Valkyrie's Shadow

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 2, Chapter 12

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 2, Chapter 12

Chapter 12

A guttural growl rattled the shutters over Desore’s head.

She choked back a gasp. Her dry throat seized and she nearly coughed.

Muffle your breathing, or they’ll hear you.

Desore curled up more tightly into the corner of her tiny home, pressing her mouth and nose against her knees. She would have hidden her face as well, but her eyes were fixed on the window. A hulking shadow crossed over the slits of the shutters, then stopped.

Her heart froze. She clenched as tightly as she could.

Don’t soil yourself, they’ll smell you.

The shadow drew closer. A snuffling sound came from outside. Trembling took her body. She couldn’t stop it.

I’m going to die. I don’t want to die. Not like this!

She couldn’t hide. It was useless. She was only Human. No matter how shallow her breathing, they could hear it. Even if she didn’t soil herself, they could smell her. Her sweat; the smell sticking to her skin and clothing; the odours of her home.

Desore knew what it was doing. She had heard the stories. It was stalking her. Savouring her fear. Exulting in the fact that it was the predator and she was its prey.

When the tension was at its height, it would pounce. Through the window. Or maybe the panels of the wall. It didn’t matter because they were so strong.

And then she would scream. She would scream and cry and soil herself. Her clothing and skin would offer no resistance to its teeth and claws. After that, she wouldn’t be able to scream. Her insides would be torn out and dragged over the floor. It would rip the flesh from her legs and arms so she couldn’t struggle or run.

She would only be able to watch it feed.

A tear trickled down her cheek. It could probably smell that too. She was about to die; why was it that she could only think about how she would die?

Her eyes went to the door opposite the window. Could she run? There were probably more in the street. They loved it when people ran – loved to chase people as they panicked and fled like frightened bunnia – so there was no doubt that more were lying in wait.

A scream drifted over the air, followed by a distant snarl. The shadow on the window receded.

Her eyes grew wide. Was she safe? Beyond all hope, had she managed to hide? She leaned to the side, trying to see what was going on.

Splinters sprayed into the house as a Tiger Beastman leapt through the window. Desore’s back slammed into the wall as she jerked away, her shrieks filling the air. Slitted eyes over a fanged maw turned to stare at her. Warmth soaked the skirts of her dress and the odour of her terror rose from beneath.

Wicked claws as long as her fingers sheathed and unsheathed. The Beastman’s lips drew back, revealing a row of sharp teeth. A predator's smile. The last thing that prey wanted to see.

“No…” her desperate voice rose. “No! Please, no!”

The hulking Demihuman took a step forward. Her desperate pleas rose into a keening wail.

Another step. She pushed back against the wall as if she could shrink away even further. The Beastman raised a clawed hand large enough to engulf her head.

The door burst open, sending its copper latch bouncing off of the far wall. A tall, black figure dashed through the doorframe. It smashed into the Beastman, creating a second window beside the first. The figure went through the hole and into the alley, leaving Desore alone in the darkness of her home.

She blinked several times, her eyes going back and forth. What happened?

Pain shot through her knees as she uncurled from the wall. She winced and crawled forward, daring to look out into the alley.

Gleaming in the moonlight was a huge man in black plate armour. At his feet was the Beastman. Its stripes were stained with blood that trickled over the mud to join with a puddle nearby.

I’m saved?

Desore looked up and down the alley. Moonlight flooded the narrow way but no one else could be seen. She rose on unsteady feet. Turning back, she looked up at the man who had saved her. Her gaze ran over his gallant figure.

She eyed his massive sword. Her heart fluttered. So tall. So strong. Like a hero from a Bard’s tale. Her desperation transformed into desperation of a different sort. Her husband had been stationed in Eastwatch when the reach was overrun. Maybe…

Desore combed her fingers through her sweaty blonde hair. She gathered her skirts, hiding the embarrassing stain as best as she could. Nervousness filled her. She clenched her dress to still her trembling hands.

“Thank you,” her voice had turned hoarse and ugly from screaming, but she put on her best smile. “Thank you so much. I’m–”

The Beastman on the ground stirred. Her eyes widened and she took a step back.

“W-watch out!”

Her hero turned at her voice. Desore’s stomach sank. She had just distracted the man who had saved her.

“Not me!” She pointed, “The ground! The–”

Her second warning died on her lips. There was something wrong.

She took another step back as the dead Beastman stood to loom over the man’s shoulder. The both of them regarded her with a baleful crimson gaze.

Undead? Undead!

Desore dashed back into her house with a wordless cry. She went through the open door on the other side and into the street.

Things couldn’t get any worse. That’s what she thought when the Beastmen took the gates. But now an Undead monster had appeared, which was far worse. The Beastman would kill her and eat her body, but the Undead would enslave her soul.

She fled blindly down the street, stumbling over the cracks and loose cobblestones. A crowd appeared ahead of her, blocking the way forward. Could she get by?

It looked like they were stuck. But they would be dead if they didn’t move. Dead and enslaved for eternity like that poor Beastman.

“Run!” She pushed into the crowd, “Run! The Undead are here!"

She stumbled out the front, taking all of two steps before she stopped. Ahead of her was another tall, black figure, clad in black plate armour. Her heart despaired when she eyed its massive sword.

There are more…

Her feet rooted to the ground as terror took her. They were all doomed.

“I believe that woman was about to proposition that Death Knight.”

Ludmila stopped in her tracks, turning a queer look at Saiko.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “She was probably just thanking it for saving her.”

“Our analysis of Human literature has indicated that similar circumstances lead to romantic outcomes.”

“Those are just stories,” Ludmila waved a hand dismissively. “They are meant for entertainment. Besides, no good can come out of a relationship founded on frivolous feelings. Also, there are people out there that prey on the young and naive, so make sure you don’t fall into their clutches.”

While she was glad that the Royal Army had taken her words to heart and started putting effort into understanding the various races under their protection, studying fanciful tales was probably not the right way to go about it. With most of the Undead servitors being less than a year old, it was surely a bad influence.

Rather than a Commander, maybe I’ve become a big sister. One with hundreds of baby siblings.

The administration was meticulous about keeping case records. They could have instead used the materials compiled over the past year for reference.

Walking along a wall on the eastern side of the city, Ludmila observed the operation below her in the company of Saiko and one of her Death Knight footmen. The Death Knight was one of the first two who had been introduced to her household, and she thought that they would appreciate a change of pace after a year of working in the city. The other Death Knight was acting as a guard and babysitter for the Linum sisters in the war room and would trade places on occasion as her escort.

The woman that she and Saiko were discussing appeared out the opposite side of her home, running down the street with a scream. She went all the way to a crowded intersection, where she was subjected to another Death Knight's area taunt.

Her company’s Death Knights were strategically placed at major intersections, keeping the people from fleeing into the uncleared areas of the city. Eventually, those intersections were stopped up by a mass of citizens, effectively sealing off the areas of the city being secured.

?The first section is clear, my lady. Our sergeants are repositioning their forces for the next.?

?Alright, I’m repositioning as well. What about the cavalry squads??

?We have a Death Knight and Death Priest at each of the gates. The Death Cavaliers have started patrolling outside the walls.?

?Did they run into anything out there??

?No, my lady. The camps are empty.?

?Let’s continue, then.?

Ludmila sighed.

A feeding frenzy.

Like wild predators drawn to an abundance of prey, the Beastmen first gathered around the Draconic Kingdom’s capital, then swarmed in to claim their piece of the prize. At least it felt that way. Between what she had observed thus far and the information from Smith Kovalev, Ludmila was finding it ever more difficult to avoid what would otherwise seem the views of a bigot.

She walked along the wall to the next section of the city. With the capital as large as it was, cordons had been created to section off parts of the city and keep things manageable. They would first secure the areas around the wall before collapsing their encirclement on the trapped invaders.

Out of the five squads of her infantry company, four were used to isolate sets of city blocks while the fifth cleared the area of invaders. There were so many Beastmen in the city that the first cleared section maximised the number of Squire Zombies that her company could control. Now, a constant stream of Zombies shuffled into the river to conceal their numbers and stand by for orders.

The Elder Lich Sergeants of each squad flew above the streets to direct their subordinates while maintaining Invisibility. Thus far, it didn’t seem that anyone had noticed them.

?I’m in position. Raising the banner.?

Ludmila unfurled an oversized banner that she had borrowed from the palace’s entryway. The wind rising from the river caught the cloth and carried it out over the wall. She handed it to her footman, who raised it high overhead.

She pulled a longbow out of her Infinite Haversack and scanned through the Beastmen in the streets below. They were as oblivious to her as the ones that had confronted Lord Tian, preoccupied with the pursuit of their prey. Ludmila nocked a broadhead arrow and loosed it at a particularly large Lion Beastman.

It jerked violently when her attack found its shoulder and its arm hung limp. The Beastman stared at the arrow shaft, then looked around until its gaze fell upon the banner waving on the wall.

“Warriors!” It pointed with its working arm, “Human warriors have appeared!”

The Beastman’s mane shuddered as another arrow thudded into its chest, and he collapsed to the cobblestones. A furious roar rose from the Beastmen nearby.

“Get that hairless ape!”

“It’s got a bow! Get in close!”

She sent more arrows into the growing throng as it streamed through the streets towards her. Their anger rolled through the air, attracting more of their fellows from the surroundings. Ludmila carefully observed them, watching their patterns of behaviour.

For the time being, it was seemingly basic. She killed one of them and they came after her. Killing more did not give the others pause. They sprinted over the fallen, heading straight for the wall.

“I suppose it’s all lions this time,” Ludmila noted. “This is suspiciously convenient.”

“Did you not explain why it was occurring?” Saiko asked.

“I did,” Ludmila answered, “but it doesn’t change how strange it is to see such…ordinary expectations play out.”

It seemed that Humans were not the only species who struggled with their nature. No, that wasn’t right. Like the Humans of the Baharuth Empire, these Beastmen allowed themselves to be ruled by what appeared to be natural patterns of behaviour for their race. Their ways mostly showed success – as evidenced by their conquest of the Draconic Kingdom – so there was little reason to consider alternatives.

The question was how that favourable status quo influenced their development. If she were to guess, they still hadn’t strayed far from their tribal roots. Though they had formed what was supposedly an official country, each member race still segregated themselves into their respective tribes and operated as such. Clans were formed out of tribes in a similar manner to how minor Nobles gathered under High Nobles. Those Clan Lords formed a war council much like how High Nobles did.

By the same token, Human kingdoms and empires were collections of Human Lords who submitted to an overlord and were bound by contractual agreements. This created a superior position for the whole, but each Human Lord’s problems were their own to deal with unless it was important enough to draw in their liege, their liege’s liege and so on.

Applying this social logic to the tribes of the Beastman Kingdom – if it was a kingdom at all – seemed to work so far. A handful of ‘Humans’ was not a problem for the entire army. When she attacked them, single tribes came after her and the other tribes ignored what they were doing and why. Attempting to move in on another tribe’s prey might have even gotten them attacked for interfering with that tribe’s affairs.

This made it rather convenient to isolate and destroy them. Each tribe claimed a few city blocks as ‘territory’ and stuck to it. As long as other tribes couldn’t see what was going on and as long as no one was allowed to escape, they could go around exterminating the invaders one tribe at a time.

The Demihumans continued to flow towards the wall and Ludmila waited until the numbers coming from the street petered out. Several hundred had come out of the buildings to flood the area below. Those that had reached the foot of the wall attempted to climb up, using their claws to find purchase on the stone. Others were more sensible and headed for the nearest set of stairs.

?They’re in position. Get in behind them. Use Wraiths to begin killing any stragglers that look like mystics.?

While the Draconic Kingdom had mysterious deficiencies in their communication capabilities, she couldn’t assume that the Beastmen were similarly lacking. To minimise the chance of word reaching the invaders’ allies out in the rural areas, the city’s gates were guarded and Death Cavaliers patrolled the surroundings. With passage barred, the risks that remained were posed by casters with Message spells, those with access to flight magic, and those that could control flying creatures which could physically deliver messages.

The squads lying in wait moved at her command, taking the streets behind the distracted Beastmen. On the side closest to the cleared blocks they had come from, a swarm of Squire Zombies shuffled towards their targets.

Ludmila nodded to herself as the battle started. The response of the nearest Beastmen was nearly instantaneous.

“The lowly nar Sikhag has no place here!” One of them shouted at the Squire Zombies, “Go back to your little corner before your mangy fur is drenched with your blood!”

She cocked her head at the untranslated portions of the challenge. Were the Beastman tribes not the Demihuman tribes she was familiar with? If they were, it should have come out as the ‘Nar Tribe’ or the ‘Sikhag Tribe’.

Predictably, the Squire Zombies did not respond. The Lion Beastmen gathered their feet under them, preparing to pounce.

“Say,” Ludmila said. “Can Squire Zombies talk?”

“No,” Saiko replied.

“Drat.”

Using Squire Zombies to taunt rival tribes into giving away information about their relationships with one another might have been interesting. Ludmila’s Undead troops shuffled forward a few more metres before the Lion Beastmen rushed them. They crashed into the Squire Zombie lines, seemingly oblivious to their unliving state. That lasted about as long as they started to inflict wounds – the Squire Zombies probably didn’t taste quite right.

“Enemies approach,” Saiko said.

The first of the Beastmen made it to the top of the stairs and ran in their direction. Ludmila took back the banner.

“They’re all yours,” she told her footman. “Try not to waste any.”

Drawing its flamberge, the Death Knight charged forward with an unearthly howl. The Beastmen focused on the Death Knight, but it just ploughed straight through the entire group. Ludmila wordlessly shook her head.

Since the Beastman Kingdom required powerful Adventurers and assistance from the Slane Theocracy to repel, she had come prepared to fight a formidable foe. The fact that a group of them had come into the palace unchallenged to kill an Adamantite Adventurer team also put her on her guard. What she had found so far, however, was confusingly less of a threat than what she might find out of random Beastman tribes eking out an existence in the wilderness.

To be certain, they were strong relative to the average Human adult. Nearly all of them gave off the raw sense of danger roughly equivalent to one of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s Silver-ranked Adventurers going into a Gold-rank test. This put them at a Difficulty Rating between thirty and thirty-six. Considering that the average adult Human civilian was anywhere between Difficulty Rating one and six, it made them terrifying opponents for the regular citizens of the Draconic Kingdom.

The problem was that they were suspiciously weak. Not weak in the sense of their physical capabilities, but weak when it came to both their technical combat prowess and conditioning as warriors. Even the way that they behaved as they ransacked the city and confronted other Beastmen was not quite right. The challenge sent out to her Squire Zombies lacked weight. It was all bluster and no substance.

A set of claws appeared at her feet. Ludmila looked down to find that one of the Beastmen obstinately scaling the wall had finally reached her. She leaned forward to grab it by the scruff of the neck and tossed it onto the wall. The Beastman scrambled to right itself.

“Charm that.”

“?Charm Species?.”

The Beastman stopped. After a moment, it slowly rose to its feet. Ludmila frowned.

“…it stuck?”

“The spell was successfully applied,” Saiko replied.

Charm-type spells were notoriously difficult to land, even with a substantial difference in power. She looked at the Beastman, examining its adornment, but she couldn’t make much sense out of it.

“Keep him around for later questioning,” Ludmila said as she equipped her glaive. “A lot of things don’t add up here.”

“May I ask what you mean by that, my lady?”

“You may,” Ludmila told the Elder Lich, “but I don’t have an answer. Not yet. I just know that something is wrong.”

She went around dislodging the Beastmen climbing the wall. After prodding a few off, she activated the weapon’s ability damage enchantment and tapped the next one on the head. Its ascent ceased and she tapped it again. The Beastman’s limbs visibly trembled before it lost its hold on the wall and fell to the street ten metres below. Like a cat, it landed on its feet, but doing so didn’t save it from breaking its legs.

On the ground, the Beastmen seemed to realise that they were not facing other Beastmen, but Zombies. That didn’t stop them, however. Ludmila supposed that Zombies were almost universally seen as weak. A Beastman Zombie would be very strong relative to a Human Zombie, but, for Beastmen, it would be akin to Humans facing Human Zombies. This wasn’t much of a problem if they weren’t careless. It didn’t help that there were actual Beastman Zombies raised by the Squire Zombies confounding their recognition of the threat.

The appearance of Death Knights in the streets to the west signalled the imminent conclusion of the battle. Half of the Beastmen were gone by then and they had at least recognised that something was amiss. Ludmila addressed the approaching Death Knights.

?If you need new Squire Zombies, go ahead and claim them. Otherwise, keep these invaders from escaping while we zombify them.?

She turned her attention to the palace tower where her general staff was operating.

?Wiluvien, we’re finishing up the main group here. How’s the next section looking??

?The Shadow Demons are done looking around, my lady. It’s roughly the same ratio of mystics to the tribal population and we’ve identified them for removal. The Lord of this group doesn’t appear to be anything special.?

?Alright, we might speed up the plan a bit here. Just a moment.?

Ludmila went over to the charmed Beastman following Saiko.

“You. Declare yourself.”

“Shishi,” the Beastman proudly declared with a deep roar, “of the urmah Dagrim!”

“What does ‘urmah’ mean?”

The Beastman’s lips pulled back, revealing his long, sharp teeth.

“Is the livestock here so ignorant?”

“Answer the question,” Saiko said.

“Of course, dear friend,” Shishi’s expression fixed itself and he tossed his mane. “Urmah is who we are. The name of our kind – the proud Lionfolk!”

“Then what does ‘Dagrim’ mean?”

“Dagrim is the name of Shishi’s clan.”

“But what does it mean?”

The Lionfolk tribesman turned his eyes away. Ludmila tilted her head curiously. Shishi was certainly no scholar, but she thought that he should at least know what his clan’s name meant.

“Shishi,” she asked, “what is your vocation?”

“Shishi is a Nug rancher.”

“What is a ‘Nug’? Is it something like a Nuk?”

“Why yes,” Shishi rumbled. “Nugs are Nuk that dwell in the jungle.”

You have to be kidding me…

“How many of your tribe’s warriors are in the city with you?”

“Urmah Dagrim is renowned for its agriculture, not its warriors. That is why we are here, of course: no longer will we herd Nug, but Humans!”

Ludmila turned around, looking over the city with a sigh as a crucial piece of the conflict’s puzzle fell into place. She thought that perhaps the terms being used to describe the disposition of the Beastman forces stemmed from existing vocabulary for pre-existing social structures, but she was both wrong and right beyond her imagination.

The ‘tribes’ that formed the Beastman forces were not powerful tribal warbands that came from said tribes, but the tribes themselves. What the Draconic Kingdom was being subjected to was not a military invasion in the conventional sense, but a tribal migration. A big one.

Her eyes went over to where her footman was carefully arranging its new Squire Zombies. It had managed to collect about three dozen regular Zombies, as well.

?Wiluvien.?

?Yes, my lady??

?We’re switching to Plan A.?

?Did something happen my lady? Should we call for reinforcements??

?It’s the opposite. I don’t think there are any major threats in the city. Anything substantial is probably limited, so the lives of the citizens are being lost out of unnecessary caution. I want this ‘army’ dead by dawn.?

9th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE, 0700 Hours

“H-hey, is it really safe?”

Draudillon looked out the door of a nondescript carriage at Sebas Tian, who had extended his hand to help her out. They had remained together in her throne room since his arrival that night and now the sun was rising in the east.

The throne room’s balcony overlooked the river, so she couldn’t see what was going on in the city while they waited. What she did know, however, was that the screams had stopped.

As they rode through the city streets, she saw the bodies of many of her subjects, most in various stages of dismemberment. According to Sebas Tian, the survivors were in hiding, which was understandable given what they had just gone through. What she didn’t see, however, were the Beastmen. The city was quiet, but she didn’t notice any of their corpses lying about.

She poked her head out of the cabin doorway, checking to see if anyone else was around. There were no Beastmen in sight and her subjects probably wouldn’t know who she was since she was currently her adult self.

“The city has been secured against the Beastmen invaders, Your Majesty,” Sebas Tian said. “Admittedly, we do not know the security situation with your subjects, but I will endeavour to keep you safe.”

Heat crept up her neck as she touched the tips of her fingers to Sebas Tian’s outstretched palm. She needed to get a grip on herself.

The handsome man – who claimed to be the Sorcerer King’s Butler – offered her his arm once she stepped out of the carriage. After a moment’s hesitation, she wrapped her hand around his elbow and allowed herself to be led to one of the towers along the wall with a blush on her cheeks.

“Is there a reason why we are at the wall?” Her voice echoed up the tower stairwell, “Even if you say the city is safe, the Beastmen can still easily climb in from outside.”

“You requested proof of our capabilities, Your Majesty,” Sebas Tian replied. “That proof has been arranged outside.”

Did they have a battle outside the city walls? They did ask if she wanted to hire their security forces. If they brought an army, it would make sense that the Beastmen had left to fight them. That was why there were none to be seen in the city.

Now that she could make some sense of things again, she wondered what sort of army had come. Her subordinates reported that forty thousand Beastmen had surrounded the capital, so the army of the Sorcerous Kingdom must have been at least as strong as Baharuth’s Imperial Army. It was no wonder they could carve out a nation where they did, but how could they afford to maintain such an army with their tiny territory?

At the top of the stairs, Sebas Tian stood aside in front of the tower exit. He motioned for her to walk out onto the wall. Draudillon lingered for a moment, wishing that he hadn’t drawn away. She steeled herself for the inevitable scene of carnage before walking out into the sunrise.

Her steps took her halfway to the next tower before she forced herself to cast her gaze to the east. Her breath caught in her throat. For the first time since they met, Draudillon abandoned all thoughts of Sebas Tian.

The wind whipped over the battlements, over her diaphanous gossamer silks and tossed at the painstakingly-arranged locks of her jet-black hair. She ignored it all, placing her trembling hands on the wall to support herself as she leaned out from the embrasure. Below, in the fields to the east of the capital, was an army.

Over the trampled tents, fires and enclosures of the besieging Beastman camp stood columns of her dread foe, casting long shadows with the rising sun. Tens of thousands of Beastmen…but something was wrong.

Draudillon peered down at the closest row and saw that many displayed horrific injuries, yet continued to stand without complaint. Damaged garments; exposed entrails; smashed heads. Where an officer should stand at the right corner of each formation, was a monstrous creature in spiked, black plate wielding a massive tower shield and wicked-looking flamberge.

These Beastmen were all Undead.

She paled, fighting to keep herself from retching in terror. Did the war finally reach a point where all of the violence, pain, suffering and death gave rise to the Undead? No, that shouldn’t be the case – the Beastmen understood how to manage the state of their pens and slaughterhouses, else their country wouldn’t stay a country for long. Choking down the bile in her throat, she scanned the ranks and saw that every one of them was the same.

“W-why are there so many Undead?” Draudillon asked Sebas Tian in a quavering voice.

“They are the remains of the army that was so brutally savaging your capital, Your Majesty,” Sebas Tian stroked his beard. “As you can see, the invaders have been…repurposed for a new cause.”

Repurposed.

Her memory drifted back to Sebas Tian’s entrance to the throne room – to the tall woman wrapped in her mantle of grim hunter green. With but a simple order from Sebas Tian, she had calmly turned around and routed the tens of thousands of Beastmen flooding the city streets. No, not routed – she had them explicitly slaughtered to fill the ranks of the unquiet dead.

Draudillon looked out to the mountains in the distant northeast and shivered, but it was not from the cold morning air. Not three hours had passed since Sebas Tian’s arrival and a fearsome Beastman army had been obliterated in its entirety.

“Present arms!”

A woman’s crystal-clear voice sounded over the air. Thunderous noise filled Draudillon’s ears as tens of thousands of Undead straightened in unison and offered a salute.

She turned her gaze over the fields again; over the Undead army neatly arrayed before her. A banner was raised at regular points along the front rank. It was not the banner of the Slane Theocracy, which had so callously left her nation to flounder in its greatest hour of need. Nor was it any foreign flag she thought might belong to the Sorcerous Kingdom.

It was her flag.

The flag of the Draconic Kingdom.

It was a blatant offer: one presented by the might of an army dredged from the murk of nightmares.

She could take it back.

All of it.

Draudillon closed her eyes and swallowed, taking a deep breath to settle her nerves. With a solution to her crisis apparent, she released the thousands of souls in her keeping, feeling them fade away as they went to rejoin the World. She was glad that she didn’t destroy them to fuel her magic.

What price she might have to pay for the assistance of this army of darkness filled her with dread, but whatever the price might be, it was far preferable to diminishing the whole.

Draudillon Oriculus, the Black Scale Dragon Lord and Queen of the Draconic Kingdom, turned to face Sebas Tian.

“Where do We sign?”