Book Of The Dead-Chapter B5: Marshalling

“Nice to see you again, lad,” Worthy grinned broadly before enfolding his nephew in a massive hug. Despite putting his armour on earlier, Tyron still felt his ribs creak as the massive Hammerman squeezed him tight.

The man was gaining levels as a gold, so it shouldn’t be surprising his strength was climbing at meteoric rates.

“Uncle,” Tyron greeted him, giving him a one-armed hug back. The other was holding his staff. “How’s Aunt Meg?”

“She’s getting sick of vegetables,” he laughed, letting go and planting his hands on his hips. “When are we going to get some proper meat?”

“When we have land for pasture? I don’t see all that much grass around, Uncle. Do you?”

All around the camp was a blasted wasteland of shattered crystal spires and barren soil, without a hint of green.

“You’ll figure something out,” Worthy grinned, “otherwise what use is that massive brain of yours? If you’re here to speak to Rurin about the rift, you should go visit Meg while I round everyone up. She misses you.”

Impatient as he was to get moving, he wouldn’t disappoint his aunt again.

“Alright. I’ll meet you at the fire in fifteen minutes.”

“Good lad.”

His Aunt was indeed pleased to meet him. After another, less crushing hug, he was forced to sit at the table and eat a bowl of stew, which was delicious, as they exchanged small talk. It was pleasant, to sit and pretend that nothing had changed, that he was still the boy who slept in her attic and the world hadn’t been turned upside down. That Magnin and Beory might wander home any minute. Before he stood to leave, his Aunt cupped his cheek and ruffled his hair, just as she had when he was little.

“Make sure Worthy comes home safe,” she asked him. She wore a smile, but there was no masking the fear in her eyes.

“I’ll do everything I can to keep him safe,” he promised.

That earned him a squeeze on the shoulder and a slightly warmer smile, then he was off to the central bonfire. Worthy had indeed managed to round up everyone of note, including Rurin, Timothy, a few other gold Slayers, along with Elsbeth and Munhilde.

Tyron walked up to the priestesses, a curious expression on his face. Before he could even ask why they were present, Elsbeth took the words out of his mouth.

“Gods,” she said.

“Gods?” he asked.

“Yes,” she nodded.

Presumably the Three wanted to get involved in this project in a more direct fashion, and what better way to do that than through their loyal Priesthood?

“They aren’t planning anything… disruptive… are they?” he asked, one brow raised.

“When aren’t they?” Munhilde snorted, which elicited a helpless shrug from Elsbeth.

“As far we know,” the blonde Priestess followed quickly, “they aren’t looking to do anything. We’ve… well, I’ve only been asked to observe and help where I can. I swear by Crone, Raven and Rot.”

“I might have been asked to do the same, I might have not. Who can say?” Munhilde said, then laughed at Tyron’s scowl. “If you want more definitive information, you can always ask them yourself.”

“I’ll pass,” he muttered.

He was keeping his interactions with his patrons to a minimum at the moment, hoping to amass more power before he allowed any of them to get their claws in him again.

“Tyron Steelarm, as I live and breathe,” a boisterous voice called, and he turned to see Rurin striding towards him, a broad grin on her face.

The once leader of the Woodsedge Slayer rebellion hadn’t changed much over the last few years. She’d always looked like the grizzled veteran that she was, and besides a few new scars and a couple of extra silver hairs, she was just as she’d been before. Timothy, on the other hand, looked significantly more careworn, as the task of logistics and organising the Slayers had largely fallen onto his plate, despite his best efforts to push it off onto someone else.

“Nice to see you two,” Tyron said, extending a hand to shake. “Is everything ready to seize the rift?”

“Excuse me. You should really buy a girl a drink before you try and take her to a nightmare tear in space,” Rurin said, winking. “Are we all business today?”

“I’m afraid so,” he replied, face blank. “My undead are already pushing towards the rift, and I would like to have Slayer support before they get overwhelmed.”

“Well, that’s taken the fun out of it,” Rurin complained. “Since we don’t have much else to do, I’m sure I can rustle up a good number of gold and silver rankers to help you out. Heck, I might go myself.”

“I’m going too, obviously,” Worthy remarked.

“Is Trenan and his group around?” Tyron asked. “They should probably tag along. There’s going to be a lot of kin to kill. A good chance for the silvers to pick up some levels.”

“I assume that’s why you brought your apprentices,” Rurin nodded.

Tyron shot her a glance.

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“How did you know that?” he asked.

“I have my ways, boy,” she grinned.

“Scouts tracked you out of the city,” Worthy said, drawing a scowl from his old friend.

“You favour that boy too much,” she said, punching him in the arm.

“You don’t say? I favour my only surviving kin. What has the world come to?”

“Alright, shut up.”

The Necromancer ignored their friendly bickering and focused on his plan.

“I expect to take no more than three days to get my horde in position at the rift. Can your people be ready by then?”

When it came to killing kin, Rurin was as sharp as a blade, despite her unserious demeanor.

“You’ll have to push hard to make it that quickly dragging zombies and the like around,” she mused, rubbing her chin in thought. “We can get there easily enough, especially since we’ll be taking the safer path. I assume you’ll be swinging west?”

“That’s right.”

“Let’s make it four days, then, to give us more buffer room. Don’t push too close until the time is right, or you might be too battered when we arrive.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“Great!” she said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Go out and do all the creepy stuff that you Necromancers do. We’ll catch up with you in a few days, then we conquer the rift! Exciting stuff.”

“Be careful, lad,” Worthy warned him, “there are mighty beasts out there still. I know the numbers won’t bother you, but those big monsters will. If you get in trouble, you can pull back and call for help. Some of us will come running.”

“I will, Uncle Worthy.”

Tyron looked to the two priestesses, waiting patiently to the side.

“Are you coming with me, or travelling with the Slayers?”

“We will go with your Uncle,” Elsbeth said, almost apologetically. “I don’t know why, but that’s how we’ve been told to travel.”

He just shrugged his shoulders.

“Fair enough. I’ll see you in four days.”

The Slayers, even now, weren’t ones for elaborate plans or rigid hierarchy. They were experts at killing rift-kin, and they trusted each other to get the job done. Tyron had every confidence that when he arrived at the rift in four days' time, there would be a disciplined and well-prepared force of Slayers there ready to assist.

As he strode from the camp, his Uncle walked beside him.

“Has there been any word from the Empire?” Worthy asked him.

“Not yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”

“Maybe they think we’re all dead. Is there a chance they never come over the mountains to find us? It’d be nice if they could leave us alone; people are struggling enough as it is.”

If he were honest, Tyron already considered it a miracle so many people had survived the exodus of the Western Province as it was. Without unprecedented amounts of support from The Three, it would have been impossible. Even now, there were over a million people stuffed into the ruins of a long-crumbled city, somehow surviving and putting the pieces of their lives back together in the middle of a kin-infested wasteland. If things went well at the rift, they would even secure some measure of safety, while also securing a near-limitless supply of magick.

Worthy might see people as struggling and on edge… Tyron thought they were thriving, relative to the environment they were in. There was no point having that argument.

“They will come. The Five Divines will never allow us to live, not after having spat in their eye the way we did. If they have to come down themselves and beat the Emperor within an inch of his life, that’s what they’ll do. I don’t know how much time we have left, but we can’t afford to waste it.”

“We’ve been fighting kin constantly for years, lad. I haven’t been wasting time.”

“It’s taken us that long just to get a foothold in Granin. We’ve cleared out the worst of the roaming kin, but the rifts themselves are completely untamed. This expedition is the first concrete step to securing our place, and it's taken two years to get to this point.”

“We would have been faster if you weren’t off travelling for months at a time,” Worthy pointed out.

“Someone had to,” Tyron replied, “and I didn’t come back empty-handed.”

They walked in silence after that, enjoying each others’ company as they moved through the camp with all its boisterous activity and bustle. When they reached the edge, Worthy reached out and squeezed Tyron’s shoulder.

“Stay safe out there, boy. When it’s done at the rift, come back and stay with Meg and I for a few days. It won’t hurt you to get some rest.”

Tyron hesitated before he eventually nodded.

“All right. I’ll take you up on that.”

Only recently, he’d pushed himself to the edge of collapse, again. Despite everything he’d said about time being pressing, he could do with a couple of days’ rest.

With a final wave, he turned his back on the camp and his uncle, making his way out to the column of undead standing in still ranks. In the centre of the line, his three students were sitting around a small, magickal fire while Georg poked and prodded at one of his zombies, explaining something while Briss and Richard listened intently.

“... Muscle tissue degradation is a real issue. The alchemical treatment and flow of magick does a lot to slow the rotting process, but doesn’t halt it. Without repairs, a zombie loses about a fifth of its combat power in a week.”

“Perhaps you could use enchanting to solve this problem, much like Master Tyron did for skeletons,” Richard suggested. “An array could apply a constant flow of regeneration to the undead flesh.”

Georg pulled a face.

“My hands can barely form sigils,” he said, holding up his thick digits, “you really think I could handle a pliance?”

“There are other enchanters you could get to do the work,” Briss pointed out. “You don’t have to do everything yourself, like our Master did.”

Tyron still did all his own enchanting work. He didn’t trust anyone else to do it right, with the exception of Masters Willhem and Halfshard, and he wasn’t about to ask them.

“My idea was to try and make zombie mages,” Georg said, enthusiasm creeping into his voice. “If I could create zombies capable of casting the magick required to regenerate the flesh, I’d never have to worry about the maintenance and could dramatically increase my horde.”

“Like… zombie priests?” Briss said, almost laughing.

“They aren’t really priests…” Georg said.

“She’s not really wrong,” Richard said, smiling. “They’d be healing your minions, so technically filling the role of a priest.”

“We could put robes and little hats on them,” Tyron said as he finally stepped forward and joined the conversation. “Holy staff in hand, they could shamble about blessing the other zombies.”

The three all looked up at Tyron as he joined them, Georg looking somewhat pained.

“Why do I feel like you’re making fun of my zombie mages?” he complained. “Come on, Master Tyron, I’m sure you could make a skeletal mage that could cast this magick. Why couldn’t a zombie?”

Tyron considered it.

“I suppose as long as they were able to speak the words and make the hand gestures, there’s no reason they couldn’t. Engraving it on their mind is a difficult task, but not an insurmountable one. It could just be an upcoming ability selection or Class ability that you don’t have yet.”

He looked down at them again.

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“We can talk about it on the way. It’s time to get moving. Your undead are going to take the lead for the first stretch. Work out how you want to arrange your minions between the three of you and let's get going. We have four days. Make the most of it.”