Leyla leaned over the edge of the Ziggurat, butterflies in her stomach flapping wildly as the enormous flying structure descended through the cloud cover. The sun faded slightly as they broke through, the world beneath them gloomy under the thick insulation of the approaching storm as she peered out over an endless mountain range dominated by the biggest lake she had ever seen. It was almost perfectly circular and nestled prettily up to one side of the valley’s bowl, water rippling gently with the wind.
“Master, Lady Emeriss has requested no less than seventeen times you stand away from the edge.", Iskra’s voice whispered in her ear like always as he floated into her line of sight, drifting around to hover over the open air.
Leyla blew a raspberry at him and stuck out her tongue, “Neh! I'm not gonna fall, I'm just looking. That lake is so big, and there are pretty lights! Look, see?!"
She pointed excitedly at the far shore of the lake where blooms of blue, grey, and golden light flickered randomly in the distance. Iskra stared silently for a few seconds before the skull’s beak dropped open with a surprised squawk, several black eyes with a red-slitted iris forming in the air next to the demon. One eye darted away toward the interior of the ziggurat to alert their attendants, the rest rifled away with incredible speed towards the disturbance.
Within moments horns began to sound within the enormous structure, and Leyla cheered along with the noise. The attendants that Emeriss had assigned to them exploded across the open courtyard and appeared at their sides within seconds, the woman conjuring a thin pane of ice that Iskra immediately infused a bit of power into at her insistence. Leyla felt a tickle in the back of her mind and gave her assent, allowing the magics to combine as she watched with interest.
Emeriss arrived along with a storm of activity, gilded skeletons marching out of darkened stone doorways with mechanical precision. They gathered into large block-shaped formations before separating from the whole to jog off in lockstep to take up predetermined positions. Leyla slowly began to grow nervous as she watched the pane of ice suddenly shatter like a broken mirror, each large shard holding the image of what Iskra saw through his many eyes.
“Oh, that’s a good idea! You won't even barf that way I bet. Iskra why didn't you tell me you could do that?", Leyla half shouted in surprise at the combined abilities, her finger extended accusingly at the avian skull as the demon cringed over the soul link.
“What's going on? You sounded a general alert, Timbal. I expect that…”, Emeriss trailed off, eyes suddenly roiling with blue flame as she studied the images in the floating cloud of ice shards before her.
Most were aerial views of the lake, waves blurring beneath them as they took a long arc over the water, aiming to circle behind the disturbance. The largest three shards, however, reflected views from eyes that had simply rocketed straight at the disturbance and were much closer than the rest. The glowing lights resolved into frantically cast spells, hurled from a small group of defenders that had been driven almost entirely back into the lake by a swarm of metal abominations.
Leyla gasped loudly, her accusing finger snapping from Iskra to the second largest of the scrying shards before her. Iskra was hammered with her sudden fear, crimson light from the sigil graven into his skull flaring aggressively in response as he instinctually followed her mental direction and brought the figure into multiple views.
“I know him! That's Sir Blackstone! He saved me from a bad man!"
Emeriss’ head snapped onto the girl with inhuman speed as her eyes narrowed, blue flame licking angrily from the sides of her eyes as she spoke, “You know that man? He is an ally of the Warlock?"
“Teacher made him tea and talked with him after he saved me from a scary man and Mirriana killed them all and we gotta help him! He's gonna get hurt!”, Leyla screeched everything out in a single breath, “I liked him, he was a good person! Iskra, help him, now!”
The pale woman hesitated for only a second before she whirled away, armor glittering icily in the cloudy morning light, and began to bark orders in a steady cadence. Undead suddenly boiled out of every opening into the flying fortress and sprinted into action. Leyla fed mana through the connection to the demon, helping him to fuel liquid-like beads of crimson energy his eyes had begun to fire at the enemies closest to the blonde man. Sweat beaded on her forehead and the wind quickly plastered down her curly black hair as she strained with the effort.
Timbal placed his cold hand on her shoulder and she felt an infusion of power like freezing water fill her reserves in a torrent that made her lose her focus momentarily.
“Be still child, your loyalty to your Master's allies is honorable. Have no fear, we ride in their defense.”, the robed man with bandages over his eyes smiled thinly as he spoke, "We will be performing a strategic repositioning directly. Step away from the edge, the pressure wave will be severe.”
Leyla gasped as the gifted mana settled like a block of ice before being absorbed by slow degrees. Iskra’s eye flared with delight as it took on a distinctly purple hue when he began to drain off a bit of the excess condensed mana. Leyla gave him a grateful look, allowing Timbal to lead them away from the edge and across the courtyard to a towering staircase. He seemed unconcerned with the high angular steps that he ascended in a stately, methodical manner while Leyla huffed and puffed beside him, occasionally shooting worried glances over her shoulder towards the lake.
“Get her inside the gate screens, now.", Emeriss barked severely from inside a large circular array carved into the balcony they were fast approaching.
Timbal seized her by the back of her dress before the world seemed to smear weirdly. Leyla’s heart skipped a beat before she recognized the bendyworld that Teacher's Gates used and felt a little foolish when everything reorganized itself neatly as they appeared next to Emeriss and a group of several creatures in dark grey robes. Leyla had enough time to smooth out her dress and glare reproachfully up at Timbal before the stone lurched under her feet and she pinwheeled her arms to keep her balance. A shimmering blue barrier sprang up around them, and the girl saw similar glows blooming elsewhere from her periphery before the structure simply began to fall. Leyla screamed shrilly and snatched Iskra out of the air, feet briefly leaving the ground as the surprised demon almost hovered away with her before she was once again seized by the back of her dress as Timbal hauled her down quickly.
A ring of fog swept up from below and devoured the structure as Leyla continued to scream before she seemingly dropped through the magical cloud, a ferocious grinding screech forcing her to cover her ears. Iskra clacked his beak several times in anger, a haze of bloodlike mana suffusing the air around Leyla’s head as the sound suddenly receded to tolerable levels.
Emeriss drew the blade from her hip, slashing the glowing blue weapon dismissively at the barrier that surrounded them. It shattered into a slight dusting of snow before being blown away in a gale of wind as the structure bobbed slightly in the air before settling. Leyla looked out over a small army of metallic monsters, all of whom began to move as if they were a single creature at the Deathwatch’s arrival. She barely even heard Emeriss begin another steady drone of orders before the massive structure lurched twice under her feet, prompting her to close her eyes and send Iskra a mental command.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The demon complied, and the blackness of her closed eyes was replaced by a singular sight, red and hazy around the image from the eye still fighting back against the tide of metal around Blackstone. She briefly registered a pair of falling shadows before they slammed into the middle of the monsters, blasting huge clouds of gravel and dirt into the air with the force of their impact.
____________________________________________________________________________
Everyone was going to die and Blackstone couldn’t do a damned thing about it.
They had crossed to lake with no issues, Gaius conjuring a large circular platform of energy that they had stood upon as he had slowly guided it over the lake. They had landed upon the far shore with similar ease, stretching and even allowing Gaius to drink some of the revolting elixirs he favored to shore up his mana before Nari had darted ahead to scout the terrain. He hadn’t even made it out of sight before the situation took a drastic turn for the worse. Blackstone had attempted to wrap the elf in a barrier as soon as he heard the cry of alarm, Roland and Gaius had similarly attempted to help, launching a vicious counterattack and a wall of force respectively to no avail.
The cursed things had buried themselves.
The Automata surged up from under a loose covering of gravel and rushed the elf by the hundreds, tiny scuttling machines dragging him down like a swarm of insects. The barrier shattered under the sheer volume of vicious stabbing attacks, while the weight of the tide of malevolent machines simply forced them through the wall of energy raised by Gaius. The group had begun to sprint forward in desperation as the Automata shredded the elf’s legs with terrifying coordination before simply rolling over him, and Nari’s scream was cut short instantly the moment he vanished from view.
The group had instantly pulled back only to find that larger Automata had simply allowed them to dash over them before unburying themselves and attacking from the rear. The artifice creatures screamed and begged for help as they launched themselves into the back of the group, several Hunters sprinting in at full speed, scythe-like arms extended and mouths wide. Rolland and Gaius had saved everyone’s lives, driving a wedge of force straight through the coordinated drive at their defenses and blasting the beasts away with pinpoint bolts of crackling energy that crawled across their metallic bodies and slowed them to an ungainly walk. Blackstone had raised the widest barrier he could manage in front of the cascade of scuttling machines that rolled toward them with increasing speed, the flower twisting and infusing the mana with dense angry intent.
The thorny golden barrier had sprung up from the ground and devoured the Automata, seizing and crushing the machines in tendrils of spikey golden energy that grasped and writhed furiously for several seconds before fading away. As Blackstone turned away to sprint towards the lake he saw to his horror that the leading edge swarm had stopped, and was reassembling the destroyed members from the scrap, while the rear washed over them to continue the chase in a disturbingly liquid motion. He simply put his head down and sprinted with all his might, shield slamming painfully against his back, quickly catching up to Gawin who was lagging at the rear of the group. He slammed his hand onto the old man's back and punched as much mana into him as he felt was wise, Gawins eyes going wide as they took on a golden hue and he almost faltered in his stride.
Guide was snatched by the leg as he passed a boulder slightly ahead of them, the Hunter hiding behind the rock swinging him into the air with a vicious jerk of its head. Selda roared and threw herself into the air, flying over the top of the builder and ramming into the machine like a cannonball in a screech of colliding armor. The Hunter was blasted from its feet and dropped the man, who quickly sprung to his feet with apparent disregard for the blood gushing from his leg as both he and Selda launched resounding blows into the beast's head. Blackstone and Gawin drew even with them as Roland and Gaius fell slightly behind, attempting to slow the pursuit while Blackstone emptied a massive amount of mana into Guide’s leg, the crippling injury knitting itself closed in a moment.
“Thanks, but save it unless someone is gonna die!”, Guide screamed as he gestured for the two magus’ to retreat, “We’re fucked. Get back to the lake, run or we’re all dead!”
Roland and Gaius turned and began to sprint away under the cover of another bed of thorns conjured by Blackstone, who gasped with the effort and wobbled a bit on his feet as he didn't bother to keep watching after the first leaping Hunter was snatched out of the air and drug into the center of the odd barrier spell. Blackstone heard Roland scream, high and shrill before the air thumped hard enough to make them stumble to the ground. A blur of energy shot past them as Blackstone barely had time to make out the form of Gaius’s form wrapped in a rough and improvised-looking ball of force energy before he impacted a large outcropping of rock ahead of them by the shoreline. The lanky man collapsed to the ground, clutching a severely wounded Roland to his side, his right arm and staff missing completely as he began to vomit up blood.
Blackstone caught Guide’s eye briefly and the man nodded instantly, seemingly understanding exactly what he wanted to do.
“Selda! Get over here, we’re gonna slow them down enough for Blackstone to get the mages up again. They’ll get us out, we have to trust them. Gawin! Lose the armor and swim out as far as you can, you’re just gonna get someone killed right now!”, Guide roared as he spun on his heel and brought his bastard sword up defensively across his body. Gawin seemed ashamed as he glanced back and forth at the wounded men and the small army of murderous artifice approaching before he darted toward the lake.
Blackstone skidded on his knees, throwing himself across the gravel to save himself precious seconds as he heard Selda’s hammer connect with a bell-like ring of metal behind him, the dwarven woman roaring like a bear as the strike made contact. He quickly stabilized both men, reaching into Gaius’ waist bag and retrieving multiple bottles of Elixir which he began to chug as he simply dumped the energy into the two wounded men. As he tilted his head up to drink the third Elixir he saw something that made him fumble the spell, but thankfully both men were already getting to their feet.
A cloud of black eyes was hovering above him, firing beads of dark crimson energy into the tide of scuttling machines that had attempted to loop around Selda and Guide as they held back the Hunters. The beads of energy crashed into the Automata, splattering like blood and causing the machines coated in it to flicker and fall lifelessly to the ground as the liquid glowed bright crimson before bursting into flame. Blackstone glanced furiously back and forth between the eyes and the attacking automata before he abandoned trying to understand it and simply accepted any help they could get.
The group retreated slowly to the water, passing Gawins discarded shirt of mail as they went. The eyes followed, hovering above the group and proving to be an excellent deterrent as they circled like a flock of crows, focusing their fire on every tendril of the rapidly coordinating swarm of Automata that surged forward. Blackstone had almost given up when the already gloomy midmorning sky dimmed suddenly and they were all but blasted to the ground by a wave of air. Hundreds of the smaller machines were literally blown away, flailing away through the air as the larger Hunters hunkered down and raised their heads to the sky, ceasing their unending screams of fear and pleasing for help in dozens of voices to scream with artificial rage.
Blackstone had barely picked himself up off the ground when something fell into his periphery before impacting the ground like a bomb, knocking him from his feet once again before he was bounced violently into the earth by a second impact. He leapt to his feet, registering the pain more as a point of annoyance, as he struggled to see through the clouds of dust kicked up into the dimmed air. The automata began to scream in rage with one voice as two colossal figures suddenly stood from the center of the debris cloud.
Blue light began to swell within enormous ribcages, their silhouettes thrown into sharp contrast that also illuminated their skeletal arms and legs. Bright, gilded metals heavy with inscription and lavishly decorated crawled to life, layers upon layers of glittering blue runes activating in a cascade so dense it appeared to gain depth as the arrays powered up. Long vicious snouts swung slowly upward atop bulky vertebrae that towered a dozen feet into the air. The twin constructs roared in harmony, identical surges of mana bubbling up the columns of their necks to explode out of their draconic maws in a wash of blue flames that consumed vast swathes of the Automata as the machines charged the undead wyrms.
“What the fuck is that?!”, Selda shouted as the group retreated knee-deep into the lake itself, grouping together closely under the protection of the mysterious but helpful eyes.
A deep war horn sounded suddenly, and the air vibrated with its strength. Blackstone’s eyes widened in recognition as dark riders exploded into existence in a swirl of glowing snow, crashing into the steadily growing waves of Automata as more and more creatures began to unbury themselves in response to the threat, surging over the rocky terrain from every direction and hurling themselves at the undead.
“Deathwatch.”, he snarled with a sudden epiphany as he regarded the eyes spiraling above them, “and the Warlock.”