Chapter 5 – Part 7

The arrow whistled past Carl’s head, and he heard the man next to him gasp and gurgle as he lost his throat. The Brelish infantryman lowered his head as he charged with his halberd. Ahead of him an Aundairian arose from a trench, frantically trying to work a crossbow. Carl was faster, and the blade of his halberd found the elbow joint in the man’s cuirass. The Aundairian’s arm separated with a sound like wet meat falling onto a tabletop, and the crossbow was never fired.

A lightning bolt blew apart a great bear that staggered towards the Aundairan defensive line. Hawks dove down, clawing at the eyes of wizards who cast spells. Druids cast spells that burned knights alive inside of their armor.

And skeletons fired great longbows while zombies in heavy armor hacked skulls with longswords.

In the pre-dawn hours of the second day of Vult, Brelish and Reacher forces had swarmed across the river. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, even though no one had asked Carl. Aundair’s advance had been blunted a month earlier, and it was thought they were still off-balance. The Brelish forces that had gathered in Riverweep, including the pitiful remains of units like Carl’s, had needed a rallying point, some victory to give them morale. Something to make the Reacher’s see the Brelish as something beyond a necessary evil. Intelligence had shown that the Aundairans were digging in, making fortifications for the winter.

Intelligence had not shown that Karrnath had made a mutual defensive pact with Aundair, and boosted Aundair’s numbers by more than fifty percent, mostly with undead warriors who did not fear, and did not tire.

Carl jumped out of the trench, leaving the crossbowman to bleed to death. His left arm bore a buckler shield, and it barely deflected a heavy stone pitched from an Aundairian sling. Carl bolted to the right, halberd shaft gripped tightly in both hands, around a makeshift barricade.

A thing came around the corner. A thing of bone and hate that wore armor and enmity. Carl shivered, his mind reeling at the red sparks in the skull that faced him. The skeleton opened its mouth, sharp and yellow teeth wanting to tear living flesh, even as it lifted its great bow of yew.

Carl was a soldier, and an experienced one. He knew that an edged weapon did little to a thing of bone with no flesh or organs to slice through. But it would do fine on wood.

The skeleton fitted broad-tipped arrow to its longbow, ready to put the shaft through Carl. Carl was faster though, by just a hair. His halberd shattered the longbow before it could fire.

The skeleton dropping the kindling that its bow had become, and lunged forward with powerful hands of bone. Fingers reached to take out Carl’s eyes, and the Brelish infantry man spun his halberd shaft as a club, taking a splinter from the thing’s face.

The skeleton was upon him, its hands going for Carl’s throat. Calr dropped the halberd, now useless with the undead thing so close, and scrambled to pull out a small club from his belt.

The walking bone thing was clever. Its ankles twisted about Carl’s. The two fell on the ground. Carl’s breath left him for a moment. The skeleton had no such problem.

Bone tightened on his throat. Fingers long dead sought to take his life. The sounds and screams of the battle faded to a soft din. Carl kicked, fought for air, but there was none. His sight dimmed, and the evil face of bone before him began to fade.

A white light shone, and the skeleton screamed without breath. The tightness on his throat vanished, and air rushed into his lungs as the fingers of bone turned to dust and then nothing. Pitted, rotten armor fell apart as the skeleton unraveled, the fell magic that had given it motion and power dismissed by something sacred that would not abide a mockery of life.

Carl scrambled to his feet, finding his halberd again. He nodded his thanks to Chaplain Butemain, cleric of the Sovereign Host, and charged back into the fray.

The sun was not yet fully over the eastern horizon, and it stabbed into Carl’s eyes as he hurled himself over a barricade. Four men with swords awaited him on the other side. A half-minute later Carl was alive, if bleeding in the three places. His opponents were all dead, his halberd was smashed, and he was wielding a stolen longsword.

“Reachers, to me!” Carl screamed. “Breland, press on! Their ranks will not hold!”

An elf with a rapier in each hand leaped past him, yelling some woodsman’s oath. A shifter with claws extended came up on his other side. They closed with the Aundairans and their undead allies yet again.

And they died.

It took Carl a moment to realize what was happening. Chaplain Butemain had been torn apart but a quivering orb of acid that had taken out most of the holy man’s chest. Other clerics, along with druids who had been destroying zombies and skeletons, were being specially targeted.

A half-elf stood atop a small wooden tower, hastily erected the night before with a barricaded platform. The most dangerous of the battle mages, he wore studded leather armor with a bright red sash. He seemed to have to end of spells to throw, and it was he who made sure that the clerics and druids who might stop the undead would fall.

Carl climbed the side of the tower, stopping briefly to slice open a young woman with a wand. She was a young girl, perhaps seventeen years of age, a wizard’s apprentice no doubt, and she shrieked as her entrails fell out of her.

Carl slipped, scraping himself badly as he fell. He moved up again, his wounds leaking, and he crested the top.

The half-elf turned, and fanned his hands outwards towards Carl. Fire danced on his fingertips as he chanted.

“For Chubat!” Carl screamed, his longsword out, charging towards the Aundarian.

Flame met blade.