Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 8

20th Day, Middle Wind Month, 1 CE

Kskel lup Inui squinted as a gust of wind drove the rain under the roof of the hoarding straight into his face. After the wind settled down, he shook the water from his coat, wiped his face with the back of his right paw, and renewed his vigilance. His ears swivelled toward a whining noise next to him.

“Ah, quit your bitching.”

“This isn’t fair,” a young Lup hunter by the name of Fensis replied. “We’ve been stuck on this wall three times longer than anyone else.”

“Don’t act as if you don’t know why.”

The whining ended with a sharp snort. Kskel turned his attention back to the darkness beyond the wall. It wasn’t about fairness. They were there because they were the best option. Lup had the endurance of Con, the stealth of Ocelo, and a better sense of smell and hearing than Gao. Altogether, it made them the best suited for long watches out of all the races of Rol’en’gorek.

Especially in their current situation. The deluge obscured vision and the superior close-range senses of their felid counterparts didn’t matter against half of anything that came their way.

Barks of alarm rose from a set of hoardings north of them. Kskel’s wariness grew, his nose twitching as he tested the air.

His feet shifted and he glanced at the wooden floorboards. It was bad enough that Wraiths could fly, but when they attacked through buildings, they were obnoxious. He had been drained more than once by spectral claws reaching out of walls, floors and ceilings.

The sounds of fighting died down. A few minutes later, a patrol came by.

“What happened?” Fensis asked.

“Two Wraiths,” the patrol’s mystic replied.

“Two?” Kskel narrowed his eyes, “Don’t they usually come in fours?”

“They do. We sent someone to warn the people just in case they slipped by.”

He doubted that they did. Despite their malevolent cunning, Wraiths were mindless and would go after the closest target they could detect. Through plenty of trial and error, they had figured out exactly how to configure their defences so that the Undead would go after the city’s defenders and not the civilians within.

“How many attacks is that tonight?” Kskel asked.

“That was the fourth set,” the mystic growled. “Some Zombies and Skeletons wandered in, as well.”

Kskel sighed. It was getting worse. When the Undead first appeared, a couple of big battles happened when they tried to cross the rivers. Barely any stray Undead appeared back then. The big battles still happened every few days, but it was the trickle of stray Undead slowly growing over time that worried him the most.

His gaze followed the shore of the Rol’en’gorek until it was swallowed by the darkness. How many Undead were out there now?

“They really are a perversion of life,” he muttered.

“Everyone already knows that,” Fensis said.

“We never fully knew back then,” Kskel told him. “It was just a thing people said. Now…it’s almost as if we're fighting on any other border.”

“How do you figure?”

“It’s like they’re growing,” he pointed to the darkness in the west with his nose. “Like a tribe. The more members they have, the more often raids go out.”

Except they were growing far faster than the living. Their food was death, and the west likely had plenty of it between the Humans and the poor migrants that had settled out there.

“You heard what our raiders said, right?” Kskel continued, “The ones striking out to keep their numbers down. All those Human villages that were overrun, they’re filled with Undead Humans now. Undead Humans and their Undead animals. It’s like they're trying to replace the living with themselves.”

“That’s…pretty creepy? Well, I wouldn’t mind them so much if we could eat them. Then it’d really just be like any other border.”

Kskel shook his head at the younger Lup's wagging tail. Then a glowing Lup arm popped out of his stomach. It vanished as he leapt forward with a startled yip.

“There’s number three!” He shouted.

“「Focus Battle Aura」!”

With a vicious snarl, Fensis brought his paws together and clubbed the Wraith from behind. Though it was incorporeal, the Martial Art-imbued blow drove it into the floor with a wail. They stared at the empty spot on the floor.

“Oops?” Fensis said in a small voice.

“Dammit, you should know better than that by now!”

“Got it!”

A voice came from below. Kskel and Fensis came out from under the hoarding and looked over the back of the wall. A patrol on the ground waved up at them. It looked like the Wraith ended up closer to the patrol after being knocked down into the wall and went after them instead.

“Anyone get drained?” The patrol’s mystic called up at them.

“Naw, resisted,” Kskel replied. “Watch out for number four.”

The patrol resumed its rounds. Kskel returned to his post. Though he knew it wouldn’t happen, he checked his Nug hide jerkin for a hole where the Wraith’s arm came through.

“Maybe the fourth one went somewhere else,” Fensis said.

“Not unless it got distracted by something along the way. Stay sh–”

A pale figure made its way through the fields in the distance. Kskel took a bullet from the pile in front of him and loaded his sling. He sent his weapon into a whirl over his head. When the figure drifted within forty metres, he loosed his attack.

“Ow! What the–hold on! Stop! I’m not some damned Zombie!”

The figure resolved into the tan-coloured figure of a female Con, who was wildly waving her arms.

“First I get attacked by a Wraith,” she seethed, “and then you hit me with a rock!”

“Sorry.”

Since she had approached under concealment, all he could see upon first spotting her was a pale blur. The coincidence was enough to make him wonder if the Undead had some twisted sense of humour.

“Where’d you come from?” Kskel called down.

“Northeast,” the Con replied. “The Undead have crossed the river. A lot of them. I need to talk to il-Enverre–what the…”

The Con runner stopped in front of the gate. The doors had been broken open over a year ago and never repaired, but they were still able to stuff it full of furniture.

“We stopped it up a few days ago,” a sentry atop the gatehouse said. “il-Enverre didn’t like the way the Undead were building up. Just go over the wall.”

Kskel tried to ignore the welt on the runner’s shoulder as she scaled the wall and went down the other side.

“She said she got number four, right?” Fensis asked.

“I guess,” Kskel answered, “but don’t drop your guard.”

Thirty minutes later, another Con runner appeared. Kskel didn’t hit it with a rock this time.

“What’s going on?” Kskel asked as the runner crested the wall.

“The Undead are on the move,” the runner replied. “I need to see il-Enverre.”

Over the next two hours, more and more runners from both the north and south arrived reporting the same thing. Warriors started appearing to take positions around along the walls. The Urmah Lord that oversaw the city – a powerful warrior by the name of il-Enkraagh urmah Koros – joined them.

“Th-they’re coming here?” Fensis asked.

“The city might be getting encircled,” il-Enkraagh answered, shaking out his black mane.

“Do they do that?”

“I don’t know, but whether they’re doing it intentionally or not, it’s going to end up that way. The entire Undead line is advancing and we’re likely to hold up our part of it.”

The course of the rivers created a natural front that put the city on its westernmost point. Even if the Undead all moved at the same time, however, there was a good distance from the western crossing to the city.

“Did any of our patrols come in?” Kskel asked, “I didn’t see any arrive on this si–”

His ears pricked at the sounds of distant baying. A long howl followed, which was abruptly cut short. Il-Enkraagh’s ears swivelled in the same direction as Kskel’s.

“What is it?” He asked.

“An alarm,” Kskel answered. “Our patrols are fighting something. They’re coming this way.”

“How far?”

On a clear night, he would be able to hear those signals from many dozens of kilometres away. With the deluge drowning everything out, however…

“Close,” Kskel said. “A couple of kilometres, at most.”

The Urmah Lord left them to enter the gatehouse, reappearing on its roof. Warriors readied themselves as orders travelled along the walls. Kskel furrowed his brow as children appeared with crates and sacks filled with baked clay bullets.

“What in the world did those runners report?” Fensis said as several containers were placed behind them.

“I don’t know,” Kskel said, “but I’m glad they stocked up. Hey, are any of these enchanted?”

The child he addressed shook her head.

“Guess that part’s up to us,” Kskel turned back to face the night. “Make sure you pace yourself.”

“I know, I know,” Fensis rolled his shoulders as he joined him.

“Have you been out there these past two weeks?” Kskel asked.

“Me? A couple of times.”

By the Warmaster’s orders, every fighting adult was rotated into patrols and raids against the Undead. Much like defending any territory, their knowledge and confidence in fighting their unexpected foe grew with experience.

“They’re easier than the Humans, if you ask me,” Fensis said. “The fleshy ones are pretty squishy and the bony ones are weak to our bullets. The flying stuff’s sort of annoying, but everything’s nice and dumb.”

“True enough,” Kskel grunted. “The warbands that’ve seen the most fighting have picked up a bunch of tricks, too. Don’t let your guard down, though. There are supposedly some powerful things out there that we haven’t seen yet.”

“A bit more variety might be interesting.”

Normally, being too eager about a fight would invite a sharp word of caution, but the Undead had a way of dampening the atmosphere wherever they were present. With every newly-arrived runner, that atmosphere grew increasingly oppressive, so they were probably better off having the young and eager keep their spirits up.

Kskel pulled up one of the bags behind them. He emptied the bullets from the container, adding them to the neat pile that was already there. The sounds of baying grew closer and, annoyingly, the weather played to the scenario like some Bard’s dramatic tale. Rain pounded on the city rooftops, sending streams of water pouring off of the eaves overhead. He felt sorry for the defenders who didn’t have something to stand under.

“Incoming!” Il-Enkraagh’s roar resounded through the rain.

In the distance, a pack of Lup came out of the curtains of water. The defenders on the wall leaned forward, slings loaded and at the ready.

Come on, tell us what it is…

The first of the Lup – a Lord with a black and grey coat – dashed through the gloom, followed a heartbeat later by five more Lup warriors. The rest of his warband appeared behind them. And behind them…

“Don’t hit the wrong guy,” Kskel muttered as he raised his sling.

He was dead serious. The Lup warband was being chased by Lup corpses.

Too fast to be Zombies. Wights?

Far to the sides, hunters with a better angle on the pursuers let loose. The Undead broke apart in a storm of bullets.

“Hey, don’t be so eager!” Il-Enkraagh shouted, “We don’t have unlimited ammunition.”

Kskel looked at the hundreds of bullets stored around him. Just how many Undead were they expecting? The largest battles so far had around ten thousand foes. He didn’t want to sound overconfident, but the city’s defenders could easily deal with three times the number.

The il-Enkraagh called down at the Lup warband when they reached the bottom of the wall.

“What did you see?”

“On their own,” the warband’s leader shouted up through the rain, “they were no problem, but the sheer numbers…they were still coming ashore when we withdrew – the whole riverbank was choked with Undead.”

The leader’s head turned as he appeared to notice all of the defenders on the wall.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the warm welcome,” he said, “but what’s going on here? It was our turn out west and I didn’t send anyone ahead of us.”

“More incoming!” Someone called out.

Undead appeared at points along the edge of Kskel’s darkvision.

“Runners came from everywhere,” il-Enkraagh said. “Report to il-Enverre. Head around the wall; the eastern gate’s still open.”

The Lup Lord and his warband loped south and out of view.

“I don’t see anything yet,” Fensis peered into the darkness.

“They’re there,” Kskel said. “Four hundred metres. Coming in at a run.”

He could already hit them from that distance, but the il-Enkraagh’s call to conserve their ammunition made him wait for them to close for better accuracy. As more and more appeared, however, he wished he had attacked as soon as he saw them. He once again hefted his sling, which was still loaded from before, and sent it into a whirl.

His bullet went streaking through the rain, finding one of the many Wights swarming forward. Its head exploded, but he couldn’t be elated over his otherwise-impressive strike – even without its head, the damned thing kept coming.

“That only works on Zombies,” Fensis sent another shot into the darkness.

“I know, dammit,” Kskel said, “Just hard to tell them all apart.”

“I don’t think there are any Zombies down there at all. Not like they can keep up with those warriors coming in, yeah?”

Kskel’s next bullet caved in the chest of another Wight. It collapsed into a pile of dust, which was rapidly washed away. The younger Hunter had a point. Also…

“Switch out of Focus Battle Aura,” he said. “These things don’t have any defences to bypass.”

“Way ahead of you.”

Every three seconds saw another bullet leave Kskel’s sling. More often than not, each one destroyed his target. Yet, for every one that fell, five more stepped over its remains.

“At this rate,” Kskel muttered, “we won’t have any bullets left for whatever’s coming after this.”

“You think there’s more?”

“Well, at least the Zombies that you mentioned.”

“Ah, yeah.”

Both Kskel and Fensis started as something slammed into the roof of their hoarding. Kskel instinctively looked up at the noise, but the ceiling was in the way. Seconds later, a large object joined the streams of water as it tumbled off the side of the wall.

Kskel leaned out to see what it was. Below, an Urmah Zombie was clumsily struggling to pull its broken body forward.

“How in the world…”

He said that the Zombies would come after the Wights, but he never imagined that they’d come like this.

A Gao Zombie landed on the wall just outside the hoarding, knocking several hunters down. Another one bounced off of the side of the gatehouse and fell into the city. Before it could get up, it was set upon by the warriors waiting there.

With the defenders watchful for falling Zombies, the withering hail of bullets faltered. The Undead surged forward, rapidly flowing toward the wall. Warriors hurled heavy objects – boulders, furniture, chunks of debris and logs – down at them. Kskel and Fensis continued slinging bullets into the sea of advancing Undead. He eyed his depleting stock of ammunition.

“Hey! Someone bring more bullets up here!”

He wasn’t sure if anyone heard him, but he couldn’t stop attacking. For their part, the Undead showed no hint of worry over the fact that hundreds of their fellows were dying by the minute.

“Don’t let up!” Il-Enkraagh roared, “We’ve got more coming!”

Easier said than done.

With a roof over their heads, Kskel and Fensis could keep attacking, but those exposed on the walls couldn’t just ignore a two or three-hundred-kilogram body landing on top of them. It was a crude, but undeniably effective way of hobbling their hunters.

Kskel loaded another bullet into his sling.

“Alert!” Someone shouted from the north, “New enemy!”

He paused to scan the darkness, breath heaving from his long exertions. A snarl left his lips when he spotted the new entry.

“Blood Meat Hulks!” Kskel called out.

His call was repeated along the wall.

“Fiery Shots, right?” Fensis asked.

“Right.”

It didn’t take long for the warrior clans to figure out how to stop their regeneration, but the fleshy abominations could still absorb a tremendous amount of punishment. Il-Enkraagh appeared from the gatehouse walking over to stand under their hoarding. Another Zombie bounced off the roof.

“What targets should we focus on?” Kskel asked.

“How many are there?”

“Thirty so far. They’re still appearing.”

The Urmah Lord growled, then fell silent. It was a difficult call to make. It would take dozens of bullets to take down a single one, dozens of bullets that could have downed dozens of lesser Undead.

A child came up the stairs, lugging a sack of clay bullets with her. Kskel voiced his thanks and she collected the emptied bags before leaving again.

“We’ll have our strongest hunters focus on the Blood Meat Hulks,” the Urmah Lord said. “Everyone else, keep thinning out the rest.”

His orders were relayed along the wall. Kskel resumed pelting the weaker Undead.

“You’re not attacking the hulks?” Fensis asked.

“I’m nothing compared to some of the other Hunters here,” Kskel replied. “Let’s work on–”

His nose reeled as a putrid stench washed over them. Fensis leaned out over the side of the hoarding and heaved the contents of his stomach onto the Undead.

“Where is that damn thing?!” Il-Enkraagh shouted.

“I don’t see it down there,” Fensis croaked.

Their answer came seconds later when another Ghoul landed on the wall.

Great, they’ve gone from dropping Zombies to Ghouls.

Il-Enkraagh roared, leaping out and shredding the thing apart with a single swipe of his claws. It was too late, however: dozens of warriors nearby had been sickened by its stench.

“Go down and recover,” he told the afflicted defenders. “Get a fresh batch of warriors up here!”

Kskel glanced to his sides as he retrieved the new sack of bullets. The scene was repeating itself as Ghouls fell all along the wall. They couldn’t even tell how well their defence was faring or how far into the attack they were. The Undead showed no fear, elation, frustration or any other indication of progress or lack thereof. Even if they were wiped out to the very last Zombie, that Zombie would still attack them with the same, reckless hate.

“Does the deluge in the Draconic Kingdom rain Undead from the skies?” Kskel grumbled.

“Not that I’ve heard,” the il-Enkraagh grumbled back. “We were here last year and it was just the same as the jungle. Something’s clearly off, but it’s up to il-Enverre to figure it out.”

A Ghoul landed in the crowd of warriors on the ground behind the wall. Kskel helplessly shook his head. It seemingly didn’t matter if the Undead survived so long as they did what they were sent to accomplish. Fensis took a draught of water, rinsing out his mouth before spitting everything out over the edge of the wall.

“There must be one of those ‘Elder Liches’ out there,” the young hunter said. “The Undead are fighting too smart.”

An Undead caster, huh…

The Undead they had battled over the past two weeks had plenty of special abilities, but they hadn’t yet fought any that could cast spells. Were they something like mystics? Or were they closer to the Human mages that appeared to fight from time to time?

“Orders from il-Enverre!” A Lup warrior came out of the gatehouse, “We’re withdrawing!”

“So soon?” Il-Enkraagh asked, “I don’t think we’ve even lost anyone yet. We don’t have so many favourable positions that we can simply give this one up.”

“It’s the reports from the flanks,” the warrior told him. “The Undead are advancing across the entire front. We’ve gotten reports from the entire breadth of the reach.”

Kskel eyed the growing horde of Undead. This was happening across the entire Draconic Kingdom? Even if the defenders of the city prevailed, the entire countryside would still be lost and they would be trapped in a veritable sea of Undead.

He resumed slinging bullets.

“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about ammunition anymore. How long do we have to hold for?”

“We’re not sure,” the warrior said. “The evacuation’s already started, but we need to give the civilians a good head start.”

The warrior’s lot, huh…

During the migration, many of the civilian clans fancied themselves as warriors, going so far as to purposely target potentially strong Humans so they might style themselves as such. Now that they were facing a real threat, they were being shown how powerless they truly were.

As it was throughout their history, the warriors would fight and die if required so that their people as a whole might survive.

Well, not many of us are dying. Destroying thousands of enemies and getting away with barely a scratch would be a great trade if we weren’t also giving up a defensive position like this.

Il-Enkraagh headed north to issue orders and encourage the city’s defenders. Fensis dragged another sack of bullets in front of them.

“N-no, I don’t want to go!” A high-pitched Human voice sounded from behind him.

“Are you crazy?” A Nar voice growled, “That’s an Undead horde out there! Everyone has to go!”

“Hey,” Fensis said, “you hear that? They’re trying to save the Humans, too.”

“Of course, they are,” Kskel reached for another stone. “There are only two sides in this fight: the living and the Undead. Any Human that dies here is one more Undead thing coming after us.”

His lip curled as a Ghast landed on the wall, filling the air with its rancid stench. The warriors nearby pounced upon it, and then they were all blasted off of the wall by a cow.

What…?

“Hey, Kskel…”

“I saw it.”

He flung another shot into the Undead horde, searching for the source of the flying cow. A horse tumbled out of the rain and smashed into the hoarding next to theirs. The timbers splintered and hunters within fell into the Undead below.

Kskel traced the arc of the impromptu projectile back to one of the Blood Meat Hulks about two hundred metres away. Gathered near its feet were scores of Zombie Beasts.

“They don’t even need to lug their ammunition around,” he sighed, “it just walks on its own. Target that Blood Meat Hulk!”

“But the Lord said–”

“His orders aren’t being carried out!” Kskel loaded another bullet, “Take it down before it takes us down!”

The floor shook as another Zombie Beast splattered against the wall just under them.

“We’re next!” He shouted, “Get back!”

Kskel took all of two steps before a horse slammed into his side of the hoarding. The floorboards collapsed under him. He landed in the mud below, fragments of their former shelter raining down around them.

A withered claw reached out for him. He kicked the Wight away and pushed himself to his feet.

“Fensis! Get up and fight!”

Kskel shoved a Wight away from the dazed young hunter. Something clawed his back. He turned to club away half-rotted Ocelo. All along the wall, he saw groups of other hunters dislodged from their perches, fighting back the endless press of Undead. Not too far from their position, one particularly large clearing had been carved out at the base of the wall.

A Ghast leapt out at him, its tattered maw dripping putrid saliva. He ripped out its jaw and used it to shatter its skull.

“Fight north!”

Fensis wordlessly turned at his shout, bashing, kicking and biting his way forward. Support came from the walls above in the form of rocks and wooden furniture. They pushed through the thinned-out mass, emerging into the clearing he had spotted before.

“You made it.”

Before them, they found il-Enkraagh and his personal warband. The hunters that had fallen from the wall were in their midst, reusing the spent bullets littered over the ground.

“You came down?” Kskel gawked at the sight.

“We did,” the Urmah Lord said, “but we’re not staying. Most of the pressure is on the western wall. We’re breaking out to the north now that you’re here.”

A Zombie fell on the il-Enkraagh’s head, but it may as well have been a raindrop. He whipped it into the mud with an annoyed growl, crushing its head with a single stomp.

The glow of healing magic washed over Kskel, and the burning pain in his back receded. He looked up to find a row of mystics supporting the warband from atop the wall.

“Convenient, eh?” Il-Enkraagh grinned, “Let’s get out of here.”

They joined the warband as it fought its way north around the city wall. Cheers of encouragement followed them from the defenders above, and dozens of warriors leapt down to add to their momentum.

A thrill of exhilaration coursed through him. It was as if he was living out one of the tales, except this particular story was one he had not known before. They were an unstoppable force cleaving through the most evil of foes.

“Just a bit more,” the il-Enkraagh’s voice sounded over the battlefield. “Two hundred metres and we’re out!”

He wasn’t even tired. If anything, he had gotten more tired from endlessly flinging bullets from the wall. Kskel twisted and flicked another bullet into the swarm of Undead chasing after them, destroying the nearest Ghast. The rain of projectiles from the walls further thinned out the Undead trailing in their wake.

And then, all at once, they broke through. Kskel lowered himself into a run, looking over his shoulder at the receding mass of Undead.

We did it.

“Woooo, that was great!” Fensis’ tail wagged nonstop, “I wouldn’t mind doing that again.”

“Don’t push your luck, ya damn whelp,” Kskel chuckled. “We don’t have–”

An orange glow cast long shadows ahead of them. He looked over his shoulder again. A blinding conflagration rose from the city wall. Kskel squinted, and he thought he could see distant figures thrashing and running about in the inferno. Some of them cast themselves to the field below, where they were overwhelmed by the awaiting Undead.

Above the horrific scene, ten figures floated, their rain-slicked black robes catching the fading light of the flames.

Ah, so those must be ‘Elder Liches’…

Kskel’s thoughts didn’t linger long on the new arrivals, however. His gaze was drawn past them to the void beyond. There was nothing there that he could see, but he could certainly feel it. A near-tangible weight seemed to press down on him, squeezing his body and wringing out the emotions that had just filled him before.

It was as if the pervasive oppression that came with the Undead horde was magnified a hundred-fold. Whispers of dread rose from the corners of his mind: their long battle had been nothing but a frolic through a sunny glade, and their moment of elation would be the last that they would ever know.

Kskel exchanged a glance with Fensis. Fear was creeping into the younger hunter’s eyes, the eager light from before thoroughly extinguished. Il-Enkraagh’s warband, too, had ceased their jubilation. Everyone lowered their heads as they picked up their pace in the pouring rain. As they fled into the darkness, a single thought seeped into Kskel’s entire being.

Death was coming for them all.

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