The battle between mankind and undead commenced. Killing the undead can only be done by decapitation and incineration. One little bite from the undead is more than enough to convert the living into zombies and ghouls. It is essential not to let the undead grab a hold of you. They will devour the living or transfigure them into undead thralls.

All over the field, decayed thralls started lumbering forward, dispersing everywhere, not bunched in tight formation. Orcs have a jarring resemblance to the human race, only with pointed ears and fangs like their goblin cousins.

They were equipped with black, heavy armor, well-crafted from the fires of Mount Mordredu’un. General Yabba was in command of the orcish army. He waited patiently while the undead had their fun with the pitiful humans, wearing them down before his army would join the fray.

Yabba’s armor was among the more exotic in the orcish infantry. His black, heavy armor was set with a few modifications. The right spaulder was adorned with thorns. His gauntlets artistically exposed most of his arms. War scars slanted across his face. Much of his hair was gone. Only a few wiry, stubborn strands of the left side bang remained intact. Menacing, slitted red eyes stared in the far distance toward the human army.

Yabba never expected to encounter King Rurik so soon. The original plan was to ransom his daughter for the keys to activate all the Nexus portals. It didn’t matter if the king remained alive or dead because Yabba’s necromancer could extract information from within the dead king’s memory. With the keys, his race could travel anywhere and begin their campaign to conquer most of the Eight Worlds of the great Yggdrasil tree. Yabba smiled with unrestrained mirth—the thought of obtaining the human king’s knowledge filled him with so much joy.

King Rurik, a war veteran and a legend, reformed his lines on the tundra plains. The trumpets and drums played a symphony, rallying the troops who assembled pikemen to form a spike wall, parallel to the forest behind their backs. The units of swordsmen filled in around the pikemen. Rurik and the cavalry held the center units of the battalion, carrying javelins for mid-range attacks. Behind them, the archers nocked their arrows on bow strings, awaiting orders.

The massive horde of undead marched to within a hundred meters of Rurik’s army, while orcs took refuge at a chokepoint that blocked Rurik’s path from retreating back to Vanhold. Rurik stoically raised his sword, signaling the archers. “Wait for it!” Rurik commanded.

“Take aim!” Archers drew back their arrows.

“Fire!” Rurik swung his sword down. A spectacular volley of fire arrows rained down upon the restless warrior ghouls, setting them ablaze. The corrupted toxins within their bodies were highly flammable, like gasoline. A chain reaction caused a gap between the two armies. Screeches of agony from the undead made the king’s daughter, Cecily, cringe.

From the midst of the screeches came the sound of thunderous horses drumming in unison. A cavalry of undead horsemen plowed through the wave of inferno and dispersed. They formed a single-line, basic all-out attack formation, more organized than the thralls. They wore robes with hoods over their heads. As they approached, the humans caught better glimpses of the dark-robed skeleton warriors. Most were equipped with pikes and lances for longer reach.

The undead cavalry galloped relentlessly. Rurik and Sir Robert rallied the pikemen to guard their flanks as some of the undead circled around them. The head-on collision was inevitable. Hooves smashed into the front lines as soldiers were trampled to death. The riders maneuvered a counterattack and thrust their spears into the hearts of soldiers. Screams of agony caroused around Cecily as she witnessed her men being slaughtered like cattle. Her stomach twisted into a knot as a man just twenty paces away from her was slain with several spears pierced right through his armor, impaling the man’s abdomen. The king’s archers released another volley of fire arrows that found their mark inside the further column of the approaching horde. The main undead unit moved ever close.

The first wave of cavalry charged. Hooves slammed into and trampled the pikemen. A whole infantry of pikemen was decimated within seconds. Another wave of undead horsemen began their charge toward the disoriented and broken line of defense. Sir Robert would have none of that as he growled and swung his lance with furious diagonal strokes. He accumulated a massive amount of mana on the tip of his lance, thrusting it through the ground. A massive earthquake momentarily disrupted the battle as the tundra plains cracked and split open. The charging undead horsemen had no chance to evade or escape falling beneath the fissures in the earth to their doom.

“Remind me not to piss you off,” Stan joked.

"I’m just getting warmed up,” he replied.

The cavalry of the undead were being led by a champion, Lieutenant Uschya. Uschya was a female elf who was vanquished hundreds of years ago. She lost the duel with Nidhogg, and her life was forfeited. Her corpse was reanimated and now served as one of Nidhogg’s minions.

Her vast knowledge of the world of Alfheim—the home world of the luminous elf beings—made her very useful for skirmishes and invasions. She had been terrorizing elven villages for centuries, wielding intimate knowledge of the terrain to her advantage. One of her favorite hunting grounds was the elvish kingdom of Elkwood.

She resurrected the dead to increase her army. Unlike humans, converting elves was no easy task. Their spirits do not depart from their vessels. A deceased elf’s body does not normally rot and decay like other living beings. Their bodies are absorbed with the spirit itself. The elf’s spirit returns to the Yggdrasil tree, and they are reborn as humans. Likewise, when good humans die, they can become elves or go to the halls of Vahalla. To convert an elf into an undead, the necromancer must corrupt the elvish divine mana within their spiritual bodies. Once corrupted, this prevents the elf’s body from being decimated, keeping the vessel intact as a corpse.

For the past fifty years, the elves had kept up a formidable defense against undead raiders. Uschya knew that the elves relied on human worship for this defense. Their powers grew ever stronger with the enchantment of prayer. The old ways of ceremony persisted, mainly human sacrifice offered to the elves. The barbaric, human sacrifices to the Aesir Gods of Asgard had long been forsaken due to a belief that it brought calamity to the elves, resulting in bad omens that led to epidemics and curses placed upon their villages and kingdoms. Opportunistic Uschya ransacked vulnerable villages with her horde of darkness that raped the lands of Alfheim. Her victories and conquests were short lived when a certain human guild suddenly became a hindrance.

She could never forget the scent of Ferguson. Stan Ferguson was her archnemesis. His guild missions in his prime and younger years were elven requests to fend her army off their lands, protecting them from the relentless undead invasions. Stan by that time was a champion and an adventurer, befriending many elves. Likewise, he would make rivalries out of some who dared to challenge his prowess with a sword and war-hammer out of envy or respect.

With Stan’s intervention, Uschya’s armies were slain, and her lands were taken away from her. The corrupted lands beamed with life again, as she and what was left of her army vacated the world of Alfheim thanks to the divine powers of the elves. Alfheim was liberated from the undead. Uschya hibernated for many years in the straights of the Sea of Desolation. There, her master told her of Ferguson’s origins, that he resides in the sanctuary world for humans, Midgard. She had finally found him again on a battlefield.

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“Ready the catapults! Aim for the northeast column!” She bawled commands. “Make them bleed!” Her vanguard motioned the catapult crews forward.

There were ten catapults in her army, and the crew consisted of undead who lumbered forward, pushing the catapults into position. The catapults were mainly constructed out of timber and bones of beasts. The bones were merely decorations. Soon after, the catapults launched lumps of rotten flesh. On contact, the flesh dispersed into a spray of decayed mist, full of acid.

Screams filled the battlefield as a horrifying scene unfolded before Cecily’s eyes. Her father’s troop’s flesh and armor melted. Only skeletons remained. The front lines of pikemen and swordsmen were broken. Her father, Stan, and Sir Robert were screaming orders to hold the line in tight formation.

“Retreat back into the forest while we still can!” King Rurik shouted.

Just as he said that, the avatar of Nidhogg finished his pass by and was in position to attack Rurik’s army. It exhaled a beam of ivory mist. The forest behind them was seared in a sea of emerald-hued flames. King Rurik looked at Stan and Sir Robert, and all nodded their heads. They knew their fate had been sealed. Their only objective was to push forward into the core of the horde, despite their low numbers of infantrymen and horsemen.

The orcs reorganized themselves and began marching from the chokepoint on a divided hill. They marched forward with jungle trolls and ettins. Within minutes, they would join up with the undead. Trolls and ettins were known to charge in and break an enemy’s defenses by clubbing, punting, or trampling their foes to death. It would prove too perilous for the human army.

“There is no way out of this madness,” Sir Robert growled. “We are sitting ducks! Why doesn’t he just blast us and be done with it!”

“Easy, General. Perhaps the dragon’s being cautious. Nidhogg knows of its weakness. One fire arrow will light it up like a Christmas tree. Tell your men to aim for the meat bundles these creatures throw at us,” Stan suggested. “That will buy us a little more time. We need a distraction to lure its flight trajectory within range. We have a little time before the orcs’ reinforcement joins in. We destroy the avatar, the morale of the undead will break, and they will depart.”

Several volleys of rotten flesh were catapulted. On Sir Robert’s command, the archers directed their sights onto the incoming projectiles heading their way. The projectiles did not make it to their destinations as acid showers of the remains fell short of the human army, rendering them harmless. The troops cheered.

Nevertheless, Rurik knew that once the archers depleted their arrows, there would be no hope for survival. He knew they were nearly out of time. A drastic decision had to be made. He would miss his family and his kingdom. The key he held like a necklace to activate the portal was the only way any outsider across the vast universe could enter the world of Midgard. His family was chosen as the key bearers, and this responsibility had been passed down from many generations, to him.

“No,” King Rurik. “Even then, we will still take massive casualties if we clash directly with the trolls and ettins. I will buy you and my daughter a little more time. We will make way and distract the enemy.”

“No, Father! You can’t!”

King Rurik stepped down from the stirrup, removed his helm, and looked his daughter in the eye. Fresh tears rained down Cecily’s cheeks. Rurik cupped her face. “Be strong, my little munchkin. You will grow into a fine lady one day and become a benevolent queen.”

Rurik then glanced at his right-hand man, Sir Robert. “Go with Stan and make your way back to Vanhold. Warn Vanhold they will be besieged by the orcish hordes and the undead by next light. Evacuate the villagers and meet back with Stan.”

Before Sir Robert could reply, Stan had cut him off and pointed above them. “I’m afraid that will not be necessary,” he said with mirth, grinning.

As he said that, a loud shriek of a horn sounded. The darkened sky suddenly beamed with light. The undead were unsettled, and the orcs shielded their eyes and grunted in pain.

Chirping bellowed from winged, shadowed figures descending from above, hidden behind the overwhelming light. In seconds, a massive herd of giant, rough-legged falcons came swarming down upon the horde. They were equipped with specially made saddles, and riding them were luminous elves equipped with golden scales, plated armor with the finest craft of mithril chain mail.

Enemy archers on the ground that were heavily equipped with crossbows shot their bolts. The falcons were so agile that they outmaneuvered most of the projectiles headed their way. Bolts that found their mark were deflected and spiraled away in many directions as they made contact with the hawks. Their feathers were highly concentrated with mana, solidifying their bodies, hardening them to impenetrable steel.

The trolls and ettins came charging, kicking anything that stood in their way. They gave out a roar in unison as one of the trolls threw its club weapon into the swarming flock. It managed to get a lucky hit. The sound of a solid object colliding with metal followed directly after the hit. The bird was dazed as it lost consciousness. The elven rider lost control of his bird and braced for impact. He fell from his bird but was intercepted before his body slammed onto the land. The troll grabbed the unconscious behemoth and tore the giant hawk into pieces. Uschya hissed with disapproval.

Some of the elves started harassing Nidhogg. The hawks’ talons ripped apart the undead, easy as peeling an orange. The battle came to a decisive end when the horde could get nowhere near the humans as the elven hawk-riders formed a single line, horizontally shielding the front of the human army.

The giant hawks chirped and flapped their massive wings in unison as rapidly as a hummingbird. One could barely make out the afterimages. Potent hurricane-force winds formed into one massive wind gust. The horde was violently thrust back. Their artillery was destroyed. The giants did their very best to stand their ground and withstand the full brunt of the wind that exceeded well over a hundred miles an hour. Luck was not on their side as they lost their grip on the land and were thrown back, their bodies skidding across the plain until they were out of sight.

Some of the elves who never partook in the attack sounded their blow horns as the horde began their retreat. The hawks’ wings came nearly to a complete stop, but were still mobile enough to keep them hovering. Rurik and his men cheered on. The plains and the skies became clearer when the hordes retreated through several swirling portals summoned by Nidhogg. The dragon was not too pleased with the defeat as he watched the minions enter the portal before departing back to where they came from. The orcs surprisingly joined them. This confirmed that they were in alliance, Stan thought. Using the binoculars that he brought from Midgard, he watched as the undead departed. He shivered when he recognized the undead elven necromancer Uschya, who was looking straight back at him with a menacing glare.

“By the gods! It’s her! The Baroness of Death!” Stan said with disbelief.

Sir Robert glowered. “That explains why they were able to infiltrate this far inland,” he said grimly. “I heard stories about her, growing up at Willow’s Bay. She had terrorized the harbor, sinking merchant boats and stranded frigates. Sailors were lost and presumed to have joined the horde of the undead until Woden the Wanderer and his followers had driven them out with holy magic.”

“Where do you think the story came from?” Stan chuckled. “I was there long ago when you were still swimming in your father’s loins,” he said while out of earshot of Cecily.

The remaining orc raiders retreated with their general into the portal. Yabba took one last glance at Rurik before joining his henchmen. He was more than furious with the loss of this battle. He was not looking forward to the trip back to Mount Mordredu’un in the heart of Muspellheim. He knew the chances were likely his king would execute him on the spot for his failure. If he lived, he would not only seek his vengeance against Vanhold. He would rejoice the moment he bathed in the blood of humans after his clan made landfall in Midgard. He gave Rurik one last glare before stepping through the portal.

“Form up!” Rurik shouted. “Let’s welcome our elven saviors.”

Cecily took another glance at her surroundings. The putrid, ivory mist that had plagued the sky and battlefield had been decimated during the wind attack. They were surrounded by corpses and human skeleton remains from fallen soldiers that took the full brunt of the acid showers. She shuddered at the thought of these remains being resurrected and coming back to haunt them. Now she glanced toward the massive squadron of elven hawk-riders in the hundreds. Their intimidating presence was like being in the presence of the gods. Her eyes followed one who was descending toward them. He was equipped with more exotic and exquisite-looking armor than most of the elves. The crown this elven man wore told her that he had to be one of the elven kings her mother told her bedtime stories about.

She saw the look in her father’s eyes become cold as ice.

“Just my luck,” King Rurik snarled. “By the gods of all of the elven kings! Is this your doing, Ferguson?”

“King Elwin’s hawk cavalry is of vital importance and a great asset to have on our side in case we face orcish drake-riders in the near future. They are masters of destroying artillery equipment and machinery with flaming spitballs,” Stan replied.

“Greetings, Master Stanley Ferguson and all humans. I have journeyed far from my domain.”

King Rurik snarled. Sir Robert remained passive, while Stan chuckled at the elven king. This was going to be a very long day.