Two Necromancers, a Dwarf Kingdom, and a Sky City

by L. G. Estrella

  “Katie.”

  She glanced over at her master. “Yes?”

  “Protect me,” he said. “I’m going to bring in our zombies now that the barrier is down. We do not want to find ourselves up against all of the remaining goblins alone. Even for us, there might be too many. But I’m going to have to micromanage our zombies. We can’t just wade in. We’ll have to clear the city street by street and house by house.”

  Even a Grand Necromancer as skilled as her master would need to focus primarily on directing their troops when there were so many of them and the orders they needed were so precise. As her master stood rooted to the spot, his magic swelled. Katie could feel their zombies moving into the city, along with the rest of the dwarves. The goblins, while not especially clever, were not totally brainless. Even the ones without a lot of magic, which was almost all of them, could sense that her master was doing something. They didn’t know or understand what he was doing, but they didn’t have to. An enemy mage was using powerful magic near them. He had to be killed.

  Katie growled. They weren’t going to lay one hand on him. She animated any goblins within her reach and gave them a simple order: kill other goblins. She didn’t expect them to accomplish much – there were a lot of goblins headed this way – but she didn’t need them to win. She only needed them to buy time. As the first wave of goblins drew close, she slammed one hand into the ground. A forest of shadowy spikes ripped upward, her shadows honed to lethal sharpness. The goblins caught in the attack died, neatly impaled, and she gave any she could animate the same orders as the others: kill other goblins. With her zombie goblins acting as a buffer, she was able to focus on the tougher goblins. A particularly large, brutish goblin was leading the charge. She pointed and her shadows raced to trip him over. He fought, but her shadows were strong enough to tear ogres limb from limb. He went down, and more shadows ripped through his body.

  But there were still more goblins. Some of them had spears, bows, or slings, and she hastily formed a wall of shadows to ward off the projectiles as her zombie goblins dragged down goblin after goblin. Several more of the towering goblins arrived, along with a handful of goblin mages, but her master must have sensed the danger. Some of their zombies had arrived, and they rushed to join the battle.

  A group of their zombie warriors entered the fray, their swords and shields sending goblins flying. One of the larger goblins turned to meet them. The massive goblin managed to wrench the shield out of one zombie warrior’s grasp before the others surrounded it. The giant goblin went down under a hail of blows, and the goblin mages were forced to turn their attention to them as the hulking zombies stomped toward them at something close to a full sprint. One of the ninja rats nearby squeaked a warning, and she turned as several goblins with bows launched arrows at her master.

  Katie’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t going to take any chances. A nest of ever-shifting shadows batted aside arrow after arrow, a testament to her training which had often involved seemingly ridiculous exercises like her master pelting her with peanuts or grapes when she was distracted. Not a single arrow got through, and she could sense her master splitting their zombies into groups to help the dwarves as they began the time-consuming process of clearing each house and street in the city. At the forefront of the attack were the zombie goblins they’d made earlier, their mere appearance striking fear into the living goblins.

  Further back, but getting close with each moment, were their more exotic zombies. One of them, the zombie chimera-manticore went down as dozens of goblins leapt onto it from nearby roofs. It floundered and crashed to the ground, but it had not come alone. It had accompanied some dwarves, and the dwarves immediately rushed to the beleaguered zombie’s aid. They drove the goblins off, their axes, swords, and spears striking over and over again until the zombie could get back to its feet. It was going to be a pain to repair later, but it could still work, which was all that mattered. Rather than chance another ambush, it unleashed a stream of fire at the nearby roofs that had the remaining goblins running for cover. More goblins rushed in from behind, but the massive zombie was ready. Manticore spikes shredded the oncoming goblins before the dwarves charged and scattered the disorganised mob.

  Her master’s greatest skill as a necromancer was his ability to command hordes of zombies with extreme precision. She might not have been in control of the zombies’ movements, but she could sense what they were doing. Despite controlling thousands of them at the same time, her master was still able to break them into smaller groups and direct them in squads alongside the dwarves as the stalwart warriors went from building to building. His gaze cleared for a moment.

  “Katie, have the rats send a message to whoever they’ve got with King Barin. I know where his brother is.”

  The king arrived quickly. His armour was once again covered in goblin blood, and both his axe and his shield were bloody as well. He struck an impressive figure as he seized an approaching goblin in one hand – he had put his shield down for a moment – and strangled the life out of it before breaking its back over his knee and tossing it aside. He looked like one of the dwarf kings of old, a short but deadly warrior covered in the blood of his enemies.

  “You’ve found my brother?” King Barin rumbled as he took up his shield again. “Where is the idiot?”

  “He has entered the area with perhaps a hundred golems at his side. He’s at the centre of their formation, and he’s headed this way although he’s going to be cut off and surrounded by some of the remaining goblins before he gets here.” Her master frowned. “Based on their coordination, some of the goblin leadership has survived. They probably weren’t in this building when we attacked, and they’ve begun to retake control. We need to hit them now before they can regroup.”

  “I see.” The king raised his axe over his head. “To me!” Some of his elites rushed to his side. “I’ll deal with my brother. Can I leave the goblin leaders to you and your group? You can bring some of my other troops, of course. I’ll help when I can, but I cannot allow my idiot brother to get killed. I also have to knock some sense into that fool head of his.”

  “Take some of the ninja rats,” her master said. “They can spot any traps or ambushes, and they can direct you toward us or some of the goblin leaders later.” He nodded. “We’ll start picking off the remaining leaders, starting with the ones closest to us.” As the king marched off, her master shook himself. “Come on, Katie. If what I’ve seen is correct, our next target is a cunning fellow. We should deal with him now before he becomes even more troublesome.”

  Katie grimaced as they entered the goblin leader’s territory. The streets here were lined with piles of rubble, and the buildings had holes in them from various kinds of weaponry and magic. In other words, it was the perfect place to mount an ambush. Hardly a moment passed before some arrows raced toward her. She blocked them with her shadows and looked around, but the goblins had already retreated. On her shoulder, Rembrandt growled. These goblins were already acting much more intelligently than most of the others they’d encountered. Another arrow whistled through the air, and Katie caught it with her shadows and frowned. It was covered in poison. She reached out with her senses. There were several magical signatures ahead.

  “Move!” her master barked. “Now!”

  Katie didn’t have to be told twice. She rushed for a nearby wall for cover and layered her shadows on top of each other as the street erupted under a hail of magic. Bolts of lightning, spears of acid, and a host of other attacks rained down on them. An eerie chanting filled the air, and Katie’s jaw clenched as she felt something clawing at her mind.

  “Stay focused!” her master shouted. “They have a shaman. He’s using his magic to try and distract us. Spot, I want you to strafe the roofs. Do not let anyone attack us from above.” His eyes narrowed. “Be thorough. There are plenty of places for them to hide. Old Man, go with Spot. Goblins typically hide when attacked by fliers, so you should be able to get any he misses. Avraniel, clear the streets
. Goblin mages and shamans aren’t usually too strong individually, but they’re usually good at working together. If you see the shaman, kill him first. Shamans can often boost the magic of their allies while trying to weaken the magic of their opponents. Katie and Gerald, you two are with me.” He pursed his lips. “And Chomp and Amanda went with the king. They should be fine.”

  Spot took to the air and blasted the rooftops with flame to clear away as many of the goblins as he could. A few of them tried to hit him with arrows, rocks, or magic, but the dragon was far too good in the air to be caught off guard. Any goblin foolish enough to try to retaliate received a swift education on the deadliness of dragon fire. As her master had guessed, the majority of the goblins took refuge until Spot passed – only to run right into Old Man. As Gerald summoned a wall of shields to help cover their advance, Avraniel roared and unleashed a storm of fire down the street. Stone melted and rock shattered as she simply overpowered the attacks headed their way. Cooperation was all well and good, but there were very few people in the world that could match the raw force Avraniel could muster.

  “Let’s move!” her master ordered. “A smart goblin – and their leader is definitely smart – would already be planning how best to retreat. We do not want him to escape. He’ll only be trickier to deal with in the future.” He pointed to the dwarves who’d come along. “You lot are in charge of my zombies. Tell them what to do, and they’ll obey. I want you to sweep the area as we go. I do not want any goblins popping up behind us.” He pointed at another group. “You lot are with us. Cover our flanks as we advance.”

  The goblins fell back in a fighting retreat as they advanced up the street, doing their best to slow them down as much as possible. Katie was taken aback by how different it was from the poor discipline she’d gotten used to seeing from the goblins. How difficult would the battle have been if they hadn’t killed so many of the goblins’ leaders when they’d snuck into the governor’s mansion? It was best not to think about it.

  As they neared a building at the far end of the street, goblins burst out of hiding. Gerald was at the back of the group, and some ninja rats leapt to his defence. Electrified wire raced out, along with needles, and other projectiles. With eerie grace and speed, the ninja rats darted forward, weapons at the ready. They leapt from goblin to goblin, dodging spears, daggers, and clubs, as they sliced throat after throat and targeted eyes, ears, noses, and other vulnerable areas. When a bigger goblin emerged, they worked together to cripple the giant with a series of debilitating strikes aimed at its joints before they used their magic to finish it off. As more goblins entered the battle, Rembrandt hopped off Katie’s shoulder to engage the ones headed her way.

  “Watch our left flank!” her master shouted. “They managed to get a ballista up onto that building somehow.” One of the dwarves growled a curse as the ballista fired. The bolt sailed just wide of several of the dwarves, and her master ordered one of their zombie warriors to grab some of their zombie goblins and hurl them at the ballista. The smaller zombies flew through the air and landed on top of the ballista before lunging at the goblins operating the weapon. “Get up there!” he ordered the dwarves. “If anyone is going to be using a ballista in here, it should be us!”

  As the dwarves ran for the building with some of their zombies, Katie gathered her magic. This was not a time for being fancy. Instead, she needed to do as much damage as she could as quickly as possible. With a sharp gesture, she threw her shadows outward, forming them into bludgeons and knives. Crushing goblins or cutting them in half wasn’t elegant, but it was effective. Amidst the deadly onslaught of shadows, Rembrandt continued to strike with lethal precision. Every cut, slash, or thrust was aimed to either kill or disable, and he was too small and too fast for the goblins to fight off.

  Not far away, her master was using his shovel as both a melee weapon and a conduit for his magic. All of the rubble provided him with an endless stream of projectiles, and fist-sized lumps of rock and stone were deadly when aimed correctly and thrown fast enough. Any goblin that got close enough to take a swipe at him received a stout whack with his shovel or the axe he held in his other hand. Next to her master, one of the dwarves had gone down, and he had seized the fallen dwarf’s weapon to help fight off the goblins as another dwarf tended to him. Katie knew how heavy the dwarves’ axes were, but her master had spent years waving shovels around with one hand. He could handle the weapon.

  As she watched, her master brought the axe down on the head of one goblin before decapitating another with the sharp edge of his shovel. A flick of his wrist sent a shard of rock hurtling into the eye of a third goblin before he spotted one of the goblin shamans. The shaman was chanting hurriedly in what Katie vaguely recognised as one of several eldritch tongues she was passingly familiar with, but her master didn’t hesitate. He threw the axe, and the weapon caught the goblin squarely in the collarbone. The goblin screamed, and a dwarf finished him off with a spear through the chest. Above them, Spot let loose an angry roar as a brilliant bolt of lighting came within inches of hitting him. The dragon retaliated with a bolt of fire that annihilated the top floor of a building across the street.

  Rembrandt darted back toward her and pointed. Katie looked to where he was pointing and smiled. There was a thick metal pole on the ground. She would never have been able to lift it on her own – it was solid steel and far too heavy – but her shadows had no problems lifting it. Waving the pole around like a club, she bashed goblin after goblin aside. Behind her, Gerald whacked a goblin over the head with his frying pan before summoning a large net that the ninja rats used to pin down several more. Seeing several goblins line up as they charged toward the bureaucrat, Katie used her shadow to hurl the pole toward them. Gerald gaped as the pole impaled all of the goblins at the same time, the vicious creatures flailing weakly before they toppled to the ground together.

  “Keep going,” her master urged them. “We’re almost there.”

  A great cry went up from the remaining goblins, and Katie spotted a group of the larger goblins striding forward. They were almost as big as their zombie ogres. They shoved the lesser goblins aside, and the first zombies to reach them were simply crushed beneath their clubs. Katie braced herself for combat. These goblins were wearing bits and pieces of dwarf armour that had been cobbled together into something that vaguely resembled plate armour. As the dwarves moved into position in front of them with some of their zombies, Katie looked around to see if Avraniel was occupied. She grimaced. The elf was currently bombarding half a dozen buildings with her fire. The goblins inside were doing their best to retaliate, but the goblins mages barely had the power to keep the elf at bay, never mind launch a proper counter attack.

  Suddenly, darkness fell over them. No. It wasn’t darkness. It was something else.

  The whole world was tinged with red, and Katie’s eyes widened. She looked up. Blood filled the air, a vast, undulating storm of ever-shifting crimson, and it descended on the street with terrifying force. The sudden onslaught flayed goblin flesh from bone, and it swirled around the larger goblins, tearing aside the armour they’d put together before ripping into their flesh and shredding them. Those foolish enough to cry out were torn apart from the inside out as tendrils of blood rushed into them and then ripped their way out.

  “It’s in my hair!” Gerald wailed as the seemingly endless tide of blood thundered up and down the street. “There’s blood in my hair!”

  Finally, the blood calmed to reveal Amanda. The vampire stood in the midst of the carnage she’d wrought, her normally blue eyes completely crimson as the blood began to swirl around her in swift, turbulent currents.

  “Next time,” her master drawled as he walked to Amanda. “Maybe you should start with that.”

  “I was otherwise occupied.” Amanda closed her eyes and then flung one arm out. Blood dragged a goblin out of a building kicking and screaming. He was roughly the size of a man, and he wore much better armour than the others. There was a cunning gleam in
his eyes, and Katie realised he must be the leader who’d been commanding these goblins. “I believe he is our target.” Amanda’s eyes narrowed, and the blood ripped the goblin apart. Beside her, Gerald looked like he was struggling not to throw up, but it must have been a losing battle since he stumbled off with a paper bag held to his face. In fairness, it wasn’t a pleasant sight. Ripping people limb from limb was never pretty, but doing it with tendrils of blood made for an even less pleasant sight. “I’ve already helped deal with the other goblin leaders.” Amanda bared her teeth. “They were… unprepared for someone like me.” She gestured vaguely at the vast quantity of blood floating in the air around her. “And I was only too happy to let their deaths aid our cause.”

  “And this is why people think ancient vampires are scary,” her master said. “Remind me to never make you mad. Has the king found his brother yet?”

  “Yes.” Amanda sighed. “They are… settling their differences as we speak.”

  “It’s the Bloody Councillor come again,” one of the dwarves nearby murmured. “Like in the old tales.”

  Amanda chuckled. “You have no idea how right you are.” She turned. “Follow me. The king and his brother should have finished their discussion by now.”