The First Lich Lord - Chapter 169

A priest poked his head over the top of the crenulations around the guard building, which was basically a squat tower, his spell already directed at me. I struck first. The priest had made the mistake of erecting his magical defenses first. When my eldritch cannon fired, there was nothing to stop the blast of eldritch power from blowing a hole through his head.

I recognized Maxwell song. “Godsmack’s ‘Cryin’ like a bitch’?” I asked with a laugh. “Oddly fitting.” Maxwell gave me a thumbs up then returned to his song, more and more sound nodes floating around him.

I made my way to the guard tower where Othniel, Tola, Izban, Jair, and E’lon were headed. Our goal was to use it as a secure place to cast our spells from while the bridge was held by the rest of the Dread Thirteen and the eldritch death knights. I had no doubt that was how the defenses were meant to be used, they just were going to serve us instead of the defenders.

The soldiers were finally beginning to organize themselves, still over half of their number standing. Then the fallen stirred to life and zombies tore at their former allies. As I entered the fray, I spotted Samson bulldozing into a cluster of soldiers who had begun to organize around a commander of some kind. His twin war hammers crushed the man’s skull even as his body took dozens of wounds. He was not unsupported though, Abdon and five eldritch death knights charged in a moment later, dispersing the formation and pulling the berserker back.

Mercy was in its twin sickle form, more effective at close quarters combat. I was, of the group heading for the tower, the strongest melee fighter. There were many guards inside, though these were the standard city guards, not the soldiers that had reinforced them. While strong for guards, all in the high eighties or low nineties, I was significantly stronger. Using the magic in my armor and tier 1 death energy to further speed me up, I tore through them.

I funneled eldritch magic into my sickles. Trails of blood splattered across walls as my sickles tore through armor and flesh alike. I left a trail of dead and dying behind me as I raced for the stairs.

A surge of death magic built from Jiar behind me. She was not a close quarters combat fighter, but mages were better at it than wizards, since they could cast fast. Only a few of the guards survived unscathed. The festering wounds left behind by Mercy would feed off that death magic and there would be little they could do to survive.

The stairs were an open set of simple stone leading up to the second floor. My massive strength sent me flying up near the top, aimed for the wall. When I landed on the wall, my legs compressed like springs and I rocketed up onto the second floor.

There the guards were scrambling, but I found my target. The captain of the guards was the strongest fighter here, including the soldiers outside. This man wielded a long sword in one hand and a dagger and in the other. His armor was covered in magical runes and there was a flicker of barriers around his body.

His eyes met mine as I raced towards him, my sickles flashing out at scrambling guardsmen who were still grabbing their gear. I trusted my Thanatrith armor as I went full offensive against the guard captain. His blades passed through my defensive barriers, but they were not meant for stopping melee weapons. That was okay, while my armor was not like the plate mail worn by the commander of the fort, it was still very strong.

My sickles tore down, his azure blue barriers stopped them. The tips of my sickles left behind nothing more than spider webbing cracks. The color of the barriers told me something. If they had been white, they would’ve been holy of some kind, but the azure blue meant they were arcane.

“Nice armor,” I said, circling the captain. The guards seemed to be frozen in inaction, but that wouldn’t last for long. I reshaped one of the sickles as I struck out with the other, leaving a ragged wound along the arm of a guard who let me get too close.

“Yours is not bad yourself,” the captain responded, somewhat to my surprise.

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“You know you could just surrender. I won’t kill you if you do,” I offered. There was an eruption of eldritch power from the stairs as Othniel strode up, zombies just behind him. The raise undead spell had reached into the guard tower. “I don’t know that you’re going to win this.”

“I wouldn’t be much of the captain of the guard if I just surrendered, now would I?” the captain asked before he surged forward.

The man was very skilled with his long sword and dagger. If Mercy had been in its staff form I would’ve been his match with skill, or so I thought. In the split form I was less skilled, making matters worse, one of my sickles was no longer a sickle, it was a four-pronged device with concentric rings on the inside, the largest one about the size of a silver dollar.

The guard captain struck, and a wave of blue magic erupted from his sword. It shattered against my barriers. Though my precognition warned me the attack was coming it still caught me by surprise. It was an oversight not knowing he had that ability. His dagger stabbed into a weak joint at my hip as I used my sickle to deflect his long sword from a follow-up strike.

I rolled my body, spinning out of his reach. I was still faster than him. Now separated, I activated my other sickle. A beam of purple eldritch power erupted, having gotten the idea from De’Barak’s conjured magic weapon.

With both weapons working, I reengaged. The fight would be over soon either way, my allies were arriving. The eldritch blade hammered his barriers. The power very well suited for tearing down magical constructs.

Both of us went full offense, not focusing on defense at all. My precognition allowed me to deflect with my arms or by twisting my body, blocking many of his blows and giving me an edge. Two quick blows from the eldritch blade shattered the force barrier around his upper body. And I struck.

The eldritch blade bit into the armor at his shoulder the corrupting power slicing through the magically reinforced metal and tearing into the flesh underneath. My sickle reached for his throat as I spun around.

The fighting stilled, and the guard captain dropped his weapons. I was behind him now, my sickle wrapped around his throat. I’d paused just long enough to give him the option. He had taken it. With the guard captain surrendering, the rest of the guards began to throw down their weapons.

“I take it you are an honorable man,” I asked quietly, and the guard captain nodded. “Then conduct yourself appropriately as a captive of war and wait in here for this to resolve. If we lose and are driven off, I release you from your captive oath.”

It was common practice when taking prisoners of the rival army to force them to swear to never fight against you again even if they would not join your side. It was a way of neutralizing a force without having to kill everyone. Still, not everyone followed that practice, but I couldn’t see any reason not to do so.

The guard captain took charge of his surrendering men. I was pretty certain his steely demeanor and anger would keep them in line. One man tried to stab a zombie after he had surrendered, and the captain proceeded to knock him out cold.

When we reached the top of the tower and looked down, the fighting had continued on the outside. Maxwell was on the bridge, and his music flowed out, buffing the troops now stationed on the other side of the barricade. The zombies we had created in the tower were left in the bottom floor to buy us time. From the tower, we began to cast spells.

Our initial spells were beginning to wane in strength, and from the ragged look of many of the troops, we needed regeneration. The zombies we had gained, nearly a hundred of them still standing, would be the front line and cannon fodder, they didn’t need to do anything more than absorb damage.

Looking toward the direction Raven had gone, I saw her returning, flanked by Ehud and De’Barak. All of them showed signs of a fight, but none looked to be grievously wounded.

Now that we had time to cast a spell, Tola and Izban supported me in casting a far more complex and powerful death spell. I poured in large amounts of tier 1 death energy, nearly half my reserves. The spell formed over us in a complex magical weave. With me at the helm, the power flowed smoothly. As Raven reached the top of the tower and Ehud and De’Barak joined the front line, we completed our spell.

The weave of magic expanded out covering the entire head of the bridge along with a large section of the city blocks nearest them. It was a buff to strength and speed and would last for hours. More importantly, however it was a ridiculously powerful regeneration spell. I had cast one similar when powered up by the elemental zombies, but this one I’d done with a fraction of the power because of the use of death energy.

Though the spell cast easily, I sagged from the strain of that much power being cast through me. I gave a mental order to the zombies below to gather up all of the death cores, both within themselves in any that were in corpses and bring them to me. I needed the death energy.

A moment after we completed our spell the top of the tower was encased in an explosion as dozens of bright white magical missiles hammered into it.