Steel Wolves of Craedia (Realm of Arkon, Book 3) (24 page)

I was happy to see that our morale hadn't declined at all. Even though I had warned in advance that we weren't going to fight today no matter what, a sight like that could easily spoil the highest of spirits. 

As we trekked back to the campsite I'd picked out beforehand, the tense and brooding faces of my troops hadn't escaped me. I ruminated on the fact that this time fate hadn't left me much choice. Splitting the castle's garrison and dispatching them in smaller groups wasn't going to work, which left us only with plan B—a far more risky venture that, if pulled off, could pay truly legendary dividends.

"We're all here, dar!" the voice of my head archeress brought me back to reality.

The demons were sitting in a semicircle around their commander, their faces serious and focused. There was no anxiety or doubt in their eyes.
If only I had their confidence about tomorrow,
I thought with envy, lighting up my pipe automatically. Smoking really was an evil, whether in the real world or a virtual one. Thankfully, I had a good excuse—it caused no real harm to my health, so I was content to write it off as a bad habit. Hart! The closer we got to the moment of truth, the more prone I was to fly off on a tangent. Rage was beginning to rise slowly from the bowels of my consciousness. I took two deep drags, driving it back down, and looked over my loyal troops.

"Everyone is tired, so I'll be brief. I'd already explained why storming the castle right off the bat is pointless—we would then need to fight off all the undead in Callehzia. So, first we will mop up all the surrounding areas." I looked at Elnar. "Are there any inns in nearby villages?"

"There's one in Southside, and another one in Hilltown," he said. "The Southside one is closer and twice as big. We actually rode past it earlier today, but..."

"But what?"

"I'm not blind, Krian. I saw how many undead there were in the castle—it's clear now why my father couldn't retake it. It's not that I doubt our skill or courage, but this isn't even the half-legion that was advancing on Xantarra. Don't you see that attacking it with our forces is sheer lunacy?"

"We will retake La-Kharte—that is not open to discussion," I snapped at him. "Now listen up, everyone. Tomorrow morning we're going to storm Southside. Schen will remain in the village. The rest of us will split up into seven squads and proceed to clear the fourteen neighboring locations. Squad commanders will be Elnar, Salta, Reece, Reena, Iam, Aritor and myself. Only Hagedia and Vaessa will go with me—the three of us should manage just fine with heals and all those undead pets. Every other squad will have fifteen fighters, just as we went over in Xantarra."

"Why am I staying behind?" Schen objected indignantly, but sighed and lowered his eyes under my glare. "Very well," he acquiesced.

"Any other questions? If not, then move closer—we're going to divvy up the clearing zones."

Laying out the map in front of me, I waved to the demons to join me.

Chapter 10

The sky was filled with strange birds, making slow circles above our heads. They soared at great altitude, wings spread out majestically, their shapes crisp against the crimson sky. Sky in Demon Grounds was a confusing and complicated affair, its color changing seemingly at will from pale blue to dark crimson, the way it looked now. Curiously enough, I had only seen it this particular color twice, both times in my visions. This was the sky seen by Altus and Ahriman two hundred and eighty years ago. An omen? To Hart with omens!
Today's undertaking could prove of greater significance to the princedom than anything that had happened here in the last three hundred years. Jitters, butterflies? I couldn't begin to put into words what I was feeling! If even the smallest thing went wrong, nothing would be left for me and my clan. Not even Xantarra would remain—there wouldn't be anyone left to curse my name for all eternity.

Looking away from the massive bulk of La-Kharte looming over our heads, I examined the faces of the fighters behind me. They were perfectly calm, at least on the outside. They still had complete faith in me. And no wonder: I was an elder, a "Dark One," a legendary general and the hero of the Battle on Bone River. Was I guilty of overestimating my own power? In literature this was known as the Mary Sue Syndrome, when the main character was so badass that nothing could stop them. No, that wasn't me. The consequences of losing the upcoming battle weren't lost on me. And yet, retreat wasn't an option. I had amassed a host of obligations of late, and it didn't make sense to undertake them only to forget about them afterward. I had a debt to them all: to the demons that followed me, to Altus, to Diarten, to Satrap Gorm. Yes, the road to hell was indeed paved with good intentions; in fact, history's greatest villains rationalized their actions by having the purest of intentions. Gods! Why couldn't I take this risk alone?! Why was it that whenever a man was faced with these decisions, it was his friends and loved ones that were invariably put at stake?

 It had taken us two days to clear out all the undead in the castle's vicinity.  At the end of day two, I gathered the clan on the main square of a captured village and announced the plan to retake the castle. Then I offered a choice—if anyone wasn't one hundred percent on board with what they had to do, they could go back to Xantarra, no hard feelings and no questions asked. Unsurprisingly, nobody took me up on that offer, and only a certain tiflingess remarked snidely that the plan was so outlandish and crazy that it just might work.

 So here we were, back outside the walls of La-Kharte, the commanders overseeing their squads' preparations, priests and mages casting their buffs. Curiously, my mood was rather meditative.

"Are you certain you'll be able to shut him up for five minutes, auntie?" Reece inquired loudly of Vaessa, who was fixing her nails nonchalantly. 

The magus of the dark arts stopped what she was doing, and pointed at the mage with her manicure scissors, tiny and glinting in the sun.

"Call me that one more time, and I will use these scissors to make an auntie out of you," she said just as loudly and with a courteous smile. "Only I'll make them nice and dull beforehand." Seeing my bemused look, she explained, yelling over the laughter coming from all sides. "For three days now this here wretch has been trying to make a woman in full bloom feel like an old crone." 

"I had no idea you were blooming!" Reece threw up his hands in ostentatious fright. "That must be why your zombie pets are always sniffling—it's seasonal allergies! Hey, what is it like to be in bloom anyway? Is it like putting a loaf of bread in a damp place for a week?" he bulged his eyes, setting off another wave of laughter, then pressed his heels into his bay mare's sides, distancing a tad from Vaessa and her scissors. That Reece, always playing it safe.

In all fairness, the magus really did look only a few years older than the clan's other females, most of whom were barely out of their teens. And the way Reece treated her was much like a little brother might treat his big sister. His tongue, however, had a mind of its own.

"Everybody ready?" my voice, amplified by magic, put an end to the giggling at once. I closed my eyes as the squad commanders reported, then took a few deep breaths, focusing my mind, easing it into the right wavelength, and nodded to the mage. "We begin. You're up, Reece!"

The young man nodded back, dismounted his horse and started toward the open castle gates. He didn't have my ring, so he would drink his invisibility potion only after getting within fifty yards of the sentries at the gate. James moved forward slightly with his squad of getare—their job was to cover the mage after he drew aggro of the undead invaders. I pressed my heels into Gloom's sides, steering him toward a prominent white boulder, which was about a hundred and fifty yards away from the spot where the castle garrison was supposed to line up. 

"Good luck, Dark One," I heard several soldiers shout as I rode off. 

"Good luck to us all," I answered softly, without turning around.

It's not too late to turn back,
I thought to myself as I watched the undead infantry filing out of the castle. To forget about this Hart-forsaken castle and make for the Derelict Temple to try and obtain the first fragment of the key. As for Nerghall, what if I released him deep underwater so that the bastard would simply drown? Or maybe toss the stone into the mouth of an active volcano like a certain hobbit... No, all those tricks would backfire somehow! The devs were too smart not to have foreseen such clever tactics. The Ancient Beast couldn't die of drowning or fire. I gripped the soulstone in my right hand, and turned toward my clanmates, focused and ready for battle. 

It wasn't too late to turn back. Only if we did, I would still be left with nothing. I would lose the trust of my people, fail to make good on the promises I'd made, and, most importantly—I would lose all respect for myself. The stone in my hand was barely larger than a tennis ball, and shaped like a shard of rock crystal. I could feel the heat it radiated even through my plate gauntlet. Every several seconds the stone seemed to pulsate from its very core, as if ready to crack, echoing somewhere on the fringes of my consciousness with a barely audible sinister whisper. 

When looking down at a pool from a thirty-foot diving board, you feel... scared. But you must force yourself to take the first step. Just one step... The soulstone cracked loudly in my hand, and the fragments went falling onto the dry grass with a soft rustle. The earth rocked under my feet. I Jumped in the direction of the undead army forming up, and froze. This was it. The bridges had been burned.

I felt immediate relief, as if shrugging off an enormous burden, and burst into joyous laughter as the sky split open with lightning. I'd done it! I'd mustered up the courage for that first step, and now either the Lord of Darkness would pass into the Great Void or we would—there was no third option. Yes, our century wasn't enough to take down the beast, but the castle garrison would help! You can't siphon life from skeletons, which rendered all of Nerghall's main abilities useless in a fight against the walking dead. All we had to do was set the undead army and Nerghall against each other, then watch from a safe distance until the great Lord of Darkness was done for, and mop up the survivors afterwards. Yes, it was enormously risky. Yes, a million things could go wrong and foil the plan. But it was the best option—the only option—I could think of under the circumstances.

"Krian! What is with you? Why are you laughing?" Vaessa's alarmed voice rang in my ears.

"I'm fine. Just happy it's finally starting," I calmed the magus, who immediately retorted with a biting remark regarding the mental state of all elders, and one particular elder most of all. 

The first thing I sensed was an unbearable stench. Right at the spot where the boar and I had stood a few seconds ago, the ground within a ten yard radius heaved, then crumbled, exposing in its place a ghastly amorphous blob. The creature was
changing
, gradually assuming the contours of the Lord of Darkness, already familiar to me from the vision. Some eighteen feet in height, Nerghall's form most closely resembled that of a six-armed centaur blown up to the size of a large elephant. The artist responsible for this nightmare must have been a fan of
Scream
, the classic horror flick from the twentieth century, as the beast's mug was eerily similar to the mask worn by the film's killer, the main differences being the length and sharpness of the teeth sticking out of the beast's gaping maw.

And now to piss off the Lord of Darkness before the last bonehound left the castle gates...

As Nerghall materialized over the blackened ground, his hide, covered with goop of some cirrhotic color, throbbed with lumps and sores. At last, the metamorphosis was complete. The Soul Devourer took a heavy step out of the blackened circle, threw out all three pairs of his arms, and let out a deafening, triumphant roar.

This isn't the type of genie to fulfill my three sacred wishes,
the impish thought flashed through my mind. Taking a big swing, I hurled the vial with the Essence of Light, the last one gifted by Ar-Iraz, right at the beast's roaring mug. Neither Reece nor Vaessa could craft these yet—the best they could do were twenty percent ones.

Did it matter how the vial broke? We'd only recently discovered that, when thrown at the undead, the essence gave a decent-sized blast that blinded all stiffs within a small radius for a few seconds. It didn't deal any damage, but it wasn't damage that I was after. I didn't know the extent to which high-level creatures had grown smarter or self-aware, but I needed a surefire way of infuriating the Lord of Darkness. I wanted that freak to be shitting fury.

The essence smashed into Nerghall's forehead, and the monster's kisser disappeared in a bright flash of light. The resulting howl let loose by the Soul Devourer must have shattered every glass window from here to Xantarra. The blinded beast jerked forward and lashed at me with all six of his limbs. The flow of time seemed to slow for me—Jumping in the direction of the castle garrison gearing up for assault, I hurled three Stone Discs at him in quick succession. 

Siphon Life hits you for 384 damage.

Your reputation has decreased. Nerghall the Lord of Darkness relates to you with hatred.

Well, that was hardly a surprise—I wasn't exactly trying to befriend the ugly bastard.