“Bane of Darkness!” Stephan shouted without thinking, his voice tearing through the rain-soaked night.
A wave of faint golden light spilled away from him, illuminating the dark. For a flash, the foggy graveyard grew clear. Graves gaped open, hands clawed at the mud, digging themselves out. Dozens of undead dragged themselves from the dead earth, while a shambling horde of them already lurched towards the living.
The monsters froze, then light passed, and darkness swallowed them, leaving no way to see what was happening.
“Charge!” Stephan leapt forward, boots splashing through the puddles. Warmth trickled into his chest as he led his men against the risen.
The nearest zombie was still half-buried, its gray hands clamped over its skull as the holy light stunned it. Its face pressed into the mud as if it were a child hiding from a nightmare.
Stephan’s blade sang through the rain, and the creature’s head rolled free.
He didn’t use smite. Spirit was a precious resource, one he needed to conserve for healing and whatever surprises lay ahead.
Gawain surged past him like a storm. The Knight’s sword swept in quick, brutal arcs. He was a paragon of swiftness and efficiency, sending limbs and heads flying, rotten bodies collapsing beneath the flurry.
The ordinary soldiers couldn’t match a senior Knight even against the weak, mass-raised undead. Still, they gave it their all, slowly hacking their way through the undead, but each kill wasted two or three extra swings compared to what Gawain and Stephan were doing.
Moans rose from the gloom. Steel rang behind him and flashed in the flickering torchlight ahead. The symphony of carnage clashed with the tranquil, grieving rain as Stefan cleaved rotten flesh and brittle bone.
Then, a bell’s clear toll cut through all other sounds.
Gawain hurried closer to Stephan, eyes already scanning the darkness beyond the graves, on the lookout for assassins and unexpected threats.
“The walls are under attack.”
Stephan froze, his sword buried in the back of a zombie’s head.
The bell tolled again, calling for men to gather at the wall.
This is planned. His mind raced. The warlock raises the dead while the force outside draws our attention from the graveyard. No, it could be all the graveyards. We need to check the rest.
“Press on!” he shouted. “The enemy is before us; we shall trust our brothers in arms to protect the city! We will stand tall!”
The soldiers cheered and redoubled their efforts, hacking faster, blades rising and falling in a frantic rhythm. Still, it took nearly ten minutes before the last corpse stopped twitching.
“To me!” Stephan roared without giving them the time to catch their breath. “To the grand temple of War!”
He ran; they followed. Boots pounded and splashed through the streets slick with rain. Light flickered inside homes as people woke to see what was happening.
After War, we head for the temples of Hope, then Knowledge. What’s in between? He was heading for the biggest graveyard in the city, mentally mapping Cliffort, making a plan for the best route to check them all. Between the major ones, smaller burial sites lay scattered.
Should we ignore them or clear them, ignoring the bigger threats?
Screams echoed down the street. They came from all over, but soon the trebuchets overpowered the human noise.
Wood groaned, ropes snapped taut, and wind hissed as stones took to the air. Then the machines went silent, giving way to panicked people once more. Stephan’s racing heart managed fifteen beats before distant claps of thunder arrived as massive boulders struck the ground.
There was nothing for him to do, save trust those manning the walls.
“Soldiers and guards to the graveyards!” He bellowed as he ran. “Those at home, arm yourselves and bar your doors!”
His voice carried down the slick streets. Heavy thuds came from doors being barred. Shutters slammed closed.
Why are they attacking in the rain? Stephan wondered, sprinting, not even thinking how everyone within earshot obeyed his orders without hesitation. It makes no sense. In The Art of War, unfavorable weather imposes a penalty on all attack actions against fortifications.
“Guards to graveyards! Arm yourselves! Bar your doors!” he repeated his warnings twice as he ran.
Heat built up in his chest, pushing him closer to another level, but before it came, they had arrived at the gate of Cliffort’s largest graveyard.
Three guards braced their shoulders against the iron gate while a mass of corpses clawed from the other side. Rotten hands grasped through the bars and scratched at their armor while soldiers stabbed spears through the gaps, slaying the undead for all the good it did.
“Bane of Darkness!”
Golden light flared again.
The undead froze mid-lunge, then recoiled. Soldiers seized their chance, stabbing and hacking at the monsters. Rather than joining them, Stephan rushed to heal the two bleeding guardsmen, but an armored Priest broke away from his men and healed one of the wounded.
“Don’t waste your spirit on healing, Sir Paladin,” the Priest said.
“Where’s Bradley?”
“Lord Rowanson is holding the church-side entrance all on his own.”
Stephan looked at the situation and saw the guards and soldiers had it under control. “Gawain with me. The rest of you, remain here and focus on containing the undead. Do not push into the graveyard. Good work, all of you!”
If Bradley can hold the undead off on his own, he and Gawain will slaughter them once I immobilize them.
Stephan and Gawain sprinted across the temple’s yard, following the sound of steel crushing flesh. Another volley of trebuchets thundered from the wall, drowning all other noise. It reminded Stephan he needed to learn what was going on, but he had better things to do.
They rounded the corner.
Before them, Bradley stood in the rain.
Barefoot. Dressed in a simple sleeping gown and wielding the biggest maul Stephan had ever seen. He held it one-handed, even though the weapon seemed heavier than the Priest himself.
The sight was absurd, and yet Bradley’s effectiveness couldn’t be denied. The gate was clear save for the Priest. Three zombies shambled toward him. The maul came down once, and the monsters exploded into gore, flying back into the night.
“Hail, Lord Bradley!” Stephan shouted. “Bane of Darkness!”
Light spread, revealing and freezing the approaching dead. Bradley roared with laughter and charged them like a madman.
The Priest of War offered his prayers with brutal sweeps of his maul, shattering bodies.
“Sir Paladin,” Bradley yelled between blows. “Head for smaller graveyards, the big temples can deal with their own.”
Stephan had considered it even as he was running towards the temple of War, but there was a problem. “They have probably fallen already.”
It was an ugly thing to say, but almost certainly true. Graveyards had a handful of guards each, and they had no way of dealing with dozens or hundreds of zombies. Blessedly, the bigger graveyards had temples with Priests next to them, and those when combined with the soldiers were enough of a force to stave off the tide.
“Better to help you here. Then we can assist others,” Stephan continued, believing that would result in the minimal loss of life. “Besides, I’ve already shouted orders at soldiers to reinforce the graveyards.”
“What about the walls?” Bradley smashed two zombies while Stephan shifted away from a grasping hand, then struck down the zombie.
He doesn’t really know that much about tactics, despite worshiping War. Stephan found the notion strange. The enemy has no chance of breaching the walls on a dark, rainy night, not without a hundred thousand mindless tokens attacking with unshakeable morale. Perhaps not even then.
“The walls will hold.” He cleaved apart a zombie. “The real threat are the undead.”
Even if the three grand temples suppress their undead, and even if half the other graveyards hold, that’s still ten sites, each with at least a hundred undead.
And Stephan was being optimistic, afraid to imagine the consequences if those numbers more closely resembled those he and his men had just beaten.
There was no more discussion. The three warriors got to work, destroying the undead systematically, clearing the site, drenched by rain. Light flashed before Stephan’s eyes after fifteen minutes. By then, he had killed at least two hundred zombies, and they had cleared most of the graveyard.
“I say we leave the stragglers and head for the next graveyard,” he shouted, and the others agreed.
They ran all the way to the nearest graveyard; a small one, with a chapel dedicated to the Forge. The guards were dead, the undead everywhere. The going got slower, fighting in the streets more chaotic than in an open graveyard. Stephan and Gawain hunted the undead in alleys because Bradley’s weapon was useless there.
The endless night turned grueling. Stephan swung his sword more times than he did in days of training combined. His back ached, his shoulder burned. At some point he changed his sword arm, but had to shift it back into his right quickly enough; the motion with his left wholly unnatural.
He lost track of time; the graveyards and streets all blurred together. With no clue where he was, he followed Bradley and a growing band of Priests and soldiers. Silas had joined them at some point, followed by Hardy, and light flashed before Stephan’s eyes one more time before the fighting died down.
He sat down on the paved street, square in the middle of a puddle, but he didn’t care. He looked around. Mud and the dead were everywhere. He glanced at Gawain, the Knight was trying his best to appear relaxed, but even he was tired, slowing his breathing by force.
“Any word from the walls?” Stephan asked.
“None, Sir. They are on full alert and manned, but until the sun rises, we won’t be able to see what really happened outside.”
Stephan nodded slowly. “What’s your Endurance?”
“Forty-eight the last time I leveled.” He smirked reassuringly. “You fought like you’re at thirty.”
“Close enough, twenty-eight.” Stephan had checked after asking the question. “I feel dead tired, though.”
“Sir,” Gawain lowered his voice to a whisper and turned serious. “Refrain from that figure of speech. We don’t know how many folks died tonight, but I suspect it was no small number.”
Stephan’s breath caught. “I’ll ensure not to make such careless remarks in the future.”
He knew better, but he was wrung dry of energy. The night was chaos. Fighting and running in the rain, screams coming from all around and not knowing who to help first was maddening.
None of this will happen if I prevent the war. Stephan sharply straightened his stooped bearing. When! Not if, when I prevent this war. This madness cannot be allowed to happen.
“How long ‘til sunrise?” he asked, and Gawain shrugged.
“No idea, Sir. I lost all track of time, but we can ask around.”
Stephan wanted to know whether he should go to bed or to the walls to see what was happening.
“Let’s ask around.” He got up; even the scant few minutes of rest helped offset some of his fatigue. “And have any wounded come to me for healing, my spirit is nearly full.”
While Gawain ran around, doing his bidding, Stephan looked at his ruined uniform, then wiped his sword clean on a tiny patch unmarred by runny mud and gore. He sheathed the clean blade and gazed into the crying sky.
And this is just the beginning.
[Level 18 reached
Skill acquired: Blessing of Conviction II
+1 Agility, +0 Charisma, +1 Composure, +1 Dexterity, +1 Endurance, +1 Intelligence, +1 Luck, +1 Perception, +1 Presence, +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, +1 Vitality, +1 Willpower, +1 Wisdom]
[Blessing of Conviction II - Your resistance against hostile magic increases by one quarter of your Presence attribute.]
[Level 19 reached
Skill acquired: Blessing of Intuition II
+1 Agility, +1 Charisma, +1 Composure, +0 Dexterity, +1 Endurance, +0 Intelligence, +1 Luck, +1 Perception, +1 Presence, +1 Strength, +1 Toughness, +2 Vitality, +1 Willpower, +1 Wisdom]
[Blessing of Intuition II - You recognize holy relics, even if they are shielded.]
[Stephan Cobblerson, Paladin level 19
Class skills: In Living Memory XVI, Blessing of Healing II, Blessing of Arms II, Smite II, Blessing of Protection II, Inspiring Aura II, Blessing of Conviction II, Blessing of Intuition II, Blessing of Health I, Bane of Darkness I, Mercy I, Chivalry I, Holy Magic I
Attributes: Agility: 26, Charisma: 24, Composure: 29, Dexterity: 22, Endurance: 28, Intelligence: 21, Luck: 26, Perception: 25, Presence: 26, Strength: 28, Toughness: 28, Vitality: 30, Willpower: 28, Wisdom: 26]