Chapter 11
2nd Day, Middle Wind Month, 1CE
“I can see why the civilian clans fled, now. I’ve never seen so many Undead in my life.”
“None of us have, il-Enrenatha. Thank you for preparing the appropriate response.”
“One would be a fool to dismiss a warning from nar Ki’ra,” il-Enrenatha replied. “And those fools in the north cost us one of our finest with their empty pride.”
Thurgakhr sighed and stared down at the blanket over her lap. Before reaching the clanhold of nar Torokgha, she had hoped against all hope that Goro had sohow survived. It was impossible to imagine that a warrior so powerful could fall to the Undead.
“We sent our scouts out after destroying the two advances against our vanguard in the west,” il-Enrenatha said. “It’s strange…are you sure that was all?”
She looked back up at the Nar Lord.
“What do you an?”
“The Undead that we battled were nurous, but Goro should have been able to destroy them all on his own.”
“There’s no way he could have…tell what you fought.”
“Our strongest opponents were abominations of flesh that towered over even myself. They were respectable foes to be sure, but nothing our warbands couldn’t handle.”
“Those are Blood at Hulks,” Thurgakr said, “but they were far from the strongest we encountered in the north.”
What did it an? Thus far, the Undead had advanced as an inexorable wave that consud everything in its path. If they had reached the river, their most powerful forces shouldn’t have been far behind. Unless…
“Do you have scouts watching out for flanking manoeuvres?” She asked, “When we fought them in the north, their strongest forces ca from behind while we were distracted by the thousands of weaklings in the front.”
“Do Undead use such tactics?” Il-Enrenatha scratched his ear, “Honestly, this is beyond nearly all of us.”
Everyone knew that the Undead were enemies of all life, but they were next to unheard of in a place that was full of life. As far as she knew, the jungles of Rol’en’gorek hadn’t seen so much as a Skeleton for generations. Even if she knew what they were all called, it would an nothing to her fellow Beastn. The only reason why Thurgakr knew anything about them was because Goro had briefed the Ki’ra warband working for urmah Kisher upon discovering the Katze Plains.
“The ones you have to watch out for look a bit like Humans,” Thurgakr said. “Their equipnt makes them stand out. Fighting them was futile – all anyone could do when they spotted one was run.”
“How many were there? How strong?”
Thurgakr shook her head. The flight back across the Draconic Kingdom was completely chaotic. There was no semblance of reconnaissance or holding actions conducted by the fleeing civilian tribes and she only saw bits and pieces of the advancing horde.
“All I can say is that I saw at least a dozen of the warrior types in one place near the start of everything. On top of that, there are Elder Liches. They fly around like Human mages, attacking those below with spells like Fireball. As for how strong they are…I’m fairly certain that they are each at least as strong as Goro was in his pri.”
“I’ll have our hunters keep an eye out for them,” il-Enrenatha said. “They may simply be spread out and we haven’t seen them yet. This front that’s developed is well over a hundred kilotres across: trying to find a dozen specific Undead is next to impossible without them drawing attention to themselves. Oh, on that note, we’ve identified so weaknesses in the Undead forces.”
“What sort of weaknesses?”
The Clanlord settled down beside Thurgakr’s litter. She shifted to face him properly. Hopefully, the ‘weaknesses’ weren’t the sa ones that urmah Kisher thought they could exploit in the north.
“They mostly revolve around tactical awareness,” he said. “We’ve been testing them with skirmishes all along the front and they’re…I suppose slow is the best way to put it.”
“The Undead don’t move very quickly,” Thurgakr told him, “but they don’t need to rest. The distance that they can cover in a day is more than what’s possible for the average Nar or Urmah.”
The urmah Kisher refugees fleeing the Undead had realised that too late. Even civilian felid Beastn could sprint at eighty kilotres per hour, so seeing the Undead shuffle along at little more than two kilotres per hour had lent a false sense of security. The problem was that they couldn’t sprint for long, and the long-distance endurance of Nar and Urmah was poor relative to even Humans.
Urmah Kisher’s remnants had been overrun at a painfully slow pace over the course of a few days, and they were only the first of many to fall. It was then that Thurgakr began to truly understand the evil of the Undead. They were death made manifest; the creeping doom that eventually ca to all living things. The refugees struggled for every minute of life as one might fight to keep death at bay, but that only seed to make things worse. Bravery slowly turned into desperation; hope into despair. And, in the end, death still had its due.
“…Thurgakr?”
Thurgakr blinked and shook her head.
“I-I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
“If you’re still tired…”
“No, it’s fine, I’m listening now.”
After delivering her warning to nar Torokgha, she rested for several days. Physically, she was fine, but…
“I said that their physical agility is only one elent of them being ‘slow’,” il-Enrenatha told her. “The other elents concern their tactical response tis and battlefield awareness. We’re starting to conduct small skirmishes based on our initial findings and the results look promising. A warband can destroy a group of Undead and withdraw before reinforcents arrive. Packs of hunters can strike and fade with next to no risk.”
“I think we saw sothing similar in urmah Kisher’s battle,” Thurgakr replied. “They used that tactic to draw us in. Once we were deep enough, that was when they hit us with those stronger forces I described.”
“Many of our Lords already pointed out that risk,” il-Enrenatha said. “Worry not: the warrior clans won’t commit the sa errors as the migrants in the west.”
“Errors are not what you should be worrying about, il-Enrenatha. The Undead are far more capable than they appear…no, that’s not it. Everything they do is purposeful. What you perceive as weakness might be exploitable to a degree, but the Undead are simply too different from us to judge by our standards. To fra them as us is foolish.”
Il-Enrenatha stroked his bearded jowls as he listened to her, then stayed silent for a ti. At the end of that silence, he sighed.
“Kal’il-Endratha would have probably understood your aning better,” the Clanlord said. “He saw an entirely different world from the rest of us.”
“What about Sage Khhschlr? Maybe we could speak with her…”
“It’s just not the sa without Kal’il-Endratha. Sage Khhschlr is the greatest affected by his loss. She’s been holding everything together since then, but a Sage is no Warmaster. It’s up to us warriors to answer this threat.”
Except none of us is a Warmaster…
The fact of the matter was that no one could match Kal’il-Endratha. Not in scope, depth, or sheer strategic and tactical skill. No one saw the things that he did, nor could they think like him. Their Warmaster could not be imitated or made up for. He was the shining hope of the west; the leader who would bring Rol’en’gorek out of the darkness…and the Humans had brazenly snuffed out that hope to the detrint of all.
“Elder Liches are usually the first sign of a powerful assault,” Thurgakr said. “They fly above the range of hunters’ slings when moving from place to place. At night, that’s beyond the range of our Darkvision. Large concentrations of people are hit by Fireballs. There are always Wraiths that accompany them and they’ll attack people that are on their own or in small groups.”
“And these ‘Wraiths’, do they fly, as well?”
“They do.”
“So you’re saying that they could fly anywhere and attack us, and we won’t know about it until we get attacked.”
“And unless we just happen to have people at the place that they’re attacking,” Thurgakr nodded, “we won’t be able to fight them. They’ll be long gone before you hear about it.”
Even being aware of their tactics, she couldn’t think of anything to do about them. With sufficient altitude, they were effectively undetectable at night. Their victims wouldn’t know they were being targeted right up until the mont that spells started flying.
“If defence isn’t feasible,” il-Enrenatha said, “then we need to ensure that their assets are tied up. Have any counteroffensives been attempted?”
“None that I know of,” Thurgakr replied. “When the Undead attack, all people can think of is getting away. Anyone that stands their ground is overwheld.”
“Have you fought any of these ‘Elder Liches’ or ‘Wraiths’ personally?”
“The Elder Liches always stay out of reach, but I’ve been able to defeat Wraiths. They’re…they appear as spirits in the form of Beastn, but, unlike Elental spirits, they can’t be touched by normal attacks. I used Martial Arts that imbued my attacks with magical properties to hurt them.”
“Doesn’t that an the civilians are completely powerless against Wraiths?”
“Mundane tooth and claw are harmless to them, yes.”
Il-Enrenatha blew out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck.
“We’re going to have to go through our warriors and see who can and can’t hurt them,” he muttered. “How many Wraiths do the Undead forces have?”
“I don’t know,” Thurgakr replied. “I only know that they’re always around when the Elder Liches attack. Also, when they land strikes, it weakens the victim indefinitely. I had to run half the distance from the north under such an effect. Mystics can use Lesser Restoration to cure it.”
The mystics of the fleeing clans didn’t have the mana to cure her, as all of their mana went into summoning food to stave off starvation. Not that it prevented most of them from being taken by the Undead. It was only after she delivered her warning to nar Torokgha that she found soone to remove the effect of the Wraith’s vitality drain.
“How often do they do it?” Il-Enrenatha asked.
“It happens any ti they touch you with their attacks. As a Fire Elental always burns their target if they hit them, a Wraith always drains them. They aren’t the only Undead that do it. There are wretched-looking things called Wights that weaken their targets if they successfully damage them. Ghouls and Ghasts have a putrid stench that can sicken anyone that breathes it in, and they both also deliver disease with their bites. Those who die of the disease beco Ghouls and Ghasts themselves. People who die to Wights also turn into Wights.”
Il-Enrenatha’s disgusted snarl grew with every word. His striped tail lashed over the floor and his facial features twitched.
“This…I’ve never heard of anything like this. Our warbands don’t have enough mystics to cure a constant stream of disease, decay and draining attacks!”
“That is the opponent that we face,” Thurgakr replied grimly. “They are death, given form, and the death that they cause leads to more death. We know that the Undead are enemies of all life, but one truly doesn’t understand until one experiences what they’re like directly. Everything about them is everything that the living consider unclean, sickened, corrupted and decayed.”
“We’re going to have to revise our tactics for this,” il-Enrenatha said. “Minimise contact if possible. Rely on hunters to chip away at their numbers. Save mana for disease and drains. It’s going to be a difficult offensive if we can’t employ our greatest strengths.”
“I can’t think of any better solution. I’ve heard that the Urmah who dwell in the arid south have more experience with the Undead, so you may want to see if they have any answers.”
Urmah Kisher had limited knowledge about the Undead, but that was more than the tribes of the other races. This also suggested that the warrior clans in the south would have more. It was possible that they had a more elegant solution to the problem.
“I’ll go and do that,” il-Enrenatha said. “Please take more ti to rest – I can’t even begin to imagine what you’ve been through. When you feel well enough again, co over to the clanhold: your experience will be invaluable. Oh, and let the warrior on duty know if you’re hungry.”
“I will,” Thurgakr replied.
Il-Enrenatha rose to his feet again and nodded once before leaving her room. After the door quietly clicked shut, Thurgakr let out an even quieter sigh.
Would she ever feel ‘well enough’ again? Even after finding safety in nar Torokgha’s city, her long nightmare continued to haunt her.
In the central hall of the Human clanhold conquered by nar Torokgha, il-Enrenatha approached Sage Khhschlr to deliver his findings about the Undead. The Sage’s tail waved back and forth idly as she flipped through the pages of a Human book.
“So,” Khhschlr didn’t look up from the book, “how did your eting with our guest go?”
“There’s sothing wrong with her,” il-Enrenatha replied.
“Oh my, is she sick? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with our food…”
“That’s not what I ant. She’s…she’s not all there. It’s like a part of her is focused on sothing else. Whatever it is, it’s sucking all of the energy out of her. The girl is so young, yet she acts like a tired old crone.”
“Then don’t let a tired old crone get to you,” the Sage told him. “Focus on the problem at hand. Did you learn anything useful?”
“We’ll have to put her claims to the test, but, if everything is true, we’re going to need to make so big changes to our warbands.”
“Test away,” Khhschlr told him. “The sooner we deal with this, the sooner we can get back to what we should be doing.”
He shook his head at her callous attitude. Khhschlr was born to a warrior clan and was Kal’il-Endratha’s favourite, but she had no respect for a warrior’s troubles. In that sense, she was less one of them and more a mber of the civilian clans.
“Thurgakr ntioned that the Undead we destroyed aren’t the strongest of them,” il-Enrenatha said. “There are reportedly dozens at least as strong as Goro nar Ki’ra.”
“Preposterous,” Khhschlr scoffed. “This isn’t the Jorgulan front with Dragons lurking everywhere. A powerful Undead being isn’t so common as that. I suppose she spoke of Elder Liches?”
“That was one type she ntioned by na. There were others.”
“Elder Liches are not difficult to deal with. You alone could probably kill two or three at once.”
Was that true? She sounded utterly assured of her assessnt.
“Even if that were the case,” il-Enrenatha pressed on, “the tactics that Thurgakr described are extrely problematic. We need to make sure we can defeat anything that cos our way.”
“You don’t believe we have more than enough?”
“I do not. If each of their ‘champions’ was as strong as Goro nar Ki’ra, our combined warbands might be able to defeat a dozen in a pitched battle. The clans have deferred to you in matters of administration and economic managent, but war is the purview of the warrior clans. We cannot take heedless risks with our forces. This is no re raid: our territory will be permanently lost to the enemy if we fail.”
The book snapped shut and the Sage raised her gaze to et his.
“And if Thurgakr told you that ten Ancient Dragons were coming this way, what would you do then?”
“Then we would die. That’s not sothing one can escape on such short notice.”
Why is she doing this now? Is there so point to it?
It was no ti for personal pride or quibbles over authority. They had a war to fight.
“We will do what we can with the information that we have,” il-Enrenatha said. “But I advise that we at least gather our strongest warbands to deal with this threat.”
“That would an pulling the Lords dealing with the Humans in the south,” Khhschlr said.
“Furthermore, I strongly recomnd that we request aid from Rol’en’gorek. As many powerful warriors as we can get. We’ll also need five tis as many mystics as we have here.”
“Have you gone insane? Even if we delivered that request, do you believe that they’d accommodate us?”
“It is not a request made lightly. All understand that the Undead are enemies of life itself. If they consu the Draconic Kingdom, Rol’en’gorek will be next. It is better to stand strong together while we can.”
Khhschlr stared up at him for a good, long while, her expression a mix of incredulity and annoyance.
“Let’s not sound such an alarm until we’re sure we know what we’re facing, yes?” She said after so ti, “Carry out your tests and we will see what we require based on the results.”
“A warrior does not strike to kill until he ans to do so,” il-Enrenatha said. “This is even more true for armies. The ‘results’ that bring about our end will not be revealed until our enemies intend to put an end to us. We already understand that there is so greater will controlling these Undead – they are not the mindless horde that you first dismissed them as.”
Thurgakr’s warning was not the first. Another young runner from nar Ki’ra had co in advance of her with news from the north. The reminder, however, only seed to sour Khhschlr’s mood. Her ears flattened and she turned away.
We can’t function like this…
Effectively dismissed, il-Enrenatha left the Human clanhold. Two other Clanlords detached themselves from a nearby building and fell into step with him.
“So,” il-Enverre, a Lup Lord, said, “what’s it going to be?”
“We need to grind down the numbers of the Undead. Ranged skirmishing if at all possible. So of the Undead in that horde have very annoying abilities that are delivered through direct contact. We’re also going to need to increase the ratio of mystics in each warband to deal with all of the debilitating effects.”
“That’s not sothing we can easily do,” il-Enkimb, the other Clanlord, shook his mane. “We can’t just move mystics around from tribe to tribe.”
“We’ll have to sort out the warriors, too.”
“What!”
“I don’t speak of this lightly,” il-Enrenatha said. “So of the Undead have supernatural defences like Magical Beasts and Monsters. We’re going to have to make specialised warbands to deal with them, and each mber of that warband must be capable of defeating such opponents.”
“Do you have any idea how long that will take?” Il-Enverre whined, his once-wagging tail hanging limp.
“If it needs to be done,” il-Enrenatha said, “it needs to be done. Not doing anything is the sa as helping our enemies.”
“Is this Khhschlr’s idea?” Il-Enkimb asked.
“No,” il-Enrenatha flicked his ear in annoyance. “She would have us carry on as we have. But going by Thurgakr nar Ki’ra’s words, we can’t do that.”
“…I was hoping you’d say it was the Sage’s idea so we could just ignore it.”
“That’s not the end of it,” il-Enrenatha said. “We need to send runners to recall the Lords in the south, and we need to ask Rol’en’gorek for help. There are dozens of Undead beings as strong as Goro nar Ki’ra to contend with.”
The two Clanlords stopped in their tracks.
“Dozens?” They said.
“I’ll send the runners myself,” il-Enrenatha told them. “The Sage was also against this, by the way, but this is our war to fight. I’ll be damned if I let her ruin everything.”
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