Winning Hearts and Minds 1 (2/2)

The Scout’s Whisper came in quickly. “The marsh gets worse. Sucking mud and blackflies.”

She looked right and didn’t have to look far. The lakeshore was right there. No way through that didn’t involve water, and it looked like logs had been toppled there, too.

Cecelia gnawed her lip. “Every fourth unit, tools out and clear the way. Everyone else, crossbows up. Cover them.”

The army shuffled, as the units chosen for dirty work hauled out their entrenching tools, and started digging into the pile-

-and then a horse thundered up, as Graves bellowed. “Undead in the roadblocks! Get back! Undead in the roadblocks!”

Too late, as a few soldiers screamed, and vanished into the foliage. Bony moldering hands ripped forth, seeking the living, and the soldiers shouted, battered at the logs, and retreated. Crossbows sang and bolts flew, but Graves bellowed “Save your bolts! Stop firing! Bash them, don’t shoot them!”

Then he rocked in the saddle, as something pinged off his helmet.

A bolt?

No, Celia realized as the first ragged volley came hissing out of the trees. Arrows.

“Ambush!” She yelled. “Clear the road, return fire!” She maneuvered, lifting Reason’s arbalest arm up and out of the way, and bringing the wrecker sword around to bear. “I’ve got the barricade! Graves, get back!”

Screaming and wheeling, his horse burst skeletons asunder, then fled as the clanking, thundering steam knight suit charged forward, slinging the blade low and up, sending logs flying into the air and back. Old bones went with them, but more were revealed, and at least three dozen skeletons wormed their way out of their hiding place to claw and scrabble at Reason’s legs.

And all the while, arrows hissed past her, to fall on her troops. Her troops!

This wasn’t how battles were supposed to go. Fortunately her knights were there to keep her soldiers from panicking. “Wounded fall back!” Renick shouted. “First rank, shields up, shield wall! Second rank, form up and return fire! Leave the bones to the Captain!”

It still felt strange, to be called that. But she put it from her mind, as she brought the wrecker down on the skeletons. They couldn’t hurt her armor, not beyond the occasional ‘1’ from a lucky crit, though the ones clambering up her back were worrisome. Groaning and creaking back there, as they tore at the seams in the housing and tried to tug at the smokestacks, and she winced as the stoker belt stuttered on its cylinders for a second.

Only a second, as suddenly the scrabbling thinned.

“Command Undead, get off of her!” She heard Graves shout. “Command Undead, get off of her!” he repeated, until the noise was gone and she thought Reason’s back was clear.

She didn’t know where the hell a bunch of old ones cultists had gotten a necromancer, but she was glad she’d brought one of her own.

Then there were more shouts to the rear, and she smiled. She’d gambled with that little trap, and now it had paid off.

In what seemed like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes. With the destruction she’d wreaked on the skeletons and the makeshift roadblock in general, the way was clear again.

She was tempted to press on… but… she turned, rotating the steam knight suit to look at her troops. Shaken, still firing into the trees, jumpy…

Cecelia watched a bit, saw no return fire. “Cease fire!” She ordered.

Silence stretched, broken by sobbing behind her. “Form Perimeter, regroup!” She ordered, and the sergeants echoed the commands down the line. Graves spurred his horse to fall in next to her, as she clanked back north.

“Old bones, looks like they emptied a cemetery,” Graves shouted up at her. “Still did for three casualties.”

“See that they’re properly stowed on the dead cart,” Celia said. “There’s a necromancer running around and I don’t want them used against us.”

“Yes Ma’am.” He spurred his horse back to the front.

Cecelia came to a whistling stop, peering down at the smoldering cart, full of barrels and boxes and labeled ‘supplies.’ Several of the barrels had been pushed out and were burst open, showing absolutely nothing inside save for emptiness.

Renick stood guard over a bloody man in a brown robe. Not far, in the woodline, the soldiers she’d hidden in the cart chopped at a field of squirming tentacles, hewing them down hack by ichorous hack.

“Worked brilliantly, ma’am,” Renick said. “They went for the cart, our guys went for them. There’s a couple more dead past the tentacle field but the rest escaped.”

“Burn the bodies,” Celia commanded.

“And the prisoner?”

Cecelia stared at the man, who stared back. “I’m not afraid of you!” he shouted, then shrieked as Renick kicked him.

“I know,” Cecelia said. “That’s why we’re here today. Inquisitor?”

“Yes?” Said the thing, and Cecelia closed her eyes. She’d been half hoping Anise wasn’t here. “See if he knows anything useful then render justice.”

“Of course, Captain,” Anise purred as she came into view from behind Cecelia, and knelt down by the captive. Cecelia bit her lip and moved into the woods, searching and doing her best to ignore the man’s screams.

Renick followed. “Ma’am? We haven’t secured this side yet.”

“I know. That was our scout’s job. He didn’t sound out, so-”

“There!” Renick shouted, dismounting and running over to a crumpled form.” With a heavy heart, Cecelia recognized the scout who had waved to her, not ten minutes ago.

And suddenly she was breathing, fighting a panic attack, trying to get steady.

“He’s dead. Throat’s torn. Something chewed it,” Renick said, glancing around into the marsh trees, greaves sinking into the mud.

“Bring his corpse. We’ll have Graves talk to him,” Cecelia decided. “And we’ll bring him home with the others, see he gets a decent burial. We’re not savages,” she said, trying to ignore the screams behind her as Anise ‘questioned’ the prisoner.

Fifteen minutes later, as the shock of battle faded, and the army was reassembled into a marching order, Graves came up, rubbing his head. “I’m going to need to get into the claret if you keep needing necromancer spells, here. My sanity hasn’t had this much of a workout in a while.”

“I make no promises,” Cecelia said, lowering her voice. “Did he have anything to say?”

“When the ambush started he got drawn off a bit by snipers. Then something small dropped on him from the trees and started chewing his neck. While he was trying to get it off, the snipers charged him.”

“Something small.”

“He says that he got his hands on it at one point, just before the snipers dogpiled him. He says he felt wood and cloth.”

“Not bone?”

“No.”

Cecelia shook her head. “The townsfolk. It has to be. We’re not up against cultists, but the rest of them who know they’re going to die as well. Gods dammit.”

“If it’s any consolation, skeletons are a weak spell. Level five.”

“That’s something. Although this guy’s neck was torn…”

“No, it's probably a trick. The first thing I thought of were vampires. But no, the marks are all wrong. And way too small. Besides, we haven’t had those in Cylvania since the Seven sealed Count Joculah’s dungeon a few decades back.”

“True.” She glanced through the visor up at the sun, still high in the sky. “Wouldn’t make sense to see vampires in the daytime anyway. Not that wood and cloth things ripping throats makes sense, either. Unless they’ve got an animator, too…”

“They do,” Anise said, stepping in from behind Cecelia. The girl shut her eyes, and let the frustration surge through her. That was the only downside to Reason, sneaky assholes like the inquisitor could sneak up on her at will. “Someone calling herself Annie Mata.”

“That’s almost as dumb as your alias,” Cecelia told her.

Anise merely smiled. “Evidently she’s a servitor of Dreadbear, a mighty necromancer. He’s seized power in the town.”

“Uh huh.” Graves said. “Mighty. I’m thinking not so much on that. There was some decent resistance on those skellies when I ordered them, but not anything I’d call mighty.”

“He’s a king of some sort, too.”

THAT made Graves shut up. Cecelia’s eyes went wide. “You’re certain?”

“No, and that bothers me.” Anise’s eyes blazed with sudden fury. “He didn’t fear death!”

“Soulstones.” Graves said, instantly. “I’d bet my last coin on it.”

Cecelia’s breath whistled in her nose. “Either that or he was happy to go to his old one. We’re dealing with cultists here, remember.”

Kayin came galloping up, with her helm off. “Orders, Captain?”

“What?”

“The troops are getting restless.”

Cecelia closed her eyes.

She was beginning to see why her father had made her grind her willpower before she came to her first command. She couldn’t leave people alone for twenty minutes, before they started asking her to do things.

“We advance,” she decided, bringing Reason around to stomp forward again. “Necromancer or no, animator or no, our goal remains the same.”

“And this Dreadbear who’s leading them now?”

Cecelia passed the dead cart, with the scout now on it, staring at her with accusing, unmoving eyes. She looked away.

These were the first who had died in her service. They wouldn’t be the last, and she hated it. “He’s a traitor too. He dies with the rest of them…”