Valerie looked to her subordinates, patiently awaiting orders.
She began, “Olindar, you’re with me. Elora, I want you on standby. Start construction on some basic artillery spells and defer to Siddal’s instructions.”
Elora saluted and left the group and began rummaging through a big pouch of materials on her belt.
“Siddal, Sir Christopher, we’re pivoting to the man. That’s a potential revenant down there. Wait for Thalia’s signal to open fire.”
The pair grimaced at the bad news, and quickly began spreading the word amongst the troops. A few conscripts began praying, others urgently checked and double checked the tension on their bowstrings, the coating of resin on their arrowheads and the beating of their hearts. Most however, looked on in pleasant ignorance, confused by the potential threat, and despite their superior’s warnings, they were excited to see the figure who felled the Greybone Stalker.
Valerie turned to Olindar and patted Thalia on the back. She had been standing silently in a daze. “What’s the protocol Olindar? We’ve never had a spirit still assuming the identity of another get this close before. If this is an Elder spirit, how can we tell?”
Despite his position as an apprentice, Olindar was the foremost expert on undead manifestations. His former master after all, was the notorious exorcist Thalan Talain, who’s regretful fall in grace sent poor Olindar to Illyrith’s Final Bastion.
He hesitated for a moment, thinking long and hard about his master’s teachings.
“First,” began Olindar, “in an effort to gauge the subjects autonomy we must make verbal contact and interrogate their self-awareness and spatial cognizance.”
Valerie stared blankly at Olindar’s light grey eyes. Thalia nudged him and whispered in his ear. “Just the practical steps, Olindar. Keep it simple, what do we need to do now?”
“Ah, sorry Lieutenant General. Practically, we should simply ask Shale who he thinks he is, and where he is. Only high level spirits can access that sort of information, and even so, they need relatively intact brains to access that sort of information. In Shale’s case, who as we understand died from a penetrating brain injury, there should be some glaring information lacking if this is a revenant. That would remain enduring even if they repaired the damage. Now, that does not mean that if he possesses memory problems, he is definitely a Puppet, but it's a big clue. In fact, I believe there have been a few case studies into memory loss attributed to head trauma in the past.”
Valerie cut in, “I’ll stop you there Olindar. We don’t need excessive detail, we have less than ten minutes until he arrives. I trust you to step in if we are operating under false assumptions. Please continue.”
“Understood. Other than that, we should keep an eye out for elevated strength, magery and specifically unnatural healing abilities. Revenants are capable of healing wounds, even superficial ones, usually in effort to remain at peak efficiency.”
“Very good, Thalia, do you have enough time to conjure another spyglass and check for injuries? He should have sustained a lot of damage from that blast.” Enquired Valerie.
Thalia shook her head. “I have enough time, but it would be all I could do. You wouldn’t have me ready for any potential disturbances or attacks.”
“Very well, we will do it by eye then. Anything else Olindar?”
“I’m afraid the last and most important part is that there really is no way of distinguishing Revenant Puppet’s apart unless they’d willingly endure a full Ceremony of Severance. The most we can do from up here is guess.” Olindar winced and shifted on his feet.
“Thank you Olindar. Would anti-mage shackles be effective on Revenant Puppets?” Enquired Valerie.
“They would be Lieutenant General, but I apologise, I do not know their exact whereabouts currently, it may take more than ten minutes to retrieve them.” Olindar rubbed his shaved head nervously.
“I see. We will find another way then. Are there any spells you could cast from up here to provoke or agitate the Revenant from up here?”
Olindar shrank down further, and managed to say, “I’m sorry Lieutenant General, but I never progressed far enough to learn spells of such nature. They exist, but are outside of my capabilities.”
Valerie’s lips pressed together into a thin line. She hated this kind of guesswork. By all accounts, she should simply cut her losses and avoid any more risk. They should fire upon Shale as soon as possible. But the letters from her brother and High Marshal Blanewick sitting on her desk burned into her mind. There would be no backup coming for a long time. Every single soldier was irreplaceable, and one like Shale was especially so.
Mistaking Valerie’s introspective silence for disapproval, Thalia hastened to speak up in Olindar’s defence. “Olindar is selling himself short, Lieutenant General. Such spells are only available to grand master’s of exorcism. Olindar’s breadth of knowledge is immensely impressive for the short time he was apprenticed to Master- Former Master Talain.”
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“I’m aware of Olindar’s talents, Thalia. I am thankful to have him here,” Valerie said. She met his gaze, “I am simply a greedy woman Olindar. One who desires everything in a land void of anything. You’ll have to forgive my curt disposition.”
Olindar snapped up straight. “No, I apologise, Lieutenant General Valerie! I will assist you to the best of my abilities!”
“Excellent.” Valerie smiled and turned around. “Now then, where is that damn undertaker? He should be here by now! Christopher!”
Sir Christopher hastened forward, dragging with him Abel Dren, the undertaker. He was a broad, weary man with thick mutton chops and a droopy grey moustache.
“What is this about Shale Kadran walking the earth?” He growled.
Valerie grabbed his arm, and pulled him toward her.
Valerie pointed down at the encroaching figure of Shale, “That man down there Abel. My mages say it is Shale, I want you to confirm it. And to tell me quickly and succinctly if that man down there could have walked out of your morgue.”
Abel blinked and looked between the man in the distance and Valerie. Back and forth, back and forth.
“That. That certainly is the young man I received this evening. As I live and breathe, I’ve never seen anything like it!” Sputtered Abel. He nervously patted down his greasy, curly hair and coughed into a handkerchief.
“And?” Pressed Valerie. “Could there be a chance he survived this evening’s incident?”
Abel stared long and hard at the small figure limping up towards them. Dust and blood caked his charred uniform. A slight glimmer reflected off his arms as they swung by his side. His left arm faltered each time it passed by his side, indicating some sort of abdominal trauma.
“I wouldn't have said so Lieutenant General, no. I’m no imperial physician, but I can take a pulse. There was no blood pumping through that man’s veins.”
Abel hesitated and skittishly looked at the back of Valerie’s figure. “ I admit I should have examined the wound more thoroughly, and extracted the foreign object in his head. But the size of the entry wound and the state of the tissue surrounding it certainly gave all indications that there was enough penetrative power in the missile for it to pass through the eye socket and into the brain.”
“Your assessment appears sound, Abel. But tell me plainly, was there any chance you could have been wrong? Could the object have not reached the brain perhaps? Could anything account for the lack of a pulse, bearing in mind he was a Blightborn.” Valerie emphasised those last few words very clearly. ‘Blightborn’, there was great meaning, and weight in that word. A few shuddered at its mention, others scoffed.
Abel rubbed his hands together. Even up here on the parapet, fine ash filled the lines of his skin. “You know I can’t say much on those people, Lieutenant. Nothing much has ever come from examining them. They’re all different. Perhaps it has allowed him to cheat death, but I saw no aberrant evidence as such during my brief inspection of the body.”
“Yes, yes, aberrancies aside, anything else?” Valerie grew impatient. The figure of Shale Kadran was almost within range of her garrison’s reach. She had to make a decisive decision soon, the first of many.
Abel continued. “There are a few instances where the pulse can slow to an imperceptible point, but generally they’re quickly followed by death. Severe shock in response to severe blood loss is one such circumstance, but I don’t see how blood loss would have been stemmed. But again, I do stress that I am simply an undertaker. And in my personal opinion, looking down at that man down there, that’s a living breathing human who’s in a lot of damn pain at that!”
“Thank you for your input Abel, you may go now.” Abel retreated from the command group, but did not leave the wall. He positioned himself behind Tolvin, the largest, most powerful looking soldier and looked down at Shale like the rest of them.
Valerie squinted at the incoming figure along with them. She had not looked away from him since Abel had arrived. He was a young man, she saw now. He stumbled forwards with a limp. He was in fact injured. That was the only point in his favour right now.
Everything else hinged on maybes and unlikelihoods. But her instinct told her the man down there was useful. His feats were inhuman, sure. But so was his alleged death. Carrigan’s Blight did strange things to people, Shale’s reappearance wouldn’t be the strangest.
Sighing, Valerie grabbed her bow, and withdrew an arrow. She nocked it and gripped the string, ready to draw the bow. Beside her, Thalia tensed and looked uneasily at Valerie’s face, waiting for a sign.
Valerie looked back at her, swallowed and said, “Tell them to hold.”
Thalia gave a hint of a nod, and blinked away a tear that threatened to drop. She breathed in deeply and drew her hands in close together. Blue light danced around her fingertips and gathered between her palms. She cupped the light up to her mouth, and quietly whispered into it.
The light pulsed and rustled before Thalia flicked her arms out to either side and the magic split into two crystalline butterflies. They soared through the air, shining brightly at first, but with each beat of their wings, they grew dimmer. Glimmering powder dusted the ground as the creatures shrank smaller and smaller. Slowly, they diminished in majesty right up until each butterfly landed atop of Sir Christopher and Captain Siddal’s respective shoulders on either end of the wall.
“Hold your fire. We will interrogate the man first. Remain vigilant. Wait for the signal.” Thalia’s voice echoed in their ears as each delicate butterfly collapsed and turned into sky blue dust.
Siddal grabbed a small pouch from his belt and carefully swept the powder into it. Sir Christopher tilted away from dust and hastily swept the powder onto the ground, obsessively patting at his shoulder and hand, making sure no trace remained.
A cool breeze swept the stronghold wall. The soldiers gritted their teeth in their patchwork armour. They gripped their bows tightly, clutching arrows dipped in cheap explosives. All eyes and bows were focused on Shale Kadran, though they did not all know his identity yet. No one truly knew at all, who really was approaching them.
Several hundred paces behind Shale, buried under a few tonnes of rock and soil, was the scarred burnt Greybone Stalker. Its tree-like appendages had been pruned with fire. Its vertebrae had popped and twisted under the immense weight of rock. Five of its twelve leg joints were dislocated and its pale, veiny hide was torn and peeling from its adamantine bones. Dust and ash staunched the Stalker’s blood flow, leaving behind relatively little mess considering the bulk of the beast.
The lingering breeze drifted down from the wall, swept past Shale, rattling his bones before breaking over broken Cracked Hill. The air prickled against the exposed, charred appendages of the fallen Stalker. They twitched in response.