Book 2 : Interlude 4

Jungfrau, Nussegrund

Jellal, Necromantic Cabalist

His fingers rolled across his staff, the only visible sign of his impatience and frustration. No matter how many times he noticed and suppressed the urge, the rolling returned in time, and so he had resigned himself to letting the small weakness show to his subordinates.

Before him loomed a large sigil-array, surrounded by scaffolding and hastily-erected ward-totems. Atop this sigil was a great bone puppet, assembled from the components of a hundred and twelve corpses, the most recent masterwork derived from the dreams of The Master. The second of three such necrocrafts- they had planned for the destruction of the first after seeing it come active and built spare shells for its spirit to inhabit.

Around the sigil-array and the work laid upon it, his subordinates chanted and roamed, checking and re-checking the sigils, ascertaining the state of the anchorbones, managing the flows of mana, and more sorcerous work that Jellal personally wasn’t as practiced in. He was an administrator by nature, not so much one for getting his hands dirty, and these technical balances were best handled by the specialists. 

The chant came to a rising crescendo, magic swirled around the work, the sigil-array pulsed…

…And for the fifth time, nothing happened. On the side, a second, smaller sigil array pulsed with life, making the dead crow in the middle jolt and rise. The corpse that was casting that spell lowered its arms and then stood idle. A corpse commanded to copy the exact motions of the actual caster on a smaller scale to make sure the spell was functioning correctly. 

Jellal almost growled in frustration. “It didn’t work again.” He observed dryly, talking to the necromancer before the sigil-array. Not the one who was performing the chant, the one standing next to him. 

Necromancer Fallig nodded with a lipless scowl, brows furrowed. A necromancer on the other side of the sigil-array shook his head, and Fallig nodded in turn. “Everything else is verified- we’ve isolated the problem to the anchors.” 

Fallig raised his tome and flipped through a few pages, checking earlier sections and then making a new note in black pages using an internal inkwell quill. “Sigil-array is good, geomantic tap good, spellwork verified as good with the crowcheck- the problem is in the anchors. Short of divine intervention, there’s nowhere else the problem could be.”

“So the issue is the anchors then?” The chanter, Kildaya, lowered her long arms, covered in black feathers and tipped in sharp talons, and crossed them over her chest. She let out an irritated click of the tongue before wobbling her head. “Are we sure the anchors all came from the same corpse-”

“If they didn’t, then we’d still see some animation upon completion of the ritual.” Jellal interrupted the thought with a dry, harsh tone. The subordinate flinched slightly, nodding her head and looking down. 

“The fact that there’s nothing going on at all means that something is wrong with the ghost… Or the bones are fake.” Fallig nodded his head back and forth in consideration. “Master Jellal, permission to test?”

“Granted.” Jellal permitted smoothly, almost glaring at the giant pile of bones on the sigil-array. 

Fallig raised a boney hand and waved it. One of his apprentices, a man with a bovine suggestion to his skull and broad chest, stepped over to the chest of anchors they had prepared and opened it. A selection of fingerbones stolen from a drachish hold- it was a pain to take usable anchors from those corpse-recyclers, but they had managed such a heist a few years ago and had been saving it for an appropriate occasion.

These bones belonged to a giant- relatively young for a giant, but a giant all the same. The underling pulled out the smallest of the fingerbones, lifted it to his mouth, and loudly crunched down. A few moments of chewing followed as Jellal stared nonplussed.

Eventually, the underling swallowed and gave a thumbs-up. Fallig hummed as he made another note. “Anchors are genuine… the issue must be with the ghost.” He closed his book with a snap and shake of his head. “There’s nothing we can do on our end, Master Jellal, whatever took down the first iteration also damaged its ghost in some way.”

Jellal let out a long, low hiss of frustration, planting his staff in the ground and raising his hand to his face to pinch the ridge of his nose. His unsightly left arm was kept firmly at his side- underneath his fine cape.

The masterwork pulled out of Acolyte Kosh’s brain was the main reason they had made as much progress as they did in whittling down the stamina and defenses of the wretched city. Its ability to fly over their walls and drop attackers was what allowed them to cripple local artillery in the opening acts like they did. Without it, they’d be entirely reliant on giants hurling corpses, and that had a miserable success rate.

Which was important, because if they tried just a massed assault, then they’d be weakened enough for the legions that came after to completely demolish his entire cabal and life’s work.

‘Kill the Chosen Heroine’

Easier said than done, you jackass ‘Lieutenant’. Jellal wasn’t in the mood to throw everything he had built away to murder one stupid little demigoddess.

He let out a long, low sigh. The tricky business was figuring out how to balance the goals. Accomplish the mission from higher authority while making sure he and his work would survive intact afterwards. “Gren. How long has it been since we halted the waves?”

A hunched man with a blindfold covering his three eyes nodded. “Four hours, forty minutes.”

“Have they attempted a counterattack?” He asked, leaning back to look at the late evening sky. It was getting into the night soon.

“They have not.”

“They must be resting and waiting for our next assault then.” Jellal muttered, beginning to pace back and forth. His subordinates looked on as he thought out loud. “They haven’t attempted a counterattack yet, which means they don't have the means to-”

“Or they don’t find it advantageous yet-”

“-I know.” He hissed, snapping a hand towards Fallig. He snapped his mouth closed at once, before nodding sharply. He held the pose for a few long seconds, then slowly lowered the hand and returned to his pacing. “...We need to keep the pressure up. If they don’t crack before the legions notice and arrive, we’ve failed and expended all these resources for nothing.”

“We could try filling the shells with weaker ghosts?” Fallig suggested, chewing on the tip of his quill. “A few of those bone-giants could be salvaged to animate the flying shells- they wouldn’t be as nimble or powerful, but they could get them up and running. Maybe even put two ghosts in both shells to make up for the difference.”

“We’d need more talented necromancers then.” Kildaya spoke with a bashful note. “Just the one ghost in such a shell was about my limit. Two ghosts, even weaker ones, in that same shell? Master Jellal could probably manage it, but I couldn’t.”

Jellal absolutely couldn’t. Kildaya was significantly more talented at wrangling dead than he was. They didn’t need to know that, of course. 

“What performance do you estimate with one troll or hill giant ghost apiece?” Jellal asked after a moment of pretend-consideration, glancing over to Fallig. Fallig scratched his scarred brow with the end of his pen, opening his book and flipping back to some earlier section of calculation and parameters. 

“...Maybe two thirds as much? We’d want trolls for both, and we’d need to salvage from our largest bone giants. Running both at an efficiency deficit should be able to roughly match the first’s performance… albeit, they’d be more vulnerable to attacks…”

“We could try a deadlash for it?” Kildaya shrugged. “Same as we do for the horde but for a single shell instead.”

A deadlash was simple in theory, one of the finer innovations shared with them by his compatriot- the Lord Dey. A living necromancer raised and enthralled the ghost of the necromancer, and then commanded it to raise and enthrall other dead, resulting in more overall risen corpses than a single man could normally manage. By having the dead necromancer thrall other dead necromancers- the chain could be continued indefinitely.

Provided, of course, one had the mana to sustain that many corpses. Their established geomantic taps were pushed to their limits as it was. 

“We’d have to rededicate a substantially larger portion of our field force to operate one of the shells then.” Fallig shook his head. “We only have so many dead necromancers- and even fewer who are powerful enough to handle the ghosts needed to animate something like this. We’d lose at least a few hundred corpses on the frontlines, maybe thousands.”

“It would be better than losing any of our bone giants.” Kildaya argued with a frown. 

“The bone giants are just big targets for that celestial mage they have.” Fallig argued back. 

“They’re the only thing we have that can breach the walls-”

“-We haven’t breached the walls after a week of work! It would be more effective to start mass-deploying dead behind the walls to distract them while we press in to start hitting the gates.”

“We won’t be able to bring those gates down if we lose our biggest bone giants-”

“Master Jellal!” 

“What?” He replied, turning from the argument between his subordinates and towards some hapless acolyte with pale blond hair that was running towards him. The young woman stumbled twice in the approach, before finally making it close enough to him to be conversational. 

“Master Jellal! The vampires say they’re going back to Lord Dey!” The acolyte said in a panic, making his underlings stop short in their argument.

“What?!” He replied with an irritated panic, resisting the urge to reach out and strangle the young woman till answers came out. His unsightly hand clenched to stop it from exposing itself. “Why?!”

The acolyte cowered for a moment, swallowing nervously before replying. “The male- Sir Derren- he said that his sister had caused a breach in honor and they had to return to address it…”

“That-” He restrained the urge to go on a tirade with great effort, pulling back to stand straight up and force himself to relax. Reaching up and rubbing his hair back, fingers avoiding the two curly horns he had grown into such a handsome shape, he reminded himself that losing his composure would do no good in front of his subordinates.

In and out, Jellal. You can still do this.

The vampires were needed to keep that western road cleared, to make sure some freak doesn’t come out of nowhere to ruin their plans here any more than the last group did. They were also first on the list to be part of the main assault, which they couldn’t do while they weren’t here. 

“...That is unfortunate.” He said after a few moments, slowly exhaling and opening his eyes again. His face was forced into a cool, calm expression. Posture was the most important thing a leader could have. 

He could pull a force back to watch over the road, but that would mean less to maintain pressure on the city and less for the main attack. Not keeping someone on watch over there opened them up to blindsides, however. That would compound with the need to sacrifice other parts of their force to animate the bone drakes. Any more losses would be catastrophic and…

The window of success was already slipping by. Jellal could recognize it- it was just the same as his previous work. Small errors leading to increased spending until they were drained of resources and the entire system collapsed. 

They needed to push their advantage now. All or nothing- and the risk of ‘nothing’ meant he needed to arrange for his own exit and future job security.

“Sacrifice two of the bone giants to get the drakes animated and gather everyone for a singular push.” He commanded coldly, turning his gaze to his subordinates. “I will go to the house of Lord Dey and express my grievances with his scions- that have abandoned our work here so readily.”

“W-when will you return, Master Jellal?” Kildaya asked with a note of nervousness in her voice. 

“As soon as my talks with our ally is done- worry not, I’m quite confident that you all be able to manage a task as simple as this.” He waved a hand gregariously. “You have the Lieutenant of The Master here with you still, and he will be more than enough to ensure your victory in a final push. I’ll send word as to our plans regarding…”

He trailed off as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. A cold feeling settled on his shoulders, and his breath came out in thin mists.

“Jellal.” The multitoned voice of the Lieutenant called out from a distance. Hardly more than a whisper but still carrying clearly across their hidden encampment. Jellal turned and bowed, using the movement to smooth out his nervousness before anyone could see.

“Great Lieutenant- what fortuitous timing. I was just about to send a messenger to you.” Jellal replied calmly, slowly rising from his bow to nod graciously at the terrifying presence.

A giant of a man, or perhaps not a man at all, clad in plates of woven bones and shrouded in a inky black mana- only a pair of menacing orbs could be seen beneath the equine skull that served as his helm.

“The pursuit aircraft. It has yet to be repaired.” The Lieutenant observed bluntly, walking steadily over to them, equine skull turning slightly to the corpse and then back to him. “...Why?”

“The ghost is the issue, Lieutenant.” Jellal quickly worked to explain, waving a hand at the motionless pile of bones. “Whatever weapon they used to fell it damaged the ghost- we’ve isolated the issue to that. We’ve been considering options to animate the shells with lesser ghosts ever since we’ve discovered that. The issue is that none of our other options are as ideal as the giant we used previously.”

“Your options?” The Lieutenant asked directly. Something Jellal found himself vaguely appreciative of, even if the monster of a ‘man’ scared the skin off him.

“We could salvage one of the larger troll ghosts from the bone giants and use those to animate both of the bone drakes- neither of which will match the power of the original subject but both used at once might be able to make up for it.” Jellal began to count off on his fingers. “We could use multiple troll ghosts to animate a single shell- but none of our normal necromancers say they can handle such a dissonance. We considered filling each shell with a large number of common beastman ghosts and controlling the mass with risen necromancers but that would remove a great number of corpses from the frontlines…”

The Lieutenant slowly nodded, then began to walk forwards. Jellal trailed off as he did- watching the giant man clad in bones step past the limits of the sigil and straight up to the mass of necromantic craftsmanship. The Lieutenant placed one hand on the amalgamated skull, rubbing it like one would rub the snout of a beloved steed. 

His other hand rose, pointing at the second shell they had crafted. The shell began to jumble and shake in its restraints, eventually ripping itself apart in a swirl of black mana. The bones of the thing began to flow, dragging themselves across the ground and pulling towards the bone drake in the center.

The bone drake likewise began to shake and rise. The various underlings began to yelp and jolt, pulling away from the sudden animation of bones and black magic. Jellal restrained the urge to react the same way as his subordinates, maintaining a steady posture and a firm grip on his spine-staff. 

It was, however, a very intimidating display of vulgar spellwork.

The first bone drake split apart at its seams, tearing and making room for the new influx of bones, which lashed themselves onto the other shell and bulked it out. New joints were added, new stretches of bound tendons, additional claws and plates of bones.

The swirl continued, and a second head rose from the fused shoulders of the bone drake, letting out a silent screech as it pulled from the ground. Ghostlight burned to life in the empty sockets of the abomination, and a whisper of air began to flow through lungs of stretched skin. 

A proper, heart-chilling screech filled the air. It was quickly followed by a second voice, a second screech, as the first head joined in the cry. 

The abomination lowered its heads again, evaluating the Lieutenant before it in dreadful silence.

“I will take to the field.” The Lieutenant declared, stepping around and hoisting himself up onto the back of the two-headed abomination. Two heads, four wings, four clawed arms, two clawed legs, and one terribly long, sinuous tail tipped with a club of leftover bones. “What is your strategy, Jellal?” 

“To strike while the iron was hot, so to speak.” Jellal replied smoothly, unsightly hand shaking beneath his cape. “The defenders are doubtlessly worn down by now, and we’ll only lose our advantage if we give them any more time to rest and recover- a full, direct assault would be best to kill the Chosen Heroine, I believe.”

“An acceptable strategy. Rally the hosts, we will attack in one hour.” The Lieutenant commanded in a strangely consistent voice- that of an aged general used to wine and pipesmoke. The two-headed bone drake screamed again, before flapping its wings and pulling up into the sky, carrying the Lieutenant off with it.

Jellal nodded sharply. “You heard him- everyone! Be prepared for a final assault!”

There were cheers from the necromancers and underlings around him, as the appearance of the sudden two-headed monstrosity filled them with great confidence. 

It was good to see them so confident. He wouldn’t need to rally them so much before leaving.

If they succeed, it would be good. If they failed, at least he would survive and be able to blame one higher up on the chain of command than himself for the failure.

Either way- he wasn’t going to be here.