Book 6: Chapter 23: A Risky Bargain
Valla looked to her Core, saw her Energy was dwindling, and cut short her plan to launch another lightning strike into the pack of ghouls that harried one of Victor’s coyotes. The brave, white-gold hounds were beset, as were she and Kethelket. If she looked further than the small circle they made around Victor, she knew the other Naghelli and, likely, the Ninth were also overwhelmed; there were just too many of the damnable undead pouring out of the fog-shrouded forest.
She was tired, her body sore and battered, her helmet dented and smeared with gore, and her arm like a lead weight. If not for the magic of her blade, if not for Midnight’s desire to fight, she didn’t think she’d be able to swing the sword with any effect. Desperately, she stole a glance at Victor, still sitting with his back to the tree, oblivious to the battle despite the ghoul corpse atop his lap—Kethelket had beheaded it at the last instant—and the splashes of gore that marred his fierce countenance. “Wake up, Victor!” she cried for the dozenth time, and then she lowered her shoulder, allowing her wyrm-scale armor to block the slashing claws of yet another ghoul.
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Victoria’s beautiful, ice-blue eyes sprang open with shock, and her mouth twisted in fury as she burst into mist, leaving nothing but damp air between Victor’s fingers. Lifedrinker cleaved the cloud, but nothing came of it save a swirl of steamy moisture, and the axe screamed her frustration. A trilling laugh echoed around the courtyard, and Victor spun in a circle, scanning the area illuminated by his banner and seeing nothing. “So vicious!” Victoria’s mocking, laughing voice echoed without a source. “What a will! Were you even tempted?”
“Come out here and let me show you.” Victor released his aura, letting it fall around him like a blanket of murderous intent. He, in fact, had not been tempted by the ghostly woman’s words or her beauty. When he felt her will pushing against him the entire time she spoke, it turned a part of him critical, and he’d seen through her fa?ade; she was a Death Caster, and her attempts to bend his will to hers were a low and dirty kind of magic, a prettier version of the control collars the slavers in the mines used. Victor wasn’t having it. Her laughter echoed again, but Victor thought he heard the original note in the air above him this time. She was flying, perhaps.
It made sense, he supposed, that a Death Caster who’d taken on a spectral form would be able to fly. He thought about Berserking and leaping into the air, hacking Lifedrinker about when he next heard her voice. He discarded the idea. Iron Berserk was a marvelous ability, but it wouldn’t serve him here. He needed something a bit more versatile, a bit more unexpected. She’d seen and tasted his rage. She’d felt his will. Perhaps it was time to give her a taste of fear. Before he could talk himself out of it, Victor formed the pattern for Aspect of Terror, channeling his fear-attuned Energy into it.
As always happened, black shadows exploded into being around Victor and began to wrap around his rapidly changing form. He grunted and screamed, a sound that started deep in his gut, rumbling with bass, and ended with a high shriek—a sound no human throat could make. As his cries and shrieks echoed around the courtyard, Victor felt his body changing, elongating, shifting, and hardening as it absorbed his mass, his weapons, and his armor. His vision changed as the colors faded away; everything turned gray, and the misty fog summoned by the Death Caster no longer troubled him; his hungry eyes saw through it, spotting bright, flaring spirits here and there, but none that shone as brightly as the one that hung in the air a hundred yards overhead.
When Victor’s baleful yellow-red eyes settled on the brilliant spirit, clearly staring right at it, it seemed to realize he could see it. It began to fly in a slow, lazy circle, perhaps thinking he’d caught a glimpse and that it could lose him in the fog. It was wrong. Victor’s hunger surged, his Core cried out for Energy, and he tracked that spirit with his deadly hunter’s vision. As it settled, hovering near the top of a round tower, a structure Victor hadn’t been able to see before, he took a step toward it, and his hard, razor-sharp talons clicked on the obsidian stones.
“What have you done to yourself?” a feminine voice asked his mind, but Victor had no patience for words. He shook his long head, clicking his razor beak angrily, then he focused on that bright spirit, on the Energy within it, and he leaped into the air, his great, black-feathered, shadow-clad wings snapping with a crack that echoed off the courtyard walls. Victor hadn’t cast Iron Berserk prior to taking on the Aspect of Terror, and his pathways were utterly flooded with fear-attuned Energy. The shadowy steam streaking off his feathered form was rife with it, tainting the air, radiating outward, giving everything within sight of his terrible aspect a taste.
More than the sight of him, the sounds he made carried the palpable fear in his nature through the Spirit Plane. Any spirit not belonging to the Death Caster who’d claimed that keep and its environs fled at the sound. Victor was dimly aware of the lesser spirits’ flight; he could see their bright forms streaking away through the twilight realm. However, the prize, the brilliant one he’d seen flying above him, was the center of his focus, and its radiant Energy kept his attention. Victor wanted to breathe his fear into that being, wanted it to feel it, to experience it, and to send it back to him. He would feast on one so bright.
He screamed his hunger as he streaked through the misty air, a gigantic, vulture-like, hunched form of black feathers, razored talons, and glowering red eyes. The radiant spirit erupted with blue Energy, launching a beam of the stuff directly at him. It hit Victor in the chest, turned his feathers to ice, blasted them off, and froze the leathery black skin beneath, peeling it back and frosting the white, ivory-hard bones beneath. It hurt, an icy fire that spread to his very marrow, but Victor was beyond caring about pain. Pain was a matter of concern for lesser things, things that didn’t hunt in the dark and feed on the terror they inspired. He shrieked and snapped his wings all the harder, hurtling toward the startled spirit.
Completely absorbed by his Aspect of Terror, Victor didn’t think to cast spells, channel Energy, or project it; he had one plan—grasp onto the spirit, drive it to the ground, and consume the fear he would pull forth. It was a simple plan, but sometimes simplicity was what a situation called for. The spirit flitted indecisively left then right, perhaps surprised at his ability to shrug off its attack. When it finally chose a direction and began to flee, it was too late; Victor was upon it, his great dark talons gripping the faintly translucent pale flesh between its shoulder blades, and, as he’d planned, he cracked his enormous black wings and dove for the unforgiving black flagstones, planning to use the spirit as a landing perch.
His quarry screamed, thrashed, and with a surge of Energy, attempted to apparate, intending to burst into ghostly mist and flee again, but Victor was wise to it, and his hungry talons, formed from his Energy-drinking axe, pulled the spell out of the spirit’s pathways, foiling her attempt to flee. He crashed to the hard flagstones, and his talons burst through the shimmering flesh and bones to gouge the stone, leaving an enormous bloody smear as he came to rest atop his prey. The spirit screamed and cried, thrashing its limbs weakly. Victor felt the fear and terror truly begin to flow from the being, great waves of it that washed over him, adding to the frenetic edge of his hunger.
His ability to impart fear was unchecked now, the spirit unable to fight him off, and its deep wells of Energy began to convert, rolling out in those heavy, satisfying waves of fear-attuned Energy that Victor’s Core greedily drew in. Despite his hunger and the glorious feeding frenzy he undertook, Victor never truly lost himself; his Born of Terror feat wouldn’t let him, not to mention his prodigious will. That said, he didn’t really want to control himself, and he gave in to his hunger for a long while, pulling until only a trickle of Energy still drizzled forth from the pale, dull spirit. He was contemplating pulling that last bit into his Core when the spirit shivered violently and coughed out a hoarse plea, “Stop! Please! I can save your army!”
The words struck a chord in Victor, and he climbed out of the shadowy corner of his mind, pulled back on the Aspect of Terror, pushed his way into the driver’s seat, so to speak, and took some control. He shifted away from the spirit, carefully, methodically extricating one talon after another from its dull, gray form. The satisfaction of his feast began to fade as he came more and more into himself and slowly severed the connection to his spell, grunting with discomfort as his body, wrapped in writhing shadows, returned to its usual form. When the dark cloak of shadowy tendrils faded, he found himself straddling Victoria’s blood-drenched body, a bloody Lifedrinker held crossways over her naked chest.
She shivered and trembled, pale as snow. All her luminescent blood lay pooled around them, shimmering on the black flagstones. Only a tiny spark of light still hung behind her sky-blue irises. She coughed weakly and whispered, “I’m sorry I underestimated you. I’m sorry I tried to control you. Please don’t kill me. A horde, a true undead horde, is attacking the army you brought here.”
“And?” Victor growled, leaning forward, staring into her nearly dead eyes.
“And they are winning; your troops are outnumbered fifty to one.”
“Fifty thousand?” Victor couldn’t help the surprise in his voice.
“Yes! Mindless, but fearless and tough. They will overwhelm your forces before you can rally them and fight free. Spare me, and I’ll issue a command for the horde to be still. It will buy you a reprieve.”
“Fifty thousand . . . And you’re in the keep?”
“I am! I was here with my spectral guards, whom you slew.”
“Call the horde off and open the gates. We’ll come inside.”
“Impossible! Prince Hector will . . .”
“Nah, no deal. I’ll kill you now and take my chances.” Victor lifted Lifedrinker, and the woman flinched and took a slow, shuddering breath.
“Very well. Very well. Perhaps you’re strong enough to break the tether he has upon me. If you can do that, then I can aid you. I’m close to death, though! Let me leave this place so I can seek healing. I can only grant you a short reprieve from the horde; when Hector sees what I’ve done, he’ll retake control.”
“How short?”
“Minutes!”
“Listen.” Victor stood up and glowered down at the once beautiful figure. “I found you once on this plane, but I can find you on the other, too. Don’t make me hunt you down. Get your gates open and wait for my army.”
“You have my word.” She coughed the words, chasing them with flecks of luminescent blood, and Victor found he believed her. He didn’t trust her, not even a little, but he believed she’d complete this bargain, at least. He pulled back his aura, released the almost unconscious hold he’d pressed on her with his will, and then she was gone in a puff of pale mist. He took one last look around the black stone courtyard, and then he cut the ties to his Spirit Walk spell.
Victor’s eyes sprang open, and he was greeted by chaos. Undead corpses lay piled around him, his four remaining coyotes snarled and howled, whining with angst as they wove between ghouls, biting at their legs, pulling out tendons, dragging them away from him. Valla, drenched in gore and blood but still bound in lightning and wind, hacked Midnight in a two-handed grip, grunting with the effort to hold the ghouls, zombies, and shamblers at bay. Other forms writhed in mortal combat nearby, Naghelli, no doubt.
Victor surged to his feet, cast Iron Berserk, and summoned his banner. Many of the Naghelli had invoked orbs of light, but they paled in comparison to the light that poured out from the bloody sun on his standard. The undead shrank back, cringing, their flesh steaming, and Valla turned with wide, relieved eyes to see Victor towering over the piled corpses at the center of their circle. From his new height, Victor could make out Kethelket and Uvu fighting a cluster of shamblers further afield. He filled his lungs and bellowed, “Follow me! We need to join up with the Ninth!” Then he strode to the east, toward the edge of the fog-filled forest, hacking Lifedrinker in wide, whooshing arcs as the Naghelli, his coyotes, and even Uvu fell in behind him.
His banner had broken the enthusiasm of the undead creatures’ charge, winning his guardians a bit of a respite as they followed him through the trees. Victor could hear the Ninth fighting and knew they weren’t far. He hoped to get to them before Victoria called off the undead; he wanted to lead them through the fog to the keep. Part of him questioned the sanity of his decision to bring the army further into the forest, to put them into the keep while nearly fifty thousand undead lurked outside. Part of him thought they should break free, charge over their claimed lands to the keep they already held, to the support of the rest of the army.
Victor didn’t like that idea, however. If Prince Hector had such a huge force here, in this territory, it stood to reason that other parts of his lands weren’t so heavily guarded. If Victor could find a way to occupy this horde, even destroy it, then Borrius and Rellia could push harder into the next territory. He drove forward, hacking, kicking, even throwing undead out of his path, carving the way for those who’d so steadfastly defended him. He still couldn’t quite believe that they’d been fighting so vigorously around him, and he hadn’t noticed a thing. The idea that Valla and the Naghelli had been bleeding, maybe dying for him, caused a twinge of guilt, but he shook it off. Hadn’t he bled for them? Hadn’t he been willing to die to defend his troops?
When they burst through the tree line, Victor found the Ninth in a defensive phalanx, surrounded by a sea of undead. Thankfully, this horde lacked the giants they’d faced earlier—no bone colossuses or gigantic skeletal drummers stood out in the massive army, and the Ninth seemed to be holding their own, able to keep the immense horde of undead at bay with their Energy-bolstered shield wall. Victor didn’t know how many of the monsters surrounded them; it would take hours to count them all, even if they stood still. In that thrashing, surging throng, all he could do was estimate.
The Ninth had roughly six hundred soldiers, and he could see them clearly at the center of the horde. If he were guessing, he’d say there were easily ten times as many undead heaving and pressing against those shields. Where was the rest of the horde Victoria had warned him about? Were they still in the forest, still coming this way? Victor looked left and right over his shoulders and saw the Naghelli, blood-soaked though they were, ready to follow his lead. Victor was proud of them, proud of Valla, who stood stoically to his right. They didn’t know a reprieve was coming, didn’t know Victoria had promised to call the horde off. For all they knew, they were about to charge into a hopeless battle to try to help the Ninth.
His banner kept the undead off them, the ones behind in the forest, but he could still see clusters of them breaking from the trees further away, rushing over the plains to join the thronging horde pressing against the Ninth’s shields. “Listen!” Victor roared. “This looks hopeless, but it’s not! These undead will break away soon, and then we’ll have minutes to make our next move. Stay by my side, and we’ll get through this!”
The Naghelli responded with cheers, weapons smashing on shields, and feet stomping the ground. Kethelket, standing to Victor’s left, whipped his twin blades in an elaborate flourish and said, “On your lead, Lord!”
Victor didn’t want to waste the time or breath correcting him. Instead, he ensured his boost from Sovereign Will was on his strength and vitality, then he held Lifedrinker high, and he began lumbering over the muddy, torn-up grass toward the rear ranks of that enormous undead army. His four coyotes loped beside him, and he contemplated sending them home and calling for this bear, but they’d fought so hard to keep him alive that he didn’t want to take this from them. No, they deserved to join him in this charge. “Come on, muchachos!”
When he was just a dozen yards from the thrashing, bucking horde, Victor cast Energy Charge and ripped over the ground to smash into them. Dozens of zombies flew away from his impact like pins before a bowling ball. Turf exploded into the air, and blood, torn, rotten flesh, and bones showered down in a rain of destruction. Victor didn’t slow. Rather, he capitalized on the momentum, using his enormous size and strength to push his way among the undead, cleaving their smoking, smoldering flesh apart with a red-hot Lifedrinker.
His banner did more damage than any cleave of an axe. As its illumination fell on a vast area of the battlefield, the undead lost their focus, cringing away from it, physically affected by the fiery light. It seemed to cook at the bindings of death magic that held them on this plane, held them together. They writhed and screamed their silent screams as they fought with each other to get out of it. Victor drove forward, the Naghelli, Valla, his coyotes, and Uvu at his back, slaughtering the few that escaped his cleaves, pushing through the ocean of undead, and carving a pathway through it.
As he grew nearer and his banner’s light fell on the Ninth, cheers erupted over the sounds of battle, and Victor roared his encouragement as he drove ever closer. The undead were weak and mindless, and he began to wonder if they might be able to win free even without Victoria’s help. At one point, when he was a mere fifty yards from the front lines of the phalanx, he looked over his shoulder to see thousands of undead pressing toward him over the plains, hanging back just far enough to avoid his banner’s light. He grunted and reassessed his idea that they might survive out there—when he ran low on Energy, things would get ugly.
As if she were somehow reading his mind, Victoria waited until Victor began to feel some doubt in his assessment of her word. He began to wonder if something had gone wrong, and she’d failed to issue the command to the horde—however that was done—to fall back. Had she died, after all, from the damage he’d done to her spirit form? As that doubt took shape, and Victor pressed his way through the last few hundred zombies and ghouls between him and the Ninth, something happened. A bell toll sounded like a great clarion gong that rang through the air on reverberating waves of magic.
The undead, already creepily silent in their aggression, grew still, lowering their arms and swaying in place like horrible, rotting corpses somehow put to rest in a standing position. In the stunned silence of the living combatants, Victor shouted, “Glorious Ninth! With me! To the west, into the forest! We’re going to take the keep while these pendejos sleep! Come on!”
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