Dante had expected the lich to be forced to make a big push at that point, most likely by hammering away at the channel walls to widen the river and disrupt the flow with debris, slowing it. Yet the enemy commander maintained his defense of his troops, who were still progressing steadily despite the water's increased speed.
"How do they continue to advance?" Gladdic said. "Was this channel not designed specifically to stop them?"
"That was the idea," Dante said. "Unfortunately, the lich refused to lend me his army to test it out beforehand."
He leaned over the stone ledge, trying to make out what was happening down in the dark, deep water. It took him some time before the problem became clear: rather than running against the stream, which should have stymied them, the Blighted seemed to be laying themselves down in a carpet along the smooth bed so that others could use them as handholds to pull themselves forward, minimizing the impact of the current.
"I see," Blays said once he explained. "Well have you tried stopping them?"
Dante drew a pool of shadows to him, reaching down into the riverbed just in front of the foremost Blighted. Some silt had accumulated there already, but he'd had to smooth it down to bare rock to deepen it, and he only had to search a few inches into the muck until he found the stone. He ran his consciousness along it, preparing to yank the whole bed apart and send the Blighted tumbling—
Something rammed into his work from the side, bashing it into a thousand pieces that lost themselves in the water and the silt. He stood stock still, dazed, unable to summon the shadows as he felt a great swell of ether building somewhere out in the water. It rose up, either to destroy him or the channel.
Golden specks spiraled from the air, coming to the hand of an Odo Sein stepping up next to Dante. The armored man lifted his hand, sending the stream out into the water. The ether there winked off.
With that, Dante swayed forward, loosened from whatever had had hold of him. As glad as he was to be set free, he was somewhat troubled by the possibility the White Lich was holding back from his biggest attacks out of concern that the Odo Sein would disrupt them. Yet the Odo Sein hadn't even been able to stop him right after he'd been released from the Riya Lase and was at his weakest. Dante didn't think they'd have much more influence on the day.
The front ranks of Blighted finished crawling over the carpet of their own people, reaching the slow and shallower waters on the other side and romping toward the banks.
Blays drew his swords, the purple-white nether fueled by his trace snapping along the blades. "Don't let them get a beachhead!"
Soldiers ran into the shallows to hack at the Blighted as they tried to emerge from the water. Two monks went with them to light the edge of the river. Blays stalked among the defenders, blades glowing in the gloom of the twilight.
Dante cupped his hands to his mouth. "Quit cutting them in half! We need the bodies!"
He and the nethermancers took every Blighted that fell—as long as it was still in one piece—and converted them into zombies, which waded out to confront the enemy troops from just beneath the surface. Backed by the soldiers, they soon pushed the advance back into the river, and then made way for the channel, where they could wreak havoc on the Blighted as they pulled themselves against the current.
Nak waddled next to Dante, planting his hands on his hips and grinning. "Are we actually holding them off? I was assured I'd be in one of their bellies by now."
"Just one? You're big enough to feed at least six of them."
The former monk chortled. "For the life of me, I can't remember why I ever agreed to come down here and help you."
One of the Mallish monks was keeping the channel brightly lit. All at once, dozens of dark shapes darted into the far end, swimming up it like arrows in flight. The smallest of them was as long as a man was tall. The largest were three times that length. They skimmed over the carpet of Blighted and rammed into the zombies holding the enemy off at the other end.
Jaws opened wide. Teeth flashed. The smaller ones bit whole limbs from the zombies while the larger ones shredded their targets apart, trailing scraps of meat behind them. Some stayed behind to massacre the zombies while the others streaked toward shore.
"Get out of the water!" Dante yelled. "Right now!"
Soldiers gawked at him, running for dry ground while looking back over their shoulders. The pair of monks who'd been lighting the river splashed toward the banks, bunching their sodden robes in their hands. Eyes going wide, Dante ran toward them, bringing the nether to him.
The closer of the two of them was high-stepping through knee-deep water, but the trailing man was still plowing up to his waist. Behind him, a dark fin broke the surface. Dante threw a black blade toward the monks. The one in back gasped at the sight of it, then whirled around.
A blunt, triangular head burst from the river. The shark's skin was mottled and bruised and its eyes were small and white. The monk screamed. Hundreds of teeth closed around his body. He screamed once more, then gurgled, blood spouting from his mouth.
The nethereal blade slashed into the shark's head. It cleaved all the way through the skull, but there was very little blood. The beast landed in the water with a heavy splash. Neither it nor the monk moved.
Blays stared, swords sheathed to preserve his trace. "Was that a zombie shark?"
"That's exactly what it was." Dante took a step into the water to help the surviving monk ashore. "And they're completely destroying us."
The zombies at the exit of the channel had all been reduced to a jumble of limbs and guts which were now being flushed out to sea. Many of the sorcerers had taken aim at the sharks, but the White Lich was protecting them from his place downstream, and had only suffered a small handful of losses, including the one Dante had taken out. Blighted were pouring out of the channel into the wider river, but for now they were holding position there rather than charging toward shore.
"They're gathering their forces," Dante said. "In another minute, they'll swarm us. Do not let them break through!"
Swordsmen formed a line along the shore, backed by men with pikes and spears. Sorcerers found bits of high ground to be better able to see where their talents were needed. Dante stayed close to the front. Though he saw no proof of it, he thought he could feel the massive presence of the lich coming closer. A bit of sorcery flashed from the far bank. With the channel narrowed as much as it was, the two shores were near enough for the sorcerers on either side to support each other, but for some reason the lich was directing all his efforts on the eastern bank. Either it was coincidence, or he was targeting it deliberately, using the initial confusion of battle to try to knock out key opposition—like Gladdic or Dante.
Blays craned his neck, angling for a better view of the channel. "Do we have any way to cut that off? Or disrupt it? If they commit their first wave and we stop them from sending in reinforcements, we ought to be able to massacre them."
"I'll see what I can do," Dante said. "Try not to lose the war in my absence."
He picked his way along the shore toward the upstream end of the channel where the Blighted were massing, keeping the nether close but not so close that it was likely to draw notice. The sensation of the White Lich grew as he neared the passage, a slow pulsing of ether like the breathing of the land itself.
Light appeared within the channel, brightening quickly. Dante got down behind a boulder. The Blighted who'd made it through took off as a single unit, bounding through the water toward the lines of defenders on the east shore.
"Incoming!" Blays hollered. "Let's make them regret the day they decided to become undead!"
There were so many Blighted moving across the river bed that it looked like the ground itself was charging toward the defenders. Sharks still patrolled the waters right up to the shallows, ensuring no one dared to wade out from land.
As the Blighted swarmed through the rocks and weeds near the bank, a column of light erupted from the channel. It arced toward the defenders, but while the sorce
rers there were firing their first counters at it, it broke apart into an umbrella of dozens of individual bolts. Balls of nether veered hard to intercept, breaking most of the bolts into harmless sparks, but at least a quarter made it through to crash into the defenders, who scattered and threw themselves to the ground, yelling out in panic and pain.
They were still screaming as another column of light burst upward from the river. The Blighted poured from the water and into the men-at-arms holding the rocky front. Scattered flashes of light knocked down a half dozen of the undead, but most of the priests were trained on the second umbrella of ether bearing down on them from above.
Which was, of course, the point: for the lich to nullify their sorcery and allow his infantry to punch into the city. Dante watched, helpless, as the second barrage weathered the counters and blasted into the soldiers, tearing holes in their lines. Enraged and fearless, the Blighted ran into the gaps, throwing themselves on anyone who moved to engage them.
Dante had the strong urge to run back and aid them—with his strength, they might be able to completely nullify the barrages, protecting the soldiers—but for now, the best way to help them was to do his job.
As cautiously as if he was creeping through a dark room, he gathered the nether to him. He waited for the next swell of light from the waters beneath him. As soon as it began to rise, he dived into the rock bedding the channel, making no effort to be sophisticated or subtle, but instead just the opposite, smashing whatever he could, cracking it apart, thrusting up spikes of rock into the bodies of the Blighted carpeting it as their makeshift rope net. The water-muffled scrape and groan of stone bubbled from the river; silt and dust swirled in sudden eddies, along with undead, some of them now quite dead, others simply pulled loose from their handholds, clawing at the water.
The pillar of light flew into the sky and blossomed over the shoreline, but there was something distracted about this one. Probably due to the fact the lich was already firing up another salvo of ether. Dante backpedaled over the artificially smooth bank overlooking the channel.
The light raced upward, angled straight toward him. Rather than parrying it directly, Dante yanked up a fat lip of rock at the edge of the bank. The ether pounded into it, raining boulders down into the water—and only further fouling the terrain.
Cloudy though it was, it was obvious the river bed was now a shattered and ugly mess. Even in the smooth spots, the silt had been flushed away by the disruption, leaving behind bare rock with no handholds to stretch a chain of Blighted over. A few hung tight to what they could, but most had been washed back to the channel entrance and were fighting to restore a route across. At a glance, it looked like some of them would eventually do so, allowing others to climb across them, but that crossing would be much more bottlenecked than before.
Upstream, the Blighted had fought their way ashore, snarling the riparian grass with bodies of the soldiers. But they had lost many of their own as well and there were only a few hundred more waiting behind them to crawl out and join the fray. Blades and spears flashed in the night. With the lich distracted by Dante, the sorcerers there carved into the Blighted, halting their advance and pushing them back.
Dante hung about the ravaged channel, expecting the lich to try to use the ether to revert the ground to its prior state. Instead, the Eiden Rane gathered another fusillade of light and slung it at the defenders upshore. Dante frowned. Why press on with a neutered attack? It would make sense if it was cover to let the Blighted retreat, but the lich's legions fought on. So what was—?
A beam of ether seared out from the river toward Dante. He sprinted forward, hurling gobs of nether behind him. The colliding energies roared behind him, knocking him to the ground. Splinters of ether stung his back. Hands and knees scraped, he got to his feet and ran toward the others before the lich could hit at him again.
Blighted and men clashed on the shore. The Blighted were unarmed, but they had no problem getting gored or even losing an arm if it allowed them to close on their opponent, and they were giving as good as they got.
A cry went out from several of the men. Dante followed their gaze out into the river. V-shaped ripples creased the water, coming fast toward land. At first he thought it was more sharks, but the disturbance in the water suggested something much larger than that, as if an invisible sloop was blowing toward shore.
Another barrage of ether fell from above, beaten back by the combined efforts of every priest there. In the same moment, five huge shapes burst from the water: the heads of five gargantuan whales. Like the sharks, their scarred skin was mottled and discolored, their eyes blank and white.
They opened their toothless maws and vomited Blighted into the shallows, so many that parts of the whales must have been hollowed out to allow for more passengers. The reinforcements loped into battle as the whales beat their fins and flukes, turning about to go scoop up more Blighted from the channel.
The sorcerers laid into the newcomers, but some of the monks were already showing signs of flagging, and yet another column of ether was rising into the sky, splitting into an umbrella of glowing death. The new wave of Blighted pushed into the infantry, slicking their claws with blood.
Dante broke into a dead run. Blays emerged at the frontlines, slowly backing up to prevent a total collapse against the onslaught, his purple blades sparking each time they hewed into the flesh of a Blighted. The man on his right flank dropped dead, throat torn out by the claws of an enemy. Blays whirled, gutting it, but the Blighted leaned into the attack, staggering him with its weight on his sword.
Behind him, a second undead launched itself at his back. Dante flung his hand forward. A shadowy knife flew directly into the Blighted's face, knocking the undead from its feet. Blays turned toward it just in time to be showered with goo.
Blays wiped whale spit from his eyes. "The lich brought dead whales, too? What is wrong with this guy?"
"Mostly how much work he's making us do. If we don't destroy these things, they'll dump hundreds of Blighted on us every minute."
Blays patted his pockets. "I seem to have left my whale knife in my other trousers. Maybe you death-wizards can take care of this problem?"
A wave of fresh soldiers ran down the embankment to join the fray against the surging Blighted, but the undead refused to yield a foot of ground. Dante nor any of the others could lend the soldiers more than token support. Most of them had already spent a great deal of their power, and there was no telling how much longer they'd have to hold out against the lich.
Dante gathered a team of them to a shelf of rock overlooking the river. It took no more than a minute for the ripples to return, implying the whales had returned to the channel and gulped up scores of Blighted mid-swim, hardly having to slow down. This time, they disgorged their cargo further out from shore, barely breaking the surface.
"Release!" Dante ordered.
A volley of black and white sped toward the leviathans. But a slew of ether rose from beneath them, as if the lich was right there—or had somehow brought it with the whales in anticipation. Bits of light streaked toward the attacks, casting down sparks like a snowstorm of lightning. The small number of bolts that made it through hit the flanks of the whales with hollow, meaty thumps, but they were much too few in number to take even one of them down. The beasts descended, returning to the channel.
Dante gritted his teeth and turned toward Gladdic, meaning to devise a new strategy, but the old man was running toward the fighting, which was growing louder and more brutal by the second as the new influx of Blighted stomped up from the waters.
Dante found Nak instead. "When the whales come back, you lead the attack. I'm going to try to spike them from below."
Nak nodded, calling the numerous sorcerers to him. Dante reeled in some nether. Its response was slightly sluggish, but he still had a ways to go before he ran dry. He moved out into the earth beneath the water and waited.
The whales were soon on their way back, sending chevrons of ripples behind
them. Nak called for a withering hail of nether and ether. Just like the last time, energy spewed up from under the whales, diverting nearly all the damage. The five creatures came to a stop twenty feet from shore and opened their mouths to vomit more undead. Dante felt out into the rock beneath the two closest animals and made to drive it upwards in a spike through their brains.
The shock of the lich was like being kicked in the side by surprise. The nether was knocked from his grasp, dispersing through the water. Dante had moved as quickly as a striking snake, but either the Eiden Rane's reflexes were truly supernatural, or the lich had been expecting something like this after Dante's earth-moving back at the channel. Whatever the case, he was left reeling, half stunned again, as the whales spat out more Blighted, unharmed.
A chill shriek rended the night, so alien that even some of the Blighted glanced up from the fighting. Men yelled in panic, turning their backs and running, opening a gap in the battle—and revealing an Andrac.
The demon unfurled, standing twice as tall as the men and Blighted around it. It opened its mouth and uttered a high-pitched bellow of delight. Bright white light shimmered from its throat. The Blighted bent their knees, preparing to fight, but the Star-Eater dashed past them on its long legs, scything into the water with hardly a splash.
It beelined toward the closest whale. A second demon ran after it half a second later, grinning and exposing its long teeth. A third one bounded after it. One of the Blighted planted itself in the Andrac's path, spreading its arms wide and baring its fangs. Perhaps it intended to slow the demon down, but the Andrac just grinned, arched its neck, and bit down on the Blighted's head, spattering gore to all sides.
A few Blighted hissed at it as it ran toward the river, but no others dared to challenge it—although less out of fear, Dante suspected, and more from the understanding that their lives were better spent elsewhere. As soon as the demon was past, they flung themselves back into the fight, relieving their fury on the flesh of humans.
The Spear of Stars Page 25