Book 2 : Chapter 20 (Patreon)

On the road to Jungfrau, Nussegrund

Mallorn the Elf

A pair of horses thundered down a path, next to a smooth road, hooves tearing up the ground as they galloped along. Two horses carried four men, all attired in armor and weapons, and fast on approach to columns of smoke and the sound of distant battle.

His ears twitched and his eyes were fixed ahead. “They’re just a bit beyond- this next hill or the one after!" He called out to the other men riding with him, one in the saddle behind him and two astride the horse on the other side of the road, clods of earth and grass flung into the air behind them as the stallions raced. “I hear them clearly!”

“I could tell that by the smoke already, Elf!” Rayne replied in a stressed, slightly annoyed manner, clinging to the reins of his steed. He then turned his head slightly to complain at the man behind him. “And back up paladin! Your codpiece is digging into my hip!”

“Terribly sorry!” Paladin Orrin apologized, trying to scoot back on the saddle a bit more, his muscle-curiass slightly bouncing with the furious pace of the horses. “There’s not much room on this little stallion of yours, good man!”

“My Ass is plenty big, thank you very much!” Rayne’s voice carried a note of humored, performative anger over an undercurrent of stress. His gaze turned back to the sky ahead of them, and the pillars of ash that were rising through the air. Like the foundational pillars of some colossal castle made of clouds. 

“Be prepared to pull away and back if the situation proves too much, Sir Elf.” Marcus the warmage, clutching onto one of the horned pauldrons he wore and astride upon the stallion behind him, spoke warningly. “Our companions are hours away yet if we need aid!”

The four of them, himself, Rayne, Orrin, and Marcus, had decided to ride ahead of their cart and companions. Henry was left to pull the cart, tireless as he was, with Lir and the woodself ready to defend the womenfolk. It was a compromise between solutions, with how much Mallorn wanted to rush ahead and how cautious the rest were being. 

They weren’t necessarily wrong to be cautious, he forced himself to admit, but it was still irksome.

Last Chance raced up the hill, which overlooked a wide valley region, and finally they could see the source of the smoky pillars. 

A walled city was sat in the center of the immense, mostly flat basin. The walls were in turn surrounded by a mile of ramshackle boards, torn fields, and other ruined structures. The road wound down along the hill and stretched for hundreds of meters before terminating in a closed gate.

Mallorn yanked the reins back on his stallion, provoking a rearing stop and slide as Last Chance pulled himself to a halt. 

“Sun above!” Orrin exclaimed as they saw the sight of the army of dead that surrounded the small city. A teeming mass of corpses of mostly humanoid shape, but interspersed with unusual monsters of constructed bone. “How many thousands!?” The Paladin asked with alarm.

“Worse than any of us feared…” Marcus muttered gravely, clutching onto his banded staff. “We will have to strike down the necromancers themselves- attempting to destroy the army itself would be futile.”

The dead surrounded the walls of the city in a broad circle, leaving a gap of a few hundred meters between themselves and any given point. Slowly, one front pushed forwards in a great wave, but other fronts held back. The front was led by giants of bone wielding fallen trees and great stones, and they lumbered between masses of smaller dead and winged creatures.

They ignored arrows fired upon them from the defenders, and occasional cannon-shot that blew gaps in their lines or felled one or two giants, and when they got close enough the giants began to rear back and hurl their stones or trunks at the walls. The walls held, but they were battered each time a boulder struck their sides, and the stones shook looser and looser.

“Why don’t they all press in?” Rayne asked with suspicion. 

After their weapons had been hurled, the giants began to pick up the smaller dead around them, and toss them forwards towards the walls. Most of the dead smashed against the walls ineffectually, falling apart into gore and bones, but a handful reached the tops of the walls and began to clash with the defenders there.

“There’s no gaps for us to travel through- we can’t reach the walls like this.” Mallorn growled, ears flickering and eyes searching for any break in the lines of dead for them to pass through. Nothing but masses of shambling corpses and black-robed figures astride abominations of bone and sinew. 

“Why the hell would you want to- we’ll be trapped among them!” Rayne scowled, throwing a hand forwards. “What can they do to-”

Rayne was interrupted by the sight of a bright beam of searing white light that exploded from the walls. It streaked through the world in an instant, reaching the lines of giant corpses and setting them alight with white flames. A second, smaller lance of white light followed in its wake, hitting another giant and incinerating it as well as the dead near it. 

At once the dead began to fall back to their previous positions, harassed by white beams of light, great handfuls of corpses turning to ash and crumbling in their retreat. As the front retreated, however, the front on the opposite side of the city began to press forwards, with bone giants carrying new boulders and trunks leading the steady advance.

“Powerful magicians are defending the city- wielding celestial magic.” Marcus observed grimly. “Every time the dead have this magic brought to bear upon them, however, they simply pull back and attack another front.”

“Forcing the magicians to run across the city to the other walls- a miserable tactic!” Orrin growled and shook his fist. “They intend to exhaust the magicians beyond the capacity to defend, throwing their own soldiers away in the process of softening the target.”

“Any normal magician would be thoroughly exhausted already- it takes a smaller sum of one’s own mana to start gathering ambient mana and shaping it into a spell.” Marcus declared with a shake of his head. “Either they have every practitioner of celestial magics here in this city, or the Chosen Heroine and her limitless reserves is here.” 

Mallorn’s fist clenched tightly around the handle of his axe, which warmed around his grip. 

A dreadful screech caught their attention, and his eyes shot up to the soot-choked skies. A great winged thing flew through the air, with broad wings stretched with pale skin and body covered in white plates. Its immense claws clutched handfuls of corpses, and as it flew over the city it released them, letting the dead fall down beyond the walls.

It swooped down and smashed into one of the walls, screeching and clawing, avoiding another bright white beam in its approach and sending rubble and corpses down. Pass made, it screamed and flapped its ghastly wings, ascending once more and flying away again. 

“What damned thing is that!?” Orrin exclaimed.

“A Dragon.” Mallorn declared quietly, eyes intensely focused on the bony, flapping, abomination that dominated the sky. His face twisted into a snarl, and his heart began to throb to the beat of a hateful drum. “We need to reach the walls! Any ideas?!” He commanded with a furious growl, turning back to address his companions.”

“There’s nothing we can do!” Rayne growled back. “Look at the number of them, elf! We simply charge forwards and we’ll be drowned in numbers.”

“I was hoping you’d have more ideas than me here!” Mallorn replied heatedly.

“We might be able to lure them back in small groups and trim down their numbers- Good Marcus- can you erect fortifications for us to use?” Orrin began with a mustache wiggling in thought and brows furrowed as he overlooked the army of shambling corpses. 

Marcus was quiet for a moment then nodded. “I have a better idea- charge straight towards the walls. I will clear our path.”

“Straight to the walls- wait!” Rayne began incredulously, interrupted as Mallorn immediately provoked Last Chance to start a full gallop again. Straight down the hill and towards the besieged city in the distance.

Hearing that the wizard had a plan was good enough for him. Marcus jolted before raising his staff and beginning to boom out a chant that echoed across the slopes. 

“SPIRITS OF THE WORLD, HEED MY INSTRUCTION!”

Rayne and Orrin pulled up behind him, the bastard cursing all the while as the horses charged straight towards the army of bones. The smell began to hit them now that they were descending into the valley, the rich stench of corpses and rot, but not the sweet-rot of corruption. Just a wretched rot of tossed garbage and festering death. 

“STURDY, STUBBORN, STRONG! O’ EARTH, I COMMAND THEE!” 

The corpses began to turn to regard them. Masses of skeletal infantry wearing scraps of cloth rotating dumbly to heed the pair of horses approaching them with reckless abandon. Their rusted blades raised and a few of them began to counter-charge. Mallorn raised his immense axe like a spear and urged his steed to continue their absurd advance. 

Last Chance barreled over one straggler corpse, smashing the bones and rotten flesh apart. Mallorn’s axe punched through another, golden flames alighting and making it crumble apart in an instant. 

“RISE FROM YOUR BED AS MY WORK- MAKE WALL!”

Just as they were about to collide with the bulk of the corpse-soldiers, the ground grumbled and shook, and a broad, flat section began to rise. A pale section of stone pulled itself up from the ground, rising high above the shambling corpses, straggling dead stumbling and falling off the edges as it burst from the surrounding earth.

The hooves of his horse hit the rising wall in a full gallop, ascending the sloped beginning to travel across an elevated highway. The road continued to grow and raise as they moved, forming a pale bridge that parted the dead sea and terminated level with the tops of the walls of the defenders.

“Excellent work, warmage!” Mallorn snarled victoriously, Last Chance’s hooves trampling handfuls of shaken dead who managed to cling to the wall as it rose and sending them tumbling off the sides. 

“Doesn’t this just provide a route to the defenders?!” Orrin called out behind them, clinging to Rayne’s back.

“I’ll destroy it after we reach the walls!” Marcus called back. 

Soon they had passed the flanks of giants of bone, passing just barely beyond their clawing reach, and escaping into the clear section of land immediately outside the walls. The defenders on the wall looked alarm as they rode directly from the risen earth and onto the battlements, raising their crossbows and spears with panic as their horses landed on wood and stone.

Marcus began another chant, sliding down from the saddle to face the road he had summoned, a bright flame growing on the tip of his staff. 

“We’re here to aid you!” Orrin declared bombastically. “I am Paladin Orrin! And these are my companions!”

“A paladin and a warmage!” One of the exhausted looking soldiers declared with relief and excitement, a weariness clinging to his voice. 

“We’re glad to have you, but-” Another soldier began, only to be cut off by a ghastly shriek. The dragon of bones flew over their heads again, a black shadow sweeping over them. 

Mallorn’s ears deafened themselves to anything else. He dismounted from Last Chance, axe in hand, and began to race along the battlements to follow the shadow of the winged beast. The beating of his heart like a wardrum and his ears flushed with the sound of his own rushing blood and breathing.

His axe burned with a golden fire as he dashed, dashing across the crenulations to avoid the soldiers. 

“I think I will join you!” The bombastic voice of Orrin made his ear flicker, but his gaze was locked on the swooping bone-drake. Orrin’s voice rose and fell in volume, punctuated by clatter of metal and booms of boots on stone.

Mallorn leapt, grabbing the edge of a tower that interrupted the walls and pulling himself up along it like a maddened squirrel. Orrin performed a titanic leap, shooting past him as he rose to clutch the side of the tower’s top and hurling himself over the side.

“I need to get to that dragon!” Mallorn snarled as the dragon landed again, clawing and screeching at defenders on the walls. It would be gone again by the time he raced to it at this pace.

He ignored the astonished soldier around them as he flung himself onto the tower’s roof and then began to dash across.

“To the dragon-?! Ah, leave it to Orrin then!” Orrin declared bombastically, reaching forwards and snatching him by the collar of his armor.

Mallorn was pulled short immediately, legs sliding forwards as his momentum was halted by the unnaturally strong grip of the paladin. A briefly startled noise escaped his lips as he was pulled back and spun.

“TALLY-HO!” Orrin roared.

The next moment, he was floating, wind screaming past his ears. The walls and the defenders sped past below him, and his arms flailed to right himself in the air.

It took him a fraction of a moment to understand what had happened. The paladin had thrown him. Panic sprouted briefly, only to be smothered by adrenaline. 

A vicious grin stretched across his face as he soared, judging his angle of flight.

Right towards the screeching dragon of jumbled bones, flapping its wings and about to take flight from the walls once more.

Mallorn angled himself, flipping his axe down and planting a bone-clad boot under its blade. His flight began to lose momentum, and he was beginning to return to the earth, descending rapidly. It would be utterly fatal if he landed on the ground at this height, barring some miracle of probability.

But he wasn’t going to land on the ground, or even close to it.

The dragon of bones and sinew screamed in a hawkish manner, powerful legs kicking off the walls and sending it into the air once more, avoiding lances of light as it ascended and began to turn away.

It completed its initial, clumsy turn just in time to meet him in the middle of the air, the sharp tip of his axe pointed right for the plates of bone that covered some approximation of a heart. 

“DIE!” 

His vision went black and the world went silent, the next few moments after impact being lost to a world of pain and shock. His sight returned gradually and his ears slowly regained function to take stock of his situation.

His gauntleted hands were starting to slip from the handle of his axe, provoking a spike of alarm as he renewed his grip. The wind was rushing past his ears, and he was looking down at something covered in pale, cream colored plates of hardened bone and keratin, the top half of his golden axe firmly planted in the middle of one broad plate.

Golden flames licked across the plates, and screaming convulsions rippled through the armored body.

His mind finally caught up to him, just in time for he and the skeletal dragon-thing to complete their fall from the sky and hit the ground.

His vision went black again. 

He returned to awareness slowly again, forcing his limbs to move without being able to see or hear what he was doing, his mind brushing away the haze of stunned impact as fast as it could.

He snarled, feeling the heat of the axe in his grip, using it as an anchor to pull himself back to awareness. His torso was groaning in hot, heavy pain and his his limbs screamed around the joints-

-But he was alive, and he had a dragon to kill. 

Hate cleared his vision and hearing, and he found himself standing in a crater of mud, looking across to a shamble of bones, sinew, and skin that was alight with golden fire. The bone-drake struggled to pull itself up, wings under limbs and head used as a third limb to get itself oriented once more.

He took a step towards the bone-drake, snarling in fury, cut off and wincing as hot agony coursed through his body. Something was broken beneath his armor, but he wasn’t sure exactly what that was yet, he needed to get hea-

-the bone drake screamed, ripping a wing out from under its foot. Halfway to recovering into a standing position. Once it was there it would be able to simply run, as he was too injured to chase it again.

It would get away.

He needed to murder it.

He roared, ripping his axe out of the ground and charging the struggling amalgamation of bones. A rush of fresh golden flames burst to life around the blade as he pulled it up and back for a massive swing. 

His body screamed in pain.

He swung, a wide circular motion that had the edge of the axe smash into the relatively small jawbone of the beast- assembled seemingly from a broken rhino’s skull, complete with horn. The bone drake gave a horrid wail as the axe toppled it from its uncertain balance and sent it to flail across the ground again.

He staggered from the force of his own swing, the heavy axe dragging him off balance and to the side, injured limbs unable to keep him steady. The axe continued to swing until it landed in the mud and stuck fast, ending his rotation thusly.

A fresh wave of pain filled him, dragging agonized tears to the corner of his eyes. 

The bone-drake shrieked, as if in pain.

It hadn’t suffered enough.

He screamed, voice full of wroth, pushing up with his axe as a crutch and then using the momentum to rip it out of the ground, charging the toppled dragon again.

His roars drowned out its shrieks. 

He swung again, ignoring how the wings buffeted him and cleaving down towards the head once more.

Plates of bone snapped and split as his massive axe cleaved into them. It passed right through, smashing into the mud below while part of a jawbone flew off to land in the ground some feet away. The dragon was engulfed in golden flames, and its struggles weakened with every blow.

It wasn’t enough.

He had to hurt it more.

He ripped the axe out of the ground, numb to his pain, and stepped forwards to cleave again. The beast staggered back with the blow just as before, the momentum of the battle ripped entirely away from it now that it had been grounded.

He swung again, and it staggered again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

His limbs gave out on him suddenly, the axe slipping free from his grasp while embedded in the skull of the bone-drake. His legs surrendered, sending him slumped to the ground, on his hands and knees.

His pain caught up to him again, making his body quake with aftershocks of agony. He restrained a cry of pain, struggling to keep his voice contained, face twisting up beneath his visor.

He forced his gaze up. 

The bone drake was not moving, skull and neck now a ruined jumble of bones, and burning golden axe implanted in its plated brow. 

Mallorn crawled through the mud, dragging himself forwards on screaming limbs and waves of pain. Reaching the skull, he leaned forwards and took hold of the handle of his axe once more.

A furious pride returned to him as he took hold of his weapon, numbing the pain once more and allowing him to slowly rise into a standing position. 

He ripped the axe out of the dragon’s brow, stumbling back once, stabilizing, and then slowly raising it above his head.

Cheers distracted him from his fury. He raised his gaze up, up to the walls of the city, where soldiers and women looked down at him and the fallen bone drake. Orrin was there, waving a fist in the pumped manner of bombastic applause. 

Unfortunately, looking up like that threw off his balance, and he collapsed back into the mud, hand clinging to his axe.

He lost consciousness almost as soon as his back hit the ground.