Book 8: Chapter 74: The rising tide
Given that sunlight weakened those created of magic, the small army of Archen had expected they might be assaulted during the night. Prepared, none panicked upon hearing the alarm, but quickly moved to position. Everyone knew that dawn would bring relief; they simply needed to weather the first assaults and wait out the hours of the night.
The defenders stood across the gap between the rising mountains that barred the way to Archen beyond. In the centre, at the lowest point, Valerius took position with his militia. Veterans of the legions mixed with farmers and craftsmen. They wielded small shields and clubs; rudimentary equipment, but all there had been time to make in sufficient numbers. Lightstones at their feet provided illumination, removing the superiority of sight that the undead had at nighttime.
Their enemy still retained the advantage of morale; already dead, the reanimated horde felt no fear as they rushed forward. Reaching the line of defenders, the attackers had to traverse a deep ditch, hastily made by Henry hours before. The difference in height provided an excellent opportunity for the Archeans to smash their clubs down, breaking skulls, whether bare or still covered in undead skin. Others fell into pits likewise dug by Henry, breaking up their approach and limiting how many could attack at a time.
Upon an order from Valerius, a score of his soldiers in the backrow pulled out a fire pot and hurled it over the heads of their comrades. They landed to cause an explosion of flames, easily visible in the dark, and set the rotting corpses on fire. “Stand fast!” shouted the mageknight, moving up and down the line constantly. “The day will come! Stand fast!”
Up along the northern slope, defending the left flank, the Tyrians had taken position. Maximilian stood among them, the mageknight well-suited for the brash style of fighting they favoured. Rather than presenting wall of shield and spear as Asterians might, the northerners wielded twohanded weapons. Fearsome and fitting for shock troops, though this was not a foe that could be broken. And so each time the Tyrians stepped forward to swing and destroy an enemy, another came immediately after. Few in numbers, they had little in the way of reserve; most stood at the front with less than forty behind, able to take the place of the wounded and weary.
Maximilian required no replacement, his magic preventing both injury and exhaustion; power flowed through each blow he struck, crushing an enemy every time. The same held true for Ketill, the berserker; his axe clove through undead necks so cleanly, each strike caused a decapitation. And behind them, Embla wove a song that raised hearts and strengthened hands while her runes glowed on the ground to aid allies and frustrate foes.
The southern slope and right flank held the fewest defenders, but the strongest. Martel, battlemage and master of fire, along with his protector, Eleanor the mageknight. In addition, Cornelia lent her frost spells. Acting as a shield for the elemental mages, twenty former legionaries in full equipment stood in front. They were once of the fifth and sixth cohort of the Tenth Legion; they had marched into Khiva and out under Martel’s leadership, followed him into mutiny as the first, and they owed their lives to him several times over. With the battlemage at their back, they feared not even the dreadsome evil that ran up the hill to assault them in endless droves.
Martel knew to preserve his power; if they could outlast the night, victory would grow more likely in pace with the sun’s light growing stronger. But that would be hours away. He raised a wall of flames to cover their extreme flank, narrowing the possible approach, which his score of veterans easily covered, especially with Eleanor and her defensive spells acting as an impenetrable shield. Her flaming sword illuminated the night, bringing hope wherever she stood and destroying even the most stubborn of foes.
Cornelia had covered the ground in ice, making the undead slip and stumble against each other, and standing up the hill alongside Martel, she used her vantage point to pummel them with ice bolts. He did the same, except his element was fire, cleansing the undead with fervour; each flash from the fireglass gem on his black staff promised the destruction of another enemy.
The undead seemed endless in number. No matter how many fell, more took their place. To the living, it felt as if trying to hold back an avalanche. In comparison, the ranks of the living stood shallow with few reserves to fill the gaps when wounds required a soldier to step back. And every now and then, the abominations managed to grip skeletal claws or rotting fingers around the arm or leg of a defender, tearing them away and into the awaiting mass of undead, ripping them apart to the sound of gruesome screams. Aided by Karolos’s enchantments, the undead were more dangerous than any others of their kind that Martel had faced. They moved swiftly, attacked with strength, and possessed sufficient cunning to exploit weaknesses. They did not aim their blows directly against shields or armour, but went for exposed limbs.
Martel could tell the presence of those wearing the magical pendants, simply from the foul sensation he felt in their presence. A simple firebolt did not suffice to bring them down, and he spent precious spellpower to unleash a fire ray when needed, focusing the beam of flames until the creature burst apart and bringing relief to the defenders from the momentary loss of will and control in the surrounding undead.
Using his inner sight to look for heat, he saw his own people, still arrayed in lines across the chasm. They shone like torches in the dark to his magical senses. In comparison, he observed nothing when using his ability on the black where the unliving horde marched ever forward; only by looking with his regular sight could he see the countless flickering blue spots that served as eyes for the undead, each noting another reanimated abomination.
Worse than that, Martel knew they could not possibly be facing the full strength of their enemy. Dawn remained hours away, and as he released another firebolt to destroy the next undead, a dreadful question resounded through his mind; where was the lich, and what did he plan?
All around Martel, from one slope to the other across the gap, the living continued to give battle, fighting the rising tide that threatened to swallow them all.