Chapter 27 – The Cavalry is Coming

Shaelith couldn’t see much from her chained position, but what she did see was enough to realize that doom was descending upon the goblins below.

The Tulvian cavalry made the ground beneath the fortress vibrate as thousands of heavy warhorses simultaneously crashed into the hastily assembled outer defensive lines of the goblins.

Above the thunder of hooves, the magically amplified voices of the living Tulvian battle standards cut through the noise, the bizarre, sentient silk banners that moved independently of the wind and roared their own battle cries. Shaelith had heard of them, but had never seen them before.

“FORWARD, YOU LAZY BASTARD! DO YOU WANT TO LIVE FORVER, YOU DOG?” roared one of the banners, so loud that Shaelith could hear it high up in the tower. “THE ENEMY IS IN FRONT OF YOU, NOT BEHIND YOU, YOU COWARDLY PIG! YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO KNIGHTHOOD!”

On the list of the most absurd things I’ve experienced in my second life, a flag that insults craven knights easily makes the top five.

The armored giant grasshoppers of the Shaeravyn cavalry came in waves over the walls, and on their backs sat not only the male soldiers who guided them, but also sorceresses whose glyphs glowed in the twilight as they rained death down on the goblins from above. Kinesis waves swept entire groups of defenders from the walls, illusion glyphs created phantom armies out of thin air and sent panicked goblins fleeing in all directions, and everywhere goblins collapsed as mushrooms sprouted from all their orifices.

At the gates, dwarven siege engines belonging to a unit of dwarven siege engineer mercenaries hammered away, and from the woods surrounding the fortress, from positions undetected by goblin scouts, Sylvyn Rangers plucked the sentries from the walls like overripe apples from a tree.

The Warlock stood motionless for a moment, apparently surprised by the ferocity of the offensive. Then he moved, and for the first time since Shaelith had encountered him, there was a certain hurry in his steps.

He turned toward the narrow staircase leading to the roof, where the rune construct pulsed, the red, diseased heart of his control over the goblin army.

Benderast understood more quickly than Shaelith would have thought him capable. “Oh no, you’re not going anywhere!”

He lunged at the Warlock and swung his sword in a wide arc toward his head. The mace blocked the blow, but the Warlock had to turn around. He couldn’t just ignore Benderast, and his helmet turned briefly toward the staircase, then back to Benderast, then back to the stairs.

Things don’t seem to be going according to plan right now. This is our chance.

Grimbart was back on his feet too, one hand pressed against his battered ribs, his chronosteel hand clenched into a fist. Thaelon, who had run out of arrows, had dropped his bow and drawn his short sword. They pushed the Warlock toward the stairs, and the fight shifted, blow by blow, from the throne room to the narrow stairwell.

Shaelith continued to tug at her chains with all her might, uselessly, of course, but she tugged anyway because it was better than doing nothing, and the rune collar around her neck hummed softly, as if mocking her efforts.

But help was on the way.

Grimbart had apparently broken away from the fight, stumbling back down the stairs, breathing heavily, and grabbed the collar around her neck with his chronosteel hand.

“Hold still,” he said.

His metal fingers dug into the collar, and Shaelith knew immediately that it would hurt. The crimson runes flared up and a wave of heat ate into her neck, as if someone were tightening a red-hot wire around her throat. She clenched her teeth so hard she could hear her jaw crack.

The Warlock must have activated it from the stairs. Shaelith couldn’t even breathe. It was as if the collar was trying to eat its way through her throat, while at the same time Grimbart’s chronosteel dug into it from the outside. And Shaelith’s flesh was the battlefield between these two unyielding forces.

I swear to you, Grimbart, if you stop now-

But he didn’t stop.

The chronosteel pulled, the runes burned, and for an endless moment, Shaelith’s entire world was reduced to the question of whether her neck or the metal would give way first. Then the rune collar snapped and fell to the ground with a clang.

In one fell swoop, all her glyphs reawakened.

It was like the first breath after drowning. Mana flowed through the channels that the high-quality mycelium ink on her skin opened up, and every single glyph she had carefully prepared before entering the secret passage flared up again.

She was whole again. And she was very angry.

Grimbart was already at Vyriz, groping for his chains, but Shaelith was faster. With a powerful kinesis impulse, she broke not only her own chains but also Vyriz’s.

He tore the gag from his mouth, gasped, staggered, and found his balance as Grimbart supported him.

“Shaelith-”

“Later, Vyriz.”

Vyriz nodded and grabbed the nearest thing he could find. He lifted a heavy crystal ball from one of the card tables and threw it twenty feet at the Warlock’s helmet, where it shattered.

It distracted the Warlock just enough that he missed Thaelon with his mace swing, which in turn allowed Benderast to drive his sword into the back of his knee.

“Grimbart, go help them.” Shaelith pointed to the stairs. “I’ll be right there.”

Grimbart nodded and rushed up the stairs, coughing, back to the Warlock, who had reached the passage to the roof but still had to fend off Benderast and Thaelon’s attacks.

Behind the Warlock’s silhouette, the rune construct was visible, and up close, it was larger than Shaelith had imagined. A network of crimson rune-inscribed lines made of the same material that seemed to compose the Warlock’s armor stretched across the entire roof like the veins of a diseased organism.

Shaelith activated her glyphs and sent powerful kinesis pulses hammering against his rune armor. Individually, they couldn’t penetrate the armor, but they pressed, pushed, and threw the Warlock off balance while the others’ swords searched for weak points.

And as soon as she herself noticed a weak spot in the armor, she would mercilessly use House Vyrnara’s most deadly glyph.

Outside, above them, the grasshoppers circled.

The Shaeravyn cavalry had concentrated on the roof. Grasshopper after grasshopper landed on the edge of the fortress, and armored Shaeravyn leaped down. Male warriors in mycelium armor and sorceresses with glowing glyphs rushed toward the rune construct.

“The construct first! Everything else is secondary! MOVE!”

That was Mirilenre Baerelin. Matriarch Morvelith Baerelin’s daughter, commander of the united Shaeravyn forces. There she was! And next to her was a figure with iridescent wings, golden-brown skin, and compound eyes. Mirrsoss was with her!

The few goblin defenders on the tower roof put up resistance, but they had no chance against the Shaeravyn elite. Sorceresses worked in pairs, one shielding, the other destroying, and piece by piece they ate their way through the crimson rune lines.

The Warlock tried to resist the inevitable, screaming, hurling Benderast, Grimbart, and Thaelon away with a powerful blow while Shaelith’s kinesis hits continued to rain down on him, and lunged at the sorceresses.

With a mighty swing of his mace, he smashed four of the male Shaeravyn soldiers who were unable to dodge in time.

With a backhand swing, he smashed his mace through the magical shield of one sorceress as if it weren’t even there, killing both her and the sorceress she was protecting.

But there were too many of them, and they were successful.

A crack ran through the rune construct, accompanied by a nauseating sound. The crimson light of the construct flickered, stuttered, and went out. The lines on the roof faded segment by segment.

“NO!” the Warlock screamed in horror, and Benderast took the opportunity to pounce on him and throw him down the stairs with him. They crashed heavily back into the throne room.

The construct was destroyed. From the valley below the fortress came the cry of thousands of goblins who had suddenly panicked.

The disciplined formations, that had so bloodily halted the allied advance, dissolved just like that. Goblins ran around in confusion, colliding with each other and attacking one another.

The magical power that had transformed them from several chaotic hordes into a disciplined army was gone. They were still thousands of bloodthirsty little monsters, but now they were no longer coordinated.

The allied army pressed forward. Shaelith heard the thunder of the Tulvian cavalry breaking into the disintegrating ranks, the triumphant cries of the dwarven formations at the fallen gates, the staccato rhythm of the Sylvyn arrows finishing off any goblins who tried to flee the battlefield.

The Warlock scrambled to his feet, raised his mace, and swung it several times in quick succession at Benderast, who barely managed to roll out of the way.

Vyriz rushed at him with nothing but a large, rune-covered set square that he had grabbed from one of the tables to come to Benderast’s aid. The Warlock casually grabbed him by the throat with his armored hand and lifted him up.

“No!” Shaelith screamed and threw everything she had at the Warlock, who staggered, while Vyriz struck wildly with the set square at the arm that was holding him, but without causing any significant damage.

But he did cause a little damage. He managed to push the plates of armor aside just a little, and that was all Shaelith needed.

She immediately activated the nuclear option, and the Warlock screamed as gray mycelium dug into his arm through the weak spot in his armor.

She felt the mycelial hyphae burrowing up through the blood vessels in his arm and urged them on, faster, to take him out, but-

The Warlock’s arm, still gripping Vyriz’s throat, simply fell off his shoulder, above which the crimson armor magically closed smoothly.

Vyriz fell heavily to the ground and struggled to pry the fingers of the dead arm from his neck.

The other sorceresses hurriedly approached, followed by the Shaeravyn troops. They came down from above, from the destroyed rune construct, and pushed their way into the throne room, which now looked like a proper battlefield, with overturned tables, scattered maps, broken crystals, and blood everywhere on the stone floor.

The Warlock retreated, and Benderast, who had picked himself up again, pressed hard on him. Step by step, blow by blow, Benderast pushed the now one-armed villain across the room, and the Warlock gave ground, being pushed further and further toward the balcony.

Meanwhile, the magical blows rained down on him not only from Shaelith, but from a dozen Shaeravyn sorceresses, and the male soldiers also fanned out with drawn sabers to surround him.

Benderast’s sword hammered against the armor, and this time the metal crunched. The kinesis pulses pressed, pushed, and tore at the plates, and the Warlock staggered, swinging his mace wildly, but Benderast kept pushing forward toward him.

It’s over.

“One thing you have to get used to when you become a villain,” boomed the Warlock, still in that disturbing conversational tone, though now panting heavily, “is that you suddenly have no plot armor anymore.”

Benderast paused in the middle of the fight and looked at him in bewilderment. “What?”

The Warlock laughed like a maniac. “Let’s see how good your plot armor is, Hero.”