The Umbral Messiah Pt. 13

Sari shrugged as best she could. "The Law of Conversion is that if you have magical control over something to create, you have the same control to destroy. This is why healing and harming magics are related - why if you can summon a fireball, you can snuff a candle flame. Why if you can, as Tazil say, create ice water, you can also melt snow." She frowned. "No one has yet figured out the destruction of lightning - it only exists in magic. But I suppose if you're very fast in the counerspell..."

"So, you're saying that since the Umbral Messiah can destroy the dimensional barriers between us and the Void..." Tanner said, slowly.

"I could make them stronger," Sari whispered, her eyes half closing. Her head jerked to the side, and Rana exclaimed.

"Yes! You could, my Lady," she said, brightly.

Sari blinked, her body once more under her control. "Wait, Rana, why would you want the dimensional barriers built up?"

Her head hung forward. Her eyes closed, then Rana spoke.

"Remember what I said, my lady? I said we can teach this world to adore us. To worship us as a living goddess." She lifted her head, her eyes still closed, and despite the others, it was clear that Rana spoke not to them nor for them. She spoke to Sari. "That cannot be if there is no world for us to live in."

"Not exactly a comforting rationalization," Tazil muttered as Sari slowly slipped back into herself. "But..." She frowned, looking from the post where Sari had been hung up and the night seas that the ship continued to skim swiftly over. In the distance, glints that might have been stars on the horizon or lights of drifting ships glittered. Tazil looked as if she was considering all their options, all their angles.

"I can do it," Sari whispered. "I...may have gone a bit wild with lust and power. But I can seal the Void away. This is my world. Rule it or not, be a villain or a hero, I can't have it and destroy it! It's simple logic. Even...even if you think I am the blackest villain to have ever walked between the Free Cities, there is at least that. I don't serve the Void!"

Tazil hissed, then snapped her fingers. The bindings around Sari flashed, then fell aside with a crinkling hiss.

"One Eye," Tazil said, her voice a low growl. "You stick with Sari Demonblood and if she shows any sign of being evil, kill her." She turned and stomped off, grumbling under her breath as Sari yelped and dropped off the harness, falling to the balls of her feet, her tail writhing and twitching behind her.

Tanner narrowed her eyes. She frowned.

"It...really was dirty talk," Sari said, blushing slightly. She rubbed her hand along her neck. "Well. Kinda. I..." She groped, trying to explain how she felt when she was...rampant. When she was on the top of the world, flowing from sex to death like liquid murder. It felt so intoxicating. But now that she had been, effectively, doused with a splash of ice cold water, she looked back on what she had done. She bit her lip, slightly. "...is it wrong to, um, mind control evil mercenaries?"

Tanner sighed, slowly. She put her hands over her face.

"It. Depends." She slid her hands away from her face. "I think I'll have to teach you some measure of control."

Sari frowned. "I have lots of control," she said.

"Not this kind of control," Tanner said, seriously. "You can control magic. You can control muscle. But you need to control your soul, now that it's so...close to the surface." She smiled, slightly. "We don't have much time for it, I think." Her eyes glanced to the horizon. "Not much time at all."

***

Stunning anticlimax.

The words rang in Sari's head as the ropes were tossed to the port and rumbling creaking gangplanks were thrown down and latched into place. Guards from Shandil were striding towards the ship, and Tanner had dressed herself as best as she could in her armor and her gear and trying to act as if she hadn't been turned into a woman by the adventures she had gone on. Her words washed over Sari, who had retracted her demonic exterior and was glowering over the side of the starboard railing, while One Eye crouched near her, her legs dangling through the bars.

"I can't believe I'm annoyed at this," Sari whispered. "I should be happy about avoiding a fight."

One Eye hissed. "Demon. Changes you."

Sari frowned.

The plan had been, in her mind, one of skill and desperation and boldness. They would sail through the Necromancer's fleet at night, battling their ships in desperate, close in actions. Magic. Sword. Cannon. The Drakkon sweeping from the skies to flame ships, while weaving away from their arrows and shot. The only problem had been...well, Sari was a trained swordswoman and skilled magician. Nowhere in her study had she ever gotten a chance to open a book on naval tactics - which she was sure someone had penned down since the Shattering.

Oceans are large.

The night is dark.

And currents and wind alike provided ample room to travel towards the same destination.

And so, her ship and the Necromancer's fleet had passed through one another without either being any the wiser, as tension had turned to confusion, then to boredom, her eyes peering over the side of the ship, looking for any sign of danger. But even her devil-enhanced eyes hadn't been able to pierce deep enough into the night to see the Necromancer's ships. And now, they were here, arriving in the gray early morning...with no Reliquary and nothing but grim tidings.

"They'll be here on our heels," one of the guards that Tanner was reporting too said. "And with Lord Menelag dead, and now, the Lady Charlotte dead as well...how...how can we even hold the walls? How can we stand against the Necromancers?"

"We have no choice," Tanner said, her voice firm. "I will take the walls with you, men. Go ahead and muster the garrison. We'll have a long battle ahead of us." The guards nodded - but as they turned and started off, Tanner shook her head. She turned back and stepped up the gangplank. Sari, by now, had picked out the faint signs of the distant black sails of the Necromancer's fleet. Without a magical headwind, they were still only a few hours distant. She frowned, while Tanner put her hand on her shoulder.

Sari lifted her gaze up, frowning.

"I hope your plan will work," she said, quietly. "Because the Corpse King may not even need to use the Reliquary to take Shandil - those men are terrified." She nodded back at the Guard. "That is what wins battles, in the end. Not magic or might, but morale."

"Won't...you being there help steel them?" Sari asked, standing up, One Eye uncurling beside her.

"I'll do my best," Tanner said, softly. "But the shock of losing Lord Menelag and his niece? And with the story that this ship was going to be bearing salvation, but instead, it comes back empty handed, hounded by the Necromancer's fleet? That the siege isn't going to be lifted, but instead press all the harder?" She shook her head. "Sieges are won when the walls cannot be held - either through treachery, plague or despair. And right now...we may be facing all three, I have no idea what devilry the vampires and necromancers have worked up." She pinched the bridge of her nose.

Sari nodded. The grim certainty of what it was that she was facing had settled on her shoulders. She stood up, stretched, and cricked her neck to her side.

"So. I have to find the portal, find a way to stop the Corpse King - either on this side or the other - and do it all before the city is taken and every man, woman and child here is put to the sword." Sari bit her lip.

"And, uh, don't let your devilish heritage persuade you to destroy the world," Tanner murmured.

"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds easy," Sari said, trying to cheer the other woman. Then her palm clapped against her forehead. "I'm a fool!" She said, then shook her head. "While I was trekking back out through the orc caves, I found my gear. The Corpse King took my staff..." She frowned. "But I found my longsword, the rope bow, and...this." She held out her hand, her palms spreading, and whispered a soft cantrip. With a flash, the 'cursed' blade that she had tried to pick up from the ancient ruin, the one that had been the 'key', appeared in the air. Tanner caught it with a surprised grunt.

"What is this?" She asked, gripping the handle and holding aloft the sword, looking it over in the light.

"It is a blade blessed by the Ninth Dragon," Sari said, her voice soft. "If anything will serve you on the walls against these foes? It'll be this one." She kissed Tanner on the cheek. Tanner blushed and smiled.

"Trying to drug me again?" she asked.

"Maybe a little," Sari said.

"Bad!" One Eye growled, then leaped up and sank her teeth into Sari's wrist.

***

The attack began with a blowing of horns and a wave of arrows that almost seemed to blot out the sun.

Tanner watched it all in her full plate harness, her visor pulled down and her eyes peering through with the practice of many battles. The walls had been badly battered in the time she had been gone - but the men had worked studiously to do their best and repair the cover. Shandil's walls, like most castles, were fiercely crenelated, with firing slits and cover and murder holes. That was the material that the catapults targeted, trying to knock them to powder and debris, so that archers could then pick people off the walls with ease. In their place, wood had been affixed. Not as tough, nor as hard to burn, but it did better than open air.

Men raised their shields while others made sure to unfold the stationary pavises that some clever fellow had set up over the lighter armored men at arms. The arrows came down with a series of screaming whistles, their fletching fiendishly sculpted to create a hideous noise as they dropped. Most clattered off stone. Some thunked into wood or thatch, making nasty thwack noises. Some scant few struck armor, producing cries and grunts of pain. One man, quite possibly the most unlucky man that Tanner had ever seen, took an arrow directly to his visor. He sprawled backwards - then began to rise, swearing up a storm. The broadhead had struck vertically rather than horizontally and had bounced off the metal, harmless save for the way his head had to be ringing.

Tanner focused, then, upon the army that advanced towards the walls under this covering fire. There were skeletons carrying ladders, siege towers pushed by what appeared to be undead trolls and cyclopses. The towers were tall and broad, and they thronged with extremely skilled vampire archers, the pale skinned humans laughing as they knocked and loosed from bows taller than they were - their preternatural strength allowing them to fire arrows that looked like they should have been used as siege weapons.

Their height had to be dealt with. Tanner shouted. "Artillery! The towers!" She pointed. "The towers!"

Her order was barely necessary. The mages and wizards that served the vital role of artillery were already beginning to incant, their hands gesturing, their palms glowing. Firebolts began to rush into the air. A volley slammed into the first of the siege towers, which began to catch, despite the best efforts of the necromancers. However, the problem with artillery was as they began to loose their bolts, that meant they went from being 'men at arms' to 'artillery' in the eyes of archers. Arrows began to whistle down towards them, fired quite frantically from both seige towers. Mages began to cry out - but not in pain. A purple shield flared to life around them, and arrows thudded into it harmlessly.

Which was fine for preserving decades of training. Less fine for stopping the siege towers...

Fortunately, one was burning merrily, and another was smoldering enough that the archers on it were more focused on trying to douse the flames. But this had all been enough cover for the skeletons to reach the walls and throw up their ladders. Several ladders were thrown back - but others held and the skeletons started up. Men who weren't loosing arrows - and that included Tanner - moved forward and began to toss down rocks.

One good thing about a siege...

It produced a hell of a lot of rocks.

Tanner hefted up a chunk of rock the size of her head and dropped it. The chunk whistled down and smashed into a skeleton who clambered up the ladder - unarmored save for a helmet and a shield, neither of which did anything to stop the rock from crushing the skeleton's head. It tumbled off, hit the bones behind it, and was flung off into space. But as Tanner watched, the fallen skeleton started to reform on the ground - the bones drawing together around the others. It joined back onto the ladder, smoothly sliding back into line.

"Hell, where's the holy water!" She shouted.

Several yards down the line, someone had clearly gotten the holy water. Glowing blue-white liquid flowed over the wall and splashed along the ladder. These skeletons burst into glowing white flames. They kept climbing up the ladders in eerie silence, save for the cries and the shouts of the humans who sought to stem their tide, until at almost the same moment, each stiffened, then collapsed away, their bones rattling down.

But then all Tanner had time to focus on was the skeleton coming up her ladder. She drew the sword that Sari had given her as the skeleton sprang forward, ignoring spears thrust through the ribs and into the the helmet, with the utter fearlessness that only a living corpse could show. The skeleton swung at one of the lightly armored men at arms with a scimitar - notched, rusted, a terrible weapon all things considered - but before the blow even landed, Tanner brought her sword down in a two handed arc. The blade clove through the collarbone of the skeleton - and then the skeleton exploded with a flare of white light, the bones clattering to the floor.

Tanner blinked. Then she shouted. "We have them men! They're just undead beasts!" She swung her sword at the next skeleton - and this time, only a light touch caused the skeleton to burst. She stopped trying anything close to decent swordwork - she simply started to bat at the skeletons with her blade like she was teasing children with a stick. Each tap caused a skeleton to explode - but yet more skeletons were coming. Maces cracked, swords flashed, spears were discarded in favor of weapons that actually worked.

And still, the arrows came whistling by, and fire bolts and magical spells rushed to their destinations with rumbling crashing noises.

Then, in a lull, Tanner cast her gaze around, panting, wincing as an arrow jounced off her armor and left her feeling throbbing and aching. The walls were still holding - but the skeletons had been just one part of the attack. Flames had been set and smoke was rising from them, shrouding huge swaths of the battlefield from sight. The men cheered - and Tanner cheered with them.

The Necromancers had more tricks, she was sure.

"Dragons speed you, Sari," she whispered.

***

Sari and One Eye stood before the curved portal that the Corpse King had made beneath the city streets of Shandil.

"It's active," Sari whispered, looking at the rippling red light that glowed between the curved arches.

"Yeah," One Eye hissed.

Sari frowned, hard. She stepped to the portal - and faintly, she heard the sounds echoing through. Chanting. The sounds of magicans singing low, mournful songs. She glanced back at One Eye. "So!" She said, about to lay out her plan.

A man stepped through the portal. A necromancer, carrying a bit of supplies in both hands, clearly. He walked directly into Sari's shoulder. Sari yelped, stumbled, threw our her hands, and pitched forward. She collapsed into the portal and felt a tingling rush of cold over her skin. She hit the ground, then sprang to her feet, standing within a vaulted chamber that seemed to stretch on forever. Her eyes widened as she saw a pair of Black Walker guards, both of them looking bored out of their minds. They gaped at her. She froze.

One Eye sprang through the portal a moment later, literally riding the corpse of a Necromancer she had pounced onto. The Necromancer, the very man who had stepped through the portal, hit the ground, skidded. Blood spurted once, twice, three times from his throat with every last beat of his heart, until it slowed and the blood just puddled.

"Shit," Sari sprang to her feet.

A Black Guard smashed his pommel into a crystal mounted on the wall.

The portal snapped closed.

Sari glanced back, then back to him.

"...you know that just means you're trapped in here with me, right?" she asked.

The Black Guard looked afraid.

Sari grinned.

Not nearly afraid enough.

TO BE CONTINUED