Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 3

The ruins of another harbour materialized out of the mists as the Death Warrior captain slowed their vessel to drift with the river current. According to the maps Ludmila possessed, they should be close to the centre of the Katze Plains. However, she sensed that the greatest concentrations of negative energy in the region lay further to the south.

Given how hostile the place was to the living, she wondered how old the information on the maps was and where it had originated from. The histories of the nations surrounding the Katze Plains conflicted with one another, each presenting a narrative that attempted to shift attitudes in their favour but presented nothing concrete for her to work with. It was a giant void in history: there were no names; no surviving peoples; not even the slightest trace of lore specific to the place. Nothing before the area had transformed into a negative energy zone the size of a small nation, at any rate.

Ludmila did not understand why anyone would purposely go to such great lengths to erase the past, though it wasn’t certain that this was what had occurred. It might have been a war on a scale that only existed in legends, where all were indiscriminately put to the sword and settlements razed so thoroughly that only bitter ashes remained.

Perhaps it wasn’t even a war. Calamities like drought or plague would have left something behind, but it may have been that whoever once dwelled here had earned the ire of a descended god. She glanced over her shoulder, at one such god who had graced the world with his presence once more.

Was the Sorcerer King capable of matching the scale of such a catastrophic event? It was a fact that many gods and godlike beings had existed in the past. The tales accompanying every one of them were filled with powers that only they could bring to bear.

Even as she pondered this, Ludmila wished she could stand at his side as Lady Shalltear did. Warmth suffused her body at the thought. Shaking the wandering notion away, she turned her gaze forward again to focus on what lay ahead.

Regardless of what had occurred in the Katze Plains, certain elements of its history did survive – ones not so easy to erase. Though no specific details remained, the ruins themselves offered insights as to what once was. After visiting the castle near Corelyn County, the Katze Plains was no longer just a cursed wasteland in her mind: it was a place where people once lived.

Civilizations were structured in a way distinct to each race that built them. From seeing what remained of the castle, she determined that its inhabitants were Human. Understanding this, she could discern how locations were built and ordered. Every ruin and pile of rubble they passed expanded her grasp of what the area once was. By the time they arrived at the second harbour, Ludmila had a sense of Katze’s economy, population and the layout of its settlements and infrastructure.

Someone from the present day might have given the maps a careless glance and decided that the fortifications around the edge of the plains were built to keep the Undead in. In reality, they marked the edge of the territory that it once was. Each fortification was a border keep: keystones built to project control over their respective territories. Since it was borderland, the settlements found there were similarly small, consisting of farming hamlets and villages. Bare traces of these settlements could be seen as they had progressed on their journey.

As it was situated on a wide river basin, Ludmila thought it likely that the territory had a strong agricultural base – especially if what remained of the Riverlands was any indicator of how fertile the land was. The frequency and size of the many ruins that they passed supported this notion.

The first harbour they had visited was already a city. Stone was scarce and any wattle and daub structures in the outskirts would have long crumbled to dust, but Ludmila suspected that the unwalled city was at least the size of E-Rantel. The everpresent mist kept one from realizing the full extent of the ruins, but she was mindful of its layout as she manoeuvred her company around to clear it.

With time, her familiarity with the area grew, as did the accuracy of her predictions about the surroundings. With this ever more being the case, things that should have been and things that didn’t belong were now apparent where she would have once seen nondescript piles of stone. According to what they had witnessed so far, this next harbour would be a city much larger than the capital of the Sorcerous Kingdom. Ludmila’s anticipation grew over what they might discover.

The Death Warrior captain anchored the vessel a few dozen metres from the remains of the longest jetty. Though the mist continued to obscure her vision, what she saw of the harbour was so far in line with the size of the city that she estimated that it would service. A long wharf lay crumbling along the riverbank, and a dozen ruined stone piers jutted out into the water like so many spears. Unknown ages of sediment had built up all along the harbour, turning the place into a silty quagmire.

Ludmila activated her flight item – a Frostburn Phoenix Hairpin that offered some fire resistance in addition to its on-use Fly effect – and disembarked to scout their landing area. She flew over the heads and upper bodies of hundreds of Undead standing in the silt. Like the rest of the Katze Plains, the vast majority of the Undead here were weak. However, the accumulation of progressively stronger Undead gave rise to a variety she had not seen on their journey yet.

Skeleton Warriors could be spotted on the wharf and lines of Bone Vultures perched along the jetties like so many waterfowl. They did not stir with her passing, and after she made a wide circuit around the nearby harbour, she signalled the anchored vessel nearby.

The Sorcerer King and Lady Shalltear rose from the deck, skimming over the waters to join her. A loud splash sounded as the two Death Priests jumped into the water. She hoped that they wouldn’t get stuck trying to find a way to the shore.

“It looks like you have your work cut out for you, Miss Zahradnik.”

Ludmila lowered her head at the Sorcerer King’s arrival.

“We’ve sailed for most of the day,” she said, “so my company is four or five hours behind.”

“Hmm…I suppose we can take a look around before they get here,” he replied. “That being said, this place seems quite large…”

“I estimate that it was a city of upwards to a hundred thousand people.”

“Hoh…that’s about as many residents as Arwintar. How did you arrive at this estimate?”

She turned and led them up the jetty towards the wharf, providing an explanation along the way.

“Human populations tend to order themselves in a specific way. This river basin was also probably a perfect place to develop an agrarian economy. Based on our maps, it had an expansive river network – which continues to exist to this day – and was wealthy enough to maintain a ring of substantial fortifications along its borders. Moreover, the villages, towns and cities that we’ve passed had little in the way of walls, so whoever lived here must have had a strong enough military to stop any foreign incursions.”

“A prosperous territory built on highly productive agricultural land, then. Prosperous enough for a standing army and sprawling cities.”

“Yes, your majesty. I suspect that the state or territory that formerly occupied the Katze Plains had a population of anywhere between four to five million. Its capital to the south of here might have been two or three times more populous than Arwintar.”

Her estimate spoke volumes about just how valuable the land once was. If one included the entirety of the Riverlands, as well as the river systems flowing down from the east of the Katze Plains, it was productive enough to support half of Re-Estize. This was while being a quarter of the size with at least double the urban population.

The maritime infrastructure demonstrated their grasp of river navigation, and it was not a stretch of the imagination that these people plied the waters of the inland sea to the southeast in the same manner that Clara was planning to. The wealth and prosperity of this place must have been staggering at the height of its power.

A swarm of Wraiths floated by and Ludmila carefully scanned their surroundings for any signs, monuments or somewhat intact buildings. Though the volume of rubble was far greater than the previous harbour, the structures nearby were left in much the same condition.

“Perhaps this region was too valuable,” the Sorcerer King muttered.

“Too valuable, Your Majesty?”

“Ah, hmm…how shall I put it? Whoever controlled this land would become too influential for their neighbours to stomach, so in the end, someone made sure that no one could have it.”

Was it possible that such wholesale devastation could be wrought for such a reason? As a follower of The Six, it was unthinkable. The former state of the Katze Plains was the ultimate foundation for Human civilization…or perhaps that was why it had been rendered uninhabitable.

Open plains were the ideal habitat for humanity, and they held far less value for races who dwelled in environments that were hostile to Humans. This perfect place for Humans would be an untenable threat to anyone else. Much like how Humans would see a vast swampland as a breeding ground for dangerous species, so too might nonhumans have viewed the Katze Plains. Humans would advance their civilization, grow in economic power and, if they followed the tenets of The Six or something similar, slowly cultivate their strength.

If that was the case, the question would be who had committed the deed. In the present day, the closest Demihuman nation was the Beastman Kingdom on the other side of the Human-inhabited Draconic Kingdom. In the past, humanity had been driven to the brink of extinction, so they were not as widespread as they were now. Other nonhuman nations may have existed nearby in the past. If only they could find something significant to shed light on the history of the area.

After searching up and down the wharf – which was three times as long as the waterfront in Corelyn Harbour – for two hours, the Sorcerer King bid her stop at the confluence of the Katze River and a major tributary that flowed down from the mountains in the distant east.

“It seems that our findings have been just as poor as yesterday,” he said.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Ludmila nodded. “There’s still a lot of ground to cover here, however.”

The Sorcerer King raised his gaze to the northwest, following the gentle curve of the riverbank.

“I’d like to wait until your forces finish catching up before we head deeper,” he said. “How about a change of pace? We can use the time between now and then for you to break in your new equipment.”

Ludmila didn’t want anything remotely close to breaking happening to her equipment, but she understood his meaning. She took an inventory of the Undead nearby. Scattered amidst the hundreds of weaker Undead, she spotted around a half-dozen Skeleton Warriors, a Blood Meat Hulk, and a strange creature cobbled together out of a myriad of assorted bones.

“Since you took a big hit from one of those Blood Meat Hulks yesterday,” the Sorcerer King proposed, “how about you start by provoking the one over there and receiving a blow from it? I’m sure you’ll find the difference quite telling.”

She eyed the hulking bipedal mass of flesh, recalling the sensation of having her chest caved in. The strange feeling that came with regenerating that damage was also something that she would prefer to avoid experiencing again. Walking over to the Blood Meat Hulk, she attempted to gauge how many of the Undead nearby would be drawn to the fight.

Of particular concern were the six Skeleton Warriors in the vicinity. They all registered to her senses as being roughly as strong as she was. Unlike the weaker Undead from the previous harbour, who either manifested with crude weapons, various tools or nothing at all, the Skeleton Warriors had each manifested with steel round shields and fine weapons – mostly curved blades of various types. From her experience with the Skeleton Warriors employed in the Sorcerous Kingdom, they possessed basic combat skills and were faster than most of the other Undead present.

After mapping out the general flow of battle in advance, she started not by attacking the Blood Meat Hulk, but one of the Skeleton Warriors a fair distance away. Ludmila lined up a powerful two-handed swing with the base of her glaive, and the unmoving Skeleton’s Warrior’s skull exploded into a spray of bone fragments. Before her victim’s bones settled in the dust, every Undead within thirty metres turned to converge on her.

She didn’t stop to watch them come. The glaive swept out to destroy the dozens of weak Undead streaming up to her. Her steps led her around in a small circuit, as she didn’t want to increase the number of Undead that turned on her past the initial wave.

The Blood Meat Hulk was still halfway to her when the first of the Skeleton Warriors entered her reach. It deflected her descending Slash with its round shield, but her reverse stroke hooked its legs out from under it. Her heel came down on the blade of its scimitar as she worked her glaive to dispatch the various weaker Undead that swarmed around them.

When her attention returned to the Skeleton Warrior, it was still vainly trying to pull its weapon out from under her. Despite possessing rudimentary combat skills, they were still mindless. Ludmila drove the base of her weapon into its skull and kicked its lifeless bones into the next Skeleton Warrior that approached, knocking it onto its back.

So far, she hadn’t taken any hits. The ‘reflexes’ and discipline came with over a decade of training in her fast, defensive combat style made it difficult to purposely expose oneself to harm. She dealt with two more Skeleton Warriors – it appeared that the other three were too far away to join the fight. With that, she was left with about four dozen assorted weak Undead and a Blood Meat Hulk.

Ludmila forced herself to stop moving, planting the base of her glaive on the cracked soil. Crude arrows from Skeleton Archers bounced off of her, though she imagined that her damage reduction would have left her without a scratch regardless. Tarnished spears, rusty axes and chipped swords were deflected off of her breastplate, vambraces, ‘circlet’ and skirts. Her bodysuit offered just as much resistance as the armour plates that they lay exposed between.

The coolly-glowing blade of her glaive arced through the remaining weak Undead just as the Blood Meat Hulk reached her. She reflexively stepped back as a meaty hand ponderously swept across the space where she once stood.

What am I doing?

The imminent sense of danger that came with attacks from opponents near her strength kept Ludmila on the defensive. As a Human, this would have been ideal, but she needed to change the way she fought as the Undead. Receiving wounds to formerly critical areas now mattered no more than any flesh wound. She inherently understood that this could be used to her advantage, but retraining herself to embrace her new reality would not be so simple.

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