Another Elf fell.
It couldn’t be said for certain how he had perished. From an outsider’s perspective, it seemed as though he had taken a step forward only to stumble and eat dirt. But if one were to examine his pallid neckline closely, they would glimpse an almost indiscernible incision. There was no blood, no tear, no scream - only death.
“Intent to strike is a mistake in and of itself. Taking a stance reveals a surprising amount of information to your opponent - a savvy foe will always prepare to counterattack when he understands the enemy.” Baccharum lectured, “This should have been one of your first lessons. Have the old masters fallen into senility, or have their attitudes been corrupted by the influence of youth? And more to the point - where are they?”
The assassins had come to surround him, and yet even as they approached Baccharum from behind, there were no discernable openings in his defence. Four Elves were already dead by his hand, all of them having crossed over to the afterlife before they could offer a single strike in retaliation.
“That speed… it isn’t possible!” One yelled, “He must be using some kind of non-lethal technique! I can’t see any wounds!”
“Oh no - they’re absolutely dead.” Baccharum twisted his shoulders, “In my day, this wouldn’t have passed muster. I believe it was the master of the Unseen Hand guild who once said-”
“‘The perfect kill leaves one’s quarry unmarked by a blade.’”
A cumbersome, tired voice drew every pair of hidden eyes towards the darkness. Droves of assassins who had poured out from the canopy to challenge Baccharum parted like a sea to make way for an Elf who had an air of wizened expertise about him - a wrinkled, hunched Elf whose agility had wasted away to the point of requiring a long and gnarled cane to get around.
“Oh dear…” In a moment of supreme rarity, Baccharum’s demeanour faltered, “I recognise that voice…”
“Kaen-Yaan.” Once the assassins had peeled back completely, the elderly Elf placed both hands upon the spherical crown of his cane, “I could swear one thousand moonless nights have passed in your absence. It came as a surprise to me when news of your return reached my ailing ears. Moreso when it was revealed that you’ve settled in with necromancers. But stranger things have befallen our kin.”
“You old fool…” Baccharum’s grip loosened, his focus devastated, “Don’t tell me you’re the only one left? What about Lun Faen the Impaler? Scachen? Aqauro Osen? What about Ner? He was half your age!”
A few quick shakes of the head dispelled all notion of their existence.
“In the wake of a grand and terrible peace, the guilds have fallen on tumultuous times.” The elder replied, “Kesset is a fabulous Shaman. But the tradition of quick and violent abdications has fallen out of style thanks to his seeming perfection. And who do you imagine killers such as ourselves target when there is no more kingly blood left to shed?”
Baccharum steadied his breathing and sighed, “...You tore each-other apart?”
Between his words, the tear of iron against flesh rocketed out from beyond the encirclement. Baccharum took note of the fact that the fighting seemed to be dying down, punctuated by a deafening croak of something gargantuan impacting in the distance. Following that, there was movement beyond Baccharum’s ability to comprehend. A path had been opened up out of the ambush, he reckoned.
“The game of assassination was rewritten considerably. No longer were we rivals, but mortal enemies.” The elder continued his rant regardless, “Territory, influence, membership - all of these factors swelled in importance as contracts dwindled throughout the city. In the end, only one guild was allowed to remain standing.”
With some effort, he pushed his weight off the cane and brought it into both hands. There was a squeal of metal, and Baccharum knew a weapon had been drawn in one form or another. The development didn’t frighten him one bit - he knew from the moment of the elder’s arrival that he was about to face off against an old master of the assassin guilds.
“You were a fine pupil, Kaen-Yaan. And unlike most of the killers fathered by our fold, your ambitions never ceased at mastery of a single discipline.” He continued, “I don’t doubt you would have inherited the bloodless burden of this city had you refused to be exiled. But you were always the wandering sort. Never satisfied with remaining in one place. It’s only natural that you were carried beyond the Great Oaks.”
Baccharum’s arms were at his sides, not very enthused by the idea of rising.
“...We don’t have to do this, you old fool.” His tone was prematurely defeated. Not from fear, but from sagged disappointment. This was one life he did not want to take, “There are forces greater than us at play. Lieze’s means aren’t perfect - no, they’re far from perfect. They’re pure evil, actually. But I can’t deny what I’ve learned. There’s something worth fighting for here.”
Silence, as he expected. They could go back and forth for hours if it pleased them, but neither men were allowed the freedom of time. A war was underway, and the two of them had found one-another on opposite sides. Baccharum was no stranger to elevating his rivalries into bloody feuds, but he felt that the murder of an old man wouldn’t contribute much to his victories.
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The elder, having drawn a long blade from the hidden scabbard that was his cane, summoned an assassin to his side by tapping the tip against the ground.
“Don’t interfere.” He said, “Focus on the rest of the Order for now.”
“But, master…” Kneeling obediently, the Elf lowered his head, “If you don’t survive…”
“I am too old to be the subject of concern.” He answered, “Now go. All of you.”
His word was final, as they all understood. Before a second was allowed to pass, Baccharum and the old master were isolated in the meadow. While the battle that would decide the world’s fate raged on in the near distance, a more sombre encounter was beginning to blossom between a student and his former teacher.
“Hm…” The latter ran a hand over the bristles on his chin, “Ease my mind by telling me you’re doing the right thing, Kaen-Yaan.”
“Right? Of course. Ethical? That’s of no concern to me.” Baccharum replied, “-But Lieze is the only one who can do it, cruel as her methods are. It’s an evil I’m willing to tolerate.”
“You were never very good at telling lies. I’m pleased to hear this isn’t one.” The elder nodded, “I hate to kill you.”
“What a coincidence.” Baccharum smiled, sliding both feet across the ground as he worked himself into a stance, “I was just about to tell you the same thing.”
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Lieze’s army of undead pierced through the path carved by her [Blood Spike], extending oblong across the swathe of land connecting the battlefield to the walls of the Black City. Walls of fire rising from the knolls overlooking the carved half-pipe of dirt kept most of the attacking Rootborne at bay, but it was inevitable that the thralls would meet resistance along the way.
Compared to before, the tide of foes seemed impenetrably dense. Stalkers, Flesh Elementals, and Briarknights carved into the Rootborne horde, but where one fell, two more would breach the earth to replace it. Lieze assumed that some of them were illusions conjured by the Head Shaman to complicate their strategies, but she could spot neither head nor tail of the violet smoke suggesting the death of a phantom foe.
Brilliant arcs of lightning illuminated the forest in chaotic intervals as Deathguards levied the lightning throwers pilfered from the Dwarven Mountains, reducing formidable barkskin to heaps of flaming wood. The Flesh Golem spearheaded their boggy charge towards the wall of impenetrable obsidian separating them from the streets of the Black City, seemingly unbothered by the blood-glutted carnage underfoot.
“Don’t fire those throwers so enthusiastically! Remember what happened to those Dwarves in the Royal Delve!” Roland took charge of the armed Deathgurds, keeping an eye out for any overloading weapons, “Move the next formation of Gravewalkers forward! We can’t lose cohesion before we reach the walls!”
“Lieze!” Drayya’s voice was only a suggestion in the girl’s ear despite its volume, “We’ve got assassins coming in from behind! Maybe fifty in total!”
As the commander of the army’s most powerful thralls, it was Lieze’s responsibility to direct manpower towards critical junctures in the horde’s formation. If one Rot Behemoth fell, she would plug the hole with another. If the Rootborne attempted to squeeze into their rear and cut off the army’s escape route, she would route the Stalkers towards their flank to act as bait or exterminate smaller groups.
The headache thumping against her skull was unbearable. Fifty nimble, deadly assassins was precisely the type of complication that would have burned off the remainder of her strategic capacity if she didn’t have allies to rely on.
“Drayya… I need you to handle the Grotesques.” Lieze clenched her eyes, “Use them to deal with the assassins… don’t engage them fully - just perform some simple hit-and-run tactics. Annoyance will wear their patience thin. Use that frustration to determine when to go for the kill.”
She must have looked worse off than she felt - enough to earn a worried look from the normally-unflappable Drayya. She placed a dependable hand on Lieze’s shoulder and nodded, “We’ll be at the wall before you know it. Just hang on until then, okay?”
The [Fleshwarper] path had earned Lieze a plethora of powerful thralls, but the hit to her maximum capacity was beginning to prove troublesome. In her mind, the animated wills of countless husks demanded guidance incessantly. She was assailed by the Blackbriar’s visions whenever her eyes opened a crack, trapped within a constant state of communion which complicated the act of discerning fantasy from reality.
Worse still, she could feel it waning. With every tragic loss suffered on her side, the mental load decreased. It was fabulous for her continued sanity - not so much for her chances at victory. But that same clarity contributed to a more cohesive line of consciousness. She could control each thrall more efficiently when there was less to focus on.
The army stalled on its path towards the walls as the initial disorganisation began to resolve itself. Grotesques cursed the skies with their incessant howling, diving to snap their jaws at the incoming assassins under Drayya’s command. They were fast enough to avoid a swift counterattack from the Elves, but dangerous enough that one couldn’t afford to divert their attention from the beasts. By delaying the assassins in that manner, Lieze and her allies were allowed to march uncontested towards the Black City.
“Stand back! Stand back if you want to avoid being crushed!” Marché corralled the Deathguards and thralls at the vanguard, ushering them to make way for the Flesh Golem, “Have your spells prepared to attack whatever’s on the other side of the wall! We’ll split into two groups on either side, so form up your Briarknights and get ready to charge!”
Lieze kept her eyes cautiously upon the monolithic obsidian as the Flesh Golem began the process of smashing a hole for them to force their way in. She had yet to witness any further tricks of transmutation from the Head Shaman, but knew better than to assume their entrance would go uncontested.
“We’ll be facing off against another Scion once we break through…” She muttered, “Transmutation is a versatile school… I’m not looking forward to whatever’s on the other side.”