A New Star Chapter 122 (Patreon)

It was a bit hard to quash my natural proclivities, but a thousand years of leading a massive military had taught me when it was better to coordinate and work with the structure of command to get things done. Charging in alone was often too reckless, even for me, and even if I could win a fight just fine, I had still only been one person. Defeating our highly antagonistic enemies on a planet by myself was great until I had to hold the planet single-handedly for days or weeks after charging in alone. It only took one of those times to learn the lesson.

I had known that the graveyards would likely be the place to find the cult, and not just them hanging out and stealing a few things, but it was likely to be their main place of occupation. I had held off at first on investigating so as not to poke the hornet’s nest, as it were, and to try to gather information in a normalized environment before pushing the cult. Now, however, we were starting the process of taking the cult down, given what our investigations had uncovered, and it was time to get a handle on everything. It also helped that False Death was rather predictable in their methods and modus operandi, making finding their main base rather easy.

With that having been taken care of, the next thing to do was to help Milton and the others gather evidence. The small group of retainers Milton had assigned to the task was very much like my group; a handful of powerful people he kept around for when his House guards or the city guard weren’t enough or trustworthy enough. His team was much older and had a certain professional degree that my team still mostly lacked, but it was interesting to see they weren’t all that much more powerful than I was, though power was a bit relative. I was rather circumspect about my physical strength and combat capability, which still had people underestimating me, even if I was tall enough and muscled enough that people thought of me more in terms of an adult just by general appearance. People’s biases could often be strange like that, but having the height and the general look of an adult made one an adult in many people’s minds.

We found half a dozen more locations over the next forty-eight hours that were linked to the cult, most of them underground, though one was in a butcher’s shop, a rather horrifying prospect that I didn’t really want to consider too much. I was fine, of course, as anyone trying to sneak any corrupted food into what I was eating wouldn’t get within a hundred feet before I’d, both literally and figuratively, sniff them out and understand exactly what was happening. That still didn’t help all the people who had possibly eaten some not-quite-right meat over the last couple months, but dealing with an impending wave of sickness was not part of my current responsibilities and I wasn’t going to go looking for extra trouble right now.

With the evidence gathered, there were two next steps that were quite obvious, but arranging them would be a slight bit tricky, especially without tipping our hands early. We had to figure out exactly what the mayor knew and how connected he was to everything, which was going to be the more delicate matter of the two, in my estimation. Beyond that, we had the young who spent gold like fresh water to look into, as I was quite sure he was getting his gold from a certain cult that loved necromancy, though I was thinking the young fop was going to be easier to handle. There was always the possibility the young noble was really some hardened killer and complete sociopath, but considering his age, proclivity for gambling, and love of lavish living, I was leaning much more towards a classic case of a young, pampered, worldly ignorant noble who had everything he wanted or needed for the first part of his life dropped in his lap having gotten taken in by people far wiser and more experienced. Regardless of which scenario it was, I thought it was going to be easier handling the young noble than the mayor, which is why the mayor came first.

“Are you sure?” I asked Gorge, standing in an alley with the young man. We had a net spread out around city hall and the mayor’s residence, though we knew the mayor was in his office at the city hall working at the moment. It was the fifth day since I had showed Milton and the others the necromantic room, and we had all the pieces in place to move.

“I’m sure. What was all my training for, and what did my oath mean, if I’m not willing to do even this?” Gorge asked.

“It’s not some competition, Gorge,” I snapped coldly. “Your oath and honor be damned; there are people here, real people, that are hurt or dead because of this. I’m not asking if you think you’re going to feel good about yourself after this is over. I’m asking if you’re prepared, really prepared, to do whatever is necessary to protect other people? That’s the important part.”

“I…yes, yes I am. I’ll do what it takes,” the young man said.

“Then on my mark,” I said, holding up a communication stone. “Are we in position?”

“Set”,”Ready”,”Confirmed”,”Ready”,”Green,” and so on came back.

“Then on my mark,” I said. I had managed to convince the others, without all that much effort, that I could very well lead this part of the little dance. I was not, as to ranks, of equivalent status to my parents, but even being the last of their children, I had a rank that technically outdid both counts and any others we could bring in on short notice. Normally, a girl of fourteen wouldn’t be up to handling something like this, as Gorge had just demonstrated that a young man of nineteen wasn’t, but I was no little slip of a girl, physically or mentally.

“Mark!” I commanded and then strode out of the alley, Gorge on my heels and to my right. His job was very simple, though very important: he was to seal the path of retreat for whoever was in the office. The building was surrounded, even below ground, but Gorge had orders to keep anyone in the room with us contained, and he was determined to make a good show of it, though my reminder of the importance of our work seemed to have gotten his head set on straight.

I strode down the road boldly, in broad daylight, as why would I not? I was a noble, a high noble, and someone that had every right to be where I was, to go where I intended, and, quite frankly, to do whatever I intended to do. Gorge striding a step behind me just appeared to be a powerful retainer or another noble keeping in stride in deference to a more senior, more prestigious noble while we attended to some business, which was all perfectly ordinary. Our armor, weapons, and cloaks might not have exactly been standard for a meeting or lunch, but it wasn’t all that unusual for people to go about armed and armored, even in the heart of the city, and it also wouldn’t do to question the prerogatives of nobles.

Walking up to the city hall with a confident gait, I made my up the steps, not rushing, but walking the half dozen steps up to the front door quickly and calmly, striding in without more than a quick glance around. I didn’t bother with any of the secretaries, workers, or other desks there, even the one who would normally arrange to meet with the mayor or contact others further in. I walked forward swiftly and boldly, even as some looked at us oddly and one started to rise, perhaps thinking to stop us, but my hand gesture, a quick cutting motion without looking at him, had him freeze before slowly lowering back down into his seat. Gorge gave the room a glare, which I could tell from the way his head moved and the set of his shoulders as he did it, and loosened his sword in its scabbard with a thumb, though he didn’t draw.

We walked down the hall and up the stairs, heading down the carpeted hall on the second floor to the mayor’s office, which I knew had more than one being in. I did not say person or living being because the others I sensed within didn’t have a breath of life within them, and I adapted as we walked, Gungnir appearing in my hand as we came up to the door.

“Draw!” I commanded Gorge, not bothering to check, even peripherally, if he had done so, and planted my left foot, lifting my right.

Whether it was my commanded, which I had barked rather loud, or my movements, or something else entirely, I could sense a flurry of movement from within, but they were too late. I had lifted my right leg and twisted my hips slightly, and now kicked the sealed doors to the mayor’s office with full force. The doors had been locked and braced, but only by physical means, as magical means would likely have been far too obvious. My kick was like a battering ram, a full siege engine, had slammed into the door at full force, and both doors were torn from their hinges, the bar that had been hastily thrown in place behind them exploding into splinters and scraps of wood as the two doors tumbled across the room.

I took in the entire room in just a blink, seeing four guards, none of them alive, and the mayor at his desk. Where the guards would normally stand I wasn’t sure, if they were normally there, but they were in the middle of the room right now, which was rather unfortunate for them, as the doors took two of them down and slammed them back, both somehow avoiding the mayor’s desk by just a hair. I didn’t give anyone else any time to do anything as I launched across the room, Gungnir leading the way as a roar echoed out, lightning coating the spear and my arms. The guard on the right stepped forward in a very mechanical manner, trying to intercept the strike, but, despite how it looked, I had been baiting them. I easily redirected the thrust, slamming Gungnir into and through the guards neck.

What would have been a horrific blow for anyone else wasn’t as bad on this guard, as he had lost life some time ago already, now being nothing but corpseflesh and mediocre armor. My thrust shattered the simple gorget he had protecting his neck and tore the dead flesh of said neck apart, cracking his spine but not beheading him. That was fine, as the kinetic energy was great enough to lift him from his feet and throw him into the wall behind. While he was still impacting into the brick, I spun and slashed with the heavy blade of the spear, knocking the fourth guard’s sword away before twisting my left wrist and pulling with my right hand, reversing the slash and stabbing upward.

Gungnir took the undead in the face, piercing what was left of its nose, this guard not having any face covering nor nose guard or flap on its helm. Gungnir pierced the nose, splitting the front of the skull, slashed through what was left of the brain, and slammed out the back of the head. I twisted the opposite way on the haft and spun my hips, ripping Gungnir free by shattering the skull, continuing to spin and thrusting the pommel under my left arm and back, smashing the guard that had freed itself of the wall and knocking it into the mayor’s desk. Undead were mechanical in their movements, and were often slow, but they didn’t feel pain and weren’t much bothered by any non-lethal injury.

I spun in a wide arc, seeing Gorge in the hallway just outside the door, tower shield off his back and planted facing the door while stone surrounded him. Good. He was doing exactly as he was supposed to and blocking the hallway entirely, both from the office and from anyone who would come up from another direction. I dismissed him from my mind for the moment as my spin continued, battering away the first two guards, who had freed themselves from the doors and attacked once again. The mayor was cowering behind his chair and screaming something rather incoherent, but his fate was already sealed. If I didn’t kill him during this fight, he would not live very much longer; the only reason I didn’t execute him on the spot was he might have been smart enough to not keep his communiques with the cult and had valuable information in that bloated, hollow skull of his.

The undead were not proving a large problem, though their tenacity was always annoying. I had some experience with similar constructs in my last life, though the art was different and performed differently, but those difference were academic. The corpses of friends, family, and fallen comrades were given a new, twisted mockery of life and set upon the battlefield once again, slaughtering all in sight. I remembered those days of pain and anguish all too well, my mind slipping back into the flow of what I had once been, Gungnir dancing and roaring as I slowly demolished the last three guards. The remains of the man I had partially decapitated did not rise again, as destroying the head of an undead still proved an effective strategy. In my old life, it was because the soul or animating force locked into the corpse was bound to the head while the force of qi, or mana, in this case, was bound to the heart, providing the motor function and command of the flesh. Destroying either, the head or heart, was enough to destroy the construct, as that was what they were, really, and it appeared both were still valid here.

Fortunately for us, or more so for Gorge, these were death knights, but simple undead soldiers; a cut above the regular zombies or undead, but nothing like what the more powerful undead would have been. Gorge wasn’t ready for something like that quite yet, depending on what rank or overall mana strength it had, but he wouldn’t be overwhelmed by these lackeys, and that was proved when a fifth guard appeared from down the hall. It had likely been in the next room over for some reason, and was now responding to the attack by rushing to intercept me. Gorge handled it quite well, blocking it with stone before slowly whittling it down; not the best strategy overall for undead, but this was his first fight against such and he had only one to handle. It was better that he was safe and unharmed than that he was overwhelmingly precise and lethal, at least for now.

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