Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbed)

“You’re sure this mountain is the bandits’ base?” Baldwin asked, trying to keep his skepticism somewhat subdued.

They were walking along a narrow mountainside path, in the middle of the combined forces column of human watchmen and undead soldiers.

Sir Damek scowled, clearly catching the revenant’s doubt.

“Listen, you commoner, when I say I know where we’re going, you don’t question- ”

He stopped mid-sentence at a frosty look from Baldwin, who stood taller and stronger than himself and had been placed in command of the expedition’s undead contingent - which outleveled Sir Damek’s watchmen.

“No, please, finish that sentence,” Baldwin said, grinning. “Part of what I’m here for is to assess you for the necromancer, you know. If you lack survival instincts, that’s an important piece of information.”

“I didn’t mean, um…”

“All of us here are through with bowing and scraping for little knights and lords like you,” the revenant added, lowering his voice. “We only serve one man. You should be glad he exists, too. Otherwise you might end up as food.”

Sir Damek swallowed and went silent.

“So, I guess we’ll search up and down this mountain,” Baldwin said. “Since you seem fairly confident that we’ll find what we’re looking for.”

“I would stake my life on it,” the knight replied.

“You are staking your life. My master needs his soldiers. If you waste a few days of our time - because that’s what we’ll need to check this whole place - he may lose his living beastfolk soldiers, because we weren’t there to aid them. Don’t think he’ll easily forget- ”

There was a loud cry from far to the front of their column, and both the revenant and the knight pivoted to look forward. Their force had come to a halt, and there was a cloud of dust ahead. Something had kicked up a bunch of debris.

“What in the- ”

“It was a trap,” Sir Damek said, his tone a combination of urgent and triumphant. “You see, this is their mountain, and they know we’re here!”

Baldwin ignored him and pressed his way forward through the watchmen and undead until he could see what had stopped the advance. As he drew near the front, the dust cloud began to settle, and he could finally see. A chunk of the narrow cliffside path looked to have collapsed, taking several undead with it. He adjusted his position to look over the edge.

It was a sheer drop, a hundred feet down or more. He couldn’t properly see where the bodies had landed. From this height, the fall might or might not have destroyed them, but in any case, they probably wouldn’t be very mobile anymore.

Was this natural, or a trap like he thinks? Could be a trap, but who rigs a random part of their own mountain path to collapse like this? There just aren’t that many ways to advance up this mountain. It’s a fucking mountain. They need the path. Unless they’re great at climbing…

“We move on cautiously,” Baldwin said aloud. “Two undead go first. Uh, you two!” He pointed at two zombies.

They nodded obediently, then carefully leaped over the gap that the collapse had left. It wasn’t too far of a jump. Everyone with them should be able to make it.

Baldwin was about to order the humans at the front of the column to follow, when he noticed the zombies walking oddly. A man pressed up beside Baldwin.

“Can we go, sir?” he asked.

“No, hold on, wait,” the revenant said, holding up a hand to signal everyone else to stay back. He called out to the monsters on the other side. “Zombies, sit down and hold up your feet so I can see them!”

The creatures sat and raised the bottoms of their feet to make them visible.

Shit.

They had caltrops embedded in their soles. In case the bit of collapsing rock wasn’t enough, the bandits had scattered those around to add to the difficulty of navigating this path.

“All right, fall back!” Baldwin ordered.

“Are we going for reinforcements?” Sir Damek asked from behind him. “Or to get better climbing gear?”

“No, we have enough gear,” Baldwin said. “And you got the number of undead you asked for, plus a generous group of watchmen. We’re going back to an area that’s less boobytrapped, where the mountain seems friendlier… and we’re going to climb.”

The revenant felt the looks the humans around him exchanged, the fear and reluctance. Falling from this height would be fatal for them, after all.

But the undead would abide. The undead would always abide.

The humans always had the choice between obeying… and finding out what the consequences of retreating empty-handed might be. Baldwin didn’t really care which they chose. This had never been a mission for humans, in any case.

They reached a spot where the handholds were good, the mountain was slightly less steep, and climbing was not such a terrifying prospect.

Then the humans got out their ropes and hooks - though not everyone had them - and the undead simply began climbing with their hands.

“Beware of traps,” Baldwin said.

“Very helpful tip!” yelled Sir Damek sarcastically.

Except you, the revenant thought. You grab onto traps as hard as you can. If a rock comes crashing down from above, try and catch it with your skull. Dumb fuck. I wonder if Tybalt would be annoyed if I just killed him. He didn’t say I couldn’t…

They had climbed for ten minutes, slow going with the undead using their bare hands and the humans afraid of the minor inconvenience of dying, when Baldwin saw the glint of metal fifty feet above.

He had just enough time to shout, “Ambush!”

And then arms jutted out from the mountainside, holding javelins, crossbows, and even a giant steaming cauldron.

No fucking way.

Then the missiles began to fly. Javelins and crossbow bolts rained down at an angle that made them nearly impossible to avoid. The cauldron of boiling liquid - something clear, Baldwin wasn’t sure what - tipped over the side too. The bandits released the liquid itself and pulled the cauldron back.

A javelin took him in the shoulder, but Baldwin just kept climbing.

Others behind him screamed, and he heard at least a few voices screaming as if they were falling rapidly to their deaths, their voices shrinking into the distance.

The undead continued, of course. Despite missiles, despite boiling hot liquid, they were nothing if not persistent.

“Stay strong, men!” Baldwin yelled, trying to give some courage to the living beneath him. “Take cover behind an undead if you can! They can take this barrage without flinching. Whatever you do, don’t stop climbing! That’s death!”

Above, the bandits were already hurling another round of javelins, reloading their crossbows.

Where the fuck did a bunch of bandits get crossbows? Did they capture a bowyer?

It was hard to believe they could steal this many without it being noted by the Army. Crossbows were fairly advanced and scarce weapons, and there were perhaps twenty craftsmen in the Kingdom who knew how to make them. It was a carefully guarded secret, since Niet was the first country to have produced them, and that was within living memory.

Baldwin kept climbing as he wondered at what was happening. He had to lead the way for the humans behind him. He knew what it was to be a part of a unit. The courage of one man often depended on the steadiness of the man next to him or in front of him.

As he drew near the ledge the bandits were firing from - three bolts in his chest at this point - their attacks suddenly ceased. He heard scurrying and saw men in sand-colored clothing rushing by above him.

Those fuckers are running!

“Hurry,  before they get away!” Baldwin yelled.

He and the others at the forefront doubled their speed, clambered over the top, and then Baldwin saw what had been just out of view as he climbed.

The men who had been running away stood in his path on the ledge, a half dozen of them holding onto a long, sharp pike. It was too large, the tip too big and heavy, for an individual to wield properly. A weapon crafted purely for this specific sort of situation, where a group defended a fortified place together. From the gasps behind him, he guessed that there were more bandits on the other side similarly armed.

Then the bandits charged, all swinging the weapon as one.

You should have done it as soon as I cleared the ledge, the revenant thought.

His agility was far higher than that of a normal human by now, even if he couldn’t keep up with the necromancer’s entourage.

At the last moment, he sidestepped. The long tip of the blade sliced open the front of his gambeson, but it missed the flesh. The men behind him screamed, but Baldwin ignored it. He closed to within inches of the men holding the pike and grabbed the first man in the group by the face.

Payback!

His fingers crushed the man’s eye sockets in, turning his face to jelly.

His screaming made the next two release their holds on the weapon, and a couple of men in the back started running.

“He’s just one man!” shouted a female voice. “Kill him. Kill him now!”

Baldwin looked forward, following the voice with his eyes. As he grappled the bandits with his hands, his eyes focused on a woman in steel armor, eyes cold and hard, a glaive in her hands. Her long, silver hair flowed wild and free behind her, but her face looked surprisingly young. She was relatively small, but as she approached from behind the bandits who had held the pike - who now tried to fend off the revenant - Baldwin had a sense of foreboding.

“Come on!” she said, raising her weapon and pointing at Baldwin’s chest. “Just one man.” She angled the point of the glaive, looking for a good opening to skewer the revenant that wouldn’t risk killing her own men.

The revenant tossed one bandit to his death and ripped out another’s throat. The other surviving bandits turned and ran.

“Damned cowards!” the woman grunted.

Then it was her facing off against Baldwin. Behind him, he heard more skirmishing. The other undead and watchmen would be struggling against the other group of bandits now. In front of him, past the armored woman, Baldwin saw signs of permanent habitation: rich rugs hung over what he guessed were inhabited caves, chests of what must have been personal possessions, spare weapons stored in large ceramic pots for easy access, and even a horse that he guessed belonged to the armored woman.

What use she would have for it up here, he had no idea.

But the revenant only observed this with a small part of his consciousness. He had the feeling that he couldn’t pull much of his attention away from the woman in front of him. Not safely.

She slashed, and Baldwin spun backward, pushing himself against the mountain face. He reached back and finally tried to pull free the axe he had strapped to his back.

The woman raised her weapon over his head and slashed, a big, forceful diagonal arc. He stepped back and bumped into something solid.

The glaive’s edge barely missed his face. It whipped back, and she swung it again, stepping forward as she did to put him back in her range.

Shit.

He wanted to dodge, but there was little room to maneuver. There was just the mountainside, the ground, and whatever was behind him. Quicker than he could draw the axe, the glaive would take his head off.

Baldwin raised his left arm defensively. An instant later, his hand tumbled over the side of the cliff. The woman yanked her weapon out of potential grabbing range and grinned.

Fuck!

As she moved, he finally hefted the axe, and he charged into close range.

“Shit!”

She stepped back rapidly - she seemed to be quicker than him - keeping her footing despite the mountainous terrain.

Baldwin swung the axe, aura swirling around it, ready to unleash Payback again. He saw the woman’s eyes widen in fear. She ducked around it.

Quickly switching her grip to the glaive from just below the blade, she slashed at his throat, using it like a dagger.

He saw the triumphant look in her eyes - there was no better feeling than narrowly escaping death - and then he felt the long, thick blade slice into his neck.

The revenant tried to pull back at the last second, aware he only needed to prevent a full decapitation to survive.

He felt the cold steel inside his neck, chopping through his Adam’s apple, and he began tumbling backward, falling from the side of the cliff. His neck skin flapped in the breeze as he fell.

But at least his head was still attached.

Above him, he saw dozens of men still clinging to the mountain, climbing. Below him, as he slowly turned in the air, he saw dozens of men dead or dying, including some undead with javelins through their eye sockets or skulls broken from impacts on the hard mountain surface.

Only as he dropped to his possibly permanent death did he understand the big picture.

“Master,” Baldwin sent, “The attack on the bandits… went poorly.”