Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

Shink!

Ravina's blade cleaved through two skeletons before a wave of mana split from her sword and struck a Ghûl scrambling across the wall, splitting it in half.

She stood and surveyed the scene. Adventurers stood in battle formation, with melee combatants up front, ranged in back, and supports behind them. There were a few healers present among the supports, but most with any ability to heal had made a sort of camp behind the hole in the wall, defended by a few of the stronger adventurers. They didn't have supplies to erect any kind of field hospital, but they did the best they could with sleeping mats and skins. The ice that had spread beyond the wall actually ended up being beneficial for this purpose, as trying to set something similar up on a barge would be much more difficult.

That was where Gala was, as she seemed one of the few that could heal the strange rot that these undead spread from the wounds they wrought. She wasn't the only one, but it seemed to take either a particular type of healer or one of sufficient skill.

"Ravina had very little knowledge of medicine beyond knowing not to pull arrows out and to apply pressure to bleeding wounds, so she wasn't completely sure what the differentiator between healers was.

"Ainreer, you're out! Get the fuck back!" she shouted.

The man had taken a nasty slash from a Ghûl's claws on his back. He wore a steel chestplate, but he was certainly lacking a full suit of armor. The plate was just strapped to him with strips of leather, and the Ghûl had severed one of the strips in its attack before he managed to bludgeon its head.

"'s just a scratch! I can still—" he started, but a wince gave his pain away.

"It ain't about how much it hurts, ya dipshit! Ya gotta get that rot cured 'fore it kills ya! Get it fixed now, ya can make it back in time to keep fightin'; leave it sit, and it'll kill ya before ya can contribute much further here anyway!" Ravina shouted, parrying a dull, rusty sword that came her way before sending another slash—another slice of mana—that bisected the skeleton and damaged several behind it.

Ainreer huffed and stalked off toward the medic camp, to Ravina's satisfaction. That said, she'd be lying if she said she wasn't annoyed that she had to reason with these adventurers like she would a child. She appreciated their desires to contribute, but there was a fine line between admirable persistence and being unnecessarily obstinate.

Mondan came running up to her, his large sword drawn but slung over his shoulder.

"What're we lookin' at?" Ravina asked quietly—or quieter, at least.

"824 were our numbers upon entering the marsh—actually, 823 considering Drego's disappearance. We now have a battalion of 90 defending here in three squads of 30 that rotate after sufficient injury or exhaustion.

"50 were tapped to guard the medic camp, while 22 are actually there as medics themselves. The rest began to get restless while they waited their turns, so I sent them up to the wall in groups of 50 to support the elven soldiers—with the expectation that they send a runner to check in every ten minutes, and they conserve their strength for when they're needed here.

"We've already rotated out two of the three squads of thirty that we started with, so this current squad of thirty is the last. We've got two squads of fifty coming down from the wall to form a new battalion of three squads. We'll have a couple people extra, but that's fine. They can fill in as needed," Mondan reported like some kind of general's aide.

He paused for a second, as if hesitating, before soldiering on.

"Of the first three squads, we've lost 11. They were either killed instantly or didn't make it all the way to the medic encampment. We've had 26 injured make it to the encampment, but at least 8 of those won't make it—all due to the corruption ravaging their bodies.

"Of the 18 that will likely survive, none will be returning to the front. The rot is too insidious; it feeds on the host's own energy to propagate, further contaminating the individual. The ones that will survive are so drained of energy that the healers don't expect them to be conscious until the morning.

"As soon as the battlefield adrenaline wore off, they all—without fail—fell into a deep sleep. The healers refuse to awaken them; they say the sleep is their bodies' attempting to save as much energy for healing as possible," he finished.

Ravina nodded. She wasn't great at math and numbers, but things that were relevant to her profession had a way of coming to her, despite her lack of skill.

"Whether they die or they're taken out a the fight by injury, we're losin' over a third of our forces every rotation. That...ain't a good ratio," she said flatly.

Mondan simply nodded—this was not news to him. He knew how dire things would likely become.

Ravina glanced back at the exit to Veshari, sighing heavily.

"Ain't nothin' for it. We can't let this breach fall. It ain't just the civilians back in the city, we've got a camp full a injured and healers. We can't let 'em be overrun. We gotta hold here while the elves take care of the war. We're dedicated now—ain't none a us makin' it out a here if the elves lose, so we gotta do our part to make sure they don't," Ravina said, determination firming her jaw.

Mondan nodded and leveled his sword at the approaching wave of undead.

"Nothing for it," he said.

"What are your orders?" Ithshar asked loudly, jolting Julia out of her ruminations on Yathil's betrayal and subsequent demise.

She turned around and surveyed the battlefield—things were holding, but only just. The arrival of the adventurers had stabilized the defense, plugging the hole and freeing up Julia and her squad.

Reinforcements from around the eastern quadrant continued to arrive. Hopefully, there was a secondary defensive line pressing toward the breach to back the adventurers up as well.

She didn't know how the rest of the battle was going elsewhere on the wall, but considering things had stabilized here—where the fighting was fiercest—she figured the situation was probably just as stable.

Still, this stability was a temporary one. The fact remained that there were a hundred thousand undead pressing into the breach. Eventually, there would be no one left atop the wall to pick them off, as even the battlements weren't safe—there was plenty of ranged support in the Nashiin army that made up for its low ground disadvantage with sheer numbers and tenacity.

The breach wouldn't hold forever, either. Even a thousand adventurers, rotating out and resting, would eventually become overwhelmed by the sea of undead that flowed unceasingly. There was no stopping it—only holding it at bay.

She turned back around and looked Ithshar's squad in the eyes one-by-one.

"I think it's time. Our goal was never to kill all the hundreds of thousands of undead ourselves; it was to draw their leaders out and eliminate them.

"We've already destroyed their siege weapons, their advance is temporarily halted, and their captains have taken the field. Now is the time to pick them off from the top down.

"Ithsharûn, if you are willing, I would have you begin this next phase. Start with the Barrowlords. Once they're dead, kill their Revenant escorts.

"Once those are dead, move against the general army, focusing on the strongest: Revenants, any advanced troops—even well-equipped skeletons, if you run out of the others.

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"We must draw the leaders out. We cannot hold this tide back forever. The head of the snake must emerge so we can sever it, lest its body crush us," she finished.

Ithshar's squad nodded, Elulis's smile turning vicious.

They prepared themselves briefly before launching off the wall as a collective. Julia watched with awe as they landed with grace and began their slaughter.

Ithshar set a bright white flame at their front that moved ahead of them and burned any Nashiin they approached. Elulis and Sahveth blocked the frantically burning skeletons with their shields before bashing their skulls in. Jallis stood near Ithshar, smashing any undead that came close, while she kept her flame burning.

The effect was like dropping a stone in a lake. The entry of Ithsharûn disrupted the flow of the Nashiin into the breach, and the undead's attention shifted to them, spreading like ripples from a splash.

The Barrowlords halted their advance toward the breach, shifting instead to intercept Ithsharûn.

They needn't have bothered, as Ithsharûn slaughtered in a straight line toward them. Not a single Nashiin lasted more than a second before it was obliterated, the squad's march like the unstoppable and inevitable march of time.

When the Barrowlords neared the squad, they sent their elite guards ahead to distract Ithsharûn, but it didn't matter. The Revenants lasted only moments longer than the rank-and-file, being weakened by the flame and finished by mace or hammer or quarterstaff.

The Barrowlords began their attack on Ithsharûn, all three leveling their fell magic toward the squad, attempting to hold and hamper them with that grip that Julia was so familiar with. Ithshar merely snapped her fingers, and the flame burst into a flare that burned the fell magic around them.

Julia decided they had things in hand. She needed to do her part.

She was still planning on reserving her strength for the leaders, but she would let loose just a bit to draw them out.

"Thornalûn, hit them with whatever you can from up here. Do as much damage as possible without leaving the battlements," she ordered before floating up to address the soldiers.

"Archers, hold!" she shouted, the thwack of bows ceasing immediately.

Julia began her chant, again understanding the words without even realizing they weren't her native language. A ball of crackling crimson lightning formed in her hands, and soldiers raised their brows and looked up to her, feeling some kind of magic touching them as she marked their coordinates.

She released her spell, the crimson lightning arcing across every soldier Julia could see. The Spatial Coordinates for the spell locked onto the archers' quivers and suffused them, causing arrowheads to glow a sinister red.

"Aim away from our allies in the field! Loose!" she shouted, motioning to the battlefield with a chop.

A hail of arrows filled the sky, and where they impacted, arcs of crimson lightning shot out for other Nashiin like the fingers of some angry storm god. The lightning blasted Nashiin skulls, traveled along their bones and into their eye sockets—killing them instantly before continuing to arc.

The battlefield briefly looked like the web of a huge, crimson spider, and then the lightning's energy ran out. Tremendous damage had been dealt, resulting in a large number of casualties. The Nashiin were so many, however, that the holes quickly filled with new bodies, completely unconcerned about the hundreds of their brethren that just perished.

Truly, the Nashiin's immunity to changes in morale was one of their more frightening qualities.

Julia was considering how to maximize the damage she and her troops could do when the elves around her started behaving strangely. Soldiers stopped attacking, opting instead to look around—at each other, at the ground, at the sky, at anything and everything—in bewilderment.

Julia turned around to see the Thornalûn doing the same, and glancing out to the battlefield showed Ithshar's squad fighting the last Barrowlord—two already on the ground behind them—with distracted looks and motions.

Julia considered asking what was happening, but she opted instead to try and experience it for herself.

She closed her eyes and focused on her other senses—vision was the one sense most likely to override all others, in her experience, so she cut it off completely.

She heard the wind—no, its absence. That was strange.

The wind was usually calmer during the night, thanks to the sun no longer shining on the water, but there was almost always a small breeze. This should be especially true with the unusual temperature fluctuations that the Nashiin's freezing of the marsh caused.

She heard a rustling. Trees were moving, their branches shaking despite the absence of wind.

A smell filled her nose—animals. She smelled the stench of wet fur, of must and grime. There were animals nearby?

She put the sensations together and realized there were animals converging on this location, and if the rustling was to be believed, it was many.

"Hold! Do not shoot!" she shouted, startling many of the soldiers out of their stupor.

She didn't know what this was, but there was no sense antagonizing a stampede. Julia had only read a little about those, but she knew enough to understand their danger.

Sometimes a pack of migratory animals would be startled, and the entire pack would charge in one direction, trampling anything in its path. That could only help the elves, as they were all up on the—

Oh, shit.

Before she could shout to Ithshar's squad in a panic, they appeared next to her, Ithshar's hand on her shoulder.

"Ah—the fuck?!" she started, immediately embarrassing herself.

"No need to worry, Julia. The tides are about to turn. You can hear it in the Song, yes?," Ithshar chuckled, looking out onto the battlefield with a smile.

Julia didn't bother answering, as whatever was happening, it was happening now.

The Nashiin—completely oblivious to the subtle changes—still poured into the gap in the wall. However, from all directions, skeletons and bones and shrapnel came flying out of the foggy trees. Nashiin bodies and pieces flew out of fog as though the marsh itself had coughed them up.

And out of that same fog, animals came pouring—more numerous even than the Nashiin horde.

Ghamhûr came charging out, doing their unnerving half-frog, half-crocodilian leaps.

Huge snakes, flocks of birds, gliding lizards, and all manner of creatures flooded out of the fog, it was as though the marsh had suddenly come alive.

As the diversity of creatures increased, and animals of all sizes, shapes, and colors that Julia had never seen emerged, huge, insectile legs suddenly pierced through the ice. Zarakhil, the enormous insects that Julia had feared when first spying the marsh, charged forward with the horde of animals.

Strangely, there was a man riding atop one of the Zarakhil. He seemed quite old, with white hair tied in a tight bun, and long, bushy white eyebrows sat atop gray eyes. His robe was brown and rather ragged-looking, though it could be an illusion caused by distance.

He stood atop the Zarakhil with arms crossed, stance unfazed by the creature's jerking movements.

"What the—" Julia started to say.

"The Mother, She has awakened," Seyatha said from Julia's side, making her jump for the second time in as many minutes.

"How are you—weren't you dealing with Nashiin inside Veshari?" Julia questioned.

"Indeed. They are vanquished. The Tunnels are unused for good reason. Without the Mother's roots to stabilize them, they are prone to flooding and collapse.

"Our enemies utilized a largely-uncollapsed tunnel to reach the city's interior, but 'uncollapsed' does not mean immune to future collapse," she explained with a smile, never looking away from the veritable army of marsh creatures assaulting the Nashiin.

"I see…you collapsed the Tunnels. Clever," Julia said with awe. "How did you wake the Mother?"

"I did not. I told you before, I do not possess that power," Seyatha said, gazing at the man riding the Zarakhil.

Julia followed her gaze and observed for a while, catching on to what she was implying.

"Who the fuck is that? How is he able to wake the Mother when you can't?" Julia asked in confusion.

"That's Drego. He's a real piece a work, but he knows his stuff," Ravina said, once again startling Julia.

She must really be distracted to be snuck up on three times.

"What are you doing here? What about defending the breach?" Julia asked with mounting concern.

"I have sent the Zal'Nadir to secure the breach—rest assured. The adventurers, who came to our aid in our time of need, have been sent back to Veshari to rest. The heroes deserve no less," Seyatha clarified.

"Aye, the dumb bastards're still clamorin' for more undead blood. Nearly had t' draw my sword on 'em to get 'em to leave the front. Lucky Mondan was there to talk 'em down…we've lost too many already," Ravina said with sorrow.

Julia nodded to her, and a respectful moment of silence passed, but Julia interrupted it with a realization.

"Wait, the Zal'Nadir are here as well?" Julia asked, feeling suddenly like the battle was happening without her involvement.

"You have not been paying attention to your slate, I see," Seyatha chided with a grin.

"The Zal'Nadir joined with the secondary defensive line you created. We defeated the Ghûls and Wraiths as we approached the eastern wall, and now the line is filling the breach, taking turns defending it."

She turned and looked Julia in the eyes for the first time since she arrived.

"Our victory is nearly at hand, and it is largely thanks to you, Julia. Not only did you take command and hold this line—where the battle was most severe—your orders to the rest of the military created the opportunity for the Mother's intervention.

"This stampede would not be as effective if it had to march through the city-proper. Because you held the line, all the Mother's wrath may be directed exclusively at our foes," she finished, patting Julia on the shoulder and returning her gaze to the battlefield.

Julia's cheeks turned red, but before she could respond, she felt a disturbance—like a magical shockwave—pass over her.

Looking out to the battlefield, she spotted an enormous tear in space. It was anchored right over the center of the Nashiin army, and from it came a terrible aura, like a cloud of predators barely restrained by weak leashes.

The aura blasted out of the rift ahead of its master, spreading out in all directions, and any animals or living creatures that came into contact with it were immediately drained of life, their desiccated corpses falling motionlessly to the ice.

The leaders were finally showing themselves.