I must admit that I did feel fairly safe while riding in the middle of the formation. The wall of 4 legged monsters and men clad in gleaming metal did a lot to assuage my apprehension about rushing through the ruins. We started off with a slow trot to let everyone get a feel for the movements of the group before moving up to a canter, by the time we reached the gate Wesley called out for a gallop, with a burst of speed we all rushed into the city.
The sound of the horse hooves clattering on the cobblestone road echoed loudly against the ruins of the buildings as we thundered down Main Street. I stopped casting detect evil, while it would have been useful for finding the monsters, that was not what we were doing and it would just devour my mana. I heard a grunt from the soldier next to me and saw him finishing a swing with his sword, green blood coated the end of it. I hadn’t realised we had come across monsters but then again we weren’t exactly being subtle and I wasn’t the one fighting them.
“RIGHT TURN 75 FEET” Wesley shouted.
A second later we turned right onto a street that seemed to curve to the right. Through the gaps in the charging soldiers I could see a barricade that had been mostly demolished, I recognised the area, I had found a shade here gorging on the suffering of fallen defenders. I thought I saw something move in the road, but the soldier's in front blocked me from getting a good view.
“PIERCING LANCE.” Wesley shouted and the formation narrowed.
Before I could start to feel claustrophobic, we reached the barricade. The formation slowed a little as the first horses ploughed through the monsters that were milling around. My horse bucked and neighed as it started to run over monsters, I gripped the saddle horn to make sure it didn’t take the opportunity to kick me off. I received a few notifications but I ignored them as we continued to rush away from the barricade. After a minute Wesley slowed the pace to a canter and I could hear the death roars of monsters we had trampled, I watched the souls of the monsters catch up and get drawn into the Soul Lantern.
"PUSH FORWARDS." Wesley called and everyone picked up the pace.
The formation got back up to a gallop and I saw some of the riders in front change position. I wasn’t sure why but then I saw someone cast a healing spell on one of the horses, a cut that looked like it was causing the horse to slow, sealed itself up. We continued on the curved road for a while, a few goblins took potshots at us but the soldier's shields blocked them. We came across a pack of skeletons but we didn't slow down, their bones were crushed under the pounding horses hooves like wheat in a grindstone.
"LEFT TURN 100 FEET." Wesley shouted.
We thundered towards the corner and I swore that I would never ride a horse at this pace ever again, I had to lean into the saddle to stop from being thrown off as we turned, I saw some of the other riders had to do the same. As I leaned back I saw that we had entered what should have been an empty marker square, instead I saw, and remembered, the second most gruesome sight of last night.
The center of the square was taken up by a makeshift fortress. Tables, chairs, wooden beams, metal plates and various other improvised construction materials had been used to assemble improvised walls that covered a significant area. It looked like they had even managed to make 2 archer towers and some choke points that were still clogged with rotting goblin corpses. It would have been a glorious sight if they had managed to fend off the hoard. Instead it was burnt out and shattered, dead bodies covered every inch of ground on the inside of the ruin. I knew this because 3 shades had formed a group to reside here, it had been a tough fight and I’d almost lost my arm to them.
"CIRCLE RIGHT, STAY IN FORMATION." Wesley shouted.
We began running around the broken fort sticking to the edges of the market square. I saw a pack of ghouls feasting on the dead bodies, they were spread out among the dead but once they heard us they gave chase. We didn’t stop as the horses pounded their way around the square slowly accumulating ghouls, I heard a few people shout out spells and fired them behind us. The ghouls started dropping from ice spikes and entangling vines but there were too many of them to deal with while on the move.
"RIGHT TURN 75 FEET." Wesley shouted.
We made the turn as the first of the ghouls lunged at the last soldiers. I turned my head back to face the front as the corner came up and I leant into it again as it all but skidded our way out of the market square. I didn't hear what happened to the ghouls chasing us but I didn’t hear any cries of pain so I guessed we hadn’t lost anyone to them. I could see the gatehouse in the distance. It was maybe 500 feet away at the end of the road, there were a few barricades that had been built between us and the gatehouse, but they had all been broken when the goblins raided the city.
I thought we were going to make it without any casualties, but just as we passed the last barricade, the lead rider fell from his horse. I caught a glimpse of the man before it hit the floor, there was a bone arrow sticking out of his chest right where his heart should be, then his body hit the floor and was trampled under the next 2 riders in the formation. I saw my soul lantern glow brightly for a second as his soul was stored within.
We kept on galloping as we exited the streets into another large plaza, this one that was mostly clear of barricades and improvised forts. Instead parts of the outer walls had been breached and toppled inwards blocking off sections of the square, the metal portcullis lay 50 feet from the gatehouse like a discarded and unwanted toy. We raced through what remained of the gatehouse like demons were at our heels, then we were through and out into more desolate land. We kept moving further and further away from the city, not slowing down, as I was about to ask Wesley a question he called out.
"SQUAD, HALF PACE." Wesley shouted and everyone slowed to a trot.
As we slowed I took the time to turn in my saddle to have a look at the city, this side of the ruins looked far worse than the other side. Huge rocks the size of waggons and enough arrows to sink 2 galleons littered the ground, corpses lay where they had fallen. The ground on this side wasn’t flat either, instead there was a long slope that led down from the plateau, looking down the slope I could see long black smears that I wondered what they were until I saw the large boulders at the bottom of the slope.
“How far do you intend to escort us?” Raven asked when Wesley hadn’t ordered the Marines to stop.
“We are going to the bottom of the slope, I have a secondary mission that is down there.” He replied.
I wasn’t surprised that the Captain had used our orders to include an objective of their own, at least in this new uncharted area it wasn’t just us, I must admit I was feeling a bit of trepidation heading out into the countryside. The canter down the slope wasn’t too long, I got confirmation that the black smears on the slope were indeed dried blood. The viscera and goblins limbs that were strewn about made me glad I hadn’t eaten lunch yet, I heard some of the Marine wretch after passing a few more long smears.
“At least they got a lot of them.” I heard one of the more queasy looking Marines say.
"What is that?" Wesley said as we came to the top of a small rise near the bottom of the slope.
Before us was a near identical camp to the one we left this morning. A small sea of white tents stretched out before us, this one was larger than the one on the other side of Mountain Guard. I heard distant music and occasional cheering coming from the camp, it sounded like they were celebrating. Someone must have spotted us as suddenly the camp was a hive of activity, like an ants nest finding that the new ant is actually a termite in disguise. Within a minute three riders left the camp and headed towards us, they wore the same coloured equipment as the Marines around me.
"Halt." The lead rider said. "Who goes there?"
"Lieutenant Wesley Bucknam, 78th Legion." Wesley said proudly. "Who are you and what is your business?"
"Lieutenant Alistar Jolts, 68th Legion." The rider said, taking off his helmet, I saw that he had a big grin on his face.
"Jolty!?" Wesley exclaimed as he tore off his helmet, "Shit, I thought we lost you. I heard your division went missing at Halden Holme and no one has heard from you since."
"I'm so glad to see you Bucky, we had to fall back to Soyall." Alistar explained, "Our mage squad was the first to die, they targeted them with shadow assassins and before we knew what had happened, they were all dead. They ordered us to fall back and most of us got out but since then we haven't had any mages. We figured we must have won when the goblins started running away from the capital. Some of us came here hoping that Mountain Guard would stand but…" He trailed off as he looked up at the ruins in the distance.
"Mountain Guard is lost." Wesley said grimly.
"Come let's talk about this in camp. If you are here it must mean that the kingdom has a plan." He beckoned us and we followed him.
We cantered down the road to the camp and dismounted in the stables, which was set out exactly the same as the other camp, then Lieutenant Jolts through the new tent maze. Honestly, I was getting sick of the tent maze. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to see that people outside of the capital had survived but this was ridiculous. I hoped that we would be able to stay somewhere that wasn’t a military camp. When we came up to another yellow tent with 4 guards outside I had to check that this wasn't some big joke. It turned out it was not a joke, just the standard way the Marines set up their camps.
I found myself back in a spatially expanded tent with the same boards, tables and chairs again. The difference was that instead of 5 people there were 20, they were huddled around a few desks and maps talking quietly. I noticed that unlike this morning’s camp, they had more maps, more markers and the conversations were a lot more heated.
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"Major Bloodfall." Lieutenant Jolts said, snapping to attention and saluting. "We have had contact from the capital."
Conversation in the room stopped instantly and as one, I saw everyone turn to face us, I could feel the intensity of everyone’s stares, like we were cooked steaks and they were ravenous hydras. I felt sweat begin to trickle down my neck and I fought the urge to activate Man on the Job and disappear from the gaze. Thankfully Wensley took all their attention as he stepped forwards and saluted.
"Sir, Lieutenant Wesley Bucknam, 78th Legion." He dropped the salute and stood to attention. "I am here on behalf of Captain Reynolds Brown, 9th Battalion. We have been assigned to the clearing of Mountain Guard. We hoped that there might be someone out here but this is so much more than we hoped for. I have a comms crystal for you, Major."
The major was a slim woman with an imposing figure with her deep violet hair and piercing emerald green eyes, her red and black cloak covered what looked like a magical sword strapped to her hip. She took a step forward and moved the 15 feet in an eye blink, she smiled as she held out her hand.
"Thank goodness someone out there has a comms crystal, all of ours were broken in battle." She said as Wesley gave her the crystal, she put it on the closest table. "Report lieutenant, how are things on the other side and what do you know of the city, was the capital breached?"
I could hear the anxiousness and nervousness in her voice. I looked around and saw that every single person was hanging on the answer, waiting to hear if their family and friends had been safe or if there was the chance that they had been killed during the invasion like so many others.
“That capital is unharmed but Mountain Guard fell.” Wesley said.
I heard a few cries of pain and a few sighs of relief and defeat in equal measures at the news, and thus I ended up in another debriefing. This one was just as boring as the last one except there was no mention of Shades or any other monster that slipped over from the Etheric Plane to pray on the innocent. After the third hour I began to feel anxious, we needed to be on our way, every second wasted here was another second that the necromancer was getting away. If the necromancer made it to a stronghold then things would get dicey. I nudged Raven who looked over at me, I raised my eyebrows and gave her a few hand gestures, she nodded instantly understanding.
"Major, please forgive my rudeness but we must be on our way, the longer we delay the harder it will be to catch the necromancer." Raven interrupted.
"Yes, forgive me.” Major Bloodfall said nodding, “Alistair, please escort the adventurers back to their mounts and make sure they are topped up on supplies." She stood and faced us. "I wish you the best of luck, may you bring down the King's justice on the wretch of a mage."
I nodded along with the rest of my party and left the tent, yet a-fucking-again, we headed back into the white fabric labyrinth. I was done with military camps from now on, I would wait outside and camp under a tree. I didn’t care if I had to spend the whole time fighting for survival, I was done with tent mazes. After more turns than I could count we found ourselves back at the stables. My four legged devil mount eyed me as I came back, I held up my hand warningly and it raised its head fully. I walked around to the saddle and waited, the monster didn't move. I stepped closer and put my hand on the saddle horn, I watched for the bite but it never came. Instead the horse moved its back leg and stood on my foot.
I yelled in pain and jumped back from the monster, I hopped around in pain for a few seconds and the monster neighed in delight. A stable hand grabbed me and gave me a health potion, I drank it like a sugar addict guzzling sweetened drinks. My foot felt instantly better as the broken bones reknit themselves, when the effect ended I knew the area was bruised but not broken.
I stared at the monster who seemed to be enjoying its moment of victory, I narrowed my eyes and cast Haste on myself before rushing the saddle. The horse realised something was wrong as I began to blur but was too slow to react, before it could do anything I was sitting in the saddle with my feet firmly in the stirrups.
"You win this round monster." I muttered, I saw it looking at me. “I’m looking forward to the day we don’t need to use horses.”
Leaving the camp took seconds, thankfully, and then we were finally underway again. The road stretched out into muddy, hilly waste lands, there were some trees that had managed to survive the horde but they were now reduced to lone wooden sentries without any leaves to speak of.
There was a peacefulness to the ride, as desolate and ruined as the countryside was, it was nice to spend some time not fighting life or death battles as we had been doing over the last few months. Sure, we came across a pack of ghouls and a roaming band of goblins but they were easily dispatched. We travelled in silence for a while and I thought about what we were doing, an uneasiness that I had pushed away before resurfaced and I didn’t have much to distract myself with so I decided I needed a different perspective.
"Can I talk to you guys about something?" I asked when we had slowed down to a trot to let our horses rest a little.
"You know you can always talk to us about these things." Taylor said warmly.
"What's on your mind?" Harold asked.
"So you remember the restriction I have on my class?”
“It makes sure you don’t fight, right because of the whole non-combatant thing?” Raven asked.
“Yes and no.” I replied, “There are certain creatures I can fight like the shades because they feed off of souls, but other than creatures like that I’m not allowed to kill them.”
“So what’s the problem?” Clair asked.
“Well, one of the main reasons why the restriction is so hard to get around is due to Touch of the Reaper, with that ability any attack instantly kills. Except now that ability is disabled, so anything I attack won’t die instantly.”
“I don’t see how anything has changed.” Clair said.
“I can attack and cut things without killing them, I might be able to gain experience from fighting.” I said, I tried to keep the hope out of my voice but from everyone’s grimace I did a poor job of it.
“What if you accidentally kill something?" Harold asked. "Won't your restriction still punish you? If a creature dies of blood loss from a cut you gave it, does that count? I think it's too risky."
“I agree with Harold, It’s too risky.” Clair said with a sad smile.
"I'm not so sure," Raven argued. "Luca is a better stealth user than I am but if we paired up, he could make the first strike to do most of the damage and I finish off everything so it’s not Luca killing them."
"No, you are not doing that for the stupid trophy." Harold dismissed her idea seeing through the poorly veiled plan.
"I think you should stay the way you have been, it hasn't led you astray so far." Clair said.
“Just because you have a pesky ability disabled, doesn’t mean you should be eager to break your class restriction. Things could end up worse than they are currently or you could lose your class entirely.” Taylor added.
I felt a pang in my heart, I had earned so much experience from killing the shades, more experience than I’d earned in the last 3 years. They were right however, I had a sense that if I broke my class restriction a disabled ability was going to be the least of my worries. I felt true sorrow on realising that my potential class exploit would not work and that it would be a long time before I managed to get to level 11.
"I think you’re right, the risk might be too much. I think I'll stay like I have been doing." I smiled at my friends and they all smiled back.
By the time the sun began to set we had passed through Hern Wood, or at least what remained of it. I could see the places where the goblins had created camps as there were big fire bits and piles of bones that looked like they had been thoroughly gnawed on. After consulting the map a few times and some very rough, and more than likely incorrect, maths we estimated that we were about a third of the way to Soyalls.
We made camp under a tree by the road and, thankfully, it wasn't any sort of maze, just a simple traveler's tent. The tent was made of brown fabric that had been enchanted to be as strong as a wooden wall. It was entirely waterproof and had a raised base that would fit 6 bed rolls. The finest from Honest Cog, meaning that it was overpriced and would probably need to be replaced in a month’s time.
We set up a fire and decided on a rolling guard rotation for 2 hours each. I managed to get assigned the middle rotation so I'd get about 4 hours of sleep before my watch. Dinner was simple stew and bread, Clair used some of the herbs she carried to make it taste better. After we ate I fell asleep almost instantly, exhausted from the day’s ride and wanting to get some sleep before my guard shift. I was nudged awake by Taylor a few hours later. I almost lashed out with my staff when I realised where I was, the world had flashed green for a second as the light caught in my soul lantern before the night reclaimed the shadows. I checked my Soul Lantern and it was softly glowing green.
"Luca get up, it's your rotation.” They whispered to me. “Harold made a platform in the tree, it has good sight lines but you need to move to check behind the tree."
I nodded and got up, Taylor led me outside and pointed to the platform. I saw the rope ladder that had been attached to the tree so I could climb up. I nodded and headed up as they turned in for sleep. I sat on the platform and looked around, the small campfire we created was like a beacon in the dark, the only light that could be seen. I cast Detect Evil and Detect Life left the spells active, my mana had filled back up while I slept so I had plenty to use and it was a good early warning system.
To keep myself occupied while on duty I pulled a 4 inch piece of wood from my bag and my carving knife. I always loved carving, it started when I was young, creating toys because I couldn’t afford to buy any. Nowadays I carved things for my own enjoyment, with my skill hitting the Master rank a few years ago most of the things I carved could be sold for a lot but I only sold my carvings when I needed the money. Like every time I started carving, I unfocused my mind and let the wood as well as my skill show me what the wood should look like, once I had the image in my mind I began cutting.
I wasn’t exactly sure how long I had been carving for, nothing had been picked up by either of my spells so I had just kept carving. I looked down at the piece of wood I had been working on, it turned out to be my second piece of wood. Next to me as a small figurine of Harold and in my hand was a mostly finished figurine of Taylor. The figurine of Harold was wearing full plate armour and had his shield in a raised defensive stance, his sword was held in his right hand and was ready for a counterstrike. Taylor’s figurine looked more impressive, if I do say so myself, it looked like I was carving an action shot. Taylor’s hair was splayed out like they were floating underwater and it looked like they had an ice spike forming in both their hands. I still had to carve everything below Taylor’s knees but from the section that was finished I was happy. I wanted to keep going but I could hear someone stirring in the tent below me and I guessed that my time on guard duty was over.
I quickly checked my mana and saw that I was 467/2500, those 2 spells really were mana hogs. I reckoned that by the time breakfast came around I might be close to full mana again. With a huge yawn I put all of my stuff into my bag of holding and hopped off the platform. As I landed the tent flap opened and Raven poked her head out, she had a tired scowl painted on her face that only deepened when I threw a few more logs onto the fire. I told Raven about the platform but she told me that she was the one who helped build it, she grumbled more about having to wake up as I entered the tent.
I slipped back onto my bed, too tired to take off my clothes for the last few hours of sleep, hopefully we would get to Soyalls soon. I was worried that we were starting to fall behind and the necromancer would get away. I dozed off dreaming of the near future when we would be walking rather than riding, I could tie the horse to a tree or a large rock and leave it somewhere to fend for itself. I smiled darkly as I fell asleep.