Valkyrie's Shadow

Chapter 9

The grass alongside the highway streaked by after Ludmila was blasted back by the Beastman Lord’s attack. Her world was a haze of blinding pain before she distanced herself from the sensations of her body.

Even with Invulnerable Fortress…

Her arms were shattered from her wrists to her elbows and her shoulders were dislocated. The shaft of her glaive, which had been held out crosswise in a desperate attempt to block her foe’s attack, had been forced into her breastplate and her ribs were crushed. Her head wobbled loosely as her body tumbled through the air.

Had Ludmila still been one of the living, being knocked unconscious would have been a mercy. Even if landing wherever she was going didn’t kill her, she would have been able to do nothing but lie there and wait for death.

As she was now, however, it was simply ‘damage’. Pain was something that was happening elsewhere. Her shattered arms would become strong enough to use again and her pulverised organs – though they did little in this situation beyond act as mass – would similarly recover. The Human instincts and emotions that remained a part of her being could be ignored, but just smothering them was foolish. Instead, she partitioned away her shock and confusion. Then, she grasped what lay at the core of her identity: the adamantine will to fight and defeat her foes.

Ludmila’s trajectory took her into a nearby copse of trees. Her body folded around a tree trunk and her spine snapped. She fell from there, flopping off of the branches on the way down until entering the poorly maintained tangle of undergrowth with the sound of rustling leaves and snapping twigs. She lay on the ground for a moment, all too aware of her destroyed organs pulsing feebly beneath her crushed ribs.

After the moment passed, she concealed herself and sat up. When nothing immediately pounced upon her, she took a quick inventory of herself and her surroundings.

Her armour had already repaired itself and her arms were already stable enough to reach out for and lift her glaive. There was no visible sign of damage on the weapon, though it would have similarly fixed itself as magical equipment did. The sounds of battle still came from outside the copse, though they were rapidly receding.

She rose to her feet, alert for any signs of pursuit as she relocated to the edge of the trees. Across the ditch, Death-series servitors ran alongside Beastmen while other Beastmen attacked them from behind. It was a scene that she had witnessed many times before, though that scene involved Adventurers in the Adventurer Training Area rather than Beastmen running down a highway in the Draconic Kingdom.

I was so happy that I broke the effect and they just went and reapplied it.

Turn Undead allowed a Cleric to impose a state of divine fear or awe into the Undead by channelling positive energy – or negative energy, depending on what they were doing – which could result in a variety of effects. Goodly Clerics could make the Undead run away or even outright destroy them. Evil Clerics like Lady Shalltear could also force the Undead to cower where they were, reinforce friendly Undead against turning or even take control of enemy Undead. One could often turn Undead beings that were significantly stronger than themselves and the ability could be used several times a day.

The problem was the sheer magnitude of the effect on display before her. As far as she knew, the only answer was that the Clerics that had performed the turning were Undead specialists with something that amplified turning. Rol’en’gorek was so vast that she couldn’t discount the idea that they had Undead of their own to deal with, especially along the desert on its southern border.

An ‘Undead horde’ appearing in the Draconic Kingdom would naturally have the tribal confederation call on any experts to help. The wide array of new tactics that were effective against the Undead were probably put into effect not long after they arrived. Anti-Undead Martial Arts may also have been used against her, though she felt no lingering effects that might follow them.

Her fingers squeezed tightly on her weapon as she resisted the urge to run out and assist her struggling soldiers. She needed to know what was going on, first.

『Saiko, where are you?』

『Roughly fifteen hundred metres above our defensive line.』

『Is it even a line anymore?』

『…observed behaviour suggests that Turn Undead has been employed, but the effect is disproportionately large compared to any models created for the appearance of Beastmen clergy.』

That was more than a bit of an understatement. Since the Beastmen worshipped gods, they should have had the accompanying clergy, but every Beastman ‘mystic’ they observed was indistinguishable from a Druid. Once they started fighting the warrior clans and a discernible priesthood still didn’t appear, Ludmila was of the mind that their society hadn’t developed to the point where their temples became an organised institution that started producing Clerics, Priests and other associated vocations.

Maybe they had been kept in reserve for a situation just like the one they were in. In a catastrophic turn of events, they conducted a counteroffensive aimed at the head of the Undead forces. Or at least it would have been if it were a conventional army where the General’s tent would be on the hill where Queen Oriculus currently was.

『What are the Beastmen doing? As far as I could tell when they hit my position, they were trying to break straight through us.』

『That still appears to be the case. Observations indicate that the Beastman offensive has split into three parts. Two are attempting to encircle the hill. One is travelling straight towards Queen Oriculus’ designated position.』

『Have reconnaissance begin delivering reports to Lord Tian on the Beastman movements around his position.』

『Acknowledged.』

Ludmila backed up into the copse a bit, eyeing the hill in the west through the trees.

『Lord Tian, I’m not sure how much of this you can see from where you are, but the Beastmen are attempting to encircle your position. The fastest and most numerous group should be coming up the highway, but their Rangers can make it through the fields just as quickly and may try to ambush you. There are probably around thirty thousand of them.』

The general staff said that leaving matters in Lord Tian’s hand would be sufficient in any case, but she still wondered what the Royal Butler would resort to. As far as she could tell, he was the sort that would only retaliate after others attacked or if they insulted His Majesty somehow. If it were her, she would just take Queen Oriculus and leave, but she doubted that the Royal Court would accept one of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s representatives being ‘driven away’ like that.

『Saiko, how is Olga doing?』

『The Beastmen are still resisting her at their first defensive line, but they are visibly weakening. The general staff predicts a decisive breakthrough within the next hour.』

Heavy footfalls alerted Ludmila to an approaching set of Nar. The two Lords that she had confronted were among their number. Ludmila retreated further into the copse.

“There’s no sign of it.”

Another Nar materialised in front of the group upon speaking. Ludmila narrowed her eyes and peered at her surroundings. She hadn’t noticed her presence at all.

“I don’t see how that could be unless she has the ability to cover her tracks,” the new arrival said. “Her remains probably disintegrated. No, I didn’t see any of her equipment on the ground. I don’t disagree, but that would defy everything we know about the Undead. Didn’t you say she was an Undead Lord or Commander or something along those lines? …a Scout Commander?”

“That monkey dropped out of the sky,” another Nar said. “Maybe she was a spectral type. Was shiny enough to be one.”

“Like that makes our job any easier.”

The first Nar turned away from the group, but Ludmila couldn’t tell what sort of expression she was wearing. The Beastman re-entered the trees, not making a sound while seemingly phasing through the high grass and unkempt bushes. Ludmila didn’t stick around to see how close she could get without being detected.

She had no right to complain, but only listening to part of an important conversation was a bit frustrating. The Nar was probably a Ranger reporting to her Lord and the Lord was exclusively using the voice of authority to communicate. This in itself might have seemed odd since many of Rol’en’gorek’s Lords shouted their orders over the battlefield, but she had to consider that it may have just been a biased observation since they wouldn’t hear the voice of authority being used when it was.

The Ability was a pseudo-secret everywhere she went and it was veiled in an esoteric shroud by its users. She had to assume that it was the same everywhere, especially considering the tremendous advantages it conferred.

Going by the casual feeling of the conversation, they were a powerful tribal group rather than members of a strict military hierarchy. Their equipment, too, appeared to be nothing if not mundane. The coats of green dragonscale sported by the others in the counteroffensive were far more impressive at a glance. This suggested that they were in reality two different groups: one with jungle territory that attracted Green Dragons and the other bordering an Undead-infested area, which would obviously have none. With no visual queues to work with and no appraisal ability, trying to guess at their equipment quality was a futile venture.

All that she knew was that they were looking for her, meaning that the opening attack by the Beastman Lord wasn’t some random act. The Beastmen saw the defeat of enemy Lords as a mark of high prestige, and while she had used the fact that she was a Lord against them in the past, it was now very much working against her.

Or not. As long as they’re convinced that I’m still around, they won’t join the others.

The group that was hunting for her was far stronger than the rest of the Beastmen combined. Not only was every single one of them stronger than she was, but the two Lords were beyond her ability to gauge. That probably made them as strong or stronger than the Viridian Dragon Lord. The only saving grace she could think of was that they didn’t fly.

How did the Intelligence Division fail to find out about them using the Beastmen delivered for questioning? Then again, Rol’en’gorek was huge. Its warrior clans were seen as ubiquitously strong and their Lords stronger still. There was no way to know for sure how strong one Lord was relative to another unless they were compared directly.

Like us, they seem to be stuck in a bubble of their own. The Theocracy is to blame for at least part of it, too…

Ludmila disabled her Trackless Step and her boots squished into the mud. She wandered across the copse and re-enabled it about a third of the way through. Hopefully, that would keep them scratching their heads while she figured out how to strike back.

First, she needed to rally her scattered troops. After that, she would make herself as obnoxious to kill as possible. Despite the perilous situation, the Beastmen were still on their way to losing Eastwatch. She reached the opposite side of the copse and looked around. Death-series servitors fleeing at full speed could run very far; she could only make out a few in the distance.

She entered a ditch alongside one of the rural roads leading away from the copse, running half-bent in an effort to stay out of sight. A few minutes later, the sound of battle carried over the wind. Ludmila took a quick peek to see where it was coming from.

A few hundred metres away, to the side of the nearby village, a Nar warband was fighting a Death Knight. They were neatly organised into several layers, with their mystics lending support from a distance. The Death Knight attacks were focused on the Lord opposing it while the other combatants took turns chipping away at its defences.

Ludmila snuck through the buildings of the village to the other side of the warband, hoping that whatever she did wouldn’t draw the attention of the stupidly powerful Beastmen searching the copse a kilometre away.

“Got another one of those damn spikes off!” One of the Nar warriors said.

“Get that part covering its thigh!” Another pointed a claw.

“I’m not sure who’s being tortured more,” the Lord grumbled. “This Death Knight, or me.”

The glow of healing magic washed over the Lord, closing a few bleeding gashes on his arms. They were winning against the Death Knight, but they were winning very slowly.

She pondered how she could best destabilise the fight. Every member of the warband appeared to be at least Difficulty Rating 45, which was equivalent in raw power to a Platinum-rank Adventurer. The Lord was around Difficulty Rating 75, which was just under Adamantite. Their mystics were fresh-looking and eager, which meant mana exhaustion wasn’t setting in.

Eliminating the mystics would rapidly make things take a turn for the worse as far as the Beastmen were concerned, but she would probably only be able to kill a few before she was swarmed. Her bow was mundane and she didn’t have strong ranged Martial Arts, but envenomed arrows might do the trick. Having Saiko summon something to disrupt the proceedings was also an option, but it would take a lot of mana.

A furious howl filled the air as the Death Knight used its area-of-effect taunt. Wounds built up on the Lord before he realised what was going on and broke his mystics out of the taunt.

Ludmila narrowed her eyes at yet another display of the ability-she-didn’t-have. Or did she? Not long before, she had broken her squads out of a Turn Undead effect without ever thinking at any point that she could do it or that she even needed it. The only thing on her mind was that she couldn’t let it happen and she literally willed it not to.

With the recent experience to refer to, she drew upon the wellspring of will deep within herself.

『Wake up.』

It wasn’t the best choice of words, but it probably didn’t matter.

The Death Knight looked in her direction.

『Ack! Don’t look this way!』

The Death Knight looked away. Ludmila frowned.

『Wait, you’re free? Stab one of the Beastmen between you and me.』

“Argh!”

“Hey, what the–”

Shouts of alarm and confusion rose as the Death Knight slashed at the surrounding Beastmen. More than a few sent looks at the Lord. The Lord roared out in challenge, striking at the Death Knight. The Death Knight ignored him and continued to attack the weaker Beastmen around it.

I’m an idiot.

It was, in effect, the same thing that she had done with Aemilia over a year ago. In Ludmila’s quest for improvement, everything had become framed in terms of ‘knowns’. Job Classes. Skills. Abilities. Martial Arts. She went to great lengths to study and define things, but that approach was probably wrong.

As the executor of her powers, being bound by rigid definition was foolish because she was the one who fluidly defined the manifestation of those powers for every single use. Reality had little bearing on feats that defied reality. Lady Shalltear had advised her several times to that effect, yet that advice had somehow gone in one ear and out the other or at least didn’t make a meaningful impression.

『Break through and hit the healers in the outer ring.』

The Death Knight worked its way through the surrounding warriors, cutting down some while sending others flying with its tower shield. In the back, the mystics continued healing for several moments before realising that they were the ones being targeted. Several raised their paws toward the charging Undead servitor.

“「Entangle」!”

Trampled grass came to life, rapidly growing to reach up and twine around the Death Knight. Complaints rose as every warrior within twelve metres was caught up in the spell as well. Ludmila dashed out from the shadows of the village and onto the field, cutting down the nearest Nar mystic from behind. She went through three more before the warband’s members noticed what was going on.

“A Human?”

“A Human Lord!”

“What’s a Human Lord doing here?!”

A few of the Beastmen turned to aid their mystics, but most were ensnared by the multiple entangle spells layered around the Death Knight. Several Squire Zombies rose from the slain, adding to the growing chaos. Ludmila decapitated another mystic before turning to deflect the strike of the first warrior to reach her. Her riposte took off the warrior’s arm and a Blossoming Iris knocked it back into another warrior coming their way.

“Have you gone mad, Human?” The Lord roared, “The Undead infest the countryside and you insist on fighting the living!”

Ludmila opened the next mystic from crotch to shoulder, then flicked the blood off of her blade. Several bullets bounced off of her armour’s shielding enchantment.

“Dammit, someone stop her!”

The next few mystics in line fled, moving to place the entangled melee between Ludmila and themselves. She turned and dealt with the next few warriors closing with her. Once they were dispatched, she charged straight for the melee. Her silvery glaive flashed in the sunlight as made her way towards the Death Knight. She found it with the Beastman Lord, who was also being assailed by a trio of Squire Zombies.

“Are Humans truly so foolish?” He grated, “Khhschlr was right: you will stop at nothing to see us destroyed.”

“I have no idea why you think there would be a Human in the middle of all this,” Ludmila replied.

After the Beastman Lord was dispatched, the Death Knight’s area-of-effect taunt took hold of the warband and the battle became a long string of executions.

Ludmila examined the surrounding area while that happened. Nothing appeared to be coming from the nearby copse, but that warband’s scouts were powerful enough that Ludmila wouldn’t see them coming until it was too late. The Beastmen heading for Queen Oriculus’ position were nearly at the base of the hill. She spotted another warband northwest of the village, presumably fighting another Death-series Servitor. From the look of things, the Beastmen advancing on the hill had left behind warbands to occupy the Undead scattered about.

『We can’t afford to keep pace with the Zombies, but we should still use them for something. Hmm…send them to attack the warband to the northeast while we go northwest.』

The Squire Zombies shuffled off with their Zombies. Ludmila and the Death Knights headed their own way. She gauged the Death Knights’ condition en route, nodding at what she saw.

Similar to the way Adventurers did things, the Beastmen’s method of dealing with the Death Knights involved a suitably proficient warrior focusing on defence while occupying a Death Knight’s attention. As such, the warrior relied on the other members of their party to deal damage.

This worked well when they were drawn into the high concentration of Beastmen around Eastwatch, as there would be plenty of decently powerful attackers on hand. However, a warband tended to have one strong Lord leading a group of regular warriors. In the time that the Death Knight she had rescued had probably been engaged in combat, it had only taken about five per cent of its health in damage.

The next warband they came upon was partially prepared for their arrival. Having a Death Knight rapidly stomping their way was likely hard to miss. Without another strong individual to stop them, however, they simply smashed through the preparations – or, rather, Ludmila’s Freedom effect allowed her to ignore their measures against the Death Knight – and things rapidly devolved into a brawl.

Ten minutes later, she had two Death Knights following her lead.

As I thought, the Beastmen are much easier to deal with when they’re operating as warbands.

It was only when they were allowed to gather in sufficient numbers did they have the force to resist entire squads of Death-series servitors. Their move to encircle Eastwatch effectively forced that condition. The question now was whether the general staff had done so on purpose to create a tangible challenge for the Royal Army and collect the data that they desired. Their motive would be obscured to the forces on the field – Ludmila included – to keep things ‘genuine’.

After sending the raised Zombies to the same warband as the other Zombies, Ludmila and the two Death Knights continued northwest. The next warband was gathered at the village further up the road. Instead of charging with her subordinates as she had with the previous group, she sent the Death Knights wide to perform a pincer attack and waited to see how they did. If things went well, they could split into separate groups and gather their forces more quickly.

Once she witnessed the result, she called her three Death Knights together.

『Alright, it looks like we can split up into pairs to rally the rest of our troops out here. You two head southeast while I’ll head west. Any idea if anything other than Death Knights survived?』

The Death Knights shook their heads.

『I see. In that case, I’ll have Saiko coordinate things from above for now. Remember to split off new pairs to reach more of your comrades as you’re able to.』

She sent the new pair of Death Knights on their way before relaying her instructions to Saiko. The next fifteen minutes saw their numbers quadruple. With things well on the road to recovery – such that it was – Ludmila’s thoughts returned to the problem of the powerful Nar warband.

From what she had seen, they were strong enough to require at least ten infantry squads to get rid of. If she had things her way, she would have brought thirty just to be sure.

『Saiko, any sign of that powerful warband?』

『None.』

“Rallying the troops, I see,” a voice came from behind her. “What a diligent Captain you are.”

Ludmila turned to find the Nar Lord that had sent her flying coming around the buildings on the other side of the village. How had reconnaissance failed to detect his approach?

“Might I ask you and your tribe to leave the Draconic Kingdom?” Ludmila said, “It is not your land, after all.”

“I’m afraid not,” the Nar Lord said. “There can only be one answer when it comes to the Undead. We will destroy you and every Undead creature left in your wake. The negative energy wasteland that you spawned from will be purged and cleansed.”

Is that truly warranted?

She supposed that, for the vast majority of the living population, it was the proper answer. The Undead were universally reviled and the living granted them no quarter because they were the antithesis of life.

More Nar appeared all around them. The Nar Lord unsheathed his claws and pounced. This time, instead of Invulnerable Fortress, Ludmila used Wind Stride to swiftly retreat before her foe’s assault. She leapt onto a house and off of the other side into the fields.

The Nar Lord gave pursuit, swatting the Death Knight accompanying her to the side when it tried stepping in his path. A bullet flew in and glanced across her temple, revealing a hunter shadowing her flight to the left. Another bullet came in from the right and was caught by her skirts. The hunter that had sent the projectile her way seemed surprised at the result.

Ahead of her, the two Nar Lords seemed unimpeded by the mud. Neither were the warriors accompanying them.

I need to delay…

She activated her hairpin and lifted off of the ground. Another bullet whistled in and struck her on the shoulder and she landed back on the field. Ludmila’s gauntleted hand went up to the ornament as she tried to activate it again, but nothing happened.

That hunter disabled my flight magic?

A Martial Art? A Skill? It didn’t really matter. Her only easy avenue of escape had been summarily denied.

To either side, the hunters overtook her and kept going. The two Lords continued to shadow her. She needed to break out of the enclosure before they shut the trap.

Ludmila changed direction, going perpendicular to her previous course. As expected, more hunters appeared from concealment, moving to block her path. She ran straight ahead, knocking the Nar directly in front of her away with a Blossoming Iris and following in its trail.

She made it all of six metres before the Nar Lord materialised directly to her front. His wickedly curved claws were the last thing Ludmila saw before oblivion took her.

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