Book of The Dead

Helpless and unable to intervene, there was nothing Leras Sathin could do but watch as the early stages of the siege unfolded. From each of the skulls a piercing wail was emitted, stinging their ears. Within the city, the noise must have been deafening. Leras could only imagine the effect it would have on the populace. There had been precious little time to prepare for the siege, many of the citizens hadn’t been aware the invasion had begun before the undead had started marching on Kallas and few had been given an opportunity to leave.

With death raining down on them from above, what were they to think or do?

Light flared from the walls, sharp and blinding, as lances of light stabbed upwards, punching into the falling skulls and detonating. With bated breath, the Lord of House Sathin watched, desperately hoping the magick would be disrupted.

Thankfully, it was. Each of the skulls was impacted before they managed to draw close to the city itself, the black cloud dispersing in the wind.

“Anti-magick bolts,” General Greyhame nodded approvingly. “Difficult to cast and expensive, energy-wise, but effective against almost everything. If they can find a more effective counter over time, they’ll switch to it, but for now they’ll stick with this.”

“Are you a Mage, General?” Leras asked.

He doubted it, judging from the build and scars sported by the grizzled veteran, but he seemed knowledgeable on the subject.

“Of course not,” Artur barked, looking genuinely offended. “You have to know how this shit works if you want to lead an army. You don’t coordinate with your Mages?”

“I do,” Leras said, shrugging, “just not on anything… this scale.”

“I suppose that makes sense. This part of warfare is well studied, so I recommend you do a little research if you think your house is going to get dragged into larger conflicts.”It was unlikely. Fighting in the desert against the Dust Folk didn’t involve walls and pitched battles. After a moment, he realised that wasn’t what Artur was talking about. He was referring to warfare against other houses.

“Things are going to get interesting in the south after we kill this fucker,” he said, nodding his head towards the densest part of the miasma. “Who knows who might be promoted up the ranks? Or demoted? The eyes of the Emperor are on us. Fortunes will be made and lost in the wake of this war.”

Opportunity. A chance to lift House Sathin from the lowest ranks of Nobility, to gain real honour and prestige. He thought of his wife, who had inherited the once barren and empty frontier territory that her family had poured their blood into for generations to make it even the slightest bit prosperous. They deserved better.

But now wasn’t the time to think on such matters, right now he had a job to do.

“What happens next? They fling spells back and forth at each other?”

“Pretty much,” Artur said, turning back to the city. “If you can land even a single spell of that magnitude, the damage is enormous. Both sides will pour their effort into testing the other, seeing if they can gain the upper hand and slip something through. If you have dominance in the spell war, then you don’t need to fight at all, you can win without drawing a single sword.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Not often. It’s a heck of a lot easier to draw the game than it is to win it, if you take my meaning.”

From the walls, light flared once more, but not upwards this time. Pure and white, a beam of concentrated energy blasted in a straight line from the top of a tower towards the launch site of one of the skulls.

It was almost instantaneous, connecting the two points in a solid bar of arcane power that almost immediately began to flicker and fade away, leaving a line burnt into Leras’ eyes.

“Did it connect?” he asked, blinking.

“We can’t say,” Artur replied, shaking his head. “Blasted mist is covering it. We won’t know until… well, there’s your answer.”

Indeed, another wave of skulls screamed into the sky, rising up and up before starting to arc towards the city. The site that had been attacked had still produced a spell, indicating it had been unharmed.

What followed was a nerve-wracking experience that Leras could only liken to a slow motion duel. Magick and spells were the cut and thrust of this battle, offense and defence. Shields sprang into existence to deflect damage while other spells were detonated far away from the impact point. Atop the tall towers that dotted the wall, the Mages continued to direct their searing spells of light into the horde while wave after wave of skulls was launched into the sky.

All the while, the massed ranks of skeletons remained motionless, facing the walls, waiting.

Waiting for what, Leras couldn’t say. Perhaps the Necromancer wouldn’t assault the city until he had gained a decisive upper hand in the war of magick, or only if he was losing it. So far, the two sides had seemed to be relatively even, neither managing to land a decisive blow against the other.

Artur and Leras both theorised that this may prove to be a battle of attrition, both sides trying to test the reserves of their opponent. After all, magick in an area wasn’t infinite, nor were the mental faculties of the Mages casting.

The author’s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

However, there was another resource being depleted that neither properly accounted for.

After several hours of magickal bombardment, the sun had almost completely set, only a few rays of feeble light still creeping over the horizon. With his enhanced sight, Leras could see perfectly in almost total darkness, and he assumed Artur was the same since the man didn’t call for light of any kind. To them, the battle had fallen into a regular, predictable rhythm. Not boring or uninteresting by any means, but stable. Leras’ nerves had calmed as he watched the defenders make a good showing of themselves, proving they wouldn’t fall over at the first sign of danger.

Yet, for the people inside the city, they had endured hours of relentless screeching, watching as skulls of black mist the size of houses fell towards them over and over again. Now, they were enduring that horror without being able to see, only listening and huddling in fear as they prayed the spells wouldn’t land on them and their loved ones.

Artur was the first to see it.

“Something is happening by the eastern gate,” he said, straightening as he peered into the far distance.

Leras turned, unable to see it at first. After a few moments he finally noticed. The gate itself was moving, rocking outwards then back in, as if something were shoving up against it from the inside. He frowned, not understanding what was happening, then jumped when Artur swore thunderously.

“FUCK. Clever fucking prick,” he spat, his head snapping back to the skulls overhead.

“What’s happening?” Leras asked, not understanding.

“You’ll see in a minute,” the General replied grimly, his face hardening.

Indeed, it didn’t even take that long. Slowly at first, then faster, the gate swung open, unleashing a stream of terrified, bloody citizens from the city.

“They’re opening the gates?” Leras said, aghast. “That’s madness!”

“If you’re referring to House Ladisla, or whichever bastard is in charge of the defence, they didn’t open the gates, the people did. The people rioted and stormed the gate. I wonder how many are lying dead on the other side of that wall.”

Only then did Leras understand what the Necromancer had been trying to do. He’d left them a way out on purpose. No matter how hard they tried, there was no way to prevent word from filtering to the citizens that there was a clear path to safety.

In seconds, the trickle of individuals through the gate turned into a flood. Leras had to turn away as he watched people get trampled into the stone as others stomped over them in their desperation to escape.

Now, because of course it was now, the undead began to march forward in unison. Neat blocks of infantry moved in perfect unison, as if puppeteered by a single hand, moving swiftly towards the walls. The response from the walls was immediate, ballistae fire and counter siege weapons firing.

In response, shields shimmered into existence, absorbing the impacts without cracking and then fading away again, leaving the skeletons unharmed.

“It must be chaos inside the city right now,” Artur said, shaking his head. “I’m sure the violence is spreading. Look there,” he pointed.

In the distance, Leras could see a faint plume of smoke starting to rise.

“Fires in the city,” the General grimaced. “There’s rioting for sure.”

Regardless of the situation within, those manning the walls were still prepared to defend, despite the horde marching towards them. Even the columns of dark mist were moving forward, showing the Necromancer himself was drawing closer.

Spells erupted from the walls, along with a hailstorm of arrows and bolts. Archers powerful enough to punch a shot through the trunk of a tree took aim and fired over and again, aiming to crack through the magickal shields defending the undead infantry.

In response, the skeletons raised and locked their shields, providing defensive cover as they continued to advance. At first, it seemed as though it was working. Under the withering fusillade from the city defenders, many skeletons fell, spells and arrows finding their mark and starting to make a dent in the seemingly unending numbers.

Then, as the undead grew close enough, they began to return fire.

If the assault from the walls had been withering, what came back at them was bowel-shaking. A rain of arrows so dense it looked like a solid mass from a distance. Tens of thousands of arrows, along with a storm of spells. Bolts of darkness, grasping claws, lances of bone that streaked through the air and shattered in the faces of the defenders.

However many spellcasters the Necromancer had, he outnumbered the defenders hopelessly.

In the face of this onslaught, the return fire dried up almost instantly and the magickal defenses were pushed to their limits as men were forced to seek cover, afraid to stick their heads out from behind the crenellations.

“Didn’t even last a single day,” Artur Greyhame said, his voice flat and without emotion.

“You don’t think they can hold the walls?” Leras asked, his eyes still locked at the unfolding disaster below. “Isn’t it supposed to be almost impossible to force your way over?”

“The defenders are outnumbered ten to one and who knows how many are trying to quell the fighting inside the city instead of manning the walls,” Artur pointed out. “You watch, they’ll swarm the walls quicker than you think.”

Indeed, siege ladders were already rising out of the mist that now pooled almost halfway up the walls. Massive, thick, heavily plated and enchanted, they were similar in form and function to a ladder in the same way taking a piss was like breaking a dam.

From the darkness emerged titanic skeletons, twice the size of man, formed with bones as thick as tree branches, four to a ladder. In desperation, the defenders tried to return fire, concentrating their efforts on bringing them down, and sometimes they succeeded, but more often they did not.

Skeletal giants raised the ladders, crashing them into the walls, dozens and dozens of them. No sooner had they slammed into place than skeletons began to scale them, swarming up like undead locusts while the defenders tried desperately to shove them away or break them.

Leras watched helplessly as the first of the undead reached the battlements, leaping off the ladder fearlessly, only to be swatted aside and driven off the wall by the defenders.

It didn’t matter, another took its place, then another, hurling themselves forward, already dead and totally lacking fear. More ladders crashed home, more skeletons reached the walls, small pockets of space opening into which more undead could fit, forming ranks with those already there.

At the foot of the wall, the darkness surged as more and more undead emerged, scrambling up the ladders in a neverending swarm.

“It’s done,” Artur said, leaning to the side and spitting on the ground. “Let’s go. I have to report to the Duchess.”

Heart sinking in his chest, Leras knew that the fighting wasn’t finished, that there would be heroic sacrifice and tragic last stands to come in the following hours as the defenders battled to the last. There would be no surrender, not against an enemy like this.

Yet there was nothing he could do. He turned his back on the unfolding massacre of Kallas, and walked away.