with the lightning bolts?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I guess they finally wised up!” Ergda said.

  “They need to save their energy for their undying breaths when we finish them all off,” Darg-Krallnom joked.

  “Hey, do you hear that whistling noise?” Ergda asked.

  “Now that you mention it, yes. I think it’s coming from above us.” Darg-Krallnom looked up to see several fiery spheres coming throu
gh the clouds.

  “Are those coming our way?” Ergda asked.

  “Time to scramble!” Darg-Krallnom shouted, even as he saw one of the spheres moving directly towards him as if it had a mind of its own. “This is going to hurt!” he shouted seconds before the large meteor crashed into his head, driving him out of the sky, through the mushed zombie sludge and into the ground.

  Field of Zombies, Tom

  Tom smashed in the head of the giant, feathered, oriental dragon zombie, finally managing to crush its brain. Where are they coming up with this undead bestiary? Tom wondered. It was at this point he heard loud whistling noises coming from above the battlefield.

  There was a meteor shower coming through the clouds at them. Crap! What are those liches up to now? It took but a moment for him to find out. One of the meteors seemed to chase Darg-Krallnom from his position before plowing into the D’Orc driving him down and into the ground. His commander was going to have a really bad headache from that one.

  The burning light of Ashena’s Krinna Fire suddenly flared wildly all around the battlefield. Tom spun to see the prophetess knocked from the sky by another meteor. Tom looked up frantically to see another meteor, still pretty distant, coming directly for him.

  He flew sideways, only to see the meteor swerve towards him as well. It was not immediate, momentum clearly applied, but it was coming, and fast. Okay, they’ve got curveballs? I’ve got a bat! Tom thought to himself. His stepfather had forced him to play Little League against his will, for two seasons. He had not been much of a hitter, but this was a big baseball and he had an even better bat.

  He didn’t have time to really aim; he’d be lucky to hit it anywhere that was not the Citadel. He was out of time! He raised the Rod as if it were a bat and prepared to slide back at the last second, so he could hit it. He energized the Rod. Three… two… one—swing!

  CRACK! went the meteor. It was not the Rod, that was shielded in an energy field. The meteor went left—technically a foul ball, but he was fine with that. Particularly since it plowed through a couple of vampire-led ghoul battalions.

  Tom looked up at the sky. There were a lot more meteors coming. Either they came in swarms, or there were quite a few liches casting spells, at least if the spell worked like the ones in the RPGs. Time for some batting practice.

  Tom flew towards the nearest oncoming meteor, not clear who it was going to. D’Orcs, it’s time to play ball! he shouted over his links to the local D’Orcs as he moved to intercept the meteor and knock it towards one of the Storm Lords’ command bunkers.

  Tamarin! Tom reached out to the djinni, who was in the Citadel Command Center, serving as his communication link to Grob. Have the avatars pay attention to what I am doing to combat the meteors. We can turn this to our advantage!

  Oooh! That looks like so much fun! Tamarin somehow managed to clap mentally. I will relay the information on!

  CRACK! The meteor bounced off his Rod and right towards the command bunker. The commanders, a couple liches and some vampires, dove out of their bunker with a preternatural alacrity. Or at least the vampires did. Apparently liches, being as they were decomposing sacks of bone, were not quite as lithe as vampires.

  Battlefield, Hilda

  Ruiden had been true to his word and cleared them a path through the zombies to the closest vampire-led ghoul squadrons. The sword had then proceeded to continue on through the ghouls, leaving behind it a rather sickening mess of recently living corpses.

  Ghouls and ghasts were always more problematic than zombies, or even vampires or vampyrs. Ghouls and ghasts were living, diseased people who had to eat living, or very recently living, flesh to survive. Ghouls were generally not in control of their hunger. Ghasts, however, had reached an accommodation with their disease and over decades had learned to process the flesh and blood they consumed, mastering their hunger and subsequently extending their unnatural lives.

  In both cases, however, the creatures were living people. Most protocols recommended conversion, atonement and trial for ghouls. However, the longer one lived with the disease, the more corrupt one became. Longtime ghouls could often not live with the guilt of their actions as a ghoul, and so suffered greatly and sometimes killed themselves. Ghasts and many others were unwilling to atone, and so were typically executed. However, Hilda had always believed in giving them an option for redemption, at least for ghouls. This was why she felt torn over Rede the dhampyr; for him, redemption was not technically possible.

  In any event, redeeming ghouls on the battlefield was neither feasible nor safe, and thus they must be put down. However, unlike zombies, one could not forget that ghouls, however sickly or unkempt, were people. Of course, vampires and vampyrs were formerly people, but they were not technically alive; the former were actively evil, and the latter so dangerous that they had to be put down.

  For the last—well, Hilda had no idea, she was losing track of time—hour or so, they had been battling through the now really angry ghouls still alive in the wake of Ruiden’s meat-grinding carnage. Her chants and rituals were protecting and enhancing the soldiers, including electrifying the ghouls, but up ahead and to the left was a large squad of vampyrs. For that, she planned to get out front.

  Even as she was summoning her Holy Vorpal Sword of Light, the vampyrs were turning from their course towards her squadron to engage in combat with something behind them. It was too dark in this area to see without Holy Sight, so she increased her night vision.

  Hilda gasped. There was a group of demons moving in an orderly manner, not that different than her own squad, flying low the ground and engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the vampyrs. She shook her head at a sight that could only be out of the End of Times. Demons rending vampyrs limb from limb with complete aplomb.

  Vampyrs were the most vicious, unrelenting creatures Hilda had ever encountered, and these demons were literally ripping them to pieces as if they were rag dolls instead of giant ravening mouths of teeth in humanoid form. It was not that the vampyrs could not bite the demons, or claw them, but the demons simply did not care. The demons were being wounded, but their wounds were healing even as she watched.

  Suddenly the largest of the demons broke free from the vampyrs and made his way towards Hilda’s squad over the bodies of ghouls. As he approached, a ghoul got in his way and he simply ripped it in two and tossed it over his shoulder. Her squadron quickly moved to face the very frightening demon. The still-living ghouls between her and the demon rushed to get out of the demon’s path.

  “Hail, Saint of Tiernon!” the demon said, stopping about ten feet away. “I am Darflow Skragnarth, Commander of Doom’s 20th Regiment!”

  “What do you want, demon?” Hilda demanded.

  The demon tilted its head, its mouth splitting into a hideous and deeply terrifying grin. “Why, to be of assistance!”

  “To be of assistance?” Jacob shouted in shock.

  “Of course! We are, unbelievably, on the same side! All of us did, after all, follow Talarius, Knight Rampant of Tiernon and Apostle of Doom, into battle!” Darflow Skragnarth said.

  “Talarius? Apostle of Doom?” Hilda asked in shock.

  “Apostle, harbinger, emissary? What else would you call the person who sounds the horn of battle to bring forth an army?” Darflow Skragnarth asked.

  “Well, this is a onetime thing,” Hilda replied, “so I think that term may be too strong.”

  The demon chuckled. “Perhaps; however, he did fight side by side with Lord Orcus and the goddess Sekhmekt of the Nyjyr Ennead against the Knights of Chaos. Thus, I argue that Talarius is clearly as much a knight of Doom as a knight of Tiernon,” the demon replied.

  Hilda was at a complete loss. She seemed to recall hearing something about this in the command center. She shook her head. “You attempt to distract me. Why, demon?”

  The demon grinned. “I do not seek to distract you. I simply seek to note that Lord Tommus, or Lord Orcus if you will, is not what you may think. Nor are I and my soldiers. T
oday we, enemies for millennia, fight side by side, brothers-in-arms,” Darflow said.

  “I am still not understanding what you want!” Hilda yelled back.

  “Why, to fight by your side. You do understand the stories we shall be able to tell? Heaven and Hell, united to battle the Unlife? This is glory!” The demon laughed. “Now, where do you head? My soldiers will clear the way!”

  Field of Zombies, Stainsberry

  Mufasa twisted to the left and downward, allowing Stainsberry’s sword to strike the vampire man-bat in its right deltoid, causing it to shriek in agony—forcing Stainsberry to wince in pain at the sound—and interrupt its flight sending it back towards the ground. Those half-bat-half-vampire things were a pain to deal with; fortunately, there were not that many of them.

  A loud whistling sound came from above them even as Mufasa began twisting both his neck and entire body to see what the noise was. Stainsberry noted an expression of extreme surprise on what he could see of his mount’s profile, causing him to painfully twist his own own helmeted head, struggling to see what was coming at them. He blinked, there was a giant flaming rock about ten feet away heading directly at him.

  The world suddenly went fuzzy as Mufasa shifted them to the aethereal realm just as the meteor impacted the two companions. Stainsberry’s virtual breath was knocked out of him as he and his mount were dragged by the meteor’s aethereal momentum towards the ground. He felt the tingling sensation as his aethereal form passed through the meteor’s core to emerge from the other side on top of the crater on the ground below.

  Inanimate objects had no physical presence on the aethereal realms, but they did present resistance. This was why one could walk upon the ground, or the water in the aethereal realm; however, one could, with force of will, pass through these objects—typically walls and doors. In this case the resistance of the meteor, with all its momentum had dragged he and Mufasa down to the ground with itself. Being immaterial they had both passed through the meteor as it impacted with the ground and its resistance.