“Undead, you say?” Aldric eyed the battered giant with a bit of wonder at his condition. Daveth had never seemed so ... vulnerable, before. One arm hung limply; a mage was probing it experimentally with her fingers. His face was a mottled mass of bruises, his clothes were smeared with blood, all of it his.
“Yeah. Don’t know how many.” He’d given his full report to Aldric as soon as he’d returned to camp. Well, almost as soon. When he rode in Audra had practically leaped from her own horse to his.
The crater with nothing living; the strange barrier that sucked away all life, the temple at its heart, and the skeletons.
“You destroyed the bridge though, right?” Aldric asked again.
“I did, but there’s no guarantee-” Daveth began, but Aldric waved his hand dismissively.
“There never is, Daveth.” Aldric combed his beard with his fingers. “Should we operate under the assumption we’re going to be attacked? Should we preemptively strike? How do we defeat that barrier?” Aldric asked a number of questions, none of which Daveth could answer.
“You know, before the War of Liberation, the Anglish had a solution to this problem: a ‘Witch Hunter’. Supposedly immune to magic. Of course they’re all dead; I think the last one recorded alive was the Betrayer himself.” Aldric shook his head. “Nevermind, it’s irrelevant. How big did you say the crater was? A mile?”
Daveth nodded.
“Lunacy. Pure lunacy. May the Nameless Stone protect me from lunatic mages.” Aldric prayed, and glanced over at the mage tending Daveth’s arm. “No offense.”
The mage looked up. “I’m no lunatic. None taken.”
Aldric snorted laughter. “What we have here is a mage that’s fortified himself in a secure location, and has raised himself an undead army to do his bidding.”
“I don’t think it was an ordinary mage.” Audra muttered.
Aldric nodded. “Ordinary mages don’t truck with undead. Or demons, for that matter.” He added as an afterthought, recalling the unbound demon they’d encountered in the deserts of Bel-Arib. “Only the crazy ones.” he muttered.
“The city has no fortifications beyond what we’ve done already, but it’s a token defense. We’re supposed to only be protecting the Brotherhood from beastman attacks. An undead army marches on us and we’re fucked.” Aldric stated flatly. “On the other hand, we go hunting for these things and we leave the city completely exposed, in which case we’re fucked.”
Using a pair of blacksmith’s tongs, Daveth had pulled out the sword he’d scooped up from the skeleton from the pouch he kept at his waist. It lay across the table in Daveth’s tent as Aldric, Daveth and Audra went through the debriefing. The mage, a woman named Nicola, ostentatiously refused to look at it as she tended to Daveth’s arm. Nobody wanted to touch it after Daveth explained what’d happened when he’d scooped it up.
“What do you suggest we do with that thing?” Daveth asked the mage, gesturing at the sword.
“I’d try to melt the thing down.” The mage offered, not looking at it. “I’d melt it down to slag, put it on a rowboat, row out to the middle of the ocean, and dump it over the edge.”
“Could you?” Daveth asked.
“Could I what?” Nicola asked.
“Could you melt it down.” Daveth prodded. The mage gave him a complicated look.
“I could try, though I don’t think I’d be able to do it myself. That enchantment is ...” She shuddered. “Way beyond my skills.” After a bit of thought, she gestured. “Carry it to a forge with the tongs. Melt it down that way. Pour it into a bucket. Ocean.”
Aldric gave the woman an interested look. “You think the enchantment would survive after melting it down?”
The woman nodded, and Aldric barked a laugh. “Let’s fuckin’ do it.” He gestured at Daveth with the stem of his pipe. “Think about it: We raid the mages’ place, right? Bunch of skeletons, probably all carrying this kind of blade. Enchanted, cursed, whatever. We fuck their shit up, collect the weapons, melt them down...” he paused, and grinned, “And then make ammo out of them. Imagine a cannon load made out of this stuff. Boom!”
Daveth shook his head in flat refusal. “Only if you load the cannon.”
Aldric rolled his eyes. “Shitty idea. Nevermind. Do what Nicola suggested: try and melt that down, and then get back on sandbag detail. We’ll be operating defensively for a bit; see if there’s a followup attack from them. Get a second tower up, Get the cannon and crank-gun emplaced.”
Nicola looked up at Daveth. “Get plenty to eat and plenty to sleep and your arm should be back to normal in no time at all.” She gave him a sarcastic smile. “Don’t play with it too much; you’ll go blind.”
Daveth gave her a baffled look as she left but Aldric nodded at the mages’ advice.
“Get some food in you and some rest. You’re of better use to me with two working arms.”
A few days later, and there still wasn’t a peep from the forest. Aldric tentatively ordered the militia and lumberjacks back to work on shortened shifts.
Eirawen approached Daveth as adjusting the arrangement of the sandbag walls.
“...I wish to confront this monster.” She offered in a bland monotone.
Daveth eyed her carefully; Eirawen rarely volunteered anything, this might be an opportunity to learn a bit about her.
“Your reasons?”
“...Undeath is a blasphemy against Eisa and it must be rooted out and destroyed whenever possible.” She replied after a long pause. This was perhaps the longest conversation he’d had with her, and she’d been with the Seventh Seal across eight months.
He parked his hip against the sandbag wall. “I’m listening. You understand there’s that barrier, though?”
Her eyes drifted to his for a moment. “...I cannot die. There will be no problems.”
“Eisa’s dead. Are you sure you can’t die?” He asked. It was a curious concept.
Her mouth twisted. “...I am... not sure.” she offered, and Daveth straightened.
“Well then, there you go-” He began, but she cut him off.
“...I am resistant to most magics.”
“Can you get the rest of the Seal in there?” He asked. She frowned in thought
“...I would need to see it for myself.”
*****
Aldric gave Daveth a sour look. “Let me get this straight- you want to go back?”
Daveth nodded alongside Eirawen.
“I think it’d be best for us to figure out if they’re coming.” Daveth replied. “If nothing else, we can stop them at the gorge.”
“So... reconnaissance?” Aldric asked, and Eirawen stepped forward.
“Assault.” She stated flatly.
“Certainly not.” Aldric replied. “We need intel.” He turned to Daveth. “Your plan?”
“I’ll take my files up to the cut to have a look around.” Daveth replied simply. “We’ll see if there’s a way around the gorge when we get there. If not, and if there’s no trouble, we’ll return.” Eirawen opened her mouth but Daveth planted his hand on her head and nodded it. “That’s all we plan to do.”
Aldric gave him a smirk. “I think you’re planning a bit more than that, but since you’re just going out on maneuvers, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I’ve been training some files out of the militia here. You’ll take half your troops, half of the files here. Break them in.”
Daveth’s face sobered at Aldric’s order.
“You want me to take...” He started and Aldric nodded. “That’s an order, by the way. We need to maintain a visible presence here or Moore will shit down both legs. Also, he might try to get us for breaking contract.”
Daveth gave him a sour face. “Our contract is with the Brotherhood.”
“Of course it is. But the Brotherhood is contracted with Moore.” Aldric replied simply.
“Fucking-” Daveth spat, and Aldric laughed.
“It shouldn’t be a problem, right? You’re just going out on maneuvers, right? I’ll have you know I’ve been sending them out with my files on maneuvers too, you know.”
Daveth eyed Aldric contemplatively. “You’re padding out our numbers, aren’t you?”
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“You’re awfully perceptive when I least expect it.” Aldric replied. “I intend to leave here with twice the complement of soldiers we arrived with.”
“Can you afford it?” Daveth asked, and Aldric grimaced.
“I’ll figure something out. Go on, get out of here.”
Daveth adopted a bland expression on his face as he exited Aldric’s tent as he envisioned a lifetime of hardtack and gravy meals ahead of him.
“We’re fucked.”
*****
Eirawen considered the horse she’d been given for the march into the jungle. Before the Goddess, before the Gift, she hadn’t known how to ride. There were no horses in her homeland.
Even now, hundreds of years after the War of Liberation that had killed her Goddess, she still was uncertain when it came to horses.
As part of her Gift, her power expressed out of her in a set radius. It chilled everything and everyone around her constantly. Nothing was spared; even her horses needed to be replaced frequently as their blood chilled and their hearts froze.
She knew that as a Champion her select and blessed status would forever separate her from others, but she truly was alone. The daughter of a Warrior Priest of the Northern Avalanche and an elven queen, her mixed heritage had caused her problems even before the Gift.
She’d hoped at the time that by proving her dedication she would one day be united with her father, a mysterious and unknown presence in her life. With her Goddess dead however, was her father even able to watch her progress from the Frozen City of Eternal Night?
“A far cry from the snowy lands of Nauders.” Daveth gestured to the seething jungle in front of them. “Will there be problems?”
She eyed the giant carefully and wondered how she should answer. He was of a height and build with her father, though that was where the resemblance ended.
Her father was Nolan, a powerful Frost Knight in the Army of the Ice Queen, what those in the Southern Lands referred to as the Northern Avalanche. A freak warping in the flux of a magical teleportation had sent him to the desert lands of her people, catapulting him into the middle of a war between two nations, human and elven.
Alone, bereft of the icy lands that bolstered his strength, he’d forged an alliance between the two peoples by turning their united wrath against him. In the heart of the desertic wastes of her homeland was a rampant jungle oasis, a much-valued and sought-after resource for the two nations who were not content to share. Nolan had bought peace by freezing the heart of the oasis in perpetual, endless winter.
The frigid lands of Nauders had brought her comfort, but the desert and the jungle were known to her. She weighed her answer. How could she explain that she had never once seen the ancestral tundra her father had once called home?
“...no problems.” She finally answered.
He nodded.
Even before the Gift, she hadn’t been known for her sociability. The core of power that beat in her soul further eroded that ability. Her Goddess celebrated life through death. Only in the fury of battle was the scramble for life the strongest. Only in the fullness of death could there be a release from suffering.
Life had meaning only as it held purpose; one needed only to look at the senseless and frivolous wastes of other peoples to understand that they did not truly understand or revere the gift that had been given them. The Void of Oblivion was only a breath away, always and eternally hungry for the unworthy and undeserving. Life was for the strong. Life was deserved by only those who would take it.
Eirawen respected her comrades in the Seventh Seal; they held purpose, they earned their right to live.
*****
Her horse gave out before they reached the river. Eirawen was indifferent to this as she was most things, only aware of it in the most distant sense. To others, horses were important. Her commander had told her repeatedly that she needed to change mounts frequently, but her inability to care about such transitory, fleeting things interfered. She was over four hundred years old, but in another way altogether, she was eternal. What was the life of a horse in the face of eternity?
She strode across the river, her Blessing freezing it under her feet, creating a straightforward path for her allies to follow, though they stumbled and slipped and cursed on the slick surface.
Her footing was as firm as her belief in that she would not sink. Her powers stemmed from faith, from belief; if she knew with utter certainty that she would not slip, then it was so. Why couldn’t her comrades see something so simple?
A boar charged from the jungle, eyes rolling in terror. Whatever chased it must have been formidable enough to terrify such a dangerous, stubborn creature. She breathed in the life of the jungle and relished its smells even as her hands directed death, freezing the heart of the beast so that it fell before even reaching her feet. Fear was not enough to keep the Void away, only strength could guarantee life.
She drew her swords as the skeleton stepped from the jungle, eyes fathomless black pits. For a moment, Eirawen’s heart beat in her chest. This was what true strength was for.
The skeleton’s fist would splinter against her armor; she knew it, she believed it, it was so. Her sword would shatter the skeleton’s blade. Her blade was granted to her by a goddess, what blade of steel forged by man could stand against it?
She said nothing, for nothing needed to be said to such a creature. What could it understand? It was a blighted, twisted creature, given false life by a heretical fool bent on defying the natural law as set down by her goddess at the moment of creation: all life had its end.
The blade shattered against hers as she knew it would. Her counterstroke sheared through ancient bone. Her offhand stroke would sever the leg at the knee, she knew it, had trained for it; it was so.
She stared down at the fallen skeleton without pity or remorse. Her boot pulverized its ribcage, grinding it to powder.
The skull glared at her in mute, murderous fury. Her boot would see to that, too.
“That was quick.” Commander Daveth remarked to her, clearly impressed.
How should one respond to such a thing? She tried to think back to before she had been given the Gift. Dim memories of hands offering her a slice of cake surfaced. Who was it that had given her the cake? For that matter, what was a cake?
“...Thank you.” she answered.
Daveth gestured. “The gorge is a day’s journey that way. If the skeletons have found some way of crossing it, then Aldric’s forces are vulnerable to attack as well. Let’s see if we can cut them down.”
Daveth turned away and began shouting for scouts to begin looking for tracks.
Eirawen glanced down at the shattered skull and watched frost bloom on the fragments of bone and said nothing.
*****
Daveth had seen Eirawen fight on many occasions but still, he was impressed by the precision of her swings, and her unflinching reaction to the skeleton’s fist. He’d been on the receiving end of one of their punches and they were savage, like getting slapped with a brick. She’d taken the blow on her armor, true, but she hadn’t budged, simply cut the leg out from under the skeleton and trampled it.
He called for scouts and they quartered the jungle leading up to the edge of the gorge. The gorge itself hadn’t changed, it still looked like a puckered gash across the land as if the ground itself had snapped. He had no idea what could have caused such a thing except an earthquake. Even as they arrived at the gorge, a skeleton hoisted itself over the edge of the gorge, blade in its fist.
Even as Daveth moved to attack, Eirawen was moving as well. For a moment, it seemed as if they only had eyes for each other, an instinctive hate beyond conscious thought drawing them together like magnets.
Once the skeleton was dispatched, Daveth carefully peeked over the edge of the chasm.
“How far down does it even go?” He muttered in uncomfortable tones of apprehension.
It was difficult to speak with Eirawen, but he tried.
“Audra and I made a bridge here, but I tore it down in the hopes that it’d stop them from following.”
Eirawen said nothing. She could see the web of chains and ropes on the other side of the cut.
Several scouts came up to them.
“We haven’t found any sign of bridges. Frankly, there’s a small rise about a quarter of a mile down the edge of the cut to the north that lets you see for miles.”
“And the south?” Daveth asked, and the scout shrugged. “Waiting to hear back from them, but i suspect it’s the same.” He paused, and then asked, “You said there’s a crater on the other side of this cut?”
Daveth nodded. “Yeah. About a mile wide.” The Scout thumbed his chin as he thought.
“I saw the starfall in the Valley of Rust. The ground snapped like this in some places.” He gestured south along the gorge. “My guess is that it probably continues that way a bit more, same as it does the north.”
“You think the gorge goes completely around the crater?” Daveth asked, and the man shook his head.
“Unlikely. Possible, but I don’t think the ground would break so perfectly like that. You know, in such a nice clean line.”
Daveth nodded.
“So how do we get across, or around it?” Daveth asked. “I don’t think a bridge like what Audra and I made would stand up to a hundred soldiers.”
The scout barked a laugh. “I dunno, I’ve seen some shit that makes me wonder what is and isn’t possible.” He replied. “But we could get the Brotherhood out here and get a proper bridge-building troupe set up. Dredge up some stone, cut down some of these bigass trees. Build you a bridge big enough to move the Anglish Army.”
Daveth snorted in laughter and the scout joined him.
“I don’t think we’d be able to get the Brotherhood down here. What can we do to-” he cut off as he glanced over at Eirawen, who stepped off the edge of the gorge.
“Fucking-” He broke off and stared in slack-jawed wonder as Eirawen simply crossed the intervening space across the gorge, ice forming in a thick sheet that supported her weight under her feet as she calmly, effortlessly, indifferently strolled across the gap as if it didn’t exist.
“That’s fucking impossible.” The scout muttered in direct contradiction to his earlier statement.
After Eirawen reached the other side, she turned and eyed the members of the Seventh Seal on the far side of the gorge. Did they not understand? Could she explain it to them? She strode back across the bridge she made, unconsciously making it thicker, wider, with sturdy railings to either side.
“We have a way across, Commander.” Eirawen reported and gestured at the bridge.
Daveth stared at her in mute shock for a long moment.
“We do.” He agreed. “But it’s ice. It’ll melt in this heat. We’d slip and fall over the edge to our deaths in a heartbeat.”
She stared at him for a long moment, as if unable to comprehend what he’d just said. A thin line appeared between her brows as she struggled with finding the words to say.
“It won’t melt. Yet.” She managed, and then fell silent.
“Fucking shit on a biscuit” He muttered and tentatively stepped out onto the bridge, gingerly placing his feet.
The ice underfoot was corrugated, covered in tiny ridges that his boots were able to grip. The bridge supported his weight, even if it did radiate an uncomfortable chill he never expected to feel in the middle of a jungle.
He looked to the white-haired woman. “Will it support the weight of all of us?” He asked, and she nodded. He let out a breath, feeling tension knotting up his shoulders unconsciously.
He nodded, and gestured across to the other side of the cut. “There’s not enough room for all of the men we brought here over there.” He thought ahead. “Here’s what we’ll do: You and I will cross. I’ll show you the crater. You can check and see if you can breach its barrier without dying. If we can do that, we’ll bring the army across and march on the temple in the middle.”
After a moment, she nodded her understanding.
Eirawen and Daveth marched across the ice bridge and to the other side of the gorge. There was a series of ridges they had to ascend to reach the edge of the crater, as before Daveth kept his sword out as they crossed them. Eirawen drew one of her swords at the last ridge and pulled herself up and over the edge of the crater.
“Shit, I should have-” Daveth spat, and then gaped again at Eirawen in slack-jawed astonishment.
A visible shimmer appeared in the air around her; tiny ice-blue and violet specks shivered and smashed together in sparks across her bubble as whatever magic in the crater forced itself against her, trying to steal her life from her.
She pushed back with her own power somehow and drew her other sword, which seemed to reinforce the bubble that surrounded her.
Daveth wondered to himself how he was going to fit the Seventh Seal in that bubble that was smaller than he was tall.