Chapter 126: Wall of Stone

Chapter 126: Wall of Stone

Tenebroums armies had only just reached the twin fortresses of Banath and were pausing to gauge King Borums response to its generous terms when its carriage was detonated in front of the city gates of Rahkin without warning. One moment, The Voice of Reason had been riding sedately toward the open gate, and the guards seemed to have no interest in baring her way, and then next, fire arced out from a pair of mages on the castle wall, turning its beautiful carriage into an inferno.

The Lich was outraged by this turn of events but not so wroth that it turned away from whatever was going to happen next. The fire was destructive, but the tank of noxious gases that held its new plague in the bowls of that glossy vehicle was even more so. Though the flames likely destroyed all the infectious magic they possessed, it still took some joy in the fireball that expanded outward in a second, larger explosion that engulfed a dozen guards as the explosion became an eruption of liquid flame.

The fire melted away the flesh of the forms the horses and the carriage driver, crisping them in the preservative oils that had been used to keep them looking natural. So, the things that strode out of the fire looking for vengeance looked even more inhuman than they otherwise might have. Each of them strode out of the smoldering wreckage to make sure that those who had done this did not live to regret it.

First came the four horses, or the things that had been disguised as horses. Those skins had only hidden the predators that lay beneath, and now the long-legged dire wolves revealed themselves. Their legs stayed long, but tier spines lengthened, and their claws extended as they charged the main gate. The results were as bloody as they were terrifying.

The men that had been spared the fire were caught completely off guard by the slavering beasts of bone and steel as they darted forward and grabbed those closest to the violence in the giant mouths. They shook their prey like rag dolls, crushing bones, and snapping spines before releasing the corpse and moving on to the next target.

Amidst all the screams, no one noticed what happened to the other two occupants. The ripper delayed a moment in attacking as its extra arms finally unfolded, and it could, at last, do what it had been made to do. It ignored the guards and ran straight for the wall, where it started to climb like a giant, six-legged insect.

Its task was just as simple and straightforward as that of the wolves. It existed to kill, but its capabilities were greater, and its targets were of a higher priority. The mages didnt even notice it until it was already halfway up the forty-foot walls. All the lightning and fire that they rained down on it in an effort to kill it did more damage to the stone than it did to the Lichs revenge. Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

It would not be dissuaded in its task, and by the time it reached the first mage, it still had 3 arms and a heart full of rage as it ripped the young woman to pieces. Only the intervention of three guards with pikes delayed it long enough to allow the second mage, a graybeard, to flee down the rampart in panic. Those extra few minutes of life he might yet have cost everyone else their lives, though.

Pikes and spears were terrible weapons with which to face the undead. Without the cross guard of a partisan or coresque, there was nothing to stop it from searching up the shaft and ripping the head off the wielder. Even a boar-hunting spear would have been a better choice and told Tenebroum exactly how far those pitiful fools were from being ready. If they wanted a war, it would give them one, and instead of taking their dregs as payment, it would claim every last life in Rahkin.

As everyone else fought for their lives, The Voice of Reason finally made her way from the carriage and walked away from the city with all the dignity that her broken form could muster. She was missing her left arm at the elbow, and most of her hair of, spun gold, had melted together into a single lopsided lump that clung to her scalp.

Her entourage was so effective that no one watched her cracked, soot-covered form walk away from the city as fast as she was able. All she had to do was hide until nightfall, and someone would come for her. Until then, she was a broken toy that would have to think about how she might do better in the future. The Lich might allow her to try to mediate similar conflicts again in the future, but repeated failures would be rewarded only with being scrapped and turned into a drudge or worse.

At the same time, the Lichs titan appeared out of the stony ground as if it were nothing but a swimming pool and strode toward the towering walls as it began to rip them apart piece by piece. Despite the things compliance, the Lich still considered this toy its greatest failure. Even as it watched its lead gauntleted hands rip out a stone large enough to collapse a whole section, it became annoyed that it had learned so little about the thing.

Both fortresses were breached in the opening salvos of the encounter, and its dark elementals retreated immediately. Though there would be losses even after such a maneuver, victory was all but certain at that point. It was all over but the dying, so the Lich focused on other things, like its lackluster titan.

It obeyed, always, in all things, but its mind was so alien that Tenebroum still had very little idea of how to make it suffer. The Lich took some solace in the fact that it looked perpetually sad, but it was still far from unraveling the element of stone in the way it had water and fire, and it had been shocked to find out that the dwarves had learned scarcely more than it had already known as drained the priests of their knowledge.

Why didnt the dwarves work together more with the humans, it reflected, as it stood there in a shell on a rocky outcrop next to its General.

There were definite synergies. Mentally, the darkness began to make notes for its fleshcrafters to try a few iterative combinations of humans and dwarf parts to determine an optimum mix for toughness and reach, but before it could completely document the new project, disaster erupted.

It had been a couple of hours since the first shots had been fired and twenty minutes since the walls had been breached. The killing was going steadily, and the Lich had no cause to be concerned, and then suddenly, just as its forces were largely engaged in the assault, both of the shield fortresses collapsed.

No, collapse wasnt a strong enough word for what happened. They imploded, collapsing inward on themselves, and as they did so, the cliff faces that they were carved into gave way, collapsing together like a giant hammer and anvil and sealing the pass completely.

A path could be reopened, of course, but there would be no point. The point was that at a stroke, it had lost six or eight thousand soldiers, including all of its heavy infantry. It was a catastrophe that shocked both it and Paragon to their cores.

What happened! The Lich bellowed as rage overwhelmed it.

With the air full of dust and debris, no one could say obviously, but the General proceeded to lay out several theories about the nature of the rock and how the attacks of the titan and the shadow drake had weakened the superstructure, but given the symmetrical nature of the collapse, this seemed unlikely.

Someone had done this to it intentionally, and though it didnt know if it was due to dwarves or magic, it would find out and make sure that whoever was responsible for it died screaming.