[TLQ-B1] 54. Frozen Dominion (Patreon)

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Frozen Dominion

Darkclaw’s hand—his bad one, which he really considered his good one—twitched. His stomach sudsed, the deer meat he’d devoured some hours ago letting him know it was still being processed.

They’d done the math. From the start of the war, their army hadn’t lost more than a few hundred men. While that meant the necromancer should be a few hundred soldiers stronger, she’d chosen not to raise many of them and instead absorb their energy. Many of the undead under her control were still in that camp in the woods or the castle she hadn’t left the safety of in forever.

His army totalled around two hundred and fifty. And that was without counting the demons bursting through those tunnels. By all means, the woman had no other options besides running or prostrating herself and begging for mercy.

Claws dug through the frost. Howls ruptured from lungs as the monsters rushed to cut off any escape paths.

The Black orc’s hook curled. He watched as the Warden allowed the demonspawn to surround her without moving a muscle. Her posture remained easy.

Was the elf’s intelligence wrong? Darkclaw’s gaze narrowed between the slits of his helmet. Did he betray us? The former if anything. Darkclaw couldn’t guess what the elf stood to gain from betraying them now. Later on, maybe. Surely. But not at the start of the invasion.

‘You’re wondering why I’m not running.’ The voice slid across the blizzard as if it was a part of it. Penetrating his helm, it touched his ears and sent a deeper chill down the length of his neck than the blizzard.

Darkclaw raised his hand and cut through the air. The snowy ground ceased to exist underneath the advance of the demon horde and became nothing but a flickering tide of blood-red flesh. Fireballs bloomed from within the ranks of the shamans beside him and sizzled through the storm.

Don’t let the enemy do anything. That was the credo his father, who got it from his father, passed down to Darkclaw. If the Warden had something up her sleeve, he’d make her use it. Even if they somehow failed to capture her, the information would help them during the next assault.

As the demon tide advanced, the necromancer finally burst into motion. Enchanted hooves devoured the land, spearheading the knight and his charge across the field ahead of the tide.

She’s charging us? Has she lost it?

The fireballs descended like rain. Their combined light chased away the darkness of the night in its totality and blocked the Darkclaw’s view of the sky.

He couldn’t see the necromancer’s expression because of her helmet, yet, somehow, he knew she was smiling.

Impossibly deft, the undead steed snaked between the falling drops of fire, which crashed into the ground, kicking up swaths of snow. But no matter how skilled, there was no dodging every spell. So layers upon layers of ice, each panel the size of an ox cart, snapped into existence above the rider. Frost shattered and pelted the ground. Steam hissed and shrouded the field like a great cloud the sun. The Warden and the hundreds of demons on her heels vanished.

Darkclaw’s gaze swivelled. Damn it. Where would she be? No. It didn’t matter. They just had to hit everywhere.

His hand shot up again. ‘Second volley—’

A flash in the sky drew his gaze up. Twisting spheres refracted the light. For an instant but long moment, Darkclaw could see the blue and black energies within mingling and hardening.

Then columns fell from the sky like the wrath of the Defiled Crow and slammed into the line of mages around him. Darkclaw had chosen not to bunch them up. Instead, he’d divided their numbers into groups despite thinking they wouldn’t be under threat.

His precautions didn’t matter. The bars of frost and death shot as if from the bow of an experienced archer and engulfed his mages.

Darkclaw shielded his face from the backlash and peered over his shield. The shaman’s who’d been hit were entombed in a prison of frost. That wouldn’t have been the worst if it wasn’t for the dark energy coursing through the pillars, which dug into the defenceless shamans with glee.

‘Gar’sha!’ A soldier yelled.

Darkclaw recognised the voice. Rakim, an older orc that’d approached him before they teleported in. He and his wife had enlisted for the war despite being old enough that they could sit out. ‘You can retire, but the lust for battle never goes away,‘ Rakim had said when he’d asked him about it. ‘Besides, better us than one of the young!’ His laughter had rippled across their camp.

Now, the old orc’s scream swallowed the remnants of his mirth in Darkclaw’s mind. His arm swung back, and the enchantments engraved into the weapon fired.

‘Stop!’ Darkclaw yelled.

No matter what he’d said or how hard he’d said it, those old ears stuffed with decades of love would’ve never listened.

The axe came down. Metal teeth carved through the frost with enough force to split the pillar, albeit not enough to reach the woman trapped inside. Rakim pulled his weapon back for another strike—

The pillar burst long before it came down. Everyone in the immediate surrounding was blasted off their feet.

The broken ice gorged through skin and bones, dozens died in the blink of an eye.

Other pillars, the warriors striking them too quick to take warning from the previous explosion, combusted too, leaving Darkclaw nothing but holes in the centre of his formation.

He rushed to his feet. ‘Dismember the bodies!’

Air froze around his trembling shout and silenced the tremors. Snow and hail crystalised, their forms hardening and growing until they were each about the size of a thick thumb.

The hundreds of blades hovered. Soldiers turned up in horror, their muscles moving as if they were wading through meters of snow. Darkclaw’s gaze flicked forward. Shooting out of the fog like a dark wraith was the queen of the dead, her staff held up to the sky like the dark offering to some deity. An undead holding a tome loomed behind her, her feet glued to the mount with ice. More spheres formed in the air. Too many to count. They fired in front and behind the deadly trio, ripping whoever they touched from reality and sentencing them to a lifelong dream of ice and despair.

How? Darkclaw asked as the magic missiles bore down around him, broke the ground and blasted his helmet with debris. This wasn’t the former Warden—the veteran of a dozen conflicts. Sepharin Vrost was a fledgling. A sheltered babe that’d barely ever seen a battle, let alone war. She’d never been allowed to use and grow her necromantic powers.

So how?

The dual-coloured gem of the necromancer’s staff pulsed as if to answer.

Instincts made Darkclaw crouch and raise his buckler. Screams burst and joined the cacophony of the storm in the next instant. He only realised he was yelling when he, too, found a dagger-length shaft had carved through his shield and wedged itself into his arm.

Tusks dug into his flesh as he bit down on his scream. Iron in his mouth, he yelled for a line to form.

‘The demons are behind her! Do no let her pass!’

By the grace of the Crows, the larger part of his frontline heard him. Or perhaps they recognised what they needed to do themselves.

Shields slammed against each other, spears poked out from the side. Battle shouts drowned the cries of pain.

That’s right, Darkclaw groaned as he snapped the butt of the frost shard with his hook, leaving the other half embedded in his arm. No matter how powerful she was, she was a sorcerer. As long as they kept her from charging through their ranks, the demons would soon pincer her.

Then it was game over.

Grins pulled onto the lips of the vanguard. In their eyes, the battle was all but finished. Their smirks vanished when the first of the demons pushed through the clouds blanketing the field. The maddening rush of the horde had turned into the sorry limp of an invalid. Holes dug into their skin, which were trying to regenerate but failing because of the frost clogging up the wounds. But more importantly, of the hundred or so demons that’d charged across the field, only half were still on the chase.

Sepharin placed her hands on her rider’s shoulder for balance, then glued her feet to her horse in the same manner as she’d done for her other undead. Her head lowered. She put her hand on her chest and shook.

Darkclaw’s brows furrowed. Was she…laughing?

‘You orcs are brave.‘ Her arms spread like she was praising the sky. ‘All of you are dauntless soldiers that fear no enemy. Normally, that deserves praise—’ she leaned forwards and jabbed her staff at the air ‘—but you shouldn’t have come here on a night like this.’

The blue and black tip glimmered in the sparse moonlight managing to filter through the storm. The fear hadn’t even finished settling into Darkclaw’s bones when frozen claws burst from the ground underneath his frontline. When javelins speared through the sky, pinning whatever they hit and condemning them to a quick death followed by eternal service.

Sepharin leapt over the destroyed vanguard into the centre, where the dead were already beginning to rise.

Cold eyes whirled on Darkclaw, piercing his armour to find the poor soul hidden underneath. His deepest organs turned cold. That’s when he understood: the futility of their endeavour. The hubris that’d cost them hundreds of good soldiers.

His jaw clenched. We were defeated before the fight ever began. But all was not lost.

Darkclaw backpedalled behind his soldiers. ‘Protect me!’ He fished a rune from his pouch, crushed it, and threw it behind him.

As long as he got the information on her newfound ice powers back to his superiors, this battle wasn’t in vain.

‘Undead Queen!’ he screamed. ‘You win tonight, but I’ll have revenge for my men!’

The portal’s white light bloomed like the pearly gates that would welcome their warrior souls into the mythical Hall of Bones.

Darkclaw and the closest warriors rushed ahead.

‘How predictable,’ the blizzard spoke.

Frost flashed, and Darkclaw slammed face-first into the dome of ice surrounding his escape.

What? No! His axe, and that of many others, flared. They carved through the frost like Rakim had done earlier. Only their blades didn’t penetrate.

This wasn’t like before. The harbinger of death was closer now, the frost coming almost directly out of her palm.

Darkclaw looked back.

Risen shamans and orcs had formed a wall around the Warden. The sharp, frozen death whirling through the atmosphere had doubled despite the necromancer no longer casting. She flicked her wrist. A dozen crystals fell to the ground and formed into armoured dead.

The first of the demons that reached them were reduces to pieces that dissolved in the storm. The second wave was cleaved in half. The third already faced the combined magic of dozens of casters again.

The Queen of the Dead kept his gaze as Darkclaw stared up in wonder. Why wasn’t he doing anything? He should be barking out orders, no matter how ineffective they may be. That’s when he noticed the feeling in his arm had vanished. He glanced down, but of course, there was nothing to see but blood because of the plate. He sensed it, however. The fear crawling through his veins, which had already reached his chest.

‘Commander!’ a soldier yelled. ‘To the rear! The last of our shamans are protecting the gates!’

Darkclaw turned around. Indeed, behind the soldier, some surviving packs of shamans were firing fireball after fireball, keeping the frost from forming around their gates.

Hoh, a voice spoke in his head. You have the gift yet never became a mage, why?

Because his father disapproved of mages, Darkclaw thought, and his gift was not that of a regular shaman. He could see the grim, wrinkled face with a broken tusk even now, though the image faded with each moment. What was his father called again?

Grim…Gr…

‘Commander!’ the soldier yelled again.

The soldier froze after Darkclaw turned towards him. Nothing outwardly had changed about his commander. Yet he stopped in his tracks.

‘Commander…?’

Darkclaw’s hook raised. The soldier was too far away for a direct hit, but the attack unleashing from Darkclaw’s weapon was no physical thing. The poor soldier lifted from the ground as if a giant, invisible hand held him by the throat. A snap, and the soldier went limp.

A Darkblade. Wonderful. Your gift is stronger than I expected.

Undead had no emotions. Couldn’t feel even if they were fully conscious. Yet a deep, thrumming cold reverberated through Darkclaw’s chest with the compliment. His dead eyes whirled on the remaining mortals.

He’d make his queen praise him more.

Snow and ice crunched underneath my boots. Ellen knelt beside a few corpses, drawing the death bubbling to the surface within them into herself.

I breathed deep of the cold and enjoyed the thrum of my heart in my chest. The blizzard dampened the smell of intestines and shit released moments before the final breath.

‘This is new for me,’ I whispered.

The rush after winning a battle you shouldn’t have—the physical aspect of it. Was this what you meant, Lucian? He’d always complained at the limitations of undead—something I hadn’t understood at the time; we were superior to the mortal races in a dozen different ways, after all. But this…

Warm blood rushing through my veins. Eye sockets pounded from the strain I’d put on them. Mind still reeling from the sudden fight.

A smirk crossed my face. Yes, I could see how an undead could benefit from such a thing.

‘But the benefit is short-lived.’ The peak was higher, perhaps, but that’s all it was: a peak. I couldn’t be in a state of focus for days.

I spun a yarn of cool energy through my body and blanketed my surging emotions. White clouds exited as I exhaled and surveyed the sky. Would he be out there watching? That man.

‘Moonwalker!’ I called out on a hunch. My voice rippled over the many dead lying half buried in the snow, who would soon lie still no more, then merged with the dark and passed through the blizzard unperturbed. ‘You’re listening, aren’t you?’

No presence weighed down the atmosphere. Neither was there a distortion in spiritual realm. Yet I knew: He was watching.

My smirk grew wider.

‘Vrost. This land, this harsh north wrecked in constant blizzards where none in their right mind would set foot…this is my domain.’

Blade in hand, I jammed the tip through the skull of an orc not quite gone. Blood dripped from the sword on the way out, coating the white soil with the elegance of a paint brush.

‘I promised you would find nothing but death in the north…’

My chest expanded to allow room for the icy winds and paused at the apex. The gale rushed over the field, but its caress was a touch warmer than mere moments before. In a great dome around me, snowfall hung suspended in the sky. The winds couldn’t move the frost, for it was as if it’d ceased to be real and was nothing but a drawing.

Only when I exhaled did the storm rage on.

Closing my eyes, I whispered: ‘I have more in store for you.’

Somewhere far, I heard a chuckle.

I huffed.

Frost cracked under the weight of dozens of plated boots. I turned. The dead we’re kneeling, hanging onto my lips like a piercing.

They numbered in the hundred or so. At their head was the strongest of my new servants.

[Darkblade - lvl. 3]

That one was powerful. His class was rare, a mix between a mage and a warrior. Something similar to Wraith, though Wraith leaned more into the spectral side of things.

I’ll go through the others later. Having this many soldiers to work with was undoubtedly a boon, but I sensed a few had some meagre talents for becoming a mage or otherwise. I should also feed more to Ellen.

[Deacon - lvl. 9]

The Deacon would likely be the first of my tier II undead to hit the lvl. 25 mark, which was when she’d receive her next class evolution.

That’d be welcoming.

Turning to my new spoils, I divided the undead into groups, giving the largest share to the Darkblade, some to Ellen and some to myself. I would’ve stored them all as shards myself if I could, but there was a limit to how many undead I could hold. It hadn’t been an issue before, but gaining more than a hundred new soldiers pushed the issue.

‘I probably need to upgrade my frost necromancy skill for a higher capacity.’ A problem for later as well.

‘Head towards the camp,’ I told the Darkblade, who promptly broke into a run. He’d arrive in half a day or so.

My squire’s steed trotted up beside me. I climbed on. ‘Let us not dally any longer.’

One should never keep their elders waiting.