Pride, this coming flood was because of their pride, but by the Blood, did she enjoy it.

Matriarch Zara grinned while she fingered the shark bone necklace. She was a stout woman, slender in comparison to her sisters, but the type of appearance who’s cooking would have filled many a two storied inn.

Distant rumblings shook her from her momentary lapse from reality, snatched away her grin. The flood was coming, and reminiscing on the good years wouldn’t serve her now. They held the gates, they kept their spawn safe, but it was doomed. She knew it to be true, but her sisters’ resistance was not the worst outcome.

Zara tucked her grey strands into her head wrap, and flexed her bony fingers. She took a deep breath and enjoyed the glow of colour in each of her gemmed rings. Her hands delved into the Unseen and produced her bone wand, tipped with a shrunken skull and jagged, bejewelled teeth. A muttered incantation later, and her cosy hut faded from existence.

The rumbling was as loud as thunder now that she stood in the midst of the Skeletal Grove. Arcs of flashing power sparked between the gaps of the canopy above, dancing like lightning in the night sky. Another wave of her bone wand later and her plump body was armoured in stygian dragon bone.

Zaria delved into the Unseen again to produce her dragon bone staff. As black as her armour, and with a moulding incantation, her bone wand became its head. Power surged through her entire body. It made her salivate, not just at the current raging flow beneath her flesh, but the potential of her surroundings.

Her eyes sparked with strengthened vision, seeing the fibres of existence like diamond dust floating in the air. It flowed in the veins of every blade of grass, in every minute crevice of bark shielding every tree nearby. She saw the silvery hairline cracks in their barrier surrounding and protecting their grove. Whenever it rumbled, the hairline cracks glowed before stretching further and deepening.

They’ve always been good at being desperate, Zara scoffed to herself.

She waved her hand and bones grew from the ground before her, fusing together into a ring. The Matriarch sat cross-legged upon it and let it carry her towards the source of all the racket.

Her eyes scanned her surroundings as more sisters emerged from the Unseen. Some already armoured in bones and wielding their wands, accompanied by their children. Most were accompanied by a handful of children, equally armoured, and wielding weapons themselves.

Urk came into her mind, but they needed to be away, that was the plan.

She adjusted the dragon scales between and beneath the bones protecting her, and adjusted her dragon scale helm. Should she fail to convince her sisters, the natural protection from the dragon remains would serve her well. A drastic precaution in truth, but if she wasn’t so cautious, then this attack by the youthful brats would have caught her by surprise.

“Matriarch!” Sister Bellona cried when she dismounted from her bone carrier. “We need your wisdom!”

The barrier was near pristine before her, with the hairline cracks only brightened by the constant cannon fire lighting the blackness beyond, before crashing into it. Arcs of power coupled with the cannon ammunitions.

Damn bitches have Imperial firepower, She grumbled to herself. That would complicate things.

“Matriarch!” Sister Bellona screeched again, after another volley of fire and witchcraft deepened the hairline cracks. “How did they discover our grove?”

“Who are you speaking of?”

“Matriarch?”

“Have you seen who bombards us so consistently? Has the veil of darkness revealed the faces of our attackers?”

“Who else would attack our grove?”

“I see cannon fire,”

“Amongst the power as well, Matriarch,” Sister Bellona hissed.

There were more sisters marching to and fro and eyeing the barrier, and their pairing, while also scrambling to muster their own power. Their children scurried around wearing makeshift armour, clutching crude weapons, acting as tails to their plump, elderly grandmothers.

“Perhaps we have a traitor in our midst?”

“What good would poking at our sisters to oust a potential traitor serve, with the enemy at our doorstep?”

“Matriarch,” Bellona’s pause and narrowed eyes unsettled her at first, but another volley drew her attention to the barrier again.

“It cannot be forgotten that someone has let loose our secrets, and punishment must be severe once victory is ours.”

“I look forward to seeing your justice. For now, gather Sisters Lana, Olga and Yudra, organise the defence, spare your children, raise the lesser skeletons and I will awaken the Guardians.”

“Matriarch, is that necessary?”

“You see the cannons, whoever has come for us has the backing of the Empire. We will need all our power,” Zara smiled before mounting her hovering bone ring once more. “Do not over exert yourselves in maintaining the barrier, save yourselves for the fight to come.”

She almost spoke of watching over their children, but Sister Bellona was unique on such matters. Bellona was the first to resist her new discovery, the chance to circumvent their curse and procreate in their own way. Matriarch Zara was a pioneer, a visionary, but to Sister Bellona, a danger. There were a handful of sisters beside her, but one by one they couldn’t resist. Now Sister Bellona stood alone.

Another volley of cannon fire and power rumbled the barrier like thunder from a monstrous storm. Perhaps Bellona had the right of it.

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More sisters emerged from the Unseen, some greyer than others, along with their children. The lush grass and soil below her floating ring rumbled, bubbling before bones of sparkling white emerged. Diamonds the size of dust sparkled between them, merging the bones together to form their undead defenders.

Matriarch Zara gazed ahead, towards the rising heart of the grove. A grove within another, with stones and dragon bone towering as high as the thick trees within. Moss littered the bones and stones, blending them to the dense foliage behind. Ancient, far older than herself, unchanged since the last Matriarch discovered her making the Last Sacrament at the grave of her only son. But her eyes quickly fixed on the figure standing beside the archway entrance and she smiled.

Upon arrival, Urk bowed in all their glorious regalia, the only other living being wearing the same stygian dragon bone armour within the grove. A special suit she fashioned from her own, leaving her lower body undefended. Urk was of her body, they deserved the armour of a Matriarch as well.

“Grandmother,” Urk bowed when she stepped off of her floating ring.

She always thought them tall for a goblin, and far ahead of the others. Urk could speak more than a pair of words with their guttural voice.

“Rise child,” she smiled, admiring the glistening armour, then frowned at the stench of blood emanating from their bone short swords.

“You said… no witnesses Grandmother, I obeyed,” Urk bared both of their short swords and grinned.

She pinched their cheek and enjoyed their shared dark umber complexion. Urk’s hair was as coarse and dark as what hers used to be, tied into a topknot. The beginnings of a beard littered their chin and spotted their jaw. Urk was old amongst the goblins, but they were growing faster than she expected.

“Is everything… right? Grandmother has troubles, I will… fix.”

“No, thank you,” she smiled, sinking into Urk’s bulbous yellow eyes, with its black slits for pupils. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes,” she caught Urk’s hesitation.

“What’s wrong?”

Urk bared their fangs and their tongue danced over their teeth. A habit whenever they were deep in thought, it bounced their overgrown, pointy ears.

“Is it wrong… we are running away?”

“Not running, restarting, my love. We are doomed, and I will save us.”

“Only us?”

“I’m sorry my love, it is safer if I only have to worry about the two of us,” she didn’t know why it pained her to say that. She cared little for her sisters in truth, this was all a means to an end, and Urk was her end.

All sisters had their reasons for doing the Last Sacrament so late in their lives, no doubt many of them had the same reason as she did. A chance to have a family again, Urk was more than a compromise. The Sacrament promised power, and now she wielded it after some years of struggle, rose to become Matriarch to truly have what she sought. Now her time here was over, and this attack was the perfect cover, if a little orchestrated.

But her sisters wouldn’t suffer.

Another thunderclap of a barrage widened the hairline cracks on the barrier into gaping crevices. They were slow to close, and widened further as the barrage became more frequent.

“I have prepared, come Grandmother,”

“A moment Urk, I must prepare the defence.”

Matriarch Zara twirled with purpose and clutched her dragon bone staff with both of her hands. Her chanting began as she strode away from the heart of the grove towards the surrounding open fields and channelled as much power as she dared.

Zara’s vision became like diamonds, her veins pumped with molten power, rumbling beneath her flesh. Her hands vibrated and itched, begging to unleash the power she amassed, sparking like lightning from her fingertips while her staff glowed. She shimmered with pure power, sparkling like diamonds as her aura of power grew.

“Arise!”

The earth rumbled beneath her feet, bubbling as her veins did. It tilled the grass and the soil took over. She felt the power mould the skeletons together beneath the earth, writhing and shifting, before fully formed claws and hands burst out of the soil. All in formation, kept together by diamond dust, the humanoid and animal skeletons emerged around her. An army of white of many hues, the gaping orbits in their skulls glittered like diamonds.

Her aura faded, the rumbling beneath her flesh calmed, but her fingers still tingled while they gripped her staff. There were more humanoid skeletons than beasts, and most stood with all their limbs intact. It fatigued her somewhat, but the barrier above had become a permanent picture of shattered glass. Every crack was as wide as a flash of lightning. They grew as the barrage continued, with no sign of repair.

“Defenders!” She shouted; the raised bones hummed in attention. “All are your enemies but my blood. Prevent everyone else from the heart, and leave none alive.”

There was a collection of grinding bones and chattering teeth in reply. Then an ocean of bones marched ahead as she returned to the heart of the grove. The bones never interrupted her stride, nor did she for them, and when she stood before Urk’s enormous eyes again, a wall of the risen bones stood guard behind them.

She smiled at her goblin child and wavered again when he grimaced.

“Ready?”

Urk nodded and they marched through the mossy archway into the heart.

The heart of the grove was little more than a great hall built of moss swarmed stone and dragon bone. Power thrummed beneath her feet as she strode towards the first of the four cold braziers. She saw the signs of Urk’s efforts in the ground, where the goblin dragged the braziers into place.

Matriarch Zara flicked her hand at the first brazier and crystalline flames sparked with a crack. Silver and clear, but not warm, yet as beautiful as a grounded star. She repeated the flick at all the braziers while chanting the Matriarch’s Beckon, and glowed again. An aura of glittering diamonds in the centre, Urk clung to her skirts and glowed with her.

“Arise Guardians of the Grove, our home is in danger!”

The foundations of the heart rumbled, moss floated off the surrounding stones and bones. Cracks formed as the focused earthquake split open the earth. She felt Urk’s rushing heart, their speedy breath and placed a comforting hand on their dragon bone protected shoulder.

They rose together in a cage of enormous bones, blazing searing fire that only warmed them in its embrace. The cage became an enormous torso, held together by the diamond power, like sinew between the bones. Cavernous, safe, but her eyes saw through the gaps and widened in awe at the aura that surrounded the Guardian.

Ruins remained of the heart; rubble littered the well tilled earth. Matriarch Zara blinked and her vision was close to the cracking barrier, almost above the tree line. There were flashes towards the south, where she left Sister Bellona, cannon fire and power. Her chest lurched again.

“Free us from this doom Guardian,” Matriarch Zara commanded and felt Urk squeeze her hand as the Guardian lurched up into the air.

Urk’s already bulbous eyes widened further, digging their nails into her hand. At the same time, she watched as she burst through the barrier, turning it into diamond dust, scattering it to the winds. Her heart warred with all the conflicting emotions, abandoning her sisters, relief at escaping with Urk, trepidation for what would come. One surged to the fore however, joyous freedom.