Jackal Among Snakes

Chapter 193: Puppet Show

Swamps were never intended to accommodate grand fortresses. That fact became apparent as they pressed onwards into the mire of misery, the screaming mists and twisting grounds stayed only by Silvic’s protection. The wading water lessened, and they planted their feet upon dry ground—or at least, as dry as mud could get.

Once they saw stone bricks, the harrowing fog around them began to dissipate—that did not diminish the lightlessness, though, and when Argrave looked up, he spotted branches of a towering tree above. The tree dwarfed skyscrapers, even. It was a verdant thing with bright green leaves. The leaves had patterns on them that looked vaguely like faces. Closest to the tree’s trunk, long and thick vines descended, bearing bright red fruits that looked full of juice.

Though the crying fog had been a source of great discomfort, its sudden absence was just as unsettling. They passed by wreckages of stone; one tower sunk into the mud so completely only its top could be seen, and its ballista had been consumed by algae and other growth. Soon enough, the fortress itself came into view. It walls sunk and rose in random places, some towering thirty feet while other portions were barely a step above where they stood. The gate to the fortress was crooked, and its iron portcullis looked to have been ripped apart by something.

Argrave could barely see roots beyond the crooked gate. Orion, who’d been leading, stopped, and Argrave caught up to him.

“I can feel it. The evil in the air. It’s so thick I can smell it,” Orion growled.

“Ideally, you’ll be able to see it and kill it soon enough,” Argrave consoled him.

Orion looked back, and though the words had been a jest in part, they seemed to make Orion only more eager.

Argrave took a deep breath and clenched his fists. He still felt a little anemic, both from the battle on the Marred Hallowed Grounds and the confrontation with the gibbons earlier. Nevertheless, there was no time for him to wallow. He was sure he’d be fine.

“Anneliese, Galamon, Durran…” he looked back, but his question caught in his throat. They were ready, all of them—Durran with glaive in hand, Anneliese with hair braided back for combat, Galamon with his Giantkillers held tight in each hand. He could rely on them.

But they had to rely on him, too, he knew. Never again, came that mantra once more, ringing in Argrave’s head. Never again let your incapability endanger them.

“Let’s go,” Argrave said instead of his question. “Silvic, stay out of the fighting. I’ll need all your help to get to Waqwaq. We’ll wait for Orion and his knights to thin the foes… and I’ll look for an opportunity to rush in.”

Silvic nodded. With that confirmation, Orion and Argrave passed beneath the crooked gate to the fortress, where the trunk of the tree towering above them waited. Their party deposited their packs on the dryland, preparing for combat. The entire interior of the fortress had been subsumed into this great tree—the keep, the detached houses, all of it. Roots small and large marred the central square. And as soon as Argrave’s foot brushed against a root… the tree came alive.

The round, red fruits up high exploded outwards in clouds of red mist. Bodies fell like corpses cut from nooses, tightly packed and uncountable. They landed on the ground, truly dead… but the roots across the central square writhed, piercing deep into the fallen bodies.

Then, they rose, all of them. They were steel-armored knights, mages bearing robes with gray owls embedded on their shoulder, and elite archers, each and all undecayed as though they’d died yesterday and not years ago. One would not think them undead, for intelligence still gleaned in their eyes, and their movements were still natural.

Orion stepped ahead of their group, holding his mace before his face. “That our enemies deny them even peaceful death…” the shaft of the mace grew red-hot, then the mace itself burst into flames. “The fires of Gael’s justice will burn you through, my brothers and sisters, and I will cast your ashes to the wind. When I am finished, all will be as it should be.”

Don’t burn the tree down. I’ll be in there, Argrave wished to say.

The battle did not begin with a roar or a screech as that with the animals had. Instead, the blood that had exploded out from the fruits preserving the dead began to rain upon them, and the battle began with nary a sound. The puppeteered mages threw fire, ice, and lightning upon Orion as he pressed forward. The archers, too, rained arrows upon him. The prince dodged the attacks with inhuman finesse. Even those spells he could not dodge—namely, the lightning magic—did not slow him in the slightest. The prince did not seem capable of pain, just as the knights who followed him.

Orion danced past their onslaught, and the vanquished knights of an invasion past rushed forth to confront him. His aflame mace seemed to trivialize his foes. Their shields of steel would crumple like thin tin when struck, oftentimes tearing their arms free outright. Despite this, they only died when their heads were severed or crushed.

The puppeteered knights swarmed over Orion, a tide of steel and sound that never once seemed able to overcome the terrifying prince blessed by the gods. They were too many to count—to say a thousand would be to underestimate their numbers, and more joined every second, pouring out from the buildings of the keep or the roots of the trees.

Yet the Waxknights joined the fray. They were royal knights of House Vasquer, chosen from the best knights of the kingdom and given equipment enchanted to the highest possible modern standards. They were more than that, too—the waxpox made their skin as hard as stone and numbed their pain utterly. More than that, they had been blessed by Orion. Like echoes of their master, they joined the battle.

Argrave waited and watched, staying far from the conflict with his companions close at hand. The battle raged louder and louder as more joined. They quickly dealt with what few targeted them, looking for any opportunity to press past the tide of the dead.

Then, Argrave spotted a thin in the constant trickle of dead pouring from the roots. “After me,” he shouted, stepping forth. “Waste no time. Speed is our sole objective!” he commanded as his walk transitioned to a sprint.

The puppeteered dead were not simple undead—they had a sole strategist behind them, and as Argrave and his companions neared, that strategy changed accordingly. A wing of troops trying to engage Orion and his Waxknights broke free, attempting to confront them. Yet Argrave and his party moved too quickly, and they surged past before they could be blocked.

Mages assaulted them as they kept running. Argrave and Anneliese dealt with the slower-moving spells, using their rings to conjure wards freely—as for lightning magic, Galamon caught them all with his Giantkillers. Lightning magic was the perfect counter to other mages, yet they had a lightning rod—and more than that, one that benefitted from their attacks. His azure daggers glowed all the brighter as he caught attack after attack.

Durran was hit by a stray arrow in his helmet’s cheek, and he stumbled. Argrave slowed for his companion, but Galamon grabbed him beneath his armpit and hefted him up, and the tribal laughed as he picked up the pace.

“Stings!” he shouted. “If not for those enchanted things you gave me at Jast, might be I’d be bleeding.”

That brief moment of pause allowed the dead rising from the roots of the towering tree block them. Argrave looked to Anneliese. She understood his meaning without words, and she prepared a devastating B-rank spell…

Yet before Anneliese could, roots dancing in tandem with liquid light writhed and twisted out of the ground in snake-like spirals, casting aside the crowd of dead with ease. Argrave looked back in time to see Silvic pulling her arm free from the ground, roots retracting back within. He gave her a quick nod, then resumed his sprint.

They made it to the plethora of tangled roots at the foot of the towering tree. “Silvic! Now’s your time,” he called out.

The wetland spirit stepped forth, placing her arm uncorrupted by the waxpox against the tree. The ground began to shake, and the tree itself cried out as though resisting whatever force was being exerted upon it. Then, the roots, the largest of which were twice as thick as Galamon, started to coil. They whipped about, scattering dirt and stone everywhere, and bored through the earth towards the depths of the towering tree ahead.

When Silvic finally freed her hand, a great tunnel that looked like a path of woven wicker stretched on into darkness. Argrave conjured spell light, then said, “Move quickly. Once we’re in, the dead will flood behind us.”

“They’re already flooding,” Durran shouted, the first to press into the tunnel. Argrave chuckled despite the situation and ducked low, following just behind him.

Their party barreled through the tunnel recklessly, practically falling over each other in haste. Argrave slammed against walls and ceilings time and time again from the chaotic and uneven path. He could hear the clanging of steel behind him as the knights pursued them every bit as disorderly as they ran.

Argrave and Durran both came to a steep point, and the two stumbled down the wicker tunnel, bouncing and bumbling their way down. They met air, and both collapsed into a mound of dirt and roots. Argrave’s spell light illuminated the area, and at once, Argrave recognized this place. As he turned his head about, deadly sore from that fall… he saw Waqwaq.

Waqwaq had once been human—one part of it, at least. Now, it could never be misconstrued as such. It was a mass of roots stemming from a heart with an eyeball on it. Each of the roots formed myriad hands which dug into the trunk of the great tree around them. The fingers moved, each and all commanding the soldiers which Orion confronted outside.

The eyeball focused on them, then widened and danced about its heart-like body in frenzy, growing bloodshot. Argrave rose to his feet and grabbed Durran, pulling the tribal back. Just as he did so, a great fruit lying above the heart exploded, and seven bodies dropped down. At once, the Corpse Puppeteer took control of them, and they rose.

A noble-looking man with black hair and gray eyes rose first, standing tall—he had Vasquer ancestry, evidently. Four knights with the symbol of an eagle rose up, standing to guard him, while two mages stood just behind the lordly man.

The lord of this fortress and his retinue—now, the honor guard of the Corpse Puppeteer, Argrave recognized.

Galamon and Anneliese descended with considerably more grace than Argrave and Durran had, falling just behind them. Silvic was last, and she was lowered down, carried by roots.

“Waqwaq… a human who consumed Predniz,” Silvic said in shock.

“No time for talk. Seal the tunnel, Silvic,” he directed.

The wetland spirit wasted no time in doing so, and roots sealed the tunnel woven of wood and dirt so that their pursuers would not so easily make it to them.

“Excellent! Everything’s going swimmingly,” Argrave roared, pleased. “As we discussed—killing minions is only a waste of our time!”