Valerios
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Chapter 41: Horde Against The Wall
🕑 Added 2022-04-13 17:26:08 +0000 UTCJulius and Meredith, my dear friends,
I write to seek your guidance, for I am at the end of my wits.
The Wizard Order has escalated its operations within my borders and no longer bothers hiding. Their Sworn fanatics openly wear a feathered tattoo. Their members preach wizard supremacy in my border towns, luring many of my Kingdom’s wizards into their fold. What is more, my spies have witnessed one of their Archmages, Petrovic the Volcano, within my very capital, while several Sakalai are openly acting in the countryside.
I fear they will act against me soon.
The time has come to put our differences aside and unite against this common foe. Let us purge them into the Dead Lands, the Sea of Sands, and the Jewel Archipelago, where their sharp fangs will find little purchase.
The Wizard Order does not reveal itself as openly in your lands yet… but after Escarbot falls, the Alabaster and Moonlight Kingdoms will be next, and by then, it may be too late to stop them. I implore you to assist me, my friends—and when my Kingdom is safe, I will be willing to offer any compensation within reason.
I await your response,
The King of Escarbot,
Palagon Autumn
- A letter supposedly depicting communication between the three Kingdoms. Intercepted at the Moonlight-Escarbot border.
A tidal wave of undead barreled against the Wall of the Damned, falling on it with unstoppable force. Stone cracked, metal creaked, and wood groaned, but fortunately, pure physicality was insufficient to overcome the Wall.
“MEN!” shouted a commander from above, a tall, well-built woman with fiery eyes. “HOLD!”
The soldiers roared, the undead shrieked, and all hell broke loose.
Watching through Birb, Jerry was speechless. How was this was a common occurrence?!
The horde of zombies crashed against the Wall. Many were instantly stampeded, but even more fell on the first wave and climbed on their shoulders, mindlessly striving to reach the top. Their eyes were hollow, their features twisted in a desperate, absolute desire to kill.
The skeletons fell on the zombies a beat afterward. Being lighter, they scrambled atop their fleshier brethren, cutting through them to reach the top. It was an absolutely stupid attack, but the undead were thousands, and the Wall only fifty feet tall. Lacking ladders and intelligence, the horde was climbing itself.
A command rang out from above and pots of burning oil were poured on the undead, sizzling their flesh and making them fall like a rotten staircase—they did not feel pain, of course, but the burning of their body weakened them nonetheless. For a moment, the undead retreated; and then they returned in force, slamming against the Wall’s stone with even greater momentum than before and breaking against it like water against rocks.
Suddenly, a dark power spread out and filled the undead, empowering them, and Birb instinctively turned its gaze towards the center of the horde.
A different undead stood there. It was a creature wrought in dark mists and donning black plate armor, crimson flames burning under its open helmet and shining through the gloom. A greatsword was held in one of its hands, seemingly weightless, while the other hand was raised towards the Wall as if trying to tear it apart by sheer force of will.
Jerry stumbled and almost lost his connection to Birb by the shock; whatever this thing was, it wasn’t only strong, but it had magic. It was doing something, and the undead grew stronger as their numbers thinned.
“A death knight!” shouted the Wall’s commander, surprise coloring her voice. “Men, you must hold! Wizards, focus your fire! Destroy it!”
The Wall’s battlements flashed on cue. Balls of fire, stakes of ice, lightning bolts, thin jets of water, blinding light, and weapons wrought of shadow; a literal torrent of magic burst forth and headed for the death knight, the undead commander, but it was protected.
Three lumbering figures stepped forth, using their misshapen bodies to block the spells. Through steam and smoke and the hissing shadows, their forms were revealed—burned, wounded, but having borne the full brunt of the wizards’ attacks.
These creatures were made of several bodies stitched together, combined into horrific statues of grotesqueness. Jerry’s mind shuddered at the sight; these weren’t just grafted bodies, but grafted souls, forming a tangled maze of thoughts and personalities. They weren’t even real creatures, in the sense that most undead were; when so many souls smashed together, they became one jumbled mess, losing every source of individuality they had and coalescing into one monstrosity of terrible power.
And with a soul that strong, the undead body it inhabited was naturally overpowered as well—that’s why they’d been able to block so many spells. It was the same principle that drove Axehand’s and Boboar’s power, but Jerry had been careful to harmoniously combine the two souls into one creature. That was also the reason he’d never managed to build a tri-bodied undead.
By strength and hardness alone, these three monstrosities were far superior to even Axehand—but they lacked his intelligence, personality, and grace, as well as his ability to use his axe hands to create beautiful sculptures.
No, these were not undead; they were monsters. Jerry hated their creator with a passion.
But monsters or not, these three remained obstacles that the soldiers had to overcome. Behind them, the death knight had sheathed his greatsword and raised both hands in the air, letting out pulses of dark magic that only Jerry could feel. The undead revolted and descended into deeper madness, crazier frenzy; they threw themselves against the Wall with zero regard for their own safety, and Jerry felt his very soul ache at the sight.
This… This is not right. Undead are not supposed to be like this! Stop!
But they would not stop.
The soldiers had run out of oil pots, but they still threw rocks and arrows down at the undead. The projectiles buried themselves in the mass of bodies, dealing damage but soon disappearing. The undead kept climbing.
Then, the flying undead attacked the Wall. They fell on the soldiers like a storm, wings and beaks and claws breaking against weapons and sturdy armor. Spears jutted out of the soldiers’ formations to smash the birds apart. The undead cawed and cried out, circling in the air and charging the living again and again.
Most failed; some didn’t.
The birds were ineffective, but they were many. Under their relentless attacks, some soldiers screamed as beaks pierced through the gaps in their armors. There were casualties, albeit few.
However, even now, the undead assault was far from over. Regular undead, zombies and skeletons, suddenly started flying. Birb turned around.
The three lumbering monstrosities were grabbing undead and tossing them all the way up the Wall. They missed, most of the times, but a few made it, and their impact alone was enough to wreak havoc among the soldiers. The birds were still coming, and the main horde was still struggling to climb.
Jerry’s breath was caught in his throat. This… this seemed losing!
“Soldiers of Escarbot!” the commander’s voice echoed again, cutting through the sounds of battle to reach everyone’s ears. “Push back! Fire!”
They roared, and they pushed. Zombies were driven off the battlements, tumbling into the horde below, and the birds were swiftly eradicated as half the wizards turned their attacks at them. A wide spray of fire destroyed many birds or made them unable to fight any longer, and water jets cut through the flock, felling them by the dozen.
The grafted monstrosities kept catapulting zombies and skeletons over, but the trained soldiers had formed a wall of shields that intercepted them right at the Wall’s edge.
The birds were now dwindling, the catapulted undead were blocked, and the horde was climbing slower and slower, struggling to support its own weight. As soon as the undead reached within ten feet of the Wall’s top, a rain of spears fell on them, expertly diving in and out and dismembering several undead with each stab.
Whenever a spear got stuck or accidentally caught, its wielder simply let go, abandoning the weapon to the horde.
But as time went by, and the undead were unable to make progress, their numbers decreased rapidly. Before long, there were only a few hundred left, and the horde began to lose steam as there were no undead left to jump on the staircase of bodies.
Only a small core still held strong—the death knight, the three grafted monstrosities, and the few dozen undead surrounding them.
Jerry let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding—dead himself, breathing was only a habit.
It must be over… he thought. The undead could no longer win, so they would retreat. It made sense—Jerry could clearly sense the death knight’s intelligence.
As one, the death knight and the three monstrosities suddenly sprinted at the Wall. Even Birb’s eyes opened wide. It can’t be! thought Jerry.
The four superior undead reached the base of the horde staircase, and then they jumped.
The ground cracked under their feet, dirt and rocks exploding as their four large bodies launched themselves at the Wall. They flew over the horde, instantly reaching the top; but the soldiers, as if expecting it, had already stepped back, leaving them room to land—and the second they did, every single soldier in the near vicinity fell on them like pack animals, crying out war and striking with every bit of strength and expertise they had.
The wizards unleashed another torrent of spells, far stronger and more numerous than the previous waves, and even the commander drew her longsword and leaped into action, spearheading the assault.
The four undead were strong, but they were ill-prepared for such a sudden, all-out assault. The monstrosities waved their arms around, several soldiers falling off the Wall or flying backwards with caved chests, but the sheer number of bodies thrown at the undead was impossible to stop. Moreover, these monstrosities might have been strong, but they were slow, and stupid too. Some of their strikes went so wide that they missed the literal flood of humans, and they didn’t think to stand close to each other to negate the pressure.
They were also exceedingly tall, each towering nine feet in height, making it easy for the arrows and spells to hit them.
Dozens of weapons bit into each of the monstrosities, cutting off arms and bits and pieces, and spells gauged their bodies like hoes on a freshly-minted field. They stumbled; and then, one by one, they fell, on and off the Wall. They had caused many injuries, but the casualties were limited—of the two hundred soldiers, barely ten had died.
The death knight, however, was a different beast.
It was only slightly taller than the soldiers, making the spells and arrows struggle to hit it. It was also intelligent and skilled with the blade, expertly twirling it around to prevent itself from being swarmed. Bodies, limbs, and weapons went flying, screams filling the air. The death knight’s strength was not too inferior to the monstrosities’, making most of the soldiers completely unable to meet its blade.
Most, but not all.
The commander had stepped forth, meeting some of the undead’s strikes by herself and living to tell the tale. Her strength was clearly superhuman, but she was no wizard; only now did Jerry realize she was a nature spirit, like Jericho, though perhaps weaker.
She was strong enough to block the undead. By herself, she wouldn’t have been a match; but thankfully, she had an entire army to support her. The soldiers fearlessly jumped into the gaps she created, slipping into the death knight’s guard, where its greatsword could not hit them.
The superior undead was surrounded. Their strikes started landing, first few and then many.
The death knight let out a feral cry, abandoning its intelligence in the face of certain destruction. It also abandoned its greatsword, using its bare hands to decimate whoever it could grab. Its plate armor held strong, blocking most of the desperate hits, but the soldiers were fearless, and they kept attacking despite their dead comrades.
More and more blades pierced its armor, and the death knight got weaker. Its movements slowing, it fell to a knee. Its crimson eyes flared a last time. And then, the commander stepped forth, driving her longsword straight into the death knight’s face, piercing flesh and bone until it met the back of its helmet, sending it flying and revealing a square-jawed, dark-haired man underneath.
The crimson disappeared, the flames went out. The death knight tumbled to the ground, completely lifeless.
And the soldiers let out a massive triumphant cry, yelling for their devastation, despair, and relief.
The death knight by itself had claimed more than a dozen lives—as many as all other undead combined—and injured twice as many. But in the end, it had fallen, and the soldiers, due to their bravery, had won.
The Wall had held. And may it hold forever.
