That night, Varska was hungry and passionate. Viv had never thought that the risk of death would provoke such a powerful response in her otherwise bashful partner. She slept soundly, and woke up to another training session. Farren went to visit them in the field.
“The scouts found them. They will arrive tonight, or tomorrow morning if they want to arrive refreshed. Lorn is holding a council to decide on our strategy.”
“We’re coming.”
The meeting was taking place in the temple of Neriad, which happened to have a war room with a map of Kazar and its immediate surroundings.
“I must admit,” Corel said, “that you are better prepared than I am.”
“Yes, well, I thought I would be using it against the undead,” Lorn said. “Enough of this, we have little time. I think it best if the guards escort the refugees. I’m not sure they have the organization required to retreat in good order.”
“Indeed not. They are much better at creating a cordon,” Corel allowed with no anger, “but you should keep Tars and her squad of archers. They’re only decent, but you need all the help you can get.”
“Right. So, we get everyone out and under guard escort. Corel, can you lead the convoy?”
“Sure, I will. We’ll head to the last waypoint before the mountain and collect people, food, and water on the way. The granaries are already empty.”
“That works. In the meanwhile, we want to attract the Bridgers’ attention as soon as they exit the forest. Any idea?”
“I can use a basic artillery spell from the walls to force them to handle us. If I go after lunch, everything will be settled by tonight and I will still have some mana to work with,” Varska said.
“They will have to take you out or risk losing anything important. Can you really reach that far?”
“Yes, and kill a few soldiers. It will be terribly inefficient but, again, they cannot afford to ignore me. Not if their prince is around.”
“Assuming that they take the bait, they will try to head for the gate. Unless they can breach the walls?”
“Earth casters could do it if the walls were not enchanted. They are,” Varska said. “I can also tell if someone is trying to climb them. I will direct interception squads from the gate.”
“Good.”
Lorn turned to someone that Viv had seen a few times but didn’t know very well. He was a forester, looking at everyone from under thick brows and distinctly uncomfortable. Viv assumed he was the head of the scouts.
“Michar, can you hold the gate?”
“Until I can’t.”
“I’ll stay with you. Koro and Torm will take a few guards and run around. We have to focus our forces or we’ll never stop them long enough for it to matter. You will help us there, Varska?”
“We’ll be by the entrance with you. That is where we can be of the most use,” the mage answered, speaking for both of them.
Viv didn’t mind. She had literally zero experience fighting a medieval magical battle. She counted on the others to use their expertise and keep her alive, as she had expected her NCOs and command to keep her alive back on earth. There was little question of pride for her. She wanted to win and live to tell the tale, the rest was secondary.
“Fine,” Lorn answered, slowly. “The rest will be organized at squad level. Dismissed.”
The two casters moved back to the tower for lunch. Viv was worried about Arthur, but the squealing lady could fly around and find them if she was feeling too worried. Varska had them go to the second floor and prepared tea. They still had some food leftover for the occasion. Simple fare, like stuffed bread.
“Here,” Varska said, serving Viv a cup. The liquid was light purple and looked magical, “since we are going to lose the plants anyway, I made special tea. We should enjoy it. Have the first taste.”
Viv sipped the piping hot liquid. It was flowery with a full, pleasant touch that lingered on the tongue.
“Delicious,” Viv said, and took another sip. Varska was looking at her with a pleasant smile that Viv knew was fake. The smile cracked. A tear rolled down her scarred cheek.
“I am so sorry,” she said.
Viv wanted to ask what she was sorry about, but her mouth opened and would not move. The cup slipped from her fingers and spilled the hot content on her armor. She collapsed forward. Varska stood up and held her up with a gentle touch. Tea dripped from her chin.
“I am so sorry. I know that you want to stay and fight but… I cannot allow it.”
Viv was pushed back onto the couch. She was entirely paralyzed, except for her lungs and eyes. Her heart beat furiously against her ribs but there was nowhere to push all that energy. She tried to scream her anguish and her shock. Only a rattling sob escaped her throat.
“The truth is that we cannot risk you. We will have to skirt the edges of the deadlands. Not even an archmage could keep everyone alive over several days, at least not alone. But you can. You can keep killing revenants for two days straight. Only you can do that. Without you, not even half of those people will cross the mountains and find some shelter.”
Varska kneeled and brushed an errant strand of auburn hair away from Viv’s eyes. Viv wanted so much to fight it. Mana rose to answer her call but there were no spells she could use to free herself, and her poisoner still had the key to her heart.
“You would have stayed with me, whether I wanted it or not. You would have tried to save the wounded.”
No one gets left behind.
“Do not try to deny it.”
It did not MATTER!
“I know that I am doing a terrible thing. I know. I’m not asking for forgiveness. I simply can’t risk you.”
Not her fucking call. Not her fucking call at all. She was doing this again, the bullshit sacrificial lamb act. Viv was so fucking fed up with this utter stupidity. It was not. Her. Decision. To. Take.
“And I can’t risk the hundreds of civilians who would die. I made an oath and still have a shred of honor, after all. I… hope that we join after this is done and that you slap me. I am so sorry.”
Varska left and Viv seethed in silence, black mana snaking across her figure. Lorn entered the room. He winced.
“She looks mad. I hope you don’t come to regret this decision.”
“She has every right to be mad. Now go, we don’t have much time.”
Lorn picked Viv up in a princess carry and moved out and towards the field. Viv’s gaze was turned so that she could only see the white walls of Kazar’s house and a corner of the sky. It was blue. It was fucking blue.
“You know, if you kill me now and I face the golden god, I sure as fuck won’t know what to tell him.”
Viv blinked and retracted the black, sharp tendrils she saw rising in the air. Some of the tension left Lorn.
“What the fuck?” Marruk yelled, somewhere in the distance. They had reached the clearing.
Lorn put her down on her sled. There was a piece of something digging into her back. She saw a corner of Marruk’s outraged red skin and her dark hair, then Arthur jumped on Lorn and bit his armor before there could be an argument. The dragonling jumped on Viv’s chest and started hissing at anyone approaching. Viv could only see white scales, the ever-blue sky. Marruk and Lorn argued for a whole minute before Viv spotted Marruk’s face not far from hers.
“She’s going to be so pissed…”
Arthur swatted her away.
“Alright, alright!”
The sled started moving and did not stop. It smelled of earth, of sun on the grass.
//Unexpected.
Sometimes, there was a hint of cornadon dung. Birds sang in the distance. They didn’t stop. Arthur was coiled around her and kept her warm. Marruk came and managed to make her drink water. She also moved her a bit, for comfort.
Anger faded. It was replaced by stress and anguish.
Night came. Viv managed to reach a sort of balance. Varska would return to her, and she would chew her out and most likely dump her for betraying her trust like that. Hope and terror struck a balance. Viv stared at the moon as it appeared above her. Viv fell asleep.
In the morning, she could move a bit but was still incapable of walking. She looked around and saw that she was at the tail of a convoy hundreds of meters long. Kazar had an abundance of carriages due to all the traffic it saw, but she had no idea that they had so many. Lots of them were drawn by sturdy farmers instead of horses. There were a lot of beasts as well. Roaming bands of kids plundered the edge of the forest for fruits and nuts, unaware of the tragedy.
There was smoke in the distance, back where they had come from. The pillar was undisturbed by winds and could be seen from very far. Kazar had disappeared around a bend in the road. It was already tens of kilometers away.
In the early morning, wounded started trailing in, then the majority of the scouts and some guards with bandaged limbs and empty quivers. The Temple Guards were next, minus five. The halberd-wielding man was not with them, and neither was Varska. Lorn explained it to her with red, tired eyes. She had been covering their retreat. The archers had picked her off.
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They got her in the chest, several times.
She was dead.
Viv closed her eyes and screamed, and Arthur attacked Lorn again.
Viv had regained full function by the afternoon. She rode on horseback between Marruk and Koro, Lorn having wisely decided to stay hidden. They picked off small packs of revenants before they could make a nuisance of themselves. The guards were able to push individuals back by themselves but they could not afford a buildup.
She did not say a thing the whole day, except to Arthur who was sticking to her and hissing at people getting too close. Even Marruk had been too ashamed to speak.
If it were not for the scaled one, Viv would have felt more alone than ever in her life. Suddenly, the Kazarians were alien beings, with their slight green skin tone. They had lost their familiarity, their status as fellow citizens. Viv felt disgusted by their noise and smells. Only the slow pulse of potent black mana in her being still attached her to Nyil, her strange new world. More than disgust, she felt a deep-seated, slow-burning rage aimed at everyone and everything. She hated Solfis and Marruk for failing her. She hated Kazar for losing and Enoria for winning. She hated Varska for dying and leaving her behind. The devouring, all-encompassing ember turned her heart into a husk.
In the evening, the convoy stopped and Viv was asked to join the command tent which was being pitched in a hurry.
“I thought we were not meant to stop,” she grumbled.
They had not the night before. Tired villagers had slept at the top of carriages for a few hours before swapping with others. They had to create some distance.
Viv dismounted under the faraway gaze of guards milling about. In the command tent, she found most important people minus the mayor who was still catatonic. And Varska who was dead. The person who had stopped the convoy was called Brenna, and she worked for the temple as an administrator. Among other things, she was in charge of the healers.
“We need to stop for four hours at least. It will attract a large amount of undead, so we need a way to distract them. Fortunately, I have an enchanted orb that can simulate a high level of vitality for a few hours.”
“How come you have such a thing?” Corel asked with suspicion.
“It was designed by the main temple in Mornyr. By deploying the orb, one can shift an entire army of revenants and allow a strike team to reach a necromancer relatively unharmed. I’d say that the current situation justifies the expense. In any case, I need someone who can deploy the artefact and thin the horde, then return safely.”
She looked at Viv. Viv knew she was going to do it, and it pissed her off. They had no right to presume. They were nobodies.
“Why do we need to stop?” she asked, belligerent.
“We have twelve women who went into labor at the same time because of the stress. It was all we could do to belay the births, but now we need to proceed with the deliveries. Four hours is the bare minimum to do so safely, and the rest of the… the refugees… they could use the sleep anyway.”
“Can’t you put the women on top of carriages or something?” Viv demanded.
Brenna took a deep, tired breath. She was exhausted too, Viv noticed offhandedly. Not that she gave a shit.
“Lady Bob, I know that you are hurting right now, but I really need you not to be a cunt.”
When Viv stopped, she was fifteen centimeters away from the other woman. She could count every eyelash, every vein in her bloodshot eyes. A black, jagged tendril writhed and severed a few grey hairs. They fell down in silence. There were other tendrils dancing around the woman.
Koro was standing next to them, her face tortured with worry.
“Please…” the amazon said.
Viv returned her attention to the deathly pale nurse and delicately picked the orb from trembling hands. She felt its weight in her palm. It was a powerful item, yet the trigger mechanism was simple enough that a child could have used it.
“Don’t push me ever again,” she whispered, and found that she meant it. Brenna had been… a cordial work acquaintance. Before. Now, she was no one. And she had gone too far.
Intimidation: Intermediate 3
Outside the tent, the world had fallen silent as well. Viv turned when she saw a massive clawed hand pushing the flap aside.
//Your Grace, I felt your anger.
//Should I… intervene?
The voice was cold, yet mellifluous. Like a psychopathic butler.
“Solfis? Is this wise?” she asked.
//Recent events have shown the limits of my danger prediction algorithms.
//Additionally, I believe that my full-time services will be needed in the near future.
//The time for discretion is over.
Viv ignored the multiple curses coming from Lorn and Corel. She turned to Brenna.
“Where do I set it up?”
“A… a league away is fine. You will have to kill the revenants as they come or they will start tracking us. You can also go farther and leave survivors.”
“A league away it is.”
“Wait,” Lorn said. Viv stopped. “I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s not as important as protecting you right now. I’m coming as well.”
“This is Solfis, a battle golem. He will protect me. You can fuck off.”
“But…”
“Just fuck off.”
Viv went out and realized why no one had committed suicide by golem. Marruk had walked by Solfis’ side, telling people to calm down.
“I’ll help. I failed you but I’ll help,” she said.
Viv considered giving her the Lorn treatment but… she could not do it. Not with the kicked puppy’s expression on the stout woman’s face.
“Let’s just go.”
“Squee.”
“Yes, you are coming as well.”
***
The four of them went out into the deadlands. One human, one Kark, one golem and one dragon. The sparse grass quickly gave way to black shrubs, and earth, to dust. Viv welcomed the familiar spice of black mana saturation, even if it was slowly killing her. It felt… familiar. Normal. They rode under the stars for a few minutes in a silence that did not need to be filled. Viv felt the oppressive emotion of the camp lift from her shoulders, but it made her grief only more raw.
They settled on a small hill with the collapsed walls of a barn, long cleared of presence. Viv activated the orb with a small push of her mana and deposited it on a stone. It opened like a blooming flower, giving an enticing scent of life and happiness. Viv passed a hand over the construct and recognized it for what it was, an illusion.
Marruk and Solfis went to stand around her. Above, Arthur screeched in defiance, eager to assert her domination over the skies.
The first revenant appeared only a few seconds later. It crawled from under a collapsed pillar. It turned to ash.
They waited.
One by one at first, then in a single file, revenants trickled in. They stumbled and died and still they kept going. A farm girl with her dress torn open and a stab wound. A drowned man. A forester with an arm missing. A soldier still wearing the debris of his armor with a broken spear through his chest. They streamed in and returned to nothingness, single-minded and useless and just plain fucking stupid. They were just vile wastes of space with no purpose but to spread pain, and she could do nothing because there was a fucking gazillion of them and they just kept coming. For no reason. There was not even a prey here. All that vitality, just a fucking lie.
“Why are you still. Fucking MOVING?”
A broad man in a ratty doublet. A gutted caravan hand. An old man in a shift.
“You are dead, all of you! Do you hear me? DEAD! YOU ARE ALL FUCKING DEAD. STOP. MOVING. MASS YOINK.”
Ash to cover her ankles, then knees. Solfis went and dismembered a gut spiller sneaking up on them. Marruk smashed those that crawled and those she missed, pulping their skulls on the barren earth. A large bat fell to the ground, shredded to bits. They worked in silence and the horde walked to them, and the horde died.
Viv blew her nose and realized that she had been crying. There were wet trails sticking ash and dust to her cheeks. Black mana coursed smoothly through her being. She had never felt so in tune with it before.
And then, the combat stopped. Only a few stragglers were left.
//We have incoming riders, Your Grace.
//Coming from the west.
From Kazar.
Viv saw them quickly, forty cavalry men in isolating black leather. They were heading straight towards them at good speed.
Viv sat on a column and waited, watching them approach with glee. Arthur landed and spat out a bird head.
“Skreee.”
“Oh yes, I see them too.”
The leader of the detachment raised a fist and his men slowed down. They wore conical helmets in the same style as the foot knights of the envoy. Enorians. They stopped a short distance away.
“What in Marador’s name is this?” their leader hissed.
“It’s a witch sir, and a golem, maybe they created that burst of vitality” another fighter suggested by his side.
“You there,” the leader continued, “we know of you, witch. If you surrender and give us the location of the iron mine which the temple illegally acquired, we promise that you will be treated fairly and be allowed to leave free. Otherwise, you will face the full might of the Enorian military like the rest of the rabble.”
Greed. It was greed. It was always greed.
She took one step forward. She felt with perfect clarity as the soles of her boots dove into the ash, crushing brittle bones beneath. Her mind went blank with the white noise of absolute rage.
Viv screamed all that rage. She pushed it out from the pyre of her heart. Black mana exploded from her being in every direction, and it was pure and fresh and beautiful. Glyphs shimmered and danced in the air. She had never cast so many spells in so short a time, but there was no other way. She had to use all that energy, all that anger.
Acuity +1
Black Witch 3/5
The riders were savaged. Marruk dove low and crashed into a destabilized soldier, pushing man and beast to the ground. Solfis went to the other side and mowed through their ranks like a blender. It was a slaughter.
Viv came down from the rush of casting so many spells to watch her allies take out the handful of survivors. It looked like Solfis had given up on someone galloping away but a white form descended on the fugitive. There was a very brief struggle, barely half a second, then the dragonling latched on the rider’s throat with her jaw and the combat ended in a spray of arterial blood.
//Your Grace, I know that the timing is poor.
//Yet I must thank you for providing an answer for a question I had asked myself for the past three hundred years.
Viv felt empty, so empty. A vague push of curiosity made her meet Solfis’ yellow glare.
//When my creator, Irlefen, died during the cataclysm, I spent centuries fighting a losing battle in the ruins of Harrak.
//Every year there were fewer of us and more of the deadliest kind of undead.
//It was a fight I could not win.
//For the memory of a man I had not saved.
//I do not possess flesh, and the way I perceive things is different from yours.
//But now thanks to you, I can put a name on what made me suffer all those years.
//It was the feeling of being powerless.
“Yes. That is… what I feel.”
//I have always been limited by my nature.
//Too many hard-coded directives.
//You, however, are free.
//Your Grace, I owe you my second life.
//I do not want you to feel powerless.
“No. I know what I need to do now, to erase that stain from my soul.”
Viv stepped forward and found the knight leader behind the corpse of his mount. He had kept silent, even as he held the ruin of his right hand. His bulging eyes found Viv’s cold glare as she kneeled by his side, Solfis only a step behind. She grabbed his face in her gloved hand and pulled him up, her strength up to the task despite his armor.
“I am going to find that prince of yours, Enorian. I will break his dream and I will break his body. I will watch life fade from his eyes. It will take a year or ten, but I will find him. No fortress wall will hold me back. This is my world now, until this account is settled. He will die.”
The man whimpered.
“If I had the luxury of the choice, I would pour molten iron down your throat to sate that thirst of yours, but you’re in luck. We need information. You will be coming with us. We have a war to plan. This isn’t over.”
//No, Your Grace.
//It is finally beginning.