Valkyrie's Shadow

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Chapter 12

15th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE, 1100 Hours

The shadow of a Bone Vulture crossed the edge of the thicket. Thurgakr ducked back into the shadows. Several minutes later, she approached the threshold again, peeking out between the leaves. Her ears swivelled, alert for any sound. She tested the air for the odour of Zombies, but the recent rains had suffused the air with the scent of damp soil and wet vegetation.

Three days had passed since she separated from the group that she and her warriors had been escorting to safety – three days that she felt had mostly been wasted. It took her a day to reach the river and swim across, but the Ocelo she expected on the other side were gone. The next day consisted of her wandering around. She first went southwest to where their clanhold was supposed to be, finding them similarly absent.

North, across the river from the clanhold, she found that the Undead had surrounded Blighthold. The remains of Beastman dwellings on the south shore had been blasted apart. Not wanting to find out what would happen if she lingered too long, Thurgakr went east to the next closest clanhold. In her time going back and forth, harbingers of the Undead advance started to appear: the cursed Bone Vultures that lazily circled overhead like carrion birds anticipating a battle.

She checked the skies again before continuing on her way, heading for the distant walls of a Human town. As she closed in on the settlement, she came across a pair of Ocelo patrolling the fields outside. Two pairs of emerald eyes reflected the evening light as they examined her.

“Nar…Ki’ra?”

“The hold is on the other side of the town,” the female of the pair said. “You’ll see it once you go around.”

Thurgakr thanked them and jogged toward the town. The Humans standing watch on the walls tensed when they saw her coming, but she kept herself out of the range of potential arrows and bolts.

Life seemed undisturbed from its usual state, with neither the Ocelo nor the Humans acting out of sorts. They thought nothing of the Bone Vultures circling high overhead – though she supposed that they just looked like birds from their usual altitude – and word of the clan across the river from Blighthold being displaced had apparently not reached them. Whether the other clan had not cared to inform them or had simply panicked and fled, she wasn’t sure.

Either way, she hoped that the fact that they had run away would help her convince the local clan to enact a prudent response. The last thing anyone needed was yet another ten thousand people joining the ranks of the Undead.

She met another set of Ocelo on the other side of the town, who directed her towards what Humans called a ‘copse’ – a forest of strangely-grown trees that were harvested for wood. This one was large as it supplied the nearby town, which she supposed was why it had been chosen for the local clanhold.

The Ocelo – the name which the Jaguarfolk of their country referred to themselves by – were notably more reserved than the Urmah. Most quietly rested in the shadows, their eyes following Thugakr as she made her way deeper into the woods. She found the local Lord similarly resting on the branch of an elm tree. One of his golden eyes opened to regard her.

“Nar Ki’ra,” he said in a smooth tone. “What brings you to my clanhold?”

Thurgakr lowered herself onto her haunches, dipping her head.

“Forgive me,” she said, “I know not the name of the one who rules here.”

“il-Enkaax ocelo Balam,” the Ocelo Lord replied.

“Il-Enkaax, I am Thurgakr nar Ki’ra. I’ve come bearing news from the northwest.”

The tip of il-Enkaax’s black tail twitched back and forth lazily.

“That was quick,” he said. “So has il-Enhorshr sent you to brag about how amazing urmah Kisher is?”

“Urmah Kisher has been destroyed, il-Enkaax. The Undead come.”

How would her parents have delivered the news? Her own words felt woefully inadequate for the situation.

Il-Enkaax’s tail stopped. He raised his head from his branch to look down at her.

“Destroyed? Not pushed back? Not sent scurrying with their tails between their legs like impetuous youths with their pride beaten out of them?”

“Less than a thousand remain, il-Enkaax,” Thurgakr looked up at him. “I came ahead of them to warn the clans.”

“Warn the clans…” the Ocelo Lord’s voice rolled softly through the branches. “Another fellow came through earlier this week to do that. Nar Ki’ra, just like you. Then some Urmah runners came by to boast of their upcoming victory.”

That idiot il-Enhorshr did that? I would laugh over the irony if catastrophe wasn’t coming for us all.

“Wait,” her ears swivelled forward. “Another nar Ki’ra? Was it Hhrolhr?”

“Yes, I believe that was his name. He seemed very earnest. Hhrolhr claimed an unknown force, but powerful. The Urmah runners that came later said several thousand. I thought it would be a foregone conclusion with the entirety of urmah Kisher on the warpath. How many of the Undead remain? There are three clans in the vicinity and I suppose we’ll have to clean up after urmah Kisher’s mess.”

Il-Enkaax blinked slowly as he spoke. The Ocelo Lord seemed mostly undisturbed by urmah Kisher’s demise. It was an understandable reaction in normal times: a clan’s destruction meant more territory for everyone else.

“Rather than the Undead horde being weakened,” Thurgakr said, “they were far too strong in the first place. Urmah Kisher destroyed thousands of lesser Undead, but it was a mere fraction of our enemy’s strength. The Undead do not order themselves as we do, il-Enkaax: they send the weak before the strong. When the strong Undead finally appeared…none of the Urmah who went to do battle survived.”

“And what of you?” A voice came from the side, “Why does one of nar Ki’ra stand before us to deliver this news? Should you not have fought and fallen with the others?”

Thurgakr glanced towards the source of the new voice. A female Ocelo covered in dark brown rosettes eyed her from a branch above and to the right. Thurgakr examined the canopy, finding two dozen Ocelo lounging in the trees.

“Because this information is too important not to be passed on,” Thurgakr addressed them. “The Undead come, and they will be upon you more quickly than you think. They come not only by land, but also by sea: the Human city of Blighthold has already been surrounded and the clanhold to its south is no more.”

Il-Enkaax hopped off of his branch, stretching his arms and legs. His jaws opened in a wide yawn.

“It would’ve been nice if they had at least said something,” he grumbled. “How long until the Undead arrive?”

“They are already here,” Thurgakr replied. “Some of the birds circling above are not birds at all: they are Bone Vultures sent by their masters to reconnoitre the land.”

“I don’t recall any tales where Undead hordes use scouts.”

“I believe it would be better to consider them an ‘Undead army’, il-Enkaax. They are no mere mindless swarm of the unliving – their masters are shrewd and employ strategies and tactics as the living do. The only thing slowing them down at the moment are all the Humans that they’re stopping to devour along the way. I fear to know how many tens of thousands of Undead there are now.”

The Ocelo Lord turned his gaze upwards.

“What say you?”

“Urmah Kisher had the assistance of nar Ki’ra,” a voice drifted down from above. “What choice do we have but to flee?”

“The mountains are close,” someone else said. “It’s a mere day to the foothills.”

“Have you gone mad? The clan there will shred us! We need to join forces with the other clans out here. Two lie two days south of us.”

“Will they allow us to approach? Food is scarce enough as it is…”

They at least appeared to be aware of all the issues that faced them. Their old home would not offer them welcome and their logistical issues made it difficult to consolidate with the other clans in the Draconic Kingdom.

“No matter which way we go,” il-Enkaax said, “troubles await us. What we should decide is where the clans will choose to stand their ground. How many will we need to fight this menace, nar Ki’ra?”

Thurgakr blinked at his unexpected question. She had been prepared to face a clan adamant about defending its territory.

“I do not know the full extent of their power,” she said. “Based on what I’ve seen…all of them.”

“All of them?”

“All of them and more. This is a problem for the warrior clans to face. Not just a few of them: as many as we can convince. Twenty would be a good start. Even then, I am not sure if that will be enough.”

Incredulous voices filtered down from overhead.

“Twenty?! How many countries are you trying to conquer here?”

“Even if we could rally that many, we couldn’t feed them. We can barely feed ourselves…”

“I doubt that many would come. Taking so many from the homeland will open it to invasion from every direction.”

“But if we don’t stop the Undead, the homeland will be invaded.”

Thurgakr’s ears flattened against her head as the discussion continued. She hadn’t even started to consider the implications of the Undead horde for the homeland. Their country was expansive and covered vast stretches of mountains and jungles, which meant that it had the population and power to match. That same advantage also meant that they had a large border to defend and each clan had their own piece of it to watch over.

They had to constantly defend against the savage races of the great barrier range that ran along their northern frontier. Their seemingly endless numbers and absurdly aggressive behaviour made crossing through or even above the mountains impossible. To the south was the Great Lut, a stretch of sandy desert across dry mountains infested by all manner of hardy – and extremely opportunistic – tribes.

To the east was the greatest threat, the Jogurlan Commonwealth: an alliance of Demihuman countries that waged intermittent wars with nearly all of their neighbours. Everyone considered them a menace as they constantly skirted the edge of turning their borderlands into Undead-infested wastes.

Well, maybe these Undead might appreciate the Jogurlans since they’re doing their job for them…

The Draconic Kingdom in the west had not demonstrated itself to be a threat compared to the rest of their neighbours. However, rumour had it that the Brightness Dragon Lord, one of the world’s most ancient and powerful beings, had created the country in the wake of the Demon Gods. For that country, he had sired a sorcerous lineage. Thus, they had stepped lightly around the Draconic Kingdom for generations, only doing half as much as they believed a Dragon would tolerate in their domain.

It wasn’t until Kal’il-Endratha nar Torokgha, the great Warmaster of the west, dared to challenge common knowledge by exploring the viability of conquering their western neighbour did things begin to change. Over the years, he carefully poked and prodded to analyse the Draconic Kingdom’s reactions and gain knowledge of the land and its people.

Barring being blasted into oblivion by a Dragon Lord, Kal’il-Endratha’s foremost worry was that some powerful country lay on the other side. When they discovered that the Draconic Kingdom lay on the coast and only the Humans appeared to be defending the land, Kal’il-Endratha embarked on a great venture to expand their nation’s holdings.

He didn’t even need to rally the warrior clans, as the Humans were so weak that the cast-off leavings of the common tribes could overwhelm them. The Warmaster organised the flood of hopeful migrants into tribes and clans, transforming them into tributaries of nar Torokgha. Nar Torokgha would be the muscle should Human champions appear to resist them.

It was the perfect plan. In fact, it went too perfectly, which resulted in too many people surviving the campaign. Little did they know that, in a tiny corner of the Draconic Kingdom, an Undead horde would come bursting forth. Even if they knew of the existence of the Katze Plains beforehand, no one would have expected such a powerful force to exist since the relatively weak Humans hadn’t already been overwhelmed by them.

“Nar Torokgha needs to be informed,” il-Enkaax said. “They are overseeing the migration into these lands, but they are far from here.”

“That is my task,” Thurgakr said, “but nar Ki’ra has been in the northwest for months. I was hoping you could point me in the right direction.”

“They’ve established their seat of power at that lake on the Rol’en’gorek,” the Ocelo Lord replied. “The wet season approaches, so everyone is settling down to weather the rains.”

“Do they even have a rainy season here?”

“I’m not sure, but it should at least flood the Rol’en’gorek. Our mystics mentioned that the Human settlements along the river have been built to account for major changes in water levels.”

If that were the case, moving around and fighting the Undead would become that much more problematic. Rivers would become difficult to cross without ships and the terrain would be churned into a muddy mire by tens of thousands of people moving over the land.

Would Hhrolhr have reached nar Torokgha by now? Probably not. It was over two hundred kilometres away from ocelo Balam’s clanhold and, like she, he was probably stopping to warn the people along the way of the Undead threat. If he stopped at every clanhold, he would be less than halfway to his destination.

“In that case,” Thurgakr said, “I should be on my way. Have you decided where to go, il-Enkaax?”

“Southwest,” the Clanlord said. “Along the foothills. There is still game to hunt along the way, so it will be better than imposing on other clans and risking confrontations.”

Compared to il-Enhorshr, il-Enkaax felt far more level-headed. It was probably due to him being Ocelo, however – they were patient predators who tended to be elusive even in their home jungles.

“Il-Enkaax!” An Ocelo rushed in through the trees, “Undead have been spotted in the north!”

“North? Not northwest?”

“Ten kilometres north,” the runner replied, “heading southeast.”

The Ocelo Lord turned to look at Thurgakr.

“How far away was this Undead horde that defeated urmah Kisher?”

“They should be crossing the river to the northwest at this point,” Thurgakr replied.

“Then how are they so close? They should be three times as far.”

Thurgakr fell silent, staring at the ground as she reflected on the Undead army’s behaviour.

“The wings move faster,” she said.

“The wings?” Il-Enkaax narrowed his eyes, “Explain.”

“I told you: it’s an Undead army. When I was still escorting the fleeing urmah Kisher, the Undead attacked us from the shore. They’ve been stopping to consume Human settlements along the way, but the wings do not encounter as many. I presume that is why the ones that came out of the water got so close when we thought we were well away from their advance. Human settlements are more sparse along the foothills, so similar behaviours may apply.”

“I see. That makes sense, but shouldn’t that mean they’re coming this way now? Between the clanhold and this Human town, there are enough people to draw them straight to us.”

“There are more of those ‘birds’ above us, il-Enkaax,” someone said from the canopy. “Thurgakr said they were Undead, yes?”

“Then it’s time to go,” il-Enkaax said. “Send runners out and warn the tribes to the east and south.”

“What about the west?”

“If the Undead have crossed the river, then the furthest ones already know. They’ll warn everyone else along the way.”

Il-Enkaax turned to address Thurgakr.

“Thank you for coming to warn us, nar Ki’ra,” he said. “You may reprovision yourself in our territory if you require. Hopefully, nar Torokgha can figure out a way to deal with this. Perhaps we’ll meet again on the Rol’en’gorek.”

“Though it appears to have been late, il-Enkaax,” Thrugakr bowed, “thank you for heeding my warning. I wish you and your clan good fortune in the coming days.”

Thurgakr rose from her bow and turned to leave. Then the canopy exploded into flames. She covered her head as burnt and charred Ocelo rained onto the ground around her.

“Why are you still standing there?” Il-Enkaax snarled, “Get your warning to nar Torokgha!”

She dashed out of the trees, accompanied by the screams and cries of burning Ocelo. Fire continued to rain from the sky, but she couldn’t feel its heat against her back.

Magic…are those Fireballs?

Second-tier casters were common enough in their homeland, but Third-tier casters were very rare. She had only heard of Fireball from tales before coming to the Draconic Kingdom. Despite the Humans’ weakness, they were more prolific when it came to magic. Accounts of previous excursions to the Draconic Kingdom even spoke of the defenders using Fourth and Fifth-tier spells.

Thurgakr dared to glance over her shoulder as she cleared the copse. Sure enough, several Elder Liches were sending spheres of flame into the trees.

She twisted in mid-air to slap down a Bone Vulture diving after her, regaining her feet and pouncing upon it before it could take flight again. Another pale form entered the corner of her vision. She turned to swipe at it. Her arm turned cold as her claws harmlessly passed through the throat of a ghostly Nar. Thurgakr cursed.

“「Focus Battle Aura」, 「Luminous Claw」!”

Her return strike flashed across the incorporeal figure, which let out an unearthly wail. She followed through her first attack with a quick series of light-imbued slashes. Her chest heaved as the Wraith dissipated into the air.

Thurgakr released her Martial Arts and resumed her run, gauging the shortness of her breath.

Damn thing drained my vitality…just what I needed…

It wasn’t enough to incapacitate her, but the distance she could cover in a day would be significantly reduced. She needed to find a mystic with Lesser Restoration. Thurgakr scanned the field, searching for a tribe she could request healing from, but a grim scene played out everywhere she looked.

Undead fell upon hapless Ocelo, sending them into a chaotic flight. Swarms of Wraiths swept into the copses of trees scattered across the countryside. With ocelo Balam formed out of the commoner castes, they wouldn’t have Martial Arts or Skills that imbued their attacks with magic or elemental properties. Their claws wouldn’t be able to make a single scratch on the incorporeal Undead.

Pairs of Elder Liches flew overhead far beyond the reach of their victims. The points of crimson light in their skulls seemed to flare with every new wave of suffering that echoed into the cloudy skies.

Thurgakr kept a low profile, running on all fours through the grass. With every step, she expected to be consumed by a Fireball or crippled by some foul necromantic spell, but, somehow, the sounds of slaughter slowly grew distant. She didn’t slow down to ponder her miraculous escape, but she did ponder the abrupt change in the Undead army’s movements as she ran.

While she reasoned that their unexpected advance was due to the lack of Humans slowing them down, the sheer aggression displayed against ocelo Balam was unprecedented. Though she thought that, it was more typical of the unrelenting, hateful attacks that people expected of the Undead.

Il-Enkaax’s fears had come to pass. The combined population of his clanhold and the nearby Human town was a tantalising target for the Undead. Then again, Blighthold had been surrounded and there was no sign of the same behaviour.

What did it mean? Was it a coalition of Undead, after all? Did a faction within their ranks harbour a different opinion on how they should advance? One that had views that were more ‘natural’ to the Undead?

At the least, it meant that no Night Lich dominated all of the Elder Liches in the Undead army. There would be no divided opinions if that were the case. If so, could it be used to their advantage? By stringing the Undead out across the land into groups that were too far to support one another, they could be defeated bit by bit by a unified, superior force.

Her thoughts continued to mill as she jogged westward. The sun was halfway across the horizon when she spotted a copse with Ocelo occupants. A group of cubs playing in the trees stopped to watch Thurgakr when she crossed into the edge of the trees.

“I’ve come to speak to your Chief,” she knelt to speak to them. “Can you tell me where he is?”

One of them – a female with a black pelt of barely visible rosettes – pointed a claw towards the interior. As with il-Enkaax’s clanhold, the tribe’s chief was in a shaded grove of the tallest trees, stretched out over a low branch.

“Nar Ki’ra,” he said. “What brings you to my tribe?”

“Urmah Kisher has been destroyed by an Undead army coming from the northwest,” Thurgakr told him. “Il-Enkaax has ordered ocelo Balam to flee southeast along the foothills.”

“I would think that il-Enkaax would send one of our own to inform us,” the Ocelo Lord said.

“Il-Enkaax’s clanhold came under attack less than two hours ago. I do not know if any have survived.”

Murmurs drifted down from the branches overhead.

“Also,” Thurgakr said, “Elder Liches are bombarding large copses like these with Fireballs, so you may want to come down.”

The leaves rustled as Ocelo landed on the damp humus all around her. Before her, the Ocelo Lord rose to his full, two-and-a-half metre height.

“What else did il-Enkaax say? Where are we to go?”

“As far as wherever the clans decide to make their stand,” Thurgakr said. “I have been tasked to warn nar Torokgha of the coming threat…on that note, do you have any mystics who can cast Lesser Restoration? A Wraith drained my vitality on the way here.”

The Ocelo Lord glanced at a mystic nearby. The mystic shook her head.

“I’m sorry, nar Ki’ra,” she said. “The closest Second-tier mystics were at the clanhold.”

“I see.”

She hadn’t really expected to find any. While Second-tier mystics were easily found in the cities of her homeland, they were rarer in tribal communities. This was especially the case since the people coming to the Draconic Kingdom were those who the clans at home did not wish to keep. Only a bare minimum of weaker mystics had come to support the migrating tribes.

“In that case,” Thurgakr said. “I must be on my way. Please, take care of yourselves.”

Ludmila nodded to herself as an Elder Lich reached out to remove another Beastman tribe from the map. It had been a tense day.

With the forces from Katze crossing the Seylan River, they faced a new set of challenges. Namely, the Beastman tribes uprooting themselves and fleeing.

Unlike the Lion Beastmen north of Blighthold, the Jaguar Beastmen on the other side of the Seylan had a more elusive nature. When the clanhold south of the city was shattered by Ruin’s Wake, the expectation was that they would run for a while before consolidating to defend their territory. Instead, they paused for about a day before fleeing en masse.

At first, her general staff speculated over whether they had been too forceful by having Ruin’s Wake chase the Beastmen away. A day later, however, tribes elsewhere in the province started moving well before the Undead arrived. The staff concluded that information was travelling well ahead of the Undead advance, and the Beastmen’s reaction to that information had resulted in an undesirable outcome.

Simply put, running Beastmen still needed to eat and there were too many Beastmen on the run. The fighting that they expected hadn’t happened, so they needed to reduce the number of Beastmen. Otherwise, they would eat their way backwards across the Draconic Kingdom at an unacceptable rate.

Their first adjustment was to increase the pace of the Undead advance. The original rate had been set to match the limit of what the Lion Beastmen could cover in a day, which was about twenty kilometres with children and the elderly. Zombies looked slow at a glance, as they could only walk two kilometres per hour. They could walk twenty-four hours per day without tiring, however, so they more than doubled the Beastmen’s daily rate.

The forces on the ground now moved at the Zombies’ maximum speed, sweeping up the remaining Lionfolk and beginning their cleanup of the Panther Beastmen. Their ‘wings’ going ahead along the northern foothills and the shores of the inland sea matched their pace, keeping the Beastmen from fleeing back to their country or seeing the occasional convoy of barges delivering goods to Oriculon. Wraiths, Bone Vultures and Elder Liches were sent to head off the fleeing tribes furthest ahead.

Flying Undead, of course, could move much faster than their soldiers on the ground. More importantly, that speed was expected of them, so the Beastmen probably wouldn’t expect that they were being used to purposely pick off the tribes at the head of the pack. Wraiths, especially, proved useful for this. A single one could wipe out a small tribe in short order as those tribes lacked the means to fight back against an incorporeal assailant.

As for the Draconic Kingdom’s citizens…well, she wasn’t sure how they felt about having their lands swarmed over by fleeing Beastmen, then swarmed over by the pursuing Undead, but they would recover from the experience eventually. Probably.

Ludmila checked the time. She would be due soon for her evening report.

“Do we have any other major kinks to work out?” She asked.

“No, my la–Captain,” Wiluvien answered. “I think we have things back under control for now.”

“I’m off, then,” Ludmila said. “After the audience, I’ll be heading back to the front.”

She collected her reports and headed out the door. Given the violence and chaos of the day’s operations, she probably had a lot of negative energy to remove from the province. Maybe her armour should have been fashioned in the appearance of a Maid outfit instead.

The longer skirts would be welcome. She was starting to become accustomed to the short skirts of the equipment that had been granted to her. At this rate, she would think nothing of all the other things that Lady Shalltear had her wear in private.

Ludmila crossed the hall, entering the delegation’s state room to have Aemilia check over her appearance. When she crossed over into the back half and entered the lounge, she found Clara and Liane lying listless on the couches. Florine was sitting at a desk, penning something out with a focused expression.

“What happened to you two?” Ludmila asked.

Clara tilted her head upward to throw an upside-down stare at Ludmila. Her amethyst eyes lacked their usual lustre.

“Our proposal,” Clara pouted. “It was rejected.”

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