Galukar was so old. He had been old fifty years ago, even. Venerable thirty years after that- and then the disease had come to chew at his vitality. His body had wasted and rotted, until all the strength that was available to him was derived from the Godblade.

He was not a Hero any more, just a human vessel to channel the power of that relic, and even its magic could only prolong a man’s life for so long. Galukar knew his days were limited, and he could feel the weariness of all those he’d yet lived weighing down upon his shoulders. One day, one day soon, he would die. The thought was a candle in the dark.

But for now he lived, and while he lived he had to fight. It had been selfish enough, already, to keep himself chambered in isolation for so long. Selfish enough for even his long lifetime. Galukar surged on to put an end to his petty failure.

They were potent, these enemies, and numerous too. Swarming in for the keep from every direction there was. Evidently something had gone very wrong in the siege, something he hadn’t the time or means to check, and the results were an attack that could be bottlenecked only in the very corridors of their fortifications.

And so that was where Galukar met it. With the Godblade held tight and a roar erupting from him, he announced himself in a storm of screaming iron and rippling air. The enemy seemed as pleased to meet him as ever.

One orc came in, one of the huge, iron-clad ones he’d been told were called Elites. There wasn’t much difference between it and the others, so far as Galukar could tell. Perhaps its elite training had been to keep the head hanging on by a thread, rather than removed entirely, for that was all that separated it from its kin. Then he was crashing past the corpse and swinging again. A row of orcs were split apart, another dismembered likewise. One of the undead- a Fomori- shot for Galukar like an arrow, and he barely sidestepped in time to take its legs off as it stumbled by him.

The thing was not permitted to rise before his Godblade found a new hilt in its torso, cutting deep through until it found the point where the skull met spine, then separating them from one another with a sharp twist. Rotting blood filled the air and tortured his nostrils as Galukar turned back to the hall of his enemy’s entrance, surveying the flood.

If he estimated their numbers to a thousand, he might have killed five. As things were he knew he had slain a great deal more than that, and yet the tide of bodies seemed to be swelling, not receding. It was the dangerous sight of a siege close to unwinnable, an enemy already past city walls in such numbers could scarcely be further reduced by whatever remained inside.

Well, that was fine. Galukar was certain he’d fought himself from deadlier spots, once or twice. Though none quite came to mind. He got on with the killing, doing what he could to thin the tides ever more.

An orc fell from him in two pieces, a Fomori spasmed as its neck bones were crushed to paste. A Dullahan, insanely, attempted a mere frontal assault which ended in predictable carnage, and through it all the Godblade came up and down like the scythe of a farmer. It had grown muddy with blood, that’s how much blood there was, necrotic fluids and viscera now forming a repugnant crust around the metal where it fissured one body after another. Galukar was struck by the reek of it all at every moment, almost overwhelmed. He knew a lesser man would perish to the innate toxicity of such close undead exposure near instantly. For him, it was just an annoyance adding further fuel to the flames of his rage.

“Galukar!” He heard a voice, almost felt it pull him from the killing frenzy that befell all effective warriors. Galukar did not turn, realising it came from his back and was made by human lungs. “It’s King Galukar! He’s returned!”

There was hope in that voice, and with hope came a bolstering of morale and rigidity that could, and had, turned the tide of many battles. He’d seen it himself, relished it himself. But he was old, now. So very old.

Don’t cheer my coming, fools. I could have been with you all this time if I’d not been such a coward.

They cheered, in spite of his thoughts. As if the sun were shining from Galukar’s body, as if he had brought with him a body of ten thousand Knights and five hundred magi to bolster them. As if he were a man made of stories and myths, rather than weakness and fear.

A Fomori almost caught him in the side of the head with one of its razory tendrils, and Galukar felt a surge of rage displace the guilt. He killed it slow and savagely, then kicked its carcass into the front row of enemies to keep them tied by its weight while he fell upon them from the side.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Galukar swung, swung, swung. Then he gasped as his blows finished peeling back the ranks of putrid undead to reveal a new quartet emerging from them. His eyes stung with tears at the sight of his reanimated sons, and his muscles froze with indecision. They came nearer, readying their blows, and still he remained. How could he fight them? How could he even move aside, if they wished for his life?

How could he deny his boys the justice of seeing their killer’s life end?

Something coursed through the air, and it became solid in an instant. Smashing sidelong into a falling sword to send it off-course, and before the next was coming Galukar felt a wind cast him backwards along the corridor. He landed behind Arion Falls.

The boy was different, and perhaps not for the better. He seemed leaner, haunted, but the look in his eyes was that of a killer. Desperate and emptied, with nothing left but the fight. It was a useful one to see at his side, and it spurred him into motion. Galukar got to his feet, staring, searching for the right words.

***

“What are you doing?” King Galukar asked, and Arion had to resist the urge to sneer at the moron. Perhaps his Master was influencing him more than he thought.

“Saving you,” He replied, “Now get up and start fighting or we’re both dead.”

There was no exaggeration in his words, the armour-clad undead- Galukar’s sons- were coming on fast as anything Arion had seen before. They moved like Knights, long hours of training and care evident in every move, but had that feral magical potency noticeable in all undead. Writ more. It was easy to recall the fear of being chased by them now, but Arion found himself without any scrap of it.

Was it just what had happened with his Master? A simple fact of realising his own worthlessness that made the thought of fearing death laughable? Certainly, his new powers could not have hurt.

Arion drew on his magic quickly and shaped it into shadestuff. His lessons all clicked together like some Rartynchan mechanism, gears grinding, cogs sliding, and he found the substance answering his call as will seeped in through the abyss to give it form and mass. It was off-centre, he knew, far from that perfect median point of the spectrum that made Master Shaiagrazni’s able to eat through so much steel, but there was an instinctual fear of it imbued within him nonetheless. Superstition, or his gut sensing that which his higher thoughts lacked the knowledge to predict? There was only one way to find out.

Walriq had made issues for Master Shaiagrazni by deflecting his shadestuff with potent currents of wind, exploiting its mass to send it flying back at the creator. Arion used much the same technique now, but with his own. He cast the shadestuff out in rapid globules moving arrow-fast and pelting the approaching enemies faster than they could react, watching as it burst apart to coat armour and mail.

Black steam hissed from wherever the shadestuff touched, and Arion watched the metal recede like ice doused in boiling water. But the erosion was too slow, and too little. His enemies were on him the instant later, primed and ready to end his life.

Then King Galukar barged him aside, catching three swords at once along the edge of the Godblade. For a single instant he remained locked in place against the trio of undead, even while the fourth moved to slip around his side. Arion sent that one stumbling back with a jet of wind, and a moment later the King let out a roar and forced his strength against the enemies’ with a mighty heave.

A tree might have stood before him and not offered as much resistance, or even a castle gate. Nonetheless, the undead were sent sprawling as their balances gave and their bodies shot back before Galukar’s prowess.

For one, wonderful moment Arion thought the old king would actually snap from his stupor and start helping. Then he froze again, and stumbled back as his sons rose to their feet. Arion snarled, more shadestuff leaping to his hands, winds carrying it out as another volley. The undeads’ armour was looking worn, now, but not nearly as much as it needed to.

The closest was on him within the moment, sword barely missing as Arion helped it to one side with a blast of wind. More shadestuff, this time carefully angled into its face, globules breaking off to slip through eye holes and eat at the flesh below. It started twitching, froze up just long enough for Arion to throw it back at the others, and he continued backing away as one was knocked down and two more continued to close.

“I need your help!” He cried to King Galukar, not having the time to so much as glance his way before the undead closed further. Arion put up a wall, which shattered instantly as they crashed into it, but bought him time enough for another blast of shadestuff. It might have hit an already-eaten part of the closest one’s armour, might even have put it down, had the sword not come up to block the magic substance. That single move kept an extra enemy in the fight, and so when Arion sent the other stumbling, there was one left to attack him.

The sword came low and bit him right under the ribs, cutting through meat and gristle, then exiting around his belly. The strength left him instantly.

Arion was falling, and it felt like a long time. But the ground was all that caught him. His body hit it without sensation, mind bouncing around, drifting suddenly. It was hard to focus, hard to notice where the sensations of his flesh were starting or stopping. From one corner of his eye he caught movement, tilting his face slightly to see King Galukar closing in. There was a look of horror upon the man’s face, a novel sight which Arion might almost have smiled at. Had he still possessed the strength and responsive flesh needed to produce a smile.

Galukar’s sword was out, shoulders squared, voice hollow. It all felt so surreal.

“I’m sorry.” He croaked. “I’m…Forgive me.”

The undead came on, and so did the king.