“My experiences have left their mark on me. My slothful and indolent days in the Academy are far behind me. There are horrors out in the world, things that I have witnessed firsthand. I know that I must seek power to protect myself, and the people that are important to me. But I’m terrified. The things I saw in the north, the visions of my future, they haunt me. Annabelle assured me they were nothing but fiction, the crown’s attempt to control me. But I cannot help but fear the thread of truth in the lies.”

Diary of Wilhelm Brookmoor

Chapter 85

Wil felt a heavy hand latched onto his shoulder, pulling him away from the edge of the wall and pushing him towards the stairway behind him.

“Run!” Garman yelled, as the large man sprinted towards the wall’s interior edge, before the geysers of black blood reached them.

Wil turned to his left, noticing Martin milling around in the confusion with several other clerics, unsure of what they should do.

“Martin!” Wil called, waving to the other man. The young cleric’s head spun around upon hearing his name. Wil frantically pointed towards the stairwell at the rear of the wall, turning away from the cleric when he saw the look of understanding cross his face.

Looking back at the stairwell, he could see the mass of people trying desperately to leave the top of the wall.

The lich’s power to kill on command and the exploding monstrosity overhead had made cowards of them all, Wil included.

With Garman at his side, Wil reached the press of people just as the first specks of black blood fell around him.

Without any hesitation, Wil formed a barrier of Mana around Garman and himself, channeling enough power into the shield that it glowed bright across him.

Breathing heavily from the rare, physical exertion, Martin joined them a moment later, barely making it under the shield as the heavy blood rain pelted the barrier.

Wil saw that many of the others were unprepared for the sudden onslaught of bloody rain. Only a few made it beneath cover, whether it was tower shields or magical barriers. He had warned them to prepare for the infectious blood, to find cover, purchase a shield or stay near a mage to protect them. But like so many other groups before them, they hadn’t taken his warning seriously.

Frantic, Wil looked around for Erinn and Gunther, spotting them at the edge of the wall closest to the garrison. Huddled under Gunther’s large shield, it looked like they had sheltered in time.

The bloody rain hammered against the barrier around them, streaks of black blood made running rivulets down the opaque barricade. The Mana sizzled and cracked as it attempted to burn off the infectious liquid, but whatever the Lich had done, this blood was resistant to the destructive energy.

Wil watched as the grey stone wall around them was slowly dyed black from the rain. Pits and cracks formed in the rock as the blood ate away at the wall like it was a strong acid, wearing into the stone and the warding runes.

Even Wil’s barrier of mana was not immune to its decaying and destructive effects. Simply holding the shield around the three of them was causing his mana to drop at an alarming rate. In mere minutes, his mana reserves would be empty, and they would be defenseless.

Worse than the rain’s effect on his mana, or the stone wall, was the blood’s impact on the defenseless people trying desperately to get down the stairwell. The black liquid coated hundreds of those nearest Wil, and soon the screams of agony and terror rang out in the night.

Focusing on maintaining his magical shield, Wil couldn’t spare a moment to look at what was happening just behind him. But for Martin, it was his first glimpse of the hell that Wil had warned them about.

The infectious blood seeped into their skin instantly, but unlike what Wil described, the change was immediate. The bodies of the infected twisted and altered, muscles bulged as black veins protruded like a web across their skin.

Their eyes, filled with horror and pain, lost all signs of intelligence as they turned fully black. Weeping blood replaced tears as it streaked down their pale faces.

Unlike the floating undead avatar of a god, the infected kept their Mana. Martin could feel it within their grotesque bodies, violent and uncontrolled. Each was more powerful now than they had been before their infection.

One of the infected, a young woman that Martin recognized, had been barely a Rank 3, but now was reaching the peak of Rank 4, nearly a Rank 5! All the infected were becoming more powerful, as the corrupted mana pushed their bodies beyond their limits, disregarding the damage it was doing to them in the process.

The corrupted mana swirled and gathered around their twisted bodies as the screams of agony were replaced by howls of rage and frenzied madness.

The infected, dozens strong, with more joining their number every minute, launched themselves at their former companions.

Whatever skills they had before, magic spells or martial techniques, were gone. They used simple attacks against their enemies, using their corrupted mana to enhance their prodigious strength granted to them by their deformities.

Fists, disfigured by the infection until they resembled misshapen lumps of bony flesh, swung wildly as they fought.

They leapt through the air, tackling those that attempted to flee them. Holding down the uninfected, they would spew black bile onto their opponents, covering them with the infectious body fluids, adding to their growing numbers.

Horrified, Martin backed away from the slaughter he was witnessing, bumping into Wil’s back.

“Primaris protect me, we need to run!” Martin screamed, as he grabbed a hold of Wil, shaking the other man to get his attention.

Wil, who was focused on stopping the falling rain from reaching them, turned slightly to see what had the cleric so distraught. When he saw what was happening in the crowd next to him, his eyes opened wide as he looked to Garman.

“Over the Wall! We’ll jump it!” Wil said, backing towards the interior edge of the wall while holding the shield in place.

“Are you mad, Junior? It’s a hundred feet!” Garman protested, but not hesitating to grab the panicking cleric and dash towards the wall’s edge, his metal shield in place to block the bloody rain.

Seeing the pair safe behind Garman’s shield, Wil let his mana reduce to a trickle, just enough to protect him for the rain. He ran past the pair, yelling for Erinn and Gunther to follow.

Leaping onto the battlements, he looked below, towards the bottom of the wall.

The garrison had built their buildings right at the base of the fortifications, stretching out for nearly a mile along its length. Below where he stood, Wil could see nearly a dozen, two-story wooden lodging buildings, with wooden walkways in between.

Garman was right, it was suicide to jump. Even the Rank 5 Warrior, enhancing his physical attributes to the limit of his mana, wouldn’t make it. Luckily, after his tumble in Whitewater, Wil had learned ‘Feather Fall’ for situations like this. He could support his companions in their descent.

Thinking quickly, Wil made his decision as his companions reached him, standing on the walls edge. Will turned to look at them, seeing them huddled behind two large tower shields, shielding themselves from the still falling black blood.

“Jump!” He shouted.

Not waiting for them, he leapt from the grey stone wall, his mana gathered around him as he formed the matrix for feather fall. Instantly, he felt his descent slow until he was gently gliding towards the earth below.

He heard screaming as Erinn and Gunther jumped, holding hands as they did so. Wil thrust his own hand towards them, wrapping the pair in his magic to slow them down. The source of the screaming appeared a moment later, as Garman jumped the battlement, Martin grasped tightly in his large hands. It was the cleric who was screaming, his eyes tightly closed in terror.

With a small smirk on his face from the man’s antics, Wil wrapped the pair in his magic also, until the entire party slowly drifted to the ground below.

Things were going smoothly, until they were about halfway down. Overhead, they heard frenzied howls as a group of the infected watched them fall. Without hesitating, they leapt from the wall, their hands grasping eagerly towards them as they fell.

With their rate of descent, the infected would catch them long before they hit the ground. They would all be killed, his companions and the infected alike. He couldn’t support any more weight with his magic, if they grabbed a hold of any his group, they would all plummet below.

Looking at the fifty or so feet left below them, Wil formed another spell matrix.

“Web!” He yelled, thrusting his hand forward through the magical construct. From his hand, the sticky green web flew, striking two of the buildings below them and stretching out between.

“Wait! What are you…!” Garman yelled, but Wil didn’t stop. With a thought, he released the ‘feather fall’ spell, and the five careened towards the netting below, followed by the horde of howling infected.