2 small warning below:
1)DeMorte has his own issues.
2) Kids: do not think that just because adults use words that you should copy them.
Adults: Be careful of what you say around kids
Adults who do not care about the line above: Be careful of the other adults when you announce that no fucks are given…
Chapter 26: SRM
“Harno’s harpies, an elf!”
Oops, forgot to watch that particular part of brush. I almost flinched in regret as I released the tiny fish I had been holding. We finally got a chance to study a few live ones and yet we were constantly being interrupted.
I am a bit more aggravated that it is our ears that everyone sees first!
I am not, anyone who stares at a naked young girl in lust needs to be castrated.
It doesn’t have to be in lust, but would it be too much to ask for a little acknowledgement? Besides, we were a ‘young woman’ a few days ago.
That was when everyone knew that we had magic and knew how old we are.
I absently cast a spell to dry us as we jumped out of the river and collected our clothes.
The road, if you wanted to call it that, to the capital was long and of questionable quality at times, with large pits in various parts of the dirt paths. Over all it was not the worst ‘road’ that I had experience and it did get better as we progressed, but certain parts of our path would have been outright dangerous to negotiate with a wagon.
How hard was it to build a paved road with runes of durability carved into them? I did it in the stoning mountains!
With how many slaves?
A few thousand. It was not that hard once they got used to the safe paths though and the areas that we have been passing through have only had hills, not rock mountain paths.
I pulled on some of my generic traveling clothes, in this case a plain and shapeless brown robe, as I ignored a few gawkers. There were a surprisingly high number of travelers considering winter was not yet here, I would have assumed that, this far out from the major trade hubs, the numbers on the road would be negligible. I had no idea why currently, but I was wrong. Still, I concentrated my ears on the surrounding and listened in on several conversations.
My bone armor was stored in an exceptionally dense cube beside me, least it scare someone enough to cry ‘Soul Mage.’ The armor itself was mostly animal bone, but there was a bit of human bone in it. After I pulled on the robe and gave a glare mixed with a small amount of killing intent I was afforded a little privacy again and I reformed my armor under my robe.
It was a nice, flexible weapon to have as a backup, but I had a plan to get an iron chainmail that would fit over it soon enough. I would have warn it into the river, but I was worried about how dense it was. Bathing was a side benefit of going in for the small fish that were occasionally visible and I had not thought that anyone would care about a random girl in the river.
Apparently I was wrong. While I had never been particularly shy before and I was not going to be overly embarrassed so just because I was in a female body now, I still needed to at least pretend to care to attract less attention… Also, the key word in the phrase of ‘overly embarrassed’ was ‘overly.’
I could care less if someone was stupid or perverted enough to stare at me, however, as some rude individuals had already suggested, I was “too young to be trying to attract attention.”
It was one of the very noticeable differences between this world and my previous one.
Granted, some of these differences were simply connected to food, or how people thought that they should prey, (personal sacrifices and prayers seemed to be preferred here over music or art) while other areas were the very similar to what I was used to.
For example, the pantheon of gods was similar, even if the actual gods were not, but the numbers of gods and what they represented did not make as much sense to me. This world had only 12 gods and, while the 4 elements were logical enough (even if their naming sense was odd to me), all of them were off to me. This was partly because, all 12 gods had their own subsections of nature or human activity, that they were supposed to control. Harno, for instance, was the god of both winds and safe travel. He was both an elemental and practically the chief god of trade? It was so… wrong.
In addition, there were hints that there had been 13 or 14 gods in the past, but it was nearly considered heresy to actually ask about them. Which was suspicious to an incredible degree.
Though, the single most annoying difference had to do with such people: no one assumed that I had magic.
In my previous life, there had been at least a few mages in even the most isolated villages. Granted, they would all likely be of the first 1 or 2 circles, but they would be there. In this world, or at least in this kingdom, the people seemed to believe that they would never meet a mage in their lifetimes. In fact, a few days ago, when I had suggested to someone making… inappropriate advances that I was safe because I had magic he had looked at me like I was the most adorable thing in the world.
That individual will not be breeding ever again, but he was quite enlightening on that subject. Plus, he taught me a few new curses!
Regardless, I would soon be faced with the fascinating and unfortunate business of finally going through a minor city. Between the memories of what cities in my previous life could be like and the lack of mages in the population, it was not an experience that I was totally looked forward to.
Magic sewage systems and magically regulated farms had grown the cities of my old world to truly awesome proportions, but this world had very little of the magical workforce that my old world did.
This led me to a basic idea, take a slight detour and investigate something that would be both enlightening and allow me to bathe. So here I was, studying fish gills and trying not to castrate anyone else.
In the area I was in however, the only small stream that gave me both relative privacy and let me catch fish was still fairly crowded!
In the 3000+ cycles that these people had been away from the Elves, they all still feared the forest and gathering in small numbers. Honestly I was not sure if they did not have a rule about couples needing guards to copulate. There seemed to be no place that I could go that did not have someone a stone’s throw away!
Stop being so dramatic about it, there are still large areas where you were having fun stalking people without being seen.
I enjoyed that because it was difficult to move both silently and completely unseen, but at this rate the capital will be a major hazard.
A hazard or a chance to practice more pickpocketing? How much did we earn yesterday?
Not enough to keep us from starving if we start using magic regularly. Besides that is exactly part of the problem, if we go into a major city, where people are practically living on top of one another, everyone will be prepared and expecting thieves and will likely have runes on their belongings. Not to mention that we will be targeted ourselves the instant that we step foot there.
Which will require either copious amounts of magic stored invested into a set of personal wards, or a lot of sewing to fix. We can take a day to sew some more runes into our clothes and belongings you know?
I was about to retort when I had to catch a rock instead. I casually grabbed two more out of the air afterwards and then casually threw all 3 back with a little internal en- with a little ‘Gía’ infused into my wrist.
I was rewarded with the cowardly yips of two young boys as they received direct hits to the forehead. Unfortunately for their last comrade, he had already started to run, so his stone bounced off of shoulder and clipped his ear, giving me a much less satisfying sound.
I gave a little smirk as they ran off, brats. They had likely been about to start shouting ‘go away elf’ or some such nonsense.
Now, where were we? Ah, I was about to explain why us pickpocketing at the lord’s party or what we were doing a little while ago would be different in a big city:
Besides the citizenry having more awareness of their belongings, capital cities are always well-guarded magically to look out for spies and potential assassins. Given our level of magical strength, we will have at least one watcher the moment that we enter the capital.
Wait, why are you worried about being watched? Did you not say that we actually needed to be noticed as ‘Bella’ to get more information for your annoying belief that a male body would be better?
I swear that you have been getting flippant lately
We were picking up our bag and preparing to move when I heard a bratty voice say something he really should not have. Turning around, I marched through the bits of shrubbery and found myself next to the road again in moments. Beyond it was a farm and a pair of circular towns off to both east and west. The road ran between them and right past the tree farm that I had been on the edge of.
The scenery changes far too fast around here I thought curiously. Especially as the area seemed to go from tree farm to farm to town right before my eyes. It made sense in a limited way because, despite the cultural fear of nature that seemed to be pounded into the head of each new generation, they still needed some way to keep warm in the winter. However, the locals also seemed reluctant to settle directly on a river for some reason, which made no sense to me at all.
Why not just carve heating runes during the winter? That would let them indulge in their fears all they liked.
Likely because most of the population does not even know how to read, much less how to create runes. There is also the large danger of fires being started from improperly carved heat runes… Or maybe they just view runes as a part of nature and thus associated with the elves.
“Excuse me miss.” We turned to address the idiot whose friends were currently hiding the brats. “These young men seemed to believe that you attacked them. Would you mind explaining what happened?” The man speaking was surprisingly well armed with outer leather armor, a short sword, a mace, and a long sword of some type that was strapped to his back. He also gave off a decent amount of magic, although most of what I could feel was actually leaking out from his exposed skin, suggesting iron armor underneath his leather.
He was accompanied by a woman in church robes, a bear of a man that had what I could only call a bastard sword and a bastardized mace that was far too large to be for use against humans, and another female equipped similarly to the leader. The church woman had a bit of magical power leaking from her, but not the other 2. They all had runes adorning their equipment too, mostly the runes were copies a variant on the durability rune.
The brats were sniffling while they hid behind the church woman, the 3 young boys were going to pay for such a degrading comment.
“I would like the brats, they attacked me and just now had the audacity to call me an ‘elf slut.’” I felt my ears twitch. “Now, if you would kindly move out of the way, I would enjoy educating them, merc.”
All humans had selective hearing, but mine was on another level when I wanted it to be and after my fish examination had been interrupted, I had chosen to keep part of my attentions on what people were talking about. Of course, I heard them speaking about me much more easily than I heard why in the ovals they were all traveling too. The SRM (self-righteous mercenaries) in front of me through, and they were so easy to identity, only heard the word ‘merc.’
“Miss, you seem to have us mistaken, we are from the adventurers guild.” The man explained in carefully controlled voice “and we are just trying to help settle this situation without trouble. Now, perhaps your parents are somewhere around?”
I sneered, ignoring Bella’s warning, “You may address me as ‘ladyship’ or, preferably ‘mage’ merc. However, you are not being paid so why do you not just leave? Keeping my body young does not mean that I need parental guidance and I certainly do not need your assistance here.”
To my surprise, the SRM actually bowed, respectfully, before speaking with firmness in his voice. “I am honored to meet such a talented young mage, I too am of the nobility and of magical blood, however, I do find myself in the position of requesting leniency against these young boys as they are nothing more than children.”
No self-righteousness from an SRM? It must be because I dropped the ‘ladyship’ thing that denotes a generic noble rank.
Or maybe not all adventurers are so bad?
Do not be silly Bella, of course they are not all bad, I know a great many dead adventurers from my previous life.
After thinking it over I nodded and acknowledged his request. “You are correct, children such as they do not deserve having their tongues removed, despite their transgresses.” I heard a collective gasp from the brats and the church woman. “I will lower it to the weakest torture spell I know.”
Remove their tongues? I thought you were going to just hang them upside down for a little while. Plus, that spell is hardly torture.
Like they need to know that? This is far more fun.
Will it still be fun when we have to deal with the Guilt?
No, but I will not let it get that far, if necessary I can put an iron knife in each of them and then knock them out with magic. Afterwords we can heal them and make sure they wake up immediately after we leave, I have done this sort of thing before Bella.
“NO!” “Mommy!” “Evilest-est-est elf! My brother will…” I ignored the brat’s outcries, which were not only loud, but grated on my ears. Two started running as fast as they could and one remained behind church robes that would not protect him from my ire, despite the glares from the church woman.
Her friends, the bear-man and the other woman were caught between glaring and trying to let it go. Nobility of any rank could cause problems and while they likely did not believe my statement about being a full mage already, they would at least pretend to respect the title.
Their leader seemed to currently be trying to reign in what would likely be a very rude comment about my state of mind, but I decided that I had overall wasted enough time talking with them.
I cast a set of 3 of the basic prank spell, ‘endless itch’ and directed them around the church girl. It would not harm the brats unless they scratched too much over the short duration that the spell would be active, but it would make a notable memory on why they should be careful about who they insulted.
It was also far more entertaining than my previous thought of tying them upside-down as 'endless itch' make clothes unbearably rough against your skin and aggravates the itching until you either got the idea that you needed to stop moving, or you took off your clothes.
I saw with my third eye (Mage sight I suppose would be the correct local name) that the spells were about to hit, but at the last second the church woman reacted and blocked the brat next to her. She even made an attempt to block the other two as well, but reacted too late. Instead, she cast the counter spells to cancel my spells immediately afterwards. That was one of the problems with 'prank spells' they were actually very easy to get rid of past a certain level of competency.
“Are you insane?” I hissed, letting everyone recoil from the insult.
“I do not believe in punishing children for the foolish actions of another!” The church girl barked at me. “I am a Healer of Conbra and I do not approve you trying to harm such young lives. I do not care what rank noble or mage you claim to be, I will not allow this to-
I tapped into my Gía and watched the world slow down. I carefully shifted my right foot and felt myself float a few feet off to the side. I did this to get some personal distance from the leader, who was likely the most dangerous, and to get behind the Healer once I gave a second push.
Although, since my Gía had slowed down both of our perceptions of time, I felt Bella’s disapproval come out in full force while we had no one else to deal with for the moment.
You do realize that this is your fault correct?
What are you talking about? These fools stuck their noses in and now I am going to get intimate with her inner organs, non-lethally of course.
You could have chosen to walk away at any time though.
Yes, but why would I let the SRM off without punishing them for their interference?
I landed with my left foot and gave a small push as my foot dug up the ground a bit. This second push would let me land right behind her. In slow motion, the leader was starting to react to my movement by accessing his own Gía stores, but at a snail’s pace compared to me.
Maybe because all they see is an aggressive young women, claiming adulthood, trying to attack small children with her magic? A young woman who is now wasting an excessively large amount of Gía?
Then they should have ignored it as a childish quibble, or just have listened to me when I first told them why. I can still test your theory through, it has been a while since we pulled out our cloak.
I landed behind the Healer, two arm lengths away and took the time to shoot 2 homing prank spells at the 2 boys still running away before decreasing the amount of Gía I was using. The leader, who had jumped at my original landing spot now found himself landing at fairly high speeds and digging up a large amount of dirt as he tried to slow down.
Clearly more used to practicing on hard surfaces, he failed to properly reinforce his body with Gía and rolled his ankle, which I thought I might have heard give a pop. Ignoring him for the time being, I concentrated on the Healer, who had moved the boy behind her and was likely calling up her own reserves of Gía.
“Stoning self-righteous mercenaries.” I sneered. “Why do your kind always think that they have the right to judge everyone else? I was trying to let those fools off with the lightest of punishments for daring to throw stones at me, a noble. If I wanted to, I could have had them executed, but I decided to return their stones to their foreheads instead. Then, when I hear these little pieces of filth,” I let a little amount of killing intent leak, “dare to associate my noble person with a pair of such vulgar words, I came looking for them.
“Now, are you really going to continue to obstruct me in my education of these pathetic little brats? Or would you rather see to your friend?” I finished my speech with every bit of disdain that I saved especially for SRM, dawning my cloak of pride and showing it off magnificently.
She hesitated, clearly caught between wanted to help her leader, who was already receiving help from the other 2 minions, and wanting to attack me. Idly I wondered if she fancied him, as Conbra worshipers were fairly well known for their joyous celebrations of life and the process which created it. “I will give you my word to make sure that he is punish for his thoughtless words.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“What exactly do you think your word is worth to me?” I asked, making sure that I sounded annoyed.
She hesitated again, “I think that it is worth enough to remember for a later date.”
I blinked and grimaced. She was actually offering a favor for a brat who was just going to be given a bad itch? I had forgotten that I was dealing with a Healer first and a SRM second, Bella was getting to be right more often these days. “Fine,” I sighed, withdrawing my killing intent, “but do not fix the other 2 until the spells have run their course.”
She jerked her head in surprise and looked over at the 2 brats who ran away and I could still hear yowling at they tried to find the source of their itch. That made me frown though, she must have very little magical talent indeed if she had missed me casting those spells. I originally thought that she was hiding her power, but she might have just been a mage with little power to begin with.
Though the most logical explanation that I could come up with was that she had been concentrating so much on her own leader and I that she simply forgot. “Go.” I dismissed her, waving at her leader.
I watched her move off to investigate him while keeping an eye on me the whole time. She also kept herself between the boy and me at all times. I took the opportunity to disappear into the tree farm, jumping over the small stream and its even smaller fish I quickly let made sure that I was going in the correct direction before I continued into the poor excuse for ‘nature’ that surrounded this area. I would likely be out of the other side by nightfall even if I did not use any Gía.
As I moved though I processed what I had learned today and I came to several conclusions, starting with the fact that growing fish gills would be too difficult and time consuming. Though one rather large fish had given me an idea to make my lungs a little more efficient. I also realized that I was going to retain my beliefs regarding SRMs into the future as I realized that someone was following me.
Really, now, do you see Bella? If a SRM ever had an original thought outside of combat, it would be in solitary confinement.
Enough, stop stealing jokes. Whoever that is might just have been antagonized by our actions.
Bandits, we steal everything!
Do you really want me to throw your creed back at you?
Definitely more flippant.
Why do you keep saying that? I do not think that word means what you think that word means.
Inconceivable. Flippant means that you keep asking questions, coming from the word flip: to turn around.
No it means… OH! You are one being flippant! You are doing it right now to distract me from your actions earlier!
Oh, look, more trees.
I tapped into my Gía a little and let my legs start pumping as I moved through the wood. Given how much practice I had neat my home, it was an easy endeavor, especially as these areas were labeled ‘tree farms’ for a reason, they were large and relatively empty besides the trees.
Do not think that you can just- Bunny!
You know, rabbit makes for good– No. –never mind
Do not think the cuteness totally distracted me either DeMorte, you were way more aggressive with them than you usually are with anyone else.
Do you really want to know why? It has something to do with the one following us.
You cannot seriously expect them to… by the gods tell me that he is not…
SRM – my problem is not with the ‘M’ it is with the ‘SR’ – They act better than the mercenaries because they are frequently called on to kill beasts who can use magic, but they pretend that only mercenaries accept things like assassination missions.
I leisurely came to a stop and took out my iron daggers to wait for the shadow to come on out. This far into a tree farm was likely the most quiet and isolated spot that we were going to find.
The shadow landed like a 300 kilo bear, which was what he looked like, clad in a fur cloak of some sort despite the heat. He stopped around 30 meters away, with just enough mana rolling off of him to let me estimate 7 or 8 circles worth of magic on him. “Do you enjoy stalking little girls, guild enforcer?” I taunted.
“I am no one but a concerned individual, who found your antics to be rude.” He responded, in a surprisingly clear voice, despite his hulking, fur covered appearance.
“Ah, well, I would not want to be rude would I now? I might get an assassin sent after me.”
“I doubt that you would qualify for such a distressing thing, however you are right in that there might be… embarrassing accidents that you might get blamed for.”
I grinned, there it was, the “adventurers” always protected their trade and their reputation through any means necessary, although I could only blame the Nalks for letting me run into a guild enforcer before I even had a chance to go by another name. “You can tell your masters that my name is DeMorte and I will likely be having fun with other self-righteous mercenaries in the future.”
“What makes you assume that I have ‘masters’ DeMorte? I told you that I am just a concerned individual.”
“The fact that you asked that question and the fact that you did not come here alone.” From what little I could see of his face, as most of it was covered, he did not seem to react to my accusation, but I figured that was enough of a confirmation. Unlike the Royal Magicians Corps, this lot, wherever the others were hiding, were too weak to ever move alone.
After a pause, he just gave a small bow and held it. I nodded my head in response and wished him a nice day before tapping into my Gía again.
…I cannot believe that just happened.
It might not have, I just assumed that he was a SRM enforcer, but he could have been the king for all we know. Stones, I was guessing that he had someone who specialized in hiding nearby too, life is guesswork like that. That said, there is no use dwelling on it, we can change our appearance soon enough if we need to, but right now I just want some food and a chance to restore our spent Gía.
Bella said nothing, but kept concentrating on using our senses to find any hint that we were still being followed.
* * *
Back on the forgotten continent:
Jagged Claw had 3 names now. His first name, which included his clan name, plus two others ‘public names’ that had been forced upon him.
The first was one he actually enjoyed, but was meant as an insult: ‘Drumless.’ To hear himself called such a thing made Jagged smile, but it was also an annoyance as it reminded him, yet again, of the never-ending drums.
The other name was spoken in respect, but was more annoying to him: Jagged Shadow-claw. It was meant to declare his prowess in killing in an intelligent way, from the shadows, but it suggested that he liked to fight in the dark and would wilt under the great fire of another warrior.
Jagged was determined to fight both hard and smart, so neither of these names suited him, yet he kept hearing them.
His sneak attack from underwater had allowed the ship-building slaves and captained straight out of the harbor, with only a dying rain and a growing fire to reveal that they had ever been there. His men did not even have to deal with the undead patrols in the harbor, instead smashing down walls and raising curtains that the undead would ignore in their clueless wanderings. It had been a quiet tale of necessity instead of a loud epic battle.
Unfortunately for him, no one wanted to hide in the shadows. Well, the Thunder Hammers clan had rallied behind the tale of the storm providing his drums, but there were too few of them to make a large difference in the politics.
The elder had extoled his work as necessary and an absolute success, but the younger generations had been raised with battle in their souls and drums in their ears. They had nothing to say to the ‘Drumless.’
The fact that his counterpart, had only succeeded after taking a horrible 60% loss of his forces was testimony for his ways, but the disgusted hisses of ‘Drumless’ followed his every step.
Now he was being forced to prove them wrong on the Wall.
The Wall spanned such a distance that it had taken 10 cycles and far too many of the last mages to build before the undead hoards had reached it. Ever since it had held off millions of undead, scores of Soul Mage monstrosities made from the dead animals and monsters that once roamed free, and the seemingly endless barrage of magic from the Soul Mages themselves.
It had enough power to stop a mage capable of powering 30 circles of magic and it had been breached no less than 4 times. Those breaches had always been resealed, but the danger still remained very real. The undead hordes would ebb and flow with the cycles, occasionally coordinating their attacks with huge hordes that would wonder through the treacherous mountain paths that protected the flanks of the Wall.
The first battles had been terrifying to the point where men and women had been driven into mad despair by the sheer size of their foe, but now the hordes were not just thrown against their defenses in attempts to force a way through. The Wall had and still held, for now.
After the first few massive clashes, both sides had settled into a routine of trying to watch for weaknesses and strike what few blows they could. A few Soul Mages had been assassinated in the beginning, but now deceit was associated with the Soul Mages as they tried to tunnel under it, send disease over it, and most recently, sail around it, but they held.
Jagged mission had helped stop their ships and even stolen dozens of the massive things for his people’s planned evacuation across the great sea, even rescuing enslaved shipmen, who had been kept in expectation of delivering undead hoards to the unprotected shores of the coast. Such a force would have only needed a few Soul Mages to convert the smallest portion of the millions upon millions of people forced to survive in such cramped conditions and end the whole war.
Now, with their latest scheme in ruins, the Soul Mages had come to the Wall again to try and force their way through yet again. It was almost no different from the previous attempt, according to the reports, but there was a single difference that made many a person’s blood run cold, the undead were being directly controlled by a visible Soul Mage.
Erected on a massive wooden stand in the rear of the hoard, the figure was only a shadow to even the best of eyes, but it was so powerful that all could see the air distort around it just by existing.
The horde itself also enjoyed a massive coordination boost as the Soul Mage directed them to set up massive siege engines along this part of the Wall. Jagged, in command of this portion, had received a few reports that elsewhere along the Wall other Soul Mages were there as well.
Although, given the fact that there had once been a siege ramp of human corpses the feed hundreds of undead onto the wall during the last breach, even the increased coordination would not let them break through the Wall. Even so, Jagged had been one the first to strike up the drums for a major invasion force and had already requested help.
Yet I am still Drumless Jagged sighed to himself. Even when he thought about it, the fact that there was a major political force behind that name was still surreal to him.
They had no official name, but were known as the Defenders collectively and they held the belief that, by holding ground, they were actually gaining ever more of an advantage – all the time!
It was an understandable fantasy, after all, Soul Mages could not possibly remain united in one coherent group much longer than it had been. Surly, they were killing each other even now and weakening themselves until their madness left them unable to control their armies.
When it was pointed out that the current war had been going on at the wall for nearly a decade, it was frequently argued that the current Soul Mages must have been disciples of the previous ones.
If they were the disciples back then, Jagged though ruefully, they will be at least somewhat unfamiliar with the idea of facing the magical power of the Wall.
Looking over to his standard bearer, Jagged indicated that he should change the heraldry. The man went to work quickly, but respectfully, not letting either standard touch the ground. His other soldiers, housed in the manipulation towers, were well trained enough that they would be watching for the red and orange standard, knowing how hard it would be to hear drum instructions over the racket of the motivation drums.
Sure enough, the manipulation towers started accessing the deep reserves of magic that the Wall naturally collected in its periods of relative peace.
Using prearranged magic spells, the Wall would use magic to power its own magic and leave the non-magician users free to wield its might as the near unbreakable mass of magical defenses as their own.
First, as per usual, they formed scores of giant fireballs, each a dozen meters across their centers and flung them across the kilometers of empty space and into the bases of where the various siege engines lay.
The Soul Mage did nothing and merely watched as hundreds of human and amalgamated animal corpses were turned into flaming biomass. Hundreds of undead were cremated with each fireball that landed, but the undead hoards simply reformed without making a sound.
It was the ONE area where Jagged actually appreciated the drums: humans were noisy, energetic, and temperamental, but only the undead could be so silent.
Jagged cursed inwardly regretting, like so many others, that the usual corpse disposal methods were warded against by the Soul Mages. If we could find a way around those accursed wards, one good ‘cleansing fire’ spell could spread to most of the enemy forces whenever they formed up together like this.
However Jagged shook his head, remembering the old “if ‘if’s and ‘but’s were brandy and grunts, oh what a party we would bring.”
Suddenly, the Soul Mage decided to move.
Jagged had no magic himself, but his father’s pendant glowed as it felt the disgusting magic start to slither through the air. It was an heirloom that had been given to him upon his return from his successful mission, as congratulations. It had been in his family for generations, but had recently been enchanted so that it would not react to the Wall, but still glow in the presence of powerful magic.
The giant fireballs that had been incinerating large portions of undead and their varieties of siege engines were extinguished seemingly without effort. The spells were continuously launched and a few even made it through, but Jagged ordered his standard changed again.
No one would outlast a Soul Mage in pure magical power, even if they had the Wall to help. The battle would come down to the sword, as it always did.
Jagged impassively watched as burning undead willingly walked forward and let out hideous moans. They were walking funeral pyres, reminders of what the fate of so many was under the bondage of the Soul Mages’ madness. Their moans, just a feeble attempt to demoralize the defenders on the Wall using already spent troops.
How the Soul Mages even kept their undead from rotting away was unknown, but at times like this is was hard to ignore the reports of those isolated settlements who live in servitude to the Soul Mages. Those comparatively few living people under their command were sometimes even more pitiable than the animated dead or the consumed souls. They were rarely heard from or talked about in public and none of them were allowed past the Wall. Least they turn out to be more broken puppets of the enemy.
Then the masses of undead moved and to everyone’s surprise disassembled the many of the siege engines that had been at the front. Feeling alarm creep up his spine, Jagged dove into his standard bearer’s bag and ripped out a sky blue banner.
Where he had been standing at an opening on the Wall created by his men’s deference to their leader, he now stalked to the rear and whistled as sharply as he could before waving the banner around.
A few noticed him from far below on the ground, but not enough. As he heard the marching of undead feet moving in rhythm, he turned and shoved the banner at one of his runners and told him to make sure it was delivered to the bottom of the Wall.
Ignoring the worried look on the messenger’s face, he went back to the wall and confirmed what he was scared of. New siege engines of a noticeably larger size had come out hiding and were now pulling up to the rear of the hoard.
The ones that Jagged was most worried about were the giant leaver systems now being quickly assembled. They would be used to fling iron covered undead clear over the wall, where they would likely explode in a toxic cloud of Soul Poison that would seek to turn some of the weak or injured into undead.
They had seen it before, but there were a great many more of the giant leavers this time. They might be insane, but you can never guarantee that Soul Mages are stupid. Jagged thought vengefully.
If those undead missiles actually managed to hit a few buildings or people, then that might been a fairly efficient usage of the enemy’s force too! After all, the undead hardly needed iron armor when they had the numbers to absorb any magical spell thrown at them.
At least the banner will get there and warn them to watch the skies – the ONE thing that those fools do now have a drum call for!
Soon after, before the majority of leavers were even set up, the undead hoard silently started pushing a variety of catapults, siege towers, and even battering rams – despite the lack of a functioning gate on the Wall – while the vast majority of the hoard simply walked forward.
They used no drums, or organization, and next to no supply lines. All these monsters needed was their masters at their back and the living to their front.
The undead attacked the Wall again and the drums of the humans beat ever louder, as if saying that their sound alone was proof that they would not fall.
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My friend is a ‘Whovian’ and accused Jagged of being the Master, but that would actually be his Nalk player, who DeMorte called the haughty duke, who may or may not be related to Leo :P
Thank you for reading!
B_S