Steel Wolves of Craedia (Realm of Arkon, Book 3) (12 page)

"Never got around to it," I said with total honesty. "Besides, I wouldn't know where to begin making a banner."

"I'll show you if we make it out of this jam," James grinned. "That girl with the braid, she's a seamstress, right?" he nodded toward the group of healers. "I'll give her the dimensions and show her the patterns. All we'll need from you is a half-quart of your blood."

"We'll make it out, don't you doubt that. And we'll get that banner done. Are you certain there's only one ford?"

"Do you expect me to give you a different answer the sixth time you ask me?" the tifling chuckled, checking that his sword slid easily out of its scabbard. "The enemy should be here any minute."

His entire demeanor made it clear that he didn't expect today's venture to succeed. Thankfully, the tifling kept his misgivings to himself, and I couldn't care less whether or not he believed me, just as long as he obeyed orders and used the right end of his blade.

Despite not sleeping at all last night, I was wide awake thanks to a surge of pre-battle adrenaline. It had been this way with me since my school years. Your knees might be shaking before a fight, but the moment it begins the jitters disappear at once. Besides, in the game you could easily spend two consecutive nights without sleep, which meant I had at least another day in reserve, should I need it.

We were about to enter a battle that would—as always—decide everything. Funny, those were the only kind of battles I'd been seeing of late. Just one frantic, never-ending race. Without so much as a second to stop and drink yourself silly to unwind from the constant stress, let alone pursue anything resembling personal life.

I turned around and looked at Salta. The young woman saw me looking and, sensing my anxiety, gave me an encouraging smile and tucked away a strand of hair spilling out of her helm.
And now there's Elnar with his crush,
I thought, returning the demoness' smile.
Hart, why does everything have to be so complicated?

Thanks to the clan's relatively high level, I hadn't had to waste nearly as much time on distributing talent points to the new clan recruits as the first time. This time, when accepting NPC characters all I had to do was create build prototypes, then assign each recruit a set of talents according to their assigned class. The mages had taken almost no time at all, as I'd already had all four elemental builds ready for use. As a result, Reece, who had been promoted to head mage, now had eleven demons and demonesses under his command—with him that made it three mages per each element. Our century now had seventeen healers and twenty mounted archers. I should note here that whatever fears I had about my mage crew turning into a bunch of screwballs after their commander, I had no such concerns about Salta's and Reena's archer groups—impressively, both women's leadership bar was about to hit captain. The remaining thirty three fighters, myself included, were getare—sixteen tanks and sixteen melee damage dealers. I had assigned Elnar as their commander—naturally, as his experience enabled him to command up to a half-legion. Iam and a couple of survivors of the last battle had been given their own squads of ten, and had been training since midnight to perfect a joint ram attack.

Truth be told, military hierarchy in the Realm of Arkon was a complete mess. If memory served me right, in the human army a legion had five thousand men, a cohort had five hundred, and a century had eighty. And I couldn't begin to try and remember the elven hierarchy. Not that it really bothered me either way—I was never the type to sweat the small stuff. I could always introduce my own system of platoons, battalions and companies if ever I saw a need for it, but for now I was perfectly fine with the existing system. I was presently limited to only one hundred fighters anyway.

Perhaps the biggest drawback to accepting new fighters in the clan was the major drop in morale—from thirty percent to just thirteen. It was simple math: sixty seven people with ten percent morale (the lowest allowed with my achievement) and fourteen with thirty percent—put them all together and there's your average of thirteen. But I wasn't worried—morale would come with time, and the first twenty five points came pretty quickly.

To be honest, there was something quite unreal about these figures. They were beyond the comprehension of a regular person. The world around you was alive and thriving. Water flowed, fire burned, flowers bloomed, women smiled. At any moment you could pluck a leaf from a tree and grind it in the palm of your hand, or scoop a handful of water from a river to quench your thirst. And how could you measure the will of living creatures to achieve victory with bloody numbers? How could you quantify the longing to drown in the river an army of mindless monsters that wouldn't spare a soul if given the chance? Perhaps my mind was just grasping at the old constructs, perhaps the figures were a thing of the past? I had no idea, nor did I really want to over-analyze it...

I had dismissed the thought of fighting the enemy from behind the walls of the fort right away—their two hundred mages and archers wouldn't even allow us to poke our noses over the walls. The plan to wipe out the ranged troops advancing on Farot had begun to form the moment James had mentioned the order the undead troops would follow in making a forced crossing of the river. Their exposed archers would make a marvelous target for a plate-clad cavalry; and should they bunch up together while crossing, that would be a dream come true. I would lead the getare in a frontal attack, while our two ranged combat groups, comprising mages and archers and led by Reece and Salta, would take up positions on the bank and, if things went south, would cover our retreat.

The Realm of Arkon belonged to the non-target category of games. This was done by design to improve combat realism and immersion. For example, an archer couldn't simply lock down a target and start blasting away without fear that the target might escape his crosshairs. No, every shot had to be aimed. The game mechanics had eliminated the chance to dodge or parry on account of these passive abilities being entirely meaningless against arrows. Accuracy worked just like in real life, where a master archer was head and shoulders above some random person who just happened to pick up a bow at an archery range. The point being, you couldn't, for instance, park yourself behind a tank and let loose one arrow after another at a target over his back. Archers in the back rows would essentially be dead weight. I had no intention of taking the battle to the enemy's main host—we could, however, wipe out the maximum number of archers and mages to start, then kite their melee to traps we'd set up on the ground beforehand. In fact, not taking full advantage of this circumstance would be unforgivable and utterly idiotic.

There was just one problem: with all the latest developments we simply hadn't the time to close up two last breaches in the fort walls. But then, after consulting with Dar Elnar and thinking it over, I'd decided that it might be for the best. From the tifling's account of the last battle, where he had lost almost one hundred fighters, it appeared that the three hundred undead opposing them had been led to the fort by another reaper. And that he was using a curious ability that, according to James, would turn the wood of the palisade to rust from quite a long distance. The skeletons didn't even need to use rams to take down suddenly dilapidated sections of the walls, allowing the attackers to break into the fort barely an hour into the siege.

I hadn't the slightest desire to test if the commander of the army advancing on Farot had a similar ability. Excessive curiosity in such situations, as a rule, was fraught with unpleasant consequences. The breaches were located on either side of the guard tower, about twenty yards in each direction, and had a five-six yard radius. Knowing that the enemy was going to take the shortest route to their goal, and that their commander was unlikely to possess the military prowess of Sun Tzu, I'd ordered to expand the area on the wall to accommodate more ranged fighters. Twenty demons would man the towers, and six more would stand on the wall on either side of the two gaps. This way, the attackers storming the fort would be pinned down in crossfire while our tanks held both breaches to keep the undead from getting inside. But for that tactic to work, we first had to decimate the enemy's ranks of mages and archers, lest all my grand Napoleonic strategizing go down the drain.

An even better scenario would be to hold and destroy the enemy at the crossing, but remembering the actions of the two-headed skeleton in the first battle on Bone River, I wasn't especially hopeful that would happen. The host was being led by four bosses, each of whom was several times more powerful than that beast from Feator; not to mention, a thousand other things could go wrong. And deploying your tanks against a boss with unknown abilities meant an express ticket into the Flame. No, I wasn't going to risk my people—I had precious few of them as it was.

"It's starting, dar!" Iam's voice brought me back to reality, as the eagle-eyed demon pointed at the far bank. The front lines of the undead army had begun to crawl out from beyond the shoulder of the hill.

Elnar had been spot on. At the vanguard were two quadrants of undead archers, the bows at their backs swaying rhythmically as they moved. The infantry—skeletal warriors, zombies and ghouls all mixed together—were split into centuries as expected. Only the skeletons wore armor, all of it orange-brown with rust. Bringing up the rear of the procession, right behind a group of twenty or so liches, were four tall figures. Magroom the Reaper was a fifteen-foot behemoth that looked like a skinned orangutan in a cassock. His right paw, rippling with muscles, gripped a massive mallet that he carried on his shoulder, while the left dragged a long rusty chain on the ground. His three companions—imposing figures in horned helms—didn't exactly look like death knights. I couldn't make out the bosses' HP and levels from here, but they were likely no higher than 190—the maximum level of the zone they were coming from.

"Excellent! If anyone needs to go potty, now's the time. Buff up!" My voice, amplified by magic, swiftly put an end to any animated discussions that had begun. "Try knocking those bastards off the shallows into deeper waters. But don't go diving yourselves! Reece!" I turned to the mage just as he started opening his mouth. "Not a word about beavers!"

"I was going to ask about something else!" Reece protested over roaring laughter. The mage had somehow managed to push up his helm to the back of his head, exposing pitch-black curls. "But never mind, you'll see it for yourself. Or rather, hear it for yourself!"

What was he talking about? Hart! I had neither time nor patience for his shenanigans today. I spun around and cussed. As long as his pranks were harmless, the hell with them.

In the meantime, the first century of archers had reached the bank of the river and, without slowing down or breaking formation, entered the water. The first century was then followed by the second, and then by skeletons in plate.
Too bad we can't nuke the mages from here—that would have been amazing,
I thought with annoyance, noticing that, despite their light armor, the archers were still clearly fighting the current.
Oh, but I shouldn't complain. I like what I'm seeing.

I half-rose in the stirrups, looking out on the crossing. It was imperative to attack at the right moment—precisely when the archers were within ten yards of our bank. The skeletons were about midway through the river. Just a little more...

"Lances ready! Prepare to gallop... Attack!" I roared and, glimpsing the translucent film of Holy Shield cast on me by one of the healers, spurred my razorback to a gallop.

A plangent wolf's howl rang out over the shoreline, chilling to the bone yet stirring newfound strength inside me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the head mage rising up in his stirrups and craning his neck to the sky. The youth's features were changing before my eyes—though he hadn't shifted into combat form just yet, the demon looked every bit the mature deadly predator his howl would imply. And the next moment, the primal roar was picked up by the entire attacking century!
No end to surprises...
Unable to help myself, I picked up the ancient song of my spirit animal, lowered my lance, and popped Charge.

You are bolstered by:
Primal Howl I.

The morale of your party has risen by 10 points. Your party's current morale is +23 (a 23% increase to your party members' physical and magic damage).

All hostile sentient creatures caught within a two hundred yard radius without a mental shield suffers a penalty of 5 morale. The spell lasts 30 minutes and has a 4 hour cooldown. The spell can be improved as your clan rises in levels and wins glory points.

Select
Primal Howl I
as the battle song of the
Steel Wolves
clan?

Yes/No

"Yessss!" I bellowed a split second before smashing into the front row of the enemy, whose archers had managed to fire off just one volley at the plate-clad cavalry charging at them.

The impact was both tremendous and terrible, as one and a half tons of live weight shattered the archer ranks like a bulldozer, scattering the skeletons as if they were toy soldiers. My experience bar jerked to the right. There was an explosion of clanging as metal met bone—the getare had joined the battle, and the century of archers was no more.

Carried by momentum, the living APC underneath me smashed into the ranks of the second century. Popping both Frenzy and Fortification, I whipped out my sword and began hacking away at the disoriented undead. It took the skeletons several moments before they began to recover. Four arrows plunged into my side at once, just as another bastard lunged at my other hip with a rusty dagger. A series of healing spells washed away the pain at once—I glimpsed the healers splashing into the river right behind the getare. I slashed at the skeleton attacking me, knocking his skull right off. Gloom was spinning in place frenziedly, bristling with enemy arrows and kicking up whole fountains of water. At this moment the razorback resembled some kind of animal god of war. With each blow of his tusks he knocked back several archers—some to drown right away, others to be trampled and finished off by the onrushing getare.