Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 9

“So tired…carry me…”

“I swear, if Rana Renatha hadn’t asked me to accompany you, I would have left you for the Undead.”

“You…you wouldn’t have done that, would you?”

“Is that a trick question?”

The barge sent from Eastwatch to Rol’en’gorek’s southern shore bumped into the pier. It was the first of many, as continued scrying discovered tens of thousands of Beastmen fleeing in their direction. The passengers disembarked, and the warrior carrying Khhschlr shifted the guru’s weight before joining the others. Everyone looked supremely miserable and thoroughly soaked.

“Thurgakhr?” Hhrolhr breathed.

The warrior’s ears swivelled in their direction and she raised her head to look toward them. Her tired eyes widened in disbelief.

“Hhrolhr?”

“Hhrolhr!”

The girl flung herself bodily at Hhrolhr, knocking him over. Endearing chuffs filled the air and a break appeared in the clouds, allowing a beam of sunlight to shine upon the couple. Overhead, a rainbow formed.

“Wow,” Mitra pressed her paws together in delight, “it’s like a production from the Isles of Mumba.”

“I don’t hear any music,” Girika said.

“And isn’t it supposed to be the guy that dumps the villainess for the heroine?” Kasturi added.

“I’m lost,” Rana Saj’s eyes followed each speaker. “Is the Beastman Confederacy so advanced that it can predict these events?”

“Er…don’t worry about it,” Saraca said. “What’s important is that we should have a clearer picture of events in the south with this.”

They returned to the hold, where the assembled Lords were awaiting their return. Several were still watching Karuvaki’s team of Sacred Fists as they continued their scrying of the countryside.

“Thurgakhr,” Rana Saj said, “I know you’re tired, but you’ve witnessed this entire debacle from its beginning.”

“I understand,” Thurgakhr replied.

Food and refreshments were brought before her and the Lords patiently waited as she settled down.

“First of all,” Rana Saj, “What happened with Clan Torokgha’s defence of their hold?”

“They gathered a hundred thousand warriors by the time the Undead arrived,” Thurgakhr said. “I was with Rana Renatha in the western army. Rana Kimb was leading the south. The Undead exposed themselves to attack when they moved to encircle the city, and Rana Kimb was sent to destroy the encircling forces while Rana Renatha held the main body of the Undead in check.”

The Lords around the table nodded at her account. Conventionally, it was the proper response for that situation. Saraca, however, felt that something was off.

“What made Rana Renatha think that he could hold the main body of the Undead forces in check?”

“…because we were strong enough to do it? We were able to hold them at the original defence line for two weeks by using warbands to skirmish down their numbers.”

Except that shouldn’t have been the case. Elder Liches generally didn’t view enemies impeding their progress as obstacles, they saw them as offenders. They shouldn’t have cared about potential losses – they should have attempted to crush the offenders with extreme prejudice.

“Continue your account,” Saraca said.

“I thought we were doing well. Rana Renatha sent warbands to skirmish with the Undead and we must have destroyed thousands of them without taking any losses of our own. But, then, a fog bank appeared to conceal the Undead.”

“The people coming in from Rana Verre’s side reported something similar,” Rana Kizurra said. “To nullify our skirmishers, they use a bank of fog to cover their forces. As it moves forward, so, too, do the Undead. Anyone that gets caught in it is never seen from again.”

Did it count as a strange tactic for the Undead to use? Hhrolhr mentioned that the Katze Plains was covered in impenetrable fog, so the local Undead may have just brought their ‘home conditions’ with them out of familiarity with its advantages rather than it being a result of active tactical development.

“Rana Renatha pulled his forces back from the fog just in case it was some sort of trap,” Thurgakhr said. “But then Undead came out of the Rol’en’gorek and entered the city through its port. We went to save the civilians in the city and Rana Renatha ordered them evacuated. He told me to accompany Khhschlr. After that, it was chaos.”

“So neither Rana Renatha nor Rana Kimb survived?”

“I don’t know,” Thurgakhr replied. “We just ran. The bridge across the river was blocked by the Undead, so we had to go south to find a way across. There were some boats in the first hold along the way so we used those to cross…then they got sunk. Something just tore open the bottoms and we had to swim the rest of the way. Not everyone made it. After that, we went east, warning everyone we could.”

The Lords discussed her account between themselves in low voices. Saraca crossed his arms and brooded in silence. Something definitely wasn’t right.

“What about the clans in the southern mountains?” One of the Lords asked.

“They were called for,” Thurgakr answered, “but they didn’t arrive. The south is pretty big, plus it was the start of the monsoon. There just wasn’t enough time.”

“Maybe they’ll come east and head this way after learning of Torokgha,” the Lord said.

“That’s not something we can count on,” said another. “She’s right. With how quickly events are occurring, those southern clans will be too late. Conditions are simply against them.”

“Let’s go back to the beginning of all this,” Saraca said. “When did the powerful Undead start to appear? The Elder Liches and Death Knights.”

“…Death Knights?”

“The armoured ones with the tower shields.”

“They were there from the beginning,” Thurgakhr said. “Goro said that Elder Liches control armies of lesser Undead, so all the mindless Undead coming out to attack Clan Kisher all nice and organised meant that they were probably around somewhere controlling them. The Death Knights first appeared to flank us in that same battle. They weren’t just the ones with the shields, though.”

Saraca narrowed his eyes.

“They flanked you? On purpose? Not because they just happened to notice you on the way to wherever they were headed?”

“It seemed like it. Clan Kisher chose to defend the top of a valley, but the Undead drew them in. Goro sensed a trap and sent me to evacuate the children and their caregivers, and then the Death Knights came straight down the defiles that Clan Kisher was supposed to be defending.”

They’ve been played.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then released a long sigh.

“The Undead have been playing us all for fools,” Saraca said.

“What do you mean?” Rana Saj asked.

“Thurgakhr,” Saraca said, “how many people from Clan Kisher survived?”

“Um…two? Goro sent Hhrolhr to warn the clans before the battle. He sent me away just in time to help Clan Kisher retreat, but none of Clan Kisher survived to reach the warrior clans’ territories. There were the warriors that were with me, but we parted ways early on and I haven’t seen them since.”

“Because no one was meant to survive that battle,” Saraca said. “Having a whole clan in full retreat was undesirable. Was it like that for the other clans, as well?”

“I think so, yes. The Undead fell upon everyone with barely any warning. Only a few people in the easternmost areas made it to safety…such that it was.”

Panic everywhere they reached; people fleeing and being slowly overrun. Suffering and death stretched out to their maximum extent.

He had never seen or heard of the like. Even the Undead-infested Dreadlands had never produced such a purpose-driven Undead army. In bits and pieces, the behaviour appeared characteristic, but, as a whole…

“This may have seemed like an ‘Undead horde’ to you,” Saraca told the assembled Lords, “but everything about this has been meticulously planned. From start to finish. There is something terrible behind these Undead.”

“I know,” Thurgakhr replied softly.

“You do?”

Thurgakhr blinked as if she had been unaware that she had responded.

“I…I do. Anyone that has been out there for long enough can feel it. The Hunter.”

“The Hunter? What do you mean by that?”

“There’s no other way to describe it,” Thurgakhr said. “It’s like you’re being stalked. Every rock, tree and bush becomes suspicious; every shadow and patch of tall grass. You catch yourself looking over your shoulder all the time. A constant presence just presses down on you, wringing you out like an old rag. At first, it’s unnerving, but it can last for weeks. When you run, it feels like you’re being chased. When you’re finally too tired to go any further, you keep getting startled out of your sleep until oblivion takes you.”

As she spoke, her claws drew long furrows in the stone table. Her whole body trembled, and a haunted look glossed her eyes over.

“I’ve heard this before,” Rana Kizurra said. “The people coming in from Rana Verre’s northern forces were saying similar things. They were being pursued, so I figured that they were simply hysterical between what they had experienced and their exhausted state.”

What did it mean? It was true that, as an Undead being grew more powerful, they could become ‘unique’ in behaviour and form. But, as far as he knew, they still stayed within the bounds of what was expected of the Undead.

The Hunter…an Undead Ranger? A Death Ranger? A being that employs the Undead the same way a Beastmaster might employ Magical Beasts? A hunter of the living.

『Mitra, does any of this make sense to you?』

『An Undead hunter? Well, you could say that many Undead naturally prey on the living, which sort of makes them ‘hunters’. A Vampire Lord that didn’t go the social route, maybe? Or some kind of super-evolved Ghast?』

Whatever it was, they had to get rid of it. It wasn’t just some Vampire or Ghast preying on one thing at a time, it was a being that used the Undead as an engine to propagate negative energy on a country-wide scale. Furthermore, it had somehow attracted many powerful, intelligent Undead of different ‘species’ to its cause.

The very thought of ‘the hunter’ unnerved him, but not in the same way as it did Thurgakhr. It was potentially a true Lord of the Undead – a being that could unify the enemies of all life and turn the entire world into a negative energy hellscape if allowed to exist.

Something poked him in the arm. He looked to his left to find Kasturi holding a paper scroll.

“This is what it looks like so far,” she said.

He unfurled the scroll, furrowing his brow at the details. They were close.

“Is there a map of this region available?” Saraca asked.

Rana Kizurra nodded at one of his attendants, who brought in a rolled-up Nug hide and rolled it out across the table. Saraca placed Kasturi’s map atop it, trying to match the limited features included in the scryed area with those on the hide map. The Lords around the table stood to see what he was doing.

“I’m going to have to get our mystics to learn that spell,” Rana Saj said.

“Using that spell on its own is dangerous,” Saraca said. “They’ll have to learn the appropriate protections and countermeasures as well. Actually, I’m surprised you didn’t already know it. Most tribal societies have specialised diviners amongst their mystics.”

Then again, it was a Fourth-tier spell, so maybe it wasn’t so easy to access.

A minute later, Saraca finished laying out an array of tokens marking the Undead positions on the south side of the river. They were a day away, meaning that the forces that the Lords presumed were behind had already caught up with their northern counterparts.

“At this rate,” Saraca said, “it would be better for them to come to us while we set up proper defensive lines.”

“I agree,” Rana Saj said, “though reluctantly. Doing so leaves the entire border in the south vulnerable, but it’s still better to concentrate our forces where they currently are. We don’t have time to do anything else.”

“We can send runners back upriver right now and have the clans on that side prepare their defences,” Rana Kizurra suggested.

The Lords around the table nodded in agreement. Kasturi appeared at his arm again.

“Karuvaki wanted you to know about something odd,” she said. “The Humans are being left behind in their towns and villages.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Saraca swept his gaze across the table. “Even if you only see Humans as prey, every living being left behind for the Undead will make our enemies stronger.”

“It was too difficult to move that many,” one of the Lords replied.

“Toodifficult?” Saraca flicked his ear, “Humans have legs. They can travel farther in a day than the average Baagh, Singh or Ocelo, might I add.”

“That’s a question best answered by guru Khhschlr.”

Saraca looked around.

“Where is she?” He asked.

“Probably where I left her,” Thurgakhr answered with a shrug.

He nodded to a couple of his warriors, who left the hall to retrieve the ‘guru’. They took the opportunity to have a short break, and Saraca went over to see what Karuvaki was doing.

“There weren’t as many Undead on the southern side as I thought there would be,” Karuvaki said as she moved her scrying sensor around.

“Rana Renatha may have been defeated,” Saraca said, “but the number of warriors they had could still destroy millions of Undead in the process. Did you identify anything aside from what’s been mentioned so far?”

“A few. No Soul Eaters, thankfully. Occasionally, there’s one that’s equipped like a Minotaur Hero, but the weapons are more archaic-looking. More worrisome are the ones that look like Priests. It’s going to complicate things if they have healers.”

As far as he knew, the last time any substantial number of Undead ‘healers’ had been involved in a pitched battle was three hundred years ago when the Khalifa of Dar al-Hariiq razed the Necropolis of Mu’ut so hard that it became a permanently-smouldering crater. It wasn’t the sort of history that anyone wanted to ever experience in person.

“What about the Elder Liches? Anything that might be a Night Lich?”

“They’re hard to spot at all since they like to fly above the field of view of our sensors. Now that you mention it, though, there’s something strange about these Undead overall. They all have that ‘fresh’ look. As if they just spawned. All of their equipment seems identical. Most powerful Undead that have been around for a while make the effort to upgrade.”

“I can’t say that there’s any easy way for Death Knights to find upgrades,” Saraca said, “but you have a point if it’s the Elder Liches. What they spawn with isn’t so great.”

Puzzle after puzzle after puzzle…

It was interesting in its own way, but they didn’t have the luxury to study all of the mysteries presenting themselves.

“Will you be ordering long-range bombardment?” Karuvaki asked, “If so, I can begin our preparations.”

“Given the nature of our opponent,” Saraca answered, “that’s probably unwise. Unless we can guarantee that we can end whatever is behind this, it’s better not to give them any ideas.”

They could already start hitting the Undead with ritual magic from Eastwatch, but even the awareness that something was possible was dangerous. The last thing they needed was an Undead army filled with Elder Liches developing war magic.

“Something more conventional, then,” Karuvaki said. “Magical traps and the like.”

“Forbiddance would work wonders,” Saraca admitted, “but it’s dangerous to our side, too. We don’t have the time to sort people out by their Karma. We can use it for ourselves, though. Also, since we’re facing the Undead, Hallow is guaranteed to be useful. Throw in some Druidic field effects, as well.”

“I’ll make the arrangements once you figure out our positioning.”

Positioning, huh.

The terrain of the Draconic Kingdom was far from ideal for Beastmen of their type. Then again, the weather made for challenging conditions for everyone involved aside from well-trained Rangers.

All this rain and mud should cut their mobility in half; then field effects like Entangle and Spike Growth will cut it in half again. Spike Growth should destroy any weak Undead attempting to get through…

Did Rol’en’gorek’s mystics use the same spells? They were First and Third-tier spells, respectively, but the highly mobile form of warfare that Rol’en’gorek’s warbands specialised in may have not seen their tactical adoption.

“If there’s anything the local mystics already have access to,” Saraca said, “feel free to advise them on their defensive applications in this situation.”

“How long should we continue scrying for?”

“Until we have a decent feel for the front. We don’t have the time or mana to do any more than that. It shouldn’t be long until we start figuring out our placements and you can start deploying field defences.”

Saraca returned to the table, taking a few bites of the food that had been laid out for the assembly. Rana Saj gave him a sidelong glance.

“You seem well-accustomed to this sort of thing,” he said. “There isn’t a shred of hesitation in any of your decisions, despite being a guest.”

“I apologise if I seem presumptuous,” Saraca said, “but the Undead are a problem for everyone. Also, being well-accustomed to war at this scale may seem wholly respectable to you, but it isn’t something to be mindlessly proud of for us. With sufficient advancement, what is right and honourable for your people can become terrifying and to be avoided if at all possible. War is generally the last recourse between civilised nations, though I feel that it is a recourse all too often arrived at in spite of everything.”

“I lack your perspective,” Rana Saj said, “but you may be right about that. Never once have I considered my earnest actions in the wrong; we always witness firsthand the immediate cause and effect of everything we do. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”

In a way, Saraca envied the peoples of the uncivilised fringes of the world. A tribe had its champions in various fields, and those champions remained close to the roots of their respective causes. As civilisation advanced, things became increasingly complex and detached. One could find themselves fighting for something they would otherwise be adamantly against if they had any clue about what was going on.

Guru Khhschlr entered the room, hanging over the shoulder of one of Saraca’s bodyguards. The Clanlords around the room were clearly less than impressed by her entrance. Gurus – commonly known as ‘Sages’ elsewhere – were not in themselves a vocation that lent to high degrees of physical growth. Most Sages were found in civilian fields, and Khhschlr was no stronger than the average civilian Beastman.

As she was dumped onto a chair before the assembled Lords, Saraca could only think that any member of the faceless multitude left behind to be consumed by the Undead deserved to be carried to safety more than Khhschlr.

“Well,” she panted. “This is a surprise, but we thank you for coming so far to see us.”

“Spare us any pretence of authority, Khhschlr,” Rana Saj rumbled. “We came at the behest of Rana Renatha, not you. There are, however, a great many questions that the Lords of Rol’en’gorek have about Clan Torokgha’s conduct.”

“Our conduct?” The guru blinked.

“Why did you deceive us about the Warmaster’s demise?”

Silence followed Rana Saj’s pointed question. The nearby braziers cast flickering shadows over the shifting expression on Khhschlr’s face.

“…because there was no need to undermine the confidence of the people,” she said. “Everything was under control.”

“Under control?” Rana Kizurra scoffed, “I have had time enough with the local Lords to understand that state of ‘control’. Hundreds of thousands of migrants sent to the western fringes to face starvation while you monopolise trade in the east. Humans raiding and slaughtering civilians in the southern ranges, leaving their arrow-ridden corpses to rot in the sun. An invasion planned for the lands across the sea, where gods-know-what awaits those you send. This is not what Rana Dratha proposed to us before embarking on his ‘great venture’. You have sucked everyone around you into this ever-growing vortex of lies!”

“This conquest was supposed to be long concluded,” Rana Saj said. “Rana Dratha promised all of us our western gateway. One that would lead us to the future. What happened to establishing peace with the Draconic Kingdom?”

Saraca’s head snapped over to regard Rana Saj in shock.

“This is the first I’ve heard of this,” Saraca said. “How has anything that’s been done in the Draconic Kingdom counted as a step toward peace?”

“Peace is what comes after conquest, yes?” Rana Saj replied, “After proving our supremacy beyond the shadow of a doubt, Rana Dratha was supposed to force terms upon the Draconic Kingdom. They were to become a tributary of our confederation.”

“Rana Dratha was very clear about this point,” Rana Kizurra said. “The Humans have much that we do not. Technology; magic; resources and connections to the wider world. It would be a colossal waste to destroy them, and we do not yet possess the means to accomplish what they do.”

“Have you tried asking?”

“We have. Many times. Every time our raids were decisively beaten back and their warriors earned a measure of our respect, we made diplomatic overtures as equals. Unfortunately, all such overtures have ended at the end of the Angel’s shining blade, so Rana Dratha proposed that we needed to utterly crush their will to fight. Thus, conquest.”

The logic was sound, from their perspective. Without something that all parties respected, genuine diplomacy couldn’t happen. With any race that would otherwise dominate the land without the existence of other races, that usually meant enough de facto power to dissuade others from seeing violence as the easiest way to achieve their ends.

Violent conflict was just as often a precursor to conventional diplomacy as it was the result of failed diplomacy – especially since some races were better at empty posturing than others. One war was all it took to destroy any such façade, and falling for that same façade could cause irreparable harm. A weak neighbour was an unreliable neighbour, after all.

“There can be no peace with the Humans,” Khhschlr spat. “They only want to see us destroyed. You describe their actions in the mildest of ways; the western clans know the full truth of things. Furthermore, we will never forgive them for killing our beloved Warmaster!”

“Is that why you turned them into livestock?” Saraca asked, “In retaliation for your loss?”

“What’s wrong with treating food as food?” The guru answered.

“And that’s why you’ve also left them as fodder for the Undead? How foolish can you be?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The Humans were left behind for the Undead because they were ‘too difficult to move’. Is that your doing?”

“I said no such thing to anyone!”

“Still,” the Lord who had first mentioned the issue said, “that was the result. You claimed that it would make the Humans more docile. That was indeed the case, but it also made them incapable of caring for themselves! In your own words, one of the best points of ranching Humans was that they were low-maintenance. Now, they have become a liability.”

Saraca’s ears swivelled from Khhschlr to the Lord, then back again.

“What did you do?” Saraca said in a low voice as he rose from his seat.

“What did I do? I made them happy! I admit that it affected their efficiency, but we’ve been working on refining things.”

“What. Did. You. Do?”

“We distributed a plant. There was this place in Stormport where the Humans seemed quite pleased with life in general. I asked the proprietor about them and he left me with a list of them. Some of them were more than plentiful along our southern border. The one we used was ‘Laira’, I believe?”

Khhschlr tumbled back in her chair onto the floor as Saraca pounced over the table. He snatched her by the throat and slammed her into the beams of the ceiling.

“You fiend! Is there no end to your evil? Did Lord Yama’s servants somehow miss you before you reentered this temporal coil?”

“Wha–” Khhschlr gasped. “Why are you so angry? They’re just–”

“They’re people!” Saraca roared up at her, “Acting out one’s roles in life is one thing; ruining them is another!”

A fool with the means and will to act out their idiocy was the most dangerous person of all. How much damage had she caused with the careless implementation of her ‘ideas’? How many generations would pay the price for her folly? Saraca considered doing Rol’en’gorek a favour and ending her right then and there.

“I believe it’s time for you to leave, Khhschlr,” Rana Saj said from behind him.

The floorboards shuddered as Khhschlr was released. Saraca stalked back to his seat.

“Leave?” Khhschlr coughed, rubbing her throat, “How can you say that? I’ve dedicated my entire life to the conquest of the Draconic Kingdom! To our people! After all that I’ve done–”

“You’ve already done more than enough,” Rana Saj said. “That aside, civilians not playing a role in logistical support have been commanded to withdraw from the front. You are no exception, Khhschlr.”

Khhschlr turned a pleading gaze at the assembled Clanlords, but even those under Clan Torokgha looked away. She seemed to shrink as the moments passed, finally slinking out of the hall without another word.

“There isn’t much we can do about the Humans,” Rana Kizurra said. “We can hardly send out our forces to retrieve them with the Undead nearly upon us.”

“I don’t suppose you have any convenient solution for this, Saraca?” Rana Saj asked.

Saraca shook his head.

“No. This sort of problem requires an institutional effort. It’s not so simple that it can be solved by a single person casting a spell.”

“In that case, we’ll simply have to shoulder the burdens of Khhschlr’s unwanted efforts. Let’s get back to planning our defence. By the way…what are the chances that the Humans swept up in this have survived?”

He crossed his arms, sighing as his eyes traced over the markers on the map representing countless Undead.

“None,” Saraca said.

“A shame,” Rana Saj said. “The Undead have exacted a tragic toll on everyone. Despite everything that has happened, Rana Dratha’s original proposal still holds as much merit now as it did back then. I was hoping to salvage what we could in the aftermath.”

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