03- The Apostles of Doom

by J. Langland

  Citadel of Light, Main Courtyard, Hilda, Stevos

  “That was a night!” Stevos said, sitting down on a stone bench along one of the inner walls of the main courtyard. He and Hilda had both just rotated in with their squads. The avatars did not need to sleep, but their mortal squads did.

  “I do not believe I have ever put down so many Unlife in my entire life as I put down last night. And then the carnage of Ruiden and those demons? I could never have imagined such a thing,” Hilda said.

  “Yes, the demons. That was very discomforting,” Stevos told her. “We were actually fighting alongside demons from the Abyss!” He shook his head. “I am pretty sure that has to be an act of heresy!”

  “Stevos,” Hilda sighed, shaking her head as if in exhaustion, “I have no idea what is heresy and what is dogma at this point. But clearly, the information we have been working with is suspect.”

  “Orcus and Tiernon have worked together before? How is that even possible?” Stevos asked.

  “I don’t know, but Beragamos clearly knew both Orcus and his main D’Orc,” Hilda said.

  “So if he knew Orcus personally and he knew firsthand of D’Orcs, why did he never say anything?” Stevos exclaimed, raising his hands.

  “There is something we are missing,” Hilda replied, acknowledging the other saint’s frustration. “For one thing, I am deeply troubled by what I thought I heard about Sentir Fallon.”

  “You heard that too? That has to be a lie!” Stevos said.

  “Last night, as we prepared to battle, that was my thought too; however, only a few hours later, my squad was being escorted by a demon squadron. Their efforts allowed me to get much closer to master vampires and re-turn them than I could have with my squad alone,” Hilda said.

  “You re-turned them? When they were surrounded by ghouls?” Stevos asked in shock.

  “Yes. Probably not the nicest thing to do, but sometimes justice is harsh,” Hilda said, quoting a well-known proverb of Tierhallon.

  Horns blared warning throughout the Citadel.

  “What does that mean?” Stevos asked.

  “I have no idea, but my first guess is that those extremely tall creatures to the south are finally moving.” Hilda said, standing.

  Citadel Command Tower

  “They are moving!” Targh Bowelsplitter called.

  Tom turned from his conversation with Darg-Krallnom and the avatars to look towards the risar. The Army of the Night had fully cleared the path to the risar and now the giants were moving towards the Citadel. Moving with increasing speed, in fact; within moments they were running.

  “We need to get going! If they hit the walls, it is going to be very bad!” Targh yelled. “I am off to my troops!”

  “Ready?” Darg-Krallnom looked to the others, who nodded.

  They had chosen Darg-Krallnom, Tom, Roth Tar Gorefest and Inethya to be the initial principal combatants. The four launched themselves into the air in the direction of the now-charging risar.

  “Time to go big!” Darg-Krallnom shouted, raising his giant sword. Tom wasn’t quite sure what he meant until he saw the D’Orc growing larger, along with his sword and armor! Darg-Krallnom can change forms? Tom had not known that. He did another double take as Roth Tar Gorefest suddenly did the same.

  “The bigger the better!” Inethya shouted as she too began to expand along with her plate armor.

  Tom snorted; this would be a more interesting battle than he’d thought. He grabbed the Rod of Tommus with his tail and began unbuckling his kilt. The kilt was normal demon dragon hide and didn’t change size. During the initial charge he had worn it as an armband; this time he would need to wear it as a ring. He probably could have done without it, but he was still not completely trusting of the Five Siblings and so had wanted his arrowheads with him. As Edwyrd, he had carried them in a pouch attached to a real belt worn under his robes.

  The Rod of Tommus also did not expand, as far as he knew, so it was about to become the Toothpick of Tommus. Okay, maybe not that bad. It’s about eight feet long, so it will be more like a large pen, he thought. I only hope the pen truly is mightier than the sword.

  Due to having to adjust his kilt and the Wand, Tom was behind the other three as each chose a risi and readied for aerial tackles. There was a crash of thunder as Darg-Krallnom thrust his giant sword into the belly of the eldþursi, the fire giant. Suddenly Darg-Krallnom was on the other side of the fire giant. Tom blinked; the fire-giant had flashed to flame! Hey! That’s my shtick! Tom complained to himself.

  Roth Tar Gorefest would have been the next tackle, but in a manner similar to the fire giant, the vindthursi, or wind giant, simply turned to air. Only Inethya physically collided with the hrímthursi, the rime giant. There was a loud crash as her shield smashed into the giant, quickly followed by a crackling sound as ice crawled over Inethya’s armor. Within moments, the prophetess was encased in ice.

  Tom moved up and over the currently frozen prophetess and leaped onto the rime giant—actually a frost giant—and turned into burning flame. Shit! he thought to himself as his Rod and kilt plummeted towards the ground. He really needed to work on his tactics.

  That was stupid of me! But what’s done is done. Tom turned up the heat to try and melt the frost giant. Things were getting wet, but the frost giant seemed able to regenerate his icy armor nearly as fast as Tom could burn it away. This was not going to work; the frost giant was moving on, going around Inethya and heading for the walls of the Citadel.

  Tom let go of the frost giant and flew down in flame form to retrieve his possessions. He landed, shifting to his true form, albeit his slightly more traditional larger form. He grabbed his kilt and the Wand and fastened the belt around his arm.

  Earth! Tom yelled in his head and pointed the Wand of Orcus at the ground in front of the charging risar. He willed the Earth Portal at Nysegard to pull the ground under the giants towards himself—literally pulling the ground from beneath their feet.

  The giants collapsed on the ground as Darg-Krallnom and Roth Tar Gorefest moved in to smash the two giants on the back of their heads before they could shift to their elemental form. Tom winced at the sound the two giant battle swords made as they crashed into the giants’ heads; with any luck, that would disorient them temporarily.

  There was a loud explosion as the ice encasing Inethya burst, spraying ice shards for a thousand feet, impaling several nearby ghouls and cutting slightly into Tom’s wings and buttocks. The prophetess began chanting something that Tom could not make out. Suddenly her sword began glowing very brightly.

  Inethya moved towards the frost giant, who was struggling to stand in its icy and still slightly melted armor. She drove her glowing sword straight down to the giant’s back, point first. There was a loud crackling sound as the armor began splitting under the sword’s pressure. Inethya pulled back and struck down again in the same location, this time edge first, trying to force the crack to enlarge. That knocked the frost giant from all fours to flat on the ground.

  The fire giant turned to flame and suddenly engulfed Darg-Krallnom. Darg-Krallnom batted at the flames with his hands, as if trying to put them out. He was not in any pain, obviously, but he seemed quite annoyed. He looked to Tom. “This is going to be a long battle; we all seem rather evenly matched.” The D’Orc commander shook his head in frustration.

  Tom shared the feeling. He was at a loss as to what to do against these creatures. All of his main ranged attacks were elemental based, and these giants were also elemental based. He needed something that was not elemental based, or perhaps something Earth based. A gravity canon would be extremely useful right now.

  The wind giant flashed to air before reforming about one hundred feet closer to the Citadel, and began charging it again.

  Crap! How do we stop that thing? Tom wondered. He took off at full flight speed to try and overtake the wind giant. He suddenly had a plan.

  He was faster in the air than the wind giant was on the ground. He overtook it and sp
un, landing in front of it. His head was not even waist high to the giant, but if the giant stayed physical, he would trip it up before it could crash into the walls of the Citadel.

  I may have incoming near the upper Air Portal, Tom sent to Arg-nargoloth. It’s an Unlife Hrímthursi. If it changes to physical form, knock the crap out of with the gravity canons. He didn’t want to use the Nysegard Air Portal in the event the wind-giant went material on the Isle of Doom; that would be bad. Doom in the Abyss would be much better prepared.

  Got it! Arg-nargoloth replied.

  The giant charged straight at Tom, who had the Wand pointing at it. As he had hoped, the giant shifted to its air form. This was going to be risky, but... he gunned up the Air Portal at Doom and used the relay at the Doomalogue to suck the wind giant’s gaseous form to the Air Portal.

  Both Doom and the Doomalogue revved up to pull the wind giant to the Air Portal. It seemed to be working, as a vortex of visibly churning air twisted at the end of the Wand of Orcus. Come on now! Tom tried willing the wind giant to get sucked up into the Wand. It was fighting hard, though; very hard.

  If Tom’s brow could have sweated, it would have been doing so. The wind giant was pulling extremely hard, much harder than he’d imagined. Tom stared down the Wand at the funnel cloud trying to escape his vacuum cleaner. He could see the liches in front of a giant archway in the distance. “Okay then, buddy, let’s do this your way!” he said out loud as he quickly reversed polarity on the Air Portal and then pulled air from the Nysegard portals as well. Instead of sucking, he was going to blow the air giant back to the Storm Lords.

  WHOOSH!!

  The funnel cloud suddenly shot back down the cleared path towards the Storm Lords. As it did so, the wind giant turned back to physical form, but his momentum was too much; his physical body continued to fly through the air until it crashed into the assembled Storm Lord forces, and then into the archway behind them. There was a loud explosion with brilliantly flashing lights as the archway fell over.

  Tom had to blink. The region around the giant and the archway seemed to warp and twist before finally returning to normal. The archway was collapsed and broken, the entire area a shambles, nearly everyone and everything lying on the ground.

  Tom turned to the other two giants, who were now simply standing there as if unsure what to do. Darg-Krallnom and Roth Tar Gorefest quickly began attacking them, and they only halfheartedly fought back.

  “I think the liches controlling them were knocked out of commission!” Inethya yelled to Tom.

  “Can you seek to banish them as you would other Unlife?” Tom yelled back.

  Inethya nodded and quickly began chanting and moving her arms.

  Tom shifted his attention to the fire giant as it fended off attacks from Darg-Krallnom. It was definitely taking damage. Was it hurting? Tom noticed the giant’s eyes wincing with the blows that connected. He’d never seen a zombie wince; they should not feel pain.

  Tom shifted his sight to examine the creature better. He blinked. The thing was bound up in all sorts of dark tendrils encasing it. The giant’s inner light was the dark purplish light of antimus. Is that light? he wondered, briefly seeing a small flash of animus light at the core of the giant, before it was hidden again by dark tendrils.

  Suddenly radiant light poured down from the sky as Inethya’s ritual took effect on the frost giant. Roth Tar Gorefest jumped back and switched to attacking the fire giant with Darg-Krallnom. Tom smiled to himself as he watched the cleansing light of Tiernon’s magic engulf the frost giant. That would be able remove the antimus, even has he had used it to cleanse himself. As he watched, however, the black tendrils seemed to fatten, widening, encasing, shielding and protecting the antimus inside.

  He glanced to Inethya, who was frowning. Clearly, things were not going as planned. The light was unable to pierce the tendrils to get inside and cleanse the antimus. The antimus needed to be cleansed by the light, even as he had cleansed Excrathadorus Mortis; unfortunately, the black tendrils crawling over the giant’s being prevented that.

  Suddenly the giant taking a beating from Darg-Krallnom and Roth Tar Gorefest seemed to shake its head. It quickly flashed to fire, faster than Tom could react to activate the Fire Portals. It was suddenly on the other side of the two D’Orcs and making and end run, in physical form, to the walls.

  The two D’Orcs had stumbled at the sudden disappearance of their target, and were working to recover. Tom shook his head and took off after the fire giant. As the giant approached the moat at a full run, it suddenly jumped, leaping over the moat and slamming hard into the wall.

  There was a great creaking and groaning sound as the Citadel’s wall was rocked by the giant’s impact. The fire giant released blasts of fire, scorching the wall. Steam rose from the moat as the flames licked the water. Suddenly the giant fell to its knees and plunged its fists in the Holy Water. It let loose a horrific scream of pain even as fire raced over the moat’s surface, turning the Holy Water to steam.

  Tom heard a shout from behind him and turned to find the frost giant now charging the Citadel wall, even as the fire giant had. The beams of Holy Light were still following it, but were really not slowing it as much as one might have thought. The Holy Light suddenly went out as Inethya collapsed to her knees, clearly overtaxed by the spell. None of the avatars were operating at full power yet.

  Tom moved to tackle the frost giant, but with the giant’s momentum and Tom’s smaller size, all he could do was grab it by the waist, knocking it off target as it leaped the moat, and then he and the giant crashed hard into the wall.

  Darg-Krallnom flew over and slashed down at the fire giant’s head as it bent over the moat, trying to vaporize it. That blow connected, hard. Apparently the liches controlling the risar had learned their lesson about changing to elemental form.

  Targh Bowelsplitter and his D’Orcs suddenly descended on the giants and began working to pull the fire giant’s hands out of the moat.

  Tom struggled to pull himself out from under the frost giant. “Argh!” he howled as the frost giant got to its feet, stomping on Tom’s legs. “Screw you, ass wipe!” Tom shouted. The giant’s foot came down, smashing into Tom’s head. Argh! That really hurt!

  He heard D’Orcs cursing and as the giant’s foot lifted to stomp on his face a second time, he could see why. The wind giant was back, and while not in gaseous form, it was able to create windstorms that were blowing the D’Orcs away from the fire giant.

  “Argh!” Tom yelled again as the frost giant once more stomped soundly on his head. The stupid thing did not seem to mind his horns. Its ice armor seemed to be protecting it. Lightning suddenly struck the frost giant, knocking it off balance sufficiently for Tom to pull his legs free and escape.

  Tom heard a whistling of air, and suddenly a spinning set of glowing blades hurtled out of nowhere and began attacking the fire giant, impervious to the wind giant’s efforts. Tom’s eyes widened in surprise. Ruiden had suddenly appeared and came to their aid. Had he been still out there mowing through the Army of the Night? Tom wondered.

  Ruiden’s attacks caused the fire giant to flash to flame and relocate a short distance away. Tom could not help but notice how blackened the giant’s fists were. The Holy Water had obviously been effective.

  KTHUDD! The ground beneath their feet shook.

  Tom looked around, trying to figure out what it was.

  A loud cracking noise came from somewhere; it sounded like it was on the other side of the wall.

  “What the hell is that?” Tom asked Targh, who was the closest to him at the moment.

  A bergrisi is attacking the southern wall! Tamarin informed him from the control tower.

  “Tamarin says a bergrisi is assailing the southern wall!” Tom yelled to the others.

  “Lilith’s teats!” Targh cursed, clenching his fists in anger.

  “When the three risar stood up to the south, I was grateful that they had not brought a bergrisi with them. For walled cities
like this, they are the worst possible thing!” Targh yelled even as Inethya landed another lightning bolt on the frost giant.

  “What are bergrisi?” Tom yelled back.

  “Mountain giants!” Darg-Krallnom called out. “They are affiliated with Earth, and thus stone!”

  “And they are twice the size of the other risar!” Targh yelled.

  “Twice the size?” Tom asked in shock. “You mean two hundred feet tall?”

  “Roughly!” Darg-Krallnom nodded.

  “Where was it?” Tom asked. “Why didn’t we see it?”

  “I am guessing they hauled it north on a cart, close to the ground, while we were staring at the standing risar in the south!” Targh said.

  “Shit!” Tom yelled, shaking his head.

  Citadel of Light, Battlements

  “Is that your sword down there without you?” Stainsberry asked Talarius as they stood upon the southern wall looking at the battle raging at its base.

  “Yes, he is somehow still going,” Talarius replied. “I really have to wonder how he has so much mana. This flying glaive thing must be incredibly mana-intensive. He obviously has a mana pool, and honestly, it’s never run dry before, but this is far more mana than I’ve ever seen him use.”

  “What’s the longest you’ve ever seen him do this?” Stainsberry asked.

  “I have never seen him do this. He’s always been an intelligent sword who assisted me in battle, but until we got separated, he’d never turned into a sword golem and never done this sort of thing. This is also only the second time he’s used the glaive form. The first time was unmasking and attacking an archdemon.”

  “An archdemon?” Stainsberry shook his head. “Well, being an essentially unbreakable magical artifact, forged in the bowels of hell, probably would give one the self-confidence for that sort of thing.”

  Suddenly a new set of horns began blowing, this time to the north. “What is that?” Talarius asked as people began moving quickly to reinforce the northern walls on the other side of the Citadel.