Julian sighed in relief as a tall figure approached them. "The Commandant will see you now," the soldier said, as he ushered Van Graif and Julian into the makeshift office just behind the wall. Calling it a wall was generous; the barrier was little more than a wide ditch with a barricade. Julian had sent a summons to gather all of the martially adjacent Nyamarian domestics, but now they had to coordinate with the city garrison commandant.
"Julian Gerrets, high steward of The House of Nyamar, and Commandant Van Graif of Nine Fingers."
The local garrison commandant greeted them as he waved them in. He was short, stout, and had an exceptionally bushy mustache. He wore an officer's saber buckled on his side.
"Commandant De Zwart," Van Graif said as he offered a crisp salute. Julian followed suit, and De Zwart responded in kind. None of the three men represented the same military faction, but they were all soldiers to their core and recognized each other as such.
"I couldn't be happier to see you, Van Graif," De Zwart chuckled nervously. "I'm sure you're aware of our situation? Our scouts say Court Rahashel's ghouls are just over the ridge. They'll be upon us in hours." Then his eyes flickered to Julian. "I didn't know that the House was sponsoring Nine Fingers."
Julian set his jaw. He could see this man's intent swirling inside him; his Iola swirled lazily behind his eyes in his golden anima sequence. This man was no friend to the House.
Sebastian Van Graif saw Julian stiffen and stepped in. "I wish Magistrate Rovers agreed to help Nine Fingers when we first went on the offensive. The House has paid its due for our survival. Where were you?"
It was Julian's turn to notice Sebastian's dark tone.
He nodded inwardly with approval. Though not technically part of the same organization, the high steward and the commandant shared a stance on opposing the courts.
De Zwart chuckled nervously again. "Yes, well, you know how magistrates are," he said dismissively. "Always afraid to give up power —"
"And all too ready to accept it when it comes," Sebastian agreed tersely.
"But if it were up to me, we would have joined you when the courts came. You know that, don't you, Sebastian? But it wasn't my choice; I serve Magistrate Rovers."
Julian noticed De Zwart used the commandant's first name to pass himself as the commandant's friend.
"You serve," the commandant emphasized. "What exactly have you done?"
De Zwart opened his mouth to defend himself, but Van Graif waved the conversation aside.
"We don't have time for this; what's your situation?"
"Right," De Zwart nodded, clearly relieved to get down to business. "We're currently trying a mass evacuation to Macbare, but it's a mess."
"Why didn't you evacuate last week when I warned you an attack was coming?"
De Zwart chuckled nervously. "Magistrate Rovers ordered —”
"Where is Rovers?" Sebastian demanded.
De Zwart turned pale. "He fled."
"Then he’s a traitor," Sebastian growled. "How many soldiers do you have?"
De Zwart paused, beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. "One hundred fifty," he said.
"What?" Sebastian roared.
Julian saw Van Graif itch to do something drastic, like flip a table, but the older man doused his rage, settling to simply tower over the shorter commandant. Van Graif glowered down at De Zwart, and Julian almost stepped away from Van Graif himself. He wondered if the commandant's court band hidden under his sleeve bolstered his presence. The commandant didn't seem to have problems passively leeching those around him.
"Most of our garrison deserted when the evacuation call came," De Zwart whimpered. "But now that you're here, we have a chance, right?"
Sebastian glared at De Zwart darkly.
"You … you came to help, right?"
"Yes."
"Well, great!" De Zwart chuckled nervously. "Tell your men to join mine on the wall and —"
"It's just us," Julian broke in, aware that he bore the bad news this time.
"Just you?" De Zwart moaned. "Then we must retreat, abandon the city!"
Sebastian Van Graif reached across the table, grabbed the smaller commandant by the lapel of his uniform, and hauled him across the table, bringing the despairing man's eyes inches from his.
The single guard in the room cried out and drew his pistol, but Julian drew from his Waarheid and felt it burn in his bones as he grabbed the barrel of the weapon, holding it low. The guard cried out again as he struggled against Julian's casual, inhuman strength. The steward's arm might as well have been made of granite.
“Listen to me, De Zwart! You are Nosmeria's first and last defense. If we fall, they will drive us until no one is left. If you surrender now, everything else will also fall!"
The pudgy man trembled and cried out in protest. Van Graif gave him a casual shove, sending De Zwart back into his chair. The chair rocked back and teetered on its back legs before slamming back down.
Julian let go of the guard's weapon, and the guard raised the pistol on Julian. His eyes darted to his commandant inquiringly, waiting for his next orders.
"Put your weapon down," Sebastian growled at the youthful guard, and the guard paled before jamming it back into his holster.
De Zwart rubbed his neck and scowled at Sebastian. "It looks like I'm not the one in command, am I?"
"No," Van Graif agreed. “We will try to hold Court Rahashel’s forces off just past cannon range, blasting anything that gets past us; we just need to buy time."
"What will that do in the end?" De Zwart demanded.
Sebastian smiled. "Everything. My offensive team will do the rest."
"So you do have more men?"
"Yes, but they're attacking Stalpia."
De Zwart let out a low whistle. "You really are crazy, aren't you, Van Graif?"
Van Graif finally chuckled. "No, I just have a good team."
A messenger burst into the room. "We've spotted ghouls from the watchtower! Hundreds of them!"
"We're going to need to borrow some horses," Sebastian said.
“What for?” De Zwart demanded.
"We're going to meet the enemy."
Julian rode abreast with Commandant Van Graif until they crossed the ridge to see Court Rahashel's army spread in their ranks. Julian's breath caught in his throat as he counted over five hundred ghouls and at least ten liches, including a few familiar faces.
Horus, the falcon-headed spear-wielding lich, was no doubt the general of the army. Bastet was there, as was Sobek. Surprisingly, Anubis wasn't among them. Julian was led to believe Anubis was one of their most capable fighters.
"Even as high steward and a court, we probably won't survive," Julian announced resignedly. He searched Van Graif's anima sequence for Court light but saw none. Van Graif's Iola shielded his metaphysical genes from the seer's eyes. Unless the commandant agreed to have Julian search him or he tried to deliberately harm Julian somehow, all the steward could see was the vague golden barrier, glinting off the commandant's eyes.
"Don't sell the others short. Remember, we're just stalling."
"You think they can do it?" Julian asked.
"Apparently, I have enough faith to bet my life on it," Van Graif pointed out.
Julian noticed a series of purple flashes from among the enemy as liches walked up and down the still ranks. "What's going on?" he asked.
Van Graif drew a collapsible telescope from his bags and took a peak. "It looks like they're topping them off with time." He offered the optic to Julian, who gladly accepted.
It appeared as if they were leeching the ghouls, but rather than drawing the violet light from them, they were putting it into them. Julian found it curious that only domestics trained to perceive Waarheid manipulation could see it. In contrast, all people seemed to see when court fuel was being wielded.
When a lich supposedly ran dry, they held out a hand, and with a flash of purple fire, several black, glassy tiles would appear in their hand. They would leech the tiles and siphon the charge back into their soldiers.
"Why are they doing it manually? I thought the ghouls could pull their life force directly from the time vault?"
"Maybe they need the liches to fuel them because they're so far out of Stalpia?" Van Graif suggested.
"It looks like the liches are also here to command them," Julian figured. "Rahashel is not omniscient and has limits, which means it’s our job to kill the liches and knock out their command and fuel." He drew the Druk from his belt. The athanium blade was smooth and had a mirror-like sheen. It wasn't sharp, but it was alive and would dig into anyone he stuck it into.
"What's that?" the commandant asked.
Julian smiled humorlessly. "It's a weapon, apparently designed to kill courts. I dug it out of Peter. Let's see how well liches fare against it."
Julian focused and placed a Waarheid clamp on the incentiviser.
A clamp was immaterial. Van Graif probably couldn't see the shimmer on the weapon as the clamp fuzed with the Incentiviser.
Julian could throw Waarheid clamps to grab and pull objects. However, he wasn't very good at juggling them. He only had two, and if he tried to juggle both of them, he would get confused and lose track of them. Hunter Maid Ava with her seven clamps could expertly juggle as many as five. Julian took a slow breath. He recalled her falling to Bastet's sickle at the estate steps. One of the first casualties in a war they hadn't declared yet.
He understood how valuable this weapon would be to them in this fight, so he committed his first clamp. He needed to keep his second clamp for later in the fight. He turned to Van Graif; the commandant couldn't see anyone's Iola, Waarheid, or surfing energy because his inner eyes were closed.
"It seems you have good control of the court band," Julian said. "You're not leeching everything unintentionally as Peter did."
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
The commandant nodded. "As far as we can tell, a court needs to synchronize with the Bedorven to fully access its power," he said. "When this happens, they awaken a hunger for time within them. I obviously haven't synched yet, but I imagine I will if I'm killed. Be careful around me when it happens."
Julian couldn't see the band because of Sebastian's long coat, but he could imagine the power the commandant was feeling.
I don't want you to get hurt, Julian, a familiar maternal voice said in a worried tone. You don't have very much veralumite left.
Julian's hand instinctively drifted to his final pouch. He had taken most of his larger veralumite stones on their first attack on the time vault. This bag held the last remains of what he had brought with him to Nine Fingers. They were primarily small pebbles and dust of glowing green crystal.
Many meters off, a glass wand broke the air, cutting a ripple in the veil of reality. The swell and tear crackled and buzzed like ethereal hornets. Their horses whinnied in unease at the unnatural occurrence.
"Yours?" Van Graif asked as he clutched the hilt of his saber.
"Mine," Julian affirmed as domestics shimmied through the tear sideways. Passing through a breach without a jig on either side was very dangerous as one could easily amputate a part of their body by brushing the edge of the planar slit.
A dozen and a half valets, maids, and a pair of butlers expertly and cautiously sidestepped through the breach, each dressed in uniforms according to their position. They formed a line with hands clasped before them, and heads bowed before Julian.
"High steward," one of the butlers said.
Julian stared at the Rahashelian force, his finger tapping his saddle. How could he know this was Nyamar's will and not his own prejudice?
Strength, Julian. If you're wrong, we'll be wrong together, she assured him.
Julian's tapping finger stopped, and then he swung off his horse. "Domestics of Julleck, come look at this." He beckoned them over at the ridge.
Down below, Horus stood in the middle of his army and barked something to his troops in an unknown language. The ghouls stood still as statues.
"Some people within the House are confused about our role in the court war. They speak of stewardships that don't account for these outsiders; a Nyamarian's duty is to his stewardship, and no stewardship mentions the courts."
Julian studied his assembled staff and read uncertainty on several of their faces.
"The House of Nyamar is more than the estates," Julian declared. The House and our stewardship include the entire Tri-Terra, especially Boslic."
In the field below, Horus fished out a black glass orb with court script pulsing in the light. In a rare display, sunlight bathed the field below. The bird-headed lich held the orb aloft and hollered something like a ritualistic prayer.
"Our stewardship is to stop the Ataggin’s resurgence, but it's also to the people who possess these worlds." Julian turned to his domestics and noticed the commandant, brow furrowed studiously watching him.
"Regardless of your stewardship, whether you're a footman, a gardener, or a kitchen maid," Julian pointed fiercely at the masses of ghouls, "What do we do when a burglar breaks into the Master's House?
"Drive them out!" a hunter-maid cried. The maid was in her late forties; her black skirt and white apron held elements of light armor. Tears of rage and joy building in her eyes told of personal loss on Court Rahashel's account. Many of the domestics were waiting for these words.
"Domestics!" Julian cried, holding up an open palm, "We have always had this stewardship. Perhaps our holy writ never explicitly mentioned the courts, but their very presence is a cancer in this world. Drive them out!"
"Drive them out!" the maid and a butler both cried. The maid relaxed as she attuned herself too surfing waves, and a pair of valets took deep, meditative breaths, their waarheid building inside them. A few were pale with fear, but most of the staff stood ready to die, facing impossible odds.
"Go," Julian dismissed. "Spread the word to every estate. We have a new directive."
"Don't send us away. Let us fight!" the hunter-maid begged.
"Are you kidding me? Go get as many others as you can, then get back here and save my ass."
"What about you?"
"I'll stall them. You better not let me die."
One of the butlers drew a breach wand and cut a new tear in the air. The domestics bowed their heads and filed through it, some with relief, others in disappointment.
Horus shrieked a command, and a conduit of purple light shot from the glass orb and into the sky.
A wailing screech washed across the field and hit the two men like a gust of wind. The cry was a chorus of souls moaning for relief; the sound slithered under their skin. Both horses
[ Image: Ch 25.png ]
wined and shielded back several steps. Julian felt his flesh crawl and his hair stand straight.
The pillar of light swirled and spiraled. At a distance, it looked like a solid shaft of light, but Julian knew that if he were closer, he would be able to see that it was, in fact, millions of tiny lights dancing through the air. He also had a sinking suspicion that the lights would be characters and glyphs from the strange Court language that marked the band.
Impossible.
Julian grimaced. Apparently not.
What is it?
I don't know, he admitted.
Looking closer, Julian saw Horus had put the orb down. The Falcon-headed lich seemed to rearrange the tiny lights and waved by pointing to and moving them with hand gestures. He directed thousands at a time like a conductor before an orchestra with hand gestures.
"No way," Julian gasped over the wail of the exposed program.
"What are they doing?" Van Graif asked.
"I think they're reprogramming the ghouls. The language is different. I've never seen anything on this scope."
"What does that mean?"
Julian looked at the commandant sympathetically. Of course, he didn't understand Nyamarian terminology. "I think they're changing the ghoul's functions."
The swirling lights flashed and exploded, rippling over the ranks of ghouls in a massive wave. The light and writing worked its way into the mummified corpses.
The light dissipated, and an eerie silence took hold of the field.
The men looked at each other. There was no noticeable change in the silent sentinels.
Van Graif chuckled nervously. "What —"
The ghouls roared and snapped with five hundred bestial voices.
"They've gone feral!" Van Graif cried as the horses whined in unrest.
Julian looked at them again through the telescope. Rather than standing still as statues, they snarled and twitched, itching to attack. It seemed they were held back only by the mental leashes of the will of each lich.
“I don’t like our odds,” Van Graif panicked over the roar of the enemy army.
"Leave the liches to me," Julian said. "Leech as many ghouls as you can."
The commandant drew his officer's sword with the metallic ring of metal-on-metal.
Julian dismounted, slapped his horse on its rump, and sent it galloping back to the city. No need for the creature to die.
They had made the mistake of allowing the liches to prepare their forces, but in doing so, they had time to prepare themselves.
Julian pulled his pouch from his belt and opened it. A shallow green radiance emitted from the opening. He dumped his final handful of glowing pebbles and dust, which shone with a light green light, into his palm.
Van Graif raised an eyebrow in question.
"Veralumite, seer stone, truth atone, condensed light or light ice. It has many names," he said before the commandant could ask.
"What does it do?"
"It'll fuel my body. I must be careful; this is the last of what I have."
"Is it going to be enough?"
"No," Julian replied grimly.
The stones melted in his hands and became a liquid. The luminescent fluid ran down his forearms and worked its way into his skin. He instantly felt the vibrations in his bones; they were warm and carried a sense of substance he had never found anywhere else. His eyes lit up with faint green light as he assimilated the Waarheid.
Horus cried something that was lost to distance, and the ghouls roared in agreement.
"Nyamar, be with us," Julian muttered. "And may he be with the others."
Van Graif nodded in agreement.
The block of ghouls lurched as they were released by an unspoken command.
The ranks dissolved, the formation devolving into a stampede. The liches also charged and pointed at the two of them eagerly.
Julian's gut tightened as the ground trembled and vibrated with the force of the oncoming horde. The ghouls broke the distance at an astonishing pace. Julian drew the broad and heavy falchion from its sheath at his belt. Though shorter than the commandant's officer's, the heavy blade was a great deal better at hacking and lacked any stabbing point.
He had hidden his other sword behind. It was a Nyamarian artifact, and he was already risking too much as it was.
Julian! Please run!
Not yet. Julian set his jaw. I won't let them get you, but I can't abandon the others.
You know what they'll do to us! I won't let them kill you, like they murdered your father.
Julian nodded to himself and to her. He was beginning to understand what might happen.
"We're not going to be able to hold them off at all," Sebastian realized.
"Not the ghouls." Julian realized, "Let's try to distract the liches and leave the pawns without leadership."
"I don't think they need leadership," Sebastian said as the charging mass closed the distance and thundered up the hill. "In a feral state, they'll rip anything apart with a heartbeat."
Julian didn't get a chance to respond; the line of snarling beasts crashed into them.
Julian cried out as he clapped his hands together. When they made contact, they cracked like thunder, and a wave threw his hands apart. He didn't try to pressurize the wave but let the unfocused thunderclap plow through ghouls to either side like a wedge.
Ghouls didn't have an Iola. They were simply nonliving matter, so they were instantly affected. That was fortunate for him. Unfortunately, he couldn't pull additional Waarheid from the ghouls, as they had none. He had to get to the liches as fast as possible.
He clapped his hands together and launched five quick pressurized pulses through a gap in his hands. The pulses shot out like thin green-tinted luminescent beams as thin as a wire.
The first one cut a pair of ghouls in half. Others cut deep swaths into others, and the last punched through four ghouls lined up.
The attack only destroyed two hearts. The two ghouls cut in half and crawled toward Julian hand over hand, teeth barred. What resilient monsters.
Julian's attack cost him dearly. He felt his Waarheid supplies drain in half.
Julian drew his blade and ignited the Waarheid directly into his body. Waarheid-fueled chops cleaved the ghouls into pieces. As he lunged at them, he shot through them as a blur, hacking and cleaving them to pieces.
Waarheid body enforcement was known as slamming and burning through Waarheid dangerously fast. Julian risked the expenditure and carved a chunk out of their ranks, sending almost two dozen flailing and falling. He hadn't actually killed many of them but disabled them by cutting off anything that could be dangerous. Several mummified corpses twitched or writhed in the animalistic rage, but without limbs, they were mostly harmless.
He turned to check on the commandant.
Van Graif was struggling, red in the face. He contended with four ghouls, moving his blade in quick chopping strikes and cutting them down one by one.
"Leech them!" Julian shouted.
"I can't!" the commandant returned through his exertion. "I'm not synching with the Bedorven."
Then Julian saw blood dripping off of his hand. Not dark and dense undead blood, but red living, mortal blood.
Julian threw his second clamp, which seized a spear, briefly shimmering as it fused with it. A Waarheid clamp actually fused with an object's soul. However, when moving something's soul, the physical body rushed to follow. He pulled the clamp, which pulled the spear's metaphysical body, and its physical form jumped after it. He could see the translucent spear speeding at him, the actual wood flying inches behind it with a slight delay.
Julian caught the spear and hurled it at one of the ghouls, fighting the commandant in time to spin and hack through another ghoul. With Julian's help, the commandant cut down the other three, panting through his effort.
"Your blood," Julian cried as he pointed. "Are you healing?"
The commandant shook his head.
Julian felt a stab of fear. The court band wasn't working for the commandant, and if he fell, the enemy would get their hands on the weapon.
"Get back to the city!" He cried, and the commandant nodded, stabbing a passing ghoul in the heart and killing it as he spun and joined the stampede. The commandant was a more than capable soldier but on a field of supernatural fighters, he was just a man.
A spear rammed into Julian's back, and the shaft shattered as it met the resistance of Waarheid's hardened flesh. The tip didn't puncture his skin, but plenty of his Waarheid drained as it deflected the blow.
Julian spun and delivered a return slash right across Horus' chest.
The lich had charged him when he was distracted by the commandant.
Horus cursed as he fell back with his broken weapon in hand. He threw the remains of his spear to the side, and with a flash of purple fire, a new one dropped into his hand in its place.
Bastet gracefully stepped beside him, her cat eyes twinkling flirtatiously, and Sobek grunted as he brandished his gold-headed club.
"Well, aren't you so full of surprises, priest?" Horus demanded in his scratchy and youthful voice.
Julian raised his guard, and other liches ran past him, but he had to deal with these three first. Behind him, the shriek of cannon fire told him that the ghouls had reached the city's outskirts.
"Sekhmet! Get your ghouls behind that artillery!" Horus cried, and in the distance, a Lion-headed woman who wore more practical war armor than Bastet nodded. She had a large vulture perched on her shoulder.
The bird looked partially decayed and had purple writing on its wings.
She pointed, and the rotting bird launched into the air toward Julleck.
Horus turned back to Julian with what almost looked like a smile on his bird face. "Are you ready for round two?"
"Actually, yes!" Julian struck at the bird-headed lich, who parried. Julian whipped the Incentiviser out of its concealment and quickly plunged it into Horus' abdomen. Once the athanium blade found flesh, it animated and dug deeper.
Horus screamed and dropped his spear as his flesh healed over. Purple smoke bellowed off the lich as he burned away his court light, healing the wounds. The lich dropped his spear and cupped his hands together; with another purple flash of fire, a dozen tiles appeared in his hands, and the lich leeched them, drawing the wispy light to refuel his stores.
"You can pull your tiles directly from the vault?" Julian realized. "It doesn't matter. You'll drain the vault dry before you get that thing out and die!"
"Damn you, priest!" Horus shrieked as he threw away the spent tiles and summoned some more. The smoke continued to bellow off of Horus as he burned through his court light to repair the damage.
"I wondered how a lich could fare against a weapon designed for a court?" Julian sneered as he brought up his falchion. "I've seen the results of that cruel weapon. There is a way out. Stop healing, take the coward's route, and die!"
"Bastet, get it out!" Horus bellowed, and the cat woman knocked him over and cut into him with her sickle.
Julian slammed into her and cut across her exposed arm.
"You don't think I'll let you do that?" He demanded.
Her arm smoked, and it was suddenly fine.
Julian ducked out of the path of Sobek's club and reposted, only to be blocked. The giant wielded the club like it was a twig.
"You people applied the Druk on a child!" Julian roared. "I think it's only fitting that it's turned on the monsters who used it!"
Horus dropped more spent tiles and summoned another handful. If the lich could still conjure tiles, it must mean the offensive team hadn't stolen them yet.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a bright purple fire explode, engulfing the lion-headed lich and fifty ghouls. They were gone as soon as the fire died, and not a single part of the ground was scourged.
"What was that?" Julian cried out, shaken by the use of alien power.
Bastet smiled. "Sekhmet jumped right into the city." Her feline face twisted in a mocking grin. "The natives will be overrun."