Book 2 : Chapter 28

Outskirts of Jungfrau, Nussegrund

Lacel of Twistwood, Elven Ranger

Hunting necromancers was easy work once the trick was realized. The trick being that all of their enslaved ghosts were distractions that should be entirely ignored in favor of eliminating the necromancers themselves. Necromancers rarely allow their slaves to have unrestricted access to mana, generally preferring to run any such spelllines through themselves to maintain control, which meant that their deaths would take out their thralls as well. 

That man, Lir, wanted him to scout ahead and return to provide some sort of report. Lacel was at least thrice the man’s age and twice his skill, and decided that he’d rather just solve the problem of this siege entirely before returning. Whatever plan that some man would come up with to subvert the army of corpses would be less effective than simply finding the masters and taking them out of commission. 

It was the way of men, to be distracted with irrelevant and transient details when there was a wider pattern to observe. Lacel didn’t blame them for their short-sightedness anymore than he’d blame a pig for being content with mud.

So he set out with the sum of his experience in matters like these to cut the head off the serpent. He made wide circles around the army of dead, hidden by the treeline, with nose and ears alert for the sounds and scents of necromancers maintaining their power over their thralls.

It took less than an hour to find their camp.

It was about as elegant as he was anticipating from a cult of deranged fleshcrafters, with canopies of dark cloth keeping the evening sun off the heads of beastmen in dark robes and leathers. The beastmen were of various tribes, with even some chimaera among them, and the waft of corruption drifted off them in a nasal echo of their rotting servants. Most of them were sat in meditation in spellcircles drawn in chalk or lines of sawdust, guarded by a few horrors in shabby armor.

A bare few of the cultists were either mingling amongst themselves, drinking, eating, or maintaining control over the watchdog-corpses. The entire region was in a valley divot that was shrouded by a thick treeline, with all cooking done across hot coals instead of open fires. It was little wonder that they hadn’t been found yet, with how dismal the senses of men were.

There were no more than perhaps a hundred or so necromancers, from what he could tell, two thirds of which were meditating in spellcircles at any one time.

Hidden deep within the treeline, Lacel scoffed and strung his bow. He reached over to pluck a leaf from the branch he was crouched upon and twisted it with his fingers and mana, rolling it into a long, thin arrow. 

No need to waste any of his enchanted bolts on them just yet. 

He drew the arrow back and aimed, waiting for a moment for the wind to die down slightly, then firing. His position was well over a thousand feet away from their camp, but he had no worry of missing his shots. He had more than two hundred years of experience in using a bow. A certain confidence was more than warranted. 

The twisted leaf flew true, as he knew it would, staking through the face of one of the necromancers along the outskirts. The man fell with a quiet thump, unnoticed thanks to his distance from any of his fellows. 

The patrol of watchdog-corpses stopped with him, blankly looking down at his corpse with ghostly indifference. It would be another few minutes before the next patrol would come by to find them. He pulled up from the branch and walked along the canopy, moving to another spot before crouching down again.

He pulled off another leaf, twisted it into another arrow, took aim, and fired. 

Another necromancer along the outskirts fell quietly, unnoticed, watched over by a patrol of unconcerned corpses. Lacel repeated the process a few times, skipping over patrols that were within sight of any other necromancer and occasionally picking off the few that went to the sides of the camp to relieve themselves.

He took twelve lives before they began to grow suspicious of him. He took twenty before they found a body and sounded an alarm. By that point most of the patrols were stationary. A number of the cultists began to remove themselves from meditation circles, taking command of idle corpses and sending them forth in hunting packs while they huddled under cover and looked fearfully out to the woods that surrounded them.

He let out a tiny huff and drew one of his enchanted bolts. The arrow-tip was replaced with a chunk of sharpened gemstone, and it glowed with the faint light of his mana. It was not a proper manastar- the shape required for accurate flight capped the amount of mana that each gemstone could be filled with. Any more energy and the gem would destabilize during the creation process. 

It was still more than enough mana to deal with meager walls of wood and clay. 

The bolt burst in a brilliant plume of mana as it impacted the stake-walls that the cultists had taken to hiding behind, a burst that turned the wood into thousands of flying shards. More of them died to the splinters than the actual arrow, if he had to guess.

He walked again, stopping silently as a hunting pack of corpses passed by him, then continuing on. He took another position, drew another enchanted bolt, and fired at another section of cover that he could hear their panicked voices from.

Screams echoed the violent rupture of mana. 

At this point the camp began to scatter entirely, knowing that they were under fire from an enemy that could turn their cover into deathtraps. Cultists fled in every direction, seemingly leaderless, taking command of errant bands of corpses and running away entirely. Some fled north, some fled south, some fled south-east…

He briefly considered which groups he should target first. The ones that were fleeing south would run directly into the city that was being sieged. They’d be caught up on that front and probably killed with their corpse-army now starving for mana. The ones that were fleeing south-east would run directly along the road that Lir and that mannish boy were stationed upon- they were competent enough to handle a band of that size on their own long enough for Lacel to finish business here and catch up.

Which left the ones fleeing north. Lacel strode across branches in the treetops, following the group that was running in that direction with steady leaps and swings. The necromancers were slower on foot running through the tangles of roots and brambles than he was in these trees.

He pulled off a leaf as he caught up, rolling it between his fingers and shaping another arrow out of it. Fleeing necromancers made for relatively easy targets amongst their thralls. 

An arrow fired struck one in the back, sending them to the ground and rolling, choking as their lung collapsed around the spur of sharpened foliage. It was unpleasant to watch men die, but it was likewise unpleasant to clean filth or dress wounds, and all of which was work that needed to be done at one point or another. 

He’d make a note of capturing one of the cultists running towards Lir and the others for interrogation, to find their hiding places and root out the rest later. Like exterminating invasive beasts, it was best to be efficient and methodical in dealing with the wicked. 

His sister would be teary if she knew how many he was putting down.

Lacel plucked another leaf, rolled it into an arrow, and fired it from his bow. Another one of the necromancers hit the ground with a messy, wet gurgle as their throat was pierced. 

Perhaps they’ll be better men in their next life, and perhaps Lacel will greet them then as a friend rather than enemy. 

One turned and began to chant a spell in the ponderous, clumsy way that men did magic. Casting a net of mana out to their surroundings and twisting ambient energy into the desired effect.

Lacel put an arrow through his eye before the chant was halfway done. The net of mana dissipated, and the half-shaped energy resumed its normal flow. The fresh corpse hit the ground, and the remaining necromancers attempted to scatter further and hasten their pace away from their camp, casting fearful gazes to the canopies.

Understandable as it was, it was irritating that he’d have to spend more time tracking and slaying them now. Maybe an hour before he was finished here, and could track down the group headed towards that paladin on the road.

He wouldn’t bother with the group headed towards Jungfrau. That prick from the capital could handle them. 

—

Outskirts of Jungfrau, Nussegrund

Henry, Amnesiac

“I’ve done what I can for him…” The woman with the lower half of a spider, Dordi, said with a troubled huff and frown. Before her laid the injured form of Paladin Lir, midsection wrapped in sticky silk and wine-soaked bandages, unconscious and tensed in pain. “He won’t bleed to death, but he’s been impaled- I’m not a surgeon.” She admitted with no small frustration, glancing between them and the injured man. 

“What do we do?” Dorothy the dogwoman asked nervously, tail pulled down and pushing her skirt in at the middle, hands brought together. 

T̵e̵r̷t̵i̴a̴r̸y̷ ̷O̸b̶j̸e̸c̴t̷i̴v̴e̶ : The preservation of your ally’s life. 

“What do you mean what do we do?! We stay hidden and wait for the others to come back!” Tal, the woman with the ears and tail of a cat, snapped in her own stressed and irritable manner. “They’re fighting an army of the dead right now, in case you forgot!”

“What if they’re not coming back!?” Dorothy asked nervously, only for Tal to smack her on the side of the head.

“Don’t think like that! You’re making me worried too!”

“You’re already worried!”

“We have to get him to the Chosen Heroine.” Henry began speaking. He wasn’t expecting to start speaking, but it wasn’t precisely against his will either. Something simply took hold of his mouth and began to speak. “The vampire he fought mentioned that she could heal him- if he doesn’t get healing, he’s dead.”

“She’s on the other side of a siege, in case you forgot!” Tal growled at him with a face scrunched with worry. She waved a hand at the still and pained form of the paladin. “That’s way too risky! We’ll all die if we go there! We simply have to stay hidden and hope he holds out long enough for the others to get back!”

“What if they don’t get back in time?” Dorothy wailed. 

“Then we watch him die because he was stupid enough to get stabbed in the back by a strange woman!” Tal threw her hands up in frustration. “At least we get to live instead of all of us dying!”

T̵e̵r̷t̵i̴a̴r̸y̷ ̷O̸b̶j̸e̸c̴t̷i̴v̴e̶ : The preservation of your ally’s life. 

“No.” Henry declared with a shake of his head and a firm stare directed at the cat woman. She turned to nag at him, but something in his expression made her stop and flinch back. “We’re saving his life.”

He stood up, moving closer to the man and shrugging him over his back. The paladin was heavier than any of the ladies, but not unbearably so. Lir gave out a groan of pain as he was pulled up in such a manner. 

Again, that something took hold of his lips and began to speak. “I’ll go through the sewers to get into the city. I can pry open any bars fast enough to slip through. From there I can simply ask the defenders to point me in the right direction.”

Was that possible? The something had never been wrong before, so Henry was inclined to trust its judgement. He supposed it made sense that a city would have sewers- but he wasn’t sure what would be barring them or how he was apparently capable of bypassing those bars.

He could probably figure it out once he got there.

“And you’ll just leave us here?!” Tal growled at him, reaching up and snatching onto his gambeson coat. “We’re defenseless without you, you idiot!”

“You aren’t in danger of dying.” Dordi stated bluntly, pulling up from the ground and replying with a flat expression. “Climb the trees and stay quiet, and you’ll be fine.”

“Easy for a spider to say!” Tal waved her hands dramatically. 

“I’m not hiding.” Dordi declared, a note of nervousness creeping into her voice before she swallowed it down and nodded firmly. “I’m going with Henry- his plan is as good as any other, and once we’re behind the walls the others can defend us again.”

“You have no idea where the sewers exit out at!” Tal growled, tiny tears building up in the corners of her eyes. “You’re going to get killed saving one idiot!”

“I’ll go with you too.” Dorothy said with a wobbly lip. Tal swiveled over to her with a betrayed expression. “I don’t want- I don’t want to be here alone Tal. Let’s just go with them.”

“And if we all get killed?!”

“I- I would rather be with them if that happened…” Dorothy reached up to wipe her eyes. “If we hide here and they find us…”

Tal stopped short, her face scrunching up. She let out a long, low whine of frustration and fear, and tears spilled out of her own eyes. “S-shut up…”

“I’ll protect you.” Henry declared, making them turn to him with fearful expressions. He nodded once, firmly. “If you come with me, If either of you are hurt, it’ll be because I’m dead.”

S̷̻͛e̶̗̕c̸̜͝o̵͎̽ň̶̡d̸͇͂a̵̛̞r̷̢͒y̶̱͋ ̶̖̋O̴b̶j̸e̶c̵t̷i̸v̵e̷ ̷̜̒:̸͕̑ ̴̲̄Ą̸̾d̷͕̎h̵̞͘ę̶̚r̷̫̽e̴͖͆n̶̲̄c̵̨͌e̸̯̿ ̷̡̀t̷o̶ ̶t̵h̴e̷ ̶i̶d̵e̵a̸l̵s̸ ̸̪̄ọ̵͛f̴͎̏ ̴̰͂Ḣ̵͇̩̈e̴̲̅r̴̮̈́̿o̴͉̍í̶͚̒s̵̭̲͒m̸̭̀̄.̶̦̼͆

They stared at him for a few moments.

Thirty minutes later they were moving along the side of the road, Henry was doing his best to not jostle the paladin as they jogged along, but he wasn’t the most agile or dextrous person around. Errant bounces as he adjusted his grip drew pained gasps and sighs from the man slung across his back, each one provoking a mental flinch from himself. 

They moved quickly, the cart left hidden behind them, carrying only their clothes and whatever weapons they had on hand as they moved along the road and towards the town that was apparently before them. The sun started to dip beyond the horizon, leaving them to navigate with the faint but steadily growing light of moons and stars.

He had to get Lir to the Chosen Heroine before he died. 

“...do you hear that?” Dorothy asked suddenly, head roaming around in a fearful manner.

“Just keep running!” Tal growled, a shiver running through her entire body with the statement.

Henry slowed his pace briefly, allowing the dogwoman a quieter environment to hear. Dorothy also slowed her pace, creeping up behind him and clutching the back of his armor. 

“What did you hear?” He asked quickly.

Slightly out of breath, she attempted to steady her breathing and listen carefully. “I- I don’t know. It sounds like…”

Along the treeline of the road ahead of them, a number of figures in black robes suddenly burst from the treeline, sprinting out of the woods in a disorganized manner. Henry pulled back with alarm, as did the women following him.

If they had kept running, the figures with black robes would’ve directly collided with them. He pulled a hand down to the hilt of his sword and backed up slowly.

The figures in the distance did not slow their pace, turning once they reached the road and continuing their sprinting.

They began to pause as they noticed Henry and his group. The two groups staring warily at once another in the late evening light. 

Slowly, Henry pulled back and to the side of the road, clearly signaling his willingness to allow the other group to pass by. The women followed behind him, hands on daggers and bodies wracked with tension. 

“Kill them and keep running you fools- the archer could be right behind us!” One of the black-robed figures shouted in a panic, casting a glance to the treeline behind them. With that declaration a number of the clumsier looking figures began to stampede forwards, holding up aged weapons.

Henry’s eyes widened, and quickly he let Lir slide off his back and moved forwards, raising his buckler and drawing his sword. He tried a brief diplomacy as he readied himself for battle- the kind of thing that Lir had stressed to him as important. “If you’re running, then run past us! We’ve no quarrel with yo-”

“Shut up! Shut upshutupshutup!” The panicked robed figure shouted, gesturing widely at him. “Thralls- kill them, killthem killthemkillthem!”

“We’re dead!” Tal wailed, clutching onto a knife like a lifeline. “We’re dead!”

“Sotha, Lord of the Sun and Man, please protect us in your gracious-” Dorothy began a rapid prayer, likewise clutching a knife and golden coin. 

Henry grit his teeth as the figures continued to rush for them.

For him and the ones behind him.

They were in danger because of his decision.

That something took hold of his body once more, as a half-dozen figures in shoddy scraps of black cloth raced ahead of the rest. Now that they were getting closer, he could see their rotting flesh and stitching holding their limbs together, and the smell of rot crept into his nose. 

Corpses.

These were the necromancers then, or at least some of them. What were they running from?

T̵e̵r̷t̵i̴a̴r̸y̷ ̷O̸b̶j̸e̸c̴t̷i̴v̴e̶ : Preserve the Lives of your Allies. 

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were threatening his friends. 

He had to stop them. 

Sword and buckler raised, Henry threw himself forwards to clash with the band of corpses commanded to kill.