Wandering Warrior: Judge - Chapter 38

Chapter 38

We only had a moment’s warning that more undead were coming, when a rain of pebbles dropped from the hole we had just fallen through.  The first thing that came through was a zombie that was little more than a skeleton, and the fall caused it to shatter into pieces.  Jess backed away from the new avenue of attack, cornering herself in the back of the room.  Murphy followed, killing the next creature that fell through the hole by lopping its head off before it could even fully stand.  It had either been a young vampire or a fresh zombie, but in this case it didn’t matter much.

“Should I do it?”  Jess had the plank of wood held behind her, out of sight of the lich.  “There aren’t as many as we thought there were going to be.”

“Wait until the right moment.  You’ll know it when you see it.”  I gave her a thumbs up for encouragement, and twisted my yari spear, snapping free the blade.  “It’s time to make this bastard pay.”  A vampire came flying out of the darkness at me, so I used a flick of my wrist to help boost its jump straight into the burning pit of flames.  A certain Johnny Cash song popped in my head, and I chuckled as I focused back on my main target.

Somehow, Cross had managed to get in front of the lich before I could, his sword at the high ready.  His stump was held out to his side, helping to balance him like a professional fencer.  “You were in my head, creature.  I demand payment for this injustice.”  I had to give the one-armed bandit some credit.  He certainly still had both huevos.

Yes, I suppose I should have left you better off than when I arrived.  It’s poor form for a visitor to leave a mess, even if it was for a short while.  The lich waved a bony hand, and a bolt of pure darkness shot out of his fingers.  Cross managed to mostly dodge it, catching a glancing blow on his breastplate.  His sword slashed downward, clanging off the lich’s forearm bones as if they were made of steel.  The possessed skeleton grabbed Cross by the groin, picking him straight up off the ground and throwing him over his shoulder where he bounced across the ground twice before going still.  Never mind about the both huevos thing I guess.  A follow-up bolt of darkness from the lich caught him in the back, and Cross jerked in pain.

While they were fighting, the rest of us hadn’t been idle.  Leedy had been killing everything that tried dropping through the hole, while Jess and Murphy were fighting off the lone burning flesh amalgamation that had made it out of the pit.  I was closing in on the lich while beating off the occasional vampire that showed itself, and by beating off I meant violently dismembering.

“Hey, Sparky, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”  I cast a bolt of lightning empowered by my mana generator, and it seemed to have an effect.  A pair of ribs got blown off, and it looked like the fires in the lich’s eyes weren’t burning quite as bright.  “Glad I could get your attention.  You know, I’ve got a nine volt battery I think you would really get along with.  Maybe you just need to meet someone to bring out the best in you.”

I think I’ve changed my mind about the pleasant dreamscape.  Instead, I will be removing your fingernails for eternity.

The lich grabbed for my throat, trying to subdue me.  I had to admit, he was fast.  But I was faster.  I dodged the grasping hand, and stomp kicked his knee the wrong direction.  If it had been a living person, that would have ended the fight rather quickly.  Instead, it only made the lich stumble back into a pile of rubble.

“You know, Sparky, things would go a lot easier if I knew where your phylactery was hiding.”  I cast an earth spell, holding out my pinky in a sweeping motion and forcing the stone to enclose around him like a cage.  It struggled for a moment, but it was quickly obvious there was no escape with me standing in front of it.  “I would make things go way quicker for you.  Even with your threats, I promise, it won’t even hurt very much.”

I didn’t want to do this, vessel.  Your unwillingness to understand your position has forced my hand.  Just know, the results of this day rest on your head.  The green fires of its eyes flashed, and what we had thought were solid walls fell away, revealing undead packed together so tightly that they had shown up on my delving spell as solid material.  An enemy force that numbered in the hundreds now counted in the thousands.  I was looking at generations of people the lich had dug up and enslaved for his army, and it pissed me off.

“Jess, now!”  My warning shout was unnecessary, since Jess and Murphy had been backed up against two of the walls that had just come down.  They were already neck deep in angry undead, and only Murphy’s furious fighting and Jess managing to cast earthen wall spells had kept them alive long enough for her to place the piece of wood on a flat section of the floor.

When the spell activated, the difference between wood and fabric was immediately noticeable.  Instead of a dense fog focused on the immediate area, a gray haze covered the entire underground space, blanketing it in a light coating of heavy oppression.  Even the lich seemed cowed, trying to double over in his stone cage.

“Now’s our chance!”  Leedy was the first to capitalize on the opportunity, rapidly maximizing his time available by removing the heads of everything within reach of his sword.  “Kill them all while you can!”

Everyone exploded into action, taking out as many undead as they could.  It was obvious to me almost immediately that it was no use.  Even with thirty minutes, we wouldn’t be able to kill the lich’s army of undead with conventional means.  We were going to have to retreat and do it some other way.  The distraction did give me a chance to check on Cross, who had miraculously been left alone after getting manhandled by the lich.

A quick inspection showed me his body had been infected by the necrotic energy the lich had used.  Considering we were still in the middle of a battle, I couldn’t completely empty my mana in an attempt to heal him.  Instead, I focused on just getting him back in the fight.  A quick pulse of healing energy with a circle on his forehead was enough to make his eyes flutter open.

“You back in it?”  I saw his eyes focus on my face, and Cross grimaced in pain before giving me a sharp nod.  “Good, because we need you.”

“Help me up.”  I pulled him back to his feet and Cross wobbled a bit before standing firm.  “I’m good.”  He definitely wasn’t, as I could see the veins of necrotic energy pulsing under his skin.

“Okay man, you go for it!”  I put his sword in his hand and slapped him on his back, sending him stumbling toward a horde of zombies.  He turned the stumble into a charge, and was quickly chopping off heads and limbs like a pro.  I’m sure he’d be fine.

Your struggles are pointless.  It’s only a matter of time until you and your friends are overwhelmed.  If you give yourself to me now, I will allow your friends the opportunity to join my army as something more than just the fodder that you see before you now.

“I have an idea.  How about you shut your bitch-ass up?”  I channeled my mana and worked a slab of kinetic energy into a certain slapping spell I’d seen Cross perform once before, and that I had practiced once or twice in my free time.  The nearly translucent form of a hand manifested as the spell bitch slapped the lich across the face hard enough to knock his bottom jaw loose.  It was every bit as satisfying as I hoped it would be.  The lich’s jaw dangled free by a strip of flesh, swinging back and forth like a macabre metronome.  “Too bad that won’t actually keep you quiet.”

There is nothing you can do against me.  None of your magic can do me permanent harm, and since I am not a fool, my phylactery isn’t anywhere nearby.  Even if you defeat me here, for an immortal it is but a temporary setback.  It is only a matter of time until you–

An explosion rang out from up above, stunning us both.  We looked at one another carefully, gauging if the other was responsible.  “That wasn’t either of us, was it?”  The lich shook its head, and I jumped to my feet, casting a spell to reinforce the stone prison trapping the skeleton.  Its struggles intensified now that there were party crashers, but my mana was still too densely layered in the stone for it to break free.  While it fought to get loose, the lich must have ordered a sizable portion of its forces to go up and battle whatever had come to visit, because the back ranks of the horde disappeared into the darkness.

There was another explosion, and a scream from up above told me it was at least a human in persuasion that was invading, and from the sounds of it, there were a lot more than just one.  Leedy and Cross were already closing in on the wooden plank where Jess and Murphy were fighting, so I moved to join them.

It was as good a place as any to make our stand.  Either the new person or persons would get killed and we would end up facing the rest of the undead, the undead would get wiped out and we would make some new friends, or the undead would be unalived for good and we would fight some new and exciting enemies.  Either way, we were in for a long evening.  The basement walls getting ripped out made the entire structure unstable, and any overly destructive spells would certainly bring the building down on our heads.  We would need to wear them down slowly, as long as our stamina could hold out.  No matter what happened, I still had to make sure my mana stayed above a quarter of my total reserves.  I still had a date with Sparky, and there was no way I was taking a rain check.

“Focus on the bloodsuckers!”  Jess cast her version of stone dart, taking a vampire through the eye.  “They’re still weak from the aura!”

Now that I could focus on the fodder, I realized how many vampires there actually were.  Under the influence of the aura, they weren’t moving around much better than the zombies.  There were a couple of elder vampires herding groups of their brethren forward onto our blades, so I targeted them first.  A couple of surprise flame darts didn’t finish them off, but it certainly distracted them from helping.

The four men stood back-to-back, with Jess standing in the middle.  She cast her stone darts over our shoulders as fast as she could, keeping anything from flanking us.  Our weapons worked with practiced efficiency, and I cut down undead by the dozens.  The blade of my spear was a blur as it cut through anything that dared walk in front of me.

I was just starting to feel like we were making progress, and everyone else seemed to notice that the density of enemies was easing off, when the aura helping to slow down the undead flickered.  The only thing the lich could move was its head, and it swiveled its broken skull to look at me.

It’s almost time.  You won’t believe the things we can accomplish together.  If you would only acquiesce to the inevitable, you would see that this isn’t such a bad thing for you.

“Right back at you, bub.”  I cast another fireball at the center of the basement for emphasis, providing us with more light and taking out another wave of reinforcements before they could close in.

As if to answer, another fireball, this one more red than my blue, flew down the stairs on the opposite side of the basement.  It splashed over the stone steps like water, washing away the undead like they were sandcastles built too close to the waterline.  It was the closest thing to napalm I had seen since world five, where I had gained my Alchemist Profession and had actually seen some used to clear out Creeping Reaper Vines.

“Commander, down here!”  The first person down the stairs was a Warden dressed in a similar style to what I had first seen Cross, Leedy, and Murphy wearing, but he was in all white instead of blue.  He had the unfortunate luck to run into the aura our artificial core was producing, and immediately dropped to his knees before tumbling down the stairs into the fire.  Oops.

Cross immediately turned to shut off the device, but I held out the butt of my spear to block him.  “Not yet.  We’ve still got a few minutes left.  Kill as many as you can while it still lasts.”

He was furious with me, but gave me a quick nod before getting back into the fight.  There hadn’t been time to tell him about the werebear family, or perhaps seeing another member of his Guild die reminded him that he was supposed to kill me.  Either way, he wasn’t opposed to killing more undead.

The rest of us redoubled our efforts, doing our best to thin out the undead as much as possible while we still held the advantage.

Considering the situation, I started letting loose a little more with my spells.  I tried to keep them small, using things like wind blades to extend the attacks with my spear, and earthen spikes to shape the battlefield to our advantage for when the aura finally dropped.

When it started flickering, the fight quickly got more dangerous.  It was hard to predict the jerking attacks of the faster zombies, and the vampires were smart enough to start using the brief moments of unrestricted movement to actually throw zombies at us.

“Get closer!”  I quickly erected two walls to either side of us, only leaving two directions to defend.  With both Murphy and I using polearms, the thrown enemies weren’t as much of a problem.  The spikes I had placed earlier made it harder for them to flat out rush us, so Cross stood with me to cover the front while Leedy and Jess joined Murphy in the back.  “If it gets too rough, let me know and I’ll close up this side too.  We’ll be trapped, but we can focus all our strength on one side.”

“Don’t worry about us, you just handle yourselves!”  Murphy’s halberd chopped into a particularly juicy zombie, slamming it off to the side where Leedy could finish it off.  “We’ve got this.”

I looked over at Cross, who was somehow moving even faster than when we had started.  “How are you feeling?”  The black veins that covered his body throbbed with his heartbeat, strong and steady despite the situation.  “You don’t look so good.”

“I… I feel better than good.”  Cross took two quick steps forward and cut a vampire’s head off with a flawless rising draw cut.  He was so fast, the undead creature couldn’t even attempt a dodge even with the flickering death aura.  A single jump backward and he was in position next to me again.  “See?”

“Yeah, I definitely see.”  I reached out a hand to try and diagnose him but a shout from the stairs stopped me cold.

“James Holden!”  A man wearing plate armor covered by an immaculate white robe was standing there looking straight at me.  At least, I thought he was looking at me.  It was dark, and he was wearing a helm, but I was pretty sure.  He cracked a whip that exploded the head of another vampire that tried to charge him up the stairs, and somehow still managed to remain spotless.  “I’ve been ordered by the gods to come and kill you.”

“You’re going to have to go back up top and check in with reception to get a number.”  I gestured at the undead.  “There’s a line, and these guys were here first.”

The lich poked his head up again, looking between the two of us.  Oh my.  Things just got interesting…