Book 8: Chapter 2: Restless encounter
The land sloped gently up towards what remained of Archen. Its walls remained, but any buildings above a certain height had been blasted away, and the landscape lay littered with debris, beginning miles away from the city and growing more frequent as they approached. It reminded Martel of the tower he and Eleanor had investigated in Nordmark, where the top had likewise been blown apart and scattered around, simply on a much greater scale.
They reached what had once been the gates; only the gap in the wall indicated its location. Any wooden part of the construction had long since rotted away. In fact, nature had done its part to reclaim Archen. Tall grass sprouted amidst cobblestones, and vines rose up along the ruins. Here and there, a tree had managed to grow. All the same, Martel noticed the silence, which only added to the eerie mood that lay over the city. He released his sense of magic, but no heat returned to him other than that of his companions. No animals made their dwelling within the stone ring that had once been a thriving settlement of many thousands.
Besides informing Martel about the lack of heat, his sense of magic told him of something unpleasant in the air. Like a foul smell that irritated the nose, except when he drew breath, he did not notice anything. The malaise that lingered over the city was magical in nature, but Martel could not determine more than that. Its source, its significance, and how to combat it – he had no idea. He hoped that Atreus would have more answers, including whether they should fear that it could affect them in time, like a magical rot that might set in the longer they stayed in this place.
The place felt like a graveyard, and breaking the silence seemed disrespectful, yet it was necessary. "Where to?" Martel asked, and the sound of his own voice disturbed him.
"I suspect if we simply venture forth, it will become apparent," Atreus replied.
Martel was not sure what to make of this answer, but he would be bringing up the rear regardless, so he allowed himself to fall one step behind. Eleanor took the lead, sword drawn in her hand, and Atreus followed in the middle. The spellbreaker wielded no weapons; he had a knife in his belt, but that was a tool rather than an instrument of war. He did not require any, presumably, given the vast powers at his disposal.
Walking behind, Martel clutched his black staff with one hand while the other slipped under his tunic to feel the enchanted necklace that Atreus had provided him and Eleanor. It was of the same improvised kind that the spellbreaker had given them years ago, in the catacombs underneath Morcaster, before they were to face the maleficar Elena. It protected their minds from magic to dominate or influence their thoughts; Atreus had promised that the enchantment would last at least a fiveday. Martel hoped that if the malevolent magic lingering in the air could somehow be harmful to humans, the enchanted necklace would protect against that as well.
"Wait," Atreus spoke quietly. Both his companions arrested their movements. The spellbreaker closed his eyes. "There's a change. We've caused a disturbance."
"What does that mean?" Eleanor asked in the same tone of voice, raising her sword and shield.
"We should expect company." Martel had experienced many different kinds of undead before. Those of the simplest kind, reanimated without soul or mind left, came in two varieties. Fast and dangerous, like the kind guarding the catacombs of Morcaster, or slow and shuffling, as encountered in the Archean outpost in Nordmark. Archen itself contained the latter.
From all sides, leaving the ruined buildings, the undead appeared. With torpid movement, a host of skeletons converged upon the three travellers. Immediately, Martel summoned his wall of fire in half a circle to protect their backs and narrow the avenues of danger. This accomplished, he began delivering fire bolts from the tip of his staff, striking at every enemy in sight.
Holding the front line, Eleanor stood patiently; every time an enemy came within reach, she swiftly stepped forward and struck with a flaming sword to sever spines, and retreated again.
As for Atreus, he barely seemed to move. He only turned his head, focusing on an approaching enemy. He spoke no words, made no gestures, and no visible spell happened; yet every time, the skeleton that had drawn his ire collapsed into a pile of bones.
Martel did not keep an exact count, but when somewhere between twenty and thirty undead had been returned to the grave, the assault ended. He glanced at Atreus, unable to use his own otherwise trustworthy sense of heat to know if enemies remained; when the spellbreaker gave him a small nod, Martel dismissed his wall of flames and glanced around the street. Only bones lying amidst the debris met his eyes. Any clothing once worn by these unfortunate creatures had long since been consigned to decay. Martel tried for a brief moment to imagine how this place – these people had been before disaster struck. They would have been bakers, weavers, cobblers, or potters; the size of one skeleton struck by Martel's spell suggested it had been a child.
Making himself uncomfortable following this train of thought, Martel shook it from his mind. "How much of this should we expect?" The city would have been populated by tens of thousands in its day; if the magical destruction had turned all of them undead, it would take an age to clear them out. Not to mention, they could handle twenty or thirty enemies, but not twenty or thirty thousand at the same time.
"Certainly more," Atreus replied, "though not the whole city, I imagine," he added as if he had read the battlemage's thoughts. "Magic of an accidental nature as this tends to fade over time."
"We must be careful not to get in over our heads," Eleanor cautioned them. "As simple as this fight was, I suspect we shall run out of spellpower before we run out of enemies, should they all come against us."
Atreus nodded a little. "Of course, though I am not worried about that. These restless dead were not created for any purpose, and they cannot call to one another or do greater harm than what we just experienced. I suspect our presence disturbs them, hence this attack, but we only affect a small area at the time." He looked at the others with his half-smile. "As long as we don't scatter in every direction and do our best to draw attention."
"Got it," Martel mumbled. "No splitting up." He returned Atreus's gaze and repeated his earlier question. "Where to?"
The spellbreaker turned forwards again. "Deeper in."