12-87. A Matter of Time
The undead abomination rammed the wall, sending rippling shockwaves of ethera arcing up and down its length. Defenders aimed a barrage of ranged attacks – both physical and spellwrought – at the hulking creature, but its thick, blubbery flesh protected it like a suit of macabre armor. Every movement sent undulations through the sewn-together fat, eliciting a wave of nausea in anyone who looked its way.
And then there was the smell.
From experience, Carmen knew just how horrible the thing’s odor would be. She’d slain two of them herself, and in one instance, she had been bathed in noxious goo that took nearly an entire day to remove from her armor. Even now, she could smell it clinging to everything like the smell of dead fish mixed with formaldehyde.
“Will it hold?” she asked without looking away from the scene. Each attack carved a divot in the monster’s blubbery body, but due to the sheer size of the thing, it would take hundreds such attacks before it even faltered. Maybe thousands before it fell.
It was not alone, either.
All around the enormous creature, which measured at least thirty feet tall and weighed as much as a pair of African elephants, surged thousands of undead. Some still wore the armor of the Iron Legion, though its enchantments were inactive. It had not been built for dead men and women, after all.
But the fact that the attackers had taken Ironshore’s fallen to fuel their own attempt at conquest left everyone in the city with a prevailing sense uneasy dread. On occasion, people would simply disappear – proof that the enemy was within as well as without the city. There couldn’t be many inside, but some of the enemy’s scouts could clearly come and go as they pleased.
Just a week before, Ramik had led a group of Legionnaires to round up and imprison a group of dissenters who had been aiding the enemy. From what Carmen knew, that faction had been started by friends and family of the people Elijah had killed in the wake of the pirate attack on his island. Since then, they’d been waiting in the wings, meeting in secret, and hoping for an opportunity to dislodge the administration that had allowed a man to execute three people without a hint of opposition or an insistence upon due process.
Those people were gone now, but Ironshore was big enough that it assuredly played host to other would-be rebels. It was only a matter of time before someone else betrayed them.
“No,” said Anupriya, her hand brushing against Carmen’s.
It was only a light touch, but in that gesture was a world of meaning. The moment they’d met, sparks flew. What followed was both a romantic and professional relationship that neither wanted to end.
It would, though.
Anupriya’s class was tied to her citadel. Meanwhile, Carmen’s was inextricably linked to the Forge of Creation. The two were on different sides of the world, which meant that their relationship was destined to come to an end.
And that wasn’t even considering the undead horde currently trying to tear down the city. The abomination rammed the wall again, reminding her of the reality of their situation.
“How long?” she asked, finally turning away so she could get a good look at Anupriya. Her arrival had come at the perfect time, both from a personal and professional perspective. Still reeling from her experiences in the Chimeric Forge and the Red Marsh, Carmen hadn’t even realized just how much she needed companionship. Anupriya had provided that, and somehow, it had turned from a simple tryst into something far more meaningful.
Carmen didn’t want to think about it because it was just a reminder of what else she had to lose.
In addition, Anupriya had come with vast insights into Carmen’s work in redesigning the Forge of Creation. Those had sent her back to the drawing board so she could adjust her plans.
Anupriya had been very complimentary of the Builders who’d helped in the complex’s initial construction. From a visual perspective, not much would change. Just a few alterations in the interest of ethereal flow. However, the underlying matrices that governed that flow would be entirely new.
The entire job was incredibly complicated, and to put the new plans into motion would require years of constant work. More than once, she’d considered simply tearing it down and starting anew. But Anupriya convinced her not to, telling her that buildings had memories – which was a roundabout way of saying that, like people, they benefited from Legacies.
Even the few short years since the Forge of Creation had been in use had imparted upon it a degree of power it would take decades to replicate. Part of that was due to it being one of the first true wonders of the new world, which carried with it a cache with the system that would be almost impossible to rival.
“Days at most,” Anupriya answered, finally taking hold of Carmen’s hand. “Hours, perhaps.”
“I thought the walls would last longer.”
“No fortification can endure constant abuse,” Anupriya stated. “Perhaps if this was my citadel…”
The subtle implication was there. Anupriya had already asked her to relocate. The other woman would’ve already been gone if it weren’t for her relationship with Carmen. But she refused to leave so long as Carmen remained within the city.
And Carmen would not abandon Ironshore.
Even if she could somehow convince Miguel to leave, Ironshore had become something more than just a place to live. It was more than just the location of the Forge of Creation. It was her home. Her friends were there. Family, too. Elijah’s grove as well.
No – if Ironshore fell, then she would fall right alongside it.
In the distance, three more abominations – cobbled together from countless corpses – waddled out of the tree line. The things were mobile siege weapons, and they were surrounded by an endless horde of reusable attackers.
Ironshore was doomed.
And they all knew it.
She stood on the wall, clutching Anupriya’s hand as she watched the battle unfold. More than anything, Carmen wished she could leap down and wade into that sea of undeath. The zombies weren’t particularly powerful, and she’d already proven that she could slay them with ease.
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But they were never meant to win battles.
Rather, they were fodder whose singular purpose was to drain Ironshore’s resources. With every passing day, the crystals powering the city’s shields weakened under the constant onslaught. At times, they’d broken, and the defenders were forced to fight hand-to-hand. Those instances hadn’t claimed many lives, but the attrition still took its toll.
On top of that, the surreality of the experience left everyone horrified and exhausted. The Legionnaires who’d been in the Red Marsh were the quickest to adapt, but even they had limits. The Primal Realm had taught them that much.
With food running low, the shields steadily marching toward deactivation, and the walls becoming less and less of an obstacle each day, the city’s fate was already sealed.
“Do you think we can defeat them?” asked Anupriya.
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“You should leave. Take shelter in the wilderness until they move on, then take the Spires back to Kalki. You don’t need to die here.”
“I will not do that,” Anupriya stated, and it was a sentiment Carmen could understand. The Citadel Sage was one of the most powerful people in the world, and no one reached that point by giving up at the first sign of distress. Or the hundredth. She would keep fighting until she was dead or her enemy had fallen. Things might have been different had Carmen agreed to leave, but that argument was a non-starter.
Carmen would not flee.
Good or bad, most of Ironshore’s people felt the same.
Despite the desire to see Anupriya to safety, Carmen didn’t argue with her. Instead, she simply watched, ready to leap into battle the moment the abominations broke through. The shields wavered, and the walls shook with every ramming attack, but they still managed to hold.
For a few more hours, at least.
With a sound like a bug zapper, the shields fizzled out. Carmen knew that, down below, the crystals that functioned as batteries for the ethereal barriers shattered. The men and women tasked with keeping them powered had long since collapsed from exhaustion.
More importantly, the next time one of the abominations hit the wall, it created a spiderweb of cracks that raced across the surface. Mages who specialized in earth magic raced to patch the rifts, but the next abomination came too soon. Then, the next after that. Three more rams, and the wall finally collapsed inward.
Zombies flooded through the gap, climbing over one another in a grotesque tidal wave of rotting flesh. They were met by a line of Legionnaires, their shields glistening with ethera as they embraced their collective shield to plug the hole. Behind them, another squad of Legionnaires leveled their spears at the oncoming horde and loosed a barrage composed of dozens of beams of pure, radiant light.
It cut them down like a scythe through wheat, filling the air with the sickly smell of charred and rotting meat.
But there were more to come.
Always more.
The next wave of zombies hit the shield, where they clawed ineffectually at the ethereal barrier. Men and women stabbed out. The undead couldn’t be killed through simple means. Only decapitation or complete dismemberment would do the trick. That made spears an unfortunately unsuitable weapon.
Still, the sheer volume of attacks meant that the zombies ended up being chewed to bits.
Then, the abominations waddled through rubble, their heavy footsteps rattling the loose gravel. They took a run-up and hit the collective shield hard enough to send the wielders staggering backward into their fellows. They skidded to a stop, hunching their shoulders to halt their momentum.
That was when Carmen joined the battle.
She leaped down from the wall, already sprinting toward the gap. Anupriya stayed behind, already casting spells meant to mend the wall. Meanwhile, Carmen rammed the abomination, sending ripples across the monster’s blubbery flesh.
More importantly, the sudden and unexpected force came from the side. The abominations were immensely strong and extremely difficult to bring down, but like most undead, they were also incredibly uncoordinated. So, the thing was incapable of enduring Carmen’s attack and remain on its feet.
It wobbled for a second, then toppled over, crushing a dozen mundane zombies in the process. The Legionnaires recovered their poise and peppered the fallen monster with dozens of attacks with every passing second. Light beams burned through its rotting flesh, and the fat beneath the skin began to boil. Gases expanded until the creature could no longer contain it.
It exploded.
Carmen flew backward, crushing a few zombies in the process. Somehow, she managed to maintain her stance, though. It was a good thing, too, because when the rain of undead flesh ceased, another five abominations were climbing through the rubble that had once been the wall.
More importantly, the zombies had managed to flow around the stunned Legionnaires and into the city. Already, they were prowling the streets and looking for civilians.
Just then, Carmen heard a bark.
Then another.
And another after that. A crow sounded, and a tiny figure appeared just above the gap in the wall.
Escobar looked down on the creatures with the kind of haughtiness that only a chihuahua could manage. Then, ethera gathered all around him. Carmen backed away, ducking behind a particularly large mound of rubble just as the dog released his spell.
A rain of fire, dense and hot, fell upon the abominations. It seared through them like a meteor storm, sending them teetering backwards. At the same time, the rest of Oscar’s pack arrived. The two tank-dogs rammed the monsters, throwing them further off-balance before the others hit them with their various abilities.
One simply appeared out of nowhere to launch himself at an abomination’s back. He went straight through, bursting from the monster’s chest in a shower of rancid gore.
Through it all, the red-coated dog – Freddie, if Carmen remembered right – darted among them, severing abomination tendons and destroying zombie heads.
Then, Oscar himself arrived, a crow gliding above his shoulder as he slashed in, his tomahawks blazing with power. He carved through a dozen zombies in the space of a few seconds before leaping onto one of the unscathed abominations. He fought like a berserker – or a wild animal who’d somehow managed to learn how to use weapons, carving through the abomination with ruthless savagery.
Finally, Anupriya’s spells began to take effect. The rubble moved of its own accord, gathering together into a patch that quickly settled into place. It stranded the zombies and lone abomination inside the wall, cutting them off from reinforcements. Together, Oscar, his pack, and the Legionnaires destroyed them.
Carmen helped as well, though without flashy abilities, she could only swing her hammer. Still, she did her part, and eventually, the area went silent.
She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it when she smelled the inevitable odors associated with fighting a horde of undead. Rot, mostly. The chemical smell of whatever alchemical concoction the necromancers had used to preserve their flesh. Feces and blood from the men and women who’d died defending Ironshore.
There weren’t a lot of casualities, but even one was too many.
Oscar, once again wearing the calm expression he adopted when he wasn’t fighting, approached.
“There were two more breaches,” he said. “I came as quickly as possible.”
“Miguel?”
“Fighting at the north gate.”
Carmen shook her head. It hadn’t been that long since he’d recovered from the attack on the grove. It had been Oscar who’d found him, and he’d probably saved her son’s life by immediately bringing him to Ron’s clinic. Otherwise, he would have died – even with Biggle’s potion and his outsized attributes working against whatever had been done to him.
The only solace was that Oscar had already returned to the grove and taken vengeance against the idiots who’d attacked it. Escobar had apparently taken great pleasure turning their leader into a pile of foul-smelling ashes.
“The patch will not hold for long,” came Anupriya’s voice. She’d finally descended from atop the wall to inspect her work. “They will attack here again.”
“I know,” Carmen said. “We’ll just have to be ready when they do.”
Just then, the sound of another abomination ramming the wall echoed through the courtyard. The patched wall, which was little more than a collection of rubble held together by the Citadel Sage’s magic, shook. Gravel cascaded down its length, but it did not fall.
Yet.
But it was only a matter of time. Carmen knew that it would soon come the time when they would need to do something drastic. She just hoped that when that time came, it wouldn’t be too late.