Apostles of Doom

“We did not. We wore them down over a century of war. Or more precisely, we allowed them to wear us down.” Targh gave a sarcastic laugh. “They would come in and attack cities; we’d repulse them as best we could, albeit after the city was destroyed and thousands had died.” He shook his head. “They require far more work, far more mana to animate, or whatever it is the Storm Lords are doing, than normal undead. Typically, they could only be deployed for a few days at a time before the Storm Lords would retreat with them.”

“You say you let them wear you down?” Darg-Krallnom asked, puzzled.

“We ensured it was not worth the effort to use them. You may have noticed that we did not rebuild the cities and have instead spread ourselves out over a large number of smaller villages?” Targh asked.

“If there is no target large enough to justify the expenditure required to use them, then there is no point in using them!” Tamarin exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Exactly,” Targh agreed.

“So there are three here. Is this typical of what they would use to destroy a city?” Grob asked.

Targh shook his head ruefully. “No. No, they never deployed more than one per city. If they were using multiple risar, they were at different cities.”

“And they are sending three against us?” Aeris asked, looking pale.

“It would seem so,” Targh said.

Southern Battlements, Talarius, Stainsberry: DOA + 20, Dawn

Talarius and Stainsberry both stared south towards the risar. They had rotated in with the coming dawn so that they and their steeds could get some rest. At the Citadel, all soldiers were on rotation schedules, even without a siege. Grob and the other leaders were very careful about keeping soldiers rested. Talarius and Stainsberry had actually been out longer than most, but even they and their steeds had limits.

Talarius shook his head. “Why do they simply stand there?”

“Risar are not supposed to be reanimatable,” Stainsberry replied. “They are immortals, like avatars or deities. Beings of pure animus and mana. If killed permanently, there should be nothing left. There would be no flesh to reanimate.”

“Perhaps, but from what I remember from school, and the discussions of Reggie and the other demons, non-material beings can come to the material world either as physical manifestations created ad hoc by mana, or as true incarnated beings. In the second case, if the animus leaves the body, you would still have a corpse. Correct?” Talarius asked.

Stainsberry nodded, frowning. “Very good point indeed; I had not considered that option. My understanding is that full incarnation is not done that commonly; and fully incarnating the body of a risi would require a lot of mana. Maintaining the body would also require immense amounts of mana.”

“On the other hand,” Talarius replied, “the most effective reanimated undead have the souls of the original owner. That’s the key difference between a simple zombie and, say, a jiangshi or lich. It would seem that if you were going to all the trouble of reanimating something so huge, you would want a higher level of undead, something truly Unlife.”

Stainsberry nodded. “I should think. There certainly seems to be a lot of preparatory work with them.” Both knights had been using the telescopic vision in their visors to inspect what was happening around the risar. They noted that the Storm Lords had thinned the presence of their forces in the path of the risar.

Talarius looked up to the central command tower as the wind around them suddenly began blowing heavily. “That’s quite a gust!” the knight exclaimed before moving his jaw to relieve the sudden pressure in his ears.

“Ashena is creating a very high-pressure zone to disperse the cloud cover!” Stainsberry yelled as the wind began to roar, pushing out from the citadel. He pointed over to the second tower, where their enhanced vision could see the Death Cheaters dancing.

“This is quite interesting; the D’Orc shamans are working with Ashena. Two very different methods of weather manipulation. This should be very difficult for the Storm Lords to counteract,” Stainsberry noted.

“It’s putting a big damper on the air game as well!” Talarius said, pointing overhead, where the various airborne combatants were retreating on both sides. Flying would be difficult for anyone, but particularly for winged beings and carpets.

“Not sure if these winds will last the day or not,” Stainsberry yelled over the wind to Talarius.

“This world is upside down!” Talarius yelled back at Stainsberry. “A prophetess of Krinna coordinating with D’Orcs from Mount Doom? It upends everything I grew up believing!”

Stainsberry laughed and clapped Talarius on the back. “Is it more upending than a Knight Rampant of Tiernon leading the Forces of Doom into battle? I swear that is why I love this literally god-forsaken world! The normal rules do not apply here! Anything is possible!”