Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbing July 3)

As the beastfolk and the humans clashed, Baldwin stood almost in the thick of the fighting, positioned so that he could get a good view of all that was happening.

That came with its fair share of dangers.

He sidestepped an axe swing aimed at his head, and quicker than his opponent could pull back his weapon, the revenant lunged in with his spear and planted it deep into the other man’s chest.

This is great! he thought.

He heard yelling from down the narrow street. Some member of the town’s leadership was speaking - their captain of the guard, perhaps? - but he ignored it. Whoever it was, they must have been trying to rally their troops. That wasn’t happening if Baldwin had anything to say about it.

He picked up the axe the dead man had dropped and caressed the haft.

Now this is a weapon.

The double-headed battle axe had been lovingly crafted by some blacksmith somewhere, and Baldwin blinked as the thought occurred to him: This is too good for some random town watchman.

An arrow flew his way - one of the few archers left alive taking a shot at him - and the revenant spun and batted it away with the flat of the axe, sending it harmlessly skittering into the ground.

For a moment following that, no one seemed to be trying to kill him, so the revenant took in his surroundings. Just ahead of him, men were fighting, wrestling and stabbing and slicing at each other for every inch of ground.

Tybalt’s side was decently equipped, but were this town’s watchmen better equipped? That seemed strange. The beastfolk and undead had taken their current gear by plundering the towns they captured. Why were this town’s watchmen holding better weapons?

The town’s male civilians also fought in the street, distinct from the watchmen by being less well equipped, carrying kitchen knives or makeshift weapons and wearing normal clothing.

The voice of that leader from the other side carried through the air again, and this time, Baldwin listened.

“Advance, men! Courage! Get to the leader, and these beastfolk will break!”

Shit.

Baldwin looked back, and he saw Andric making himself obvious as the leader. Shouting orders, making big gestures. And not far from the front, despite the fact that he was in charge.

The revenant faced forward again, and around twenty-five or so feet back, he saw the speaker from a few seconds ago: a man in scale armor who stood taller than those around him, pushing his way forward through the packed central street.

He was clearly someone important on the town’s side, and he acted like he was the only important person. He shoved his own watchmen off to the sides as he advanced, knocking them into walls with the same unrestrained strength he used to bash in the heads of beastfolk.

He carried a mace that dripped blood, and as Baldwin watched, he swiped it at two beastfolk and splattered their skulls. The arc of the weapon barely slowed down, as if the man was spreading butter rather than brains. After a moment, the only sign those two beastmen had stood opposed to him was bits of scalp sticking to their killer’s weapon. The man stepped over their corpses, a bloodthirsty smile on his lips, eyes scanning for the next target.

Behind him stepped two personal guards, both armored similarly to the mace wielder in scale armor and metal helms, though they held swords instead of maces.

Things finally clicked into place for the revenant.

That young guy with the mace is the Mayor. He has a class, probably a close quarters combat class, and these other two are his bodyguards. He’s someone important back in the Kingdom, or his father is, and that’s why the watchmen for his town are better equipped than standard for this region.

At the same moment, Baldwin felt it as Tybalt’s presence inhabited his body. The necromancer was watching what happened here through his eyes.

Did he want more of a play by play? Baldwin wondered.

The revenant saw as the Mayor’s eyes locked onto something behind Baldwin’s position. He didn’t need to turn around to know what the bloodthirsty warrior was looking at. Or rather, who.

Baldwin tilted his head back - keeping one eye on the Mayor - and shouted, “The leader over there is splattering skulls, and I think he’s coming for you, Andric! Should we call Tybalt?”

“No!” Andric shouted back immediately, though his tone was obviously nervous. “We can do this on our own! We need to. The men need to know they can do this, that we’re not only here to back up the necromancer!”

You are only here for that, though…

“Well, you heard the man,” he told Tybalt through their bond.

“Indeed,” the necromancer replied dryly. “But he’s still letting you hang around. So help. Make sure you do some damage to the enemy. Remind Andric that even if the beastfolk are becoming more competent fighters, they need us to achieve victory on a larger scale than this town.”

“Yes, master,” Baldwin sent. “I will absolutely help you win the dick measuring contest.”

The revenant hefted his new axe and went to work, stepping up into the ranks of the beastfolk fighting closest to the front. As he chopped into the shoulder of one of the town’s watchmen, Andric moved into the space next to him and wordlessly joined the fight, wielding a dagger that danced and weaved across the watchmen’s fronts, drawing blood like he was a painter wielding a brush.

Andric is genuinely a good fighter, Baldwin thought appreciatively as he jerked his axe out of a man’s stomach. The blade moves almost like it has a mind of its own.

But even as they both did damage, the town’s Mayor and the two men - bodyguards - bludgeoned and hacked and shoved their way closer to the place where Andric, the revenant, and the handful of other fighters close around him were.

More beastfolk managed to press forward as the town watchmen increasingly dropped around them. The only organizing principle to the bloody melee was that the beastfolk’s numbers were gradually proving decisive - but slowly, far too slowly, with the narrow streets making it more difficult to bring their strength to bear.

In an environment like this, a hundred could hold off a thousand for days. It’s lucky for us the town watch didn’t have a hundred men when this started.

As he thought that, an arrow punched a hole through one shoulder. Baldwin rolled his eyes and ignored it. He already had a couple other arrow holes and a stab wound in his belly. Being undead, it wasn’t very harmful. In fact, he could feel the energy inside him from the damage building up.

Soon he would be able to use his skill on someone to devastating effect.

“Die!”

The Mayor smashed the head of one of the front line troops fighting alongside Baldwin and Andric, and suddenly, the town’s leader and his guards were face to face with the leader of this beastfolk horde.

“Son of a bitch,” growled Andric.

His dagger flashed through the air, aiming for the gap in the scale armor near the Mayor’s throat. The young ruler stepped back, a smile gleaming on his lips as the dagger missed by inches.

“Your little army dies with you, scum!” the Mayor hissed. Then he swung down with his mace.

Andric darted to the side, knocking into Baldwin at the same moment that one of the Mayor’s bodyguards took a swing at the revenant with his sword. The blow that the revenant was about to sidestep instead planted itself successfully in his shoulder, the sword’s edge biting deep.

If I still had to worry about my heart, Andric…

One of the beastfolk to Baldwin’s right took the opportunity to thrust a spear into the bodyguard’s face, and the man staggered backward, bleeding from one eye.

Baldwin lifted his axe with his remaining functional arm - the left one could still open and shut its hand, but he couldn’t raise it with any strength - and he slammed the edge into the bodyguard’s arm, just below where the shoulder armor stopped.

The human let out a strangled cry as his lower arm smacked wetly down onto the ground, the stump gushing red.

Baldwin turned his head to get a better look at what was happening to his left, and he saw that Andric and the Mayor were engaged in a rapid-fire duel. There were beastfolk and the dwindling number of humans fighting all around, but the others deliberately gave those two a wide berth. Andric’s dagger moved too quickly and fluidly for the eye to easily track, while the Mayor was a bit slower but swung his mace with such sheer force that anyone trying to get near from either side would stumble away with broken bones if they were lucky.

As the revenant observed, Andric darted in and sliced a thin line along one of the Mayor’s arms in the wake of one of those haymaker mace swings. The mace swept back up, and Andric barely managed to slip out of its path, the head of the weapon grazing his nose.

The Mayor was bleeding from a few such shallow cuts, Baldwin saw, while Andric had no visible injuries except what looked like a skinned nose.

But it would only take one hit to remove him from the fight, and this death-by-a-thousand-cuts business that the foxman was trying to inflict on the Mayor with the dagger was a long shot to succeed.

The Mayor’s other bodyguard was locked in combat with three beastfolk at once, holding his own despite the numerical disparity.

Baldwin saw where he could make the most difference.

As the Mayor swung his mace sideways at Andric’s stomach, the revenant lunged forward, axe held low in his still functional right arm, the energy that had accumulated from all his injuries swirling around the weapon’s head.

Payback!

The human’s mace finally struck home, and Baldwin heard the sick crunch of snapping ribs as Andric was flung to the side. But in the opening that the foxman had created, Baldwin’s blow landed a moment after the Mayor’s. It hit the young noble’s armor in the chest, high on the left side, and the scale tore like it wasn’t metal but parchment.

An impossibly big gash appeared, large enough for Baldwin to stick his arm through, and the revenant knew in an instant that he had destroyed the heart.

The Mayor’s lips parted, and a silent look of intense pain overtook his face.

Then he collapsed.

As the big man fell, the remaining watchmen lost what heart they had left and began to turn and flee. The beastfolk cut them down as they tried to run, and then they flowed into the town like water from a burst dam. Unstoppable. And something more.

They’re pissed.

The few townsfolk who stuck their heads out of doors or windows on the street were being killed on sight as the beastfolk rampaged through the streets.

The revenant turned his head and saw Andric looked to be unconscious. There was a visible dent in his side from where the mace had struck him, but he wasn’t dead, at least.

The two bodyguards lay on the ground dying from dozens of cuts all over their bodies. The Mayor was unmoving.

Alerts started to fill Baldwin’s vision.

He shook his head and quickly sent a message to Tybalt.

“We won!”

“I can see that,” the necromancer said.

The revenant turned and saw the necromancer standing behind him, his catgirl bodyguard trailing behind him like a shadow as usual.

“When did you get here, master?” the revenant asked aloud.

“I could tell the fighting was almost over, and I thought some people might need my help,” Tybalt replied. He tilted his head at Andric’s body, slumped against the town wall. “Kistana, please check on Andric.”

“Yes, my lord,” she replied.

As the catgirl stepped away, the necromancer frowned at the town. The sound of screaming was beginning to rise from within the town proper, not just the areas closest to the gate where the fighting had taken place.

It seemed the beastfolk had reached the civilian population.