After the Brotherhood forces took care of the nomads, the attacks in her territory came to an end. Whether or not the nomads were the culprit, it seemed Noorani’s message had been received loud and clear.

Within a few weeks, the city of Apolonia started to return to normal. Some of her priests had left of their own accord to return to their cities. The rest she was still debating with, trying to get them to go back to their assigned tasks. With so many opposition priests within the city, her small group of loyalists were having a tough time convincing them to leave. Short of threatening them, she wasn’t sure how to deal with the obstinant priests.

“I will bring up the topic again since it hasn’t been addressed properly,” one of her major opponents droned on. “What are you going to do to ensure our safety and security outside of the city?”

Noorani gave the pompous priest a bored glance. He had brought up this similar argument seven times today. And seven times she told him, that he has more than enough protection with his four knights. She knew what he really wanted though. As with all of the opposition priests, they wanted to carve out chunks of her influence by taking chosen with them as defenders instead of just knights. As if she would allow such nonsense.

“Priest Moorah, as I have told you before, your knight guards are more than capable of defending you against the citizens of your city. The chosen…” she made sure to emphasize the word, “are the holy warriors of the order. They are far too important to be spread around and assigned guard duty. They are needed to defend the realm from non-believers and those like the nomads that try to wage war against us.”

“I understand that bu-,” she cut the man off.

“If you understand, then why do you keep bringing up this point? Is your purpose here to weaken the holy order by depriving it of its sacred warriors?”

“I- No, I would never, Bu-,” Noorani cut him off yet again.

It was getting late into the evening and she was done trying to appease these greedy bastards.

“Good. Then you agree that the chosen will remain in Apolonia, our holiest of cities. To defend it against external threats… of all types.” The man paled at the thinly veiled threat concealed in her words.

If these priests would not get in line willingly, she would find others that would. Just as she was about to dismiss the lot of them, she heard a bell tolling in the distance.

Soon one of her loyalists chosen entered the room. The man walked quickly across the room but did not rush. The fact that he was hurrying at all made Noorani’s skin prickle with worry.

As soon as the man reached her, he leaned down and whispered into her ear. “There is an unknown enemy force beyond the wall. They have staked the heads of all the priests that have left the city on poles for all to see.”

“You’re certain they are the priests?” she asked quietly.

The man nodded solemnly.

“Where is General Atalon?”

Murmurs filled the room when the crowd overheard her call for the general.

“He is gathering the chosen to drive these interlopers off.”

She nodded, looking at the gathered priests when she got a wonderful idea.

Noorani stood and clapped her hands. “quiet, please.” It took longer than she would have liked to get these men to quiet down, but they eventually did.

“It seems a few of the surviving nomads have taken it upon themselves to die upon our walls this evening. As priests of the Radiant Brotherhood, it is your duty to see the men on the walls and our chosen go into battle with their morals high. With that in mind, I am giving you over to the lieutenant here to assign you to the combat units. When our men see you on the front line along with them, they will know Apolon will be fighting alongside them.”

There were a few angry murmurs at her statement, and one man even shouted out that it was suicide. Noorani stood tall and stared at the gathered priests. “Anyone refusing this holy directive obviously holds no love for Apolon in their hearts. That would be a pity, but we can rectify that with time in the purification boxes.”

Not a single priest spoke up after that statement and the knight chosen led the priests out of the sanctum. Noorani smiled in triumph. This attack might just turn out to be a blessing in disguise. With any luck, most of her opposition would die during the fighting and she could finally be rid of them once and for all. But she would be happy if even one of them died today. Then she could simply replace the man with someone she controlled.

***

Norman and Grobert stood quietly in the strange forest along with the recently revived nomads that his people had brought back to Ashvale. They were hidden from the city walls but that wouldn’t last for long.

He was still a bit peeved about the nomads and finding out his people had brought back the bodies of children along with them. It put him in a difficult situation.

There wasn’t any issue with the nomads in general. They were unfortunate bystanders in this conflict. In fact, he had given them a few options. He could revive them as greykin. But they would need to help him in the fight against the Brotherhood. That part had been an easy sell. They agreed so long as Norman agreed to revive the children so they could live out their lives.

Norman refused their initial terms, which enraged the ghost he had conversed with. But Norman wasn’t worried. He explained why he refused. How the transition from undead to living was extremely jarring and painful. And how he was afraid the children’s minds couldn’t cope with the stress.

There was some back-and-forth discussion but in the end, Norman and the nomads agreed to a deal. The nomads would gladly fight against the Brotherhood on the condition that Norman would restore all of them to life after the battle was done, including the children. The Nomads agreed to take all responsibility for the children’s conditions and would dedicate the rest of their lives to their children's needs and welfare if they must.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Even though Norman was still against the idea, he eventually agreed to this proposal. It all came down to having insufficient forces to guarantee a win without the nomads here to winnow down the Brotherhood forces. It was also much better that these children be raised by their living and breathing parents than a greykin version of them.

The nomads added another dozen highly motivated and highly skilled people with callings to the mix. And that didn’t include the other fighters they brought to the table. They also knew the wasteland like the back of their hands.

With their knowledge of the land, Norman and his forces of over a thousand were able to ambush and kill enemy patrols, kill the priests that vacated the city, and sneak his forces from the river into the city unseen.

Norman had tried to limit the number of greykin that joined him on this campaign to just his guards and death knights, but that was a losing battle before it even began. Not everyone joined in, but a large majority were angry enough that they wanted a piece of the action. His people wanted revenge, and he was happy to give it to them. He only wished he could join them inside the city for the initial assault, but his place was out here for a different part of the plan.

Norman only set down a few rules for his army to follow once the fighting began. Anyone that wasn’t a Brotherhood member and that fled would be allowed to live. He also described Pedro. Norman wanted that man alive, his kindness had saved Norman’s life, so he would return the favor. The last rule was that Noorani wasn’t to be harmed. Norman was going to discuss things with her personally.

Norman heard the city bells start tolling in the distance.

“Sounds like our gifts have been noticed,” Grobert smiled.

Norman glanced at the man out of the corner of his eye. If anything, Grobert was even more terrifying in his ash-grey death knight armor than Eugene was. It was something about his short stature and thick frame that just spoke of unstoppable violence. In contrast, Norman stood out in his blindingly white armor. He chose this contrast for a purpose. The death knights were the terror, and Norman was to be the beacon of hope.

He glanced over at the nomads in their mismatched armor and strange weaponry.

The nomads had refused any weapons or armor from Norman or his people. That didn’t mean they weren’t armed or armored though. It seemed the Nomads had caches of stuff all across the wasteland and all of them were now wearing rough-scaled hide armor. The armor had been made from the snake horse things, or zitha as Norman had finally learned. As for weapons, the nomads used a kukri-style blade made from the sharp spine of a massive river fish.

Apparently, some parts of the great river, as the people called it, were so wide you couldn’t see across and in spots quite deep as well. Norman supposed it would have to be to support fish large enough to produce spines nearly two feet long.

Thankfully the river bottlenecked in Beskara, which wasn’t a coincidence. The city was built in this location to take advantage of the narrow passage of the great river and act as a fortress against river raiders. At least that was the city's original purpose according to the nomads.

Norman heard three sharp horn blasts off to his right. It was the signal that the enemy had opened their gates. Soon the enemy force would come pouring out of the city to engage the nomads. He could see the nomads exiting the treeline already prepared for the fight.

The horn blasts were also the signal for Eugene to begin his end of the operation.

Norman and Grobert couldn’t see the fighting from their hidden spot in the woods, but they could hear the clash of battle as the nomads and Brotherhood soldiers fought. After what felt like hours but was only a few minutes, everything went deathly quiet. Then Norman heard the pained wails from the injured.

The nomads knew going in that they were sacrificial pawns. They didn’t care. All they cared about was taking as many of the Brotherhood with them as possible. Norman supposed it was easy to die knowing you would simply be brought back once this war was over.

***

Atalon shook the blood off of his blade. In the fading light, the blood looked almost black. Their forces had been victorious but at a heavy cost. These nomads fought like demons and ignored injuries that would have put a normal man down. He had fought nomads on numerous occasions and they always fled when they realized it was a losing battle. Even when he had slaughtered that encampment, they only stuck around to try and defend their children. But here, there was no reason to stay. It didn’t make sense to Atalon and he didn’t like things that made no sense.

He quickly surveyed the battlefield, what he could see of it in the wan moonlight. He was hoping to spot what had him so bothered. The pained screams of men could be heard and his surviving knights were scouring the battlefield to attend to the wounded as quickly as possible. But it looked similar to every other battlefield Atalon had been on. The only difference was the holy tonic that the High Priest had come up with before his untimely death. The potion was an Apolon-blessed item that would save most of the severely wounded before they passed on, reducing his losses by a considerable amount.

The dead were dead though. And Atalon noticed far too many of his dead were from among the chosen. He had seen a few mobbed under by groups of nomads, but most had fallen in singular combat. How had the nomads gathered so many chosen to their banners? First, the dozen chosen he encountered in the nomad camp, and now what seemed like an equal or greater number in this force. He would have to discuss this worrying issue with the Priestess. Someone was hiding chosen from them, that had to be the only possibility.

Atalon was about to look for his lieutenant when he heard the town bells ringing again. His head jerked toward the city where he saw fires and smoke. Dammit, he knew something was off about this fight. The enemy had somehow gotten into the city while the elites were engaged. He needed to hurry, there was no telling how much damage they could cause if left unchecked.

“The enemy is inside the city! To me chosen!” he roared as he leaped atop his zitha and raced for the gate. This sort of tactic was not normal for the nomads, just what the hell was going on?

***

“The chosen are heading back toward the city,” a man in all black said as he practically materialized out of the darkness.

Norman thought he did a good job of not jumping out of his skin at the man’s silent approach.

“And the rest?” Grobert asked the black-garbed guard.

“Gathering the wounded.”

“Sounds like it’s our turn,” Grobert smiled as he started walking forward.

The man in black vanished back into the night. His duty was to keep an eye out for any enemy forces trying to slip away. Besides, Norman and Grobert didn’t need the man’s help to deal with the remaining soldiers.

The two stepped out of the forest, less than a hundred yards from the nearest enemy soldier. None of them noticed them… at first.

Norman pulled out a bone and used it like a conductor's wand to draw his spell circle in the air. The malevolent red light drew the attention of one of the nearby soldiers. But before he could scream, a beam of dark magic struck him. Instead of a scream for help, a scream of pure torment burst from his lips. All of the soldiers stopped what they were doing just in time to witness the man burst apart, splattering everyone nearby in vile black liquid. Then the screaming began all over again.

This was no fair fight. Norman wasn’t here to fight fair, he was here to put an end to this conflict once and for all by any means necessary. He gave a nod to Grobert and the man vanished with a savage grin on his face. A fresh round of screams began, only to fall silent less than a minute later. A moment later Grobert appeared back by his side covered in blood.

Norman could have helped Grobert with the remaining soldiers, but that would be a waste. A waste of his mana and spells as well as a waste of allowing Grobert to vent his pent-up rage.

The pair stood amidst the lifeless bodies, gazing upon the distant city engulfed in flames. The sight of his enemy's city in flames brought a smile to Norman’s lips.