“Open the gates!” Lilia shouted, rage burning bright inside her. “Today your Mayor and the monster slaying band die for their crimes, and so will anyone who stands with them!”
It had taken a good few hours for Lilia, Bo, and the ten skeletons she’d appropriated to arrive at Aldsville, sprinting along the most direct route through the forest. Well, it would have been the most direct, if they hadn’t managed to get lost no less than four times.
Unsurprising, given it had been a few centuries since she’d last wandered these woods.
Still, they’d finally found Aldsville. Once they’d arrived, Lilia had given the village ample time to decide whether they wanted to turn over their mayor, or share his fate. She had no desire to wantonly slaughter her way through its population, but if they decided to stand in the way of justice… there would be no mercy from her. Not any more.
Poor sweet Rachel, dead.
The thought stroked her anger even higher. She’d trained the young woman for months now, laughed with her, supported her on her drive to improve herself, and had been supported back in turn. She’d become more than just a student, she’d become a friend. And now she was dead. Reud was going to reanimate her, but… Well, it just wasn’t the same.
Aldsville, the so called ‘monster slaying band’, and Erhart. When Rachel had first brought to light their attempts to enrich themselves by feeding off Srinaber, Reud and Lilia had both decided that dealing with them was low on the ever lengthening list of priorities. As long as Rachel could stamp them out with the guard she was putting together, then they’d considered that to be enough. Evidently, that approach had been a mistake. A colossal mistake.
But a mistake they would never commit again.
“Open this damned gate!” Lilia shouted once more. “I’ve given you more than enough time to decide where you stand, and I will not ask a third-”
In a flash, Bo’s great spider-blade flashed in front of her, followed a mere moment later by a loud clang. Something ricocheted off his blade, flying high into the trees behind them. A crossbow bolt, fired by a figure ducking out of sight atop the wall once more.
Which meant they’d made their choice. Now, it was war.
“Bo, bring down that gate.” Lilia growled, lifting her shield and pushing mana into it to bring its protective enchantments to shimmering life.
The big skeleton stepped forward, his bones hidden within his hulking spider-chitin armour, and raised his greatsword up high. It really was a ridiculously oversized weapon, taller than a man and more than twice as heavy. And yet, Bo swung it around like it weighed no more than a stick.
A terrifying sight to see.
Bo launched himself forward, clods of dirt kicking up behind him as his feet dug deep into the earth. In an instant, he was at the gate and the great blade was arcing down, smashing into its wooden surface.
It didn’t stand a chance.
The gate exploded under the contact, the solid wood making up its surface barely even slowing the blade down. Bo’s first swing tore the rightmost door from its hinges. His second swing snapped the other door clean in half, the bottom section falling away to leave a great opening. The wall to either side of the gate shuddered and collapsed, tearing up the earth as its foundations were knocked free by the immense impact. A cascade of destruction chained along the wall as each fallen section pulled the next down with it. The crossbow shooter screamed and tumbled down amongst the mess, abruptly silenced by a huge wooden log that slammed down onto him.
A fitting end for someone who would stand against justice.
Turning to the other skeletons, Lilia gestured to either side of the wall. “Fan out, stop anyone who tries to flee. Maim, but don’t kill, not unless you need to.”
She’d already done a circuit of the village, sealing the other gates with great chunks of ice. It wouldn’t last long, maybe an hour more at most, but she didn’t need it to stay forever. Only long enough for her to deal with the threat inside. Anyone who wanted to escape would have to do so by flinging themselves off the wall, an endeavour that would leave them easy pickings for the skeletons.
The undead dashed off in complete silence, and Lilia headed forward to follow Bo into the village, eyes alert for danger. The men she was hunting were chimera slayers, so they would be sporting anti-mage equipment. She couldn’t imagine any mundanes going toe to toe with a chimera in a melee fight, so that meant arrows, bolts, traps, and maybe enchanted tools if they were feeling fancy. All things she’d faced a thousand times before.
Inside the village was… strange. Doors hung open on houses all along the street, with a few discarded items littering the ground speaking to a hasty retreat. Deep track marks led to the gate and out, onto the Great North Road heading west.
Had this place been evacuated? And if so, where were they going?
A faint whistle was the only warning she received before another bolt shot down from a window towards her. Instincts honed by years on the battlefield brought her shield around to intercept, her sheath spell hastening her movements and allowing her to block the otherwise impossibly fast projectile. The bolt screeched off her shield, tearing away a chunk of her mana as it did so, before deflecting off to thud into the wall of the house opposite.
Magebane bolts.
Flaring her new affinity, she fired off a flurry of spikes of ice, the blue-white spears splintering the shutters and wall around the window, and exploding into the room beyond. No scream of agony or grunt of pain answered her attack, much to her annoyance. Not missing a beat, Lilia focused her mana once more, an orb of glistening ice spinning to life above her palm, its interior filled with viciously jagged cracks. An orb that she flung in through the ragged hole where the window had once been.
And then detonated it.
Needles of ice exploded out into the air of the village, a deadly cone of rapidly disintegrating white ice. Mere remnants of the wall of death that Lilia knew would be shredding everything within that room.
That time her magic was rewarded by a scream of mortal agony.
“Anyone who attacks me, or helps shield the mayor or the monster slaying band, will die!” She shouted. “Anyone who helps me will live, it is as simple as that! Make your choice, Aldsville!”
She paused for a moment, listening for any sound of movement. The village was silent, bar the fading screams of the person in the house to her side. Deathly silent.
“Fine, let’s do this the hard way.” She growled.
Turning, she focused and brought a wall of ice up to fill where the gate had once been. There would be no escaping through there. White mist rolled down off it, frost crawling out over the ground around where it had appeared. A similar wall of ice rose up to seal off the door into the house she’d just blasted with ice. She was going to sweep each and every building in this place to find her targets, and it wouldn’t do to have them run off into one of the houses she’d already cleared.
“Bo, you take those houses, I’ll take these. I want someone who knows this place to interrogate. Smash a table or something if you want to get my attention.”
Bo signalled his agreement, and turned to shoulder his way into a house, its door standing no chance against his immense strength. Lilia turned and kicked her way into a house herself, shield raised for any hint of incoming attack.
A good move, as something immediately clanged off its metallic surface.
Lilia shoved back, sending a figure sprawling with a furious yell. Jumping into the room proper, she brought her sword up to a high position, ready to strike at her attacker.
An old man scrambled stiffly to his feet, eyes wide and angry as he glared at her. “Witch scum! Get out of our village, you unholy monster!”
“Tell me where the mayor and the monster slaying band are, and I will.” She spat back.
“I’ll never help free mages like you! The Seekers will kill you all, you’ll see!” He said, lifting a fire poker in one hand.
Lilia regarded him for a moment. Spittle flecked the corners of his mouth, his teeth bared in a snarl. His eyes held a wild, fanatical look, and his knuckles were white as they gripped the poker. This was a fanatic.
Interrogating him would be a waste of her time.
“Just stay out of my way.” Lilia said, turning to leave the house. She’d just seal him in and find someone more pliable to question.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
The man charged the moment she stopped facing him.
Lilia didn’t hesitate for an instant. Her blade flickered around, and blood sprayed across the wall as he tumbled, body sheered into two. In disgust, Lilia kicked the falling torso away from her. What a stupid fool, attacking someone so far out of his reach. Throwing his life away, for nothing more than a fanatical belief perpetrated by the Seekers. It was meaningless, senseless, pointless.
Still, no matter how pitiful people like him were, she wasn’t going to show any mercy to anyone who attacked her. In war, you either killed or were killed in turn.
There was no space for weakness.
Exiting to the street, Lilia conjured a wall of ice to seal off the house behind her, and moved to the next one along, one of those with a door hanging open. Carefully, she stepped inside, shield raised.
The place looked like it had been looted, with truly puzzling thoroughness. Everything of even the remotest value was gone, muddy bootprints and long scrapes covering the wooden floor.
And there was no sign of people.
Lilia checked the upstairs too, finding the exact same level of looting, and the exact same lack of any occupants. The place was bare to the point it couldn’t be considered looting any more. Evacuation was a better bet. Walking back out into the street, and conjuring a wall of ice behind her, Lilia frowned. Just what was going on here? Had they heard about what the band was doing, and had fled in fear of reprisal?
A crash sounded on the other side of the street. A splintering sound, followed by a high-pitched scream.
Bo’s signal, maybe?
Lilia raced across the street, skidding into the house Bo had entered with her shield raised. Bo was stood within, a broken table to his side, facing down a pair of people. A woman was pressed against the wall, eyes wide with fear. A man stood in front of her, a small kitchen knife held up before him, facing down the hulking form of the skeleton with desperate determination in his eyes. Only his shaking knees gave away his fear.
“G-g-get back!” He yelled, flicking his eyes to Lilia. “L-leave us alone!”
“Tell us what we want to know, and we won’t harm you.” Lilia said. “You have my word.”
“W-what do you want to know?”
“Where is the mayor, and where are the monster slaying band?”
“The mayor is in his house, off the square. The big one, you can’t miss it.” The man said, inching slowly back towards the woman.
“And he’s in there, right now?” Lilia pressed. “You know that for sure?”
“After you arrived, Mayor Erhart locked himself in his house, he’s been on edge ever since the Seekers came through.”
The Seekers? They were here? What was going on…
No, focus. She had a mission, and she was going to carry it out. Investigating what the Seekers were up to could come later.
“And the band, where are they?” Lilia asked.
The man shrugged. “I don’t know. They arrived back in the village maybe an hour or two before you arrived. After you said your piece at the gate, they came through, handing out weapons to anyone who wanted to fight.” The man held up his free hand defensively. “That’s not us, before you ask. We just want to be left in peace.”
“Final question then, why is the village so empty?”
“After the Seekers came through, a lot of people left for Avonford. With everything that’s been going on recently, I think some decided that it isn’t safe this far north any more.”
“And you, what do you think?”
“This is our home. We aren’t going to go south and live in some slum on the outskirts of one of the cities, no matter how crazy things are getting. We’ll take our chances.”
“Hm.” Lilia grunted. “Stay here, do not try to leave.” She said, thrusting her blade out to emphasize her words.
The man and woman nodded frantically.
“Come on, Bo, let’s go pay the mayor a visit.”
With that, Lilia strode out the house, Bo following close behind her in silence. Once they were out, Lilia slammed an ice wall in place, sealing off its interior.
“Bo, have the skeletons intercepted any runners?” She asked him as they began their slow walk to the village square.
Bo signed a negative, a quick chopping motion of his hand.
“Good, that means they’re all still here.” Lilia said, nodding her head. “What are your thoughts on all this?”
“Maybe weak. Maybe danger. Careful.” He signed back, Lilia frowning as she struggled to interpret the signs into the meanings Rachel had struggled to teach her. The young woman had taken to the pseudo-language with gusto, and eagerly tried to teach her as much of it as she could.
And now she was gone.
Gritting her teeth, Lilia focused back on the task at hand, the rage burning even brighter within her. Justice, revenge, retribution. It was close, she could almost taste it.
The next attack wasn’t a single bolt, but a hail.
“Now!” A male voice shouted from the side of the square, instantly followed by the twang of almost a dozen crossbows.
Once again, Bo moved faster than even Lilia, placing himself between her and the oncoming deadly projectiles. Bolts sparked off his spider-chitin armour, thudding into the ground and flying off to embed in the walls of the houses behind them.
And then he shot off towards the aggressors.
“Shit! Get your sw-”
Lilia turned to see Bo’s giant blade flick around, turning the wooden barricade the men were crouched behind to nothing but a cloud of splinters. Lilia counted ten men, each clutching a crossbow and with a variety of axes and swords strapped to their hips. Three of their number immediately went down screaming, hands clutched to faces impaled by shards of wood. Bo sprang forward into the rest of the group’s midst, spinning into a twirl that brought the sword around in a deadly disk of death. Blood sprayed through the air as he cleaved another three more of their members down before they could move.
The four remaining survivors threw themselves back out of the skeleton’s reach, rolling smoothly to their feet as if they’d done the movement a thousand times. That, even if you put aside the distinctive markings on their skin, said to Lilia that these were the men she was looking for. The monster slaying band. Reflexes like that were only learnt in life-or-death struggles.
Today, however, only death awaited them.
Sending out a spike of ice that took one of the surviving members in the side of his head, Lilia raced forward too, her own sword shimmering as she channelled her kinetomancy through it. With the enchantment activated, it would cut through almost anything not similarly protected by magic.
Like a human body.
The last members of the attacking force fell beneath her blade in an instant. It wasn’t even a vaguely fair fight, a group of mundanes against her and Bo, but they’d brought this fate onto themselves. Limbs, heads, and blood sprayed through the air as Lilia cut them down. A few quick stabs finished off the remaining men rolling screaming on the floor, dropping the square into peaceful silence once more.
Lilia walked through the bodies, inspecting each one. Seven of them had similar tattoos, the same kind as the man Rachel had arrested and they’d executed, and the men beside Rachel’s body had sported. In total, that made thirteen dead members, the full total of the band from what Rachel had reported. The others seemed just normal folk, maybe the townsfolk that had been recruited into the band's futile fight. Their weapons, however, were good. Lightire made, if she had to guess. Sleek crossbows, with a handful of magebane bolts alongside each of them.
A tap on her shoulder drew her from her investigation. Bo pointed a finger across the square at a large, excessively ornate house. A house that made Rachel’s father's house in Littlestream look like a hovel in comparison.
“Yep, looks like the mayor's place.” Lilia said to Bo, the skeleton returning a nod in turn. “Right, let’s go kill the old bastard.”
Flicking the blood from her blade, Lilia strode purposefully across the square to the house. No new attacks flew her way, no sounds of footsteps or screams of people broke the silence. Everything was just… still.
Until Lilia kicked the door open.
“Erhart, get out here!” She shouted, striding into the house, gesturing for Bo to guard the outside.
The interior was just as lavish as the exterior, great paintings covering the walls and ornate rugs covering the floors. It was, however, equally as silent as the outside. Lilia strode through each room, stumbling across all manner of expensive items and indulgent possessions. But no mayor. The upstairs was similarly abandoned, though there were signs that someone had gone through the office and hastily packed up some selection of the items that it once contained, the remnants of that hasty packing littered the floor.
A crash downstairs sent Lilia flying back down the stairs, to find Bo standing beside a broken door.
“What is it?” Lilia asked.
Bo signed something.
“You’ve… eaten the legs?” Lilia interpreted, confused.
Bo shook his head, trying again, his gestures slower and more exaggerated.
“You’ve. Taken? Held? Captured? Oh, captured… the legs?” Lilia continued. “No, the… runner? You’ve captured a runner?”
Bo nodded.
“Who is it?” Lilia asked.
Bo threw out a gesture that she didn’t recognize.
“I have no idea what that means.” She said.
Bo paused, then mimed shooting something.
“An archer? No, soldier? Oh! The target. You’ve captured the mayor?”
Bo nodded.
A fierce smile spread across her face. “Finally.”
—
The mayor struggled in the grip of a skeleton, just beyond the western wall of the village. A rope dangled down from the wall, a sack lying at its foot. Apparently the skeleton had seized him before he’d managed to collect his burden.
“Erhart, you can’t flee justice.” Lilia said, walking over to him.
“Who are you!? Let me go!” He shouted back at her.
“You stole from, and then attacked Srinaber. You killed Rachel. Did you really think you could get away with that without any repercussions?”
“What? No! That wasn’t me, it was the band…” He babbled, eyes flicking around furiously.
“It’s too late for your lies now.” Lilia said, drawing her sword. “You will repent for your crimes by serving Srinaber in death for the rest of eternity.”
Erhart’s eyes narrowed, then he spat at Lilia’s feet. “The Seekers will kill you, kill you all. They’re on their way to slaughter every last one of you filthy-”
Lilia had heard enough. Her blade flickered, and Erhart’s words were cut off as his head separated from his body, blood exploding out to soak the skeleton still restraining his body.
Wiping her sword on the back of the mayor’s clothing, Lilia stood and sheathed her weapon. “Bo, tell the skeletons to collect all the bodies from the village and get them loaded onto a cart. Reud will want them.”
Lilia turned her face to the sky, an emptiness overcoming the rage that had blazed within her. Rachel was avenged, but it didn’t make her feel any better. All that was left was a great urge to curl up and cry, a great lump that rose in her throat and threatened to choke her.
Gods, she just wanted to be home.