The legion arrayed itself towards a single goal.
“Better the dragon you know than the dragon you don’t,” Cedric said.
“It’s still a dragon,” Valerie said. “And most of the Chosen are going with you.”
She didn’t mention that it was most of the remaining chosen. If they weren’t chasing after Bob, they were heading into the lands of the orcish meritocracy.
Anthony had sent the monks with three gate anchors. It was the best he could do under the circumstances. Either they would end up doing a bog standard recon of the area, or they would find Bob and Stella. Bob and Stella had stolen a skiff that was a prototype for a smaller airship. That meant that they could be pretty far by now. But the monks had water and air bending powers, so that meant they could follow up. In fact, they might be the first to get to where the elvish kingdom was.
Cedric had made sure that they had a map of where they were going. Of course, Anthony was missing out on yet another outstanding mission, but it was fine. They were going to need him by the front lines if the flesh weaver sent dragons after them.
“We are about as ready as we can be,” Anthony said. “We’re going to have almost twice the amount that we had in the last assault. Cedric, I’m tired of this. I know Valerie is tired of this.”
Cedric nodded.
“In the time it took you to get to us and find us, we don’t know how extensive the death knights’ preparations have been. We just are doing the best we can what we have. Just like Valerie here.”
“Hey guys, I’m right here. I’ve been here the whole time.”
“It’s too bad that we had to leave her back behind when we all went out on this amazing adventure together,” Anthony said. “But if it keeps me from an arranged marriage with a duke, I’m all for it.”
Cedric raised an eyebrow.
“Guys! Right here!”
“Did the princess general say which Duke? I’ve heard that the Duke of Heirisburg has yet to be appointed. I was thinking about asking for a duchy myself.”
“Please tell me you’re not going to be asking for a royal consort of the human variety. I’ve had to do so many deals with the Princess General just in order to get her off my back.”
Cedric considers the matter as the airship moved inevitably towards the more temperate region. Anthony glared at him. If he had a glitter bomb to use anybody, this would be the time. He would use it on the two dwarves in front of him.
“Cedric, please tell me like female dwarves.”
“One can never just cross off half of his choices, can he? I heard you talking with Sonya about a repopulation effort. Or was it? Valerie? I feel like the Princess General would know how to address this.”
“Guys, I swear I’m here. Don’t make me arrange a marriage between the two of you,” Valerie’s voice cracked.
Cedric sniffed and wiped a tear off of his face.
“It’s such a sad thing to leave her behind. It’s too bad that she needs to promise so much to so many of us.”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Oh, did you see my ship? I renamed it.”
Anthony had seen the new name and wasn’t going to comment on it.
“You know when we named our ship the Queen’s con? That was just a kind of joke, but now? Now it’s more of a reality.”
“Still, I think that naming it the last call was pretty on the nose.”
---
The last call, the first airship in the Dwarven fleet, circled the extensive area that they had expected to find the orcish meritocracies grounds. When Anthony looks down, most of what he saw was a mass of ooze and carapace. Many of the zombies were Orcs or had orc parts, but more had parts he could not pick out from this distance.
He had a brief conversation in orcish and talk with Song, the mute orc from the green Fang tribe. They jointly decided that they were not going to hold back.
There was a small but chance that One of the chosen would get a relic or a card that might restore some of the undead Orcs back into a state where they could at least have some semblance of a life.
After all, the goat lord had done so for about 30 dwarves. Even though their natural form was to be a goat, they kept all their memories of their lives. Before they became zombies, the god had made it clear this was a direct action of his. No one thought it would happen again. Everyone wished it would, though.
There were scattered pockets of orcs outside of the continent. But no one knew where they were, because of their insular and nomadic nature. Finding a few orcs in Sunderland shocked those who found them. Unfortunately, they were so few that it made no sense to recruit them.
Seeing what was below them, Anthony was happy that they hadn’t joined. In fact, his plan to drop as many holy blasts into the group made him realize that he just wanted to nuke this entire city from orbit. There was nothing salvageable in there. They kept their distance because they knew that in time the flesh Weaver might send dragons at them.
But they aimed their cannons and their small pipes at the horde of zombies and a giant flesh, color structures and cobbled together monsters.
If there is one thing that Anthony liked about zombies, it was that it did not have a range. Sure, the ones that were controlled and were intelligent had some ability to use range spells and card skills, but outside of the area of control of one of the death knights? Those were few.
He heard the soft thoom of dozens of their mortar shooters as they pepper the ground. If this was a normal salt like a traditional Army would make, then they might have a secondary Force to go in and secure the ground. But this was a normal force, and this is not a normal battle. What was going to happen was that they were going to do their best to destroy as much of the horde as they could and then, if they needed to, they would leave.
But they had one objective. Somewhere in that mess of flesh and flesh made creatures was a death knight. And they needed to find it. And for the first time, they let Sophie lead, as she was the one that could find it.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
---
Sophie was aboard the last airship in the column. She had really suggested that they fly in a v pattern like geese or ducks or other birds of prey. No one had listened to her. That was fine. But then again, they all looked back to her for direction. They were flying toward the Kingdom. They had been all day.
When they arrived, her group, which was led by dwarves from Brave company, we’re going to pull her around so that she could pinpoint the death knight. It was far easier said than done, because when they arrived, Anthony’s crew which meant that all the crews began firing on the sludge and zombies below them. Them. Sophie shuddered as she saw what was down there. Next to her, one dwarf threw up. Behind them, Borgan held back his lunch as well.
She could tell that he wanted to say something, but she knew it wasn’t really going to work out so well. Instead, he did that mail thing where he kept a stomach face. Trying to do his best to not think about things. They would have to talk later.
Next to her, Gigi was all ready to give out the orders. On every single airship, one or two goats with a nautical coating were present. Once they were close enough, Sophie tapped on Gigi and gave her the direction. As if the directionality of her ship wasn’t enough, her ship rose higher to avoid the bombardment. Once she broke the lines, the other ships all began to Center on her as they watched her line of travel. As she kept going, they focused their fire on a line from where she was moving.
Below her, the concentrated fire created a rough valley of dust and dirt. The smoke like cloud flew up into the air, obscuring what was below.
That was when the dragons attacked.
Immediately, the coxswain of the airship banked left and yelled for everyone to hold on.
Sophie found herself with one arm against the side railing and another around Borgan, who was himself holding a dwarf.
The coxswain banked again, this time almost causing half the door was to fall out.
Three Dragons rose and began firing black flame at the airships.
Immediately, the ship sped up as everyone grabbed for a handhold or a rope. They had known. This is likely to happen, so most of the crew had a harness or rope on. Still with about 40 dwarves packed onto a ship, they or as wide as a barn if the dragon hit it with enough force.
Sophie was there stirring up the winds to make them move. As a black flame threatened to hit them, Two of the goats tossed goat stones into the flank of the Dragon.
Undead dragons don’t say anything. They just kind of do their thing. They are more of the kind to celebrate their wins in silence.
This Dragon, by contrast, screeched. The two goat stones dropped looking like they were ineffectual despite the dragon having to flap to regain its altitude. By that time, Sophie’s airship had passed it and it was going to need to pick up speed and altitude to catch them.
She’s stole a glance at the other two dragons who were harassing the rest of the ships. A broadside attack had hit one ship, and they had been ordered to abandon it. She was just glad that Finley had spent all that time working on those air bending cards. They had some wrinkling that would be better to create fire bending cards, but no one really knew what would happen if there was a clash between black flame and regular flame.
Of course, this is would be all moot if they didn’t have a safe place to go. So even as half of a company of dwarves abandoned one ship with a chosen, the other ships rallied.
Then she could hear several shots coming from the bow. Borgan had hit their dragon right in a front leg. Once again, their hit seems to be ineffective. It glanced off of the dragon, but then a leg detached.
Sophie smiled, dropping some Mana into the chamber of her mortar.
“Let’s fucking go!”
---
Next to Sonya, the airship went down. Her first thought was to save them, but then she realized that wouldn’t help. If she wanted to save them, she needed to create a safe space. Then she thought about what would make the ground before they jumped down. And so with great reluctance, she once again asked. Kara to help her in her hour of need.
“Hey Cara, it’s your girl Sonya again. I’m seeking some divine intervention. If you would?”
She reached out to the universe, trying to get her prayers answered. The god of drug deals and overland travel was in the mood to agree to a request on that date. So as she drew into her mana looking for exactly the spell she wanted, she found a deep untapped portal to another place on which she could just plug in her Mana and unload. Sonya’s eyes. Flashed Brown and she know what she was going to do.
She contacted the floor of the ship she was on and through that; she felt all the way to the ground below. As she knelt, she thought about the locations of dragons, sensing where they were using Mana more than her senses. She closed her eyes and reached.
----------------------------------------
Anthony’s ship had to swerve. The movement kept them away from the group that was now falling below them. And then, out of nowhere, the ground cracked and opened up. Faster than he could see, two large spears of earth flew into the air. It made no sense to him how fast they appeared. But his senses didn’t lie. Right there in front of him, a pillar of dirt had glanced through the side of one dragon, pinning it in mid-air while the other one was straight through its chest. Both were still wriggling.
Much to Anthony’s dismay, whatever spell that was-and he was betting it was Sonyas- might have stopped the dragons in place, but they could only fix them there for so long. The two flying undead beasts struggled in place, and that was when the dwarves rained. Hell upon them. As the cock swaying turned the airship so they could get a better view of their sight picture, the dwarves walked their shots, landing dozens of hits upon the two dragons. Fen one regal-free, it dropped like a stone, although they could see it land in a heap. The other dragon, fully impaled, made its way down to the Earth. The impact didn’t split it in two.
As the first dragon landed, it kicked up a cloud of dust. Content that the two were not a threat for this moment, Anthony redirected his airship towards the last remaining flying dragon. It was chasing around Sonya’s ship. They had been landing several hits on it, but nothing looked permanent. That wasn’t the Anthony took aim with his right arm. Looked the dragon straight down from over his finger and launched a concentrated holy belt combined with a magic missile.
---
The dragon rocked in front of Sophie. Something had just hit it from the opposite direction and it turned to see what magic had hit it. Beyond the dragon that was trying to take down the airship, two large spires of dirt clearly had just appeared out of nowhere. Below them, clouds of dirt and dust covered the ground. Rather than take the time to admire what had to be Sonya’s handiwork, Sophie pulled from her connection to the Goat Lord.
If they were going to make it through this, then they were going to have to spend whatever they had left.
The first time that they saw dragons, the goat lord had given her something that had saved about 30 dwarves from becoming zombies for the rest of their existences. Right now? She needed that kind of energy. She said a silence prayer to the goat Lord, pleaded once and then Post.
Her connection to the Divine snapped into place. And for that moment, she felt like a god among dwarves.
There was so much she could do with it. She remembered her rage last time and how impotent she felt after the single use card. And now, she had a direct line to her God and her God was saying that she could do whatever the fuck she wanted with it.
Sophie knew what she wanted to do with it. She knew that in her bones.
She just didn’t know if she had the strength to do it.
“Song. If I don’t make this, know that I did this one purpose.”
The orc next to her pleaded with his eyes.
But she was already in it. She pushed out with her Divine connection, remembering that feeling that she had back in Gloucester. Remembering that feeling of impotence and not being able to do anything. She pushed out with her Mana feeling for every single orc she could reach. She could feel tens of thousands of works. But she had to be selective. She couldn’t do what she wanted with tens of thousands of works. She might do it to a thousand. But this would be it. If she did this, then either they won the war or she might not make it.
She was prepared to not make it.
What she wasn’t prepared to do was give up.
Sophie reached out and cast the spell that she has been saving for so long.
----------------------------------------
Sonya stood up on the bow of the ship. One of the dragons had fallen. Or at least someone split it in two, removing it from the fight. The other? They hadn’t yet seen the other dragon.
Ship was peppering the ground where they expected the dragon was going to be.
What she didn’t know was how much the dragon could take, and if they were even doing anything. Because if they were doing something, she would have them keep going. But they needed more guidance from Sophie. She was going to have to tell them where to go.
Sonya saw the light underneath Sophie’s airship and gasped.
Hundreds of Undead all lit up at the same time.