Chapter 68 - Battle of the Acueli (Patreon)

Crossbow bolts and fire spells streamed overhead, raining down on the hundreds of zombies between them and the enemy. By Malachi’s side were the Semevaos fighters he’d trained with, moving forward with whatever weapon they favored. Embersteel spears, hammers, maces, and swords glowed with power. Malachi’s spear crackled with electricity in his hand. He summoned his aegis to himself and the ignian woman on his left.

The zombies ambled forward. Two crossbow bolts came down on one, skewering its eye and leg, causing it to jerk about, but not fall. A conjured rock disk zipped overhead, descending down to decapitate two zombies and knock down there more before it crumbled into sand. A fiery butterfly flew past Malachi, exploding on the zombie just in front of him, setting it alight.

Then their charge reached the front of the zombies. He lashed out with a thrust, sending electricity dancing through the burning zombie and into the ones behind it. Unlike summoned undead, these zombies weren’t destroyed so easily. However, while they could clutch weapons and swing them, they did so without any grace or skill. Malachi easily blocked the downward swing of a club with his aegis and thrust again, sending the zombie stumbling back into its fellow corpses. All around, blades and maces sliced apart the zombie limbs and shattered their bones. As their line advanced into the horde, Malachi’s fellow fighters burned the corpses, either with specialized fire spells or just with their natural fire magic. There’d be no repeat of the necromancers in Matrasa who kept reanimating corpses.

His focus was on the advance.

Unlike a living army, the undead had no hesitation about walking straight at their foes. There was no survival instinct. They walked into a meat grinder. As they cut their way forward, Malachi’s anger burned inside him. Though their faces were rotted and clothes tattered, it was obvious where the corpses had come from. There was a vintage Big Dog shirt. A sundress. A pantsuit. A shirt with Grogu. A woman still wearing a doctor’s coat. A man still wearing an ID badge that said “Green River Elementary.” These scum had taken people from all over the world, not caring what families they’d ripped apart. They’d raided a fucking elementary school. And those bloody ritual tables in the camp—these baradaeth had no regard for life. They needed to be put down.

The hydrabone spearhead was sharp, slicing in and out of undead flesh with ease. But more than that, magic damage did something to disrupt the undead. Even if they weren’t weak to lightning, each cut did far more damage than an M4 or Portal Response spear ever did. He kept slashing and stabbing.

As they cut through the mob of zombies guarding the rear, the mages not supporting them started trying to pick off the baradaeth in the back. Two crossbow bolts flew true into the back of a mage, then an earthen spike stabbed another—but those were the only two not behind the newly formed magic circles of protection. Disks of light appeared in front of the rest of the volley of bolts and spells.

Malachi could just make out panicked calls above the carnage as the baradaeth backline shouted to organize a defense.

The clock had just started ticking.

Malachi unleashed an echo of the storm in front of him, switching to several quick slashes that were just deep enough to trigger his weapon’s lightning enchantment. Only a few of the hits resulted in a lightning chain, but when the aftershock of his spell hit, it blasted apart the shambling corpses, breaking a hole in the line.

“Through the gap!” he heard the ignian woman next to him shout. Malachi felt a burst of vigor as an enhancement spell settled around his group. Dozens of energy disks sprouted in the air above their group as the baradaeth mages began their counter-attack.

Bolts of fire flashed through the air in both directions. Malachi felt the earth shift beneath his feet and jumped forward, just in time to avoid an earthen spike that shot up out of the ground. That brought him into the midst of several zombies. He raised his shield, blocking two strikes while parrying a sword slash with his spear. Another zombie caught him on the pauldron; its arm caught fire for the trouble. Malachi shoved two zombies back with his lightning aegis, kicked another back, then stabbed it. Another earth spike erupted, and this time, he wasn’t quick enough to dodge it. Sharp stone screeched on metal as it sliced up along his cuisses. He twisted and stumbled as hit foot caught on the spike he was trying to dodge. He felt thuds as weapon blows from the nearby zombies rained down on him, but the fiery retaliation enchantment made every strike costly for the zombies.

Through the bedlam, he heard Diana scream his name.

He recovered and looked up. A fireball was arching down toward him. His aegis was up over his head before his brain caught up to what he was seeing. There was a flash and a wave of heat, and cries of pain around him, but he’d blunted the worst of the spell. The ignian woman who’d been fighting next to him hadn’t been so lucky. She was backpedaling, clutching her scorched face as another fight helped push her back to where the healers were. Malachi dismissed the protector aegis around her and moved it to another fighter by his side. He let lose another echo of the storm to blast a hole in the zombies.

For a moment, there was a gap in the line. He could see more baradaeth mages casting, and that several of their warriors were moving from the front line. The necromancers had wands in the air and at least a thousand of the zombies had been pulled from the assault to shamble towards the back line. It was the impact they’d hoped for. Even though it was a small force hitting their rear, the baradaeth didn’t know that, and they were panicking, leading to disarray across the battlefield. 

But while it had succeeded for the moment, the battle could turn again just as quickly. If their surprise attack were routed, the baradaeth could still reform. Slaughtering a small rearguard and some zombies wasn’t enough. They needed to get those mages.

“Push!” Malachi called. The zombies were beginning to fill the gap. Worse, two baradaeth warriors were running forward to plug the hole they’d just made, with two mages behind them. Spells were flying in every direction; even the worst chaos he’d seen in a Portal Response mission hadn’t been this hectic. He focused on the newcomers. There was an ignian male with particularly spiky horns wielding a longsword, and one wearing her own embersteel breastplate with a flanged mace and a nasty scar down her face. One of the mages behind them sent a firebolt at Malachi’s head which he blocked. The second mage raised her hands and another spike of earth erupted next to him, slicing through the leg of one of his allies.

For the moment, he only had a single ally next to him; the rest were trying to push back the zombies. He’d learned from the ignians that repeatedly casting the same spell over and over in quick succession drained mana faster than switching spells around or delaying casts, so he didn’t want to use his echo of the storm again so quickly.

Spiky-horn came at him first, coming at Malachi with a low cut at his legs.

He recognized it as an attempt to get him to draw his defense so that Scarface could bash his head open with that mace of hers, so he let the sword hit him, keeping his aegis between himself and the mace. The sword clattered against his armor. Scarface, realizing their gambit hadn’t worked, kept her distance, looking for an opening, which gave Malachi a chance to jab at Spiky-horn while he was dazed by the burst of fire his attack had caused.

Unfortunately, the two mages just behind the warrior pair were joining in.

Malachi stepped right to avoid another earthen spike, timing his movements with the glow around the caster’s hands that happened just before the spell went off. Another firebolt came at him, splashing against his cuirass, making him blink from the flash.

He raised his aegis blindly and felt Scarface’s mace come down. He lashed out with his spear out in an arc to keep the Spiky-horn at bay.

Two fiery butterflies fluttered past his shoulder, and Malachi figured he’d waited long enough on his spell. He let loose a barrage of lightning at the two warriors, then, as Diana’s firefly spells splashed into the pair of warriors, went on the offensive. Spiky-horn was already moving to bring up his sword in a wide parry, but Malachi’s spear found a gap in his defense, stabbing him right in the gut through his hide armor. He had a plan for an attack on Scarface, but out of the corner of his eye he saw the earth mage casting again and had to leap back to avoid the spike. The magic stone spike would fade in a few seconds, but it blocked his path just long enough to prevent him from taking advantage of the opening.

Malachi cursed and blocked another firebolt, stepped around the spike and thrust out with his spear. He deliberately overextended. Scarface sidestepped the attack and came in to close the distance, getting inside his guard, but that’s where Malachi wanted. He’d already dropped the spear, and as it floated back behind him, he reached behind his back for the bec de corbin. As Scarface came in with her mace, he came down with the bec de corbin.

Her mace smashed him right in the cuirass. The pain of the blow told him just how hard she’d hit him, but he’d traded that for a deathblow.

The spike of the warhammer came down through her skull, right between the horns.

The earth mage screamed, despair and rage filling his face, but now Malachi had broken through the defenders. Kicking a zombie to the side, he charged forward, letting another echo of the storm come crashing down. The earth mage raised a thin wall of stone, but the hammer was perfect for smashing those defenses. One blow made the spell crumble. The second blow sent the mage to the ground with a shattered chest. The fire mage who’d been next to him was running by then, casting bolts as he ran. The corona around his aegis dampened the worst of the spells he missed blocking, but one knocked him in the face and he felt the burn.

A crossbow bolt zipped past, burying itself in the fire mage’s back. From the burst of dazzling light, it was one of Nerys’s bolts. The mage tripped and stumbled, screaming as he fell, but Malachi couldn’t chase after him. More zombies were flooding the area. He needed to keep the gap he’d just made open so more of them could get at the mages. They were so close to overrunning them!

Spells were flying in every direction. The mages in the back had all turned at this point, and were desperately slinging spells at their company. In the distance, he could see the glittering fabric of the palanquin’s roof. In between smashing a zombie in the face and sweeping the legs of another, Malachi noticed something: no more giant fireballs were coming from that area towards the wall.

They’d gotten Ulcoth’s attention.

There were glyphs of a defensive magic circle nearby, so Malachi used his bec de corbin to smash the glyphs as he continued to fend off zombies. Another baradaeth warrior started harassing him with her own spear, but he kept his aegis in front of his head as he swapped weapons again; she couldn’t find an opening before she was blindsided by a spell from Malachi’s side. Three zombies got blows in on his armor as he took advantage of the opening and sent his spear into her thigh. She backed away, bleeding as Malachi cut apart the zombies.

Then there was a deep rumbling, and even his stability enchanted boots weren’t enough to keep him on his feet. He fell to one knee, bracing himself on the ground with the butt of his spear.

And the ground began to rise.

Malachi watched in horror as a wall of rock rumbled up from the ground, at least a hundred feet long and a half-foot thick—a wall he was now on top of. Two zombies that had been shambling toward him promptly fell off the wall and smashed to the ground below. Malachi kept balanced on it until it stopped, some ten feet up.

Suddenly, he could see the whole battlefield. For a single breath, he took it all in.

The defenders of the Acueli knew the plan, and were taking full advantage of the disarray of the baradaeth. On the walls, he saw the united convoys moving to the attack. He saw Accolea, hands raised, surrounded by burning tornadoes that were scouring away dozens of zombies at once, a shield of air shimmering around her and the Convarch guard. Already, nearly a hundred allies had come down from the defenses to push into the baradaeth army. The baradaeth, with their undead, had bigger absolute numbers, but the defenders of the Acueli had the advantage of Magical Core users. A strike at the heart of the baradaeth could leave the army basically useless. That had been the plan.

The problem was the damn wall he was on.

It was now obvious what Ulcoth had been offered by the Hadaun for his allegiance: high tier essences. Potent essences, which were the ones that could move a skill up to level 14, because even Accolea’s terrifying air magic wasn’t this powerful. With the wall up, the defense to the rear of the baradaeth was suddenly secure. Earth mages would be chipping away at it; fire mages would work to corrupt the spell, turning parts of the wall molten so gaps could open up. But that would take time. Already, Ulcoth’s elites were turning to face the defenders who had sallied forth. Another magical wall was already going up in front of his allies, cutting off well over half of them.

He’d always been good at quickly putting together information. Never good at explaining it, but the pieces all fit together in his head instantly. Ulcoth had just gotten local superiority. With those walls and the defensive magic already established, he could defeat their army in detail by splitting his allies up into manageable chunks, just like they’d been planning to do to his second force.

Ulcoth needed to die.

He glanced back. He saw Arisone, furious enough venom was dripping from her fangs, hair all hissing at the barrier before her. He saw Nerys, wide-eyed, look of dread on his face.

He saw Diana, looking at him. He saw her mouth move, and though he couldn’t hear her over the din of the battle, he knew she was calling his name. Shaking her head, tell him no, because she had that same instinct he did. She understood what he understood.

The smart thing to do, if he wanted to live, was to jump off the wall and rejoin his allies. Malachi’s eyes settled on the palanquin, where he saw a skeletal-looking ignian in black robes lounging back, fire swirling about his fingers. Ulcoth had already turned his back, as had the mages and warriors who’d been rushing to stop the strike to the rear. They weren’t worried about a single warrior who’d gotten lifted up by the wall. 

But only thing between him and that palanquin was a few hundred zombies.

Then his eyes settled on a small white blob on the palanquin. It was, he realized, a little pomeranian, looking sickly, trembling just to the side of Ulcoth. Chunks of its fur were missing. The thing was, he knew that pomeranian. It was burned into his memory, like so many other things. It was Mrs. Jones’s dog: Fido. This was the same motherfucker.

Malachi had already made his choice, but this cemented it. He could jump back down to safety, or he could jump down into that army. Now he understood how William felt. Accolea and these ignians were good people. He needed her to live. He needed Heria, Rutil, and all the others to live. He needed Arisone to live, and even Nerys. He needed Diana to find her way home. None of that was going to happen if he chose safety. Ulcoth needed to die, and he was the only one who even had a chance at it. It might have been a small chance in hell, but he’d walked through hell already. He could go another round.

He felt a brief pang of regret. It had been nice traveling with them. He’d been walking his path alone for a long time now, though, ever since his dad had walked out and the rest of his family had cut him off, ever since Malia had been taken, ever since he’d resolved not to let himself get hurt again. Alone was better. His friends would be safe on the other side of the wall. He needed to make sure what had happened here to these people couldn’t happen to anyone else. The regret was washed away by his resolve.

Malachi jumped down into the midst of the milling zombies, jaw clenched, eyes full of determination, spear in hand.

Ulcoth was going to die. He’d make sure of it.

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