Greywolf - The Living and the Dead

The air around the place where Muzen has just disappeared explodes outward in a flash of blue light. Everyone rears back as the shock wave shakes the building, those archers not blown apart hurled backwards along with their firepots, and as the blue light fades, the screaming begins.

The priest of Chaac is gone, his body mixed with the pieces of flesh splattering down onto the plaza, while wounded archers writhe on the disrupted paving stones, some with their clothes on fire. Scattered bits of flaming fire-stone litter the plaza. The priestess of Ix-Chel has been blown off her feet, but she staggers upright, assisted by a pair or archers who don't look too steady themselves, and together they stumble towards the company of spearmen marching towards us.

Someone from the back of their formation shouts an order; the company stops a few paces away from the wounded archers and forms a spear wall, while a few soldiers without weapons rush out to gather up the remaining archers alive and on their feet. The wounded are ignored. The soldiers wear a leather harness covered by overlapping plates of brass, making them clatter like an overturned rack of pots when they march, and their conical helms resting on their heads have brass plates too. The brass tips on their spears gleam like gold in the witchlight.

Kula's already racing for the door. "Titan with me, the rest of you remain here. That means you as well," he adds to the boy still wearing the Greek style full helm over his head. The boy nods as Kula runs out the door with the Ogri following, the War-leader shouting orders as their sandals scrape over the stone steps leading down.

Karl, with Lys on his shoulder, and the boy, all walk over to join me, Wysper, and Zanzabel at the window. Karl motions towards the plaza. "With the archers pretty much out of the way, Kula's going to split the Chosen into two groups. Half to go out the front door and hold the spearmen in place while the other half goes through the kitchen and hits the flank."

Wysper grabs my shoulder and points out into the darkness to our right. Oh, shite. "Karl, there's a large group of people coming straight towards us from the direction of the Ghash-Kimil temple."

Karl looks out the window and squints. "Your eyes are better than mine. Are they the Khanda swordsmen?"

"Not unless they all got drunk while we were here. They're lurching about, and no one's wearing armor..." I peer forward as they get closer. "Some of them aren't wearing much at all, and I swear I can see bones sticking out."

"No need to be alarmed," Lys says. "Cermet has sent us reinforcements."

The first of them shamble into the light. They look like walking corpses, most with varying degrees of rotted flesh and tattered clothing, though a few are bone held together by black sinews. Striding in front of them... it's Amazonia! She's still wearing her Artifact armor and open faced Artifact helm, but the Rune sword in her hand's gone from shiny black to grey, with intricate black runes on the blade that weren't there before. Shite, her skin's gone grey as well, and her body under the armor's thinner than it was, as if her flesh has somehow contracted. Her face looks like grey skin stretched taut over her skull. "Shite, what's wrong with Amazonia?"

Lys glances at me a moment. "At my direction, Cermet gave Amazonia the opportunity to become a Shadow Knight. Obviously, she accepted."

I glare at Lys in shocked disbelief. "Are you crazy? A Shadow creature let loose in the real world won't stop killing until someone destroys it."

"Amazonia is in control of herself," Lys giving me a cross look. "Besides, Cermet assures me that I have a strong influence over her, so while I cannot control Amazonia as I do Cermet and Yrg, she will listen to my voice and heed me."

"If you say so." Turning back towards the plaza, Amazonia lifts her grey Rune sword over her head and charges towards the spearmen's flank. The dead follow her like an Army Ant colony on the march.

One soldier points in their direction and begins yelling as Amazonia breaks away from the swarm behind her and charges. The eight or nine soldiers on the flank pivot in place and raggedly lower their spears, their round shields clattering as they pull them up, and even though the front rank keeps their spears pointed towards the front, all the faces of the soldiers I can see are turned towards the group approaching them.

A few archers have retrieved their bows and, responding to orders from a man in steel armor, begin to fire over the heads of the spearmen at the shambling mass. One arrow flits towards Amazonia; she bats it away with her sword while other arrows fall among the throng, several of them stumbling as the shafts pierce them. But instead of falling, the moving corpses regain their balance and keep lurching forward as fast as they can.

As Amazonia reaches the flank, one of the soldiers thrusts his spear at her face. With her blade, she smacks the bronze spearhead away before spinning along the wooden shaft, knocking the shield back as she slashes the soldier across the face. Her rune covered blade shears through brass, flesh, and bone, the man dropping his spear and falling as she swings at the soldiers deeper inside the company.

The ranks are thrown into chaos, a few trying to level their spears while most claw at the scimitars hanging at their belts, Amazonia laughing as her Rune sword flicks out fast as a serpent's tongue. A soldier screams as gore erupts from the remains of an eye, then she pulls another soldier in front of a thrusting spear, the man gasping as the bronze point tears through a gap in his armor and into his back. Amazonia whirls like a dust devil as the sword draws a red swath through the armored men.

Then the dead reach the spear wall. One corpse, with only ragged strips of flesh remaining on its bones, lets a spear break a rib as the bronze tip pierces its chest, but then shambles unhindered up the shaft of the spear. The man drops the spear and turns to run, but the bony corpse grabs the spear and trips him before whipping the spear shaft back and forth at the living soldiers as more dead pour into the gaps. The men on the flank throw down their spears and shields and run away, the soldiers behind them doing the same as well.

The spearmen's ordered ranks descend into a frenzied mob throwing down their weapons or hacking at each other in their desperation to flee. Standing beside me, Karl shakes his head. "I've never seen a company of soldiers break this fast."

"Do you blame them?" Zanzabel gives him a frightened look. "What are we going to do if they storm the building?"

Lys snorts. "Watch and learn."

The soldiers have become a mob of armored men clanging like braying bells as they run full out, leaving stragglers behind in their desperation to reach the Temple district's gates. Most of the dead are giving chase as Amazonia lets the fleeing soldiers go. Then she looks down at a wounded man trying to crawl away, and stabs him through his armor into his back. He flails his arms and legs a moment before going still; she rips out the blade, and walks at a methodical pace towards the next wounded man. Standing around in tightly ordered ranks, the Chosen seem frozen in place as Titan strides out and stops in the same place Muzen activated his gem. Amazonia raises her blade to stab the man beneath her as Titan yells, "Az, hold."

She goes still with the blade hovering over the wounded man's back. Amazonia looks up at Titan, then down at the man who rolls over onto his back with a pleading look on his face. She grimaces, shaking the last drops of blood from the grey blade and sheathing it, before calling out to the dead in gibberish. No, it must be a language, because the corpses chasing the soldiers stop and begin shambling back towards us while the few remaining approach her and as they get close, begin forming uneven ranks. Titan whirls around. "Lys," he snarls, the fury of an angry god of war stark upon his face, "did you change Amazonia into this... creature?"

"Cermet did," a man's voice calls out from the darkness, "upon my orders." Prince Timur strides into the witchlight with his two Bloodguards and the Chaldean Wardogs in a semi-circle behind him. "The Lich explained all I needed to know about the second part of the ritual, and I commanded Az to do it. As my sworn Bloodguard she's obligated to follow my orders."

Titan stares at him in disbelief. "Do you know what you have done?"

Even in the face of Titan's rage, Prince Timur doesn't stop walking towards him as Kula joins the Ogri. Timur's eyes never leave Titan's hostile gaze. "What I've done is to give us the chance be victorious in the shadow of defeat." Timur stops a few paces away and gives Titan a defiant look. "According to Cermet, the rest of the Bukhara army is marching towards the Temple district's gates as we speak, ready to attack us now that their plot to rob us of our rightful share of the blood-corn has been crushed." In his right hand he carries a mace, while his other has a curved sword which he points towards the still celebrating city, which seems oblivious to the noise. "I've ordered the Khanda swordsmen to let the cowardly spearmen escape before taking the gates and holding them, but our three hundred will not be enough to force our way across the bridge with the carts."

"We don't need to leave the district," Kula retorts. "Greywolf may be badly hurt, but Fox can open our way to the Shadowlands."

"Not for Az," Titan snarls. "Now that she has been corrupted, even if she returns to human form, the moment she enters the Shadowlands she will revert back to the Shadow Knight she is now and not want to return to the real world. Greywolf might be able to force her, but only if he was in good shape and only with my help." He grounds his massive sword point down on the broken paving stones. "I will not leave her behind."

Wotan's blood, I hate Timur when he smirks. "Which is why she will lead the dead into Bukhara and overwhelm the army, causing a panic as they sweep through the city." He raises his mace over his head. "We will bring Bukhara to her knees and take from her all we can carry off."

Kula shakes his head. "This is not honorable."

"Honorable?" Timur's lips curl back in a snarl. "The Sasnayams were prepared to send thousands of the dead over the bridge and across the plains to attack our encampment, and would've done so had the Empire of the East not uncovered the plot."

Kula rears back. "You're sure of this?"

"Amazonia told me of the original mission and Cermet confirmed it. War-leader, this is the only way to give my father's dream of creating a kingdom on the edge of the Sasnayam's empire a chance to grow and bear fruit."

"The false priest admitted they didn't want that to happen, when they asked us to surrender. You would do this for your father?"

"I think the idea's foolish," Kula growls, "and I plan to fight it any way I can. Yet I will never rebel against my father or stain his honor while he's alive." He looks up at Titan. "Once this raid's over and Bukhara's been sacked, Amazonia will return to her normal self and I'll never ask her to do this again."

"Believe that if you will," Titan growls, "but I know this will only be the beginning. Kings and princes grow drunk on power, and Amazonia's abilities will be like handing a drunkard the key to the wine shoppe." Timur opens his mouth but Titan cuts him off. "Do you think you are the first prince I have seen descend down this shadowed path?" He bends down to put his face near Timur's. "You have no idea what this could do to Amazonia."

"And yet you said nothing." Titan raises back up again, towering over the rest of them as Dancer steps out from behind Timur. "Apologies for speaking, my prince, but Titan was there when Jhadra made Domina a Reaver Knight. He could've warned her, warned us, about the second ritual or how much these tattoos would change us, but he remained silent."

Titan's eyes narrow. "Had I known the Sasnayams were harboring Necromancers, I would have told Lord Paulus what I knew and stopped the ritual from taking place. All I wanted was for Az to regain her freedom."

"Liar," Dancer snarls, his expression black as the Artifact spear in his hand. "It's your own freedom you wanted. You're so caught up in your noble ideas, that after you raped Domina so hard you almost killed her, you couldn't leave the arena until she did."

"I was in rut," Titan snarls as the two women behind me gasp, "and she knew exactly what would happen. I paid her and Lord Paulus both, many times over, on the sands for what I did. I could have left anytime I wanted. But I remained a part of the Ludus for her sake, and no other reason." He raises the sword and stabs it towards Dancer's face. "Do not push me any farther on this, Io, or the tattoo you bear may need to find itself a new home."

"The man you knew as Io is dead," Dancer says, "and her Wardogs are the only ones who truly care about her." The other five and Fox, standing next to Wysper, voice their agreement as Dancer waves his free hand about. "Why do you care about saving the world from evil anyway, when the world's ready to jump right into it with both feet?"

"Enough," Kula growls before Titan can answer. "We are wasting time. Prince Timur, how many of these walking corpses can you bring onto the fighting field?"

"Cermet tells me a thousand, give or take, but as one is hacked apart or runs out of the black mana she gives them to make them become active, she'll just raise more so long as she remains near the dead tree where she's drawing power from. The charnel pits are actually caverns beneath the temple where these evil priests have been throwing bodies since anyone can remember, so corpses aren't a problem either."

Kula grimaces. "This will be an evil victory, but our enemies leave us no choice."

Titan rumbles, "There is always a choice."

"Is there, and still attain victory? I don't see it. Were the Shadow-walker Greywolf not hurt," Amazonia jumps as if poked with a stick and looks up at me, "I would find a way to get you and her over the walls." Her eyes narrow and she takes off at a run towards the front door as Kula continues, "But I don't trust the other one to..."

I lose what he's saying as terror grips me. I rise to my feet...

And collapse face forward, Wysper's gentle hands keeping me from smacking my head on the floor. "Greywolf?"

I struggle to my hands and knees as the slap of leather sandals on stone grows louder. "I need to get my katana and defend myself before she gets here."

Karl shakes his head as I fall back to a sitting position. "Right now you couldn't fight your way out of a straw basket, let alone Amazonia. I don't understand-"

He breaks off as Amazonia appears with the grey Rune sword in her hand. "Shadow-walker," she hisses, "your death comes."

She stalks forward with the rictus of a smile on her grey face.