Drowning at Dusk Ch. 07 - Finale

"Allow a woman a chance to brood for a while, Terakh," she said with a huff.

As I gulped water from my flask and brushed Torment's flanks, I ran through the numbers in my head. When we'd spied on Amberkeep, the enemy had possessed about a thousand corpses, dozens of constructs and ghouls, several death mages, and at least fifty mercenaries. The failure of Heroth's first little army had likely increased the enemy ranks by another five hundred. With the other bodies claimed from the fallen fort, Neshar's Helm, and the other small villages in the northern part of the province, Synrik could have over two thousand undead in his army. Perhaps more, if he'd found other forgotten battlefields or cemeteries along the way.

Varanthir cleared his throat, tearing me from my grim pondering.

"Almost time," he said, nodding to the others who were starting to mount up. "You looked a bit lost in thought, there."

"Just thinking about our chances."

"Bad thing for a soldier to be thinking about," he said with a crooked grin.

"You're telling me you're not making the tallies in your head?"

"Oh, I am. But I still know it's a wretched thing to be on a soldier's mind. The numbers don't matter as much as the decisions we make. Yes, they could have as many undead as we have knights and mercenaries. But we can blunt any advantage they have by what we do here in this forest. They still don't know we're here. They won't be expecting us to get in the way."

"'Getting in the way' could just mean we all die here," I said with a grim laugh as I clambered up into the saddle.

"That is one possibility, yes. But with swift horses like these, we can make a mess of their flanking maneuver, then ride like the wind southward to make our escape. With the surprise foiled and their numbers depleted, Heroth's main force will be able to take the river crossing and seize the advantage."

Orlac ordered us to fall into formation and we pressed north once again. Kivessen and the other skilled trackers stayed at the front of the column, ranging ahead a short distance to check for enemy patrols and tracks. Every few minutes one of the forward scouts would report back to confirm that we were still on the trail.

As afternoon shifted to dusk, I realized it had been almost a quarter of an hour since Kivessen or one of the others had returned, which was a bit longer than their usual routine. Alarmed, I looked over to Varanthir.

With a dark look in his eyes, he spurred his horse onward to catch up with Orlac. I sent Torment trotting on after him.

"Could be trouble ahead," said Varanthir as I joined them. Orlac clenched his jaw, glanced around at the lengthening shadows of the forest, then gave a wave of his hand.

Every single scout drew their weapons. After a few more commands from Orlac, two of the squadrons peeled off to the flanks.

"We continue to advance," Orlac said, glancing around at the other scouts and mercenaries. "If we run into any danger, those other two squadrons will rush in from the sides, hit whatever we run into from the flanks."

Danger greeted us within minutes. A scream tore through the darkening sky and our mounted band thundered through the thinning forest and down the slopes of a grassy vale. About halfway down the slope rested a cluster of overturned dead trees.

Several dozen ghouls writhed and crawled among the trees. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of a corpse and two dead horses upon the slope. Kivessen and the others were likely pinned down among the fallen trunks, if they weren't dead already.

A great mass of barrow-walkers marched southward from the far side of the vale, flanked by mounted figures that I assumed were death mages in control of the horde. The distance prevented me from getting a precise count, but I guessed there were than a hundred barrow-walkers advancing to reinforce the ghouls.

Orlac barked out commands.

"Fifth squadron and Tombflayers, advance to those ghouls! Cut them down and get your asses back up the hill with any of our survivors. Let the rest of the bastards come to us!"

Before he'd even finished roaring out that command, most of the mercenaries were already on the move. They howled out war-cries, some of them bellowing out the names of Tombflayers who had fallen on Pyrewatch.

Carried away by the wild energy of my comrades, I raised my blade high and let out a wordless howl. Terakh's thundering orcish war-cry soon drowned out all of the others.

The ghouls turned their mismatched faces away from the overturned trees, baring their fangs as they assessed the new threat. A volley rose from the mounted archers; a flick of Varanthir's rune-covered hand sent a gust of wind behind the arrows, propelling them into the undead beasts with even greater strength. Some of the enchanted arrows detonated in little flashes of lightning that blew apart several of the creatures.

The surviving ghouls charged up the hill towards us. Another volley thinned the pack even further. Terakh was the first to close in, using a lance to skewer two ghouls with one thrust before drawing his sword and chopping another creature in half. I rode in behind him, my curved blade hacking and hewing to either side of Torment, slicing through outstretched hands and snarling faces.

A burst of fire from Xelari's runestone turned several more ghouls to ash. Dazyar's musical magic detonated a boulder, sending stone fragments through the backs of another pack of ghouls.

As the cavalry ripped through the ghouls, I guided Torment over to the collapsed trees and dismounted, calling out Kivessen's name.

"Here!" came the weak reply.

A hand rose from between two fallen ghouls. I sprinted over and tore the corpses out of the way.

Kivessen had been pinned beneath them, his face marred by several long scratches. Beside him, slumped against a fallen tree, was another surviving scout: bleeding heavily, but alive.

"Fuckers were hiding out in-"

"Explanations can wait," I barked. "Need to get you up the damned hill. Come on."

I yanked Kivessen to his feet and together we braced the surviving scout between us. The man wailed with pain as we dragged him up the hill. After ordering Kivessen to get upon Torment's back, I helped get the wounded man onto the horse's rump. I tied him down as quick as I could, even as his blood soaked my hands.

"Get him to Dazyar or Xelari, fast," I said.

I looked over my shoulder; the barrow-walkers had broken into a shambling run, and were now only a few hundred feet away. In the light of the dying sun, I could count twenty riders on their flanks, likely a mixture of death mages and mercenaries.

A glance in the other direction confirmed the slaughter of the remaining ghouls. A few Tombflayers had gone down as well: their bloody, riderless horses cantered down the hill.

Before I could sprint off to try to claim one of those horses to make my escape, Terakh and his horse thundered over. The orc grunted at me and reached down. I took his hand and he swung me up into the saddle behind him. I twisted and adjusted myself so that my back was to his and readied my crossbow.

As he retreated up the hill to join the others, I raised my crossbow and sent bolt after bolt into the onrushing horde. Dozens went down as the other Tombflayers sent a magic-assisted volley into the undead ranks.

Terakh brought up the rear, his horse straining up the slope as the others made it to the tree line. Once there, the scouts fired their bows at will, sending a withering storm at the incoming undead. One of the death mages fell and I grinned with delight as the man's own undead minions trampled him to death.

As the undead passed the fallen ghouls and struggled up the slope, Terakh and I reached the others. Once there, I dismounted to steady myself for another shot, sending a bolt into the chest of the closest enemy rider. It thudded into his breastplate, not piercing deep enough for a kill.

One of the death mages raised a black runestone. Red symbols glowed across it, but before he could deploy the magic an arrow took him in the wrist. He dropped the stone and the undead surged past him.

Arrows tore through them. Xelari's eruption rune scorched a dozen of the onrushing undead. Dazyar's music strengthened the limbs of the archers, allowing them to unleash arrows with greater speed, creating a hail of death that shredded the front ranks of the enemy.

And then came the horns from the east and west as the squadrons hidden in the other trees burst forth. Within half a minute they'd slammed into the flanks of the enemy, crushing the death mages and barrow-walkers in a vice-like maneuver.

It was over before the last echoes of those horns faded. We rushed down from the forest to help finish off the stragglers.

"Damned fine work," Orlac said, tearing his spear free from the neck of an enemy mercenary. "Get the wounded back to the hilltop for treatment."

A wet gurgle came from one of the death mages, pinned by the corpse of his arrow-riddled horse. Despite the arrow sticking out of his wrist, he still tried to reach his fallen runestone as I darted over to him.

Snarling, I kicked the runestone away.

"Don't waste your breath with gloating," he said, turning his pale face to sneer up at me. I recognized him as one of the death mages who had been at Synrik's council within Amberkeep. "Even as I bleed, the rest of our host comes for you. You will die, and your rotting bones will rise to join our host, to feast upon Heroth and his horde of fools."

"Synrik's close?" I asked.

In response, he coughed up blood and laughed.

"Of course. And I pray that he is the one who has the honor of raising your corpse to serve him."

I finished him off with a savage slash to his neck and glanced up at Orlac, who had witnessed the entire exchange.

"Back up the hill!" he roared at his men. "This slaughter was but a taste, lads! More of the fuckers are on their way!"

I looked northward, activated my sight-rune, and shivered at the sight of movement between the shadows of the trees. As the magic intensified, the movement sharpened: barrow-walkers numbering in the hundreds, shambling onto the open ground of the vale. Upon the army's flanks loped cryptwolves and ghouls. Riders brought up the rear of the horde and after a moment I realized that most of riders were dead, wearing the bloodied and dented armor of Arkostead knights. Even their mounts were walking corpses: pale, wretched, half-rotted things. They must have been the remnants of the scouting force that had been ambushed and overrun, now conscripted into Synrik's deathly legions.

Lurking among the barrow-walkers were dozens of those bone-constructs, ghastly abominations hewn together from multiple corpses. A single one of those things was a match for several knights. Even more could have been marching in the rear ranks.

I cried out a warning to Orlac and the others, relaying what I'd seen.

When we returned to the treeline, the healers of our little force were hard at work using their runes and potions to tend to Kivessen and the other wounded, while Dazyar played a little soothing tune that sealed up a few wounds and poured strength into our limbs.

"I'd wager that's the bulk of their force out there," I said, collecting Torment from Kivessen while the meadow elf had his wounds tended to.

"Good news for Heroth, bad news for us," one of the Tombflayers said with a grim chuckle. "We'll just need to make sure the bard survives so he can write a stirring song about our bloody last stand."

"Stop that nonsense," Orlac growled. "We're not making a stand and dying here. Our job is to bleed them, harry them, delay them. When they come up that hill, we'll give them a nice volley of arrows and sorcery, then push south. Second and third squadrons will peel off, rip at their flanks while the rest of us retreat. After we've put a bit of distance between us, the second and third squadrons will pull back, then we'll send other squadrons back to repeat the process. Only the cryptwolves and their undead riders can catch us, so we'll focus on them with our attacks, and harry them the rest of the way south."

I didn't have to be a master tactician to recognize dangers of such a strategy. If we lost coordination, the separate groups of our little army could get picked off, especially if the cryptwolves or the undead riders were able to keep pace with the squadrons as they peeled away.

And yet such tactics were notably more appealing than standing and dying on that hilltop.

"You," Orlac said, pointing at one of the freshly-healed scouts. "Take some of the other wounded who can ride and get back to Heroth. Advise him of the situation. Hopefully once he takes the crossing he can send forces to double back to assist us here."

The chosen messengers hurried off but I knew it would take days for any reinforcements to reach us.

For the time being we were on our own.

Down in the vale, the enemy force had quickened its pace and neared the cluster of dead trees where we'd rescued Kivessen. As the two cavalry squadrons peeled off to prepare for their flanking attacks, the rest of us readied bows and prepared to make a mad dash to the south once Orlac gave the order.

I glanced over at Xelari, who clutched her runestone in a firm, steady hand. Her emerald eyes were ablaze with a fire I'd never quite seen before. When she noticed me watching her, she flashed me a hungry grin.

"Did you see Synrik down there with your sight-rune?"

I looked back down, my gaze roaming over the mounted figures towards the rear of the formation.

There.

Clad in battered red plate mail he'd likely looted from a dead knight, sitting atop a headless undead steed, was the bastard who'd set all of this in motion. Around him were a dozen undead knights and two of the largest constructs. With his head held high, he looked like a triumphant conqueror, as if he was already celebrating our demise.

"Aye. He's there. Waiting for your eruption-rune to scorch off his wretched face."

"Not if my arrows get him first," Kivessen said.

"You'll have to beat my spells, old friend," Varanthir said, rolling his shoulders and running his fingers over his crackling runic tattoos.

"And my fucking sword," growled Terakh.

"You all are welcome to compete over who kills him," said Dazyar with a bright but weary smile. "I'll just stick to writing a song about it after the fact."

That sent heartening laughter through our ragged line.

"Xelari," Varanthir said. "Once they get close you should ignite the hillside with your runes. I'll fan the flames with some gusts of wind, create an inferno that will roll down the hill towards them. The smoke and chaos should buy us more time to get away."

The dusk elf nodded; I steadied Torment and braced my crossbow against a branch.

"Ready!" Orlac bellowed, raising his own bow.

The undead horde unleashed a collective rattling roar. The cryptwolves and ghouls darted forth first, with the slower barrow-walkers lagging behind.

"Loose!"

A hissing storm of arrows and bolts erupted from the trees, slicing into undead wolves and shrieking ghouls. Dozens tumbled to the ground: spinning, rolling, and causing the creatures behind them to stumble and fall.

Xelari unleashed her eruption-rune upon the slope. As Orlac roared out the command to retreat, Varanthir conjured a gust of wind and sent the flames roaring higher. The wall of flame and smoke surged down the hill, setting ablaze the first few ranks of cryptwolves and ghouls. Howls and shrieks rose as the burning creatures charged through the flame, only to be cut down by a second volley of arrows.

I had time for one last shot before I wheeled Torment to the south and rode off with the others. Horns blasted from behind us as the squadrons on the flank unleashed their own attacks.

The smoke and foliage were too thick for me to turn around and see their progress. I could only hope their charges didn't turn into suicidal delaying tactics and that they'd be able to kill quickly, and then wheel south to join us.

As we retreated, cryptwolves and ghouls made it through the haze of smoke and flame. Those not felled by arrows closed in. I swapped my crossbow for my blade just in time to hack off the outstretched paw of a cryptwolf before it could scrape over Torment's haunches. Ghouls gurgled and laughed as they leaped up into the trees before dropping down into our midst.

Riders and horses collapsed in bloody heaps beneath the ghouls. Cryptwolves converged on the fallen, tearing scouts and mercenaries to pieces. Some fought well before the end, hacking and slashing until they were overwhelmed. One mage, having been knocked from his horse, managed to get off a burst from his runes that ignited a whole pack of ghouls before three snarling cryptwolves leapt through the smoke to devour him.

The grisly fates of those few poor souls, however, purchased us a safe retreat. The handful of cryptwolves and ghouls that continued to give chase fell to more arrows and bursts of magic. Varanthir's conjured gusts of wind slamming ghoul after ghoul into the ground. Bursts of lightning from his rune blew several of them to sizzling pieces.

Horns blew from the northeast, sounding the retreat from one of the squadrons. No such horns came from the northwest, however. It seemed that one of the flanking squadrons had met a brave but untimely end.

"Keep pushing!" Orlac bellowed, then looked to Varanthir. "Get your mercenaries ready, First Captain. When those barrow-walkers break through I'll need you to wheel around to harry them and give the rest of us time to keep pushing. Then I'll send the fourth squadron in to relieve you."

Dread gripped my heart.

"You heard him, brothers and sisters!" Varanthir called out, then whistled for us to come to a halt. We took a few moments to catch our breaths and steady ourselves while Orlac led the rest of the host further to the south.

Noise erupted from the east and we turned to see the survivors from the surviving flanking squadron rush through the forest, racing to catch up with the others.

From the north came more gurgles and howls as hundreds of shambling barrow-walkers broke through the wall of thinning smoke. Several hulking bone-constructs brought up the rear.

"Ideas?" Dazyar asked.

"The trees," Varanthir said, glancing up at the larger ones. "You lot wheel about, thinning them with arrows. I'll knock as many of these trees down as I can, and Xelari can set them ablaze."

Doing so could very well set the whole damned forest alight. Grisly as the destruction would be to that beautiful forest, I'd rather see a forest burn than see Arkostead succumb to the scourge of undeath.

We peppered the incoming horde with arrows and the occasional burst of spellfire. Gusts of arcane wind tore down a massive tree; it slammed down in the midst of the barrow-walkers, crushing one of the constructs as well. Xelari guided her horse in close enough so she could scorch the fallen tree with an eruption-rune, engulfing it in flames as the wave of barrow-walkers clambered atop it.

Tree after tree fell and burst into flame. I sent bolt after bolt in the shambling horrors that made it through the smoke. A few cryptwolves and ghouls burst ahead of the larger mass of undead, falling beneath arrow volleys or the wild swings of Terakh's greatsword.

After putting an arrow through the gaping mouth of a ghoul, Kivessen brought a horn to his lips and sounded the retreat. We shifted southward, moving to reunite with Orlac and the others. Dazyar's magical music detonated the branches overhead as we rode, sending hundreds of splinters into the horde, slowing them or pinning their legs to the ground.

When we caught up to the others, Orlac sent another squadron to delay the enemy further.

For an hour we fought and harried the enemy, sending one group north to delay and thin the incoming horde, while the rest pressed on to recover as best they could. Twice more Orlac sent the Tombflayers against the enemy; with each attack our casualties and exhaustion grew. Dozens of dead mercenaries and scouts littered the forest floor. Riderless horses darted off in fright and the screams of sated ghouls echoed through the darkening forest.