image [https://i.imgur.com/yFu9mOD.png]

XI

Undead Captain

Asking Jaeger to send his best scout hadn’t been necessary.

When night ran into the Duchy, dread and cold chased its footsteps. And though my body was quite resistant to the frost, the night chill was a persistent attack that wore down the senses like a staying headache did the mind. I could no longer feel my toes or fingertips. And if I felt that way, fully clothed and prepared, the fate of the abducted townsfolk was no wonder.

We passed our third victim, a middle-aged woman who was curled up against a tree. Her clothes were torn, leaving her exposed skin covered in snow.

‘Hypothermia,’ Jaeger said. He guided his horse around the corpse, then forced his face towards the darkness waiting on the horizon. ‘Makes you feel hot instead of cold. Just a matter of time till you die once it sets in.’

My gaze was on the frostguard collecting the body, who tried not to stare at the woman’s desolate expression as he wrapped her in a blanket and saddled her. He would take her to the corpse cart bringing up our rear.

Wind harassed my face, making the chill dig deeper inside me. I thought of a girl in Snowspire. Of the sting of a stone.

‘That could’ve been her mother,’ I whispered.

A moment of silence.

‘We’ll hunt them all, Warden,’ Malakai said.

I didn’t respond. My horse was already moving.

image [https://i.imgur.com/z6G5s0x.png]

We followed Drake as the rolling landscape sped past us. Eventually, we counted seventeen human corpses, which spelled the deaths of everyone except Dimitri. His friends had likely run too far off the path we were following for us to find them.

The dead, frozen faces burned behind my retinas as our company dashed into a treeline that beckoned the start of a wood made up of snow-dusted larches. We should be around two-thirds of the way to Frostmourne, but the trees and landscape blocked any potential view of the tower.

A low whistle made us halt.

Michael jumped down from a nearby tree, saluting sharply. ‘In the cave beyond the clearing ahead, Warden. No lookouts spotted in the past hour. Their group of ten split—four headed toward the tower after a fallout.’

‘The death of all their captives probably agitated them,’ Jaeger muttered.

‘Or the cold,’ Malakai added.

‘Good work, Michael,’ I said, already planning ahead.

‘Warden!’ he saluted. Then, he bit his dried lips, looking like he wanted to say something else. I knew what.

‘Not one will make it through the night,’ I said.

He inclined his head.

I turned to my party. Four frostguards went back with the corpse cart, which left six guards (including Jaeger), Levi, Malakai, and myself.

Six in the cave. Four roaming the woods.

Malakai joined my side before I said anything, which was just as well. I hadn’t planned on going without him.

‘I don’t want to give the deserters any shot at reaching the fort,’ I told the frostguards. Michael would need to pick up their trail again. But without any bodies and the lack of natural light? It may not be possible if we wait too long. ‘I can spare two orcs. Can you do it…’ I trailed off.

The hood of the thick frostguard-cloaks shielded their faces, but their eyes blazed through the shroud. At this moment, I doubted they noticed the cold at all.

‘Forget I said anything.’ I summoned the two orcs, then added: ‘Levi, go with the others.’

My brother startled, so lost in thought was he. ‘Yes,’ he stammered.

And then it was time. The guards went their route, their steps promising death to every greenskin in the woods. Malakai and I circled around the edge of the clearing, moving slow and torchless to stay unseen. Soon, the cave loomed ahead. A stream meandered in front of the cave bored into the rocky base of a small mountain, its surface a sheet of ice that glimmered faintly. Cracks spider-webbed across the brook, and the faint sound of moving water could be heard from underneath. The clearing itself was silent, the kind of silent that was alive.

I summoned Durak. The big orc emerged in a swirl of frost and miasma, his plated armour groaning as it settled into the snow. The shield strapped to his arm gleamed in the dull moonlight, and his axe head purred, awaiting the violence to come.

Durak, I thought. Assemble your party.

Truth be told, I expected the command to be too complicated and for nothing to happen. But our connection pulsed—stronger than any pulse I had felt thus far. When I acquiesced to the call, three undead joined Durak. One was Caster, the other was a lvl. 3 orc, and the third was the lvl. 3 human (who I had stabbed through the eye).

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Only three? I thought, inspecting them. Our bond was muddled. I felt I could “unmuddle” it whenever I wanted to, but they were no longer under my direct control. Durak had truly assumed command.

So I watched as the undead moved without me having to instruct them.

Caster and the orc stayed at my side like sentries. The human joined Durak at the front, standing slightly behind and two-handing his blade. Though his buckler had been replaced, his arm was still damaged and unstable. It wasn’t blocking another full-on blow of an orc.

Was Durak aware of the soldier’s deficiency? Was that why he told it to assume a two-handed stance and not try blocking? That’s what I questioned as Durak strode towards the entrance—

And bellowed, making Malakai jump. The dead scream sent shockwaves through the living quiet of the night, waking anything and everything within reach.

My jaw tightened. Had he just thrown away our element of surprise?

His challenge issued, the black orc’s power spread over his soldiers like a cloak. It was right on time for a stray axe to come flying out of the cave straight at the undead captain’s head. Durak slapped the weapon out of the air with a slap he could’ve thrown while lying down.

…That was some power, I thought with a sense of deja vu.

Six orcs scurried out of the darkness of the cave entrance, the shaman amongst them. The weather had done a number on the greenskins. Not only did they tremble where they stood but their normally blood-red eyes had lost their fire and become dull.

Their leader’s eyes went wide when he gazed upon Durak. He yelled something in their native tongue, which fell on deaf ears.

‘Stay out of this,’ I told Malakai, and left him my sole remaining lvl. 3 orc, just to be sure.

I joined Durak at the front and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Show me what you can do.’

My words were like the falling of a leaf, for our enemies chose that moment to charge. Their tread shook the ground. Their six combined roars shot through me, casting a seed of doubt in the well that was my anger.

But Durak’s bond was stable and quiet. The black orc waited. He waited even after they passed the halfway mark…and roared as one of the orcs leapt. This wasn’t like his first shout—Durak’s battle cry dwarfed anything that had come before. The leaping orc froze in mid-air, tumbling to the floor. The others slowed in their advance, and when the lead orc’s axe fell on Durak’s shield, the impact had all the force of a wet noodle. Durak dismissively shoved the blow to the side, unbalancing his attacker. The orc stumbled—

And the undead human’s blade pierced the greenskin’s neck as if the weapon was going through butter. Death energy seeped up the sword, getting my soldier to lvl. 4.

There was another yell. One of the greenskins swung with abandon, rage taking over as he watched his brother get slaughtered. Durak didn’t bother sidestepping. Miasma curled around his axe as he lifted the weapon, and he swung. Where the steel passed, it rent the air, leaving a haze as a wound. The axe’s target didn’t have time to cry out before his head was cleaved in half.

My breathing hitched. What a stupidly large increase in power. If this version of Durak had fought us in Snowspire…I shook my head and focused on the battle.

Two orcs had died within a blink, which left the orc who’d just gotten to his feet from falling, two who’d been at the rear of the charge, and the shaman.

All four paused.

That hesitation was Durak’s opening. He barrelled forwards at a speed unnatural for his size, and the greenskin barely had the time to raise his buckler—Durak cut short a wide swing, used his inertia to sweep the orc’s legs, and smashed in their skull with a reversed blow.

Not a minute had passed and three orcs had died.

The battlefield shifted with that thought. Shadows of larches stretched across the frozen ground, long and dark, blending with the pale blue glow of the frost. Fear crept in where courage and pride had once been. The realisation dawned on the alien invaders, the understanding of how far from home they were, surrounded by the life-eating cold of the Duchy, with no way out of the woods but their two feet.

And now, they faced the restless undead.

Wide, shaking eyes slid towards me, noticed I hadn’t taken a single step, noticed the other undead at my side who had yet to move.

And then they ran for it.

A fireball tried to cover their escape but was blocked by an icy barrier cast with a swipe of Caster’s arm. Then, a frostbolt took one orc warrior in the back, sending him sprawling.

‘Collect the bodies!’ I yelled at Malakai. ‘I’m chasing them!’

No way I was letting another Caster slip my grasp.

Caster loosed two bolts and caught the last orc warrior, but the shaman darted between trees like a shadow. Caster’s next shots missed, and the chase turned frantic—a game of cat-and-mouse in the dark. Finally, an ice shard from me struck the shaman’s leg on pure chance, tripping it with a satisfying thud.

Durak leapt ahead.

‘Keep it intact!’ I yelled. The better the condition of the corpse the—

Shrieking wind drowned my thoughts. A massive torrent of fire struck Durak in the side, slamming him out of the air.

What?

I pivoted to the source of the attack, already shaping more ice shards. Standing on a mound, I found a cloaked figure holding onto a staff with gems on both ends. Flames licked at the dark wood, and a heat distortion in the air whirled around the shaft like a small twister.

I glanced at Durak. He’d crashed into a larch, but my captain was quick to jump to his feet, unharmed. My attention returned to the figure. They were quite tall. Was this another orc?

‘Consider that a warning shot,’ the hooded figure said. The voice was that of a woman—one that wasn’t a greenskin. ‘Take your squabbles out of our territory.’

‘Your territory?’ I said, still stunned. ‘These woods are part of Vrost lands. No one but they can lay claim to them. Who dares do so?’

The woman snorted. ‘None of your business. I have told you what there is to say. Heed it or don’t at your risk.’

My gaze narrowed. If the previous attack was a “warning shot”, this magician was potent. No one in my party could match that firepower. Could this be…no. This was no ghost or spirit, I could feel. Still,

Picking a fight would be unwise.

I snatched a look at the shaman. Though the orc was still on his stomach, he was stealthily trying to rise so he could use the confusion to escape.

None of that.

‘I understand a battle near one’s residence is concerning,’ I spoke into the night, watching the woman for a reaction and finding none. ‘But worry not. We will leave these woods after I take that orc prisoner.’

I stepped towards the shaman—

Blue light flashed from the staff quicker than I could react to. The blinding explosion blasted through the trees, throwing snow from its comfortable porch on leaves and branches. When my sight cleared, the earth in front of me had blackened and charred, dispelling the frost like it was but a puff of smoke. A pungent ozone smell rose from the ground.

‘This is your last warning,’ she said. ‘Leave now.’

It should have been threatening. I should’ve turned around and taken the loss of the shaman, for I already had five more orcs to add to my army. But a bone-chilling cold welled up from my core. The frozen corpses of the townsfolk flashed past my sight like an after-image. My promise resounded in my head, banishing the echo of the explosion, and my face darkened.

‘Listen closely.’ I glared the woman down, my voice low and biting. ‘You’re obstructing a Duchy-wide military operation. So consider this your last warning. Look away, or under my name as Sepharin K. Vrost, Frost Warden of the Duchy of Vrost, you will be dealt with.’

The answer was another explosion.