The Umbral Messiah Pt. 02

At last, they unstrapped her and she stepped forward, the extra weight and support against her legs and her back making it possible to stand and walk on two legs, even if she hunched forward. The flickering torches danced and the light of them sparkled off her talons, which made her lift her hands, looking at her palms, then at the backs of her hands, where the complex machinery of her claws and talons were fixed to her knuckles and her wrists. She recognized the crossbow and the grappling hook, the extendable blade on her right hand. She clenched her hand and the blade articulated outwards with a cla-click!

"There we go, One Eye," the man who had worked so hard on her crooned. "Look up."

She lifted her head and saw herself, reflected back at her by a burnished mirror that had been set up above a surgical table to bounce light down onto whatever the men had been working on. It was angled now to show herself.

She was tall and rangy. Her limbs were long. Her fingers were long. Her face, though, was gaunt and sleek, with features made beautiful by their sharpening - the only mar being a trio of scars along her cheek, which twisted her lips into a smirk that had become knowing and confident. Her eye was red and her hair had turned pale white from her time in the grave, grown long and ragged, dangling around her body, which was wrapped in leather armor that looked as if it bound as much as it protected. Her elongated claw fingers had their own deadly beauty and she felt a strange thing, looking at herself.

She...

Liked it.

"Ready to kill?" The armorer asked, chuckling. "For your King?"

She cocked her head.

Blue-gray lips skinned back, showing off sharp, sharp teeth. White teeth. New teeth.

One Eye let out a soft, happy croon.

"That you are," the armorer said, chuckling.

***

"I'm fine with this. I'm fine. Just fine." Sari said as her horse trod along the increasingly well paved road that led along the coastline and towards Shandil, the largest and most prosperous of the Free Cities. The crashing waves and the smell of the sea weren't her only companion on the road - a steady stream of men and women with carts and children were also walking along it, all of them haunted and moving with the killing haste of the absolutely terrified.

"You keep saying that," Rana said, cheerfully, as she sat in the middle of the road, floating about five feet off the ground, and hovering along at the exact same pace as Sari's horse. Her body had changed - gone was the chitin armor, gone was the wings, gone was the tail. In their place was a sheer white dress that, when the light hit it just so, was...deeply distracting to Sari. Her skin looked so glossy and silky that Sari kept wondering what it would feel like to reach out and touch her...

But then a wagon they were passing intersected with Rana and the two seemed to mingle: Rana jutted from the side, her body bisected by the canvas and leather of the wagon, and then they were past and Rana was once more floating freely, laughing softly.

"You look like you've bitten into a lemon," she said.

"Can you at least walk AROUND things!?" Sari hissed. "It's bad enough I have a demon living in my head, it's worse that she has to be so...so..."

"Charming? Entertaining? Boundlessly useful?" Rana asked, cheerfully, rolling around so that she was laying on her back. She floated upwards a few feet, so that she was still level with Sari, her hair dangling down to spill over the unaware faces of the other refugees on the road. "Or are you just upset you can't touch me." Her hand slid to her chest, playfully adjusting the hem of her dress - teasingly flashing the curve of her breasts to Sari. "...of course, that's still just a hypothesis, Sari, my dear. You could always try..."

"Stop that!" Sari hissed.

"Ma'am?"

One of the refugees on the road, who had stopped to collect their dropped belongings, looked up at Sari.

"Uh...not you!" Sari said. "I just...I said...blast that! Blast those necromancers!"

"Necromancers? Where!?" The man asked, springing to his feet, belongings forgotten. Others cried out in fear and alarm. Sari felt a lurch in her belly...but then realized that there were people panicking beyond the range of her stupidly chosen words: The ground was rumbling and shaking. Her horse shifted under her, looking around nervously - but then the hill that rose to the eastern side of the road was crowned by spears, lances, pennants, horses. The crowd screamed in alarm - and then...a horn blared and the screams tired to cries of delight.

"Riders! Riders! Riders from Shandil!"

"The King's men!"

"Hail! Hail! Hail!"

The cheering civilians were almost as dangerous as the panicking ones - people bumped against Sari's horse and Rana flitted away from where she had floated to hover beside Sari, where she whispered. "Do be careful. Soldiers love to steal things. Coins. Gold. Gems. Ancient magical crystals. Blushing witchling's virginities..."

"Rana!" Sari hissed, but then the cavalry detachment was forming up beside the caravan of refugees and their leader, a burly man with a silver helm with a high horse-hair crest, was shouting.

"People of the Moonsea! People of Faenberg! Hear me! I am Sir Seldon, servant of the Wizard Lord Menelag!" The man kneed his horse to begin to canter along the line of awestruck civilians. "You are but an hours march from the city and safety, but the necromancer army is on the move. We have been dispatched to see you there safely! If any man of you bears sword or spear, step forward now!"

"Ahh yes, lets send spearfodder at the necromancers, it's not like that's an obviously bad idea," Ranna muttered as Sari kneed her horse around and began to carefully nose her way through the crowd, whispering soft apologies to everyone she brushed out of the way. Rana sighed. "Oooooooof course."

Sari came out among the other men and women detaching from the line. Most of them were bearing some weapons - shields, spears. She had her sword from the Black Walkers, and her pin. Neither of which seemed to impress the knights that were arrayed along the road. They were all clad in heavy plate armor, with mail girding and cloth surcoats. The armor itself professed a dizzying array of designs and styles. Some helms were carved like dragons. Others were like protruding beaks. Some were tall and slitted. Others open faced, with chain-mail that could be drawn over them like a mask. They had swords, shields, bows, maces, and lances and all of them seemed to be utterly confident in their abilities atop their massive warhorses.

"Good man, good man," Sir Seldon said, riding ahead of the men who had emerged. "You will form up on this flank and stand between the convoy and any attacks, while we take the worst of it. I-" he stopped, seeing Sari. "And what are you?"

Sari gulped, then stood up straighter. "I am Sari the Sorcerer, trained by Master Phenrig."

"And you're supposed to be delivering the Chanti crystal to Menelag," Rana said, walking around behind Seldon, who was entirely unaware of her. She smirked, looking up and down the powerfully built man. "But to be fair, I'd be doing a side-show for this slab of knight meat." She grinned, showing off sharp teeth. "Think he's as well hung as his horse?"

Sari tried to control her blush and thanked the Dragons for her complexion. Seldon frowned. "While I respect your training, Lady Wizard," he said, cautiously. "The arts of war and wizardry are rarely found in the same man. Or woman. I mean!"

Sari frowned, then tapped her sword. "This isn't for play, Sir Seldon," she said, trying to sound even.

"Ooh, are those sparks?" Rana said, chuckling.

"I see!" Seldon said, nodding curtly. "You'll ride with me. If we have a magical problem, I'll want you by my side."

Sari nodded curtly, and then Sir Seldon bellowed more orders - sending some of his men to the front, some of his men to the back, and the rest to his side. The horsemen thundered around, and with shocking speed, the convoy went from a panicky mass of civilians to an orderly processional, with a great deal of cheer restored to the people there. Seldon, though, didn't keep the bulk of his horses by the convoy. Instead, a chevron of almost two hundred of them rode off with him towards the hill, and Sari found herself hard pressed to keep up as they crested the hill, and fanned outwards. Seldon frowned as he looked out.

The area around Shandil was, like most cities, thickly populated. Farms and villages dotted across the landscape - with copses of well tended trees that had been harvested for charcoal and lumber by the people of the city for years. The only part of the landscape that wasn't carefully cultivated was a sprawling forest around an ancient Chanti ruin. In the distance, there were clouds of dust...and fire. He swore. "It looks like the bulk of the army continues to advance," he said, quietly. "But the necromancers brought the Baronies of Blood with them."

"Vampires?" Sari asked, hoping her voice didn't squeak.

"Can you scry them out, witchling?" The knight to her right asked, his voice gruff and muffled by his helmet.

"Lady Sari," Seldon said, gesturing out towards the vastness.

Sari didn't have the heart to tell them that scrying like that was...it...it was a bit more than she was capable of. Before she opened her mouth, though, Rana let out a sigh. "Oh I see how it is - when I'm being playful and fun, you're all grumpy at me. But now that you need to find hoards of bloodthirsty vampires..."

Sari hissed. "Find them!"

"That's your job, innit it?" the knight to her right asked.

Rana rolled her eyes, then vanished with a faint chime. A moment later, she returned, smiling brightly. "They're right there." She pointed and Sari pointed along the same direction - then realized she was pointing at the field right before the hill, where wheat had been in the middle of harvesting before the peasants had fled to the city - a mark of just how terrified they were, just how close the necromancer's army was. The wheat was rippling in the wind...

But not in the wind.

"Archers!" Seldon bellowed and the knight to his left put a horn to his lips and blew a harsh, rising blat from his horn. The knights drew their bows and knocked arrows in a smooth motion. They lifted their bows as Seldon hissed. "Anything you can do to the arrows would be very useful, Lady Wizard."

Sari gulped. She could cast a bolt of fire from her fingers. She just had to...she lifted her hand and focused. A bead of red light appeared on the tip of her finger. Her brain ached as she channeled magic, then flung it outwards. The bolt split apart, and then shot to the tip of each arrow, which flared to flickering light. Seldon let out a satisfied grunt, then bellowed again.

"Draw!"

The sound of two hundred bows creaking filled the air - and with it, the wheat stalks stopped shivering and started to get stomped flat, as if many invisible horses had decided, all at once, to stop being gentle.

Seldon shouted. "Loose!"

Two hundred arrows plunged down the hill, into the mass of invisible cavalry - and where they struck, flames burst and caught and tried to burn. The Barony cavalry's magic was riven in half by the impacts and Sari saw that the vampires were in thick black plate, bearing lances and swords and spears. Their horses were skeletal and...wrong somehow, loping forward in eerie bounding leaps as they started to climb the hill with shocking speed, even if they had left piles of dust behind them from their slain.

The horn blew and Seldon hefted his lance, lowered it, and charged forward - along with the rest of his fellows. White lance and black lance aimed at one another - and Sari kneed her horse to try and match them, but she was rapidly left behind as warcries and horns filled the air.

The vampires and the knights smashed into one another. Lances shattered. Shields splintered. Horses screamed like women and knights were sent flying through the air to crash onto the ground. But the true killer had been the final moments. Sari had just barely seen it, but she had watched as the vampire's skeletal horses had leaped at the last second, so the knights had aimed at open air half the time. The hooves of the horses had been replaced...changed out for talons, and those talons bore knights off their horses.

Sari came into the battle then, sword in her hand and slashed out at a vampire. This was when she learned a longsword was a terrible choice for plate armor - the blade rang harmlessly off steel and she felt her wrist jar painfully. Sari didn't have the time to kick herself for her stupidity because the vampire knight she had struck hissed, twisted in his saddle, and brought a mace whistling at her chest. Sari yelped and swung herself far out of the saddle, the mace missing her by inches. When she righted herself by yanking hard on the saddle, she skipped the sword and threw a bolt of fire directly into the vampire's face.

Again.

That was what helmets were for. The flames licked along steel and the vampire let out a hiss of pain, but he didn't immediately collapse into a pile of ash. Then Seldon rode past him, shield in one hand, heavy mace in the other, his lance long gone. He brought his mace smashing into the helmet of the vampire, crumpling metal. Gore sprayed around the crumpling helmet as Sir Seldon grinned, then shouted. "To me! Men! To me!"

Sari looked around herself, then saw a vampire who was circling away from the melee, a javelin in his hand. He took aim at Sir Seldon and threw. Sari cried out - but her voice was lost in the din. More by accident than design, Seldon caught the javelin on the shield.

Now, Sari knew why the vampires used javelins instead of bows.

The impact shattered the shield, Seldon's arm, and bowled him off his horse. He sprawled into the mud and muck, while Sari looked around, wildly.

A knight, on his feet, was pinned down, struggling, as a vampire ripped his helmet off with his gauntleted hands, then grabbed onto his head, twisting. Wrenching. The severed head stared lifelessly into the air as blood rained down onto the slitted faceplate of the helmet, the vampire within drinking greedily. Another, on his horse, lifted his shied, which was battered aside by a mace. The second blow crumpled the armor inwards, crushing his ribs. Another was transfixed through a thin gap in his armor - the javelin piercing mail and cloth and flesh alike thanks to the ferocious strength of the vampire that had tossed it.

Sari felt a fear exploding in her unlike anything she had ever felt in her life.

Rana's voice, firm, confident, and sure, hissed into her ear. "Shout to me."

"TO ME!" Sari shouted, without even knowing quite why.

"Cast magic. All the magic."

Sari began to throw bolt after bolt of fire. It didn't do much - save for making vampires hiss and withdraw. As they pulled away from her, surviving knights began to form up around her. Shields locked, and maces glittered as an idea sparked inside of Sari's mind. "To me men! To me!" She shouted, then stood in her saddles, to peer over the heads of the knights around her. She formed a knot of flames, but rather than releasing it all at once, she caught it...and held it, then threw it. To anyone without the knack for spotting it, the blood soaked ground between her and the vampires was just that: Blood soaked mud.

To Sari, it was a trembling mass of magic, which she began to pour her energies into. More and more until her vision went gray and trembling...and then she sagged back onto the saddle, gasping heavily.

A voice, familiar and bassy, shouted: "Protect the Lady Wizard! Withdraw! Withdraw!"

Seldon?

Sari's brain, fuzzy with the burning fatigue of pouring her magic into the spell, realized that she needed to say...she looked around, and saw that Rana was floating beside her, looking concerned and gravely annoyed. "He's right there," she said, pointing and Sari saw that a bloodied, gray faced Seldon was riding a horse next to her.

"Fire! Explode! Run!" Sari gasped out.

Seldon either understood or, or he was going to order the same thing anyway. He shouted and horns blew and the horses around Sari's began to thunder back up the hill. Sari's mare, near to a terrified panic, kept up through a sheerest miracle. Sari sagged, was caught by a knight riding beside her, who held her upright. She craned her head backwards.

The vampires had formed a line - and lances were drawn and lowered. They were going to charge up the hill and they were going to sweep the surviving knights into nothingness.

Sari grinned. "Gottem," she whispered.

The vampires blew their own black horn - a mournful hooting cry. Their skeletal horses broke into a sprinting run that no mortal horse could match.

They hit the patch of muddy earth Sari had chosen.

The entire line exploded with shrieking flames. Skeletal horses bucked up, and vampires were sent sprawling into the mud. Screams of fury, rage, and pain alike intermingled. Sari laughed to herself.

Then the javelins started to chase them.

She saw the one coming right for her.

"Ah-"

The javelin struck her chest.

And Sari knew no more.

TO BE CONTINUED