Chapter 56:

The Last Ditch

Armon

Armon couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It should be a good thing that none of the linked web of Undead creatures could find the intruders. At least it would be if it meant that they had been chased off but the wraith didn’t believe that's what had happened.

They were still here, he could almost taste the doom they were carrying for his lady. But if that was the case where had they gone? Armon had sent his consciousness out to ride among his defenders as they rampaged around the mansion in search of the interlopers.

All night they had searched fruitlessly, yet Armon’s sense that the pair of young men hadn’t departed remained strong. It made the wraith knight feel anxious about the amount of Resonance he was wasting. While the energy that animated Armon and his dead compatriots would inevitably build back, it took time and even effort from Lady Asley. Should he be too wasteful Armon feared he would leave her without defenders for months or even years while the Resonance re-saturated the area.

The wraith knight chided himself for worrying about nothing. He could feel the continued density of the Undeath Resonance that had flowed from The Lady. He would need to spend weeks, maybe even months awake before he risked depleting the local Resonance.

Still, that sense of worry remained, the very paranoia that had made him so effective at his duties in life and beyond was torturing him now.

Armon had pulled out all the stops, he had called zombies in from the hedge maze to keep watch over each stair landing. He had awoken the backup groundskeeper to patrol the outside of the mansion. He had sent the skeletal militia that made up the more mundane house guard to systematically search each room of the building.

After the initial flurry of clashes with the interlopers, none of the defenders had seen a thing. With Armon himself standing guard in the study that held the secret entrance to Lady Asley’s personal garden he should be feeling confident that no news was good news…For perhaps the hundredth time since reawakening Armon sent his consciousness out to flow through the web of Resonance that connected and allowed him to control the Undead in Lady Asley’s service. Even if the lumbering creatures hadn’t seen anything perhaps he could find some sort of disturbance in the web, like when he had felt the absence of the groundskeeper. Still, there was nothing but room after room of uninterrupted Resonance lines.

“Where did you two go?”

Sometimes when you pose a question to the universe it deigned to answer immediately. In Armon’s experience when this happened it was never a good thing, especially when you served a woman who built up Doom with every beat of her heart. This morning of course proved to be no exception.

“THREAT!”

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“THREAT!”

“THREAT!”

“THREAT!”

The simplest of all the monsters connected to the web that allowed Armon to command the creatures of the manor were sending the one thought they were capable of along the lines of the web.

In all the centuries since the lady had lost control of her experimentation and killed the household this was the first time these particular defenders had communicated anything. Truth be told they were closer to decorations than anything, little butterflies and moths that like every other denizen of the manor had died centuries ago. They populated the plants within Lady Asley’s personal garden…With a surge of panic-driven speed, Armon hurled his consciousness into the form of one of the flying insects. Its tiny pseudo-mind was utterly overwhelmed by his presence and the little creature would now collapse the moment he left its body. Armon didn’t care, in fact, he didn’t even consider it.

‘There’

The pair of interlopers had gotten into Lady Asley’s garden by climbing down against the garden walls that lead to the attic.

‘The attic of course!.’

Armon felt like a fool, no one had used the room at the top of the mansion since before the knight had died, it was no wonder it hadn’t occurred to him but he still felt like an idiot for leaving such a gap in his defenses. Inspecting the walls of the garden from within it once couldn’t even make out the attic window so covered was the glass in the grime of centuries, yet apparently, the two boys who were being steadily called to his lady by her Doom build-up had found it.

This was a disaster by any stretch of the imagination. Armon immediately sent a command to every Undead in the mansion to converge on the lady’s garden and defend her greenhouse. He knew they would take time to reach it, far too much time. Armon himself could stride through the secret passage behind him to attack the pair of trespassers but that was likely a losing proposition.

These particular interlopers had proven themselves quick and cunning and that was before one considered the fact that the darker-haired boy had a Dealer with Undeath resonance. He was obviously using a Cursed Deck as he hadn’t manifested anything, but he could still interrupt Armon’s own ability to resurrect himself, which would negate one of the few advantages the wraith had.

In life Armon had been a warrior of rare skill, in death he was fittingly a mere shadow of his former self. Going out there alone would lead to defeat and defeat would lead to being turned into a Card. Not at all a strategy that was worth pursuing. He couldn’t wait for the zombies and skeletons to get here though. The pair of interlopers were presently inspecting the garden but it wouldn’t be long before they entered the greenhouse.

That left the wraith knight with only one course of action. One that would cost him dearly both in the locally built-up Resonance and his own personal supply. So great in fact was the cost in Resonance that Armon wouldn’t be able to resurrect himself for months afterwards. Should he be defeated, he would simply fade away. That didn’t really matter right now though, as the pair of boys could stop his resurrection in their own way the risk to Amon’s person was an irrelevant concern.

Abandoning the body of the flying insect Armon flowed down the web, in the blink of an eye coming to rest in the underground shrine he had awoken in less than twenty-four hours before. With an effort of will the wraith tore an enormous chunk from his own ethereal form converting it back into Resonance and pouring it into the still-sleeping wraith forms of his brother knights.

In almost no time at all they would awaken and fill their suits of armor like Armon filled his, once they did the pair of wraithknights would surge up the stairs from the small crypt right into the hidden garden at the mansion’s heart. All Armon needed to do was buy a little time till his brothers could join him.

Returning his consciousness to his ‘body’ the armored wraith activated a lever hidden in a wall torch and set about to do just that.