The Goblin Wars Part One Page 21

  “It’s like…” Herod pondered, “shuffling feet? Thousands of shuffling feet…” He knew that if goblins were about to pour forth from the holes their charge would be accented by a host of battle cries. “Everyone at the ready!” he shouted and soldiers throughout the city unsheathed their weapons. A chorus of unhallowed screams rose up from the streets as the entire population of Reikall shambled up from the caves on dead legs.

  “I WILL SEND you back to hell where you came from!” the giant’s voice washed over the battlefield. It was late into the night and Gideon stood just a few feet taller than Terror’s Lament. The small metal lantern roped around his neck was lost in the thick tangle of his braided beard. One monstrous arm pumped furiously through the horde of goblins, smashing them to pulp by the dozen. The paladin had fallen within himself to the tune of his song and the swing of his sword. Nevidal burned with a furious light, blinding all those it cut down in a plume of ragged smoke.

  With two surreal leaps, Gideon cleared the distance from the rear of the goblin army to the ruined farmhouse where Taurnil stood cackling like a fiend. Using his powerful wings, Taurnil took off into the air and narrowly avoided being stomped to powder. Gideon smiled as he sang out to his god and the demon trembled. Everything trembled.

  Taurnil knew that he could not stand against such a towering foe. Nevidal swept through the air like a guard tower being thrown by Vrysinoch himself. The sword, sixty feet of enchanted steel, whirled back and forth in front of the paladin, taunting Taurnil to advance.

  At the command of Yael, the goblin drones stopped trying to bring down the raging behemoth and simply fled from his devastating footfalls. Tens of thousands of goblin soldiers were scattered in pieces across the battlefield for their efforts trying to stop him. For as many as he left dead in his wake, Gideon could not discern where the sea of pale faced creatures ended. Yael continued to order the retreat and save as many goblin lives as he could.

  Lady Scrapple’s consciousness fought to turn her siege weapons upon the giant as quickly as she could. The catapults and trebuchets loaded the largest boulders they had and fired upon Gideon. The paladin’s exposed skin took hit after hit from the boulders, forcing him to block the shots with Nevidal.

  Using the boulders for a distraction, Taurnil heaved glob after sticky glob of acid at the giant, but it only sizzled and evaporated from the heat of Nevidal’s holy fire.

  DEEP IN THE catacombs under the Artificer’s Guild, Jan peered into an enchanted crystal ball. The battle was going perfectly. A smile creased the man’s face as he watched his undead army destroying Talonrend from the inside. Soldiers ran through the streets in total chaos as the shambling zombies clawed at them and pulled them to the ground with overwhelming numbers. Only two sections of the battle were not going as planned.

  Jan rotated the crystal scrying device and spoke a short incantation. The magical fluid locked inside the clear ball swirled and reacted, taking Jan through the battlefield and outside the massive stone walls. He looked on through the mists as Gideon, missing an arm, deflected boulders with his sword. Taurnil darted around the paladin’s head and spat caustic acid everywhere he could.

  “Damned demon doesn’t stand a chance,” Jan muttered. He didn’t care about Taurnil. The abyssal monster was his sister’s pet, not his. Jan swiveled the crystal ball again to get a better view of the surrounding goblins. He could see Gravlox and Vorst scampering off behind the farmhouse ruins but did not recognize them. The goblin commander was coordinating a partial retreat, moving the drone soldiers out of Nevidal’s fiery reach.

  Taurnil stretched his claws out wide and timed a diving strike with a shower of boulders from a goblin trebuchet stationed along the western bank of the Clawflow. The winged demon collided with the paladin seconds after spinning chunks of stone struck the man squarely in the back. Razor-sharp claws tore into the vulnerable flesh surrounding Gideon’s charred stump where his left arm used to be. The demon planted his hooked talons firmly in the giant’s side and scythed back and forth as quickly as he could.

  Jan watched the scene with growing excitement, eager to see the holy warrior fall. With a whispered arcane phrase, he opened a tiny sliver in the night sky several yards from the giant and let a controlled portion of his magic flow through the gateway. Taurnil’s lean frame bulged from the surge of potent energy and the demon’s strikes became faster by the second.

  With a howl of pain and anger, Nevidal came rushing in for Taurnil’s body, but a well-aimed catapult shot sent a spray of sharp debris into Gideon’s eyes. With only one arm, the paladin was defenseless against the stinging rocks. Another large chunk exploded against the hilt of the sword and the man stumbled. Blood flowed freely from the ragged cuts on his shoulder and side.

  Jan laughed as he watched the paladin start to fall. Gideon’s knees hit the ground with the force of thunder and another boulder sailed just inches above his head. Taurnil’s virulent tongues twisted their way from the demon’s maw and latched into the paladin’s skin just below his burnt stump. Deadly poison pumped into the holy warrior and a flying stone the size of a horse crashed into his legs, nearly throwing Taurnil to the ground. The missile broke apart upon impact and spinning chunks of shattered rock tore through the unfortunate goblins nearby.

  “Just kill him, finally,” Jan said through a sinister grin. “I want to see him suffer and die.” Jan’s darkly colored robes shimmered with the sound of his voice and the necromantic runes attached to the cloth pulsed with power.

  Gideon was determined not to let the evil demon have his victory. Ignoring the pain in his entire body and the deadly missiles flying through the air, Gideon slammed the heavy, flaming edge of his sword through his own side. The blade didn’t cut deeply but cleaved away enough of his skin to dislodge Taurnil and send the monster haphazardly careening through the air.

  “No,” Jan shook his head in disbelief. “He cannot prevail!” the man shouted into his crystal ball. He pumped more of his magical energy into the winged demon and willed it to recover. Disoriented from the blow, Taurnil flapped his wings and beat the air furiously. For all of his effort and the magical augmentation from Jan, Taurnil could not right himself enough to fly.

  Gideon grunted and hefted Nevidal high over his head. Jan gasped in the darkness of the catacombs under the Artificer’s Guild. Yael looked on with horror as the demon was torn asunder in mid air.

  An explosion of blood and necrotic magic leapt from Taurnil’s smoldering corpse. Jan reached with his soul through the crystal ball. His magical essence screamed through the ethereal corridors of space and ripped open the seam Jan had created. The shimmering robes of darkness he wore pulsed with malevolence to herald the arrival of the powerful necromancer on the field of combat.

  With his shining black boots pointed toward the ground, Jan descended slowly through the air, laughing all the while.

  A bolt of purple magic arced from his fingertips. The magical projectile sped toward Yael and mingled with the goblin commander’s being. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the magical bolt shot through the stupefied creature’s mouth and into his consciousness.

  The entire battlefield calmed. The drone soldiers stopped moving. They continued to breathe, but their lungs were filled by shallow, raspy breaths. Yael was alive and relatively unharmed, but his capacity to think and make decisions was rendered useless. The necromancer cackled as he felt the telepathic connections between the thousands of drones and their hive mind. The battlefield was vibrantly alive; he could practically taste the life around him. Life sickened Jan.

  Gideon’s huge arm flexed. He was kneeling, which placed his head somewhere around thirty feet above the ground. The two goblin rogues cowered behind a piece of fallen roof that smoldered with a remnant of Nevidal’s holy energy.

  Everything was eerily quiet. Nothing remained of Taurnil. After his body was rent, it disintegrated as if he had never existed at all.

  The paladin’s masterful sword glowed in his hand; it was hungr
y for the blood of evil. Jan lifted a hand casually into the air and spoke the words to an ancient incantation of beckoning. The slightest trace of dismay crossed Jan’s face but he immediately suppressed the emotion. Gideon remained calm, staring into the eyes of darkness.

  “I will have your soul, holy warrior,” Jan spoke in an even tone. His eyes were statuesque, pitiless orbs of contempt. He repeated the words of the spell, a powerful utterance that was supposed to rip the soul from his target.

  The paladin remained motionless. Gideon gazed into Jan’s wicked eyes and saw no mercy there, no humanity. Jan had given himself fully to the dark magic of necromancy; the undead spells had consumed him.

  Gravlox held Vorst’s hand tightly as he watched the scene unfold. “I can feel his power,” the shaman spoke in a hushed tone. “He is death.”

  “Your soul, paladin,” Jan shouted with a voice of command that brought fear to everyone in earshot. “Surrender your soul!”

  The small metal lantern resting underneath Gideon’s immense beard slowly creaked open. Small wisps of white smoke escaped from the lantern. The ghostly flower trapped within the magical device curled through the air in front of Gideon and slowly drifted toward Jan’s outstretched hand. The paladin, somewhat familiar with such powerful spells, recognized a moment of opportunity.

  Gideon collapsed to his side, feigning instant death, and willed his sword to extinguish itself. The night sky swallowed the battlefield without Nevidal’s flames holding the darkness at bay. Gideon landed on his left side, keeping his wide open eyes locked on the necromancer. Jan pulled the soul in with bolts of lightning and blighted pulses of energy.

  The captive soul within reach, Jan closed his eyes and let out a howl of glee. Gideon didn’t waste the opportunity. He lashed out with speed unexpected for his gigantic size. Nevidal cut through the air and sliced the floating soul in half. The sword drank the air and pulled the shattered soul into its steel. In an instant, Gideon returned to his normal height and build.

  The transformation happened so quickly that Jan assumed the man had teleported. Outraged, Jan struck the ground with his fist and released a wave of death upon everything around him. A wall of black ash emanated from the epicenter, immersing everything in sorrow and decay.

  “Hold on,” Gravlox shouted, grabbing Vorst by the arm. He didn’t have time to think or even breathe. The shaman reached into the realms of magic and summoned a countering wave of healing. Thick green roots erupted from the broken ground and formed a cocoon surrounding Gravlox and Vorst that protected them from Jan’s torrent of death. A similar case of roots rose up to protect and heal Gideon. Seconds later, when the roots receded back into the ground, Gideon flexed his powerful left arm. Taurnil’s poison had left his regenerated body. Gravlox collapsed to the ground exhausted. The shaman’s vision blurred and he struggled to regain his breath. The magical effort was more taxing than anything he had ever done before.

  It was Gideon’s turn to laugh. Jan’s wave of necrotic death slaughtered thousands of unprotected goblins for nearly a mile in every direction. The magic turned their pale skin to blackened husks, as though the goblin corpses had been rotting in the fields for weeks. Yael’s decomposing skeleton stood with his rusting sword tip buried in the ground. The goblin army was broken.

  ***

  MAELSTROM WOVE A beautiful song of destruction through the clawing ranks of undead.

  Talonrend was in disarray, with soldiers and citizens alike dying in every street. The zombies were entirely unarmed but they felt no pain and wanted only to taste warm flesh. Families barred their doors and nailed boards over their windows, but still the horde was able to kill thousands. The sheer number of animated corpses was able to collapse whole walls and tear families apart with their disease-ridden hands.

  Sweat dripped from Herod’s head to mingle with the blood and flesh staining his regal armor. Soldiers had leapt to the defense of the prince as soon as the undead had appeared but it took them only moments to realize that Herod was far beyond their abilities. The shambling monsters fell to pieces as the dark tendrils of Maelstrom cut them down. Brenning’s masterwork creation whistled through the air with every swipe.

  “My prince!” a sentry called to Herod from across a street. The templar was wearing a set of heavy mail that showed dozens of holes and bloodstains. He clutched a battered crossbow to his chest and his eyes darted around the city as he spoke. “Men on the wall report that the zombies are being contained, but there have been heavy losses!” the man yelled. A wall next to the man began to crumble into the street. Bricks and mortar fell onto the cobblestones and three undead rushed the templar. The man lifted his broken crossbow high above his head and smashed it down on the nearest zombie’s rotting skull. Decrepit bones and fetid skin flew all over the man’s armor. The second zombie raked its gnarled fist against the soldier’s helmet and lunged in with its remaining teeth barred.

  Herod jerked his sword up and shot two thick tendrils of magic from Maelstrom’s blade that ripped through the zombies and cut them to ribbons. The soldier’s expression as his undead assailants broke apart was enough to make the prince laugh aloud.

  “Thank you…” the startled man stuttered. “Thank you, my liege.”

  “Have you heard any news from the gatehouse? What of Master Brenning?” Herod sprinted across the broken street to meet the soldier. “What news of the goblins?” he shouted into the man’s face.

  The soldier straightened and dropped his crossbow down by his side. “The goblins have pulled back. The market sector is ruined, they overran it, sir.”

  “I know, son, I know.” Herod patted a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “I was in the market when it happened. Has there been any news of Master Brenning?” he asked again.

  The soldier hesitated, giving Herod all the answer he needed. “We haven’t heard anything yet, sir.” Both of their heads hung low.

  “You’ve done well,” the prince said, trying to repair the man’s confidence. “There must be another attack coming. Spread the word to regroup at the gatehouse, inside the walls.”

  “Yes sir,” the soldier replied.

  “For Talonrend!” Herod shouted as he took off down the street.

  The area around the gate was consumed by chaos. Fires still smoldered everywhere the prince looked. Bloody parts of men and zombies alike were scattered all over the cobblestone and one particularly garish bloodstain on the stone wall made the man shudder. A hole the size of a small house had opened up almost directly in front of the gatehouse. Few soldiers remained near the site and they were all leaning against the walls clutching at various wounds. Three men in fine armor lay dead, riddled with infected cuts and bite marks.

  Herod could see a face peering over the top of the wall in his direction. “What of the goblins?” the prince shouted up to him.

  “It seems that we have won the night, sir,” the man called back in a hoarse voice. He had been shouting commands and relaying information all night.

  “I need to see it,” the prince said. He made his way past the line of wounded soldiers to the nearest door that would take him inside Terror’s Lament. After the long trek up the spiral staircase to the top, the prince was winded. His regal armor was made from solid steel plates emblazoned with the emblems of the city. The plates were certainly effective, but also restrictively heavy. Herod clutched at the burn on his side, a painful reminder of the moment when his armor had failed him.

  “You’re hurt, my liege,” was the first thing Herod heard when he reached the cool air of the top.

  Standing up as straight as he could manage, Herod waved off the observation. “It’s nothing, trust me,” he said. “Now, show me this retreat.”

  The soldier was a burly man, young but well-muscled, and sporting a healthy beard under his helmet’s chinstrap. There was a small shield strapped to his back. The man turned to lead the prince to a tower at the corner of Terror’s Lament. Herod noticed a crude goblin arrow lodged between the iron banding of
the soldier’s shield. The prince nodded his appreciation of the man’s mettle and followed him to the tower.

  A telescope was mounted next to a large ballista inside the square tower. Half a dozen archers stood inside the tower, scanning the dark horizon for any signs of attack. “There used to be some sort of light out there, but we could never tell what it was,” one of the archers said.

  Herod peered through the lens of the brass telescope. “Bah, it’s too dark. This is useless.” He moved away from the scope frustrated.

  “Light up the sky for your prince, men,” the guard with the shield barked. Herod put his eye back to the lens with a smile. A series of twelve flaming arrows, fired two at a time, lit up the night sky brilliantly.

  Herod was breathless. He shook his head and used his thumb to wipe the lens before placing his eye against it again. “Fire another round,” he said softly.

  More fiery arrows arced through the air and cast light all over the battlefield. “Everything is dead…” the prince muttered in disbelief. “They are all just… dead.”

  “Yes, my prince,” the guard responded. “We don’t know what happened, but some of the goblins have retreated back across the river, and the rest of them have simply fallen over dead.” He scratched his beard ponderously.

  “Fire one more round,” Herod said to the guard. More arrows illuminated the night as the prince gazed through the telescope. “There, a clearing, something is happening there.” He pointed to the spot on the battlefield but the soldiers inside the tower couldn’t see. “Gideon!” Herod shouted with excitement. He could just barely see the champion’s form in the flickering light. His excitement quickly turned to dismay. “Jan,” his voice dripped with malice.