Nightbreeze
First Post
Ohohoh, and here goes down Ozmad. Really, you should never grow too confident in antimagic field...as a druid would happily demonstrate, especially with a lot of space around. Or a wizard who is willing to cast wish.
The Doomed Bastards: Reckoning (story complete)
The part that worries me is that the Antimagic Field should come back in 60 seconds. And lich paralysis is (Su).
So hopefully the lich is a lot smarter than I am and has already thought of that one...
Maybe Ozmad would have to re-cast the field, which he can't do while paralyzed?
So hopefully the lich is a lot smarter than I am and has already thought of that one...
Maybe Ozmad would have to re-cast the field, which he can't do while paralyzed?
Nightbreeze
First Post
Hmm...nice spot on that. I have to say that the wish was spelled in a strage way. Lets see how it goes on.wolff96 said:The part that worries me is that the Antimagic Field should come back in 60 seconds. And lich paralysis is (Su).
So hopefully the lich is a lot smarter than I am and has already thought of that one...
Maybe Ozmad would have to re-cast the field, which he can't do while paralyzed?
Lazybones
Adventurer
That did occur to me, and I almost revised the story to have the lich kill the ogre mage outright. But I figured that the dispel that it fired off during the battle could have affected the suppressed spell, and that the lich (with Int 18, Wis 30, and +21 Spellcraft) would know whether the ogre would be able to wiggle out of its effect. I guess I wanted to keep the creepy effect of leaving the ogre alive; I should have known that at least one person would have recognized the "out".wolff96 said:The part that worries me is that the Antimagic Field should come back in 60 seconds. And lich paralysis is (Su).
So hopefully the lich is a lot smarter than I am and has already thought of that one...
Maybe Ozmad would have to re-cast the field, which he can't do while paralyzed?
* * * * *
Chapter 60
THIRD INTERVENTION
Allera’s mind swum in a haze as she staggered forward through the tunnel. The yellow beam had assaulted her mind from the first step she’d taken, and even through the protective glow of her holy aura, she constantly found herself hesitating, on the brink of being overwhelmed by that constant attack. The beam’s effect did not cause permanent damage, or at least she hoped that was the case, but it clouded the brain, lulling one into a torpor where the mind and body wandered off on separate tangents. She suspected that without her discipline, she would be standing yet in the entrance of the tunnel, caught in a stupor that would likely have lasted until she starved to death.
The self-analysis of her situation helped steady her thoughts, and she became dimly aware of the tunnel opening up into a larger space just ahead. Driving away everything but her goal, she reached the opening and slumped out of the beam.
For a moment she could not make sense out of what she was seeing, and then everything snapped into clarity with an abrupt jolt. Her eyes were drawn first to the golden sphere that was the source of the yellow beam, but then she saw the figure standing next to it, partially obscured by tendrils of golden fog that seeped out of cracks in the sphere. She did not have to get a clear look to recognize Zafir Navev, or rather what the warlock had become.
And then she saw the floating skull, and the darkness she sensed coming off the undead warlock felt like a tiny flicker in contrast. The demilich turned to face her, and she could feel the evil in its stare, with a deep malevolence shining in its gemstone eyes. That hatred was directed at all living things, but Allera felt it as though it was focused upon her personally, as though she was an affront to its very existence. She felt the thing’s power penetrate her, and then she was fighting for her life, trying to marshall her will to hold against the blackness that threatened to drag her soul away. She cried out as she held on, and the darkness drew back, hovering around the edges of her holy aura.
Then Navev hit her with an eldritch blast. The impact knocked her back against the adjacent wall, and for a moment stars floated in front of her vision. She could smell the stink of burned skin where the blast had scored her through the fabric of her robe.
Her own magic was largely depleted, but she was not helpless. Power surged through her, and the healing energy of a mass cure light wounds spell poured outward. She felt the tendrils of magic simply came apart as they touched the demilich, but the spell caused blue fire to flash from gaps in the rotten wrappings covering Navev’s frame. The mummy had already been seriously damaged, she recognized, and now wavered, weakened but not quite down.
Unfortunately, that spell had been her last mass cure.
The realized that the demilich was drifting slowly closer toward her, but it had shifted its attention back to Navev, almost reluctantly, it seemed. A stream of magic missiles erupted from its gemstone eyes, blasting black pits into the mummy’s back. Navev stumbled forward, and sank almost to one knee, off balance.
Allera was already running, her focus entirely upon the foe. Navev seemed to sense her coming, and lifted its head. She was surprised to see—regret?—something almost unreadable in the fading glow of its eyes. If lifted a hand, and the healer tensed, expecting another eldritch blast.
But instead of attacking her, Navev lurched toward the sphere, the mithral dagger coming up in its other hand. Allera launched herself at the mummy, even as fire exploded around her, another attack from the demilich. It had no effect upon Navev, she saw, the flames flickering against the decaying wrappings without catching. Her magic flowed through her, and she pressed her hand against the mummy’s side, unleashing a cure critical wounds spell in the same instant that Navev drove the tip of the mithral dagger through the golden sphere.
A sound filled her, and a bright light swallowed her senses. She was vaguely aware of falling, and then the light burned through everything, until even her consciousness was lost within it.
Lazybones
Adventurer
We're coming up on a cliffhanger of a different sort, tomorrow.
* * * * *
Chapter 61
AFTER
“Come on angel, wake up. We need you here, Allera... I need you...”
She heard the words as a faint presence against the edge of the muzzled gray that surrounded her. The next ones were louder, but no less insistent.
“Damn it, Maricela, get in here!”
“I...” Allera tried to speak, found the simple word escape her. She tried to get up, but her body felt alien, like an unfamiliar shell. It did not obey her commands.
“Hold on, angel,” he said.
Summoning her will, she forced through the gray with sheer doggedness. As it retreated, she blinked—could blink, unable to keep her eyes open against the bright glow.
She was still in the spherical chamber, lying on the floor, her head cradled in Dar’s lap. The bright light was Dar’s torch; the sphere was gone, and with it the bright yellow glow. But to her damaged eyes the torch seemed like the light of the sun, and everything had a hazy look to it, even Dar’s face slightly indistinct, as though she was looking upon a painting where the artist had blurred out the lines.
“I am all right,” she said, although she felt anything but. Dar put a hand on her shoulder, as if expecting her to try to get up. Instead, she felt at her magic, letting out a sigh of relief as the power of a cure serious wounds spell seeped into her. The magic felt soothing, although her injuries were not just of the body, she knew. But her muscles tingled as control over them returned, and her vision sharpened incrementally, although she still had to avoid looking directly at the torch. Dar noticed her ailment, and shifted the torch behind him with his free hand.
“Thank you,” she said. “I think I can get up, now.”
“Just wait for Maricela,” he replied. She opened her mouth to protest—there was nothing that the priestess could do for her that she herself could not—but froze as she got a look at the pedestal in the middle of the room over Dar’s shoulder. He followed her stare, and held her as she started to struggle, trying to get away.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s just a skull, it’s not undead.”
She stopped trying to resist him, and took a deep breath. The skull sat atop the pedestal, and would have been inside the sphere, when it still existed. She could now see that it lacked the gemstones set into it that the demilich had possessed, but she disagreed with Dar in one respect: there was something there, a presence, within the skull. Something ancient, and powerful.
She could hear someone approaching through the tunnel. With the yellow beam gone, passage through it had to be a lot easier than when she had done it, but its circular shape, a low shaft bored straight through the stone, made navigating it still slightly tricky. With Dar helping her, she pulled herself up to a sitting position, deciding it was easier to let Maricela help her if it eased her husband’s worry.
But it was not the priestess of Soleus who appeared in the doorway, but rather Amurru. The lich, still clad in its ancient armor, regarded them with a look that was somehow just as penetrating, just as cold, as the stare she’d gotten from the demilich just a short while before. The creature said nothing, turning and walking to the pedestal. It took up the skull, tucking it into the crook of its arm. It headed back toward the exit, where it paused to look back at them again.
“Come. There is not much time.”
* * * * *
Chapter 61
AFTER
“Come on angel, wake up. We need you here, Allera... I need you...”
She heard the words as a faint presence against the edge of the muzzled gray that surrounded her. The next ones were louder, but no less insistent.
“Damn it, Maricela, get in here!”
“I...” Allera tried to speak, found the simple word escape her. She tried to get up, but her body felt alien, like an unfamiliar shell. It did not obey her commands.
“Hold on, angel,” he said.
Summoning her will, she forced through the gray with sheer doggedness. As it retreated, she blinked—could blink, unable to keep her eyes open against the bright glow.
She was still in the spherical chamber, lying on the floor, her head cradled in Dar’s lap. The bright light was Dar’s torch; the sphere was gone, and with it the bright yellow glow. But to her damaged eyes the torch seemed like the light of the sun, and everything had a hazy look to it, even Dar’s face slightly indistinct, as though she was looking upon a painting where the artist had blurred out the lines.
“I am all right,” she said, although she felt anything but. Dar put a hand on her shoulder, as if expecting her to try to get up. Instead, she felt at her magic, letting out a sigh of relief as the power of a cure serious wounds spell seeped into her. The magic felt soothing, although her injuries were not just of the body, she knew. But her muscles tingled as control over them returned, and her vision sharpened incrementally, although she still had to avoid looking directly at the torch. Dar noticed her ailment, and shifted the torch behind him with his free hand.
“Thank you,” she said. “I think I can get up, now.”
“Just wait for Maricela,” he replied. She opened her mouth to protest—there was nothing that the priestess could do for her that she herself could not—but froze as she got a look at the pedestal in the middle of the room over Dar’s shoulder. He followed her stare, and held her as she started to struggle, trying to get away.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It’s just a skull, it’s not undead.”
She stopped trying to resist him, and took a deep breath. The skull sat atop the pedestal, and would have been inside the sphere, when it still existed. She could now see that it lacked the gemstones set into it that the demilich had possessed, but she disagreed with Dar in one respect: there was something there, a presence, within the skull. Something ancient, and powerful.
She could hear someone approaching through the tunnel. With the yellow beam gone, passage through it had to be a lot easier than when she had done it, but its circular shape, a low shaft bored straight through the stone, made navigating it still slightly tricky. With Dar helping her, she pulled herself up to a sitting position, deciding it was easier to let Maricela help her if it eased her husband’s worry.
But it was not the priestess of Soleus who appeared in the doorway, but rather Amurru. The lich, still clad in its ancient armor, regarded them with a look that was somehow just as penetrating, just as cold, as the stare she’d gotten from the demilich just a short while before. The creature said nothing, turning and walking to the pedestal. It took up the skull, tucking it into the crook of its arm. It headed back toward the exit, where it paused to look back at them again.
“Come. There is not much time.”
Burningspear
First Post
Demi lich getting a piggyback?
Interesting how you play the attitudes of the undead npc's, not the mummy i mean...he is just evil
Interesting how you play the attitudes of the undead npc's, not the mummy i mean...he is just evil
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Lazybones
Adventurer
I see the "good guy" undead as being basically all insane. I mean imagine, they were all living individuals, transformed into immortal undead, incapable of feeling the normal inputs of a corporeal body, tasked with spending thousands of years on what is essentially guard duty with a single "inmate" with whom they don't interact directly. Pretty dull stuff, I'd imagine.Burningspear said:Demi lich getting a piggyback?
Interesting how you play the attitudes of the undead npc's, not the mummy i mean...he is just evil
As I noted earlier, we're at sort of an unusual cliffhanger today; I'll post more after this update.
* * * * *
Chapter 62
THE CHOICE
The difference was immediately evident.
Allera’s stare traveled upward, to where the top of the pyramid of translucent energy approached the summit of the huge chamber. The barrier, however, was now a solid blue, and seemed almost insubstantial, as though she could push through it with a gentle thrust of her hand. She did no such thing, of course, and withdrew from it as she and Dar, following behind Amurru, entered the prison of the Ravager.
“So only one beam is still working,” Dar was asking. Allera drew her attention back to the moment; she could not afford to let her mind wander, even if she was still suffering from the aftereffects of her clash with Navev and the demilich. Suddenly, she realized that she’d seen no trace of either creature in the room with the pedestal. Had the warlock been destroyed?
But as she caught sight of the others, that thought faded into the back of her mind. The entry of the chamber had been the site of a gruesome and terrible battle. The ravager spawn lay in a bloody heap upon the floor near the doorway, its body riven by deep, penetrating cuts. Its head lay at an improbable angle, nearly severed from its thick neck.
The spawn was not the only casualty. Bodies lay nearby, covered with cloaks that were soaked through with blood. Allera did not have to see their faces; she knew them by their absence in the small group of people who were present. Kiron was pulling Aldos’s body over to join the others where they were arrayed in a neat line by the far wall. Maricela was tending to Selaht; while the monk seemed hale and whole now, Allera instantly recognized the hints that indicated that he’d been nearly dead not long ago. The shredded remains of his robe, lying in a puddle near his feet, followed smears of blood that ran all the way to wall, not far from where the dead beast lay.
Zethas and Tertius, the only other survivors, were guarding a pair of captives that knelt nearby, tightly bound and gagged. With a start, Allera recognized one of them as the wizard that they’d battled in that temple of Orcus where Talen had been brought back to life as a vampire. The wizard sagged against his bonds, and looked as though he might collapse at any moment; he looked as though he was in shock, overcome by some unidentified trauma. The other man, clad only in an undertunic and loincloth, had strong features and an expression that was far too calm for this circumstance; he met Allera’s gaze as though he were not restrained, and they were equals meeting in the street. There was something odd about the way he leaned, and it took a few moments for Allera to realize that his left leg was missing at the knee, and likewise his left arm ended suddenly at the elbow. He wasn’t bleeding, at least not as she could see, but she would have guessed that his amputations were recent nevertheless.
Kiron finished his task and straightened as they approached. “Report!” Dar snapped.
“Qatarn, Aldos, and Secundus are dead, sir,” the knight said. He looked haggard, and Allera could tell that he’d been brought back from death’s door by magical healing as well.
“I thought I told you to follow me, with the healer,” Dar returned, an edge on his voice.
“He was in no condition to follow your order,” Maricela snapped, helping the restored monk to his feet. Selaht wavered, and Allera knew that only the monk’s discipline kept him upright; being suddenly restored after taking a beating took something out of a man. She’d seen Dar do it enough, sometimes multiple times during a single battle, but had also seen him pay the price, after. Sometimes it seems that the normal rules just didn’t apply to her husband. “Once you killed that... thing, only Zethas was still on his feet,” the priestess continued, “and we needed him here.” She glanced meaningfully over to the captives. “That one,” she said, nodding at the crippled man, “We found him crawling over the remains of his severed arm and leg to get to his sword. He almost put his knife into Zethas for all that, before Kiron was able to help subdue him.”
“You can cut his freaking throat for all I care,” Dar said. Allera put her hand on his arm and asked, “What about Letellia? She went for the red tunnel, as Aldos went for the blue.” The presence of the dead knight indicated that he had never reached it, but the blue beam remained intact still.
“We found Aldos lying on the ground under the gantry with his neck broken,” Kiron said, “But he took the bastard that killed him with him. I... I don’t know what happened to the sorceress.”
“She failed,” Amurru said. The simple declaration drew them all around, to where the lich stood facing them, the massive blue wall of the Ravager’s prison rising up behind it. “We have all failed, and the Ravager’s time has come. Soon, it will walk free upon the surface of the world again, and there is naught that can stop it.”
“We killed these,” Dar said, nodding in the direction of the slain spawn. “We’ll kill the big one as well.”
“You do not know of what you speak, warrior,” the lich said, its sonorous voice echoing deep from the cavern of its skull. “The Ravager is to these, as dragon is to a newt.”
“How long?” Allera asked. She leaned against Dar, more for the reassuring presence of him, than for her own physical weakness. She knew that she would need a restoration spell to fully recover from her own experience, but there would be time for that later. For now, she focused her attention upon the ancient guardian.
The lich raised its mace like a scepter. “Days. Possibly one, no more than six. And the remaining spawn will likely stir themselves before then.”
“And the beams? They cannot be restored?” Dar asked.
The lich’s cold stare seemed to suggest a negative answer, but after a moment, the creature shifted, and it lifted the skull cradled in the elbow of its off arm. A red glow flickered deep within the cavernous sockets of the skull, and Allera could feel her companions tense, ready for battle even in their depleted state. But while the healer could feel the cold presence that indicated undeath, she felt no malevolence there, only an ancient sadness.
And then a voice issued from the skull, startling her. The voice was that of a woman, speaking in an accented but clear common speech. The words came out in a whisper, but despite the distance Allera could hear them as clearly as if they had been whispered in her ear.
“I am Nycristi, one of the Three set to ward this place, to keep the Ravager bound for all time. Long have I slumbered, but now the bindings falter, and the day against which we have struggled has come. Those who set us here, they knew that it might, knew that entropy is a constant, and all things that are can change. A hundred years, a thousand, a million millions, so long as the Ravager existed, then our watch would continue.”
“So how do we beat it?” Dar asked. He clenched and unclenched his fists, and Allera thought he kept them from the hilt of his sword only through an effort.
“Our civilization was old and mature, and commanded great power. The Ravager was our greatest creation, and our biggest mistake. What was done, could not be undone, only kept bound.”
“But the wards have been broken,” Maricela said. “Can they be restored?”
“It is possible,” Nycristi said. “But it will require a fresh sacrifice. Two new guardians must come forward. The third of our original cabal, Obares Sin, long lost from us and from himself, must be found. Then the ritual may be completed, and the beams restored, if it is successful. It will difficult, and dangerous, and there is no guarantee that it will work. Many died, when the prison was originally created, so many aeons before.”
“I don’t like where this is going,” Dar said. “Speak plainly. What do you mean by a ‘sacrifice’?”
Amurru lowered the skull. “Artifacts of power maintained the beams,” the lich said. “But they were created through the sacrifice of the life energy of the Three. I was one, Nycristi another, and Obares Sin the third. Two beams have failed, and so two more must give all of themselves to save the many.”
“I will make the sacrifice, for Camar,” Kiron said. Maricela gasped, but she met the young knight’s eyes, and nodded, in understanding if not acceptance. “Whatever must be given, I will give it willingly.”
The lich nodded. “You are brave, dragon knight, but your soul is not strong enough to withstand this burden. There are only two here who can complete the ritual.” Its stare left no doubt as to whom it was referring.
Under that stare, Dar and Allera stood quietly, each holding close to the other. Finally, Dar spat. “To the hells with that,” he said. “I’ll take my chances against the beast.”
“I stand with you, my love,” Allera said, “But can we put our lives, even our souls, against those that will die if we do not do what they say?”
“You trust them?”
“I... I do not believe that they are lying. I’ve communed with Amurru, I’ve sensed what’s in there, beyond the barrier. It’s... I cannot describe it, but it is immense, in all senses of the word.” She leaned into him, and shuddered.
Dar reached down and lifted her chin with his hand. “I know it’ll be tough, maybe impossible for us to beat. But you heard what the skull said. The prison will fail someday, eventually, and when that thing gets free, somebody’s going to have to stop it. We may as well do it now.” He looked around at the others, but against the enormity of the decision that faced them, none of them could find anything to say. Finally his gaze dropped back down to Allera, lingering for a moment before he looked back up at the lich.
“You must decide,” the lich said. “The fate of the world is in your hands.”
Lazybones
Adventurer
Okay, readers!
The fate of Camar is in your hands. As I stated before, when I got to this point I paused. I had originally planned on one ending (I won’t say which one), but as I thought about it more, I found myself drawn to the other, ultimately vascillating between them. I have sketched out two plotlines going forward, one where Dar and Allera agree to sacrifice themselves for the good of Camar, and one where they elect to fight the Ravager to the death of one side or the other. Neither choice will be quick or easy for the Camarians, I fear. So which will it be? I’m going to start a poll thead so that my readers can weigh in on the question.
I’ll resume the story on Monday, June 30!
EDIT: the poll thread is located here.
The fate of Camar is in your hands. As I stated before, when I got to this point I paused. I had originally planned on one ending (I won’t say which one), but as I thought about it more, I found myself drawn to the other, ultimately vascillating between them. I have sketched out two plotlines going forward, one where Dar and Allera agree to sacrifice themselves for the good of Camar, and one where they elect to fight the Ravager to the death of one side or the other. Neither choice will be quick or easy for the Camarians, I fear. So which will it be? I’m going to start a poll thead so that my readers can weigh in on the question.
I’ll resume the story on Monday, June 30!
EDIT: the poll thread is located here.
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Lazybones
Adventurer
Chapter 63
FORTIFICATION
"No. It ends here.”
The wind blew cold and hard, tugging on cloaks as though it were angry. Corath Dar stood along the crest of a hill, exposed to the full fury of that breeze, but he paid it little heed as the words replayed in his mind. There were a dozen people close enough to speak to without raising his voice, even with the wind, but standing there, his eyes scanning the surrounding countryside, he may as well have been alone.
There was the entrance to Rappan Athuk, a blemish upon the landscape the drew the eye. But Dar only glanced at that black opening, surrounded now by a lattice of wooden boards that supported a half-dozens ropes that descended into the darkness. His attention was focused more on the adjacent hills, and the buzz of activity that echoed that going on around him.
To his left, he could see a group of men and dwarves assembling another scorpion on the next hill over. They had discarded their cloaks, almost useless against the wind, and they worked quickly and with purpose despite the chill in the air. Completing his circuit of the hills surrounding Rappan Athuk, Dar noted eight of the siege engines, emplaced in positions hastily excavated from good places at the summits where the scorpions could target wide swathes of the surrounding area. There was another crew made up almost entirely of dwarves working in another spot further down, building an onager of some sort. Despite his long martial career he’d encountered many siege engines, but he’d never seen one that looked like that, with a short, almost squat throwing arm attached to a massive axle covered over in heavy cords. The whole sat in a frame the size of a small cottage. Dalvev Gorr, the leader of the dwarf contingent, had not gone into detail on its workings, but if it was as effective as he’d claimed, then it would be an important part of their defense.
His gaze turned to the elves, who were working on something behind a set of folding screens that somehow resisted the force of the wind. He could just make out the outlines of a metal frame, but he couldn’t see any more details from his current vantage.
The arrival of the elves had been as fortuitous as that of the dwarves, but the presence of neither was an accident. Jaduran had not been idle since enabling the wind walking of their party to Rappan Athuk. From what Maricela had told him, sendings had crossed the breadth of the continent in the last week, and more aid was on the way, with reinforcements trickling in every few hours by various magical means. The elvish ambassador had appeared just that morning, teleporting in with five other elves. He’d greeted Mehlaraine Alderis warmly enough, but there had only been time for a few minutes of idle chatter before the pressing hand of time forced them to practicalities. He felt it pushing him, now, from the moment he work in the morning, until the last minutes late at night when exhaustion claimed him. Three days. Three days had passed since they’d left the Vault, and Dar knew that any minute could mark the end of the time they’d thus far been able to eke out.
Selanthas, standing at the edge of the ring of screens, caught his eye and nodded. The elf looked barely older than he’d been when they’d last met, twelve years ago. A few subtle lines around the corners of his eyes, perhaps. Grimacing at the protests of his back, sore from the intense labor he’d been engaged in these last days, Dar thought it was unfair. Still, he was glad to have them, and not just for the skills of Mehlaraine and Selanthas; they’d brought an archmage with them, an elf that looked as though he might have been sixty—and thus was likely somewhere between four and five times that in years. Sultheros had already proven his worth, using his magic to augment their preparations, and from what he’d told Dar his spellpower would be vital in the upcoming confrontation. His apprentice, a slender woman elf named Callyse, had gone off to help Jalla Calestin, who had been helping them secure lumber from the copses several miles to the east using levitate spells in conjunction with flying magic. It was disconcerting, watching women he could have picked up with one hand, streaking low over the hills carrying a log weighing hundreds of pounds. But without them, there would have been no siege engines, and their fortifications would have been much more ad hoc.
“Another cohort of reinforcements will be here before noon, general,” Kiron said behind him. With a single lingering look out over the work going on over the varied hilltops, Dar turned toward the man who had become his second-in-command.
Kiron carried himself with the same easy confidence he’d possessed before, but there was something new as well, a quiet air of experience that Dar had seen before, surrounding veterans who’d survived a difficult engagement. The knight had been almost as busy has he’d been, the last few days, working with the dwarves, humans, and elves that had struggled to prepare this place for what was coming.
“See that they’re situated and given assignments,” Dar said, unnecessarily. Kiron knew the plan almost as well as he did, perhaps better, given his training at the War College that had grown out of Talen’s school at the headquarters of the Order of the Dragon Knights. There were holes in the plan; it was impossible that there wouldn’t be, given the haste with which they had to put it together, and the nature of the thing that they faced. It was possible that Allera and Amurru were right, that they wouldn’t be able to stop it. But even if they fell, they would do their best to give Jaduran and Camar time to prepare.
To prepare. For what? Armageddon? Dar couldn’t fully stifle a wry laugh at the thought. He’d refused to sacrifice himself and Allera for a chance to restore the prison that held the Ravager, but if they’d failed, the two of them were only going to be among the first that lost their lives. It was too late to turn back now, but there was only one thing that could stop the stabbing knives of doubt that kept pushing at his gut.
“Something the matter, general?” Kiron asked.
Dar waved a hand. “No, I’m fine. Where’s Allera?”
“She was talking with the prisoner, last I saw her,” the knight replied. Dar’s expression darkened, and his hand fell to the hilt of Justice. “Do you think he’s really as old as he claims to be?” Kiron asked.
“I don’t care either way,” Dar said. “He didn’t have anything useful to tell us about the Ravager, and that makes him just another hindrance.” More than that, perhaps. They’d sent their other prisoner, the enemy wizard, along with a pair of guards back to the secondary camp they’d set up about a mile back from the area, off to the northeast. The idea for the camp had originally been a necessity, to give their teams a chance to rest and recover in a protected spot far enough away from the constant activity surrounding the entrance. Dar had initially intended to send Aerim back with him, but the man had suddenly fallen ill almost immediately after leaving the close environs of the entrance. The guards had been alert for a scheme, but Allera had confirmed that the man was too weak to move, and that his breathing had nearly faltered entirely. He’d recovered when they’d brought him back, and now was kept carefully bound in the tent set up for quick workbreaks between a clump of boulders in the lee of two of the hills facing Rappan Athuk. Of course, in the long run they were going to have a problem if they couldn’t move the self-declared “Duke” from the immediate environs, but that was an issue for after. If there was an after.
“Any word from the guardian?” Kiron asked.
“If it had contacted me, I wouldn’t have kept it a secret,” Dar snapped. “I’m sorry. If Allera was here, she would have put me in my place for that.”
“It’s a lot of pressure,” Kiron said, and Dar realized that the young man felt it, although he seemed to be doing a better job of hiding it than he was. Dar’s gaze dropped to the unusual weapon riding on the man’s hip. “You figure out how to use that thing?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s strange, and the weight’s a bit off, but it’s basically just like my sword. Almost too much like it, in fact. And it’s strange, the way that it... changes. And how it goes through a boulder like it’s not even there, but it sliced a chicken in half like the world’s sharpest razor, bones and all.”
“The elf called it a ‘brilliant energy’ weapon. The guardian says we’ll need it to stop the bastard.” He didn’t add that Amurru had tried to get him to carry it. He’d refused, and it wasn’t just the new bond he’d felt growing between himself and Justice. The lich’s weapon had felt somehow wrong, as though it were resisting him. The knight didn’t seem to have any problem with it, and Dar was content to leave it be.
But the thought of the lich opened other doors in his memory. Amurru had promised to notify them via a sending once the Ravager or its spawn penetrated the failing prison. The defenses of its vault were no longer regenerating, ever since the power sources bolstering the pyramid had collapsed; the complex would not slow the spawn for long, let alone the larger creature. The lich had briefed them on the properties of the creature, but they’d already divined most of them in their encounters with the spawn. The thing regenerated quickly, and drew strength from the injuries it inflicted upon others. They would have to strike fast and decisively. It had some innate resistance to magic, but lacked the potent spell resistance of most fiends. It was, however, utterly immune to magic that would drain it, or which could kill it outright. Not that a death spell would have any affect upon a creature of its raw stamina, in any case.
The Ravager itself was at its simplest just a larger and stronger version of the spawn. But for all its legendary prowess, it was mortal. It could be killed. But it wasn’t going to be easy.
And there had been one more thing that Amurru had told them, in response to something Allera had said about diamonds and resurrection magic. Apparently the greater beast had the ability to sunder a soul from its anchor, to devour a living creature so thoroughly that even the most powerful magic could not bring it back across the veil. It seemed almost overkill, but it reinforced the finality of this confrontation, if they needed another reason.
Dar hadn’t realized where his feet had been carrying him until he looked down into the bowl nestled between several hills, at the fluttering tarp that marked the top of the temporary camp. The place was little more than a niche in the rocks, a sheltered place where the defenders could grab some hot tea, or maybe, if they were lucky, an hour’s nap in between shifts. A few people were coming up out of the tent now, a man clad in the breastplate of the Watch accompanying a pair of young clerics of Soleus, one man, one woman. They had over a hundred people here now, and more were on the way. But Dar knew that numbers alone would not decide this fight.
“Are you going down?” Kiron asked him. Dar almost started; he’d nearly forgotten the knight’s presence. But of course, he hadn’t dismissed the young man, who would have stayed there until the end of time, maybe. No, that wasn’t quite fair; the knight was not an automaton, and he’d demonstrated tactical initiative on several occasions just in the limited time they’d been together. But he had a strong sense of duty that Dar couldn’t quite identify with.
His fist tightened around the hilt of his sword. Or maybe he could.
He turned away from the narrow, steep track that led down to the tent. “No,” he said. “I—”
But he abruptly trailed off, his eyes growing unfocused as he stared at nothing. Kiron saw it, and tensed.
“Is it—”
But Dar’s response was already coming. “INCOMING!” he yelled, loud enough so that his voice sounded over the wind, filling the valley between the hills, rebounding from the jagged ridges on the far side.
FORTIFICATION
"No. It ends here.”
The wind blew cold and hard, tugging on cloaks as though it were angry. Corath Dar stood along the crest of a hill, exposed to the full fury of that breeze, but he paid it little heed as the words replayed in his mind. There were a dozen people close enough to speak to without raising his voice, even with the wind, but standing there, his eyes scanning the surrounding countryside, he may as well have been alone.
There was the entrance to Rappan Athuk, a blemish upon the landscape the drew the eye. But Dar only glanced at that black opening, surrounded now by a lattice of wooden boards that supported a half-dozens ropes that descended into the darkness. His attention was focused more on the adjacent hills, and the buzz of activity that echoed that going on around him.
To his left, he could see a group of men and dwarves assembling another scorpion on the next hill over. They had discarded their cloaks, almost useless against the wind, and they worked quickly and with purpose despite the chill in the air. Completing his circuit of the hills surrounding Rappan Athuk, Dar noted eight of the siege engines, emplaced in positions hastily excavated from good places at the summits where the scorpions could target wide swathes of the surrounding area. There was another crew made up almost entirely of dwarves working in another spot further down, building an onager of some sort. Despite his long martial career he’d encountered many siege engines, but he’d never seen one that looked like that, with a short, almost squat throwing arm attached to a massive axle covered over in heavy cords. The whole sat in a frame the size of a small cottage. Dalvev Gorr, the leader of the dwarf contingent, had not gone into detail on its workings, but if it was as effective as he’d claimed, then it would be an important part of their defense.
His gaze turned to the elves, who were working on something behind a set of folding screens that somehow resisted the force of the wind. He could just make out the outlines of a metal frame, but he couldn’t see any more details from his current vantage.
The arrival of the elves had been as fortuitous as that of the dwarves, but the presence of neither was an accident. Jaduran had not been idle since enabling the wind walking of their party to Rappan Athuk. From what Maricela had told him, sendings had crossed the breadth of the continent in the last week, and more aid was on the way, with reinforcements trickling in every few hours by various magical means. The elvish ambassador had appeared just that morning, teleporting in with five other elves. He’d greeted Mehlaraine Alderis warmly enough, but there had only been time for a few minutes of idle chatter before the pressing hand of time forced them to practicalities. He felt it pushing him, now, from the moment he work in the morning, until the last minutes late at night when exhaustion claimed him. Three days. Three days had passed since they’d left the Vault, and Dar knew that any minute could mark the end of the time they’d thus far been able to eke out.
Selanthas, standing at the edge of the ring of screens, caught his eye and nodded. The elf looked barely older than he’d been when they’d last met, twelve years ago. A few subtle lines around the corners of his eyes, perhaps. Grimacing at the protests of his back, sore from the intense labor he’d been engaged in these last days, Dar thought it was unfair. Still, he was glad to have them, and not just for the skills of Mehlaraine and Selanthas; they’d brought an archmage with them, an elf that looked as though he might have been sixty—and thus was likely somewhere between four and five times that in years. Sultheros had already proven his worth, using his magic to augment their preparations, and from what he’d told Dar his spellpower would be vital in the upcoming confrontation. His apprentice, a slender woman elf named Callyse, had gone off to help Jalla Calestin, who had been helping them secure lumber from the copses several miles to the east using levitate spells in conjunction with flying magic. It was disconcerting, watching women he could have picked up with one hand, streaking low over the hills carrying a log weighing hundreds of pounds. But without them, there would have been no siege engines, and their fortifications would have been much more ad hoc.
“Another cohort of reinforcements will be here before noon, general,” Kiron said behind him. With a single lingering look out over the work going on over the varied hilltops, Dar turned toward the man who had become his second-in-command.
Kiron carried himself with the same easy confidence he’d possessed before, but there was something new as well, a quiet air of experience that Dar had seen before, surrounding veterans who’d survived a difficult engagement. The knight had been almost as busy has he’d been, the last few days, working with the dwarves, humans, and elves that had struggled to prepare this place for what was coming.
“See that they’re situated and given assignments,” Dar said, unnecessarily. Kiron knew the plan almost as well as he did, perhaps better, given his training at the War College that had grown out of Talen’s school at the headquarters of the Order of the Dragon Knights. There were holes in the plan; it was impossible that there wouldn’t be, given the haste with which they had to put it together, and the nature of the thing that they faced. It was possible that Allera and Amurru were right, that they wouldn’t be able to stop it. But even if they fell, they would do their best to give Jaduran and Camar time to prepare.
To prepare. For what? Armageddon? Dar couldn’t fully stifle a wry laugh at the thought. He’d refused to sacrifice himself and Allera for a chance to restore the prison that held the Ravager, but if they’d failed, the two of them were only going to be among the first that lost their lives. It was too late to turn back now, but there was only one thing that could stop the stabbing knives of doubt that kept pushing at his gut.
“Something the matter, general?” Kiron asked.
Dar waved a hand. “No, I’m fine. Where’s Allera?”
“She was talking with the prisoner, last I saw her,” the knight replied. Dar’s expression darkened, and his hand fell to the hilt of Justice. “Do you think he’s really as old as he claims to be?” Kiron asked.
“I don’t care either way,” Dar said. “He didn’t have anything useful to tell us about the Ravager, and that makes him just another hindrance.” More than that, perhaps. They’d sent their other prisoner, the enemy wizard, along with a pair of guards back to the secondary camp they’d set up about a mile back from the area, off to the northeast. The idea for the camp had originally been a necessity, to give their teams a chance to rest and recover in a protected spot far enough away from the constant activity surrounding the entrance. Dar had initially intended to send Aerim back with him, but the man had suddenly fallen ill almost immediately after leaving the close environs of the entrance. The guards had been alert for a scheme, but Allera had confirmed that the man was too weak to move, and that his breathing had nearly faltered entirely. He’d recovered when they’d brought him back, and now was kept carefully bound in the tent set up for quick workbreaks between a clump of boulders in the lee of two of the hills facing Rappan Athuk. Of course, in the long run they were going to have a problem if they couldn’t move the self-declared “Duke” from the immediate environs, but that was an issue for after. If there was an after.
“Any word from the guardian?” Kiron asked.
“If it had contacted me, I wouldn’t have kept it a secret,” Dar snapped. “I’m sorry. If Allera was here, she would have put me in my place for that.”
“It’s a lot of pressure,” Kiron said, and Dar realized that the young man felt it, although he seemed to be doing a better job of hiding it than he was. Dar’s gaze dropped to the unusual weapon riding on the man’s hip. “You figure out how to use that thing?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s strange, and the weight’s a bit off, but it’s basically just like my sword. Almost too much like it, in fact. And it’s strange, the way that it... changes. And how it goes through a boulder like it’s not even there, but it sliced a chicken in half like the world’s sharpest razor, bones and all.”
“The elf called it a ‘brilliant energy’ weapon. The guardian says we’ll need it to stop the bastard.” He didn’t add that Amurru had tried to get him to carry it. He’d refused, and it wasn’t just the new bond he’d felt growing between himself and Justice. The lich’s weapon had felt somehow wrong, as though it were resisting him. The knight didn’t seem to have any problem with it, and Dar was content to leave it be.
But the thought of the lich opened other doors in his memory. Amurru had promised to notify them via a sending once the Ravager or its spawn penetrated the failing prison. The defenses of its vault were no longer regenerating, ever since the power sources bolstering the pyramid had collapsed; the complex would not slow the spawn for long, let alone the larger creature. The lich had briefed them on the properties of the creature, but they’d already divined most of them in their encounters with the spawn. The thing regenerated quickly, and drew strength from the injuries it inflicted upon others. They would have to strike fast and decisively. It had some innate resistance to magic, but lacked the potent spell resistance of most fiends. It was, however, utterly immune to magic that would drain it, or which could kill it outright. Not that a death spell would have any affect upon a creature of its raw stamina, in any case.
The Ravager itself was at its simplest just a larger and stronger version of the spawn. But for all its legendary prowess, it was mortal. It could be killed. But it wasn’t going to be easy.
And there had been one more thing that Amurru had told them, in response to something Allera had said about diamonds and resurrection magic. Apparently the greater beast had the ability to sunder a soul from its anchor, to devour a living creature so thoroughly that even the most powerful magic could not bring it back across the veil. It seemed almost overkill, but it reinforced the finality of this confrontation, if they needed another reason.
Dar hadn’t realized where his feet had been carrying him until he looked down into the bowl nestled between several hills, at the fluttering tarp that marked the top of the temporary camp. The place was little more than a niche in the rocks, a sheltered place where the defenders could grab some hot tea, or maybe, if they were lucky, an hour’s nap in between shifts. A few people were coming up out of the tent now, a man clad in the breastplate of the Watch accompanying a pair of young clerics of Soleus, one man, one woman. They had over a hundred people here now, and more were on the way. But Dar knew that numbers alone would not decide this fight.
“Are you going down?” Kiron asked him. Dar almost started; he’d nearly forgotten the knight’s presence. But of course, he hadn’t dismissed the young man, who would have stayed there until the end of time, maybe. No, that wasn’t quite fair; the knight was not an automaton, and he’d demonstrated tactical initiative on several occasions just in the limited time they’d been together. But he had a strong sense of duty that Dar couldn’t quite identify with.
His fist tightened around the hilt of his sword. Or maybe he could.
He turned away from the narrow, steep track that led down to the tent. “No,” he said. “I—”
But he abruptly trailed off, his eyes growing unfocused as he stared at nothing. Kiron saw it, and tensed.
“Is it—”
But Dar’s response was already coming. “INCOMING!” he yelled, loud enough so that his voice sounded over the wind, filling the valley between the hills, rebounding from the jagged ridges on the far side.
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