Tom glanced to his portal. Night had finally come to the Isle of Doom, so he closed the portal. He didn’t want any of the flying corpses to make their way through the gate. He looked around for his next target. There we go! he thought, spotting a zombie dragon. He wondered if they were flameproof? Actually, thinking about it, how could you have a zombie dragon? Dragons were demons. His very first fight had been with a dragon, whose cave he had stolen. Tom frowned at the memory. He still felt guilty for that, but fortunately he’d been assured that the death would not be permanent. That was what was puzzling — if dragons were demons, then why were there dragon corpses to reanimate? Well, time to find out. Tom took off towards the zombie dragon.
Hilda and her squadron, Shield Sarjeant Jacob Holspice’s squadron, were making their way through the D’Orc carnage outside the moat. She had specifically requested to work with her friends from a few nights back. Unfortunately, that meant that the squad had had to wait on her, although she suspected having the direct protection of a Saint of Tiernon in your squad was probably more than enough to assuage their impatience for battle. She chuckled at her own humor. She knew full well it did.
Hilda had been delayed several hours in taking to the field simply because she, Stevos, Inethya, and Timbly had been too busy fielding links and illumination streams to be able to actually go into battle. However, after a few hours, enough other avatars of all Five Siblings had finally made it to Nysegard, and so the avatars at the Citadel had been able to hand off streams.
This was going to turn out to be a big presence and in fact, a very unprecedented presence. The Siblings were not only sending archons to other locations on Nysegard; shortly before they left other saints had begun coming from their new locations on Nysegard to the Citadel. She and Stevos had worked to bring up two Saintly Gateways to other locations on Nysegard. The first saints through would set up additional gateways, while local commanders would fill them in on the status and needs for battle.
The current plan was to launch a dozen saint-led squadrons to go after the vampires and vampyrs, along with the ghasts and ghouls shielding them. One good thing had been that Orcus’s sky portal to the Isle of Doom had swathed a large section of the battlefield in atunlight, forcing the vampires, vampyrs and other daylight-sensitive Unlife to try to seek shelter and save themselves, and so kept them from battle.
Now that night had come to the Isle of Doom, and the portal was closed, the vampires and their forces would be out in force, and the ghasts and ghouls who had been left in some disarray by the atunlight would be far more organized and dangerous. Which was fine; the portal had bought them the time needed to get the streams stabilized and new saints onto the battlefield.
A guttural screech above her made Hilda glance up quickly in surprise, only to see a very large orc zombie flying overhead. Apparently it had been batted like a ball through the sky by one of the D’Orcs to their right with their incredibly oversized weapons. She stared in awed amazement at the giant winged demons.
To think, only weeks ago they had been scrambling in fear of what these returned D’Orcs might be up to in Astlan, and today? She was wading her way through mushed zombie parts side by side with D’Orcs. Hilda shook her head, looking up to where Orcus was wrapping an extremely large pterosaur in golden chains from his Wand. If anyone had told her even two days ago that the Demon Prince Orcus would actually be leading the forces of the Five Siblings into battle, she’d have had them committed to one of the Sisters’ sanitariums.
ZZzztt. Hilda glanced to her left flank, beyond the soldier, Thad, who was guarding it, to see a wight being zapped by the protective shield she had wrapped around her squad. Thad quickly smashed its head in with his mace, which she had also Blessed.
Hilda nodded, pleased. This part of the field was mostly cleared of active combatants, but the rear guard were starting to move back in. They needed to hurry towards the vampire-led ghoul armies before they got bogged down with more zombies. Hilda frowned, trying to understand where they had gotten so many corpses to reanimate.
Suddenly there was a commotion among the mass of zombies ahead and to the right of them, separated from them by about thirty feet of mulched zombie corpses. The zombies, who had been milling around, apparently awaiting orders, now seemed to be scrambling to change positions and move out of the way of something. She had to adjust her Holy Sight, but something on the other side of the zombies was apparently causing havoc.
Whatever the commotion was, she could see various zombie limbs flying up into the air and coming back down among the still-functional zombies. It was rather similar to the havoc wreaked by the D’Orcs, but there were no D’Orcs in that area that she knew of. Whatever it was, it was below the head height of the zombies, and heading towards them.
“Alert!” Hilda told her squad, pointing to the commotion. The region was poorly lit; their principal light source was her own Holy Light, which lit them up as very obvious targets. The remainder of the illumination on the battlefield came from the Citadel’s walls some distance behind them; lightning bolts crashing down upon the D’Orc regiment about two thousand feet southwest of them; fireballs launched by various wizards; and whatever pyrotechnic display Orcus, Ashena Brightfeather or some other high-powered knight or avatar might produce in the process of battling the Unlife. The squad turned to face the commotion.
Suddenly the area at the front of the zombie line erupted in a whirlwind of blood, zombie guts and random pieces of goo-covered severed limbs. This was clearly visible due to the fact that the whirlwind was glowing extremely brightly. It appeared to be a gigantic, self-propelled, metal spinning glaive, about five feet in width.
The glaive whirled out of the mass of zombies, causing Hilda’s squad to move to full defensive crouches, preparing for an attack. However, instead of attacking, the spinning glaive came to a halt and suddenly started rearranging itself. Within moments, there was a humanoid sword golem standing in front of them.
“Hilda of Rivenrock!” Ruiden shouted.
“Stand down, he’s with us. This is Sir Talarius’s sword, Ruiden,” Hilda shouted to her squad.
“His sword?” Jacob asked her in disbelief.
“It’s a very long story, but yes, we know each other. He used to store himself in my inn room,” Hilda said. Jacob looked at her in puzzlement. Hilda shook her head. “Yes, I know how crazy that sounds.”
Ruiden walked over to them. “Good to see you again, Hilda!”
The sword seemed much more sociable than it had been in Freehold. It almost seemed relaxed.
“Good to see you, Ruiden. So I take it you found Talarius and that is how you came to be here?” Hilda asked.
“Indeed, I have seen and learned a lot, much of it very disturbing, but yes, I was on his back when he entered the Command Center with Lord Tommus, or Lord Orcus as he is known here,” Ruiden said.
Hilda smiled somewhat thinly. “Well, we certainly have much to catch up on, but perhaps we could hold off on that until after the Storm Lords are vanquished?” Hilda asked.
“Certainly. Where are you off to? Would you like me to clear a path?” the sword asked.
Hilda tilted her head, nodding. “That would be most generous of you.” It would certainly speed their progress. She’d need to Lay To Rest the zombie parts that Ruiden would end up strewing in their path, but it would be far safer for her squad.